The Young Turks - Omar's Coming

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

Jewish Democratic lawmakers consider condemning Ilhan Omar for likening Hamas to Israel and the US. ‘No Climate, No Deal’: Dems warn Biden against cutting green energy from the infrastructure plan. A backroom deal to kill single payer healthcare. The Biden administration’s soft lab-leak pressure on China. No, the COVID vaccine doesn’t make forks and spoons stick to you.  Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur   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. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you'll open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business.

Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. All right, well, the young church, Jakey Grant and despair with you guys. Big show ahead. You know, lots of outrage as always, Democrats, Republicans, now we have pre-crime. You know how it was in the movies. It's real now. And it's, by the way, targeted at your kids. So in different counties, if your kids have gotten bad grades or things along those lines,

they will be targeted by law enforcement and their lives will be ruined. So fun. Okay, there is a tiny bit of fun in the show, though. In one of the commercial breaks, not in the main show, but in the commercial place, I'm kidding. We have a fun story of a nun stealing all sorts of money and gambling. That's our idea of fun here. But during one of the commercial breaks, I will be featured in one of the ads, so it'll be fun. Check that out, and we might ask you to vote on it.

Now we might, we will. All right, but anyways, lots of stories to get to. All right. Democrats are going after one of their own, Representative Ilhan Omar, after she asked a perfectly legitimate question to Anthony Blinken, who is the Secretary of State. Now, the question had to do with the investigations pertaining to war crimes that have been committed by various organizations or various governments. And so the critical statement, there was a critical statement following the, hold on, let's take that down. There was a critical statement by her

colleagues following the exchange that you're about to watch right now with Representative Omar and Anthony Blinken. Take a look. I know you oppose the court's investigation in both Palestine and in Afghanistan. I haven't seen any evidence in either cases that domestic courts can both can and will prosecute alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. And I would emphasize that in Israel and Palestine, this includes crimes committed by both Israeli security

forces and Hamas. In Afghanistan, it includes crimes committed, committed by the Afghan national government and the Taliban. So in both of these cases, if domestic courts can't or won't pursue justice, and we oppose the ICC, where do we think the victims of these supposed crimes can go for justice? So that was an important question to ask because the international criminal court, which to probe the Israeli government for possible war crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza is something that the United States government, the Biden administration specifically

does not support. So she's trying to ask, well, if you don't agree with the international criminal court investigating this and we can't rely on domestic governments to investigate their own war crimes, then how do you propose we do these investigations? And that very question offended several dozens of her own colleagues, and I'll tell you who in just a minute. But, Jank, go ahead. Yeah, first, the context is really important there, and you just saw the context.

It's in the context of specific cases of the International Criminal Court. Now, as Anna is going to tell you, they will pretend that that context did not exist. So I will go further than in Alhan Omar, but she did not go that far. She explained exactly what she meant, and those are cases that are. are being adjudicated. So I want you to understand that as you see how they're going to mangle what she said as usual. So following that exchange with Blinken, and of course Blinken gave a non-answer to it, it's not even worth showing to be quite honest with you, but you can check it out online.

Following that exchange, she tweeted the following, we must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the United States. Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban, I ask Secretary Blinken, where people are supposed to go for justice. Now following that, 12 Democratic lawmakers decided to sign a statement condemning Representative Omar for her statement, which, by the way, is completely accurate, okay? And the reason why they're upset is because they feel that it's wrong to compare the United

States and the Israeli government to Hamas and the Taliban. So these 25 Jewish Democrats in the House of Representatives had signed this letter. The 25 members of- No, I just want to be clear about it. Twelve wound up signing. I'm sorry, 12 did, my bad, but 25 of them had gotten together to figure out what they wanted to do moving forward with Ilhan Omar. And Anna, I just right before the show got an excellent source from inside DC that explained that some of those 25 actually fought back and wanted to protect Ilhan Omar. But we'll get to that in a second. Let's see what the 12 said. Right. So as I mentioned, 25 get together. They're trying to figure out how to, I guess, tackle this issue. And in the end, 12 of them had agreed to sign a public

statement. And this is what the public statement said. Equating the United States to Israel, Well, equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban is as offensive as it is misguided, the 12 Democrats wrote in the statement, adding that false equivalencies give cover to terrorist groups. And Congressman Brad Sherman actually took it a step further by releasing another statement where he says, he says this, it's not news that Ilhan Omar would make outrageous and clearly false statements about America. and Israel. What's newsworthy is that she admits Hamas is guilty of unspeakable atrocities. It's time for all of Israel's detractors to condemn Hamas, and it is time for all those of goodwill to reject any moral equivalency between the United States and Israel on one hand, and Hamas and the Taliban on the other. So the United States has committed war crimes. We've committed war crimes fairly recently, under Donald Trump, certainly, under the Obama administration.

Obama conducted a drone strike on a U.S. citizen with no due process. He murdered a U.S. citizen using a drone strike and then killed his 16-year-old son using a drone strike as well. I mean, you can go back decades and talk about how the United States orchestrated coups in various countries, including Guatemala, for on behalf of business interests here in the United States. led to the slaughter of countless indigenous people, not just in Guatemala, but in other Latin American countries. I know that we like to pretend that in the U.S., whenever we commit war crimes, it's okay because we do it to spread democracy.

But we know what the reality of the situation is, and we can't pretend as if our actions are totally fine, even when it leads to, you know, countless deaths, which we later refer to as collateral damage. Is Brad Sherman your congressman? Yeah, Brad Sherman is my congressperson. Certainly will not be voting for him. I hope that he gets primaried. Interesting about that.

All right, so I have a lot to say about this. But first, I want to tell you about the good folks who fought back, okay? So look, there's rising anti-Semitism in the country, and I don't want any progressive to conflate the issues we have with Israeli foreign policy, Israeli policy, and American policy with anything else. So yes, it was reported that 25 Jewish Democrats got together to talk, but you have to understand a lot of people in the room did not want to sign the statement, and more than half of them did not sign it. And in fact, some people in the room argued vociferously against it. So I want to be careful, so I'm going to read this statement I have from a well-placed source in D.C.

They say that Jamie Raskin was reportedly approached, and according to someone at the meeting, declined to be part of the effort, and asked whether the point was the advanced international law and human rights. rights or to give people another chance to take a shot at Ilhan. Raskin declined comment. So Jamie Raskin was in that meeting and apparently he was one of the people who fought back vigorously and said this is a really bad idea. So understand some of the top progressives of the country, some of the top Democrats in the country, including on this issue, are Jewish Democrats. So God bless Jamie Raskin for doing that.

Now let's get to the core of the issue. Ilhan Omar had a great tweet about this. She said basically like, oh, you guys are all my colleagues when you need my vote. We have that tweet. Yeah, let's go to it and then I want to give you more context. Yeah, so she specifically called about, there we go. It's shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for clarification and not just call. The Islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive.

The constant harassment and silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable. And I'm glad that she's fighting back against it because she's calling it what it is. She didn't say anything that was inaccurate. Yeah, so now if you're a United States congressperson and either you saw the video we showed you of Ilhan Omar putting it into context, and you chose to smear her instead, and you never even called her for clarification, or and you used her tweet as an excuse, or you saw her tweet And you didn't bother calling her, hey, Ilhan, what did you mean by this? My dear colleague, when I come to you for votes on corporate issues that my backers want,

I always go, oh, my colleague, my colleague, and Ilhan, Omar, and AOC, and all the other Justice Democrats, you don't want to upset your colleagues, we're your friends and allies, et cetera. But even if you didn't see the video and you missed the entire context, you got, you had a whole meeting. some people in the meeting said that they knew the context and they defended her. So you knew, you knew, and you chose to smear her anyway. So don't come around here with colleagues. And so the guys who smeared her are, of course, more conservative Democrats. Of course.

By the way, God knows what they're covering up and why they wanted to distract with this issue. And it is a giant distraction. And by the way, hurts their own party. So now it gives the Republicans an opening to say, Marjorie Taylor Green, I can't tell the difference. Now we can show you the facts, the context, we can show you everything. Now she's talking about specific cases in the international criminal court. Marjorie Taylor Green is talking about Jewish space lasers.

But these Democrats, what happened to unity, by the way? These are conservative Democrats who are supposed to be like, oh, unity, unity, unity, only if they want their priorities, which are almost always corporate priorities, right? But when it comes to any other issue, they're like, oh, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, How can we help you? How can we help you destroy our own party? Because we don't give a damn about unity. All we care about is the people who pay checks, the campaign contributions.

That's why uncorrupted politicians like Ilhan Omar, all the just immigrants and Jamie Raskin are so, so, so important. And to the point, issue is making about covering up war crimes. They say, oh, how could you say this about our beloved America and Israel? We have court systems that adjudicate this unlike Hamas. And we were elected in a democracy. Well, it's uncomfortable, but Hamas was elected. And then as soon as they were elected, we said, oh, that one doesn't count. That one doesn't count.

We don't like it if you picked the guy we didn't want, right? But more importantly, what court system? What fairness? So remember the Apache helicopter video that Chelsea Manning exposed? Well, she was put in jail for it, but no one who actually murdered those journalists in Iraq, those are Americans. None of them went to jail. Kerkow exposed that we were torturing people in the CIA.

He went to jail for exposing it. None of the torturers went to jail. None, none, let alone the bank bailouts if we're talking about other domestic issues where none of the bankers who crashed our economy went to jail because our justice system is a joke. It protects the rich, it protects the powerful, and most of all, it protects corporations that run this whole country, right? And they're executives and the people that they donate to.

So, and if you look here, and I'm giving an example about Israel now, in Israel they say, well, if you have deeds from hundreds of years ago saying this something is your property or your house, you're allowed to go and brutalize Palestinians that are there and, oh, so we're using the court system, we're using the court system. And then Palestinians go and say, okay, well, here was my deed to my house pre-1948. I was in that house in 1948, and there's no question, it's my house. Here's the deed. The Israeli court system says, no, you're a Palestinian, you don't count.

You're not allowed to use your deeds. You're not allowed to have property disputes. You don't count. So let's just be real and honest. Now, last things, I'll go further than Ilhan Omar. So I don't think it's just the international court cases. Yes, I mean, Brad Sherman and the rest, they have some point. There is a false equivalency.

Israel kills way more innocent Palestinians than Hamas kills innocent Israelis. I don't want either side killing anyone innocent, any civilian at all. And they're like, oh yeah, do you condemn Hamas? That's the easiest thing in the world. Of course we condemn people when they hit innocent civilians. And they say, ha ha, okay, so good, you condemn Hamas. Well, do you condemn Israel when they kill 10 times, 20 times as many innocent civilians, including children? No.

No, they're beloved. Okay, well your bias is screaming through. And so the people who have a problem are not Ilhan Omar who are calling out the facts. It's the people who are intensely hypocritical, very conservative while being in the Democratic Party. And that is destroying the credibility of the Democratic Party and their foreign policy objectives are hideous. And their attacks at fellow Democrats are unconscionable. All right, let's get to our next story. our next story because it looks like the progressives in Congress are finally waking up

and planning on fighting back against some of these concessions that the Biden administration is willing to give to the GOP. So progressive members of the House of Representatives are now considering potentially holding their vote on Biden's infrastructure bill should he decide to give up key provisions pertaining to climate change. Now, this all started after the National climate advisor, Gina McCarthy, suggested that climate policies proposed in Biden's original American jobs plan, that's the infrastructure bill, such as a clean electricity standard, could be left on the cutting room floor as the president seeks a compromise deal with a bipartisan group of senators. Now, Biden has moved on from working with a group of

GOP senators because maybe he finally realized that they were negotiating in bad faith. Now he's working with a bipartisan group of senators who are also negotiating in bad faith because they don't want to raise any taxes on the rich in order to raise revenue to pay for the infrastructure bill. But nonetheless, in response to that, you finally have some Democratic lawmakers who are saying, no, not going to vote for this unless it includes these key provisions on climate change. Martin Henrik is one example who said an infrastructure package that goes light on climate and energy and clean energy should not count on every Democratic vote. Ed Marquis was even more clear by saying that he would not vote for it. No climate, no deal. Obviously, he's from the

Senate. And Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also said that Biden and Senate Democrats should take a step back and ask themselves if playing patty cake with GOP senators is really worth the dismantling of people's voting rights, setting the planet on fire, allowing massive corporations and the wealthy to not pay their fair share of taxes, etc. So it seems like they're threatening to hold their vote as a block. And if they do that, understand that they have the leverage, The legislation would not pass in the House if progressive members of Congress did decide to hold their vote as a block. Now, whether or not they're actually going to do it is another question, but I do like that they're at least thinking about doing that and at least thinking about using the leverage they do have to get some of the concessions that progressive deserve and need. Yeah, and he goes beyond that too.

But first, I want to say, told you. And this is not to go, oh, yeah, I'm a talk show host who got it right. Yay me, okay? I do that plenty, don't get me wrong. But in this case, it has a very important point. We said that Biden didn't really want to do the Green New Deal parts of the infrastructure bill, and that he would take it out. And we were told, no, Jenk, Anna, Youngtress, you guys don't understand. You're being hysterical. Biden is FDR 2.0. And he's definitely, he said it. Well, when a politician says something, they obviously mean it, right? No. No, not obviously. Now, why did we say that he wasn't going to do it? Because we know Biden's track history. We know what drives politics. What drives politics is the donors. And the donors don't want the Green New Deal part of it. They never wanted it. They don't want it now. Under no circumstances, do they want it? We told you that they would keep the parts that would help only corporations. And so right now, what is the Republican proposal that they're negotiating over? They're negotiating over. How do we privatize these roads?

and do tolls and different gas tax, et cetera, to make sure Americans pay for it. Romney and the other Republicans are assisting, no taxes ever for any corporations or the rich. We're not gonna allow a single cent to be raised from that. I told you, I told you, I told you. Now mansion, and not just mansion,

don't let Biden hide behind mansion. Biden is go, wow, okay, well, I told. And now that's a second I told you. I said to you that the Democrats, they were lucky would get to between 800 billion and 1.1 trillion, and even though he had proposed 2.2 to 2.3 trillion. Oh, Jank. Oh, how do you know? You don't know you're being so unfair to Biden? Well, I do know. How do I know? I'm not a mind reader. Chris Coos, his top ally in the Senate. God, is there a single reporter in Washington? Chris Coos comes out on television and says 800 billion.

That's a Democrat from Delaware. When he says that, that means they're very likely going to end up at around 800 billion. Right now they're discussing 900 billion. Told you, it's not at all complicated. You can figure it out too. And our audience is a thousand times smarter and often does talk about that way better than a new reporter. Now the most important part of all this is that means you should fight back. We asked you to fight back earlier because we knew that he wasn't going to do 50 nominal wage and I can go down the list, including this, right? Now the great It's just they are, they are, they are. So if you want to push them when they're not fighting, great, that's smart and strategic

politics. When they are fighting, if you still say, oh, no, not good enough, yeah, just Democrats are the worst, well, no, it looks like you were trying to destroy progressives. Because right now, they're doing the right thing. AOC and the rest are saying, no, no deal. Even Ed Markey, no deal. Jamal Bowman, no deal, no deal. We're not going to give you our vote.

The one more thing, when they say no deal, they say, what, you know what they're going to do. And this is upcoming now. I'm going to tell you ahead of time about this. Now you will see a slew of articles in the next couple of days and weeks where the mainstream media, the corporate media, will back to corporate Democrats. They don't say, tut, tut, tut, these justice Democrats and this squad, how dare they, they could kill this whole bill. They said, half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. That's actually not true. Actually, the majority of the Republican proposal.

And by the way, when Biden says yes, he's taking the Republican proposal, not the Democratic proposal. The Republican proposal, most of it is taking the COVID relief bill that they bragged about and repurposing it. That's most of the money. And then they're going to sprinkle a little bit on top, and that all goes to private corporations to rebuild the roads and you pay for it. I don't even want that deal. That's not half a loaf. That goes backwards. That goes backwards and uses the money that was.

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Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. supposed to go to the American people for a different purpose. So every part of this stinks. And I love that the Justice Democrats are fighting back. All right. So when we come back from the break, we'll discuss what's happening in New York and the efforts to pass a single-payer health care system in that state. Unfortunately, there are the usual suspects who are fighting against it. But there are unusual suspects also fighting against it.

We'll give you those details and more when we come back. All right, back in the anchor, so many great comments. First of all, John Simon, thank you, brother. Just join by hitting the join button below. I'm gonna get back to that later in the show, because we have an announcement about it. A little crabby dragon said in our member section, I can always count on TYT for clarity and digging deeper on every issue. I love all of you.

Well, we love you too. Effectus says, easy way to push Biden on climate change. Point out that we have been less than five years before devastating, irreversible change. If he was in office for four of those years and did next to nothing, the American people will never forgive him. It doesn't matter. I love your brother, but nothing's gonna break through to him. He doesn't hear it.

All he hears is corporations whispering in his ear, sweet nothing's going, oh yeah, yeah, oh half a loaf is great, a quarter of a loaf, a negative loaf is great, it's great, it's great, Joe, you're such a hero. And then, I can't help it, like, the people that frustrated me the most in that 15-nominum wage fight and that are now very, very, very slowly turning on. Not the just Democrats in Congress, it's the progressive groups. All of them seeking access desperately. Oh my God, FDR 2.0!

No, no, no, he was never going to do it. Half a loaf sucks and it's not half a loaf. So anyway, you're not going to get through to Biden. This presidency's already over and make you see the silver hair dragon rights in. I do hope Omar does not apologize this time, she's correct to call out our And the power and Israeli violence and interference in other countries' politics? No, they've learned that lesson a long time ago. No, she's not at all apologizing at her and the rest of the just Democrats are fighting back super hard.

Oh, by the way, Cory Bush was a great voice on that too. Tommy Too Strong says the US and Israel's hands aren't clean. Even when it comes to Hamas and the Taliban themselves, Israel helped create Hamas to oppose the PLO, and the US helped create the Taliban, the Mujahideen, to oppose the Soviet Union. Those are absolute facts. Of course, no one in mainstream media knows that, or they like to actively cover it up. Oh, Hamas, I don't know where they came from, one of my journalists. All right, now let me go to speaking of foreign policy, let me go to YouTube super chat.

Sean Uppley writes in, Anna and the TYT team nailed the coverage on the Peru election. I have friends who voted there and feel Castillo is the same as Biden, not what they wanted, but better than the alternative. TYT rules. Thank you. I really appreciate it because those stories. I go through a lot to make sure that I get the facts right. And just to be open and honest with you guys,

it's frustrating to go through all of that hard work, make sure I get the facts right, and then deal with former employees from this company trashing us based on nothing, and then people just believe what they have to say. So I appreciate that kind message, and that's what keeps me going. 100%, and it's so easy to lie about us.

Anyway, that's a whole long story. long a story. They're the worst. All they do is try to profit off of their goddamn lives. Anyways, we got to take a break. So many of you are so wonderful. We'll be right back and read a couple more comments. All right, back on the Young Turks. I just want to give a shout out to a couple of YouTube super chat folks who are so nice with both their contributions and the comments. Sean Humbleby wrote in, TYT deserves a support. The TYT army earned it. We make TYT, keep it up team. We appreciate and love your hard work, steel dragon. Thank you guys. And you do. absolutely make up TYT. There's a lot of lies about, oh, yeah, they've, where we get our money

from. It's insanity. It's from you guys. So everybody who hits that join button goes to tyt.com slash change, etc. You are the ones who support us and make this show possible. We're nothing without you guys. And British 32 wrote in, hi, Jen and Anna, great combo is normal tonight. Do you think Omar AOC and Justice and Progressive Dems will use their votes as power now that more than double standards have been exposed again on a basic comment she made, TYT 2021. Thank you for the question. I just want to clarify real quick. Guys, we do nuance on TYT. We do it, we're proud of it, and it's a smart and right thing to do. So if the just Democrats are, people are trying to force them into our nonsense to go vote that doesn't make

any sense, we're going to say no. If people are forcing them into a vote that is desperately needed like the $15 minimum wage, we're going to say yes. So now when they call out the corporate Democrats, we say yes, that's awesome. But if at the end they cave and they give them their votes on a terrible bill, we'll say no, and we'll say that was wrong. Because facts matter, they just do. And if you listen to people who say facts don't matter, only my emotions matter, and I'm going to rage and call everyone else corrupt, et cetera, without any facts to back it up,

well, that's your choice. But I love our audience because you guys are smart and strategic just like that. All right, Anna. Well, we have some news about a single-payer health care system in New York. Unfortunately, there's a huge obstacle. So the majority of lawmakers in New York's legislature actually support a bill that would change its health care system to a single-payer health care system. It's very similar to what the bill in California in 2017 was attempting to do. Since we can't get single payer on a national level, California in 2017 thought,

why don't we do it statewide? That effort failed. And now, unfortunately, it looks like this effort in New York State is set to fail as well, not because the lawmakers are against it, but because there are two different groups of people actively fighting against it and preventing democratic leadership in the state from even allowing a vote on it. So the bill known as the New York Health Act has passed the state assembly five times before. This year, the legislative session is coming to a close with the New York Health Act stuck in committee, not even having received a vote in the assembly. So why is that?

What's going on? Well, as the Daily Poster reports, advocates say that under pressure from both insurance corporations and, yes, labor unions, New York legislative leaders are not planning to hold an up or down vote on the measure before the legislative session ends on Thursday. So again, it's a popular bill among voters in New York. The state legislature overwhelmingly supports it. It would easily pass, but it's being held up in committee by Democratic leadership in that state as a result of private health care interests and labor unions, which, Jenk, take it away.

Yeah. So look, again, this requires nuance. Unions are wonderful on so many different things. And when they take on big corporations and they organize, you get collective bargaining, which you desperately need, okay? On the other hand, recently in America, for whatever reason, and I'm going to explain one of the reasons for you in this context, unions have supported pro-corporate positions. And that is maddening, maddening. And I guess in a country that is, has runaway crony capitalism, maybe it's not that surprising. So in Glenn Greenwald, I disagree with a lot of what he says recently, but half of what he says is still very good, and especially references to his old work. And he had this theory on rotating villains on Democrats, which I agreed with and wrote about over a decade ago, okay? And now unions are beginning to do rotating villains. So in one state, we'll have the SEIU oppose single payer health care.

And now in New York, they're the good guys. and they're helping with single payer health care. Well, when they're the good guys, I'm super happy to have them. Great, right? By the way, there's one union that's always been the good guys. It's the nurses union. They've been wonderful on this issue, the best fighters on this issue. But here we are in New York.

We picked a different union this time. The teachers. Yeah, the United Federation of Teachers. Yeah, I want to be specific. Thank you, Annie. United Federation of Teachers. Because do not lump everybody together, do not lump all unions together, etc. But in this case, they are actively fighting against single payer health care, and it is swinging the balance because the Democrats have complete control in New York.

Yet golly gee, they can't pass anything. And on this one, just like in California, in California there is a super majority. And how do they prevent? And Wolfpack has gone through this a hundred times on the issue of money in politics. And yes, it's almost always the Democrats now that block progress. And that doesn't let the Republicans off the hook. They're usually the bad guys as well, if not more. but it is democratically controlled states like New York and California where they can just pass anything they want and they choose not to.

And the way that they do that is they go, well, we all agree except, oh, golly gee, there's just one person but he controls such an important committee and he won't let it out of committee. Oh, well, golly gee, he made it out of committee and everybody voted yes, but the assembly leader in California won't put it up for a vote. And on the issue of money in politics, constantly they won't put it up for a vote. Because if they put it up for a vote, then they're going to have to say, oh, yeah, I was lying the whole time. I actually served my donors. I don't serve you at all. Eric Olson was a local progressive candidate in California. He had the best quote on this.

He said, we have a super majority. Who are we negotiating with? We're not negotiating with the Republicans. We're negotiating with our donors. That is exactly right. And in this case, why would the unions be against health care for everybody? Well, there's a very good reason why. They claim their claims are already terrible, but there's actually another.

reason. They claim, well, we already negotiated good rates for our union members, so we don't want anybody else to have it. Oh, God. So how can you say that? Let me be more specific, because that's not quite their argument. What they are arguing, and I don't think it's a good argument, is that they negotiated health care plans on behalf of their workers, and that required maybe sacrificing wages to ensure that. So, but here's the thing. thing. So in the case of the New York City Municipal Labor Committee, right, this is the Labor Committee that's fighting aggressively against this effort to provide single payer health care, they're essentially saying, look, we're against this unless the bill is written

in such a way that there are carve-outs for our workers. So just understand that for a second. They're actually working against their workers in this scenario because you would have a single payer health care system free at the point of service. You don't have to worry about deductibles. You don't have to worry about co-pays. You don't have to worry about premiums, okay? They want to ensure that their workers wouldn't get to benefit from that single payer health care system and would have to rely on the private health insurance that's provided by their employer, which clearly, based on how private insurance works, is nowhere near as good as a single payer health care plan would be. So that's 100% right with one caveat. That caveat is really important. I'm going to get to it in a second.

But so following up on what Anna is saying, so those unionized workers, you are still better off under single payer. That's absolutely true, and I'm glad she clarified that. But the argument, the public argument that we negotiated for a system that is not as good as single payer, but better than everyone else in this brutal system, is not a winning argument. That's an argument saying, I'm slightly above you on the totem pole, and I want to make sure that I stay that. way. And that's a terrible, second terrible part of their public argument is, well, we already negotiated that. Then why don't, now if we have single payer healthcare, you know what you would get to do? You would get to negotiate again, and this time argue for higher wages.

100%. In fact, it would be way easier to negotiate higher wages under a single payer healthcare system because workers are not tethered to their job based on health insurance benefits. I mean, And how many people want to leave, they want upward mobility, but they feel like, hey, I can't leave as a result of this healthcare system. I can't lose the healthcare coverage. And you would, not only would you have healthcare for your workers, you would get to argue for higher wages, but you also gain leverage because they can leave, as Anna pointed out, right? So why would you make such a terrible argument in public?

is there's any even worse reason why they're actually against it. Because some of the unions have insurance that they are providing, not the employers. And that's what helps hook people into unions, because they are generally speaking good healthcare, right? So they think, well, then they might not want to join a union if they already have completely free healthcare that gets rid of the need to use our pretty good health care at the union. Oh, no, you cannot do that, man. That's in the union's self-interest, but that's not in the union member's self-interest. That's not in the workers' interest.

It is brazenly corrupt, brazenly corrupt. We want to support the teachers so bad. We supported every teacher's strike here, and they desperately needed those raises. And here comes their leadership in their unions saying, we don't want people to get health care because of our greed. It's unconscionable. And you really got to give credit to and support excellent journalists like David Sarota. And Julia Rock, who wrote this story, the Daily Post. Yeah, David started the Daily Poster and Julia wrote that story.

And there's others like Ryan Grimm, et cetera, who are progressive journalists who are unafraid to call on anybody no matter what side they're on. And that is very rare. So I understand that in New York, if you don't have single payer health care, it was both corporations, corrupt Democrats. and yes, unfortunately, some of the unions who screwed you here. All right, we have a COVID vaccine-related block coming up. I want to take the break a little early, get that out of the way. And when we come back, we'll discuss, yes, the lab leak story.

It's developed to the point where I feel comfortable sharing the details without sharing any misinformation unwittingly. And then later in the same block, we'll also talk about some of the insane conspiracy theories that were shared in an Ohio state hearing about the COVID vaccine. Come right back. All right, so I want to announce membership change here at TYT. So we tried a $1.99 level on YouTube channel memberships. Now at that price, we honestly lose money on it.

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and other folks that can get the show at that $1.99 by going to t.wit.com slash join, either join or upgrade, and you'll see all of your options. So thank you guys for understanding and for helping one another as we try to get not only the truth out through the show, but also to drive positive change in the world. And we love doing that with you guys. I'll have more of your comments in the next break. Thank you. All right, back on TYT, Jen Canana with you guys.

I asked for membership during the social break we had. And here we go right now. Christopher Johan, David S., Molly says, Amanda Hobson, all just joined by hitting the join button below. Now everybody gets YouTube channel membership going forward gets the bonus episode. And we're going to have a great one tonight about the hypocrisy of the right wing on the use of the N-word. And then I'm going to read one fun YouTube super chat, Ray Turner, aka the bearded dragon, wrote in. Anna, excellent Welsh pronunciation last night.

I don't know what that means. Oh, yeah, someone wrote in a comment and it had some stuff in there, some Welsh stuff in there. Okay, well, it's your worst thank you I've ever seen. Thank you, thank you. Okay, thanks guys. All right, what's that? All right, so Joe Biden is calling for a full investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, and he is, of course, referring to some plausibility regarding the lab leak theory.

Now, this story's been developing. I've been holding off because there are all sorts of questionable actors at play. However, it does appear that there is some indication that a lab leak in Wuhan, China is the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, let me be clear, it has not been proven yet, but the previous thought of it being literally impossible was inaccurate. Now, of course, people also felt that it was nothing more than a conspiracy theory based on who it was coming from, someone like Donald Trump, who most people I think do feel

little skeptical about. However, a report on the origins of the COVID-19 virus by the US government and its national laboratory concluded that the hypothesis claiming that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan is in fact plausible and deserves further investigation, which is why Biden is calling for a full investigation into that. Now, the study was prepared in May of 2020 by the Lawrence Livermore, Livermore National Library in California and was drawn by the State Department when it conducted an inquiry into the pandemic's origins during a final, or the final months of the Trump administration. So what makes this study important is that it was done by a reputable organization.

And so that's part of the reason why Biden's taking it seriously. That's the reason why the State Department's taking it seriously. And so I'm uncertain about whether or not we're actually going to get to the bottom of it, but it is important to keep in mind that this theory is plausible. And if it is proven to be true, I think that there are some pretty serious consequences for our institutions which are already dealing with, honestly, a lack of trust among voters and Americans in general. Yeah.

So I'm really disturbed by this story. So when it coronavirus first broke, we found out there was a virus lab in Wuhan. First thing I thought is, well, that's an awful strange coincidence. So a virus naturally broke out right next to a virus lab. It could happen, but probably the odds are against it. But you know what, I trust a scientist. And so that is why I'm really discouraged by a letter that Lancet put out. And that's a very respected journal, and I relied on that letter.

And look, guys, there's Faga war in not just war, but in many things that happen quickly, where we haven't gotten all the facts yet. So sometimes there's an active shooter and people say, oh, he's a Christian terrorist, he's a Muslim terrorist, he's this, he's that, it's personal, it's not personal, and there's There's also a wild theory, he's going out there in the first 24, 48 hours, right? I can give you a thousand examples from, et cetera. And in this case, the science was unsettled for so long because it was a novel coronavirus, right?

It's a novel virus. And so we counseled you all throughout, be careful with the information that's coming out. Let's listen to the scientists, the collection of scientists, but some things in science are very well settled, like climate change and gravity, those are settled, right? There's the people who want to manufacture doubt about them, usually working at the oil companies and the people that fund that, right? But there are things that are not settled. Where did coronavirus come from, et cetera? So when Lancet put out a letter from a collection of doctors saying it is pretty much definitely not manmade, I believe that. That is why the erosion of trust in these institutions is deeply problematic.

It leads people to wild conspiracy theories when you find out that some of the best journals didn't do it right. And so they should do a deep investigation as to who signed on to the idea that it was definitely not manmade. Because now we find out, no. There's a possibility. And guys, understand that it's not settled today, right? There's a lot more work to be done on it, so we don't know for sure. But now they've opened up the possibility of, oops, it might be manmade. Right, and- That's a very large oops.

And the central issue here is the type of research that some of these signed- do in these labs, it's known as gain of function. And so I think that the scientists who signed on to this Lancet letter condemning anyone who called into question whether this was a lab leak was really fueled and motivated by potentially like their self-interest and a fear that the way gain of function is funded, that research is funded, could become an issue, right? So I do want to read you a few excerpts from the letter that. that the Lancet had published on its website early on in the pandemic, again, condemning anyone

who says that it was a lab leak. And now it turns out that there is some possibility that it was a lab leak. Again, it hasn't been proven. I want to be clear about that. But they wrote at the Lancet that the rapid open and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumors and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. And when they talk about natural origin, what they're referring to is humans getting it from animals, like eating bats, for instance. That was one of the things that was pretty prominent in the beginning of the pandemic. Now conspiracy theories, they continue to write,

do nothing but create fear, rumors and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against the virus. We support the call from the Director General of the World Health Organization to promote scientific evidence and unity over misinformation and conjecture. But one thing that I should note is that a World Health Organization advisory board member, his name is Jamie Metzel, was disgusted by that statement by the Lancet because he felt like there was politics at play. He explains that in a little more detail in this clip. Yes, it's on Fox News, but I think what he says here is important. take a look.

The question is going forward, what was the motivation? Because apparently that Lancet statement was organized by Peter Daszik, the president of Echo Health that funneled the money from the NIH to the lab. And he didn't want the gain of function narrative getting legs. Yeah, so there's a lot there. Certainly many people, the small number of people actually who were raising this issue in early last year were labeled conspiracy theorists. I know because I was one of them.

And yes, there were some people who were called right wing nuts, but I'm not a right wing nut. I'm actually a progressive Democrat. And so for me, the question isn't, is this a right wing or left wing thing? It's just let's look at the data and just be honest. And you're absolutely right. That Lancet letter published in February of last year was an outrage because without sufficient data, the authors of that letter declared.

that it's very, very likely a natural origin and called anybody, like me, who was raising possible alternatives, a conspiracy theorist. And one of the reasons why I've called for Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, to step down, is because I feel that letter, it was not data-driven science, it was scientific propaganda and thuggery. And Peter Dasek, you correctly point out, manipulated that process behind the scenes, hiding the fact that a number the signatories were on his payroll, and in many other ways. So that's why we need data-driven sign. Yeah.

So I think he's right there. And look, this is the problem. It's not just like the right wingers who don't trust our institutions. People in general in America right now don't trust our institutions. They don't trust the CDC, they don't trust our corporate media, they don't trust our politicians. That's part of the reason why when someone like Donald Trump utters that it was a lab leak, people like me, to be quite honest with you, dismiss it because he said all sorts of insane things, including injecting disinfectant in order to fight the virus if you contract it.

So this is the issue, this problem is only gonna be exacerbated by this story, even if it's proven that it wasn't a lab leak. I don't even think it matters at this point. The institutions in this country have failed the American people. I don't know what to believe. When the story first broke, Jank, I was like, I don't know, do I trust Biden? Because Biden has all sorts of war mongering rhetoric in regard to China. Is this part of that, right?

So it's hard to know who to trust and who to believe, and that's an issue in this country. Yeah, look, in this case, I'm glad Biden called for an investigation. I would not go any further than that. We are not in favor of necessarily of sanctions or war or any insanity, right? No, no, no, no, no. You can please, for God's sake, everybody, you do nuance, right? So let's talk it through it in this particular case. So you can tell, you know, Fox News 101 is to use so-called progressives to attack progressives.

This is not one of those cases. You know, people that they use like that, they don't often refer to right-wing nuts on Fox News. And I don't know if you could tell, but when he said that, Ducey was trying to get him off of that. He said, I tried to interrupt when he said right wing nuts twice, right? So there's a real scientist who was right, it appears, was right from the get-go, right? And he's so right about Lancet and that Peter Desek, who wrote the letter and got others to sign on to it, because actually calling legitimate things like this scientist was saying

as a possibility to investigate, calling those conspiracy theories, nothing helps conspiracy theories more than that. Exactly, 100%. Because then you go, wait a minute, but Gulf of Tonkin, we know that America was lying about that. Look, I would argue the JFK killings is a preposterous government explanation, but everyone in mainstream media goes, oh no, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory, right? On the other hand, there's tons of actual conspiracy theories that are nowhere near true,

including one we're going to cover later in the show today about how if you take the vaccine, metal sticks to you, right? But then the conspiracy theorists like the Alex Jones of the world, and now some on the left, get to go, oh, well, you see that? You can't believe anything, so it must be the aliens. Or everybody's a crisis actor, et cetera, et cetera. So that's why I'm so mad at Lancet for ruining the credibility of some of the institutions that we used to trust, because the government is one thing.

You always take what the government says with a grain of salt, if you're actually a real reporter or actually follow the news carefully, right? It doesn't mean the government's lying about everything, and it also doesn't mean the government's telling the truth about everything. The conspiracy theorists say government lies 100% of the time. Mainstream media says the government tells the truth 100% of the time. That's preposterous, right? But scientists actually generally do tell the truth, right?

And so do doctors, etc. That's why this one hurts so much. But also, let me just note that, yes, when we think of the government, I think oftentimes we think about elected politicians, Democrats, Republicans, or what have you. But the government also includes organizations like the CDC, right? And when the CDC and Anthony Fauci, like, start the pandemic communication and messaging off with, don't wear masks, it's actually counterproductive, intentionally. lying to the American people because they know there's a mask shortage and they don't want

ordinary Americans to go out and buy masks so nurses and doctors have access to them. That leads to people losing trust in these institutions. It's a problem. It would have been far better for Anthony Fauci to come out and just simply say, listen, we have a broken system where we rely and exploit, we rely on and exploit cheap labor in other countries. And since we can't rely on that, you know, supply chain right now, we have a shortage of masks and we need to make sure that doctors and nurses have access to them. Please don't buy the masks. You stay home, shelter in place, you'll be safe. He didn't do that though. They lied and said that masks are counterproductive. And that kind of messaging, again, leads to this environment

and climate of distrust. Yeah. And look, both on Fauci and trauma, let's do nuance there. First, when the heart of what Fauci said throughout the crisis, which is wear the mask, get tested, and we need the PPE, and then of course get vaccinated. We're all true, right? But we called them out immediately on the thing that wasn't true, that you didn't need mass in the beginning, as Anna just pointed out. It's possible to say Fauci got one thing wrong and other things right. Like, well, you don't have to fall into a camp of either I despise Fauci.

and he should be arrested, or Fauci's saint and never did anything wrong. And I'll call him out again. The other day, he just said yesterday, basically, if you're criticizing Anthony Fauci, and he uses his name in the third person, you're criticizing science. No, no, that's not true. You're not infallible. Right. You're not the only scientist in the world.

So you can see where Fauci is right, and you can see where Fauci is wrong. Use your own judgment. And on Trump, last thing, he didn't get it right. He didn't go talk to that scientist, he didn't go talk to the other scientists. He didn't talk to any scientist, right? He's just like, I don't like it. I think it might have come from China. A broken clock is right twice a day, right?

And so if he showed that he had actually consulted the scientist, then I would say, oh, well, okay, no problem. Even though I don't like Trump, I'm giving him credit on other things, right? He didn't consult any size you think scientists told him to inject bleach, to your lungs? Okay, no. And so, and he wasn't right on 90% of what he said about coronavirus. Exactly, which is why it was so easy to dismiss the lab leak story. But now, you know, luckily Biden is calling for an investigation. We'll see if we get down to the bottom of what the origin of the virus is. And we'll go from there. But I think at the end of the day,

the key takeaway from this story and this whole debacle is the very institutions that have already lost trust among the American people are not making the situation better for themselves. We're continuing to lose trust. So, all right, I'm going to do one more story before we go to our second hour break. So let's do it. A prominent anti-vaxxer testified in the Ohio State House to raise her concerns about an alleged side effect of the coronavirus vaccine that you may not know about. Watch. What is it that's actually being transmitted that's causing all of these things? Is it a combination of the protein which now we're finding has a metal attached to it? I'm sure you've seen the pictures all over the internet of people who've had these

shots and now they're magnetized and put a key on their forehead it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick because now we think that there's a metal piece to That was Sherry Tenpenny. She's an osteopath and she believes, genuinely, that taking the coronavirus vaccine magnetizes you. And there was another person who actually stood up and testified the same thing. And in fact, wanted to demonstrate how accurate this conspiracy theory really is. Let's take a look at that. We were talking about Dr. Tenpenny's testimony about magnetic vaccine crystals. So this is what I found out. So I have a key and a bobby pin here. Explain to me why the key sticks to me. It sticks to my neck too.

Yeah, so if somebody can explain this, that would be great. Listen, obviously we're going to have the substantive discussion about this in just a moment. But my favorite part of that video other than the fact that her demonstration failed miserably were the people behind her who were making wonderful facial expressions. So we have two videos to share quickly. Let's take a look at the first one. Explain to me why the key sticks to me. It sticks to my neck too. Yeah, so if somebody can explain this, that would be great. Any questions? But she wasn't the only one who had that reaction. One more video for you all, let's take a look.

Explain to me why the key sticks to me. It sticks to my neck too. Yeah, so if somebody can explain this, that would be great. Any questions? But it didn't stick. It didn't stick. She did the demonstration. It didn't stick.

It didn't stick. And she said, can you, can someone explain this to me? It didn't stick. Yeah, we can explain it to you. Your theory is wrong. There, I just explained it. No, that first woman wins the internet, okay? When she was like, okay, look, we're going to do the experiment too because the first expert

said that she saw it on the internet, so it must be true. It must be true. And I swear I haven't done this before, I'm fully vaccinated, so let's try it, okay? So I've got the keys here, and let's see if this works here. Well, we just disproved it. Okay, because you saw it on the internet, so it must be true. Okay. No, look guys, there's a funny part of this with, does the vaccination, the vaccine?

make you magneto? No. Okay, it doesn't make you any of the X-Men. It doesn't make you you don't magically go to the Marvel comic universe. None of those things happened. The 5G is not a plan by Bill Gates to kidnap children and put them into the 5G magnet and whatever the craziness you believe. But okay, so that's obvious, right? But the two things that flow from it are devastating. One is it's not obvious to a lot of people and they live with us, right? So a lot of folks look at that and think, yeah, oh yeah, that makes total sense. Yep, mm-hmm, yeah, and think about it, you know that everyone who believes that tried it. They tried to put a fork on their head, they tried the key thing I just tried, and it didn't work, but they still believed it.

It's, it's, I don't, I, what do we do? What do we do? She did the demonstration in real time and still asked, can someone explain this to me? Yeah, I'll explain that the key did not stick to the side of your neck. You should know that, but okay, so your theory is null and void, it's nonsense. No, but Jake, like, what are we going to do? And that's the other thing. So to Ms. Tenpenny, she says it's all over the internet.

No, it's all over your Facebook feed because you clicked on one conspiracy theory story and Facebook with its algorithm serves you up more and more and more of that conspiracy theory. So she logs into Facebook and she's like, everyone's seeing this, right? Everyone is seeing the exact same feed I'm seeing that's like littered with insane conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic. No, not everyone sees it. And I think it is a problem with how these algorithms on these social media platforms work. They keep people in these ideological bubbles. And at first I thought, all right, well, it keeps you in this tribal mentality in regard to your political affiliation, right? If you're a Democrat and you're clicking

on things that are friendly toward Democrats, you're going to be stuck in that ideological bubble. But no, it's far more nefarious than that. If you're clicking on Alex Jones content, then yeah, you're going to be radicalized into all sorts of conspiracy theories or believing all sorts of conspiracy theories because that's what the social media platforms serve you up through their algorithms over and over and over again. Yeah, so look, there's the, innocent part of this where like my dad first time he went on Facebook and I told this in one of the bonus episodes for the members a while back when it first happened, he goes on Facebook and he starts clicking on Turkish news because he's Turkish and he's curious

about that. And then he calls me one day and he says, America all of a sudden very interested in Turkish news. Because he thought what he sees on Facebook is what everybody sees on Facebook. So he thought, oh my God, America's gone crazy with their, you know, need for Turkish news, right? So, but it's funny now and it's funny if you know it. But to this day, a lot of people don't know that, that it's just serving you what you seems interested in, right? Not what everybody's seeing. But more importantly is the second part, which is, people are used to thinking that if you see it in print or you see it as a video, that it must be true. Now, I don't want to go back to the battle days where the mainstream media were

the gatekeepers, and they had their own set of lies, etc., right? And their own assumptions and their own things that supported basically multinational corporations, right? I like that there are no gatekeepers on the internet. But, and we are largely online, so I don't want you to disbelieve everything you see online, obviously, right? But you've got to use your judgment, and you've got to look at the source. So no, not everything you see online is true. There's nonsense, wall-to-wall nonsense online. So please, for God's sake, use human judgment.

And so no, and by the way, why don't you just do the experiment? Okay, say let's say you didn't get vaccinated because you're worried that you're going to have magnets stick to you and the traffic poles are going to bend in your direction and all that stuff, right? And you probably know at least one person who's been vaccinated, asked their permission and go, hey, brother, I heard that you were magnetic. Can I just try it for a second? You'll see they're not magnetic. It's insane.

It's not true. So, and look, you should have known that not everything you see is true because we already have Fox News and we've had it a long time. So please get break out of your bubbles, check the source, and make sure that it's from someone credible. All right, that does it for our first hour. We're going to take a short break. And when we come back, we have one of my favorite stories of the day, conservatives having an epiphany about how rigged our housing market is and then thinking they're the first ones to discover that, lots of fun.

Don't miss it. And then later in the show, are we going to have any fun today other than that? Yeah, I love that nun who's got the gambling habit. Yes, none with a bad habit. Yes. Oh, ringer. That's later in the program. All right, stick around.

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