The Young Turks - Rep. Ilhan Omar Faces HARSH Backlash And Notable Anti-Semitism In Politics

Episode Date: February 12, 2019

Rep. Ilhan Omar used the wrong approach to bring light to corruption in politics. A history of anti-semitic attacks in politics from Republicans. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another week. I was going to say the damage report.

It's the Young Turks. Hey, everybody. How's it going? I'm here, obviously unprepared. Ben and Mark, great to have you here. Very, very cool to be here. Got some diversity on the panel today. It's nice to mix it up a little bit. You're talking about hats and no hats, right?

Your hats, tie. One jacket, two jackets. A sweatshirt, a t-shirt, a zip thing. We've got a lot of things going on. No one can tell us we're not diverse today. There is not a topic here that we are unqualified to cover, I don't think. But we do have a lot that we are going to be covering. In terms of news, there is only one story.

And it is Ilhan Omar. That is the only thing you're allowed to talk about. So obviously, we're going to cover that. But also, there's been some new entrance into the Democratic primary, both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. We're going to be talking about both of them and some of the sort of contextual things around their launch of their primary campaigns. And then we might be on the verge of another shutdown.

We're going to check in on how those negotiations are going and how likely it is that the shutdown will be averted. So lots to get to, obviously. Does I want to jump into it? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, let's go. Representative Halan Omar has faced calls to either apologize or be censured in some form from both Republican and Democratic leadership over some tweets that she put out that were critical

of A-PAC and their lobbying efforts inside of the U.S. This came about as a result of a Twitter back and forth, so we're gonna walk you through it. Initially, there was a tweet by Glenn Greenwald, who said, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy threatens punishment for Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib over their criticisms of Israel. It's stunning how much time U.S. political leaders spend defending a foreign nation, even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans. That was, quote, retweeted by the new representative saying it's all about the Benjamin's baby with the musical notes, obviously referencing the great Puff Daddy there. He's not an A-Pact, though Puff Daddy. No, not that I know of. That would be an ambitious crossover event that I don't think has happened yet.

You're giving away her punchline, Mark. No, sorry. There you go. Now, there was calls to specify what she meant by that, it's all about the Benjamins, to which she responded, A-PAC. So, so far, not a lot being said there about, you know, what she wanted. And many people interpreted her initial comment about it being all about the Benjamins as a use of the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews and money.

That was what people implied or stated outright that that was what she was talking about. Now, she is referencing a song. She is talking about the influence of money in politics. It's a topic that she comes back to quite often. But as a result of the tweets that you just saw, everyone from Kevin McCarthy to online pundits to eventually Nancy Pelosi asked for her to apologize over those comments. What did you guys think about this? Well, it's a very important story.

There's no denying that. No, it's a giant waste of time. But her apology was very nice. I don't know that it was very necessary, but it is nice. And she is the big winner, I therefore think in this. It is possible that someone of her, I don't know really anything about her other than what I would think stereotypically about a Muslim woman who lives in Minnesota has been elected to Congress.

But she's young enough that maybe she doesn't know some of those tropes. There is, seldom have we seen the use of the word trope in news articles as much as you're going to see today. She also echoed a trope in another tweet some years ago, right? Was it years ago or was it 2012 or? I believe it was years ago. Where she talked about how Israel was hypnotized. Israel was hypnotized the world and that echoed what the Nazis had said about the Jews,

that they have sort of hypnotized you into thinking that they're, you know. you know, not evil. Which is not a trope that I had been familiar with. No, nor I particularly. And you know your tropes. And I know my tropes. And I, you know, I'm aware of the type of anti-sad. I've had very, very little of it, experienced very little of it.

So, but she apologized then too. And this is a really nice apology that she had. Do you have her apology here? Yes, I do. So why don't we read portion of that? So this came a little bit later on the day. She said the caption was listening and learning but standing strong, with the apology being, anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues for educating

me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize. At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be APEC or NRA or the foreign, the fossil fuel industry. I think she's talking about the domestic one here.

It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it. So it's a really nice apology. I find, so it was a mistake to tweet all about the Benjamins again without sort of thinking. And it's important when you were criticizing Israel, given the history of anti-Semitism and the fact that it very much still exists, that you, you know, choose your, language carefully. But obviously, a member of Congress gets to criticize Israel and gets to criticize American policy toward Israel and gets to criticize it aggressively. I would recommend that everyone, when criticizing Israel and the policies of Israel, criticize the Netanyahu government

for destabilizing the region, for working against peace, for dehumanizing Palestinians in the area, and being a force for bad in the region, and undermining. progress. I'll say that 10,000 times. And that no one in their right mind is ever going to tell you is anti-Semitic. But I am also profoundly disappointed in the, not in the clearly some of her Jewish colleagues who reached out to her, it sounds like in good faith, and were like, hey, Ilhan, here's why this is probably not the right way to go. And she seems to have heard that message, which shows great growth and progress on her part. And just the, Everybody else who just decided to sort of jump on and be like, I'm deeply offended.

You aren't, that's horse crap. Nobody, nobody's deeply offended. Deeply offended by that, by the words APAC, by it's all about the Benjamins in a country where money in politics is so overwhelmingly pervasive, that deeply offended you? I'm deeply offended by your offense, by your taking offense. I question that effect. So there was a way to criticize her without piling on, and there are a lot of Democratic lawmakers who piled on, and I find there.

behavior rather embarrassing. Well, this is a political environment in which people are seeking the limelight every which way, and this was the limelight shining on this one issue for one instant, and they grab it in the news cycle, and you're right, Ben, they were piling on. Criticizing APEC should be right in there with criticizing the NRA. It really should be. I mean, I think she's right about that. It's a lobby.

It represents the views of Israel. And I think Ben is right. The Netsan Yahoo government suffers great criticism in Israel. Israelis, by huge numbers, don't like Netanyahu in the government. So it's a, it's not, it's not, Israel isn't a monolith and Israel isn't always reflected by APAC lobbyists. So it's a much more nuanced issue, but as usual, we lose the nuance in, as Ben says, sort of a manufactured outrage that unfortunately takes over what is a legitimate concern, which is,

oftentimes these things are anti-Semitic efforts or efforts to, express anti-Semitism in what are actually righteous causes. I don't think that's what she was doing here. But I'm saying there is history of it. And for that reason, everyone's on guard. Yeah. Good. Yeah, it's the thing that makes it a little bit uncomfortable is obviously there are some

people who are offended in any one of these instances here, in all of these. And then there's a lot of people who are feigning offense and a lot of people who are just piling on for political purposes. I think that that is the vast majority in this case, certainly the politicians who are I don't, I don't, I find deeply offensive to be, I have, no, no, that's not what I'm referring to, I'm referring more to the people who, some of whom might be fans of Ilhan Omar, who are like, you know, I support you, I support your message, be more careful about the term, sort of what you have expressed.

There's some people who are, that's the extent of it. And then there's a lot of just disingenuous people. There was, like Ben Shapiro attacked her initially, then she apologized, he attacked her apology. This is a guy who previously tweeted that Arabs like to live in sewers, but he's very serious about being tolerant of the situation there. There is a, I mean, sometimes we have double standards in this country for a good reason, because there ought to be a double standard.

The double standard, for example, that people are, some on the right love to trouble. What about white face? No one does white face. No one is offended by white face. It's not a thing. Might be a joke, right? That couple movies. Right.

So, but the double standard of it's okay to be Islamophobic. But it's not okay to be anti-Semitic is, I mean, it is, you know, the Muslims in this country are hyper-criticized. That is an incredibly soft way to put it, right? But in politics, you get away with being Islamophobic, it's no problem, right? But you deign to criticize Israel, then you were coming close to touching a third rail. And she touched it lightly, and I thought backpedaled, backpedaled really elegantly. And it made me like her more.

That said, she should be careful when, especially tweeting about Israel. Well, and that's why I think, so can I say who I think is responsible for this or who is to blame for this? I'm 90% joking, but. As long as you don't say the Jews. I'm going to say that. You know who is. Isn't that? You think that's what he meant.

It sounded like it. You know who's second most responsible? Hold on a second, John. The person who's most responsible is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I actually believe that. Obviously, having nothing to do with the content of this, but she is so deft in her use of social media and combining substance and fun and, like, an inroads for people who aren't naturally necessarily all that interested in politics, that a lot of other people are going

to try to do that. Even people who are generally pretty good at it, like Yelhan Omar, and sometimes it's not quite going to work. I don't know if that's consciously what was going on, but when you tweet a song lyric, that's probably what's in the back of your mind. Right, you're probably trying, I got a little thing, it's all about the Benjamin's. Yeah. So she shouldn't be apologizing. AOC should be apologizing. I'm joking. That's actually a cool take, though. I mean, that the culture has changed a little bit that way. But I think it is, it's worth mentioning, though, that it is, you know, that again, suggesting that everybody who supports Israel does it for the money,

that is more than a small mistake. Yes. Like that is an actual thing which it was right of her to apologize for. Yeah. Now, that said, A-PAC is not, I don't know who totally funds A-PAC, but A-PAC has now become, it wasn't always, but a weird mix-up of the arms industry with Christian conservative fundamentalists. who expect the Jews to take control of that part of the country, that part of the world, so that the rapture can come, Armageddon can come, and then all the Jews are killed, except for some small percentage of them who convert, so that they can be saved.

That's always struck me as anti-Semitic, by the way. That strikes me as slightly more anti-Semitic than it's all about the Benjamins. That should be deeply offensive to everyone. There, I said it, deeply offensive. It's not deeply offensive, because it's bonkers. That's what keeps us from being offensive. But the notion that some of those people are in positions of power in the United States of America, that's crazy! Those people shouldn't be in power, they should be removed from office and set home and

given Klonopin and told to just like relax for a while, man. I don't even know that drug. It is pretty good. I'm on six of them right now. You're doing okay though, regardless. No, so I mean, that's insane. And of course, a thoughtful republic. can discuss APEC's profound influence, APEC, which oddly enough has PAC at the end of it,

is not a political action committee. Did you know that? I would have guessed it was. I learned it today. Interesting. It's called APEC. Jews with their subterfews making you believe one thing. Well, that's been a good run for TYT.

We'll see you later. Steny Hoyer is going to come down hard on us today. Okay, well, why don't we turn to a little bit more of the hypocrisy here? Everybody's been coming down hard on Representative Ilhan Omar. But the interesting thing is that while we can get into whether she should have been a little bit more careful with her words or whatever, whether she carefully got across what her message was, there is some really out-in-out anti-Semitism in our country that people generally just moved on from. In positions of leadership, significant positions of leadership. We're the most powerful person in the world. I mean, Donald Trump did see neo-Nazis marching, chanting the Jews will not replace us and said, good for you.

people on both sides. And everyone's like, well, I guess he's being diplomatic for once. Didn't start as that chance. It just kind of morphed into that organically. It's organically. There's that. I mean, obviously, Steve King has got his huge, not just here in the U.S. Steve King's a bigot. A man's a old-fashioned bigot. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, there's the narrative that just occasionally creeps into elections, like the whole caravan issue. That was in the weird corners of the internet, right-wing people, that That was not a non-Jewish connected conspiracy theory.

Did you know that the caravans were being organized by Jewish people in America? That was really a thing that was believed. The guy who shot up the Trio Life Synagogue believed that and was pushing that theory online. And then there's also sort of a little bit more subtle anti-Semitism that occasionally moves in. So Kevin McCarthy, one of the guys who was calling for Ilhan Omar to be censured and punished, he had tweeted back in, I believe, October of last year, we cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to buy this election. Get out and vote Republican with a scary image of Soros with sort of like the, I guess the graphic design there's a little bit military almost, like the weird targeting thing on Soros.

I got news for you. That's half of the swastika. That's also true. Right? That's the same color yellow that was used on those Jewish stars that people. I did not even pick up on that. Now, I got news for you. That's worse. That's worse. That's more offensive. And Kevin McCrard. Censure, Kevin McCarthy. Now, he did delete it once there was criticism.

But this topic was actually a broach to one of the individuals in the tweet, actually. Here is Jake Tavar asking about that. Now, a spokesperson for McCarthy says that McCarthy condemns this week's violence, and the tweet was deleted before the attack on the Pittsburgh Synagogue. I did notice that George Soros is Jewish. Michael Bloomberg is Jewish. You're the third. Your dad is Jewish. Was Jewish.

Was Jewish. Do you think that's a coincidence? What do you make of that? Look, I have no idea what Congressman McCarthy was in his mind. I can say that his action, I think that the attempt to try and figure out what's in people's mind is a mistake. I think all you can really do is see what they say. And that was, you know, in terms of interpreting what he said, that seems to me like a straight-up anti-Semitic move. I think that that is a classic attempt to separate Americans.

I think that absolutely falls into the category of what I'm describing as political violence. And I believe that what we are looking for in America is something completely different from that. And when people say, you know, there's loud language on both sides, I think that is absolutely false, Jake. because what we're seeing is terrible behavior, consistent, systematic, political violence from Republicans, and when people stand up to it, then they describe that as strong language on both sides. So look, thankfully, in the wake of him being so out and out against Ilhan Omar, people have brought up and they're discussing the tweet that he had.

And finally, Kevin McCarthy did actually recommend Steve King being removed from his committee assignments earlier this year after he went a couple steps past where you're allowed to be white supremacist in our country. But the idea that it's really about the words that she used. It's not about an attempt to sideline her and Rashida Talib early on. They're very outspoken.

Obviously, they're mixing things up. I mean, I think that they're being targeted because of what they represent demographically. There are people who are horrified that people like that are being elected now. I mean, we've had three Muslim members of Congress now, right? I mean, what's next? Four,

five? When does it stop? Yeah, it really is. I mean, we're dealing with such small numbers. And I'm sure they are being targeted. It's also true that Soros, and a reference to Soros can be, it can parallel some anti-Semitism. In other words, both can be true. I see this, this is what I was talking about before. Sort of in the cloak of sort of a legitimate criticism about money in politics, be it APAC or Soros money or Adelson money, whatever, you can get your anti-Semitic licks in. So it's not as though there's nothing to the anti-Semitic, the criticism of anti-Semitism in some of these remarks, tweets, et cetera.

But I don't think that it all, that waving the flag of anti-Semitism all the time isn't legit. And likewise, there is legitimately anti-Semitism woven in so many of these remarks and tweets that are going to continue. There'll be anti-Semitism in the YouTube comments to this video. I guarantee. You think? Yeah. Right now, right. But really, but quickly, the most important, what's more important is how is it possible for thoughtful, mostly progressive, but from anybody who wants to talk about it, for thoughtful members of the United States Congress to challenge the manner in which we support Israel.

We're always going to support Israel. We should support Israel. The fact, calling it the only true democracy in the region, that's not, that's not wrong. It's simply overly simplistic, but it's also not totally wrong either. So how do we have a frank, thoughtful discussion about the manner in which we support Israel without somebody saying that you hate Jews in the process? And that is critical because first of all at some point one would hope there'll be these reactionary right-wingers in the Lakud Party running Israel now.

They're not always going to run Israel. They haven't before. They've sadly a long run here, but they won't, again, in the future. And then what do we do? Are we going to draw a real line in the sand and withhold some military funding? Are we going to not sell them as many aircrafts? Are we going to not share intelligence in the same way? Are we going to hurt them in a manner that makes them rethink the policy of building settlements?

Or then not just not merely a cessation of building settlements, you've got to take some of them down. And also stop calling them settlements, they're downs. Right. And that's part of a much bigger conversation about Israel that we can have. And unfortunately, the nuances and details of those discussions lost in the kind of rugby scrum of crap that we're dealing with today on this tweet. And perhaps not by coincidence. And again, what's disappointing to me is I expect Kevin McCarthy to get in the way of that. I do not expect, and I'll just name them because they're here because the two Democrats gathering signatures, Josh Gothheimer and Elaine Luria from New Jersey and Virginia, who were gathering signatures, asking other Democrats

to confront Omar and Talib, reiterating our objection. Just like, you're not helping. And in fact, you're hurting. And reaching out to her, even a tweet saying, hey, man, this isn't cool. And I, if you want to come by my office and I'll tell you why, which apparently some people did. And God bless those who did. And God bless her reaction.

It was great. Yeah. Yeah. Let's give an example of that. Actually, Chuck Schumer had tweeted, Representative Omar's use of an anti-Semitic stereotype was offensive and irresponsible. This kind of intolerance has no place in Congress or anywhere in American society. No one should invoke anti-Semitic tropes during policy disagreements.

Yeah, you should evoke them. So she just, it's not even like she chose her words poorly. She might not have no. She was evoking or invoking. I think she evoked it. Anti-Semitic tropes. That was her goal. That's what he is implying there.

He's playing to his room, which is, you know, his constituency. I suppose of the way he thinks it through. We also have, by the way, so Steny Hoyer, who had criticized her, after she apologized, he says that no additional punishment is warranted. I'm glad she apologized. It was appropriate for her to apologize. As you know, the leadership asked that she do so. What she said was clearly anti-Semitic, and she has apologized.

So again, they're coming out of this saying, there was no debate to be had. What she did was use anti-Semitism to push a point. Yeah, I mean, I just wish he'd stopped it. glad she apologized. They can't, they can't, I mean, they are, they are, they are. That righteous indignation thing, everybody's grabbing for that, right? As Ben says, they can't just say, glad you apologized, let's move on. You know, there's many other issues confronting this country right now, like the government

may close down in nine hours, you know. APEC spent three and a half a million dollars last cycle lobbying. Again, they're not a political action committee. The members, APEC members can donate, obviously. but they themselves don't. But, you know, there is a strong desire, it would appear, as there are with every single powerful lobby that distributes money in the United States Congress, there just seems to be this eagerness not to offend those powerful lobbies.

And I just wish more congressmen, no matter what that lobby is, whether it's, as, you know, as she said, whether it's fossil fuel, the NRA, that those members of Congress were just a Not a little, a lot more willing to offend those people. And I think that we're probably seeing the beginning of this. And that's why we need to support people who are willing to open the bounds of conversation. Okay, we do have to take our first break, though. When we come back, two new candidates in the Democratic primary, we're breaking down some of the news around their launches after that.

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Happened a little bit faster than expected. How's it going? We're back on the Young Turks, Mark and Ben, and myself. Love Twitter. It's great. Twitter's the best. Twitter. I'm actually probably going to read some tweets.

You talk about anti-Semitism. And if you just get filled with great tweets, people say, hey, man, nice job. Thanks. Way to be thoughtful about it. Yeah. It's one of those boring topics that no one really has any emotional reaction to. Right, yeah. You know?

Okay. I don't know why we do the show for people. That's our mistake. Okay, so let's see, we've got some tweets. Danger, Carlos Danger says if Ilhano Omar is anti-Semitic, that I'm secretly a right-winger, hashtag seriously. I think a lot of people responded that way. Let's see, gentle Seabas says, but with money so deeply entrenched in our world, how do we discuss A-PAC as a lobbying group without discussing the finances and what they're doing with them? I think that's what they're doing was.

Yeah. And hopefully we can do that. Okay, I don't see, oh yeah, member shout-out. So to two of you out there who are members supporting the show, we really appreciate it. Edmund Yalu and Gianna Hernandez, thank you for being members of TYT. By the way, guys, we're down to just the last couple of weeks in the New York City public advocate race. There are 17 different candidates. The last debate had 10 people on stage, so there's a lot of people running.

One face you might know, maybe, from this network. That is Namiki Const who is running in that particular race. And there are just a couple of weeks left to go important deadlines in terms of fundraising to qualify for New York's pretty amazing matching contributions like system that they've got set up. There is a link that you can go to if you do want to support Namiki Const. There's another debate coming up as well, which we will cover when it happens a little bit later on. And by the way, for those of you who are members, if you have not caught our hostmates event, which is perhaps one of the most beloved thing we've done at this network.

People really like that. Most of because Ben wasn't there. It's an outrage, what happened in Postmates. It's an outrage. Are you deeply offended? There's a big twist near the end. Yeah, and the effort to rectify it is well underway because it was, and you think that the saints got robbed by that no pass interference call.

This was an offense far, far, far more glaring. I did think that. I did think that. I think I watched that game. Anyway, that's on February 14th, 6 p.m. Pacific Time, a special live streaming event for TYT members only. You can catch hostmates, which is a lot of fun. I teamed up with Brooke Thomas and tune in, see how we did. How well do we know each other compared to like Jank and Anna?

Seems fair. Anyway, tune in, have some fun. Watch Ben and Michael. That's the point. There you go. Exactly. That's the point. And then, my God, highway robbery.

Who paid off the refs? Cenk, that's who paid off the reds. Okay, let's go on it. I think he was also the rest. Anyway, let's move into some more political news. As of this weekend, the Democratic primary got quite a bit bigger with Senator Elizabeth Warren announcing that she was actually going to be running. Of course, she had already said that she would be forming exploratory committee, and we all know

exactly what that means. So we were not surprised that she did announce. But here is a portion of her initial speech. The man in the White House is not the cause of what is broken. He is just the latest and most extreme symptom of what's gone wrong in America. A product of a rig system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else. So once he's gone, we can't pretend that none of this ever happened. It won't be enough.

Just undo the terrible acts of this administration. Our fight is for big structural change. This is the fight of our lives, the fight to build in America, where dreams are possible, an America that works for everyone. And that is why I stand here today to declare that I am a candidate for president of the United States of America. Oh, that last revelation was actually received well by the crowd. Of course. No, that was a good speech. I mean, you should check out the entire thing, but-

You can't argue with what she said. I mean, she's absolutely right. Now that's some of the details as to how you approach these issues. I mean, these are really deep-seated problems in our system. We discussed them regularly on this show. How they're addressed, that's a whole different question. But Elizabeth Warren certainly is describing things that are legitimately issues that have to be addressed in this country.

She's right. But Trump, again, we've talked about it ad nauseum. Trump is just a symptom. He is not the cause. But I don't know how her candidacy is going to shake out in the field of Democrats. But certainly what she said there, I don't think you can argue with it. Yeah, I mean, I'm enormously supportive of Elizabeth Warren, have been for a long time. You know, the politics of it worry me from her end.

I was with two people, two, you know, solid Democrats, more so, they're lefties. And they both made Elizabeth Warren jokes. They both made Indian-related jokes. And I thought, like, and I got into it with one and sort of tried to set the record straight. And it worked, but I thought, well, they're making the jokes. That's a bad sign. It's a bad sign. So, you know, often as those of you who have listened to me on this show, you know, every candidate has our

hurdles that they got to get past, right? They're sometimes really big stumbling block, sometimes they're little, sometimes they trip over the little ones and it derails a candidacy. Sometimes they create their own hurdles. That is now a hurdle for her. And I hope she gets past it because it's like the Ilhan Omar story, which we just did, it's not important, right? You know, the idea behind what she said, that's an important issue. The things Elizabeth Warren said, those are important issues. But in this, you know, the news cycle that we have, and the popularity contest part of running for president, which is a huge part, and the personality based part of it, that has become a not insignificant hurdle for her that I passionately hope

she clears. Yeah. Yeah. I would also just add that it's an easy to understand issue. And I think we as low information voters default to those issues that are really easy to understand. So wow, she claimed she was a Native American and she's not. That's an easy thing to take a side on. And so those are, that's the problem with something like that that sticks to this candidate,

because it's easy to have an opinion on it. It's easy to get really dug in on it. Go ahead. Well, we're going to return to that in just a couple of minutes with one person who has been dug in on it for a couple of years now. The thing about, the focus initially on that is I saw, I think it was Kristen Gillibrand, I think. And there was all these tweets going around on a video of her eating chicken. Right, chicken. Like wrong.

She was eating it wrong. With a knife and a fork. Or something, and I saw that. And thankfully, a lot of people attacked that story as they should, but it's like, seriously, we're still doing this? Once again, you're right, a one-dimensional thing. Of course, Trump also had his knife and fork, and the MAGA people would never dare criticize him for that.

That's the way billionaires eat bride chicken. But I think you're right. Again, easy thing to go after somebody for. Whereas, like, on substance, there are different ways that you can classify how, you know, how inspiring a politician is, how strong of a progressive someone is. Like, there are people who have come to agree with certain positions, which is better than them opposing them. There's also people who have been putting forward consistently big ideas.

And she is definitely one of those. We've been covering them for a year now on the damage report. She'll have her plan for a wealth tax. She'll have all these big proposals where she's not just saying, oh yeah, finally, I agree with this thing. I swear, I'm going to, I'm going to work for it. It's here exactly is how I'm going to, I'm going to move towards this. I think that Elizabeth Warren has, this is a crazy thing to say, but I believe it now, at least

I think I do. Elizabeth Warren was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez before that was remotely cool and she had none of the, you know, and she's not, she's not a 28 year old who's great at social media. So she was advocating for some of these big systemic changes in the frickin' wilderness, right? You mocked her. You know, I mean, I was in two summers ago with a bunch of Republicans who were like, well, I, you know, who thought, well, anybody but Elizabeth Warren, she's insane, she's crazy, right?

I mean, now she's been surpassed by others on the left. So she was courageously fighting for consumers against the banks, calling for tougher regulations against the banks, tougher regulations on Wall Street. I got another guy who I know who works in Wall Street who hates her with a passion because he thinks that she has insulted them regularly, that she sort of, you know, she called us, I'm paraphrasing a little, but he said, you know, she called us, you know, punks who were wrecking America. And I was like, no, she didn't, she never, never said anything like that, right?

You know, but he was so worked up because he was like, look, I work hard, I worked hard, busting my ass, and I love this country, and I want to help people. And she's telling me that I'm an ass, you know, and I'm like, I don't think she's calling you an ass. I just think that if everyone were like you, it would be run great, right? But there are people who will bend the rules and bend the rules, and then that affects 100 million people because you bend the rules. Yeah.

But it's exactly right that the legitimate policy changes that she's calling for, that Klobuchar is calling for, the legitimate advocacy she's done on behalf of consumers, the legitimate advocate she's done to get Wall Street and banking reforms, that's lost in the In the one-dimensional issues about... That aren't even true. That aren't even accurately told, except it's so easy to frame it, as you said. But she really was. She was fighting this fight when, you know, that before it was...

Before it was cool. Before it was cool. Right. She was a believer before it was cool, and that's why... And she did it without ever being cool. That's right. That's right. And so she's been sort of my choice, you know, if I, whatever, I'm going to end up supporting

whoever the nominee is very, very, very passionately. But that, you know, for the last year, that's sort of who I've liked most. And so I really hope she clears these hurdles. Yeah, and you can, first of all, not everybody, not everybody's sports, obviously, I've been doing my own informal polling, but you can disagree with her on the substance. Like there are people who think that some of her recent quotes, for instance, about, like, she's very much in the camp of the reform capitalism sort of side, as opposed to, you know, fundamentally, you'll tear it to the ground, replace it with something, you know, more, you

Democratic Social, something like that, I think she would probably get to a lot of the same goals as some people who don't speak in the same way that she does. But that's a perfectly legitimate reason to contrast her against other progressives, for instance. There are, however, things where it's not legitimate. It's just shallow BS politics that we as simple primate people will tend to do. And with that, why don't we turn to an example of that? Donald Trump has an issue with Elizabeth Warren. It might have been drawn recently from the fact that she said that she wasn't sure by 2020,

he would be president or even a free person, but he got worked up over her, and he turned his racism up to 11, tweeting this. Today, Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for president. Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign trail, Liz, capitalizing trail. And although I wish I could say that this is a shock. the trail of tears, mocking the fact that our government, as a part of a very long multi-decade

campaign to remove and exterminate Native peoples in America, killed over 15,000 people. And he thinks, that's hilarious, I got her with that. Yeah, I am of two minds on this and that many people suggested right away. I saw on Twitter that because the president is a fan of Andrew Jackson, that he has to know with the Trail of Tears are. I'm in that camp? Right. Well, I read that instantly and thought, I don't think he knows what the Trail of Tears are.

I really don't. I think he knows maybe that there's a thing called the Trail of Tears, but there's no way. He's no way he's ever read about it. Unless he knows it's a thing, but he knows it's a thing, but he has no idea what the context is he just thinks. So he might think it was a positive thing? I think he might think it's a Native American thing, right? Like he thinks it's the, you know, Iron Eyes Cody, who was not a Native American, by the

crying at the trash, you know, like he's like that dear. I mean, he's so dumb and so out of it that I, this is an irrelevant conversation because I'm certainly, yeah. So look, you obviously don't support the president, so you implying that he's ignorant of history is a little bit biased. Let's turn to a supporter of him, like Brett Hume, who says, yes, because Trump is noted for his knowledge of 19th century American history vis-a-vis the native population, geez, oh wait, that's the same actually.

Yes. Brigham saying he's too stupid to be knocking on jail-to-you- Yeah, well, in this rare case, I agree with Britt Hume, except, again, obviously, he meant to emphasize Trail, right? So you can't, I mean, it's capitalized, right? His cap lock key didn't get stuck, right? So he meant to emphasize it, I just don't know. You can, you will never convince me that, that, you'll never convince me that Donald Trump knows what Trail Cheers is.

I'm with Ben. Ever in a billion years. I'm with Ben. And I'm not saying it's not offensive. Everything that the guy says is offensive. Donald Trump, though, is manifestly stupid. He doesn't know anything about American history. He wouldn't know the Trail of Tears.

He couldn't tell you anything about the Trail of Tears unless Mike Pence told him about it, like just before he tweeted or something. Which is possible. That's possible. Right, of course. Somebody, you know, because he believes the last person to talk to him. And if the last person to talk to him was Stephen Miller, then he might have tweeted that. And let me also just say this. That I'll buy as possible.

A guy whose favorite president and he's got paintings of him all over the office is Andrew Jackson is already clearly a loathsome guy. Andrew Jackson is, you know, again, a genocidal horror in American history shouldn't be on our currency, and if there's a way to erase him from our history, I wish we could do it. The idea that he's Donald Trump's favorite president is despicable, but still, I don't think Trump really knows the details, the X's and O's. I just disagree. I think, first of all, I think that while obviously he was not a person who was thrilled to be in school back in the day.

That was one of the, like, there's like three things you learn about Native American history, and that's one of them. It's not told in all of its context. You don't learn nearly as much about it. It's still told it from the point of view of the government that was conducting it. But you do learn what it is in school. And also, we know that Steve Bannon did drill into him all of these great things from Andrew Jackson, said that he could be the next Andrew Jackson.

He's got the bust up. He visited his tomb. He talks, he tweets about him. What you, which drilled into Donald Trump is that Andrew Jackson settled the West. And that sounds like a really cool thing. Oh, he settled the West. They gloss over the fact that he was a genocidal murderer. I mean, I guess that's redundant genocidal murder.

But, I mean, really, I think they gloss over the Native American history. Interesting. Anyway, but we can argue. If I knew how to conduct a poll, I would call for one right now. I don't actually know how to do it. You know, we'll never know what's in his heart, except we know his heart is black and that he has been a racist for 35 years. So you want to say that he knew, and this was a direct reference of sort of mocking the trail of tears,

I'm really not going to sit here and argue it. I just don't want us to forget how profoundly ignorant he is and the fact that he is never in his adult life read a book. Yeah, I'll sign under that. The one last thing I want to say on this on Elizabeth Warren is, look, obviously, if you're a member of any of those communities and you don't like what she had done for one or another reasons, people, people, the narrative of exactly what she was doing at the time, people disagree on it, exactly how deceitful she was being or what. She just misled by her family or whatever. If you're part of the community, you can be bothered by that, you totally can. But the people who are not part of that community, and like your friends that just make the jokes or like Rob Lowe had delete just a joke.

It's a good one, Rob. Most of those jokes are just Trump's tweet, but not specifically about genocide. But it's still the joke is the native identity and that somebody would have it. Like his joke about commander in chief or whatever, like everybody who tells those jokes He's advancing the same narrative that Donald Trump has been trying to lay the groundwork for for literally years. He didn't start calling her Pocahontas just because he randomly watched a Disney movie and it got stuck in his head.

He wants you to think she's a joke, that she's irrelevant, that someone who's out there fighting and advocating for workers' rights every day, kind of ridiculous, kind of a loon. Don't listen to her proposal for a wealth tax or anything like that. You know, the fact that she launched her campaign, I believe at the site of the largest strike in American history, ignore all of that stuff. He's a loony tune, you don't have to pay attention to her. That is his goal and question in the way that you talk about Elizabeth Warren, are you helping to advance that goal for him?

That's a great point. It's all to diminish her, and it doesn't really matter how you diminish her. I think that's precisely right. And regrettably, a lot of this stuff does stick. He is an effective messenger. I don't understand why, but again, in easy to understand crazy man English, he's able to catch the spotlight such that we don't. Don't see a lot of what you're talking about the legitimate aspects to her campaign

It seems crazy to suggest otherwise because he was elected president of the United States But because he's and he's such a buffoon and he seems like any I think we've established that he's at on some level a criminal And a narcissist and a strong man But he has he has political skill, you know and and it's just not kind of political skill we were in any way used to Yeah, yeah or we'd like to see necessarily Can I tell a quick joke? Of course. I really hope it's not about.

Well, because, yeah, so Elizabeth Warren. No, but I was reminded because I said Donald Trump's never read a book, and that's certainly not the first to suggest that. But another guy who said some terrible things about Native Americans was John Wink. You know, in a Playboy interview in 1971. He said some pretty awful stuff. But he basically said, I'm paraphrasing that taking the land from Native Americans was justifiable because they were selfishly trying to keep it to themselves.

That's almost exactly what he said. It's great. So anyway, but we love John Wayne. So here's the director, John Ford, who directed John Wayne in so many movies. Peter Bogdanovich wanted to get John Wayne a book for his birthday, and John Ford at that point, who Bogdanovich had befriended, was in bed sort of sick, watching TV, and he was near death. And Bogdanovich went to see him, and he said, hey, and the Duke's birthday's coming up, I want to get him a book. What do you think? And Ford goes, huh?

And fuck down, he scoots a little close. He goes, Duke's birthday's coming up and I want to get him a book. What do you think? Before he goes, huh? Like that, this is super awkward, it gets a little closer. The Duke's birthday is coming up and I want to get him a book. What do you, huh? He starts yelling in his ear.

The Duke's birthday's coming up. I want to get him a book. What do you think? And Ford goes, he already has a book. Now I want to know what book it was. Oh, well. Okay. We're going to take a short break. We come back. More jokes about John Wayne. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech.

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash T-Y-T. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free section. Welcome back. Back to the first hour of the untricks, everybody.

We've got some tweets we want to read, people talking about Gillibran, talking about Warren. Zabahart tweeted, but who on this platform really thinks Senator Warren can win the primary? And if she does, beat the SOB Trump? In a perfect world, yes, but this ain't no perfect world. I think she has a perfectly fine chance of winning the primary. She's obviously very, like, she's good at communicating her values, the policy she's in favor of, she comes up with great ideas. I don't know that I would bet that she's going to win, but she's certainly good.

couldn't been. I can't help it. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna try really hard not to answer these questions. I already did it before because I just fall into punditry, you know, like, and like, you know, I want to see great, you know, the last two Democratic presidents who, you know, most people watching the show would say certainly betrayed the progressive cause. It's an easy claim to make with Bill Clinton and less so with Barack Obama, but still, still a sound argument to make. But both of them had a great, great, great political skill, wasn't an accident, right? And they beat people in the primary who lacked it, which is why they won the primaries, right? I mean, Bill Clinton, despite everything that came at him, you know, he had this great political Kavorka, and the fact

is he didn't have a really good person running against him, which made that possible. And Obama beat Hillary. And we are aware, she's incredibly smart, but her political acumen And her just political, again, the ability to relate to people and connect with people. So I'm now answering this question, but I'm going to stop now, is that Elizabeth Warren on the ideas and on leadership, I mean, passes the tests. And I hope that I like our conversations to stay on that plane as much as possible. I hope so. This stuff goes off on things other than policy.

Right. Clearly, because Donald Trump has no policy. Not just policy, but also leadership. Also leadership, right? Like, what kind of leader are you going to be? That's fair. Yeah, and that's communicated in a lot of different ways beyond policy. That's just that's a Junicequa, you know, like, I don't know, there's just something

about the guy or the woman and the, you know, the candidate. Yeah, I certainly think that in the general, I think, yeah, I think she can beat him. He will deploy, depending on who is running against him, he will deploy, you know, obviously just embarrassing immaturity and attacking them and stuff like that. But if it's a woman, he will be incredibly misogynistic. If it's a non-white candidate, he will be incredibly racist. We can expect that. That will appeal to some people.

I would argue they were always going to vote for Trump probably. And she is going to be advocating for policies that would actually benefit the American working people. And I think that that is going to give her a huge leg up in the general election if she is the candidate. I would imagine that whoever comes out of a primary that is going to include many candidates who people have never heard of, you know, including fans of this show. I mean, Michael Bennett saying today, Senator from Colorado, like, hey, don't forget about me. People have to know you to forget about you.

Right, so, and I mean, I, you know, I'm glad Michael Bennett's a senator from Colorado, but I mean, it's so that, so, but I suspect whoever comes out of it, the good news about somebody like Elizabeth Warren and the hurdles that she has to get past is that if she comes out of the primary, that's getting past them. Because the, you know, the diehard Trump voters, they're not voting for. We know that. So I'm not really worried about what he has to say about her. I'm worried about, I think whoever, the good news of this primary,

which might be very ugly and very difficult and very challenging to be in this workspace during, that whoever emerges out of it is likely to, I think, be a pretty strong candidate. Yeah. The last thing I would say is coming out of the primary, I think that on Warren, she can speak to the corruption of this administration, which is manifest and complete in a way that she has credibility on. I think anyone can speak about it, but she, as a consumer advocate particularly, has some high ground in that area.

So when you call out political corruption like she can, again, in the general, not the primaries, I think it could be particularly an effective way to win the general election. Yeah. And just so that you don't think that I only read tweets I agree with, Pink Room Music says, BenMake 77, glad you were on TYT live today. Mark also. Don't tell Jank Yugar, but you're the reason I started checking out TYT network and later became a member. So not all of our viewers, particularly savvy when it comes to politics.

We can do the show for people. Fine. For some people, yes. Okay, with that, why don't we jump into other news? As of this weekend, the Democratic primary also has Senator Amy Klobuchar. And during her initial address, which happened, I believe, at the North Pole, I think, judging by the video, she had quite a bit to say. Today, on an island in the middle of the mighty Mississippi, in our nation's heartland,

time when we must heal the heart of our democracy and renew our commitment to the common good. I stand before you as the granddaughter of an iron arm minor, as the daughter of a teacher and a newspaper man, as the first woman elected to the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota to announce my candidacy for President of the United States. Tragically, she later died of hypothermia. I'm joking, it was really snowing hard there. The middle of the country is a block of ice right now. So she is running.

What do you guys think? I think that, you know, at this point, the more, the better. So, you know, we're, you know, I think we learned certainly that. it's not sort of deciding ahead of time that we have anointed one as happened in 2016. It doesn't mean that can never work. Some years, it might be very clear and there might be a grand consensus on that. We shouldn't restrict other people from running or discourage them from running. That's not the process that Democrats want to advocate.

But it didn't work. And so, I mean, once you're at eight, I don't mind 28, you know. Makes the debates a little bit more complicated. The debates are, I don't, the debates. We wasted more time talking about how there weren't enough, like, no, if we did 70 debates last time, although what happened would have been fewer and fewer people would have watched the debates. It wouldn't have changed the outcome. We would have covered every single time. We would have covered. Oh my God. The debates, the debates are theater. The debates are

sound bites. That's all that survives the debates. Not a lot of people watch the primary debates in, I mean, maybe in the early going they would, again, though, just because it's a spectacle. There isn't a lot of light. It's just a lot of theater. See, I like that they can directly challenge each other. I'm curious to see how that will play out on stage. I think that they have value. I can't speak for the American people, but I don't mean to diminish the value completely. I'm just trying to say that I think that what survives is an impression you get.

And maybe it's in those moments where they're challenged on policy. But in general, it's how they come across and in the back and forth. Are they back on their heels? But the Republicans already had the problem wrong, right? Mark's to what Mark's saying is like, we already had 12 people debating, and then they had like the smaller debate First, that didn't work, there were already too many people. So whatever it is, whether it's 28 or 8, or me 28 or 11 or 12, like they're going to have to figure out some way, like just randomly like, hey, this debate is with you 10, and that's

it. And the next debate is with another 10, and then the next debate is another 8. And then before long, obviously, people can't keep, some people won't be able to raise money. And they may not, you know, and the field will, the herd will thin out. Yeah. So on her, though, look, she's, there's a lot of senators who are running this time, man. There's a lot of senators. And with each new one that enters, I do wonder about their ability to really differentiate

themselves, especially when, like, you've had the group of Harris and Booker and Gillibrand this sort of like new progressives, the ones who want to self-identify in that way, but don't necessarily have a long track record of really voting in that way or pushing for those policies. And then you have Klobuchar who, I mean, I would say in terms of her votes, is probably not going to be that dissimilar and isn't even making claims that she is progressive. It seems like maybe she's trying to fill the spot that like a Joe Biden would otherwise have. I think that's probably not sure. I'm probably not sure.

She's sort of is a, she's already touted some of her bipartisan work. You know, and since there hasn't really been any meaningful bipartisan work in this country since like 1994, you know, I don't know quite what she means that's been so great. Yeah. The thing is though, like, I tweeted this earlier, like they're, thankfully, we are, we are actually having substantive debates inside of the party on a number of different topics. Big debates about the future of healthcare in America, dealing with climate change, taxation, questioning some of the things that have long needed to be questioned.

And I can tell you where people who've actually made, made plans, like I can describe, AOC in the Green New Deal, I know what she believes. And even those who are not pushing their own plans, like, you know, Booker, would have you believe that he supports Medicare for all. You can believe it or not, but that's what he says. On Klobuchar, I don't even know what her stance on many of these. The biggest conversations being debated right now, she's just been sort of standing in the background, while at the same time also being one of the two senators who swore up and down right before the midterm elections that they would finish out their term and they weren't pursuing

anything else and then immediately turn around and do it. So I think that some of these are going to be big problems in a field that is already crowded and already has candidates to appeal to a fairly wide range of political ideologies. I think you're jumping the gun on that. Like, you'll find, I mean, you'll find out where she stands on stuff by accident. The whole issue- I don't want to have to find out by accident, I would say. No, I don't mean by accident.

I mean, it'll just, you know, it'll come up over the transom. Like, it's just, it's going to fill the space. And, you know, and, and, and it doesn't matter because it really, ultimately, as it did with Hillary, doesn't come down to where she says she stands, it comes down to whether you believe that's where they stand, always, especially with voters who are this dialed in, right? I mean, it doesn't matter whether you say, it's nice to say, I support Medicare for all. And then even if you hedge because you feel like you might lose a core group of what was your

constituency, like we, as people here react when anyone sort of hesitates on Medicare for turns Medicare for all into a Medicare expansion and health care. coverage for as many people as possible, right? You know, which would have been great 10 years ago, right? Now seems like, oh, they're backing off. I would say that doesn't mean they're not going to do Medicare for all. That means that there is a core constituency that they have that they're not willing to lose right now on Medicare for all.

That's the attractiveness without question of Bernie Sanders, right? That he's not doing that. Well, he said it, and I think we can all safely say he's not backing off it. Yeah, that's what I mean. Right. But as much as you doubt someone who suppose you just take Cory Booker, and I know a lot of progressors don't believe him, right? And I would say, I don't know, you're gonna, at some point is gonna have to be a leap

of faith. And somebody who says there for Medicare for all may not advocate for it. And someone who is backed off of it, depending on the circumstances when they get into office, they may well advocate for it. Like no one's, these are just things where, these are these are just things they say. They are all trying to get elected. Our job is not, what they say is important, but we have to get a sense for who they are. And that's why you go through their history to learn, again, what did they care about?

What mattered to them when, when they had what job? And then you look at little times when, hey, they didn't have to advocate for X, but they did. That's telling. That might reveal more than another thing, another item on their list of beliefs. I think Ben's making a very important point, which is that not, you won't learn everything through this process, regardless of, you know, learning what we do from these 30 Democrats or however many end up actually in the race. I bought myself out of my bet with Jack. I had over 30. I guess I would have won 30.

I bet there would be 30 Democrats running for president. And then I think I bet $50. And he said, do you want $15 to get out of the bet? And I was like, yeah. And I just gave him $15. And that was the end of maybe. Maybe 30. There are more every hour.

But the point is, you do have to make a determination as to what they'll fight for, how they might succumb to political pressure, how they might succumb to lobbying pressure. All of these things do matter. And there is just a sense you get, I think, from the process. It's not always addressed specifically. So it's sometimes hard to know. You can also look into how they funded their campaigns. Sure. And thankfully, for many of these, we do have a lot of data.

Actually, a reporter from the Center for Public Integrity is going to be joining me on the damage report tomorrow to break down Amy Klobuchar's funding. We've already done this for Gillibrand and Booker. That show is still on? Yeah, every once in a while. Yeah. That's a great show, and it's how I start my day. Thank you. Thank you.

I doubt that's true, but thank you. And by the way, one other note, we'll expand on this in the future, but many of the same criticisms of Kamala Harris in terms of her past as a prosecutor also apply to Amy Klobuchar. So that's another thing potentially weighing her down. Oh, the purity test for any of these candidates, I think, are going to be tough to pass. I mean, everybody's got their thing, you know. But those got their big pharma thing with Cory Booker or the... Right, those are, but that's what I thought. That's the thing.

That's why I like, I mean, I hope it helps other people. Like, that's a hurdle. Like, that's a hurdle Kamala Harris has to get past. It would have been, to me, it's going to be easier for her just really quickly to get past that because she was a prosecutor. Like, if you'd supported it and weren't a prosecutor, it would concern me more. Yeah. Why don't we cover one more topic? Everybody in there, I'm gonna pull a little audible if we can move ahead to the border, just because

I think it's pretty important. I wanna make sure that we get to it at least briefly. With just days left to avert another government shutdown in 2019, talks are apparently going about as smoothly as you'd expect. They've ground to a halt as of today at least, and it has to do with how many beds will be allocated for detaining migrants with particular criminal backgrounds, and the Dems having one, state of the Republicans having another. Donald Trump spinning weird theories about what's actually going on in those negotiations,

he said, the border committee Democrats are behaving all of a sudden irrationally. Not only are they unwilling to give dollars for the obviously needed wall, they overrode recommendations of Border Patrol experts, but they don't even want to take mutterers into custody. What's going on? Oh my God. I think that's mooterers. Mooderers.

These are very moody people, but understandably so. They've traveled in some cases hundreds of thousands of miles. So note there that he is pretending that he didn't just lose the last fight over whether we needed the wall or not. That's what we went through this entire disastrous shutdown for. But it might actually happen. It's not just Donald Trump believes that Mick Mulvaney expressed similar concerns. So it's fair to say, whatever Congress hands him, he'll sign, he just may not be enthusiastic

about it. No, I don't think so. You're not ready to go there. You can't definitive, we cannot definitively rule out a government shutdown at the end of This week. You absolutely cannot. You ask me a question. Is a shutdown entirely off the table?

The answer is no. Okay. So, and we are again dealing with an incredibly irrational person. Donald Trump tweeted, the Democrats do not want us to detain or send back criminal aliens. This is a brand new demand. Crazy. So that would presumably include mutterers. He is saying to the people, they are gonna, they're gonna get a person.

They're gonna know this person as a criminal. And they're just gonna be like, have fun, have fun. There's a hearties over there. parties over there. That is of course not true. There is an actual debate going on between Republicans and Democrats on a related issue, but he is not going to honestly portray that. So Democrats want to cap the number of detention beds for immigrants picked up by ICE in other

parts of the country away from the border at 16,000, down from 38,000 now. Republicans have pushed to exclude a number of immigrants convicted of a range of crimes from that cap. So yes, there would be a cap, but many people would not actually count towards it. say that the White House's insistence on excluding people charged or convicted of crimes, even nonviolent drug offenses, would give the White House almost limitless power to detain people and make existing rules irrelevant, which is, of course, the reason that they're pushing for it in the first place.

Thousands of parents will never see their children again, that's what we believe. Thousands of these people, Mick Mulvaney, has subverted justice, and Donald Trump, And none of these guys have an ounce of credibility on this issue. They took families and they took children from their families and they don't know where they are. And their whole lives, these people who came here hoping for a better life, either for asylum because they feared persecution in their home country or merely because they wanted a better life. Are now left to wrestle with the decision was this worth it because I lost my child forever because the beacon of democracy, the beacon of light in the world tore them apart for political purposes and is never apparently going to have to meaningfully ask for it. I wouldn't negotiate with Republicans on this. I wouldn't give them one thing they wanted, nothing.

I wouldn't give them anything on it. They haven't earned it. They've earned the right to be dismissed. I wish this was heard more. I wish comments like those were heard more. This is an administration that lacks any moral underpinnings. They have no moral credibility when it comes to this issue. And so now you can get into this number of beds and all that sort of thing.

That's related to reducing the drag net that is sweeping up people who are in this country overstaying visas or in whatever situation that doesn't involve, which involves nonviolent crimes, by increasing the number of beds, it allows them to increase that dragnet. That's really what's happening with the thousands of beds argument. But what Ben said is right. This is a, this is an administration that is immoral, and that's where it stops. Yeah. And so, yeah, there's no, there's no engaging with these people.

To me, they would be never giving them any, well, I wouldn't give them one political victor. I would do anything in my power to keep them from having one political victory because one political victory begets more and begets more power and having power in the hands of these guys is incredibly dangerous to millions of people, particularly people at risk. And lastly, John, I would just say this super last thing. I, on the shutdown of the government would suggest that this time around, you have to have some kind of earlier, I would hope anyway, that much earlier in the process, process, those FAA air traffic controllers would intercede in some way, because that would get

the government open again, the same way. They are the linchpin to the government reopening. I did read today that one of the unions representing flight attendants are saying that they plan to strike, so that is possible that that will happen. I worry that some of the leadership that apparently learned a lesson from the first time around and realized, oh, hey, we won, and everyone was shocked. Haven't forgotten that by now, and that just because Donald Trump is tweeting, you know, ridiculous, inane conspiracies about them wanting to release murders and all that.

He already went through this. He already shut down the government, you know, inflicted all this harm on individual government employees on the economy to try to get his wall. He had, he lost because his approval rating was tanking so much. The idea that you would give in now seems insane, but I don't think we can rule it out. We can't rule it out, but also not just for nefarious reasons. Like that is a, in by and large, I got a lot of problems with a lot of Democrats, but by And by and large, it's a, they don't want the government to shut down because it's terrible

for the economy. It's terrible for the, particularly for the people who don't get paychecks, particularly for the people who won't get their paycheck restored ever, who are, you know, part-time workers and contractors. And the Republicans don't care. Like they love it when they, there's full of tweets from Tommy Lard and Ben Shapiro. What's the problem? This has been great.

That's right. We're trying to reduce the size of the government. This may be the way we have to do it. Right, just learn how unnecessary all of this is. And we don't feel that way. It's an unequal playing field. It is not an equal, unequal playing field. And being sort of deceitful and duplicitous and cruel and as massively unempathetic as anyone can be works in your favor in situations like this.

That's unfortunate. And we'll end on that note. Thank you guys for joining me. I'll mention there is a new episode of my podcast up. It's called The Edge with Mark Thompson. Check it out. We do about 20 minutes of politics at the beginning. And then it's conversations about other stuff.

So hope you enjoy it. I think I was on the Entertainment Weekly Awards podcast today, and it drops tonight, so go check that out. And John's program, the damage report, is on, I think, every other Wednesday at noon. It's not, it's on every day. It's on every day. It's at 10 o'clock Pacific time. You know what? I wasn't even going to plug it, but now I am.

So tomorrow, we're not only going to have a reporter who's going to come on, break down Amy Klobuchar's funding and current donors and all of that. We're also going to have Representative Roe Kana. He's going to be joining the show once again to break down his latest efforts to pull the U.S. out of involvement in the war on Yemen. It should be an awesome interview, so don't miss it. That sounds like a cooler show than my podcast. I've got to be honest. I try.

But next to that, that's the goal I shoot for. The edge with Mark Thompson. Next to that, though, I'm just saying yours is better. Okay, well, thank you guys. I believe Brett and Brooke are going to be joining us in this second hour. So don't go anywhere. We'll go right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon