The Young Turks - Republican Party Abandons Reason

Episode Date: July 16, 2019

The GOP has completely lost it. Ana Kasparian, Brooke Thomas, and Francesca Fiorentini, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. 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. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. Brooke Thomas and Francesca Furentini join me.

Hey. It's been a crazy day. It's been a crazy day. It's been a crazy day under the Trump administration. It's nonstop. It makes me want to rip my hair out. But we have a great show ahead for you. Yes, we do know that the House was supposed to vote on condemning Trump's racism, but things

got a little derailed. We'll have that story for you when we come back from our first break. So that's something you can look forward to later in the show. And we're also going to discuss the so-called squad and the press conference. that they held yesterday. And a lot of that is, a lot of the focus on that story is about how they condemned Trump's racism. But they also used it as an opportunity to talk about their policy goals, which I thought was pretty

savvy. We're gonna discuss that as well. But first, I just wanna give you a few notes about our partners and what we have planned coming up. The Detroit rally is gonna happen. TYT is holding a Detroit rally. It's part of our revolutionary or revolution rally series. So John Iderola and Jank Uger will be there.

It'll take place on July 30th and it'll take place in Detroit, Michigan near the Fox Theater. The specific location is not announced yet, but I will announce it as soon as we figure out where it will be. And what we want to do is show grassroots support for progressive issues as highlighted by the progressive economic pledge. So if you want to meet Jank and John and you want to meet other fellow TYT viewers, you can just go to tyt.com slash rally and that's where you can get some ride share information and coordinate with other individuals who are planning on going.

All right, let's get to the news. Following Trump's racist, oh, let's start with a video actually. We'll stay focused on our agenda and we won't get caught slipping. That's Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a press conference just yesterday where The freshman congresswomen got together and not only discussed and condemned Trump's racism and how he targeted them and told them to go back to the countries they came from, even though three out of four are actually born here in the United States, they used it as an opportunity to talk about what their objectives are, what they plan on doing as progressive

members of Congress. Let's take a look. I am not surprised that he uses the rhetoric that he does when he violates international human rights and takes thousands of children away from their families. I am not surprised that he has turned our public education system under the leadership of Betsy DeVos into a cash cow to enrich himself and his friends. I am not surprised when he corrupts via the Secretary of Transportation. I am not surprised at what he's doing. But I also know that we're focused on making it better because we don't leave the things that we love.

And when we love this country, what that means is that we propose the solutions to fix it. We love all people in this country, and that's why we believe health care is a human right. We love all children in this country, and because we do, that's why we fight for education for all children through college. And so we'll stay focused on our agenda, and we won't get. caught slipping. So, as you can see, she brought up a number of policy issues that they've been working pretty hard on, including healthcare, Medicare for All specifically, and education, free college education, and doing something about student loan debt.

So I love the fact that they use this as an opportunity to talk about what really matters, and that is, you know, what their plan is to improve the conditions under which Americans are living in today. I cried when I saw that. I mean, AOC starts off talking about her dad, he talks about the reflecting pool, it brought back all the memories of when I saw knocked down the house, like it is so moving. It is so refreshing after three, almost three years of this administration to have never seen the kind of poised but progressive leadership that you're seeing from these four women

and others. And finally we're getting it. Trump has been calling the Democrats the opposition party for so long. We haven't acted like it. So like whoever misses Trump, I mean Pelosi, excuse me, Freudian slip, whoever misses Pelosi and Schumer just standing there sort of like, you know, like dead-eyed as they're like, we think this president is, he's bad. Like we're beyond calling him racist.

These four have known and we've all known that Trump is a racist. He ran on a racist agenda in addition to a lot of other things. But now it's time to actually, and it's been time to articulate a vision, because Trump has a vision. It is a dystopian nightmare of xenophobia and concentration camps. But like, what is the counter vision? And these four are leading the way. I- Yeah.

No, no, go ahead. No, yeah, I thought that was nice. I thought that was powerful. My thought always kept going to, at what point, you know, they're all, I wanted to be in the room when they're having the conversations planning this. Like this created, unfortunately, it happened and created a moment where they could turn around and have an even bigger space and platform for what they want to say, what they want people to hear from them, and it backfired on Trump a little bit.

Yeah, I think it did backfire on Trump. Now, keep in mind, his whole strategy is to make these women the face of the Democratic Party. And so the way that he's kind of calculating this, and it's funny to say that Trump calculates anything. But I would assume his advisors are calculating this is, well, they're extreme, and if you attack then, maybe there was some hope that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and, you know, establishment Democrats would come out in support of these freshman lawmakers. And honestly, to my surprise,

they have come out in support. Now, this all happened in the middle of a Democratic Party infighting. So I was uncertain whether or not Pelosi would be as, you know, straightforward as she has been to give her credit in defending these women. But in defending them, Trump is going to paint the entire Democratic Party as extreme. And notice that they've shifted away from calling these women socialists, and now they specifically refer to them as communists, right? And I think that that's an important thing to point out, because socialist isn't really a dirty word among young people in the electorate, right?

And I think even for some middle-aged individuals, they don't really think it's that big of a deal either. So they want to make it sound even more extreme by using the word communist. Now, of course, these women are not communist, I mean, far from it. But nonetheless. Break out the C word whenever you're in trouble, right? Yeah. Both.

Also, it's like great. It digs even deeper into like the age of Trump voters, which I don't even know who those, I don't even know who Trump voters or Trump's bases anymore. I think we're gonna get to that. But like at this point, like communists is just like, well, you know what? Let's just break it out. Who knows? Let's dust off this word that we haven't used against like, you know, activists or organizers

or excuse me, ah. I'm so sorry, I said freaking chicken. Okay. All right. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. So let's go ahead and watch Representative Ilhan Omar. She also had a portion of this press conference that was really powerful, especially the way that

she compiled all the different examples of the terrible things that Trump has either said or done. This is a president who has said, grab women by the . This is a president who's called black athletes, sons of bitches. This is a president who has called black people who come from black and brown countries. This is a president who has equated neo-Nazis with those who protests against them in Charlottes. This is a president who has openly violated the very value. country aspires to uphold. Equality under the law, religious liberty, equal protection,

and protection from persecution. And to distract from that, he's launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected members of the United States of House of Representatives, all of whom are women of color. This is the agenda of white nationalist, whether it is happening in chat rooms or it's happening on national TV, and now it's reached the White House garden. So she's pretty clear, and I love the fact that she called Trump out by giving specific examples, because what the right wing will typically do is they'll respond to accusations of racism by pretending as if, like, there aren't specific examples, but there are so many

when it comes to Trump. So call it what it is, it's racism. Trump is racist. That was the, you know, the, like, whole core of his entire presidential campaign. And now his administration. You know, something about Representative Omar is just always going to be so powerful to me. Just that piece right there, her accent, what she's wearing, her skin, just what she looks like, just by being there, being who she is.

is so important and it's so anti-Trump and it's so I it representation matters so she just by looking like she looks and speaking how she speaks is so it's going to be you know it's a special type of importance for so many people who look like her but then for everyone just that represents she's representing our country right now and I think that's amazing and I think calling being in that space I think is that he hates that oh yeah definitely and calling it I mean I think at this point, I'm sort of tired of the word racism, like, I'm just kind of like, yeah, we know he's racist. I think what we saw yesterday in the last couple days, as we saw after Charlottesville, which

is what Ilhano-Meyer is referring to, is that he is a white nationalist. He is not renounced white nationalism. Okay, let's say maybe he's not, but he's given every opportunity, whether it's David Duke supporting him via tweet, whether it's the Charlottesville alt-right protesters, unite the right protesters, or whether it's now, when he was explicitly asked, do, you know, what do you say to white nationalists who really love the tweet that you sent out about calling these representatives, telling them to go back to their countries? Nothing on that.

So we tee him up, and time again, he basically is not giving us any evidence to the contrary. So it's beyond racism. It's no, no, no, no. You believe in white nationalism. And I think that, again, with Pelosi tweeting that, you know, Make America Great Again has always met Make America White again. Good, hon. But, like, you're a little late to the party.

And to me, the right hates these four women for this one particular reason is because they fight back. They don't care about pleasing Trump. They don't care about bipartisanship. They don't care that like, you know, they're gonna agree to, you know, open the government or keep, you know, whatever, whatever agreement. They don't care that Trump quote unquote likes them, as Chuck Schumer once said. They care about having a progressive agenda and they care about standing up to him.

Exactly. So in response to this, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy denied that there's any issue with racism in the GOP, particularly in Trump's administration, and went after these freshman congresswomen, even more aggressively. Take a look. I understand when I listened to their press conference yesterday, they talked more about impeachment than anything else. Even one of those individuals, this wasn't the first time they talked about impeachment. On the night of being sworn in, they brought all their supporters together. And they spoke about impeachment in words that I will not use here. This is more from their basis about politics. You know, it is incredible how he's making this big to-do about profanity. And he's referencing Representative Talib and how she said, impeach the mother effer.

You know, there was this whole brouhaha about that. I mean, you want to talk about profanity. Trump has used profanity over and over again, like to the point where members of the GOP, I mean, just members of Congress overall are emboldened to use profanity when they wouldn't have before, you know, like let's stop. And they didn't just talk about impeachment. I mean, that was a small portion of the press conference. It's interesting how he didn't bring up their policy proposals.

He didn't bring up the fact that they're drawing attention to student loan debt or that they're drawing attention to how our health care system is broken. Republicans fought tooth and nail to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They had how long to do that since 2009? And have they provided any other replacement strategy or replacement for the Affordable Care Act? No. I mean, the one replacement that they showed us was a disaster. So bad that members of their own party voted against it.

So anyway, I just think it's interesting how the GOP strategy is to deflect. And luckily we have at least four members of Congress right now who are willing to fight back. His defense is that it's about politics. When the president of the United States says something racist, well, sure, by definition, it's about politics because he's the president. Yeah. Okay, let's move on from that and they all, you know, that's, I've heard a lot of that. This is about politics, this is political, the president said it.

Of course it's about politics. There's more to it, but of course it's about politics. Yeah, they do that to demonize anyone who brings up a legitimate concern following any type of event, right? Whether it's a mass shooting or it's a hurricane that you can trace back to extreme weather conditions caused by climate change. No, they're making it political, they're making it political. Because it is political, it is political.

The president. Yeah. What? I mean, at least he said something, right? It's better than most, I think, Republicans on this issue, they at least responded. He said something, one thing, everyone else just radio silence. It's an interesting tactic. I really wonder, and I think if Democratic leadership is smart, they'll see that the real leadership

is coming from these new Congress people, Congresswomen specifically, and they'll run with it. Because I think the, I think Trump would love nothing more than to go up against a Biden, a Pelosi, a Schumer. You know what I'm saying, right? He said it. He said, I look forward to seeing you on the debate stage. I think if Democrats were smart, if they truly want to win this thing in 2020, I think they will, They will see with what grace.

All four of those women both did what Michelle Obama said to do, which was to go high, right? But at the same time, met Trump where he's at. They didn't, and they explicitly, Ayanna Presley starts out, don't take the bait. I mean, I mean, Iana Presley was amazing. I was so floored. But she said, don't take the bait. We are gonna call this racist because it is, but we have bigger fish to front. Yeah, we have work to do.

But they didn't at all meet Trump where he's at. No, but they didn't ignore, they didn't say, I'm, oh, well, I don't, I'm not gonna, it was not about my race, you know, they addressed what he said, yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying, exactly. So, they called him, you know, they called it racist, they called him white nationalists. Yeah, they called for his impeachment is what I mean. Yeah, which is, which is all facts. And, like, calling someone, you know, out for what they do is not being a racist. Sure, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying, though.

All right, so we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to touch on what you just mentioned, Francesca, the GOP, who continued to defend him and why it is they continue to do so. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom.

In each episode of Un-B-B-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. Come right back. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Brooke and Francesca with you. So let's move on to our next story.

The House of Representatives was supposed to vote on a resolution condemning Donald Trump for his racism and his racist tweets. Now, of course, this is in response to Trump tweeting in a way of targeting freshman members of Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib, and Ayanna Presley. They referred to as the squad, and he told them to essentially go back to their own country when, as we know, three out of the four were actually born here in the United States, and Ilhan Omar was actually a refugee who became a naturalized citizen here in the United States. But with that said, the resolution or the vote was derailed

by nonsense. An incredibly antiquated rule within the House of Representatives, which will give you more details about in just a second. But first, let's start with what triggered everything. These comments from the White House are disgraceful and disgusting, and these comments are racist. How shameful to hear him continue to defend those offensive words, words that we have all heard and repeat not only about our members, but about countless others. There is no place. anywhere for the President's words which are not only divisive but dangerous and have

legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color. Every single member of this institution Democratic and Republican should join us in condemning the President's racist tweets. I was just going to give the General Speaker of the House

if she would like to rephrase that comment. I have cleared my remarks with a parliamentarian before I read them. And take it, can I ask the words to be taken down. I make a point of order the gentlewoman's words are unparliamentary and risk ready to be taken down. The chair will remind all members, please, please do not make comments toward personality-based comments. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized. I made a point of order that the gentleman's arm parliamentary and request they be taken down.

So Pelosi correctly cited Donald Trump's tweets as racist, because that's exactly what they are. But Doug Collins, of course, wants to protect Trump, which is why he interjected there. And I wanna note that there is, in my opinion, incredibly stupid and antiquated rule within Congress. I wanna go to Graphic 5, citing a precedent from May 15th, 1984, Hoyer ruled against Pelosi that quote, the words should not be used in debate. Now Pelosi mentioned that she had cleared her statements prior to saying them out loud during this resolution vote.

But I guess it doesn't really matter because calling a spade a spade is wrong in Congress. Wait, I didn't, I couldn't understand him through his, I didn't get what that was. What is that? What did he say? It's unparliamentarian? Right, right. So what is? To tell the R word?

To tell the truth, basically, about an individual who's clearly racist. But was it racist, calling, saying they were racist words? Yes. Wow. Unparliamentarian. I mean, this is the same, you know, Trump gave his like, you know, state of the union address in that exact same hall, right? Yeah.

We've been, okay, they were there, cool. This gets worse, okay? If you think this is bad, just wait, this is the tip of the iceberg. But I want to give you more information on this rule. So under Jefferson's manual, the text governing procedure of the chamber specifically bars references to racial or other discrimination by the president. Remarks by House members cannot refer to the president as racist or the president, quote, having made a bigoted or racist statement. So that's what the issue was. So let me ask you something.

What's supposed to happen if the president is racist? That one was? Right. The one who wrote that manual was. Yeah, I was like, this is Jefferson's manual. Like, child slaves. Yeah, of all the people to have a manual. Like, yeah, please don't talk about my slaves and my children.

Anyway, like, yeah, that is also. The fact that I didn't even realize there's so many things and that's what happens when you live in a country where those people are canonized and you're able to just like delete all the horrors of their lives because they did some things good. And some great things, sure, they, you know, started this country. They're the founding fathers of this country. They're also racist, child rapist, slave owners. And they really shouldn't be celebrated.

But that's what happens when you have a country that continues. We have like giant mountains with their faces carved into the wall, into them. When the country operates like that, like this doesn't matter. You end up in 2019 with rules that were written by slave owners. Wait, okay, so let can we just read that again? Because it's that you can't basically bring up racism. It's not about. You can't refer to something that the president has done or said as racist, and you cannot

refer to the president as racist. That is according to this ridiculous antiquated rule. So I mean, the whole point of getting members of the House together to vote on this resolution is complete and utter nonsense if this rule exists. So here's the thing. There are instances in which Republicans obviously don't care about the rules, they just steamroll ahead, and this was a perfect opportunity for Democrats who have a reputation for being incredibly and pathetically weak to actually fight, to stand their ground, and call a spade a spade.

But that is not what happened, as you're about to see in this next video. I came in here to try to do this in a fair way. I kept warning both sides, let's not do this, hoping we could get through. Mr. Gapal had a situation where we could be in here on another motion to, take down words of a friend of mine, but we don't ever, ever want to pass up, it seems, an opportunity to escalate. And that's what this is. I'll dare anybody to look at any of the footage and see if there was any unfairness. But unfairness is not enough, because we want to just fight. I abandon the chair.

So he abandoned the chair. That was Emmanuel, Representative Emmanuel Cleaver, and I don't think he should have done that. I mean, I think that he was in the perfect position to stand his ground because that's the right thing to do. Sure, he was pissed, didn't really know what he was flustered, didn't know what to do. So everyone kind of knows, all Congress people sort of know this rule, which, again, I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that all presidents the rule. What's going to happen if you tell the truth about who the president is? A racist, which, by the way, Pelosi referred to his tweets as racist, but apparently that's against the rule as well. What's going to happen? What's going to happen if they tell the truth about

who the president is? Can we just say that, like, the resolution of whether or not to call these statements racist is a little bit of a dog and pony show. Like I don't- This resolutionist voting general. Yeah, just the vote in general. And I don't, like, it brings up the fact that Even the most minimal, even just a minimal slap on the wrist, this is not who we are, these are not the values that this country stands for, we can't even do that. Meanwhile, the president can spew racist things, we can never call them racist. So I just agree, I'm sorry, I just want to give a little bit of this insight, because I think it is important to have this type of vote.

Because understand that while, yeah, I mean, is it going to accomplish anything to condemn what Trump had said or written on Twitter, it's not going to necessarily change his behavior or change anything in terms of consequences he's going to face. But what it does do, and this is why I think Doug Collins spoke out the way that he did, is it's going to put members of the GOP on the record defending Donald Trump's racism. Sure, if they vote against. Which is why he didn't want the word racist or racism used in what Pelosi said, because then you're on the record, essentially defending Donald Trump, acknowledging that he's a racist,

and they don't want that. Yeah, but there's also been like countless coverage of a lot of these people on that side and what's happening in their own states, what comes out of their mouths, what doesn't come out of the week, this is not new. We know that many of these people, they're willing to support somebody who has been blatantly racist. This is just the latest tweet, if we're honest. Like, do you know what I mean?

This one's just harder to spin. Blatently racism, they've been in full support of him. I just wish Congress would do something that would actually help people. Right. And that's what I'm saying. I hear you. It is, I think that she has something else in her pocket. That's my thing and that this, it's like, okay, well.

Yeah, exactly. So what else? What else in her pocket? Impeachment. Yeah. I'm sorry? What? I'm saying impeachment, man.

I mean, I agree with you. That's what's in the pocket. Once again, something that won't be voted on approvingly by the GOP, but still something that is in your pocket. Well, one of the upsides of opening an impeachment inquiry is that while it is true that it's likely the Senate, which is dominated and controlled by Republicans, would exonerate Trump, you would still have them on the record defending him. So I agree with you.

I mean, we have so much evidence of these members of Congress defending him and his racism through cable news interviews and all of that, statements that they've released. But I think that it's also important to have them on a congressional record, you know, essentially saying, yeah, Trump's racist. I totally condone it, I don't condemn it, and it is what it is. The problem is that this is the limit that they're willing to go. Yeah, I agree on that. We can have this, we can have this, and we could do this.

And even though technically maybe that would end up being for show, but we're not going to do that. What we will do is all stand together and officially say, hey, you're a bad guy. Yeah. Okay, you know what I mean? Like if so many people in this country would have listened to all the journalists doing the good work and all the actual, like, you know, federal paperwork on this man, anything, we wouldn't be in this position.

And that's interesting, I don't know if the four, the squad would, would, I don't know where this initiative came from to condemn the tweets. It's again, once again, like my mind wrapping around the fact that we're just now condemning Trump's Twitter feed is like, okay, well, I guess that's the reality we're in. But like, I did not get that from their press conference. They were not demanding that Congress defend their honor. They were like, this is a child, this is racism, let's move on. And to the people of this country, we stand with you.

And this does not represent our values. And so again, I- Everyone can be standing behind them there too. And I don't know, maybe they weren't invited, everyone's busy, you know, congressmen have a lot to do. But that would have been nice and powerful. Yeah. Look, I think that, so both things are true. I think that it is important for them to do this.

It's a principled approach, especially considering the calls to condemn Ilhan Omar and have a House resolution vote to condemn her because she disagrees with the right wing government of Israel. So it's principled and I think it's important. But at the same time, I totally agree that this is a way of establishment Democrats to kind of, you know, it's thoughts and prayers. That's what it is. It's just.

It's thoughts and prayers, but try to make it appear like they're doing something. Yeah. It's thoughts and prayers, and we don't want thoughts and prayers to stop after a tragedy. It's just that nobody is satisfied with that. Sure. I mean, you brought up an issue also that I think Nancy Pelosi being a trustworthy arbiter of this situation is kind of moot at this point after what did happen around Ilhan Omar and her criticism of the Israeli government. And then she was chastised by the Democratic leadership, specifically Pelosi, for being anti-Semitic. And then when there was pushback on that, it was like, okay, now there's a resolution to condemn all forms of bigotry, which I don't even know if that passed either.

Like, I'm not even sure. But it was like, Pelosi, you know, like less of this and more of like actual, I don't know what this is, but like action. Yeah. But I get what, yeah, because now I'm back in the middle. Like, it's like, all right. It just puts everyone in a bad position that like these crumbs, you got to be happy for them. Sure. You know?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But don't get me wrong, I'm not happy. I think Pelosi has been a week, and by the way, Chuck Schumer as well, weak and ineffective leader. I focus more on Pelosi because she's the leader of the House. And you have a majority in the House of Representatives, you have an obligation or responsibility during the Trump administration especially to mitigate the damage that this administration

does. Instead, you know, the Democratic infighting really blew up last week because the squad refused to vote in favor of handing. Donald Trump $4.6 billion with no strings attached for border security. So she fought that more aggressively than she fought the Trump administration. So I totally agree with you, I'm not happy with the crumbs. That said, I do think it's a principled approach to call for this resolution vote. So let's go to the next story because I think this is something that has perplexed a lot

of people, but in my opinion it makes a lot of sense. Let's go. I know some people don't like his tweets and they think he's crazy. And I, that's why I voted for him. CBS News spoke to a number of Trump supporters following his racist tweets geared toward progressive congresswomen. They're all women of color, of course, told them to go back to their countries. And so the question is, hey, do these Trump voters condemn Trump?

Do they dislike the way he tweets and, you know, basically stokes racial tension in the country? President Trump refused to back down, in part because he believes his supporters will stand by him. Many that we heard from yesterday do. I know some people don't like his tweets and they think he's crass, and that's why I voted for him. It's unfortunate he had to do the way he had to do it. You're doing the only way he can to get this country back. If you think you have it better or where you came from or how they did things there, go back where you came from.

Okay, so, I mean, that last woman, I think perfectly symbolizes the ignorance that you see among voters, Trump voters specifically. They're from the United States of America. Like, what do you mean? Go back, where? Where do you want them to go? Anyway. But this is the reason why you have one member of the GOP after the next defending Trump.

Now, are some of them racist themselves? Absolutely. But are they willing to hide their racism if it's a politically popular move to condemn the president? Yes. But it is not politically popular for the GOP at the moment. Trump has emboldened the right wing electorate to essentially demonstrate who they really are.

They love this stuff. They love the racism. I mean, the first woman in that video said, this is the reason why we voted for him. Yeah, it's good. We've been saying that, we knew that. The Trump voters are racist. Oh my goodness. My goodness, they like his racist tweets.

They also like that what he said that he was going to do when he got caught on that Axis Hollywood tape. They like what he would say about Hillary Clinton. They like what he says about Mexicans. They like that stuff. Every single time it has helped him. That's exactly right. So this is not a shocker.

Nobody's, and someone said the other day about his tweets like, see, more people are going to learn from this. This is not new. Nobody's learning this phrase. They're just glad that the president is willing to say. what they tell little kids at the grocery store. Yep. I guess I will say that I think, I think just as there was a silent majority, right,

that Trump liked to talk about in terms of the people who aren't vociferously for him, but ultimately when they went into the voting booth in 2016 did vote for him, I think there is also a silent majority of people who are repentant Trump voters, who are not going to tell CBS News that they're sorry that they voted for Trump, but that they are going to slip away from what they thought was just sort of showboating. And of course, they threw immigrants and people of color under the bus in order to do that in order to sort of suspend disbelief around his racism. But I think we're going to see that there are a lot of people who are disaffecting.

I think Ayanna Presley the other day in the press conference said that actually, you know, as she's going to the airport, she was approached by former Trump voters who were like, I'm so sorry. I kind of thought it was a joke. But also, there are those people. So, I think it, this is, again, once again, he is dog whistling to the id of America. This is the GOP's last gasp of whiteness. This is their last chance.

They were told, unless you diversify this party, your party is on the fritz. You're no more. So they were like, cool, white nationalism. So, look, you're definitely way more positive thinking than I am and more optimistic than I am. The Republican Party, and I'm talking about the voters, are, no, they're not what you described. 90% of Republican voters approve of what Donald Trump is doing right now. And that's according to the latest Gallup approval rating for Donald Trump. 90%. So maybe 10% of Republican voters aren't, you know, racist and they fall under the category that you just described.

But the vast majority of them see those tweets. They see the comments that Trump makes, and they love it. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you open select Small Business Banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash Small Business Match to learn more.

Conditions apply. And that results in this kind of nonsense from Republican lawmakers. It's this tweet that you're just seeing now is clearly going to get, I think, a lot of discussion. Someone's feeling very comedic today. But the idea that he's hitting them because they're people or women of color is just absurd. I mean, who doesn't Trump hit? I don't think that these were racist comments, but they were certainly not exactly what you'd

call tolerant. Now, there may be a racial tinge to it. I think it's sort of undeniable, considering that these are all women of color. But it's more xenophobic than I think in the racist camp. I read the whole thing. And my summary, after he said leave, he said, please come back. If anything, it's a challenge. But why quibble with context?

I understand the sentiment the president was expressing, and I have some of the same feeling, frankly. I mean, if she dislikes America this much, why is she here? If anyone sounded racist over the weekend, it was AOC, Posse member, Congresswoman Ayanna Presley. She thinks that any minority who doesn't think like she does is inauthentic and not even worth having part of the conversation. They act as if they are more loyal to another entity of some kind. Why does he think the other three are not from America? It might be his own ignorance. It also might be that all of these women constantly present themselves as foreign. So you have Rashida Talib constantly extolling the fact,

she's the first Muslim, she's the first Palestinian American, the first Somali immigrant, Ilhan Omar, the first this, the first that, whatever. They don't say, I'm an American, I'm all American baby, I'm apple pie, red, white, and blue. They don't. So obviously that was a compilation of conservative members of the media, not of lawmakers, but we've shown you various examples of Republican lawmakers. Mitch McConnell's the latest example, who have defended Donald Trump and his racism. McConnell just straight out denies that what Trump said on Twitter was racist. I don't even know where to start. I feel like we need cliff notes of what we just saw. I feel like I'm constipated with like a KKK hood. You know what I mean? Like that's what's

going to come out when I go to the bathroom. Ooh, okay. I got a laugh from that. I don't really know how to follow that up. That wasn't for you. That was for three people watching and who liked that comment. No, yeah, I mean, I don't, like, I think here's what I have to have you, all that trash, all the trash, what I will say is this. Ilhan Omar did call out national news, and she probably should have said Fox, but, I mean, we understood who she meant. Everybody, I don't think everyone could have done a better job.

Everyone. I mean, I guess not everyone, but a lot of outlets could have done a better job of covering. him while he was running yesterday of covering him. A lot of people still making the same similar mistakes. So she's probably good to leave it as very broad because people don't realize what- So many places- Being so careful, yeah, about how you speak about this man and being truthful about him, how if you're not, how that is harmful. Oh, exactly.

And the death threats that she receives, I will say this. For those people who say that whether you're on the right or you're on the right or you're on the left who say that these four women are making this issue about their race, no, they're not at all. They're responding to an attack that was explicitly about their race, calling them from another country, or as Ben Shapiro said, is more zina flow, look, they're not. Anyway, but they're rising above those really base, base comments, because actually, it behooves the right wing if they only talked about how it was a racist attack.

totally behooves them because the right wing and Fox News and everything, all they can talk about at this point is the socialist, i.e. Medicare for all free college agenda, which is somehow supposedly horrible. And their viewership is like, yeah, that is horrible. Wait a minute, that sounds good. No, you make such a good point. You make such a good point, because what are you going to attack these women on other than their race, right? The fear mongering about race has been part and parcel of the Republican Party for quite some time now. We all know that. But if you actually try to attack them on their policy proposals as Hannity made the mistake of doing once. Remember, Hannity had a giant screen behind him that said, look at what AOC wants to do.

Free health care, free college, all these things that Americans, particularly like middle America who are really struggling right now with this income and wealth inequality, they would love it. And so of course, they're gonna go ahead and fearmonger and do the whole boogeyman tactics when it comes to people of color and it's pathetic. There was something I wanted to say before the video came up, we were talking about people kind of like pushing away from him or feeling like this goes too far. I feel like most likely that is when he does something that affects you personally.

It was like how Megan McCain, one of the worst things she's ever said about him, she's been horrified by him, and she's been negative about Trump. But when it affected her sister, it was like I can't even defend the party, I am disgusted. I am, and all the farmers, all of the people who are married to Latin Americans who still voted for him and supported him and then saw their wives and husbands be taken away and deported. Then they're like, oh no, all of the people affected by his tax act. That's what happens. You don't see what he said about people who don't look like you and think, it doesn't even

matter if he's joking, you should be horrified by that. There's nothing that he has done has surprised them. I think like as far as like this bad behavior, what it is is that he started to do things that affects them because people realize and we're seeing it happening even when people who like go on TV to support him, one by one, you get shown that you are not of him. You're not rich, you're not, you know, white, you're not, you know, you're not only surrounded by people who are just like him. You're not exempt from it.

It'll hit you and it does. Absolutely. Yeah, the future will just be two parties. It'll be like the empathy party and the zero empathy party. And it'll be very clear. Because I think that's, I mean, that's pretty much where we're ahead. It's like, I don't get if not affect me. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah, we got to go to break. But when we come back, we have a quick clip to show you of how Kelly Ann Conway is handling all of this. And then I want to make sure we get to the story about corruption in Puerto Rico. It's a big story. I want to make sure you know about it. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives,

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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 tYT.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, welcome back to TYT. Just a quick reminder. If you're looking to create your website, go to Squarespace.com slash TYT. You will find a great. great service there where they will provide all sorts of templates and they'll make creating a website very easy. If you go to that specific URL, you'll get a 10% off coupon.

So again, go to squarespace.com slash TYT. Also, I will be on Cuomo primetime tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern time. So at some point in that hour, I don't know the exact timing, but 9 p.m. Eastern time, 6 p.m. Pacific, this is happening because Jank is out of town. It's just happening because you're great, stop it. Is this your first time on Cuomo? Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited.

So I'm looking forward to it. We're going to talk about, well, I'm going to debate Democratic infighting with Howard Dean. Okay. So it'll be fun. Can you sneak in a? Maybe. Yeah. I mean, he might end up doing that.

He might be good. It'll be good. I got to be honest. It's been a crazy day. and I'm irritable, you guys can probably already tell. So I think that irritability is a negative right now, but a positive when I go on CNN. I'm looking forward to that. All right, let's move on to the rest of the news.

Kellyanne Conway held a press conference where she addressed Donald Trump's racism, of course not calling him a racist, but essentially defending him. And during the reporter's questioning, here's what happened. If the president was not telling these four congresswomen to return to their supposed countries of origin, to which countries was he referred? What's your ethnicity? Why is that relevant? No, no, because I'm asking you a question.

My ancestors are from Ireland and Italy. My own idea is that is not relevant to the question. No, no, it is because you're asking about, he said originally. He said originally from. So she was speaking to Andrew Feinberg. And if you couldn't hear his response, he essentially said, I don't know what my ethnicity has anything to do. Like this, it has nothing to do with this.

Can you answer the question? And this was her way of deflecting. And I, this is crazy. So there's all this support toward her husband because he will tweet against Donald Trump. But you're married to that. Hello. Right. Say it.

Right. You are married to somebody who goes on national television to defend racism by doing the same thing. Yep. That happened today. Keep your Washington Post op-eds. You know. You are married to that.

Paul Abdul said, we come together because opposites attract. So like, I get it, you know. Girl. I don't care about the Conways at all. Like, none of me cares about the Conways. I just like how they wheel out Kellyan. They're like, hey, got any. any more gas in that gaslight girl?

And she's like, and then she tries, p, p, p, p, p, pah, and then it's with your ethnicity. Like, what was the right answer to that question? What was he supposed to say? He handled it perfectly. Of course. My ethnicity doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with the question I'm asking you. Let's move on.

But what if I had been there and been like, oh yeah, I'm Chinese and Italian, go. Like what was, do you know what I mean? Like, of course it wasn't a proper question to ask, but it's like, she's like, I'm, she's like, I'm Irish and Italian, by the way, I've never been more ashamed about being Italian, you know, than today. Bad day for ITALs. But like, anyway, the point is, is like, I would have loved to see if he had just pushed her and been like, oh, let's see her get wrapped up in her own racist questioning here. I mean, this is what the executive branch has devolved to, and we're supposed to have

a system of checks and balances. And so, again, I just want to call on Nancy Pelosi and Democratic. leadership to do the right thing here, and the right thing is to fight this administration. Not progressive members of Congress, not freshman Democrats, but the actual threat to U.S. democracy, the actual threat to U.S. citizens, and that's the Trump administration. This type of behavior is unacceptable. So let's move on to some other news. Various politicians in Puerto Rico have been arrested and are facing charges.

related to corruption. In fact, there have been mass protests in response to some leaked chats between the governor of Puerto Rico and other government officials. The leaked chat room conversations among Rosello and 11 others are laced with profane, homophobic and sexist comments. And in one case, even a death threat against the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Cruz. The governor's chief financial officer, Christian Sobrino, wrote, quote, I'm dying to shoot her up.

Rosello replied, you'd be doing me a big favor. So there are calls on him to step down. He's refusing to do so. He's planning on running for reelection, and we'll see how that goes. But there's more. I mean, this is the latest news, the leak is the latest news, but several officials in Puerto Rico have actually been arrested on corruption charges. They essentially took federal money and they used that money to grant contracts to their

buddies. So this is something we see quite often in government actually, but now we're seeing some consequences for people, no shocker that it's politicians out of Puerto Rico. Yeah, and also, you guys should be busy, you have other things to do. You know what I mean? Obviously he's trying to like say, like lighten this up by not quitting after being a part of a conversation that talked about harming, shooting a woman, a fellow politician, but you should be busy.

You owe that to the people that you are supposed to be representing. And not just the people who use tax credits and incentives to move over there for part of the year, but the people who live there who are struggling because you're not protecting them because you're too busy talking about harming someone who is fighting for them. There's still Puerto Ricans who are struggling, who are homeless because their homes were destroyed as a result of Hurricane Maria, you're absolutely right. But they have, look, I hate to admit it, but the mismanagement of the funds is certainly true, and that was something that Trump called attention to.

Now Trump has other issues when it comes to dealing with Puerto Rico. Right, one who doesn't know where it is. That's true, doesn't think it's actually part of the United States, although it is. But it's true in that what we're seeing in Puerto Rico is corruption. There are sweetheart deals for their buddies. And one example is Julia Kelleher, who is actually the former secretary of Puerto Rico's Department of Education. I bring her up because she got arrested for being part of these corruption schemes.

And Nomey Kranz, when she was reporting for us, actually went to Puerto Rico and spoke to her specifically about privatizing public schools in Puerto Rico. And just pay close attention to how defensive and angry she gets. this interview? Why this shift towards privatization at this point? Well, charter schools or public schools? I mean, there's some debate over that. They're hybrids.

That's the big debate over charter schools. And I'm just playing devil's advocate here because I think 99% of the fair people, fair people that are not invested in charter schools, would say that they're a hybrid. No one in 2018 thinks that charter schools are fully public. I think that's preposterous and it's like Betsy DeVos language. You know, and I'm somebody comes from a state where charter schools are very much. very, very invested. And it's a reasonable assumption. But to say that they're completely public is almost ridiculous. That's, that's, you know, I have to call truth on that. This, I mean,

it's questionable. But based on that, I mean, I don't, I don't want to get into whether or not they're public or private. I think the question is, what is the reasoning? Why not just fund your schools? Why not, even if you were to say that we're shutting down 500 schools, you could take whatever money to improve those schools, fully fund them, invest in them, improve the structures, rather than allocate public resources to charter schools, building new buildings, hiring teachers that may not be fully accredited or unionized. I don't think any of the things that you're mentioning are contemplated, so I really don't know how to respond to the question because you're introducing things that aren't

part of what our plan is. So what's the plan? The plan, as is written in the law, is to create an application process through which entities that are eligible entities would be able to apply. They're gonna have to submit a financial workbook. This isn't, the intention here is not to turn education into a profit making enterprise. Now, while she didn't like answering Nomiki's questions, she will have to answer the FBI's questions because as I mentioned, she was arrested earlier by FBI authority.

And she wasn't the only one. Angela Avila Morero was also arrested. She was the former director of Puerto Rico's health insurance administration. She allegedly steered federal money to unqualified politically connected contractors, according to the Associated Press. There are five other officials and politicians in Puerto Rico who got arrested, including Glenda Ponce Mendoza and Myra Ponce Mendoza sisters who worked as education consultants. Fernando Caliet, an executive at the auditing firm, BDO, and consultant Alberto Velazquez Pignoll.

So all of them are arrested with charges including wire fraud, theft, and money laundering, according to NPR. Listen, it's just equal opportunity corruption. If mainland U.S. is going to do it, Puerto Ricans are going to, you know, take a bite as well. But of course, because of Puerto Rico, the FBI actually goes after them. Whereas nobody's going after Betsy DeVos right now. But this is insult to injury. It's so upsetting to know that in the wake of Hurricane Maria, that now what Naomi Klein

called the shock doctrine is absolutely playing out where you have corrupt officials paving the way for private enterprise to replace public services. Everyone's trying to leach off the system and get money from it. Carmen Eulene Cruz is the best hope that Puerto Rico has to defend its sovereignty and to establish some kind of autonomy over its own government, its own economy. She was the one I think who floated the idea about, hey, maybe we should stop producing so many, like all the pharmaceuticals that we produce here on this island. Like, what if we slowed that a little bit, you know?

Or something where it's like actually using the power and of the Puerto Rican people and like the economics poll that they have against the federal government to at least stand up for themselves because they're getting run over here. And they've given, I mean, these corrupt politicians in Puerto Rico have given the Trump administration a way of attacking them and withholding federal funding that the island certainly needs when it comes to disaster relief, right? So unfortunately, these disgusting crooks redirected $15.5 million in federal funding to their buddies.

But they don't care. They don't care about the people around them because they don't care that this makes them look even worth and it gives the president another excuse to not help people like his own citizens, they don't care. If they care, they wouldn't be doing this in the first place, let alone caring, you know, how it trickles down. They don't care about it. Yeah, the greed in this country is incredible.

And the willingness to watch people suffer just so you can profit or your friends can profit is, I mean, it's a sickness, it's a virus in America that needs to be. This is the reason why I think politicians like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, progressives resonate with so many voters, even voters on the right. When you just talk about the issues and you get rid of labels, when you don't talk about Democrat versus Republican, when you actually talk about money in politics and corruption, I mean, those issues do unite voters. Yeah.

All right. Thank you so much for joining me, ladies. Thank you, Anna. This was a crazy day, but Brooke Thomas, you guys can obviously check her out on damage report and this show on a regular basis. Yes. I have my own podcast, too, that everyone should listen to. It's called Controlling Our Narrative, and I think it's great.

Awesome. And Francesca, you have a podcast. I do have a podcast, but I'm also going to be in Wisconsin this weekend with Ida Rodriguez. We're a part of the Abortion A-F tour. We're going to be in Milwaukee and Madison, so look that up and come out to our show. Awesome. All right. We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back with Hour 2. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.