The Young Turks - Piers The Bubble

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

Marjorie Taylor Greene files censure resolution accusing Rashida Tlaib of inciting an insurrection. Piers Morgan confronts Jesse Watters over gun control. Food insecurity shot up last year with inflation and the end of pandemic-era aid, a new report says. Mitt Romney reveals most Republicans didn’t impeach Trump because they feared violent attacks from his supporters. Matt Gaetz hits Republican colleague with innuendo: "He is living a lie." HOSTS: David Shuster (@DavidShuster) Rayyvana (@RayyvanaTTV) and Senator Nina Turner (@ninaturner) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Thank you. Drop it. Be my team. Be my team. Big my team.

Big my team. Drop it. Drop it. Power panel on the Young Turks, Rayvana, David Schuster, and Senator Nina Turner. I was so excited when I saw the lineup for tonight. are you both doing? So well, Rayvana.

It is Friday, and there's no better way to end the week than with you, Ray, and you Senator Turner, pleasure to be on with both of you. It is going to be an awesome show. We've got a lot of great news to get through today. We're going to talk about a weird moment of clarity from Pierce Morgan. We're also going to talk about some unfortunate gun crime statistics in this country, as well as increase in poverty and how it represents itself in high. hunger in Americans. But first, we got to start with a gremlin herself. Marjorie Taylor Green.

Take a look. A resolution censoring representative Rashida Talib for anti-Semitic activity, sympathizing with terrorist organizations and leading an insurrection at the United States Capitol Complex. Oh, yes, that was Marjorie Taylor Green. The Jewish Space Lasers woman herself, accusing Senator, or excuse me, excusing Congresswoman Rashida Talib of participating in what she referred to as a pro-Hamas insurrection and spreading what Green referred to as anti-Semitism. Incidentally, Marjorie Taylor Green herself, an expert in spreading anti-Semitism. Now, she accused Talib of leading the group of protesters that gathered on Capitol Hill on October 18th to call for a ceasefire in the Israel Hamas war. A little bit more on that.

Whereas Rashida Talib led an insurrection at the United States Capitol Complex on October 18, 2023, which put members of Congress, their staffs and capital visitors in danger by shutting down elevators, stairwells, and points of egress, while obstructing official business in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, including a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, whereas the insurrection led by Rashida Talib was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, which the Anti-Defamation League calls a radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural, and academic boycott of the state of Israel. I just have to reiterate it right now.

She's calling a group named Jewish Voices for Peace anti-Semitic and attempting to call Rashida Taleb anti-Semitic for participating briefly in a demonstration that they had. Now, she's not calling it a demonstration, right? She's calling it an insurrection. So let's take a look at that insurrection. Multiple capital injuries, multiple capital injuries. Oh my god. Oh, that's my bad. Oh, that's my bad.

That wasn't the event she was talking about. That was a totally different insurrection, which Marjorie Taylor Green incidentally happened to promote, continues to pretend it wasn't as bad as it was, continues to support the ideology that led to that disgusting amount of violence. But just to get back to the actual event that Marjorie Taylor Green is using to smear Rashida to leave as an anti-Semite, let's talk about that protest. From NBC News, hundreds of demonstrators entered the Cannon House office building, causing U.S. Capitol Police to temporarily close access to the building. Capital Police estimated that they arrested 300 protesters, including three people who were charged with assault on a police officer. However, Capitol Police spokesperson said that to the best of their knowledge, everyone went through security and entered the building the proper way.

Since Senate office buildings are open to the public, but people must be screened by. magnetometers. Now, Rashida joined the protesters and spoke to the crowd, but there's no indication that she was leading them. In fact, the individual who led the group has spoken on MSNBC multiple times now. And the House is going to vote on this resolution next week. And David, there's something so insidious about using this moment and this group of Jewish people calling for peace to cast the only Palestinian-American congresswoman as an anti-Semite. Well, it's nice to see that the Republican House is on to the serious matters right off the bat by asking for a censure of Rashida Talib. I mean, it's insanity. And the fact of the matter is

you can have disagreements with Rashida Talib and with those groups and what they're trying to do in terms of the Middle East. You can also have disagreements with the Israeli Netanyahu government and the bombing of Gaza that is underway. But Marjorie Taylor Green is probably the last person who should be part of any one of these debates on any side because she has absolutely no credibility. She essentially makes, she diminishes the seriousness of these issues when she gets involved. Agreed. Yeah, I mean, agreed. David definitely summed it up. It's madness. Congresswoman Tully wasn't even inside the Capitol. She did give a speech, but it was when they were outside. This was not a insurrection by a long shot. The woman wouldn't know an insurrection if it slapped her in her face

because obviously she is in denial about what happened on January to 6th. And what happened to freedom of speech and the people's ability to petition their government? That is what most people went there to do. Now, will you have outliers during any activity like this? Yeah, sometimes you will. But there was nothing on par with the real insurrection that took place on January to 6th. These people are out of touch. She's using that kind of language deliberately and just the nerve, as you brought up, Ravenna, to call Jewish voices of peace and to label them as far left and radical.

You know, it just doesn't make sense at all. And I talked, you know, Madeira Benjamin, who has been on TYT, you know, several times. She leads Cold Pink. She is Jewish. She was there at that event. And so were so many other Jewish leaders that believe that there should be a ceasefire and that there should be peace. I mean, I don't understand what is so scathingly wrong about calling for peace. I mean, riddle me that.

I need somebody to help me wrap my mind around that. Marjorie Taylor Green, the purveyor of so many pieces of anti-Semitism, so many anti-Semitic statements to take up the mantle and get to decide what is and what is not anti-Semitic is particularly gross. And it does remind me calling this an insurrection. They referred to her and her ilk in the Republican Party in Congress. Congress referred to Jamal Bowman accidentally setting off a fire alarm as an insurrection, even if he set it off on purpose, to call that an insurrection when we have the footage that

we just showed of an actual violent insurrection where people lost their lives. They broke through windows and scaled walls to break into the Capitol, chanting, hang Mike Pence. I mean, they really wanted to overthrow democracy in our country, but some peaceful protests doing a sit-in, not in the Capitol, and the Cannon House building is the worst type of insurrection in their minds. Even the people who are the most people who are the most, hard, right, conservative, staunch supporters of Israel and want to hoverize Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

They don't want Marjorie Taylor Green defending Israel. They don't want Marjorie Taylor Green having anything to do with Israel. Marjorie Taylor Green, in their estimation, should just stay the hell out of it because that's how much she diminishes any position that she takes. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. There's a little more on this because after she introduced her proposal to censure Talib, Democratic Representative Becca Ballant, hit back, hit back hard, and filed her own

resolution to censure Marjorie Green. So deserved. Every, every Congressperson should be just introducing a motion to censure this woman. But she accused Green of fanning the flames of racism, LGBTQ hate speech, and xenophobia, and said she assaulted the foundation of our democracy. She also came with the receipts of why of all people, as we've been saying, Green should probably be the last person to accuse someone else of anti-Semitism. Here she is. Whereas Marjorie Taylor Green has repeatedly called for violence against elected officials and their families. Whereas Marjorie Taylor Green has repeatedly espoused anti-Semitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including through inflammatory evocations of the Holocaust.

Whereas on May 20th, 2021, Marjorie Taylor Green said that the mask mandate in the House of Representatives was akin to Jews being put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. Whereas on May 25th, 2021, Representative Marjorie Taylor Green tweeted, quote, vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo, just like the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear a gold star. Just like, just like, it was just the same thing when a genocide was committed against Jewish people that Marjorie Taylor Green, who refused to get vaccinated for no good reason whatsoever, voluntarily choosing not to get vaccinated, incidentally during the Holocaust, Jewish people didn't have a choice as to whether or not they were Jewish, Marjorie Taylor Green, who chose to spread COVID and kill everybody's

grandparents, made that decision. It is exactly the same. In fact, what happened to her, in her own mind, worse than the Holocaust. And just to continue on with her absolute insanity in response, in response to that clarity being given by that member of Congress about Marjorie Taylor Green, she tweeted this out. Slow down and breathe a little Becca. G's and they call me a conspiracy theorist. What did she say? What did she say that was incorrect? These are things you've said publicly.

You've said them on social media. You've said them in front of actual media, in front of cameras. It's aired on right-wing news and been criticized on left-wing news. These are things you said and did in public. In fact, after you made the comment about the vaccine, your own party forced you to go to the Holocaust Museum and issue an apology. What is the conspiracy? You did all of those things in public. I cannot stand this woman. So I'm just going to be quiet for a minute and let you guys take the rights. I mean, she's an embarrassment. She definitely needs to start over, starting with

kindergarten. When we're not even going to let her pass go on monopoly and collect $200. The woman must start back at kindergarten. She doesn't even have a base knowledge. She is an embarrassment and She does stoke the flames. She's a grifter, and this is her griff. She's a no-nothing, she does nothing. And you know what? I really feel sorry for us right now, us being the American people. Because people like her enjoy the theater.

They throw bombs and don't even worry about the fallout. And Lord, y'all, forgive me for saying throwing bombs in a moment like this. But she incites, and then she doesn't care about the fallout because there's no consequence for her. I'm embarrassed for her constituents. And I hope in 2020, you know, 2026 when she's run or 2024, excuse me, please somebody, please, please replace this woman. On Senator Turner to pick up on your, on your brilliant point, as you always make them. I mean, she is one of these people who she talks a big game, right?

She talks tough and she's for Donald Trump and she likes the January 6th insurrectionists and she wants to overthrow the government. But God forbid, she is confronted by 300, almost 98% of them. peaceful protesters, and she flips out. She can't handle it. She's terrified. And that's how a lot of bullies really are, that they're actual snowflakes. And Marjorie Telegreen is the epitome of all of that. Oh, yeah, indeed. Especially considering this is the woman who harassed Muslim members of Congress for swearing in on the Quran. She followed them around, yelled at them, went to their offices, opened up the mail slot, and screamed at them through it. this woman is the queen of bigotry.

The idea that she is an authority on anti-Semitism is absurd. The only thing she's an authority on is doing anti-Semitism. I suppose, though, my question to both of you is when we talk about all of her lies, when we debunk them, which I think is an important thing to do, does that, do you think that reaches the voters and how do we electorally try to neutralize people like Fardry Taylor Green, who represents, you know, some of the reddest districts in the country. I mean, I always joke that her, Matt Gates, you know, other Jim Jordan, you know, they're representing like R plus 6,000 districts.

It's a Democratic challenger in those areas is really not going to go anywhere. So how do we make sure that people like her don't get such a say in the laws of our land? And over, you make them to face of the Republican Party because even if they are in solidly Republican districts, there are a lot of swing districts out there. There's a lot of swing states that where independent and moderate voters, you know, they don't look up very often, maybe at politics. But when they do, they see this kind of trash and it frightens them and it angers them. And I think what that does is push them further away from Republican Party and towards Democrats. So it may not make a difference from R.D. Taylor Green to Lauren Bobert. Laura Bobberts actually in some trouble. But I do think it makes a great difference.

It actually benefits Democrats all across the country. Yeah, overall, I mean, even if I agree with David, even if she cannot, you know, Democrats can't beat her. Exposing her and her ilk is vitally important because you never know when that moment may happen where a more sensible Republican, you know, may even challenge her. So it's not just about the Democrats. It's also the Republican Party is going to have to decide what kind of party it wants to be. is Marjorie Telle Green the face of the Republican Party or otherwise. So I say it's still worth pushing and lifting up and exposing this woman. Quite frankly, welcome to the world of gerrymandering, though.

It makes it so much harder. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, the other thing I'll say just to that same point, I've been sort of beating this point during the past few weeks about how the Republicans have created a circus. Now they've selected a speaker, but they created a circus. And I've really felt it's been to the detriment of the Republicans in swing districts who are facing tough re-election campaigns coming up.

You know, at least if it can go on Fox News and wax poetic about how it was actually the smartest thing Republicans have I've ever done and their supporters are going to be thrilled by the absolute monstrosity that they've created in the house. I mean, weeks and weeks and weeks of no speaker not being able to do anything, staring down the barrel of a government shutdown. But ultimately, I think it's important for people on the left and for the Democratic Party to highlight these things because there are districts that they can win back, especially the more vulnerable ones that we're seeing in New York. There's redistricting that's going to happen before the next election where Republicans are going to lose some districts that they were able to gerrymander in their favor along racial lines. So if we just continue to harp on those points, and if the Democrats capitalize on this, whether or not they will, I don't have a lot of faith in them. But to take this moment and capitalize on the arrogance of the Republicans, on the circus of the Republicans, maybe it could actually stand to help them, the Democrats that is, in 2024. Okay.

With that, we should go to our first break, but stick around because we're going to be back with a moment of clarity for Pierce Morgan. Back on the Young Turks, Rayvana, David Schuster, and Senator Nina Turner. Let's jump right into this next story, because it's been piquing my interest today. Again, I've been saying this, but a moment of clarity from Pierce Morgan. Take a look. You're a country of many freedoms and many regulations. How about regulating guns in the way that you do kind of surprise chocolate eggs?

Okay. With respect. With respect. Do forks make people fat? Yeah. Okay. No. They do.

They do. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Guns will kill people. Forks don't make you fat. Guns do kill people. Forks don't make you fat. There's not many times I'll agree with Pierce Morgan.

Incidentally, I think that's actually the second time. I've said that on T.Y.T. But still, his stance on gun control is something I absolutely can get behind. One funny thing about that clip that I can't continue on without pointing out is that in order for Jesse Waters' joke to work, his point to play out, it was predicated on Pierce Morgan saying, forks don't make you fat. But Pierce Morgan said, yep, yes, they do. And it just ruined the entire thing he was attempting to set up. As you saw, Pierce Morgan made a guest appearance on Fox News as the five to react to the tragic news of Wednesday's mass shooting in Maine that killed 18 people and confronted Waters and his co-hosts about the issue of guns in America from a British perspective. My heart goes out to all these families because once again, you're seeing similar imagery of a shooter with one of these semi-automatic rifles and a lot of lives. been lost. A lot of people's lives have been ruined and families are grieving a morning. And it's heartbreaking. Secondly, as I learned the hard way over the years, Americans don't really

take to my accent or somebody called peers lecturing them about how to lead their lives or about their culture or about their laws. I get that. But you made a point there that in England we just don't have guns. I mean, hardly anybody has guns, including criminals, right? So I think we've had one mass shooting in like five years or something. You've had, God knows how many this year alone. And it just goes on, this kind of groundhog day. And there's the old, I don't think actually Einstein ever said this quote about the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different

result. But actually, in this case, I would argue as a friend to American-American, someone that loves the country and loves the people, at some point you've got to do something more than you're doing. And I wouldn't use the word control. I think that's part of the problem with this whole debate. He said God knows how many shootings this year alone. God and T.O.T. Because we're going to bring those stats to you in just a minute.

But first, Pierce Morgan continued to explain why this shouldn't be a debate about gun control. Moreover, a conversation on gun safety. When Americans hear the word control, they think instinctive. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off.

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How do you make it safer? How do you stop these loopholes, these guys slipping through the net? It's obviously a catastrophic failure. In Maine they have yellow flags, not red flags. Why? Why? Why don't you just have a red flag system all over the country? You have 400 million plus guns in circulation.

A million new guns are sold every month in America. This problem is going to get worse, not better. And at some point, as your friend, you know, as the great ally, I simply say, you've got to do something more to stop this. You can't keep having the groundhog day of these people with these semi-automatic rifles going into civilian areas and gunning people to pieces. Now, I disagree with him on the idea that if we simply change the rhetoric from gun control to gun safety, that gun nuts in America, are going to be more receptive to having that conversation. But the crux of his argument is correct. And now let's talk about some of the numbers of gun violence in America.

This is just from this year. The total number of gun violence deaths is 35,389. That's 15,589 homicides and 19,800 suicides. And I'll talk for a second about the mass shootings. But first I have to say, because conservatives love to bring up, well, most of the gun violence in this country, most of the death by gun violence in this country is suicides, to which I would reply. And I care just as much about people who are dying by suicide as I do, people who are being shot in the street. People who attempt suicide are significantly less likely to die if they don't have access to a gun. So gun safety regulation would significantly decrease the number of people die. by suicide. I think that's a good thing. Republicans think that's a got-you argument. I think that is the argument. Of course we want less people dying by suicide. Just like we want less kids dying by mass shootings in their schools. We went less people at bowling alleys being shot to death.

We went less people at grocery stores being shot to death. We went less people in gay clubs being shot to death. In that same vein, we want less people to take their own lives. With that, a little more on the mass shooting numbers. Again, just this year alone, there have been 566 mass shootings. 32 of those were mass murders of at least four people excluding the offender. And according to a study done by Everytown Research, and states where elected officials have taken action to pass gun safety laws, wouldn't you know it, fewer people die of gun violence. Here's a look at that chart. It's sorted by gun law strength.

So these are the states with the highest or the strongest, excuse me, gun laws in this country. So according to the data, a state like California has the strictest gun laws in the country and has the eighth lowest rate of gun deaths and the sixth lowest rate of gun ownership. Now let's take a look, not at the successes of our gun laws, but at the failures, our nation's failures as it pertains to regulating guns. gun violence. So you see states like Mississippi have the weakest gun laws, like the recent repeal of the requirement to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun. They also have the single worst rate of gun deaths and the highest rate of gun homicides in the country. So anytime you hear a conservative say, gun control doesn't work, gun safety regulations don't work.

This chart is evidence alone that it absolutely does work. The 14 states that have failed to put basic protections into place, we called them national failures on our scale, have nearly triple the rate of gun deaths as the eight national gun safety leaders. This was what Pierce was getting at. But obviously, Jesse Waters didn't want to hear it and said the British were actually to blame for our guns. Respectfully. Of course.

We have these guns because of you. Because of your country. I know. Because of your king. I know. And we haven't had that problem with a king since then. I know. With respect.

As your friend. Respectfully, here's my response. I cannot buy in the United States of America a kind of surprise chocolate egg. They're banned. They're banned on safety grounds because the little toys inside them might choke people. A British Prime Minister. I won't say which one, but one in the last few years told me he was stopped at LAX because he had some for his nieces and they confiscated them because they were a health hazard.

Now, I simply say you're a country of many freedoms and many regulations. How about regulating guns in the way that you do kind of surprise chocolate eggs? Wouldn't that be a dream to have even the slightest national regulations around guns, A little more than what we have now, which is essentially nothing. And Senator Turner, to hear him use the excuse, well, we have guns because of the British, you know, a nation that has almost no gun violence, almost no mass shootings because they have really strong gun regulations. It's just like they're throwing anything at the wall at this point to see what sticks.

It's just despicable. I mean, he needs to go back to kindergarten with Marjorie Telle Green. He's deflecting. He has nothing else to say. And Pierce Morgan made a very cogent, very important argument. You know, it made me think about Michael Moore, one of Michael Moore's films Bowling for Columbine. We know the Columbine mass shooting, I believe it was in 1999. I think his film came out in 2002, where he analyzed the causes of that mass shooting,

but also just the overproliferation of guns in the United States of America compared to other countries. I do agree, Ray, your point about what we name it, what we call it. The bottom line is, do we care about preserving life in the United States of America? Why do we have some people who make it seem that the second amendment to the Constitution is an absolute? In other words, somehow it's more important than other amendments to the Constitution, and that is not the case. And this country has to have a reckoning, obviously so far with all the mass shootings, including mass shootings, where children are involved, because I'm going to put an extra on that. I think all life is precious, but we're particularly galled when children are involved. If those kinds of shootings don't move policymakers in this country, do not move the masses of American people in this country,

then we have a deeper seated problem than just changing gun laws. We all need some help. You know, unfortunately, I'm not, I agree 100%. I'm just not very optimistic. I live about 20 minutes from Newtown, Connecticut, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was a little more than almost 11 years when 20 children, 21 children were massacred. And we couldn't get our politicians to take action then. And now we have even more guns.

I think it's on the statistic of something like there are 20 million assault rifles in the United States now, assault weapons, 20 million, one out of every 15 or 16 Americans. I mean, that's crazy. So, yeah, I would love to go back to the time, I think it was during the Clinton administration, were for 10 years, we banned assault weapons, the purchase. And we saw that mass shootings went down. I would love to be able to go back to those days, but I feel like we're sort of past that point because there's so many weapons. So to me, the solution, if there is a solution, and maybe part of the solution is having Jesse Waters speak on behalf of gun owners even more, because that underscores

just how stupid their position is. But maybe if there's some creativity like, I don't know, having insurance companies get involved. And so we're taxing guns so way so that it becomes prohibitively expensive for people to have guns. And if they do have guns, let the insurance market determine whether somebody is just as you're depending on your rates for car insurance. If you're a good driver, your rates are down. If you're a bad driver, your rates go up. It should be the same with guns.

And we should try to think some creative way of trying to regulate guns in that fashion, because clearly what we've been doing so far politically just has not been working. No, and I want to add one more point. They always talk about freedom, but what about responsibility? I mean, the same way when you drive a car, you are expected to have a certain amount of responsibility, but not so much with guns. So it just doesn't make sense. And red flag laws, I Pierce mentioned that too. We definitely, why not have those in every state?

How does that impede any gun owner's right to have red flag laws and other laws that will help make everybody a lot safer? But my major point here is that besides the gun laws, we got to look at. into the hearts and souls of America, what is, you know, what, what are we made up of? What are we willing to accept? And so far, it is very clear that we are willing to accept mass murders in the United States of America and don't even flinch. We flinch in the moment, but after that it goes away. And the politicians bear no consequences or repercussions for not moving on policies that would help, not totally eradicate everything, but to help make us all safer. Well, the other thing that I think would make it safer, I know we've all been in agreement

about this before, and maybe this is taking the issue too far afield, but I mean, campaign finance reform, the gun lobby, the NRA, they own members of Congress, mostly Republicans, but also some key Democrats. And as long as we are giving more power to the gun lobby than to the 70% of Americans that actually do want to regulate have common sense gun reform, then we're not going to get this solved. And if we can't solve campaign finance reform, there's a whole set of issues that we're not going to solve. And so something, something has to change. Amen.

Stole the words right out of my mouth. I'm just going to say, like so many of the issues we talk about here on TYT, what does it boil down to? Money in politics. Money and politics. All right. We've got to move on to our next story, but I do quickly want to just, just for my own humor from today, because we were talking about Pierce Morgan.

Jank went toe to toe with Pierce Morgan earlier in the week. And there was a clip that went viral on TikTok, and I need everybody to read the caption of this clip. It says, Piers Morgan asks Turkey leader, how do you get rid of Hamas? So I knew Jake was running for president. I didn't realize he was running for president of Turkey. Congratulations, apparently. He's already won. Maybe that was to lighten the mood before we get into this next story, which is severely, severely depressing. A new report from the Department of Agriculture shows that an estimated 17 million households reported having problems finding enough food in 2022, a sharp jump from 2021 when boosted government aid helped ease the pandemic-induced economic shutdown.

Wouldn't you know it? We gave people more money, more resources, and they didn't go and spend it on an Xbox, and they didn't go and spend it on drugs. They spent it on food that they needed for their family, on resources that they needed for their family. And now that we've taken away some of that aid that we boosted during the pandemic, and I mean, we and I say we, I mean, the government, I mean, Congress, people are suffering at a higher rate than they were during that time.

And AP News reported that using a representative survey sample of roughly 32,000 American households, the report said 12.8 percent or 17 million households reported occasional problems affording enough food in 2022, up from 10.2 percent or 13.5 million households in 2021 and 10.5 percent or 13.8 million households in 2020. And if we look deeper into those houses, households will additionally find the more than 44.2 million Americans lived in households that struggled with hunger in 2022, an increase of 10.3 million over the previous year. And I have some more here, but I have to say any number, any number would be unacceptable when we live in the richest country in the world. 44.2 million Americans, one would be unacceptable. One, One million. We're at 44.2 million Americans struggling with hunger.

I'd contain my rage for a moment so I can give you more of the rage-inducing facts from this study. The number of households reporting more serious forms of economic hardship also increased. Wednesday's report by the USDA's Economic Research Service also tracks families with very low food security, a condition it defines as families having to ration food consumption and where, quote, normal eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because of limited resources. I need to remind you that some of the people experiencing that are children, children. So even when conservatives bring the argument that, well, you would have food to eat if you were more successful in your work life, if you made more money, because to them poverty is a moral

failing. But that argument falls short when we're talking about children, going hungry. We'll talk more about their heinous views on school lunches and school lunch jet as well in a minute. But these households experiencing this level of hardship in 2022 rose to 5.1% or 6.8 million households. Reminders, that's very low food security. And it's up from 3.8% in 2021 and 3.9% in 2022, a sizable increase. Now, the rising cost of living, coupled with inflation and the gradual expiration of pandemic-era federal assistance was reported to be the root cause of this problem facing families in America, a little more from AP, increased benefits and more relaxed enrollment rules for SNAP, foundational government assistance program, commonly known as food stamps, didn't end until early this year, but a host of other federal and state-level pandemic aid initiatives wound down last year, despite them being extremely popular. And just a few of those programs were the child tax credit expansion that provided historic support to families with children over the pandemic, lifted millions of

children out of poverty. Let that expire. The universal free school lunches for all students, they let that expire in the summer of 2022. Now, inflation was also at the highest. It's been in a while. This year, there's been some improvement, but it's still above average and a little more on that. In September, the Consumer Price Index increased 3.7% from 12 months earlier, same rate as in August. The latest reading is a significant improvement on the COVID pandemic era peak of 9.1% in June 2022, the highest rate since November of 1981. Now, economists say that it's going to take a while for inflation to return to normal and stable levels. The Fed is aiming for a 2% annual inflation rate over the long term.

And they don't expect that to happen until at least 2026. Now, White House spokesman Jeremy Edwards said this in a statement. 17 million households experiencing food insecurity in the richest nation and the world is unacceptable. And exactly why President Biden has continued to call on Congress to fund programs like WIC as well as SNAP, the National School Lunch Program, and restore the enhanced child tax credit that helped cut child poverty in half and helped millions of families. was afford the basics. Well, if he cared so much about it, I would have liked to have heard more from him while they were allowing it to expire. But I'm happy to hear that someone in the administration is speaking up for him and calling attention to this abject failure that doesn't.

We can't just blame on the Republicans. The Democrats failed to do these things. They failed to reauthorize these extremely popular and successful programs. But now, of course, Congress is not acting on these. We have a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. And just take a look at how the GOP treats school lunch programs. Hunger is a relative term, Mr. President. You know, I had a cereal bar for breakfast. I guess I'm hungry now. Yes, I can understand kids going hungry, but is that really the problem of the school district? Is that the problem of the state of North Dakota? I'm still a no vote on this, because this is, again, a person responsibility issue and not a starvation issue.

And David, we're listening to elected officials say, well, it's not my responsibility to make sure that children don't go hungry. It's a moral failing on their parents' fault, and they should suffer. It is despicable. Well, these are also, I think, self-proclaimed Christians who are saying this. And last time I checked Christianity, he said, no, you should feed the people. poor and help the hungry. The fact of the matter is, I think the enhanced child tax credit, a lot of senators, a lot of members of the House knew this was going to expire at the end of September. And there was an effort by Elizabeth Warren, by Bernie Sanders, by the progressives.

Hey, we got to, we got to reintroduce this. They could not even bring it to the floor for a vote in the Senate. They couldn't bring it to a floor for bringing it to the floor in the house. And this was, this is simple stuff. And again, we know what works. We have seen that the enhanced child tax credit, as you pointed out, cut poverty in half. We know that the universal pre-K and the universal food issues for kids helps them and also makes it easier for them to learn in school. This is not brain surgery. And these programs are not that expensive. So it just seems, to me, it just seems like it's cruelty. It's just for whatever reason, Republicans are like, oh, no, personal responsibility. You've got to be like a Christian. Oh, you're not, you're not very Christian.

No, they're not. What would Jesus do? It wouldn't do what they're doing. The cost benefit analysis, even if you want to look at it through, that lens versus the moral lens, it is quite a benefit that has a ripple effect for that child, for that community, and for our nation if children are not going to bed hungry. And I know we always pull out children because we're hoping that people of good consciousness would have an extra burden on their heart of caring. But this is the same as the mass shooting of children, not caring that millions of children go to bed, either underfed or just plain out, flat out hungry, undernourished or not nourished at all, doesn't move the needle.

But you know what? If we declare war on it, it would get funded. That's what we need to do. We need to put it in the war category. You know, the US Treasury Secretary would a bold face about two weeks ago said, oh yeah, we can afford two wars. So we can afford two wars in the United States of America, but we can't afford the enhanced child tax credit.

We can't afford universal breakfast and lunch programs. We can't afford to cancel student debt. We can't afford universal health care on and on. We can fill in the blank. It makes absolutely no sense. And it is cruel in every single way. When the Democrats had control, and yes, the Republicans, the party of family values, they don't value anybody's family.

Because if they did, they should be the biggest champions of these programs. But I digress, when the Democrats had control of both chambers, both chambers, they couldn't even pass an increase in the federal minimum wage. They trotted out the parliamentarian and blamed her, even though they could fire the parliamentary. They had no fiduciary obligation, no legal obligation to listen to the parliamentarian. So this is all games as far as I'm concerned. And the statement by that, that press person, all games. So the president urges Congress to do something about it. Ray, you made a very good point.

Then where the hell was he when Congress wasn't passing these things? Where was the outrage there? There was none. So these are the kinds of things that you say when it's close to election time. And the American people I don't think are going to buy it. They sick and tired of the games. And what this is going to do is going to depress turnout. About 40% of the American people who were surveyed about can they make their housing payments,

for example, almost 40% of them said that they missed meals just to try to make ends. meet to pay for their housing costs. But again, we got money for war. I need somebody to make it make sense for me. I need people to be outraged about the suffering of people in this country. And guess what? If you have children who cannot eat, that means that their parents cannot eat. So these things go together.

You can't separate children from their caregivers. Everybody needs to be able to eat. Absolutely. And all I could picture while you were making those excellent points was Kirsten Cinema going up to vote for the minimum wage doing this. And that curtsy. And the little curtsy tells you everything you need to know about how these people feel about poverty and how they feel about their constituents.

Just a big, okay. With that, we have to go to our next break, but stick around because we're going to talk about what Mitt Romney is exposing as he's on his way out the door. And we're also going to talk about the insane thing that Matt Gates has done. and one of a million insane things he's done, but this one might take the cake. So stick around. Back on the Young Turks with Ray Vana,

David Schuster and Senator Nina Turner. And I'm going to do the thing that Jenk does. we're also here with Marianna Lusiguana. Thank you so much for becoming a member. And with that, let's get into this next scary story, I suppose. I think we've all seen the writing on the wall, but it's frightening to hear it from someone on the inside. Utah Senator Mitt Romney is not going to be running for re-election.

So naturally, he is releasing a tell-all book, a biography. And some of the information he's releasing in that book is unsurprising, yet extremely concerning. Now, one of the biggest revelations coming out is that most Republicans voted not to impeach Donald Trump because they were afraid of political violence from his supporters. The biographer McKay Coppins spoke with Vanity Fair and stated, one of the biggest revelations to me in my conversations with Romney

was just how important the threat of political violence was to the psychology of elected Republicans today. And again, that's something that we've all. scene play out, but to hear it from someone with, you know, insider information who actually would know the thoughts and the feelings of these politicians, it is frightening. Now, Coppins also revealed in that interview that while writing the biography, Romney told him story after story about Republican members of Congress, Republican senators who at various points wanted to vote for impeachment, vote to convict Trump, or vote to impeach Trump,

and decided not to, not because they thought he was innocent, but because they were afraid for their family's safety. They were afraid of what Trump supporters might do to them or to their families. Now, the details, Coppins has revealed, paint a horrifying picture of the stranglehold that the Trump supporter cult has on the Republican Party and Republican politicians themselves. And it really shouldn't be a surprise after we heard Trump supporters chanting hang Mike Pence on January 6th, that Republicans are afraid that they will be the victims of

similar calls for violence or violence itself if they oppose Trump. Now, political violence is also, and I hate to have to point this out, but I do, gaining popularity, particularly among Republicans. Let's go to this report from time that was put out yesterday. A full one-third or 33% of Republicans say that violence may be the answer. That is ahead of the 22% of independence and 13% of Democrats who agree, but across the board, those numbers are trending in a dangerous direction.

And first asked in 2021, 28% of Republicans saw the virtues of political violence. 13% of independence concurred and 7% of Democrats shared that perspective. And you won't be shocked to learn that among supporters of Donald Trump, members of the mega cult, that number is higher.

Among those who have a favorable view of ex-president Donald Trump, who sparked the failed insurrection on January 6th to keep him in power, there is a threefold multiplier for the merits of violence, reaching 41% support among pro-Trump Americans. That's almost half. That's almost half of all Trump supporters that believe political violence is going to be necessary. Not just that it's fine, but that it might be necessary. necessary. And those people were well represented on January 6th. So Senator Turner, my first thoughts

on this are one, Mitt Romney is an unmitigated coward. I'm sorry for waiting to reveal this information until his political career is over. I mean, he did take some stances opposing the Republican Party, opposing Donald Trump. But this is something that would have been helpful for the American people to have been clued into just before he was halfway out the door. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of cowards in that Congress. He's not by himself, but you're right, I mean, he was safe. A lot of people who are absolutely safe, because sometimes for political reasons, I get people may want to be a little more tactical, a little more strategic, but when it comes to people like Senator Mitt Romney, you can, he could afford to have a little more courage than what he showed. And the point you made about, I had that right at the top of mind about, yeah, they should fear. They had every right to be fearful because, yes, the vice president was threatened. They threatened to lynch the vice president.

You had President Trump not coming to the rescue of his own vice president. We see how they comported themselves themselves on January 6th. So it makes a whole lot of sense, both physical violence and also political violence too. Because when you go against the mega, they make sure that there's consequences and repercussions to the people that they put in office. Unlike those on the progressive left, I think should hold people more accountable, certainly not in the violent way, but it's not surprising to me. And I can't wait to hear what David has to say about this. It's not surprising to me that Republican elected are being held captive,

basically, by the Donald Trump-type Republicans. And they're fearing for their political lives and sometimes their physical lives as well. Yeah, and we saw just over the last week, right? In the speakership battle, there was Jim Jordan when he was up for speaker. And then his supporters gave office numbers of the people who were sort of wavering on Jim Jordan. And all of a sudden, a lot of families, a lot of members of Congress's spouses started getting death threats. These are Republicans giving death threats to other Republicans. And sometimes we think, oh, this is just directed at Democrats. But no, they're also incredibly bloodthirsty and vicious with each other. And I was just in New Hampshire a couple days ago. And you keep hearing over and over from the

Trump crowd how much they can't stand rhinos. That in some ways they hate rhinos more than I I think maybe some Democrats because they feel like a Republican in name only is only as a betrayal if you're an establishment Republican. The numbers are sickening. I just hope that maybe there are more situations like we saw with Speaker Jordan, we're at boomerangs, where if somebody is engaged in violence, I think one of the reasons that Jordan didn't become House speakers, because so many moderate Republicans are so infuriated at these threats that they were like, I'm not going to support you. Well, we need that to sort of now move across the board.

And we need both Democrats and Republicans to be able to say, anybody who's engaging in violence has no business being in the public sphere, has no business having a voice on any of this. And apparently it's not just physical violence that Republicans need to be afraid of if they go against the Maga cult. As we're going to see in this next story, they also have to be afraid to catch the ire of one Matt Gates. Florida congressman and the physical embodiment of sludge, Matt Gates lost his composure by responding to comments made by his fellow congressman and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith. Now, before I show you Gates's response, of course, I have to show you what Representative

Smith's criticism of Gates was in the first place. So this is what he said. Let me just tell you, if Matt Gates's lips are moving, it's only lies that's coming out of it. That gentleman, sorry, I love that he's insulting him, but still use the term gentleman, only loves to propel himself and propaganda. He sounds like a Democrat. It's exactly what Democratic. Democrats say. They accuse Donald Trump of everything that they're doing. Matt Gates is accusing Kevin McCarthy for everything that he's doing. So he essentially just called Matt Gates a liar and the worst thing that he could have called him a Democrat. And Gates took it to a whole other level on his podcast yesterday. Take a look. Jason Smith says if my lips are moving, I'm lying.

Well, you know what? If Jason Smith is breathing, he is living. He is living. a lie. There might not be another member of Congress who lives a lie every day more than Jason Smith. And Jason Smith knows exactly what I'm talking about. And by the way, so does almost every member of the House Republican caucus. Now, if you're thinking, did Matt Gates just heavily imply that Jason Smith is gay? The answer to your question is, oh yes, he absolutely did. there's more. There's a good deal of projection in Jason Smith calling me a liar when it's Jason Smith, who literally has to live a lie.

And I honestly pity him for that because, you know, it wouldn't be something that I wouldn't live that way. I'll just put it that way. So Jason, I would check yourself before you come at me with any accusations of being dishonest about what I say when you're dishonest about how you live and what you do. David, I'm going to throw it to you in a second, but first, I have to point out that Matt Gates said he wouldn't live his life like that being gay. But Matt Gates, if you all remember, has been accused of statutory raping underage girls and sex trafficking minors, which apparently

in Matt Gates' world is better than being gay. Chair, Matt Gates should be speaking out about sexual identity or sexual gender, anything like that. The problem that I feel with all of this is on the Republican side, there are people who love Donald Trump, you know, trashing people who love Matt Gates doing just this because they are homophobic. They want Republicans to speak out and pull no punches. And they see Matt Gates seeming to have a good time and enjoying the fact that he might be outing somebody's private life. And Republicans are cheering him on. And I think that's the main difference between we see between Democrats and Republicans.

I think Democrats would be horrified if there was a Democratic member who responded to another lawmaker like this. But there's a large segment of the Republican Party who feels, oh, yeah, Matt Gates is being honest. He's being authentic. That's what we need. We need more of that. And it just diminishes all of our politics. It coarsens our national discourse. And again, it just adds to the circus that I think Americans are tired of.

And they're getting paid for this. Right. Really? I mean, they just need to go ahead and start a reality TV show. Just go on and give up Congress. Stop playing games. Because these are reality TV show folks right here. This is what they auditioning for and leave governing to people who really want to try to help solve problems and change material conditions for people in this country. This is, it's a joke. It's embarrassing. It's Asinon. And David is right. He'll be fully rewarded for this nonsense. I'll say the American people will lose, right? I mean, because Congress is going to spend so much time focusing on these personal battles between two Republicans. And what about all the legislation that needs to be passed over the next couple weeks? Keep the government funding, deal with things like what we were talking about earlier, the enhanced child tax credit. All these things that actually have an impact on the American people. And Republicans are obsessed with who's speaking out about whom and who's criticizing somebody else. And they can't handle criticism from one of their own members. And as a result, they eat up all of the oxygen in the room. And there's none left to try to drag Republicans over and say, hey, what about this legislation? Oh, we can't be bothered with that. We're too busy following Matt Gates. Really? That's right. It is severely depressing to think that it is one of the worst things you could be as a member of the Republican Party is gay. You have to conceal that. That's something that you have to hide. And I have no love for Jason Smith. But it is sad to see this weaponized

against him, especially if he maybe felt comfortable revealing that to members of the Republican caucus in the House to have that weaponized against him. And it's, as both of you pointed out, underscored by the fact that this is a led, this is someone who should be legislating. This is someone who's an elected official in the United States government who instead of passing, you know, important bills. And it reminds me of the fact that his issues with Kevin McCarthy, he was first, his ouster and now an outer, you know, his issues were not on policy. They were not political. They were personal. And, you know, David, I remember on the damage report, you were highlighting the fact that it was an issue of, one of the issues

was that Kevin McCarthy wouldn't, because also he couldn't, squash the ethics investigation into Matt Gates. It wasn't a policy issue. There is not a world of difference on the policy side of things between someone like Kevin McCarthy and someone like Matt Gates or even someone like Jason Smith and someone like Matt Gates. It's all personal. battles. And it's all about how thin skin they are too, because again, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Green or Matt Gates, they like to talk a tough game, but the very moment somebody criticizes them or insults them, all of a sudden they're like, oh, I've got to fight back as if it's the worst thing in the world that somebody actually criticized a member of Congress.

Really, you should be criticized all the time. But these people have glass jaws. They can't handle a punch. And as a result, they just erupt and they lose their minds. And that's a huge problem. When you've got members of Congress that cannot stay disciplined and focused on doing the job the American people sent you there to do. And instead, as Senator Turner pointed out, you're engaging in these bizarre reality TV shows. It's only hurting all of the rest of us. I mean, they did elect the game show host presidents, though. Reality TV shows seems to be far for the course for their opposing. It's also very thin skin. So it just, you know, it goes without saying. All right. That is unfortunately all the time we have for this.

first hour, very powerful power panel, and there'll be a second very, very powerful power panel coming up after this. But Senator Anita Turner, David Schuster, thank you so much for joining me today. And stick around everybody because we're going to get even more power after this. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad free. access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.