The Young Turks - Nothing Burger

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

Journalist Matt Taibbi released a Twitter thread revealing information given by Elon Musk. Donald Trump is calling for The United States to terminate The Constitution. Elon Musk has accused Twitter's former personnel of favoring left-wing candidates. 45,000 North Carolina citizens are without power after local gunfire. Older homeowners are dominating the housing market. Host: 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. Woo! It's up! What's up, everyone? Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. Jank Yugar is out today. He was dealing with jury duty, but he will be back tomorrow. He has not been chosen, which I actually think is a tragedy because jury duty is actually a lot of fun.

I personally enjoy jury duty. I know most people don't share that preference with me, but nonetheless, Jank will be back tomorrow. I'll be doing a solo first hour, but it will be doing a solo first hour. But In the second hour and the bonus, I will be joined by Ben Glebe. Lots of news to get to, including just a quick explainer about the so-called Twitter files and what they mean. Of course, this is the story involving Matt Taibi and some of the internal documents regarding Twitter and the decisions they made in regard to censoring certain content on the platform prior to the 2020 election. So we'll discuss that. We'll also talk about some of the latest updates in regard to Elon Musk and his thoughts on elections elsewhere. He has some thoughts to say the least on the elections in Brazil and the outcome of the presidential election there.

So we'll talk about that. We'll also discuss Donald Trump one day saying he wants to suspend the Constitution and then denying that he said so the next. And we'll get into all the details and what this all means in just a moment. But as always, just want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream. It's a great easy way to get the message out there. And if you're not a member, you can become one by going to t-yt.com slash join, where Ben and I will be doing an awesome bonus episode today. We will be talking about the so-called cocaine bear.

What is that and what happened to the cocaine bear? We'll discuss. For now, though, why don't we get to the story that everyone's been talking about all weekend? A little bit of a nothing burger, to be honest with you. But there are some implications, the Twitter files. I think we've seen quite a bit that's useful. It's not really the smoking gun we'd hope for. I feel that Elon Musk has held back some material.

You just heard from a columnist over at the New York Post. Her name is Miranda Devine, and she flat out says that the so-called Twitter files, meaning the information that Elon Musk leaked or gave to Matt Taibi, who then put together a lengthy Twitter thread, ended up really being a big nothing burger, certainly not the smoking gun that the right wing was hoping for. However, regardless of that, I do think it's important to talk about the ramifications of relying on a private company, private corporation, to make these decisions about what content is and is not allowed. out on their platform, because if Twitter truly is considered or thought of as the public

square, well, I think there should be a lot more transparency in regard to what is and is not censored. However, the notion that the government got involved in censoring content on Twitter, meaning the Biden administration got involved in censoring content on Twitter is unfounded as if, as the story stands today. Matt Taibi says there's more to come, who knows what he's gonna report moving forward or more importantly, what he's gonna tweet moving forward. But for now, let's give you a summary of what's happening and what this all means. Let's start with the context and what this is really about for the right wing. It centers on the New York Post and the Hunter Biden laptop story that was published just

weeks prior to the 2020 election taking place. So in October of 2020, again, before Biden was elected, just weeks before election day, the post published a salacious story about the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. The information came to them via Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney to then President Donald Trump in the form of a hard drive with information taken from the computer, said to be left at a Delaware computer store. Now, the right wing has really latched onto the Hunter Biden laptop story. They're obsessive about it. Now that the Republican party has taken control of the house, they have made it abundantly clear that that is what they're going to spend most of their time doing, just investigating the Hunter Biden laptop story, meaning if you

are frustrated with how your life is today, the instability, the precariousness of your work life, the lack of wages necessary to keep up with inflation, Republicans plan to do nothing about that because they're far more obsessed with what kind of sex Hunter Biden was getting involved in and how much cocaine he did. So let me continue though. Now at the time that that story broke, the laptop story was met with skepticism. I think for obvious reasons, right? Number one, it's Rudy Giuliani of all people who's coming to the public with this information. And Rudy Giuliani, I think needless to say, has got some issues, some credibility issues, including consistently claiming that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, consistently claiming that he

has evidence to prove it, and consistently failing to provide a shred of evidence that the election was in fact stolen from Donald Trump. So credibility issues there. So you can understand the skepticism. He also refused to share the source material with news outlets. So the credibility issues, the lack of source material, it was easy to dismiss that story. But the information coming out of the laptop story has since been verified as legitimate. So what's fair is fair, and we should be clear about that.

Now, outlets chose not to aggregate the post report and followed warnings from former U.S. intelligence officials, former U.S. intelligence officials, that's an important key word here, who signed a letter saying that the Hunter data had all the markings of a Russian disinformation campaign. Now, the reason why I say former U.S. intelligence is important is because if it's current U.S. intelligence that's badgering Twitter or other social media platforms to, to censor certain content, well, a case could be made that the government's getting involved in censoring speech. And that does run into some potential issues with the Constitution, the First Amendment. But so far, we haven't seen anything to prove that. But let's continue.

So Twitter did get involved. First, the platform suspended the Twitter account of the post. It also deleted and suspended anyone who shared the story. Twitter eventually reversed that decision and reactivated the New York Post Twitter account, along with countless others banned from sharing the Hunter Biden story. Now Kaylee McEnany, who at the time was the White House Press Secretary, was also suspended from Twitter. And so that led to a lot of backlash. And to be quite honest, the Hunter Biden laptop story that was censored by Twitter got a lot, in my opinion, a lot more attention as a result of it being censored from the platform. Now, then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted during congressional testimony that they had made a mistake and they had, if they could do it all over again, they would have gone in a completely different direction.

They would have handled it differently. And here's a part of Matt Taibi's long Twitter threat on all of this that I think is the most relevant. Okay. So he says, slowly over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well, first a little, then more often than consistently. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. The exact one executive would write to another, more to review from Biden team, meaning his campaign team. The reply would come back handled. Okay, so so far we're talking about Biden's campaign. He's not president yet. So the idea that the White House is meddling in free speech is again unfounded.

And it doesn't matter though, because Elon Musk waited on this and he says the following, if this isn't a violation of the Constitution's First Amendment, what is? By the way, further debunking this myth of billionaire meritocracy. Like have you read the Constitution, have you read the First Amendment? It's the government specifically censoring your speech. That is what's considered a violation of the First Amendment. That is not what happened here. Now, the lack of transparency and the fact that you have campaigns censoring what content we're able to see is something that I'm concerned about, right?

It would be much more important for us to know how do they make these decisions, why do they make these decisions? And these platforms are notorious for not being upfront, honest, and transparent about what's transpiring. But again, this has turned out to be more of what we've already known and in terms of the smoking gun that the right wing was hoping for, they certainly haven't gotten it. And if they do, they haven't got, if they will in the future, they certainly haven't gotten it yet. Now, it's actually not, let's go to Tybee's other tweet, because I think this is a really important part of it as well. This is the 22nd tweet in his lengthy thread where he writes, although several sources recalled hearing about a general warning from federal

law enforcement that summer, that summer about possible foreign hacks, there's no evidence. that I've seen of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem. Okay, so no evidence of the government getting involved. But let me continue with the next tweet where he says, the decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal policy and trust,

the policy and trust Vijaya God, playing a key role. Okay, so I just think if it's the government, if it's really like FBI officials, really they're going to go to lower level employees. They're not going to talk to the CEO of the company at all. They're not going to talk to Jack Dorsey at all. I found that a little strange, but let's continue. So the allegation is that the FBI went directly to like these lower level employees

who deal with like the content moderation and what is and is not considered safe. Also, worth pointing out that it wasn't just the Biden campaign. The Trump campaign was definitely involved as well. Let's go to the next graphic. This is another tweet from Taibi's thread where he says both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. Then he says, however, and he provides the campaign donations that went from Twitter, people working at Twitter to the different parties. And there were more campaign contributions to Democrats as opposed to Republicans.

So his argument there is, well, the employees there obviously leaned more Democrats, so there was more favoritism toward the Biden campaign. But nonetheless, both campaigns, meaning both parties, were consistently like contacting Twitter looking for content to be censored on the platform. Now, it's also worth noting that many of the links the Biden team asked Twitter to remove were actually like pornographic links from the Hunter Biden laptop. So embarrassing stuff about Hunter Biden. Again, I think the nature of wanting to censor something draws more attention to it.

So, I mean, I saw some of those images. I don't really care about it. I just don't think. I mean, what power does Hunter Biden have? Hunter Biden is not like Ivanka Trump or Jared Kushner or Don Jr. You know, family members that Donald Trump intentionally brought on to serve as advisors or, you know, part of his cabinet in the White House. That is not what's happening with Joe Biden and his son Hunter. So why do I care? Okay, so the guy had an addiction issue. So do many Americans. Like, why is this such a such a big deal. And why are Republicans so obsessed with investigating it in the House?

I mean, go for it, I guess. I mean, I don't really care. I have no loyalty to Hunter Biden. He's not my daddy. I'm not like right wingers who's like, who are like on their knees, like doing what they can to protect and show love to their elite. I don't care about any of that. If there's any wrongdoing, great, investigate him. What do I care? What I do care about is what kind of representation are we getting from our elected officials, people that we elected into positions of power to represent us. That's what matters here, right? And in terms of, you know, First Amendment violations, there's still no evidence of that whatsoever. And if you are concerned about a platform as big as Twitter, serving as the town square, well, okay, well, we're

seeing some censorship happen right now. When Elon Musk takes over, he has no problem censoring anyone he disagrees with. And I've certainly noticed that on the platform. But when, you know, it's kind of painted as a liberal effort, all of a sudden it's not okay. If we genuinely care about protecting speech on Twitter, which still is a private company, well, then we should be demanding equal treatment regardless of what the political ideology is. But all I'm seeing right now is right wingers, giddy just absolutely enjoying themselves knowing that Elon Musk is completely tipping the scales, not to the center, but toward the right. Finally, I do want to go to one more video because I just find it so fascinating how many people on the right prominent members of

the media have just flat out admitted the truth, which in this case, this is not the smoking gun that they were hoping for, right? So let's go to the last video here. This is Will Kane on and friends, speaking to the laptop repair shop owner about how really there's not much here. As much as we have seen from what Elon has released about the coordination between the government and Twitter, there isn't necessarily a smoking gun yet when it comes to your case, Hunter Biden. In other words, we don't have the government official saying spike that. Do you think that probably exists? Do you expect that somewhere and is yet to be seen? We haven't, we see a Twitter that's ready and willing to do what the government wants, or in this case the DNC, there's actually the DNC at this time, so the Democratic Party, but we haven't yet seen who made the call and who made the, who put it in their mind.

That's right. Twitter is not ready and willing to do everything the government wants because there's still no evidence that that's what happened. There's evidence that campaigns were contacting Twitter and asking for certain things to be censored, deleted. And that's what Matt Taibi is referring to. But other than that, there are no First Amendment violations. And I think if you take a step back and you look at the story for what it is and the endless cries about free speech from the right wing and what it's really about, it's just about Americans not understanding what the Constitution actually protects, number one, which is really concerning and an indictment of our education system to say the least. But the second part of it is it's become yet another version of the manufactured culture war where Republicans will point fingers at everyone else and say that they're engaging in oppression Olympics, that they're always looking to be victims, when in reality they dominate every conversation about how they're the victims. There's no evidence of victimhood here. You have two political campaigns, one Republican, one Democrat, contacting Twitter during the 2020 elections, asking them to take certain content. down. And a lot of cases, Twitter did. And if we have a problem with that, then we need to have a real conversation about who controls that platform. Should it be a billionaire who has complete control and can go ahead and censor whoever he wants? Or should it be a more democratically

decided process? Should it be a platform where there's more, I don't know, government control, public control. So there's a lot more transparency, a lot more freedom in sharing information. These are difficult questions to answer. But if you're genuinely concerned about free speech, putting all that power in the hands of one billionaire isn't going to protect your ability to say what you want to say on the platform. Quite the contrary. Because again, the Constitution doesn't protect you from a billionaire censoring your speech on a private platform, privately owned platform. All right, I thought I would get through that story pretty quickly, and I didn't. So we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, though, we've got more on this,

including Donald Trump saying that he would like to suspend the Constitution over Taibi's Twitter thread. Great, we'll be right back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna Kasparian with you. Now that we have, you know, just done a really great job,

comprehensive job here, understanding what the whole Twitter file story is, what Matt Taibi's involvement has been, why don't we talk about the reaction from people like Donald Trump, who is absolutely convinced that he lost the election election over the lack of reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop, which is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. So let's talk about it. Following Matt Taiibi's confirmation that Twitter often gave into requests from both the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign to censor content on the Twitter platform, Trump sprang into action and asked for, well, exactly what you would expect Trump to ask

for the suspension of our constitution because he is convinced the election was stolen from him due to the lack of reporting on Hunter Biden's freaking laptop. Now, let's not forget the fact that in 2020, what was really fresh in the minds of American voters was just how much Donald Trump bungled the response to the coronavirus. Okay, you have close to a million people dying from the You have Donald Trump talking about injecting, you know, your body with disinfectant. I, I kind of feel like Trump did a better job in destroying his chances at getting reelected than, you know, the lack of reporting on a freaking laptop and the salacious material within it. Nonetheless, on truth social, he wrote this.

So with the revelation of massive and widespread fraud and deception, there is no evidence of widespread fraud at all, or really deception. In working closely with big tech companies, the DNC and the Democrat Party, do you throw the presidential election results of 2020 out and declare the rightful winner? Or do you have a new election? You do neither, Trump, because as Matt Taibi's Twitter thread made abundantly clear, your campaign often reached out to Twitter and demanded that content be taken down. And oftentimes, they listened to those requests and carried them out.

So the idea that there was like this extreme favoritism over a Twitter is laughable. He continues, though, a massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great founders, I don't know why he has founders in, you know, quotations, but okay, our great founders did not want and would not condone false and fraudulent elections. Okay, again, the idea that the Hunter Biden laptop story would change the outcome of the election is laughable. And even though Elon Musk has, you know, provided cover for Nazis on the platform he's now the owner of, even though he as a billionaire CEO of multiple companies should be doing, you know,

the work that you would expect the head of any company to do. And he spends all of his time on Twitter trolling instead, he did have a good response to Trump here, where he says, the Constitution is greater than any president, end of story. Now, when you have Elon Musk of all people turn on you and basically slap down your request to suspend the Constitution might make you rethink, you know, what you're, asking for here. So I want to go to the very, very, very, very last tweet, or I should say post from Trump. It's not a tweet's from truth social, where he claims that we're all lying, okay? What he posted on truth social, we just imagined it. We totally imagined it. He didn't actually

write it. He said the fake news is actually trying to convince the American people that I said I wanted to terminate the constitution. No, they said you wanted to suspend it. And that is literally what you said. Okay, but let me continue. This is simply more disinformation and lies, just like Russia, Russia, Russia, and all of their other hoaxes and scams. What I said was that when there is massive and widespread fraud and deception, as has been irrefutably proven, it has not been, in the 2020 presidential elections. Steps must be immediately taken to right the wrong. Only fools would disagree with that and accept stolen elections. Maga. Nice, nice touch you. at the end, Trump. Nice touch at the end. You said that the election was stolen, that there

was widespread fraud. Those things are untrue. And as a result, you want to suspend the Constitution. That's what he said. But he's denying it. Luckily this time around, no one's buying it. And during a fundraiser earlier, prior to the suspend the constitution posts on true social, He had recorded a video where he gives the January 6 Capitol rioters some love. Okay, so let's take a quick look at that. People have been treated unconstitutionally, in my opinion, and very, very unfairly. And we're going to get to the bottom of it. So I want to thank everybody for working so hard.

I know how hard you're working to get justice for people that are imprisoned right now and people that are being tormented. Can't let it happen. We're going to stop it. We're going to win. So keep in mind, he films that video, makes it seem like the individuals who stormed the Capitol on January 6th are innocent victims who are political prisoners, essentially. That is what he's making them out to be.

When we know they broke the law, you have members of the Patriot Front of militia groups being charged and convicted for, you know, what they did for, I'm forgetting the word right now, but essentially committing an insurrection or attempting to commit an insurrection. And Trump's providing cover for them. At the same time, he's calling for a suspension of the Constitution. The thing is, if there's no backlash, if there's no one telling Trump, you can't do that, he'd do it. But because there was a little bit of backlash, he's like, I mean, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. By the way, in a September interview, I don't believe this for a second. Trump said he was financially supporting some January 6 defendants and

promised he would issue pardons and a government apology to those being prosecuted if he were reelected. Okay, Trump won't even pay his own lawyers. There is no way he's financially supporting January 6 Capitol Riders. I don't believe that for a second. But nonetheless, he's trying to send a message out there. This is the kind of behavior he supports and wants to provide cover for. Now, what are Republicans saying? You got mealy-mouthed wishy-washy answers from people like Representative Mike Turner, who is a Republican.

Here's what he had to say on Face the Nation. Should the standard bearer for the Republican Party, the frontrunner for the nomination for the presidency for your party in 2024, say this? Well, I mean, you know, I first of it, I vehemently disagree with the statement that Trump has made. Trump has made, you know, a thousand statements in which I disagree. There is a political process that has to go forward before anybody is a- Constitutional Conservatives, they're pretty clear about where they value the Constitution.

Exactly. Is there any scenario with suspending Constitution? You do get to pick the questions, but I do get to pick my answer. I know, I'm trying to get you to answer the question I'm asking. There is a political process that has to go. for before anybody's a frontrunner or anybody is even the candidate for the party. Do you condemn him saying something like this? Absolutely. And I believe answering your question, that people certainly are going to take into

consideration a statement like this as they evaluate a candidate. You know, you could just answer the question and say, no, I don't think that he should be the Republican representing our party, calling for the suspension of the Constitution because you didn't like the results of the presidential election is undemocratic, un-American, we fully reject it. But he can't give a strong answer. Because all little whip, Mike Turner is thinking about here is, well, I mean, what if he wins the ticket? What if he's the Republican nominee for president? I don't want to have to answer for this comment somewhere down the line. They're all incredible cowards. You have another one.

Representative Dave Joyce, who's asked a similar question. He says this, I will support whoever the Republican nominee is, meaning even if it's Trump, even if it's Trump. Representative Dave Joyce, a Republican from Ohio's like, I jump in it. I just don't think that at this point, he'll be able to get there because there are a lot of other good quality candidates out there. Really, are there? Because I know that the Republican establishment, meaning all of the power players, Republican politicians, Republican leadership, Republican media or conservative media, I know they're trying to prop up Ron DeSantis as we speak. We see it. But is it actually

translating to Republican voters wanting to support DeSantis or someone else before they support Trump? I haven't seen it yet. There hasn't really been much evidence. There have been polls here and there, but we know how unreliable polling can be on issues like this. So until I actually see some real evidence that the base of Republican voters has really shifted away from Donald Trump, that ridiculous statement is really a cop out. Answer the question the way you really want to answer it. And I think that first part from Representative Joyce's statement is what he really means. I will support whoever the Republican nominee is because they don't care if that individual doesn't care about the constitution is undemocratic, wants to literally suspend the constitution

because he didn't like the results of the election. They don't care about any of that. What they care about and what they understand better than anything is the quest for power and doing anything and everything necessary to get it and maintain it. That's what that's about. Now, we do have representative elect, Mike Lawler, who's also a Republican from New York, who says, obviously I don't support that, meaning suspending the Constitution. The Constitution is set for a reason to protect the rights of every American. So I certainly don't endorse that language or that sentiment. There we go. There we go. Republican congressman elect saying what needs to be said,

it wasn't so difficult. It wasn't so difficult. I wish there was a chorus. of Republican lawmakers saying something similar, but of course, we don't see that today. All right, well, let's move on because Elon Musk has some thoughts about the 2020 election, of course, but also some thoughts about the presidential election that just took place in Brazil. After releasing the so-called Twitter files, Elon Musk is already crying foul about another national election. This time, he's very concerned about how the presidential election played out in Brazil. And of course, the winner of that election was Lula de Silva, the leftist candidate, who won against right winger mini Trump, Jaya Bolsonaro. Now, here's a

Now here's what happened. It all started with Avi Amini, who's a contributor to a right wing news outlet known as Rebel News. He tweeted the following, hey Elon Musk, can you find out what other elections were handled by the former Twitter regime? Twitter regime, thank you the rest of the world. Now what he's making a reference to is how the so-called Twitter files, which were released by Elon Musk to Matt Taibi and then Matt Taibi had a lengthy Twitter threat about it, Just indicated that both campaigns, both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign during the 2020 election reached out to Twitter to ask for content to be taken down. And oftentimes that content was censored. That was the big smoking gun story that's being referred to here. Now in response

to that tweet by Avi Amini, Elon Musk says this. I've seen a lot of concerning tweets about the the recent Brazil election, if those tweets are accurate, it's possible that Twitter personnel gave preference to left-wing candidates. How about you shut up? Okay, how about instead of, you know, pondering, maybe there's a possibility that's not, how about, how about you don't know anything yet? And instead of questioning the results of an election where the right-wing candidate, much like Trump refuses to concede, how about you shut up? Because what he's engaging is incredibly irresponsible, right? What Brazil is experiencing right now, again, is similar to what we've experienced with

Donald Trump refusing to concede. You have Donald Trump calling for the suspension of our Constitution because he doesn't like the results of the 2020 election. And thank God, we have someone like Elon Musk enabling them with insane conspiracy theories about how Twitter censorship made all the freaking difference in these elections. Shire Bolsonaro was a disaster in Brazil. Okay, his approval ratings were incredibly low, the way he handled the coronavirus pandemic, similar to Trump was a disaster, the way he treated the indigenous community in Brazil,

disaster. What he did to the rainforest under his leadership, disaster. I mean, the list goes on and on. He made Lula de Silva, who was the leading candidate in the previous presidential election, a political prisoner, okay? And that was the only reason why he won. I don't see Elon Musk, you know, concerned about that, because of course he's not concerned. I mean, name a right wing figure and you'll find a friend. Elon Musk will find a friend in that figure. It's amazing. So Hassan responded to that saying, are we just going to have Elon claim every election he doesn't like the outcome of a of stolen by Twitter now? Okay, let me read that again. So are we going to have Elon claim every election he

doesn't like the outcome of stolen by Twitter now? And the answer is yes, this is the way that they play. This is what they do. He has no evidence indicating that Twitter stole the election for Lula. This is just so incredibly dumb. But look, I want to bring up a broader point here because the fact of the matter is Elon Musk, not a firm believer in the democratic process, neither here nor abroad, because when the United States was accused of orchestrating a coup in Bolivia, he was all about it and was pretty clear about how he was all about it. So let's go to this next Twitter exchange. One person had written to Elon. You know what wasn't in the best interest of people, the U.S. government organizing a coup against

Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there. And he responded, we will coup whoever we want, deal with it. Oh, Elon Musk, the man who's notoriously concerned about democracy across the world, right? Until he wants the natural resources necessary to make the batteries for his electric vehicles. In that case, he has no problem with the United States government orchestrating a coup, overthrowing a democratically elected leader to pave the way for U.S. business interests to rape and pillage the natural resources in the country that they're orchestrating said coup in. I mean, if there's anyone who genuinely believes that Elon Musk wants to protect free speech, when he would rain terror on his own

workers for wanting to organize. Anyone who thinks that Elon Musk believes in and wants to protect democracy when he just brazenly says that we'll coup who we want just so he can access the natural resources he needs for his business. You're just dumb. You're dumb. You're a dumb person. Okay, I'm just keeping it real. And they'll tweet to me, they'll contact me, they'll email me, they'll tell me I'm dumb, I know, I know, I'm a woman, I can't think for myself, I'm so, so dumb. Except you got played by a billionaire. I mean, that is the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. Now, what I think is really transpiring is right wingers know exactly what Elon's doing.

He's protecting right wing interests. And so they're, you know, providing this facade of democracy and free speech to enable the behavior he's engaging in. But we all know what's really going on, right? We all know it. And think about how pathetic it is when you need a billionaire to be your daddy. When you go to extreme lengths to protect a freaking billionaire who honestly is representative of so much of the pain and suffering, of a system that has caused so much pain and suffering toward American workers in this country and throughout the world, really. That's your daddy?

Okay, I think it's pretty sad. Now, let's just quickly give you a rundown on what's transpiring in Brazil, because as I mentioned earlier, Lula de Silva did win that election, but Jaire Bolsonaro, the incumbent running for re-election, he lost but refuses to concede. Bolsonaro filed an official complaint to the Brazilian Superior Electoral Tribunal, the country's highest court on electoral law. The lame duck president informed the court that a company he'd contacted or contracted to investigate the country's election machines found a bug in the machines, of course, of course, that rendered the election invalid, claiming the machines incorrectly attributed millions of votes in his favor to Lula, and that therefore he actually won the October 30th runoff. In response to Bolsonaro's electoral challenge, or I should say the response to his electoral challenge was swift and decisive as the electoral tribunal wasted no time in denying his claim. It argued that the bug Bolsonaro's chosen watchdog company found is real, but that it only affected the oldest generation of voting machines in the country and did nothing to change the results of the election. According to the tribunal, the election was as free and fair as any that Brazil has had since it transitioned back to democracy. And the court even ordered Bolsonaro to pay a fine for what they refer to as bad faith litigation.

It'd be nice if we saw that here with the bad faith litigation that Trump and his campaign spurred. Now, make no mistake, Bolsonaro isn't giving up, he's just like Trump. He really is considered like a mini-Trump. And like Trump, he has spent years lying about election fraud. So let's get to the next graphic. Bolsonaro had claimed that apparent patterns in vote results show proof of fraud. He has repeatedly said the election officials count votes in secret. It's just the same thing, everybody.

It's the same thing that we're seeing here. It's like he's been watching the outcome of the 2020 election in the United States. He's taking notes. It's like the only time he's done any work in his life as a leader of any country. He's like, I mean, I don't care about anything else, but let me take notes on what Trump is doing in embarrassing himself through his failure to concede. And let me just mimic that and see if it works here. And luckily it hasn't. So look, I'm not going to bore you with more.

Lula won. The international community accepts that he won. There isn't any evidence of widespread voter fraud. But in the end of the day, much like here in the United States, Elon has. Musk is adding fuel to the fire by making people question the legitimacy of the outcome because of no evidence. Like he hasn't provided any reason, he hasn't provided any evidence, but he's concerned about the legitimacy. That's it. Really glad that he's head of what's considered the town square of social media. So pathetic. All right, we got to take a break. When we

we come back, we've got more news for you, including you to switch gears entirely and talk about housing and what it means for millennials. We'll be right back. Anna Kasparian with you. Let's get right to our next story. Officials here say that the outages began Saturday night after two power substations were intentionally targeted and damaged by gunfire. This was intentional. Crews found signs of vandalism, multiple pieces of equipment were damaged. Repairs may go on for days. Tens of thousands of residents in central North Carolina are suffering with cold temperatures and no power to keep warm after gunfire damaged electric substations in the area.

Now, this is in Moore County to be specific. Officials say that the power outage is believed to be intentional, meaning the vandalism that led to the power outage is intentional, though a motive has yet to be determined or confirmed. Now, there's a lot of speculation about what the motive was. I sure, I guess I'll speculate, but I want to be clear, it has not been confirmed and we should not assume things and act based on assumptions. With that said, though, let's take a look at officials during their press conference talking about what happened and why they believe it was intentional. Evidence at the scene indicated that the show that the firearm had been used to disable

the equipment. Folks, this was a terrible act. It appears to be intentional, willful, and malicious act. And the perpetrator will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. So the second gentleman you heard from is Tom McGuinness, who is a state senator in North Carolina. And he believes that it is in fact intentional, but he's not the only one. So the sheriff who you heard earlier in that video would also said that he believes that it is an intentional act of vandalism. As utility crews began responding to the affected substations, evidence was discovered that indicated

that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites, the sheriff's office said in an earlier statement. Deputies were then deployed to various locations to provide security. Now, this is a disaster because the damage done is not an easy fix. It is going to take a while to get power back up. And we're talking about 45,000 people in there. the area who are dealing with extremely cold temperatures with no power to keep warm. Some are going to a nearby shelter to seek some warmth there, but it is a dire situation, and it is terrifying, especially when you consider, you know, the, I guess, transparent nature of the comments coming from a spokesperson from Duke Energy who's like, yeah, we're not going to be

to fix this soon. It's going to take a while. Jeff Brooks, a spokesman for Duke Energy, which provides power to thousands of businesses and homes in the region, said that the damage to the station was intentional. So he's now the third person who has said it, and would require extensive repairs that could last several days. The parts of the substations that were damaged need to be replaced completely, unlike when pieces can be repaired in place after extreme weather knocks out power. And by the way, extreme weather has in fact knocked out power in this area before. So, you know, I really think that there are multiple points to be made in this story. Number one, once a motive is confirmed, what do we do about this type of act? How do you prevent it

from happening? And how do you, how do you protect the energy grid from these types of attacks? And secondly, what are these energy companies doing to provide additional safety and protection to ensure that people aren't left without power for days and days? They're not expecting this power to come back for a while. So unlike perhaps a storm where you can go in and reroute power somewhere else, that was not an option in this case, Brooke said. Again, the spokesperson for Duke Energy, adding that the repairs would extend as far as Thursday, we do want citizens of this. the town to be prepared. Now here are the details that we know right now. And the story is developing. Again, we are awaiting confirmation on what the motive was here. Two electric substations were attacked by gunfire, okay? At least 45,000 people are without power, okay? The FBI and the

North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation are investigating this attack. And what could the motive be? This is what's kind of floating around there. Responding to questions about about whether the vandalism was related to a drag show in the area that had face backlash, Sheriff Ronnie Field said he was unaware of any connection, but that authorities were investigating all possibilities. He said, quote, is it possible? Yes, anything's possible. But we've not been able to tie anything back to the drag show. Okay. I don't know why anyone would intentionally force 45,000 residents to suffer without power in cold temperatures in Moore County, North Carolina. But I mean, when you think about the right wing media's

incessant attacks on adults going to drag shows, when you consider the shooting that just took place at a gay club, I mean, these are all things that we should keep in mind when it comes, When you when you consider Boston Children's Hospital being targeted with bomb threats over the gender affirming care that they offer at the facility, I can understand why people would suspect that a drag show in the area was what motivated these perpetrators to intentionally vandalize the electric substations in the area. Now, what about the LGBT community there? What are they saying? Well, Lauren Mathers, the executive director of Sandhill's Pride, the LGBTQ organization that produced the show, said that while the group had received violent threats leading up to the event, none indicated any kind of planned attack on the region's power grid. So she's saying, look, we've been getting a lot of threats, but there wasn't a threat that was specific to our power being vandalized, the substations being vandalized. She said, quote, we did not receive any specific threats that would lead me to be able to say to you, there's a correlation. And then she added that although it was the fourth time the group had put on the show, they had never received such pushback. Drag shows in general have come under attack recently. Okay, I got to pause and just address

this for a second. Why are we allowing right wingers to have us all live in fear when we want to engage in behavior, activities, when we want to be entertained in ways that they don't like. Like why, why do they get a say or why do they even want a say, more importantly, in what we do for entertainment, what we do for enjoyment, what we do for pleasure, why is it any of their business? I mean, on one hand, you have right wingers constantly making themselves out to be victims because they want to control everything. And when they can't, they lose their minds. They want to control Twitter. They want to control the curriculum. Your kids are learning in school. If you want your kids to learn about this nation's history, the history of racism in the country, no, you can't have it. You can't have it because conservatives want to control it. And they're the ones who get to be the arbiters of what your kids can learn, what kind of sex you can have, what kind of relationship you can be in. And now you can't even go to a club and watch a drag show. Really? I mean, why are they so obsessed with being the nanny state?

They're not my mom, mom and dad. I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want. I want to go to a drag show. Why can't I go to a drag show without being terrorized by these lunatics? Do they not have anything better to do? Anyway, now she said that the show, which was held Saturday evening, this is Lauren Mathers, who's the executive director of Sand Hills Pride.

You know, she says that it's held at an old movie theater in Southern Pines, about 80 miles south of Rally, and was about 40 minutes in when the power went out. And regardless of what this motive is, vulnerable people in this area are suffering. Because again, it's cold. And you should keep in mind that it has a very large retired community. So we're talking about elderly people who are, again, suffering in the cold over potentially someone or a group of people who were so outraged. over a drag show that they had to vandalize two power substations in the area. First Health More Regional Hospital, which serves a 15 county region in the Carolinas, is running on backup generator power and has enough fuel to last at least five days with the ability to procure more if needed. So luckily the hospital in that area is doing okay. But when you lose power, I mean a lot of people do suffer. And Gretchen Kelly, who's a spokesperson for the hospital, says, we're fully staffed, so we don't have any concerns, we're ready to take care of the community as needed.

So that made me feel a little bit better. But the fact that people have to live in terror over living their lives as adults looking for enjoyment during the weekends because conservatives don't like it is insane, absolutely insane. The fact that people in that community have to suffer without power because potentially some hateful group vandalized. There's, you know, substations because they were so offended. Their feelings were so hurt over a drag show. Again, insane. But all you'll hear is how much the left is trying to go around and control people's lives. It's crazy.

There's only one area where I see real censorship and real obsession with control. our lives. And that's not coming from the left wing. I see a lot of it coming from the rabid right that has been poisoned into thinking that all of their problems in life are caused by drag shows, the transgender community, CRT, that isn't even being taught at elementary schools. It's amazing, it really is. In reality, they're being distracted by the very people who are assisting corporate interests in robbing the people being brainwashed right now. It's insane. This is what we keep seeing over and over again. And it's frustrating because innocent people suffer as a result of it. All right, one more story. And then we'll bring in

Ben and get to the second hour. I want to talk a little bit about the housing crisis and how much it has really impacted younger generations in this country. There's a great story recently in the Washington Post that had some fun graphs. So John Adderola doesn't get to be the only one in the company who likes graphs. Okay, I like graphs too. So let's do it. And the generation that really bears the brunt of that happens to be the millennial generation. And once you get a load of the statistics here, just the difference between millennial homeownership versus homeownership in earlier or older generations, you'll get a sense of just how bad things have gotten.

Now, 2021 was actually a pretty good year for millennials when it came to homeownership. And that's for a few reasons. There were pandemic relief, there was pandemic relief, and that boosted savings for a down payment. Rents rose alongside home prices and rock bottom mortgage rates made it cheap to borrow money. Millennials moved into their own homes at the fastest rate ever seen for their generation. But today the conditions are actually much, much worse. So there's a short window, that window is closed. Okay, so let's take a look at this graph, which shows you older homebuyers dominating in

2022 in the 2022 housing market. So in 1940, the median age for homebuyers was 39. In 2021, the median age was around 45. Today in 2022, it's 53. That is bananas. Now, millennials have historically been slower to buy homes compared to previous generations. If you take a look at this next graph, it'll show you exactly what I'm talking about. So at the ages of 25 to 34, 27% of millennials lived in a home, they or their partner owned, just 27%. Now, 40% of Gen Xers between 25 and 34 lived in a home that they or their partner owned. And approximately 45% of baby boomers and silent generation individuals lived in a home that they or their partner owned when they were between the ages of 25 and 34. So you guys are getting the point here,

right? Far fewer millennials have been able to own a home. And when you live in a society, where really the only means of accumulating wealth or building wealth for yourself is parking your money in a home or a property, well, you're at a significant disadvantage because really any avenue of building wealth has been shut down or has been closed for the millennial generation. Now, as a consequence, millennials actually have been more likely to live with their parents than previous generations. And if you take a look at this graph, it shows you exactly what I'm referring to. So for these generations between the ages of 25 and 34, approximately 20% of millennials lived with their parents. But for Gen Xers, it was only 15%. And for baby boomers and

people in the silent generation, it was only 10%. So in other words, when it comes to millennials, the number or the percentage of millennials who are living with their parents has doubled compared to that of baby boomers. Now, why has 2022 in particular been so bad for millennials? Well, there's a a bunch of reasons. First of all, the average rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage more than doubled because of the Federal Reserve. We know about that. And that makes it a lot more expensive to borrow the money necessary to buy a home, right? You need a mortgage. First of all, you got to get approved for the mortgage. If you're lucky enough to get approved for it, the cost of borrowing that money much more expensive and it makes a huge difference when it comes to your monthly payment.

So let's take a quick look at the examples that the Washington Post provided. By the way, pretty good report by the Washington Post, credit where credit is due. So you'll see 30-year fixed mortgage on a $450,000 home. This is how bad it's gotten. So the average mortgage rate was 3% in July of 2021. And so if you were buying a $450,000 home, you would have spent, it's insane, $185,000 in interest, But that's nothing compared to 2022, July of 2022, where the overall amount that you spend jumps up to $720,000 because you're spending $360,000 on interest alone through the lifetime of that mortgage. But by November of 2022, oh, it got real. Okay, so the interest rates up to

7%. And through the lifetime of that loan, you're actually spending more on interest than you are on the principle of that home to the tune of $50,000. And of course, low inventory is not helping with getting the price of homes down. Now, there are some markets where prices have either plateaued or they've gone down a little bit. But considering how high the interest rates are and how expensive it is to borrow, it really doesn't help out. It doesn't mitigate the damage done by the high interest rates. And so here we are again, the millennial generation screwed again when it comes to housing. And we've seen it in other areas as well, our education system, just being able to accumulate the wealth necessary to have a nest egg ready for retirement one day.

These are all really scary things that need to be addressed. And unfortunately, we do not have any leadership in government right now that's really showing true concern over this issue. We need to build more housing. We need to do it quickly. And unless we make a concerted effort, unless we get the federal government involved and declare this really an emergency, we're going to keep seeing more people priced out living on the streets. We're going to see people struggling during their retirement years because they have no nest egg and no money accumulated, wealth accumulated throughout their lifetimes, because everything's too affordable, including again, the one vehicle left for ordinary people, working people to build

wealth for themselves. And that is housing. All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, Ben Glebe will be joining me for some spicy takes to be sure. There is a white nationalist anti-Semitic clown who has not taken kindly to our commentary on Kanye West and all the anti-Semides he's hanging out with. We'll respond to him and more when we come back. Don't miss it. 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. slash t yt i'm your host shank huger and i'll see you soon