The Young Turks - Right Outta the Gaetz

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

A child is among four dead in a shooting at a California office building. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is shocked to learn that infrastructure includes housing and pipes. 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. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Kasparian, and joining me today is Farron Cousins, because we're about to have a fair and balance show. Farron, how are you? I'm doing well. Thank you very much for having me today. It's good to have you. We've had a little bit of a rocky start today due to some technical issues. It has nothing to do with TYT, everything to do with some of the programming that we use to put this show together and do it live every day.

So apologies for the late start. But we do have a great show ahead for you guys, including, you know, later we'll talk a little bit about Ben Shapiro, not really understanding why Georgia's suppression laws would suppress the vote. So he just continues to prove the fact that he's neither cool nor a philosophy. because he doesn't really have a functioning brain. But we'll talk about that later. We're also going to discuss some unfortunate stories, including the fact that mass shootings continue in the United States with no action from any member of Congress.

Doesn't matter if it's Democrats or Republicans. All you get is some talk after these shootings happen, and of course, no action. And AOC is right on the causes of the border crisis, we'll tell you why. That's also later in the show. But first, let's start off with a story that I have absolutely no pleasure sharing the details with you of. But this is the reality in America, not just once a week, but several times a week now. There's been another mass shooting in the United States, this time at an office complex

in Orange, California. This is about southeast of Los Angeles. And the gunmen killed four people, including one nine-year-old child. We do not have the identities of the victims quite yet. But what we do know is that police were able to detain the suspect and there was some sort of fire, like shootout between the cops and the gunmen. He was injured and then later sent to the hospital. This is now the third, you know, mass shooting in just over two.

two weeks. But there have of course been many countless shootings throughout the country throughout this same period of time. Now the suspect was also wounded and hospitalized. It was unclear whether he suffered a self-inflicted wound or was shot by police. And CNN had some more detail into what some of the residents in that area witnessed or heard as this shooting took place. Let's take a look. About dinner time last night, people started to hear the sound of gunfire, rapid gunfire. Shortly after that, police officers arriving, the sound of sirens. And then right after that, more gunfire.

Bad gunfire law enforcement tells us was the exchange of gunshots between the officers, the first responding officers and the suspect. We also don't have a clear motive just yet, but what we do know is that the perpetrator here seems to have known the victims in the shooting. So one other pretty terrifying aspect of this story is that the Orange Police Lieutenant, Jennifer Amat, also revealed that the gunman had chained gates to the complex closed, forcing officers who responded Wednesday to engage him from outside. said the shooting involved the office suites of a company called United Homes, a mobile home

brokerage. So, Farron, I want to bring you in to get your thoughts on this. And to be quite honest with you, I mean, I hate saying this, you know, lately every time we cover a story that's similar to what we're talking about. But I feel numb at this point to the shootings, because you just know what the outcome is going to be. Nothing. I mean, this barely even got any attention. Right. And unfortunately, that's kind of the way it is, you know, once we get back into the swing of it, I guess you would call it, which apparently is what's happening right now. We're just starting to see more and more and more of these. And, you know, somebody on Twitter brought up the other day, it was a great point, just the fact that as Americans, there's always

a time when you've looked around where you are and thought to yourself, how would I get out? Where would I hide if something like that were to happen? And that resonated with me because that happens to me every time I go into a movie theater now. You know, those are thoughts that, you know, a couple years ago, we probably wouldn't have had. But now you go somewhere and you start to think, well, what if, what if something happened? Can I escape? Can I get out? Can I hide under this? And that's the reality we're living in because nobody does anything about any of this. I mean, we look at the NRA and we look at the corruption in that organization. And still, with as dysfunctional as are with as corrupt as they are, politicians are terrified to defy this agency. And a few years

ago, the Sunlight Foundation pointed out that the NRA had like a 94% failure rate. I mean, essentially this group that is politically impotent and yet still instill so much fear in these politicians to the point where they would rather let us die than just say, hey, let's make it a little more stringent with the background check, something most Americans including Republicans and NRA members already support, but they won't even do it. Right, exactly. And that shows you that this goes beyond the preferences of gun proponents, right? Because, you know, I've repeated this several times on the show. I'll repeat it again. I am not a proponent of banning guns. I'm not a proponent of taking guns away from law-abiding citizens.

With that said, though, as with any other, you know, objects that can be used as a weapon that could actually cause irreparable harm to others, there are regulations, there are restrictions, you know, when it comes to a vehicle, right? That's considered a lethal weapon in criminal cases where someone uses their car in a violent way. There are strict regulations about who can, you know, operate a vehicle. But when it comes to, you know, to weapons like guns, I mean, something as simple as closing loopholes when it comes to these background checks, something that, as you mentioned, is popular, widely popular with Republicans and NRA members, gun owners. It doesn't end up really resonating with lawmakers because who are they beholden to, really? What is the NRA as an organization? Is the NRA really about advocacy that benefits the best interests of their own members? No, they represent the interests of gun manufacturers. That's it. Everything that we see in government that seems to make no sense, all you have to do is follow the paper trail and you'll see exactly what these lawmakers are interested in representing.

You'll see what they're beholden to. So it doesn't even matter. We've seen it in so many different contexts, guys. We've seen it with mass shootings. We've seen it with extreme weather events that have been fueled by climate change. We've seen it in case after case after case. Money, profits always come above people under the system that we're functioning under right now. That's it. That's it. Your life doesn't really matter. And so look, Farron, I guess it's a little bit of an upside that people are finally waking up and realizing that that concept of, I didn't expect this to happen to us in our little town, right? That's starting to change. And people are starting to realize, okay, well, if I'm going to be going to a public place,

I need to think about what I would do for my own safety should someone decide to open fire in this establishment. And I say that that's a good thing because now I think people are waking up to what the reality is. This can affect every single one of us personally. And I do agree. I think more and more people are starting to look at this and they're looking at, okay, this isn't just Chicago. No, you know, like Republicans love to tell us that, oh, but the murders in Chicago, no, this is happening in small towns. It's happening in big towns. It's happening in rural towns. It's happening in urban towns. This is happening all over this country. There is no rhyme or reason. The only common factor is how easy it is to get your hands on a weapon of war. You know, this particular instance, you know, that happened out in California. This wasn't even an assault rifle. This was just an automatic pistol.

that the guy had, you know, so it's all kinds of guns. It's all kinds of things involved, but guns are the only common denominator in every single one of these. And if we don't do something to address this, you know, there's tighter regulations, by the way, on what I can put into my trash can. You know, you can't put motor oil. You can't put charcoal ashes. There's tighter regulations on what you can throw away versus getting a gun. I mean, driving regulations. We tie driver's licenses and the privilege to drive a vehicle to so many things. I had my license suspended when I was 18 for being busted smoking a cigarette. So my license was suspended for 30 days.

You know what I mean? So yes, we have all of these super tight regulations on these other things because it's dangerous, because it's a privilege, I guess. But this misinterpretation of the Second Amendment that the courts gave us years ago, has allowed this problem to just grow unchecked. And now we're facing the consequences every couple of days. Every couple of days, you're absolutely right. So I didn't want this story to just kind of be under the radar.

I wanted people to know that this is still taking place. This is still happening. We had the spa shootings in Georgia, followed by what we experienced last week with the mass shooting. with the mass shooting, and now we have this mass shooting. But this one, I mean, again, the news cycle tends to get numb as more and more of these shootings come out. I tend to get numb as more of these shootings, you know, happen. And it's because, you know, part of it is, I think, a self-defense mechanism, right? It's a way of kind of protecting your own emotions,

so you're not constantly disappointed with the aftermath of these shootings and the fact that there's complete inaction. And the only way we're going to fix the system is if we do away with the legalized bribery and we stop allowing corporate interests, gun manufacturers, people who have a profit motive to dominate the conversation and the debate, because that's what's happening right now. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, Christy Nome, the governor of South Dakota, has some thoughts about Biden's infrastructure bill. She also demonstrates that she doesn't really know what infrastructure is. So we'll give you that and more when we come back.

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Hey, everyone, a quick programming note about what you can expect after the postgame show today. Jordan Yule is hosting his show DeepDive on our Twitch channel, which you can check out at twitch.tv. He's got a super exciting guest today. So Gary DeRamos will be joining him. He's the founder of Ratt. medical in progress. So definitely check that conversation out. I know it's going to be good. And it starts at 5.30 p.m. Pacific time, 8.30 p.m. Eastern, again, at twitch.tv slash TYT. By the way, just to give you some more context, you know, make this a little more interesting for you all. Deep dive with Jordan Yule is also available on demand for Twitch subscribers and TYT member. So you should become a TYT member and a Twitch subscriber. And speaking of which,

If you're interested in how to do so, you can go to t-y-t.com slash prime to subscribe to the Twitch channel. And to become a member, really easy to do it, especially if you're on YouTube watching us live right now, just click that join button. And you'll see different price points, different options for membership, depending on what you're comfortable paying. And the great news is, if you're a member, you're going to get all of our content, right? So you'll be able to watch Jordan Neal's show. You'll be able to watch happy half hour. You'll be able to watch exclusive content that we only have available for our members. But more importantly, you'll be helping us out in keeping us honest, keeping us independent, and funded by you as opposed to advertisers and corporate sponsors, which I prefer personally.

With that said, let's move on to our member section where Madame Rochelle says one week it's in Georgia, the next week it's in Colorado. the week after it's in California, what neighborhood does it have to hit before representatives realize this is a real problem? I mean, Rochelle, you can have members of Congress be the targets of these shooters, which has happened with Gabby Giffords, which happened during that baseball game, congressional baseball game a few years ago. And they still won't change their minds. I mean, this country has a serious illness. Again, it goes back to profits over people. Because the The fact of the matter is these Republican lawmakers know that Democrats aren't trying to take guns away from law abiding citizens. Literally no one has proposed that, okay?

There have been some discussions and debates about maybe restricting magazine capacity, maybe doing away with military type weaponry, which honestly civilians have no use for. But there's no discussion about taking guns away from law abiding citizens. The proposals that have been put out there, are, again, widely popular, and they still won't do anything about it. All right, Dragon Angel has a comment which I'll read when we get back to the show because we're running out of time. So I'll see you there. Welcome back to TYT, Anna and Farron with you, speaking of which, Farron, we got a comment from our member section, Dragon Angel wrote in and said, I've been hoping that TYT would invite Farron cousins to co-host for a long time. The weight was worth it. Look, I'm not saying anything, but you have been on more and more recently, and I appreciate

you coming on. I really, really do like having you on, and I'm glad that our members do too. But look, if you miss those episodes, guys, you can become members, check out those archives and watch other episodes that I've hosted with Farron. But Farron, seriously, it's good to have you. Well, thank you. I always appreciate the offer. It's great talking with you guys.

You know, everybody is always so informed and it's fun. You know, fortunately sometimes we do have to talk about the depressing stories, but, you know, it's so great to make the connections, you know, with other people in progressive media. So it's always a pleasure to be here. You know, I really enjoy it so much. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I mean, conservatives are really good at working together while the left is great at sniping one another, especially on Twitter. But I like I like amplifying other shows and other hosts because we're a team. We need to. look out for one another and build something together. So again, thank you. But why don't we go ahead and dunk on Christy Nome a little bit? Because she really thought that she had a great interview recently, but that is not the case for anyone who has two brain cells to rub together. South Dakota Governor Christy Nome just shows us that South Dakota is not sending its best because their very own governor on national television revealed that she either doesn't know

what infrastructure means or didn't take the time to read Joe Biden's infrastructure proposal, something that we detailed in a lengthy video just yesterday. Now, she was on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News, and here's what she had to say about Biden's proposal. I was on a call with the White House today with all the governors talking about the specifics of this package, and I was shocked by how much doesn't go into infrastructure. It goes into research and development. It goes into housing and pipes and different initiatives, green energy. Housing and pipes and, you know, infrastructure. Also, research and development, I mean, I'm surprised as she's like speaking out against

research and development, because more often than not, in the context of the United States, research and development is nothing more than corporate welfare. It's investors refusing to actually be risky with their investment. Therefore, leaving some of the innovation to be funded by us, the US taxpayers, and then in the context of like pharmaceutical companies, they'll turn around, they'll price gouge the very people who funded their research and development. But in this case, the research and development has to do with infrastructure, you moron, okay? But Ferran, before I bring you in, I wanted to just detail exactly what the proposal indicates where the money would be spent. And I don't know,

maybe we need to spend some time defining infrastructure for someone who's literally the governor of an entire state. So it proposes $180 billion for research and development. Yes, that research and development has to do with infrastructure. $150 billion for roads and bridges are part of infrastructure. $85 billion for public transit. Again, that's infrastructure. $80 billion for Amtrak and freight rail infrastructure. $42 billion for ports and airports. That's also infrastructure. A hundred billion dollars... One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but

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This would mostly be focused on rural communities that do not have internet access right now. And $111 billion for water. Oh, the words in there for you, Christy, water infrastructure. But Farron, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I think another way to say all this, too, that's maybe not as challenging. is the word infrastructure for her, is that jobs, right? Every single one of those numbers, every single thing on that list is jobs. And isn't that the goal?

Isn't that kind of the thing we've been trying to work towards getting people employed? You know, the Green New Deal itself, which I know bits and pieces or concepts from it are a part of this, it's jobs. It's putting people to work, building this new energy infrastructure. And sure, look, it's certainly not as bold as we needed to be, but obviously better than not doing it at all. So we're going to get some kind of green energy framework that is going to be a great stepping point. And it's going to be continuously built upon. So these are long-term investments, not necessarily in just infrastructure, but in people. And I think that's the way that we really have to start looking at. And that's the way, by the way,

the Democratic Party is going to have to sell this come midterms. And I think that's why it is so important that they're doing this so early so that by the time the 2022 midterms roll around, hopefully we can have some of these projects underway. We can see people being put back to work. That is a major selling point. And I think what Republicans are trying to do at the moment, like known there. She knows what infrastructure is, but she is grasping at straws to try to convince the public that, oh, look how stupid it is. Your neighbor might have new pipes. No, she doesn't like the corporate tax hikes, but she can't necessarily say that. So she has to frame it. Did she? She did frame it. Oh, wow. So she framed it in the way that you would expect Republican lawmakers

to frame the tax hikes. Because as we have shared with you in detailed, ways on numerous occasions. The proposal here is to raise taxes on individuals earning more than $400,000 a year. Everyone else is untouched, okay? And also he's increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. But the corporate tax rate still wouldn't be as high as it was prior to the Trump administration cutting taxes for the rich. That was when the corporate tax rate was 35%. But with that said, you're about to hear South Dughey's, Dakota Governor Kristi Nome lied to the American people about what this infrastructure bill would actually do to their taxes.

In spite of saying that only the rich you're going to pay and these evil corporations pay, I argue this will be paid for by the average American person. Doesn't matter how much you may. That's right. You're exactly right, Sean. Every single family will pay the price for what Joe... of saying that only the rich you're gonna pay and these evil corporations pay,

I argue this will be paid for by the average American person. Doesn't matter how much you may. That's right, you're exactly right, Sean. Every single family will pay the price for what Joe Biden's agenda is. He will drive up the cost of the food and their grocery bill. He will drive up the cost of their utilities,

their gas prices, the cost of their cars, the clothes they dress their children in, everything that they do, each and every day will be more expensive. Their budgets will be tighter because they'll be earning less, and it'll be directly because of these policies and these tax increases that Joe Biden is embracing and pushing through Congress. I mean, I don't know why she didn't just go further.

Your home will spontaneously combust, your children's heads will melt. Like, stupid, stupid, like, no rhyme, no reason, no logic, no evidence provided, just absolute garbage meant to lie to the American people. people, so they literally rally against legislation that would improve the infrastructure of this country by employing Americans, literally millions of Americans with these infrastructure related jobs. I mean, just absolute garbage person. You know, I also love how she said, it's only going to increase the cost of the price

of clothes for your kids. So I guess grown up clothes, like we're okay, but if you got to buy stuff for your kids, that stuff's going to get more expensive. But no, it's ridiculous. And it is so funny to watch this if it, it would be funnier if it weren't so terrifying, because you know that there's a good portion of that audience that is looking at that and saying, oh my, hey, hey, they're going to raise our taxes. They're going to do it. And it's crazy. And I know, and I see it around here, you know, this deep red district that I am in, you hear these conversations. You see it on the Facebook pages. I literally see it on the Facebook pages of the people that live around me.

You know, they were whining about Biden getting rid of the Keystone XL pipeline saying, there goes all these American jobs. And it's no, no, you're being brainwashed. You're being hoodwinked by these conservative media outlets, but they they refuse to step out of the bubble. So her little talking points there, there's people that believe it. And now that it's in their heads, it's stuck. It's there. Nothing will convince them otherwise. I think even if Sean Hannity admitted they were lying, they would still think, nah, something's up. He means that. So I don't know. I don't know. But push forward with the plan because it, you know, it is going to help and it's going to put us on a path that's going to get us to a better place in the future.

You know, look, I hate that conservative voters are being lied to. And so we cover these stories with the hope that maybe some of them will come across the content. Maybe they'll consider, you know, based on what we're saying to do research on their own, right? But I also want to be clear about one other thing. If they refuse to do that, then I don't care. And Democrats in office shouldn't care either. And I say that because like there should be zero waste of time, Zero waste of time in getting this past, okay? Get a pass through reconciliation, go bold, don't even waste your time negotiating with these clowns, these Republican millionaire clowns in Congress who are worried about their goddamn taxes going up.

They're not worried about your taxes going up. They're not worried about you at all, but they're worried about having to pay a little bit more because they've got a tremendous amount of wealth. They have their own little side hustles and their side businesses, especially even Democratic Senator Joe Manchin with his like hotel business situation happening behind the scenes. They're looking out to protect their best interests. But Democrats need to play hardball and understand that if the tables were turned, if we were actually, they don't even have to think that far back. When it came to tax cuts for the rich,

Republicans had no problem passing that through reconciliation in the Senate. So they do need to move forward. I do hope that our. our conservative friends open their minds up to something that could actually be incredibly beneficial to their lives and their finances. But if they're not open to it, sad day for you. You guys voted for a party that's deeply unpopular, even with all the election rigging that they try to take, or I shouldn't say rigging, but with all of the structural changes that were taking place, you know, with the post office and everything that conservatives were putting out there with misinformation about the election, they still lost because they're unpopular.

They're unpopular for a reason. And it's because they continue to protect the wealth and the prosperity of the 1% while everyone else is fighting for scraps. So I would have liked Biden's proposal to go much further. And that's my biggest complaint about it. But other than that, if this is what he's willing to propose, it will be beneficial to the vast majority of America. Americans by improving the infrastructure, by providing jobs. And one other point that I want to just quickly make Farron, it's just the contradiction of these profit driven morons, right, who on one hand are like, oh, China, China, China, they're beating us, China's beating us, China's, yeah, China is beating us.

Pretty soon China will be more powerful than the United States is, and they're terrified about that. But China knows how to invest, right? Like, we have a crumbling infrastructure, which has a negative impact on the economy, you losers, you goddamn morons, okay? So what do you want? Do you want the United States to fall behind? Do you want our infrastructure to be crumbling?

Or do you want to actually do something about it? And of course, we know what the answer is. The answer is they want to maintain their profits, they want to maintain their low tax rates, and they don't want to pay their fair share. That's why they're in office. They're not an office to represent you. an office to represent their own financial situation. Right, and this is a program. This is a proposal from the Biden administration that would provide

material benefits to the American public. And those kinds of things always resonate very well with voters. When you get the material benefits, it's harder to accept the lies coming from the other side. Kind of like with the tax cuts too. Republicans told us immediately, hey, you're going to get so much more money in your paycheck. Here it comes, get ready for it. And then everybody looked at their own paychecks and said, wait a minute, that didn't happen. So when you can look and see that something definitely doesn't happen or something definitely does happen, that has an impact. That's why we did see a pretty significant public shift on the tax issue. Because at the time, there was a good amount of people who said, no, no, no,

we have to cut the taxes. But that shifted really quick when they looked at their paychecks every other week and said, hold up, I have no difference. There's nothing that is benefiting me, but all these corporations, oh, and now they're doing layoffs, it was horrible for Republicans. And this would be the same thing. We can raise taxes on the wealthy. We can use that to pay for these material benefits to create jobs, good government jobs that are going to give you benefits too. And Republicans are terrified of watching that come to fruition because the voters are going to remember that in 2022. Absolutely. Well, why don't we switch gears to a different topic, but similar deceptive talking points, this time from people like Laura Ingram. Although, you know,

maybe that's an unfair way to lead this story because I actually kind of agree with her a little bit. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I'm saying it. So let's discuss. Now that the state of Georgia has officially codified voter suppression through the governor signing suppression legislation, the pressure is on for businesses that are headquartered in the state to do something about it, right? Now, there's public pressure for these companies to at least release a statement, possibly even move their headquarters out of Georgia based on this unconstitutional and undemocratic law. And Laura Ingram, had a huge problem with how the CEO of Coca-Cola had commented on that law during a recent

interview on CNBC. Now, before we get to her statement, why don't we take a look at what James Quincy had to say? This legislation is unacceptable. It is a step backwards, and it does not promote principles we have stood for in Georgia around broad access to voting, around voter convenience, about ensuring election integrity. And this is, this is frankly just a step backwards. So that's pretty much all he said. And in response to that, Laura Ingram tweeted the following, Patriots will choose another beverage.

Big mistake by Coca-Cola, don't poke the bear. Now, when I first read this, of course, I had the same, like, visceral reaction that I typically do to Laura Ingram. She's a pretty awful person. But when I actually took a step back and thought about it, yeah, yeah, that's actually pretty true. I mean, maybe not that specific claim that Laura Ingram is making. But there is a very real reason why major companies and corporations that are headquartered in Georgia

have not spoken out about the anti-democratic legislation that just got signed into law. And it's because they're looking out for their profit motive, their corporate interests, and incredibly low tax breaks, right? Or tax cuts. So, for instance, I'll give you the second part of the interview featuring the CEO of Coca-Cola, where he was confronted specifically about the fact that it took him quite a while to even issue a statement about this. Take a look. So you're clear now, James, but there are questions as to why you were not this clear. after the law passed, before the law passed. I know you said you were disappointed,

but why don't you just come out publicly and oppose it before? We have always opposed this legislation, that we have a long track record of working in Georgia with alliances on our own account with legislators, with stakeholders to approve legislation, and we were doing so again this time. Yeah, let me unpack that for you. They've done quite a bit of lobbying in the state of Georgia.

I don't believe that they've done lobbying in regard to this piece of anti-democratic legislation that passed into law because corporations have been part and parcel of government corruption that undermines our democratic process anyway. So Coca-Cola itself has spent quite a bit of money on elections. Here's a graph from Open Secrets that gives you a breakdown of how much money they've spent on elections dating back to 1990. And they also break it down by political party. As you can see, Coca-Cola has donated quite a bit of money to the Republican Party, but Democrats have not been discriminated against. They have also taken in donations, campaign donations from Coca-Cola

as well. I tell you that because that system of legalized bribery undermines our democratic process. So why would anyone think that these corporations would care about anything undemocratic taking place in the state of Georgia? I think it's a very good thing. incredibly naive to think that. So demanding some empty statements from them, I think is ridiculous. Farron, what do you think? Yeah. And yesterday, though, the Georgia State House actually did something kind of shot themselves in a foot a little bit, because this goes along with your point. These corporations are quiet because they want their tax breaks. So what did these Republicans do? They took away the tax breaks

for jet fuel from Delta. Delta that employs 33,000 people in Georgia. And they said, okay, you said something we don't like. A totally symbolic gesture that Delta put out like, okay, we say a quick thing, we're good, we're done, we're covered. And Republicans said, okay, well, we're going to call you out. We're going to take away your tax breaks for your jet fuel. And now you're going to leave Delta in a position to where what are they going to do? Are they going to leave Georgia? I don't think they would really want to leave Georgia, but they have lots of money. And Republicans are going to come begging again next time there's an election. And I don't know how those conversations are going to go, but I would love to be able to hear them when these Republicans say, hey, you know, I'm in the tax break thing and all that. Water under the bridge, what do you got for me? Because I'm in a competitive district. I need to win. You know, the states turning blue, even with our suppression. What do we do? That's a lot of, one, workers from Delta who also give money, and to the corporation itself, Coca-Cola, their employees could also find themselves in those situations. So Republicans have to tread lightly.

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and now you run the risk of pissing them off and you need them or else you can't win. So they've put themselves at a very rock, hard place type situation, and we'll see how it plays out for them. Yeah, it is really fascinating to see how these dynamics are playing out. Because understand the reason why the state of Georgia offered these massive tax breaks is to invite businesses, invite corporations to be headquartered so they can provide jobs for their constituents. It makes all the sense, but they don't really like it when they give these tax breaks to major Hollywood production companies. And then they notice that that has a little bit of an impact on their electorate. So, you know, I think that, you know, part of the strategy by the GOP in Georgia, especially after the outcome of the 2020 general election, has been to just kind of rig the system in their favor,

rather than maybe reconsider how unpopular their platform is. You know, maybe reconsider what they decide to run on and maybe be a little less gross toward your own constituents. And so maybe you'll be a little more desirable to them, but that's not what's happening. They'd rather just fix the system to their favor. And since I mentioned those Hollywood production companies, man, I knew they were getting a tax cut from Georgia. I didn't realize just how massive that tax cut is. So the Los Angeles Times had this great piece explaining why so many of these production companies have kind of remained silent or released kind of like a timid statement about it. For instance, Disney, Netflix, Amazon Studios, which clearly is not a fan of voting, as we've learned in recent weeks, and NBC Universal, all either declined to comment or did not respond to the Los Angeles Times' request for comment on Georgia's election's overhaul.

Georgia is attractive to studios because it offers ideal weather and tax credits of up to 30%, 30% for films, television shows, and digital. digital features that are shot there. When you live in a system where profits come before everything else, including human lives, don't expect companies to do the right thing to value our democratic process or our democracy. Maybe I'm being unfair, maybe there's a company who's going to stand up and say, no, we're moving our headquarters because we believe in protecting democracy. But I've yet to see that happen. And there's a very real reason why there's been silence from some of these massive corporations

base there. So these tax cuts, do they also count for like online content? Because George is like three hours that way. And I can be there very quickly, no, I'm just kidding. But it is, you know, we do see all these big, you know, companies that come in and out of there all the time. And everybody thinks like, oh, this is great. They're doing it in America instead of going up and shooting scenes in Canada.

I remember when it all started over in Georgia, when you started having the TV shows and everything and movies start to film there, everybody was really excited and they thought this is just good-natured Hollywood keeping things in America is what they were talking about down here, but no, they're getting lots of money for it. And they're screwing your state out of money. They come in, basically use up your resources, and then they go back to the other coast where They're using up resources there as well as along with the other corporations. It's just corporate hyenas, really, just scavenging all across the country wherever they can.

And the film industry, the TV industry really is not much different than the rest of them. That's exactly right. Should we keep going or should we take a break? All right. Let's take a break this time on our terms, okay? Not on Skype's terms. And when we come back, we have an update on the Representative Matt Gates story, which just continues to devolve, continues to get worse. I even have some details that Brett Ehrlich doesn't know about, and he helped me produce the show.

Yeah, yeah, there were some late breaking parts to the story that you don't know about yet, Brett. That's right. You don't know either, audience. And I'm going to tell you about it when we come back. I'm going to be mrs. I'm going to I'm going I'm

I'm I'm going to be the other I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm

I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm and I'm

I don't know. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm I'm going

I'm All right, time for some rapid fire member comments and super chats. I like this comment from perpendicular time who writes in about how it's been quite a week. Pick your champion. Christy Noem with what is infrastructure? Ben, voter suppression isn't suppression Shapiro. Jimmy overflow with adverbs or its propaganda door. And Marjorie, it's called CrossFit Green. God, we have almost all of those stories in the rundown today. Even with all the unsurious people that we talk about on the show, Door, he's an extra layer of gross, so we're not talking about that. But we are going to later talk about Ben Shapiro

and everything else that was mentioned there. Science Dragon, that was not rapid fire. I apologize. Science Dragon, interesting how Hannity and company keep using the words they, the average American, et cetera, obviously Hannity and company don't count themselves as they or average Americans, which means they're pissed, they're getting higher taxes, bias alert. Absolutely. I'm Adam and Lib says Democratic rules should theoretically cause higher corporate tax rates. So why would they help with the Dems, hopefully because they are humans in management too? All right, moving over to Super Chats, we have exoteric dragon who says, man, you guys are getting real creative with those names.

By detained suspect, you mean a shooter was white. Actually, we don't reveal the names of the shooters because we don't want to give them any, like, some of them think that it's like positive attention. But based on the last name of this individual, no, I don't think he's white. I could be wrong. But the name is a, it's a Latino last name. So he's a 44 year old for whatever that's worth. But anyway, just wanted to give you that detail. Forrest Dudley says, amazing, love seeing Farron on TYT. Always wondered, is there a content difference between Ring of Fire and Fair and Balance shows? I always watch both to be sure to catch everything.

Did you want to jump in on that, Farron? Yeah, Ring of Fire is the much more polished, the fun, you know, the professional, it includes all the Ring of Fire stuff. Fair and balanced is just me, yes, talking about similar issues, but I have a lot more fun with it. I'm a lot more laid back and just kind of let it go, which is fun did not have to, you know, everybody likes to have that kind. I can go over here and be just wild and crazy and you also have the professional side.

So that's kind of the two different ones. So thank you. I love that. I appreciate that. Yeah, we all need to have like a lighter take on things sometimes. So I love that. Peter Hamby also writes in and says with Biden's infrastructure, it brings jobs. Jobs help bring in money, money to help rebuild budget, the budget. So does that mean that Christy Gnome is too cheap for this bill? Her two cents may cover her lots of money. Might cost her lots of money. We've got to get back to that. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Kasparian and Farron Cousins with you. Now let's talk a little bit about Matt Gates and what we know, what the latest details are about the pretty serious allegations against him involving child sex trafficking.

Matt Gates appears to be in a lot more trouble than even we realized. Earlier this week, we learned that he's facing a serious Department of Justice investigation for allegedly paying for the travel of a minor that he had sex with, a 17 year old. And if he is found to have actually done that, he's breaking federal child sex trafficking laws. But we're learning more details. The story just continues to get worse. Apparently the Justice Department has also been looking into whether Gates, 38, may have also been involved in relationships with other underage girls. Now, I don't know why the specific word relationships was used in this context, maybe because there isn't really certainty yet about what type of relationship he had with these underage

girls. But that does not sound good, clearly. The case, by the way, which reached the highest levels of the Justice Department has been going on for nearly a year. And former Attorney General William Barr was briefed on the matter several times. Investigators have also interviewed several witnesses in the case and have been scrutinizing documents, including travel and financial records. So again, I want to reiterate that this was not some investigation that just started under the Biden administration. It actually began under the Trump administration with the the attorney general, William Barr, literally being briefed on what the allegations are. And the Daily Beast reported some additional details after speaking to some GOP staffers,

none of whom wanted to come out publicly. They didn't reveal their names. But here's what we know, based on what these GOP staffers are saying. One former staffer said Wednesday that their office had an informal rule to not allow their member to appear next to Gates during TV hits, fearful of the inevitable scandal that would come out one day. And there's also this, a Hill Source sent the Daily Beast, a photo of a trash bin outside of Gates's office. As lawmakers cleared out of their offices at the end of a recent session, at the top of the heap was an empty Costco-sized box of bearskin Trojan condoms.

Barron, seems like members of Congress and staffers have been pretty uncomfortable around Gates, and we're just learning about it now. Yeah, you know, this is always fun. I've loved to go after Matt Gates all these years. He is, you know, our congressman here in Florida's first district. But what's really interesting about this story here is how quickly his bizarre extortion defense has totally fallen apart. part. And we do know now, of course, yes, there is this DOJ or FBI, I guess, investigation into the potential extortion plot. But that extortion plot actually had nothing to do from what we know

at the moment with releasing materials related to Matt Gates. What it was essentially, this lawyer from this law firm that used to be, you know, with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the law firm, for what it's worth is like two blocks away from where our studio is. We see it out the window. So I guess they allegedly approached Don Gates and said, hey, give us 25 million because we want to get our friend out of Iran, who is a prisoner. And if you give us the 25 million, we're going to go and we're going to lobby Joe Biden to give your son a pardon for this investigation because they did know that there was an investigation. So that's the extortion. That's what we're looking at and yet I don't even understand how anybody can stand by Matt

Gates at this point when when we know what we know so far and now all of these members of Congress almost seem or the AIDS I guess excited about taking him down and to be honest that would be the best thing for the Republican Party. Don't come to his defense, let him go down in flames because you know no matter what happens to him, this district right here, you're going to get another Republican. You know, that is not in question. You're not going to lose the seat. This is a solidly red district. I can walk outside right now and see at least three different Trump flags still flying. It's safe. So let the toxic guy go. Let him continue digging his own grave. And then you hold your special election. You get another Republican.

and you move on without the baggage. I really think that that is what Republican leadership is hoping for here. Yeah, it certainly seems like it. I mean, we showed, you know, video of was it Kevin McCarthy or was it Mark Meadows? Mark Meadows, right? McCarthy, sorry, I don't, I mix them up all the time. So yeah, it was Kevin McCarthy being interviewed on Fox News and he didn't, you know, he certainly didn't feel the need to really offer a robust defense of Matt Gates. The only two members of Congress who have come out in defense of Matt Gates include two pretty questionable people themselves. You have Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Green who is notoriously a QAnon believer and purportedly cares about child sex trafficking,

but not when it might hurt someone in her political party. That's when maybe worrying about child sex trafficking is not that important, you know. But I do also want to add this because I've been noticing more and more pundits talking about this on cable news and saying that, you know, he should stop doing these interviews on Tucker Carlson and get a lawyer. Turns out that he actually did try to get a lawyer and he was rejected. Now, we don't know why, so I want to put that out there. But we've also learned that in at least one instance, a high profile Washington defense attorney and his law firm declined the opportunity to represent Gates after the congressman reached out, seeking to hire him for the case. And one other thing I wanted to quickly mention in response to you detailing the extortion

allegations, you know, both things can be true. I mean, he could be a victim of extortion or attempted extortion, but what fueled that attempted extortion is the fact that he's being investigated for child sex trafficking. You get what I'm saying? So yeah, you're right. I mean, his excuse there, I think he was hoping that he could deflect. And that's just not going to work here. And Don Gates, by the way, is Matt Gates's father, who is a Florida state senator who helped him basically get away with driving under the influence. So Papa has certainly helped Matt Gates with his criminal issues in the past and it appears he's helping him out again. So it's just absolutely disgusting.

Let's do one more story and then we'll take a break. Ever since the topic of the border crisis has come up during the Biden administration, one infuriating thing is that very few people have brought up the fact that foreign policy is tied to what we're experiencing at the border. Well, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez finally put out a video explaining exactly what I've been wanting members of Congress to talk about. Let's take a look. So let's talk about this because so much of our national conversation, which is not a conversation about immigration, is driven by people who could not care less about immigrants.

Often people want to say, why are you talking about the border crisis, or why aren't you talking talking about it in this way. Well, we're talking about it. They just don't like how we're talking about it. Because it's not a border crisis. It's an imperialism crisis. It's a climate crisis. It's a trade crisis. And also, it's a carceral crisis. Because as I have already said, even during this term and this president, our immigration system is based and designed on our carceral system. She's exactly right about that. And look, If she were one of these lawmakers who says the right things, but then consistently votes in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the military funding legislation, then I wouldn't give her Brownie points. But she has voted against it.

And she has a pretty clear understanding of what caused, you know, the migrant situation at the border. And, you know, I have evidence for that. I want to elaborate on that further. But before I do, Farron, I wanted to bring you in. Because, you know, I was under the impression based on some loud mouths on Twitter that AOC is actually not our friend, that she actually doesn't know what she's doing. Oh, no, fraud squad, totally, right? I mean, it's ridiculous these people who do this crap. But no, it's funny because I was actually in a conversation earlier this week. And I brought up the climate change issue on immigration. Because somebody asked you, what's driving all?

I said, well, climate change is the big ignored problem, especially. in Central and South America. You know, we have a lot of communities, a lot of countries that are already poor. And then when you take an issue like climate change, which is a threat multiplier, you bring in the droughts, you destroy the crops, you leave people destitute and desperate,

and before you know it, do you have a crisis? You know, whether it's in that country, whether it's an immigration crisis. I mean, this is literally, you know, sink back to an inconvenient truth. This is literally like one of the main theses of that documentary of what happens when we have millions and millions of people displaced every year because of climate change. We've been warned. We knew this would happen, you know, just through climate change alone. Then you throw in,

yes, the US imperialism in these areas, and you have a US-made crisis. And now we're acting, Oh, no, we don't know what's it. No, we did this. And now we're sitting here saying, well, come on up. We're going to throw you in a cage with a tinfoil blanket. Yeah, you're exactly right. And I think you just helped me crystallize in my mind exactly what it is that frustrates me. The conversations, or at least like the dominant talking point, the beginning of the conversation is usually, why is this happening to us, right?

as if the United States government and the American people have been victimized by an influx of migrants at the border. No, no, no. Like, there needs to be personal responsibility. And look, maybe personal responsibility goes a little far because this is the US government, which has had a long history of being the top polluter in the world. Certainly when it comes to CO2 emissions. We've certainly gone into other countries to overthrow democratically elected leaders, thus destabilizing those countries, leading to a lot of mass, a lot of violence in those countries. So let's start off with some specific details with climate change. For instance, the largest share of global greenhouse gas has emitted since the Industrial Revolution

comes from the United States. In 2018, the United States emitted 15.53 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita. Just to compare us to China, China emitted 6.59 metric tons. So we are the top polluter still, till this day. We're number one. Global warming manifested itself in very destructive hurricanes over the past several years, but also in a long-term drought situation over wide swaths of, oh, would you look at that? Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, a drought which has ruined crops for several seasons in a row and given the rural population little choice, but to uproot themselves and hit the migrant trail. The global warming is also the result of current capitalist mode of production. So businesses don't want to cut back on CO2. Donald Trump certainly empowered

them to loosen up their polluting activities. And so we're obviously seeing a flow of migrants as a result, a direct result of the actions that we've taken both for businesses and for U.S. imperialist reasons. And speaking of imperialism, real quick, the U.S. intervened in Guatemala in 1954. That was the coup that I've been talking about this week, where they overthrew the moderately left of center government of President Arbenz, who had been seen as soft communism and a threat to the profits of the United Fruit Company with connection. within the Eisenhower administration, the United States connived in the overthrow of the moderately progressive government of Honduras in 2009. And so unsurprisingly, we're seeing a flow of immigrants

from these specific countries. So it's not happening to us. The chickens have come home to roost. These are the consequences of U.S. foreign policy. These are the consequences of policies that impact corporations and how much they can pollute the world, not just this country. And so we need to be real about that because there are no band-aids. There really are no band-aids. This is going to continue to be a problem unless we actually look forward to long-term solutions. With that said, Farron, thank you so much for joining us today. I know we had a crazy, technical, glitchy day, but it was really good to have you. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Anytime. time. All right. Well, when we take a break or when we come back from the break,

Brett Ehrlich will be joining me for the second hour. We've got a lot to talk about. And believe it or not, Sarah Palin will be a topic of discussion. I might be defending her. Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at Apple. co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon