The Young Turks - Politicians Feel Strongly About Abortion, But Know NOTHING About Anatomy

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

Alabama has passed a ban on abortions. Ana Kasparian, Brooke Thomas, and Jayar Jackson, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Oh, hi there. Welcome to TYT and a Casparian, Brooke Thompson.

Thomas, J.R. Jackson with you. I'm excited for today's show. We have a great rundown, okay? Later in the show, we're gonna finally get to a story that we had prepared for yesterday, but we didn't get to it. There's a politician in Denmark who also happens to be an Olympian, and he is advertising in a very unconventional way, and I think that a lot of our politicians could possibly learn something from it. Why not? So we'll, he's advertising on porn, okay? I think it's amazing. He couldn't help it. Right, get here. Yeah.

Let's the story right now. I'm just kidding. So we'll get to that in the second hour. I'm gonna be doing the conversation today and we will be interviewing Professor Richard Wolfe. He is an unapologetic Marxist and if you're unfamiliar with him, he is an incredible person, very knowledgeable and we're gonna get into the pros and cons of socialism. And we're also gonna talk about some of these presidential candidates and what he thinks about policies that are being put out by people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

All right, so you guys want to get started? Yes. All right, let's do it. The Alabama Senate has officially passed the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country. According to the New York Times, legislation bans abortion at every stage of pregnancy and criminalizes the procedure for doctors who could be charged with felonies and face up to 99 years in prison, it includes an exception for cases when the mother's life is at serious risk, but not for cases of rape or incest.

In fact, if this somehow manages to get through the Supreme Court, and the intention here is to get this case to the Supreme Court, the doctors who perform abortions would have longer prison sentences than rapists themselves, just to kind of put everything in perspective for everyone. In addition to the potential 99 year sentence for performing abortions, doctors face the threat of a 10 year term for attempting to perform one. Women who receive abortions though would not be prosecuted. Now if you can recall back during the election, Trump had suggested punishing women who

get abortions. I guess I'm glad that Alabama hasn't gone in that direction yet, but I wouldn't be surprised considering how draconian these laws are. Now, the governor needs to sign this into law, and so far there hasn't really been a commitment from the governor in regard to whether or not she will sign it, but this is where we stand right now. Yeah, and no commitment as far as whether she will sign it, but also no commitment from her to stand up for what already is federal law.

Right. And pretty clear. That's so frustrating about this, and I said something on the damage report, watch the damage report every morning. Yes, yes. But I said something earlier about how, like, it's unfair to call this pro-life. legislation because you can't be pro-life and pro the death penalty. That's right.

You know, this is just simply anti-women having choice. That's exactly right. I mean, it's another example of hypocrisy, huge contradiction among conservatives in the country. And it's really sick. I mean, when you think about what this is going to do to women in the state and how it's going to disproportionately impact poor women of color, I mean, it's just, it's such a backward counterproductive way of dealing with it. And look, if you're pro-life and you want to lessen the instances of abortion, I hear you.

No one wants more abortions. But you should be funding a robust, comprehensive sex education program. You should be providing contraception. You should do everything possible to equip people to make the right decision so they don't have unwanted pregnancies, but they don't want to go in that direction. They just want to force women to have babies that they don't want to happen. that weird, it's the same group of people that, like you said, oppose things like comprehensive sex ed, giving people an education opportunity on what they can do in these situations

to even avoid it. So as we go through all this, one of the, of course, some of the folks in the Alabama state legislator, of course, talk about how they wanted to get to the Supreme Court. I get it to the Supreme Court, let's get it to the Supreme Court, that's their only motivation. So it actually has nothing to do with the women that they're affecting and their communities and their constituents, it has to do with getting to the Supreme Court. And who could be crazier than the previous state that has passed something else dumb.

Like, hey, I don't know, we can do something even crazier and make sure that our people hate us even more. And let's just get into the Supreme Court. In the meantime, as I mentioned again also this morning, was the Supreme Court doesn't have to take your case. It's not like just because you raise your hand and say, hey, I'm from Alabama and I pass this stupid law and I'm going to make sure we're going to the Supreme Court. It doesn't work that way. They have to take the case.

But the reason they think the case will be taken is because, hey, here's this guy, Brett Kavanaugh, who we pushed through. because despite all of the allegations and issues that he had, we need another conservative in the Supreme Court so that we can do this. What happened to not legislating from the bench? What happened to not appointing a bunch of people that are- And by the way, I thought the activist judges, I thought the Supreme Court is supposed to be this group of judges that does things by the Constitution, not based off because they can change something that was previously done by judges.

It seems like it's arbitrary based off of what you want. None of this will stick and it's odd because if this was happening the other way, they'd be screaming murder ironically about it. So I want to have a discussion about the likelihood of the Supreme Court taking up this case. But before I do so, I just want to toss to this video that shows a state senator, a state senator, Chambliss, who is very clear in the intentions here. And everyone should be aware of this. Take a look.

What this bill is designed to do is to go to the Supreme Court and check. challenged that particular precedence that said in 1973 that abortion is legal on demand essentially anytime, anywhere for any reason. So they're not even hiding the fact that they're hoping that this gets to the Supreme Court. And I wanted to share that with you all so you know that it's not just us speculating, it's what they're very clearly and transparently saying. I think that it is likely to get to the Supreme Court.

I mean, there's always this talk about Brett Kavanaugh, mostly because of the fact that He was the last Supreme Court justice to get confirmed, he was so controversial, and we know what his views on abortion are. But Neil Gorsuch is also very, very, very conservative. So I think that it's an incredibly risky situation for people who want reproductive rights and reproductive freedom in the country. I don't think it's ever a good idea to underestimate how incredibly powerful and persistent conservatives are in this country.

They will not give up, they're relentless, and I think this is just another example of that. And you know, what's so frustrating is, you know, there's a part in this where they had the opportunity to put in exceptions for rape and incest, and many of them, the majority chose not to, and it was all a group of white men. And what's so interesting about that is I was reading kind of a reminder about some mistakes that happen. Lawmakers across the country, a lot of these men can't even. passed a college, a high school health exam.

Right. Because they don't even actually know how women's bodies operate. You know, there was multiple examples of a lawmaker, a male lawmaker saying in the past that women couldn't get pregnant during rape. Right, I remember that. There was just a recent one where a lawmaker was saying in Ohio about ectopic pregnancies that they could remove it from the fallopian tube and put it back in the uterus, which is not another lawmaker who thought that you can have a gyne.

ecological exam by swallowing a camera. Yeah, so I wanna elaborate on the Ohio lawmaker a little bit more. Women's users are connected to this, dummy. Right, what? I know, I know, it's, you have, and look, they're not even really interested in the science behind it, they're not really interested in the so-called morality behind it. This is done, in my opinion, for two main reasons. Reason number one is, how do we appeal to the right-wing evangelical voters who have been pushing

us to pass this type of legislation. And remember, there are a lot of people in the middle of the country who are single issue voters and that single issue is abortion, which blows my mind. But secondly, like that Ohio lawmaker, he's a perfect example of politicians who have strong feelings about abortion but know nothing about anatomy. They wanted to pass legislation that would force doctors to take an ectopic pregnancy, which that's when the embryo or the egg does not implant. the right place and then re-implanted in the uterus.

Which is not possible. It's not even possible, exactly. Even if it feels possible, do you know how painful it is? And I've heard the stories of a woman that went through it. It's painful. And it's traumatic. Yeah, and it's traumatic and it changed her whole perspective. There's a fear with even getting pregnant again because it's one of those things where

if you don't have to experience, you just go, whatever, we'll just do this to you. What are you getting out of this? You haven't moved on with your life yet? It's projected where you're, again, it goes to the disdain and the disregard for someone else's life. And we go with, you know, some folks who can put in certain legislations because they don't connect with anyone. You know, you're bleeding hard liberals.

Hey, it might help to bleed a little bit and have your heart feel for someone else besides yourself when you don't even, you have no possibility of experiencing this. One last thing on this for me, as they hope for the Supreme Court to make this whole decision, They forget that while they are competing for the worst laws possible to get to the Supreme Court, those laws are still being put in place. So however long it takes for you to get to the Supreme Court and have you overturn Roe versus Wade, your laws are in effect and it's affecting people. They glossed that over completely.

We're lawmakers, but we just put a law in place because we don't actually want it to actually affect the people that we're putting it on. Right, we're wasting time. We're using state funds in order to try and change something federally. Also, can I just mention how this affects women who have... miscarriages. I remember years ago reading a story about women who talk about the pain of having to go to babies or us and return car seats and have to explain how they should be able to return

something that's usually unreturnable because it turns out they don't have a baby at home and how painful that is. And just putting that into perspective and thinking how much worse that will feel if they're having to go through some sort of police investigation to make sure that they didn't have an abortion or do something themselves to cause a miscarriage and just how cruel this is to women. Yeah, so I love that you brought that up. And this is actually already going on in some of the red states.

We've reported on it years ago, and it's coming up again because women are being impacted by it. So in some of these red states that already have some pretty strict anti-abortion measures, what they'll do if a woman gives birth to a stillborn, and it's usually women who are living in poverty or women of color, these are the ones who get investigated. If they give birth to a stillborn or if they have a miscarriage, they'll launch an investigation to see whether or not this woman has ever had a history of drug use, has ever done anything that could have led to that miscarriage, and then they will prosecute that woman for murder.

I am not kidding, this has already happened in states like Mississippi. And so, you know, while this particular legislation doesn't have the specific wording indicating that a woman would be punished, in reality, women are already being punished. And this would further reinforce the mechanisms to do that. And it's disgusting. I mean, it is, you talk about caring about life. I mean, we can go into all the other policies, including cutting food stamp funding and things like that that demonstrate they don't care about life.

But in this case, it's also abundantly clear, they don't care about the women's lives at all, at all. It's about controlling them, it's about winning political brownie points. Crazy how people like took across and the ones who say, these feminists are out of to get us men and subvert our society and make sure they control us. And then we have to do that bidding. It's crazy how that just happens to be exactly what a lot of these guys are trying to do. Right.

It's so frustrating. There's so many parts of this that are just so cool. We brought up this morning, there was a case in Alabama, two years ago, a 12-year-old had to go to appeal and go to a higher court to be able to get an abortion after she was raped by a family member and impregnated. And so just putting that into what they want to do now, they would want to force this 12-year-old who was raped to have her family member's child, a 12-year-old. It's hideous.

Yeah. And of course, the majority of state senators who voted in favor of this are overwhelmingly white men. There are a total of 27 white male Republicans in the state senate. And 25 of them voted in favor of this legislation. Two of them did not vote. So that's what we're working with here in the state of Alabama. And I just want to remind everyone of who Roy Moore is, because Roy Moore was accused by two women

of sexual assault when they were minors. And what did the Republican Party do over and over again, defend Roy Moore? We have heard stories of these rich white male lawmakers in the past, not these specifically, but just having secret affairs. And multiple times we find out there's a story, the back story is they ask. a woman to have an abortion. There have been famous stories. And so these people aren't even pro-life in their own lives.

It's incredible. You know? Well, let's move away from domestic politics and talk a little bit about foreign policy because Iran is, it's going to be an issue, especially with the Trump administration pushing for war. And yet another move that confirms the Trump administration is looking to escalate tensions with Iran and push for war with the country, the Pentagon has decided to completely belittle and refute British intelligence, which indicates that Iran is not attacking U.S. military forces

or coalition forces abroad. Now, this is what the Trump administration and John Bolton keep citing as a reason for the escalation intentions. They're saying, look, Iran is going after our. military, they're going after coalition forces, and we need to fight back. And so there have been a number of actions taken, which we've outlined on, you know, various shows over the last few days, including the fact that the administration last week had deployed B-52s and also the Pentagon announced Friday that it was sending a Patriot Missile Battery

and the USS Arlington amphibious transport dock to the region. So they're starting to take real actions to provoke Iran. And at the same time, they're completely ignoring any intel coming from other intelligence officials that indicates, no, they're not really a threat right now, we need to move on. So British Major General Chris Gaika, who is the deputy commander of the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria, told Pentagon reporters earlier on Tuesday that in terms of militia groups that receive funding from Iran, the coalition has found, quote, no change in their posture since the recent exchange between the United States and Iran, and we hope and expect that that will

continue. Now, the United States has completely disagreed with that, and they have an incentive to disagree with that. And we'll get to that in just a second. But first, I want to open it up to you guys. What do you think? This is just all a show to provoke. That's so upsetting to a lot of people.

Right, you know, because it's a little more serious than that. This is scary for a lot of people. Can you imagine being a member of the military and it's like, wait, what's going on? What? Right, and they're, you know, planning on sending 120 troops to the region. That was a story that we reported on yesterday. Everything that the, I'm sorry, 120,000, I keep making that mistake. What did you say?

I think I said 120,000 troops to the region in an effort to, you know, I think that it's just meant to provoke, but the way that they sell it is, well, Iran's a threat and we need to protect ourselves. Well, we talk about the, I mean, the Iraq war, it seems like it wasn't long enough whether we'd forget, but of course, because there's many people in the country who are like, yeah, man, never experienced anything to happen on 9-11, you know, so the way that that was perpetuated and pushed for that war, you can see the similarities that happened here. We talked about it again, like you said yesterday, about the way this happened.

So I'm a bit perplexed that enough people aren't going, this is a deja vu, right? It's the same thing we keep doing, where we put in these parameters, some of the things they said along that 120,000 that they said they're sending is just in case Iran develops some level of nuclear capabilities or provokes us or attacks us in any way. What does that mean? Who decides the level of attack that Iran, or you said Iran is carrying out? Because we remember, again, back to the Iraq war, they claimed things that didn't actually happen so that we could go into that war.

So we're supposed to trust you again with the same drumbeat of war that you did. long ago, what, 16 years ago before, again with this situation. Trust us, when they anger us enough or when they do something that we say is not acceptable, we're gonna come and fight. We trust you over that? Right. You know, I love that you brought that up because I remember before the decision was made to do the preemptive war in Iraq, there were intelligence officials who were questioning

whether Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction. And something very similar is happening here, where you have this British official who's on the ground, who has the intel, and he's saying, no, they're not an imminent threat, but the Trump administration is moving forward anyway. Let me give you more from the Major General. He says, there are a range of threats to American and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria. We monitor them all. Iranian-backed forces is clearly one of them, and I am not going to go into detail of it,

but there are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we don't see an increased threat from any of them at this. this stage. So he's saying, look, there are militia groups. They are backed by Iran, but they are not posing an imminent threat right now. So everything that we're hearing from the Trump administration is hyperbole, it's propaganda meant to scare Americans into accepting something that seems inevitable if this kind of story flies under the radar, which I would argue it has been flying under the radar for the most part.

This is gonna be serious. So also, do you have the response? I'm gonna go to it too as myself. Yeah, do it. about it. So U.S. Central Command, of course, refuted this general and said, you know, they've increased, this, think about the way this is put. In coordination with Operation Inherent Resolve has increased the force posture level for all

service members assigned to OIR in Iraq and Syria. As a result, OIR is now at a high level alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces. Right, so leave that up, sorry. U.S. Central Command has increased the force posture level. And then that next sentence is, as a result, is now at a high level of alert. So you're at a high level of alert because you have increased your force posture level. But we're talking about how these militia groups have increased their force posture level

and that this particular general said it's not happening. So your response to that and refuting it is, we increased our heightened awareness and ready to fight, so that means we're ready to fight. Yeah, and it's all on your decision, bro. That's what you wanted to do. I'm putting it as that we're doing it in response to what. Right, right. Because we claim that there's something is going on.

It is kind of amazing because on one hand you have the Trump administration like punching him in the face over and over again. They pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. Which is the most frustrating part about all of this. Right, and then the administration is basically telling Iran, don't you dare fight back. Don't you dare defend yourself? We're going to lie about you. We're going to renege on a deal that was made in a previous administration.

We're going to demonize you, and we're going to start taking actual physical measures against you militarily, but don't fight back. Because the second you do, then we're going to go into all-out war. They want all-out war. It's very clear, and I don't know how we talk the Trump administration out of this, right? There's no logic because this administration actually put the country, this country that they care about so much at risk just in order to, I don't know, kind of. of like hit back at Obama by pulling out of that deal that Iran was abiding by.

Right. And now what we essentially have is a more sophisticated version of calling the leader of North Korea a rocket man on Twitter. I know. That's what this is. And it's terrifying because you shouldn't play with the country's national security like this. It's a joke.

Well, I wanna leave you with one quote from a White House official who spoke to the New York Times on condition of anonymity and for obvious reasons. This person, one American official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential internal planning, said the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was, quote, small stuff and did not merit the military planning being driven by Bolton. The official also said the ultimate goal of the year-long economic sanctions campaign by the Trump administration was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States. One's military capability is very different from Iraq's military capability.

And think about how long we've been in Iraq, think about how much we've destabilized the region, think about the countless lives that were lost, certainly on the Iraqi side, but the number of U.S. troops who lost their lives as a result of that war. And we're about to make the same exact mistake again, and it's pathetic. So when we come back from the break, I want to, I don't want to leave the story yet. We have some video to share with you, including Tom Cotton and his insane overconfidence when it comes to a possible war with Iran. Come right back.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Inging the Republic, or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational,

aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today. and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. Welcome back to TYT. If you're thinking about starting your business or you're looking to get hired somewhere new, it's a really, really good idea to have a website.

Yes. But websites can be super intimidating, right? except they don't have to be if you use a service like Squarespace. So Squarespace is super self-explanatory, I've used it myself to create my website. Jank has used it to create a website, which is kind of amazing because it's Jank and he's not very tech savvy. But here's the thing, they have all these templates. You choose a template you like, it's freaking awesome, I really like their service. So if you're interested in creating a website, go to Squarespace.com slash TYT and you'll get a 10% discount.

So check them out. All right, let me give you a few member comments. Brandon Harris says, how can we garner more progressive enthusiasm? Oh wait, this is from last night, I think. Yeah, so we did an AMA last night. That was one of the questions, my bad. So here are the member comments. No, I don't know where they are.

I did refresh. I'm sorry. I love, I'll do TYT lives, I'll do TYT lives, I'm sorry guys, the document's a little confusing today, but I'll do TYT live since I have them in front of me, I'll read member comments when we come back. This is karma for what you just said about Jane. I know. But it's not my fault, it's not my fault, I'm tech savvy, okay, all right, first super chat

actually, sage and candle says, if I need a DNC for a tumor, is it still illegal? If it's a tumor, I don't know, I don't know, is it a tumor caused by a pregnancy? I mean, in that case, I have no idea. I mean, there's so many unique issues that come up that I don't, they didn't think about because they don't even understand the science of human anatomy. There's no way to know the answer to that question because right now the question posed is if it's, if the Supreme Court has said this is legal, can I still go and get the procedure? And we don't know in six months, you know what I mean?

Like women in Alabama, in Georgia, won't know. Jeebus says, still there are women Republicans seem strange to me. Jeebus, you know I have strong feelings about that. They usually get me in trouble, so I'm just not going to comment on it. But I will comment on one Republican woman. Let's go to my one shot. Governor Ivy of Alabama has officially signed the most restrictive law banning abortion in the state of Alabama.

So she had not committed to signing it into law, but she has decided to do so. And so Alabama has officially passed the strictest anti-abortion law in the nation. It took her, what, 12 hours? Yeah, not even. To thoroughly read through a measure that goes against what's been law in this country since 1973. Yeah. All right, let's move on to some other news.

There is a notable difference between Republicans, the Trump administration, and some of the progressive Democrats who are running for president, like Bernie Sanders, when it comes to foreign policy. Now the Bush administration, the Trump administration is pushing for war with Iran. And recently, Tom Cotton, who is a Republican, was asked about this and what is likely to happen if we do engage in war. And here's what he had to say. Could we win a war with Iran?

Yes. That didn't take you a second. Two strikes, the first strike and the last strike. What are the conditions or the circumstances that would justify going to war with Iran? Well, if Iran struck out militarily against the United States or against our allies in the region, then I would certainly expect a devastating response against Iran. As somebody who fought in two fronts in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan, Do you think it would be a good idea to go to war with Iran?

No, I don't advocate military action against Iran. I'm simply delivering the message that if Iran were to attack the United States, it would be a grave miscalculation on their part, and there would be a furious response. Now, we don't want to govern Iran. We don't want to rule 80 million Iranians. We want 80 million Iranians to be able to govern themselves. Oh, but you do want to rule 80 million Iranians. I mean, what is the purpose of regime change wars?

The purpose of regime change wars is to, you know, essentially install a U.S.-backed, president, leader, whatever you want to call it, who's going to do the bidding of the United States. That's exactly what you want. So in effect, you are controlling the fate, the livelihood, the everything of the Iranian people as a result of a regime change war. Also, I just, I want to open it up to you guys, this whole notion of, oh yeah, two strikes, We're done. That's my biggest problem.

We're done. We're gonna defeat them. I mean, again, we've said this before, but the military capability of Iran is very different from the military capability of Iraq. They are stronger. We've been at war for how long now, you know, over two decades in multiple countries. So we're spread thin. And so I don't know, I think that that's overconfidence to say the least, but I want to get your

thoughts. I think it's so good. You sure? Yeah. I just think it's disgusting. beyond, like, overconfidence, that is not the tone of the seriousness that you should have when talking about killing innocent civilians, killing members of our military, like talking about two strikes.

It's not a video game. Right. You're talking about taking out a country. I just, that's just gross. It's not how our lawmakers should be talking about war, just like it's a video game. I don't know, it's not- I was trying to find the exact quote because I want to make sure my memory serves me correctly. But when we went, again, went to war with Iraq, the Bush administration.

W was talking about how quick and easy it was going to be. I think it said two weeks. Maybe it was Afghanistan. I'm not sure. But when went into one of those wars, we talked about two weeks. Two weeks, we'll be out in and not two weeks. It'll be so easy. They're weak.

They're nothing. They're nobody's. Easy. I remember that. Are we out of there yet? Are we complaining that some people then tried to come out of there? I remember when Obama, he's withdrawing, he's running away. Well, I forget the terms they used.

But Obama's running away from the war. I thought it was supposed to be done. Now, the Tom Cotton's talking about two strikes, first strike, the last strike. You're not a badass. You're not cool, and you don't sound like you're like this military hero that's this tough guy. But that's all we ever push in America's how bad we are. We're gonna destroy you, eh, ah. Then after it happens, we go, I have no idea how lasted this one.

You know what, we can't fight people when they're not in uniform. This is harder than we could have seen. Who could have thought it could have lasted forever? No, I think you could have thought it could last forever because your buddies that create the war machines and create the military assault that happened and profit from it, they know it can happen forever. And you know what they like? That it can happen forever.

And that's what they paid you to do to make sure that it happens forever and bang the drum beats for war, because we're gonna make some money off this. And those 80 million Iranians that you want to govern themselves, how many will be left after you go through and destroy the whole country? How many of you're gonna kill? Who cares? They look like military and enemy combatants. Let's just kill them.

How many are left? How many left to do any of the governing for themselves? It's frustrating because all this has been put in front of us in plain sight for decades, and we keep falling for it. So there is a lawmaker on the left who is speaking out against this proposed war, and I want you to hear from him just to juxtapose what we're hearing on the left versus what we're hearing on the right. Take a look.

If you want to know what perpetual warfare is, never-ending war, that's what a war with Iran would mean. The United States Congress must do everything it can to prevent a war with Iran. And by the way, not inconsequentially, the Constitution of the United States is very clear. And that is that it is the Congress and not the president who determines whether or not we go to war. So Bernie Sanders is right about that. The very last point he made was a good point. But I also want to note that there have been Republican leaders and Democratic leaders,

including Obama, who did not wait for Congress to decide whether or not we engage in war. And that's an important point to bring up. Look, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, once you set a dangerous precedent, you need to consider the fact that the other party can come into power and take advantage of that dangerous precedent. Now when it comes to war, I think that establishment politicians, you know, establishment politicians regardless of political affiliation, love perpetual war. Like, there is a profit motive behind it, and I think that they push for it.

But you do have some of these, you know, non-establishment politicians who are trying to break that cycle. And I love hearing these types of statements from Bernie Sanders, you know, when it comes to being anti-regime change war, Tulsi Gabbard's been really strong on that, and I think that's important. I'd like to hear more from Elizabeth Warren on this issue. You know, she's done a lot on economic policy. But the point is, we're hearing a very, very different message coming from the left versus

the right. Just ask yourself, are you ready to go into war? You, yourself personally, not because you have a flag dripped around your shoulders. Are you strapping the gun on your back? You're putting on the equipment? Are you huffing out there? No, you're not going to do it. And they're sending their kids?

Right. Because that's, you know, what's we're not talking about? 120,000 troops just to send a message, what happens when it gets real? More. More, that's what happens. Well, let's get back to the United States and what is happening with our economy and this trade war. Donald Trump appears to be engaging in a trade war with China as part of his political strategy to win the 2020 election, which sounds crazy when you consider the fact that this trade war and these tariffs that he's imposing on China are hurting America's farmers, many of whom did vote for Donald Trump. Now, Trump raised tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese made products.

The increase went into effect Friday, hours before the Trump administration announced the latest round of trade talks with China ended without the two countries reaching a deal. Now, the stock market has already been impacted by this. There was recently a little bit of a rebound, but the trade war is, and anything that makes investors uneasy, of course, is going to impact the markets. But I don't think that's really the important thing to take away from this story. The important thing to take away is what is motivating and fueling Trump and what is the impact of what he's doing on Americans.

Now, Trump is telling advisors and close allies that he has no intention of pulling back on his escalating trade war with China, arguing that clashing with Beijing is highly popular with his political base and will help him win reelection in 2020, regardless of any immediate economic pain. So look, again, that sounds counterproductive. It sounds like that doesn't make much sense. But if you just take a look at what conservatives and conservative voters have been complaining about for quite some time, there is a little bit of common sense to this.

So Trump's defiance is rooted in decades of viewing the Chinese as economic villains and driven by his desire to fulfill a core promise from his 2016 campaign, that he would dramatically overhaul the US-China relationship. I mean, we've heard a lot of fear-mongering from China. They're becoming more powerful. And there are legitimate concerns, the fact that they steal intellectual property, things like that. But the way that he's going about it seems to lack any nuance or critical thinking.

And it is negatively impacting farmers, American workers, American businesses. And so to know that he's doing this specifically for political gain for reelection is kind of sick. It's like putting the mascot in charge. So the mascots, raw, rah, roots for the rockets, or whatever, right? But he's not the one on the bench coaching. He's not the one of supposed to be putting together a game plan because he doesn't know how to play.

He's just there to jump in front of the crowd and shake his bobblehead and make sure that everybody gets excited. That's the basis for our foreign policy now in America. So everything we do as far as from pushing for war to trade wars itself is to say, hey, we're Americans. We're they're supposed to take what we give them. When we do that to them, they're going to bow it on because we're America. There's no championship.

There wasn't a ring just given out last year. That's not how this works. But if they pose it that way, there's enough stupid people among us that will go with that. Be like, yeah, you know what, this is what Trump likes to say. They've been screwing us over for too long and finally we're going to stop it. Nobody's doing the right thing about it. All those things that you say are some of the concerns, I'm sure previous leaders have been addressing or trying to address a certain way.

But the approach is what it is. The game plan doesn't work. And if you keep pushing it, other folks will be, as we talked about some of these businesses and farmers, we'll deal with those losses and you go, it's okay, we're still going to win. We're going to win. The fact that we have leaders that don't think past the first sentence they say is troubling and it's on full display, but it's always been that way, but it's just on full display now. Over and over and over, so many of his policies severely negatively impact his core base.

So many, we're talking about people who followed him and were so angry about Mexicans at the border, potentially losing their land to build this wall. Look at Harley Davidson, look at the Tax Act, look at their health care. And now we have this, so many of his policies over and over, they just hurt the people that are wearing these ugly hats and, you know, like swearing their lives over to him. So it's just, blows your mind. We're just dirty progressives, right? We don't know what we're talking about.

We should just assume that Trump's base is happy with everything that he's doing and that he's not actually harming farmers in any way, except we have video featuring farmers who are incredibly upset about the trade war, and I want you to hear from them. So let's take a look. My uneducated guess is that he better hurry up and start producing a little bit because this negotiation that I'm seeing so far has not panned out. You voted for this president. Yes. Regrets? Yes. Larry Engler adds up the money. He expects to lose this year.

Between me and my daughter together, probably $150,000. Did you vote for Trump? I did. I'll never vote for him again. You know what? Nope. Now, my favorite for commercial break. No, I hear you.

I hear you. But in the very least, in the very least. In the very least, we're seeing people who are finally getting persuaded by evidence, because previously, I remember the New York Times had interviewed a number of farmers who had voted for Trump, and they had already felt the ramifications of the trade war. And many of them were like, I still support him, I'm gonna give him a shot. He wants us to be patient, so I'm gonna be patient. But at what point, like, are you gonna wait until you and your family are out on the

streets to decide, hey, maybe this isn't the right leader for the country? At least some of them are waking up, and that's- It tells you something. I have no sympathy for that. That last one's losing $100 to $150,000 between he and his daughter. And to say it, think of it this way, and not to have anything wrong with this guy, I don't know what his financial situation is, but you sitting at home. If you lost $100 to $150,000, first consider if you haven't, ever.

And then if you're losing $100 to $150,000 between you and your daughter and your business, and you're like, not to say this particular, as he said never again, but the other one's like, maybe. Because you can afford to somehow. Somehow, you're still good after the fact. But think about, so imagine people who make $35,000, $40,000 a year. How much is that percentage that they lost because of policies this president's put in place? How much he touts his economy?

But how much have you lost. And then, so we have to continue to be patient to get what? Forget how much money these people lost. Like, you were fine when there were people who were losing their babies. Oh yeah, they didn't care. People whose babies were being put in cages and taken miles and miles away from them. You were fine with that. I have no sympathy because over and over, along with, we see these babies.

These policies hurt his base. We see people who only care when it affects them personally. And that's disgusting. You deserve to lose $120,000. I mean, if you voted for him, you gotta live with the consequences of voting for him. Yeah. You're living with it. So we're not done with this story.

My favorite part of this whole trade war has to do with the inner chaos within the Trump administration. Looks like Larry Cudlow and Trump are not getting along and I love the drums. So when we come back from the break, we'll talk about that and more. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN.

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And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE SVPN.com slash TYT. T.Y.T. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at TYT.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian, Brooke Thomas, and J.R. Jackson. During the break, Brooke and I were talking about going on a hike with alcohol. Yeah. Well, we'll go.

Totally excluded me from the party. Of course we didn't exclude you. We just forgot to include you. All right, let's get to some TYT member comments since I messed it up last time around. Rachel Rambo says, I love when JR is on. Probs my, I don't know if I want to read this part. You don't, I know that she does. Oh, you do.

You do. Probs my third favorite host after Jank and Anna. Oh, well, that's okay. That's fine. You guys are on every day. You're supposed to be the time. I know. I just, I don't like comparing hosts.

Well, because in reality, she likes me more, but she can't say that. That's fine, yeah. That's fine. Sasha Ray says. Okay, okay, all right. Looks like Alabama ain't no sweet home no more. Yeah, I mean, it never was. Come on, let's keep it real.

What was the name of that documentary that, I don't know if you guys have seen it, but it's a documentary about the backup singers that made all of these classic rock songs. Oh. It was amazing. I can't remember the name of it. You remember it too? It was one of the incredible documentaries I've seen. And it was the women who worked with Rolling Stone and their voices are so incredible.

And I just think of Sweet Home Alabama because the 20 feet, 20 feet from stardom. It was so good. Watch it, okay? It's my recommendation to you. All right, let's finish up this tariff story. Donald Trump's economic advisor, Larry Cudlow, seems to disagree with Trump quite a bit when it comes to this trade war with China. In fact, the two of them have been feuding behind the scenes, mostly over this interview

that Cudlow had with Fox News Sunday. Who pays for the higher tariffs on Chinese imports? Here's what President Trump had to say this week. Our country can take in $120 billion a year in tariffs, paid for mostly by China, by the way. Not by us. A lot of people try and steer it in a different direction. Truly, ultimately, it's paid for, largely by China. But Larry, that isn't true. It's not China that pays tariffs.

It's the American importers, the American companies that pay what in effect is a tax increase and oftentimes passes it on to U.S. consumers. Fair enough. In fact, both sides will pay. Both sides will pay in these things. And, of course, it depends. If it's a tariff on goods coming into the country, the Chinese aren't paying. No, but the Chinese will suffer GDP losses and so forth with respect to a diminishing export market

and goods that they may need for their own. I understand that, but the president says China doesn't, China, it pays the tariffs. They may suffer consequences, but it's U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers who pay, correct? Yes, to some extent. I don't disagree with that. Again, both sides will suffer on this. So after Donald Trump saw that interview, he went to Larry Cudlow and said, like, you're killing me, Larry, because of course he's contradicting what Trump had said.

And by the way, Trump didn't say that verbatim. But according to one White House official who spoke to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity, Trump called Larry and they had it out. But to be fair, two other officials also spoke to the Washington Post. They described the conversation as cordial and said Trump and, Cudlow went back and forth on trade with Trump telling Cudlow several times to quote, not worry about it. So he is worried about it, as you guys have probably already seen, there are already farmers in

the middle of the country, many of whom voted for Trump, who are very stressed out about this. They're concerned about their livelihoods, and they've already lost money. And so it's not necessarily politically savvy for Trump. It doesn't seem like he has a real plan in place. And it's a little bit of a game of chicken. with China. So we'll see how this all plays out. We're not how that works.

He doesn't have a full plan in place because that's just who this guy is. There was an article talking about Gary Cohen, of course, the former economic advisor for Trump and how he's out. And when he left, he was saying all these nice things about him when we could tell because Cohen had direct confrontations and conflicts with Trump over things like his tariff plans. And things you want to do economically that could hurt certain business and certain people and certain constituents that voted for him. So there was one point of it that I was reading where they said he felt there was going to be

a problem with the debate, Gary Cohen, but also he's bringing this back in because he thinks it's a good election issue, which I think we also mentioned too. But one other thing, when Cohen was with the administration, he and Trump would have loud, profane fights over tariffs. And Trump would sometimes tell him to stop arguing because Cohen wasn't going to change his mind. That's how he operates. So as soon as Cudlow goes on TV and is coaxed into saying something, it makes sense, Trump finds a way to come and confront him immediately.

How dare you say something, it's true. Don't worry about it. Stop trying to talk to me because I'm not gonna change my mind. I'm stuck and stupid. Okay, so since you're talking about Cohn, I have to give you one other part of this that I thought was incredible. So The Washington Post also reported that Gary Cohn, Trump's former economic advisor, compared Trump's strategy of providing subsidies to these farmers to offset some of the damage

that's being done to treating cancer with a band-aid. Wow. Lots of strong language. That's his plan. He's like, we're screwing over all these folks, but let's just give them a few dollars. dollars from where, since you're cutting everything somewhere, and everyone's supposed to get these tax breaks that you're talking about. It doesn't matter.

He doesn't think about anything. It's just I said so sort of work. He doesn't want people to advise him. He doesn't want pros. The very few that he has put in place to actually know what they're doing. To advise him, he just wants yes, man. And we see that over and over again. And a lot of times they get in these positions where they don't really like what he's doing

in their department, but they just go along with it anyway. And I imagine that's gonna be the last time you see him speak out against anything. Oh, absolutely. He's got the memo. Yeah. Well, let's move on to some good news because there is good news and it revolves around AOC, of course. So, turns out an overwhelming percentage of Americans are in favor of the recent Lone Shark legislation

that was proposed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. Now, for those of you who can recall, that legislation would cap interest rates on loans at 15%. And it would essentially do away with some of these loan shark payday lenders that a lot of Americans have unfortunately fallen victim to. And it would return to a postal banking service that would essentially serve as a substitute to these payday lenders. Now with that said, recently there was a poll done. by Business Insider using Survey Monkey to figure out how Americans feel about this.

And interestingly enough, nearly 70% of Republican primary voters and 73% of Democratic primary voters said they either support or strongly support the legislation or capping these interest rates. So again, I mean, if you look at it, 70%, the vast majority of Republican primary voters are in favor of this, which is great. Overall, about 68% of respondents said they either support or strongly support the plan, and only 10% oppose the rate-capping component of the Lone Shark Prevention Act. Isn't that sad that we have to be surprised the Republicans are 70% of them are not okay with being screwed?

Isn't that weird? Yeah. It's like, oh my gosh, 70% of Republicans don't want to be screwed over. Crazy how that works. When in reality, 100% probably don't want to be screwed over, but the other 30% are just like, just don't have any idea what's going on. Yeah, that's right. Just one of those situations that doesn't affect marginalized communities worse than them. It's like, well, it does, but this is a situation where it's easy to see, you know, their own pain in this and why they don't want to pay these high interest rates instead of like, that's easier, like, more important to them than punishing someone who isn't of them.

If that makes, do make sense. No, it does make sense. It does make sense because, and I'm going to interview Professor Richard Wolf later, and he makes this point all the time in one of his, in his podcast, Economic Update. Look, the way that politicians distract us from the failures of capitalism is by pointing to the others and fearmongering about the others. So all of the social issues are meant to, again, distract us, whereas the one thing that really does unite us across the ideological spectrum is this desire for economic justice and

for economic equity. And so I think that it would be a much smarter, I guess, political strategy for Democrats to focus on the economic inequity and finding solutions to it. But oftentimes most of them, and obviously AOC and Bernie Sanders don't fall under this category, But most of them in the Democratic Party have fallen prey to the same corruption that Republicans have. So they don't want to deal with it. They don't want to find solutions because their donors don't want them to buy solutions.

And they have to talk a little too much with a little bit too much normal expertise to tell people these 70% of Republicans that would agree with you, hey, guess what? Would you agree with me? They're afraid to do it because they're stuck in this lie. The Republicans are great with money in the economy and they don't spend all your money and take it from you. It's exactly what they do. Just say it.

So Frank Luntz, who we spoke about earlier this week, is a GOP operative. And he had an interesting thing to say about AOC during a recent interview with Laura Ingram. So let's hear what he has to say. And the key is authenticity. You want to say what you mean, mean what you say. You want to be able to look straight at the camera and be yourself. And at least half of them are trying to be something. And that's why AOC does connect.

She is herself. And you can disagree with their policies or ideas. But she seems very genuine. miles all the time. And she looks like she's having fun. Exactly. No one's having a better time of politics than Donald Trump and AOC. They should run against each other, even though legally she can't.

That's just something to consider. Okay. Just something to consider. Let's stay a voice. All right. One more story before we wrap up this hour. And I'm really excited because Brooke has some stuff to say about it. I'll be quiet.

Elizabeth Warren was invited by Fox News to do a town hall on the channel. And apparently Elizabeth Warren has declined the invitation and has shared her reasons why on social media. On Twitter, she says, Fox is a hate for profit racket that gives a megaphone to racist and conspiracies. It's designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences to provide cover for the corruption that's rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class. She continues to write, hate for profit works only if there's profit.

So Fox News balances a mix of bigotry, racism, and outright lies with enough legit journalism to make the claim to advertisers that it's a reputable news outlet. It's about dragging in ad money, big ad money. So she's arguing that doing town halls or agreeing to do town halls, just legitimizes Fox News and helps them profit, helps them, you know, sell ad space to advertisers. And she says she does not want to engage in that. And that's a really, it's a fascinating argument that I hadn't really thought of because when this whole debate was happening with the DNC and their decision to not allow Fox to hold or carry any of their debates,

I thought, well, it makes sense because I'm worried about them doing propaganda or twisting things or asking questions in a way to defame some of these candidates. That's where my head was at. I didn't think about the profit. And I think that's a really interesting point to bring up. That's why they're so frustrated. Good. No, no.

That's why the news and news sources and cable channels want to do these types of things. The presidential race is the Super Bowl, you know? And the Super Bowl wants to have $5 million ads for a second of ad space. That's the way it works. So these are just TV stations. They're like, man, well, there's 25 Democrats run them. I want all of them on Fox News so we can make some money. That's what those guys' jobs are.

People that work in ad space and selling stuff, it doesn't matter what the pundits say during the 7 to 8 o'clock hour. It matters that they've got ads coming in. So they don't care. As long as people are watching, they're going to be selling and making money. So it doesn't, it just doesn't make any difference. And I like that, again, she brought it up. Again, Elizabeth Warren's pointing out the things that everyone should know.

And it's the second level thing that we're thinking about, but we're not getting there. Yeah. This is her taking a stand and backing marginalized communities. Because what she's saying, it has nothing to do with the people watching. This is about her deciding not to help legitimize what she believes to be racist, bigoted state TV. That's it. Yeah.

And Media Matters has a great PowerPoint presentation showing because Fox loves to, boast and their three news anchors like to, you know, talk about this separation between their news side and their opinion side. But Media Matters has this huge piece out right now about how often their news side pushes misinformation and lies. And we have countless examples of the racist things said on this network. And the people who watch, of course, there was, you know, people saying, criticizing this saying, You have to be the president of all people, but she's, a lot of her policies positively affect

all of those people, unlike the president's current policies. So that's how you'd be the president of all people. It's not going on a TV network just to speak to those people. People, you know, they can consume you other than just one television network. And I think that it is time for someone to be willing to just go all the way and stand up for marginalized communities and say, hey. This is not okay. I'm not going to support it.

So you make a great argument, and I'm really curious what your reaction is to some of the ladies on the view. Actually, all of the ladies on the view, because they all seem to be very critical of this decision by Senator Warren. So let's take a look at this first video, and I want to hear your thoughts. I think that it's being very dismissive of so many Americans for her not to go on Fox News. Fox News was the top basic cable network in April. It finished in 2018 as the most watch, basic cable network for the third consecutive year among both prime time and total day viewers. I think there are a lot of real journalists there like Chris Wallace, like Shep Smith. And I think if you want to be the president of the United States for everyone, then you need to speak to everyone.

I kind of agree with you, Sonny. And I don't like what she said. Because I noticed that Trump never goes on MSNBC or CNN. All he does is give like this spontaneous interview. Interviews on his lawn with a helicopter waiting in the back. I thought she's being sarcastic. Joy was. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know where her heart's really at, but I was more fascinated with what Sonny Hosten had to say. And she's one of my favorites on the view. I think that she makes a lot of great arguments, but I don't know if I agree with what she had to say there. What do you think, Brooke? I think that it's interesting that she uses the word dismiss because I think that she dismissed a very clear and very, you know, like easily spelled out argument that Elizabeth Warren made.

She didn't just say, I don't care about those people, I'm not going to talk to you. She's saying, here is my two millionth policy, these all affect you. And then over here, I'm not going to legitimize something that I think does bad for America. That's it. She's not saying that those people who watch it don't matter and that she's not going to be there. She's just, listen, the people who watch Fox News, if they, the people who agree with Fox and watch Fox, their president is in power. We have been catering to those people, and that's why we've been so slow on civil rights

legislation in this country for years because of the fear of turning those people off. Elizabeth Warren is simply saying, when it comes to TV, I'm going to finally be a person who's going to cater to these people. Because you matter, and the things that are said here are not okay, and every single day, someone on this network makes you feel like your place in this country doesn't exist. Every single day, and I'm going to stand up for you and saying, you know, there are some real journalists on Fox. You don't get to say, hey, yes, my network says racist and bigoted and sexist and homophobic

things all the time, but I'm still a real journalist. You get to say, I don't want to work here because I want to take a stance against something that is so nasty to so many other Americans. And when you don't do that, you have to, you know, you become part. of the machine. Yeah. And so I don't think it's fair to say there are some real, yeah, they do terrible things. But there are some real journalists who have signed on to have that name on their resume.

Like what? I do find it interesting. Like it's, it is fascinating to see how people are putting words into Warren's mouth or deciding what her intentions are for her, even when she is clear about what her intentions are or what the reasoning is for not wanting to allow Fox to host that town hall. It has nothing, like you said, it has nothing to do. with ignoring an entire group of people, it has everything to do with preventing the, you know, the legitimizing, I guess, of a network that's been, first of all, incredibly vicious

and defamatory toward her, but very supportive and, you know, they constantly excuse everything that Trump does. And so, yes, Chris Wallace has been doing some good interviews, but I don't think that that's enough of a reason to do something that is going to help legitimize them or make money for them. And this didn't turn out good for Bernie Sanders. It turned out good, it went well for Fox. Because yes, he had all those people in that audience cheering for Medicare for All.

How many times you think they've replayed that on Fox? I think the number is zero. What it did was it gave them an opportunity to ask him inappropriate questions that didn't belong in a town hall. And then also, they get to use that at Upfronts as they're losing all their advertisers. They get to say, hey, stick with us because we brought Bernie on. We brought one of the Democratic leaders on. We're the network for everybody.

I don't know what people are saying. Tell them what Upfronts are. A lot of people are doing. Oh, Upfronts. It's this big presentation, thanks, year, that happens every year in New York City. And it's basically when all the networks go and they show, they promote their new shows. They bring the stars there, celebrities there on their shows. They promote the new shows coming up.

up in the upcoming seasons on their network, and they basically try to sell ads on these shows to a group of people who then sell ads to companies. Right. And so they're able to use Bernie Sanders' town hall as a way to show that they're for everybody. Yes, sure, we called the wife of the president of the United States. We called Michelle Obama Barack's baby mama. Yes, sure. We said that the Charleston shooting wasn't racist because who would go to a church to find black

black people. Everyone knows that if you want to find a bunch of black people, you go to a basketball court. These are things that were said on this network, you know what I mean? And they get to use it and say, yeah, we said all that stuff, but we had Bernie on. Yeah, that's a great point. Brooke Thomas, J.R. Jackson, thank you so much for hosting with me. Yeah. Plug your social media.

Where can people find you guys? I mean, everybody finds me here, you know, you know, you know my name. Let the people know, J.R. Jackson. Spell the name right. It's not J.P.R. I see people say it all the time. Oh, man, I thought it was J.R. No, son.

It's J.A.Y. There are so many people who think that. That is just J.R. I'm Brooke on air. Because my name is Brooke and I'm on air. All right. Thanks, guys. We will be right back with our two.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon