The Young Turks - Part 3: Day 2 of 2020 DNC

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Part 3: Cenk Uygur and Benjamin Dixon breakdown day 2 of the 2020 DNC.  Speakers: Former Acting US Attorney General Sally Yates, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Former Secretary of State John Kerry, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Former President Bill Clinton, and Former Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. So I'm going to read your comments real quick. First, Zoolander establishment, Dem, says Jack covers for Ben seamlessly. And Ben apparently is a progressive Tony Stark. He built it in a cave. In the dark.

That's right. So if you missed it earlier in the coverage, Ben's power went out, but he somehow MacGyver did slash Tony Stark did and rebuilt himself in a cave there. So that's true. Ashcon asked Jenk, overall opinion on General Colin Powell. We're going to talk about that in a little bit, Ashcon. Those are young Turks members there that were asking those questions. We'll get to Colin Powell in a second.

One more person at least signed up on YouTube channel membership. And their name is better quality uploads, okay, it's a fun name. And then on YouTube super chat, lots of good folks who are chipping in and giving their thoughts, DNA 81 says, please make this stop. Okay, that's, but on the other hand, coffee break fiction says, this is so sweet, it's nice to see what good people look like, just working class decent people, I want to come back and talk about that in a little bit. Mary Slaven says, hello, Jang, love TYT, thank you.

Sangus 15 wants us to visit Sweden, I wish, brother, I wish. And on Twitch, apparently things are going nuts because the hype train was real, whatever the hype train is, it got to level five. I don't know if it goes to level 11, but it got to level five, so that's awesome, thank you guys. And I'm gonna just read a whole bunch of people who prime, who either sub with prime, that's If you have Amazon Prime is free for you to become a subscriber, but we get paid on Twitch. So please do that if you can.

And other people who donated bits and new subscriptions, et cetera. Chloe Gamboa, Standard Deviation, Major Scuds, Super Joe 1991, Nicky Nick, the Duke of All Trades, Dr. Preder, Darth Hooser. So thank you to all of you guys watching on Twitch. We really appreciate that as well. All right, now let's get to analysis. So let's start with Jill Biden. So Dr. Jill Biden gave a speech tonight, Ben, obviously as we just saw covering this live.

And we'll be covering every night of the DNC and the RNC live. And the first potential first lady always gives a speech at the end of one of these nights since she did that here. And I had mixed feelings about it. So I let me put it this way, I'll put it, I'll say before the threshold, I liked it after the threshold, I thought it went a bit much. So what was the threshold I'm referring to? When I'm learning about her and Joe Biden and their family history, look, she doesn't have to tell us policy. She, you know, if she does great, but that's not necessarily what we're

expecting from the first lady to come and deliver a speech on. So the things I learned about her, I like learning about it. I don't know how relevant it is, but it's still, I'm happy to know it, Right? Things, and I'll give me some examples of that in a sec, and things above the threshold were like, and then she started talking about the dirty dishes in the sink and I'm like, I got it, I love you, but let's, okay, this is too much, right? Like there was, it was just personal. I mean, it was just super duper personal, right? And so they talk about the folks who pass away in their family a lot. And I've seen this now. I now haven't covered Joe Biden literally for decades. I know those stories inside and out. But I gotta say, Ben, I come close

to tearing up and sometimes go above that threshold whenever I hear about Bob Biden. Because, you know, he died so young and he got the brain cancer. And when they show his pictures as a kid, didn't he's, ah, it's gut wrenching. But the one line that really got to me was when she said, she talked about Joe Biden and not shaved for four days after Bo Biden passed away. And then he shaved and he sealed himself to go into a world without our son. For anyone who's a parent, that's tough to listen to. And it makes you root for them. I'm gonna tell you like tonight was the night that he won the presidency if he went, right? I think Jill did an outstanding job appealing to even someone is dead on the inside as me.

I actually felt emotion. I actually felt connection to Joe Biden, who I have been working diligently hard and avoiding, right? Because on policy, on policy like besides I'm not being Donald Trump, I really just, I mean, I have no reason to want to connect with them. But as a father, as a human being, I actually felt like, wait a minute. I think the Democratic strategy on this was actually kind of brilliant because we have something to juxtapose next to the character that Jill Biden presented. Now, second of all, she wrote that like she was a season author. Whoever wrote that, right? It had a literary effect. It was really, I hate to talk about it in this category, but it wasn't a political speech. It was a beautiful speech. And it touched me. And I think it touched a lot of people.

If they could touch somebody like me, I'd be surprised. It's touching a lot of people right now. Yeah, and I actually think there was one symbol in there that was really, really powerful, which I'm going to get to in the end here. But I want to do what I usually do, which is give you some fun things in there and as much substance as we can too. And as I looked at her speech, I thought, God, what is Donald Trump going to say about this? I fear anything he ever said. Like, God, please, please don't insult their dead family members. But you never know with Trump, you just never know. And right, and anyway, so, first of all, this is the most honest the Democrats have been, because they admitted a bunch of things in there. And that's what makes them more relatable and likable, ironically. But you really, I'm not sure they should be admitting in terms of their

relationship. This is just fun stuff. But when Joe Biden, and I've heard him say this many times, but he says, you know, I asked her to marry me five times. And finally at the end she did, I'm like, Joe, I'm not sure that's such a story, right? And then they told the story of how she was set to go out with another guy, but she broke that date to go out with Joe Biden instead. I was like, that's definitely not a good story. I would be honest with you, that's the same way, you know, I kind of told my wife to cancel her date. So it worked. This is the best part, I'm telling you, Jake, this was the best night. Like they could have, I don't know what they juxtaposed last night and progressive with

Republican. And then they juxtaposed tonight, Warhawks with somebody who actually has a heart, right? So I'm not sure what that strategy was, but they could have just left everyone off and kept Joe Biden's speech. Yeah, I hear you on that. That'll be in our overall summary of the night. But so there was this director that was kept, you know, you said whoever wrote the script, et cetera, and we keep it real on the young Turks. So I'm sure that that was, it felt heartfelt.

And we've seen a lot of non-heartfelt speeches, et cetera. And of course, he had a little bit of help. But of course it's choreograph to some degree. And in this case, unfortunately, you heard the director saying, you're up, Q, before she started walking. And I think that his mic might have been on the whole time because I thought I heard a laughter in the background, in the middle, and then at the end, he also, the director seemed to be saying something.

So it's unfortunate that like folks got to see the man behind the curtain a little bit. We tell you about the men behind the curtain all the time, the rest of the world, the political world doesn't, but I don't want you to think that was just Jill Biden. No, that's everybody at every convention. And then the last, oh, one more thing that I didn't love, it was a story I didn't love. She will, oh, she wakes us up at Christmas Eve at 5 in the morning for soul cycling. I was like, dude, I'm out. I don't care how lovely you are. That was too much. That was like, the snake in the backpack. I was like, okay, that that doesn't worry.

I was just waiting for Samuel Jackson to come on. I said, there's a mother. Backpack. Stake in my MF backpack. Anyway, they should think about that one day. But, and you know, and look, we apparently, Ben and I both like schmaltzy stuff. But when Jill Biden was talking about how the country has more, our similarities are infinite, and we prove that we have a heart of kindness, that's not the sense I got from the Trump

administration. I mean, the last four years have been very dispiriting, not just because of Trump, but because we've all come to the conclusion and it's unmistakable that at least 35% of this country does not think like we do. And I don't mean about like, hey, we disagree on policy or percentage of taxes or whatever, no, like wow, like very, very different. And I did not, and I don't get a sense that they have some sort of heart of gold that I didn't see in these last four years. But I'm keeping it too real on that. Like I know she's trying to reach out to folks, et cetera, and she's

a kind heart of person. But finally, the part that I thought was important was the symbolism that I just finally got as I was watching Jill Biden's feet. It's Joe Biden's grieving family as a symbol of the grieving country. So both in terms of coronavirus and the protests around what happened to George Floyd, this country's grieving in a lot of ways. And my God, if you ever want a parent who has been through grief and can help you walk through it, that is Joe Biden. And you gotta give them credit on that. Yeah, yeah, I think that was the loudest part of that speech was the fact that she was showing us. Like she literally took us by the hand. And I hate to give so much commentary on the presentation of it.

But she took us, the speech took us by the hand. And no matter where you were, if you were actually authentically listening to her, she led you to that point that you just pointed out, that the country is grieving and the person who knows how to deal with grief is Joe Biden. Now, setting that aside, obviously, is everything else that comes along with the presidency and policy and everything else. But when you consider the last five months, the last six months, 170,000 people dead, there's a significant amount of grief that this country is dealing with. And Donald Trump just kind of pushes his finger, his thumb into that wound. And we got a good comparison tonight. Yeah, I mean, we've done a medical analogy throughout the night,

But stopped the bleeding triage, you know, live to fight another day. But yours was a little gruesome, but totally right. Trump, when he sees a wound, he doesn't think, how do I close this up? He thinks, how do I drive my thumb into it? So you're in bigger pain. And fine for his flaws and policy, et cetera, is a guy who heals wounds. That's true, that is what he does. So, okay, now I want to go to a summer overall.

But before I do that, new members on YouTube, proletariat number 267, which is a hilarious handle to have on Twitter, has joined Kyla A, Christian Cardin, and Frank Trujillo. So thank you guys, thanks for making shows like this possible. You do that through membership, you could do it on YouTube, you could do it at t.yt.com slash join, and you certainly do it by helping our funding campaign this year, tyt.com slash go. We really do need it, and we appreciate it, guys. Okay, so, so second night of the BNC here, and until Jill Biden spoke at the end, it was a pretty dark night. She lined it up considerably. We gave you our analysis of her speech. I'll talk a little bit about it again

here. But before that, wow. So it was a combination of a giant nothing burger, plus really driving home the point that Joe Biden actually kind of wants to be a Republican. You know, I swear to you that I didn't even, like, I know Joe Biden's past. I mean, we've studied it ad nauseum. And I know he loves being quote unquote bipartisan. And I know he's worked with the Republicans also had nausea. And last night, four different Republicans at least, I started to lose count, spoke and back Joe Biden. I thought we were done with the Republicans.

No, they did a whole nother way. And most importantly, they sent the ghost of John McCain to speak. And so by the end of the ghost of Republican past, I thought, no. I think Joe genuinely wants to be a Republican. He's a 1990s Republican, that's who he is. And so that was not comforting. And so let me give you a little bit more detail on that. So the beginning of the night was Bill Clinton had an okay speech, and he was the only

one today to really mention policy other than the Warhawks at the end of the night. So, you know, he talked about how Biden's going to do paid family leave, good, otherwise unremarkable speech, filled with unremarkable speeches. AOC did come out, she did speak, and she endorsed Bernie Sanders, and then people were like, oh no, it's a coup. No, it's just a formality. Anybody who gets above 300 delegates has the right to put their name in to be considered. And that's what AOC was doing, it was pre-planned.

pre-planned, it's not like it was anything surprising. I guess just people didn't know about it, but overall normal, okay? And then Addie Barkin is another progressive, and he had a powerful and moving speech of arguing for Medicare or healthcare for everyone. You're not allowed to say Medicare for all in a Joe Biden convention, but Addie does believe in that, and so I was glad to see him there. But then the end was, I thought, particularly odious. So John Kerry comes on and he was like, oh, American exceptionalism.

And Joe Biden is the only one that could make us exceptional. And look, when Colin Powell came on and talked about alliances and how alliances are important, if you just left it at that, I get it. And Colin Powell is a Republican and he served the Bush administration and no, I haven't forgiven him and no, neither should you. But am I glad to get his endorsement? Sure, it's fine, right? And do I want NATO back together? Do I want our alliances to be short up? Yes. And he was actually

less hawkish than John Kerry, who's a Democrat. But now we're building on the Republican team. And then they brought the ghost of John McCain. And that one was just like this love affair that McCain and Biden have had throughout their careers. But the most telling part of that, and I think arguably the most telling part of tonight, was when they said in the video, Joe Biden was always the one that crossed over to the other side of the aisle. And that's true. I know the details of those deals. At different times, we've explained those different deals to you guys. And when Joe Biden crossed the aisle, that's quite literal. Like he did the deals that the Republicans wanted.

And it really hurt Democrats over and over and over again. I'm being honest with you. I want Joe Biden to win. I think Donald Trump is a monster. But that's just a fact. And it's the deal he made with the Republicans to extend Bush's taxes for the rich was so odious that even another conservative Democrat like Michael Bennett was so mad about it. He wrote a whole book about it, okay?

So that is Joe Biden's Achilles heel, and it's not just a heel, it's most of the body, okay? The saving grace of the night was Jill Biden giving a really good, solid, heartwarming speech. It didn't have to do with policy, not every speech has to do with policy. And I think that Joe and Jill Biden's love is as genuine as I have seen in politics. So you got to give them that, and they love their family. And it was just, it was like an old school, all American tale. But like I said earlier, uniting their grieving family with a grieving country. And so she almost saved it at the end.

But overall, I walk away thinking, oh boy, it is a big, big fight ahead between the Biden administration and progressives if we're lucky enough to have them win. Absolutely. I mean, no matter how good Jill Biden was, I mean, I felt I was one over with Jill Biden. That doesn't change the fact that as soon as the inauguration is over. I'm sorry, as soon as the election night is over, we have to go to war with this administration that is going to do exactly what they set up with John McCain, right, with the entire clip with John McCain. And I'm glad you pointed that out with so much detail. Because that literally, is the problem, the fact that Democrats have been going over to the right over and over and over again capitulating to Republicans without ceasing for the last 40 years for which Joe Biden was a part of almost every single one of those years. And so the fact we know without a shadow of a doubt that one of the first thing that Joe Biden is going to want to do is find some way to have some type of conciliatory relationship with the Republicans, which means capitulations,

which means that progressive, not just us in terms of a group and a movement, but policies that people need to survive, we're going to get burned. And so we have a fight on our hands. And as loving and caring and heartwarming as the night was, I'm a Disney dad that touched my soul, my dead little soul on the inside. I know we're going to have to fight like hell as soon as he's elected. Yeah, and no question about that. I mean, good news, bad news on that front, again from what I saw tonight. Look, as I saw that John McCain video, I thought if any leaning Republicans, if they exist at all, we're watching. And if any independents that still haven't made up their mind were watching, that McCain Biden video could actually really appeal to them. As like,

at least it's unity. God, we've had so much division and so much fighting and trauma under Trump that it could work at least for that intended purpose. I hope there's enough of those voters and I hope enough of them watched. But the downside is, and we're honest about that, even though we don't want them to go in that direction, there's at least the potential upside that it might get some votes. Now the downside is, so as I looked at that, I thought, what is going to happen if the Republicans hold the Senate? And I thought, oh boy, we're, that's their ready made excuse to throw their hands up and go, there's nothing we can do. We can't get the $15 minimum wage. We can't get gun control. We can't get healthcare. We can't get anything

because McConnell still controls the Senate. First of all, please vote and take that excuse away from the Democrats. And then Ben, finally, I thought, what if we do with the Senate, which I think we have a good chance of winning? Then they're not going to have any excuses. What are the excuses they're going to invent? Because they're not going to do progressive priority. And they don't even mean half the things they say on their own policies. So they're gonna have to come up with some weak sauce excuses. And that's when we have to pounce and say under no circumstances. If we have all three branches, you must deliver on everything you promised.

Otherwise, all hell is gonna break loose. Right, right. And so this is where my dead soul enters in because I have, I'm under no illusion that even if they get the Senate, that they're gonna do anything. do anything and I have full expectation that we're going to have the pounce regardless. So they're going to make up these excuses and they're going to do exactly what they've shown us that they are over the last 40 years of my entire life, especially in the last the last administration in particular when they did have control of the entire government and they did what they quote unquote could do. And so with somebody like Joe Biden, I fully expect that whether

he has the House, the Senate, as well as the White House, he is still going to compete going to capitulate to Republicans and we're going to have the fight like Hill. I agree on that. All right, as we wrap up, last word goes to you guys, because as we were doing this video, Kyle Laini Naoli, sign up to be a young Turks member on YouTube. Tony Lang upgraded. When you upgrade, you can see the post game we're about to do. Bad Rongo also upgraded. So we have more coverage of the DNC and the post game that we're going to do just for members. You can do it through YouTube or you can do it at t.com slash join. And left his best, wrote it on a YouTube super chat.

I'm so far past platitudes and sad sob stories. And then in all caps, we need action and policy, not more established and bull dust. Don't get us wrong, brother, okay? Our hearts can go out to Jill Biden and Joe Biden and Bo Biden and all those folks. But at the end of the day, our hearts are mainly go out to you. Because if we don't pass bills, it doesn't help your family at all. So that's the bottom line. And I can promise you this, as progressives, we'll fight for you, whether it's Trump or Biden, no matter what. All right, so we're gonna go to the post game

now. So we'll have more of your comments, more of our comments, a little bit more breakdown of this convention. Like I said, if you're watching on YouTube, just hit the join button below at the 499 level. You get the post game, we're about to do 999. You get all of our videos anytime you want, including all of this coverage, if you want to see any of the speeches that you missed or our analysis of it. But even at the two bucks guys, that means you support the show and we love you for it. And if you can, it's so important to do t.com slash go. So we can keep going and have this progressive, loud, passionate, progressive voice in the media. All right, so for all the members, we'll be back in a minute.

First Post came on the second night of the DNC, Jank and Ben, with you guys. So Ben, sometimes what we do, John Iderall does this the most. We'll look at media reaction and then react to that. So that's a fun thing. Let's do that right now. All I'm going to do is read headlines. I just picked Mediite randomly. They have quick reactions, right? So I'll read the headlines and we'll laugh. Okay, MSNBC's Joe Reid, Flos idea of Biden administration, impaneling a Trump crimes commission after election. Yeah, that's not going to happen.

There's no, is there a 0% chance? Guarantee you that Biden says we'll look forward, not backwards. Okay, Tucker Carlson goes, they're about to get to tonight, but this is kind of about last night. Tucker Carlson goes after Michelle Obama, portrayed herself as a victim in speech. She wants you to quote, shut up and accept her dominion over you. Dr. Carlson has never, you never lacks creativity. I give him that much. Yeah, look, I don't know much about Michelle Obama. I still don't know her personally. But I would be shocked if her driving motivation was dominion over you.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's working in a lot of tropes in that, like he, that's actually, he fendezed the hell out of that one, Jane, because he worked in like the domineering woman in general, the angry black woman. He worked a lot of tropes into that one. Yeah, and look, I think a legitimate critique of the Obama is they've spent a lot of time on yachts since they, you know, retired, I guess. And you know, she talked about putting comfortable shoes on and making sure you vote. Obama, of course, most famously talked about putting on his comfortable shoes to join the picket lines that people were striking and blah, blah, He never did any of that, right?

And so that's a legitimate critique saying that Michelle Obama wants to control your life and is angry and wants dominion over you. That's like insanity, man. They live on a totally different planet. Yeah, no, absolutely. But it works, right? He's actually doing quite well in terms of like one upping the level of bigotry and ridiculousness that Bill O'Reilly level. left the big gaping hole at Fox News. Tucker is doing pretty good in that role. Yeah, no question, I'm telling you. Leading candidate in 2024, if you asked me on the

Republicans. I'm not even kidding. Anyway, John Kerry condemns Trump's blooper real foreign policy breaks up with our allies and writes love letters to dictators. Okay, the writing that love letters to dictators, I'm glad somebody brought that up and I'll give him credit for that. I mean, Trump said he fell in love with Kim Jong-un. Could you imagine if Barack Obama had said that. Right. Could you imagine if Bernie Sanders said he fell in love with Kim Jong-un or Fidel Castro or any other communist dictator?

All he had to say was mention something good about Cuba and they took Bernie Sanders to task over that. So they really did slip on them and they should have been driving that one home for a while now. Yeah, and they look, I don't think they were ever really seriously considering Karen Bass. But, you know, the theoretical storyline there was that she was pretty much eliminated because she had once said something nice about Cuba however long ago, right? But meanwhile, Trump says he's in love with a communist dictator, and there was a

long long gone, right? The rest of the gai-carry speech, unfortunately, was terrible because he was trying to push people into war. And so here's the next headline. Stacey Abrams, praises Biden's proven current. urge and calls out Trump as quote, president of cowardice at DNC. And Ben, here's what I realized reading these headlines. And especially the over the, what I took to be is a little bit over the top reaction

to Michelle Obama's speech last night, which is apparently a lot of folks haven't listened to progressive talk shows. Because they view like these mild critiques of Trump as like some sort of nuclear attack. I mean, just any random one minute of the young Turks talking about Trump is 10 times worse than any of this, but they seem like moved by this like, whoa, she's talking about cowardice. Yeah, yeah, no, I have to agree. But they're stuck in their own echo chambers of those other shows, those other quote unquote independent shows.

Yeah. Shall not be named. Right. But at the same time, don't get me wrong, I like that she called it out for cowardice. That's good, good, God bless. And then the last one is Bill Clinton blast Trump in DNC speech. If you want a president who spends hours a day watching TV and tweeting, he's your man. Again, I think I have to check myself here, Ben, and realize that most Americans who just

watch TV probably have not heard that kind of harsh commentary on Trump, which I find amazing. But yeah, we just, I guess we can't be too jaded, because we see it 24-7, I think that's I think this, again, pretty mild thing you could say about Trump. Let me give a DNC speech. I'll show you. That's funny though, because actually that line was one of the standout lines for me for Bill Clinton, besides in general leadership, kind of job interviews scenario that he proposed, the proposition. But that line did stand out to me because it was not, generally the respect that a former president gives a sitting president, even in the campaign,

is, it seemed to cross that line, not in the sense that it was dramatic, but for a former president. Yeah, and the only people who still care about that line are Democrats in the media. Trump credits cross that line a billion times. Yeah, absolutely, fair enough, absolutely. Yeah, not only in all the horrific things he said about Barack Obama, but also Bill Clinton, but also Republican presidents, right? Also Abraham Lincoln, right? Which is Trump's superpower, By the way, the fact that he has no regard for any of these norms and institutions that that we've been mentioning, that's how he, that's how he is Donald Trump, quite frankly. Yeah, that's right. And Ben, I just realized we I messed up. I'm kidding right, because

they wouldn't have given it to me anyway. Of course, but I should have made an argument to speak at the DNC for Biden. And here's why. I'd say that look guys, I'm not going to say one word about Joe Biden, because I'm not going to lie on your behalf and tell you he's a wonderful man who was going to do a wonderful policy. And I'm not going to do that, right? And you don't want me talking about Joe Biden, trust me. Okay, but if you want someone to go nuclear on Trump and create some news stories, well, is it true that Donald Trump is X and Y and Z? I'm your guy. Right? Oh man, especially if we were in person, like you had the energy of the crowd, that would

been epic, that would be necessary. And there's a line that the Lincoln Project actually said last night, as much as I loathed the Lincoln project, in response to going low versus going high, he said, they said that we go low so that you don't have to. But the fact of the matter is there's plenty of progressives out here, we can go pretty low and they just don't want that kind of assistance. Yeah, well, whether they're like progressives, that is. Yeah, well, Whether they like it or not, it's coming. So as a lot of you know, I started a rebellion pack very recently. And with Brianna Wu's wonderful progressive in Massachusetts.

And I'll preview it for you guys. So this is a privilege, this is one of the benefits of membership, let's put it that way. The next ad is called Bunker Boy. So let's see what kind of damage we could do to Trump. And I relish that. I just don't know how many ads we could do quickly enough to hit Trump. But we're gonna hit him, we're gonna try to hit him hard. Okay, so speaking of ex presidents, you had one point you wanted to make about Jimmy Carter,

who spoke earlier. Yeah, yeah, no, it was just we didn't get a chance. They had so many speeches in quick, rapid succession that we didn't get a chance to speak about Jimmy Carter. I did kind of appreciate the his presence, his voice, the compassion that he brings in terms of his life. And then he did a lot, he did a lot of heavy lifting by lending that credibility that he has directly to Joe Biden, but more specifically tying it to the past, tying it to the early days and how they worked together and how he was the first person to support him

in 1976, et cetera. So I thought that was a really good spot in the night that of a lot of lows. So I think it was Jill Biden was the most compelling speech. And while we didn't get to see the former president, we definitely got to hear his compassion and his conviction and how much he really elevated Joe Biden by lending him that credibility that he has with quite frankly a lot of people. I still have a lot of respect for Jimmy Carter. So that meant a lot just to hear him speak. 100%. I'll end on this. So I'm super lucky. I've interviewed a lot of the living that are with us. I'd argue there's actually five in the country, and I think I've

interviewed all five. Not I think, I have. I just, of course, everybody's going to disagree on who's a living legend. The one that I always wanted to interview was my dream, but I didn't get a chance as Nelson Mandela. So it's just on a world scale. But I got to interview, you know, Noam Chomsky, Dolores Suerta, Reverend William Barber, Noam Chomsky, and Jimmy Carter. And when I did, I asked him about Guinea worm disease. That's the disease that he literally eradicated from Earth. It's one of the two diseases we have wiped out forever. And that's a hell of a thing. And I asked him, why get any worm disease? It doesn't get a lot of press, right? He said, that's exactly why. He said it actually affects a lot of people, but it affects

people that aren't in the press a lot. It was pretty prevalent in Africa. And it hit poor people really hard. And it's actually a disease that's in the water. And then the worms live in the water, and then they get inside you. And then they come out of you. It is just a horrific disease. They burst through the skin. It's like out of a science fiction movie. And it could kill you. And if it doesn't kill you, it is tremendously painful and puts you and makes you very, very sick. And it's killed a ton of people. He said it was a disease that caused the most damage where no one else was working on it. And part of the reason they weren't working on it is because they weren't going to get a lot of credit or notoriety for it. He says, so that's why

why I stepped it. How do you not love a guy like that? Wow. How do you not love him? Yeah, no, there's just that, that's powerful. I never knew that story. Yeah. So peace in the Middle East and wiped out an entire disease from the planet. So that's a living legend. So we're lucky to still have them. All right. The new BMO, ViPorter 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 with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard, and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more.

We had a living legend, and we had a ghost tonight. The ghost is John F.K. So we had it all. All right, Ben, you're awesome. Thanks for joining us. Everybody, make sure you check out the Benjamin Dixon show. It's fantastic.

Ben's also on damage report a lot with John. A new dynamic duo over there. People love you guys when you're together. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Ben. Thank you guys.

We'll see you tomorrow. 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. podcast at apple.com at apple.com slash t yt. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.