The Young Turks - Not Building Back

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

"Betrayed" progressives in the House of Representatives erupt over Joe Manchin announcing he will not vote for the Build Back Better legislation. Manchin reportedly told colleagues that parents will use the expanded child tax credit to buy drugs. Bernie Sanders continues to tear into Joe Manchin for killing the Build Back Better bill. Kamala Harris got testy with Charlamagne tha God when he asked her if Biden or Manchin was President. Texts from an Amazon driver reveal the chaos as tornados bore down on southern Illinois. Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. So, you know, I'm sorry. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. Jake U Granite Casparian with you guys. All right, well, our entire agenda has been lit on flames.

Yes, everybody, welcome. So that actually did happen. We're going to talk about it in a second, obviously. But we've got plenty of critique for Democrats and Republicans, and yes, some people who claim to be progressive leaders. So without further ado, let's rip into it. All right. Go ahead, Casper.

Let's get to our first story. I've always said this, Brett, if I can't go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can't vote for it. And I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. You're done. This is a no. This is a no. Well, that was Senator Joe Manchin, who has served as a massive obstacle in passing the social spending agenda that Biden purports to want. And he essentially placed that nail in the

coffin over the weekend where he announced that he will not be voting in favor of the build back better agenda, essentially reneging on the alleged promises he had made to Biden, which anyone paying attention should not be surprised by. Now, he offered ridiculous excuses for why he's against the social spending plan. Inflation is one of those excuses. Let's watch. I have tried everything I know to do, and the president has worked diligently. He's been wonderful to work with. He knows I've had concerns and the problems I've had. And, you know, the thing that we should all be is directing our attention towards the variant of COVID that we have coming back at us in so many different aspects and different ways that's affecting our lives again.

We have inflation that basically could harm, really harm a lot of Americans, and especially those who are, or most needy and having a hard time struggling right now. So I think that's where our attention needs to be directed towards immediately. Now we've explained multiple times how inflation is not due to an increase in social spending. There are a litany of other issues at play, including so-called supply chain issues. The fact that the Federal Reserve was essentially printing money and handing it over to banks and private equity firms, who then invested that money into real estate. thus driving up the cost of properties and rent.

But that's beside the point. We know that Mansion is full of it. He's lying to the American people and that he is essentially completely captured by corporate interests and his own financial interests, which we can get to in more detail in just a second. But apparently Mansion got one of his staffers to go to President Joe Biden, 30 minutes prior to that interview to essentially let the president know that he would be voting no on the build back better agenda. The White House pretended to be very outraged by this and Jen Saki issued a statement saying the following. Weeks ago, Senator Manchin committed to the president at his home in Wilmington to support the build back better framework that the president then subsequently announced. Senator Manchin pledged repeatedly to negotiate on finalizing the framework in good faith.

In his comments on Fox and written statement, if his comments on Fox and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position and a breach of his commitments to the president and the senator's colleagues in the House and Senate. Senator Manchin will have to explain to those families paying $1,000 a month for insulin why they need to keep paying that instead of $35 for that vital. medicine. He will have to explain to the nearly two million women who would get the affordable daycare they need to return to work, why he opposes a plan to get them the help they need. Maybe Senator Manchin can explain to millions of children who have been lifted out of poverty in part due to the child tax credit why he wants to end a program that is helping achieve this milestone. We cannot. Now Manchin responded to Jen Saki. He did not take kindly to the, you know, tough pushback.

We'll get to that in just a second. But, Jenk, why don't you jump in? Yeah. So it looks like Mansion is going to go for a very familiar strategy. Well, look, I, my God, I was so honest and earnest, and I tried so hard. But somebody offended me at some point. And so because of my hurt feelings, plus my donors, I can't do this anymore. So I'm going to give you a longer quote here from Mansion because this went back and forth.

The White House statement that Anna just read got under mansion's skin. And he's like, how dare you? Just because I killed your entire agenda, now you tweaked me? This is not a lot. I am the most powerful man on earth. So he said in an interview in West Virginia, I knew what they could and could not do. They just never realized it. That's him saying, I knew what I was going to allow them to do.

And they wouldn't realize that I'm the president, and he's not. That's basically what he's saying there. And he said, referring to White House staffers involved in a plan, he said, because they figure surely to God we can move one person, surely we can badger and beat one person up, surely we can get enough protesters to make that person uncomfortable enough. Well guess what? I'm from West Virginia. I'm not from where they're from, and they can just beat the living crowd out of people and they're going to be submissive. They know the real reason for what happened. They won't tell you and I'm not going to.

So wait, Joe Manchin, what is the real reason? Apparently policy is it. You just said, oh, you were, you stood up to the protesters and you're, and apparently your feelings are hurt. So what's the real reason? What's the real reason, Joe? Total lies. The real reason is his donors and he's using hurt feelings as, oh, I was going to. It's a chocolate bunny excuse. I was going to give you the chocolate bunny, but you said this and I'll be, oh, you said someone to my mansion, my yacht mansion. Oh, that's why I'm not going to do anything that would help the people of West Virginia. By the way, he's a total and utter liar. Polling indicates that huge provisions, almost all the provisions in Build Back Better, are enormously popular

in the state of West Virginia. Joe Manchin is a liar. Okay, go ahead. So Joe Manchin, as we've talked about in great detail on this show, also personally profits off fossil fuel companies. In fact, he made half a million dollars just last year off of inner systems, which is a coal company. Remember, the build back better agenda is what's supposed to be the government's effort in doing something in response to the climate emergency. He doesn't like that because that puts his own personal profits in jeopardy. But look, we know who Mansion is. None of this is surprising to us. What's infuriating is that his actions seem to be surprising to

to the Democratic Party and even some progressives. So I want to talk about that because there were six Justice Democrats in the House who voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the corporate handout bill that Mansion wanted. And they understood that voting in favor of it and passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill would do away with all the leverage they had. But some progressives, like progressive leadership, Representative Pamela Jayapal, thought, no, no, let's just go along with the infrastructure bill because Biden has promised us that he will get a yes vote from Mansion on the social spending package. It didn't work out

that way. So I want to go to Pramila Jayapal, who said this. Today Senator Mansion has betrayed, betrayed his commitment, not only to the president and Democrats in Congress, but most importantly to the American people. He routinely touts that he is a man of his word, but he can no longer say that. West Virginians and the country see clearly who he is. No, but people have seen clearly who he is. I mean, it's been so clear to anyone paying any attention, which is why it was so important to avoid voting in favor of that bipartisan infrastructure bill. It was essentially a game of chicken and progressive leadership caved, along with, of course, Democratic leadership in the House with Nancy Pelosi. Now, apparently,

Pramila Jayapal has no regrets. Ida Chavez from the Intercept tweeting the following. Jayapal says she has no regrets about the progressive caucus letting the bipartisan infrastructure bill pass and relying on Manson's word alone. In fact, she said, quote, had we not passed the infrastructure bill, I actually think that would have been the day the senator said the buildback better act is done, Jaya Paul continued. I think he would have walked away. And then And finally, Jayapal thinks progressives strategy on build back better worked really well. I think our strategy was exactly the right strategy. No, she's got to go.

She's got to go. That's an absurd statement. How could your strategy on build back better be the exact right strategy if we don't have build back better? If the bill didn't pass at all. No, no, that's absurd. No rational human being can believe that. That's like Trumpian.

The bill that didn't pass was a great bill, and since we didn't pass it, we were great in performing our jobs and passing it. That makes no sense. Stop doing alternative reality. It's ridiculous. You sound like a Trump staffer. Oh, the bill we didn't pass was perfect strategy. No, your strategy was, look, now you're forcing us to say things in a ruder way. Because apparently we have to be clearer.

Your strategy was an epic failure. There's no way around it. And it's not like we couldn't tell. We told you ahead of time, don't give away your leverage. We said it a thousand times. And no, oh, you would have walked away if we didn't give him his bill. You're supposed to walk away and not give him his bill so that you retain leverage. And you can go back to the negotiating table and get both bills.

If you don't understand simple, simple politics, then you shouldn't be the leader of a giant caucus in in in the house because I don't believe it I think Pramila Jayapal is perfectly smart I think what she's doing here is I screwed it up and I went with a strategy for my own ego and because I wanted to be speaker of the house and I thought if I played ball they would make me speaker and now blew up on me of course they were lying to me of course they played me for a sucker and of course I misled my caucus so why don't you just say it no I'm done with any of this. No, no progressive media is going to pretend that you've nailed it here.

We're not right wing media and we're not mainstream media. We tell the truth. Yeah, and one other thing I want to mention is, you know, oftentimes the rebuttal to the argument you just made, Jank, is, well, Mansion didn't really care that much about the bipartisan infrastructure bill. All right, we'll call his bluff on that. First off, let's say that's true. Okay, then the so called worst case scenario would be you don't pass either bill. Great, I think that's actually better than what we have now, where you have the passage of a giant corporate handout bill that will privatize public infrastructure, but you don't have the social spending bill. So what? I guess Biden failed, right? And that's on Biden. It's on Biden for not fighting for a social spending package, okay? Because remember, if they didn't pass anything, the argument would be, look at that.

The Biden presidency is now in jeopardy because progressives blocked the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Damn right. And if I were a progressive, what I would do day in, day out is talk about the provisions in that bipartisan infrastructure bill that essentially make it nothing more than corporate welfare. Besides which, none of it is true. Even if you loved the infrastructure bill or liked it enough, when you threatened to block it, mansion was, I really. He was all over TV, and he was doing, and he's like, how dare you? This is outrageous. It looked like he cared.

The minute that you passed the bill that he wanted that his donors paid for, all of a sudden he was like, I don't care about anything. I don't care. No, I'm not going to pass it. What are you going to do now, huh? There's a stark difference in how he was acting. And if you're pretending otherwise, again, you're lying and it's super obvious. And I want to address three more people. Pelosi Schumer, you guys said that you had it.

You figured it out. You were to get Manchin to vote for it in the Senate. So I guess Pelosi's not a master legislator. Hey, mainstream media reporters who like to kiss the ass of the powerful, can you now admit she is not a master legislator? She said she was going to get it done. She didn't get it done. It is an epic failure of Nancy Pelosi.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Jane. You're being unfair to the powerful, the poor, poor powerful. How could you criticize them when they've done nothing but failure? How could you criticize them? You're going to go mainstream media. you're going to go cover their ass. You're going to do marketing for them, right? Chuck Schumer, what did you do?

Loser. Nothing, nothing. Total loser, okay? Okay. Oh, you can't say they're losers because they did nothing. Yeah, no, that's the definition of a loser. You said you were going to pass a bill? You didn't.

Hence, you are an indisputable and empirical loser. Which brings us to Joe Biden. You know what his poll numbers are now? 41%. And that's before Mancho bitch slapped him. And he did. That's exactly what that is. Politically, politically, he said,

oh, yeah, I'm not going to do your bill. and you sent to everybody to trust Biden and now you look like an idiot and a weakling. What are you going to do about it? Sit there and bleed. That's what Mention just told you, Joe Biden. And you know what you're going to do. You ain't going to pull no corn pop.

Okay? You're going to go, okay, okay, Joe, I love you, Joe. And you know what he's the White House is putting out today? Oh, no, no, we're still really good friends with Joe Mention. It's amazing, I know. Losers. It's so pathetic. Total and obvious losers.

So I also want to do a quick flashback to an interview that happened on November fifth here at TYT. It featured a conversation between Jank and progressive representative Rokana, who was wrong on this issue. And look, again, I just want to reiterate, anyone who is not naive and who is paying close attention to how the negotiations were going could have seen this coming from a mile away. Unfortunately, some of the lawmakers who typically agree with us politically were oblivious to what was wrong. really going on. Unfortunately, Rocano was one of them. Let's watch. Now remember, Joe Manchin said that he gives you no promise at all that he's going to vote, yes. So then he turns around

and goes, well, I'm not going to vote for it. I didn't think he promised you that I'd vote for it. So it's dead. You voted for my bill. You're a sucker. I'm not voting for your bill. I told you I wasn't going to vote for your bill. What do you say that? I don't take that because the president has said that he will deliver those 50 votes. And I don't think Manchin will tank the Biden president. So now that you have zero leverage, especially because you guys are not willing to threaten their reputation. I'm not convinced that Manchin is that much let's look at the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed. Certainly mentioned, I mean, I don't, I think part of them is just let's not spend money.

So I'm not convinced we have that much leverage that he really, really wants the infrastructure bill. But that's a, you know, separate point. But whatever little leverage that is, would it instantly disappear? So if you have the vote today or you have it a week from now in the House, it doesn't really matter, because either way, your leverage is gone in the Senate. So that's point one. And point two, you say, and every Democrat in the House, and the progressives, I'm, as everybody knows, I'm a progressive, I'm fans of the progressive legislators. You've been on our show many times, you've been incredibly generous with it, you've been honest, we appreciate all that.

But since you guys are not willing to threaten outing their donors, there goes the second piece of leverage. So you have absolutely no leverage and you have no promise from Mansion. So I'm asking you if you're right. Wouldn't you be right that then Mansion could eviscerate the billed back better bill and go, well, I didn't tell you I wasn't going to eviscerate it. And you knew I was going to eviscerate it. So I did. I took out every popular provision there is because my donors didn't want it. I don't believe he will do that because he would then have made a commitment to the president that was false. Okay, that was the day of the vote. And I want to give credit one

more time in a row for coming on. That is the position you just heard from him was not his alone. It was the overwhelming majority of the House Democrats that voted that way and that believed that. Only six voted no and did not believe that. That was the six just Democrats, AOC, Bowman, Bush, et cetera, right? So Rokana there was the one at least honest enough to come on air and say his position, everybody else hid. But now the second part of it wasn't wrong. Well, you saw it with your own eyes. He said, we're going to vote yes because we trust Biden and Manchin will do the right thing

because Biden said he will. Now, you saw my face when he said that. You heard my questions. You can watch the whole interview. I said that was total nonsense. The reason we're telling you that, guys, is not because Anna and I are the smartest people in the world. We're pretty smart though.

God bless. Okay. But it's obvious. The only reason why we have to state it as over the top like, hello, how obvious is it? Is because mainstream media and Democrats in Congress say two plus two doesn't equal four. Oh my God, we're so surprised. Mansion said no.

Oh, we shouldn't have. Trust Biden didn't work? Oh my God, we're so surprised. Are you joking? You're gaslighting the whole country. No one believes in you anymore. believes in you anymore. You're a joke, mainstream media. You didn't know Manchin was going how did I know? Then okay, then all the media and the entire Democratic caucus has to come and say,

well, I guess Jenkin and Anna are geniuses. They're the best political prognosticators in the whole world because we were all shocked at Manchin said no and that he killed the bill. And they knew it from the beginning. They said it actually probably about right when it began nearly a year ago. And we've been saying at the entire, I show you that because we had Rokana on. But Anna and I have said it a dozen times, two times. times on the air, everybody who watches the Young Turks knows it. How do we know better than you? Every single reporter in the country. How do we know better than you? Because we don't just believe people in positions of power. I mean, the whole point of

working in news, working as a quote unquote journalist, is to challenge people in positions of power, challenge what politicians are saying, not just take what they say at face value and serve as their personal stenographers or publicists. That's what we keep seeing in traditional media over and over and over again. So are they genuinely surprised? Yeah, they're surprised because they don't do the legwork. They don't actually challenge power and they just take what these politicians say at face value. I mean, the tea leaves were there.

The tea leaves were strong. I mean, that was some matcha action. It wasn't even tea leaves. The guy wrote it on a wall. It's true. It's true. He said, I'm not going to vote necessarily vote for this bill. So no, look, guys, the reason we tell you this is because don't believe they're gas

Get everybody off for cable news. Tell your parents. No, no, no, MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, NPR, all these mainstream media outlets. They're all lying to you. Oh, they didn't know, Mitch. And to this day, they still don't talk about his donors. It's amazing. They pretend he did it out of principle because the people of West Virginia. Here, I'm going to read you the poll of the people of West Virginia because it's to prove this is not progressive saying it. Okay, so on lowering drug prices, that polls at about 90% of, West Virginia. Paid family leave, 70% approval. This is West Virginia, not the whole country. Child care, 66%. Insurance subsidies, 65%. Expanded child tax credits specifically, 61%. Increasing the IRS budget to go after wealthy taxpayers, 60%. Universal pre-K, 59%. All of these provisions are intensely popular in the state of West Virginia. If you see a reporter or a lying anchor on television who tell you that it is not popular in West Virginia, go on their Twitter feed, email them, do whatever you're going to do and say, I'm sick of your lies. Stop lying to everybody.

But the one that gets me over the top is Giant Paul saying we nailed it. Yep. If this is what victory, if you think this is victory, well then you definitely shouldn't be leader because apparently you think failure is victory. I don't want any more failure. What progressive priorities have you passed? You gave up on $15 million wage, which was a lowest priority we had. You gave up on it on day one. You gave up on every one of our priorities. Now you want us and everybody else to do marketing for you? No, no deal. We are not like the rest of the media. We do not lie on behalf of the powerful. We hold a powerful accountable. Jayapal, Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, they're all failures. They got nothing and they had a terrible

strategy. If you believe them at all, that is the best case scenario. More realistic scenario is they all work for corporate donors and they're sitting here trying to put a lipstick on a pig the day after their failure. Well, we don't put lipstick on pigs here at TYT. So when we come back from the break, we will talk about Mansions Corruption in great detail. And so will Bernie Sanders. So stick around. We've got that story and more coming right up. All right, back on CIT, Jenk, Anna, and Andrew with you guys. That's Andrew, yes, he just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. By the way, R.A., the Rugged Man, is going to be on the show a little bit later, talk about the Tim Pool blowup.

So live, stay right here, tell everybody, go share the stream. All right, Anna. All right, let's get to our next story. You know, I told Mansion, by the way, I'll pay for the damn poll in West Virginia on those issues. See how the people of West Virginia feel. Senator Bernie Sanders, much like any real progressive, is furious with Senator Joe Manchin and his unwillingness to vote in favor of Biden's build back better agenda, the social spending package that would provide universal pre-K and all sorts of other programs that would

materially improve the lives of working Americans. Now, not only is Sanders fuming about it, he's calling out Manchin for the corruption that actually fuels his decision on this matter, something that, to be quite honest with you, I wish Senator Sanders did more of to the lead-up in this moment, to this moment. Now, I really appreciated some of the specifics in this interview that he had. So let's just get to it. Here's Bernie Sanders calling Manchin out on his corruption. I've always said this, Brett, if I can't go home and explain it,

to the people of West Virginia, I can't vote for it. And I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can't. I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. You're done. This is a no. This is a no. So there is. There's Mansions saying no, I'm not going to vote for it. And here is Senator Sanders responding to him.

You know, what's going on now, Jake, in Washington, is the big money interest of pouring hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure that we continue to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs that the rich do not stop paying their fair share of taxes. And I would have hoped that we could have had at least 50 Democrats on board who have the guts to stand up for working families and take on the lobbyist and the powerful special interest. Do you know much money the pharmaceutical industry has spent in the last year

on lobbying alone over $300 million plus campaign contributions plus all kinds of advertising. Fossil fuel industry is spending a fortune. Let's not kid ourselves. We've got to corrupt. We have a corrupt political system

dominated by big money and trust. And finally, some of us are saying, let's stand up for working families. Average worker has not seen a pay raise in inflation accounted for dollars in 45 years. while the rich are becoming phenomenally rich of corporate profits are at an all-time high. And what some of us are saying, maybe, maybe, we'll stand up for working families for a change.

But apparently we don't have the 50 votes that we need. I'm going to go to another portion of his interview with Jake Tapper in just a moment. But I want to add some meat to the statements that Bernie Sanders made there. Because as we've talked about repeatedly on this show, not only is Mansion corrupt because of moneyed interests, He's corrupt because he's also financially benefiting from fossil fuel companies. For instance, according to his most recent financial disclosure, Manchin gained $492,000 last year alone due to his non-public shares in a coal company called Enter Systems, which records show is a contractor for a power plant in the state's north that burns waste coal.

Meanwhile, Manchin's 2020 income for being a senator was $174,000. So he's making more than double from this one coal company. And of course, that's going to have a huge impact on how he votes for a social spending package that includes climate action. That could, of course, jeopardize his future profits. And just to give you an example of who Mansion's top contributors are, the top broad. for Joe Manchin. Take a look at this. This is from Open Secrets. These are the top industries that donate money to him. Joe Manchin is a top recipient from the following industries in the 2021 to 2022 election cycle. Coal mining, he's the top recipient. Mining, top recipient. Natural

gas transmission and distribution, top recipient. Oil and gas, top recipient. Savings and loans, meaning banks, top recipient. Tobacco industry, he's the top recipient. Business associations. Second, recipient, for profit education. He's in there. And of course, electric utilities, number three. That's out of 535 members of Congress. Exactly. Yep. Number one, most corrupt legislator in the country. So I just want to thank Bernie. Finally, finally, somebody used the word corrupt. Yes. That's what it is. And by the way, to everybody in mainstream media, you think you're reporters, but you don't realize it. You're just

you're playing a reporter. You're not actually a reporter. If you don't talk about how Joe Manchin takes all those bribes, you're deceiving your audience. You're doing marketing for the powerful. You're in marketing, you don't realize it. You're not a journalist at all. If you're a journalist and you tell me the millions of dollars that Joe Manchin has received from those campaign in campaign contributions, don't affect his vote at all. You're an fool, please stop, go go do a job you can do. No journalist thinks, actual journalist thinks, oh, millions of dollars, that would never affect a human being. Your only other option is, oh, I know it affects him. I know how much it affects him, but I won't share that with my audience.

Well, again, you're not a journalist. So, and part of the reason why these fake journalists keep covering up for the powerful is because you don't have other powerful people saying, hey, he's corrupt, right? If you do, they'd have to pay attention because that other person also has power, right? And all the reporters in D.C. care about is power. The entire national press corps could be renamed Gullum, okay?

They're just chasing after pressure power. Oh, the audience, who gives a goddamn about the audience? We're not going to tell them the truth. They're legalized bribes. If you don't think they're bribes, you're an idiot. Go do another job. Thank you, Bernie Sanders, for calling it what it is, corruption.

By the way, pretty lightning game. Yes. Okay, but at least somebody finally did it. And now even Barbara Lee, AOC, Ilhan Omar, all beginning to use similar language. So look, I think that the mistake that Bernie and other well-meaning progressives made in this process is they bought into this notion that you have to be civil in these negotiations, that you can't apply pressure or be harsh. In fact, Steve Clemens published some piece today about how incivility is what led

Manchin to say that he's against the buildback better agenda. I mean, how naive and stupid can you possibly be to make that ridiculous argument? I mean, Biden went out of his way to do all sorts of favors for Mansion, including appointing his wife to a federal job that she wanted. Oh yeah, this is all about the lack of civility, get out of here. But anyway, putting that aside, there's one other part of the interview that Senator Sanders had with Jake Tapper that I want to get to. Let's watch that.

Chairman Sanders, Senator Manchin says he can't get there. This is a no, he's tried everything. What's your reaction? Well, I think he's going to have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia, to tell him why he doesn't have the guts to take on the drug companies and lower the cost of prescription drugs, why he is not prepared to expand home health care. West Virginia is one of the poorest states in this country. You got elderly people and disabled people who would like to stay at home or forced into nursing homes.

He's going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he doesn't want to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing and eyeglasses. I've been to West Virginia a number of times, and it's a great state, beautiful people. But it is a state that is struggling. And he's going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he's rejecting what the scientists of the world are telling us that we have to act both. and transform our energy system to protect future generations from the devastation of climate change. I think that's a powerful message. And I just wish that message was taken to the state of West Virginia. And that mansion was politically beaten over the head with that. Because fact of the matter is, as we know from polling, the build back better agenda is incredibly popular, even among West Virginians. And one other thing I wanted to mention is that

The Huffington Post reported that people familiar with the negotiations involving Joe Manchin on this very issue claim that he was against the child tax credit because he believes that poor parents are going to use it on drugs. That's the kind of thinking that Joe Manchin is using to push back against something that would lift a giant percentage of children out of poverty in this country. Yeah, let's be more specific, 30% of kids were lifted out of child out of poverty because of child tax credit. So now we know that as a fact because it existed, right? So now 30% are going to go back into poverty because Manchin thinks that their families are losers who just use drugs and want to government money for that.

Now, why does Joe Manchin think that? Because it's projection. He's a terrible person who is incredibly greedy and only cares about money. And so he assumes so do poor people and so to middle class people. He doesn't understand that they're infinitely more decent than he is. He got to where he is because of how indecent he is. He told donors, I'll do anything for you guys. I have no morals at all.

You want me to crush the working man in West Virginia? Done. Okay, so he assumes you're as much of a bad guy as he is. Oh, well, if we give him money, they just use it for their own good and for drugs and stuff, right? No, Joe, that's you. That's you and your family, by the way. Oh, there's no way we can go after Joe Mansion. Golly, gee, we have no choice.

There's nothing we can do. No, the only thing politicians care about is their beloved reputation. What is my reputation? All right. All right, well, your daughter took $30 million and outsourced jobs in a golden parachute and outsource thousands of jobs in West Virginia. Your whole family is corrupt.

That's a fact. Your son runs your coal company. TYT Investigates showed you made $5 million in the last 10 years from your coal company. You took millions from those coal companies and the oil companies, et cetera. Those are facts, but everybody in Washington wants to cover it up. I actually like Steve Clements. He used to be on the show all the time.

But he couldn't be more wrong about this. His point of view is, look, even if it were true, which is preposterous and it has nothing to do with the truth. But even if it were true, imagine that Clements was right. And Manchin said, oh, well, you know, people were not civil enough. That's why I'm voting. No. So wait, in that fact pattern, in that fact pattern, because your feelings were hurt, you denied the people of West Virginia benefits that would have greatly helped them because

of your effing feelings? And people in Washington think, oh, yeah, of course. No, the feelings of the elite are so much more important than the voters. They genuinely believe that in their bones. Okay, so real quick, because I did it earlier in the show, to back up Bernie on the polling, He doesn't need to pay for a new poll. Okay, I looked it up, I said 90%, let me correct it. Lowering drug prices by having Medicare negotiate polls at 83% in West Virginia.

And by the way, it pulls highest in West Virginia out of the swing states. The other swing states where they're senators that might vote no. So West Virginia is not even a swing state. It's deeply red. Why does it poll the best in West Virginia? You know, why? Because it's a populous state. And they need lower drug prices because they're poor.

On average, they're poorer than the average American. So of course they won't lower drug prices. Only a moron would think they don't want that. And everyone in DC is either a moron or pretending to be a mora. Oh, little people in West Virginia, I wish there was a poll. There is a poll. Paid family leave, 70%. Expanding child tax credits, 61%.

Universal pre-kate, 59%. I read you all the other stats before. This bill is incredibly popular in West Virginia. The only difference between what you hear from us and what you hear from mainstream media is we actually cite facts that you can look up and verify that mainstream media is filled wall to wall with liars who lie on behalf of the powerful. Every one of them is pretending it's not popular in West Virginia to cover his corrupt ass. That is the reality of American politics. Thank you, Bernie, for finally fighting back. When we come back from the break, we'll watch Kamala Harris get super flustered when she's asked,

The Common Sense Question by Charlemagne the God. We'll be right back. All right back on TYT. Rene Lemur wrote, and this is exactly why I like TYT so much, because they fight for us. Damn right. And you guys fight for us. Adam Contreras and Jamie Kofeld just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. Everybody else, tyt.com slash join.

We appreciate it deeply. Anna. All right, Kamala Harris struggled to answer a simple question during her interview with Charlemagne over the weekend. So let's see how it all went down. Somebody has to push back on Joe Manchin. That guy is stopping progress. He's ruining a democracy. Are you willing to be that superhero?

Because what scares me is if voting rights don't pass or the bill back better plan doesn't pass or police reform doesn't pass, I doubt you're going to get black people to go out there and vote in 2022 and 2024. and, you know, Trump will be president again. What's the plan for all of that? Well, I couldn't agree with you more on the seriousness of these issues and how people take these issues seriously. And so we're going to have to keep fighting on voting rights. We need to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

We need to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and be relentless about pushing for that, which is what we have been doing and what I certainly am going to keep doing. We need to keep pushing for what we got to do to really reform the system that we know needs to be reformed with the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act. But, you know, again, Republicans stood in the way to get that done. Who's the superhero that's going to speak against Joe Manchin? I want to know who's the real president of this country. Is it Joe Biden or Joe Manchin? I'm sorry.

I just want I interrupt. I think the vice has to be here. It's Simone. I'm so sorry, Charles. She can hear me. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me, Madam Vice President? Okay, so I'm sorry. You got to interrupt.

They're acting like they can't hit me. So after Vice President Kamala Harris refused to answer the very specific question in regard to Joe Manchin, of course Charlemagne does the right thing and asks the follow-up, repeats the question. And that's when Kamala Harris' aide, Simone Sanders jumps in and tries to end the interview. So by the way, let me just be clear about something. Kamala Harris emphasized the need to keep pushing for the police reform. And I just want to remind you all that that bill is dead. It's gone.

They're not even considering it in Congress right now. So to say, like, we got to keep fighting for it, she knows full well that that bill is going nowhere. But she's, of course, listing a whole host of issues that in an effort to make it appear as though Democrats are still working on or fighting for various issues. When in reality, she knows that's not the case. But stay tuned because the interview is about to get even more fiery in just a second, Jane. Yeah, I don't know what Samo Sanders was doing getting it.

Oh, you're asking a real question. I'm going to interrupt this interview. A real question broke out. We thought you were going to be soft. I mean, you're Charlemagne the God. Aren't you just like a funny guy or a fun guy or something? What are you asking a real question? This is embarrassing.

The rest of the press, we have them locked up. And they never ask us real questions. And all they do is kiss her ass. You're not kissing her ass, Charlemagne. What's wrong with you, right? So by the way, Simone Sanders, now leaving the vice president's office. I don't know if this had something to do with it or if she just wanted to leave a sinking ship. But look, Charlemagne is going to be very polite here.

He's going to ask exactly the right question that any decent journalists would ask. But we don't have decent journalists. We just have Charlemagne, apparently, that people will talk to. And he's way more polite than we are. Kamala Harris is definitely lying. They're not pursuing the George Floyd Act at all. Tim Scott said no, and they dropped it. Anna's 100% right.

And half the other things that she mentioned, they're not pursuing at all. She's going on there to lie to the African American audience. She gets called out an inch on it, and she catches feelings. Yes, exactly. So if you think that was bad, you haven't seen anything yet. Watch the second half of this interview. I can hear you. So who's the real president of this country?

Is it Joe Manchin or Joe Biden, Madam Vice President? Come on, Charlemagne. Come on, it's Joe Biden. I can't tell sometimes. No, no, no, no, no. It's Joe Biden. And don't start talking like a Republican about asking whether or not he's president. Do you think Joe Manchin is a problem?

And it's Joe Biden. And it's Joe Biden, and I'm vice president. My name is Kamala Harris. And the reality is because we are in office, we do the things like the child tax credit, which is going to reduce black child poverty by 50% on track to do that. Child tax credit is gone. Dead. The final child tax credit was deposited into the families of, you know,

into bank accounts for American families last week, that was the final child tax credit deposit. The extension of the child tax credit was supposed to be part of the build back better agenda, which President Joe Manchin has said that he will vote against, essentially blocking the passage of that bill. Look, calling him president is a cutesy way of me saying, no, effectively, he is the president, okay? Joe Biden might have the title of president of the United States, but he's not the one who's been calling the shots. Joe Manchin, the senator of West Virginia, is the one who's been calling the shots. And guess what?

President Joe Biden has allowed that to happen. He's given Manchin all these cookies, all these goodies, oh, the honorable Joe Manchin refuses to ever play any hardball, refuses to ever apply any pressure to Joe Manchin. And now the chickens have come home to roost. We see what's happened to the buildback better agenda. child tax credit, gone, done, finished. So you can't be bragging about that unless you actually accomplished the extension for it. So look, we beat up on the press all the time because they originally deserve it.

But apparently all the journalists are hiding in Comedy Central. And, you know, they don't take Charlemagne lightly. He literally is asked better questions than any journalist in the country. So, and the reason why the other reporters don't ask the questions is because of the reaction that Kamala Harris gave. Basically, her answer was, how dare you? And Charlemagne doesn't care about it. He's already popular. He doesn't need Kamala Harris, okay?

Whereas other reporters are worried to death about losing access. And if you ask a real question to Kamala Harris, you will lose all access. You'll never come on your show again, right? Why do you think it's an accident that establishment Democrats have never come on this show? I remember when Harry Reid's staff told me over a decade ago, we were banned. Why? Because we asked tough questions, real questions. If you have the answers, come on and answer them.

They don't have the answers. They're lying. That's why. So now she does all that cutesy stuff. Joe Biden's president. Joe Biden's president. Like all of us. And by the way, do you notice she talks different to Charlemagne than she does to normal Washington, D.C.

reporters? You're such a fraud. You're such a fraud. Okay. And that cutesy line of, I'm the vice president. And my name is Kamala Harris. I don't give a goddamn what you're. name is. All I care about is action. Do we have voting rights? No, we don't. Police reform,

you're a joke. I will vote for you. I'll bring pom-poms for you. If you get the Republicans pass police reform, you're a joke. You know that's a lie. Okay, oh, you don't need the Republicans. You can get rid of the filibuster. You know who can get rid of the filibuster? Kamala Harris can. In effect, you do everything through reconciliation. The parliamentarian says no. Well, Kamala Harris is the vice president, the person who can overrule the parliamentarian. So if you didn't do it, it was you and your name is Kamala Harris. And remember, they were unwilling to overrule the parliamentarian when this unelected person decided to say that a $15 an hour minimum wage can't be passed through reconciliation. That advisement essentially could have been overruled

by the vice president. But they didn't do that, did they? Because they don't care about passing a $15 an hour minimum wage. Yeah, I'm going to say one last thing about this. And people will find it, people in Washington will just find any excuse to protect the powerful. So I'm sure they'll hate me for it, et cetera. I don't give a damn k-high. You can do whatever you want, you ask gissers. Okay. So she's going on there and pretending to be with the community while she's actively and purposely lying to the community. Exactly. Don't patronize us. Please, I know it works in Washington. And I know it works with you. your zombie k-hive, we're not interested. We tell the truth. The truth is you haven't done

any of those things. So don't come pretending you're working hard when you're the ones blocking it. Did you ever overruled a parliamentarian? No, your name is Kamala Harris. Did you pass any of the things that you were talking about? No, your name is Kamala Harris. You own that. Why do you think you're at 28 percent? You think you're fooling everybody? You're fooling no one. It's an act. the people in D.C., everyone knows it's an act. All right, since we've dedicated quite a bit of the first hour on the failures of the Democratic Party, why don't we focus on some of the text messages that supervisors over at Amazon were sending to workers as tornadoes were hitting states like Illinois a few weeks ago.

Six Amazon workers died due to a tornado that struck Edwardsville, Illinois, where, the warehouse of this Amazon, where this Amazon warehouse was located. Now, it unfortunately was not able to withstand the tornado, so the building collapsed. And there have been some questions about what the employers over at Amazon were communicating to the workers. Were they encouraged to find safe shelter?

Were they encouraged to keep working despite tornado sirens? Well, now we have some email or text message exchanges between one delivery driver and a supervisor over at Amazon, here's what we know. Apparently the delivery driver texted, radio's been going off. The driver wrote in a text obtained by Bloomberg News, keep delivering, came the response from her supervisor. We can't just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to. Now, the driver suggested that she returned back to the base to find safety, to find shelter, but her boss warned that by doing so, she could lose her job.

And by the way, what about safety training? Multiple Amazon employees have come forward to say that they haven't received any safety training, especially when it comes to issues like tornadoes. The only thing that they've received in terms of safety training is their supervisors essentially pointing to emergency exits. Now, the driver also texted this. Tornado alarms are going off over here. The dispatch responded with, just keep delivering for now.

We have to wait for word from Amazon. If we need to bring people back, the decision will ultimately be up to them. I will let you know if the situation changes at all. I'm talking with them now about it. The driver responded, because the situation seemed pretty dire and dangerous. How about for my own personal safety? I'm going to head back. Having alarms going off next to me and nothing but locked buildings around me isn't sheltering in place.

That's wanting to turn this van into a casket. Hour left of delivery time, and if you look at the radar, the worst of the storm is going to be right on top of me in 30 minutes. And even with those warnings, the dispatch responded with this. If you decide to come back, the choice is yours. But I can tell you it won't be viewed as for your own safety. The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages, it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow morning.

The sirens are just a warning. Now, luckily, this driver survived and was able to provide these text messages to Bloomberg, And apparently now spokespeople over at Amazon are saying, no, no, no, the dispatch was wrong. This is not what our protocol is. So they're completely denying that this is basically the culture over at Amazon, which I am not buying for a second. But, Jank, I mean, look, there were all sorts of people writing into us telling us, look, you can't predict the tornado. You can't, don't blame Amazon, you can't predict the tornado. Come on, guys.

Like, don't take what the employer, especially an employer like Amazon says at face value. They were forcing people to continue working, even as tornado sirens were going off. Okay, so there's two issues here. One is Amazon, two is corporate rule in general. So in this case, the dispatcher clearly says, unless Amazon tells us to issue, on several occasions, they say that Amazon said to stay where you are and not to go to safety. Okay. Now, they can claim, hey, they thought it was safer to stay in the middle of a van, in a van in the middle of a tornado. But as the driver is saying, this is going to be my casket. This doesn't feel safe at all. And they were right, it wasn't safe. And Amazon was wrong. Now, where should you go?

You should immediately find shelter. Wherever is the closest shelter. Don't worry about your goddamn route. But here's the dispatcher saying, we're going to fire you if you don't. risk your life. So now Amazon needs to figure out, and through the court system, they should both civilly and criminally find out if Amazon actually did give that order. Okay? And but then secondly, guys, it's about corporate rule overall. And you all know this. You all know it in your bones because you're real people. People in New York and D.C. have no idea because they have million dollar jobs and they don't go through this at all. They have all the leverage they want with their bosses. Oh yeah, I'll take, I'll get Fox News to give me $20 million. I'll give

CNN to give me $20 million. But they don't realize not all of us have that kind of leverage, right? And they, you know that corporations will drive you back to work even if your life is in danger. You all know that. Denying that is absurd. The people that are supposed to look out for you is the government because they are your representatives. But our government is bribed regularly by corporations. They call it campaign contributions. And they bribe them so they can get power and fame. So the politicians can get power and fame. And they can get back brutal working conditions so they can make more money. And that's exactly what Amazon and all of the other corporations I've gotten. And you will not be protected by your representatives

because we now have a system of organized and legalized bribery. And that system, of course, is protected by our insanely conservative Supreme Court that includes justices who previously ruled that workers should be placed in unsafe conditions as long as they're listening to and abiding by the wishes of their employers. Neil Gorsuch, you know, famously voted or ruled against a worker, a trucker who was, it is truck stuck in the middle of a winter storm looking for safety And his employer, Jake, you know more details about this than I do. His employer essentially threatened to fire him if he abandoned his broken down truck in the middle of a winter storm, correct? Yes, his limbs had gone numb.

He was about to lose his limbs. They ordered him to stay and freeze to death. He didn't do it, thank God, and so he stayed alive. Gorsuch said, you should have frozen to death. It's insane. They were not wrong to fire you. You disobeyed their order. And if they, you disobey their order, then they're in the right.

Every other judge that looked at that case said that's obviously preposterous. What was the guy supposed to do? Frees to death? And Gorsuch said, absolutely. And that's when corporations were like, put that guy in the Supreme Court. And look at that. He's now on the Supreme Court. You see how that works?

They bought every part of the system. By the way, including the media, who tells you that, no, these beloved politicians in the Supreme Court are principled people. And they're just making decisions that happen to favor corporations every time. But it's just a coincidence. Do you think it's a coincidence? No, they're playing with your lives. All right, we're going to take a brief break. And when we come back, we are going to have a fantastic interview, which you do not want to miss.

So come right back. Hey, I just want to say, look, if some of you might have seen the interaction R.A., the rugged man had with Tim Poole. And it's almost a fight. Well, he's in the studio here. Okay, so we'll see what happens here. Tell everybody, share the stream, like the stream, come back, and we'll get his side of the story as to what happened in the showdown. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.