The Young Turks - Obama Killed Rock N Roll

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

Pentagon Admits "Tragic Mistake" In Civilian Drone Strike | Manchin and Biden's Negotiation Ends WITHOUT Deal | Texas Lt. Gov. Goes FULL White Nationalist on Fox | Anti-Trump Republican Turns Shameless Biden Cheerleader | Nicki Minaj Fans PROTEST The CDC For #BallGate 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. Dropy! Dreamerty! Dreamerty! Drop it! Drop it!

Drop it! Drop it! Power, Power Panel, Jane Hugar, Nina Turner, Francesca Furentini. I mean, if this ain't powerful, I don't know what it is. So great to have Senator Turner back, of course, and new host on TYT, Francesca. It's been with us a long time. And she also does the bituation room, so don't miss that. That's an excellent podcast.

We've been talking about the purple background she's got all day long in that lovely shot. Okay. Yes, I'm so excited to be here. I'm just going to fan girl out for like 15, 20 minutes. Not over you, Jank. Obes. But first time on with a senator, put it up. on the purple lipstick match in the background. Let's hope there's nothing in my teeth.

Nothing in your teeth. It's fabulous. I think that first 20 minutes of fangirling should be scintillating, entertaining commentary. So I'm looking forward to it. But having said that, so guys, as always, we do a fun show, we do an exciting show. But unfortunately, we also do the news, which is oftentimes quite tragic, whether it's domestic issues like Joe Manchin being president. as Nina's going to weigh in in a little bit, but also drone strikes. And that's going to lead here, unfortunately, first. So Francesca, take it away. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, the Pentagon confirmed what we had already known, which is that in response to the ISIS-K attack at the Kabul airport, it mistook a civilian vehicle for an ISIS-K threat when it launched a drone strike on August 29th that killed 10 civilians. So this is the first admission, an investigation by the U.S. command found that the August 29 strike killed an innocent aid worker, along with nine members of his family, including seven children, and that the youngest victim was aged two. The Defense Department previously, of course, called this a righteous strike, quote unquote, saying that it had tracked the white sedan for hours after it left a suspected Islamic State Corrason Safehouse, and that its officials, believed the car was loaded with explosives for an imminent attack. That was not the case. In fact, the driver Zamorae Ahmadi was a longtime aid worker for a U.S.-based group and was hauling water cans for his family, according to officials and video obtained by the Washington Post

and others. Like we said, this is something that we had known. Sadly, it was suspected, I think, from Jump. It was surfacing on Twitter. And now we have this confirmation from the Pentagon. So this is from General Frank McKenzie saying, I'm now convinced as many as 10 civilians, including seven children, and were tragically killed in that strike. We analyzed that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died are associated with ISIS K, or were a direct threat to U.S. forces.

The strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would be prevent an imminent threat to our forces in the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake. and I offer my sincere apology. As the combatant commander, I am fully responsible for the strike in this tragic outcome. So there you have it, a sincere apology that will not bring back 10 civilians, seven of whom are children, a U.S. aid worker. I mean, could this have gone any worse? Yep. So there's a lot of takeaways from this.

And I actually want to give it a tiny bit of credit here to some follow-up reporting from CNN and tiny bit of credit to the Pentagon for giving full transparency on this, although very belatedly. I'll come back to those in a minute. But overall, there's a giant elephant in the room here, which is we kill civilians with drone strikes all the time. And they're oftentimes kids. and the media almost never, ever covers it. And so, and even in this instance, they largely waited for permission from the Pentagon. If you're thinking, wait, didn't the Young Turks already cover this story? Yes, that's right.

We did weeks ago, weeks ago. Because, and by the way, we didn't go and get it on our own. You have to search for it, and it'll appear once or twice in some outlets. Like the BBC had a very good report on this at the time, and that's the source that we used weeks ago to do this. But if the Pentagon doesn't give permission to the media, i.e. saying, okay, fine, we did it. If they continue to lie, the media will never say that they lied. Never. So here, the Pentagon gave rare permission to criticize it. And that's why you're seeing it all over mainstream media weeks after we covered it.

Now, the second part of that is, I said we kill civilians all the time. So just I want to give you guys context. In 2019, alone, we killed 700 civilians on U.S. airstrikes. So I'm super happy that the media seems to be genuinely outraged about the 10 civilians killed in that particular strike. But how about the 700 that we kill on an average year in Afghanistan? And then one last stat for you guys. In between 2005 and 2019, Save the Children charity did an analysis and found out that

there were five kids killed or wounded per day in the war in Afghanistan. That's a stunning 26,025 kids who were killed or maimed in that war. And how often did you hear about that in mainstream media? Almost never, right? So I'll just note that this is part of the critique of us withdrawing from that war. a critique I did not see when we were in that war for 20 straight years. Yeah, that's right, Jigan. I mean, I agree with what you laid out there, and it is tragic.

This is gut-wrenching. And you're right, at least the Pentagon for now on this particular issue, they're being transparent. When he talks about a mistake, well, this is a mistake that you can't come back from. You know, it's not like stepping on somebody's foot, cannot come back from this kind of mistake. And secondly, Americans need to know what's done in our name with our taxpayers' dollars at all time, the good, the bad, and the ugly at all times. The Pentagon should not be able to decide what is going to tell the American people and what it will and what it will not make public as long as they're using our taxpayers' dollars. But this is definitely, definitely very sad and depressing.

And, Jank, as you laid out, it happens far too often. And I think a lot of times we become desensitized to these kinds of stories. I want everybody to think about that could be us. That could have been us. That could have been our family. That could have been any of us. So we need to care about what is done in our name and with our money. Yeah.

So like this is not just the legacy of, you know, of what's been happening now of Biden, right? And it's not just Obama's legacy. I think Obama's largely associated with drones in a lot of ways. But Trump himself also, he increased drone strikes by 400%. And as Jenks said, the fact is that the Pentagon wasn't readily admitting when they killed civilians and when they didn't. They just weren't talking about it, right? And so, you know, Obama did an inventory of his drone strikes, which was like painful enough. It's like if you're inventorying and you see that many people, civilians being killed, why don't you stop the program?

Why don't we stop the drone? I'm sorry, it doesn't work. If you can't tell, not just who's an enemy combatant, right? Because at some point Obama had set out that it was like, look, if you're between the ages of 18 and, you know, however old, you're automatically an enemy combatant no matter what. So that's wrong, number one. Number two is, but if you can't see that children as young as two are not targets and are not enemy combatants, then your program is bad. Then your intelligence, your military intelligence is terrible. So the whole program should be shut down.

And look, there of whistleblower after whistleblower has said the same thing, right? Like that this program does not work, that they are regularly told to fire on civilians. They're obviously suffering horrible PTSD from it, but not nearly what the civilians on the grounds are suffering themselves. We know the blowback from these kinds of incidents, which is creating more animus, creating honestly more breeding ground for folks like ISIS K to say, look, we got a perfect strategy for recruitment. And it goes on and on. And Lindsey Graham gets very excited. So I want to give a little bit more context to what Francesca is saying. So we've been covering signature strikes for a long time on TYT. And so those, and they were very prevalent under President Obama. And what they do is they do not have intelligence on a specific person. They have

intelligence on a signal. So often a cell phone, sometimes a computer, could it be the someone else has the computer like your kids are watching YouTube to make up an example. By the way, that which happens often. Yeah. And do they have the wrong computer, the wrong cell phone all the time? And we kill people anyway, even without knowing who they are. That is a regular operating procedure for the Pentagon. And then look at how effective propaganda is. Trump was billed as anti-war. He increases drone strikes by several 100% kills way more civilians than even Obama who killed a lot. And still, everybody says he's anti-war.

No, he's not. I mean, what he did was drone strikes was monstrous. And then yet his base is like, oh, yeah, he's so, he's a peacock. It's absurd. It's absurd. And then on the issue of how bad it is, these strikes, they always, the media paints, allows the Pentagon to paint it as, like, as if it's super position and they precision. and they have great information.

They have terrible information. And in this case, now that they finally admitted it in one instance, you see how bad it was. That's why I gave him credit for the full transparency on this one, because they explained, yeah, it was an aid worker, so an ally of ours. And he had driven by what we think is an ISIS K headquarters, which we interestingly didn't bomb. He happened to drive by it. That's the main thing they had. And then the second thing they had was he loaded up a bunch of water into his van.

And so since he was loading something into his van at a later time, they thought it must have been bombs. And then they explained, you know, we'd say, oh, we definitely got the right guy because there was a secondary explosion. That was that vicious bomb that he had in his van. Now they explained, oh, it was a propane tank on the driveway. Like, like so many people have in that area. So every part of their intel was not only wrong, but it was so flimsy. Look at what they go on. He drove by the area and loaded something into his van.

Let's kill him and all of his children. So we've been doing that for decades. So this is the first time you heard about it because you saw mainstream media doing their crocodile tears. Look, reporter by reporter, they're so bad at their job. It literally might be the first time they ever heard about it. And so they might be genuinely outraged that these kids were killed. I'd ask them to pretty please do your jobs because then you'd be outraged every day, five times a day, for the last 14 years.

And then you might actually cover a war properly and not just be outraged when we withdraw from one. Yes. Yeah. And I just last point, like just to double down on the fact that if the Pentagon didn't say it happened, the media says it didn't happen, think about how chilling that is. Right? And that is par for the course when it comes to U.S. military ventures abroad and this, you know, war on terror that honestly kudos, the one kudos to Biden is he's trying to actually extricate us from. The problem is you don't supplement that by increasing drone strikes, which is of course the same. It's the same thing with like the border logic. Okay, we're going to have, you know, a pathway to citizenship. Oh, but we're going to put tanks on the border. Like, no, people will die. That is no more humanitarian than before. you're just pandering to the right.

Anyway, it's some 1984 for real when you talk about just the fact that no one covers it. Isis K's been around. Was anyone covering the number of Afghans who were killed by ISISK? No. Yeah. And I mentioned I was going to give you a little bit of credit to a CNN reporter. Anna Corrin covered this a couple of days ago. And look, if the media just covers it a tiny bit, the Pentagon feels pressure.

And then in this case, they actually said something that was true because of that pressure. Imagine if the media covered it all the time accurately and was genuinely outraged by the insane number of civilians we kill on a regular basis in the middle of these wars. My God, in Iraq, I mean, there's a lot of different estimates. Roughly the number appears to be 700,000 civilians that were killed in that unnecessary war. Imagine if every day you turn on the TV, they were like, oh my God, another 182 civilians killed. And they showed picture of baby after baby, children after children. And you know what would have happened? We would have withdrawn from Iraq so long ago, well before we actually did.

And maybe that's why you see the media reaction that you do when we withdraw, but never, ever in the middle of the war. All right, guys, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, we're going to talk to, we're going to talk about how Joe Manchin and Joe Biden sat together for tea and crumpets. I'm quite curious how it turned out. So we'll take a look at that when we return. All right, back on the Young Turks. Jane Huger, Nina Turner, Francesca, if you're on Tini with you guys. So much more news.

Francesca, take it away. All right. Well, the passage of the build back Better Act, the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, which could provide social programs and infrastructure unseen in generations, still rests on one guy. No, not Joe Biden. Senator Joe Manchin, yes. And this week, President Joe Biden reportedly met with Senator Joe Manchin and they discussed the bill. Was the president successful in convincing Manchin? According to sources familiar with the discussion, no. Biden explained to Manchin that his opposition could imperil the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Remember,

this is the one that Mansion was all excited about, the one that Republicans support. Biden's analysis did little to persuade Manchin to raise his top line. Mansion held his position and appears willing to let the bipartisan bill hang in the balance given his entrenched opposition to many of the specific proposals in the $3.5 trillion spending package. Okay, remember, this is the $3.5 trillion spending packages that has things around climate change, right? Home care workers, reducing the cost of big pharma and pharmaceuticals in addition to a lot, a lot of things. And Mansion has been skirting the number. What's the number? How much? Is $3.5 trillion okay? What do you think? And here he is with Dana Bash recently, once again, very not specific about the number.

Can you be specific? Okay, let's just let's talk about the dollar sign. Yeah. Do you have a specific number in mind? Here's a number you should be getting to. First of all, I have agreed to get on to the reconciliation because that's the time for us to make financial adjustments and changes. I thought the 2017 tax code and tax law, the way it was changed was very, very unfair and it was weighted to the heavy to the wealth. So what's the number? And the bottom line is what's the number would be what's going to be competitive in our tax code. I believe the corporate rate should be at 25, not 21.

But what's the overall number for the budget bill? I think that you're going to have to look at it and find out what you're able to do through a reasonable responsible way. So then how do you know that it's not 3.5? It's going to be at 1.5. We don't know where it's going to be. So you think ballpark won, one and a half? It's not going to be at 3.5, I can assure you. But with that, whatever it is, once you have a competitive tax code that you can compete globally, and then you

you should look at what the need is. What's the urgency and the need that we have? And again, I want to get to that, but just because this is, this is the thing that people consume. Do you have a ceiling? My ceiling is this, the need of the American people, and for us to basically take in consideration, inflation, no one's concerning about the debt. You know our debt as of Friday was $28.7.5 trillion, and we're not even talking about that. No one's talking about it. So you just said 1.5. It sounds like $1.5 trillion is your number. Why I've looked at numbers, if we have a competitive tax code from a non-competitive, it doesn't help the working person that was done in 2017, that's in the one, one and a half

range, okay? If that's where it is, shouldn't you be looking at what does it take now to meet the urgent needs that we have that we haven't already met? I'm so sorry you had to watch that. That was like five different answers and non-answers, really. But before I toss it over to the panel, I'm very excited. This is obviously not the first time that Mansion and Biden have spoken about Manson's resistance to a lot of Biden's plans, and specifically the progressive parts of his plans. Remember back in the $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan, right? The American Families plan, Mansion held that up too. And in March, Biden got on the phone with Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package in danger of failing.

He called Mansion and told him, if you don't come along, you're really effing me, according to a new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. And remember, Mansion eventually did vote for that bill, except not without taking away $100 from the weekly unemployment benefits, so instead of 400, it was 300, and lowered the federal subsidy, or lowered the means testing. So raise the bar on how much money you you had to make in order to qualify for the stimulus checks, you know, just as he does. But what do you think about this sort of grand tassel? Here's Biden, here's the president, and here is the senator, a Democratic senator,

who should be voting along with his president and is not. Senator Turner. I mean, Francesca, especially on something like this. He's talking about the needs of the American people. Let's talk about those needs that this bill does in many ways, as you like, out, address the needs, and the 3.5 trillion is already the compromise position. You know, this is lunacy, and it is very clear who the president of the United States is in this instance, and his name is Joe Manchin. Very, very clear. You have the real president,

because I called Joe Manchin, Senator Joe Manchin, the shadow president asking you to do this. And you know what, it just these corporatists, Democrats who want to, are concerned about progressives holding up the agenda, let's talk about the shadow president Joe Manchin. And then, you know, the article talks about how, but it was a cordial. It was a friendly, it was a friendly conversation. How friendly can that conversation be when you have Joe Manchin standing in the way of this kind of progress? You know, I think back to President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Not perfect, by any stretch of imagination, had some racist tendencies, you know, being a son of the South. But I tell you what, he knew how to wield that power. And because he knew how to wield power, it did create the, not just the genesis of, because, you know, he was the VP of President Kennedy. But under President Lyndon B. Johnson's leadership, we did get the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. at a time where it was even more tumultuous or maybe equally as tumultuous in a partisan way as it is now, relatively speaking, in the 1960s.

Imagine what he had to do and the type of power he had to wield to get something like that done. You fast forward to 2021, and we let Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia dictate whether or not the American people can get $3.5 trillion worth of soft infrastructure and hard infrastructure at a time. when the needs are really great, give me a break. Please somebody primary this man run against this man. He needs to go on over there and beat a real Republican because that's what he is. Stop. He's not even Republican light. Hell, he's doing the Republicans bidding and the bidding of big money interests.

He don't care about the American people because if he did, he would sign on to this bill. So on the LBGA point, you took the words right out of my mouth. I mean, I really wonder if these politicians are this bad at their job. Is reporting really accurate because if I was going to go into a meeting with Joe Mansion and I really need him to come along on this, I would have a number of carrots and sticks prepared. And I would say, hey, listen, if you vote for it, we'll slip this into the bill to get more X, Y, Z to West Virginia, as politics, there's nothing wrong with that.

I would also have a number of sticks prepared. Hey, if you don't go along with it, here are going to be the consequence. I'm saying, listen, Joe, hey, it's your call. You're the senator. You make any decision you like, but I am going to make my own decisions, and these are the consequences that will flow. And if the meeting doesn't work out, I would have launched one of those rockets, at least right afterwards, to let him know I'm not playing, and we're very serious about this.

If they're just, if Joe Biden called him into the White House just to try to convince them verbally. That is incredibly weak sauce. That's not gonna do it. I mean, look at all this like hilarious non-politics. Like, oh, but he got called into the White House. Who cares? I mean, Joe Manchin's making millions of dollars in or bringing it into his campaign through the corporate donors that are making him stop this bill. He doesn't care about having tea and crumpets of the White House. And it made it seem like on the first time around, Manchin finally gave in because Joe Biden used a curse word. No, that's not how power dynamics works.

So either Axios is, and this is true of a lot of mainstream media, doing a kind of a silly version of this Kabuki theater and not telling you what's actually happening. Or it's actually incredibly possible and maybe even more likely that Joe Biden and the rest of them don't really have any idea how did it do actual power politics? And they keep thinking they're going to beseech mansion or the Republicans. At the end of the Baxios article, they talked about how, well, Biden's plan to reach out to Republicans is not going so well in the Senate. Really?

Are we still having that silly, silly conversation? Right now, Mitch McConnell is saying, we're not even going to raise the debt ceiling. We're going to completely shut down the government, blow the whole thing up. Holly and Cruz are blocking every Senate confirmation. You didn't know that was going to happen. If Joe Biden's being earnest, then this story is way worse, because it's amazing how clueless he is about what's happening in Washington. That's so true.

I mean, he served as the vice president under President Barack Obama, and the Republicans did every absolute thing that they could do. Hell, they even said what we are intending to do is make him a one-term president. I mean, they declared that right away and did everything that they could to make that declaration come true. They were not successful, but I'll tell you something about these Republicans. They clear about their agenda, and the Democrats need to get clear about their agenda and whose side they're on. What difference does, if you ask the American people, give us the White House check, give us the Senate, check. Help us keep the House of Representatives, check, check, and check.

And then what do they get in return? A whole bunch of nonsense is going on. Well, I don't hear about the billions of dollars a month that is paid, you know, in Pentagon spending. Jesus people, Frances, I can't take it. I'm going to be calling on Jesus. I wish I could be there to fan you a little bit throughout this. It is quite enraging.

I mean like I don't know did he call him a dog face pony soldier was he as mean to him as he was to corn pop we will never know what kind of snacks were laid out what does you know what how does this mansion like his twinkies I like the no I do I'm on for that let's do that you know I kind of got grilled you know I kind of got grilled about some choice words I use but anyway yeah give a good cussing out and make sure there's some comments consequences behind them cuss words. That's what we need. I mean, one thing, you know, Jank, you mentioned no carrots, no sticks in that negotiation or so far has been reported. It seems like Joe Manchin has all the carrots he needs because one of the things that the reporters did not mention are all the influences and all the money and all of the conflicts of interest that Joe Manchin and his family have currently and have had in the past. So we already know about Joe Manchin's daughter, who used to be the head of the drug company, Mylan, that they were responsible for jacking up the price of EpiPen, right?

So already there's some ties in there. How do you think he's going to weigh in on dropping the prices on pharmaceuticals? But this is from Robert Reich, who writes on Twitter, in case you missed it, Joe Manchin founded two coal companies in the 1980s, which today are led by his son. His family's fortune relies on allowing the fossil fuel industry to keep wreaking havoc on our planet. And of course, that's backed up by an article. This is from Vice. According to most recent financial disclosures, Mansion gained $492,000 last year due to his non-public shares in a coal company called Ener Systems, which records show is a contractor for a power plant in the state's north that burns waste coal.

Meanwhile, Mansion's 2020 income for being a senator was $174,000. Now, part of that $3.5 trillion is, is ending coal, is transitioning away from dirty fossil fuels, right? But here's the question. Is, has Biden put enough in there for West Virginia, right? I mean, and this is real, like part of this is real. It is a just transition, as climate activists have talked about, right? As I know Nina Turner, you've talked about. Like, this is not about leaving coal workers and miners out to dry without jobs.

It's providing, you know, jobs in renewable energy. It's providing good union paying jobs. That's the Green New Deal in and of itself. So that's a big question here, right? Nobody talks about that. I mean, these are a few articles, some Robert Reich tweets. But, you know, Dan Abash isn't going to openly ask Senator Manchin about his holdings in those coal companies. Yeah.

So I want to give the last word to our members here because they made a couple of really great points. It follows up with what Francesca is saying perfectly and what was Nina said earlier. Approval wrote in, if Joe Manchin's corrupt monopolizing daughter isn't going through a perp walk, Joe Biden isn't using his full power. So guys, think about that. That's just, that's real. So if I'm the president and Manchin is saying, no, I'm going to kill your agenda, like, okay, Joe, if you want to roll, we can roll because your daughter just took $30 million in a golden parachute

to outsource jobs from West Virginia. You run, your son runs two coal companies. I'm sure that there's some regulations we can find in those coal companies, et cetera. Now, if you're outraged by that, go home because you don't belong in politics. Because why are we doing this? For the ego of Joe Biden, none of the three of us care about the ego of Joe Biden at all. We're doing this so you can pass the bill that helps Americans. And if you're too worried about being polite to Joe Mansion, you're never going to get the job done.

Now, look, threatening the financial interests of himself and his kids, you can consider that nuclear. But are we going to pass the bill or aren't we? Are you going to play all your cards or aren't you? You know, and so, but you have a, you can, you don't have to go nuclear in the beginning. There are different layers that you can do. and Roy Lehman, another one of our members, reminded me of my idea. It's funny.

But Roy said, I like Jing's idea from a couple of months ago of Biden going to West Virginia and grabbing Mansion and telling him you can go out on the stage with me and take credit for this jobs bill or I can go out and tell the folks of West Virginia that Joe Mansion is holding up the jobs bill that will benefit all of your West Virginians.

By the way, Roy, you know where I got that idea? And thank you for writing in. I just, I can't get enough of doing this show with our smart, smart members who make the show possible. Anyway, Roy, I got that idea from LBJ. That's what he did. That was a trick that he did at a press conference.

That's why I said, Nina took the words right out of my mouth on the LBJ reference. I don't know why you wouldn't do that unless you thought the feelings of Joe Manchin are more important than all of your voters' actual jobs and wages and free, you know, free of pollution, air and climate change. All of these issues that you were elected for. And I can guarantee you that that's not the case. The rest of us don't give a damn about Joe Manchin's feelings. And he's set for the rest of his life. And so is his children and his children's children. So let's get on with the business and making sure that other people's children are set in this country.

The ones that are suffering disproportionately. Yeah, that's so true. How much do you need? You can take it with you. Hello. Hello somebody. Hello somebody. And by the way, last point, West Virginia is struggling with COVID right now.

I mean, they are out in front in a bad way when it comes to the number of cases in that state. What does that mean? That means people are out of work. That means people are home. That means people need sick leave. That means a whole lot of things for the working people of West Virginia, for all people of West Virginia. So it is a moment to be bold. It is a moment.

Look, yes, I can't wait for them to turn on him. And I hope they do, and I can't wait for Biden to really show some leadership here. Absolutely. In the West Virginia deserves so much better. Yeah. All right, guys, we've got to take another break here. When we come back, we've got so many more amazing stories for you guys. So stay right here.

All right, back on TYT, Jank Fran and Nina with you guys. I'm going to read one comment from Twitch. Laws My Mind says, six month anniversary with Twitch, faithful viewer, member for seven plus years, love you, thank you. And they continue, love you guys, so happy to see the great Nina Turner with T.Y.T. Thank you for all you do. We appreciate it. And by the way, you can catch Nina on all of our shows. So she was on Damage Report and Indisputable earlier this week. And Indisputo's podcast just launched earlier this week as well. So if you're listening on podcasts, make sure you subscribe to Indisputable Dr. Rashad Ritchie as well. All right.

Friends got more news. All right. Well, thousands of migrants have been essentially living under a bridge in the border town of Del Rio, Texas, waiting to either be let into United States or deported from the United States. U.S. Border Patrol said that more than 9,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, are being sent or held in a temporary staging area under the Del Rio International Bridge as agents worked as quickly as they could to process them. All right, now we all know what's been going on in Haiti lately, correct, right?

You've got the assassination of a president. There was a major earthquake. The country is very unstable and yet the United States continues to deport many, many Haitian immigrants. Some have been in the States for years back to that unstable country. Oh, but that doesn't matter because the lieutenant governor, of Texas, Dan Patrick is looking at this situation in Del Rio and describing it in a very particular way, calling it an invasion designed by Democrats. Take a look. The revolution has begun, a silent revolution by the Democrat Party and Joe Biden to take

over this country. Tomorrow is Constitution Day. And folks, if you haven't read it, you need to read Article 4, Section 4 very quickly. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union and shall protect each of them against invasion and domestic violence and guarantee a Republican form of government. We need every state, every red state, because the blue ones won't do it, to send and invoke Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution to tell the president that we are being invaded.

Now, invasion properly defined by most says it's an unauthorized, uninvited, unwelcomed incursion in your territory or property. This is not authorized by the state of Texas. It's not welcomed by the state of Texas or any other Republican states that I know, and they're not invited. Great. So there's Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas explaining what the word invasion means for some reason. and then likening the asylum-seeking and refugee crisis that happens at our southern border to that, and saying that red states should essentially invoke the Constitution to say this is an invasion, like an act of war, not by what, Central Americans, the Haitian government, no, no, no, no, by Democrats.

Senator Turner, your thoughts on this. This madness. You know, there was a period of time if we could just walk our family back down memory lane where, you know, especially in the 18th and 19th century, where it was relatively just come on in, flow in. Statue of Liberty, bring them all, let people come. You know what the difference was during that time is where people were coming from. Okay, that is the primary difference. We went from a country that was very welcoming of Europeans, particularly northern Europeans. Europeans to a country in the 21st century that says if you are black or brown, you're not welcome here. And even into the 18, I think it was 1882 or so, you know, the Chinese Exclusion Act. I mean, we have a history in this country of excluding primarily people of color and something is wrong with it. And this man, Mr. Patrick, something is absolutely wrong with him to be in that type of leadership. and to talk about immigrants as if they are the other.

And let me add this on here. As if Haitians have not already been catching enough hail, they continue to be treated differently. A lot of African immigrants. And I encourage the viewers to go look this up. A lot of, excuse me, Haitians are, but a lot of immigrants of color, particularly immigrants of African descent.

So whether they are, wherever they are in the diaspora, I put it that way, they are oftentimes treated different. treated differently than other types of immigrants and especially Haitians. I mean, they have natural disasters. They have not been able to catch a break. And yet you have a man in a leadership position that is as heartless as this. And to constantly paint folks as the other to get Americans all round up, this whole gospel of scarcity is the problem. And Republicans specialize in the gospel of scarcity, especially when it comes to immigrants of color. And then when you look at people who are citizens of this country,

if you are poor among the poor, the working poor and barely middle class, they got that same scarcity gospel as well. Okay, so if you notice, he said you should read the Constitution really quickly. Yes, because if you read it with any kind of care, you would notice that that clause has nothing to do with immigration. It just totally made it up. So now we often talk about how the country is a country of immigrants. And so since the recent immigrants are more brown and black, people assume that that's what people are talking about.

No, we've been immigrants from day one, including the Mayflower. And by the way, Dan Patrick said, oh, there's anything that is unauthorized and uninvited as an invasion. Did Christopher Columbus get an invite? I don't remember that. Did the Mayflower get an invite? I don't think they were authorized, were they? So I guess they were all illegals, and they invaded this land, and so we should kick them out? No, from day one, this has been a country of immigrants, both invited and uninvited.

And so later immigrants, like myself, by the way, we did it the legal way. But the original European folks who came in didn't ask permission, and then devastated the local populace. That was an actual invasion. They actually did murder the indigenous people and enslaved others and brought them here, et cetera. So, you know, and it's so much of what you see from the right wing is projection.

And we've talked about this before. I talked about it with Keith Boykin the other day on the conversation. They are so afraid that minorities are going to do to them what they did to minorities. But guys, we're not like you. And in this case, I don't mean minorities versus white people. We're all humans.

We're the same either way. But progressives want to get you higher wages, better health care. We don't want to ruin your life. We want to help your life. We're not going to do the same thing that you think that you did to others. Because we're not interested in injustice. We're interested in justice. And the other part of it is decency and empathy.

So I'm a legal immigrant. My family are legal immigrants. We quote unquote did it the right. way. But let's know that let's out from my perspective, I was super lucky. Why? Because I had an uncle who was a doctor. So it made legal immigration easier. So now am I going to turn around and say, well, I did it the right way as if I'm some sort of hero because I had an uncle who was a doctor? And then say to those desperate families that sometimes went thousands of miles and are so worried about their kids and guys who believe in America.

They risk their lives to come to America. Am I going to blame them and say, oh, no, they're illegals. They're invading us. No, of course not. If you're a decent human being, your heart goes out to them. But that really is an important qualifier if you're a decent human being. Yeah, I mean, for me, the thing about this quote is just the fact that he's talking about this is part of Democrats' plan, as if Democrats have lifted a finger on immigration. I'm sorry,

since Joe Biden got into office, let's be real, he has not. And it's definitely a to do, right? Second myth that he is, you know, he's dabbling in and he is, he's trafficking in is the idea that the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country and growing that they vote, that they vote, that they have voting rights, they do not have voting rights currently, right? In many places, they are not able to access health care, right? I have, we happen to be in California where they can access health care, right, where they can have driver's licenses and contribute and pay taxes. Arguably, they should vote, but they don't. And that's one of the biggest fallacies, the idea that like, oh, millions of undocumented immigrants vote. They don't, but they do pay taxes,

but they do do like, you know, the jobs that you just love to underpay. And that's the last thing is this is all about, if you really, really care about working people, if you care about Americans, you should care about immigration. Because, you know, the key to actual power when it comes to working class is immigration reform, is actually a pathway to citizenship. It's not pitting people against one another to, you know, a clamber to the lowest common denominator. So you can, you know, hire the workforce that's the most precarious that has the most on the line, right? That's why meat processing plants are full of undocumented people that ice raids every five months.

Oh, oh, folks who get up at the crack of dawn doing, you know, the most disgusting jobs, get the lease pay for it. The exploitation is unreal. And the key, the way out of that is solidarity with those folks is a pathway to citizenship. Because migration's not going to stop, right? As much as Vice President Harris will say, don't come. Sorry, they're going to come in part because, oh yeah, the United States has helped devastate Haiti for decades, decades, the number, the amount of money that we have poured into that nation. Anyway, it is dangerous and it's scary. I will say Laura Ingram through all this was like surprisingly didn't jump on the hate train. And I was, I was like, okay, Laura, maybe it's the one thing she, I don't know, she was having an off night, I guess.

Well, she brought them on to spread that hate. Even though a broke clock is right twice a day. Yeah. And look, it's not like she's surprised by what Dan Patrick says. She brought him on to say that hateful stuff. So I'm not giving much credit there at all. Okay, last thing I'll say is that isn't it interesting that they assume all those folks will become Democrats? Why?

I mean, a lot of people that come in have what you claimed you were in favor of conservative family values. A lot of them are Catholic, a lot of them are deeply religious. There's a ton of reasons why they could be Republicans, at least if you believed anything you said in your marketing. But no, they look at him, they see brown people and they go, yeah, that's it, no way, they're all going to be Democrats. They're actively rejecting them. And guys, if you think it's not racial, keep it real.

So Melania Trump and her parents, there was excellent evidence that they did things wrong as they were applying for immigration status here in America. And I believe that it isn't racial when I hear right winger saying current day America, I've had enough of those damn European immigrants. Never heard it. There it is. Shall we move on? Yep.

Let's do it. All right. Well, this week in Hot Beltway Goss, the Washington, Post opinion columnist and never Trump Republican, Jennifer Rubin, has apparently become a funny little conundrum for the Biden administration. Why? Because she used to rail against Obama and Vice President Biden, then Vice President Biden. But now has been writing a lot of positive pieces about the administration. But because her past is so bad, they're too embarrassed to share all of the glowing things she's writing. Instead, they're trying to punt those. pieces to like some of their allies be like hey you share this you share this and Jennifer Rubin is very upset about this article that Politico wrote about this whole thing and we'll get to an email that she actually sent to Politico a little bit later but first the White House is encouraging outside allies to share some of Rubin's articles online one West Wing playbook one told West Wing playbook that they declined to do so because they thought it was just

too embarrassing to earnestly share a Rubin column given her history as a conservative and perceived tendency to pander to the administration. In other words, too thirsty, just too thirsty. Tone it down. Take a drink. Why, what did Rubin say in the past? Let's look at that. Okay, so she didn't have a high opinion of Biden when he was Obama's Veep,

writing in 2012 that, quote, Biden reflects Obama's judgment and dispels the notion that the president wants the best and the brightest around him. Oh, old Joe doesn't fit that description, does he? on Obama. This is fun. His sympathies for the Muslim world take precedence over those such as they are for his fellow citizens. She wrote in Commentary Magazine in 2010 when President Barack Obama supported the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan that critics had dubbed, quote, Ground Zero Mosque, remember that.

And then when Obama said that the police had acted stupidly when they arrested a black professor outside his home in 2009, Rubin wrote that, quote, Obama indisputably fanned the flames of racism. and rekindled animosity on both sides by assuming or making this all about race. Oh, honey, what was coming to your party very soon after you wrote that stuff? So just last thing, why the heel turn? Obviously, it was mask off or mask on for the Republican Party. Hoods on, sorry, mask off hoods on. Since 2016, she has evolved into a stalwart, never Trump Republican, And even as many of his other former critics jumped on the Trump train, she has switched over from trying to flatter the GOPs id to Stoking Republicans fit with an MSNBC contract and a book coming out next week called, ugh, resistance, how women save democracy from Donald Trump.

Good God. That's so, that's so cringy. Like anyone else writing that book would be less cringe. But Senator Turner, you jump in on this one. What do we make of Rubin and the fact that Biden, the Biden administration like doesn't want any of it? I don't blame him on that. You know what? I'm going to just have to roll with them on this one.

I don't blame them because somebody's true nature always comes out. And I think they understand that this woman has just totally ridiculed, you know, and not only was I just kind of, I'm seething over you walking me back down memory lane about some of the things that she said about President Obama, especially about race. They did act stupidly for Professor Henry Lewis Gates, for those of us who are old enough to remember that or Google it, baby, if you don't. This man trying to get in his house, police called on him at his house. And then President Obama had the beer gate on top of it. So he criticized them. He gets criticized. And then he invites the man over for beer after they treated Professor Henry Lewis Gates that way at his own dagon house.

And let's go on and fast forward to 2021, you know, 2019, 2020, 2021. I wonder if President Obama was president when George Floyd was lynched with this woman have said the same thing. The Black Lives Matter standing up and saying that Black Lives Matter 2. Every single generation, we do have to deal with racism. We got to deal with class. We got to deal with race. We got to deal with class. But how dare she?

So I'm going to put that to the side, Francesca and Jen. Let me just talk about this. how her disdain for progressives, how she came after Senator Bernard Sanders. Hell, she even came after me. But I wish she would, you know, never, never, she ain't got the curse to do none of that in folks' face. Let her come on join us on the conversation. Let's have, let's have this conversation. Let's talk about your book, baby. You invite it on the night that I'm hosting the conversation. I love to have you sister. Let's do it. Yeah, we've invited her before. Shockingly, she has not joined us. But to me, there's

But, but I'm, is an open invitation. Come talk to Senator Turner on an episode of the conversation. Love to have you. Look, I think this is actually a more important story because of what it says about Washington, not about Jennifer Rubin. Because she's a neo-conservative and she's economically very conservative. To my knowledge, she hasn't changed any of her positions. She just changed helmets. She went from Republican to Democrat. because of Trump. And Washington loves her for that because they're all right wingers. And all they care about is, you know, what's the letter on your helmet? So they're like, oh, you switch to Democrat and you have the same exact right wing positions.

Welcome. We all do too. And let's know. And we let's note that the Biden team is saying, look, we don't want our fingerprints on it. But they are trying to get other people to spread her articles, right? Because they're under the misimpression that she matters, if I'm being honest, okay, and Frank. Yes. Right. So now, why do I say that? Guys, which average American is sitting around their kitchen going, honey, did you see what Jennifer Rubin wrote this morning? No one, no actual voter cares about her.

Jing, I did that this morning. Okay, one. We've got one. No. Okay. No, seriously. Guys, they're real influential people in media. Of course there are, right? And unfortunately, the cable news guys are far too influential. Podcasts like Joe Rogan are influential. We might not like some of these characters. We might like others, but they are influential.

Random neoconservative writer in Washington is not at all influential. There are no neo-conservatives. And they all live inside Washington, D.C. There's only a couple of dozen of them. They start war after war, but it does not affect the voters at all. They don't know them. They don't care. But Washington is obsessed.

Whose side is Jennifer Rubin on? Oh my God, let's spread her articles. It's absurd. Let it go. And she's a bigot. Let's call it what it is. Look at that quote that Fran read for you guys. she said Obama's obsessed with sympathies for the Muslim world.

Right. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What would be wrong with having sympathy for the Muslim world? That's 1.6 billion people in the world who didn't do anything wrong. But she thinks the Muslim world by definition is bad. Like these goddamn Muslims, can you believe he has sympathy for them? Sympathy for Muslims? How dare he?

So no, Jennifer Rubin's never apologized for being a bigot and a neocon and helping to start all those wars. So I don't give a damn what she writes in the Washington Post and how obsessed the silly, silly people in Washington are about her. Okay, but I do have to read this email that she sent to Politico because the story in Politico is about how she doesn't, she may or may not get along with the other reporters in the Washington Post. think of her? What do they think of her heel turn and her just like, again, very thirsty articles that she's writing to try and get in with the Biden administration in her sort of newfound, yeah, big D Democrat identity. Okay, so political reaches out to her and she writes back with the subject line off the record. Now for something to be off the record, the other party

has to agree that it is off the record. So they're, instead of putting nothing in the the body of that email being like, okay, wait for that reply. There was there was just a tirade of what she felt and the ergo, Politico published it. And she writes, how utterly predictable that Politico would run the zillionth hit piece on a prominent woman, especially one candidate in her critiques of Politico's hysterical clickbait style of coverage. The notion that I am polarizing in the newsroom as opposed to any of the dozen other opinion writers is a quote, take only Politico could come up with by, of course, Of course, running around to ask the question in the first place, my only surprise that Sam Stein, this is Politico's White House editor, is a very good journalist, would become enmeshed in such an obviously misogynistic public publication. Surely there are finer publications that would have him.

And by the way, what a low class move to do this on Yom Kippur at the last moment. Oh, what else. So look, you guys heard me say shut up in the middle of that. Look, if you're Jennifer Rubin, you don't get to pull the anti-Semitic and the woman card and all that stuff. after hating on black people, Muslim people, every other kind of person. Oh, on Yom Kippur of all times. So it's so stupid in Losem. I don't particularly care of Politico ran it or didn't run it.

You know, the vagaries of off-the-record rules. There are no good guys here. By the way, the people that are generally upset with Jennifer Rubin inside the Washington Post newsroom, which I believe political, and it sounds credible that they exist. Don't get them wrong. They're now concerned that she's too left wing. It's just every part of Washington is so insanely right wing. And then they call the Washington Post liberal media.

And they're mad at Jennifer Rubin for being too much of a Democrat. It's absurd. Yeah. Well, I think we should wrap this on like a different note, shall we? Just change gears. Okay. Let's do it. And she said, I'm not going to take your vaccine to get a stupid maddala.

Look at the pigs. You know Fauci's lying. You know Fauci's lying. You know Fauci's lying. You know Fauci's lying. You know Fauci's lying. You know Fauci's lying. You know what's lying is the CDC.

Yeah. Down with the CDC, this is the culminate, I won't say culmination. This is the continuation of Ballgate, the story that no one could have imagined had legs past the eight hours when it broke. Those are Nikki Minaj fans protesting outside of the CDC headquarters in Atlanta against the COVID-19 vaccine. Of course, if you're just getting up to speed, if you were hoping to ignore this story, sorry, we're going to talk about it because Nikki Minaj on Sunday tweeted to her 22.5 million

followers, my cousin in Trinidad won't get the vaccine because his friend got it and became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married and now the girl called off the wedding, so just pray on it and make sure you're comfortable with your decision not bullied. Okay, so just putting her cousin's friends' testicles on blast. Since all this happened, Minaj's claims have been dismissed by numerous medical professionals and political leaders. I do have to show you this video because it's kind of one of the funnier things I've seen. This is the health minister of Trinidad speaking out about the investigation they inevitably had to run after this tweet and in all the backlash. Claims are being made

One of the reasons we could not respond yesterday in real time to Miss Minaj is that we had to check and make sure that what she was claiming was either true or false and unfortunately we wasted so much time yesterday running down this false claim it is as far as we know at this point in time

there has been no such reported either side effect or adverse event. And what was sad about this is that it wasted our time yesterday trying to track down because we take all these claims seriously, whether it's on social media or mainstream media. As we stand now, there is absolutely no report. reported such side effect or adverse event of testicular sweated in Trinidad or I dare say Dr. Hines anywhere else? None that we know of anywhere else in the world. So that's a claim. I love how the health minister of Trinidad maybe had to go to this cousin's friend's house and check in on his balls.

That's just very funny to me and ridiculous, but obviously it's not funny. It's insane. And Nikki Minaj, I just want to last thing, Nicky Minaj claims that she was invited to the White House. She tweeted the White House invited me and I think it's a step in the right direction. Yes, I'm going and I'll be dressed all in pink like legally blonde so they'll know I mean business and I'll have questions on behalf of the people who have been made fun of for simply being human.

I don't really know what that means. The White House then said, no, they didn't invite Nicky Minaj there to visit the White House. But as they have with others, they offered a call with Nikki Minaj to basically say, hey, do you have questions about the vaccine? Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the safety and the effectiveness of it. But of course, that didn't stop. The Barbes, as they say, the Nikki Minaj fans from going out and protesting outside the CDC. When will this be over, Nina Turner? Now, I hope.

It's really unfortunate. And look, I'm not going to pour on on Nicki Minaj. I mean, she said it. I will say that all of us bear a responsibility for the type of information that we put out, and especially if you have a huge following. So I get that. Also, it is important that people know they should get medical advice from medical professionals, medical doctors.

We know that we need to reach herd immunity in the United States of America. Hell, we need to reach herd immunity in the world because Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote about what affects one directly, affects us all indirectly. It's really real when it comes to this pandemic and also let me throw in climate chaos. I want to say to folks, get the vaccine. You got to go and get the vaccine. It is irresponsible not to do so. Now, it's not irresponsible to question.

It's not irresponsible to talk to a medical professional and get understanding. I think that's fine. But if you don't have a medical understanding, going out there and linking, whether it's balls and testicles or any other body part to the vaccine is absolutely irresponsible. So I'm not, you know, she put it out there. A lot of folks are judging that I get it. ultimately anybody and all people should see their doctor and talk to their doctors or nurses about the vaccine. We get a lot of vaccinations in this country. It was mandatory. At least when I was in school, you know, my mama couldn't send me to the public school without that vaccination.

Several of vaccinations as a matter of fact. So the fact that people are allowing some of these conspiracy theories to drive them. And if you get the vaccine, The greater likely, I mean, more people who don't have the vaccine are dying and being hospitalized. That doesn't mean that if you get it, you won't, but you are less likely to do so. So let the doctors handle this. This is really unfortunate that it has come to this and also that the Minister of Health in Trinidad had to take their precious time to answer this. Yeah. So guys, this is unfortunately the power of media.

I mean, it could be used for good, but oftentimes it winds up being something that does not help. So what she says that if we all let it go at the same time, you know, it would have reached some of her followers, but it probably would have been okay. But now that we're talking about it for a week straight, I guarantee you there is some percentage of the population who now thinks, well, it might lead to enlarged testicles, and it's going to give them some hesitancy. because they only hear, a lot of folks just see the headlines or they only tangentially hear a story and they don't dive into all the details. So, I mean, look, the story obviously has legs, if you will, because it's funny, right? We all get it, right? So, I mean, the government of Trinidad spending all week tracking down swollen balls, right?

Don't pretend that it's not funny in that sense and that that's why it has attracted a lot of attention. But now all the Gryfters are in, too. So these guys who were protesting in front of the CDC called Black Hammer, I don't know they're Nicky Minaj fans at all. So they're like, oh, yeah, we're Barb's. Are you? Because in your promotional material, they printed out Babbers versus the CDC.

Pretty sure it's not Babbers. And these guys are a group that's trying to get attention in a thousand different ways. And if they were actually anti-colonial as they claim, great, we're anti-colonial. That's interesting. And if they were a far left group, even further left than us, no problem. We'd have them on. We'd talk about it. But now they're glomming on to like right wing stuff and conspiracy theories.

And as soon as people are paying attention because of Nikki Minaj, all of a sudden, they're, you know, pretending to be your fans. So every grifter in the world is now attached themselves to these enlarged balls. And so, and every time that all of them talk about it, they convince another percentage of the population to not. get the vaccine. And I'll add one last danger to this. Because now, as Nina pointed out, we've been saying on the show, you know, your kids have to get vaccines for polio, chicken pox, et cetera, to go to school.

I was, had an interview in the conversation with some conservatives earlier in the week. And when I told him that, the woman in the interview flipped out and said, no way. So now this is probably going to lead to a resurgence of chicken pox, polio, and those other diseases. Because lunatic right-wingers are going to be like, Oh, we are getting those vaccines.

I don't want those either. Oh, for Christ's sake, man. That's the damage that's done by right-wing propaganda. And a lot of medications, can I just throw that out? A lot of medications, vaccines are not, a lot of medications have side effects. I mean, this foolery that folks are acting like this is the first time that there's been requisite side effects. Some side effect, I don't know about the ball side effects, but, you know, you can take an aspirin. You can get the flu shot that we've been taming the flu for a very long time.

Viruses exist. They exist like humanity exists. They were here before we got here. They're going to be here even after we are gone. The job is trying to tame these viruses so that we can live in some type of stasis. So side effects exist. Blood pressure medicine, any kind of medication that you take may or may not have a certain side effect to a certain group of people, period. I don't know why we acting brand new on this and it is this is dangerous yeah I mean yeah

Rose McGowan jumped in I don't need to go into what she said but I think Jank is absolutely right that like now the grifters have come out and you know I connect this obviously to the politics of Medicare for all I mean it turn it to your run right and and to the fact that if we had Medicare for all and if we didn't if it wasn't so easy to convince people that health care professionals are the enemy or that somehow the CDC is the enemy, right? If we actually trusted our health care professionals, if we could easily visit a doctor, if we had a community doctor available to us, then wow, it'd be so much harder to convince people of ridiculous conspiracy theories about big, about, you know, pharmaceuticals, right? Or vaccines, right? Obviously,

big pharma is that if we broke up big pharma, how much more trust would their be in these life-saving, whether it's medication that could suddenly be affordable or vaccines that are free and saving lives. All right. That's right. We are way out of time. We've stretched this hour for quite some time. All right.

So guys, of course, check out Senator Turner on all of our programs next week as well. But I want to draw your attention to on Thursday, Senator Turner and I are going to do a special for the members, the power hour about how we can attain power, use power, and you're going to love that. So make sure you check that out as well. And everybody check out Franz Podcasts, the Bituation Room. Thank you to both of you. We'd really appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Great second hour coming up. Jackson Squared. And a Republican drops out and says, is sitting U.S. Congressman drops out and says Trump's a cancer. I can't take it anymore. So come back for that story.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.