The Young Turks - Part 4: 2020 VP Debate. Kamala Harris vs Mike Pence

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Part 4: Cenk Uygur, Benjamin Dixon, and John Iadarola discuss the 2020 Vice Presidential debate between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence on The Young Turks. 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. All right, back on a Young Turks post game. I'm going to start with a member comment. Crystal Rice, and it's getting cold. I could totally go for a TDR hoodie.

Oh, maybe. Maybe the next thing at shopt.com is not the next TDR shirt or the TDR hoodie. Okay, so we'll look into it. Thank you, Russell. So John, the cheeses works so well on me. Yeah. So I'm curious about the non-answer you're happy about. Okay, let's do this then. And, you know, I eagerly await both of you thinking that I am either missing something obvious or I'm being way too optimistic and naive at this late date. So the debate tonight between Pence and Harris, it was mostly Pence refusing to answer any question. He'd be asked a question. He would say thank you, and then he'd say whatever he wants. Kamala Harris, for the most part, was willing

to engage with the questions. But there was one area that she would not answer on. She was called out for it. And notably, it was the same area that Joe Biden in his debate when he spent an hour and a half with Trump teeing up, you know, socialist priorities that Biden would then say he's not in favor of. There was one area that he would not actually definitively say what he thought on. And so Kamala Harris was asked about core packing, and she would not say that she was going to do it or that she wasn't going to do it. Joe Biden that said, screw the green new deal, I beat the socialist, I'm not for Medicare for all, screw all your left priorities, asked about getting rid of the filibuster and packing the court, suddenly he didn't want to say

anything. And maybe it means nothing, but they love to say, no, no, we're not going to rock the boat, nothing's going to fundamentally change. It would be very easy for them to promise that on this area. But why do both Biden and Kamala Harris not willing to go on the record and saying that they're not going to pack the court? Maybe I'm stupid to get some hope from that, But it does give me a little bit of hope that maybe they understand how necessary it might be. Yeah, I have to agree with you. I was thoroughly impressed with Joe Biden doing that last week with regard to the filibuster and Kamala Harris doing it. Because you're right, they are so willing to throw jank, like you're going to discuss, throw leftists under the bus. So that is definitely something that I'm screaming from the far left, like pack the courts, give rid of the filibuster.

So the fact that they skillfully got around that, one, it shows them they actually have some skill if they would ever use it, but then two, it does, I think, bode well that this is a fight that they actually might want to fight. Yeah, well, so I'm going to be the white blanket here. So first, I want to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you guys. It's good news that they're not clearly coming out against a progressive position, which is what they do not out of it. 10 times. So I think our bar is pretty low, but still I'm glad they cleared it. But the reason

why I think it's still not really the right strategy is, because guys, remember the point of threatening to expand the court is to get the Republicans to back down from confirming Amy Coney Barrett in this short period of time. It's not to necessarily to actually expand the court. So if you don't threaten it, it kind of misses the point. So you have to make up your mind. Are you threatening it or are you not threatening it? Because if you don't threaten it and you don't frame it as if you guys pack the court by putting an Amy, Coney Barrett, when you clearly shouldn't because of the Mitch McConnell rule, well, then it's going to force us to expand the court. If you don't connect the two things, one, the threat doesn't work. And two,

When you go to expand the court, if you do actually do that, then the Republicans go, oh my God, this is an outrage and it came out of nowhere. No, it didn't come out of nowhere. It was connected to you packing the court with Amy Coney Barrett. But if you don't clarify that now, well, it's not nearly as clear or effective. So is your fear that, let's say they do what they're almost certainly going to do, which is it doesn't matter if it has to take place over Zoom or, you know, TikTok or whatever, they're going to, they're going to get Connie Barrett on the court, that then they'll be free, I guess, at that point to say, no, of course we're not going to back the court. Because at that point,

they wouldn't need the threat. It wouldn't have any point because the Republicans had already taken the spot. No, wait, I'm not sure I understand what you were asking, but John, my point is that if you tell the Republicans, you put Amy, look, here's how I'd roll, okay? You put Amy Coney Barron on the court before the election and the new president. No problem, but we are going to add at least three justices, okay? So you're called brothers and sisters, you do anything you like, but it's a guarantee. If I say it's a guarantee, it's a guarantee. You write it down in stone. We're adding three

justices. You want to add one? We'll add three, okay? So because you block Merrick Garland, because you said it was a year before the election. You're trying to put her in a week before the election. Yeah. If you make that threat, they might not add her, in which case you don't expand the court. To me, that's a win-win. Yeah, but I'm saying, so what if they do confirm her? Then you got to believe, is it an empty threat? No, you can't do an empty threat. That's why you got to make up your mind now. Are you doing it or are you not doing it? And I think expanding the court could be problematic, I bet it does not poll well, especially if you ask it on its own. as opposed to a reaction to the Republicans packing the court and leaving you no choice.

Basically, I would frame it as I didn't expand the court. You did. I told you I was going to expand the court if you did. And so I have to deliver on my promise to the American people. I told them before the election that I was going to expand the court if you expanded the, if you packed the court. So you did it. I have to do what I promised. I think one thing though is that they understand the nature of what the Republicans are going for and that there's no threat that's going to stop them or intimidate them. They will run the country literally into oblivion to get the Supreme Court picked. So it's like trying to negotiate with a terrorist.

So I think the Democrats might actually be trying to do some real politic here for a change, some power politics, which is we know you're going to confirm her. and we're not going to take it on the chin in this election by actually saying we're going to pack the court. But you know we're going to pack the court as soon as this is over. Now, that is, in terms of the Democratic Party history, I feel like that's wishful thinking. And I feel like I shouldn't even have even said that. But the only thing logical to me is seeing the fact that no matter what threat they make, Republicans are going to do what they have been salivating over for for the last 40 years. And so we're just going to have to do what we have to do.

And we're going to do it quietly before the election. But after we win, we're going to get it done. Yeah. And so I'll tell you something now about what's going to happen. We talked about what should happen. To the point that Ben was making, if the Republicans put Barron on the court, will the Democrats expand the court? I have it at a 0% chance.

So no way, they're going to run into resistance. The first poll they're going to show is that it's like 6535. That's my best guess politically. And then once they see that, they won't do things that are 70% popular. Sometimes they'll surrender on issues where they have over 90% popularity on their side. You think they're going to fight for something that's under 50% and that's as controversial as packing the court? There's no chance that Democrats are going to do that. The only way they would do it is if they had strong leadership that threatened it now and then was forced to deliver on that promise.

But there's no chance that's going to happen. Okay. So look, I'll be shocked and I'll be, and I'll fall on the ground and I'll report from the ground that I was wrong as I did earlier tonight, right? I didn't fall on the ground because it wasn't as dramatic. But I'm super happy to say I'm wrong if I'm wrong, but I won't be. There's no way they're going to expand the court, especially under these circumstances. Okay.

So let's go to a fun video here. We have dramatic footage from the debate of what everyone is talking about. And maybe this is great news for the Democrats, because since they're up by about 10 to 15 points, this is exactly what you want America talking about after the VP debate, which is the fly that landed on Mike Pence's head and would not leave. I'm the only one on this stage was prosecuted the big banks for taking advantage of America's homeowners. I'm the only one on this stage who prosecuted for profit colleges for taking advantage of our veterans.

There's a fly. And the reality of this is that we are talking about an election in 27 days where last week the president of the United States took a debate stage in front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists. Not true. And it wasn't like he didn't have a chance. he didn't do it and then he doubled down and then he said when pressed stand back stand by the fly is actually asleep it was listening to Pence this is a part of a pattern of Donald Trump's okay that that was stunning yeah I think it was nearly two minutes where the fly stayed on my Pence's head. So theories, first of all, you heard us talking during that. That's our live

play-by-play analysis that we do on all the debates and the big events like State of the Union. So the remaining presidential debates, make sure you tune in for that. And John noticed the fly first. I don't know if you could hear it clearly in the tape, but while we were alive, my theory was that there's something in Pence's hair that makes fly stick on it. And I think the fly was trying to get out of there, but it couldn't. He's like, what is this thing? What am I So then if you notice, Mike Pence's eyes weirdly bloodshot too. Apparently, one of the theories is that's a symptom of coronavirus, but they say Mike Pence tested negative for the virus. On the other hand, that's what they said about Donald Trump in the last debate, and then it turns

out he was positive. So who knows? And then another theory, of course, is that that Mike Pence is already dead and he is risen as a zombie. And that is why the flies, by the way, okay, like kidding aside, that is a literal theory that Alex Jones had about Hillary Clinton when a fly landed on, no, about Barack Obama. I remember now, we covered it on the show about Barack Obama when a fly landed on him for about 5% of the time that that fly stayed on Mike Pence's head. If Alex Joseph sees this, he's going to for sure say that Pence is a zombie. I've just grateful that the elements are turning in our favor for once.

Because for the longest coronavirus is really only infecting and taking out really good, good people. And I don't wish it on anybody, but I didn't feel anything at all when I heard about Stephen Miller. And this fly landing on Mike Pence might be actually the thing that says, saves democracy because everybody is going to be focusing on that and nothing else. So this is a win. This is a win from the universe. Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to think, is this better or worse, more embarrassing, less embarrassing than the time that Ted Cruz debated with some weird white ball of material of some kind on his face? It wasn't clear where it came from. It is clear where it ended up going, which was

the worst of all of that. It went back inside of him. I think it came out of him, but it definitely went back inside of him. John, no, this is not what you want to be remembered for. I apologize, Ben. Hopefully you're not about to eat. Yeah, no. I just got through eating before this, so thank you. Yeah. So John, quick correction though, that was not the most embarrassing moment for Ted Cruz. The most embarrassing moment was when he was dialing for Donald Donald Trump to get out the vote after Donald Trump called his wife ugly and is that a murder. That's right. It's much worse than anything in his nose. And look, of course this is trivial stuff.

I don't want anybody to think that we actually care about the fly on his head. We're having fun with it. So let me keep going. The bloodshot eye, you know, another thing that could happen is if you smoke too much weed, you, you can get, you know, bloodshot eyes. And I'm going to rank that theory as less likely than being a zombie. Could you imagine Pence backstage? Hold on, hold on, dude. I'd have so much more respect for him. I would, I would like, you know, this guy really game, recognized game.

If he can get off that level of calm and sadistic lies, why being. completely stoned. He's a master. Yeah. Maybe that's why the fly was just chilling there. Like, this dude is Zen, man. This guy's got to figure it out. I'm going to hang out here for a while. And final theory, obviously, for anyone who has watched the movie fly is that Mike Pence is turning into a fly. It'd be an improvement. Yeah. And flies have many eyes. I'm not saying anything. I see a transformation of an eye from Mike Pence. Okay, here's my pregnancy from Baby Center. Welcome to my pregnancy from Baby Center.

Tell us your due day. I'm hoping that that's not audible, but we'll see. That was audible. Alexa was going crazy over there anyway. Speaking of awkward moments. Is there a bug on me? Oh my God. I don't make me do the old Tracy Morgan line.

All right, so all right, let's keep going. Now let's go to a less important clip about climate change. All of the science. But once again, Senator Harris, is denying the fact that they're going to raise taxes on every American. Joe Biden said twice in the day of time of change. And on day one, it was going to repeal on top tax cuts. Those tax cuts delivered $2,000 in tax relief to the average family of four across America.

And with regard to banning fracking, I just recommend that people look at the record. You yourself said repeatedly that you would ban fraud. This is not about fracking. Senate co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. And while Joe Biden denied the Green New Deal, Susan, thank you for pointing out. The Green New Deal is on their campaign website. And as USA Today said, it's essentially the same plan as you co-sponsored with AOC when she submitted it in the Senate. And you just read the Senator say that she's going to resubmit America to the Paris Climate Accord.

Look, the American people have always cherished our environment. We'll continue to cherish it. We've made great progress, reducing CO2 emissions through American innovation and the development of natural gas through fracking. We don't need a massive $2 trillion green new deal that would impose all new mandates on American businesses and American families. Thank you. Joe Biden wants us to retrofit four million of American business buildings.

It makes no sense. It will cost jobs. President Trump is going to put America first. He's going to put jobs first. and we're going to take care of our environment and follow the science. Yeah, the reason why you can see I get frustrated in the play-by-play then, that was probably the most I talked during the debate on any one answer, is because they let him off the hook, both moderator and Kamala Harris.

She asked about climate change. He never answered whether climate change is real and man-made and if they're going to do anything about it. He went back to talking about when he eventually got back on topic. about how awesome fracking is, which means, no, we're not going to do a damn thing about climate change. One thing I would have done differently, I would have pointed out every time he didn't answer a question. And I would have predicted it. I would have preempted him and say, he's not going to answer. Watch, right? I would have teased him the entire night like that because that's where my greatest frustration came from.

His ability to not answer anything, but then he had the unmitigated gall to come back and demand that she answers something. That would have been a fabulous technique for her to do to show that everybody, every single time that he refused to answer anything. Yeah, totally. I tweeted something in effect of they'll never do it. They'll never do it. But if I ask you a specific question, and that was among the most specific questions of the debate, is climate change an existential threat to the human species? And he said, well, we're going to follow the science, but let me say. And then he started talking about something else.

So no, you're not going to answer the question. You're not going to say yes or no. Or even let's say it's an unfair yes or no. It's not. But let's say it's an unfair yes or no. You're not going to give an answer that explains why it's a combination of the two things or anything like that. You're going to be evasive and go talk about something else.

Then stop them. They don't get two minutes for whatever. They get two minutes to answer that question. And if five or ten seconds in, they've made very clear to everyone watching that they're not gonna answer the question, that's not their two minutes. That's our two minutes, okay? That's our time. I don't care about them. But unfortunately, the moderator just let it keep going. And I know partially it's that in the same way that Kamala Harris had a lot of pressure on her and unfair expectations and bias and all of that, the moderator did too. But the moderator

is coming off of the Chris Wallace performance or lack of performance. They said they were going to be ready to cut mics. I read that news last week. They weren't. And they didn't. And he mocked her to her face saying that he was just going to talk about whatever he wants effectively. And so, like, I'm sorry that the standards are so different and biased in all of that. But you still have to do your job and you didn't. You didn't, as Ben pointed out, say that he didn't answer the question. You never asked a follow up to demand that they answer the specific question or at least again, make clear that they didn't. You just, and then you end that question with the both, end the debate with the both siding about, yeah, Trump is like

a fascist, but the left, I mean, they don't like him. What do you think? It was just such a failure. And we don't, we only get a few debates. Two of them are wasted. That's two strikes. According to my research, we've got like about one more. And I don't have any expectation that the next debate moderator is going to be more ready to cut their mics than either of these two are. They're still terrified of offending powerful people. That's what it comes down to. Yeah, and in fact, I hated that last question, and I'm glad you brought it up, John. So she's like, oh, we got this amazing question from a student. No, you had like thousands of questions.

You picked that one because you love it. And you picked it because it goes to what mainstream media loves. Both sides do it. I'm neutral. What do I know? The question was, you know, when I turn on TV, I see politicians yelling at each other. Can't we all get along? And I call that the Rodney King question, right? And what it does is civility protects the status quo. So if Donald Trump is not taking action on testing

and contact tracing, for example, and it gets 210,000 people killed, the correct response to that is not, oh, on the other hand, no, the correct response to that is, you did it wrong, right? And if he says, if he can't condemn white supremacists, being polite to him is not the correct answer. And so this idea that the mainstream media repeats over and over again like propaganda, no matter what anyone does, everyone should be agreeable. No, I don't agree. to Dick Cheney reinstituting torture. I don't agree to all the wars they started. The millions of civilians that died in those wars, I don't agree to anything that Donald Trump has done. And forced civility and agreement is harmful, especially when one party takes forceful action

that is so harmful to the average American. And the other party does not. Well, then if you maintain in that status quo, the violence and the damage that comes from that is far worse than any politician is yelling at each other. At the risk of sounding like I'm mansplaining something, I'm going to tread it extremely carefully here because I don't want to come off that way. But when you give in to civility, you also give in to the mindset of those nine men on Frank Luntz's panel that looked at comments. said despite her being measured, civil, had decorum, everything, they still saw her as abrasive.

And so for the moderator to facilitate civility, as it's defined by this country, really is exacerbating that phenomenon. And what she should have done was put that man in check. What she should have done was done her job, regardless of what anybody thought about civility, norms, decorum because he was ignoring norms and decorum. And the reason I say it like that is because no matter how good you do, no matter how civil you are, no matter how kind you are, powerful people will manipulate that to maintain power. That's why they looked at Kamala as being abrasive when she was obviously civil. Yeah, totally agree. I think we have time for one last topic, and that's the one that I promised. So the one thing that both Trump and Pence did

well in debates is they got Biden and Kamala Harris to denounce every progressive position as forcefully as they could. So are you in favor of the Green New Deal? No, hell no, no way, no, we're, hey, but it's kind of related to the one on your website. No way, we hate the Green New deal. How about police reform that's effective, like defund the police? Now that one, I know they're not going to come anywhere near. But Biden goes over the top in the first debate, and instead of just saying, no, that's not my policy, my policy's police reform. So a totally fine answer. His answer was, I'm going to give more money to the police. I'm more and more money to the police. And tonight again, Kamala Harris during the debates in Democratic primaries

where she was trying to prove herself a progressive was talking about how, no, I was totally for criminal justice reform. Now she switched back tonight to, oh my God, I was so tough as a prosecutor and I was tough on crime. Pence went to the left of her and said she was too tough on African Americans during her reign, which actually is true. It was too harsh. And then on fracking, I mean, How many times is Kamala Harris the swear on the Bible that they were going to frack the hell out of this country? So, you know, and then in the first debate, Biden said, oh, I beat the socialist, I beat Bernie. Now Bernie's out there, busting his asses or progressives to try to get Joe Biden elected. And in my opinion, Biden and Harris fall into the Republican trap of insulting their own base, where Donald Trump is so in

with his base, he can't make up his mind about white supremacists. Our side says constantly attacks our own base when the biggest spotlight is on. And I think in the long term, that does great damage. Yeah, I'll jump in there. What they're not calculating for is the calculus that the left is making, right? It takes a lot for me to just say I'm going to support Joe Biden in the first place, but we know the stakes, we know the odds. I know the game that Donald Trump is trying to do. He's trying to help to force the Democrats to shed the left when it comes to election day.

But there's enough of us who have already decided, we understand an existential threat, we've done a threat assessment, and we're not sacrificing our values, we're making a judgment call, we're going to vote for Joe Biden, and we're going to give Joe Biden, we would rather fight against a neoliberal than a neo-fascist. Yeah, I totally agree. But when you keep telling the American people, I agree with Trump and Pence, that Green New Deal is no good. Police reform should be very mild, if any. Fracking is wonderful. Well, you shouldn't be surprised we don't get any progressive

priorities because you just got every political party to agree to the same thing, which is a conservative position, then what was the point of view winning? So now in this case, it's much more complicated than that. And yes, they are neo-fascists. And the point of view winning is to make sure we have another election. So I can answer my own question. But again, there's no way in the world that doesn't do tremendous damage to what should be democratic goals in the long run. Yeah. And some of the, I mean, they talked, I think you pointed out earlier on our footage, in our coverage, they talked about fracking for, I don't know, 30 minutes of the debate, I feel like, because Mike Pence just kept returning to it because he considered it to be a good

position. And we really ended up getting like the worst of both worlds that we kept being assured by our VP pick that they're not going to ban fracking, even though obviously if you're listening to the science, we have to do that bare minimum. We have to do that if we're going to meet the targets that we have. And it's not even unpopular. Like, depending on what poll you look at, there was a Pennsylvania poll this year where it was 4852 in favor of banning it, totally banning it in Pennsylvania. There was a poll at the end of last year where it had majority support for banning it. But they're running scared. Like, she was more scared of someone thinking that they're going to ban fracking than Pence was of admitting that he wants to outlaw abortion

across the entirety of the country, even though every single poll for literally decades shows that the American public don't support that. So Republicans never have to actually defend their unpopular positions. And Democrats choose to not even like try to defend something that's arguably popular already and certainly would benefit from you spending a day or two making the case. Like the Green New Deal is popular despite the fact that you almost never hear an explanation of what it actually was. It was talked about constantly at the debate, but nobody said what it actually includes. And most people's exposure to information about it over the past few years has been negative. The media either talks about it in a fairly dishonest way or it's Fox News

where they're literally lying about what it includes. And it's still popular. But they don't actually want to back these positions. And they're not doing it to protect their polling. Like as I said, these are not unpopular positions. So I have to assume that it's the money. It's the donations. They don't want to scare these industries into opposing them and other Democrats. Totally agreed. All right, we're out of time, guys. Make sure you check out the damage report tomorrow morning. Check out the Benjamin Dixon show. And Anna and I will be on the show tomorrow at 6 o'clock. And oh, drive Anna crazy and watch my interview with Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, which airs at 5.30 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.

on t yt.com slash live it's actually a really interesting interview if I might say so myself I was a little surprised by his answers so that's why I want you guys to check it out all right much love thank you ben thank you john and Asher and brandon behind the scenes who helped put this together thank you guys have a great night 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, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.