The Young Turks - On The Hunter

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Hunter Biden was hit with nine tax-related charges in a new indictment. Kirby: "Name me one nation that is doing more to alleviate the pain and suffering of people in Gaza than the United States. You won't succeed, it just won't work!" Texas threatens doctors after judge says woman can get an emergency abortion. House Republicans secretly consider expelling Matt Gaetz after booting George Santos. SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA 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. Drop it, Three-My-D-D-R-D-M-A-T, Big-H-L-T, Big-H-L-D-D-Lap-D-D. Drop it like a pile of new indictments against Hunter Biden.

Welcome everyone to Friday on the Youngters. I am John Ida Rola and I am joined by two awesome guests. For the second week running, Jackson White is back. You know Jackson White from, as I said, he's always on Fridays with me. Great to have you there as well as Rebel HQ and Politics and Paper on YouTube. So thank you Jackson for being here. Thank you for having me. Always good to be here.

And we all with Ray too, but I'll let you introduce him. Also on hold up. We're getting to Ray. Rayvana is here as well. Contributive Roe by HQ. Often host of the damage report holding it down while I was on paternity leave as well as taking the L podcast. Rayvana, thank you for being here. Yeah, I'm glad to be back on. Glad to be on with Jackson. Always fun when we get together. Definitely. Glad to have you here. Yeah, I feel like your services are often needed in the second hour presenting so we don't often cross over in the first, but it's good to have you here. Yeah. Yeah, and it's great to have everybody in the audience as well, because we got a lot of important stuff to talk about, as I alluded to in the initial tease, we will very soon be getting to the indictments against Hunter Biden. There's a bunch of them. And the reactions, both from his side and from the Republicans, I find to be fascinating. So we're going to be diving into the facts of the case as well as how different sides are spitting this. But then we're going to be talking about aid to the Palestinians, aid to Israel, abortion in Texas. A rare dispensation to get one that now is facing massive legal threats from the Attorney General of Texas and who could be the next congressperson booted from the House of Representatives. We're going to get into that in the latter half of our first hour.

So thank you all for being here. There's a lot to cover. Why don't we jump into it? Mr. President, your reaction. That is Joe Biden, obviously not wanting to answer questions about the new indictments against Hunter Biden, which I think considering they just came down and it's about his son and the particulars of their relationship is sort of understandable. Why the reporter sounded like getting an answer to this question is a life and death thing is less understandable, but I'm sure we will get some sort of response at some sort of response at some. some point. While we're waiting for that, why don't we dive into what these new indictments actually say and what sort of future might be there for Hunter Biden? So we have nine federal

tax charges coming down on Hunter Biden from a California grand jury. So those are tax related and they're now going to be added to the gun charges that he was already facing. The overview of this is that basically prosecutors say that Hunter Biden failed to pay about $1.4 million in federal taxes between 2016 and 2019 and instead spent the money on an incredibly lavish and let's just put out there awesome life we'll break all of that down for you and you can decide for yourself but of the new nine three are felonies six are misdemeanors they include allegations that he failed to pay taxes failed to file evaded an assessment and filed a fraudulent form and we're going to try to get through as much of that as we can but understand that

While the specifics might be interesting or surprising, the fact that there are more indictments, that is not by itself necessarily surprising. Ever since his previous plea deal fell apart, it seemed pretty clear that there were going to be some charges. So we're gonna get into more of the specifics about how money was spent and all of that. But I wanna start with you, Ray Vana. What was your immediate reaction when you saw nine new indictments against the president's son? It wasn't surprising just given how things had been playing out.

But it is unusual. So before that plea deal fell apart, before the judge refused to sign it, Hunter Biden sat in a court and said that he did not pay his taxes. He admitted to having done that, which is standard for a plea deal, for a plea agreement. That's what you have to do. You have to admit that you did the thing. And so he did. And then the judge didn't sign it, which is where.

It becomes odd because now he's stated that he has committed this crime and they'll be able to use that statement against him now that these indictments have come down. It's also unusual because according to him and his attorneys, he's paid back all of the taxes that he owed over two years ago, apparently he paid back all of the taxes he owed. So typically in cases like this, this level of prosecution only occurs when they're actively trying to recover the taxes that are due. If there's still an open tax bill, which seems not to be the case for him, which is why it wasn't very weird that he was going to get this plea agreement.

What's more unusual is the way that things have panned out. And I think the fact that his last name is Biden, is it. is 100% playing a role in the unfolding of these unusual events. Jackson, what do you think? Yeah, and you know, like you said, since his last name is Biden, I think it's likely that all throughout 2024, if not certain, Biden, Hunter Biden is going to stay in the news as an attempt, you know, to kind of do a what aboutism with what's going on with Trump. As we know, he has 91 indictments. I mean, 91 felony charges for indictments.

Sorry, he has so much stuff going on. I get it scrambled sometimes. You know, this isn't going to move or shift anybody when it comes to the general election turnout. But, I mean, hey, if he's done something wrong, then go through the process. If they find something and he has to pay a price for it, whatever that may be, if he has to pay a fine, if he has to go to prison for a year or two, whatever that may be. This just really isn't an issue that the general public really is attached to. But it's something that obviously we have to follow because it's real.

And it's actually happening. I think Biden should probably continue to just kind of not address it too much unless something serious happens. But you know, what's really the point? I agree with you that I don't think, I don't think there are a lot of persuadable voters that are thinking how I vote in 2024 is going to come down to what I end up thinking about these charges. I don't think so. I do think there are a lot of people that will tell you that this is the most important issue in the world. I think that if you were able to dive into their soul and their psyche, you would find that this is just standing in for the crimes they wish they could find out that Joe Biden did.

And in the absence of that, I guess we've got the tax thing and some gun things. Virtually every one of these conservatives, by the way, think that going after Trump and his family for tax issues is totally illegitimate and how dare the government get involved in guns. But suddenly when it's Hunter Biden, it's a valid issue. I think they're both valid issues. I personally think that if Hunter Biden broke the law, he should go to jail. He's not my brother, he's not my husband.

I have no attachment to him. It's weird how everybody gets super attached to politicians and figures related to politicians that they don't know. But anyway, I do want to make sure that our audience knows what is being alleged as we cruise towards a possible trial. So you should know that coming out of this indictment, 56 pages, Hunter Biden is alleged to have earned about, or slightly more than $7 million between 2016 and 2020 from foreign business deals, including payments for his service on the board of Burisma, the natural gas company, sorry, the fossil gas company of Ukraine, as well as his work for a Chinese energy conglomerate. And by the way, if you want to have some issues with that, I largely don't have an issue with that. I don't

know what supposed expertise he's supposed to have in literally any of that stuff. But that doesn't mean that you don't have to prove that Biden did something illegal if you wanted to be impeached for it. But in addition to the $7 million, he also got $1.2 million in 2020 and spent the money to fund what is called an extravagant lifestyle, including drugs, escorts, and girlfriends. I believe they're called assorted women in the document, exotic cars and clothing. So kind of like a George Santoshian sort of lifestyle there. But that apparently came from a personal friend, the $1.2 million. He rented a lavish house in Venice, California, and also earned more than $140,000 in payments

for his memoir, beautiful thing. So there's a lot of money being thrown around. And in theory, you'd have to spend a lot in taxes on that. You'd owe a lot. Instead of that, he failed to file taxes on time for a number of years. When he finally did file in 2018, the allegations are that he used false business deductions that reduced his tax liability, as well as misleading his accountant into filing returns that included items marked as business expenses when he allegedly

was not doing business at that time. So there's delay in actually filing and then also just flat out allegations at least of avoiding paying taxes by using a bunch of tricks to not do that. These sorts of tricks by the way to minimize or eliminate your tax obligation are the sort of things that rich Republicans do that poor Republicans are convinced makes them awesome. But in this particular case means that he's guilty. But anyway, let's just briefly mention some of the stuff the money was spent on. So there was money for a golf member deposit that was used to purchase, the actual money was used to purchase a membership in a sex club, but you can see how things are sort of being hidden there, and then just huge sums of money on a bunch of different categories that we talked about.

So anything else about this, starting with you, Ravanna, that strikes you as particularly interesting or that might influence how people perceive this? Yeah, well, first I take umbrage with the claim that you made before we started discussing. all of the things that he spent the money on, which is the idea that there's not a person who's a single issue voter and their single issue is Hunter Biden. I am that person. I go to the ballot box with nothing but Hunter on the mind. I think he's being unfairly persecuted. Dudes rock. That's your legal defense, Hunter. When you step in that courtroom, look at the judge dead in the eyes and say, dudes rock, okay? You're being persecuted for rocking too hard. I mean, I'll, I think though you did make, you know, jokes aside, I think you made an excellent point, John, that when rich Republicans do these sorts of, you know, we'll call it finessing the tax system, they're celebrated as really intelligent individuals. I think that Hunter Biden's real crime here is that he had a bad accountant or he didn't have an accountant at all because he probably would have been able to finesse the system as so many other rich privileged individuals do,

successfully, one, if he wasn't under such a microscope and there wasn't so much scrutiny on him, not just because of his last name, but because of the other charges and the other crimes. But he probably would have been able to get the same sort of lenient tax bill at the end of it if he had just hired a good accountant. If he spent a little less money on his assortment of women and a little more money on an assortment of accountants, he probably could have gotten away a little cleaner from this situation. Oh, absolutely. He definitely could have gotten away with it cleaner. But also, you know, look, at the end of the day, we said it when we first started.

It's just because his last name's Biden. There's literally nothing else. I mean, as soon as all this blows away, he's going to be done. They're not going to be talking about him. But, you know, I kind of dig the Dan Billsarian type of lifestyle. I can't even lie, you feel me? And it's not, you know, MTV should have not, she didn't already shown his junk all in the floor of Congress, you know what I'm saying? So maybe Hunter Biden needs to go ahead and open himself up on the only fans. George Santos will be the first person. So you know what I'm saying? Go ahead and drop them fat tips on there.

He can make it killing. But yeah, it's a circus and we'll stay tuned. But yeah, if he dodged taxes, then sure, let him pay the penalty because we're not part of a cult like MAGA is. Yeah, 100%. It's just like I love all the details that come out that make you just come away with the conclusion that like, every conservative would at least, like, pretend that they hate this guy. They hate every, oh, they've hated every step of this story. They've hated the nude photos, the, the, the, you know, the pictures of him having sex and everything.

Oh, they hate that stuff. They're not like just boiling over with jealousy for this lifestyle. If you took Hunter Biden and everything about his life and just named him Hunter Cross, they'd be paying $500 a month for his Alpha Academy seminar or something like that. If you put it on TikTok, they could not get enough of that content. But in this particular case, they have to pretend that they have a problem with it. If he was Hunter Biden going his own way, they would be like an insatiable hunger for it. But does he have a red pill?

That's what I want to know. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs.

Only in date is July 18th. What do we turn now to what others are. What do we turn now to what others are saying other than just the prosecutor, the attorney, the attorney for Hunter Biden, Abby Abbey Lowell is saying that these charges are effectively illegitimate and there's a lot of people who have a variety of opinions like this and we want to make sure that you hear both what they have to say as well as those on the other side. So Lowell put out a statement saying that Hunter Biden had repaid his taxes in full two years ago and that based on the facts

and the law, if Hunter's last name was anything other than Biden, as we've been saying, the charges in Delaware, now California would not have been brought. And also goes out of the way to point out that the special counsel this particular case, who was appointed by Trump, is bowing to now many months of pressure from right-wing politicians, including James Comer and right-wing media, to come up with something, to do something. And so Lowe said that he's planning to push for dismissal of the gun charges next week, and we'll have to see what ends up happening with the tax charges. But as Ravanna, you pointed out, he has admitted to this stuff, obviously,

in the details of the prior plea deal that's now been effectively voided. So that makes their side, it's a little bit more difficult. And so they seem to be pushed into a position where they kind of have to do a version of what Trump does. where he says that the only reason any of these charges have come about is because of who he is, that doesn't mean that it isn't perhaps more true in this particular case, because Hunter Biden has incredibly low-level charges and nobody would have ever even heard about it. So what do you think about their strategy going forward? What should they do in light of all of this evidence is coming out?

Yeah, I think that their job right now before the trial and the media, you know, is just, just to continue to reiterate the line that he's already paid the money back, which I highly doubt his attorney would be saying if it wasn't true. And to continue to push the narrative that this would not be happening if his last name wasn't Biden. Because as I mentioned earlier, it's very rare for felony charges to be brought against somebody after they've already paid off their tax bill, including any penalties that have been added to it after the fact, Which is partially because the IRS is so severely limited in resources and again, has been underfunded because of several previous administrations stripping it of its teeth to protect

the wealthy specifically. But once they get to court, their job's going to be a lot harder because he did technically not pay the taxes. He did what he's been accused of. So their argument essentially just rests on in other circumstances, anyone else would not be charged with the same level of felonies, the same crimes, would not be facing jail time. But it might be a losing argument. And I think that inevitably he's going to end up doing some time if not just having to pay heavy fines. I would be surprised if he doesn't end up doing some jail time, which is unfortunate for him because it seems like he's really just caught in the crosshairs of Republicans trying to frame Joe Biden as corrupt, but not having anything to stick on him. So they had

to find the closest corruption to Biden as they could. And that just happened to be his son Hunter. But I maintain that dudes rock and that he should. Especially because he paid off the taxes, I don't think that he is in any danger of being a repeat offender, any of the justifications that, you know, legal theory provides for why we put someone in jail, aside from strictly being punitive, they don't serve any function here. So I don't see any real reason why he needs to go to jail. But I think that he probably will. Yeah, I mean, if it comes down to the technicalities, you know, I'm not an attorney like you, but it would make sense that, you know, he may get some time, but you know, he's not a violent criminal or anything along those lines, so it probably

won't be that much. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens. But I think that more likely than not, I mean, I don't know, it could be wrong. But when he gets out of prison, I'll probably write a book or something and we'll end up, you know, hearing his story in some type of way. I can't imagine that that won't happen. So when it does, I'm sure we'll be talking about it. Yeah. We're gonna see, obviously we'll be covering it. I just want to close a section by saying like I agree that he's being caught in, you know, their attempt to pitch Joe Biden as corrupt. And one of the weirdest things about American politics is all they want to do is show that Joe Biden is corrupt and they have to go to these contortions to do it

when there are way easier, simpler, more obvious and fact-based ways to do that, but that they can't do because they're just as bad in those areas. They could talk about. literally decades of campaign contributions from wealthy individuals and corporations. They could talk about promises he's made that in the end he has not come through on when his donors clearly would prefer that he not act. There's so much they could do to sketch out a story of corruption, of deference to the economic status quo, but they like all of that stuff. Their politicians are just as guilty. They don't want to prime the voters to think about politics in that way.

It like it reminds me of in swingers when he's saying like you're this big bear and you're looking at this bunny and you don't know how to kill it. They could do it. They could kill the bunny Biden, except that they would be killing themselves at the same time. And so instead they need to go through all these ridiculous conspiratorial gymnastics and it makes them end up looking ridiculous. And to that end, I want to demonstrate a little bit of that. In light of these new indictments against Hunter Biden, People like Representative James Comer would love to declare victory and are trying to do that, but the links are not as strong as they would like it to be. And even many Republicans are having

to acknowledge that. Let's start with Peter Ducey. House Republicans are still trying to connect money. They're trying to trace money that originated overseas and went into Hunter Biden's accounts, two accounts that are controlled by Joe Biden. The House Oversight Committee has been at this for years and they have so far not been able to provide any concrete evidence that Joe Biden personally profited from his son Hunter's overseas business, but they are going to try again with this impeachment inquiry that's set to start next week. They are already like in some cases both politicians and other Fox figures trying to do that with these particular indictments. There was, I forget exactly

who it was. I believe it was a woman on the five who was saying like, like Joe Biden's tax issues are going to be a major issue. in the impeachment inquiry. This is not Joe Biden's taxes. Joe Biden is not alleged to have been spending money on cars and clothes and assorted women and all of that. Like I know that you would prefer that. That would make your job easier rhetorically, but it's just not here. And it reminds me of earlier this week when the payments for the Ford Raptor were being discussed and they were so desperate to try to link it to Joe Biden in a way that

makes him look corrupt. And even in this case, Brian Kilmead had to point out that that was not the case. And I think the smoking gun that people missed on Monday was Chairman Comer releasing that there's a monthly stipend from one of these shell companies of hunters going to Joe Biden, connecting the dots. You said he was going to pay him back for a truck. I'm just telling you what he said. They were continuous payments. Yeah. But regardless, this smells like a bribe to me. What did Hunter do to earn this money? Nothing at all. And really, this is influence peddling. That's exactly what this is. The money was from his father. What influence peddling? Like he's, he's, his father's exerting influence over him?

He said the money is a bribe. No, sorry, it was just for a truck, eh, still smells like a bribe. It was from his father for a car. Like, are they literally getting to the point on the Republican Party where they say you are not allowed to transfer a few thousand dollars to your child so they can have a vehicle? I don't think that's actually the position they want to be and they just need something. And even like it's a line too far for Brian Killed Me to cross and that led to those awkward silences, as you heard. Jackson, what do you think?

I mean, it's just, it seems like when you really take a step back and look at the whole Republican Party, and I've said this before, but so much of what we're looking at is them just having not changed up their strategy in so many decades. Because typically them like, you know, talking about something that Joe Biden was doing or Hillary Clinton was doing, may have failed some weight, and a lot of the time it's actually real. But as you pointed out, you know, you got Donald Trump who has all these indictments, Jared Kushner with the $2 billion, you know, Trump bringing these documents back. He had over a year and a half to return them. And then you pointed out how on Fox 5, one of the contributors was talking about Biden's tax

situation when that's really not even what's being talked about in the case at all. So they're just bored and they have nothing. It's just a big game to them. And unfortunately for all of us, millions of people are going to show up to the polls to vote for Donald Trump. But unfortunately for Republicans, not as many really necessarily as they're thinking because all of this just looks bad. And the closer we get to the general election and all Trump's talking about is how he won in 2020 and how he's a victim, Joe Biden this and Hunter Biden that, people are going to start looking more and more policy. So it's really just a race to the bottom between Joe Biden and Donald Trump like usually. I think that you made a really good point too about the Republicans just running the same playbook that they did before because crooked Hillary was a really successful line for them in the run up to the 2016 election because it resonated with people who knew Hillary Clinton in multiple positions of power who obviously were familiar with Bill Clinton. It was a lot easier to stick that type of, you know, sort of seedy back doors corruption to an individual like Hillary who was.

disliked for a myriad of reasons valid and not so valid. Of course, I'm not going to pretend sexism didn't play a massive role for a lot of the distrust and dislike for Hillary Clinton. But you really can't do that with Joe Biden, you know, for the same reasons you laid out, John, because the actual things that you could stick to him, the Republicans are just as, if not more, guilty of doing themselves. So you can't accuse him of those things. But I will say that if transferring money to your children is now a crime, then Trump's should be shaking in their boots. Yep.

Yeah. By the way, didn't Donald Trump get a small loan of $1 million? It was actually way, way, way, way more than that. But I don't know, did you ever pay that back? Seems like influence peddling to me, Donny boy. By the way, before we close, I just want to keep everyone on, like, know what you should be on the guard for, because there's this initial attempt of these new indictments that come out to say, ah, we got them, we got them.

They don't got them. They know that. This is just a couple of news cycles or whatever. But there's another way that they're using this. And if we can bring up Manu Raju's tweet, James Comer has said this. It's not the only one. I believe Maria Barteroma said the same thing. These new indictments are proof of a cover up.

The first indictments were proof of a cover up because they were going to be tied. Then there was this plea deal. And that was proof of a cover up. So they put pressure on Weiss to find more. Now this is proof of a cover up because it's only on. Because it's only on Hunter. It doesn't hit Joe, so it is by definition proof that they are covering something up. Do you see how that works?

The more they dig, even when they find crimes, the crimes they find if they don't include the president are proof of a cover up. So if they find something it's bad for Biden, if they don't find something, that's proof that he's hiding it too. It's an amazing system. Doesn't make any sense, but it works for them. Okay, with that, we're gonna take our first break. When we come back, we're gonna be turning to the situation in God.

and he uses effect on the other situation there after this. The new BMO, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more. the new bemo v i porter mastercard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months terms and conditions apply visit bemo.com slash the i porter to learn more welcome back to the young tricks everybody I'm John, we've got Rivana and Jackson and more news. Let's hit it. Look, we certainly share the concerns that so many of others have concerned, including the Secretary General, about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Tell me, name me one more nation, any other nation that's doing as much as the United

States to alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Gaza. You can't, you just can't. And name another nation that is doing more to urge this Israeli counterparts, are Israeli counterparts to be as cautious and deliberate as they can be in the prosecution of the military operations. You can't. So that is John Kirby, official with the National Security Council, a little bit defensive there, a little bit snippy, almost. If people are concerned that the U.S., which is an incredibly powerful and wealthy state,

is not doing enough as the civilian death toll in Gaza continues to mount, people have concerns They want as many lives as possible to be saved. So to like point a finger at them and be like, hey, we give a lot of money and aren't we tweeting the right things? Why are you so mad? I don't think that's going to allay a lot of people's concerns. And it's not even that on the monetary side, it isn't sort of true. It is sort of true that a lot of aid is provided. But I think that context matters. And so we're going to add that. So if you look at the the raw numbers, in terms of In terms of amount of aid provided to Palestinians in 2022, and then since the beginning

of this conflict, Biden has announced $100 million in humanitarian assistance. That was back in October, and as an individual country, there is no other country that provides more raw funding as a country, but all countries are not equal. Once you actually scale it to the size of the economy of the country, no, we are not the most generous when it comes to that. And in particular, when you put it in the context of we also provide an incredible amount of aid, including specifically military aid, military aid that is helping the conflict to proceed against Gaza. I understand why people would be very concerned about that.

And he wants us to not think about that context, but it seems relevant. Jackson, I want to start with you. What do you think about what Kirby had to say? Well, you know, you were right in terms of just kind of the general attitude. There's a few things I have to say. One, the narrative that Israel is in huge danger is failing from the sense of who they're in danger from. Hamas being Palestinian civilians and how Hamas and Palestinian civilians are mesh into one as often as possible. That narrative really is working.

As the death code toll continues to rise, all that means is that people are going to pay more and more and more attention to it as a month's pile on. It's going to be an issue that the Biden administration really, really has to be. has to do something about in a way that's going to shake things up because Israel really doesn't have much reason to stop doing what they're doing unless they're forced to in some type of way, unless they're threatened in some type of way from a sense of, look, if you keep on doing this, you won't give you X, Y, and Z. But even, let's say the United States was giving way more to the Palestinian victims than we are. Even if we were, that attitude is not, it shouldn't be there. You know what I mean?

Because people are dying. People are suffering. People are in great need. And so again, even if we actually were giving more money, the attitude should be how can we help more? Not whatever, so what, we've done enough. That's just not going to fly. And it's a culture that they really need to do something about because you see that with the IDF member who came on with Jake Tapper and he basically was blaming whoever it was who did leave on time. That attitude is not working, which is a good thing. It's a good thing that people are outraged about what's been going on. So they really need to check that or the American people and the world will check it for them. Yeah, absolutely. What he said was despicable and disturbing to hear. It would be like if I shot someone in the leg and then gave them a Band-Aid and said no one is doing more to alleviate the pain or bleeding from this gunshot wound than I am. Well, I gave them the wound in the first place. So when the United States continues to give Israel unbeforeseen unfettered access to our weapons arsenal, when we are continuing to fund this genocide of the Palestinian people, when our country

is continuing to provide support, crucial support in blocking the UN from taking meaningful action to actually address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There is no leg to stand on. And in that conference to respond in that manner just shows that they're starting to crack under the pressure campaign that activists here, Palestinian activists, Jewish activists have been putting on them where they have to descend into these ridiculous lies that are increasingly less believable. But what's disheartening is the fact that it seems the Biden administration has no intentions of asking Israel to stop ramping up their genocide in Gaza. They continue to provide financial, military, military rhetorical support, political support, as I mentioned in the UN for Israel.

They are running defense for Israel. I mean, just the other day, the IDF said that the Biden administration went too far. The IDF said the Biden administration went too far with insinuating that the reason that Hamas didn't release female captives, female hostages, they heavily insinuated it was because of rape. And the IDF said that was too far. And yesterday, Biden, from his official Twitter account, whoever runs it, tweeted out the same thing with the same implication. This doesn't look to me like an administration that gives a single damn about what's happening to the Palestinian people other than their desire to continue the genocide. Yeah, well, look, and I can't read Biden's mind. I can't read Kirby's mind.

Maybe, maybe John Kirby really does think that he and his team are doing as much as possible. Maybe they really wanna limit civilian casualties and civilian suffering and they're doing everything they can. It's failing, so we're still gonna criticize you. You're still gonna receive the pressure and the pushback until the actual situation on the ground changes. We're gonna talk about the reality, the numbers, the situation. It's horrible and until that changes, people are not just gonna be satisfied because you say that you're trying hard. That's not how it works when the stakes are simply this high. And so the United Nations says there are no safe places in Gaza nearly a week after the offensive was widened into the southern half of Gaza.

Every once in a while, you know, individual areas will be told it moved to a safe place. They don't exist, not a place with infrastructure and safety, access to food and medicine. It simply is not a thing that exists any longer inside of Gaza. More than 80% of the territory's population has fled their homes. But you're trying, so that's good. Just 69 trucks carrying aid entered Gaza from Egypt on Thursday. That is less than half what was entering during the brief truce between Israel and Hamas last week. World Food Program is warning of a catastrophic hunger crisis.

Many people are warning about how many are going to end up dying as a result of the collapse of the energy and health infrastructure. The more than 17,000 people who have already died might seem quaint eventually once the inevitable consequences of having no functioning energy grid, ability to distribute medicine or food, no shelter, particularly once you get into harder parts of the year. That is going to necessarily drive these numbers up. By the way, more than 70% of those numbers that I cited are women or children. More than 46,000 wounded, so I don't care how hard you're trying. I don't think we have time to play the video, but he goes on a rant about people saying that the IDF are specifically intentionally targeting civilians.

And I understand why people are focused morally and ethically and strategically on whether there's intentionality in this targeting. It definitely matters. But so long as so many civilians are dying, what is the difference? So many are the status quo is unacceptable, whether it's intentional or not. And like honestly, I would get this argument more if the numbers were far lower. Like to make an analogy, if I throw a window, a rocket, it goes through your window, whether I meant to or not really matters. If a hundred of my rocks hit your house, does it matter if I meant it or not? It's untenable.

You cannot continue with that. That is a situation here. So many people are dying. So many people are suffering that whatever the intention is, it needs. needs to change. And honestly, I start to worry that having linguistic philosophical debates about intentionality is designed to distract us from the actual stakes, from what is really going on. We're having an argument about what we can divine from people's minds when we should be talking about the situation on the ground and ensuring that that has changed

as fast as possible. That would be my message. John Kirby, probably not watching, but Ravanna, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. And just to that point, it's the same as when people argue with you, well, it can't be a genocide because we haven't hit a certain number of people dead, which is despicable because that means inherently they believe that we can't prevent genocide because we can't classify it as genocide until the destruction is already done. But it's irrelevant in this case because forcibly displacing people from their homes is a component of genocide. And as you mentioned, John, 80% of the population has been displaced.

and the place they were told to move to, the place they were told was safe is now being carpet bombed. There's nowhere for them to go. And the United States can brag about the humanitarian aid they're sending, but it can't enter because Israel is continuously bombing the places where the aid would enter from. The IDF posted a picture of them supposedly helping an elderly man escape to the south. And it turns out after they took that picture, they shot and killed him, point blank, murdered him. This is not the most moral military in the world, as it loves to brag to be. This is a military, a country, a government that is carrying out a genocide on the Palestinian people. And because the United States government

doesn't seem to care, it seems like it's totally up to activist organizations to continue to raise the alarm, to media, to continue to raise the alarm on what's going on, because most of our elected officials and members of the administrative state are either they are indifferent or they support it. And it is shocking and horrifying, but to people who've ever wondered historically, how do events like this happen, you're watching the consent be created in real time. And, you know, I think that, you know, from my perspective, as the Biden administration, you know, speaks on this more and more, it just seems like something that they've felt like, we wish this didn't happen and maybe people will forget. But that ain't happening. You know what I'm

saying? Like, people aren't going to forget about this. It's just, and it's not even like this is an incident or an issue that will kind of go away in a year or two. You know, we're talking about geopolitics. We're talking about an entire nation of people, two or one state solution. Like, something has to come from this. You know, it's fighting can't just stop and then people just the dust settles and people just carry on. Like this is now a situation. It's not like it's just now a situation where we have to figure out what to do with these two people coexisting with one another. But now we really got to find something to do about it. So I think that absolutely, not just with presidential elections, but federal elections everywhere and even state elections.

We're going to see this issue being talked about a lot more, especially because people will, you know, get fired for speaking out about this, lose their positions. So expect to see this grow, and it should grow. It absolutely should grow. So yeah, that's really my final thoughts on it for now, because every time you look at it, it's just plain and clear that the state of Israel is bullying the Palestinians because they can. It's not more complicated. Okay, we're almost certainly going to talk about this next week on the show. I'm just already, like I get like a pit in my stomach thinking about what's the number we're going to have to say next Friday? What's the number we're going to have to say the Friday after that? We keep going up. We were saying 3,000, we were saying 5,000,

then it was 10,000, then it was 15,000, then it was 17,000. Every individual is supposed to, every individual life is supposed to matter. I don't even know it's 17,000, how you're supposed to think about the individuals at that point. It is so like almost cosmically unimaginable. Anyway, we have other news that we're going to talk about. We're going to take a short break, but don't go anywhere. Welcome back everyone with what remains the first hour of TYT with myself Rivana and Jackson. We don't have much time. We want to get to important topics, so we're going to jump right into it.

The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be apparent and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability is shocking and would be. be a genuine miscarriage of justice. Now it might not be clear in that video, but what you just saw is something that, unfortunately in 2023, you do not see every day, which is a judge effectively authorizing an abortion in Texas to write a horrendous wrong, and we're going to break it down. That's Travis County District Judge Gamble, an elected Democrat who said just yesterday that she would grant a temporary restraining order that would allow Cox, that's the woman in this particular case, to have an abortion under the

narrow exceptions to the state's ban. This is Kate Cox, a 31 year old mother of two from the Dallas area, who asked the nonprofit center for reproductive rights for legal help in obtaining an emergency abortion in Texas after she learned last week that her fetus had trisomy 18, also called Edward's syndrome. The genetic condition is one that, quote, cannot sustain life. And the doctor for Kate Cox said that carrying the pregnancy to term could jeopardize her health and future fertility, including uterine, rupture, and a possible need for hysterectomy. Now, as a result of that, getting this narrow exception, which as I said is rare, but the law was crafted so that, in theory, there would be exceptions. You're often told that, aren't you,

when they pass these laws? Oh, we're not barbaric. There are exceptions, but are there in practice? Can you actually get them? Are the doctors not so terrified of being prosecuted that they will avoid actually working with you for them. Will the judges actually allow you to get them in individual adjudications? And if you even get them, will you be hounded for the rest of your life legally? Because in this particular case, that's what's coming up. We found out about that exception being granted yesterday. Well, today the threats are coming with the Attorney General for Texas Ken Paxton threatening legal action if the abortion actually takes place. He said the letter to the hospitals involved with Cox's care and said that the doctor

did not meet, quote, all of the elements necessary to fall within an exception of Texas's abortion laws. And by the way, that the judge was not medically qualified to make this determination. The judge is not medically qualified. Ken Paxton, presumably, is a bunch of other Republican men in Texas apparently are. And this is a demonstration if you needed it for what those exceptions are actually worth. They mention them when they pass the bills to try to placate you, to get you to not stand up for your rights. But then when you try to actually get the exception, they come down with Thor's hammer on you. Rivana, what do you think? If judges and attorneys aren't qualified to make these medical decisions, then I don't know

what the hell the Republican Party in Texas or anywhere in this country has been trying to do because they're crafting laws that put the decision of whether or not a woman is able to have an abortion or whether anyone's able to have an abortion firmly in the hands of judges and attorneys. It's not just the doctors making those decisions even when a hospital, when there's wider exceptions in a hospital has to make that determination. The doctors are consulting and debating with the hospital's lawyers to determine if what is going on qualifies that individual to fall within the exception for abortion. But I just have to say, I never ever want to hear a Republican tell me ever again that these anti-abortion laws are about protecting life. What life is being protected in this case? What life is being protected when Ken Paxton is threatening to impose criminal penalties on these doctors for saving this woman's ability to have children in the future? There is no life at risk here, even if you believe, which I don't, but even if you believe that a fetus is a person and is a life, this is not that.

This fetus literally will never be able to live as a person outside the womb. And if you force this woman to carry this unviable fetus to term, you're saying that you're willing to allow her to sacrifice her ability to have children. No life is being protected here. Potential future life is being taken away because of these regressive fascistic restrictions on people. bodily autonomy. That's all this is. It's about controlling women. Yeah, I mean, because I just, I don't see how you can honestly look at this in any type of way, like you don't realize the damage that can be done. I can't personally imagine what it would be like to carry an unviable fetus all the way to turn. I mean, like that, that just seems like something that's unbearably traumatic.

And even if you want to make the argument that stuff like this doesn't happen a lot, it still happens. You know, this one case is something that's going to be amplified because it happens. But more importantly, this right here, this particular issue is why Republicans have been losing and it's why they don't keep losing, especially when you're talking about elections that aren't the presidency, because this is something that doesn't go away. It's not just that the role was reversed, but these politicians, are determined to pass these six-week bans or anything similar that Republican constituents don't want because it's extreme and it's crazy. And so they're going to keep losing. People are going to keep showing up at the ballot box to vote in favor of women's rights. That that's

not going to change. Women aren't going to wake up. And men, for that matter, because it's not as if women are the only, I mean, women are more physically impacted by this, of course. But the whole country, men and women, children, families are impacted by this. People aren't going to wake up one day and forget about this. This isn't just going to go away. I continue to say the reversal of Roe v. Wade, in my opinion, is one of the worst political decisions in modern times. It was unnecessary, and they're losing because of it. And they're going to keep losing because of it, because it's evil. 100%. Yeah. Some of them seem to get that. Others are doubling down, have at it. It's horrendous. We're I guess most people, I'm certainly sick of making the handmaid's tale comparison. At some point, you don't need to do that anymore. We're that situation. You don't need to go to sci-fi.

You just need to look to the fact that this horrendous situation that's happening to Kate Cox has happened to multiple people who can get pregnant in Texas specifically already. There are other cases for this sort of thing. And so horrendous, untenable, at some point, the law will have to be changed. I just can't believe the amount of like willful suffering that is being put onto people by those who will do this. Ken Paxton will hound doctors, hospital administrators, this particular woman, try to ruin their lives and at the end of the day, think of himself as pro-life.

Anyway, I'm gonna go to one more story. We don't have many minutes, but this is important and also kind of fun, so let's jump into it. Here's why, since the beginning of this Congress, there's only two ways you get expelled. You get convicted of a crime or you participated in the civil war. Neither apply to George Santos. And so I rise not to defend George Santos, whoever he is, but to defend the very precedent that my colleagues are willing to shatter. That was Matt Gates, not long ago, speaking out against the expelling of George Santos.

And there are a couple of different reasons why you might do that. If you're a Republican or even if you were one of the Democrats, that particularly in the first and second attempts to do so, stood with George Santos. It could be a principled thing saying we should have an incredibly high bar for expelling someone like Santos, actual treason, being convicted of a crime. That's one reason to do what Matt Gates said in that video. The other is if you're worried that this slippery slope could slip your way in the near future. And according to a new report by CNN, that might be in the back of Matt Gates's mind as he's making that argument because we've had a little bit of evolution on a story that could not work out his way, having to do with an ethics investigation of his own behavior. So you probably saw earlier this week that the Ethics

Committee has reached out to at least one witness to participate in the investigation specifically of Gates. There are these allegations that he violated sex trafficking laws, used illicit drugs, converted campaign funds to personal use, accepted bribes. There's a lot of stuff in there. some of it actually similar to allegations made against George Santos and that could potentially mean something for the ethics report. But more importantly is sort of the situation for Gates in the Republican caucus and that is that apparently he's not, there's not a lot of people who are big fans of him. And according to anonymous House Republicans at this point, there are a lot that are waiting in the wings for what that report is going to say.

And some of them appear to be salivating over what they could do. If the report is damning for Gates, that he could be the next person that ends up being thrown out. And so a lot of this is speculative. We don't know when or if a report will come out. And if it does, if it will be damning enough for Gates's enemies to use to oust him. But Jackson, I want to start with you. What do you think about Matt Gates's future considering all of this? I mean, personally, I mean, nobody really likes the guy.

So that's that, you know, there's really not much else to say in regards to that. But I think honestly, Matt Gates is going to be fine. Unless they really step up, I mean, what, do they have a one-seat majority now with Kevin McCarthy leaving or something along those lines? Are they really going to kick him out? I don't know. If they did, that would hurt the Republican Party. And if people in Matt Gates district want him to be there, then why get rid of the vote? So politically speaking, I think that Republicans should keep him.

I'd like to see him leave, but, you know, if he's pretty gross person. So if he goes, then he goes. But I don't really feel like, oh, yeah, he's out of here. Yeah, I understand that from like the person, because this was the same argument I was making about George Santos before he was expelled from Congress. Because there was an attempt to do it earlier that failed, which was that they would have the mindfulness to protect. that vote that they need. But I don't know. This is a Republican Party that's in complete disarray, Republican Party that for once in my whole lifetime, they don't have their ducks in a row and the country's better off for it. A clown show. I think the interesting thing about Matt

Gates is particularly people, you know, us in the media have been covering the ousting of Kevin McCarthy. It's easy to think of Matt Gates as an individual who wields a lot of power. because he was able to successfully oust Kevin McCarthy. But when you look at the raw numbers, it simply isn't true that he holds a lot of power within Congress. I mean, it was only him and I believe seven other individuals who were able to oust Kevin McCarthy versus all of the other members of the Republican Party in Congress who supported Kevin McCarthy. Matt Gates is, you know, from what I've heard, not very popular amongst his peers within the Republican Party, particularly within the more establishment parts of the Republican Party. So it wouldn't surprise me if they get the opportunity to oust him or to expel him, excuse me, that they would take it. One interesting thing about this, I think, is that Matt Gates's motivation for ousting Kevin McCarthy was primarily this ethic.

investigation. The reason he refused to back Kevin McCarthy initially was because he was requesting concessions from Kevin McCarthy while he was first running for Speaker that he would squash this ethics investigation. That's what he wanted from Kevin McCarthy. But that wasn't an authority that Kevin McCarthy or now Mike Johnson for that matter has as Speaker of Thouse. It's intentionally that way so that they can't abuse their power as it pertains to these ethics investigations. And Matt Gates knows, and that was why he was so concerned about it, that horrible things about him are going to be revealed in the course of this investigation, which has been a long time coming. They've been investigating him for years now. I'm interested to see what comes forward, the stuff that we don't already know.

But I think that right now he's probably a little bit nervous about his future within the Republican Party. Perhaps, perhaps. I do have to acknowledge Gates denies that he tried to set up some sort of deal like that with Kevin McCarthy. Just got to technically put that out there. And look, I would prefer that if he's going to be charged with something, that they go through the legal process. Or I don't know, maybe Florida gets its S together and votes them out either way. I don't want a slippery slope either. But I will be waiting on the edge of my seat to see what's in that ethics report. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for the first hour of the show. Jackson, where can people see more of your work? Yes, check me out on YouTube. I stream Monday through Friday.

Tomorrow I'm having a nerd news show. We're going to be watching cartoons. We've got all types of stuff going on. Nice. At politics and paper, YouTube.com slash at politics and paper. Check me out there. We got a whole lot going on. The membership program is dedicated to community service and local politics.

Check me out politics and paper. I love it. Always good to be here with y'all. Great to have you here. And Ravanna? Yeah, first I want to say we have a very nerdy panel. Jackson and I both big, you too, John, right? Big Star Wars nerds.

I don't like that stuff. No, I'm only in like football and rock and roll, buddy. Right, right. But great to have both of you on. I'm going to go watch Battlestar Galactica. But we have an amazing second hour coming up, so nobody go anywhere. We'll be right back. I don't know.

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