The Young Turks - Republicans Dismantling Affordable Care Act And Bernie Owns The RNC
Episode Date: March 28, 2019The Affordable Care Act is in trouble. Bernie shows the world he’s a true leader. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mo...re information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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All right, welcome the Young Church, Jane Cougar, Anna Kusparan with you guys.
Yes, I'm back to wearing a t-shirt with you.
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Okay, so now big show ahead for you guys, I'm in an angry mood, so that's fun.
Oh, that makes the both of us, it should be an explosive show.
Okay, yeah, well, brace for impact.
So we're gonna talk about the Green New Deal in a little bit.
I think the Democrats are also wrong on it.
Republicans are obviously wrong on it.
So we'll get to that.
We'll get to a lot of the policy issues that are up for discussion now.
We're gonna start with insurance to the second.
And then more anger at both the Republicans and the Democrats because a Republican
congressman does something deeply anti-Semitic and not a peep from
Democratic leadership, not an effing peep.
So when it comes to attacking their own, they're lions.
When it comes to criticizing Republicans, they're lambs.
They wonder why we think they don't support us.
They're not our leaders.
They're the leaders of the, in fact, they're not even the leaders of the donors.
They're the followers of the donors.
They're quite pathetic.
Okay, with that being said, let's get into the rage.
It's become clear that the Trump administration is pushing for federal judges to strike down
all of the Affordable Care Act, including several of its popular protections, like protections
for those who have preexisting conditions.
Now, Trump was asked about this, and here is his answer.
The administration is making very sure that you think the Affordable Care Act is invalid
to be thrown down.
What is your message?
Let me just tell you exactly what my message is.
The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of healthcare.
Okay, this is the same guy who said that people who lie should be banned from television.
So that is, they will be known as a party who destroyed health care.
And it is not an arguable position.
So if you see a so-called debate on cable news, they are lying to you on purpose, they're
being politically correct, they're not giving you the facts.
The facts are the Trump administration has filed papers in court to you.
completely get rid of the Affordable Care Act, Anna's going to give you all the details,
but I'll give the highlights right now, 21 million people would lose their insurance.
Over 50 million people could lose their insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
It's over 100 million people that would be affected by pre-existing conditions, but according
to reports, over 50 million would lose their insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
And then you have another 109 million people who would be affected by the lifetime and yearly
caps.
So hey, if your healthcare problem was really bad, like one that might kill you, and you
ran into a cap, well, sad day for you, you have no more money, we're not going to give
it to you, and you're going to bankrupt your entire family and then proceed to die.
Because that's the GOP plan.
That's a fact.
And there's Mitch McConnell right next to him, and all the Republican leaders, none of them
are objecting to what the Trump administration is doing.
I'm telling you right now, if you hear anything.
journalists out there saying that, hey, we can't tell which one's that better health care
plan, which one would cover more people or not?
They are lying on behalf of the Republican Party because of political correctness.
Tell the truth.
So the lies continue on social media as well, where Trump had tweeted the Republican Party
will become the party of health care.
Now I'm gonna give you all the reasons why that is untrue.
First off, while they've been clear in their position on the affordable care,
Act, they have not proposed any policy that would take the Affordable Care Act's place.
They are mentioning block grants, but there is no policy.
And there are a number of protections here with the Affordable Care Act that are important
that have not been addressed by the GOP.
So for instance, let's start with the pre-existing conditions and how much of an impact repealing
or getting rid of the Affordable Care Act would have.
Currently, as many as 133 million Americans, roughly half of the population under the age
of 65 have preexisting medical conditions that could disqualify them from buying a health
insurance policy or cause them to pay significantly higher premiums if the health law
were overturned.
But if you want to get to serious preexisting conditions, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated
that 52 million people have conditions serious enough that insurers would outright deny
them coverage if the ACA were not in effect.
Its estimates are based on guidelines insurers had in place about whom to cover before the
federal law was enacted.
So these were guidelines and policies that insurance companies already had.
This was a practice that they were already doing prior to the passage of Obamacare.
Okay, so now the fact that Trump is lying about them being the party of healthcare, unless
they mean he means destruction of health care, is a fact, okay, and but when you turn to the Republican
party, again, issuing a challenge to all the so-called journalists in America, are you going
to put every single Republican congressman on the spot?
Because a lot of them in their campaign said, no, we want to protect people with pre-existing
conditions.
Right now, the official policy position of the Trump administration is to deny you if you
have a pre-existing condition.
And by the way, they didn't change their position on that.
They changed their position to be in favor of a total repeal Affordable Care Act in the
in the court system, right?
But they had always been in favor of getting rid of protections for preexisting conditions.
So Republicans, which one is it?
Are you with Donald Trump or are you for protecting people with preexisting conditions?
Because you cannot have it both ways.
And if to, again, the mainstreaming in this country lies on behalf of the Republican Party and
calls it even, well, then they are no journalists at all.
All they are is stenographers for the Republican and Democratic parties, and their job
is to take the truth and twist it into lies so that, well, hey, I didn't defend Republicans,
I lied on their behalf.
So I'm not saying that they're doing that yet, although they have done that historically
every time.
New York Times has a good story about it today that lays out the facts, but they must go to
the next step and say the Republicans are in favor of this policy, which would rob you
of your health insurance.
That's a fact.
How many times you have to say it?
Oh, well, no, it's an opinion.
You guys like the Democratic Party?
No, I don't.
I can't stand the Democratic Party.
I think that their leadership is pathetic.
I can go on and on, okay?
I need you to report the facts, but again, largely, they will mostly, you turn on cable news.
They'll have so-called debates, and they will do political correctness to call it even.
So let's talk about the number of people that would be impacted as a result of this
change in policy or getting rid of the Affordable Care Act.
Care Act.
So you hear the number 20 million Americans quite a bit, and I want to break that down
for you.
So currently, under the Affordable Care Act, there are 11.4 million Americans who buy health
insurance through these Obamacare marketplaces.
12 million receive coverage through the expansion of Medicaid.
So this is federal money, federal taxpayer money that's given to states to expand their
Medicare program in order to cover low income individuals.
21 million are most at risk if Obamacare is struck down.
That includes 9.2 million who receive federal subsidies.
So let's talk about those subsidies a little bit because they're incredibly important.
As we know, health care premiums are very expensive.
And so if you are a low income individual, it's hard for you to pay for that on your own.
These subsidies help make those premiums affordable.
So on average, the subsidies covered $525 of a $612.
$12 monthly premium for customers in the 39 states that use the federal marketplace,
health care.gov.
And I also want to note that there were red states who refused to accept that federal money
in order to offer coverage to their constituents.
Red states were so defined about this that they were willing to allow their constituents
to suffer just so they could make a point about how partisan they are and how much they hated
the Affordable Care Act.
And now if you're a Republican voter and you say, oh, I don't want those bums leaching off the government, right?
And I know who you're referring to, and everybody knows who you're referring to.
But if you're on Medicaid, I want you to know, according to your definition, not my definition, you're one of those bums.
So the Medicaid is from the government.
I know, well, Jake, why are you bothering to clarify the most obvious things in the world?
They don't know it.
I just talked to a documentarian that talked to a MAGA guy, and he's like, get him.
your government hands off my Medicaid.
You idiot, that is the government.
Oh, I hate socialism.
What is Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security?
That is, in essence, socialism.
And by the way, again, a failure of the mainstream media.
Why?
Well, hey, socialism is radical and extreme.
And they never clarify, they say, oh, it's obvious.
It's not obvious.
Do the polling.
I bet you a majority of Republican voters would tell you that Medicaid, Medicare, and Social
Security are not socialist programs, are not, I don't think that even a majority would think
that they were government programs, that they were government providing support for people
like themselves.
No, no, no, no, that's not the government, no way.
Government sucks.
Hey, don't touch my Medicaid.
Yes, if you're getting Medicaid, it's going to get cut by the Republicans.
Get it through your thick skull.
And just to give you a number on how many people would lose their Medicaid coverage,
than 12 million low income adults who have gained Medicaid coverage through the laws expansion
of the program could lose it.
And let me be clear, the great majority of those are white Americans.
And a huge percentage based on demographics in the 2016 vote were Trump voters.
So you idiots, we're trying to protect you so that your family, when they get sick, don't
Don't die, okay?
But if you're gonna fight us on it, at least understand you're the one benefiting from
the program.
And children, of course, would also be affected by this.
According to the Urban Institute and their analysis, in all, enrollment in the program
would drop by more than 15 million, including roughly 3 million children who got Medicaid
or the children's health insurance program when their parents signed up for coverage.
And there are a bunch of other issues here that don't really get as much attention.
They're smaller protections, I guess you could argue, but they do have a huge impact.
So for instance, the ACA requires insurance companies to cover substance abuse treatment, and
they could stop if the law were struck down.
Now as we all know, the opioid epidemic is huge, and there's been very little in the form
of solutions from the Trump administration.
Getting rid of the Affordable Care Act and the treatment coverage that health insurance companies
are now forced to provide would further exacerbate the problem.
Also, 40% of people from ages 18 to 65 with opioid addiction, roughly 800,000 people are
on Medicaid, many or most of whom became eligible for it through the healthcare law.
All right, I'm not done yet.
So now let me turn to that 109 million number that I gave you guys.
Overall, 156 million Americans could be affected by the lifting of coverage caps.
So there's yearly caps in the old days before Affordable Care Act, and it was lifetime
caps.
On lifetime caps alone, according to Brookings Institute analysis done in 2017, 109 million people
could be exposed to those lifetime caps again if we go to the old system, which we would
if the Trump administration gets their way in court.
So what's the point of health insurance?
It's to treat you for sometimes mild conditions.
When you do checkups, you're usually doing co-pays anyway.
So you're paying for it.
If you've got medium-sized problems, insurance kicks in, you pay a lot in deductibles, premiums,
co-pays, et cetera, but you're likely going to survive, but actually 40% of the country can't
even survive a $400 bill, right, without having to take out money in a loan debt, et cetera,
right?
But if you get a life-threatening illness, you're a goner.
You're almost certainly going to run into the cap.
And when you run into the cap, the first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna bankrupt
your family because you gotta pay out of your own pocket.
Because what are you gonna do?
You're gonna let your mom die?
You're gonna let your kid die?
No, you're not, you're gonna spend every dollar you have, you're gonna sell your house,
you're gonna sell your cars, you're gonna bankrupt yourself.
It's not theoretical, it's already happened millions of times in this country.
And then after that, you're gonna run out of money anyway, and that family member's gonna
die.
Hey, but health insurance companies gotta make profits.
The private system's great, isn't it?
And that's what we're gonna be exposed to again now.
Who brought you that?
Who is fighting for that tooth and nail, that horrible, horrific system?
The Republican Party, it is not in dispute.
Anyone who tells you in dispute is a liar and not a journalist.
Okay, and finally, we talked about Medicaid, we talked about all the other people affected
every other way.
Let's talk about Medicare.
Americans love Medicare, including the Republicans, Republican voters love Medicare.
They're gonna cut your Medicare.
That is also part of this.
When the Affordable Care Act helped Medicare recipients in two different ways, it covered
more things than Medicare used to cover, and it lowered your prescription drug prices.
Now, 133 million Americans, that's roughly half the population under the age of 65, are going
to be affected by the preexisting conditions.
And then everyone above the age of 65 that gets Medicare is going to be affected by the factors
that I just outlined for you guys.
So your prices are going to go up if you get Medicare, who's going to do that?
Whose fault is that?
100% the Republican Party.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is not a journalist, it's they're a liar.
You know, I used to think, last thing on this guys, I used to, people would ask me, are
you guys journalists?
And I would laugh in the beginning, you know, we've been doing the show for a long time.
I'd say, of course not, we're talk show hosts.
And now my answer is a resounding yes, but only vis-a-vis the other so-called journalists
in this country.
Because I had assumed naively when we started 17 years ago, the journalists were fair and they
would, you know, they aggressively pursued the facts and told the facts no matter what.
No, they don't.
No, what I've seen is, hey, here's, the Democrats say this, the Republicans say this,
truth says this, lies say that, but I'm not going to tell you which one is truth and lies.
I'm going to cover it up.
So there are some great journalists in the country, again, in this case, New York Times,
I'll give their names, Reed Abelson, Abby Goodnow, and Robert Paird that did this in-depth analysis.
Great journalism, thank you, that's facts.
Now they don't blame the Republican Party, but they should, that is what the Republican Party
is fighting for, is to rob you of all these things, but that's okay.
They give you good facts, and that says better journalists than us.
No question.
But if you see journalists giving you false equivalency, they're not journalists.
And yes, we are infinitely better than them at this.
Let's talk a little bit about Bernie Sanders and his unapologetic attitude toward critics
on Medicare for All.
So a common line of attack toward Bernie Sanders in his pushing for Medicare for all is that
his plan would do away with private insurers.
And even though that's an attack, here is how Bernie Sanders handles that very criticism.
We have to recognize that the current system is incredibly dysfunctional and wasteful.
Its goal is to make profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies.
You are not going to be able in the long run to have cost effective universal health care unless you change the system,
unless you get rid of the insurance companies, unless you stand up to the greed of the drug companies.
Now, that video clip on MSNBC with Chris Hayes was tweeted by the RNC, and the RNC attacked Bernie Sanders for that, writing Bernie Sanders on the limiting private health insurance, get rid of the insurance companies, and Bernie Sanders retweeted it and added the comment, your damn right.
God, it's why we love them.
You wonder why we love them.
That's why, that's why.
Okay, so that goes to two things, guys.
One, who is the champion of these policies?
Who's the champion?
So look, there are other progressives that I like in the race.
And I got no issues with them and no disrespect, but who's the champion?
He's been championing that for decade after decade.
You know why I say that?
Because it's a fact.
He's not my uncle, I don't know him from Adam, okay?
All I know is here's this guy who is a rock and who has been fighting for this all along.
So he's been right on the issues, he's been the ones fighting for those issues, which leads
a point number two.
When someone is in office, who do you think is going to act on these issues?
Someone who joined the party late, someone who's kind of in favor of it, who's in favor of Medicare
for some or Medicare for all eventually, or a guy who writes, damn right we're going to
get rid of private insurance, and we're going to get you Medicare for all.
Medicare polls a seven, not Medicare for all, Medicare itself.
itself pulls a 77%. Medicare for all pulls us 70%. Now Democratic leadership is bragging
that the Affordable Care Act is now up to 50%. Great. I think the Affordable Care Act
is infinitely better than what we had before. Is it as good as Medicare for all?
No. Clearly not. It does not cover nearly as many things. It has Medicare for all has no premiums,
the doctor's co-based. I can go on and on. So, but the Democrats go, oh, wow, I mean, Medicare
for all might poll at 70%.
But that number's gonna go down.
That number's gonna go down.
Well, you don't say that about Affordable Care Act.
You don't say, oh, it's at 50%, but it's gonna go down.
You go, yes, it's at 50%.
So why don't you celebrate the Medicare for All is at 70%.
Because you don't actually want it.
I don't want a president who's gonna lie to us and then not do a goddamn thing.
I want a president who comes in on day one and who says Medicare for all, you're
damn right, we're going for it, and we're gonna get it.
So I want to elaborate a little more on the point that you made about how Bernie Sanders
has been fighting for the same thing for decades, right?
He's not some late-comer to the progressive movement.
He was talking about and pushing forward progressive policies from day one, even when these
policies were not popular, even when progressivism wasn't considered trendy in the Democratic
Party.
And so I think that that speaks volumes to who he is as a politician.
I feel like progressivism today is the politics what skinny jeans is to fashion, right?
It's trendy, so politicians, I see a lot of politicians throwing that word around as if it's
something that they've always believed in.
I just see a lot of fraudulent behavior going on.
And I ask that everybody pay close attention to voting records, pay close attention to speeches
that have been given by these politicians throughout the decades, if they've been politicians
throughout the decades, what have they stood for?
Have they been strong?
More importantly, have they been leaders?
Because I would argue that it's incredibly easy to be a leader when you're fighting for something
that's already very popular.
A real leader pushes the country in the right direction when it's uncomfortable and difficult
to do so.
And that's what Bernie Sanders has done over and over again.
Now, people come on and go, oh yeah, sure, sure, I'm for Medicare for all.
I mean, it's overwhelmingly popular, so I'm in favor of it.
I mean, eventually, no, no, hell to the no, not eventually, day one, we're not stuttering.
Now, so let me interest the so-called journalist in Washington who are deeply biased against progressives
and Bernie Sanders.
So first of all, they'll sometimes say things like, well, since he's won on all these
issues and the other candidates have adopted them, we don't need them anymore.
How kind of sense does that make?
Since George Washington already won the Revolutionary War and everybody is now an American,
we don't need him anymore, so he shouldn't run for president?
What?
What do you talk?
Why wouldn't the leader run?
Why wouldn't the guy who championed it run and be the obvious one you should support?
No, no, no, no, no, it can't be Bernie.
Why?
Because he would actually do it, and no one in Washington actually wants it done.
Let's keep it real on that.
So that's the reality of what's going on.
Now, on the issue of private insurance, this is where we're really.
all the Washington reporters who claim they're unbiased.
Oh, we're neutral, an opinion.
We asked a political reporter on the show a couple of weeks ago.
He said, no, I don't do assumptions, I only do facts.
That's hilarious, okay?
Their assumption is getting rid of private insurance, that's radical.
Wait a minute, isn't that an assumption?
Every other developed country has a single payer and doesn't have private insurance.
They might have different layers of small amount of private insurance, but largely it's
single payer, the government does it.
So aren't we the radical ones for being the only developed country that relies on private
insurance who maximizes their profits by not giving us health care?
By not giving us health care.
But somehow the radical position is to provide health care for everyone.
But that's not a radical position, it's only radical if you're a corrupt Washington
insider who wants to protect the profits of health insurance executives.
So is it actually radical to get rid of private insurance?
No, because in reality, we're not getting rid of privatized healthcare or hospitals or any
of those things.
So they usually leave it vague enough that it scares people like, oh my god, I'm gonna get
rid of my doctor, they're gonna get rid of my doctor, no, no, it doesn't affect your doctor
at all.
Can you still go to your doctor?
Absolutely.
You will be covered completely, completely.
So why would you need private insurance if you're covered completely?
Well, I mean, what if you had cancer?
Covered.
What if you got a heart attack?
Covered.
What if you broke your leg?
Covered?
What if you had any kind of disease, covered?
But what would be your copay?
Zero, perium, zero, deductible, zero.
Oh, but that'll be a lot of taxes, but that Medicare for all?
Even according to the co-brother study, saves $2 trillion.
It saves $2 trillion.
Why don't you be honest with the American people?
You don't want Bernie Sanders because you're afraid he actually will do Medicare for all.
And he will cost you some advertisers that are in the health insurance company that allow
you to get fat off their money as they're getting fat off the rest of us.
When we return from the break, we are going to talk about the Senate vote on the Green
New Deal and what Democrats did in order to, in their minds, oh,
avoid a tricky maneuver by Mr. Kahn.
Yeah, it's so cute, so goddamn cute.
Listen, I'm gonna tell you something, okay, it says Homo Progressives on this shirt, okay, at the bottom.
That's our slogan, Home of Progressives.
And yes, in the next year and a half, a little bit longer than that, there's gonna be a huge
fight, and we're gonna be on your side.
And almost no one else is.
TYT.com slash join.
You either make us strong and powerful, and we roar for you guys.
Or you'll have the same lukewarm, biased, completely in favor of the status quo in the establishment press.
That is the entirety of the rest of the media.
So your call, but we can't do this alone.
We don't have any private backers.
We don't have any giant insurance companies backing us.
All we got is you guys.
TYT.com slash join.
Let's war together.
We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR.
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For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,
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All right, back on a young turks.
A lot of people commented on what we did yesterday, no, sorry, the wrong tweets.
You want to tell us a couple of things again.
Yeah, I want to tell you guys about Squarespace.
So Squarespace is a great place to go if you're looking to create your website.
I used it to create my own website, I know Jank has used it to create a website, which is kind
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Okay, all right, let me now read a couple of your comments from the member section.
Sartorial Narwhal says, unfortunately Trump and the GOP now know that many Republicans are low
information voters and only listen to the sound bites or read tweets.
That's right, that's why we're desperately asking the journalists to do their job.
So when Trump says a thousand times over, we're the healthcare party, we're the party
of healthcare, we're the party of healthcare.
You know what?
It'll work because the journalists will cower instead of doing their jobs and so will the Democrats
because that's what they do for a living.
Meg writes in, the pre-existing conditioner have her here, so she has one.
Some dude at my work was flipping out last night because he's a diabetic and now cannot
afford his insulin.
Paramedics had to calm him down.
So that's the situation we have in this country.
It's barbaric.
Well, hey, if you can't afford your insulin, go ahead and, you know, suffer and then eventually die.
Okay.
Alex writes in, Democratic leadership doesn't care about actual anti-Semitic comments.
They just care about comments critical of Israel.
Well, they have now proven that several times over.
And that's a story that we're going to get to a little bit later in the show.
Last one, Sawya, Progressive says, I'm a PSS for dementia home.
I can't even imagine these people using their health care.
The family already struggle financially and emotionally, imagine them losing the little help
that they have.
The Republican Party in this country is vicious, vicious.
And the Democrats fight back with, like, eh.
And then they brag about how they're master legislators, getting their asses handed to them
by these monstrous Republicans, cowering in the shadows.
Let's get to that story.
Mitch McConnell pushed for a vote on the Green New Deal, even though it isn't legislation,
it's a non-binding resolution.
But it was a political stunt in order to get Democrats in districts that are purple to vote
in favor of the Green New Deal so they have a harder time getting reelected.
So the measure, of course, did not pass.
It needed 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle, and it failed in a 0 to 57 vote with
with 43 Democrats voting present.
So the Democrats refused to vote either in favor or against.
They decided to vote present because they recognize this as a sham and as a political plot.
Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Doug Jones of Alabama, and Kirsten Cinema
of Arizona, voted with Republicans though against the measure, as did Senator Angus King
of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.
Important note here, Angus King is an independent, but he caucuses with the Democrats like Bernie
Sanders does, but he votes with Republicans all the time.
There's no howl from the Democratic leadership or the Democratic Party about Angus King's
not even a Democrat, he's not even a Democrat, and he goes and votes with the Republicans
all the time.
No, they love that.
Like, oh, that's, oh, he votes with corporations.
He votes with all of our donors, Angus King, great guy, great guy.
We gotta support Angus King.
You know that the Democratic Party stood by and did not support the Democratic candidate
in that race last year, in Maine.
They supported Angus King instead, who's an independent, who votes with the Republicans.
But when Bernie Sanders says, hey, Democratic Party should be more progressive, they're
like, not a Democrat, not a Democrat, he's an independent, he's an independent, okay, so which
one is it?
God damn it, they're so obvious.
So while we see cowardice and a lack of curse.
from some of the Democrats, most of the Democrats in Congress right now, in the Senate
and the House, luckily we do have some freshman Democrats who understand what it means
to fight for values and policies that would actually lead to a better country.
In fact, one of those freshman Democrats gets a lot of attention.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, enjoy the next video.
The concern of the environment as an elitist concern.
One year ago, I was waitressing in a taco shop in downtown Manhattan.
I just got health insurance for the first time a month ago.
This is not an elitist issue.
This is a quality of life issue.
You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is
elitist?
Tell that to the kids in the South Bronx, which are suffering from the highest rates of childhood
asthma in the country.
that to the families in Flint, whose kids have their blood is ascending in lead levels,
their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives. Call them elitist. You're telling them
that those kids are trying to get on a plane to Davos. People are dying. They are dying.
And the response across the other side of the aisle is to introduce an amendment five minutes
before a hearing and a markup. This is serious. This should not be a partisan issue. This is
about our constituents and all of our lives. Iowa, Nebraska, broad swaths of the Midwest are drowning
right now, underwater, farms, towns that will never be recovered and never come back. And we're here
and people are more concerned about helping oil companies than helping their own families? I don't think
so. I don't think so. This is about our lives. This is about American lives. And it should not be
partisan. Science should not be partisan. We are facing a national crisis. And if we do not ascend
to that crisis, if we do not ascend to the levels in which we were threatened at the Great
Depression, when we were threatened in World War II, if we do not ascend to those levels, if we tell
the American public that we are more willing to invest and bail out big banks than we are willing
to invest in our farmers and our urban families, then I don't know what we're here doing.
See, that's, sorry Anna, that's how you roar, okay?
And so why have the Democrats been losing for the entire time that I've been covering politics?
Because they wouldn't make speeches like that.
Oh, that's not civil.
Oh my gosh, she called out oil companies.
But a lot of the Democratic Party members, her beloved colleagues, take oil money.
Then don't, because that means you're selling out to them.
And that's why you let the Republicans win over and over and over again.
God, I loved when she talked about how she was a bartender a year ago.
She just got health insurance for the first time a month ago.
She's 29.
See, that's what it's supposed to be like in America, that's what a democracy is.
When you have real citizens who run for office, I've never been more proud of the Justice
Democrats.
They helped get Casio Cortez elected and all those other fighters.
And they changed the entire dynamic of Congress.
So what are the other Democrats?
Look, I think that- Well, I wanna show you, okay?
It's one thing to talk about what the other Democrats do, but I think it's more important
for you to see for yourselves.
So I'd like to show you a video of Chuck Schumer just to juxtapose the way he's handling
this debate as opposed to the way AOC has handled this debate.
Take a look.
Already we're off to a great start.
Leader McConnell's cynical stunt backfired.
A New York Times editorial
sums it up
where's your plan
where's your climate plan
Mr. McConnell
Couldn't have said it better myself
Leader McConnell what he did
is by for the first time
for five years he put no significant
legislation on the floor about climate
For five years we've had almost
when he's been in charge
no committee hearings on climate.
For five years, we made no progress on climate.
And then, when he tried his stunt, it boomeranged on him,
and now everyone's talking about climate.
Leader McConnell, even yesterday, had to do something that he's never done.
He was asked by a reporter,
do you believe that climate change is real?
Do you believe it's caused by human activity?
And hallelujah.
He answered yes to both.
Now, there's the third question he hasn't yet answered, which is should Congress take strong
immediate action?
Look, perhaps this is a difference in perspective, but I did not perceive this as something
that backfired on Mitch McConnell, because the one thing that the Republican Party is very, very
good at is spin and the fight, and they've showed time and time again that they can control
the narrative, and they've controlled it to their advantage.
So how are Republicans gonna spin this?
Well, I'll give you an example from Senator John Barrasso from Wyoming.
The Green New Deal is not the solution for America, it is a big green bomb that will blow a hole
in our strong, healthy, and growing economy.
That's exactly why Democrats aren't voting for it, that's exactly why Democrats are ducking
and dodging and distancing themselves from this so-called Green New Deal.
So while Democrats in the Senate would argue, well, we voted present because we didn't want
to play into this McConnell strategy.
In reality, even voting present allows them to spin this in a way that makes it appear
that you're just dodging this, that you don't really support it and you just don't want
to be on the record voting one way or the other.
I 100% agree with you, it's proceeding from weakness.
Oh, we voted present, don't vote present, make up your mind.
And, okay, you know what I was going to say.
So now on the record, it lost 0 to 57.
Oh, we got, hey, New York Times said we were good.
You see all the other senators like snickering in the background?
The New York Times said we did a good job to New York Times.
The New York Times in an op-ed.
They said we did a good job, we win.
No, that's not how you win.
That's not how you win.
You win by going to the people and saying, we're not going to the people and saying, we're not
I'm gonna take it anymore and we're gonna fight for you.
Leader McConnell was busted according to the New York Times.
Come on, man.
And look, they're good senators who voted to present because it was Schumer's brilliant legislative
strategy to do that.
It reeks of weakness, it smells of weakness, and the voters can sense it.
Which voters like, oh my God, I am so psyched that my senator voted present, that'll show
leader McConnell.
Right.
No voter has ever said that in the history of America.
So, and it drives them crazy when we say, why don't you do like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
And they go, what do you mean?
She's just a freshman and she didn't earn anything yet.
No.
No, no.
I've been here for a long time.
She should wait her turn.
You know what she is?
She's 29 years old.
She does not have a political career, you know, a long running political career.
and she's a leader.
She's a leader because she does what's uncomfortable and she promotes policies that she knows
she's going to get attacked for.
But there are policies that she knows are important in protecting the environment, in
protecting the American people, in doing something about economic injustice in America.
She's a leader.
A leader purposely puts herself or himself in an uncomfortable position because they know
it's the right thing to do. She's a leader. Schumer is not. But, you know, how are we going to
get along with the Republicans? If we have polarizing figures like this, you're not. I have a
note from your base for Democratic leadership. They don't want you to get along with Republicans.
They want you to beat them. I know that comes as a giant shock to you. Send the memo to Biden
too. We're not interested in working with God damn Mitch McConnell.
or God damn Donald Trump.
We're interested in crushing them.
Send the word out.
Let's take a break.
More news when we come back, including Betsy DeVos' move against the Special Olympics.
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Second.
All right, back on the Young Turks.
Lots of comments for you guys.
First of the member section, Omega Rez says, most Democrats go to a snowball fight with
cotton balls.
Mickey C. says, I've been a huge fan of AOC since the beginning, and I love watching
her at the hearings.
But this, oh my God, this old straight white woman just fell in love.
Totally.
I totally get that 100%.
Like, I'm sorry to be creepy.
Yeah, no, no, everybody's right there with you.
No, I got to be honest, watching that, like, brought tears to my eyes.
I was trying to keep it together because it's so rare to see someone fighting for the right thing.
Our politicians are such cowards and to see someone who's actually fighting and willingly
putting herself through, because I know, I know what it's like, like the torture of doing
the right thing.
Doing the right thing doesn't get rewarded in this country.
So I can just imagine the type of harassment she gets for fighting for the right causes.
And she still does it, she's a leader.
I do know, and it is overwhelming harassment in Washington.
Okay, look, if you ever donated a dollar to any just Democrat, you had exactly the right idea,
you did exactly the right thing, and if we hadn't fought for all of them, seven of them
wouldn't be in Congress now.
Imagine a Congress with no Justice Democrats.
What would be happening now?
The same old thing as always, nothing.
So do it again, man, justidemocrats.com slash donate.
Okay, Coleman writes in, it's a no brainer why people identify with AOC.
Well, it's perplexing to Washington.
They just can't understand it.
They're like, she's a fighter, I don't get it.
I thought we were supposed to just bow our heads.
Anyway, there's so many great tweets.
I'm just gonna read a couple here.
Sudden eternity says, oh, corporate Democrats pretending to care about near term human extinction.
How adorable.
Kingsda 53 writes in, Schumer showed more strength of his speech against Ilhan Omar than he did
about climate change.
Yes.
Pathetic.
Yes, you're so right.
Right.
Man, when he got to that, when he was in front of A-PAC, he was all riled up against a fellow Democrat.
Definitely.
And last one.
I like you when people do the snapping.
I'm amused by it.
T. Joyce 1971 says, if you passed a bill that said Congress people could only have the same coverage
as their least covered constituent, you'd have universal health care tomorrow.
And everybody knows that, everybody knows that.
And when you say that in Washington, they're like, how dare you?
Shut up.
You're all elitist.
That's why people can't stand you.
Okay.
I have to say, sometimes I get, because I want to get to the stories.
So I'm like, all right, let's do the tweets really quick, and then let's get to the stories,
because I want to make sure I give you guys as much as we can in the limited time.
But no, days like today, it feels good to know that there are people like you guys out there.
It really does, because sometimes you feel like, wow, are we the weird ones?
Like, are we alone in this, but there are such amazing, intelligent people in our audience
who get it and thank you.
All right, so I want to also tell you guys about an option if you're a YouTube user.
So, YouTube has a membership option.
And YouTube's membership actually gives you some access to various features like host emojis,
which by the way I haven't seen yet for myself.
And it terrifies me, but host emojis exist apparently.
There are also special chat options where you can chat and engage with other viewers
or other members of the show without the trolls involved.
So all these little custom perks, including the YouTube super chat, is included in the YouTube super chat
is included in YouTube membership.
So if you are interested, you will see a join button at the very bottom of our videos.
All you have to do is click on that join button and just go through the process and you can sign
up as a YouTube member.
Again, these are just specifically perks on the YouTube platform.
And if you do decide to join, it does help the show as well.
So if you do do it, thank you so much and just check it out.
All right, and it's now confirmed Tulsi Gabbard will be on the program on Friday.
She's going to join us at 8.30 Eastern, 530 Pacific.
So that'll be a live interview, and it should be very interesting.
So everybody check that out.
All right, Anna, what's next?
All right.
Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration have proposed massive cuts to certain programs and
organizations that need the money.
One of those programs is the Special Olympics.
In fact, Betsy DeVos has been grilled by representatives in Congress over her decision to cut funding.
Now the amount of money potentially saved by the government, if it eliminated its support
for the Special Olympics, would be $17.6 million.
But the Trump administration is looking to cut more than 8.5 billion or approximately 12% from
the Education Department budget.
Now, keep in mind that Donald Trump is the person who was just fighting aggressively for
$5 billion for the border wall, which would do absolutely nothing in stopping people from smuggling
drugs into the country.
He also aggressively pushed for and successfully pushed for massive tax cuts for the wealthy,
which will cost this country $2 trillion over the next decade.
But they gotta save money somewhere, so of course they're gonna go after things like the
Special Olympics.
And Betsy DeVos did get grilled on this.
Here is Representative Mark Pocan asking Betsy DeVos what fueled this decision.
Do you know how many kids are going to be affected by that cut, Madam Secretary?
Mr. Pocan, let me just say again, we had to make some difficult decisions with this
budget.
Again, this is a question of how many kids, not about the budget.
I don't know the number of kids.
It's 272,000 kids.
kids.
That's all.
I'll answer it for you.
That's okay, no problem.
It's 272,000 kids.
Yeah, so she's never prepared.
If you're gonna cut the program, you should know how many people that it affects.
She doesn't care.
Why would she need to be prepared, Jank?
Who's gonna hold her accountable?
Yeah.
So if you say, hey, look, he looked that up and she didn't.
It's a gotcha question.
I don't care.
What I care most about is that they're cutting the program.
So they say, well, look, Special Olympics, he's also always always.
He is also funded by private donations.
And then DeVos says, no, I'm actually now donating to the Special Olympics.
Well, okay, great.
I actually have a suggestion for you.
Why don't you donate all of the money that your family saved from tax cuts, the Trump tax cuts,
to the Special Olympics?
No, they can't do that.
They need to buy more yachts.
What are you talking about?
Now, to be fair, she's down to nine because her 10th yacht got a lot.
little damaged.
It was vandalized, right?
They were very upset about it.
It was really a tragedy.
No, by the way, I'm not kidding.
She has 10 yachts and the 10th one was slightly damaged and so they were very, very upset
about that.
Well, kids are dying without healthcare access in America, right?
Okay.
But she needs to have her extra yacht anyway.
So they cut $17.6 million.
It's actually nothing for the DeVos family.
Her father, Edgar Prince, also of course, the father of Erica.
Prince who started Blackwater and does secret deals for Trump and Seychelles Island with
Middle Eastern countries and the Russians.
Anyway, he was worth $1.35 billion back in 96 when they sold their company, now probably
worth many more billions.
And DeVos's themselves are worth, apparently, Richard DeVos's, $5.4 billion.
So that's 6.75, very conservative estimate there.
You know, they saved way more than 1% in taxes.
They'll, some of their business or companies where you could pass taxes through, they saved
a tremendous amount there.
State taxes, they will save, they might save literally billions of dollars.
But even if you just took 1%, 1% of their overall worth, it'd be $67.5 million.
And that's very conservative.
And that would easily cover the Special Olympics that they just cut by $17.6 million.
Look at what they do time and time again.
I mean, just to save a little extra in taxes, and that's money that they don't even need.
They're already living lavishly.
They're willing to target and attack any federal money that goes toward organizations that actually
need it, right?
Because her main excuse today was Mark Burkhan was questioning her and others were, was
the need for, quote, fiscal discipline.
No, no.
I wanna give you her exact quote, okay?
Because I'd love to have a discussion about fiscal discipline.
That would be great.
So here's her exact quote.
She says, we're not doing our children any favors when we borrow from their future in order
to invest in systems and policies that are not yielding better results.
So let's stop right there, okay.
She gets into the federal debt, as if she and the Republican Party cares at all about the
federal debt.
I mean, the deficit, and I know that's different from the debt, to be clear, has exploded
under the Trump administration.
Why?
Because of his tax cuts.
Because he loves to spend.
It's just that he doesn't want to prioritize.
This administration doesn't want to prioritize the needy.
They want to keep giving handouts and subsidies to the wealthy.
They want tax cuts for the wealthy.
The corporate tax rate went from 35% to what was it, 21%, 21%.
The one percent, the corporate tax rate, that's not even the effective corporate tax rate.
The effective corporate tax rate in the previous system, okay, was like 17% after all those
corporate tax loopholes and all those deductions that, you know, they get to take advantage
of.
And they didn't remove any of those loopholes.
None of them, none of them.
They got rid of all sorts of deductions the middle class gets to take advantage of.
People living in high tax states are no longer able to deduct their state taxes the same
way they were able to before.
So people living in blue states, which by the way subsidize welfare programs for middle
America, they got hurt by the tax plan.
I got hurt by the tax plan.
I'm not making a ton of money, but Betsy DeVos and all of her corporate buddies, they got
to take advantage of this great tax plan that the Trump administration put out there and
the GOP voted in favor of.
So don't talk to me about fiscal responsibility.
Those tax cuts will cost our country $2 trillion over the next decade.
You do not care about fiscal responsibility.
You care about your own pocketbook and that's it.
She's trash.
So understand what fiscal discipline means to Betsy DuVos and the Republicans.
1.9 trillion for the rich, but they couldn't find 17 million for Special Olympics.
Just couldn't find it.
Hey, all of a sudden, they care about fiscal discipline.
They'll fight for $70 billion for the hate monument at the border, which won't do anything
to solve our immigration problems, won't do anything to solve drug smuggling in America.
$70 billion that wall will cost if Trump gets his way.
They have no problems with that type of fiscal irresponsibility.
I know Republicans are a math challenge, so let me reiterate.
It's not $17 trillion for the Special Olympics.
It's not $17 billion for the Special Olympics.
It's just $17.6 million for the Special Olympics.
But I was too rich for their blood because all of a sudden they needed fiscal discipline after
they gave away the store to the rich.
They're gross, they're gross people.
And she talks about caring about the children, making sure we're looking out for young
people in America.
What about all those for-profit college buddies that you put in the education department?
What about all those for-profit colleges that have been preying on students in America for
for decades now?
What about all the regulations that you rolled back so they can prey on students more?
You don't care about anything but yourself.
By the way, Representative Pocan did a good job grilling her.
I do want to just quickly go to the next video and then we have a few more details on this.
I have two nephews with autism.
What is it that we have a problem with, with children who are in special education?
Why are we cutting all of these programs over and over within this budget?
Well, sir, we have continued to retain the funding levels for IDEA and held that level.
So in the context of a test, in the context, I believe I brought up Special Olympics, Special Education Grants to States,
the National Technical Institute for the Blind, Gallaudet University, federal program for printing books.
So if you could address those, that's the question.
I will address the broader question around.
Or if you could actually address the question I asked.
That's even a better way to answer questions.
Let me just go ahead and smile as I make a fool out of myself and hope that this will all go away.
Okay.
So last two things on this.
First of all, while they had new fiscal discipline on Social Olympics, executive salaries at the department went up by 50.
They have no conscious at all.
And speaking of no conscious, now, that brings us to Donald Trump.
This is a clip not of Donald Trump talking about the Special Olympics, but the Paralympics.
But listen to what this monster says.
Watch.
What happened with the Paralympics was so incredible and so inspiring to me.
And I watched, it's a little tough to watch too much, but I watched as much as I could.
It was really fantastic.
Trash.
Trash.
That's what we have in office right now.
Trash.
Complete garbage.
Can't add anything to that.
Let's move on to other trash.
Representative Mo Brooks felt the need to bring up Nazism in an argument that he made.
Let's take a look at what that argument was.
they will double down and propagate even more big lies because doubling down is essential
to big lie theory in that vein i quote from another socialist who mastered big lie propaganda
to a maximum and deadly effect quote in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility
because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper stratum
of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily.
And thus, in the primitive simplicity of their minds,
they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie,
since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters,
but be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
That quote was in 1925 by a member of Germany's National Socialist German Workers' Party,
that's right, Germany's socialist party,
more commonly known as the Nazis.
The author was socialist Adolf Hitler.
So there he is quoting Mind Kampf, and the socialists and members of the media that he's attacking
are not being referred to as the Nazis.
He's referring to them as the Jews in this scenario.
Yeah.
So his best defense is going to be that he's an idiot and didn't understand what he was saying.
But what he did say was actually very clear.
He quoted Adolf Hitler's book and talked about how the people do the big lie.
Hitler was talking about the Jews doing the big lie.
He wasn't saying the Nazis are going to do the big lie.
He was saying the Jews do the big lie.
That's why they're terrible and we should attack them.
Now Mo Brooks comes in and quotes Hitler and says the media and the left in this country
are doing the big lie.
So that analogy would mean that he's agreeing with Hitler, that the real problem are the people
that are doing the big lie.
In the case of Germany, it was the Jews.
In the case of America, according to Mo Brooks, it's the left and the media.
See, that is, to say that it's deeply anti-Semitic would be a great understatement.
Definitely an understatement.
So Representative Ilhan Omar now enters this story, because she has been.
smeared as anti-Semitic because she had the audacity to question the behavior of the Israeli
government, the Israeli government, right?
And so when one individual tweeted the following, Republican Mo Brooks quoted Hitler's
mind comp approvingly yesterday on the House floor from a section which was literally about
how evil Jewish people are, but no, it's Democrats who are anti-Semitic.
Ilhan Omar retweeted that and added that.
This from a man facing indictments for bribery and other crimes in three separate public
corruption affairs.
Next.
She also tweeted, this is repulsive.
Let's see what accountability looks like for this member of Congress.
And honestly, so far, I haven't really seen or heard anything from Democrats who were very critical
of Representative Omar, who had no problem going after their own and feeding into these right-wing
smears against her.
How come I'm not hearing from them when it comes to Mo Brooks?
Yeah, so the Anti-Defamation League has called for Mo Brooks to apologize, but yet the Democrats
have not asked for censure, they have not looked to rebuke him, there's no resolutions
about this, and I'll be honest with you, we had this story on the bubble yesterday and
today, we didn't get to it yesterday, and then I saw the TYT army was calling for the Democratic
to take action against Mo Brooks, introduce a resolution condemning him, it's the least
they can do.
What he did was a million times worse than Ilhan Omar.
Ilhan Omar never, ever said that the Jews have dual allegiance.
He never said that, she said, I don't want to have dual allegiance, I don't think anyone
should have dual allegiance, okay?
So what she said wasn't even anti-Semitic.
So in this case, this is clearly anti-Semitic.
He is, whether it's accidentally or on purpose, positively quote.
voting mind comp on the floor of the Congress and saying, oh, you gotta watch that for people
doing the big lie, just like Hitler said, okay?
So, TYT Army, which is volunteers that have signed up through the Young Turks, but are
independent, are calling for the media to talk about this, they're calling for the Democrats
to take action.
And when I saw that on social media, I was like, they're absolutely right, then so we're
going to do a story about it.
I think everybody should do a story about it.
If you want to join the TYT Army, they're amazing.
They do research.
If you go out on tYTRmy.org, you'll see that these research that they have done debunking
the Ilhan Omar story and the mainstream media critique that they did of that story.
You'll see debunking of many other stories.
You'll see real fact sheets on what the reality is, and you'll see a way that you
could sign up and make a giant difference.
So thank you to all those folks who worked on that story and got us to cover it.
And I think they're absolutely right.
Why are the Democrats calling for a resolution on this?
Because the issue was never about anti-Semitism.
It was about making sure that you attack anyone who dares to criticize the right-wing government
of Israel.
You know, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the two Democratic leaders in the Senate in the House,
went and spoke in front of APEC and bragged about how they came down on Ilhan Omar.
They were so proud and they strutted their stuff.
is a right wing lobbying group, supporting the right wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the Democrats go and cower to them, they're not even coward, they're revel in it, they revel in it.
You see what we did to one of our own.
We crushed a Democrat for you guys, because she dared to question your power over us.
Now how is that for ironic?
Meanwhile, a Republican reads mind calm on the floor of the house, not a goddamn peep.
It was never about anti-Semitism.
When we return from the break, we're going to show you how tone deaf CNBC can really be when
it comes to people earning as much as $500,000 a year.
They would argue they're just average and they're still struggling to save money.
All right.
We'll be right back.
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.