The Young Turks - Political Pawns

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Texas sheriff recommends criminal charges over Martha's Vineyard migrant flight. Republicans literally beg migrants not to leave Florida over DeSantis's anti-immigration law. Bannon Goes to War With House Republicans, Wants Primary Opponents for MTG, Jim Jordan, and Others Over Debt Vote. The U.S. had intelligence of a detailed Ukrainian plan to attack the Nord Stream pipeline. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur), Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) 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. All right, welcome to the Young Turks, Jane Huger, Anna Kusparian, with you guys. Interesting show today. First of all, we have the perfect Republican bill. Well, hold for what I mean by perfect. you'll see in a little bit.

And Rokana's on the show. He voted no on the debt ceiling deal, correct vote, representing a few progressives who got it right. Why is he going against the Biden administration now? Interesting. We'll talk about it in a little bit when he joins us. All right, Casper, let's get it started. Well, we begin with some news out of Texas.

So let's talk about what one Texas sheriff's office wants to do. A Texas sheriff's office has recommended that, prosecutors in San Antonio file criminal charges for those in Florida who took part in the transportation of 49 asylum seekers from Texas to Martha's vineyard late last year. You're looking at images of what that scene look like. Now, while it's still unclear who would be charged in this case or whether prosecutors would even file charges to begin with, the sheriff's office indicates that the charges would, should they be filed, include both criminal and misdemeanor charges related to unlawful restraint.

So just to back up a little bit, the backstory to this has to do with both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, either busing or flying migrants to various sanctuary states and sanctuary cities. They're doing this to make a point about how immigration is impacting these border towns, but all of these sanctuary cities and states don't have to deal with it to the same extent, but they love to give themselves a pat on the back when they don't really have to deal with it at all. Now, there is a level of cruelty involved if the individuals who are being transported are being lied to. And that is the allegation here, okay? So this is the Bayer County Sheriff's deputy, Johnny Garza,

who also happens to be a spokesperson for the sheriff's office. And he said this. At this time, the case is being reviewed by the DA's office. Once an update is available, it will be provided to the public. We're not naming the suspect at this time or the amount of charges that are being filed. And the sheriff here, Javier Salazar, also signed certificates for each of the migrants involved in the Martha's Vineyard incident so they can be eligible for what is known as a U visa. That's a category established in 2000 and available to victims of crimes to basically enable them to provide information to authorities about illegal activity. Now, eight months ago, about eight months ago, when this incident happened, Sheriff Salazar spoke to the press about

how he intended to investigate it. And I think what he says here during a PBS interview is telling in regard to what we can expect in the future when it comes to this story that's getting a lot of attention. Our charge is actually going to be filed against anyone. Well, why don't we listen to him and you can decide for yourself? Governor Ron DeSantis is now named in a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of these migrants. And the complaint alleges this, that he and other officials, quote, designed and executed a premeditated, fraudulent and a legal scheme for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial, and political interests. Sheriff Salazar, is that the kind of thing you're looking into? And is Governor DeSantis a suspect? Well, no, I mean, I think to say that Governor DeSantis is a suspect is a long stretch.

What my concern is, and what I have authority of is my corner of the world, which is Bear County. My concern is, did somebody with feet planted on Bear County soil break the law or not? So I'm just going to say what I think. I think that this is just political on all sides. And I think that migrants are being used as political ponds, and I just find it incredibly disgusting. That's my take on it. Yeah. So I've had a different take on this from day one, which I'll get to in a second.

First, the stuff that the sheriff is right about. So, yeah, of course you shouldn't lie to the immigrants and it appears that they did. And if they broke the law, then they broke the law. Enforced the law. No question about it. I've always had that position, no matter which party and which person is involved. Also, Trump moved by DeSantis to use someone on the ground who might get arrested and then he skates by free. And so beware of trusting Republican leaders, they will throw you under a bus with no help to be found.

Okay, now having said that, I think it's the right on politics and even right on policy. So get prepared to be angry, okay? So first of all, in the politics, as I said from the very first day, why do the border states have to deal with it exclusively? Why do we say, okay, these are immigration laws. We love our immigration laws, but it should only affect Texas and Arizona, et cetera. In California. California a little bit. Or maybe a lot.

But anyway, it doesn't affect my personal law. I don't want anybody to get a twisted. So, but yeah, why shouldn't Martha's Vineyard in Illinois and et cetera, et cetera, also have to do. deal with our national immigration issues. And secondly, they have sanctuary cities. I'm in favor of sanctuary cities because I don't want people getting arrested for reporting a rape or a murder or crime, et cetera. But they say, okay, you're a sanctuary city, we're gonna send some to you.

You guys seem like good, generous people. Well, we are, okay? So I'm not sure I see where the problem is. Yeah. And that's the politics of it. It forces you into a conversation about why you don't want them, but they should have them. Don't get me wrong, Florida's not really a border state. No, no, okay, sorry to interrupt you, but I have to just make this quick note about Florida.

Look, what Ron DeSantis is doing is just purely political, because what he's doing is he's taking migrants from Texas. They're not even in Florida. He's flying them from Texas to other parts of the country to make a point. Now, he's also done that to some extent with some migrants in Florida, but obviously Florida's not a border state. So they're not dealing with the migrant crisis the same way that some of these border states are. But he's doing it specifically because he's running for president. He's trying to send a message. For Greg Abbott to do it, it's both political and he's trying to send a message about what his state has been dealing with.

And go ahead, Jake. Continue your point. Yeah. So it's obviously a publicity sundays that we're saying because Florida's not a border state. And so what are you going to a different state and illegally busing people to a third state for? So that's why I say enforce the law. I don't want anybody get me wrong on what I'm saying there. Now in terms of when you get to the policy for actual border states,

look guys, we gotta make a decision on what should be our immigration policy. And then we should have it be even handed for everybody. And if Texas says I have a lot of problems paying for all of this, and I need federal help in paying for it, well, that makes sense, right? And if you ship them to Chicago and then Chicago says, well, I can't pay for this, right? Yeah, that's true too. That's true too, but wait a minute, then why does Texas have to pay for it or Arizona have to pay for it?

So let's be even handed about how we handle it and let's handle it humanely, and let's have rational laws that we apply even handedly. I know it's for Democrats, they're saying no, don't send them to us, but you're evil for not taking them. For Republicans, they're gonna say no, just send them all, or we don't want them, et cetera. But as you'll see later in the show, there's another story that shows, no, the Republicans need immigrants too. Yes.

This is absolutely rely on them and they're totally and utterly full of crap. But that being said, it shouldn't have to fall just to the border states. Yeah, look, I living in California, obviously we have a large immigrant population here. I think that it's one of the upsides of living in California. You know, this idea that all they are is a drain on our resources is ridiculous. Many of them, you can see them and how hard they work, whether it's as food street vendors, selling roses like on corners, they bust their butts to try to make a living here in the United States. But I agree with you, Jank. The only thing is if these government officials are

lying to the migrants about where they're being taken or what they will get, whether it's work visas or some other perk if they get transported to another place, that is an issue. And they should face consequences for those lies because clearly they're being transported under false pretenses. However, if the migrants know exactly what's going on and they agree and consent to being transported to other parts of the country, especially these sanctuary cities, then what is the problem? I just need to understand what the issue is. Well, you're just dropping them off in Martha's Vineyard. They wanted it. If they consented to it, what's the issue? Is the issue that these cities and states wanted to pat themselves on the back and get the kudos and get the cookies for being friendly to migrants, knowing full well that they wouldn't have to deal with an influx of immigration?

And that's what's really going on. Let's keep it real. Yeah, look, we got to make a distinction between the cities and how they're handling it themselves and the politicians. Because Martha Zvinia, actually did a great job in handling the immigrants. So we broke that down for you guys. And they were welcoming and beautiful and it was great, okay? So nothing went terribly wrong there. But now in places like Chicago, they're just taking the immigrants that are coming off the buses

and stuffing them into African American neighborhoods that are poorer and going, okay, you guys deal with them now. No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's not how we do this. That's exactly what's happening. Okay, so, and then the politicians are howling, like, how dare you send us immigrants that we say we're theoretically in favor of? No, we have to come up with a rational policy that makes sense for everybody. Don't tell me that you love immigrants and then don't want them. And then when you get them, make sure that you put them exclusively in poor neighborhoods or minority neighborhoods and go, problem solved.

No, not problem solved. I know it's super hard to ask politicians to come up with a rational policy and one that's fair, but maybe we should try it for a change. an incredible story out of Florida that shows you just how valuable immigration is, especially when it comes to various industries. So Republican state representatives are literally begging migrants to stay after they themselves voted on some of the harshest anti-immigrant legislation in the country. So on Monday, Republican state representatives, Alina Garcia, and Rick Roth, both Republicans,

I just really want to emphasize that, spoke at an event to address migrants on the impact of the legislation that, again, they voted on, voted for, called SB 1718. So here's a little preview of what they said. I agree with everything that Representative Roth said. This is a bill basically to scare people from coming to the state of Florida. And I think that it's done its purpose. This bill really doesn't have any teeth. And even though we're immigrants, I was born in Q, and I came when I was two years old.

We need to have immigration that is legal. We need to have legal immigration. And the federal government has completely left us, you know, they haven't got their job. Okay, two things about this. One, this is a perfect Republican bill. Not because the bill is great, but because it shows you exactly who the Republican Party is. is. So you're going to find that out in a second. And then secondly, we'll talk about the different parts of it. And I'll tell you what, if you want to get rid of immigrants from your state, this is the

way to do it. The problem is they're realizing, oops, it's actually working. We didn't actually want it to work. Yes. So just to give credit where credit is due, that video was obtained by Thomas Kennedy, who's with the DNC, the Democratic National Committee. Now before we get to more video and you do not want to miss, the reason, the real reason why they want the migrants to stay in Florida, I do want to tell you more about this bill. It's Senate Bill 1718, and it did pass. Ron DeSantis did sign it into law, and it goes into effect on July 1st. The strict new state legislation limits social services for undocumented immigrants, allocates millions more tax dollars to expand DeSantis' migrant relocation program,

invalidates driver's licenses issued to undocumented people by other states, and requires hospitals that get Medicaid dollars to ask for a patient's, immigration status, which I gotta be honest, like all of it is disgusting, but that last part, I mean, if a migrant ends up at the hospital to ask them for their papers, it's just unbelievably cruel. But here's the other part of the legislation you should know about. Now law, I should say. To crack down on businesses hiring undocumented workers, SB 1718 will require private employers with 25 or more employees that are making new hires to use E-Verify, the federal online database that employers used to confirm whether someone is eligible to work in the U.S.

Now, it sounds like an incredibly harsh new law in Florida. And if I were an undocumented immigrant, I certainly would not want to be in that state. It seems untenable to live in that state. But what's interesting is Republican State Representative Rick Ross tries to downplay the impact of it while simultaneously contradicting himself. This is more of a political bill than it is policy. It does give more police state powers going forward to deal with immigration. But still, this is mainly a political bill. What?

This is just a political bill. Like no harm, no foul, except it gives police more state power to crack down on undocumented immigrants. Okay. Yeah. See, that's why I say it's a perfect Republican bill. Because here are Republican legislators admitting to you guys, we don't mean a word of what we say. We pass this bill, but it's a political bill, meaning we're just trying to score brownie points with our base.

Our base hates you guys. They despise you guys. So we pass the bill that would crack down on you guys and make living here, living hell basically. Yep. And miserable. But don't worry, we're not going to actually enforce it because we need your cheap labor. And they specifically mentioned forms in those videos. Okay, okay, yep.

So we're gonna get to that in a second too. So they're like, look, we're for business interests and only for business interests. And you guys are really good, cheap, cheap labor, okay? As Republicans leaders, we secretly love you guys. And that's why we're here to tell you, oh, somebody's taping it. God damn it, I don't know if they knew that they were being taped. But for our voters, we're telling them, ah, yeah, We hate these immigrants. We're going to punish them.

And I'm going to tell you later how deeply bad, like how much they punish him. There's no way that if you're an undocumented immigrant, you're going to stay in Florida. Take it as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on where your politics is. We'll get to that in a second. So let's get to the last video. Bill is 100% posed to scare you. I'm a farmer, and the farmers are mad as hell. We are losing employees.

They're already starting to. move to Georgia and other states. It's urgent that you talk to all your people and convince them that you have resources, state representatives, and other people that can explain the bill to you. So not only is he a farmer himself, representative, state representative, Rick Roth. He's obviously concerned about how this is going to impact his pocketbook, impact his farming industry, farming business. But, you know, all of the lies that Floridians were told about this and how it's going to open up job opportunities for them. Florida is currently experiencing record low unemployment. The unemployment rate in Florida is 2.6%. So that's the reason why

these jobs that are typically filled by migrant workers or immigrants, the agriculture, agriculture industry, construction, hospitality services, all of that has been suffering as a result of this policy. The Florida Policy Institute, which is a non-profit policy research group, estimates that without undocumented workers, the state's most labor-intensive industries could lose 10% of their workforce and the wages they contribute along with them. That could lead to a drop of $12.6 billion in Florida's GDP in a single year. Okay, so he said, let me explain the bill to you, except he didn't. So I'll explain the bill to you.

So on the E-Verify program that Anna mentioned, the employers will be charged $1,000 a day per violation. Okay, now, so that's why the farmers who are, of course, actually not using it and are cheating, are like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're going to lose their workers, plus they're going to be fine if they're not following the law. Now, for the employees, it's worse. It's a felony if you lie about your papers when you're getting a job, okay? So they're going to put you in prison. But we're not anywhere near done. Then Anna pointed out the hospital issue.

Well, nobody can go to the hospital if you're an undocumented immigrant because then they have to report you as undocumented and you'll be shipped back to your original home country that literally ruins your life. So you're going to bleed out in the streets because you can't go to the hospital. So that's insane, barbaric, inhumane. And then the third part of it, transportation, if you bring someone who is an undocumented immigrant across the state line of Florida, that's a felony, a third degree felony. So, but 130,000 people in Florida are married to undocumented immigrants when they're American

citizens. So what if they go outside the state and they come back in with their husband or their wife, let alone millions of other people who know undocumented immigrants, family, friends, etc., drive them in? So they, like, they got to get out of the state now because later It could be a felony to even cross the state line. So this is totally, look, on the one hand, it's totally insane and it's barbaric. On the other hand, okay, well, now you know if you actually wanted to stop undocumented immigrants in your state, you would pass a law like this. Now, do I say, do I want that? No, I don't want that.

By the way, it turns out, neither do the Republicans. See, guys, you see what he's doing there? He's going on begging undocumented immigrants to stay. they're Republican legislators who just passed the bill against them. So he's going there and saying, remember guys, we're goddamn liars. We're not going to enforce it. And on that, there might be some truth. Because other red states like Arkansas and Arizona passed laws just like this.

They're like, we're going to crack down on these immigrants. We don't like them. And then when they realized, oh, yeah, we can't run anything without immigrants, they decided not to enforce the laws. And so for seven years, they made like three arrests between the two. two states, I believe. So now ballpark. So okay, Republicans, thank you. Thank you for admitting that the whole immigration thing that you were doing is a ploy, a publicity stunt, a political trick, and that you're all liars. And I appreciate that you admitted that you're liars. All right, we're going to take a brief break when we come back. Progressive Representative

Rokano will be joining us to talk about the debt ceiling bill. Come right back. All right back on the Young Turks, Jake Ugar, Anna Kusparan with you guys. We've got a fun interview for you next. Yes, all right. As you all know, we've been covering the debt ceiling negotiations and also the vote on the end result. of those negotiations here to talk to us about his decision to vote against the debt ceiling bill is Representative Rokana, who's never afraid to have a difficult conversation.

Representative Kana, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you guys for having me back. So I just want to start off by asking you, why did you vote against the debt ceiling bill? Well, this was the Republicans taking the economy hostage, demanding that we have cuts on the most vulnerable, cuts on the poor, cuts on students, that we forsake climate goals by expediting the Mountain Valley pipeline. And I couldn't go along with that, especially when there were other options. The Treasury Department could have just kept paying the bills. Jerome Powell wouldn't have refused to cash the Treasury checks, or Treasury could have issued more bonds, not just by invoking the 14th Amendment, but by saying they were constitutionally

obligated to do so by past Congresses. So this was a defining vote, in my view, for progressives, and I stand by voting no. So thank you for saying that, and thank you for validating the argument that we've been making on this show because the idea, like the hysteria and the panic that arises every single time the debt ceiling situation comes up is infuriating because I think if Joe Biden actually wanted to protect spending on social programs, if Joe Biden didn't actually really care much about, you know, appeasing someone like Joe Manchin with the Mountain Valley pipeline, like he would have just called the Republicans bluff and be like, okay, I'm not going to negotiate with you guys.

see what you actually do when the time comes to raise the debt ceiling. They would have raised the debt ceiling. They're not going to let the global economy tank, especially since many members of Congress are invested in the stock market. They don't want to see their precious stock portfolios take a dip. Am I wrong for stating that? I don't think they would have allowed it to collapse. Now, look, I think the president didn't want some of these cuts. But the question is not what do you want? It's what are you willing to stand? end up and fight for. And the reality is I think he didn't play all his cards. He could have told Treasury keep paying the bills. We're constitutionally obligated to do so. He could have told Treasury

to issue more bonds. He could have said, is Jerome Powell literally going to not cash treasury checks when Treasury is paying the salaries of including members of Congress and their staff? I don't think it would have come to that. Let it let, are the Republicans going to sue in court? And I I think that at the end of the day, either the courts would have upheld what Biden was going to do or the Republicans would have had tremendous pressure from their Wall Street backers and others to fold and to come up with a better deal. Yeah, so I agree with the 14th Amendment is crystal clear. It literally has the exact sentence that our debt should not be questioned. There's no dispute over it at all. And I

I don't agree with you that Joe Biden didn't want to make the cuts. I think he definitely wanted to make the cuts. I think he's a Republican on economic issues and he's proven that a hundred times. In fact, I'll ask a question about that. So when he came to promises he made to progressives, $15 minimum wage, voting rights, et cetera. He was never held to account. He never carried them over after they were defeated. But that pipeline that Joe Manchin wanted, bill after bill after bill, they brought it back, they brought it back.

So doesn't that tell you, Joe Biden is a conservative, and he definitely wanted to help the conservative fossil fuel industry, but did not want to help progressives because he never carried over any of the other progressive policy positions? I'm genuinely being perplexed by the Mountain Valley pipeline. I mean, there are times here that I defended the president, but this is not actually something that even Kevin McCarthy was pushing for. I mean, McCarthy was pushing for a lot of cuts, but the Mountain Valley pipeline was a handout not to Kevin McCarthy, but to Joe Manchin. I've been scratched

my head why they would do something like this. One of the reasons I think is that they're fearful of the no labels group recruiting Joe Manchin into a presidential race and maybe they're trying to appease him. But to me, that was a punch in the gut for climate activists around the country. And I was very proud of the Inflation Reduction Act. I was in rooms with Joe Mansion on that. It wasn't ideal, but it moved the ball forward. But after that, to then have the Willow Project drilling in Alaska and Mount Valley Pipeline, I and other progressives have been very direct with people at the White House saying, you are really risking, turning off climate activists, and we need them for 2024. I know why he does it, because he takes money

from fossil fuel companies. Joe Biden does. I know why he does it. He agrees with Joe Manchin. It's super, he's always agreed with Joe Manchin's the entire career. It's not at all a mystery. Well, let's go to progressives. So you did the right thing, as you often do. You voted no on this, what I view to be an atrocious and totally unnecessary bill. But 66% of the progressive caucus didn't. Now, that's point one. And of the one third that actually voted the right way and voted no.

Pramila Jayapal, unfortunately, for those folks, let the cat out of the bag and pretty much said it. She said that there were basic. We have the quote, actually. Let me read the quote before Jank finishes his question. So it's graphic three here. This is according to an interview she had with David Day and at the American Prospect. She said our strategy was to not give them one vote more than what they needed to pass. Jaya Paul told the prospect in an interview last Friday with enough of a strong no vote to make clear that it was not a good deal.

And yeah, go ahead. So Representative Kana, doesn't that show that they released progressives to vote? But if they were needed, they would have come back and Pramilla Jayapal would have told most progressives to vote yes, because at the end of the day, they always get enough votes to pass any bill they won. You know, I think what Pramilla was referring to there is that you had almost 100 new Democrats who said that they were going to vote for the bill. But we had a whip operation led by Greg Khazar who did a very good job trying to persuade people to vote no. And this was not an easy vote. And you say, well, why wasn't it an easy vote if everyone knew the bill was going to pass? And candidly, everyone knew the bill was going to pass.

But when you have people on television 24-7, not you, but other folks, saying you have to be a grown-up in the room. And if you don't vote for this, you're not a grown-up in the room and you're really going to put the country at default. I'll tell you, all the folks who voted know, including me, have gotten pushback from a fair number of people. because all they hear on on mainstream media is that this was a good deal and voting no was an extreme position and they've conflated the progressive position with the Freedom Caucus position, which is absolutely wrong. So I do think it took some guts. And I'm disappointed we didn't get more. I was hoping we'd be in the 70s of no votes. Roe, look, I'll obviously give you credit for voting no. Okay, but you have to understand there's two factions we're dealing with here, right?

We're dealing with the pro-corporate faction that wants to pressure you into voting yes on a bill that your constituents will absolutely hate. Then there are your constituents. Then there are Democratic voters who are actually woke in knowing exactly what the mainstream Democratic Party is all about when it comes to economic issues. And honestly and increasingly, I am noticing that there is no difference between corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats. Democrats like to engage in the rhetoric and the discourse that makes it appear as though they give a damn about ordinary people, blue collar workers, you know, just the little guy. But then their actions, as soon as they get elected, tells me otherwise.

Now there are some, a handful of progressive lawmakers who actually mean what they say when they campaign on these issues to help ordinary people. But when you take a step back and you look at the bulk of the Democratic Party on the substantive economic issues, there is no difference. So my question to you is, what's more important, appeasing corporate media types or actually looking out for the constituents that you need to show up to the ballot, you know, to vote for you at the ballot box? Like that's what I don't get.

And I personally am at a situation where I don't know where I belong. I don't want to vote for corporate Democrats anymore. Why would I vote for corporate Democrats when I see no difference between them and corporate Republicans on issues that actually have an impact on my day to day life? Well, obviously doing good by and right by the voters and the working class matters the most, not any media pundit. And I thought we got off to a good start with the American Rescue Plan, where we had the $2,000 stimulus checks, where we had the child tax credit expansion. Many of us, and you would remember this, Jank, wanted to fight to overturn and fire the parliamentarian.

I called to fire the parliamentarian to get $15 minimum wage. If you ask me, what is one of the biggest misses in the top two, years we had, we should have taken the wage up. Even if we couldn't have gotten $15, we should have taken it up $10, $12. That would have been the biggest signal of fighting for the working class. We should have fired that parliamentarian. We should still fire the parliamentarian and try to get that pass. But, you know, I think we came out to this strong start. Then we had other good policy with the Chipson Act, bringing manufacturing back, the Inflation Reduction Act. But you can't say, okay, we're doing this good work. And now we're going to take steps backwards. And

I have been very direct through some of the steps recently, the Willow Project Mountain Valley pipeline, the non-forgiving of the student loans. I mean, the locking in that we can't extend the moratorium, they've got to figure out a way around that. If we stop the moratorium on student loans in September and people have to pay again, that will be a political disaster, a political disaster that they're going to have to start repaying under Joe Biden. So we just need to keep pushing. Now, I think the Democratic Party, when influenced by progressives, does the right thing. But it will be a mistake if they ignore the progressive positions on these issues, because I agree with you. The president's going to need students. He's going to need working class folks.

He's going to need climate activists to turn out to win. There's good progress in Congress, and Greg Kassar is a new just Democrat, and the fact that he whipped this vote against the debt ceiling, great, love it. Ro, you're consistently the bravest legislator constantly coming on to actually have good, tough conversations about these issues. But at the same time, we get frustrated that a lot of folks don't recognize what you said a little bit earlier. But I'm going to take it a little further, which is about the mainstream media. Look, if we're being honest, they're your main opponent. Because the minute you guys fight for progressive policy positions, they scream at the top of your lungs of their lungs that you're the enemy and that you agree with the right wing and you guys are secretly Republican. You're trying to destroy Biden.

But they never say that of Mansion. when he actually did. He actually did destroy Biden's so-called agenda, which of course Biden doesn't believe. I mean, Biden rewarded him for it. That's exactly what Biden did. Biden rewarded him. He completely destroyed Biden's agenda with buildback better, right? I mean, that's the way I would see it if I were Biden and I actually believed in that agenda.

And then Biden turned around and rewarded Manchin by ensuring that that provision would be included in every bill until it finally passed. Because Joe Biden is Joe Manchin. Come on, get real. But so Roe, as the media attacks you guys over and over and over again, whenever you try to be principled, like is there a recognition in the Progressive Caucus? Hey, the mainstream media is not our friends. They're the propaganda machine that is set to try to destroy all of us. And you see it in primary after primary after primary, let alone when the bills are on the line,

they crush you guys. Is there any recognition of that? Or are people still like, oh yeah, CNN in New York Times are my friend? I think there's a recognition of that they're praising this deal and criticizing the progressives have had consequences for me. Look, I don't take PAC money or lobbyist money, but I do take individual contributions. And I've got to tell you after the mainstream media sort of criticized us, we had people who had supported me, reach out saying, I'm never going to support him again. And I'm sure other people had the same experience. And the reality is when progressives stand

up for some of these issues. They're not seen as quote unquote the adults in the room. They're not seen as being willing to compromise. And it has an impact. Now, the challenge, I mean, I know you guys do your jobs. But the challenge for many of us, candidly, as progressives, is we get criticized often in the mainstream media. And then we get criticized by the left media. Only when you guys are weak. Only when you guys are weak. When you guys do good things, when you actually fight, we reward you for it. We give positive reinforcement every time. And I don't want anybody to mistake what's going on here. Roe voted no on the Stets ceiling bill.

That is exactly the right way to vote. And Roe, when you did and we talk about it, credit where credit is due all the time. But you're not wrong. I get it. I get it. There's attacks from all sides. We get frustrated that you guys aren't pushing back enough. The mainstream media is against you to begin with, right?

So you feel, that's why I say you're so brave because you actually come on and you do these interviews with both sides, which a lot of others don't. I give our side a challenge to one in Congress is that I think on the right there is a better relationship between members of Congress and the alternative media and they go on more. There's more of a dialogue. And so there is an alternative power structure to the mainstream Republican party. On our side, that doesn't exist. I mean, I'd love for more members of Congress. I don't need to be the only one to go on alternative media.

And I'm fine, I think people are open to criticism. No one is perfect, but that ecosystem on our side does not exist. And you're absolutely right, I think the reason Bernie Sanders isn't the nominee is because, you know, at the end of it, after Nate Silver had him at a 70% chance of winning after Nevada, 70%, you would have 30 to 40 articles a day in the Washington Post or New York Times saying why Bernie Sanders would be a disaster to be present. That's a very hard thing for anyone to overcome. So one final question for you, because this has been something that I've been curious about for

quite some time. Anytime, let's say, Donald Trump wants to use the bully pulpit to call out, even members of his own party on what he thinks is bad behavior or a slight against him, that conflict gets a lot of media attention. And what I wonder why the progressive caucus, or let's just, I know the entirety of the progressive caucus is not progressive, let's just keep it real. But the actual progressives within the progressive caucus, why don't you guys regularly hold like press conferences, calling out the corporatists in your party who are totally fine with continuing the increases in defense spending while placing a cap on spending for social spending programs, which of course, considering inflation is really a cut.

Like, that is what the American public would love to learn about. They'd love to hear from you guys about it. And more importantly, it applies pressure to your Democratic colleagues who are in cahoots with corporate Republicans. Why don't you guys ever try that out? We should. I mean, look, I think sometimes there's too much fear in speaking out against our own party, our own leadership. I mean, I spoke out to have Adain Feinstein stepped out in saying probably one of the most obvious things that you're simply unable to do the job. There was a week of people saying, oh, Rose is sexist. He's an agist. And then you know what happened? People saw that that was just propaganda. And then there were a lot of articles saying, you know, what, Rose actually right? And so if you stand on conviction, if you stand on the that we shouldn't be raising the defense budget while cutting the food assistance for women in their 50s or vulnerable. And by the way, watch what they're going to do. They're going to have

supplemental military emergency spending to increase defense even more. And if we're not willing to call those things out, that we lose credibility with the progressives. We call those things out, I actually think we will start to win. And you're right. Sometimes when you call out your own party and you're on the side of the people, you get media coverage for it. And I have always been of the view that people in the Progressive Caucus, all of us, need to be bolder in saying some of these things, and that that's how you win. All right, last question for me, Roe. So look, Joe Biden is sometimes polling in the 30s, an incumbent in the 40s is near a guaranteed loss. In the 30s, you can take out the near in that sentence.

So the Democratic Party and mainstream media have decided that they're going to walk straight into that loss. And that if anybody runs against them that's an elected official, that they are the real problem, even though they're guaranteeing a loss, probably to Donald Trump. So can we be honest and say that the corporate media and the corporate Democrats are intimidating progressives from running against Joe Biden when any logical evaluation of this screams out for a progressive challenge to Joe Biden? Well, look, I think he's in the 40s, Jack it, which is not great, but I think it's going to be an even fight. I mean, I'm not saying that he's a Reagan in America or Clinton coasting to re-election. I think this is going to be a fight. And I think he's got to go campaign. I said he's, I was in New Hampshire saying he's got a campaign in New Hampshire.

None of this. I'm going to skip these states. I mean, Robert Kennedy, Mary Wright, William, so they're not to be ignored. I mean, you've got to make the case and you can't, and Cornell West coming in. Cornell, I knew Cornell and Cornell and I were all over for Bernie Sanders. And Cornell is a very impressive speaker. I would not ignore these things. What I would do, and I said this directly to the president's people is he's got to come out with clear, bold policies for his progressive coalition.

It starts in my view with the student loan issue. They have got to have this White House figure out how to put a pause on payments in September. You cannot have millions of students having to repay those loans come September. Yeah, they're not going to do that. Joe Biden decided when he got rid of Iran claimed that he was going to go right wing. He's done nothing but gone right wing since then. His polling has gone off a cliff since then, but he's never, ever going to change. On economic issues, he's always, for 50 straight years, he's been a right winger.

So he's going to right wing himself right off that cliff. Okay, so we'll enjoy that when that happens. We won't. None of us will like it. Ro Khanna, consistently the bravest congressperson, especially among the progressives. We really appreciate it. Thank you for joining us for this honest conversation. Thank you, Jen, thank you, Anna. Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right, we're going to take a brief break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including a little bit of a catfight between Steve Bannon and Marjorie Green.

Stick around. All right back on TYT, Jankana with you guys, a lot more news, let's do it. Well, all of a sudden there's a big falling out between Marjorie Green and Steve Bannon. I want to tell you about the drama, so let's do it. Apparently Steve Bannon and Marjorie Green are no longer Biffy and Buffy. They're no longer France and it's because of the fact that now Bannon sees Marjorie Green is more of a moderate, which is one of the most insane things anyone could possibly think.

But he has lost control of her, lost control of how she votes and he's very upset about it. Now look, this all started when the apparently Daily Beast had leaked text messages between Matt Gates and Marjorie Green. And in them, Marjorie Green had some stuff to say about Steve Bannon. She said specifically, Steve and I aren't patching things up. And if he keeps coming after me, I'll take the house and kids. I hope you'll pass this along to Steve because I'm over it. Now, there's more explosive text. But before we get to those texts, let's find out why they're fighting in the first place. So Steve Bannon led the charge in this conflict, calling Green to be primaried by a more right wing candidate who is real maga because of the fact that she

voted in favor of the debt ceiling bill. Bannon did not want her to do that, but she did anyway. He made the comment in response to a Politico article that detailed how she and Jim Jordan helped Kevin McCarthy get his debt deal through. Now, real quick, as we all know, the debt deal had everything Republicans wanted, so why wouldn't Marjorie Green vote in favor of it? And she is trying to suck up a little bit to Kevin McCarthy. That's been an ongoing trend that we've noticed as well. Now, Green's debt ceiling vote and her previous support for Kevin McCarthy's leadership role within the house didn't sit well with Bannon, who wants the party to go further to the right. And in another getter post, he wrote this, the 149 must be held accountable for the most

anti-Maga vote in history. Okay? So with that said, he wasn't done. He wanted to keep going. So after the Daily Beast had leaked Marjorie Green's text to Gates, he actually up the ante during his war room podcast. Let's watch. Republican Party, those 149 who voted for it, who all have to be primary. Let me repeat that, all of them, including people who were quite fond of and some who we used to be fond of, have to be primary. You know why they have to stand on a debate stage when the primary season and they have to justify what they did with the knowledge they had. had at the time of what went on and then what the impact is because the impact during primary season is going to be a lot worse than it is today. So, Jank, thoughts on this growing conflict between Green and Bannon? Yeah, so I can definitely break it down. So number one, why does Steve Bannon so angry when the Republicans got most of what they wanted? Did he want, okay, instead of getting $20 billion cut from IRS auditing the rich, let's get $80 billion, the whole thing

cut so the rich are protected forever, etc. Like, did he just want more? And he thought it was just on it, because he thinks like, and this would be a fair thing to say, Biden is such a Republican, all you had to do was ask, if you were even tougher, he probably would have given you more, right? He would give you the whole enchilada, okay? Yeah, maybe a little bit of that, but I don't think that's the main thing. I think that you don't get this angry over, it should have been 30 instead of 20 billion, right? No, he wanted them to actually crashed the economy. Because then his, the main guy he's sporting, Donald Trump, would have said the economy crashed under Biden. Like, you know how Republicans are 10,000 times better at messaging

than Democrats. The Democrats would have been like, oh my God, if they, if they actually didn't lift the death ceiling and the market crashed and the interest rates went higher, etc. As every economist predicts, Biden would have panicked and be like, it's my fault. I love the Republicans. I'm so sorry, right? And he would have gotten blamed for it because he's the president. And Bannon is not wrong about that political calculation. Now, in order for you to advocate for that calculation, though, you have to be a monster and think, oh yeah, that's going to cost millions of Americans jobs. It's going to destroy so many businesses, so many lives. But monsters like Bannon and Trump, they don't care about that at all. And would it have

been a significant political advantage for them? Probably. And isn't Bannon this big believer in this traditionalist philosophy where like he almost wants chaos in order to implement it. Yeah, yeah. So look, we talked about this. But Bannon believes in this Russian philosopher, the one that the Ukrainians probably almost killed. But her daughter, his daughter blew up in the car bomb instead. Yeah, Alexander Dugan, right? Yes.

And so the Duganists believe in going back to the medieval ages. Literally. Yeah, like in terms of like how we live, they want to go backwards. That's the progressives want to go forwards. These conservatives are so ultra conservative. They want to go backwards. So what does that mean? Religion, Christian nationalism,

so screw science and vaccines and doctors and and the tech companies and everything that's involved with going forward. They hate it. And if you go forward, it's about equality because now wait, it's not predominantly just white people in the country anymore. It's a mixed bag and they don't want that. They want white people to be in charge, etc. charge, etc. So for them, chaos is not such a bad thing. You're breaking things and when you

rebuild them, you could rebuild them in the way that you want, which is authoritarian. And Dugan doesn't hide that at all. Putin is a huge advocate. Steve Bannon is a huge advocate. And so they're like, burn it to the goddamn ground. And then we rebuild it as basically a dictatorship for just us. Yeah, exactly. That's why, I mean, as you were talking about what the motivations are here, I couldn't help but think about how much Bannon would rejoice in burning it all down, right? So I don't know. I don't know if that's motivating the ire he's directing toward Marjorie Green, but I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, he loves the chaos. Now, immediately after he said what he said during his podcast, other right wingers fell in line and started saying that

they would absolutely love to, by the way, I have no problem with primaries. Primary the hell out of anyone, right? There's nothing wrong with primaries. But a bunch of people on the right decided to back ban on its calls to essentially primary the Republicans who voted in favor of the debt ceiling bill. Stu Peters, who's the host of the Stu Peters show says, I 100% support a challenge to Marjorie Green and look forward to meeting and helping a serious challenge to her. Far right activist and former Florida congressional candidate Laura Lumer also chimed in saying she took a job from me when she publicly accused me of being crazy. You're not crazy at all, Lumer.

You're totally stable, not unhinged, okay? Don't worry. But she continues to say and told Trump not to hire me, I think it's only fair that I get a shot at taking her job too. You know what Donald Trump always says, an eye for an eye. And so we do have some more of the text messages between Marjorie Green and Matt Gates. Any comment before I get to them? Yeah, so look, don't get us wrong. Laura Lumer's totally nuts.

Absolutely. She might be even more nuts than Marjorie Taylor Green, but go ahead, have a nuts off, right? When Republicans are going eye for an eye and leaving themselves all blind, I'm all for it. But I've got to also tell you why Marjorie Taylor Green is on the other side. So why do the Republicans mainly vote against Steve Bannon and his wishes? It's because they have giant donor money now. They're all in office. And so when they have the donor money, they want to keep that money flowing.

So they know that if they'd actually crashed the market in the economy, the donors would have been furious. And so that's the dynamic in that in the Republican Party. Neither side is good. They're both horrible in their own way. Now we do have more of the text message exchanges between Marjorie Green and Matt Gates. We're going to read the text from Marjorie Green. She could tell that you can tell that she's bothered by Bannon and what he's saying. She writes, I have almost the same identical voting record as Thomas Massey, the most fiscally conservative member of Congress.

And I voted with him on this bill. And Bannon, who was senior counsel to Trump in the White House and responsible for the first debt ceiling increase because Bannon is reckless and nowhere near fiscally responsible is now telling everyone I should be primaried. Then she writes, Steve, meaning Steve Bannon, Lumer, and any other POS attacking me will not beat me. Because of that, people have been reaching out to me because they don't like what Steve is doing to me. I'm at a place in my life where removing toxic and bad people out of my life makes me very happy. Steve and I aren't getting back together. Well, how are you going to remove yourself from your life? That's the problem.

Okay, so good luck with that one. Look, by the way, you get a sense of how Marjorie Taylor Green probably conducted her divorce proceedings with that. Would you push me any further? And I'm taking the kids and the house. Yeah. That was it. That gives you a sense of who she is, okay? Yeah, but to be fair, that's common in divorce proceedings, which is unfortunate.

He's very unfortunate. Anyway, all right, on Bannon, but to be fair to Marjorie Taylor Green, she does make a good point. Bannon was the chief advisor to Donald Trump when they raised the debt ceiling. And they didn't hesitate. They didn't wait for a second. They didn't ask for any cuts. They didn't do anything. They were just like, oh, let's lift it right away, right away.

And they did it three times. Ben was, I think, around for only the first one. But not a peep. Why? Because he didn't want the economy to burn while Trump was president. He didn't want to harm daddy. Yeah, but he does want to harm the country if it's a Democratic president. So that is crystal clear.

See, look, we're fair. We don't like either one of them, right? But I'll tell you when someone makes a good point, and the other one makes, and Marjorie Taylor Green there, that has an undeniable point. Steve Bannon, should you be primaried on your own show? Should we get a new host in there who's more pure? Because apparently you're a piece of crap sellout to the establishment and to the donors and probably to the globalists.

Why did you raise the debt ceiling? Why did you do it? You had a perfect opportunity to destroy everything in the world. But yet you didn't do it. Now, look, according to your logic, it would have been great. Flowers would have bloomed everywhere if you didn't raise the debt ceiling. So he has to answer that question. But my guess is not many people will hold them accountable.

But one last thing about the good thing about an internal civil war among the Republicans is that they actually fight dirty. So among the Democrats, there's no civil war at all. There's no fighting. There's no fighting. The corrupt win time after time after time progresses almost never challenged them, right? Among the Republicans, they eye gouged, they ripped each other's hair out. And so when they get dirty, they're going to shiv each other, okay? They're gonna knife each other really hard and that's a, that's pleasant to watch.

And use some Taylor Swift lyrics to make their point as Marjorie Green did. Oh, okay. You know, when she says Steve and I aren't getting back together. Interesting. All right. I think those are Taylor Swift lyrics, right? Yeah. Anyway.

I like it sounds like it could be. All right. We are going to take a break. But when we come back, there is an explosive story in regard to who the perpetrators of the Nord's pipeline bombings are very likely to be. Ooh, explosive, I get it. Explosive. Come right back. 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.