The Young Turks - Populism Panic

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school draws global condemnation. Joe Kernen knocks JD Vance's ""Democrat"" corporate tax pitch. The NYPD is tossing out hundreds of misconduct cases, including stop-and-frisks without even looking at them." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) 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 ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA 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. I don't want to listen to people tell me that I'm a conspiracy theorist. I'm so upset. Oh my God. Bega! We're going to be able to be. All right, welcome the Young Turks live at the Polymarket Studio in LA.

Janky, Granik is sparing with you guys. I feel like every day is a big day. So we have a lot of interesting stories for you guys. No cats will be eaten in the making of this show, but cat eating stories will arrive, okay? Because they, they apparently, we can't get rid of them, discussions of the debate. There's a feline frenzy. Yeah, lots of crying and whining and hissing from the other side in this show, and a lot more where that came from. So let's get started.

Yeah, let's do that. Now, before we get to any of the stories that jankious tease, I think it's important to also talk about, well, the latest out of Gaza and some of the motivating factors for members of Congress to keep this war going. Let's do it. At this school turned shelter today, the aftermath was too much to bear and too graphic to show. Survivors collected body parts in whatever they could carry after a bomb gutted the bedroom that had once been a classroom. Israel said the target was Hamas militants planning attacks.

Palestinians said among the dead displaced women and children. Israel has pushed the displaced to al-Muasi, where early yesterday morning, first responders dug through soft sand in the crater left by an Israeli bomb. By day, three craters, each at least 40 feet wide, suggested Israel had dropped large bombs in what Israel calls a safer zone. This week, the Israeli military conducted two separate airstrikes that were devastating in nature. Of course, this took place in Gaza, and combined, they killed dozens of Palestinians. Now, the Israeli defense forces claim that Hamas militants had established a command and control center at both areas that were bombed, the humanitarian zone that was struck on Tuesday, and the school turned shelter for displaced Palestinians that was struck the next day on Wednesday.

Now, the Israeli Prime Minister's office also claimed on Wednesday that Israel is doing more to protect and prevent civilian casualties than any army in the history of armed conflict. So let's go to the video and then, Jank. I know you're chomping at the bit. We'll go to Jank, so let's watch. Israel is trying its hardest more than any other nation on earth, more than any other army has in the history of armed conflict to get civilians out of harm's way and to go for the terrorist targets even though they embed themselves in civilian areas. Now there's at least one expert who disagrees and that expert isn't Jank Yugar. We're going to hear from that expert in just a moment. But Jank, I want to hear what you think first. So first of all, the Ottoman Empire said the same exact thing.

We're just moving to Armenians from out of the way. And you guys aren't even thanking us. Okay, so a lot of them died on the way. But we were doing it for their benefit to move them out of the way. And look at what Israel just said. I mean, did you catch that last part of that news report? Israel claims these are safe er areas. Oh, the ones where they dropped the three giant bombs and killed 18 people,

including six UN workers. Apparently, you're just, I don't know if Israel is the only country on earth that's allowed to murder UN workers, but they certainly are allowed. It's nothing but rewarded. We'll get to blink and subocracy in a minute. But no, it is not a safer. But the funny thing is, like, Israel supporters will be like, we tried so hard. We didn't drop five or ten giant bombs in the safe er area. We only dropped three giant bombs.

We only killed six UN workers. We're trying so hard not to kill people. That's why we've only killed 41,000 people, let alone all the people buried under the rubble, etc. And golly gee, what three quarters of them were civilians at a minimum, two thirds of them are women and children. Tens of thousands of honest mistakes. And you believe that if you get paid by them, you know, by APEC to believe that. You believe that if you're a diehard Israeli supporter, literally no one else on earth believes that. So let's get to some of the details. Now, There are things that we know and things that we obviously do not know.

We do not know exactly what type of bombs were used in the latest airstrikes. We don't know if they're using the 2,000 pound bombs or 500 pound bombs. But Wes Bryant, who's a retired senior targeting professional in the U.S. Air Force, stated that these a airstrikes were in fact excessive in his view. He says dropping any bombs, even if it was a 200 or 250 pounder in and among tents. is reckless and irresponsible, it's not feasible mitigation of civilian casualties. And look, I know that we are in the era of endless gaslighting, but trust your instincts when you see that any military is literally dropping bombs on tent encampments containing displaced

civilians. Now, Israel has packed the Ghazan population tighter and tighter into these safer areas or shelter zones, at the start of this year, for instance, Israeli military evacuation orders pushed Palestinians fleeing the war to shelter in areas totaling around 33% of the Gaza Strip, and that's according to the UN. The displacement zone now accounts for 11% of the Gaza Strip, itself about the size of the city of Philadelphia. So we're talking about millions of people having to shelter in 11% of the Gaza strip, which was a tiny piece of land to begin with. I mean, Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions of the world, and now you have an even smaller percentage of that area being determined or being used as a safer zone for displaced

Palestinians. Yeah, I'm going to say two quick things about that. One, don't get misled by a couple of labels here. The Palestinians say they're schools, the Israelis say they're command centers. No, they're former schools that are now refugee camps. And so then Israel says, well, we didn't have a choice. They're using their civilians as human shields. No, Israel packed all the civilians into 11% of Gaza.

And then said, well, I think Hamas is in there. I have some intelligence. And by the way, most of the time I don't present it because I didn't really have it. And, you know, barely ever did they show. I actually had intelligence and a Hamas commander was killed because Hamas will then come out and say, yeah, our commander was killed. So outside of those few cases where that actually happens, they just drop huge amounts of bombs and then go, oh, I guess they were using their civilians as human shields when I dropped

a giant bomb in the middle of a refugee camp. Oh, did I also kill UN workers? Oh, those are all accidents from the most moral army on earth. So Jay keeps mentioning UN workers getting killed. And we have some details on that as well. Look, after yet another American citizen was killed in the West Bank by an Israeli sniper and literally nothing happened in terms of consequences, I'm not shocked by anything at this point. In fact, Anthony Blinken, our Secretary of State, decided to go to the UK and pressure them to lift the weapons ban that they had implemented toward Israel

because they were concerned that Israel was using those weapons to commit war crimes. By the way, they didn't ban all weapons, just a tiny little slice of the weapons that they had been sending Israel. Yeah, so in a second we're going to get to how you're going to get to how you, US representatives are making money off of killing Palestinians through all this. And it is just that gut wrenching story. But on the Blinken thing, I just want you guys to be aware that when mainstream media tells you Blinken or Biden, or yes, Kamala Harris, let alone Trump, who's even worse on this issue. But in this case, they're the ones in charge, Biden, Blinken, say, oh, they're, oh man,

they're heartbroken about that American citizen killed. It's their top priority. No, Lincoln then not only didn't do it. to Israel. He tried to help Israel get more weapons from the UK. Anthony Blinken and Joe Biden are massive liars who basically now, I mean, look, I hate saying this because they're US government president and, you know, Secretary of State. But they're, let's put it this way, they are doing Israel's work for them. They're going around bullying the rest of the world. They go out in front of the TV cameras and go, oh, we are so concerned about all those dead Palestinians. As soon as

the cameras are turned up, they're like, you better give money to Israel, you better not veto, you better veto anything that there are war crimes, you better, and then nothing for the Palestinians. Fiercely pro-Israel, when they get in front of a camera, they're giant liars, they have no concern for Palestinians. In fact, they finance the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. So let's get to the UN workers, because at least three of the people named by the IDF, Three of the people named by the IDF as Hamas militants appeared to be on the Hamas media offices list, albeit with slightly different spellings, the IDF did not provide evidence for its allegations.

Of course. And NBC News has reached out to the IDF and UNRWA for further comment because, you know, the Wednesday strike took the lives of six separate UN workers, Israel claimed that several of those workers were actually members of Hamas. That was the allegation, with no evidence, by the way. Meanwhile, the number of dead and injured in Gaza, of course, continues to rise. To Jenks' point earlier, we had previously reported that 40,000 people were killed in Gaza. That number has already gone up.

After more than 11 months of war, the death toll in Gaza is more than 41,000, and that's according to health authorities in the territory. This is reported by the Guardian. More than 95,000 people have also been wounded with a quarter suffering, life-changing injuries, including amputations that will require years. of support, according to the World Health Organization. To be fair, that was done by the most moral army on earth. Right, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, another element of what I believe is corruption when it comes to war in general.

Oftentimes we'll talk about the lobbies that provide legalized bribes to our politicians, which of course influences their decision making, their policy making. But there's also the issue of members of Congress trading individual stocks. Now, we've talked about that in various contexts when it comes to, for instance, regulations on businesses here in the United States. It's kind of difficult for members of Congress invested in those businesses to pass laws that would provide more oversight and more regulations for those kinds of companies. And the same is true when it comes to war.

So sludge, which is a great publication that's hyper focused on corruption in Congress and in, you know, our government in general did this incredible report. And let's talk about what they found. They found that at least 50 members of Congress or other members of their households hold stock in defense contractors, companies that receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation. Now if you wanna know just how widespread this. or how much money we're talking about. Well, the total value of the federal lawmakers' defense

contractors' stock holdings could be as much as $10.9 million, according to a sludge analysis of 2023 financial disclosures. So if war is making these defense contractors more profits, obviously those profits translate to higher returns for their shareholders and their investors. It is a problem when members of Congress, the very people deciding on how much to support this war, whether to support this war, are personally invested in these private defense contractors. So Sledge reports that the most commonly held defense contractor stocks in Congress are Honeywell. That comes in at number one.

And at number two, you have RTX, formerly known as Raytheon. Now, Honeywell manufactures sensors and guiding devices that the IDF is using. specifically in Gaza, and when it comes to Raytheon, they're providing or making the missiles for the Iron Dome system. Look, I have no problem with Iron Dome, and I have no problem with supporting Iron Dome. Okay, that is actually a defense capability that the United States has provided for Israel. It is different from offensive weaponry, and so I have no problem with Iron Dome. I want to be clear about that.

Now, both have a clear incentive for the United States to keep sending weapons to Israel, though. The stock price for RTX has increased by 71% with Biden in the White House. In an October earnings call, the company's then CEO, Greg Hayes, now its chairperson said that with the Department of Defense stepping up orders for Israel and Ukraine, RTX, again, that's Raytheon, would see a benefit of this restocking. Yeah, some of the defense contractors have actually beat that 71% number. one of them is at 91%. So war is great for business for defense contractors, but the real problem here is that it's great for the personal finances of so many of our Congress people. So guys, think about it. Even if you take Israel out of it, Ukraine out of it, they are saying, okay, I'm going to invest in this at the stock market. This money is going to go straight to my pocket.

Then I'm going to give those same companies hundreds of billions of dollars more that will definitely increase their stock. price and I'll get rich. How is that allowed? That should be wildly illegal. Guys, they're going to rob his blind. They're already doing it. I mean, that defense country, do you know how much defense budget has gone up under Biden?

Remember how Trump was like, oh, the defense is shattered. I'm going to fix it. At that point, it was already like this size of the next eight defense combined for the other eight countries that do giant defense budgets. Then Trump massively increased it, then Biden, he's going to slow it down, right? Democrat, Democrat. No, it has increased by

20% under Biden and is nearly at a trillion dollars. Why? Because every time they increase it, the people in the House make more money. The representatives are getting incredibly rich. And they're like, oh, Israel wants to kill Palestinians. Yes, we're going to make more money. Oh, and the two stocks they're most heavily invested in are the two that happened to make weapons for Israel. What a coincidence again. Well, you look at that. And right wingers, if you think Nancy Pelosi's the only one doing this, you're crazy. First of all, she's just as guilty, but more guilty than everyone there, okay? But these are bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans, robbing you blind to perpetuate more war, more death, and doing it with our money so they can get rich.

That is a great point and I want to really emphasize that because remember, we're talking about the United States government appropriating tens of billions of dollars in defense or military funding for Israel. So it's not like Israel is spending their money on buying these weapons from defense contractors in the United States. No, no, no. We are giving them money, us, the taxpayers to buy the weapons from the defense contractor. defense contractors get rich, the shareholders for those companies get rich, the American people

get screwed, unless you yourself are personally invested in those defense contractors. Yeah, and one last thing, guys, everything in the media is Republican versus Democrat. So I get, and we have elections that are very binary, either the Republican ones or the Democrat wins. I understand all that. But remember, it's a shell game. It's good cop, bad cop. They're actually on the same team because both under Republican and Democratic presidents, both under Biden and Trump, what happened?

Massive increases the defense contractors, no accountability, the Pentagon cannot pass an audit, doesn't know where half the money is, half a trillion dollars. They're like, I can't account for it. It would be unacceptable under any other scenario. But it's the government that is getting paid by these owners and now making personal cash by investing into these companies that are robbing us day in, day out.

I need you to focus on stories like this instead of thinking, oh, Trump's going to solve it, Trump's anti-war, oh, no, Biden's going to solve it, or Kamala Harris is going to solve it because they're good guy, Democrats. Nancy Pelosi's going to solve it because she cares so much. No, Trump, Pelosi, Kamala, none of them care. All they care about is the money, and the way that you control the money is you fix the system. I agree. If you're not going for systemic change, real change, you're just having nonsense battles over,

and the whole time they're laughing at you, oh, they voted for the good company. They're over the back. Come, what difference does it make? I think the best way to view politicians is you could either be cynical like I am and just see them as empty suits or empty shell of human beings that are just completely motivated by incentives and disincentives. Or you could think of them as just normal people who are motivated by incentives and disincentives. If this job allows for members of Congress to literally personally enrich themselves out of war or through war, then they're going to support war. And I think that's what we're seeing here.

We got to get, yes, money out of politics. That's something we talk about a lot. But the other side of that is also the need to ensure that members of Congress aren't trading individual stocks. Because it's a conflict of interest. It's so obvious. Yeah. And now last thing I'll say is actually right wing, left wing, no matter who you are, no matter who wins Trump or Kamala Harris, can we unite and put tremendous pressure on both sets of

politicians? If you just do it for Republicans or just do it for Democrats, it's not going to work. You have to put pressure. Your own side has to put pressure on your side to change and say, I'm tired of you guys robbing us. No, we're not going to let you do insider trading. Pass the Stock Act, otherwise we're going to, et cetera, et cetera, and otherwise are things like one of the of the things we should definitely do in 2026 is a rebuttable presumption vote against all incumbents. So if you guys are going to keep being crooks, we're going to literally throw all of you out. And by the way, I mean it, I'm dead serious. I'd rather have 535 people off the street, average Americans, than these crooks. Because at least those guys I know aren't

crooks yet. These guys are almost all universally crooks. So throw all the incumbents out next time around, but we've got to work together. If we don't work together, they're going to do the same old theater and we're going to get nowhere and they're going to laugh at us and go, ha ha, we robbed even more money from them. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll get into J.D. Vance's interview on CNBC. He said some things that I actually found very appealing. But the big question is, are these economic policies that are actually going to be implemented?

We'll get to that and more when we come back. All right back on TYT, Jank Anna Inwood, James Simons and Adam Weissman. We love you guys. Thank you for in the join button below, Anna. This next story is a doozy. We're going to talk about tariffs. We're going to get deep. Let's do it. Would I call you an economic populist? Is there daylight between you and President Trump? A lot of what I think of his populism though, seems like it's almost diametrically opposed

to certain aspects of capitalism. You have said we should raise corporate taxes in the past. The former president wants to cut the 21% rate down to 15, I think. You said 28 or even higher. Liberals to the left of him, populists on the right, CNBC host. Joe Kernan, or Kiernan, is clearly panicking about the possibility of higher taxes on corporations and populist economic policies being implemented, regardless of which administration comes into power. Now, here he is displaying that panic during an interview with Trump's VP pick, J.D. Vance.

A lot of what I think of as populism, though, seems like it's almost diametrically opposed to certain aspects of capitalism. And there are certain groups, and I don't even want to mention the name of it, but they claim you as a strict adherent to populism. I don't know if you know the group I'm talking about. You have said we should raise corporate taxes in the past. The former president wants to cut the 21% right down to 15, I think. You said 28 or even higher that these big corporations deserve that. Well, what I said is that we need to lower taxes on corporations that are creating jobs in this country. and raise tariffs on corporations that are shipping jobs overseas and manufacturing overseas.

Look, if you're trying to take advantage of Chinese slave labor and then use American markets to make a profit on your product, I do think, and I know Donald Trump thinks that we should try to penalize these companies, but we want companies that are investing in America, hiring America, and creating good American jobs to thrive. But we have to recognize there is a fundamental difference between a national corporation that's creating good jobs in this country and a foreign corporation that's benefiting from Chinese slave labor. policy that the Democrats get criticized for. So, Kernan obviously hates the idea of, you know, populism, economic populism, doesn't

like the idea of higher taxes for corporations. But for the purposes of this discussion, I think that, you know, diving into tariffs is important because I got to be honest with you guys. Look, I know J.D. Vans has all sorts of issues, right? I hate what he says about women, I hate like this weird pressure to have kids. I hate like smearing people who decide against having children, I hate all of that. But what he says specifically in the context of this part of the discussion about tariffs, it sounds kind of appealing to me.

So, Jay, go ahead. Yeah, so I'm gonna break down the pro and anti-tariff position. And guys, it requires nuance. I know in politics, everybody says, oh, either this or this. No, they answer somewhere in the middle here. But what's interesting is that is about to tell you, Biden is on Vance's side. Yes, yes. Yes, okay, so before we get to Biden, because I don't think most people know what Biden did with tariffs during his administration, I just want you to hear a concise explanation of what J.D. Vance's views on tariffs happen to be. Let's watch.

There's definitely some element of populism to it, because look, I do think that for 30 years in this country, we shift a lot of good manufacturing jobs to places like East Asia. Now China makes some of the critical things that we need, antibiotics, prescription drugs, even, God forbid, the weapons that our troops would need if we went to war against a nation like China. So we have to be a little bit smarter about our own self-reliance as a nation. That is one departure, I think, between President Trump's vision and, frankly, 30, 40 years of failed leadership in this country. You want to allow American manufacturers to benefit from that cheap labor. Not only is it going to destroy good American jobs and wages, it's going to decimate our core manufacturing industry, which I think makes us less productive over time.

The final most important point is it makes us reliant on foreign nations to make some of our critical stuff. Now, Donald Trump does believe in trade, and I believe in trade, but we believe in trade that's actually going to benefit American workers, not destroy American jobs. So on messaging alone, I liked a lot of what J.D. Vance had to say there. And guess what? As Jank alluded to earlier, so does Joe Biden, because he didn't repeal the tariffs that were implemented under Donald Trump. In fact, he decided to double down and add additional tariffs. Most people don't know about that, but let's discuss. So according to a really great piece written by Bob Davis in foreign policy, he writes that Biden made a decision that upended decades of Democratic White House rule.

He ordered heavy new tariffs on Chinese imports of high tech items and continued the massive tariffs he inherited from his Republican predecessor, obviously Donald Trump. And he continues to write that Biden's team includes people who spent decades. campaigning for free trade and have now embraced protection or protectionism, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Biden himself. So surprisingly, the Biden administration is the first since at least President John F. Kennedy's time to not even negotiate a new free trade deal, major free trade deal, which I didn't even know about, right? Trump actually did negotiate some free trade.

deals. Biden has not. And instead, he has embraced tariffs. Even Trump, the self-proclaimed tariff man, concluded a significant free trade pact when he replaced the North American free trade agreement with a U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal, USMCA, which toughened rules on auto imports, but also established liberal rules on digital trade. He also negotiated a smaller digital agreement with Japan. So that's like the, you know, slight differences between the two administrations. But the point that I'm trying to drive home here is that while on the debate stage, Kamala Harris attacked Donald Trump's tariffs. Fact of the matter is the Biden administration actually doubled down on those tariffs. And it did not lead to inflation. And I have some evidence of that

in just a second. So Trump negotiated, let's actually fast forward. So Biden also talked about the importance of manufacturing things here in the United States. As you heard J.D. Vance talk. about and he said it's important for our national security, it's important when it comes to pharmaceutical drugs. He said the following, my administration is combining in combining investments in America with tariffs that are strategic and targeted, Biden said in May, explaining why he sought to block Chinese imports of electric vehicles, semiconductors, and other products deemed crucial to American security. Now the big concern, and I'm sure we're going to talk about this, Jenk, because Jenk has his analysis on whether or not

tariffs would be a good or bad thing. But we entered this inflationary period. People are freaking out. And that was when Janet Yellen was like, we got to get rid of the tariffs. We got to get rid of the tariffs. And she was screaming from the mountaintops. Get rid of the tariffs. I have analysis here that shows that it'll lower inflation by a significant amount. But it turns out that at the end of the day, the administration decided against going in that direction. And they even poured over the analysis that she provided. And they found, eh, at most, at most, getting rid of the tariffs would cut inflation by 0.25%. And then finally, by the end of 2022, Biden fought China by blocking exports of advanced manufacturing equipment

and semiconductors to Beijing while also revving up manufacturing here in the United States. And in many ways, that was a continuation of the Trump policy of seeking to deny advanced chips to Chinese companies. Finally, and then I'll go to you, Jank, Bob Davis writes this, Biden won congressional approval to spend as much as $600 billion in the coming years to subsidize companies that build factories domestically to make semiconductors, electric vehicles, electric batteries, and other green technologies. So I'm actually optimistic and kind of excited about this effort to bring manufacturing back

here to the United States, to have things actually built here. I do think it's important for our own safety, for our own health. I don't want our pharmaceutical drugs manufactured in other countries. I think we should have the manufactured here. And I want better jobs here. And this could be the pathway to that. Okay, there's definitely caveats to that for me. But first, I want to say, look, if you're watching a show that tells you that either Biden or Trump is definitely right about tariffs and the other one is wrong, then you'll know you're watching the wrong show because they have a near.

identical position. Exactly. Okay, so now I don't know what the other shows are doing, but I'm just giving you that as a good guide because this is a perfect issue for for you to be able to judge. Now I'll give credit to CNBC because I think they're the one other network that's principled and disciplined here. They hate any populism, anything that helps the average guy, they love anything that helps giant corporations. So whether you're on the left or the right, if you're a populist of any sort, Joe Kernan will attack you. Give me CNBC anchor versus is anyone else on the planet? And I'll tell you that that other person is correct.

Okay, so that's your general rule on CNBC. All right, now, the ups and downs the tariffs. First, I'm generally a free trade anti-tariff guy, which is not a very populist position and not a very left-wing position. I'm being honest with you guys. The reason for that historically is because when you impose tariffs, it is anti-consumer. You can argue about how much it increases inflation, but it does increase in. inflation. It does increase prices, right? The question is how much and depending on the

circumstances. The second reason is it's a bad idea for the, in the long run. So I remember in the 80s and 90s, Japan tried this to some degree. And I thought, I'm not worried about it at all. Why? Because when you produce things at a price that's too low, eventually you're either going to uplift your entire economy, which is what's happened to China over the course of the last couple of decades, and then your costs go up, and then now all of a sudden the jobs are moving to Malaysia and Vietnam, etc. That's not such a bad thing for the world, but it doesn't matter because then their prices come back up and the market balances itself. Or you do what Japan did, and they think, okay, we're going to sell it for cheaper than you can afford

and bankrupt your companies, and then we'll have the market. But no one's got enough money to do that on a global scale, except, as it turns out, the government of China, which now leads me to why my position is changing on this. Because when you're, when you have a position, it depends on the facts. So you apply the same calculus, but the facts change. So what's happened since that? Well, in the beginning, in the, again, 80s and 90s on free trade, then they start doing these trade deals right around then where the government basically says, here, giant companies, you write the trade deals. And then when they, what they started doing is, instead of fighting for the average American, they started doing trade deals where they demanded

that China open up their financial markets to Goldman Sachs. Wait, how does that help us? You know why? Because Goldman Sachs was writing the trade deal. So then these trade deals were no longer free trade at all. So in order for them to be in any way, shape, or form fair, it had to be fair trade and have actual government officials are supposed to write it, not just hand it off. So that was great, huge problem, number one. Number two is, in the trade deals, they were not reciprocal. So they'd say, well, China, Mexico, India can pollute all they want, they can poison the rivers, et cetera, but America, you can't. No, it's got to be reciprocal, okay?

Hence, fair trade. So now you get to more modern-day stuff. So now America has significant issues in some industries that Anna is constantly pointing out and just did there as well. The semiconductor industry is a good example of that. So there are some things that are related to our national security and defense. So hey, China does a better potato chip, it doesn't affect anything, let them just compete on price, no problem, right? But if they're making computer chips that are necessary for our missiles and our defense. For literally every device.

Yeah, I'm just saying, especially as it relates to defense, but for a lot of other things. If we get into a conflict with them and they say, well, we're not selling you any more chips, and we have no companies to produce our own, then we're in a world of trouble. So, okay, so you have to be careful about that. Now, having said that, I still wouldn't have done the semiconductor bill that Joe Biden did because we never get anything back from those companies that we give tons of subsidies. I hate the subsidies. So sometimes in a situation like this, you might need a subsidy.

But then if that's true, number one, there should be protections for American workers, and there never is because both the Republicans and the Democrats actually work for the donors and the companies. they don't work for the voters. Otherwise, that's the easiest thing in the world to put in protection for the workers so they don't get fired. I agree with you on that. And by the way, we should get shares of those companies. We're investing into those companies. Why aren't we making money from them? Why do we just have to give to them as a gift? So that's how I would fix that. But now the third thing that's happened is, and this was my deal breaker on this particular tariffs today on

China, both as it relates to Trump and Biden. So Biden gets into office and he says, All right, look, we'll lift the Trump tariffs. We get that it's hurting both of us, right? But obviously you guys have to lift the same tariffs. And China goes, no. So we'll lift some of them, but not all of them. You have to lift it disproportionately. No, no way.

I mean, if I'm president, I draw that red line so thick on that and go, no, brother, this is either going to be even or we're not going to do it. And I'm going to go over the top on you. So look, it's enough of China. of going, I get to have it all my way, okay? But wait, we haven't even gotten to the worst one, but go ahead. And Biden, to his credit, did draw that red line. He did. And Trump did too.

Yeah, yep, okay? So when Trump got into office, it was not even. So, but nevertheless, you could have too much tariffs that tips things over the edge into massive inflation and massive trade wars. So we've got to be super careful. If I was Biden, what I would have done instead of going in this direction, although I get it, I would have organized the rest of the world against China and say, guys, we're all going to say the same thing to China. Either you lower your tariffs or we're all going to increase our tariffs on whatever you've got tariffs on in China for all of our products. Either this is going to be fair or we're going to isolate you economically from the rest of the world. And by the way, you can do all that without being belligerent like militarily.

You don't have to say, oh, China virus and China this and China that and we hate them. You don't have to do any of that. just be like, hey, I'm drawing a red line. That's it. I could do it with a smile on my face, but it doesn't matter. You're not going to get me to move unless these tariffs are even, okay? You know what's really interesting? So during that inflationary period where Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was like, oh my God, we need to do we need to repeal the tariffs on China, we need to do that. That's going to help with the inflation situation. When the Biden White House did their own analysis and they have economic experts looking into it

to see, okay, is this true? Can we actually, you know, repeat the results of the, the analysis that Janet Yellen is providing us, they realized, no, it's actually not going to cut inflation by much. And the reason why is because by that point, industry had already adapted to the tariffs, and they found other ways of manufacturing the products. Now unfortunately, the manufacturing had just moved to other countries like Vietnam, you mentioned, Mexico's another one. But it happened so quickly.

And I do wonder, you know, if- We do have those incentives to keep the manufacturing here in the United States or bring the manufacturing here in the United States. And yes, oftentimes when we talk about incentives, it comes in the form of tax cuts or subsidies or whatever. Would we be able to just bring the manufacturing jobs here because there's an incentive to do so? Yeah, by the way, guys, this issue is super complicated because it depends on the industry. So there is no easy black or white here. It's not 0.1. It's not binary at all. So the semiconductor industry might need subsidies, but the car industry might not. Or the electric vehicles might need subsidies, but gas-powered cars

don't. Or the electric vehicles don't need it, but the lithium batteries need it. So you've got, this is the reason you have bureaucrats. The key is to have them be honest bureaucrats, not ones working for corporations, but working for us. So now the two last things are maybe the most important, and they go in different directions. So China is different than Japan. And why I am concerned about them when I wasn't concerned about Japan before. And if you guys, if any of you're older, you might remember, oh, my God, Japan bought Rockefeller Center at one point. Yeah, I remember that. Oh, they're going to take over America.

And I kept saying back then to my friends, I'm not worried about it at 1%. It's the wrong system, wrong incentives and disincentives. They're going to bankrupt themselves. It's not going to work those particular companies. That's exactly what happened. And then Japan's still a powerful country, but they retrenched, right? So the difference though is China is a country and not individual companies and they are gigantic. So those $600 billion in subsidies that Anna told you about that Biden wants to do, man, I'm so worried about that.

That's our money. But China is doing four times that number and has a plan to basically bankrupt almost all of our companies by the year 2050. And then once they do, then they start to slowly increase the prices because now they've got monopoly power. No. It's actually the Amazon model. It's what Amazon did to a lot of small businesses in this country. And China's trying to do that on a global scale. So it's a huge investment up front.

They lose a lot of money in the short term. And so there is a way to defeat that economically. But what you can't do is go, oh, okay, let's see what happens in 2050. No, by that time you'll be wiped out. So you've got to have a smart strategy back. Now, the problem here is America's system is so corrupted by money in politics. What I'm worried about is now all the companies are coming and going, oh, I need a subsidy too. Oh, you know what?

I also need a monopoly here in America, so make sure you ban the Chinese from competing with us. And you know, while you're at it, maybe the Japanese, the Germans and the French too. So now the companies are sensing blood in the water and they're like, oh, we are going to protect American workers, cut off all of our competition so we can increase prices on American consumers and get subsidies from the taxpayers on top. super interesting. So that's why you have to be really careful, really smart, and actually care about the American consumer to get this done right. Now, when the system is a wash with corporate money, do you think they're going to do that right? Or is Trump going to go, well, the oil companies

gave me a lot of money. They gave me a strong endorsement. Elon Musk, strong endorsement, and Biden and Harris, right? Are they going to go, oh, no, you know, all these giant checks I've been getting? And you You know how I raised outraised Trump two to one in some periods? Oh no, I don't care about those donors. I don't care that they partly led to my victory. I'll just stand out for the average American. No, it's not gonna happen. So that's why actually I hate to do this, but every issue, including something as important

as this, at the end of the day, comes back to money in politics. Because if you've got the money in politics, corporations are always going to write these deals to screw us over. And if you actually had honest politicians, there's a lot of hard work that needs to to be done here to get America to win and to keep our jobs and to protect our consumers as well. That was super interesting. But anyway, I want to keep this conversation going and we will in later shows.

We're going to take a break for now, though. And when we come back, we've got more news for you, including, well, the NYPD commissioner stepping down from his job and the multiple separate corruption investigations taking place in New York City, we've got that and more coming up. Don't miss it. Takes on a couple of different meanings. Thank you guys for becoming young turks members by hitting that beautiful join button below the video. And Catlow, thank you for gifting five memberships. All right, Anna.

Well, let's discuss what's happening in New York, or at least what we think is happening in New York, because it's a developing story and it's super confusing. There's a lot of different investigations going on simultaneously. Let's get into it. NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban has now officially resigned following news, that federal agents searched his home as part of a criminal investigation. Now, he hasn't been charged with anything, but according to a local NBC news affiliate out of New York, the IRS and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York searched Gabon,

and at least one phone belonging to him was among several the Southern District of New York and IRS seized from multiple NYPD officials. His twin brother, who owns a number. nightclub security business also had his phone seized in this corruption investigation. Now before I move any further, I just want to let you all know that there are multiple separate investigations, federal investigations taking place in New York City right now. And the details are very limited. Not a lot of people are talking. We kind of have a broad idea of what these investigations are about. But as the story develops, of course, we'll fill you in on all of the updates.

Now, Jank, thoughts before I continue. Yeah, so I guess he's cagone. Oh my, you interrupted me for that? No, not for that. Okay, so guys, I think I have the answers here. There's two reasons stated for why he might have been fired. One is definitely true, and the other is not. So I want to let Anna present what those two different things are, and then we'll break

down what the reality is. All right, so now several sources tell NBC News, New York, that federal investigators want to know if his twin brother James profited from his ties to his powerful brother as the commissioner of the NYPD. So James Caban also was also a cop by the way, but he was fired from the police department back in 2001. So specifically, the investigation is looking into whether James Caban, that is the twin brother of the now resigned Edward Caban, was paid by bars and clubs in Midtown and Queens to act as a police liaison. And if those clubs were then afforded special treatment by local precincts, the sources said. Other questions being investigated

include whether or not officers were being asked to crack down harder on clubs that did not do business with the commissioner's brother. Or if promotions were given to officers who played along with this potential scheme according to the sources. So again, I want to reiterate, okay, Kaban has not been charged with anything yet, which is why Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, didn't push him to resign. But eventually he apparently decided to resign and claim that he did so because he didn't want to serve as a distraction. I mean, there are other separate federal investigations going on right now in New York City. And here's what he said in his statement, Quote, my complete focus must be on the NYPD, the department I profoundly honor and have

dedicated my career to serving. However, the noise around recent developments has made that impossible and has hindered the important work our city requires. I have therefore decided it is in the best interest of the department that I resign as commissioner. To give you some more information about Kaban, he was actually appointed by Eric Adams last July. and his appointment came after the previous police commissioner stepped down, citing micromanaging

from Eric Adams and his administration. Eric Adams denies that there was any micromanaging going on. I don't know too many details about that, and honestly, it doesn't matter for the purposes of this particular story. Adams didn't pressure Kaban to step down, and he said his decision to avoid doing so had to do with the fact that Kaban was never charged with a crime. He might be in the future, we don't know, obviously this investigation is ongoing. But during Kaban's tenure, he was a bit of a mixed bag, bit of a mixed bag.

So on one hand, he did manage to decrease violent crime in the area, including instances of homicide, which is good. But on the other end of that, you have a lot of complaints toward him for failing to hold police accountable, especially when there was reason to believe that police were engaging in shady behavior. So ProPublica details a story about how the NYPD has killed more than 400 police misconduct cases this year that an oversight board had investigated and substantiated. And they also detail that the civilian misconduct complaints include an instance of an officer

punching a man in the groin. And the oversight agency looked into that. In another, an officer unjustifiably tackled a young man and then another officer wrongly stopped and searched him. And some episodes like the officers using chokeholds and also beating protesters with batons were so serious that this oversight board concluded that the police had likely committed crimes. And the practice of killing these types of complaints has been going on for the past three years, but it really escalated. The amount increased significantly under Kaban's leadership.

So since he took office last July, the NYPD has ended without review more than 500 incidents. About half the cases, the Oversight Board referred to it according to an analysis of board data. The rate has actually climbed, though, under Kaban to nearly 60% this year. Under Cabon's predecessor, the department faced roughly the same number of cases, but about 40% were tossed out without review. Yeah, if he gets arrested, I hope he can make Caban. Why do I do that? All right, now let me get serious.

Look, as you can tell, there's two different issues. First, let me address the one that's super egregious and not the one he was fired for. So the one that Anna just told you about with this, civilian review board hands a whole bunch of cases that they have already verified as cops doing something wrong to the police and then they're supposed to police themselves, which is hilarious. First thing that they do is they dismiss 60% of them out of the gate without even looking at them. Yeah.

Remember, these are verified cases, right? How is that okay? They just throw 60% of them in the trash. Okay, now there's 40% left. They say, oh, and one of the reasons is because we want to take the most serious cases, right? So we retain the serious cases, no, when you look into it, they retain the serious cases. cases where they can find a flaw and the minute they find a flaw they go okay that's it either no punishment or tiny little punishment they're like oh the

ones with a lot of evidence golly gee that leads to number three we ran out of time okay so now they say look we you're giving us only 60 days sometimes and we can't do this in 60 days we give you guys 400 days to civilian review board the part they don't tell you is that they don't the civilian review board says give us the evidence like the body cam footage and they hold it for like 300, 350 days until the statute of limitations has almost run out. And then at the end, they give them the evidence and go, you better hurry, you better hurry. Oh, no, you didn't make it in time.

Sorry, most serious cases also thrown out. So by the end, there's almost no cases. But even when the civilian review board's chair complained about that, Eric Adams said, oh, that's an interesting idea. You're fired. Yeah. And he pushed her out. And then he said, oh, by the way, I'm cutting your funding.

So you can't hire any more people. Listen, Eric Adams promised you the trash revolution, and it's here, it's here. Well, yeah, I mean, Kaban's one of the pieces of trash taken out, but he was a trash brought in by Eric Adams. Exactly, yeah. So, so Eric Adams and Kaban have been terrible on stop and frisk. Look, we like good policing. We love when the crime rate goes down. We love when, you know, working class neighborhoods are safer.

But you're not making them safer by doing stop and frisk almost exclusively on blacks and Latinos and throwing out egregious cases of police abuse. That doesn't make anybody safer. Okay, now, is that why he was fired? Come on, you guys all know better than that, right? Nobody cares about police abuse. Nobody's getting fired over that. No, he got fired for the nightclub stuff.

Now, why? Hey, nightclub owner is paying the cops more to protect their place. That's called Tuesday. That's not the issue. The issue is the guys who didn't pay his twin brother, maybe they get a police crackdown and find out maybe they should be paying his brother. Terrible. Okay, and that's unacceptable.

That's why the federal authorities are looking to do. into it. Now, if you're a right winger, you think, oh, yeah, deep state. This guy's maybe he's a Trump's no, none of that. These are all Democrats, right? And guys, not everything the FBI does or federal authorities do is deep state. In fact, none of it is deep state, but that's a whole other debate, right? No, here they are busting bad guys who are extorting local businesses while pretending to be cops. Exactly, yeah. Right? And that's terrible. And of course you got to regulate on that. Yeah, if it's happening, allegedly, obviously, it's an ongoing investigation, just want to clear that up.

But I'm sure that he resigned because of the stop and press problem. Right. Okay, so the mayor, Eric Adams, did have a press conference today to talk about the resignation, but also to name the interim police commissioner. And so that individual will be Tom Donnellan, who has experience in law enforcement at the local, state, and federal level. They wanted to ensure that they picked someone who wasn't within the NYPD in order to prevent any concern about corruption and have an outsider come in and serve in that role as the again interim police commissioner. But I do want to just briefly discuss some of the other investigations and with the other investigations it's honestly even less clear

what's going on. So you might have seen some of the headlines. I wanted to wait before covering it because I don't like covering stories that don't have enough details. But I'll tell you what we know so far. So let's begin with what happened just last year in November. Eric Adams was investigated and some of his devices were seized as a result of that investigation. And that separate federal investigation is centered on possible corruption and illegal campaign finance. So the allegation is that Turkey illegally funneled money to Eric Adams.

Hey, hey, let's move on, let's move on, okay? Am I allowed to act like supporters of other countries and just say, no criticism, you're being anti-Turkish? Dude, what's up with Turkey and Azerbaijan? Hmm? I'm not, I know. Turkey and Azerbaijan, what do you guys up to? You guys are bribing a lot of our politicians, a lot of people are getting implicated with

them. To me, it's not just that they're alleged to. Henry Quayar from Texas. Yeah, it's not just that they're alleged of Azerbaijan bribing Henry Quayar, Turkey with their academy. etc. But it's also that they're dumb at it. Like so dumb. Hey, take a page out of Apex book. No, no, don't. Do not take a page out of Apex book. No, in all seriousness, guys, of course not. I hate that APEC found a loophole where they could just funnel hundreds of millions of dollars

to our politicians and have them serve a foreign country. But these knuckleheads in Turkey in Azerbaijan, they're like, we give you money. No, brother, this thing. Byber is basically legal in America, but they still haven't figured it out. Right. Now, separately, the home of the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright, and the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks, were also searched and devices were seized as part of that search as well. There are allegations of corruption. Even less is known about how that alleged corruption was playing out. Phil Banks, by the way, has faced scrutiny before when he was in the New York Police Department. Federal prosecutors had referred to him as an unindicted co-conspirator, but they never charged him in

that corruption case involving two businessmen who provided gifts and vacations. And then there are also a lot of unanswered questions, but corruption and influence peddling seems to be at the heart of all of these investigations. And there are separate investigations currently taking place by federal investigators in New York City. Trash Revolution. All right, we're We're gonna take a break. When we come back, lots to get to, including a terrible bomb threat in Springfield, Ohio. Gee, I wonder what sparked that. So we'll get to that story and more more Trump meltdown. Welcome to our trash revolution. I'm going to be.

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