The Young Turks - Red Grave

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

There have definitely been some surprising midterm election results. The Young Turks interview Adam Green. John Fetterman not only won Pennsylvania, but he also crushed Dr. Oz, in every way possible. Trump is LIVID after the GOP's midterm election performance. Some of the red states are pushing for blue policies. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. Woo! It's a

ice cream. I need to welcome you to The Young Turks, that's the name of this program, and we have fun here. I really hope that there are some Republicans watching today awaiting our melt down. Meltdown. Oh, man. Looks like a lot of you are melting down. Oh, shit. Oh, we were supposed to have a bigger wave. What happened? Trump was supposed to win. It's Trump's fault. Which, by the way, there's some shirts for that.

Hashtag meltdown. All right, jank you're Anna Kasperian. Are we going to have fun today? Yes. Apparently so. We are. So was that an interesting election? Is that blue ice? Well, look, I brought it, I don't know if you saw it, I brought in my daughter's painting. It's a painting of just blue. Really? Perfect day for it, Edwin, we're gonna need it later. We gotta show, we gotta show to people.

Is that blue we see, okay? So look guys, as we're gonna, you're about to find out, things are actually not as good as they appear, okay? Is that blue I see, Chang? Okay, alright, no. So there's a bunch of things not settled yet, but true, you're right, but I can't believe I'm saying this. I can't believe I'm saying this, especially after the meltdown I did have yesterday, not related to the midterm elections, but related to the state of Los Angeles and California. For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel a little bit of optimism.

No, that is unprecedented, ladies and gentlemen. It is. Okay, I mean, you guys know the salt dragon. I am. Optimism out of Casper? I know. Oh man, that is a hell of a thing. Well, it's still very much true that it's likely the Dems will lose the house.

The thing that I'll say is the most interesting development has to do with like prominent right wing figures turning on Trump to boost DeSantis. And that's where I see a little bit of optimism. We're going to talk about it later in the show. I think that's probably one of the most important developments in the country, to be honest. Okay, number one, we're going to talk about it. Number two, if Casper has an ounce of optimism. Just an ounce. Okay, you can multiply that by 2,000 for me.

Right, so here comes optimism. Okay, so we'll talk about that tonight too. All right, let's do it. All right, so let's begin with some surprising midterm developments, stuff that we, I guess, to some extent, did not expect. So Donald Trump had a bad night during the midterm elections. In fact, if you look at the candidates he endorsed, promoted, those candidates did not fare so well. If you compare them to the traditional Republicans who Trump has turned on, those Republicans did really well. So, for instance, why don't we take a quick look at the great state of Georgia where, yes,

Brian Kemp did in fact win against Stacey Abrams. So that's sad news, but take a look at his lead. Okay, so he's at 53.4%, and Stacey Abrams is at 45.8%. This is relevant because he did really, really well, despite the fact that Trump attacked him pretty viciously because he wouldn't do what Trump wanted him to do and helping him overturn the election to Trump's favor. Now let's take a quick look at the Senate race between Walker and Warnock. And if you look at this, it's too close to call. This is going to a runoff election. So there is no winner because no one passed 50%. But nonetheless, Herschel Walker, who was promoted pretty vigorously by Donald Trump, is at 48.52%.

Raphael Warnock is at 49.42%. So, Jank, do you want to jump in on this? Oh, God, damn, right, I do. All right, guys. So this is, we start with this because this is the most important election, not just in terms of determining the Senate with Walker Warnock, very likely will, because it looks like Democrats are going to lose Nevada. and then if they win in Arizona, which they're expected to do, given where it is, here we go again, Georgia runoff would decide who holds the Senate. But more important than that, look at the gigantic difference between a sane Republican and an insane Republican. And so I'm not a fan of Brian Kept to say the least. I think almost all the Republicans have radical ideas.

But he is, so a lot of people throw around, including us, the word fascist. So what do we mean by that? What I call Brian Kemp of Fascist? No. So he's maybe like a reactionary Republican and he does the voter purges, et cetera, et cetera. But he doesn't deny that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. He doesn't make up evidence after an election. He's just he's attached to reality as opposed to being detached from reality. Now Walker, on the other hand, is on Team Trump, fully detached from reality.

And in the same state on the same night, that made an eight and a half point difference. Wow, 200,000 people in Georgia showed up and voted for Kemp and said, I am not voting for Walker. Yeah, that is pretty incredible. It's almost exactly 200,000 people. So Trump indisputably cost them 200,000 votes in Georgia, cost them a gigantic eight and a half points. That's what I am now calling the Trump quotient. So that makes picking Trump in a Republican primary political suicide. You're costing your own team eight and a half points before anything even starts.

So Republicans have at it, Haas. If you want to do that, you're playing with fire. And so me, I don't want to play with fire when it comes to democracy. I just rather have Trump not run or losing their Republican primary. But Republicans, it is a guarantee that you're going to lose, even if it's, okay, in Georgia, by the way, is a perfectly representative of purple state for the whole country. It doesn't get any more clear than this. You're going to cost yourselves eight to half points indisputably. Have at it if you want it.

I mean, Pennsylvania is another good example, right? And I think that what happened with Mehmet Oz in the Senate race against Federman in Pennsylvania is kind of indicative of what we're talking about here. So in the Republican primary, even though Trump was just asked over and over again by other members of the Republican establishment to not endorse Oz, he did it anyway. And Oz really attached himself to Trump during the Republican primary in that race. But once it got to the general election, Oz had to kind of backpedal, really, and try to find a ways to disconnect himself from Trump. And he clearly didn't do a good enough job because Federman won.

And the other thing I'll just mention, we're going to have a longer conversation about that particular race later in the show. I noticed John also tweeted this and I was thinking it myself. Turns out making fun of disabled people who suffered from a stroke, not so popular. Not a great campaign strategy, especially in a country where lots of people suffer from strokes and go through the recovery process. I mean, I can't believe he even thought that was a good idea, but I'm glad he did it. But Republicans can't help themselves. They're always going to go to the most vicious attack. But to the Republicans who said, he can't even speak, look at him, of course, no way, right?

Well, he just beat your guy. And why did he beat him? Let's be honest, it's because Trump picked a loser. Trump always picks losers, including himself. And so, look, the reason I'm elated today is because the main message of last night's elections was sanity. The Democrats did not do that well against sane Republicans, but they did really well against insane Republicans. And so we might actually get back to a country that is not on the edge of fascism. And that would be amazing. And that is where I find a little

bit of optimism. Yes. So that's where the optimism lies. Now let's move on to other surprising takes from last night. So let's get to this congressional race in California's 47th district. This is a newly drawn district and unfortunately it is not working to Katie Porter's favor. Katie Porter is one of my favorite members of Congress. She has the right economic policy ideas. The mainstream Democratic Party was a little critical of her because she broke with the party in advocating for the salt deductions, which I actually agree with her on that. Even though those deductions, of course, benefits some wealthy people.

There are all sorts of working people who are not wealthy in states like California, who really relied on that deduction. and doing away with it was obviously retaliatory tactic by Donald Trump when he passed his tax cuts for the rich. Nonetheless, because this is a newly redrawn district, it is a tight race. The results are not complete yet. They're still counting ballots because California, of course, allows mail in voting. But Katie Porter, as it stands right now with 47% of the vote in, is at 50.28%. And her Republican challenger, Scott Baugh, is at 49.72%. It is close, razor thin. And we don't even have all the votes in yet. So I'm actually scared about this race.

So there's complicating factors in New York and California where the Republicans probably did best, those two states. Now, it's interesting because there was among the two most Democratic states. But that means that Democrats have more to lose, right? So when the Republicans pick up any kind of momentum, they're probably going to pick it up in places like California and New York. Now, the Sean Patrick Maloney race we're going to get to in New York that's also potentially indicative. Every race has its own dynamics, including the redistricting the Nana mentioned in Porter's race. But there is one other dynamic, which is crime. And around L.A. and around New York City is where you see the biggest,

impact. Hockel should have won in a landslide. She wins by about five or so in New York. She won comfortably, but it was supposed to feel. Not, but not nearly comfortably enough in a New York governor's race. Got called all the way at one o'clock in the morning. That was way, way closer than expected. And then you see the Maloney race and you see Katie Porter out here. So some of the things that we were concerned about economy and crime were still issues. They were just covered up by Donald Trump's circus tent, right? So he, since he pitched a giant circus tent in the middle of the election and clowns were running around, we got distracted, especially by his clown candidates.

But when there wasn't a clown candidate in, we have really tight races like this. Yeah, absolutely. So let's get to Sean Patrick Maloney because I think this is an interesting race for the reasons that you mentioned, Jank, but also it's an interesting race because of who he was as a politician. So Sean Patrick Maloney is a Democrat. He also happened to be the chair of the D-Triple C. He was voted out in a humiliating loss. The GOP state lawmaker by the name of Mike Lawler won that race.

So how did Lawler do it? Well, he did attack Maloney on crime and inflation. Lawler's key platforms of combating crime and tackling inflation mirror those of the party, but resonated especially well in the new state. 17th district, which includes parts of Westchester County along with more ex-urban counties like Putnam and Rockland. It encompasses several diverse communities, including a large and politically active Orthodox Jewish voting block.

The area also has a large proportion of households with first responders, law enforcement, or military members. And so I'm sure the anti-crime message resonated deeply with the individuals living in that district for obvious reasons. But, Jank, what do you think about this? I mean, obviously it's not good to have a Republican win, an additional Republican member of Congress. At the same time, Maloney as chair of the D-Triple-C made some bad decisions. 100%.

So the chair of the D-Triple-C's job is to make sure that as many Democrats as possible win in the House. And so instead of doing that, when there was redistricting in New York, he did not stay in his own district. He decided to go into Mondair-Jones' district for two different reasons. One is he thought that it would be safer, oops. Number two, he thought if I push Mondare out and he wouldn't dare run against me because I'm going to have all the money in the world, he's probably going to go to Jamal Bowman's district. That way we are guaranteed to eliminate a progressive. Remember, democratic leadership, you'll never hear this on cable news. But with maneuvers like what Sean Patrick Maloney did, it's very clear and they make it clear every time.

And they also make it clear in their spending, we show that to you in every race. They hate progressives. They despise progressives. So Maloney thought, I'll be cute. You know what? I'll f around, okay? And I'll push Mondera out. And Mondaer Jones did wind up going to a different district, not Jamal's.

And he should get credit for that, by the way, that he didn't go into Bowman's district. And then, but he did wind up losing. So he loses. And then Maloney's like, all right, I got all the cops and the firefighters. And I got a safer district. I'm a conservative Democrat. So, man, those cops and firefighters are going to love me. Are they?

Are they? By the way, Max Rose and Staten Island, another very conservative Democrat running around telling him about how great Republicans are, lost by like 30 or 40 points because, because it turns out his voters believe them. They're like, oh yeah, you're right, the Republicans are better. I'll vote for them instead of you. Right. So Maloney, after Fing around, he found out. So if you said to me, do you want him to win the race or not? Yes, I would have said, of course I want him to win the race, because I don't want the clown show to take over the House, but if you said to me, hey, X number of Democrats are going to lose, which Democrat would you like to be in that batch? I probably would add Sean Patrick Maloney

near the top of that list. So by Felicia. So the one of the race I wanted to bring up is the Senate race in Nevada against Adam Laxalt and Catherine, who's the Republican in the race, and Catherine Cortez Mastow, it looks as though the Republican is going to win. We have 77% of the vote in. It has not been called yet, but he does have a lead. He's at 49.9% to Mastos, 47.2%. Yeah, I think it's going to be tough. Unless they get all votes from, you know, predominantly Democratic counties in Nevada going

forward, it's always possible. But it looks like the Republicans are going to win that seat. Now, last night when she had the lead, I had filled out my pool. And that was one of the only ones that I had gotten wrong because we thought Cortez-Maso was going to win. And I was like, I'm kind of surprised by that because she's one of those lettuce candidates. Just like a head that just sits there and does nothing, right? And so that's a classic Democratic candidate.

I exist. I'm a Democrat. Republicans are bad guys. She's very enthusiastic and happy, though. Yeah, she does like she did nothing during the campaign. She's done nothing as a senator, nothing, nothing, nothing. In other words, a very classic Democrat, right? And I was like, and those guys almost always lose.

So running against a non-insane Republican, I was like, that seat's not at all safe, right? And so it turns out, yep, and now that's probably a loss of one seat. We pick up Federman's seat, a seat in Pennsylvania, the Federman won. So we're back to even and Warnock and Hersch Walker will decide who had. the majority in the Senate, very likely, especially if Mark Kelly finishes off Blake Masters in Arizona. But the point here is, guys, look, again, it was Trump's fault. Because if they had not run clown candidates, the Democrats would have lost a lot more seats.

When you have a standard Democrat versus a standard Republican, the Republicans won, if we're being honest. That's why the election results are not as good as they appear. But the reason we're related is because it makes it even starker that it's definitely Trump's fault. And so that might mean that fascism is closer to being expelled from American politics. I like to think of the midterms this time around as having the Sarah Palin effect. Because Sarah Palin was so incompetent that when she was set to debate Joe Biden, everyone

thought she was gonna bomb, that she was gonna do so poorly. It's like right before the midterms, everyone thought there was gonna be a red wave. And when it didn't end up being as bad as we expected, it's like, yeah, we're still losing the House likely, but we didn't lose as much, yeah. And we might even still lose the Senate, but yeah, right. And by the way, losing the Senate would be disastrous, especially when you consider what the Senate mainly does, which is confirmed federal judges. So having Republicans in charge in the Senate would be, again, a disaster.

So, all right, well, we are going to take a quick break. But when we come back, Adam Green will be joining us to continue this discussion on the midterms and the analysis around it. So stick around. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jay and Anna with you guys. Also, Billy Truss and Otto Behurst. They just joined because they're kind of American heroes. They hit the join button below on YouTube, and of course you could do it on t.com slash join. All right, we've got an exciting guest for you guys.

Today we had an exciting election last night. Adam Green is with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and obviously they were tracking this election and they back progressive candidates. So very interesting to see what his take on this is. Obviously, everybody's got different range of opinions as to what happened last night. Adam, welcome back to the show. Hey, good to be here. All right. So, you know, we've got a lot of variety of different outcomes, right, in different states, different candidates, Republicans have won some, Democrats have won some, overall Democrats hold better than we expected. What's your main takeaway?

Well, I start off with a side of relief that I think democracy got two year lease on life after last night's election, fingers crossed. But, you know, it was not supposed to be close. I think a lot of the pundits got it wrong with a lot of stuff they were saying on the front end. You know, I don't think this was an election about gas prices. It was not an election about any one issue or any one person. It really seemed like what we witnessed on Tuesday was this organic uprising by people who just saw their fundamental rights being taken away by this extremist Republican Party. And I think some Democrats are giving the Democratic establishment too much credit here, where what we really saw were voters saying, we don't know what we think about Democrats, but we know for sure they're the only party that gives us a hope to advance democracy rights, economic rights. abortion rights and just the right to exist on this planet. So that's my starting point, just that this was kind of a white blood cells attacking something.

Like it was regular people rising up, giving Democrats a two-year shot to do a little better. Yeah, you know, the thing that as you were talking, the thing I realized was that these midterm elections really broke with the paradigm that indicates that midterms usually work against the party that's in charge. And to some extent, some of these elections did work against Democrats, right? There's still pretty good chance that Republicans will take control of the House. Less likely with the Senate, but that's still up in the air as well. But nonetheless, Democrats didn't lose as much as we expected them to. And to me, that really does communicate that the lunacy of the extremist wing of the Republican Party did scare voters into

to get in active, showing up to the polls to make their voices heard. And I, even I underestimated how much the rollback of abortion rights would impact this election to the, you know, favor of Democrats, right? We saw a little bit of an uptick in their polling after the reversal of Roe. But then that kind of started to taper off as we got closer to the midterm. So I was kind of thinking it's not going to have that much of an impact. But what's your read on that? Do you think that that one issue really did help the Democrats avoid losing as much as we expected

them to? I think that that issue put a lot of energy behind Democrats, but I don't think a lot of people who came to the polls were only voting on that one issue. Again, I think it was this gut level, visceral sense that a whole swirl of fundamental rights were being taken away with that being among the most prominent, right? But I mean, we're having a democracy crisis right now, whatever that means to individual people, whether it's the fact that when there's a school shooting, there's no conceivable way to pass a gun law, whether it's these people that live in districts where their vote doesn't really

matter because it's an 80-20 district one way or another, or there's the Supreme Court going on a rampage against other fundamental rights. I mean, so many things just seem wrong that I think a lot of people just came out of the woodwork to fight back. And abortion was one of the main kind of juicing factors. You know, one of the things that I've been kind of getting prepared for this last week were the knives to come out for progressives after the election, which happened every single year, right? And win or lose, somehow something is progressives' fault. And I do think that the deck got scrambled a little bit yesterday. And the good news is that progressives aren't getting as attacked today. Maybe they're waiting for tomorrow as they get their ducks in a row. But I do think

that there's almost a overly congratulatory, self-congratulatory sense among Establishment Democrats that, oh, because we did better than expected, somehow that means we did everything right the last two years. Part of our message is, no, despite the fact that corporate Democrats delayed the centerpiece economic agenda for a year so that it wasn't being felt by voters by election day. And despite the fact that we went too small on too many issues, we nonetheless happened to do well because good people came out to vote. But again, I would frame it as a two year lease on life. They've trusted the Democratic Party to write the ship to go bolder faster. And now the question is, will the Democratic Party get the right lesson? Or will we have a push back to

austerity times or just in a minimalist direction? Hopefully not. Yeah, I know, I think it breaks down for the Democrats into two different issues, right? So there's the democracy and abortion that they ran on for most of the campaign. So I think it is, my take on it is that it's fair, to give them credit for that because those did seem to make a difference, especially when they were running against the more mentally unstable Trump candidates, right? That's where the democracy message really resonated, right? So because they were running against election deniers, et cetera. On the other hand, if the lesson they take away is, hey, on the economy and other issues

that affect everyday America's lives, we nailed it. Well, if that was true, wouldn't they have won in Nevada? And, you know, that was a very standard, standard Republican versus standard Democrat race. And it looks like the Democrats are going to lose. And that was their incumbent. So they should have held on to it if they had done well. And then you've got Beto O'Rourke, Stacey Abrams, and every race has its own dynamic. But in a lot of places where they ran standard Democrats without the help of, you know, a reality denying candidate on the other side, they didn't do that well.

Yeah. I mean, you're naming some of the high profile ones. There were, I mean, if you, you know, watch Steve Kornack and MSNBC, there's all these races that you probably never heard of where random Democrats are winning seats and random Republicans are losing seats. You know, I don't know as cut and dry is what you're saying, but I think you're right that, you know, the more that they have absolute crazy people on the ballot, it seems to have been responded to by by voters. All I'm saying is that I don't want Democrats to get the wrong lesson. You know, I guess there is a distinction between message. And doing stuff, right? So, you know, was the Democratic messaging perfect on abortion since the Dobbs leak and the Dobbs decision? I don't really think so. I mean, honestly, it took the White House a while to even talk about it. And there could have been a bunch of votes in the Senate to make contraception of the law of the land, do other things that would have been logical extensions of what just happened in the Supreme Court case that wasn't done and didn't really keep abortion front burner. And then to Anna's point, we kind of saw abortion receipts. from the news and, you know, it looked like it might not be a motivating factor for voters. Well, luckily it was enough, but will Democrats, you know, kind of rest on the messaging that we got kind of right up until now, or will we be bolder? And I don't know the answer to that, but our hope is that, you know, again, if you just look around Democratic establishment talking point world, like there's a lot of self-congratulatory stuff going on right now that worries me because that's a signal that we just won't be doing enough and we need to get a lot more done,

Right, do we go, do we go smaller or do we go bigger, faster? And I'm in the second camp, obviously. Well, Adam, I just want to touch on the data for progress polling that came out yesterday, right? So talk to us about how Social Security polled, minimum wage polled, these economic issues, and how much better the Democrats could have done in places like Nevada if they'd run on those issues. Yes, this is interesting. So there were so many things kind of, again, ducks that progressives were getting in a row to make sure. that we had strong responses to the inevitable corporate Democrat attacks after the election.

And we commissioned two polls, the Progressive Change Institute, basically asking people first, what's your top priority as you vote? And then for the people who said inflation was their top priority, we said, okay, here's a bunch of things that have been proposed to deal with inflation. Which ones do you support? Which ones do you oppose? One of the things that we asked was, okay, some people say we should cut Social Security as a solution to inflation, to take money out of the economy. Well, surprise, surprise, by 15 to one, the inflation voter said, no, no, no, that's not what I mean when I'm voting on inflation. When we asked them, oh, okay, should we increase social security benefits to keep up with the rising cost of inflation? By nearly 10 to 1, they were like,

yes, we want more money, right? Should we increase the minimum wage by huge margins? Yes. Should we crack down on corporate price gaugers by huge margins? Yes. So again, a lot of this was intended to play defense because there are really people out there. I mean, I'll tell you, Stephanie Rule on MSNBC, a former Wall Street person, I'll never forget a few months ago, she said, Joe Biden and Democrats are trying to raise worker wages. Don't they know that contributes to inflation, right? And for me, that was just a moment where it was like, wow, we're having two very different conversations in this country. But the Joe Manchin types really believe we should take money out of the economy, which means stop helping people. So our data

it pretty much says, no. Even the people who prioritize that issue going into the polling, they, you know, the polling places, they want more money in their pockets. And I agree with you. You know, if people like Catherine Cortez-Mastow were more robust in standing for that proposition, we'd likely likely get more working people on our side and likely fewer polls would say that Republicans can be trusted more on the economy, which is crazy. I want to read a statement from Joe Biden today. Here's what he said about the outcome of the midterm election so far. He said, voters spoke clearly about their concerns, about raising costs, rising costs, the rising costs that they're in, and they need to get inflation down.

There's still a lot of people hurting, they're concerned, and it's about crime and public safety. They send a clear message that they want to preserve our democracy and protect the right to choose in this country. So, you know, he very briefly mentioned other issues that seem to poll as a priority for voters. as we got closer to the midterms, crime being one of them. As we know, Republicans really leaned into crime narratives to try to win some of these races. It worked in some cases, didn't work in others. I'm curious what you think about the Democrats' messaging on crime and public safety. How long do you have?

I mean, on this issue, all day, because I obviously have my own thoughts, but go ahead. Yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I mean, I don't, I think there's a lot of room for Democrats to do better on this. I mean, honestly, I thought Barack Obama did the best retort that I saw when he was in Georgia and pretty much said, look, violent crime is up. But it hasn't been going up two years. It's been going up for seven years. It's not just in liberal states. It's in rural conservative states. And the question isn't, is it going up. The question is, who do you trust you seriously take it on? And he pointed to Herschel Walker and said, do you trust some guy going around with a fake badge playing cops and robbers? Yeah, I thought was just a good way of handing it. No, Adam, I hadn't seen that and that is exactly the right way to respond to it. Because I think the way Democrats had handled it by putting their head in the sand created like this layup situation for Republican candidates. And as we were getting closer and closer to the midterms, it was driving me nuts because you don't have to deny that in certain parts of the

country, there is a crime spike. You also don't have to immediately abandon any criminal justice reform by simply acknowledging that there is a crime spike. You have to compare the way Democrats would handle the crime spike versus how Republicans would handle it. And the way Republicans would, first of all, they haven't even provided a single solution. They just constantly fearmonger about it, but there are no solutions, right? So I have no doubt in my mind that if they took complete charge of Congress, complete charge in these state elections, the issue would continue. It wouldn't get any better. But yeah, I mean, on that issue, on the inflation issue, on all of this stuff that was working against Democrats, I have to say

it is miraculous that they did not lose more of these races. And I hope they don't learn all the wrong lessons from that. I hope that, you know, what Biden said there was sincere and that they are going to take these issues seriously and respond to them in the way that we would expect progressives to respond to them, you know? Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. I would also point out that one thing Biden said in the same speech today, and I'll just read it, he said, I want to be very clear under no circumstances, will I support the proposals put forward to cut or make fundamental changes to Social Security Medicare that's not on the table. I will not do that. Excellent. So I felt very good about him picking that fight because as our

polling showed, even those who care about inflation are saying by 15 to 1, they want him to pick that fight. And I kind of hope Republicans take debate and engage us in that fight because they will get crushed. So on crime, I just got to tell you, you know, yeah, go for it, go for it. Sorry, last thing here for me. So look, if it said divided Congress, which it likely will be, they'll at least pick up the house, it seems. Number one, what do the Democrats do for two years of the house if they're in the minority? And then as a corollary to that, I mean, last time we interviewed Matt Gates and he said their answer to inflation is going to be to try to cut Medicaid and to make sure that wages

are lower because he said wages are inflationary. So I kind of want to say have added, Hoss. And then, but so what do you think is the right progressive? What should progressives push Democrats are due in those two years? Yeah. I haven't seen the interview. That's exactly what I was talking about. People who say we need to lower wages, as if somebody rolled up their sleeves,

marched to the polls to vote on inflation and voted to cut their own social security and their own wages. It's a crazy theory of the case, but really it's a Wall Street talking point. It's their definition of inflation. And Democrats are foolish if they take it. So one, I think we need to pick smart fights. And that's why I'm really glad that this particular fight on Social Security was picked. Because it is one where we don't have to convince voters what that is.

Similar to the Obamacare repeal fight, you know, if we're on the side of keep Social Security, if anything, expand it. And they're on the side of Social Security. That's a very good symbolic place to pick the fight and make clear just thematically what side, whose side Democrats are on. I think there's going to be a lot of executive actions that we can take where we don't just thematically pick a fight but actually get stuff done. You know, one of the many, many tragic consequences of Joe Manchin, Kristen Cinema, Josh Gottheimer, and the corporate Democrat crew delaying the Democratic economic package for an entire year was that it pushed off Joe Biden using executive action to help people's lives because he didn't want to spook Joe Manchin

when he was looking for his vote, right? It's not an accident that within two weeks of the Inflation Reduction Act passing cancel student debt happened, right? They finally had Mansions vote in the bag, and then they could finally get some big stuff out the door. Well, there's a backlog, right? I'm very hopeful about the things that Lena Khan at the Federal Trade Commission can do to bust big monopolies and take on corporate power and what Roit Chopra at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can do similarly. You know, just give two solid examples. One issue pending for the FTC, did you know that Burger King workers and McDonald workers have to sign a non-compete clause when they take their jobs,

meaning if they want to ask for a $1 raise and a McDonald's worker wants to say, you know, if you don't give it to me, I'm going to I'm going to Burger King. They can't go because they've signed a non-compete. That's crazy. That's probably like a 95 to five issue. And that's something before the FTC that would really speak to millions of working class people out there. And then on the CFPB side, you know, to give one of many examples of these junk fees that banks do, you know, if I write you a bad check, you cash it. Somehow your bank hits you with a fee. Why? Just because they can, right? There's a bunch of things that they do just because they can that represent really cheating people. And I think if we just weigh in on the side of consumers in a way that puts money in their

pocket, that will show that Democrats are on the side of working people and put all that stuff together with the fight for picking with Congress, the Republican Congress maybe, well, going to 2024, maybe we get another release on life for our democracy. So that's my theory of the case. What do you think? No, I love it. Those are exactly the right things to focus on fight on your moral high ground and get things done. So excellent advice from Adam Green. Everybody check out P-Triple-C. We'll have the link down below if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook to their organization. Adam, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Thanks, Adam. Thanks for all you do. Take care. All right, guys. We're going to take a quick break when we come back. A little bit of copium for the Republicans. They're hurt dog. Don't ask him if they're all right. And they're trying to, they're starting to throw Trump out of the bus. Jarams, when we return. All right, all right, back on T.

Jake Uy, Juerre, Anna Casparian, slash news. We begin with right wing copium. When it comes to the state of Pennsylvania, why did Dr. Oz lose? Well, it looks like according to the exit polling, it's because Federman won. Yes, good job, do you see? That's why they pay you the big bucks. Now, that's Fox News offering a very thorough analysis of why John Federman beat Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race. And let's look at the numbers. Again, Fetterman has been declared the winner. He won with 50.5% of the vote. Oz lost with just 47.1% of the vote. Now,

why did Fetterman win so convincingly when most people were convinced that Dr. Oz actually had a fighting chance, especially after the debate where it was clear that Fetterman is still recovering from a stroke. Well, here's one reason. Let's take a look at the great state of Pennsylvania. Oh, look, it appears that there's a bit of a left-wing shift. Hmm. Hmm. And more towards areas that Trump had done better in, and Biden had done worse. So Federman outperforming Biden in more of the rural areas, more of the western areas of Pennsylvania. So that's very relevant to how you run a campaign. Yes. So I want to get back to that. in a second. I do want to say about Ducey. That was hilarious. I wanted to be fair to him,

so I listened to the rest of the segment to see if he clarified, and he didn't. Okay. And so he probably slipped up and meant to say, that's because Fetterman won in all these important demographic groups, but he didn't say that. But it is possible that he's just talking to a Fox audience. He's like, so now when Oz loses, Fetterman wins, right? And the second reason they might have to clarify is because remember, the Fox audience thinks, no, when a Democrat wins, we still win anyway. Yeah, no, that's actually the best defense of Ducey, if you're looking to provide a defense for that insanely dumb comment, right? It's, all right, let's try to ease them into reality. Yeah. Okay, so Federman won because Oz did lose. He lost, okay? Like,

maybe that is it. I don't know. Yeah, that has to be explained to Republicans. And by the way, if that's the case, good on you, Ducey. I apologize for calling your comments stupid. But who knows? The jury's out on what the real intentions were there. Okay, so I also want to discuss how Federman ran a fantastic campaign and decided to campaign on the issues that actually matter to voters. For instance, his campaign platform included things like, you know, more stuff in America,

make more stuff in America, meaning manufacture more stuff in America, cut taxes for working people rather than wealthy individuals and corporations, ban Congress from trading stocks, and I love that one. I would put that at the top of the list, slash out-of-pocket health care costs. Love that one as well. And end immoral price gouging, which is absolutely contributing to inflation. And I wish that there was more of a principled message on that by the Democratic Party. Now, let's get to one other big reason.

Before you do, Anna, I want to talk about that list because there's two giant takeaways from that, okay? One is if you notice the entire list was economic. So while the Republicans and corporate Democrats love to run on culture war issues, right? Anna's been pointing out this entire time, very correctly so, that if you're on economic issues, that's where the Republicans are really weak, because they have no actual place. plan, Federman realizes that boom, does the Casper strategy and wins easily, even though he had a stroke, which is amazing. So the second thing is, and this is really important, and this is very bold, you're gonna

be shocked that I'm bold. But if you have a Democratic candidate, I don't care of Biden's running or not running, that is populist, progressive, and runs on economic issues. You need all three, okay? So Tim Ryan had populace, but he didn't have progressive. Federman had all three, populist, progressive, and ran on economic issues. I guarantee you they win the primary and they win the general election easy. I don't care if it's Trump or DeSantis or anyone else.

They win it easy. You got to run just like Fetterman. So let's go to what people are saying. Here's what people are saying. All right, we begin with one big reason, one of the other big reasons why Fetterman won. We can't talk about John Fetterman without talking about the youth vote. Almost 79% of young people voted for Democrats in the early vote and more than 70% of young people voted for Democrats based off Pennsylvania exit polls. Young voters helped turn Pennsylvania blue.

I told you. I told you. Guys, how many times have I been saying? And I said it after 2020. I said it, you know, when people were dispirited after these different elections, I said, look, young voters are super progress. They're massively progressive. And that wave is coming. And by the way, that's part of the reason why the Republicans are trying to turn fascist.

Because they know in a democracy, that demographic shift, it will end them. The real demographic issue in America for Republicans is not black versus white, it's not gender, it's not any of those things. It's age. Under 45-year-old voters hate the Republican Party. They are very progressive. And so one of the things that I talked about before the election was that Democrats only had two prayers. One was women voters showing up to vote on abortion, especially newly registered women, and number two was the younger voters, because every year, there's

more of them, and here it is in Pennsylvania. Exactly. Now let's get to conservatives, coping, seething, stewing, Buck Sexton. Didn't like the results of this race. People who voted for John Fetterman are why reality and rationality no longer matters in politics. Just party identity and raw power. First of all, it's politics. It is about raw power. And it's about time Democrats understood that and fought as if they understood it. But number two, really you're going to talk about Democrats being out of touch with reality

and rationality? Lauren Bobert, Marjorie Green, Matt Gates, Herschel Walker. Okay, like really, we're having a conversation about reality and rationality. Okay, sit down. By the way, if you read that entire tweet again, you will see that it is 100% projection about Trump. A thousand percent, yes, yep. People who voted for Donald Trump are why reality and rationality no longer matters

in politics, just party identity and raw power fits perfectly. My favorite tweet is from Benny Johnson. He's like, is fetterman going to show up to the Senate floor in a hoodie? Serious question. Is it, is it a serious question? I don't know, maybe, maybe he is. Who cares? Yeah, really, that's your question?

Like, not, hey, are we going to raise wages? Are we going to have health care? Are we going to have paid family leave? But your serious question is, will he show up in a hoodie on the Senate floor? And will Kristen Sinema have the, what kind of bag will she have as she votes for lower wages? Dude, go work at E. They get to ask celebrities about what they're wearing. all day long. So do it. Please do it. I'm sure they'd love to have you, except they wouldn't.

So let's finally go to Maggie Haberman's tweets. She says that Trump is indeed furious this morning, particularly about Mehmet Oz and is blaming everyone who advised him to back Oz, including his wife. Loser! Total loser. Biggest beta I've ever seen. I mean, what does Melania know about politics? I mean, American politics, not Slovenian politics, okay? You're asking Melania? No, he's, he never takes responsibility. He always looks for a scapegoat, he always looks for someone else to blame, including his own wife. Okay, so let's go to the rest of that.

So he's blaming everyone who advised him, including his wife, describing it as not her best decision, according to people. What a loser, what a loser. Ah, I really hope those conservatives who tune in for our meltdowns are watching. Not her best decision. Dude, I mean, look, he's the exact opposite of Harry Truman. Harry Truman said the buck stops here, right? Talking about the president. He's like, buck stops over there, over there, over there.

Del Melania, it's Kanye, to her fault. She made the decision. You passed off the decision to your wife on who should be the senator from Pennsylvania and your wife who clearly doesn't care about politics, doesn't know politics, doesn't want anything to do with politics. And you asked her, she's like, oh, I think Dr. Oz is pretty, I like him. And then she kind of cucked you with him.

And then now you're like upset about, oh, just because you thought Oz, why did you believe Herbert? But besides which, none of that is true. He made the decision. He made it. But he said before. He did. He did make the decision.

I got to give you the second tweet from Haberman. Worth remembering that Trump is a grown man. It's hard to remember that, but he is. That's true. Who endorsed Oz over the objection of some of the people closest to him and instead went beyond just endorsing and attacked Dave McCormick from the stage at a rally. And I do remember that. I remember when he endorsed Oz.

And every major Republican who commented on it was livid and begged him not to. But he did it anyway, because of course, Melania told him to. Did Melania also tell you to lose the Biden? And then finally, Mike Sington says, the Federman Victory Party served crudite in an awesome troll of Dr. Oz. And there it is. Crudette, garden fresh vegetables, hummus, green goddess dip. Hmm, sounds delicious.

Yummy for our tummy. And serve best with Donald Trump's tears. You know, before Lexonite, he said, if the Republicans win, it's all because of me. But if they lose, I shouldn't be blamed at all. Exactly what a loser week beta would say. Hey Donald, you ever consider manning up and actually owning up to things that you did? No, never, right? You know why? Because you're a beta. All right. Let's, this is probably one of my favorite stories in the rundown. Today, it's all the people who served as loyalists and lap dogs to Trump now turning on him. It's great. A Trump advisor who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity. Remember, a Trump advisor, said some pretty negative things about Trump after the outcome of the midterm elections and says that Trump was furious.

ended up screaming at everyone. But he only really has himself to blame. This anonymous advisor to Trump told CNN, quote, candidates matter. They were all bad candidates referring to the individuals that Trump had endorsed, critiquing many of Trump's hand-picked contenders in key battleground states. In fact, a Republican strategist also spoke to the independent and said this. Tonight's results lie squarely at the feet of Donald,

J. Trump, had he not endorsed extremely flawed candidates in the primary, we would be having an amazing night tonight. Instead, we are losing very winnable races. So let's see how bad Trump really did, okay? Are they exaggerating? Is this hyperbole? I'll give you the details you decide for yourself. The most striking loss for Trump came in Pennsylvania, where Republican Mett Oz fell to Democrat John Federman in what was the most expensive Senate race in the country. Trump endorsed Oz during the contentious Republican primary, effectively pulling through a brutal primary and narrowly into the general election. And by the way, Trump endorsed Oz, even though everyone in the Republican Party was begging him not to, they were saying he was a flawed

candidate, but Trump insisted. And now the chickens have come home to roost. Let's go over to New Hampshire. Former Trump aide, Caroline Leave It, lost to the Democratic representative Chris Popas in what was seen as a highly competitive contest. Looks like the people in New Hampshire looked at her and said, we'll leave it. We'll leave it. In North Carolina. Took me a second, but I love that dad joke.

Okay. All right. In North. Love it or leave it? Well, we have our answer. Now, in North Carolina, Trump-backed Republican Bo Hines lost to Democrat Wiley Nicol in a race that was widely seen as a test of the former president's influence. And in Ohio, Democratic State Representative Amelia Sykes, defeated Republican Madison Giuseotto Gilbert. Jaceto Gilbert.

Josieto Gilbert, who bullishly touted her ties to Trump. And then just going back to New Hampshire real quick, in New Hampshire retired, Brigadier General Anthony Tata, no, I'm just kidding. Brigadier General Don Bullduck lost handily to Senator Maggie Hassan, Sandy Smith, whom Trump also back lost to Don Davis in North Carolina's first district. So he didn't do so great. He didn't do so great. But now we get to the best part of this story, which is all these Republican individuals who, again, were lap dogs to Trump before now turning on him. So, first of all, let's take a look at this super fun Fox News headline, this was a tweet. Conservatives point finger at Trump after GOP's underwhelming election results. He's never been weaker.

Ouch, and you know what? They put that up on true social. Ooh, that stings. I guess people are going to want to re-truth that. Now, on one of these right wing outlets, Rick Sanchez. Antorum had some thoughts about Trump. Let's take a quick look at that. What team do you want to be on?

The team that took a state that four years ago, Ron DeSanis won the state by 10,000 votes, and he wanted by 20 points. And he changed the entire fabric of it with the same set of issues that everybody else in this country was dealing with. But he was able to do something amazing. And I'm looking at the rest of the team.

And you know who the leader of the rest of the team And the rest of the team didn't do well tonight. We're barely, it looks like the Republicans will barely take the house. The rest of the team he's referring to is the Trump team. Yeah, I love how beta these guys are because. I know, he's a little scared to say it. Yeah, no, but what's great about his fear is that so he's never liked Donald Trump. Because remember Trump batted him around in 2016 too.

All these guys lost to Trump. They all hate Trump. Of course they're doing every reporter. And every, like, Republican that turns on them says, oh, no, no, we've had private conversations with all these guys. And they all despise Trump because they're afraid of them and they're weak. And he, and if they even say anything negative, he beats them around and I'm sorry, Donnie. But right?

So now that he's weakened a little bit, it's like the PACs turning on him, right? Like hyenas, right? But even so, he's like, kind of. The other team, the other team. But don't hit me, Donnie, don't hit me. But he's like, he's also, he's getting a little thrill out of it, right? He's like, oh, it's so dangerous. I'm doing something so naughty.

Totally. I saw it in his eyes. He's like, the other team. Is he going to hit me? Is he going to hit me? I think I might get away with it, though. Oh, my God. Oh, are you strong now, Ricky?

Is that what you are you strong now? Am I going to go for it? Am I going to say it? I'm not going to say his name. That's too dangerous. I'm not that naughty. I'm not that naughty. Okay, okay. Finally, there was a thread by Ben Shapiro, and he was a lot more aggressive in his critiques here.

Yeah, a little aggressive, okay, better watch himself. I like it, I like it. So this first tweet isn't about Trump specifically, but I thought it was a good tweet. He says, Republicans wildly underperformed and head should roll. That was my favorite part of it, the part where he acknowledged that they underperformed. and that he wants heads to roll. Now, there is a lot of hope for a Republican coalition, blah, blah, blah, that part I don't care too much about. Let's go to the second tweet. This is the part that's relevant. Trump picked bad candidates, spent almost no money on his handpick candidates, and then proceeded to crap on the Republicans who lost and didn't sufficiently

bend the knee. This will have 2024 impact. Okay, so but remember, Ben is one of the guys who bent the knee, right? Because eventually, yes. Because remember, he used to say that stuff about Trump back in 2015. And he was like, oh, no, I'm not going to support Trump. No way. And then his audience started fleeing. And he's like, wait, where are you going? Where are you going? Okay, yeah, screwed. I mean, I love Trump. Sure, Trump's great. Trump's the best. Sure, yeah. I bet he's a really very stable genius. Oh, this is so humiliating, Ben. Super humiliating, Okay, and so now though, like Rick Santorum, he senses a little blood in the water, and he never liked Trump.

He's been lying for these last six, seven years about backing him, right? So now he's like, oh, yeah, head should roll. Oh, yeah, what's going on here, huh? She's going to have a 2024 impact. But if Trump gets the upper hand in, guys, don't celebrate too early, don't count your chickens before they hatch, this Trump guy is 9,000 lives, right? That's true. And so that Trump's zombie can come back.

And then if he wins, which is not a, which is still 50-50, at least in a Republican primary, then Shapiro, I guarantee it, mark it down in stone. There you go, get another stone tablet, okay? Shapiro will be back to kissing his ass. Yeah. Oh, well, he's the best candidate we have. Well, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, no, but he's really great on economic stuff.

I mean, he really loves tax cuts for the rich, so you really got to support Donald Trump. Yeah, but yeah, okay, so I agree with you on that. when it becomes clear that if it plays out this way, that DeSantis doesn't stand a chance against Trump, of course. I mean, they're going to do what they've already done in the past, which is rally behind Trump, even if they despise him internally, right? But the other thing I want to mention is that there seems to be this like united front in the Republican Party in like uplifting DeSantis. Yes, definitely. And trashing Trump. And it's a little. lot more aggressive and a lot more, you know, you'd have to like read in between the lines

previously and it wasn't a United Front, whereas now they just say it. They're pretty explicit about it with the exception of, you know, Santorum in that clip. But yeah, I mean, I noticed all sorts of right wingers that are like, for the longest time looked at Trump as if they were, they saw him as their daddy, like Cernovich. Cernovich had like a tweet that was like vicious toward Trump, and it's like, it's Ron DeSantis' time. Like, sit down, old man. He didn't say that, but it had that feel. And I was like, when the hyenas turn, it is, it's great to watch.

It really is, it is. Yeah, and so, and Anna is right, every level, right? Yeah. So you've got now all of a sudden some of the politicians, the pundits, right-wing media, right? And most importantly, Murdoch. So New York Post putting a picture of Ron DeSantis up and saying, the future. Okay, so they're all trying to push Trump overboard because for the first time they get a sense that maybe we could do it. Maybe if we all banded together and we all push at the same time, we could push him over.

But you know what? Like I said, be careful because he could come back and remember the voters love him in a Republican primary. Not in a general election, but in a Republican primary, he still has like a super, you know, strong. of voters that back him. So if these guys lose, Trump's going to go one by one and take off heads, right? Heads will roll. Heads will roll one way or another. So now, and last thing on this guys, Ron DeSantis is now ironically put in a difficult position because he can't not run. Every Republican is telling him, run, you've got to run. Now if he doesn't run, he's a coward. Yeah, that's That's actually a really good point because he's getting all that encouragement and to avoid

running, I mean, it would be abundantly clear that he's terrified of Trump. Yeah, and that's- And that's beta. That is beta. And you don't know that you're gonna get this kind of opportunity four years from now or ever again. I mean, you gotta do it when you're peaking. And if he doesn't, that means he's still scared of Trump. That means he's weak and I don't think that you can recover from that. So this is make or break decision for DeSantis.

If DeSantis gathers up his courage to run backed by all these guys, then it's going to be the like 85 to 90% of the Republican Party versus Trump. And I don't know who wins that battle. Well, there is one person who is still raising her hand to say, no, I will continue serving as Trump's lap dog. We'll tell you who that is when we come back from the break. We're not going to own it. I'm not going to own it. That's what I do. 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. Thank you.