The Young Turks - Refugee Cap Raise

Episode Date: April 17, 2021

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Communications director at Ultraviolet, not a big deal, leading national women's organization, kind of a big deal. She also hosts a podcast, there are no girls on the internet, yet here she is. But okay, and the last one, last episode was fittingly about Brianna Taylor and how the officer was part on that signed a book deal. But good news for you guys, we're also going to talk about that today. Bridget, how you doing? I'm doing great, so excited to be here.

Rock and roll, we're excited to have you. All right, so Johnny Pie, legendary Daddy Dragon, I'm ready to get right to it. You ready, let's do it. I'm less ready than I was before you said that, but I'm gonna push through, okay? Power panel, I can't just stop. Okay, let's talk about it. Throughout the week, people have been wondering, what's up with that whole Joe Biden raising the refugee cap thing?

Like he said he was going to do it. He promised it multiple times. And John Oliver had a great segment on his show last week tonight, asking him for him to actually do the thing that he said he was going to do. And lots of people started talking about throughout the week. On the damage report, we did multiple segments on it. And so we wanted clarification. And earlier today, the Biden administration, the administration gave that clarification at long last. President Biden has decided not to lift the cap on refugees for the current fiscal year from the level set by the Trump administration, according to a senior administration official, abandoning a previous proposal to Congress to allow more refugees to come to the United States. Now, there is some

breaking news, but not necessarily clarifying news. So we will get to that in a second, but I want to give you the news that broke earlier today, starting with what we said. In addition, he plans to keep the refugee cap at 15,000 that figures a historic low set by Donald Trump. So it's not even one human being more than what Donald Trump would allow. Earlier this year, Biden had proposed to Congress lifting the cap up to 62,500. He has pledged to raise it to 125,000 for the following fiscal year, which begins in October. Now that might sound like a huge increase, and I guess it sort of is only because of how much the cap has been lowered over the past few years. But it is very much in line with just the normal

amounts of refugees that were being brought in during the latter years of the Obama administration. On that 62,500 number, one of the reporters for the Washington Post noted on Twitter that that number was actually a pro-rated figure for a fiscal year that was half over. And apples to apples comparison is that Biden had already pledged 125 and has now decided to stick with 15,000, which is, as she points out, a huge drop. Now he is going to change the regional allocation of refugees. Under Trump's directive, strict restrictions were placed on accepting refugees on certain African and majority Muslim countries. So sure, the number might be basically zero, but it'll be basically zero people coming in for more countries. And many people, I think quite

reasonably, lost it over this because not only did he make the promise during the campaign, and not only did he get goodwill by promising to turn against something that motivated a huge amount of anti-Trump sentiment. But even very recently, like during the town hall he did what, like a month ago, he had this to say. With me into Sierra Leone. Come with me into parts of Lebanon. Come with me around the world and see people piled up in camps. Kids dying, no way out. Refugees fleeing from persecution. We, the United States, used to do our part. We were part of that.

We're, you know, send me your huddle masses, come on. Now that might sound bad with the news of today, but bear in mind, he kept saying come with me to those countries. He didn't say then come back to the United States, just stay there, I guess. Now, the press secretary did put out a sort of statement saying the president's judge, directive today has been the subject of some confusion. Last week he sent to Congress his budget for the fiscal year starting October 2021, which honors his commitment. For the past few weeks, he has been consulting with his advisors to determine what number of refugees could realistically

be admitted to the United States between now and October 1st. Given the decimated refugee admissions program we inherited and burns on the Office of Refugee Resettlement, his initial goal of 62,500 seems unlikely. So it's all about Trump, blah, blah, blah. While finalizing that determination, the president was urged to take immediate action to reverse the Trump policy that banned refugees from any key regions to enable flights from those regions to begin within days. Today's order did that. With that done, we expect the president to set a final increased refugee cap for the remainder of this fiscal year by May 15th. Which, look, that was pitched as clarifying what was already out there, but it definitely doesn't just do that. This seems

like someone shifted into reverse and began, then just hit the gas there. And I hope, This most recent update is the final honest commitment to raise it, but what do you both think? All right, well, so let's let's understand why we did this, or as Joe Biden would say, come on. All right, so a number of Republican votes he'll get by keeping Trump's brutal refugee camp, approximately zero, none, none. This is old 1990s way of thinking, triangulation. I'm going to get Republican voters. It barely worked back then. It certainly doesn't work now. We're far too separated in our different tribes for Republicans to go, oh, I love the brutality of Donald Trump, and Joe Biden gave me 5% of it. So I'm going to vote for him instead of the

next brutal Republican. It ain't going to happen. So going. An inch right wing is almost completely pointless. Yeah, there are some shades of independence in some suburbs, et cetera. But you know, you're much, much, much better off turning out your base than trying to get seven Republicans in the suburbs, right? But they've never understood that. By the way, Biden barely won this election. Forty-three thousand votes in three states made the difference. So it's not like, oh, well, Biden won an election, so he must be a genius.

No, he almost lost to Trump. Okay, so now why is he doing it? It is because of triangulation and it's because of this is really important. The media and pressure. So why do you think we're having a conversation about immigration and refugees? Because the right wing said, oh, Christ at the border, crisis at the border. Oh, my God, there's too many immigrants in the country, right? And then all the media picked it up.

And then Jen Saki kept getting asked about it in the White House press conferences. And then next to you know, it's the old Fox News trick, they talk about it enough. Then CNN and MSNBC start talking about it, and they feel they need to react. Now, that's the giant pushback from the right wing. And from the left wing we got, as usual, the sound of silence, right? So since there was no pushback from the left, he's like, well, I got these guys locked up. And they're totally veal penned, they're not going to criticize me ever on anything. So I might as well just start heading right wing, right? And if you're old school politicians,

politician, that makes a lot of sense, right? That is why you need to create pressure from the left. Now, good news on this is, after he made this announcement, instantly, there was pressure from the left. So ASC, Ilan, Omar, and others, thank you, stepped up to the plate and took on Biden very aggressively on this. Yeah, Jank, I completely agree with you. I think that this is an attempt by the Biden administration to sort of appease conservatives. But I don't think that that's ever going to happen. I think, you know, this was a promise that he ran on and that people voted for him in a pandemic, might I add, based on this promise. And so I think he would be much smarter to really play to the people who turned out the vote, many of whom are black

and brown folks, black and brown women who did the work of going out to vote and getting their communities to vote. I don't want to see Biden like trying to cowtow to conservatives and Republicans just to just to sort of try to kind of woo their votes, I don't think it works that way. I think he's completely wasting his time and selling out the people who actually voted for him at the same time. Yeah. And look, we will have to keep watching this to see what they end up doing. I've been looking at the press secretary's Twitter account and it's a whole bunch of, oh God, why are you all freaking out? Like we got all these steps planned. We're going to do all this great stuff. Okay, well then tell that to all of the sources inside of the administration.

that have spent the last week saying that Biden's terrified of political pressure and all of this. Like it's senior administration officials, sure, they could be totally making it up, seems more likely that they're backpedaling. And I, I want this to potentially serve as a lesson to our audience who needs it less than pretty much anyone else. There was this, you can see it in the headlines, there's this belief that, well, Kaylee McEnany was a massive liar, but now we've got a woman of perfect virtue who would never tell us a myth. mistruth or anything like that. And oh God, look at the sake bombs. They're awesome and all of that. No, she's a press secretary. She's a professional liar. She might lie a little bit less

egregiously than Kaylee McEnany. It would be difficult not to. That said, she is covering for Biden. That's it. And sure, in this case, maybe the end result is good, but we need to have an adversary relationship. In this case, it seems like the adversary relationship is the only thing that's going to result in more refugees actually coming to this country. But now we need to apply the lesson of this to having Biden actually acknowledging the blockade in Yemen, actually making good on his promises around student loan debt cancellation, a ton of other things like that. And so hopefully this isn't the only instance where there will be a strong enough reaction to provoke him to actually make good on his promises. Yeah, you know, John, I just want to say last couple of things here.

One, I want to back out what you're saying about the White House spokespeople in 100%. So they all are, and the media pretends like they're all incredible truth tellers. It's absurd. It's a Kabuki theater that they play. Jay Carney used to be Obama's press secretary, then he went to work for Amazon, and he recently put out statement saying that like pretending that Amazon is more progressive than Bernie Sanders, and that he's for a higher minimum wage. Well, you had eight years during the Obama administration to push for a higher minimum wage, and you never did.

So yeah, of course, I mean, by the nature of that job is you've got to lie at least a little, but often a lot. And so now in terms of the comment you made about Biden's panic, I think that's the most important one because he's panicked about the reaction he's seeing in the media and the pushback he's getting from the right wing, okay? Now what does that tell you if you're on the left wing? That you should do likewise, that that is how power is. wielded, that is how you have leverage, and they don't respect you if you just sit there and go,

oh, yes, sir, absolutely, sir, anything you want, sir, that means they ignore you. But if you create trouble for them, and on the left we can create good trouble, then they've got to respond. I'm gonna give the last word to one of our viewers here. If you're in the member section, sometimes we read your comments in the middle of a story, t.yt.com slash join to join. Colorado Blueblazer Regular is a little bit more skeptical than we are and wrote in, I wish my thesis was incorrect, but once again it seems to be proven, Republicans initiate vile and punitive policies. Democratic administrations come in to normalize those vile policies. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I will try to keep it brief, but we can see that in a million

different ways, even like the re-raising of the corporate tax rate. Like taking it down from 35 to 21 is insane, taking it back up not even the whole way. Oh, well now responsible people are in charge. Anyway, I think we've got a thematic link between the story which is finished and the one we're about to start. So this is going to be even more ironic than it initially was going to be. But let's move on to our next story. Some good news for everyone. I read in the hill that Biden has won over skeptical progressives and everything's great between all the parts of the party. That is an actual headline, just in general, there's no issues or anything. So let's see. What is the evidence that is provided? Because of course we have to be fair and evidence is provided. Well, two polls out

earlier this week showed Biden's approval ratings at almost full support. A Quinnipiac University survey showed Biden with support among Democrats at 94%. That's the sort of level of support that Trump would just randomly lie about in a tweet. The results are surprising given the skepticism many progressors had for the 78 year old Biden. But as he approaches, the 100-day marker, Biden has been successful in uniting Democrats behind him. It is such a final statement. Like he's good now, you know, because we passed the COVID aid bill. And so I guess everything's great, no lingering issues with the way that was handled or the lack of the raising the minimum wage there. No future battles over the Green New Deal, anything like that.

It's just done. He succeeded, Jank. It's good to be able to move past that. Yeah, so you know what though, but this story is nuanced, because number one, I believe in polling, number two, if you had asked me to guess, I probably wouldn't have guessed numbers that sky high, but close. I thought Biden is holding the whole Democratic Party really well for now. So now let me explain a couple of important distinctions. So number one, why is he holding the party together so well and it's so popular throughout different wings of the party. Well, number one, first, because he deserves credit for doing some good things. The $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill was large and much larger than Obama's and was a positive step in the right direction. Now, he didn't do minimum wage, but that's going to get to point number two in a second. And he proposed a large infrastructure bill, and he did some positive things we didn't expect like a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. So there are some real reasons for progressives to think.

Not bad, not bad, right? Secondly, and this is the most important part, almost no progressive has criticized Biden publicly. So that means there has been no media of progressives being upset with Biden. So if you're other than us. So if you're that 6% who's dissatisfied with them, probably all young turks viewers. And not because we're against them, but because we're sharing real facts with you guys about things he's doing right, but also things he's doing wrong and things that are not remotely progressing, right? So since none of the legislators are at all pushing back, not even 1% until this refugee cap situation, then everybody thinks, well, I guess everything's hunky dory, so yes, right? Number three reason is a super low bar. After Trump, like,

anybody who comes in and is like not insane, we're like, yes, right? And number four, is Republicans push back in so many insane ways, it makes all Democrats defensive, right? So they're like, Biden is probably gonna be checked into a mental hospital at any moment, and the immigrants have taken over the entire country and replaced us with brown people. So in that context, do you like Biden or don't you? It's hard to vote no, right? If you're a Democrat. And so I think that begins to explain it. Now I think the future is different, but I'll get to that after Bridging. Yeah, I agree. I think when you look at the other side, leadership on the

right, the kinds of things that they're championing, you know, attacking trans youth, they really have nothing to offer. And so I think by, you know, by comparison when we see Biden, who is trying, you know, demonstrating that he is interested in governing and leading, I think it's, I think people are, you know, the bar is very low, like you said. I think, especially coming from Trump, the bar is very low for what a leader looks like. I also think it's important to to note that, you know, he's having this support among Democrats after that COVID relief bill passed. You know, I think that we need to see more of Biden leaning into these big policy changes that will actually have a positive impact on like American families. You know, most people in

this country, things that we think of as progressive or radical, most people actually support those things. People want progressive policies. We want Medicare for all. We want to raise minimum wage. And so I think the times where Biden can really be in lockstep with what people actually want, I think it's going to serve everybody. But I completely agree. I was surprised to find these numbers as high as they were. But I think it is a little bit of an absence of leadership. So now we're just happy and the bar can be a little bit low. Yeah. Yeah, I think, look, you're totally right with the numbers, which look, I was being probably needlessly snarky. It is 96%. But I would also say there's approval and there's approval. Like that is a blanket term that can be applied

to varying shades of acceptance, especially during the, I think we have to acknowledge, honeymoon period of a new president and people, whether I can quantify it or not, being more checked out of politics than they've probably been in some time. You know, so they did get the one big bill through. The idea that it seems like of low utility. Like sure, the poll shows that largely Democratic voters are so far satisfied with him. But like we can learn much more interesting lessons from the one battle that we've had over the COVID bill. What didn't make it in what did? The issues with how that was managed in terms of the parliamentarian, the concerns over the power that people like Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin, their outsized role

inside of the Democratic Party. The like I alluded to earlier, the brewing battles over a ton of different issues, including as is noted in this document, the minimum wage, arms sales, the defense budget, his approach to immigration, what he's willing to do and not do on gun control. There's a lot of things like this. Analyzing that just seems like it holds so much more utility for the future than, hey, the poll shows that he's good. So I guess Bernie's gonna be happy and not cause any problems in the future. I don't know, it just, it seems like a weird stance to take after just a couple of months when we've only had one real fight so far. Like talk about this after the first attempt to put someone in the Supreme Court, you know, after a big battle over

who that should be. Yeah, so John, I hear you, but it's a snapshot. All polls are a snapshot, and I think it's an interesting snapshot. I don't mind it. It is what it is. And guys, we also have to be cognizant of not being too wrapped up in our own bubble. So we know we're neck deep in the news. We know all the details, we know what happened with the minimum wage fight, we know We know all that stuff. The average American you gotta remember is a dentist, right? And so I'm now made the average American a dentist, okay? So they're not following the news as closely as we are or a lot of our audiences.

So they just see whatever they see in a passing glance. And John, that $15 minimum wage thing is just the perfect example because since Giant Paul got all the progressives to stand down. And so did Bernie, by the way. Bernie was a huge part of that. And do not criticize Biden was the message that was sent out. Well, no one, unless they watched the young Turks, saw that he even killed the minimum wage. And if you ask any reporter in D.C. now, is Joe Biden in favor of the minimum wage?

Even though he helped kill it just a little while back, every reporter will say he's in favor of the minimum wage. And if you ask him why, they'll say, well, he said so. He said so, but he took it out of the bill at the drop of a hat. And he got the two Delaware senators to vote no on it. That means Biden doesn't want it. How many national reporters told you that? Zero, because they're not good at their job, okay? And so, and when progressives don't push back, it's, who, who, stop.

Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog. Chili Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now.

August 1st. into the media, progressive legislators, because the media cares about legislators because they have power, right? And so that's why it seems like a kumbaya moment. And to some degree, that's how it starts out. But most importantly, guys, looking forward, the COVID relief bill was exceedingly easy. And so you were not even mansion as cinema couldn't vote against COVID relief bill, right? And so they could put pressure on to make it worse, which they did. right? But they can't vote against it. And so now when we get to the infrastructure bill, and we're talking about raising corporate taxes, Manchin and cinema go, oh, hell no, I raise all my

money from corporations. I will do whatever the Chamber of Commerce says. Now, is Biden really going to fight back against that? Well, we're about to find out. And he says $2.2 trillion. That sounds like an okay number, good number to start with, right? Except that he's starting with it. So when Manchin goes, boo, Biden's going to take it down to $1.1 trillion before you know what hate you. And now all of a sudden you got a tiny infrastructure bill, relatively speaking, and then corporate tax rate, Biden said 28, not 35. Manchin's saying 25, they're going to bring it to 25. That means Trump basically got his way. He got the giant section of enormous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. And Democrats, as always, will then look to make them permanent, okay?

And that's a giant loss. So when Biden does Biden, which he is almost certainly going to do when he runs into actual trouble. Then we're gonna see what happens with progressives and what happens with these poll numbers. But I hope to God I'm wrong and Biden's a new man. And he goes, oh, yeah, I'm gonna break mansion. I'm gonna end a filibuster. We're gonna pass HR1. We're gonna pass the infrastructure bill. I'm gonna raise corporate taxes to 35, whatever it is. I'm here for it. I would love it. And then I would be 110% in favor of Biden. But knowing politics, Biden, and what we know, So it's unlikely. So this kind of feels like George H.W. Bush at 91% after the Persian Gulf War. But that was the most perilous 91% you've ever seen. And it turned out that of course shortly thereafter he lost an election.

Can I add something to that? Something I want to like this plus plus plus that you both have said is that I think most people, the dentists, as you just put it, Jake, I think for a lot of people, especially especially coming out of the Trump administration, just want to be able to ignore the president, want to be able to ignore like the ins and outs of policy and how policy gets formed. And I completely get that inclination that after the last four years of chaos that we've had, why you'd want to just check out. I think a lot of folks are checked out of the ins and outs of how this kind of stuff gets done. And I really think that we should all really take ownership of staying checked in. So when Biden says something and you know that behind the scenes that's not actually coming to pass being able to articulate how we hold him accountable and how we keep

his feet to the fire and not just saying, well, I read in the paper that he supports a $15 minimum wage and I don't know, I guess he does. You know, I think that we're all, I understand the inclination to be a little bit checked out, but I think now is the time we really need to be checked in. Yeah, I'll give last word again to one of our members, t.yt.com slash join to not only become a member, but become part of the show. So John I says 100% a lot, writes in. Quoting Biden to donors, quote, nothing will fundamentally change. And then says, I didn't believe it, but it's not looking great, guys.

$15 minimum wage, nope, sticking it to MSB, nope, war in Yemen, yep. College debt canceled, nope. Kids in cages, yep. Better than Trump, barely. So now he's leaving out some positive things, as we talked about earlier in the segment. But are all the things he said true? Yes. And that's what an educated voter looks like. Agreed. You want to take the first break? Let's do it. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're probably going to talk about police abuse issues.

Well, not probably, definitely. And racial issues. So my good mood will instantly dissipate, and we will have rage. You have that to look forward. 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 on the Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn 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. All right, back during the break, is that a thing? It is a TYT back during the break? Okay, well, we're innovators, that's what we are. It's not a big deal.

Meanwhile, time for American heroes. L.M. Just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. Is she a bit of an American hero? I guess. And then so did Rose, I suppose. Is she a bit of an American hero? I suppose. And Sarah Diaz as well. You guys are wonderful. You make change possible and you make progressive programming possible. That's what makes you a hero.

All right. I'm going to Twitch right away. What happened here? It's Friday. We're having fun. Elder MindPulse gifted 20 subs because they're a wonderful person. Dragon Penny gifted a sub just equally wonderful. Tumbles five months with us tier one and gifted a sub.

Look at all these gifters. Who doesn't like you guys? They have grifters. We have gifters. Lowly Soul gifted two subs. Obie Bob, Konobi. Of course, gifted five subs. Generator says dancing emote. I'm ready. Who isn't? Okay, where's my dancing emote? Just Jen period's been with us 10 months says love the new Twitch set up. Not even familiar with it, but I like that you like it. Po the frickin' ricken dragon, which is nothing but an excellent name, right? It's keeping TYT. Independent with my Bezos Bucks, love you guys. Coolish Reagan, been with us four months, says, listening to We Got People, that's Ryan Grimm's book, which you could, by the way, find

on shoptyt.com. And he continues, and I just got to the chapter where TYT joins the fight. Damn right, we're in the book. And Ryan's the only one who's ever given us credit for raising $2.5 million in that cycle for Justice Democrats and making a lot of that happen. That's why they take our calls now. Oh, right. Anyways, why come we're the, you guys, like not us, you guys are the only donors they don't take calls of. Anyways, the real blue tech gave a thousand bits and you guys are the best. I actually want to give a shout off to Barclay T, who watched yesterday. But Barclay, I see you, man, I see you. I'm still got your comment. I even wrote it down, said, loving the community, we really do make this show together too strong.

Love it. By the way, with us six years through t.yt.com slash join and six months on Twitch, six and six and two strong. Oh, look at this. I happen to have some too strong coffee with me right here, right in front of the camera. Huh. I guess they're progressive and organic and fair trade and delicious. And I guess you'd get them at too strong coffee.com slash tyt. And I guess you'd really love them and help progressive causes. I guess. Thomas with a good point in our member section, Trump's approval rating was over 90% with the Republicans too. Doesn't make him a conservative, he was clearly a fascist. Interesting. Okay, well, we'll be back. on TYT, Jank, John, and Bridget it with you guys. John, forward. Let's do it. America's badly in need of a lesson and how to send money online without identifying yourself to investigators. Matt Gates is learning that, and we're also learning that as the result

of a story in The Guardian about how some active duty cops, including in leadership positions, have been donating to vigilante killers crowdfunding campaigns. We have a data breach to thank for this. It gives and go, a Christian crowdfunding website, that's revealed that serving police officers and public officials have donated money to both the vigilante murderers, far right activists, and fellow officers accused of shooting black Americans. In many of these cases, the donations were attached to their official email addresses, raising questions about the use of public resources in supporting such campaigns. The beneficiaries include Kyle Rittenhouse, who stands accused of murdering two left wing protesters in Kenosha last

August. According to data from the site, he raised nearly $600,000 between the end of August and the beginning of January. One of those donations, which was for $25, was made on the 3rd of September last year, anonymously, but associated with the official email address for Sergeant William Kelly, who currently serves as the Executive Officer of Internal Affairs, the Norfolk Police Department in Virginia. You really gotta wonder what gives and go thinks anonymous means when they still list the person's email address. But anyway, he left a comment saying, God bless, thank you for your courage, Keep your head up. You've done nothing wrong. Every rank and file police officer supports you.

Don't be discouraged by actions of the political class of law enforcement leadership, which is very sweet until you remember, oh wait, the reason that he knows who Kyle Rittenhouse is is because Kyle Rittenhouse went somewhere he didn't belong with a gun he never should have had to kill two people. And then just drive away as if nothing happened. Yeah. Yeah, it's really disturbing. First of all, I just have to say, It really is shocking to me how many police officers and public officials wanted to do something that they wanted to keep anonymous, but then still use their official work email address. So first of all, terrible idea. If you're trying to do something or give money to someone and

be anonymous, maybe don't use your work email address, just a thought. But I really think that something that this really shows all of these public officials and police officers donating money to someone who's accused of killing two people, you know, when you think about policing, These are people who cannot be reformed. We talk so much about the criminal justice system and reforming it. You can't reform something that is this broken. These people are showing us who they are. And the whole thing is rotten. And I also think that, you know, we talk a lot about bad apples. This is one person, this and that. These people who are racist, they are working with your kids in schools. They are patrolling our neighborhoods. This is how they feel, you know, people, the fact that this sergeant in Virginia said that he did nothing wrong when he's accused of killing two people,

I think that we really got to take them at their word, these people who love to talk so much about law and order, yet are championing and supporting someone who's accused of murder. So I really think that we have to take these people at their word, that this is what they stand for, these are their values. And frankly, I'm not surprised to find out how many public officials and police officers have donated to folks like this because that's who they are. These are people who cannot be reformed. The entire system is just completely, completely bad. I was going to swear, but not good. Well, we appreciate you didn't. Okay, so to me, that quote from Sergeant Kelly, the most relevant part of it was when he talked about the political class of law enforcement leadership, because it's, it goes to the mindset

of these rank of file cops. They think, oh, when leadership goes out there in the press conference and says, hey, we shouldn't shoot unarmed black people. They think they're just playing politics, man. Everybody knows we should shoot unarmed black people. And so only if people who were being political would tell you not to do it. And they genuinely believe that. And that's, it reminds me of the Trump voters. Like, hey, finally somebody's saying something everybody's thinking. No, everybody wasn't thinking the racist thing you were thinking, just you were. And Trump was unfortunately about 40% of the apparently was, right? But not 100% of the country. And so in this case, a lot of the cops,

and you see that comment that Sergeant Kelly made, you see it pop up in different ways of phrasing it in a lot of these comments that were left, which is, ah, it's just politics. But Kyle Rittenhouse, UN murdered left-wing protesters to protect property of white people from, because you thought black people were going to attack it. I mean, that's just like America 101. One, thank God, you murdered those left-wing protesters, right? And that's the mindset of, if you think it's still, you still think it's one bad apple, and it's just like Sergeant Kelly and a couple other guys who contributed, man, you don't, like, you obviously, you're either totally clueless about what's happened.

You've never read any of the news. That's okay. But it's just, it's the reality, right? Or you work in news. And you're like, oh, official sources say police are all good apples except every story we cover about them doing horrible things over and over again. But Gala gee, what am I a reporter? I don't see a pattern. They tell me it's a few bad apples. I say it's a few bad apples. Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe we can look into how much cops from around the nation

contributed to the families of the people Kyle Rittenhouse killed. Since there's way more good apples than bad apples, they must have raised a bunch of money for the actual victims in this case. He's also, it's such an extreme position. His position isn't, man, Kyle, written house, oh God, that's rough. But I guess at the end of the day he was defending himself. No, it's he didn't do anything wrong. There was nothing. I mean, first of all, he fled the state. That seems wrong. Even if you believe that he should have killed the people, he did try to not get caught, which seems kind of wrong. But anyway, Brett also wanted me to let you know that as bad as it would be for a guy in internal affairs in a police department to be this horrendously wrong

about murder. This is also the area where the army lieutenant had guns pulled on him. I don't know that this is the police department that is going to be investigating that, but it's not impossible to think that this is the sort of person that looks into use of force incidents to determine if they were acting appropriately when this guy thinks blatant murder and then fleeing the scene is appropriate behavior. More than appropriate, it's worthy of hundreds of thousands of dollars of crowdfunding. In any event, there are a number of other donations going to different cops, including the cop that shot Jacob Blake. And if you want, on the Guardian, they break down many of these cases. But this is a big thing, huge amounts of money are changing hands. And it just continues,

I think the thread that we saw with Kyle Rittenhouse a couple of months ago where he was getting like deals with like online companies and things like that. People want to have these vigilantes on their shirts. They really do admire and look up to the people who are willing to go and kill. Yeah, and I think that's such a good point. It's really harmful and dangerous and frightening. When you think of the fact that Kyle Rittenhouse didn't live in the state, he traveled across state lines to protect someone else's private property. And when you have these law enforcement officials praising this kind of behavior, you are basically going out and saying, we support the public taking the law into their own hands. If you feel like you have been wronged, take

up a weapon and go patrol your street. They're basically giving their support. court to dangerous, murderous, violent vigilanteism. And we should all be afraid of that kind of precedent being set by our public officials. Well, and of course, Bridget, it's only one way street, right? So imagine if black people had taken up arms, gone to a right wing protest, murdered a couple of right wing protesters, and then fled the scene, or fled the scene. How do you think Sergeant Kelly's of the world would have reacted to that? Oh my God, can you even imagine? First of all, if black people took up arms and, and

and like went to the streets, the second amendment would be would be abolished overnight. Can you imagine how some of these people would just respond? You certainly wouldn't have them giving money to their to their legal defenses and things like that. It's even the even just thinking about it is absurd. So obviously it is not a two-way street. Basically what they're saying is if you're white and a male and aggrieved, take up arms and go patrol and we support that. And if you get caught, we'll say you did nothing wrong. We'll say God bless you. We'll say that you have our support. And that's really the message that they're sending.

Yeah, and speaking of fleeing, Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times. That's what started this in the first place. And all those right wingers and all those cops said he had it coming. He was going towards a car, there might have been a weapon in the car. And later in hindsight, we found a knife somewhere in the car to justify a shooting. We never saw the knife, we never, you know, we just saw a black man who turned his back. So we shot him seven times. And they're like, well, he had it coming, he was fleeing.

Dante Wright just killed for fleeing. Kyle Rittenhouse flees, you did nothing wrong. And Kyle Rittenhouse wasn't unarmed. And Kyle Rittenhouse actually did kill people. And they're like, well, of course, fleeing makes sense. I mean, there's left wingers, there's black people there. Poor guy, poor guy, right? And so 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 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.

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I'm not remotely surprised as he cops all across the country supporting Kyle Rittenhouse, even though he's a vigilante, and as Bridget pointed out, that should be the among the top people that law enforcement is concerned about. But it's more about race than it is, of course, about actual rules and precedent and any of that stuff. And by the way, of course, they sent money to Rustin Shesky as well, who's the officer who shot Jacob Blake. So the huge percentage of that police department and other police departments across the country are like, out of boy, way to shoot him in the back. Okay, you did nothing wrong. Anyone who thinks you shouldn't shoot a black man in the back for seven times is playing politics. Yeah, and how many other professions can you think of where when someone is

accused of doing something wrong? So when an educator does something wrong, how many professions are there where it's completely normal for your other coworkers to sort of rally around you and support you in that wrongdoing? Usually when someone is outed for, you know, doing something bad on the job, their coworkers want them to be outed so that they don't, you know, tarnish the rest of the profession. I think it's really interesting how we've just accepted that when a police officer shoots and kills somebody, that we should, that other police officers just support them and rally around them and, you know, go out of their way to make it clear that they don't think anything bad happened. Yeah, no, I love that point by Bridget. And

never really thought about it that way. It's not like if you found a chalmester who's a dentist, all other dentists would be like, way to go, man, okay, no, we're gonna, we got a thin dentist line and we're all gonna rally around him. There's only two professions, cops and apparently coaches or some people involved in athletics. Man, they cover up for doctors and coaches and etc. And that's unfortunately a giant pattern as well. And by the way, Jim Jordan, a wrestling coach, covered up for rampant child molestation of a fellow coach. Why? Not a boy, I mean, they probably had it coming right, man. Yeah, that'll show them, right? And so that, let alone, apparently all the people who knew about Mad

Gates in Congress. He was showing the pictures to half the people in Congress. Nobody ever did anything. So what's the pattern here? Pattern is powerful right wing white men who cover for each other saying there isn't anything that we could do that we would consider wrong because we're not judging based on the merit of your character or your actions. We're just judging on based on whether you're one of us or one of them. Yeah, I just want to throw out one other number before we go probably to our second break. The idea that Jacob Blake might have gotten a knife is enough for virtually every conservative in the country to say that he had to be shot. They don't really complete

the thought, they just want you to believe without them having to say that Jacob Blake was totally going to go into the car, get a knife, and then he was going to rush at an armed police officer to stab the police officer to death. That's presumably what he was was going to do. They don't want to say that because that sounds insane. But, and because someone might get a knife is enough that obviously you should just start shooting people in the back if you think they might have something. I'm looking at the numbers in the officer down memorial page for 2020. There were 343 deaths in the line of duty. 222, two thirds were from COVID. They don't give a damn about it's five times the number from all gunfire. They don't care at all

about doing anything to limit those numbers. They won't even put cloth on their face to get those numbers down, but they believe that you should be able to preemptively murder people because of the, what were there, like four stabbings or something? I don't know, it's just weird what we consider to be threats and what we think is worth actually acting to stop. Anyway, we are getting late into the hour, so I assume we should probably take our second break. All right, rock and roll, Let's do that. And when we come back, unfortunately, we got more where that came from. But we're going to give our perspective on it. So let's come back. Thank you.

All right, back during the break, I found out what we did on Twitch. We got the overlay. How fun is that? Do you get to see the comments? I like it. Apparently you like it. I don't know why I'm talking like this. Okay, it could be. It's been with us for three months using Amazon Prime. I don't know if you guys know this. If you have Amazon Prime, it's free for you on Twitch. But we get the revenue anyway. That's called Bezos Bucks. It wasn't. but it is now. Okay, Good Bean, Rodin, Good Evening All, Love TYT and TDR. That's of course, John Show.

And then look at all these people gifting subs. So they're staring, gifted five subs. A.J. Duana says always five subs. Crazy Hawaiian, could be in Pennsylvania. I don't know, could be. Gifted a sub. Inca Dragon, gifted two subs, BC trumpet gifted five subs and 600 bits. We like the bits, the bits are helpful.

They sound tiny, they're actually really important. Serious business, gifted two subs, a Florida dragon gifted five subs. So hey, look, something good coming out of Florida. Cyphra Shadow Dragon gifted a sub and Maple Dragon gifted two subs. Now I'm going to YouTube super chat. No Nune consequence, or no one of consequence, something along those lines. Anyway, says not even Jim Gordon supported Batman this blindly, and that's a comic book and freaking Batman. So that's a pretty good point. It's true. Batman gets like challenged and

questioned way more than normal cops do in real life. Goblin Dragon. Every once in a while, they'll be like Batman is like Moses. Every once in all, they're like, I don't know, man, maybe we should build a golden calf. Okay, so anyways, Gobling Dragon, this is his opinion, not mine, just writes in Acab, okay, Brandon Butler. says, Jenk, when is your new book coming out? Why, thank you for asking. Unfortunately, the answer is that? I don't know. Is it coming out? I guess. No, I'm kidding. It's definitely coming out, but am I positive of the date? Unfortunately, I'm not. Is it causing me stress? Yes, but do I like you asking about it? Yes, I still do. Why? I'm going to tell you where you can get it.

You can pre-order it right now. It's called justice is coming book.com. Okay, the book is called justice is coming. But in order to get the URL, we had to go, justice is coming book.com. You get it. it. By the way, the more popular it is in pre-sales, the more it moves up the rankings when it comes out. Better progressive books, dude, the more progressive books we have. I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying John I'd Roller's book depends on it, I'm just saying, okay. Careful what you wish for. Do you know what I'm writing about right now? I don't know if that's what we want to associate TYT with. No, I don't even want to know. I'm kidding, what you're writing about.

It's a fantasy novel set in a world of no humans, just animals, like Red Wall. Okay, it's got, it's got some, it's not politics. It's got a furry feel to it. I'm not saying anything. I haven't said of work. Only technically true. Okay, a.k.a. Puffle Cloud just signed American Hero Puffy Cloud. Yes. Back on TYT, Jank, John Bridget, Awesome, Forward. Okay, let's do it. One of the unfortunate constants in America seems to be that when you are a right winger,

you're involved in some sort of needless tragedy or death, there's got to be some way to monetize it. We just got done talking about crowdfunding. Well, there's other ways, including book deals. And one of the cops who was involved in the no-knock raid that resulted, in Briona Taylor's death, apparently had a memoir ready to go. Postal press had agreed to publish Sergeant Jonathan Matanley's The Fight for Truth, the inside story behind the Briona Taylor tragedy. It was to be distributed by Simon Schuster, which has said in a statement earlier Thursday that it had no editorial control over book releases by smaller publishing houses,

for which it provided third party distribution. A spokesperson for that press said, in the case of Sergeant Mattingly, the mainstream media narrative has been entirely one-sided really to this story. And we feel that he deserves to have his account of the tragic events heard publicly as well. Postal Press is standing behind our decision to publish his story. A lot of people obviously had an issue with that. Many tweets. We're gonna show you one from Attica Scott who says, stay focused y'all. People love to profit off of black pain and tragedy. It sells and it looked like that was all that there was going to be. But eventually, because of the pressure potentially, Simon & Schuster put out a statement saying,

like much of the American public earlier today, Simon and Schuster learned of plans by distribution client Postal Press to publish a book by Jonathan Mattenly. We have subsequently decided not to be involved in the distribution of this book, despite earlier saying that they have no power to influence that. They apparently found it deep within and they will not be involved in distributing it. Yeah, I have a really hard time believing that statement from Simon and Schuster. That's almost exactly what they said when there was a big controversy about them publishing Josh Holly's book. So I just am very skeptical that that's actually what's going on. And, you know,

I'm so happy that they eventually said that they were not going to have a role in the distribution deal of this book. But I really think this is one of those stories where we really have to stick with it and ask a lot of probing questions because Simon & Schuster is a huge company. They have so many different subsidiaries. And so my question is, is one of their subsidiaries going to be involved in this distribution relationship? Like, will they ask? actually have no part of it or will it be something else? And so I yeah, I just have a really hard time taking Simon and Schuster at their word that they found out about this when the public did.

They seemed in their statement to almost say that they found out about this book publishing deal on Twitter, which again, I guess that's what they're saying, but I have a really, really difficult time believing that that's actually how one of the biggest book publishers on the world is doing business. So I really want to make sure that like that is clear, even though they say that they are not can I have part in. I want to make sure that that is actually what happens. And it's not just, oh, well, you know, Simon and Schuster will not be involved in the distribution of this book, but our other subsidiary, well, you know, maybe. Yeah, I don't know how many other presses

they do the distribution for. I mean, that would be a very interesting addition to story. I don't know. I do, considering the public conversation, it seemed a bit late in the game to be saying they're just finding out about it. So, but I don't know for sure. Yeah, there is one possibility, guys, that it could be that this is more of a contractual competitive thing. And so I don't know their relationship with Post Hill Press at all. But the way that they mentioned them, it sounded like, hey, we're finding out he had a secret deal with someone else.

And so we're less mad about the social context of it and more mad about the contractual context of it. So that could be it too. So they could genuinely be mad, but perhaps for the wrong reason. But I don't know, I don't have enough information about that. A comment that I found interesting is the word deserves in the quote that John read you, right? He deserves to have his voice heard. It, to where I read it it was, he deserves to make money off this too.

And so he's also suing Brianna Taylor's boyfriend. Rihanna Taylor is suing because he was shot at and he had done nothing wrong and his girlfriend was murdered right in front of his eyes and she had done nothing wrong and they barge into their house and etc. Mattingly got hit by Walker in exchange of gunfire because Walker they didn't announce themselves apparently and Walker thought they were real intruders. And so Mattingly is saying, yeah, I wanna get paid off that too. It hit my leg, so I don't care that we were wrong and busting in. I don't care that we had the wrong people.

I deserve to get paid. So I'm gonna sue the guy soon that because I think he's gonna get a lot of money because it's obvious we were wrong. And then I wanna take a piece of his money that he gets for how wrong I was. And then I wanna write a book about it and get money on that because I deserve it. And by the way, guys, he probably genuinely feels that way. He probably feels like I am a beloved cop. I bust into the wrong black house, so what?

We do it all the time, and they probably did something wrong anyway. That's what Trump said about the Central Park five after they were found to be innocent, right? And then I got shot in the line of duty just because we were in the wrong house and murdered the wrong people. Big deal, I deserve money. And he probably deeply believes it. And by the way, he will probably get it. And a lot of right wingers will be like, yes, tell me that book about how you were the victim. Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's interesting that he is one of the things he's suing her, Brianna Taylor's boyfriend for is emotional distress. As if having a horde of police officers come into your home while you're asleep, with guns out is not emotionally distressing. As if

seeing your partner lying dead is not emotionally distressing. And I completely agree with that tweet that you read that this is an attempt to further capitalize on and profit on black death. I think it's really disgusting. I think I agree with you also, Jenks, and I think that he probably deeply, deeply believes that he should be compensated for what happens. I think that he, after the Brianna Taylor, after Brianna Taylor's death, he put out a statement that was like, we did nothing wrong. We did the ethical thing this night. I don't think that he, I don't think it's occurred to him that he did anything wrong. I don't think it's occurred to him that he should not be making a quick buck off of the woman that he murdered as she laid

in her home. But again, to be fair to him, not on a moral stance at all, but financially, It's probably the correct decision. There's tons and tons of racists in this country who will eat that book up. Oh, you went and killed the wrong black person. Tell me more. Are there? Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely tons of racist and there's definitely tons of money. I mean, clearly the last story about the crowdfunding proves that. And I get that I apparently have a terrible read on what America wants to read. I mean, in the break, I told you what I'm writing. Clearly, I don't know what I'm talking about. But do they want to read the book? book, like people want to read what this sergeant has to say, like they're going to sit down

in a chair with this book and they're going to read it. I'm not even joking. Like, seriously, I don't, I don't think that that exists. I don't think, I don't think many of these are actually published with the intent that they're going to be read. I can be wrong, maybe I'm in a bubble, but I just read about the massive, like, huge advance that Mike Pence is getting. Who's reading that book? Like, I get that those books will sell. We've done number, a number of topics, a number of stories about, you know, the think tanks and all that, that do massive buys of books and then supposedly send them out to people who are not going to read them. But, but like somebody's sitting down and reading Mike Pence's book,

cover to cover, Real Page Turner, he's at least famous. Who is this cop? Who cares about his perspective? I really don't think anyone was going to read this. Now that doesn't mean that like they were under some obligation not to publish it. It's all down to the company. and I feel like people can put pressure on them one way or the other if they want to. But I just don't think that the country is filled with people who are desperate to read this stuff. Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, think about this, that after George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, he became kind of a minor celebrity in some conservative pockets. For a while he was selling his paintings. You know, people were paying thousands of dollars for George Zimmerman's

original artwork. So I agree with you. I don't think anybody is really sitting down and I don't think anybody has the desire to really sit down and thumb through this guy's life story. I think just like when we were talking about with the crowdfunding, I think there are some people out there that want to make their support known by throwing money at people who, you know, target black folks. I really think that's it. I think they want to use their dollar to say we endorse this. Yeah, I mean, see if you can find a pattern, right? George Zimmerman kills Trayvon Martin for no good reason and makes a ton of money. Rittenhouse kills two left wing protesters, you know, going in armed to go after black

protesters, etc. Crowd raises a ton of money for his legal defense. Trump targets black people all the time, raises a ton of money. Now that's a little bit different because it's political and they raise a lot of money anyway. But when you, if you kill left wing protesters or black folks in this country and you write a book about it, your chance of making on a lot of money is unfortunately quite significant. Whether they actually read the book or not, it's just kind of like a moral support, like, oh, you kill someone based on their race, just want to send you a shout out. So here's 25 bucks, take it.

Totally. So, and John, the other thing is real quick, John makes a great point. Right-wing think tanks buy books in bulk. in bulk. So the publishers like Simon and Schuster, they're deeply incentivized to print right-wing books because it's guaranteed book sales. The think tanks are funded by billionaires who want to push out propaganda. They buy books to make them a number one bestsellers, which then gets them in the media, and then the author goes on all the television stations, and no one actually reads the book, but the author being on all those media, because he's on the bestseller list, gets out their propaganda. So for them, that little

piece of marketing is well worth it because they're gonna get giant tax cuts and all the other things that they want, right? On the left wing, there is no such apparatus. So that's why you'll see a lot more right wing books and less progressive books because of that perverse financial incentives. Yeah, it's a perverse money machine. That's such a good point. We don't have anything like that on the left really where we're fueling that kind of money in that kind of system. I don't really, I think you're right. I don't think we really have that kind of infrastructure. Yeah, so it's unfortunately or unfortunately up to you guys to buy justicescomingbook.com. That's my book, I don't know, did I just make a plug for it? I guess, but it's actually

for justice. So justice is coming book.com, you could pre-order. I'm not saying anything except the words I've spoken. I think that's unfortunately all the time that we have, Jenk. All right. Well, look, guys, you guys understand at this point that Bridget is awesome. You unlike the right wing are not dense, you've understood that. And so what I need you to do is to go check out our podcast, which is of course ironically named. There are no girls on the internet. And Bridget, it's kind of a little bit of a stem theme to it or part to it. That's exactly right. Basically we unpack all the ways that women and underrepresented voices are impacting the internet and technology. So please check it out. We'd love to have y'all.

All right, excellent. And she's also Communications Director at Ultraviolet, support that group as well. All right, and John, of course, Daddy Dragon at the damage report, but everybody's already checking out the damage report. You all know it, you all love it. We're going to leave it at that. Okay, when we come back, we've got a whole new power panel, including old friend Mark Thompson. Oh, everybody wants to see him, you know it, come 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 at apple.com slash t-y-t.

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