The Young Turks - Schlapped Down

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

The Brazilian government is seeking to punish the insurrectionists for the utter chaos they caused. Larry Summers has the audacity to record himself on a tropical vacation talking about inflation. George Santos has been accused of flashing the white power symbol. Christian Walker goes off on the CPAC president for his predatory behavior. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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. Woo! It's up! Wally, I'm Turcha, you know what I'm trying to do with you guys, and is married with you guys, It's an amazing one day afternoon slash evening. So guys, obviously Pact show,

redick show, crazy show. We've got we've got coups. We've got people warning about growing misogyny in British schools because of Patriotate. It's a crazy, crazy story. Some of the kids call it cray cray. We've got salty Trump. We've got so many things for you guys today. We gotta go. We gotta go. Casper, take it away. Well, you know what? I think that today is the perfect day to begin with some international news. So let's do it. You are watching supporters of former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, break into a government building in the country's capital of Brasilia. According to the Associated Press, on Sunday, rioters broke windows, toppled furniture, hurled computers and printers to the ground.

They punctured a massive Emiliano di Cavalcanti painting in five places. They overturned the U-shaped table at which Supreme Court justices can convene. They ripped a door off one of the justices offices. They also vandalized an iconic statue outside the court. As you can see from these scenes of the riots, a lot of parallels with what we experienced here in the United States on January. But believe it or not, the Jaire Bolsonaro supporters managed to be even goofier and more embarrassing than the Trump supporters here in the United States because they decided to carry out this riot on Sunday when there are no government officials present. So there was really no plan in place other than calling for the military to essentially conduct a coup, something that the country of Brazil is familiar with. But when soldiers arrive to the scene, these individuals, were actually arrested and the military did not assist them in conducting a coup.

Now this follows the election of its new leftist president, Inosio Lula de Silva. Of course, Jaira Bolsonaro is known as the Trump version of Brazil. In fact, after the election, he decided to travel here to the United States, met with all sorts of unsavory figures, including Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. And he is still in the United States. States. He was actually just hospitalized for abdominal pain. And there are calls for him to be extradited for allegedly inciting the rioters. Now, I have a few more details, actually a lot more detail to share with you. And you don't want to miss those details because it's fascinating what's happening in Brazil right now. But before we get to that, Chank, just some first reactions.

Yeah. Look, the parallels between January 6th here in America and what happened there is uncanny. They broke in in very similar ways. And Bolsonaro right now is in Florida, getting advice from Republicans. And so his supporters do exactly what Republicans do. Republicans did here in January 6th. So the plague that is Donald Trump continues to spread throughout the globe. And I can't believe that America has made attacking democracy chic in the world now. Well, I mean, it's really stomach churning.

To be fair, America made destroying democracy extremely chic in a lot of Latin American countries in the history, in, you know, the world history. So they love to overthrow leftist leaders, but in a weird twist, in this case, you have President Joe Biden and his administration showing support for Lula de Silva and of course condemning Jaya Bolsonaro and the rioters. Now here are some more details, it's important to note that Lula de Silva seems to be a lot more in ensuring that there is justice brought to those who have suffered the consequences of these rioters, so thousands of people have already been arrested. We'll hear from his speech in just a moment,

but a few more details before we do so. Bolsonaro had been stoking belief among his hardcore supporters that the electronic voting system that was used in the election was prone to fraud, though he has, much like Trump, never presented any evidence. And his lawmaker's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, held several meetings with former U.S. President Donald Trump, Trump's longtime allies, Steve Bannon, and his senior campaign advisor, Jason Miller. I believe earlier I said Stephen Miller, I mixed the two up all the time. Apologies for that. Now, in yet another parallel to January 6th in the United States, of course, there were some questions as to whether the police were either complicit in this attack or if they were just ill-prepared. Police were

noticeably slow to react, even after the arrival of more than 100 buses, carrying Bolsonaro supporters, of course. One video showed one group of protesters easily pushing through a police barricade with only a few officers using pepper spray. Another showed officers standing by as protesters stormed the Congress, including one using his phone to record what was happening. And there are plenty of videos just all over the internet where you can clearly see the identity of the individuals who decided to riot on Sunday. Now, the federal district governor Ibanez Rocha confirmed that he had fired the capital city's head of public security because of their slow reaction to the rioters.

And as I mentioned earlier, Lula de Silva is not holding back in calling for justice here. Here is a little piece of his speech following the riots. There was a fault of security. And I wanted to say to you that all these people who did us were encountered and are punished. And we, including, we'll

discover who are the financiators of these vandals that were in Brazil. We'll discover the financiators and all of them will, will with the force of the law, this gesture of

responsibility, this exerctrocratic, and this gesture So in that speech, Lula de Silva, of course, mentioned a decree. I want to give you a few more details on that. He read a freshly signed decree for the federal government to assume control of security in the federal district. He said that the so-called fascist fanatics, as well as those who finance their activities, must be punished and also accused Bolsonaro of encouraging their uprising.

And there are already officials in Brazil who have called for the extradition of former president, Zaire Bolsonaro, back to Brazil so he could face a possible investigation. All right. So this is where the similarities end, because here authorities appear to be taking action, unlike in America where they're like, attempted coup against the country. I don't know, we're going to have to ask permission of the people who attempted the coup to see if we could prosecute them. No, no, you just go after them and you arrest them. It's not that complicated. And by the way, the people here know it's not that complicated because they do it to the Schleps who were part of the riot in the first place.

So both Brazil and the United States arrest people that were on the ground and broke into the buildings. But when it comes to the people who organized the coup, America refuses to arrest them. Absolutely, because they were part of the elites. And so the elite's number one rule is never ever arrest another elite unless of course they stole from rich people, other rich people. Then they then you can get arrested. But other than that, even a coup won't do it. But in Brazil, they're instantly firing people, arresting people. And by the way, you saw there Lula saying they're fascists. See, no hesitation. No mealy-mouth BS. Oh, some of my best friends are coup committers. Is that a thing? It's actually a pretty popular rock band. Oh yeah, the coup committers, they're unbelievable. Joe Biden's still calling him his friend, so it's possible. Okay, look, last two things here for me.

Number one, Lula and the others are 100% right in pointing out this specific thing that we didn't bring you yet. Not only did people who paid for it in general, but who paid for the buses? Because if people are getting bused in, somebody paid for those buses, that's the person who organized the coup. And that will unravel everything. Here, if it was America, you would find out about it 40 years later when someone did an investigation, but no one would ever be held responsible. I hope they don't take that lesson from us. And Anna, of course you're right, that we've done endless coups and organized them here in America. My point was one of the few things that we do right is a peaceful transition of power. And now Trump has destroyed that as well.

So now the new precedent is well, if America is doing it, if I ever lose an election, of course I'm going to try to do a violent takeover instead. And so that's what we're seeing now from his cult, Trump's international cult and is one of his capos is Bolsonaro. And that's why he's hiding out in Florida with Trump. And you know, just a little bit of Brazilian history. Brazil had experienced a coup previously. It was a military coup at a time when I believe Jaire Bolsonaro was part of the military. And my favorite part of this story, I mean, it's a terrible story. We've experienced it here in the United States, so I'm not making light of it. But I will dunk on the rioters, especially considering their Jaire Bolsonaro supporters, because they really thought the military

was going to come in and help them out. So let's go to Graphic 4 here, because this is probably my favorite tweet on the entire incident. Bolsonaro supporters, during the arrival of the military right before getting arrested by them. So they're like, yeah, military, help us coup, help us coup. And the military's like, yeah, hands behind your back, bro. We're taking you in, okay? Sorry. But you know, I do want to also just quickly go to Jaire Bolsonaro's response or reaction

because it's similar to what you get here in the United States with right wingers. You know, on one hand, pretending to condemn the bad actors. but then drawing these false equivalencies. So he writes in a tweet, peaceful demonstrations in the form of the law are part of democracy. However, you know, he's talking about the rioters, invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017 escape the rule. So I don't remember the left rioting in federal government buildings and demanding overturning the results of a democratic process.

Now Jaya Bolsonaro, of course, made Lula de Silva a political prisoner back in 2018 when Lula de Silva was, of course, favored to win that presidential election. So he had a judge essentially throw Lula de Silva in prison under these ridiculous and unfounded corruption charges. And later, that was completely thrown out by another judge. So if he really wants to talk about the bad actors here, he should take a good hard look at himself. Yeah, I'll give the last two comments to members on Twitch. J.M. Frasier said, all I see is a bunch of right wing tourists. And mine grifter said, fascism is our number one export right now. And that's depressing.

Extremely. All right, well, speaking of terrible people, let's talk a little bit about Larry Summers while he's in Paradise. They think inflation. They think inflation is the primary concern. They explicitly recognize that there's going to need to be increases in unemployment to contain. inflation. That's former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers enjoying a tropical paradise as he argues that more Americans need to lose their livelihoods in order to tackle inflation.

Let's hear what this clown has to say. It's the sayance of labor market developments as a kind of super core measure of inflation. They're showing awareness of the fact that the neutral. interest rate is a real interest rate concept rather than a nominal interest rate concept. They're recognizing that the tradeoff is not between unemployment and inflation, but between unemployment and the level of entrenched in inflation. So if you pay close attention to what Summers is saying there, he's giving the fed kudos for continuing to have a very aggressive approach in increasing interest rates,

which of course makes it far more expensive to borrow in an effort to tackle inflation. Now when it becomes more expensive for businesses to borrow, for instance, they end up laying off workers, it increases unemployment. He knows that and he seems to be celebrating that because, and this is an important point to mention, okay, when he says that he's concerned about inflation, When the wealthy, when those sitting in their tropical paradises talk about how we need to tackle inflation, they're not talking about tackling the high costs of necessary items we rely on every day, like food prices. What they're talking about is the inflation related to the workforce, because we're in a tight labor market and he no like that, okay? So they don't like the fact that

workers are getting paid more. They don't like the fact that workers are organizing and demanding better pay and better working conditions. They essentially want to use the method of coercion to either force people to stay at their jobs and deal with whatever their, you know, management is willing to pay them. And the way to do that is to do away with the tight labor market. I have more on this in a moment, including his ridiculous op-ed, but before I get to that, jink. Yeah. So look, these guys speak a different language and they feel like they could speak openly because they're speaking in corporate business lingo and they think the average person doesn't understand it so they could just say anything they want like hey we'd love to drive

longer term unemployment and make sure that millions of more people are suffering without jobs but they feel like if they put it in business lingo we're not going to hear it or understand it well good news i'm bilingual i went the top business school in the world i run a business so you're not going to get anything past us so i understand what you're saying you're saying that you think that the interest rates should be, you know, some long term reasonable number and not zero. Okay, I might agree with that, by the way. But that then leads to more unemployment. And I would look at that and go, hey, we should have a debate around that because that's going to cause a lot of people pay. He seems to celebrate it. He says over and over again, whether it's

the video or the op-ed, about how great long-term unemployment is. And that's because these guys only look at it from a corporate perspective. They genuinely believe what they're saying, but they don't even consider the workers. They just think like, well, if corporations are doing better, well, you lowly workers will eventually do better too. But if you had enough wisdom, you would know that, that we're firing you for your own sake.

No, you're just doing it because you don't get it. You think your perspective is the only correct perspective. No, your perspective is of the wealthy and the powerful, And you don't care about the rest of us at all. 100%. And look, there are potential upsides to higher interest rates. So for instance, the super low near zero or even in some cases below zero interest rates in other countries. Like Japan for a long time had below zero interest rates, which meant like you would get like almost paid to borrow money if you were a corporation, right?

That leads to certain bubbles in assets, whether you're talking about the stock market, market or in our case more specifically when it comes to the housing market, right? You'll have private equity firms buy up all of these single family homes that typically would be purchased as like starter homes by families because it's so cheap to borrow. Why not? So I think it is a good debate. You're right about that, Jenk. There's also a benefit in, you know, getting some interest in your savings account, for instance. So if you've been saving money slowly but surely, make sure that you're doing your research and you find a good bank that offers a decent interest rate. So you're getting an interest rate on that on that savings

account. But putting that aside, what I find so brazen about all of this is how he's like giddy about unemployment while he's like sitting in Oahu enjoying like a freaking Pinyacolada. I don't know if he's actually in Oahu. It just kind of looks like it. And it's just like this carelessness, lack of compassion for what how what he's advocating for is going to cause a lot of misery in people's lives. And he certainly gets more detailed about how he loves the misery in his op-ed for The Washington Post. Before I give you some details on that, do you want to respond to what I said, Jank? Yeah, no, we're in agreement here. The fact that he's doing it from this location, I know he's being interviewed for a show, but giddily telling people that we should fire more of

while you seem to have the most luxurious background in the world doesn't help with your messaging. But Anna, that goes to the point of they really don't get it. They think they don't care. Yeah, they think they're above the law, they think they're immune, they think it's perfectly normal to play with all of our lives. And they genuinely believe that they're doing it for our own good. Absolutely. So let's get to his latest op-ed in the Washington Post because I think there are a few nuggets there that make it abundantly clear that he is in favor of people losing their livelihoods just to essentially coerced workers to deal with whatever low wages their employers want to pay them. He says, quote, historical experience as encapsulated in the proposition known as the SAM rule demonstrates that whenever U.S. unemployment rises by more than half a percent within a year, it goes on to rise by 2%. So he expects a recession in 2023. So if a recession comes, it is very likely to lift unemployment to the 6% range. That is his prediction. But he does not see this as a bad thing at all.

sees it is a good thing. He says, quote, it is very unlikely that we will have a recession so severe as to drive the underlying inflation rate below the 2% target. Hence, overshooting on inflation, meaning increasing interest rates too much, is not the primary risk. And the Fed is right to emphasize its inflation objective going forward. So the Fed continues to raise interest rates and people thought that at this point, Jerome Powell, who's the head of the Federal Reserve, would slow things down. But it's clear that he's going to keep going. There has been a transitory, get a load of this, a transitory element in inflation's recent deterioration caused by bottlenecks in sectors such as used cars. As these bottlenecks ease, the prices return

to normal. There will be a transitory deflationary impact hitting these statistics. This must not be with enduring resolution of the inflation problem. What he's saying there is, listen, once the supply chain issues get sorted out, we shouldn't be under the impression that the Federal Reserve should stop raising interest rates. They should keep going. So to me, that's what makes it clear that this is about the labor market. This is about the wage inflation that executives at corporations have been complaining about. It's not about the inflation associated with products that you and I need every day just to live. It's just about how they don't want to have to pay workers more for the work that they do.

That's it. Yeah. So look, he doesn't want interest rates to be sky high. He says, I'm calling for moderation. And I don't think they should be near zero either. But at the same time, he does say that we should have a permanent state of unemployment that is clearly and perhaps significantly higher than it is today. And he thinks that that leads to a balancing of inflation and unemployment issues. I don't necessarily agree with that. And I think callously talking about trying to get more people fired and keep their wages as low as possible. And then claiming while you're sipping on your peanut colada that you're doing it for their own benefit is classic neoliberalism. You people don't know what's good for you. We're doing trickle down economics here. We will of

course hoard all of the cash and goodies for ourselves and we'll fire some of you and make it permanent. But don't worry, it's all for your own good. Is it Larry? Or is it that you've never actually inspected your own views and that if you broke down any of your views, you would realize that they are geared towards extreme self-benefit and not the benefit of the population at large. And again, Anna, he hides or it's both true that he means it and he's hiding his bad intent in some proposals because he then comes around. And this is a little bit neoliberal too. And he says, well, look, look, we should have a little bit higher benefits too. So we should increase unemployment benefits because we're going to make more people unemployed.

Okay, so you could, you know, that cuts both ways, right? They give them credit for honesty on that in a sense, but, and he's preparing because he's like, look, we're going to make sure more people don't have jobs. And he did make an argument for child tax credit. Now, is that going to, is he going to push for that? Probably never, no. No. Instead, he also talked about how we got to make sure that we take care of the oil companies

and beloved Joe Manchin. Oh, yes. There we go. I got to give you that line because, I mean, he gives the whole game away. Let's go to Graphics 6 here because in the same paragraph where he mentions the child tax credits, which by the way, if I'm not mistaken, you only get the child tax credits if you file tax returns, meaning when you have a job, correct? You know, I don't know the details of that one. Okay, I definitely do. And if the child tax credits are carried out the way they were when we had them temporarily under the Biden administration, they base it on your tax return. So if you're unemployed.

Well, it's a tax credit. So you have to have taxes to get credited for sure. Exactly. Yeah, so he's a liar. He doesn't actually care about the child tax credit at all because it's not going to benefit people who are unemployed. And let's go to Graphics 6 here where in the same paragraph he writes, now is the time to put in place carefully targeted measures to pull forward federal spending on maintenance and replacement cycles to periods when overall demand is soft. Now, Jenk, I didn't go to a fancy business school. So maybe my interpretation of that sentence is incorrect.

But I read that as bailouts for corporations that might struggle in a downturn. Well, so he would probably add in there. Well, what? I said unemployment benefits and child tax credit. So I'm saying bailouts for everybody. But is it because is that how it really works? We had the child tax credit for I think about one year, right? Every time the corporations need help, they get trillions of dollars in that.

help from the Federal Reserve and obviously backed up by the United States government. And by the way, Larry Summers not only is part of the people who say and have said throughout their entire careers that those companies should be helped, but he was one of the top architects under the Obama administration for doing the bank bailouts, where they gave infinite money to the worst business people in the history of the world that caused one of the greatest economic crashes in world history. He bailed them all out, because in his worldview, if you're helping the very wealthiest people in the world, you're definitely doing the right economic policy. And eventually, it'll get down to the unwashed masses.

I do declare Jeeves, another Pena Colado, would you? All right, well, we got to take a break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including an investigation and its findings into freshman Republican congressman, George Santos. One of my favorite stories where the plot continues to thicken. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. Martin, all those American heroes just sign up became young Turks. There is no show without the members. Every time you see us doing something positive in the world, pushing for positive change, or just bring you honest news, thank a member. They're the ones who did that. So hit the join button below on YouTube or t.com slash join anywhere else. All right,

Casper. All right, well, let's talk a little bit about what George Santos is up to and more importantly, whether there's an investigation into his lies. Freshman Republican Congressman George Santos has been investigated by a nonpartisan group that has now filed an official complaint with the Federal Elections Commission over potential campaign finance violations. Now this complaint was filed by a nonpartisan group known as Campaign Legal Center and their findings in some cases are fascinating. In other cases are hilarious. because while we know that this guy is a liar, the way he tries to lie when it comes to campaign finance issues is just as George Santos as you can get. So the report says particularly in light of Santos's mountain of lies about his life and qualifications for office, the commission should thoroughly investigate would appear to be equally brazen lies about how his campaign raised and spent money. The complaint argues.

All right, and I'm going to stop right here because to me, this is the most important part, right? Him lying about where he went to school, what his nationality is, all of that stuff is bad. I'm not minimizing it. But I was worried that much like with Trump, everyone was going to leave the potential financial crimes alone and just kind of focus on the other lies that are, you know, less of an issue if you want to oust this guy, right? and I think he should be ousted given his lies. So what did they find? Santos reported loaning his campaign more than $700,000 in the 2021-2020 cycle, despite having only $55,000 in earned income during his previous run for Congress in 2020. Campaign Legal Center called his claims of earning millions over the previous two years

from his DeVolder organization, vague, uncorroborated, and non-credible in light of his many previous lies. Now this is where it starts to get real good. The complaint alleges unknown individuals or corporations may have illegally funneled money to Santos's campaign through his firm, part of what the campaign legal center describes as a scheme for the candidate to act as a straw donor to his own congressional bid. If I remember correctly, Jank, there is an individual who came out with a super goofy documentary called like 2000 mules or something who went to prison for something like this. Do you remember who that was? Oh yeah, last name to Susa, first name Dinesh. I remember. Yeah, so. But he's about the last person I remember going to prison for something like this.

So this is a really important story, not just because of George Santos. He's actually a minor part of this, if you ask me. The major part of this story is, do we have laws anymore, especially election laws? So the FEC is split in a unique way. It's three Democrats, three Republicans, no matter who the president is. And it's because it's about elections and you don't want one party to have an advantage and then use that advantage you to manipulate elections. Well, that makes sense. But what does it lead to? It leads to gridlock because, look, Republicans cheat more.

it's a stone cold fact, we've shown it to you hundreds of times, okay, and especially around money in politics. But do Democrats cheat as well from time to time? Definitely, right? But so what happens is if Republicans cheat, they go in and all three Republicans on the FEC go, no, I don't see any cheating. But if Democrats cheat, the same exact thing happens. The three Democrats go, the same ones who would tell you, oh my God, this is outrageous. When a Republican does it, how dare, I bet you the three Democrats go ballistic over this, which makes sense, they should. But if a Democrat does something similar, they'll be like, no, I don't see it. I don't see it at all. So nothing ever gets prosecuted for election, you know, law breaking.

So this is a test because Santos doesn't really have any backing, even in the Republican Party. This is the easiest layup in election law history. So if they don't take action here, that means there are no laws left regarding elections. You can break any election law you like, and you'll never face consequences. I actually didn't know that they changed the process. What would you say would be a far better approach in doing this investigation? Or at least what do you think a better makeup of the FEC would be without having to do this like partisan divide or bipartisan makeup.

Yeah, no, look, it's a difficult question overall in a normal functioning democracy, because you cannot have one party have an advantage. Now you could then make it nonpartisan, but the nonpartisan things often turn partisan, but just covered up, right? That happens in a second, and just look at the Supreme Court. So the issue to me isn't the fact that it's three to three in the federal election commission. The issue is that the underlying politics is so corrupt that it is inconceivable for anyone in the Federal Election Commission to act in a nonpartisan way and to act in a non-corrupt way,

because the entire system is built on corruption. So if you said, hey, you shouldn't take this kind of money or that kind of money or taking that kind of money should have significant legal consequences attached to it, they'd have to devastate both parties. because they all do it all the time. So that's why they don't take any action. If you had a functioning democracy, like in maybe in Europe somewhere, they would have Republicans, Democrats, or whatever their parties are, but they would actually apply the law.

And that does happen. It just doesn't happen in America because the corruption is near 100%. I mean, it's so ingrained in our system at this point. And that's a good point. I mean, having a discussion about what the partisan makeup of the the FEC should be when it comes to these types of investigations is like debating what brand band aid you want to use on a gushing wound, right? And in our case, the gushing wound is the unending corruption. So it's a really good point. I do want to go back to their investigation

into his campaign finances, though, because it gets pretty laughable. So the complaint also accuses Santos of misrepresenting his campaign spending. It notes that his campaign reported an downing 40 disbursements between $199 and $200, including 37 disbursements of exactly $199 and 99 cents, thereby alluding requirements to keep a receipt, invoice, or canceled check for all spending above $200. So that's a giant red flag, but who knows, it could just be a coincidence, but they looked into it.

They looked into it, get a load of this. This is my favorite part. The reported spending did not stand up to scrutiny. Shocker, it highlighted a reported $199 and $99 payment for an October 13th, 2021 hotel stay at the W South Beach, a Miami hotel whose least expensive room for a midweek stay in October is priced at more than $700. On a single day in November of 2021, the campaign twice spent exactly $199,000. and 99 cents on food and beverage at an Italian restaurant in Queens, according to its public

disclosures. What are you doing, bro? He's not even a good liar. You know, if you're going to be a pathological liar, you really need to like, you got to work on your craft. You got to work on those skills. And clearly, not only is he a liar, he's a lazy liar. He's like the Dave Rubin of Congress. Yeah, well, there's a lot of truth of that. And we're going to get to is white power antics that also jive with that. But so look, I got this at 50-50 on him being prosecuted because he doesn't really have a base in the Republican Party. There's, the Republicans have a better way of lying than in this stupid brazen fashion. I mean, don't get me wrong. Trump is worse. He's more, he's dumber and he's more brazen. But he doesn't do it in

exactly this way. And he has accumulated a ton of power, which Santos has not. So, I don't think a lot of people owe him anything. So I think that the FEC might still go after him, even though he's so ham handed. But why is he so ham handed? Well, that's because this guy's been lying his whole life and there's never been any consequences. And where do you go if you're a pathological liar and a criminal? You go to the Republican Party. That's where the pathological liars are. And they don't mind criminals at all. They don't even mind if you rob them. As long as you hate the same people as they do. Now, in this case, he claims to be half black, half Latino, half Jewish, half whatever, right? He's just making stuff up. I have no idea what he actually is.

But as he was doing a vote, he did give the white power sign. And the reason for that is because if you're going to do terrible things, you go hide under the right wing umbrella, because they will protect you as long as you're hateful. And so he's like, don't get me wrong. I'm just as racist and hateful as you guys. So now he might get to some rightly support and might win that vote. We'll see how it plays out. I should note that the FEC has already taken some steps in looking to his campaign finances.

The regulator's most recent letter to the Santos campaign issued last week said that the committee failed to properly identify all donors who contribute more than $200 and seems to have accepted contributions that breach limits set forth under federal law, the FEC has asked for him to respond by February 8th. So we'll see how this all plays out, but I should also note that prosecutors in Nassau County have also begun an investigation and the authorities in Brazil where he was living have reopened an investigation involving George Santos, allegedly committing identity fraud. Jake. All right. And my last thing is whenever Democrats run against progressives and primaries, they pull out every nonsense oppo research thing you could ever think of. Does you know that Nina Turner sneezed the wrong way 13 years ago, right? But when they run against Republicans,

all of a sudden, they couldn't do oppo research on George Santos. I mean, imagine how humiliatingly bad a candidate you have to be to lose to this guy and not and not even realize he was lying the whole time. Oh, Democrats. All right, we're gonna take our second break of the day. When we come back, we'll talk about Matt Schlapp, who is a big time influential Republican donor, getting slapped down by Christian Walker.

Will you find out why? All right, back on T.R.T. Jank and Anna, with you guys, and a number of American heroes as well. Gina Evans just became a member there by becoming an American hero. She hit the join button below the video on YouTube. Dave Schmidt 311 continued his American hero antics on Twitch by gifting two subs. And Dave, we notice it every time and you're awesome every time. Casper. All right. Haven't heard from Christian Walker in a while.

So why don't we catch up with him? Matt Slap, head of CPAC, big family values, conservative guy, married to a woman. They have five children together. Took one of my dad's campaign staffers out for drinks when he was helping my dad on the campaign trail. Took one of my dad's staffers out for drinks. The staffer had been chauffeering Matt around, all excited, I'll go to drinks. This guy's big in conservative politics. It's going to help my career.

And when the staffer was dropping Matt off at his hotel. Former Senate candidate Herschel Walker's son, Christian, is about to tear apart GOP donor and activist Matt Schlapp for how he treated his father's campaign staffers. Matt reached over inappropriately grabbed the staffer, but here's the kicker. The staffer is a man married to a woman. Oh! He grabbed a male staffer. And then when they get to the hotel, Matt Slap invites the staffer up to his hotel room. The staffer immediately told the campaign, texted Matt, that made me very uncomfortable. That was horrible. Go over to the next slide. We got to finish this story up. One second.

One second. We will go to the rest of his video in just a moment. But before we do, Jink, how many times are we going to come across? stories involving Republican men, Republican politicians, Republican political operatives, on one hand saying the most vicious things about the LGBTQ community, and then, of course, behind the scenes, engaging in some same-sex unwanted groping, which is what Matt Schlapp is being accused of right now. And this is a story that you guys covered last week, but it's continued to develop since then. Yeah, the general. Of course, summary of this story is, of course Republicans do this every time, every time. So look, the victim in this case is not underage, but Matt Schlapp groomed the hell out of them.

Oh yeah, we got possible, you know, places for you to go. You should talk about your career. Oh yeah, come here, come this way. Here, let's have some drinks. Let's go into your car, let's go upstairs, let alone, as the staff relator said, Schlapp's pummeling of his crotch. So now, and of course the ones that are most loudly complaining about groomers are the ones that have grooming going through their minds 24-7. So back to Christian Walker, it's funny that like when he was a bad guy as a right winger, and I think he still is a bad guy, were not fun. So he would do these kind of videos against gay people, even though I think,

I'm pretty certain he's gay. I don't know every once in a while, like people, Republican Santos their identity, right? I am, I'm not. Ah, you can't tell. I'm going to criticize you either way. Okay, but so he would do ridiculous, like, tirades against the pride flag, right? And I'm like, Are we kidding each other? What's happening here? So, but now that he's turned his guns on the right wing, it's kind of fun. It is kind of fun, but I should. Okay, so let's suss out what he's doing because I think that your gut instinct that he's still a bad guy is a good instinct.

Because the way that he's framing this is I'm a good person in terms of going along with conservative family values. And he's attacking these folks on the right. from a perspective of family values, right? He's calling them out on, of course, being hypocrites as we do all the time. But he's doing so from a place of judgment because he still wants to position himself as a good family values type of person. And I'm just not buying it. But anyway, we should go to, oh, go ahead, Jenk.

What were you going to say? Yeah, I just want to say real quick there, too. Look, it's easier for him to get on his moral high ground there. I don't know if this will be a controversial statement, but he's a relatively good looking young, a single gay guy who I don't know what his plans on marriage is a long, long time from now, I presume, right? But so while he can go and have, you know, whatever kind of relationships that he wants, he then judges everyone else in their relationships. And so in a sense, that's also quite Republican of him. Now, of course, on Schlapp, we have common ground because Schlapp accost of the guy. And the guy did not ask for it at all.

So that's why we could enjoy the video on the rare common ground we have with Christian Walker. But a lot of my liberal friends think that he's actually left wing, just because the only time they saw him was when he turned on his dad. They had not seen him as a right winger before he turned on his dad. So like they, so that's why I wanted to correct the record. Don't think this guy's actually on your side, even though we agree with him on this video and think it's fun. Now, we have audio of the gentleman who has made these accusations against Schlapp. He's in his late 30s, so to Jenks point, he is not a minor, he is an adult, but still, you can't touch people, you know, in a sexual manner in an unsolicited way, and that is

what Schlapp is being accused of here. Before we get to that audio though, and stick around for that, we should go to the second half of Christian Walker's antics. Let's watch. Matt pulls a typical predator move, text the guy back when the guy's not answering his calls, he texts him if you can find it in your heart to give me a call. Because Matt knows he's been caught now. So when he's on campaign trips away from his wife and children, he's trying to hook up with men. Ridicrous. This is insane. Typical predator preys on this poor little staffer who's just trying to work his way up in Republican politics, then gets assaulted by one of the top guys in the industry. ridiculous. Family values, you need to cling to your wife and your children.

I mean, I agree with everything he's saying there, but you're right, Jake. He's very animated. I enjoy it for the most part. Part of it feels like an act, but you know, he's also furious with the Republican Party over its treatment of his family and all of that. So putting that aside for a second, I do want to be fair, even though I don't believe him, Schlapp is denying everything. An attorney for Schlapp called the claims an attack and said Schlapp denies any improper behavior. It is unclear if Herschel Walker was made aware of the allegations at the time. I should note that the staffer immediately told the campaign and the campaign told him,

you need to document this and get it, you know, on record, which is a good sign. That means that they took his accusation seriously. If I recall correctly, Jank, CPAC, which Matt Schlapp is the head of, it's the annual conservative, like Chud conference, recently wanted to prevent the log cabin Republicans from having some important role, right? Yeah, because they didn't believe that gay people could be conservatives and they wanted to reject them. So Anna, you're right about all of that. And the C and C-PAC does stand for Chud. It's Chud-Pak. And so we just want to be clear about the facts here on D-W-D.

So no, look, we covered this portion of it on Friday. Matt Schlapp has actually a mixed record. He wanted to allow the lug cabin Republicans to participate, and they did. But people were outraged that they were going to be a sponsor of CPAC. So Matt Schlapp then blocked them from being a sponsor of it. I mean, that's a bridge too far. And not only are we gonna allow gay people in the room, we take money from them and promote them?

No way. And so Schlapp at times has said that, you know, gay Republicans should be welcoming the party. And at other times has been just as vicious as other Republicans against gay marriage, against any kind of gay rights, and having them be equal to straight Americans. That's because he's in the Republican Party and he's a conservative. If you don't hate gay people there,

you'll be driven from the party, instantly. And so CPAC is terrible towards the LGBTQ community. And now ironically, we find out that probably a closeted gay man is running it, to which I say, of course. Yes. Now, without further ado, here is the audio of the accuser who is still unidentified for obvious reasons, you know, explaining what he experienced allegedly with Matt Schlapp. Let's watch or listen. Guards to Matthew Schlapp, chairman of CPAC, who approximately two hours ago put his hands on me in a sustained and unsolicited and unwanted manner.

It started around 1045 at Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta, and he was leaning in close to me to a point where I felt uncomfortable. My fault is that I'm sitting here thinking that this is a man drinking. that he's just filling himself. And at that point that, okay, he's drinking is okay. But clearly it wasn't okay and things escalated from there, you know, with Schlapp asking him to go to his room and all of that, you guys know, the details. Now, final statements from Christian Walker, the Daily Beast, which originally reported this story, reached out for comment from Christian Walker. And here's what he said. Honestly, it's just disgusting that someone as powerful as Matt Schlapp is preying on campaign staffers. I feel terrible for his wife and children. And then he ended the statement with this banger. Don't get your schlonged schlapped by Matt Schlapp. And I appreciate those antics very much. So thank you for that, Christian Walker. Thank you.

Yeah. So my favorite part of the story was when Anna said that Christian Walker might be partly acting. I mean, look, I get it. And it's probably mostly his genuine opinion. But the antics, come on. I mean, there's a lot of motion. There's a lot of this. Okay. It feels like Miyagi dough. He wax on, wax off, right? And a lot of this. Right. So the dude's animated for sure. And is partly an act, of course it's partly an act. And this is now his shtick, by the way. He found a niche. His niche is anytime anyone, you know, cheats on their family and leaves the kids or betrays the family in some way. Now that's Christian Walker's niche. And he's going to do a video and we're going to talk about it every time. So buckle up for that. I don't know about every time, but probably a lot. No, no, I don't know that we're going to talk about it every time. But he's he going to do a video and the The rest of the media is going to cover it every time?

Yep. Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Well, when we come back, we're going to talk about a lecturer who got fired for showing a painting that, in my opinion, was not offensive. But nonetheless, we'll talk about the details behind her firing. And then unfortunately, school-age kids are learning from the terrible teachings of Andrew Tate. And now teachers have to deprogram the misogyny that they've picked up on while watching his content. We've got that and more coming up.

It's going to be an insane second hour. Don't miss it. We'll see you in a few. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. and ad-free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t-y-t i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon