The Young Turks - Pelosi Ya Later!

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

Nancy Pelosi says she will step down from her position as Speaker of The House. The fallen Crypto CEO tells all about the company’s catastrophic failures over Twitter DMs with a journalist. Congress has limited nondisclosure agreements when it comes to sexual assault cases and no surprise, Jim Jordan voted against it. Pete Sessions said cannabis and slavery are very much alike and it’s the most nonsensical and offensive comparison. Banks and hospitals are cashing in on patients and their families who can’t afford to pay their medical bills. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! All right, well, welcome to the other Turks, Janky, Granite, Kasparin with you guys. You guys are going to be shocked to find out that we have controversial opinions on today's show.

Brace for impact. So, including on the very first story. So you know what, Anna, without further ado, let's do it. You got it. Let's do it. Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives finally agreeing to step down from these leadership roles to pave the way for fresh blood that essentially has the same pro-corporate ideology as the old leadership.

Now, of course, I'm talking about the House of Representatives where Republicans have now taken control. And Nancy Pelosi earlier today had noted that she will be stepping down as House leadership to join rank and file Congress members in the Democratic Party. But she's not the only one. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn announced today that they will remain in Congress next year but won't seek a leadership position joining us. Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Now what's fascinating is who they are emphasizing to replace leadership. The development clears the way for Representative Hakeem Jeffries, of course a congressman from New York, to current chairman of the House Democratic Caucus to jump several rungs up the leadership ladder to replace Pelosi in the next Congress when Republicans will take control of the lower chamber. And we have discussed the possibility of Hakeem Jeffries serving as Speaker of the House.

We knew that he was being groomed. In fact, the person who knew it the most was Jank Yugar. Why don't we take a look at a video where we talked about this previously? Then he goes to who might replace Pelosi. Okay, and of course, I could have told you. I did it. I said it in my head. If we were reading it together, I would have told you ahead of time, Hakeem Jeffries. And in fact, you've probably seen me say that probably about a dozen times on the show already. Everybody knows it's going to be here came Jeffries, right? Jank certainly knew it.

And in a letter to fellow Democrats, Steny Hoyer said that he's proud of his work in leadership. But now is the time for a new generation of leaders. He quickly endorsed Jeffries who faces no other challenger. Jank. Yeah, so there's a couple parts of this story. First of all, on that prediction, that was a year ago, but as I told you in that clip, I said that for years and years, you might be thinking like, oh, okay, well, what's the big deal? Apparently he was there apparent.

You don't get any credit for that. No, no, no. I don't care about the credit. What matters is at the time, the reason we were talking about it is because progressive leadership, namely Pramila Jayapal, who's out of the Progressive Caucus, seem to be making moves and agreeing with Democratic leadership and Nancy Pelosi because she was under the misimpression that Pelosi was going to back her. And that's where I was saying, don't be absurd.

And there was, and guys, after the fact, everybody says it was obvious. But before the fact, there's always like tons of speculation. And whenever I say something like that, they're like, oh, you don't know, you don't know that. Maybe Nancy Pelosi is going to give it to someone who's an ideological opposite of her, like a progressive. No, there was a 0% chance of that. As usual, we were right and they were wrong. I don't know how many times we're going to go through this where they're still going to be like, no, no, I don't see it.

I bet Democratic leadership is our best friend. No, Pelosi is a corporate Democrat. She was always going to hand it off to another corporate Democrat. Any progressive who thought otherwise lives on a different planet. And by the way, shouldn't be trusted going forward because they obviously have no idea what's going on. How could a guy sitting in a studio in LA, this talk show host? What a talk show host? No, nothing, right?

How do I know better than leaders in Congress? That tells you, not something about me, it tells you something about them, that they're totally clueless, have no idea what game is being played. So, of course, it's Akeem, Jeffries. I'm going to get back to Pelosi in a second. But Anna, what did you want to say? Well, the reason why you easily predicted this is because you have a pulse, right? Right.

You think for yourself, you have a pulse. I mean, the truth is like slapping everyone in the face constantly. And there are people who just, it seems like they're almost paid to gaslight and tell everyone, no, no, no, don't believe what you're seeing, don't believe what you're hearing, it's actually the opposite. Pramila Jayapal never stood a chance, and I'm glad that you mentioned that component to the story. Now let's go to, you know, some other potential members of Congress that could be promoted to leadership positions. First off, in regard to Hakeem Jeffries, I think it's notable that Representative Joyce Beattie, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said that the group was likely to vote unanimously for Jeffreys, who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. said that the group was likely to vote unanimously for Jeffries, who is a member of the congressional

black caucus over any potential challenger, including Hoyer. I don't know how much of an impact that made on Hoyer's decision to step down from the leadership role. But regardless, he did it. Clyburn's announcement further, according to the Hill, paves the way for Jeffries. In addition to Jeffries, he endorsed the two other up-and-coming Democrats, representative Catherine Clark from Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar from California, who are expected to seek the number two and number three spots respectively. Jank, Aguilar and Clark, maybe they're progressives. I don't know, you tell me.

No, of course they're not progressives. It's team corporate that's winning here. As always, as always in Washington. Okay, so look, Pramila Jayapal had the strategy of quote unquote trust Biden, which was also implicitly trust leadership, trust Pelosi and Schumer, and that they were going to deliver buildback better and all the wonderful things that were in build back better. Well, that strategy completely and utterly failed. They did not get build back better. They got tiny little shards of it passing inflation reduction act, but over 90% of it did not pass. So the

strategy was wrong. The second part of it was, oh, no, that's okay. Pelosi, if we're good to her and we just listen to her and we bow our heads, she's eventually going to do what we want. And that strategy has now been proven definitively to also be a complete and utter failure. Now, does it matter if it's Hoyer or Jeffries? Is it personal in some way? Oh, we don't like Jeffries. No, it doesn't matter at all. Hoyer is a corporate Democrat. Jeffries is a corporate Democrat. I don't care which one of them it is. It's totally irrelevant. If you give me a progressive like Katie Porter, Jamie Raskin, someone who's progressive adjacent, then it could matter, right? But as long as

as this is a corporate Democrat, I don't have any beef with Hakeem Jeffries in particular. And what are you going to do? Put like Godheim? It doesn't matter. They all are going to do exactly what the donors tell them to do. So should they should progress his vote for him? Of course not. There's literally zero reason to vote for. They would do it why out of politeness. And let's be honest, you just mentioned the Congressional Black Caucus out of identity politics. Oh, you can't vote against someone who's black. Why? Doesn't it depend? What if it was Ben Carson? Why are we supposed to vote for him? And they say it with a straight face like no, you have to It doesn't matter. You should do it only based on skin color. Hard pass. No way. I don't care

what their skin color is. I care what their policies are. I'm not going to vote for somebody and no progressive in their right mind should vote for a corporate politician that is going to only serve their donors. What, because of the color of their skin? Look, they have absurd conversations like this in Washington. And they think, and then they yell at us and they try to gas Oh my God, are you saying something against minorities? I don't care about your gaslighting. Give me the policies that help minorities. Not the policies that hurt minorities, but with a minority face on it.

I'm not remotely interested. And by the way, everyone who votes for Jeffries, and for God's sake, this is there one single person or one single progressive in Congress who has courage? You don't have to win the vote, guys. But you have to at least say, we don't want a corporation. We don't want a corporate Democrat, they kill all of our policies. We want the opposite. But that's like for every one of you that are watching me scream about this,

you're thinking, Jake, that's so obvious. Why are you all animated, right? Watch, none of them are going to run and none of them are going to vote against Jeffries. They're all going to say, oh, the person who I know will kill my bill, I'm going to vote for him. How does that make any sense? It doesn't. It's just Washington. and, oh, etiquette and politeness and civility at the expense of their voters.

So, Jamal Bowman has already come out to say that he will, in fact, vote in favor of Hakeem Jeffries as the new speaker of that. Giant mistake. Jamal Bowman, we supported Jamal Bowman 100%. I love Jamal. He's a really good guy. He has good intent. You think Hakeem Jeffries is going to pass any of your bills you care about? No, I know you guys, you're shaking hands and, hey, we got to do this.

and we're going to do that, really? For what? To what end? To what end? Is Hakeem Jeffrey is going to help you pass a single bill that is against donors? No way, zero percent chance. And if you don't know that, that's, I feel terrible for you. I know what I'm saying to that people inside the Washington bubble, it's heresy. We have to be super polite to the other powerful people. He's elite and the other elites want him. We would be so rude if we voted with our voters for someone else who would actually support our policies. And if you still think Hakeem Jeffries wants $15 minimum wage, Medicare for All, all these bills that are progressive bills,

you're nuts, you've learned nothing about politics. Hakeem Jeffries would do everything in this power to kill things like Medicare for all. Please, just learn politics. Now, while I fully admit that Pelosi's leadership role will be filled by someone who completely believes in her pro-class, corporate policy stances, it's still worth sending Nancy Pelosi off with a message, a fun compilation video, you know, just to celebrate this master tactician. Let's watch.

That's 49 members of Congress and 182 senior congressional staffers have violated the stock out, the inside of training law. I'm wondering if you have any reactions to that. And secondly, should members of Congress have there's thousands be banned from trading individual stocks while serving Congress no later at the lunch maybe you might want to watch i'm going to be reading a poem written by bono we're privileged to have a contribution from one of the great creative talents of our time lyn manuel miranda Many of you have been there. Getting back to sports because that's all we live right.

Football, football, college, high school, professional. We send in our team or we have to send in special team as well as the team because we have to know what that trial. For those who wish to, we will now kneel for our moment of silence. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House leader for a long time, but not for a good time. Yeah, so guys. Final words, Schenk? Yeah, absolutely.

So if you read a single article about Nancy Pelosi, and it doesn't matter where it is, even a Fox News host was like raving about her, why? She delivered the corporate agenda perfectly. Why wouldn't they like her? I know the politics is, oh, with the right wing, abashes Nancy Pelosi. but that's just theater, okay, in terms of the, of 98% of the articles that you will read, or if you watch cable news, certainly in mainstream media, they will all tell you, a nasty policy was amazing, historic, wonderful, amazing, amazing, the master legislator,

the greatest ever. I mean, I read an NBC news article, well, they had about 40 quotes where they're all like, oh, it's the greatest ever, unbelievable, wait. And I'm like, okay, great, show me what the hell you guys are talking about? What did she pass, right? What is she so legendary about? So first of all, they're like, did you know she was Speaker of the House twice? Yeah, I know. She was a leader of the Democrats for 20 years.

Yeah, I know. So how long was she Speaker of the House? She was Speaker of the House two different times for a total of six years. Wait, I did the math on that, 20 years, and she was speaker for only six of the 20. That means 14 out of the 20 years that she led the Democratic Party in the House, they were out of power. That's not a good record. That's six and 14. And then they say, oh, well, she won. Historic wins in 2006. and then in the Trump's midterm elections. Well, they're both midterms against deeply unpopular presidents.

Anyone could have won those elections in a massive landslide. George Bush was at like 20%, like in the 20s in approval rating, Trump was despised by the country. Those are the easiest wins in political history. Look, if you don't know that, you don't know politics, let's just move on. Okay, if you're just kissing her ass for the sake of kissing her ass, let's also move on. But lastly, they said, oh, no, she passed historic bill. So I'm going to read it to you from NBC real quick.

She's, they say Pelosi was a central player in passing the most significant laws in recent history. Okay. From President Barack Obama's signature health insurance measure. Obamacare was literally Romney Care. It was cooked up by the Heritage Foundation who was a right-wing thing thing. And they had a super majority. If you can't pass a bill that the Republicans initially were in favor of, when the Democrats have a super majority, you have your entire party.

and most of their party, I know they turned against it later. I know that. But it was their idea. If you can't pass that in a super majority, there's nothing you can pass. That's the lowest bar in history. But everybody's like, oh, she was so historic. In what? Jesus Christ, President Joe Biden's climate change initiative.

You mean the one that got gutted and 5% of it passing the Inflation Reduction Act? And she was totally failed in passing build back better. She said for sure she was going to pass it. Complete utter failure, voting rights, failure, $15,000 minimum wage. failure. I can give you a dozen other that are failures. And then they give her credit for the last two, climate change initiative from George W. Bush. So you help the Republican pass super weak-sauce climate change bill so that the Republicans can pretend they did something. And then the fourth one, oh, I'm sorry, and George Bush's bailout measure. Oh, you help George Bush

bailout bankers. Well, as Nancy Pelosi would do. And the fourth one is Donald Trump's COVID rescue plan. That was like nearly unanimous. The Republicans and the Democrats were always going to do that rescue plan. So that's her big giant legislative achievements, either the easiest things in the world or something counterproductive like the Wall Street bail out of George that George W. Bush wanted. Congrats.

Wow, what a historic leader. And by, I'm telling you things that are incontrovertible facts and everyone in mainstream media will be outraged that I did not kiss the ass of someone. who was powerful and got almost nothing done. All right, lots to think about while we go to break. When we come back though, we have just this outrageous tell all interview featuring Sam Bankman Freed after the collapse of his crypto exchange platform. Lots to get to. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys, but also Shanty, Nauru and Margo Munir, and Jeffrey Tucker.

You guys are amazing. You're American heroes. Thank you for joining. They just hit the join button below on YouTube. You could do it at t.com slash join. I'm going to read one comment from a member. XX, Nate Dog, X, X, X, X, X, wrote in. This is why I love TYT.

sick of seeing all the praise of Pelosi, T.R.T. always tells the truth. And that's why, like, right ringers, when they came for election night or Matt Gates, et cetera, and Larry Elder interview, they're all consistently shocked. They're like, oh, what, they're not just blindly and falsely praising Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden. They're actually telling the truth about both sides. Yeah, I know, in American media, to actually do the news and do it honestly is absolutely shocking. But yes, that's what we do here. All right, Anna. All right, let's get to our next story. Sam Bankman Freed, whose crypto exchange platform FTX filed for bankruptcy and recently collapsed, decided to grant Vox, a tell-all interview where he was exchanging

messages and DMs on Twitter and disclosing that he's a terrible person. So let's get right to it. First off, it's notable that he has absolutely no shame, considering, you know, the people who invested in crypto using his platform have lost, in some cases, their entire life savings. Looming over our whole conversation, writes Kelsey Piper over at Vox, was the fact that people who trusted him have lost their savings, and that he's done incalculable damage to everything he proclaimed only a few weeks ago to care about. The grief and pain he has caused is immense, and I came away from our conversation appalled by much of what he said.

But if these mistakes haunted him, he largely didn't show it. I would say because nothing seems to be haunting him. Now, let's go to some of his claims through this interview. One question on which I've seen widespread speculation is whether Bankman Freed thought it was okay to do unethical things for the greater good, a position that hardcore utilitarians, which Bankman Freed has identified as in the past, might hold. Now, back in the summer, when the same Vox reporter asked him about that, you know, balancing ethics and, you know, trying to carry out good deeds for the community, he seemed to. to agree that there needed to be a clear red line, there needed to be some balance. He said this, there is some line. The answer can't be there is no line or else, you know, you would end up doing massively more damage than good, foreshadowing to say the least.

He continues. And I think more generally, you could say, okay, fine, but just like subtract that out. But I don't think it's that simple either, because there are a lot of complicated but important second order harms that come if your core business is bad for the world in terms of your ability to work with partners and your ability to work with partners in your philanthropic efforts. Now if that statement is confusing, I gotcha. He tried to provide an example and he talked about like let's say a tobacco company, which of course is selling products that kill people and make them sick, that's the core of their business. But at the same time, if they're raising money or doing some good deed for the community, it doesn't really matter when you consider

the harm that's being done by its core business. Now, the Vox reporter just recently had another conversation with him, and he has completely changed his tune. Here's what he has to say. Those well considered ideas about balancing ethical imperatives, it's not true, not really, he said now. No, he's shameless, though. He's so shame. Like, he doesn't care. He's in the Bahamas. He thinks he's untouchable. He'll probably have to testify. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own

Shop now at Ikea.ca. In a case against him and, you know, FTX. But I do want to also share the screenshot of the DMs that he, the DM exchange he had with this Fox reporter, where she asks, you were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers. And he responded with, yeah, he he, I had to be. It's what reputations are made of to some extent.

I feel bad for those who get effed by it. By this dumb game, we woke Westerners play where we say all the right things. And so everyone else likes us. So everyone likes us. So this is who this guy is. He very likely lost a lot of money for a lot of people who didn't know what they were getting themselves into. There's potential fraud here.

And he also pretended to be a proponent of regulation. But now he's being honest that no, that was all an act. I think regulations are terrible. Bankman Freed characterized his past conciliatory statements toward regulators, like when he said just last month that some amount of crypto regulation would be definitively good. As little more than PR in doing so, he all but confirmed the view of critics who have argued that his overtures to Washington were much more about image than substance. So he was all about the PR game, but anything that he said prior to the collapse of FTX seems

to have been complete and utter lies, things that he didn't actually believe in. And then finally, I think this is the most important part, the accusation that FTX allowed for the other company that Bankman Fried founded, known as Alameda, a hedge fund, basically allowed them to take depositor money from FTX and gamble with it. Bankman Fried has maintained that FTX has never invested the deposits of crypto account holders on the exchange, while he continued to insist that FTX did not directly use account money in this way. He said that Alameda, which he also owns, had borrowed far more money from FTX's balance sheet for investments than he had realized, which ultimately left FTX vulnerable to the crypto equivalent of a bank run.

Why didn't Bankmanfried realize what was happening until it was too late? Sometimes life creeps up on you, he said. Yeah. But remember, there were people who looked into the books and realized that there was some foul play involved in FTX's finances. And so I just want to go to this one video, which features the head of Binance, who was able to look at the books. And here's what he had to say. He wanted actually a buyout of the entire firm, of that entire FTX platform. And then, but then we got a team on it.

It was pretty clear, pretty soon that there's, you know, there's misappropriation of user funds. The user funds are gone. And at that point, it's clearly that he lied to his users, his investors, his VC investors, his employees. At that point, I thought, I couldn't, like, whatever data that's in the data room, we couldn't trust anymore. He seems to suggest in a lot of these, these tweets that he didn't understand or he didn't, he

mismarked things. And when I say mismarked, he mislabeled things is what he's, I think is the phrase that he's used. And yet, when you looked under the books, clearly it appears that he was demonstrably co-mengling funds using the funds to leverage himself up and the like. Yeah, I think, look, I didn't do the due diligence myself, but I think you'll be very, very clear that Sam knows that he was using the user funds to do trading for Alameda. And he has been probably doing this for quite a while that nobody else knew. Yeah, okay. First of all, that's that's CZ. He's a main competitor of Bankman Freed. Don't trust them either. Okay, don't trust any of them. I'm going to explain why in a second. Okay. And,

We're going to show you how widespread it is. There's way more problems here than even what we've shown you so far. So, but first, I just want to make sure that everybody understands the scheme that he, that Sam Brankman-Fried did. So he's got FDX, you guys are putting your money into FDX. And then he's got Alameda where he gambles. He's got a hedge fund, he's making investments. He's going to keep the profits of this, right?

So you can, he can't take your money and put it into Alameda so that he can make his own money. That's wrong, that's illegal, right? But he says, no, no, no, no. I didn't take your money from FTX and put it into Alameda. I took your money from FtX and lent it to Alameda. And Alameda was going to pay you back after I made all the money off of your money. No, that's still illegal. That's not a thing.

Oh, technically I didn't give it to Alameda. I lent it to Alameda. Okay, great. Then Alameda give it back. Oh, we don't have it. We lost it. That's the same exact thing. That's called a robbery.

Okay. So when you look at the exchange that he had with the Vox reporter, his lack of morals is shocking. Even in this field, he has no moral core at all. He doesn't care about the people he ripped off 1%. He talks about other executives at his company who are feeling ashamed. And he's like, I don't get it. I don't know why they're feeling ashamed because you guys cause people $8 billion. And he thinks, yeah, well, they're stupid to trust me.

suckers idiots right who would trust somebody in somebody in crypto who's that dumb right and so that seems to be his attitude all wrong so how about the you said oh you're giving to democrats because you care about regulation now he's lying about it i don't want right i hate regulators uh so you were doing it for PR yeah we all you were talking about ethics was it for PR yeah of course who believes in ethics nobody believes in him by the way when he says no one in this industry believes in it we're all doing it for reputation i that's the only thing that i believe him on. Of course, of course. Yeah, our before it blows, now that it's blown up, our media is like,

ha, can you believe that? Before it blew up to everybody's like, oh no, what a revered figure. Look at him. Oh, he cares so much about ethics. Let me print about all these propaganda articles about how much, how ethical he is. Did you guys all retract that and say, sorry, we were morons. We got played by an obvious, obvious fraud. No, they still do the same thing for all they're powerful people. So, and then that line about the Westerners, what he's saying there, and you take it for however you want to take it, right? But he's saying people like CZ, the guy that was on there burying him on CNBC, he's like,

look, man, they have a different attitude. They don't even bother caring about ethics. I don't know if that's true, but that's what he's representing, right? And he's like, where is we in the West? If you see somebody that works in finance and crypto, et cetera, in the West, assume that we're obviously lying to you about caring about ethics. And guys, what are you doing in crypto? You're giving your hard-earned money, a lot of times your entire savings,

to people who have no moral core and brag about it. Why would you do? The very last person you should trust with your money is a guy who thinks ethics is a joke. Of course he's going to rob you. Of course. But they're like, oh, no, there's no regulations. Regulation is just another word for law.

There's no laws to protect me. And no, the democracy won't help, the government won't help, nobody will help. And all of these guys are the most morally bankrupt people in the world. So why don't I just trust them with nothing to protect me? Insanity, insanity. So I want to read you two more quotes from the exchanges. In one text, he says, most exchanges did some varying on what we did, just not as big and without the run on the bank, at least recently and more intentionally. So is it possible that the other exchanges

are doing the same exact kind of criminality as he did? Yes, it's enormously possible. So buyer beware, if you're one of those libertarian dudes who saved up like $20,000 and that's your lifetime savings, and you're like, oh, I bet if I give it to one of the most corrupt people in the world, but I'm sure it's just him. But the other guys in crypto are not at all corrupt. I'll just trust them without any protection at all. All right, look, we try to warn you. We try to warn you a thousand times. Go for it.

See how it turns out. And then finally he said, oh, F it, it looks like people wired $8 billion to Alameda. And oh, God, we basically forgot about the sub account that corresponded to that. And so it was never delivered to FDX. He's saying, we forgot to check that $8 billion people sent to Alameda thinking it was going to go as an investment of their to FDX. We never even put it into FDX. We never even bothered to check $8 billion. And he says it so casually, like, oh yeah, we forgot to transfer the $8 billion, as if he's talking about $8 because he doesn't care about you. All of those crypto guys look at their investors

as the biggest suckers in the world that just came to get robbed. They're like, oh, look at this. We set up a shop to do a robbery. And all these people showed up. and said, here, please rob me, please rob me. There's no laws, no rules, no protections, no regulations, please rob me. Okay, well, you asked for it, and he robbed you. All right, there is a story breaking right now regarding the New York Times and an attack on the New York Times. We will get you the details of that story when we come back in the next break, after the next break. But first, I wanted to get to one other story that has to do with legislation that's just,

passed in Congress. So let's discuss. For starters, it's a massive federal overreach. It regulates contract law that has been and should be handled at the state level. That was Congressman, Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, who shared his opposition to legislation that would restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements related to sexual assault cases. Now, there have been various places of work that have employees signed these non-disclosure agreements related to sexual assault cases. There have been various places of work that have employees signed these non-disclosure agreements. And if anyone within that place of work is sexually harassed or sexually assaulted, they're terrified to come forward because they signed a non-disclosure agreement that could be used

against them should they go to the authorities. Well, Congress wants to do this limitation, this restriction on NDAs in this specific context. And wow, what a shocker, Jim Jordan, the Republican congressman who has been accused of covering up sexual misconduct at Ohio State University is against it. And he's citing the catch all phrase regarding state's rights as the excuse for objecting to the legislation. But luckily, the legislation did in fact pass. It passed both the House and the Senate, meaning that all it needs is Biden's signature and it will be the law of the land. The Speak Out Act passed 315 to 109 and now heads to President Joe Biden for his signature. The Senate actually passed the bill unanimously in September.

So think about all the crusty Republican men in the Senate. Every single one of them who voted on the bill voted to pass it. But not Jim Jordan in the House, can't have it. Now, sponsored by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Lois Frankel, the legislation will bar employers from enforcing non-disclosure agreements or NDAs, often signed on the first day of work that prevent workers from discussing workplace sexual harassment or assault disputes that occur later. Now, every, again, every single Republican in the Senate who voted on the bill voted to pass it, but it was a little different in the House. Not only did

Jim Jordan vote against it, you have people like Thomas Massey, another Republican, can go up on the House floor to also share his objection to it. And spoiler alert, his excuse isn't any better. This is a difficult bill to debate. It sounds good. And I believe the intentions of the other side of the aisle are good as well. Nobody should be subjected to sexual harassment. But there's a problem. We are legislating outside of our domain.

We are violating states' rights in doing this. Violating states rights, Jank, because, you know, if some states want to protect employers who provide cover for sexual misconduct in the workplace, they should have the right to do it depending on which state they're in. What's stupid argument? Yeah, well, it's actually, it's just a fig leaf. So let me explain. So first, I think NDA's conversation is a little bit more complicated than people generally engage in in media. But this point is not at all complicated. So if you are just joining a company and they have you signed an NDA saying you will not talk about sexual harassment that you might suffer later, well obviously that doesn't make any sense.

I mean, why would you agree to your own sexual harassment? That's absurd. It's absurd, right? So that's why even Ted Cruz, even like the most vile creatures, Lindsay Graham, et cetera, and the Senate side were like, I mean, Jesus, it's so hard to argue against this. A fine, we'll vote for it. Yet 109, whatever adjective you want to attach to them, terrible people in the House on the Republican side were like, yeah, no, no, we think you should be able to make sure that if you sexually harass people, that you get them to sign something ahead of time banning them from ever talking about. A that'll show them.

Now, why do they do that? Is it because they're evil? Well, that's a good argument, but no. It's because their donors are all corporations. And the corporations want the NDAs. So the corporations told the Republicans, I don't care what you say or why you're saying you're voting against it. But you're to vote against it.

You are my servant. And so Jim Jordan and the others come out and go, Oh, yes, sir, absolutely, sir. And so now they can't say, hey, I got paid, I got bribed to vote against this. So they have to make up something, right? So they just pick any random right wing buzzword. In this case, states rights. Now, are there things that the federal government does all the time that impinge on states' rights contract to states' rights to regulate contracts?

Yeah, all the time. Interstate commerce, you can name dozens, hundreds of examples. It doesn't have to be true. You just have to go out and do a speech go, uh, states rights. Yeah, that's, that's why. Not because not the bribe, not the bribe. No, states rights. And right wingers will come out and voters and be like, oh yeah. Yeah, it's all yeah. No, you got to get sexually harassed because of states' rights. And then you have to give away all your rights because of states' rights. And that's how this game is played. That's how this game is played. It is infuriating. But at least you can see what people like Jim Jordan stand for. And I just want to give you a quick refresher on what I was referring to when I referenced the accusations against Jim Jordan when he was an assistant wrestling coach over at Ohio State University. Some of the wrestlers came forward and said that Jim Jordan knew that the doctor, the athletic physician at the university was engaging in sexual misconduct with the male wrestlers,

and he wanted nothing to do with it, meaning he didn't want to report it. He didn't want to help the wrestlers. Former wrestler, let's go to Graphics 6 here. Former wrestler Mike DeSabato told NBC News that before going to the university with the molestation charges, he reached out to Jordan, who told him, please leave me out of it. At the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn't know what was going on. Another former wrestler, Dunyasha, Yates, said that he and others had explicitly told Jordan about Strauss, meaning Richard Strauss, who was the team doctor. Now, Richard Strauss later took his own life and was not brought to justice.

And it appears that because of the fecklessness of our criminal justice system in regard to people in positions of power, Jim Jordan probably isn't going to face any consequences either and will not be brought to justice. But I mean, real bold to go up on the House floor with that ridiculous states rights fig leaf to share objection to a bill that's meant to protect workers who might have been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted at the workplace. So guys, this isn't a political zinger. We have a thousand things to say about Jim Jordan.

We think he's terrible in a hundred different ways. We don't need this. This is literal. Here's a guy who protected someone who did massive sexual harassment. And the kids, I mean, they're in college, to be fair, but the students would come to Jim Jordan and say, he's molesting me. He's, he's grabbing my genitals. He's doing all these things. And Jordan would be like, I don't care. And he would protect the doctor. He never turned the doctor in. He knew all along, all the students are saying, please help us.

And he's like, no. So he would go home at night, knowing all those kids are getting molested, and didn't care at all. So this guy who participated in covering up sexual harassment has the nerve to go out and give a speech about, ah, you don't need any protection from sexual harassment. States rights, am I right? Right. And what is mainstream media do? Do they point that out? No, because it would be impolite. It would be impolite to someone in power.

Do the Democrats come and rip his face off rhetorically? No, of course not. No, God forbid you should fight a Republican. And they're going to win on this bill. And great, that's credit to the Democrats on that. But they should never let something like that stand. But no, no, the Republicans will do the most vicious things and called the Democrats groomers and all those things.

And the Democrats, as always, will never fight back. And the media will never be honest with you. And that's why we're here. Anna? All right, everyone. We got to take a quick break. When we come back, we have a breaking news story about the New York. York Times. Don't miss it. We'll be right back.

And he has found something abhorrent, just awful. One of the worst things you've ever seen in your life. It's so bad he compared it to slavery. Wow, what is going on in America? That is so bad that it's the same as or similar to slavery. Well, let's find out. The product is being marketed. The product is being sold.

The product is being advocated by people who were in it to make money. slavery made money also and was a terrible circumstance that this country and the world went through for many, many years. Because the people in the marijuana business are trying to make money. So first, before you can get to the slavery department, can I just ask Congressman Sessions, which industry isn't trying to make money? So if that's your standard, will the oil companies try to make money? Are they the same as slavery?

No, you kiss their ass 24-7. Oh my God, we got to drill more. We've got to get more subsidies to the oil companies who are my top donors. Well, what they're trying to make money piece? That's just isn't the same thing as slavery? No, only when you do it with marijuana. But wait, to be fair, he thinks, oh, marijuana is so dangerous. Reef for madness.

Oh, my God. If you smoke marijuana, you're probably your head's going to explode. oil is causing climate change, which just might end life as we know it on the planet. You think marijuana is worse than that? And of course he does because he doesn't get paid by the marijuana industry. He gets bribed by the oil industry. So that's why. Now to the slavery point, I mean, guys, they have no shame at all.

Look, I hate to say it. And it's going to trigger some people. And so I'll give you a warning on it. But in slavery, they would whip people and the skin would come off the back. as you did the whipping. They would lynch people and then burn them and then take their body parts as memorabilia. They did picnics around lynchings. And this guy thinks smoking a joint is the same thing. They have, Republicans have no shame at all. Guys like him have no morality whatsoever. Here, let's give you more from this clown. And drugs are crippling. They cause addiction.

they cause crime and they cause mental issues. During my lifetime, we've gone to where we stopped allowing cigarette smoking in public, but now openly allow marijuana to be just used all over the place in communities that cause harm. Now, a lot of drugs are very dangerous, like fentanyl. It's a disaster for the country. Tens of thousands of people are dying. I don't think we're taking that epidemic nearly serious enough. But marijuana?

What is it like the equivalent of having your cores light? But for this guy, it's like, oh my God, I'm stuck in the 1930s and 60s. I heard marijuana's been brawl-crazy and all so dangerous. No, no, no. Tobacco, which I'm sure he's supported as well, the oil companies, etc. are far, far, far more dangerous than marijuana. And is he right, by the way? Are the American people really worried about this dangerous marijuana?

Let me show you one graphic here, let's go to graphic three and then bring Anna in for more heat. Support for legalizing marijuana. Oh, look at that. It's a, that was a 66% around 2018. It's even higher now. So two thirds of the country thinks that it's perfectly okay and should be legal. But this guy says it's the same thing as slavery. Anna.

Yeah, I mean, all the points you made are so accurate. And just to buttress your point about the corruption. involved in swaying these politicians to either support or oppose things, I don't know if people remember Congressman Bonner, but he was, I believe, the speaker under Republican leadership, and he was 100% against marijuana legalization. He was outspoken against it. And then after he was out of Congress in the private industry, he decided to enter the great business of marijuana selling, growing and selling. Like that was what he focused his energy on as soon as he was out of Congress. And I'll just give you one more piece

of color on that. John Boehner. Bainer. Bainer. Yes. That's right. I don't know if you did that on purpose. Okay. And it's not boner either. So, okay. So Bainer would, before a vote on tobacco literally went to the floor of the house and started handing out checks from the tobacco lobby. That's a documented fact. So the guy was like, oh, marijuana. So did you smoking it? Oh, my God, that's going to ruin your lungs. Here's checks from the tobacco industry. Everybody remember to vote yes on tobacco, okay? And then he gets out and he's like, oh, I was lying about tobacco versus marijuana. It doesn't matter. Marijuana's not paying me. Tobacco was paid me before. Now marijuana's paying me. Great. That marijuana is great. That's how these politicians

are. American media lies to you 2,000 percent. The politicians are not honorable people having debates about policy. They're all liars and they're all crooks. All right, we have one more story to get to before we take a break. And this one just gives you a sense of all of the players involved in this private health care system. And we need to defeat every single one of them if we want a health care system that actually works on behalf of people and keeping them healthy. So the private healthcare industry is so so unaffordable that patients in the United States are now turning to lenders in order to finance the medical care that they need. And unfortunately, some of these lenders and banks behind this

effort are exploiting and preying on people when they're in their most vulnerable position. Now, it's known as patient financing and it's really blowing up. And it gives you a sense of just how many different industries are involved and vested in keeping private health insurance, private. So patient financing is now a multi-billion dollar business with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can't pay for care. By one estimate from research firm IBIS World, profit margins top 29% in the patient financing industry seven times what is considered a solid hospital margin. So just to give you a few examples, and I'm sure if you've ever been to a doctor's office or even a dental office, you might have

been offered one of these financing options. There's med credit, there's care credit, which I personally have had experience with. Access One is another example. And what makes this even more sick is that back in the day, hospitals would offer interest-free financing to their patients if their patients couldn't afford the care that they needed. Now hospitals are increasingly turning to lenders to handle the billing process and the financing process. And along with that comes incredibly high interest rates that dig people deeper and deeper into debt that they can't get out of. And it gets to the point where if they're not paying back their debt, Their wages get garnished, their tax refunds get garnished.

It's really a disgusting system that only gets worse. Now, let's talk about how this all works out. Now, millions of people are paying interest on these plans, on top of what they owe for medical or dental care by, and this is something that they found through an investigation done by Kaiser Health Network and NPR. Even with lower rates than a traditional credit card, The interest can add hundreds, even thousands of dollars to medical bills and ratchet up

financial strains when patients are most vulnerable. In fact, take a look at this graph because it gives you an example of just how much debt increases. So what you're looking at right now is a graph that shows the impact that patient financing has had on the debt of patients in the University of North Carolina health system, which uses Lender Access 1. And the The interest rate is 13% for the patients financing through access one. And the interest can also pile on debt. For instance, someone with a $7,000 hospital bill will, who enrolls in like, let's say, a five year financing plan at 13% interest, they have to add on another $2,500 in interest

payments just to settle that debt. And patients enrolled in a care credit card from Synchronic Bank, the nation's leading medical lender face a nearly 27% interest rate if they fail to pay off their loan during a zero interest promotional period. The high rate hits about one in five borrowers according to the company. Now I have personal firsthand experience with this back in 2009 when I needed to get some major dental work done, but I didn't have the money to pay for it out of pocket. I was offered the option to finance through care credit, and it had that one year promotional interest-free period. Had I not paid within that period, my interest rate would have shot up to

24%. And so luckily, I was living at home with my parents at the time and was able to pay it off within a year. But many Americans are not so lucky. And so it takes a bad situation with this privatized, astronomically priced health care system and makes it even worse because the vultures come in and they prey on the most vulnerable by trying to, you know, take even more money out of them through the interest payments. So this is a picture perfect look into predatory capitalism. So I have a unique perspective on this because I don't just host a show. I run the company.

So I know the business perspective. And from the business perspective, everything is numbers. So let me explain the horror of how they calculate these numbers in this industry. So they say, all right, look, if we do 0% interest in the first year, how much would we have to charge to make the 29% margin? It was a giant margin, right? And some charge all the way up to 27% interest. Now, when they do that, they have to calculate in their spreadsheets. How many people are going to go bankrupt because they know for a fact that tons of people, a certain percentage of the people, will not be able to pay an interest that.

that high. That's why it's predatory. And they know it for a fact. Then they have to put into their spreadsheet, okay, whatever percentage it is, 20%, 40% will not be able to pay. Then they put a second line in. How much will they be able to pay back before they go bankrupt? So they know that they're going to drive these people who had this health condition into bankruptcy. And they've got a number in their spreadsheet somewhere. It's 40,000 people, 80,000 people, whatever the number is, they go, oh, yes, we are going to charge them an interest rate so high that we will make a lot of money, but we will destroy their lives. And they go, okay, great, the math works on it, let's do it.

And then they show that math to investors, like private equity, hedge funds, et cetera. And not all those guys are bad guys, but the guys who funded this industry, they look at that and go, oh, so that many people are going to go bankrupt and lose their house and lose their, you know, their dignity, their respect, get their family hurt, and we're going to make a 29% margin. Those numbers look good. Here, let me give you money to do that. And all of that happened. And did you hear the press in America, the mainstream media going, can you believe this?

This is outrageous. Look at how they're robbing you. Look at what they're doing to you. Nope. The band plays on. Yeah, no, exactly. And but what I like about this story and credit to NPR for doing this investigative report, you know, we are critical of, you know, mainstream media oftentimes, but they do sometimes

produce these investigative reports that are illuminating and give you a sense of just how many players are involved in this privatized healthcare system. And it's important to know that because when it comes to dismantling a private healthcare system, when it comes to advocating for, let's say a single payer healthcare system, which would be far better for the patients in this country, it's important to know that it's a whole industrial complex because it's not just about the private health insurance companies. It's not just about the pharmaceutical companies. It's also about the banks. It's about the lenders who also make money off of preying on vulnerable people. And so there is a massive mountain to climb when it comes to fixing our health care

system. And it isn't so easy as to just doing away with private health care. It has a lot to do with all the other industries involved in profiting off of the pain and suffering of American patients. Yeah. And so I want to give credit to NPR here because this is a terrific piece. So but any of you're wondering, why do you ever criticize NPR if they do terrific piece like that? Good question. If this is the kind of stuff that NPR did exclusively, then I wouldn't criticize NPR. I'd love NPR, right? Because this is great. But I guarantee you that if a progressive went on air, which is barely ever happens on NPR, but if they allowed a progressive to come on air and they criticize the Democratic leader

for taking campaign contributions for medical loan sharks just like this, that they did a great story exposing. I guarantee you NPR hosts would say, oh, that's outrageous. No, you're talking about how these are bribes and these good Democrats are taking money from these. No, you don't, that's very uncivil. Don't say it. Don't say it. So if this report was the rule in NPR rather than the exception, then I would love NPR. But it's definitely the exception. Well, that does it for our first hour. We're going to take a brief break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we've got more news for you, including yet another bomb threat at Boston Children's Hospital. That and more coming right up. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

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