The Young Turks - Pucker For Tucker

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

Texas' Republican Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID. Lauren Boebert faces major backlash after tweeting "Taliban are the only people Building Back Better." Tucker Carlson blames "radical gender politics" for contributing to the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan. Immigrant advocates denounced the Biden administration for deporting Haitian refugees. Republicans finally support unemployment benefits, but only for the unvaccinated. A county in Georgia shuts down all its schools amid a major Covid outbreak among students. 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. So, you know, I'm sorry. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Ukraine, Anna Gasparian with you guys. I fear that you've stumbled onto a very good show. That's my fear, let's see how it plays out, okay?

I'm in a party mood. You know what, so am I. Later we wrestle with alligators. We talk about American heroes. We don't actually physically wrestle with alligators, but we show you people who do. Literally. Yeah, Abbott is wrestling with COVID. We're gonna explain that in a second.

So lots of news from all across the world, and we're going to do with a smile on our faces, sometimes with a good deal of rage. Welcome to the Young Turks. All right, Casper. Well, why don't we start off with that story about Texas Governor Greg Abbott? Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, has tested positive for coronavirus. Now, this is a story that just broke, and it turns out. I'm just kidding. I was doing this.

kidding he's vaccinated he's going to be okay you interrupted the lead jing i did i did the lead with jake tapper that i would like to interrupt okay okay we're having to he's vaccinated guys he's vaccinated he's vaccinated he's going to be okay Jake tapper how do you know no I'm Abbott and apparently Costello all right go ahead should we wrap that up like no no keep going keep going Texas governor Greg Abbott has tested positive for coronavirus what's wrong with you Why are you laughing? What's going on?

Sorry. He's my boss, everybody. No, he's vaccinated. He's vaccinated. It's okay. Okay. I'm not even going to try it again. Go, comment.

So listen guys, this is the guy who said, no mask mandate, I won't have it. We just told you, I think yesterday on the show, about how the folks running the Dallas school board are saying, no, no, wait a minute. This is a real health concern for our kids, for our teachers, for everybody, right? And we want kids to be masked up. In fact, later in the program, we've got stats on kids getting it at much higher rates now.

It's really scary for parents. I've got personal stories about that. Now 15% of the people hospitalized their kids. This is like really bad situation. And Abbott in Texas was like, no, you are not allowed to mandate that, okay? And if some parents want to have the other parents, you know, get endangered through their kids and having kids endangered, well, I'm here for it, right? Well, now COVID's here for you, right? So I'm not celebrating that Abbott as COVID.

I'm also not shedding a tear. I mean, if you're an anti-vaxxer or, I mean, in this case, he did get vaccinated. And isn't it curious, I'll just note this too, that Republican leaders will, when Lizzie Graham gets it, When Greg Abbott gets it, when all these guys get it, you find out, oh, they're vaccinated. Meanwhile, though, they're like, oh, the mask, the vaccines, I don't know about that, guys. I mean, come on, be dumb, be dumb, don't listen to the doctors. Oh, me, I'm elite. I already took it, right?

It's, the reason why that happens is because they understand that if you're, let's say, a commentator or a pundit, if you have a podcast, there's a market for the anti-vax, anti-mask community, clearly. politicians like Governor Greg Abbott, while he might be taking all the necessary precautions to ensure that he's not hospitalized and he doesn't die from this pandemic, he will pander to the conservative base in Texas, tell them what they want to hear for his own political future. That's really what it's about. So this story, I mean, it's funny that we came into it kind of in like a joking mood and understand the reason why is because we know that he's going to be fine, he has no symptoms, but he does get tested for COVID on a regular basis. So he took a test, he realized that he tested positive and his office released a statement. So let me give you

the details on that. They write that Governor Greg Abbott today tested positive for COVID-19. The governor has been testing daily and today was the first positive test result. The governor will isolate in the governor's mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving regenerons, monoclonal antibody treatment, which is kind of strange because they claim that he doesn't have any type of like severe symptom, right? Yeah, I don't know, yeah, I don't know the medicine behind that. It might be that you give that even in the case where the person doesn't have symptoms, or it might be that you give that in the case where the person is the governor.

Like a normal, like you're a regular citizen of Texas. I don't know that they give that to you or suggest that for you. But when you're the governor, you get special treatment while you tell the mask. Don't wear masks, idiots, and then vote for me, dummies. And look, the problem is he was able to get vaccinated. He's fully vaccinated, which is why in the second half of the statement, they say that Governor Abbott is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in good health and currently experiencing no symptoms.

That's the way the vaccine works. You might have a breakthrough infection, but the likelihood of you being hospitalized or dying from coronavirus is very, very slim. It's very unlikely for that to happen. Yeah, that's why, again, we joke around because 99.99% of the deaths are from the unvaccinated. But my point is, Jank, that kids can't get vaccinated yet. That's right, right. So while he's implementing a ban on mask mandates to prevent schools from implementing mask mandates, he's putting children at risk.

And he doesn't care, he doesn't care. That's the issue. From the very beginning of this pandemic, both Governor Greg Abbott, Texas and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas have proven over and over again that they do not care about the well-being of their own constituents in their very state. 100%. I don't know if we have that amazing map of the- We do. Yeah, so I want to show that to you guys. Because, so this is where the ICU beds are- Nearly full. Yes, and the ones that are obviously darker, red are the ones where they are

more full. Gee, I wonder if you could spot a pattern. Can you spot a pattern? Can you spot a pattern anywhere? Oh right, those are all the red states. Those are Florida and Texas and Alabama, et cetera, all the places where they said do not take precautions. And now their hospitals are overflowing, including with their own governors. So that leads me to two questions for you guys, because he was totally willing to play with other people's lives. And we're fair, objective, and we'll give you the facts. So he did say he took the vaccine earlier, right? And he did encourage people take the vaccine in a couple of statements, okay? But then he turns around and says, oh, freedom, freedom. I mean, if you don't want to

take it, don't take it. If you don't want to wear the mask, don't wear the mask. And in fact, if the schools say the kids shouldn't wear the mask, no, I'm going to endanger your kids. And I'm not going to let the school make that decision. That's why his hospital beds are overflowing. So that leads to my question, if we had, you know, more time, the news broke right before we got on air, we would have done a poll question on it. But like, are we, and And I'm, and this is funny because I'm mainly asking conservatives, do you expect us to have sympathy for him? I mean, I don't.

No, right now I have none, zero. But even if things took a worse, turned for the worst and he got really sick, am I supposed to have sympathy for him? I don't know. I'm a big believer in eye for an eye. Like, because honestly, his behavior and his irresponsible communication on this pandemic has led to all sorts of. of people not only getting sick and getting hospitalized, but dying, right?

Did he have any sympathy for those people? Yeah, no. No, zero sympathy, zero, zero. He doesn't care about anyone other than himself. He's worried about getting primaried from the right by Alan West. So he's become more and more extreme in his positions. The man has no guiding principles. The only thing he cares about, much like Donald Trump, much like many politicians, to be

quite honest with you in in politics today only cares about himself. That's it. So the people who would say like, oh man, who's you free about it? What? No goddamn back cheat, man. I want to spear it all over myself. What I'm awesome. And then when Abbott has COVID and we go, oh, okay, I guess it is what it is. They're like, how could you? Are you serious? I mean, are you joking? So no, right now I have zero sympathy for Abbott and he can go cry about it. I don't care at all. Okay. And by the way, mainstream media, if you want to cry about it, I don't care about that either. Like, oh no, the poor Republican governor.

He's an elite. He's powerful. Just because he led to the deaths of so many people in Texas that didn't need to die. But he's an elite. Oh my God, you have to have sympathy for him. No, I don't. I don't care about him. I care a lot more about the people he tricked in Texas who didn't wear masks and got COVID because of it and died. That I care about a lot.

And look, in terms of, you know, how he'll be. appears like we've said before, if you're vaccinated, you're going to be fine. But if he goes to the hospital, though, if it does, if it is a rare case where he has to go to the hospital, I got to ask a second question. Should we let them? I mean, what's interesting. The hospital beds are full because of your decisions. Not too long ago, he actually communicated with the hospitals in the state of Texas and asked them to postpone elected procedure, elective procedures to free beds for latest COVID surge, but the governor didn't budge on his refusal to issue business restrictions or to allow schools and local jurisdictions to mandate masks.

So that's the other part of this, right? Aside from the fact that the vaccine hesitancy, which is fueled by intentional disinformation campaigns by the right wing by conservative media, is making this pandemic last longer than it needs to. The other part of it, is as we experiencing as we're experiencing another COVID surge and overwhelmed hospitals, people who need to go to the hospital for various procedures are being turned away. Do you guys understand how unbelievably irresponsible, selfish and entitled that is? There was a video recently of a middle-aged man who was furious because his wife, who has cancer, was turned away from the hospital because she needed treatment, but they didn't have room for her.

They didn't have enough hospital beds. That's the irresponsible garbage that we're dealing with right now. People who feel so entitled to act in whatever way they want in regard to a public health issue. And then of course, if they get sick, if they need to be hospitalized, of course hospitals are going to take them in. But understand that every time they reserve a hospital bed for something that could have been prevented, someone who desperately needs that hospital bed for some other procedure that they desperately need, they get turned away. It's just, I'm so honestly embarrassed by this country right now. Fully embarrassed.

Yeah, look, if Abbott discourage people from wearing masks, even though all the doctors in the country say to do that, and so he doesn't believe in doctors. So I don't know why he's taking the regeneron medicine, and he's taking any medicine, and he's taking any precautions. You don't believe in doctors, and you don't believe in science, and you don't believe in medicine. So why don't you go rub some herbs all over yourself or whatever you do?

I don't know if you believe in that. I drink more beer. Eat a steak. whatever you eat ribs. I don't care. But don't use our medicine if you don't believe in it. Don't use our doctors if you don't believe in it. Or Greg Abbott, is it that you don't mind your own citizens dying because you're lying to them about trusting doctors. But when your ass is on the line, all of a sudden, doctors, where are you? Where's my medicine? Oh my God, it affects me. Me! Oh, I'm so important. Hey, everybody in the media, go yell at the young Turks

because they said something mean about a governor, okay? Pretend they're the bad guys. Well, I'm killing people in Texas with my negligence. By the way, Texas is 35th out of the 50 states in terms of people who have been fully vaccinated. Just as a comparison, California sits at 18, number 18 on that list, and about 45% of Texans are fully vaccinated, which is below the national average. So, you know, I don't think that this necessarily says something about the people of Texas. I think it says a lot about the leadership in Texas or lack of leadership in Texas. And now they have a governor who has tested positive for COVID after implementing a ban on mask mandates.

It's just unbelievable. All right, you ready for the next story? I'm ready. Let's do it. Hospitals are overwhelmed by incoming patients. as rescue workers search for survivors under mounds of concrete and debris. In the destruction, there are brief moments of hope, like this woman and a young boy being rescued from the rubble of a toppled building.

Haiti's prime minister has declared a state of emergency in the country after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country over the weekend. Now, the death toll continues to rise, but currently about 2,000. Haitians have died as a result of the earthquake, and to make matters even more complicated, even worse, they had to deal with a storm during the rescue efforts. Now the disaster hit at a time when the country struggles with the coronavirus, the storms are of course complicating the matters, and then the president of Haiti was assassinated just last month. So there are issues on top of issues, problems.

on top of problems. And it's just absolutely devastating, especially when you consider the United States and its reaction to it. Now, while the Biden administration has certainly offered to provide some assistance to Haiti, it's clearly not enough. And what further compounds the issue is the fact that the Biden administration continues to deport Haitians to Haiti in the middle of this chaotic disaster. Jank. Yeah, look, we give credit where credit is due and we criticize where it's due. And I tell you that all the time because almost no one else does it, right? So Biden good or Biden bad? Well, it doesn't work like that. I agree with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and I would defend him against a lot of those critiques, which are largely driven by

neo-conservatives that are still in the mainstream media. But when it comes to Haiti, are you kidding me? You're going to turn those people back and send them to literally a disaster zone. Look, one of the areas is so hard hit that they're having trouble reaching it not only because of the chaos and the anarchy and then there's were gangs there previously, although the gangs is so bad the gangs have called a truce saying we've got to get medicine to everybody, right? But one of the bridges is down. So they just literally cannot get to those people who are trapped in that area of Haiti. And it's heartbreaking. And every minute and it counts, every hour counts, and more people are dying and in danger, right? Meanwhile,

We're loading up planes full of people and sending them back to Haiti. It's crazy. No, no, you can't do that, man. And look, look, Biden's team, I don't think they're ever, ever, ever going to get it. They keep looking for credit from the right wing. And they're never going to get it. You're never going to get credit from the right wing. How silly are you?

So, you know, they criticize you for how dare you withdraw from Afghanistan when Trump was withdrawn from Afghanistan and bragging about it, right? And they say, oh, I can't believe he's not taking care of our allies in Afghanistan. And then they turn around and say, can you believe he's bringing our allies from Afghanistan into America's refugees? They're never going to give you credit. Get your head out of you know where, okay? So what does that mean? That means actually do the right thing, be a decent human being. And by the way, you might get credit from your actual voters, from your base and from independents who see you as a decent person.

But you're not going to get that credit if you're sending people back into the middle of an absolute epic disaster. In Haiti, by the way, Haiti also, one of the lowest vaccination rates, well, the lowest vaccination rate in the entire Western Hemisphere. Why? Because they're really poor. So the vaccine isn't reaching them. They have infrastructure problems. Yep. They have health care problems, et cetera. So don't do it. Don't send them back. But we're doing it as we speak. Exactly. Let's go to the last two graphics here, because the democracy now reported on this. And they say that last week alone, at least two deportation flights departed from Texas, to Haiti with some 130 asylum seekers, including children. And so this is a continuation of Trump era policy regarding asylum seekers. What the Biden administration has decided to do was basically refused to end Trump's policy of citing the coronavirus pandemic for why all asylum seekers will be turned back deported immediately. I think that that's the wrong way to handle the situation, especially when Especially when Biden himself campaigned as someone who was far more humane than Donald Trump

was toward immigrants. Also the co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance argues that, you know, how can the United States government deport anyone to Haiti right now? How do you think so little of Haitian lives deporting children and babies in the middle of the chaos? This is a clear example of external violence that continues to deepen the instability in Haiti. And I completely agree with that statement. Especially right now, given all of the devastation that Haitians are dealing with right now,

the Biden administration should take a stand and lead from a place of strength as opposed to taking the cowardly route of trying to appease the right wing, which will never be appeased. The right wing has moved so far to the right that it doesn't matter what's happening in Haiti. They want everyone deported, even if it's children who are being deported to Haiti. They're not going to give you credit for it, though. So move on and lead from a place of strength. And we're just not seeing that when it comes to the topic of immigration from Joe Biden's administration. I mean, what does Biden want?

Does he want Tucker Carlson to do a segment saying, Joe Biden is kicking out these black kids from the country and sending them back into a disaster area? And they would celebrate that. But do you think Tucker is going to do that segment? And would you be happy if he did? Oh, congratulations on your, like, discriminatory. anti-immigrant, anti-American policy? Is that what you want? Is that the credit you want? No, just please gather up some courage if you believe in doing the right thing. Or if you think, hey,

you know what? I don't really care about them. I just want to get rid of them. Well, okay. Well, that is what you're doing. Let's just be honest about it. All right, let's take a break when we come back. It appears that the right wing in America actually wants to have a little bit of a love affair with the Taliban. We'll give you the details on that and more when we return. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, forward. Now the United States has pulled its troops out of Afghanistan and the Taliban has taken control over the country. We're getting a sense of just how far right the right wing in the United States has gone because they went from fearmongering about the Taliban. to now giving them props?

Let's start with Lauren Bobert, who is a Republican member of Congress. She tweeted, the Taliban are the only people building back better. Oops. I mean, is it oops though? I mean, it's oops for us because we certainly wouldn't want to live under the control of a group like the Taliban. But for conservatives in the country, for right wingers in the country, for people who are like Lauren Bobert, taking people's rights away apparently seems like a great idea. Yeah, well, there's two parts of this. One is their enormous celebration anytime

something wrong happens to America. Oh, the women's soccer team lost. Yes, oh, we hate America. Wait, what happened? This is weird. Oh, the Taliban beat us. Oh, yes, yes, go Taliban, build back better. Now, right-wingers are like, oh, she's joking. Is she? No. She's not. Okay. And even if she then allowed to joke about our other enemies? Like go ISIS, Nazis, build back better, we believe in you. Is that okay?

I mean, here she is cheerleading for the Taliban. Now that which leads to the second part, well, do they really disagree? I mean, Taliban is against all the things they're against, against abortion, against vaccines, against science, against doctors, against women's rights, against abortion. I mean, say any, like, and in fact, that's going to lead to some of the others, and I want to come back to both. Yeah, and let me be clear about something. I see a very significant problem with avoiding valid criticism of any given government or any given group in the name of preventing U.S. imperialism, right? So I think that you can be against the United States occupying a country like Afghanistan.

So I'm very much in favor of the troop withdrawal, and simultaneously acknowledge the fact that the Taliban is not a wonderful group that we would want to live under, especially considering the brutality that they've used against certain groups of people who don't follow along with their extremist views. So I just wanted to get that out of the way, but we do have other examples for you, including Nick Fuentes, who shared his thoughts about the Taliban. He argues that the Taliban is going to ban abortion, vaccines, and gay marriage. Maybe we were fighting on the wrong side for 20 years. There you go. That's perfect. Fundamentalists of feather. Nailed it.

No, you nailed it. Got it. I'm here all week. Anyway, they're the same. That's the bottom line, right? They flock together or something like that. So that's a white nationalist. And he thinks, like, I love fundamentalism.

Oh, the Taliban, man, if we're on the wrong side. Maybe we should be on the side of the Taliban. I mean, how is that for deeply ironic? And he's not joking. I mean, he is against all of those positions. And he is saying, like, oh, maybe they got a point. Tucker Carlson said it last night. Well, let's go to Tucker Carlson's video from last night because he's a little more subtle,

but pay close attention to what he argues went wrong with the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Over the past 20 years, for example, Congress has allocated close to a billion dollars to export academic feminism to Afghanistan. Where'd that money go? Well, it went to programs like a two-year's master's degree in gender and women studies offered at Kabul University, something Afghans apparently never knew they needed. Another U.S. government effort, meanwhile, funded, quote, activities that educate and engage Afghan men and boys to challenge gender stereotypes. Right, they weren't doing that enough. And of course, always and everywhere, leaders enforce the most American of all cultural exports, affirmative action. American-funded gender advisors demanded that women compromise at least 10% of the Afghan National Army and a still larger proportion of that country's political leadership.

Thanks to American imposed gender quotas, dozens of women ultimately were installed as representatives in Afghan's parliament. How'd that work? Well, the whole thing was a sham. As always. In fact, many of these new female legislators had never been to the provinces they claimed to represent. Almost nobody in Afghanistan liked any of this, by the way, and why would they? As one USAID official conceded in a classified report, quote, focusing on gender made things more unstable because it caused revolts. It caused revolts. But officials kept doing it.

They kept pushing radical gender politics anyway because they could because they were in charge. of these Stone Age people they were going to educate. Why would, I mean, can you blame them for revolting against that kind of stuff? You know, anything that would call for equality in that society? Can you blame them for wanting to push back against that? So a lot of people that are decent human beings, look at the situation now that's, and go, well, look, obviously the military occupation didn't work. We stay there 20 years and we got nothing.

And the minute we leave, it turns out, no, the Afghan military was a joke, the government was a joke, it had no popular support, right? But our hearts break for the women there that are going to have to suffer under Taliban rule. And Tucker Carlson comes down and goes, are they really wrong? And so now if you thought that was subtle, at the end of that segment, he got less subtle. I'm going to read you the quote, okay? Now it starts out similar, but this is a different one than the clip you just saw. He says, it turns out that the people of Afghanistan don't actually want gender studies symposia. They didn't actually buy the idea that men can become pregnant.

They thought that was ridiculous. Now, this sounds like the type of thing Tucker says on the show all the time about America, right? Oh, us conservatives, we don't buy those ideas. He continued, they thought that was ridiculous. They don't hate their own masculinity. They don't think it's toxic. They like the patriarchy. Some of their women like it too.

So now they're all getting it back. So maybe it's possible that we failed in Afghanistan because the entire neoliberal program is grotesque. Yeah, that's why we fail in Afghanistan. No, but guys, do you understand that quote? He's saying they don't like the patriarchy and us trying to tell them that, hey, don't do toxic masculinity. No, they love the patriarchy. Oh, I'm sorry, they love the patriarchy and maybe they're right and the neol liberals

are grotesque. The Taliban is okay, the liberals are grotesque for saying women should have the same rights. And he says, there are women like it too. Then the Taliban's got this figured out. I mean, that is literally Tucker Carlson, Fox News, right wing leaders saying, Taliban There's oddness out in there. I mean, patriarchy for the win, right? And all those things are things that they complain about.

The right wing in this country complains about in America. And now, I mean, are you, look, he's saying that the Taliban's masculinity is not toxic. The one where they whip women, kill women, behead women. They love it. They love it. They love it. You'd have to have a problem with it to find it toxic. toxic. But the right wing in America has moved so far. I mean, I look, the Overton window

conversations get a little annoying. Well, let's just keep it, they devolved. They devolved even further than what we experienced during the Bush administration, which was pretty bad to begin with, right? During the Bush administration, it was nonstop fear mongering about the very groups that they're now applauding, the very groups that they want to model the right wing after in America. Like, think about how dire the situation is here, within our own borders, where they feel emboldened enough to look at the Taliban and look at the extremists in other countries and say, you know what, maybe we've been fighting on the wrong side. Maybe this is great. Maybe we need to implement some of these policies here in the United States. But we've always known it, Jank.

We've always known it. It's always been bubbling up right beneath the surface for the right wing in America. It was certainly true in all of the policies that they pushed for. I mean, state after state, red state after red state, look at the types of rollbacks they've done on reproductive rights for women, which by the way, reproductive rights for women are health rights for women. Women get to decide what they do with their own bodies should they become pregnant. And it's not up to some politician to make that decision for her.

And yes, it's different from a COVID vaccine because the coronavirus, pandemic has to do with a contagious virus that harms other people, okay? So anyone who tries to make that comparison, like walk away, kick rocks. Go ahead. Yeah, and Anna, I've been calling them the American Taliban for over a decade now. And that's because we're logical and we can see the things that they're pushing for. Now, the mainstream media used to be pre-Trump, were their biggest offenders. Oh, we're so offended that these radical left wingers called our beloved Tucker Carlson

and beloved Fox News. Remember, they were all trying to get jobs with Fox News, the CNN and MSNBC guys before Trump. They would always kiss Fox News' ass, calling them the American Taliban. That is outrageous. That is inappropriate language. Is it outrageous? Now they're cheerleading for the Taliban.

So, I mean, Irene makes a good point. She's one of our members. We do the show with you guys. Irene said, if the Taliban ran the U.S., Bobert wouldn't be in government. That's right, they don't allow women in government. Yet this jackass comes out and goes, ah, Taliban building back better. Yeah, let me see her tweet one more time. Put that up, because I want you to think about this.

So, of course, a lot of people have criticized their tweet. It's outrageous, et cetera. They're cheering against us. But now, imagine if Ilhan Omar had sent this tweet. The Taliban are only people building back better. What would Fox News have said then? Aha. Ilhan Omar is against America. She's for the Taliban. Ah ha! And here she is. She did it. Fox News like, yeah, Lauren Bobbard, Taliban rocks. So that's who Tucker Carlson is. When you see Tucker Carlson, understand that's Taliban Carlson. That's who he is.

He just cheerleaded for them. It was amazing saying that their masculinity is not toxic. And that they appear to be free, et cetera. I mean, look, I read you, the quotes you saw the video, these guys are monsters. And if they got their way, they would do this similar, if not the same things as the Taliban. They would restrict everybody's freedom. They would be authoritarian dictators. And the very first people whose rights they would take away would be women's. Yeah, 100%. Well, we're not done with Tucker Carlson.

So let's move on. And by the way, no, I want to make one more point about that story. I apologize. We did not spend nearly two trillion dollars, by the way, not one trillion. Recent estimates indicated that we spent two trillion dollars on the war in Afghanistan. That money did not overwhelmingly go toward curriculums pushing for equality in the country. That money overwhelmingly went to defense contractors and weaponry. So don't buy the very clear deflection that Tucker Carlson is engaging in here because he would have you believe that everything that went wrong with that war was the identity politics that we engaged in.

That's the kind of garbage that he's trying to push there. And I actually want to continue on with that point in this next story. So on a nightly basis, Tucker Carlson provides more evidence for why the right wing and the right wing populace do not in fact mesh well with left wing populace. They might see similar problems in society, but they have very different solutions and see the world from a very different framework. When it comes to the war in Afghanistan and what went wrong, notice how Tucker Carlson has decided to latch onto identity politics as opposed to focusing on the profit motives and the financial incentives of engaging in that war in the first place. Let's watch. Over the past 20 years, for example,

Congress has allocated close to a billion dollars to export academic feminism to Afghanistan. Where'd that money go? Well, it went to programs like a two-year's master's degree in gender and women's studies offered at Kabul University, something Afghans apparently never knew they needed. Another U.S. government effort, meanwhile, funded, quote, activities that educate and engage Afghan men and boys to challenge gender stereotypes. Right, they weren't doing that enough. And of course, always and everywhere, our leaders enforced the most. most American of all cultural exports, affirmative action. American-funded gender advisors demanded that women compromise at least 10% of the Afghan National Army and a still larger proportion of that country's political leadership. Thanks to American imposed gender quotas, dozens of women ultimately were installed

as representatives in Afghan's parliament. How'd that work? Well, the whole thing was a sham, as always. In fact, many of these new female legislators had never been to the provinces they claimed to represent. Almost nobody in Afghanistan liked any of this, by the way, and why would they? As one USAID official conceded in a classified report, quote, focusing on gender made things more unstable because it caused revolts.

It caused revolts. But officials kept doing it. They kept pushing radical gender politics anyway because they could because they were in charge of these Stone Age people they were going to educate. So I love that he cited an official, not by name, didn't actually provide a direct quote, but just said, no, this is what happened. I mean, these gender and identity politics related stuff, like that's what led to the failure of our efforts in Afghanistan, it led to revolts. Okay, we spent over $2 trillion fighting the war in Afghanistan, a giant waste of money.

So even if I were to believe Tucker Carlson, and I don't, that the $1 billion was spent on gender equality issues in Afghanistan, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 trillion we spent on that failed war. Now, why did that war fail? I would argue that it has much less to do with identity politics and far more to do with the fact that the American people were lied to about why we were in Afghanistan in the first place. It was not to nation build, it was not to spread democracy, it wasn't even really to prop up a government. It was about enriching defense contractors specifically. And I have evidence of that, I'll get to it in just a minute, but Jenk, first you. There's so many amazing things in that clip. When he says they wanted Afghan men to challenge gender stereotypes, well what does that mean?

That means the stereotypes, unfortunately in that fundamentalist culture of the Taliban is that that women have no place in the, in work, in government, with any power, any responsibility, and that men should dominate them and control their lives completely, and women should have no freedom. Wouldn't you want to challenge that stereotype? Wouldn't any decent person want to challenge that stereotype? Now if you say, hey, look, the Afghans didn't challenge it enough, yeah, that's why they were trying to change the culture because you weren't going to win a military war. We just proved that for 20 years of military occupation, didn't do a a damn thing. Like maybe education could have made a difference. But Tucker's reaction to that

was, weren't they doing that enough? You think the Afghans were, the Taliban were challenging gender stereotypes enough? Like, they nailed it on gender stereotypes? That was a startling thing to say. I didn't want to let it slide without you noticing that he said that. I mean, look, I feel that challenging gender stereotypes is decapitating women if they're not wearing face cover. And head coverings. And head coverings, right? That's challenging female stereotypes and inequality among the genders. Well, come on, just garbage.

Absolute garbage. Sorry, go ahead. That's okay. And then the second part that he said is he talked about the women in government and how that didn't work. And he said, and then he concluded that, you can go back and watch the tape. And he said about the Afghans, why would they? Why would they want the women in government?

You're actually saying that on television out loud in public, right? Yeah. And the audience cheers. He's number one on Fox News. They're like, yes, if women can just subjugate them like the Taliban and never question any of those gender stereotypes and drive them back into the kitchen, et cetera, and then have the women in government. Of course they didn't like that. Who would? Why would they like women actually having power? And by the way, if you're a woman, you're still voting for Republicans. I mean, you just saw it. And he's not alone. Bobert celebrating and so many others celebrating. Celebrating. the Taliban. And then ironically, Tucker at a different portion of the same show, so I don't

want those refugees here. But actually, maybe it's not ironic. Because remember the refugees were our allies in Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban. Maybe Tucker's mad at him for fighting against these beloved Taliban. Look, the reason why I want to talk about this is because anyone who's stupid, and yes, stupid is the right word, to believe that we can join forces with so called right wing populace like Tucker Carlson to get what we want in our agenda accomplished in this country? Like these people need to be cast aside as absolute lunatics because clearly Tucker Carlson and people like him do not in any way share left wing objectives, okay?

Or any of the objectives that we have as progressives, leftists, anyone who's not on the far right. He doesn't want Medicare for all, he doesn't have a problem with U.S. imperialism, especially if it enriches wealthy people, such as himself, by the way. Okay, he has a problem with the identity politics related to this story, which is nothing. That's not even a big part of this story. Big part of this story, and much of the other involvement that we have abroad in various countries has to do with the profit motive. And he has no problem with that. He didn't mention the profit motive. He very briefly,

mentioned defense contractors, but he did it in the context of gender equality curriculum being funded. No, no, no. The defense contractors are being funded heavily by our money to carry out trainings of the very people who, by the way, turned around and joined the Taliban recently, right? The Afghan military, in the form of weaponry. Let me give you a few examples. The Intercept had a wonderful piece recently. This is the title of it. $10,000 invested in defense stocks when Afghanistan war began now worth almost $100,000. And why is that? Why are these military contractors, defense contractors doing so well? Well, if you purchase $10,000 of stock evenly divided among America's top five defense contractors on September 18th, 2001, and faithfully

reinvested all dividends, it would now be worth $97,000, $9,000. $295. This is a far greater return than was available in the overall stock market over the same period. $10,000 invested in an S&P 500 index fund on September 18th of 2001 would now be worth $61,613. These defense contractors outperformed the stock market because they kept getting one government contract after the next. That's money. Government grants, government money, government deals. to carry out the war, the failed war in Afghanistan. No mention of that by Tucker Carlson, so-called populist. Glenn Greenwald alleges he's a freaking socialist.

No, he's a clown. He's an absolute clown. And there's no way that aligning ourselves with the likes of Tucker Carlson or anyone like him is actually going to help us accomplish any of the objectives on the left. So look, important distinction here. If we got a ballot measure for $15 minimum wage or Medicare for all, etc. Do we want Republican voters to vote for? Yes, yes, we do, right? And will we take their vote? Of course we will, because those are good policies and we want them to pass. They want to get out of wars, great. We're happy to have their votes, okay? But if you think

going on Tucker Carlson and validating his talking points is a good idea, you have no idea what you're doing other than, of course, self-aggrandizement. Oh, my God, I got famous by Go-God Tucker. Oh, I'm going to get more sub-stackers. I'm going to get more Patreon followers, oh, they're going to be right wing, oh, I'm going to be so happy. That's what you're doing, admitted. But look at this. You think he's against defense contractors? Look at what the point Anna's making.

He throws it in there so he has plausible deniability as one line, right? But then he tells you that we didn't lose the war because the Pentagon screwed up, 20 years total waste. We didn't lose the war because the defense contractors didn't do a goddamn thing except rob us of trillions of dollars. We lost the war because we were trying to treat women equally. That's why we lost the war? It's insane.

Come on, and you're gonna go enable that? Oh, you're so right. I'm a jagoff comedian, but I know you're right. You're right about everything, Tucker. You loser, you pathetic person trying to enable right-wing fascists. And by the way, you ever see so-called progressives or people on the left go on Tucker and ever disagree with him? Tucker's asked me on before, I said, well, you know, I would disagree with you. would disagree with you whenever we disagree.

So, oh, no, no, that's it. And he never had me on. So these guys that pretend to be on the left, they go kiss his ass. And they go, I'll never disagree. I'll never disagree. Get me some ratings. Get me some followers. And I'll never disagree with you. Oh, yeah. And by the way, that clown-ass Jimmy went on his show and was like, oh, no, yeah, you're right. The problem is the left wing playing identity politics. Go ahead, bash people's identities, Tucker. You're so good. You're so wonderful, Tucker. let me pucker for Tucker, okay?

And that's exactly what those clowns do. Don't ever listen to them. Don't enable fascists like Tucker Carlson who cheerlead for the Taliban and their destruction of women's rights and women themselves. The guy is disgusting, and any rational person would see that.

All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about how the right wing in America is literally trying to reward stupidity that gets others killed. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jenk and Anna with you guys. All right, Anna, take it away.

All right, GOP lawmakers in the state of Wisconsin have been fighting for months to prematurely end unemployment benefits for unemployed people in the state. However, they're now calling for a specific exception. Individuals who refuse to get vaccinated should be able to collect unemployment benefits. Now this is a proposal by Republican lawmakers in the state legislature and it's unlikely to really go anywhere because the governor of Wisconsin has already said that he will veto it. But here are the details. Wisconsin GOP lawmakers are circulating a bill that would allow people who lose their jobs because they refuse to get that COVID-19 vaccination to collect unemployment

benefits. The governor Tony Evers told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he would veto the bill if it passes, but the GOP controlled state legislature has been trying four months to block federal funds that increase the top unemployment payouts in the state from $370 to $670 a week and fell just short of overriding Democratic Governor Tony Evers' veto of their bill to do just that in late July. Their argument is that the extra money is convincing people to stay home rather than look for work. So if you are an individual who has been laid off, if you work in the service industry and you're concerned about coronavirus, maybe you have some sort of health issue and you're terrified of the virus, you don't get to collect unemployment benefits,

according to Republican lawmakers in that state. However, if you decide to be irresponsible, responsible, entitled, if you refuse to get the vaccine, which puts others at harm in harm's way, well, you should be rewarded for that in the form of unemployment benefits. It's kind of amazing. Yeah, so the folks who got fired because of COVID did not have a choice. So hey, you worked at a restaurant, the restaurant's not open anymore, they fired you, you're in a world trouble, you got to pay the mortgage or the rent, et cetera. And Republicans say, I don't care.

care about you. I just want you back in whatever miserable working conditions you were in before and because I need my corporate donors to pay me and I work for them. So shut up and go back to work and work for less than what we pay you in unemployment because corporations rule this country and they're my masters and I'm their servant. Okay, that's what they say. But when someone makes a choice, I don't want to go back to work, man. I don't want to be vaccinated. I want to spread to disease everybody at work. I want to endanger all my co-workers. And a company goes, well, no, okay, we can't let you do that. But not because of a humanitarian reason, by the way, because it'll hurt productivity. Then more people will be sick. And then they'll have to,

you know, maybe shut down parts of a factory or warehouse or office, etc. That is the one time Republicans defy corporations. And they go, no, no, no, no. If you're choosing to be an idiot, you're one of us. If you're choosing to endanger other people, you're one of us. You're one of of us. Like if you care about no one else on planet Earth, I want to pay you money. Yep. If you got fired without any fault of your own, screw you. I don't give a goddamn about you. You're lazy. You're lazy, you're a bum, right? Oh, you don't want to work because you chose not to work because you chose not to get vaccinated. You chose to put other people in danger, then we love you and we want to give you more money. That's who the Republican Party

is. Look, look, you would all know that if the mainstream media did their job right. Like we wouldn't have to keep insisting and tell you the facts and like scream the facts at you. Everybody would know it if the mainstream media wasn't, didn't fetishize 50-50. Well, I can't tell, I can't tell, right? No, I can tell. The Republicans are monsters. They are. And I mean, you're seeing it play out in many of the red states where all sorts of disinformation

continues to be spread by right-wing lawmakers. hospitals, hospital beds are full in places like Florida and Texas, for instance. People who need to go to the hospital for various procedures that are not related to COVID are being turned away as a result of overwhelmed hospitals. Here's a map showing just that. So the dark red, dark orange areas indicate where the hospital or the intensive care unit beds are nearly full. Those are literally the most conservative areas in the whole country. That's right.

Because they will not listen to logic or reason. And so, and they will not care about their fellow man if their life depended on it. And in this case, it literally does. They don't care about themselves or anyone around them. And the Republican Party goes, how can I reward you with cash for that? And I also want to just share a little snapshot of how COVID is impacting people in Wisconsin. So the state's COVID-19 case average is 1,104 new cases a day, up 40% from. the week before and an 11-fold increase from a month ago. And one way to prevent people from

getting hospitalized and dying from this virus is to encourage them to get vaccinated. But instead, the Republican lawmakers in the state legislature in the state have decided to offer rewards. You don't want to get vaccinated. You want to stay at home. You want to get fired from your job because you refuse to get vaccinated. We'll give you unemployment. But everyone else, regardless of their situation, they don't deserve it. Okay. Yeah, so by the way, of those, some percentage will of course die, and almost everyone dying is unvaccinated.

And instead of discouraging that, Republicans are literally trying to encourage that. So look, I don't want to insult the voters too much, but you're choosing to be, let's put it this way, in the party that celebrates ignorance. and harming other people for your own selfish reasons. But in this case, at a bare minimum, can you just own your hashtag freedom? We're giving you the freedom. Nobody's making you take the vaccine, right? And nobody's making you wear a mask.

But you can't say, I don't want to do either one of those things, and I want to go endanger other people at work. Well, they didn't choose that. So they're saying, no, I don't want you to endanger me. So, okay, that's fine. You made your choice. That's your freedom. Then don't come crying to us and say, now I want money.

No, no, you chose to get fired. You don't get to say, then I want money for this. And by the way, don't give it to the guy who got fired without having a choice. Oh, come on, man, bounds of reason. But they don't have any bounds of reason because they don't believe in reason. And remember, there are exemptions for religious reasons. So there are already loopholes that people can take advantage of. But it's not good enough. If you want to be difficult and you want to refuse the vaccine, again, according to these Republican lawmakers, you're the good guy. And look, they're pandering to them as well, right? Because this is a political move more than anything else. They're rewarding the behavior because they know doing so panders to right wing voters that they're trying to cater to. That's what this is all about. Doesn't matter how many people are going to die. This is just a calculation. It's a very clear calculation based on,

political aspirations and self-preservation for these lawmakers. That's it. All right, we got to take a break. That does it for our first hour. But when we come back, we have a banana second hour for you, including my favorite story. What is your favorite story? It's the one where right wing has a new theory that if you don't get vaccinated. It's so good.

It's so good. That some parts of your sexual organs are going to be. more valuable. They think they're a hot commodity. No, it's so funny, it's so ridiculous. It takes a tragedy and turns it into a farce. Okay, so you're going to love that. Come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host,

Jank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.