The Young Turks - Shadow Senator

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

House Republicans crack up and yell "loser" when told of Biden's stance on welfare work requirements. Politico is reporting that a member of the Pelosi family is helping prop up Feinstein because doing so would help Adam Schiff's chances of replacing her over Barbara Lee. Rep. George Santos’ comms director reportedly quits with a dig at Congressman. Joe Scarborough claims "cogent" Joe Biden calls him up at night to "aggressively'' debate his commentary. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too.

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Fascinating day, lots of ruckus in the capital and I like it. Jamal Bowman, who I'm now going to start calling the principal. The principal's walking the hallways and regulating. You're really great with branding. Who doesn't want to be called the principal? Well, first of all, he was a principal. I know, but still. No, but the principal regulates, okay?

And he has to in Washington because there's a bunch of children. I know you'd like that. Okay, now we're warming up to the principal. Anyway, that's coming up in a little bit. DeSantis gets clowned by a mouse, Trump jumps on it, and he jumps in it. So lots of news, tons of fun in today's show, including in the bonus episode where you guys are going to see this video that you're going to love. Okay, democracy manifest. All right.

Well, we, speaking of children, we begin with a few. few. Let's do it. Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries went on TV this morning to reject the GOP plan to add work requirements to some welfare programs, calling that a non-starter. So the president left for Asia with a message of reassurance that he won't do anything of consequence. President Joe Biden is likely to concede to Republicans on the debt ceiling deal, even though he doesn't have to. Biden is so pathetic that House GOP is openly mocking him. And if you don't believe me, you're about to see it. Let's walk.

But look at how House Republicans received that message. But he also said on work requirements, he'd accept not anything of any consequence. Where is it? I don't understand anything that has consequence. This is a senator who voted for work requirements. This is a senator who voted for work requirements. And honestly, that is the most painful part of watching that video, because not only is it incredibly embarrassing to have a weak president who already had capitulated to Republican demands back in 2011, it appears that he is poised to do so yet again. And, Jank, I mean, it's incredible how many of your predictions and my predictions tend to come to fruition.

So why don't you open up the conversation to that? Yeah. So look, I got this one right, but, and we often do, and it's, that's not bragging. I know it sounds like bragging. No, no, we should definitely brag. Okay, I hear you. Yeah. But guys, you get it right too, and I see it in your comments, because we figured out something

super simple. It's always the money. Money always wins. The rest of it is just theater, it's just theater. So it's, it's not at all complicated, you're all going to get the predictions right to, okay? Unfortunately, people who buy into the theater, don't get it right. Oh my God.

Joe Biden is going to fight the Republicans. No, of course not. That's ridiculous. He's going to give them whatever they want because both of their donors agree. They want to make sure that you guys don't get any help and they get all of the money, not just a little of the money, okay? So, and then he said he wasn't going to negotiate on the debt ceiling. We told you he would.

Of course he's negotiating on the debt ceiling because it's not just that Biden is weak, and he is, and I'll get to that in a second. But it's mainly that he's complicit. like he wanted to cut spending, he wanted an excuse to cut spending, and so they invented the debt ceiling thing, which since Trump didn't do it at all, like there was no negotiating debt ceiling under Trump, he should have just pitting, just flicked it off his shoulder and be done with it. But he's, he wants to cut it. He's wanted, he cuts, he voted for cutting spending throughout his entire career. He's a conservative, a Democrat, but it really

on economic, he's just totally Republican. And then they said, Oh, he's not going to do the work requirements. So he told you he's going to do the work requirements. Of course he's going to do it because he wants to do it. Understand that, but he's also weak because that when they laugh in his face and one of the Republican congressmen there said, loser. Because they made him accept the work requirements and then they're rubbing it in his face. That's right.

And do you think that Biden's going to man up and fight back? There's a 0% chance of that. He's going to give them exactly what he wants because that's who he is. Well, if you want to see week for yourself, here's the moment from President Joe Biden's press conference that reporters were reacting to and asking about. Let's take a look. I'm not going to accept any work requirements that's going to impact on medical health needs of people. I'm not going to accept any work requirements that go much beyond what is already. Well, I voted years ago for the work requirements that exist.

But it's possible there could be a few other, but not anything of any consequence. And here is more of McCarthy and his fellow Republicans reacting to that statement. If he doesn't want to have something that has consequences, he wants to borrow more money from China to pay an able-body person who has no dependents, not even to look for a job, not even go to school for 20 hours. And now we're seeing some congressional Democrats put out signals that they won't just swallow whatever Biden agrees to. Congressman Rokana saying he'll consider whatever the president proposes, but he'll vote how

he sees fit. And he's trying to redirect potential cuts away from welfare to defense, saying that is where bigger savings could be achieved. And that's true. I mean, if they're genuinely concerned about the bloated budget and if they want to cut spending, the first place they should look is the military, where we are now spending more than $800 billion a year, and there is so much waste in the Pentagon that they can't even pass a simple audit. They have failed every single audit that has happened over the last several

years. And one other thing I want to just quickly mention is the work requirements have not worked. And we have specific examples. I have some data that I'm going to get to in just a moment. But before we get to that, and it's really important for you all to know how that works out and how it actually ends up costing the government more money, I do want to just kind of talk about fairly recent history, 2011, when Biden struck a deal as vice president under the Obama administration with Republicans on something known as the Budget Control Act. Okay, the Budget Control Act was something that Republicans demanded at the time. They were holding the debt ceiling hostage just as they are right now. And they're like, we want to cut funding, right? So that bill passed. And what it did is it led to austerity on major social spending programs for 10 years straight. And that was a huge consequence for the American people. Yeah, Biden's been giving things away to Republicans his entire career.

He also struck a deal in the Obama administration where he made tax cuts for the rich permanent. Even George W. Bush couldn't do that, but he gave that to Mitch McConnell as a gift because Biden is a Republican on economic issues. They all serve their donors, but no one in media will tell you that. Okay, so I'm going to show you the receipts in a little bit of, so you know that we're not kidding. Then when we say, yeah, we got this right, right? And I'll tell you what whether Rokana and Akeem Jeffries are being honest or not. But I want to say one more thing about how you guys can see for yourself when they're lying and what they're actually going to do, okay? So when the minute Biden says, well, we'll have to make sure to take care

of the medical needs of people when talking about work requirements, the translation to that is I'm going to give in on work requirements and I'm going to make a tiny little exception for people with medical disabilities or something along those lines so that I could save face and pretend that I had a real negotiation with them when I'm actually giving them 99% of what they won. And you'll see this over and over again. And so back when Obama's was going through Obamacare, progressives pushed him to do the public option. It was incredibly popular, but he didn't want to do it because his donors told him under no circumstance, are you allowed to do that? And so he said, we'd like to do the public option. It's going to be difficult,

of course. And I said, look, that means they're definitely not doing it. And everyone in media I was like, you're again, outrageous, how dare you say that? He said he's going to try. No, when a Democrat says they're going to try, that means, ironically, they are not going to try. Biden did the same exact thing with $15 minimum wage. It's going to be difficult, but I guess we'll give it a shot. That's a signal to the Republicans. I'm ready to concede on that, okay?

So, but every reporter knows this. How come they don't tell you? It drives me nuts, right? So now we go to Rokana and Hakeem Jeffries. So, and by the way, when I say receipts on, we were right, in this case it might be literal since I, looks like I might win money. Yeah, you are going to win money. Do you want to go to that video right now?

Okay, let's go to that first and then I'll come back to it. So look, this is me and Emma, we're just having fun, okay? And Emma thought that, you know, that they might do the deal without work requirements because everyone on the Democratic side claims that they will not accept work requirements. requirements. Hakeem Jeffries was super clear. And now the top Democrat in the House, it's a non-starter. So I don't blame Emma. But I thought, hey, you should never trust democratic leadership. They'll never do what they're going to say. And for all the reasons that I explained. So it is fun a little bit earlier in the week. So I said very confidently that they would have work requirements in the negotiations on the debt ceiling.

You say no. Yeah. $100? $100.00. We're doing it. All right. There we go. Okay. I love these bets. I like gambling. I like gambling. Obviously, if anyone watches my show. She does. She's a great sport about it, and I'm looking forward to the $100. It's not over, by the way. Emma could still be right. Now, for example, if Hakeem Jeffries actually means a word of what he says,

he can just turn around to Biden and said, I think you misunderstood me. I said it's a non-starter, okay? Yeah. And he's the top Democrat in the House, but he's a liar. He's definitely not going to fight Biden, and they're definitely going to put in the work requirements, and Hakeem Jeffries isn't going to do a goddamn thing about it. Democrats advice on this. But today several Democratic senators, progressive senators held a press conference led by Senator Bernie Sanders. And what he is arguing, along with 11 total Democratic

senators who have signed this letter to Biden, is that he should invoke the 14th Amendment in order to raise the debt ceiling and just basically not allow the Republican Party to hold the debt ceiling hostage. So it's section four of the 14th Amendment, and it talks about, you know, the United States debt, the validity of the public debt of the United States authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned. Yeah, it's, look, guys, it's a no-brainer. If I was advising the president, I'd tell them, do the 14th Amendment right away. I would say first beat the living crap out of the Republicans for this.

I say a bunch of deadbeats don't want to pay their debt. Look, we all as Americans believe in personal responsibility. We accrued this debt together, okay, and now they say, well, I want to be a dead beat. I want to be a loser and not pay our debts, right? And I want to crash the entire global economy, and I want to make the middle, and the working class pay for it, because they're the ones that are going to lose their jobs. Go ahead, Republicans, say it, say it a thousand times, I do a press conference every single day, and I bash the living crap out of them politically, politically and rhetorical. which Biden would never do because he loves Republicans. Instead, he's giving them a giant gift.

And then I would use the 14th Amendment. Because that's what a strong person does. That's what an honest person does. But Biden isn't either one of those. And by the way, just to complete the thought on Roe Kana, Rocahnah is a good earnest man. And I like his proposal of taking it from defense instead. Of course it has a 0% chance.

Both the corporate Republicans and the corporate Democrats would never touch the defense budget or raising taxes for the rich. because they serve the rich and they serve defense contractors. So that's why it's a good policy by Rokana, but it has no chance of success because almost all of his colleagues are totally corrupt and agree with the Republicans. Okay, now I want to just quickly tell you why work requirements is incredibly, like, it's incredibly dumb if the genuine goal by these Republicans is to cut spending, it actually ends up becoming far more expensive and does not do much in,

encouraging people to work because the majority of people who, for instance, in the case of Arkansas, which tried this experiment, they tried to have work requirements in regard to Medicaid recipients in the state. And it was such a disaster that the program didn't even last two years. It was struck down by a judge before the two years were up. The other thing I want to just quickly mention is we don't know exactly what the work requirements are going to be tied to. There are some reports indicating that Republicans want the work requirements tied to SNAP benefits. Other reports say that it could have to do with Medicaid. We don't know yet. And what's really interesting is that we haven't really seen any proposal from the Republican

party, just this effort to push for austerity. And remember, this is the same party that provided cover for Donald Trump, who actually blew up our budget and increased the deficit to the tune of $8 trillion. And of course, he's the one who passed the tax cuts for the rich to the tune of $2 trillion over a decade. So with that said, let's go to Arkansas and see how their little experiment went, didn't go well. So this was research done.

It's really, really good research. The title of it, well, look up Summers at all, and you'll, you'll feel. find the research, it's open for everyone to read. But in June of 2018, Arkansas became the first state to implement work requirements in Medicaid, requiring adults ages 30 to 49 to work 20 hours a week, participate in community engagement activities, or qualify for an exemption to maintain coverage. Now, by April of 2019, a federal judge put the policy on hold, and then later it was struck down. So it didn't work out so well. Work requirements did not increase employment over 18 months of follow-up, and over 95% of Arkansas beneficiaries in our survey already met

the state's Medicaid work requirements or should have been eligible for an exemption. This suggests that barriers to reporting data to the state rather than not meeting the requirements themselves was the main cause for coverage losses in 2018. So they only had one avenue in which people could report their employer. And it was through the internet. And like not everyone has a computer, there might be some older Medicaid recipients who aren't as savvy with technology. So that was a huge barrier. And in the end, it ended up costing the state more money.

Because remember, you have to have an apparatus in place in order to do the reporting, have them report their employment, in order to enforce the policy. So it ended up costing the state money. Any consideration of work requirements in Medicaid should consider administrative costs as well. Implementation of this policy cost an estimated $26.1 million, with 17% of the costs paid for by the state and 84% paid for by the federal government. Yeah, so look, Republicans want to paint the average man as a bum. And if you remember Mitt Romney said the 47% of the country never wants to work, they're just the takers. Paul Ryan would say that all the time, this is not a Trump thing. It's a Republican party thing and it's been here for decades.

Why? Because they don't want any money spent on the average American. They want all the money to go to the tax cuts for the rich. So for example, over this debt ceiling fight, people suggested, hey, why don't we take it back some of the Trump tax cuts? And then we can pay for it easily. No problem, right? They go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So the richest people in the world should never be challenged.

We should never take a dime from them. But if you're poor and you need help, you need a hand up for a second, Republicans are here to call you bums. None of the facts ever back them up. They know that. They don't care about the facts. It's propaganda meant to help their rich donors. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll tell you about how Nancy Pelosi is engaging in elder abuse in order to be a kingmaker.

All right back on T.OAT, I got to read one member comment here. Mickey see the Silver Dragon said the Republicans all bursting out and laughter really pissed me off and nodded the Republicans. Yep, I totally agree. You couldn't agree more, that's why I read it. You know, Mickey always comments with great comments, we appreciate her and we appreciate all our members. That really nailed, this is visceral. When they started laughing at Biden, we all know that Biden's not going to fight back. And it really angered me that we have so-called representatives on our so-called side,

who are at best the weakest people in America. Give me one strong, actual Democrat, and we'll change the whole country. All right, let's move on to yet another story where Jenks' predictions proved to be correct. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is likely engaging in elder abuse so she can play Kingmaker in the Senate. And that's according to insiders who spoke to Politico. Now the story revolves around Senator Diane Feinstein, who we all know needs to retire immediately. She returned to the Senate after being absent for two and a half months with a really bad

shingles condition. When she was speaking to reporters recently and they asked about her time away, she seemed to have forgotten that she was away and denied it, said that she was in the Senate working the entire time. And of course she has missed some pretty critical votes to confirm judges. Now, why hasn't the Democratic Senator retired? She is not doing well. Well, political reports that there was a clue on the day that she returned to the Senate

because she was accompanied by a woman named Corrine Prada. And if you're wondering who she is, she's actually the oldest daughter of Nancy Pelosi's. Now, when Feinstein returned to the Senate last week, she was accompanied by Prouda. Apparently Prouda has been basically living with Feinstein and playing a big role in the senator's life ever since her husband passed away. And not only did she escort Feinstein around Capitol Hill, last week, she was again at her side yesterday helping aides surround the senator in Capitol Hill as reporters were trying to ask her questions. Now apparently Pelosi is acutely aware of just how bad

Feinstein's condition is. But when Congressman Rokana and Dean Phillips, by the way, called on her to retire because clearly she's experiencing significant mental decline and now you can see physical decline as well. Nancy Pelosi responded with the statement, quote, I've never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate. Yeah, but we don't have, as far as I know, there's no male in the Senate right now who is unable to perform their duties due to permanent mental decline due to honestly old age, right? Well, it turns out that Nancy Pelosi has a stake in the game. So let's talk about that a little bit. Politico writes this. Pelosi has endorsed Representative Adam Schiff, her longtime protege and former handpicked

House Intelligence Committee chair to succeed Feinstein after her sixth and final term ends next year. Schiff is a household name in California and already has a $15 million campaign cash advantage over his nearest competitor. And so I want to go to a video featuring our very own Jank Yugar, where he shares a bit of a bit of a prediction with us? Why don't the Democrats replace her? It's easy. Governor Newsom would do it.

He's a Democrat. It's the easiest thing in the world. Because they don't want a progressive in there and they're worried that someone, anyone, by definition will be more progressive than Diane Feistine because both her when she was of sound mind and apparently her chief of staff who's now the current senator are both deeply conservative. So they're like, oh, we love that. So they just want to keep a corporate Democrat in there. And by the way, what did the Democrats ever do anyway? Nothing. So they're like, what do we need her for?

We don't, we don't do anything. So the judicial nominations, some people are a little upset about. So let's pretend that we care about that but not actually do anything, which is, of course, the route that they have settled on. All right, so keep those words in your mind as I give you some more reporting from Politico. But if Feinstein were to bow to pressure and retire early, Adam Schiff's advantage would disappear, Governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to appoint a black woman to serve out her term. And one of Schiff's declared opponents, Representative Barbara Lee, would fit the bill. If Diane Feinstein, they call her a die-fi, resigns right now, there is an enormous probability that Barbara Lee gets appointed. Thus, it makes it harder for Schiff. One Pelosi family confidant said, adding that the relationship

between Pelosi, her daughter, and the senator is being kept under wraps and very, very closely held. With that said, one more video from Jank Uger. The holdup is that Gavin Newsom earlier promised when he thought he didn't have to do it that he would appoint a black woman. Well, who's the most logical black woman? Barbara Lee. Well, the problem is, he's a progressive. And they would rather have all judicial appointments block then put a progressive into that seat. So Newsom right now is building a list of random African-American females in California in order to not give it to Barbara Lee. I believe we have a hashtag for this, Jank Yugar. It's called hashtag Jank was right.

Well, I appreciate it, Anna. As I say every time when we get these right, guys, politics is not that hard to figure out. The establishment never wants a progressive. They'll do anything to avoid On other occasions, I also mentioned, it's because the establishment favors Adam Schiff. And we talked about it in the context of that race, Adam Schiff versus Katie Porter and Adam Schiff versus Barbara Lee, specifically in regards to appointing Barbara Lee, the logical choice here. And by the way, I don't know who I would vote for between Barbara Lee and Katie Porter. But I do know Gavin Newsom definitely said he was going to appoint a black woman. Barbara Lee is definitely the most qualified.

There's no question about it. And I know that Gavin Newsom, every Democratic leader in California and Nancy Pelosi all want Adam Schiff. Why do they all want Adam Schiff? Because he's the most corrupt. He has taken the most corporate donations. We'll do whatever corporations tell him to do. And Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi agree with that 100%. And they don't want this guy to lose.

And they're like, damn it, we've got this black woman here. We don't want to be the senator. but we can't say that publicly because we love playing identity politics. Right. And ironically, Pelosi pulls the female card on this very issue. That's what they do. Guys, the Democratic Party weaponizes identity all the time for their political gain. That is it. That is it.

You think Nancy Pelosi cares about women? Come on. It's not at all. Come on, guys. Come on, look, that's some classic mainstream media stuff, where they, oh, a champion of women. No, no, you got to show it in the bills. I don't care what your theater is. I don't care how you rip up papers or, you know, or what kind of cloth you wear and all this nonsense, nonsense. The theater, the posturing.

Yeah, and so the minute that, by the way, we've now got the question. There's one answer I didn't know, which was, well, who's the actual senator from California? I've asked on the show about half a dozen times now because that one, I'm like, how the hell am I supposed to know, that one's not easy to predict. I don't know if it's the chief of staff. I don't know if it's the communications director. It turns out it's none of them, it's Nancy Pelosi. I know, it's guys, it's so, it's so sick, it's so sick.

Like I want you to really absorb what this means, okay? Diane Feinstein is not in a good condition, both physically and mentally, okay? The fact that she didn't even know, remember that she had been. And out for two and a half months, they are, they're exploiting her, they are using her. What Nancy Pelosi is doing is absolutely disgusting. It is disgusting. First of all, it's undemocratic. It's just gross.

And so let's just go to some new reporting from the New York Times that actually shed some additional light on how poor Diane Feinstein's health is right now. It's even worse than we knew. So they report, this came out today, the shingles spread to her face and neck, causing vision and balance impairments and facial paralysis known as Ramsey Hunt syndrome. The virus also brought on a previously unreported case of encephalitis, a rare but potentially debilitating complication of shingles, according to two people familiar with the senator's diagnosis who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it. I'm not done, there's more. Okay, let's go to the next graphic. Characterized by swelling of the brain, post shingles, encephalitis can leave patients with lasting memory or language problems, sleep disorders, bouts of confusion, mood disorders, which honestly explains a lot, headaches and difficulties walking, older patients tend to have the most trouble recovering. And even before this latest illness, as we all know, Feinstein had already.

suffered substantial memory issues that had raised questions about her mental capacity. Guys, what Nancy Pelosi is doing right now is disgusting and sick. So of course, no one in mainstream media will tell you that because that's obviously true. Because they're cowards and they like to provide cover for Pelosi. Right, that would make the powerful uncomfortable. Good, be uncomfortable. Oh my god, a journalist, you can't make the powerful uncomfortable. What if they don't give you access?

Why don't you go kiss their ass again? So listen, I am 100% against Republicans, but our job is to be honest, like apparently anyone else in media. And so in this case, I'm not having a conversation about Diane Feinstein's mental health. It's over. She comes back from being out for all those buses, she says what, I wasn't out, it's over. I don't know or care if it's to measure Alzheimer's or any of the above. She clearly has literally no idea what's going on.

So this is beyond sick. It is incredibly deceptive. I don't find it to be like savvy politics that Nancy Pelosi installed her daughter as an illegitimate senator from California. No, I didn't vote for Nancy Pelosi's daughter. And guys, I'm also not having this conversation. Oh, the person next to Diane Feinstein is always Nancy Pelosi's daughter. And Nancy Pelosi's daughter is the one who is telling you what Feinstein says. No, it's even sicker than that.

No, she's the senator. Pelosi stole the seat. No, guys, but there's also another element to the story in that New York Times piece that's genuinely concerning to me because they report that two different family members try to visit the senator and they were told that she didn't want to see anybody. She does, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? No, no, no, if you're a family member of Diane Fysand, please go.

help your family member and do not listen to sick politicians telling you you can't visit your family member because they'd like to take further advantage of her because Nancy Pelosi made a promise to Adam Schiff that don't worry Adam okay all of us corrupt Democrats will stick together and we'll defeat that black woman Barbara Lee and the other woman Katie Porter oh by the way I'm for women's rights get out of here man deeply deeply corrupt All right, let's move on to more chaos in Congress, starting with this. Resign, resign. Get him out. Save yourself. Have some dignity. Have some dignity. There you go, come on. We got to go.

Alexander, you want to go. How's that dressed? The party, Republicans kick your mouth. Democratic representatives, Jamal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were heckling freshman Republican George Santos. demanding that he resign. Now, Santos threw a jab about AOC's Met Galla dress and then ran away. But nonetheless, Santos was faced by that swarm of reporters, specifically because House Republicans had just succeeded in blocking an attempt to expel him from Congress for obvious reasons, for anyone who's been paying attention. But in case you haven't, I'll tell you why.

So the freshman congressman has been charged with 13 counts of financial crimes, which include embezzling money from his campaign, falsely receiving unemployment funds, and also lying to Congress about his finances. Now, California Democratic Representative Robert Garcia introduced a resolution back in February to expel Santos. He sought to force a vote on that resolution using a process that left three options for the Republican Party, and that includes having a vote on the resolution, a move to table, or a referral to committee. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House Speaker, and the House

GOP chose the third option to essentially refer this to committee. And Representative Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, says this, quote, it is simply an effort for the Republicans to avoid having to take an up or down vote on whether or not George Santos belongs here. The House voted along party lines, 221 to 204, to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee with Santos himself joining his GOP colleagues in voting to do so. I should also note that seven Democrats voted present, including several who happened to be on the House Ethics panel, hoping to dispel any concerns of conflicts of interest. I just love how Democrats are like, we must play minor rules. And we don't, we don't want to give the impression that there's a conflict of interest. It's like, do you guys not understand who your opponents are?

What's going on here? Well, we know what's going on with Democrats, pathetic weakness other than Jamal Bowman, who I'm really enjoying these. I'm gonna come back to Jamal in a second, but on the issue of the ethics committee, I understand the trick here. Number one, they referred it to the ethics committee, it was already in the ethics committee. I know, so they double referred it? Is that the big action that they took? So that's hilarious. joke, that's a literal joke, okay? And then the second thing that I'm not sure a lot of people

know is that once the Department of Justice indicts someone, the ethics committee historically has to stop working on their investigation. So they refer to a committee that cannot continue the investigation and that was already looking into it. So that is definitively saying, no, we are not going to expel. What I want to understand is why the Republican Party is against law and order. Why does the Republican Party want to protect individuals who embezzle money? Why? Why do they love criminals so much? By the way, why can't a Democratic congressperson do that speech? I know. I know. I mean, it's so easy. Guys, like, look at the three facts we just gave you. So easy saying, hey, look, the Ethics Committee can't investigate because of the

Department of Justice is already investigating. And why do you guys want to protect a criminal? I mean, Now you protected Trump, now you're protecting him, you protect all the people that Donald Trump gave pardons to who are almost all white-collar criminals. Then you wanted to defund the IRS because they look into tax cheats who happened to coincidentally be your donors, okay? So why do you hate law and order so much? Why do you want to defund the police? Why do you want to defund the FBI, defund the IRS, defund everyone who would be a check on incredibly wealthy people and powerful people? Now, these are super easy points to make, but Democrats can't quite figure it out, et cetera. So now back to Jamal Bowman, because there are a couple of Democrats who apparently are willing to fight.

So go get him, Jamal. He used to be a principal, and then he won this seat after that. He started his own school, which was received all these awards in New York. He's an amazing guy to begin with. I like now that the principal is yelling in the hallways at these children, okay? And he's like, hey, George, you're in detention, go home, okay? But you really should be expelled. And the principal is absolutely right.

And why is Jamal Bowman like basically getting into these shouting matches all throughout the hallways of Congress right outside of Congress? Because there's no actual debates in Congress. Thousand percent. I mean, look, the theater that we all see every time they have a hearing, it's nonsense, right? They don't actually intend to do anything, but I think if you engage in the kind of theater that we're seeing from Jamal Bowman, I mean, there's a gaggle of reporters there. Reporters love theater.

They love that kind of drama. And it kind of forces them to cover the story and shed light on Republicans providing cover for a potential. And I only say potential because he hasn't been convicted yet, but a potential criminal. Yeah. So when you do a polite speech in Congress about, I don't want to do it, and George Santos has pervaricated, nobody covers it. You go outside where there's all the reporters and you go, hey, why don't you get the

hell out of Congress already, you crook? Everybody covers it. So Jamah's not only being effective and using basically the one avenue that's left to fight back against Republicans, but he's also being smart and strategic about how to do it, right? So look, what are they doing inside Congress? fake hearings about fake informants. They're not doing any of the people's business. The only thing, other thing they're doing is a fake fight over the debt ceiling so they

could cut from the average American. So that's why Bowman's having to do it outside of Congress, and I say more power to him. Now, Santos was asked, well, if the ethics committee finds that you engaged in wrongdoing, that you should resign, would you be willing to do it? Apparently he said, of course, but like, can you really believe anything that George Santos says? And he had already committed, and he's on the record saying that he plans to run for re-election. Let's see if the people in his district would be willing to elect him again.

I mean. No, there's no chance. So, and if you don't know why the Republicans aren't kicking him out, yes, they don't mind criminals at all. That's true. But also because they only have a four-seat majority in the house, and that's a swing district. They're afraid of losing that district because it was all the damage that Santos was done. Then they'd be down to three votes. And that would be inside this term.

So they're very worried about that. Plus, McCarthy made him a promise that if he backed him during the speaker votes, that he would leave him alone. And so that's the backdoor deal that McCarthy made that everybody knows about. Now, in our members only bonus episode today, a discussion that I want to have only because I want to rile jank up is how reporters. Ferders failed to catch all of this gross history that Santos has, like not a single report about it prior to the election, which allowed for him to get elected as a United States member of the House. But when it came to you running for Congress, they were willing to make things up, all right?

I mean, it is interesting how they treated Santos versus Jank. We should talk about that in our members only bonus episode. You can become a member if you're not one by going to t.yt.com slash join. If you're watching us on YouTube, you can join by clicking the join button below. Yep, and I will have strong opinions on that. Yeah, all right, for now, though, why don't we take a quick break? And when we come back, Joe Scarborough says some quiet things out loud, including, you know, the kind of relationship he has with Joe Biden. That and more coming up.

I have not done my job since I've gotten here. I can chew and walk them at the same time. You look like a fool. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, but also Makupawa, Pihome, C, G, Daniel Della O, and Gabby Mathis and Jonathan Sismic use the join button to upgrade

to TYT premium, which you can all do through the same button as well, and Gabby and Jonathan and all the new members. We love you. Thank you for doing that. We appreciate we do this show together. And thank you for keeping our voice strong. Anna, you wanted to say one thing. Yes, I do want to say something. So former vice president, Mike Pence, just went on Fox News. And while speaking to Larry Cudlow, he decided to take some jabs at Donald Trump, which is shocking because even after the Capitol riots, Pence was super like soft on Trump, didn't want to like attack him too viciously. Well, Well, he did take some jabs at Trump for not targeting Medicare and Social Security.

Oh, God, I'm so excited to watch you run and fail for President of the United States. Like, do you not get it? He doesn't get that that's the third rail. No, I know. But so he's in a pickle because even Republican voters love Social Security and Medicare and will take your head off proverbially, rhetorically, but their Republican voters, They wanted to hang Mike Pence earlier, so they do not want you to cut those things. But I think the reason Pence is saying that is he's basically going on TV and saying,

donors, I'll do anything for you. Please send money. And that's why he's saying what he said. Yeah. So Cudlow asks him, you noted that Trump was a big spender. You disagree with him on entitlements. You say, we've got to tackle Medicare. We're gonna have to tackle Social Security. What were you getting at? No, I think Cudlow, put the drink down. I think it's pretty clear. He wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. What are you talking about? Where's the hard part?

Yeah, no, it's amazing. Anyway, so Pence is completely oblivious to the fact that he wants to target spending on programs that are wildly popular, even among the Republican base. Like over three quarters of Republicans love those programs. That's the one thing, by the way, that's part of why we say don't underestimate Trump. Because he has that popular streak, whether he means it or not, he goes out there and he says, why would it protect Social Security and Medicare? And it's not just Democratic voters or independents.

The Republican voters love that. All the other Republican knuckleheads are like, hey, donors, I'll cut it for you. And then they lose popularity. And let me just read you Pence's exact statement, okay? Get a load of this. Look, our administration could have done a better job controlling domestic spending. I fully supported what we did in rebuilding our military after years of budget cutbacks. Come on. That's saying defense contractors please send money.

Yeah, exactly, 100%. I supported emergency relief during COVID for families and for businesses that propped up our economy. But between there, Larry, we could have done better. And most important of all, we could have begun a national debate for dealing with the real drive, the real driver of our national debt, which is 70% of our federal budget, as you know, which is entitlements. And what he's referring to is Social Security and Medicare. Of course, no mention of the $2 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy and to corporations, which was, of course, Trump's tax cuts for the rich. That's totally fine, right? That wasn't in any way irresponsible because we got to, we got to give the wealthy, we got to give the corporations,

more cookies, even though, you know, their effective tax rate with all those loopholes, deductions, and loopholes was so low already. And now it's even lower, which is why you have major corporations, some of the wealthiest corporations in this country paying nothing in federal taxes some years. Companies like Amazon, for instance. Look, in Justice is coming, my book test coming out, I show you that over 80% of Americans think that we should tax big business more, that they have too much power. and about 59% of Americans say, they just have too much money.

I don't even know what that means. I don't even agree with that, right? But American people do not love big business, okay? So why do politicians constantly tell you how much they love big business? Remember one of the things that Pence said that Anna just read you, right in the middle, it was like, I remember during COVID relief, I sent all the money to big business. And remember, I love the two trillion tax cuts that went all the big business, okay? And I want to cut the entitlements.

That goes to the average America. And I want to cut from the African American. Why would somebody be so stupidest to say that? Because they're not stupid. They're doing an ad for themselves on television to people watching CNBC, wealthy donors. And he's going on there and say, send me money. I will do anything for you. Yeah.

And by the way, these are programs that we have paid into. Social Security, Medicare, take a look at your check stub, and you will see exactly how much money you have contributed during that pay period to Social Security and Medicare. One more quick thing. The Republicans derisively call it entitlements as if you're a bum asking for an entitlement. They're so disgusting. But do you know why they were called entitlements in the first place? Because since they took it out of your paycheck, you are entitled to get it back. Damn right. But the Republicans use that to smear the average American to help the rich. All right, let's move on. We're not winning with left leading media either. And here's a good example of it. During a discussion over President Joe Biden, Morning Joe host, Joe Scarborough and Mika

Brasinski talked about like, no, he's not old. He's not too old. What are you guys talking about? Joe Biden is doing real well. He's real strong. Mika Brasinski goes on and on about his crazy busy schedule and how he's able to handle it like a real man. I mean, us normal people wouldn't be able to handle that incredibly difficult and busy

schedule. But what I particularly found interesting was Joe Scarborough's. conversation on the aptly named podcast Hacks on Tap, where he discusses the president hitting him up late at night for late night debates. Let's watch. I know that Joe Biden is still cogent because I've said a few things about him on my show and I've read a couple of op-beds and he'll wake me up when I'm asleep at 8.30 at night because Meek and I, of course, wake up It was 4.30 in the morning. And I'll go, hello? Yes, sir? Yeah. And about an hour later, he will aggressively and very effectively give me point by point by point about how my op-ed

was fought. So in an effort to defend Joe Biden and make the case that he is not too old to run for re-election, Joe Scarborough, I don't know if it was accidentally. I don't know if he just doesn't think it's that big of a deal, admits to the American people that the president of the United States calls him at 8.30 at night to talk to him, to discuss policy with him. Which, if I recall correctly, Lips had a huge problem with that, no, when it came to, you know, Fox News hosts doing the same with Donald Trump. And if you don't remember, I can remind you of that. Let's watch. Guess who was on the campaign trail with Trump just a few hours ago?

Sean Hannity and Janine Piro of Fox News. Trump doesn't just rely on Sean Hannity's show for input, but every single night after it goes off the air, the two talk by phone right before bed. If this had happened under a different administration, and it was a different network, what would Republicans be doing? We would be having a fit.

It's about the bias in the media and how this is so inappropriate and everyone's in bed with everybody else and how can we expect any kind of fair coverage. But now we have an entire major news network. network that has become a state propaganda for this administration. It's completely inappropriate. How do they consider themselves a news network when they are actively involved and engaged

in a real reporters? What they will tell you is that their evening people are opinion. Their afternoon people are more Fox News. Most people know, but that's that's the distinction of me and all of the people at night are actually telling them the truth and have to abide by the rules of journalism. And they absolutely do not. their opinion hosts, but the people who are watching that channel have no idea. There's no, there should be a bug if they want to do it up there that says these are opinions.

Don't you like the idea of them kind of chopping it up at night like a couple of high school sophomores and did my hair look good? How'd you like my closing comments tonight and how do you like what I said about immigrants today? Destiny brought these guys together. Destiny brought them together. It's it was inevitable that they would be in each other's orbits to the extent that that they are now. Well, because the line such as ever existed there between the conservative political structure and the corporate Fox news structure has completely dissolved. I haven't seen any Republicans make a big deal about Joe Scarborough taking calls from President

Biden at 8.30 at night. But I also haven't seen anyone on MSNBC or CNN make a big deal about it either. Yeah, so look, I have an opinion that my opinion. might surprise you on this in a second. But first, the obvious stuff. So all that crying they did. Oh, my God, you can believe it? How did he signed a Trump?

Now Scarborough is all yeah, I'm talking to policy in the middle of the night with Biden all the time, all the time. Not a peep. Have you guys heard a single criticism from anyone in media? Like, we're old enough to remember those clips. They were from like two seconds ago, okay? You all saw them with your own eyes. And you will see going forward. No one will say another word about Joe Scarborough and Biden.

talking to each other behind the scenes. Okay, so I want to point out to the hypocrisy. And I'll add one thing to that hypocrisy. Remember when everybody also lost it about Chris Cuomo talking to his brother? They're like, oh, this is outrageous. You can't do that. I can't believe that they were talking behind the scenes. Now Scarborough does it with Biden.

They're like, oh, bravo, bravo, no problem at all. Because as long as you're on the right team, everything's good. And by the way, they didn't mind talking to Chris Cuomo talking to Andrew Cuomo when when Andrew Cuomo was popular. But when Andrew Cuomo was caught, then all of a sudden it became a problem. Right? And so because before Andrew Cuomo was part of the establishment, and if you're part of the establishment, regular rules don't apply to you. Listen, if Joe Scarborough made that statement on MSNBC where they're constantly providing cover for Biden and his flaws and all of that, then I'd have no problem with it. But I would venture to say that their audience is under the impression that they are doing fair analysis and fair reporting.

I know, that's the problem. And that's the problem for me. Yeah, so that's going to get to my potential surprise. If you watch young turks enough, you know you wouldn't be surprised. But I actually don't think there's anything wrong with Joe Scarborough and Joe Biden talking off air. I don't think there's anything wrong with Hannity and Trump. And come on, you tell me, Chris Cuomo wasn't going to talk to his brother. Who are we kidding, right?

So I'm not here to defend Cuomo or Hannity or Scarborough. Two out of three of those guys, I don't like at all. Okay. But I don't think it's that big a deal as long as you are honest about it, okay? So like let's say that Marianne Williamson wins and she's the president. She calls me up, hey, Jake, what do you think about this? What are we going to hang up on her? No, I'm going to talk to her and I'm going to give her my real opinion.

But I'm not going to hide it and I'm not going to pretend that I don't have an opinion or a perspective. We're very clear about our perspective. So what drives me crazy about the CNNs of the world is they pretend to be outraged by others. Meanwhile, they slipped questions to Hillary Clinton, the questions they were going to ask in a debate on CNN to Hillary Clinton in a debate against Bernie Sanders, right? And then they're like, can you believe how biased Fox News is being? But what they never admit to is their own corporate agenda. And you meant News Nation, by the way, not, I think you said Newsmax. Oh.

Well, when I promoted to Dan Abrams show earlier. Well, I'm going to be on tonight. We're going to talk about Jamal Bowman yelling at Marjorie Taylor Greer. I'm so sorry to news station. Yes, it's a new news nation when I, and I'll be talking to Dan Abrams. And guys, I'm on Chris Cuomo show all the time. It's not about that. I have a very well-documented track record of being 100% against Andrew Cuomo,

and not because of the latest scandals that just added on top of it, but Andrew Cuomo has been one of the most corrupt, conservative, corporatist Democrats of my lifetime. So I got no love for any of those guys in that regard, okay? But you have to be honest in your reporting. So I don't mind if they talk behind the scenes as long as they're clear about their perspective. But mainstream media hides their perspective, which is the status quo and corporate rule are awesome. And we're going to pretend that's the objective position. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll tell you about how Disney has found a way to retaliate against Ron DeSantis.

and Donald Trump is definitely clowning DeSantis over it. Don't miss it. We've got that and more. 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.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.