The Young Turks - Quit Pro Cuomo

Episode Date: March 13, 2021

A look at the right-wing media’s reaction to President Biden’s first address, including from Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and more. Rep. Pramila Jayapal says President Biden is committed to a $15 minimum wage. 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. Trimpsi, Trimati, drop it. Drop it. All right, welcome to the Young Turks, the all Mediterranean panel version of the Young Turks. Jank Yugar with John Iderola and Francesca Fiorentini. Little Asian in there too, Jank, just small, some anyway.

Yes, well, Turks originally from Asia as well. And my kids are Asian, so Asian and Mediterranean version of the Young Turks panel here. So it is in fact a powerful panel. It is in fact Friday. And we do, in fact, have amazing stories for you guys. So with that being said, we're going to weirdly just get right into it. Okay, let's do that then. Last night, Joe Biden gave a speech.

You probably watched it here on The Young Turks, in fact. So you know basically what it was like. It was Joe Biden being Joe Biden. But that's not going to stop Fox News from freaking out, both about what he didn't say, what he did say. Let's start with what he didn't say, though. Sean Hannity feels like there's one area that Joe Biden could have devoted more of the speech to, as he'll describe here. Joe Biden, he needs to pick up the phone.

I suggest call Mara Lago and, yeah, bring unity to the country as he says he so desperately wants. And thank President Donald Trump because a few moments ago, he tried to take credit for everything that Donald Trump did on COVID-19. three vaccines, thanks to Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed. According to Joe, it was the Biden administration that stepped in, heroically saved America from COVID-19. None of this is true. Where's the unity, Joe? No Trump, no vaccine, Joe.

Stop taking credit for something. Frankly, you had nothing to do with. Nothing. Okay, I found every bit of that annoying. The only thing I'm going to focus on right here, though, is Sean Hannity is making clear that the right considers all talk of unity to be a big joke that he made multiple jokes about unity there. So could like centrist journalists like get like get wise to the idea that the right doesn't actually care about that? That that's a fake concern that they're expressing.

Yeah, all right, I got to jump it on two of these things. First of all, we're supposed to thank idiot Donald Trump who said maybe we should inject bleach into ourselves, secure coronavirus, who he himself got coronavirus. That's how careless he was. Held super shredder events. He's just a blithering idiot throughout and caused a deaths of over 500,000 people. Some of whom would have died anyway because of the epidemic, but a lot of them died because of his carelessness and his inaction.

And we're supposed to thank him for that. I'm just thanking for the equivalent of what? Nearly 200 9-11s on his watch? Yeah, no. That is not what gets a thank you. You look, Fox News perverts the truth on a regular basis, but it's disgusting every time you see it. And I'm sure that a Hannity had the same advice for Trump when he got in office saying, hey, Obama handed you this incredible roaring economy and so you should thank him. You should call him a thank him. And Trump did, right? He constantly thanked Obama for the great economy that he gave him. And of course, if you

Remember, we've showed you all these slides in the past. Trump numbers in the stock market, unemployment, GDP, every metric was lower growth than Obama's. So he just took Obama's economy and made it a little worse. And then during coronavirus made it way worse. But I don't ever remember him thanking Obama for that giant gift that he was handed. Yeah. No, yeah, thanking Trump for COVID-19. You might as well, like, it's like thanking the police for the Black Lives Matter movement. Like, oh, without you, we wouldn't have had this incredible civil rights struggle. So thank you and all the work you've done. No, you might as well thank COVID-19. Like, go thank a bat in a cave who pooed on a pig or however it started, you know, like that's the level of insanity that it would take to thank Trump. Who, by the way, you know, I know things sort of got started. But like all of the reports from the first weeks of when Trump, when Biden got into office was this is way worse than we imagined. There is no rollout plan. Like they were stunned at how tumbleweed the entire rollout was. It's almost like they knew they were going to lose. But and we also know that Trump didn't secure extra shots well into spring. I think it's fair to say we would not be where we are today if Trump obviously. we're still in control of the situation.

Yeah, well, and really fast, if I could jump in, I mean, this is, this is an example of what you're probably going to see a lot of different bizarre, ever-changing permutations of, which is Sean Hannity now sees that people like the idea that the vaccine is coming out. So he wants Trump to get credit for that, but he spent that entire period telling people that the pandemic's not as bad as everyone's saying. Don't worry about what the scientists say, it's really not that big of a deal and even if it is we should reopen anyway. So they're not acting like it was some massive thing that Trump heroically overcame until now they realize, oh, there's some credit going around, we want to get that. And as soon as they get it, like let's imagine a world in which

Biden does call up Trump and he films it. You know, Oprah has a sit down with both of them and Biden gushes over him. What does Sean Hannity give him positive coverage that night? No, he's not going to. It's just another football being put out for the Democrats to lay in on their asses trying to kick. I would move to the UK if that happened. I just want to say if what, if the hell scenario you just described of Oprah interviewing Trump and Biden, buy. Like good, I'm leaving. Yeah. So look, we're fair. And so there was one thing that was done right, although John has promised not to ever be fair to Trump. But sorry, John. Operation warp speed seems to have been a relative success. And that's backed up by some people in the Biden administration. So that

is one part of how they dealt with coronavirus, and an important part. But the rest of it was absolutely mangled. And I, you know, we mentioned a second ago, there was no plan left for how to administer the vaccine, how to fight the rest of the epidemic, you know, because they don't even believe in mass. They don't even believe in fighting. It wasn't just that they thought they were going to lose guys. No, the plans they had for executing even their own policies were just empty binders. You remember that Trump would every once in a while do a press conference and he'd hold up a book or be pretending to sign something and somebody would catch it from a different angle and you'd see all the pages are blank? Because they didn't care about governing. That was

not a thing they mattered to them. They cared about making money. They cared about owning the libs. They cared about hate and fear and demagoguery. Actual competence never even occurred to them. It's never occurred to Trump in his entire life. I mean, are we having a serious conversation here? The guy said on several occasions that it would, quote, magically disappear. And instead, it roared out of control and killed half a million Americans. So no, we're not having this conversation.

everything Sean Hannity says, a gigantic lie. Exactly. We're not having that conversation. Let's have a weirder conversation. As weird as as weird as some of Fox News's coverage of Biden's speech has been, the actual lead-in to one of their commentators addressing it might have even been weirder because with Tucker Carlson, they decided, well, this is a guy obviously well known for the drama of his facial motion. So let's do a live reaction to Biden's speech.

And I think we have a little bit of video of that. Okay, so yeah, okay, it says that we have video. Anyway, so you can see there down in the corner, like we occasionally here at TYT, we'll do sort of like a, like a, you know, picture in picture. That's not just a picture of that's an actual video of Tucker that they wanted people to see before Tucker went live and I think we can we can zoom into a close up and no it's exactly what you expected his facial expression would be but that was so good that they they knew that the audience couldn't wait for Tucker's show to see that facial expression they have to see it live beforehand and I don't understand I don't understand anything having to do with that why that was necessary

Honestly, there's some chance they were copying us, okay? So we've been doing play by play coverage for 19 years now. We used to do it on the radio for important speeches, and now obviously we've been doing a video for 15 years, and we did the same exact thing with the Biden one. But when we cover it, we, in the small pauses, we actually give commentary, there's a point to it, and then sometimes we'll goof around, like during the Trump days, I would do the, know, the hand motions, I would mimic Trump's hand motions. With Biden, I was doing the Biden lean in. No, no, no, guys, this isn't political. This is shit, right? And so, but mainstream

media sometimes sees that and they're like, oh, these young Turks are doing really well a lot, and they got the reaction and people love it, right? And then they'll do like a weirdo copy of it. Like, okay, why don't we just put Tucker there, but he doesn't say anything? And he has the same exact facial expression, which he always has. And guys, anyone else on Fox or, you know, not saying anything is already a little weird, like they don't know what they're doing. But Tucker, everybody knows he has that face. That's the worst face in television. I don't mean in terms of attractiveness, I might compete there.

No, that perplexed look that he always has when he has guests on. So the entire time he's looking like, what is going on? I can't understand anything that's being said. That's not the face you put up in a play by playing. Someone once told me Tucker always looks like a kid who has been eating Lego, who told, who's been told he can't, like right in that moment. Like, yeah, like, what do you mean? If it's the crunch in the, or crayons or whatever it is, you know, it's a resting douchebag face.

Yeah, it's also possible that a guy. Not Legos. If there's any kids eating Legos, it's a different face, but crayons I get, yes. Yeah. So I think we do actually have some video, but it's, people decided to take that as the springboard to their own creative work. So here we go. fast because it wasn't just that they threw to it. They had live Tucker reaction. Like they were really invested in this idea. They're like Tucker, so what we're going to do is we're

going to have you for a couple of minutes. But to what, to what end? He's literally just doing his perplex face and then occasionally cocking his head slightly. He's not saying anything. There's not much in the speech to really respond to even though they're going to pretend afterward that it was so abhorrent that they have to lose their minds like Mark Levind did. I don't understand anything that went into that decision, but the creative meme stuff that came out of, it's pretty good. Well, I wanted to say about the videos, I had not seen those videos before these memes started going around. And when I saw the Tom Brady and the weird Arabic strip hole thing that was happening there, I too had the same tucker face. I didn't know Brady got that drunk. I didn't even know Brady drank.

I'm saying. So anyways, John, there's some, you know, when you were eating the burger while we were doing one of those play-by-plays or whatever you were eating, that kind of trended. So maybe they got jealous of you. So we'll know it's true if the next time you're doing one and killing me, it's like, oh, eating like fried chicken or something. It just shows you that they don't trust. Also, like, they're just like, this is how to feel. It's like a how to feel cam, you know, like consistently just being like disapproving. And like, oh, Does that sound good? Oh, Tucker says no. Oh, Tucker's still mad. Okay, okay, I'm mad, right? And like, just in case you get out of line, just in case you start listening to Biden, the words for themselves, just look at Tucker's face. He tells you how to feel. You know what? Like the laugh tracks tell you when to laugh. His obvious inability to express anything other than disdain tells you what you should be feeling. Totally. No, God, that's such you guys are making brilliant points, okay? Although I'm thinking we just have your faces from now on. We just have. We just do all of us. We just do stories just with our faces. I'm very good at this game.

With the reactions. Okay, but seriously, the face that they is the embodiment of the Fox News ethos, as you guys pointed out, is Tucker's face of like perplexed fear and anger, but they don't really know what to be angry and fear for love. trans people in the library with a with a wrench, Muslims crossing the border with a soccer jersey. I like it. Okay. Oh, God. No, what we should have done is we should have prepped a live overlay to have him reacting to our commentary about his reacting. So matter.

That would have been a good one. Anyway, why don't we launch into our last topic? Brian Kilmead had a very particular issue with Biden's speech, and it was the fact that Biden was acknowledging how bad things have been. Here's Kilmead. We don't need to go over the 500,000 dead. We had that moment. Let's talk about the future moving forward.

Every time he has a chance to praise the previous administration, he not only doesn't praise, he kicks him in a groin. Why are the kicking in the grind? Anyway, we don't need to acknowledge the 500 dead. Well, why should they? I mean, they spent so much of the past year focusing so specifically on it. But yeah, at least they did acknowledge it there. They said it and then moved on and tried to tell you that anyone who mentions it,

that they're being unfair in some way. But now that we have cruised past 500,000, there's been a lot of ways that people have tried to make it a little bit easier to conceive of how many dead that actually is. Jank earlier in the show referenced how many 9-11s that is. I heard, it was the first time I heard it, that now that we've reached the one year anniversary, it is a little bit more than one person dying every minute for an entire year, which is just devastating. But don't focus on that. I mean, let's move on everyone. We lost. I mean, this is the thing about, I have a problem with the way the right wing spins it and I have a problem with the way that

Biden says, don't, you know, don't bet on America. Why? Because if anyone bet that we would screw it up, They probably want a lot of cash by now because we screwed it up. And it's it's not a race. It's not a game. Like this is, and if, I mean, and this is the whole thing with like just, just inflating this with like, oh, if it's a war, we lost. Like we lost handily. We're still losing it.

And there's an argument to be made about should the country that did the least good job get the most vaccines? Look, as an American, I want all of us to be vaccinated. There's countries that have done way better jobs at containing the. spread on their own who have far less resources and yet we're number one in line. So, you know, I know you guys talked about this a bit during the live coverage of the speech. And it's a, it's really important to point that out. But also, let me just say, kick him in the groin. You think at what point was Biden, did he at all? I mean, you wanted him to dunk on Republicans.

Just a little bit. Just tell us who actually fought. and gave up on this war. Tell us. Yeah. It was Trump. So first of all, to Francesca's point, Biden said don't bet against America, right? But yeah, but Francesca is empirically correct. We had the most amount of cases in the world and we had the most amount of deaths in the world.

So if you bet against America, you probably would have made a small fortune. I hope you didn't, okay, but with Trump in charge, that was an easy bet. I'm pretty sure that's what Leffler and Purdue and some other elected officials did, actually. Actually, that's you're right. They did. literally bet against America and they made millions. So that's that's true. Because they had insider knowledge of both that COVID was coming and that the president was a moron. So when you put those two things together, they were like, oh, bet against America. Okay, sell anything that

is involved in the economy except medical supplies, et cetera. All right. So now is the main point that Kilmeid was making. So let me get this right. 500,000 dead. And he said that had a moment, and now we should look forward and not reflect on it. Do you remember them saying that about Benghazi? So there was four dead in Benghazi and they spent half a decade talking about it. That is 500,000 dead, 500,000 dead. It's like we had a moment. It's a moment.

Who cares? Let's move on. What are you going to do? Congressional investigations or something? No way, no way. We already did nine on Benghazi. They did more congressional investigations than a number of people who died in Benghazi. If we did that the same thing here, we would have over 525,000 congressional investigations

to see how badly Trump and his idiot, idiot, Republican followers and politicians bungled this and led to hundreds of thousands of extra deaths. And then second of all, he was kicking the previous administration in the groin. I mean, if he grazed them, it was. was like more than they've ever gotten, okay? So, all right, so look, after the speech, Anna and I, in our live coverage, we said, for God's sake, are you ever going to make your case? There was like a tiny bit of it talking about the $5,600 checks. There's one mention of the Trump administration or something, but here's what the speech

you should have given. Hey, guys, you're about to get $5,600 on average for a family of four. You know how many Republicans voted for that? Zero. They all wanted you to get no checks at all. They all voted no, no, no. They said it was they wanted it more targeted and more focused. You know what that means? It means less. They wanted you to get less or nothing at all. That's who these sons of bitch Republicans are. In the middle of the worst pandemic is you're all suffering economically. Every single one of them voted against you. Every single one of them voted against you and didn't believe in you, okay? Including that package. Yeah, that would be the beginning of kicking them in the groin. And that would that would be my warm up. Okay, that'd be my appetizer.

But also, Jank, you have to say that they're like go on to the main course, which is if you're we're trying to vaccinate the Americans, well, there's money in the package in the bill to vaccinate Americans. So it is no thanks to Republicans for not only never and still not taking this seriously, but also not getting on board to actually try and inoculate people from this virus. Okay, and one more thing other than noting John's funny faces at any mention of groin. And I was hoping that they would put me in a window. Yeah, that's right.

So, okay, anyways, so look at these guys, man. Their hypocrisy is hilarious. They're like, you know, you should do like we did. And praise previous administrations. Really? Really? You remember all the times Trump would do a national speech?

Like, look, man, I really got to thank Obama. I think that guy was solid. I mean, I think he might even been born here. Okay, that guy handed me an amazing economy. Or, or, or did Trump come out there and be like, Oh, let's do you, you ruined everything. You ruined everything. I'm kidding up his best.

I'm the best. Right? No, after Trump, you're still going to talk? Shut up. And don't ever, ever, ever ask for civility, okay? No one who ever supported Trump for one minute gets to talk about civility, period. Don't take that first break? Yeah, but during the break, we'll have someone in the corner going. Okay, we'll be right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show. called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional

wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated, by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer

to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosophy,

philosopher Yoda once put it. You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time.

Thank you. You know, M. M. S. B. S. B.

So, you know, You know, So, So, you know, I'm going to do. All right, first programming notes during the break here, we're dominating Twitch on the weekends. And the guy mainly doing is Brett Ehrlich. He's putting a Uyghur maneuver on Twitch. You know, you get that headlock. You just can't get out of it. Just can't get out of it.

So the headlock starts tonight, 9 p.m. Eastern. It's on Common Room. Yasmin Khan, Adiana Vega, and Nick Marzok, and of course, Brad Ehrlich. How is that not fun? I don't see any world or universe or multiverse in which that show is not fun. Twitch.tv.tv slash TYT take a hype train over there. So that's tonight. And then Dr. Rashad Ritchie, he's a little indisputable, quite literally. That's the name of his show on Twitch now. And it's Monday. It's 2.15 p.n. Eastern, because we like to do things at 15 after the hour. We're the only people who do that. There is probably a reason for it. All right, anyway, Rashad is awesome. Do not miss that show. If you're watching on Twitch is live, it's free when it's live. But if you want to catch any of these shows later, that's why God created Amazon Prime.

So it could use Bezos bucks to sign up for free to our Twitch channel and we get the money. Okay, speaking of money, aspiration, they're a progressive financial institution, pretty much the only one. So put your money there, they give you great rates, and they actually try to save the planet. They use your, when you sign up, they plant trees, if you want, they plant more trees for you as you use the card. All your deposits are fossil fuel free, three to five percent cash back on conscious coalition purchases. What is that? That's the coalition of the willing. They're willing to actually be decent people and decent companies and you got a chance at becoming

a lifetime TYT member. Oh my God, you got to panic. You got to act right now. Aspiration.com slash TYT and do it definitely with a panic. All right. Here's members comments as quickly as I can diehard says on top of that Pfizer did not take money to develop the vaccine. That's true. They're not part of Operation Warp Speed in that sense. Plug the dungeon dragon. Uh oh, Tucker always looks like his guests are eating mayonnaise straight from the jar. I've seen that meme. Approve Al writes in, if John could keep doing this classic awkward Chris Christie standing behind Trump imitation, that would be wonderful. Yes, that was one of like the best things to ever

happen at TYT. And Greg says, yeah, it's not like Trump spent an entire four years blaming Obama for everything. Exactly right. We'll be right back. All right. Jank, John, and Francesco with you. I usually read the comments during the break for some of our audience, but I got to read a couple here. So Baker Brigade said in our member section, COVID deaths, fine, take a moment. Dr. Seuss outrage, 10 days plus the entire 2024 election cycle.

But they really believe that. They do. They do. They're insane. And I love that comment. The smartest audience in the world, t.yt.com slash join. Or you can hit the join button. Hey, Myra Long and Lee Smith just did it. Are they American heroes? I guess. And then finally on YouTube super chat, Parker says epic power panel. Jank, Francesca, and John, this trio will be remembered in the history books.

Okay, I got to be honest with you, Parker. That is not true. Okay, that we will not be remembered in the history books at all. But I appreciate your sentiment and you're awesome. And then finally, Rizel writes in, is it a fantastic Friday? I've been waiting for that. Okay, all right, John, take it away. Okay, let's do this. Well, the COVID aid bill was generally good. There were a couple of negative turns through the course of it being negotiated and eventually

passed and perhaps the worst was the stripping out of the raise to the minimum wage to $15 an hour. So what path forward does it have? Well, it looks pretty dark from the outside. But one representative, Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she says that she still has faith that Biden is still going to work on it as she'll make clear. The president called me today to thank me for the work on the bill and we talked about a $15 minimum minimum wage and he again recommitted to me how committed he is to getting this done and to getting it done quickly and to, you know, getting a $15 minimum wage passed. And I believe him, Dean.

We are going to have some disappointments on bills that aren't going to pass the Senate. And then I think that is going to give us the opening to reform the filibuster. I like Pramila Jayapal, I think that she's good, but I think her faith here might well be misplaced that Joe Biden. I'm sure Joe Biden would like it or whatever. But I don't know, Jank. I have a feeling you probably are not as confident following her phone call with the president. No, not at all. So because of the sorry state of American media, politicians assume that people in media are supposed to be supporters of the different camps. But they're not actually doing journalism, that they're just supposed to pick allies and back those allies no matter what.

So I think that's why some progressives get even more upset in us because they think, well, you're supposed to just blindly follow us. You're not supposed to challenge us too. No, that was never part of the deal. We believe in fighting for change. We believe you were going to fight for change. And in a lot of ways you have, and we support that 100%. But when you don't, that's our job to call it out.

Now, does that mean they're bad people? Not at all. Pramela Giapal is a lovely person. She really is. She has great intent. She means well. And she actually wants to get those bills passed. Okay, she does. But Joe Biden reassuring you means absolutely nothing. It's actually potentially counterproductive. So let me explain why. When she says, I believe him and leaves it at that, well, what you've lost is an opportunity. opportunity to make a specific demand. So that's the way power works. Mansion didn't have a call with Biden and say like pretty please, but I leave it up to you. And Biden said, oh, I'll do what you want. And he said, I believe him and moved on. No. Mansion said, no, I'm not going to pass the bill. I'm going to vote no. I'm not going to let one of your nominees through. I'm going to vote no. And they did not have a polite conversation. And guess who won and who lost in the COVID relief bill? Mansion won on almost every concession he demanded. We demanded no concessions and won't on no concessions, but we got a lot of calls from Biden.

And so I believe him is really bad news. So you're wrong to believe him. You're factually wrong. Now, we already proved this. We said on this show before the bill, well before, months before, weeks before, days before. We were right at every step. We said, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi said, oh, we want to pass a $15 minimum wage. We said we don't believe them. They're not telling the

truth. It's the first thing that they're going to kick out of the bill. Who was right and who was wrong? It's not to brag. It's so that you get it right going forward. Now, when I say that, if there's any progressive legislators watching now, they'll be furious. How dare you tell me I got it wrong? Yeah, I dare because I'm just as valid as you are. When you get to Washington, Don't buy into the hype that you're a special elite person that is above criticism. If you do, that's not on me, that's on you, okay? So Representative Jayapal, you constantly believing democratic leadership and then them showing the exact opposite, that they were not meant, they were not to be believed, that they did

not want it in the bill, and it was in fact the first thing they took out of the bill. Well, then you've been honestly counterproductive. And if your strategy next time around is to do the same exact thing and say, well, it's okay. I got access. I talked to Joe Biden. And he said, yeah, sure, trust me, just like last time. Well, then that's an incorrect strategy. Your intent is wonderful.

I don't question that at all. But your strategy so far has definitely not worked. And again, my guess is if she or anyone in her staff ever sees this, they'll never talk to us again. Okay, how dare you say my strategy was wrong? Look, I'm sorry, but you're not a king, you're not a queen, and I don't give a damn that you're a congresswoman. People in power always are like, oh, you have to call me congressman. You don't call me by my first call, call me senator. I'm a very important person. No, you're not. You're just a citizen like all the rest of us, and we're asking you to do your job. Your job is to be a representative of us. It's not the other

way around. I mean, I agree with you that it was a sort of a moment of where she could have said the opposite, like, and we're going to hold his feet to the fire on that promise. But instead, it was a I believe him, which was like that was kind of a throwaway of your power. Because I would actually say that Biden speaking to the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is pretty important. Like, that's not nothing. You know, so I think that with that access and with that power, I think that shows that Biden is willing to listen, but you don't turn that around by then saying, and then we believe him, even though they clearly didn't even overrule the stupid parliamentarian to put this in the bill in the first place and probably

patted the ultimate Bernie Sanders addition to the bill in the form of the amendment and made it look like eight Democratic senators oppose it, even though they totally don't oppose it. They're just trying to run cover for Biden. So, you know, I get what you're saying, Jenk, and I think obviously we need, we need to hold Pramila and other progressive congresspeople accountable. But it is something that like she clearly has the ear. Just don't just don't say the and I believe him, period point. I'm curious as how the rest of the interview went. I agree. I want to go further than that, but John, go ahead. Yeah, I would say I agree with basically everything you've said about the component having to do with Biden specifically.

But I think there's a ton that's missing that doesn't even like even if we assume that Biden's totally being honest and he totally is going to prioritize. it, that's not the only thing that matters. So if you're prioritizing it, does that mean you're going to like ask for it to be done? Or does that mean you are going to put serious pressure on the specific senators to say they're not going to support it no matter what? Like, you want it. So now Joe Manchin is going to be cool with it. Or are you going to make Joe Manchin cool with it? And even beyond that, let's say that hypothetically we get Joe Manchin and Kristen Cinema and some of the others to support this that they say they won't support. That still wouldn't be enough to get it passed now that we've missed the opportunity

to pass it via reconciliation, so has your position on getting rid of the filibuster or massively changing it changed? And will you put pressure on people like Chris and Sinema and Joe mentioned to do that as well? Because if you won't do those things, at the end of the day, at that point, I don't even care how much you genuinely support any particular piece of legislation. None of them will get passed until the more fundamental changes are done. And so I would want way more from her about what he said about those things. Yeah, so John, you nailed it. So what I was going to say in going further is having a conversation with Joe Von, hey, are you in favor of it? Yeah, oh, you are? Oh, me too. Yeah, great, is useless, totally utterly

useless. Like I said, it might be even counterproductive. What you use that opportunity for is, yes, Mr. President, but it's really important that you tell me what your plan is. What is your plan for passing you? Well, you know, we'll do blah, blah, no, no, no, no, no. Mr. President, I have a constituency, and I'm the head of the Progressive Caucus. I need to know whether you actually have a plan. If you don't have a plan, we're going to have to come up with a plan. And then if it doesn't agree with what you agree with, that's, hey, we'll have to sort that out in public, okay? But we're going to pass this goddamn thing, whether it's our plan or your plan. But you have to show me an actual plan to pass it. Loose talk of,

oh, eventual reform of filibuster right before we lose power is not a plan. It's not a plan. not a plan. What John just explained to you, honestly, is more than almost any... At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals.

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Again, they'll be heartbroken. How dare you? We're above you. You're below us. And you can't question us. Really? Then what is your plan? What is you?

Tell me your genius plan. And the reason I say that, guys, is because they don't have one. I'm positive. They don't have one. And look at what she said there. Oh, you know, eventually because of the other bills that have to pass, we'll do some filibuster reform. That ain't a plan. That ain't a plan at all.

A plan is, here's how we're going to flip those eight Democratic senators. Here's what we're going to do specifically on this piece of legislation. We're going to attach it to another must pass bill that the Republicans are all going to vote against. And we're going to insist on it. And we're going to insist on it six months in advance. So you don't, at the last second, do the same trick you do every single time, including COVID relief. Oh, you blocking it would delay the passage of this important bill and then progressives would be responsible for the delay and it would be your fault.

No, I'm telling you right now, six months in advance, we're gonna block that bill and we're gonna put minimum wage and it's gonna be in the bill and we're not gonna have a conversation about it. Okay, now what are you gonna do? That's a plan. It is specific to a piece of legislation that actually has a chance of passing and it uses your power. T and crumpets at the White House is irrelevant.

totally utterly irrelevant. That when I hear that piece of, look, I get it. Jayapal is not telling you every part of the conversation that she had with Biden. And you're, I know some of you probably, and I love you for being this wonderfully naive because it means you're a good person, you have a good heart, etc. Think like, oh, no, they probably, they're really smart, you know, legislators and they're, oh, wow, they're in power. They must be really great. They probably did come up with a plan. They just don't want to share it with you. Guys, I've talked to these legislators. I've talked to their staff for decades now.

And in this particular situation, just recently, with many of them, there is no plan, they're not secret geniuses, they're uncomfortable making a demand. And we've known forever and ever power never conceives without a demand. But it would be rude, it would be rude, I would feel personally uncomfortable. Well, now we're going to make you uncomfortable. And you could hate me through the rest of the time. I don't care. The only thing I care about is pass the goddamn bill. If you don't pass the bill in these two years, it will be a remarkable record of failure. I'm just, that's the reality. There's no, you could, you can shoot the

messenger all you want, it doesn't matter. If they finished the two years and they haven't done the bare minimum of passing $15 minimum wage, it's going to be, history will write it down is a giant failure of not just the Biden administration, because they didn't actually want it. It will be a giant failure of progressives in Congress. And here, I'll tell you one other thing ahead of time. Guys, you think we're born yesterday? Maybe the legislators are, I don't know, but we're not. They're going to say, oh, the minimum wage, we're going to do it. I'll totally, we're going to do it, $11. Hear me now, quote me later. They're not going to do $15. They're going to do $11. We already know it. Mansion already said it. Mansion is president.

Joe Biden agrees with Manchin on everything. He just uses him as a foil. When Manchin says $11, that's Biden saying $11. So if I'm in the meeting with a Biden and he says, oh, yeah, generally, vaguely, we'll do it later. I say, wait, wait, 11 or 15? Because if you go on penny under 15, I'm going to come for you. Okay? And we're going to vote no on all your goddamn bills. But the progressives would never do that. It's so rude and not nice. Well, we need a leader that's willing to fight for us. But on this issue, it's literally called fight for 15. It's not called plead for 15, have pleasant conversations for 15, beseech the parliamentarian for 15. It's called fight for 15. So we'd love to see that fight. Still to this day, the honest reality is no fight

at all for progressives. And I'm not putting it all on the House, by the way. The Senate, including Bernie Sanders, too. He keeps saying, oh, we're going to do it, we're going to do it. Really? Intent doesn't solve it. It has to be intent with execution. What is your strategy? What is your plan? I've never seen one and it doesn't exist. Why don't we take that second break, Jank? All right. We'll be back. You know, I'm going to be. And so I'm

going to I'm You know what I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Thank you. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be.

All right, back during the break, and let me read a couple of comments here. A little Mac G. Rice in the member section, while I want to back up a representative of Jayapal, GOP, and a few Democrats are making Biden's commitment impossible, and he's offering little to no leadership to push it. Guys, in politics, saying I'm generally in favor of something is the easiest thing in the world. You'd have to be a total moron not to say that you're in favor of a popular position. That's not the question. The question is, are you actually going to pass it?

And if Joe Biden wants something passed like the COVID relief bill, he obviously knows how to pass it. His big claim to fame is, oh, I know the Senate better than anyone else. And I could work the Senate to pass things. Oh, minimum wage. Oh, golly. Gee, there was nothing I could do. I'll do it next time because I really like it. Wink.

Chuck Schumer says he wants a $15 minimum wage in the bill or overall. he's the one who wrote it out of the bill. Chuck Schumer wrote it out of the bill. He doesn't want it. You know how I know because if he wanted it, he would have put it in the bill. That's how bills work. Okay, but the media sucks, honestly.

They're the worst. They're like every one of them writes, Chuck Schumer and Biden really want $15 a hundred minutes wage. They really wanted it. They took it out of the bill and they killed it on purpose, but they really, really, really, really want it. Okay, just retire. Go do something else.

Regular reporters, it doesn't pay that much anyway. Go be a banker. It's a much better way to sell out to the establishment. Okay, Salam Khadishim, apparently Turkish, writes in in the member section, Jenk, that $50 you won from Too Strong Coffee will help your finances the next time you bet Anna. Oh, thanks. Way to turn it around on me, okay? I thought for a second it was going to be a compliment.

Anyway, what he's referring to is St. Patrick's Day Special at too strong coffee.com slash TYT, put the slash TYT in there. And you spin the wheel, you could win 50 bucks, you could win a whole bunch of things. Check that out. It's progressive coffee and it's delicious coffee. I wish I got to more of your comments. We'll be back. All right, back on a young church, Jenk, John, I'm Francesca, with you guys.

All right, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Things have been moving fast in Governor Cuomo's ever expanding set of scandals over the past 48 hours from the news that his office apparently reached out to a number of different former employees to see if they had spoken to the first accuser, which seems weird and intimidating. And it turns out that a former aide says that it was in fact intimidating and she felt bewildered by it to yesterday during an emergency meeting, the State Assembly announcing that it is going to

starting an impeachment inquiry involving both the allegations of sexual harassment and assault, as well as the nursing death scandal, to about 40% of his entire party's members in the assembly in the Senate, signing on asking for him to immediately resign. And then there was this morning, when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that after two accounts of sexual assault, four accounts of harassment, the Attorney General's investigation finding the governor's admin hid nursing home data from the legislature in public, saying we agree with the 55 plus members the New York state legislature that the governor must resign. That was a letter that she put out with Congressman Bowman. Then at least 11 of the Democratic House representatives from New York

called for him to resign, and just, including Jerry Nadler, Nadler by the way. And then just as we were going live, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand both also said that it's time for the governor to resign. As of this afternoon, he said that he would not. which is what they always say until they do. But he seems like a fighter, Chank and Francesca, what do you think? Is he gonna stick around no matter how many people tell him if Biden gets involved? Yeah, I'm really curious what you think, Francesca. There is one part of this that I'm a little torn about.

So that's already interesting, right? So there's nothing that I'm torn about in regards to Andrew Cuomo. He's an establishment Democrat extraordinaire. And he's been wrong on so many. on so many issues. And he's attacked progressives and good meaning people in behind the scenes in a thousand different ways. And he's a political apparatic extraordinary. Now he's claiming like, oh, I'm just a regular Joe. Dude, your name is Cuomo. Your dad was governor, your governor, don't pretend you're one of us. Okay, you're an ultimate insider and you use the insider system

to attack all of your opponents. You've done it for decades. And as Anna keeps pointing out, rightfully so. The guy cut $400 million for Medicaid. Actually, overall, the cuts were slated to be $2.5 billion. They had to talk about doing it in the middle of the pandemic, delayed for after the pandemic. But some of the cuts that he had done earlier was the reason why they didn't have enough hospital bets. And that's why he then took the people from the hospitals, put it in the nursing homes, and then everybody died in the nursing homes, and then he had to lie about it. So for all those reasons, he already was a terrible governor from a perspective of people who, I was going to say progressives, but really anybody, okay? The progressive critique

of him is correct, is my point. On the sexual harassment issue, the only thing I have here is that, and that's why I'm curious what both of you guys think about it, part of me thinks, okay, yes, but let's go through the process. So the last allegation is groping. If that's true, he should be gone within the minute, right? So that's not a question. The question is, how true are these? Now, six, six is a lot, right? On the other end, if you remember with Al Franken, it had piled up to be a big number,

but every one of them was like a fake picture. We took a picture once and he put his hand around my shoulder. And they were like, 11. I'm like, no, that's not 11. Right? But let's have an investigation. So there is a part of me that says, is, you know, do we have, are we sure that these are all true? A hundred percent that we can act on it? You know, and I get the other point, which is they all have to be 100 percent true. There's six of them. It looks like we've got an obvious pattern here. So Francesca, what do you think? Oh yeah, no, there's, when this first broke weeks ago, I was like, I've never been more sure that there was a giant iceberg underneath this very, very tiny little tip that we're seeing sticking out of the water here. Like, you knew that Cuomo. And I'm just, it's his, I don't know, I'm not trying to be anti-Italian as someone.

I'm like, like, don't, don't go to the mafia sopranos things. But like, the guy in clearly and exactly all the reason that you said, in the ways that he's bullied around his political opponents for you. years in the ways that he is so Trumpian, in that he's gotten everything from his father. And then also in the cavalier ways, because some of these incidents were while he was rising to stardom, which I got to say, man, it's been real fun to watch him fall. As someone who was never on board for the rise, who was like, oh, look, it's a politician doing the absolute bare minimum, the absolute bare minimum, the thing you should do, believing in science, locking, you know, locking things down.

even though I don't even think he did that amazing of a job. Yes, I said it. Like, it's been nice to watch like, oh, here's the real Cuomo. And like, it's funny to me that there are so many Cuomo around this country. There are so many sort of middling, mediocre, like kind of, you know, legacy politicians, dynastic politicians who skate by. They assault a couple people. They bully their opponents. But they kind of, then they get applauded.

They come out with a book and they're fine. But I feel like the meteoric rise that he had under COVID and the way that he laid into it so much just set him, he set himself up. It's like you could have, it's just the way that Trump could have been absolutely fine, just doing cameos on Home Alone 5 or whatever it was. And then he had to go and run for president. And now we're looking at his taxes. So look, here's my thing about resignation. I feel like it's a little bit of an escape hatch. And I think for when it comes to actually having an investigation, actually, and as painful

as it is, like having the people who came forward, you know, testify or discuss it, absolutely like not, or at least have an investigation. I don't know what it would look like. It feels like there would be more accountability. And I think that so many creeps and so many predators get away in the workplace because there's no accountability to begin with. So I'm not even sure if immediate resignation is accountable. accountability. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, actually, Francesca, I love that point.

And that gets another problem in the political system. So Cuomo keeps saying, you know, I want the Attorney General to finish the investigation, that's Leticia James. And if we all believed that our democracy was on the level and that politicians weren't politicians, I'd say definitely finish the investigation, because I want to know if he did it. And if he did it, then that gives us closure as opposed to, well, he's to resign and he'll get to deny it forever because then they won't bother finishing the investigation, et cetera, right? But the problem is, I don't trust politicians. So is Cuomo, part of the reason Cuomo is doing it is because he wants to delay it. And then he thinks if I can just delay it, I'll be able to do a thousand other

political maneuvers to avoid it. And then he keeps saying he wants us so much that I'd be in a wonder is Patricia James doesn't look like a political ally of Cuomo based on her previous experience. Right. But what if she is? What if Cuomo knows something we don't know? And then they do a BS investigation. And then those women, you know, suffer a second injustice. I do think that, yeah, and I just think it's important to mention, though, that like the investigation of a sexual assault or harassment claim is, it's so hard because it is always a he said, she said type of situation and which is why we have things like the slogan

believe survivors right um and believe women which because you have predators who will always deny it i do not foresee a future in which Andrew Cuomo admits anything that i can be sure of we might hear more about the stories from the from the staffers and the and the people who were he victimized but i do not foresee him being like oh yeah i guess i remember doing that no it's not going to happen. So again, I just want to set that up that it's not a fair, you're never going to get to the truth kind of thing. Yeah, no, that's also true. That's why it's challenging. But now let's go to the political analysis. He's done. Schumer ain't coming out against Cuomo if he doesn't think Cuomo's done. So you can say a lot about Schumer and whether he's

earnest or not, but on internal democratic politics, Schumer is not a rookie. He's been around the block a couple of times. He knows this part of it really well. This is Schumer saying, nah, nah, nah. He's not that way. No, to be fair, Schumer likes Cuomo. And so he wouldn't rub it in. And if he's coming out against Cuomo, a fellow establishment Democrat ally for decades. That means he thinks Cuomo is definitely done. And if Schumer and Gillibrand think he's definitely done, he's probably definitely done. I think we had time to do this last story, Jank? Yeah. Okay, why don't we jump ahead to the eBlock there? Across the country, Republicans are passing or attempting to

pass bills that will wildly in a number of different ways cut back on voting rights. Arizona is one of the big spots that they're targeting, particularly because of what happened in the 2020 election. Now, generally, Republicans when attempting to do this, we'll pretend that it's all about concerns about voter fraud. They usually are pretty disciplined about sticking to that message, but sometimes they do a bit more to reveal what it's really about. And we've got a great example of that with Arizona State Representative John Kavanaugh, who said Democrats are willing to risk fraud by expanding voter access, and Republicans are more concerned about fraud. So we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote. But everybody shouldn't be voting.

And that's where the narrative starts to break apart a little bit. He goes on to say quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well. And there, he doesn't mean fraud. He's not talking about them being low quality because of fraud. He's talking about the people doing the voting. He suggested that Democrats voter registration and ballot collection drives can greatly influence the outcome of the election by targeting uninformed voters. Again, not by producing fraud, but by bringing people in that he doesn't want voting. And he says, I believe that everyone legally qualified to vote should vote. However, which is amazing, I recognize that some people are not interested in public policy and do not follow the issues. So they are by

choice uninterested and uninformed. I believe they should be left alone until they decide they want to vote. Yeah. So guys, you know who doesn't want more people to vote? The side that knows that more people are on the other side, okay? If you thought you had a winning political strategy and that people really loved the right way in this country, you'd want as many people to vote as possible. The very last thing you'd want to do is limit voting.

You want to limit voting if you think the other guys are going to win. And I mean, the guy literally said everybody shouldn't be voting. No, I told you. I said it before January 6th, I said it before the election, the Republicans care more about power than they care about democracy. To them, democracy is a tool or a weapon to get to their goal of power. And usually, historically, it has been power over the rest of us and subjugation. And so if they can't subjugate us, they're not interested in democracy.

It was just a marketing gimmick. And now they're exposing themselves. 250 bills across the country say, limit voting, limit voting. Don't let people vote. Don't let people vote. So Republicans are clearly the party against democracy. There's no answer to thoughts about it. And I'm going to go to my usual point here, because it's so important.

The press plays it as voter fraud versus voter suppression, if we're lucky, and we can't tell. Well, there are no cases of voter fraud. But whereas there are, this would across the country suppress millions of people's votes. So if the press was honest, they would say Republicans do anti-demand. Democratic measures, measures against democracy. And they would explain, there is very clear, there is no voter fraud. There's almost no case of it, and in recent memory, almost every single person that committed voter fraud was a Republican.

We've shown you dozens of cases, Trump supporters voting for Trump twice, a whole election got redone in North Carolina because it turns out the Republican campaign itself had done voter abroad. Okay, other than Republican examples, you almost can't find one in America. Out of millions of hundreds of millions of votes. So this is not 50-50. There's one party who hates our democracy, and it's the Republican Party. People call me radical for saying that. The reality is it's just a fact. And so I think it's radical not to say it. It's a weird radical protection racket of the Republican Party not to point it out. Absolutely. And the other thing that, you know, Fox News and a lot of right wingers have been pivoting from saying we're a democracy

to a republic. Now, like, we're not a democracy. We're a republic. Well, okay, we're a Democratic republic, guys. You know, you're just being stupidly semantic with this. But suddenly, oh, you know, we're a republic. It's almost as if they're saying, no, no, no, white landowning men are the only ones who are really supposed to vote. And yes, that property was often other people. But anyway, like just say what you mean. But it's, you know, scholars of democracy. And this is why I think like leftists and progressives have to actually reclaim the word democracy, you know, small D democracy, not Democrats, right? Like that we actually have to fight for this because Republicans are running away from it and trying to convince their base that no, no, no, minority rule is good. It's your God given right. Oh, maybe it's your race right. You know, it's it's getting vile. And we should. be pointing out that they're not even interested in democracy anymore. Yeah, and the only thing I would add is that while I think what you saw from Kavanaugh there is a little bit more honest than we just care about voting fraud, which is why we want to end

voting at 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m., that's sort of BS. It's so clearly fake. This is also a lie. They're not remotely interested in how engaged or intelligent the voters are. First of all, it doesn't matter if you don't know anything. The average American knows very little. Like, Like, have you talked to people? They don't know much. They're still allowed to vote. That's how democracy works. It's not like you get extra votes if you went to grad school or whatever. But if that was actually their concern, that he just wants people who are deeply invested in public policy, what would you say based on the last week? If you were watching the biggest right wing news channel, in fact, the biggest news channel, what are the most important issues of public policy going on that their voters are so invested in? Taylor Lorenz, the Muppets, Taylor Lorenz, how pregnant women in the military are disgrace. Oh yeah, their side is really concerned with public policy.

Tell me more about how Hillary Clinton eats babies and they offer up children to Satan. How many millions of Republican voters think that's the only thing you need to know about politics? He doesn't care about that. They don't care about that. It's so fake. Look, media, just for God's sake, be honest. Be honest in the headlines, be honest in the context of the story. So the Republicans are now brazenly admitting that they hate democracy.

The Arizona Republican Party attorney in the Supreme Court said that allowing more people to vote, quote, puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. In front of the Supreme Court, they said, in essence, democracy puts the Republican Party at a disadvantage. Okay, well, I mean, when they say they're against democracy, believe them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's all the time we got.

Okay, we got another great hour for you guys coming up. And so Francesa, thank you for joining us. Thank you. And tell us everybody where they could listen to the podcast. Oh yeah, listen to the Bituation Room podcast. Wherever your podcast or a 690 Eastern on YouTube and Twitch at Franny Fio. I'm such a boomer. I still like, oh, where do you listen to the podcast?

Anyway, where do you listen to the podcast? That's a perfectly fine question. Okay. And, of course, everybody check out the damage report. All you dragons already know that. All right, we'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.