The Young Turks - Shock Troop Doctrine

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Steve Bannon is pushing "shock troops" to be on standby to deconstruct and reconfigure the government when a Republican takes office. Rep. Madison Cawthorn posted a clip calling for holy war. Senator Kyrsten Sinema remained largely silent during a tense encounter with a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient onboard an airplane. Republicans shouted down Lindsey Graham when he pushed for them to get vaccinated. And Trump's cronies gave their new PAC a name that's just as dumb as the people who give it money. Hosts: Cenk Uygur, David Shuster 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. All right, well, the young church, Jake, you are David Schuster with us today.

David, of course, the T-Y-T contributor on Rebel HQ, check out all his videos there, but I suspect you already have, based on the view counts that I see. It's all those relatives, Jenk. I got a lot of relatives across the United States, and they're all about TYT these days. Oh, yeah. The Schuster's are a giant clan. Everybody knows that. So Anna's out this week because she was just at the Chamber of Commerce in Philadelphia

debating Ben Shapiro. So in the bonus episode for the members, do not miss that. I'm going to break down that debate. And that debate was awesome and shows exactly what progressives are about and exactly what conservatives are about. So don't miss that. I can't wait to break that down for you guys. But Dave's got tons of news for us about Republicans, Democrats, ex-Republicans,

and the list goes on. So David, take it away. Let's do it. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's former chief strategist, remember him? Well, he is now urging conservatives to prepare for controlling the United States government. Here is Bannon on one of his most recent podcasts. Watch. We're winning big in 2022, we're going to win big in 2024, we need to get ready now, right?

We control this country. We've got to start acting like it. And when we're going to act like it, we're not going to have 4,000 ready to go. We're going to have 20,000 ready to go, and we're going to pick the 4,000 best and the most ready in every single department. Now, it sounds like it's a mere staffing plan for government bureaucrats, right? But it's actually a far more intense plan that Bannon is talking about. And here's why. Quote, Bannon referred to 4,000 shock troops in an interview with NBC News on Saturday after the network reported that he had been earlier in the week with party faithful to prepare to reconfigure government once a Republican is in the White House. If you're going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately.

Bannon told NBC, I gave him fire and brimstone, according to the Huffington Post. Now, shock troops is a military term. It's often associated by historians with Nazi brown shirts during World War II. And when Brandon is there encouraging conservatives to take over the federal government with shock troops, he's also been talking not just about the federal government, but also local governments. And so across the United States, you have tons of MAGA faithful who are now essentially infiltrating school boards running for local. office, which is the right, of course, but it is making local politics even more extreme and more divisive. Shock troops, Jack.

Yeah, so the context is so important here. So, you know, he has a show called War Room. That's not a big deal. We used to have a show on current TV called War Room. So that's standard fair, the Situation Room, it's no problem, okay? When you talk about, hey, when you come into government, make sure you're prepared with your set of bureaucrats to replace the old bureaucrats because you don't want to lose any time, no problem if a progressive was going in to office, I would tell them to be prepared in a similar way because right now it's filled by, you know, establishment folks. Now, so where are the issues? The issues are significant. Number one, when you start using the word shock troops, especially within the context of January 6th.

And when you start talking about reconfiguring the government, and you talk about that in the context of, well, we didn't like that Joe Biden won the election. So on January 6th, we wanted Mike Pence, the vice president, just simply to declare Trump the president. Well, that's reconfiguring government in a completely different way. That's reconfiguring the democracy out of the government. you make an illusion to shock troops, you're being more clear saying, no, no, we're not looking to more efficiently run the government and in a way that it comports with our ideology because we won the election in that circumstance. You're saying, no, we're looking to basically deconstruct, and he says it, deconstruct the government. And he says it also in that,

in that speech about how there's more of us than there are these soy boys. And what he's referring to there is we're stronger. We can muscle them. Now that's not true, but that's the reference to soy boys. The other side is weak. They will not oppose us if we bring in our shock troops and do whatever we got to do to reconfigure this government to one where we have permanent power. And the way you do that is by getting rid of democracy. So if he just stuck with the old name of his show, et cetera, it would be one thing. But when he starts talking about these shock troops after we saw January 6th, after we know that they hated when they lost and they tried to rip down democracy. Understand if they quote unquote get elected another time.

This is Steve Bannon saying, don't expect the same government after we're done because we're not going to be done. We're going to basically deconstruct what America used to be and we're going to go in an authoritarian direction? And keep in mind, I mean, Steve Ben, and he's not, say, some expert on government bureaucracies, he's not with the Office of Management and Budget, or he's never been. He is a communications specialist. He is a media specialist, according to his own description. This is a term, I think, Gent, deliberately used to not only inspire the fringe, but also to prepare them for that message that Donald Trump said on January 6th, you have to show strength.

And at a time when America is already so divided, and the extreme, particularly on the right, already has these sort of violent illusions and real violence, as we've been talking about, for Steve Bannon to essentially pour gasoline on the flames and say, oh, yeah, shock troops. That's an appropriate term. No, it's not about staffing the government. This is about actually using violence, using raw power if necessary, to force your will, not only on the government at the federal level, but also at the local level, at the state level. And oh, by the way, there are a lot of Trumpists who are also now looking to try to run for secretaries of state so that they can run the elections in whatever sort of violent way they want to deny people the right to vote and to make sure that votes are only counted in a certain way.

Yeah, that leads some more context. So Stephanie Grisham used to be the first lady who's chief of staff and she was also a White House spokesperson for a brief period of time. So she worked with Trump for six years. I just got a book out. We're going to talk more about it later in the show. But she had an interesting explanation about Trump's interactions with Putin. Because it seemed like Putin was trying to play with his mind. And I said her revelations actually, in an interesting way, to me, show that Trump might not be controlled by Putin.

Because if you already had Compromat on Trump and you already controlled him completely, you wouldn't need to play these games that Grisham explained about bringing an attractive translator and coughing on him and all these. stuff. And so I wondered, and you heard me if you watch that episode of TYT, wonder, well, then why does Trump bow his head to Putin so much? It's bizarre, right? And Grisham had an explanation on ABC recently where she said he just loves strong men. And he thinks that's the right way to go. He would constantly be talking about how strong Putin was, how strong Erdogan was in Turkey, how strong she is in China. He once asked her. who do you, while Erdogan's in the room,

who do you think stronger? Erdogan or she? Oh, they're so strong. You remember when he talked about North Korea, it was great because whenever the leader says something, everybody has to stand up and applaud. And so he just does not believe in democracy. He believes in strong men and dictatorship and authoritarian

government. And so in that context, when Steve Bannon goes, oh, we have to get ready for shock troops and completely just can you know, deconstruct our government and basically disfigure our government. It's not that subtle in terms of what he's alluding to. And then, you know, I'm glad that David brought up the school boards and all the things that are happening there. Now running for school board, of course, of course Republicans can run for school board.

I don't care how crazy they are or what opinions they have. It's a democracy, of course you run, right? That's the right way to do it, a healthy political way to do it. That's how we do it in America. But when they go and they threaten violence, and now Merrick Garland at the Justice Department is drawing on a line on that. We'll have that later in the program. But when they threaten violence, you have to draw the line as the government. Because if you don't, then you lead to anarchy, chaos, rule of law dissipates. And that is the thing that the right wing authoritarian fans

want. They want a breakdown of law and order so that the vigilantes that they have can threaten violence all across the country and inside the government, if they ever capture it again, at the federal level, and then rule in the way that they want to, which is not our system of government, but a new system of government with shock troops and a government we won't recognize. And so this constant threat of violence, whether it's January 6th, you see it almost every day in the news, people going down with zip ties to try to arrest a female principal in their mind and a citizen's arrest for doing something simple, like taking a kid who has COVID out of the school, et cetera. No, no, guys, they're afraid that the next election might be

their very last chance of ever winning in a democracy again. And so if they win, they're going to look to end it. If you thought you were ascendant and that you had the majority in this country, Well, then you wouldn't have to be talking against democracy. You wouldn't have to be talking about shock troops. You wouldn't have to be talking about any of this. You only do that if you think you've lost and you've lost for good. So you're going to trash our former government for a new one. And that is the scary proposition that the right wing has now.

And every time they cross a new line, David, then they go, whoa, what, what? It's no big deal. It's no big deal. You guys are over interpreting. I mean, so soon they'll be talking about brown shirts and go, oh, no, no, we just met shirts that are brown. You guys are, you know, misinterpreting what we're saying. Well, and Jenkins, it ties right in with, you know, I'm so glad that you're raised Stephanie Grisham, because the other part about the, her ABC interview that stuck out to me is when she

talked about that if Trump wins, a second term for Donald Trump, his governance would be all about revenge. He would be not constrained in the least, because he's not running for reelection. He would implement all kinds of policies against Republicans that crossed them, certainly against Democrats and progressives. There would be nothing holding him back. And so when you have that sort of crazy future to look at if Trump actually runs and does win, and you combine that with the violent rhetoric that we're seeing from Steve Bannon and others and this idea of people infiltrating school boards and local elections and how ballots are counted, it gets to be really frightening because there's no control. There's no control over

these people. And I'm so glad, Jen, that you also mentioned school boards. Here in Connecticut, where I live, there was an effort, all of us, about every month now, we get a mailing. And it basically decries critical race theory, which is not being taught in the local schools. And when people look at, well, where is the stuff coming from? It is coming from a P.O. Box in Florida, an organization that was started basically to get people wild up to try to divide this town. And that's happening everywhere because there is this idea from the likes of Steve Mann and Donald Trump. It's not enough just to, you know, tear apart the federal government. You also have to tear apart local government as well.

Look, I hope this is one of those things that I don't come back on and tell you guys. We warned you, we've done that now dozens of times over 20 years of the young Turks. And unfortunately, we've been proven right almost every time from Republican to Democratic administrations. And I warned that Obama was going to be way too much in favor of corporations as soon as he got into office because he was taking those actions. And I remember the Democrats yelling at me. How dare you? The beloved knight at Obama, there's no way he's going to do that. And by the end, people had recognized, yes, yes, he largely did what corporations wanted.

And it was not very much a real reform of the government at all. I just give you that as a small example, but I give you dozens of examples. But this one is a warning we cannot recover from. If they seize control the federal government again, I honestly think we're done. Bannon gets it. They're not, the last election is the last one for them. The demographic change is too much. Trump and the Republicans are too unpopular.

Their only hope is an electoral college victory on one last election. After that, I mean, look, they've lost seven out of the eight last popular votes in, at the presidential level to begin with. And now it looks like they're down to 40% of the popular. and dropping. So there is, with Trump, if you don't see by now that there are no bounds, he will, he does, like, stop projecting your decency and your love of this country onto Trump. He has neither.

He would end this country in our former government in a second if he thought it was to his advantage. And what band is telling you now is, yes, it's to our advantage. That is why we're getting our troops ready to come and destroy the government that we all. know. All right, let's go to the next story. And this one is remarkable. Madison Coughlor, the Republican Congressman from North Carolina, he is now calling for a holy war. He recently spoke to Christian conservatives in North Carolina and posted the video of his remarks with some images overlaid and edited in. Watch. I feel a spiritual battle going on on Capitol Hill. The only

The only way that we take our country back is when strong, God-fearing patriots decided it is time for us to stand up and say no to your tyranny. Now is a time for our pastor and our congregations, like this one here, like many of you that you represent. It's time for us to stand up and declare boldly that as men and women of faith, we have a duty to stand against tyranny. We have a duty to be civically involved. We have a duty to save this country for the next generation. Back into the Old Testament. Look at David, look at Daniel, look at Esther. Look at all these people who influence the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles.

Anybody want to tell them? Anybody? Well, Madison Cothord, clearly not the best and brightest, as Daily Coast wrote, even one who isn't Christian knows that no one in the Old Testament was fighting to uphold Christian principles, Christ wasn't even born at the time of the Old Testament, which is based on the Hebrew Bible or the Torah. Jack, I'm just, you know, this one, look, you want to call for a holy war, you want to call for a spiritual awakening. That's fine, but you at least have to have some credibility

on the most basic facts about the Bible. Yeah, who are we taking the country over four? Is it the folks in the Old Testament, the folks in the New Testament? I think he's got to make up his mind. And guys, if you're not convinced yet of how absurd that statement was, then we'll get back to the fact that it's dangerous, which is the more relevant part of this conversation. But let's keep making fun of Crawford for one more second. Muslims believe that the Quran is the third book. They think Old Testament, New Testament, and the Quran.

So a lot of you might not know this. It's not often talked about in the press in America, but Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet of Allah, God. Allah just means God. And they also believe in Moses, Abraham, and they think that Muhammad is in that lineage. So it would be like a Muslim preacher or a politician coming on and saying, look, Jesus and Moses and all these people were obviously trying to uphold Muslim principles. Well, okay, they might be in the same lineage, but they certainly wouldn't be upholding Muslim principles because Islam did not yet exist. even if you believe in Islam, right? So it's just absurd and it's comically wrong.

But probably, I don't know that anybody in the audience even recognized it. Look, let's be honest, evangelical Christians don't even read the Bible. They just take whatever hatred the preacher says and they run with it. If they read the Bible, they would know that Jesus was not in favor of the rich. He said the rich have no chance of getting into heaven. That a camel has a better chance of passing through the eye of a needle and I can go on and on. If they actually read the Bible, these rightly evangelicals would be the most progressive socialists in the country. Read your own Bible.

Okay, now to the dangerous part. Look, David, when you start talking about Holy War and he's saying we got to take the country back for Christianity, that's a bigger misunderstanding if you can call it that, right? No, the Constitution clearly says we shall not establish a religion. In fact, it was revolutionary, literally revolutionary, that the founders of America were the first country to say, no, we will not be ruled by any religion. And that's why America was so interesting, so different, and arguably the shining city on a hill, with all of its blemishes, it still said, you know, we're all going to get along here, whether you're Jewish, Christian, different sects of Christianity, which is so important, and they even say, said the Mohammedans, that's what they used to call Muslims, anyone could be an American, that's why America's such a great idea. But now the modern day, you know, Christian Taliban or whatever you want to call them, the Carthorns of the world say, no, we don't like the

Constitution. Constitution is no good. Let's be a theocracy, like in the bad old days, and pick one of the sects of Christianity. I'm not sure which one, maybe the Jewish one. Maybe we go back to the Old Testament. And we'll make them the ruler, of the rest of us. And I mean, to me, Jake, I just, I'm constantly shocked that a guy like Madison Cawthorn, which obviously he's got no shame, but also

the groups that continually invite him to speak, given the mistakes like this that he makes. I mean, and oh, by the way, you mentioned, well, you know, evangelical Christians don't really read the Bible. Otherwise, they would be Democratic Socialists. Well, clearly they also don't read newspapers because Madison Cothorn has been

alleged repeatedly to have essentially engaged in sexual harassment of several women, so it's not as if he's actually living a Christian life, according to these women. And again, this idea that Christianity and that Christians have somehow remained in the shadows in the United States, as he says, it is simply absurd. And then when he talks about, well, certain principles are being threatened, well, what principles are being threatened? Vaccines, science? Yeah, I would argue, sure, science and basic facts, truth, that is being threatened thanks to people like Madison Cothorn and these crazies on the right who give them these platforms.

Yeah, look, I grew up secular Muslim. I'm now atheist, but we believed that Islam should not rule Turkey wherever from. And luckily it doesn't, although Erdogan has now headed in that direction. And we fight against that. because we've seen how that movie plays out. When one religion rules everyone else, it doesn't rule based on logic or science. It rules based on, at a best case scenario, all rules from 2,000 years ago. In a worst case scenario, it's all an excuse for authoritarian government, put a strong man in charge, have him impress everyone else, robbed them of their freedom under the guise of religion. That is how it turns out every single time.

And so, no, we're not going to go back to those days. And him calling for this kind of holy war is outrageous. But unfortunately, for the right wing, they don't think it's outrageous at all. I think a giant percentage of them actually believe that we are a theocracy, that we should be ruled by Christianity. Now, I don't think anyone's ever thought through which sect. Should it be the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the evangelicals, Catholics, the only people who thought of them through are the evangelicals who are like,

yeah, it's us, us, we rule, we rule, not any of the rest of you. That's because they're not interested in God or holiness or Christianity. They're interested in raw power. And look, if they were David, I mean, you talk about his ignorance of his own religion, but and his hypocrisy towards that religion with accusations against them. But look at who right-wing evangelicals love in this country. Donald Trump, a guy who slept with multiple porn. stars while he was married to his, what was this, third wife?

I honestly lost track, yes, third wife, okay? And, and it bragged about sexual assaults. And then, and then goes in front of a religious audience and goes, yeah, I like the two Corinthians. No, that's, no, that's not how they referred to Corinth. And everybody's like awkward and he's like, and he looks at the crowd and he was like, whoa, what, isn't that how you say it? It's so obvious.

He doesn't know what's in the Bible. He's never looked at it in his life. He's never gone to church. He doesn't care about Christianity at all. You're praying to a false prophet. He's almost a literal golden calf. He's not a calf, but if he could, he would certainly create a golden calf and call it Trump calf. And this so-called billionaire that brags about his golden palaces are the guys that is the guy that you're praying to.

It is the exact opposite of what Jesus preached. So I'm not at all surprised that Cawthorne is not called out by the right wing. They have no idea what's in the Bible. They have no idea what Jesus stood for. So when this jackass says, ah, let's ruin America, destroy what it stands for, and turn it into a religious cult like the Taliban did in Afghanistan, Republicans cheer. They stand up and go, yes!

Yes, our version of the Taliban is awesome. Screw America, and it's secular nature is not establishing a religion. I don't know what the founding of the fathers worth, thinking burn the Constitution. Let's get ruled by the Bible, whichever one we make up. And sadly, I mean, the polling is also moving in that direction, right? I mean, polls show that a growing number of Republicans now support using violence to force Donald Trump back into office if necessary. Majority believed that the election was stolen. And I think, Jack, if you poll people and they were honest about it, I think if you gave them a choice,

between, okay, do you want a democracy where sometimes you'll win, sometimes you lose, or do you want to force your religious views and your political views down everybody's throats? No matter what, most Republicans, I'm convinced, would choose the latter. They would be happy to have a theocracy where their willpower is forced down everybody else. And that's why I get so freaked out over, you know, January 6th would be a hell of a lot different. If Republicans had control of the House and the Senate on that day, but the Democrats have been to get Joe Biden certified? I sometimes wonder. And I certainly think that won't be the case in 2024 if Democrats don't have a majority in the House and Senate. I can see Republicans marching

in lockstep saying, nope, we're going to deny democracy because we want our guy to win. And that's how it's going to be. Yeah, look, honestly, this is one among the things that separates TYT from the rest of the media. Because the mainstream media would be scared to death to actually quote the Bible to you. Jesus said, give away all of your worldly possessions and follow me. What is the exact opposite of capitalism? The exact opposite of capitalism. By the way, I don't agree with Jesus. I'm an atheist, and I don't want to give away my worldly possessions.

I'm not anywhere near as progressive as Jesus, but they won't ever say it. And they play patty cakes with these guys. They said the magic word, religion, Christianity, run, run. Don't ever challenge them on anything. of this. No, the media needs to be honest and clear in the Constitution. It very clearly says we shall not establish a religion and there shall be no religious tests for office in this country. Say it loud and say it proud. Don't be afraid of being right. All right, we got to take a break and on this show we fight back against the monsters in the right wing. We don't sit around

and play patty cakes with them. All right, when we come back, more of that. And then, like I said, in the bonus episode, this is a great day to become a member. Ben Shapiro versus Anna Kasparian. I'm gonna break down that debate. You guys are gonna love it. Hit the join button below or t.yt.com slash join. We'll be right back. Thank you. Senator, hello. How are you? Good.

Sorry, I'm just, I'm Katina. I don't know if you remember me. I need to know if you can commit to passing about the reconciliation that would include immigration and citizenship for people to be protected like me and many others. Can you commit to that, Senator? And that was Karina Ruiz trying to confront Arizona Senator Kirsten Cinema on a plane back to Washington, D.C. on Monday, Ruiz says that she is a DACA recipient who once volunteered to help elect cinema. Now she wants cinema to deliver on her election promises. The interaction continues with Ruiz looking for answers and cinema looking like she wants to be anywhere else. Here it is. I'm being vulnerable right now to you, my dad passed away. I know, but my dad passed away last year. And you didn't get to reunite with my family.

I don't want to disturb you, but at the same time, I just want to see if I can get a commitment from you. Yes, so Ruiz talks about how her father passed away, and even with that, cinema would not respond with any sort of words. Well, upon landing in Washington, D.C., there was a different activist who approached Kirsten Sinema, and conveniently, Sinema seemed to get a phone call in the middle of this interaction. Watch. Hi, Senator, Cinema. I want to ask if you can explain to the American people what you're planning on cutting from Joe Biden's built back later plans. Do you want to cut climate priorities? Is it elder care that you want to cut, or is it child? Senator, we are asking for your health. Senator, we need you. What are the priorities? I'm just trying to get an explanation for the American.

Not exactly a profile encouraged there by Kirsten Cinema. She could have just said, you know what, I don't want to talk about this, but she wouldn't even give that woman the respect of any sort of response. And this has, of course, triggered a huge debate, political media circles, Jenk, about when is the appropriate time or not, if you are an ordinary citizen or you're a journalist, to actually stop a senator and say, look, you haven't outlined what your priorities are, you haven't said what you're going to cut. Give me some information, give me an answer. Your thoughts? Well, I think that this is damning of both our politicians and our media. Now, if we had

a functioning media in this country, well, reporters would ask those questions. And if we had a functioning government in this country, politicians would have to answer reporters' questions. But none of that happens. So now look, guys, in the beginning, yesterday we talked about Senator Sinema got confronted in a bathroom. And that gave everyone in power an easy out. They all came and upbraided everyone and said, oh, how dare you do, you know, this is, you can't go into a person's, a bathroom with someone, an invaded a person's privacy, etc. Now, yesterday on the show, we gave you new us. John said it was fine, I thought, no, don't follow them into the bathroom, but you should

definitely ask them questions in almost everywhere else. And boom, today they deliver. They asked them at the airport, that is perfectly legitimate. Ask them on their airplane, perfectly legitimate. So what's the excuse now for the people in power? They don't have an excuse. And look, guys, you all know it. If Karina Ruiz had come in with a $2,800 check, cinema would have been all years.

In fact, the reason she's on that plane is because she flew back to Arizona. She gave a very weak excuse of, oh, I have something wrong with my foot. She seemed to be walking fine there in that video, right? I can't see anything wrong with her foot. But of course, what we discovered was that she had a massive fundraiser in Arizona. So she went to talk to people who wrote her $1,000 checks. But if you try to talk to her and you're an actual constituent, a voter, A volunteer who tried to help her before.

She's got no interest in you, and she's not going to talk to you under any circumstance. And by the way, guys, sometimes people are off-putting. Sometimes they threaten things they shouldn't threaten, et cetera. It doesn't mean that you have to engage in an hour-long conversation or debate. But a minimum of some sort of politeness looking to someone's eyes, honestly, I've never had an interaction with another person where they wouldn't even look at you while you were talking to them. other than Keith Overman. So the second time I've ever seen that.

Well, and look, it shows people have, I guess, their own sort of social anxieties or whatever that may have been the case with Keith. But in Cinema's case, I mean, it shows her basic lack of that she's not ready for prime time, that she should not be a U.S. Senator. She should not be at this level. She doesn't have the ability to say, look, I'm not going to comment. You can hector me. You can question me.

I'm just not going to be able to say anything to you. She should at least be able to go that far. And on the media side of this, I mean, I used to have this sort of arrangement. where they were chasing Gary Condit, who was accused in the Chandra Levy case years ago, or whether it was 10 star in the independent counsel investigation. If somebody didn't want to comment, I would say to them, look, you say on camera, sorry, we're not going to comment on this, or we're going to badger you, we're going to hector you, we're going to follow you at the end of your driveway when you're taking up the trash. We're going to follow you

across the Capitol Congressman Condit. So you, as a responsible reporter who had respect to the people I was covering, say, you choose. You want me to hector you and follow you? That's fine. It makes for great television. And most of the people who are professionals would say, okay, let's do this. You have your camera waiting at the end of the hallway. I'm going to show up. You throw whatever you want to say. And I'm just going to say, no comment. Will that be enough? Okay. At least the politician, the newsmaker is on the record saying they're not going to comment. But that's, you know, that may be irresponsible depending on the story. But it's a lot better than not doing anything. Because when you don't do anything, in my view, you start to get. journalists, activists who are going to follow you, not just in airplanes, but also into the bathroom. And I would have said to Senator Sinema, look, I'm going to follow you into that bathroom unless you are willing to come out of that bathroom and stop and say something. You can't just say absolutely nothing. And the fact that she says absolutely nothing makes, to me, underscores that she is not, she's not at the professional, sophisticated level, the savvy level

you would expect of a member of the U.S. Senate. Yeah, and more than that even, David, it's She has disdain for her voters, for the average American. And you remember that picture of her wearing the F-off ring? Now, of course, she never wore that ring when she went to a fundraiser. She would never be that disrespectful to someone bribing her. But to her voters, she wore an F-off ring, took a picture, put it on Instagram to kind of rub it in people's face. This was the physical manifestation of that ring. And so the message is loud and clear that, by the way, why do you think there's polls that shows that Congress is among the most unpopular institutions in the whole country, along with the media?

Because from the people in power, we get this constant disrespect. You don't mean anything to me. Your questions are useless, and I'm never going to answer them. I only answer to the people who pay me. We set up a deeply corrupt system that has disdain for all of us. We shouldn't be surprised that we get senators like cinema out of that system. It was built to create senators like cinema who only answer to their donors and not to their voters. And I would argue, Jenk, that cinema is even worse than Mansion.

I mean, a lot of people say, oh, Mansion and cinema, they go together, go together. At least with Mansion, Mansion is stopping and talked to reporters and saying, here's my baseline number. you may not agree with it. And he will say, here's what I think should be cut from the $3.5 trillion package to get it down to $1.5 trillion. Cinema won't say anything. She won't say anything to the press. She won't say anything to her constituents. She's not saying anything to the White House about she's willing to cut. And when she does talk to her donors, she's also not going in any sort of details. She's just speaking in platitudes. And, you know, as somebody who cares about holding people accountable, I'm right there with you. I think that there should be a dozen

journalist chasing her through the airport, wherever she goes now, sticking a microphone in her face and peppering her with these questions. And when she gets sick of being peppered with questions and sick of being hector, she'll finally realize, okay, maybe I do have to say something. And maybe I do need to outline some basic principles. That would be better than nothing. And unfortunately, cinema only responds to power. So again, if you're a donor, she will take her call instantly. That's a fact. There's no question about that. She's gone fundraiser to fundraiser throughout this entire negotiation. And after she voted against the minimum wage

theatrically with that swivel thumbs down, she went directly to the National Restaurant Association and collected legalized bribes. And so she doesn't mind putting on a show. She doesn't mind answering to people. She just doesn't want to answer to you. I agree with the 100%. And I just, you know, at some point,

you know, maybe some Democrat or some progressives will say, okay, here's the receipt of the check that I gave you in my last election. Here's the pay stub or whatever it is. And he say, now I want you to explain something to me. And if that's what it takes now to try to get an answer, okay, that'll be the next step. And I'm sure there's a Democratic donor in Arizona or somewhere around the country is going to say, I'm not happy with Kristen Cinema. She's not talking to her regular voters and citizens and journalists.

But she damn well better talk to me after I gave her $2,800, whatever the max was in the last election. and that person's going to go up to her and also have a phone recording this. And that's going to be an even more embarrassing conversation for Kirsten Cinema, because then the two worlds are going to collide, both the corruption and the bribery and the fact that she's trying to hide from people. Yeah, last thing on this, look, the people in power always have some excuse, and that includes the people in mainstream media. So they say, oh, well, don't go to their house.

Okay, fair, I agree. Don't go to the bathrooms. Fair, I agree. Okay. Then they say, don't yell at them. Okay, well, what do you mean by yelling? Well, don't go across them in restaurants. Don't do it at an airport.

Don't do it on an airplane. Okay, why don't you just say don't do it? And if the reporters aren't going to do it and you won't let any of the citizens do it, are the only people allowed to talk to politicians in this country, their donors? That's an absurd standard. It's an absurd standard. And again, normally people wouldn't have to take this into their own hands. And unlike the right wing, they're like, oh, let's take the law into our own.

hands and do vines. No, you cannot get any more polite than Karina Ruiz was in that video or the other person at the airport. They're not taking the law into their own hands, they're asking perfectly legitimate political questions, they're asking them in a perfectly polite way, and the whole country wants to know. And still, the people in power go, well, we don't like it. We don't like the people without power, bothering the people with power. And remember, the press was supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Does it look that way? All right.

So we're going to take a quick break here when we come back. More drama along these lines. And during the social break, you guys have awesome comments too. So I can't wait to get to those. We'll be right back. All right back on Cytte, Jank and David with you guys. wrote in on Twitch, I'm just going to read one comment because it's fun, about how we could, you know, intimidate the other side. He said, Jenks should just hang outside of Mar-a-Lago and flexes triceps.

Now, that's an idea. Although, to be fair, that might be a little too intimidating. You know, I don't want him to look. Oh, my God, I know he's going to bring guns. Don't encourage me, David. Don't encourage me. Okay. Now, to the other David, who's got news for us.

And Jank, let's get right back to it. I think about getting it because you're going to I didn't tell you to get it. You don't think about it. Oh, that was South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. He was embracing vaccines in front of a crowd of Republicans only to have them jeer and boo him. After a man identified himself as a civilian employee of the Navy and complained that he was about to lose his job because of the the military's vaccine mandate. Well, Graham's tone embracing the vaccine had seemed to change.

Watch. 92% of people in hospitals in South Carolina have been vaccinated. Not true. Not true. Well, I'm with you. I'm with you. Not true. I'm with you. That's probably unconstitutional. But I'm not going to legitimize what I think is the truth. The truth is that I'm not a vaccinate.

I'm going to lose my job in 60 days. You've got to stop it now. From who? From the U.S. government, the Navy. Yeah, so I'm with it. It's just so I'm going to come forward to that. No, you know, I'm going to have a civil search. Well, here's one.

But I am a veteran. Okay, I'm a veteran, too. How many of you have taken measles shots? It's not. In the military, in the military, they can say, you, They can say you've got to get vaccinated. I think that's a dumb idea. You know why?

We shouldn't be driving people away from serving. Like if you're a health care worker and you don't want to get vaccinated, why do you want to get people to quit being nurses? You're going to have more out. I trust you to make a decision good for you. So are you against the vaccine? No, it's amazing. That's right.

That's where I'm going to stop it. You're going to have to get somebody who is control of where the houses. Say if we had the house. I got 68 and I lose my job. Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen. A little bit confusing there that man's logic. He's going to lose his job, but he's not against the vaccine. He's just against mandate.

So he's willing to lose his job over mandate. Strange. In any case, this was Somerville, South Carolina. of course, is not the first Republican to get booed or jeered or ridiculed for embracing the vaccine. It happened to Donald Trump in August at a rally in Alabama. We developed a vaccine, and it's great. And you know what? I believe totally in your freedoms.

I do. You got to do what you have to do. But I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It's good. Take the vaccines. But you got, no, that's okay. That's all right.

You got your freedoms. But I happen to take the vaccine. Buying Donald Trump, when he suggests taking the vaccine, booing Lindsey Graham. Three weeks actually before Donald Trump, there was Arkansas Republican Governor Aza Hutchinson, is not exactly a liberal. In fact, he's one of the most conservative governors in the United States.

He faced pushback from a crowd when he said that vaccines do not cause infertility. Health data has also shown clearly that vaccines do not cause infertility, but that is one of the conspiracy theories that is out there in Arkansas. The violence and the antagonism towards people who support vaccines only seems to be growing, even in places like New York City, where there were some protesters recently who took down a COVID testing tent. And the reaction from police and fire who were there was telling. Watch. J.O.J.O.2. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Back on. No, no, no. No. No. anti-vaxxers. The police, of course, just simply said to the people who wreck the tent, just move along, just move along. Clearly supportive from law enforcement and fire in terms of the anti-vaxxer crowd. The opposition to the vaccine mandate, though, by all account, seems to be coming from a rather small but loud minority. Axios writes that as of Monday in New York, 87% of the state's 450,000 hospital workers have been vaccinated, according to the latest data, New York's largest hospital system, Northwell Health, said that 100,000.

that 1,400 employees who refused to be vaccinated were fired. The system based on Long Island employs more than 74,000 people, meaning that 98% of system employees chose to get vaccinated. Again, it's the loud, small minority with some perhaps support from law enforcement that is causing a ruckus and making life miserable for anybody who believes in truth and science and basic facts. Jack? Yeah, so every part of that story, It was amazing.

Let's start with Lindsey Graham. What you saw there was live action politician changing a stance like a weasel right in front of your eyes, right? Now by the way, I'll give ironic credit to Lindsey Graham, he started off trying to tell them the truth. He's giving them correct stats about the 92%. He's telling them, hey, you already took the vaccine for measles, which is all that is true, right? But as soon as they start booing him, like the weasily politician that he is, he said,

oh, no, no, no, I'm with you guys, I'm against the mandates. I can't believe the army's doing this, army's so dumb, right? Now this is a guy who's been kissing the army's ass the entire time he's been in office, the solution to everything was the army, military of war, invasions, etc. Now they yell at him a little bit and he's like, oh yeah, the army's stupid, right? And look guys, this is the circle of hate. And you can tell. Now, Graham is one of the biggest ass kissers for Donald Trump, so they should love him.

But it was Trump himself that got booed in Alabama. So that tells you that's actually not the root cause. The root cause is conservative media. So conservative media starts the cycle of ignorance, hatred, and fear. Then it goes to the actual voters that watch that media. And they get amped up on conspiracy theory. lies, you name it. Oh, measles is totally

vaccination is totally different than coronavirus vaccination. Really? How? How? We've had mandated vaccinations in this country forever for every kind of disease you could imagine. And no one ever objected. And now all of a sudden they object to this because they want to create political trouble. They want to do

cultural wars. That's what Tucker Carlson wants to do. That's what the right wing media wants to do. And now all of a sudden they all get brainwashed and the cult comes out. And the zombies attack the politicians. And then you see the Republican politicians with your own eyes, both Graham and Trump change right in the middle of speaking. They're basically A-B testing. They go from emphasizing, hey, maybe you should get the vaccine so you don't die to, screw it, die.

I don't care. Freedom, yeah, no, no, no mandates. Freedom, yeah, oh, freedom, okay. So it's not the politicians driving it. It's the media driving the voters, which then drive the politicians to do what they're doing. So the Republican politicians are hopeless. It doesn't matter if they try to do the right thing. They're just going to get primary out of existence by the zombies. The zombies at Fox News and other right-wing outlets created.

Now when you turn to the other stories in New York, look, whenever anyone, like I've seen left-wing protesters at oil pipeline protests and others get mulled by police, just absolutely pummeled, right? And then they passed law saying, hey, maybe we should be allowed to run them over in the streets. That's actually literal. It happened in Florida. They tried it in the Dakotas. But when it's protesters that apparently the cops are sympathetic to, they're like, oh yeah, trash a health care tent, somewhat where people can actually get tested to make sure not only that they're okay, but that they're not spreading the disease all across New York. Oh, smash it to pieces? Great, no problem. You're free to go. Move along. Move along. If left-wing

protesters did that to anything that was related to a corporation, we'd get our ass handed to us by the cops. They would brutalize us. But the other side does it all. Yeah, a fist bumps for everybody. I don't know that the fire guys are related to the cops with that tent, but obviously those particular guys had tremendous sympathy for the anti-vaxers. And then finally, should the people in hospitals be fired if they're not taking the vaccine. Of course! They're working in hospitals. They're going to get people sick. It's like saying, oh, no, freedom. But wait a minute, don't you have to wear a mask in surgery? You remember that's been the case your whole life? You see the doctors and the nurses when

they're in surgery in order to be clean and not to pass germs onto a patient that's a lot of times whose body's opened up and is more vulnerable, they wear masks. Now if a doctor or nurse said, oh, I got my freedom to not wear a mask and spit inside the guy. You would be fired, obviously, and you don't have the right to spread disease, especially if you're a health care worker. But no, the right-wing media has convinced the zombies, no, my have the freedom to hurt you physically. And that freedom comes with a price, because we just passed, according to all the data, 700,000 people killed in the United States from COVID-19. The daily death toll is still averaging

1,800 a day. So, you know, look, as we all think, well, maybe it's getting a little bit better, it's certainly better than it was six or seven months ago. But again, 90 to 95 percent of the people who are showing up at hospitals. Ninety-nine percent of the people who are dying are people who are not vaccinated, who are now taking up space for your grandmother, your grandfather, your brother, or sister, whoever does who has a heart attack, who needs cancer treatment, who breaks a bone. Good luck trying to find a hospital bed right now in Alabama, Mississippi, some of these other states, and oh, by the way, in these states, more people died last year from COVID-19 than were born. So the population is also getting small. By the way, David, the madness is going to spread

because right-wing media is, they're monsters. So now that they're against this vaccine, are you sure they're not going to say all of a sudden polio? Polio kicks ass. Forget, oh, that's anti-freedom to be against, to take the polio vaccine, or the black death vaccine, plague vaccine. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. No, the The freedom thing to do is take all of your diseases and smear it on other people. We're not taking any more vaccines. And don't, and by the way, tell your doctor, don't wash those instruments after you've done the surgery.

Don't wear the mask, as you said. And by the way, you know, don't wash your hands either after you go to the bathroom and then you do the surgery on me because freedom for the doctors means their freedom to spread whatever bacteria into you. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have to make sense because it's so easy to brainwash the right wing. You just get to have all of their hosts scream at once, freedom. And they don't think, hey, let me analyze this.

What do you mean freedom? Freedom obviously has bounds. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. I don't have the freedom to swing my arm into your face. Nope, the minute you say the word freedom, they're like, me want freedom, me hurt other people for freedom, me get disease and die, take up hospital space for freedom. No, that's not part of freedom. Look, are you insane?

we're progressives, of course we're in favor of freedom. We want freedom more than anybody else does. We don't want to be ruled by right-wing authoritarian thugs, like Trump and Steve Bannon, et cetera. We don't want to be ruled by you. Tucker Carlson is a nut job telling people, oh, yeah, if, oh, if Biden gets elected, they're going to make you drink Starbucks every day.

He literally said that. Are you drinking Starbucks? Did the government mandate that you drink Starbucks every day? Looney Tunes, absolutely nuts. And they go, oh, yeah, they're going to do it. They said that Obama was going to put you in FEMA camps. He never did. None of the conspiracy theories ever proved to be true, and nonetheless, they still believe

it the next time. It doesn't matter. Q and on said Trump was going to win, and then he was going to be reinstated in office, in January 6th, and then later, and then in August, and then in September. None of it ever comes true. But the minute they say it again, they go, I have been hypnotized. I am for freedom. vaccines we've taken our whole lives for a whole host of diseases.

I don't care about your stupid logic or your stupid facts or your stupid science or your stupid reason. I got an idiot right wing host brainwashed me and I'm smarter than all the scientists and doctors in the world. That's what the right wing voters say. I'm not going to do mainstream media course crap, okay? Well, I can't tell who's right or wrong. We all have to respect each other. And right wing, left wing, I can't tell. Okay, no, all of the scientists are on our side. The doctors are on our side. The idiots are on

your side. That's a fact. Let's talk about some idiots, shall we? Cori Lewandowski, remember him? Yep. Cory Lewandowski was, of course, Donald Trump's close associate in aid. He was recently fired over allegations of sexual misconduct. Now, the PAC that he was involved in, Make America Again pack is having a makeover. And the collective geniuses, came up with a new name for the revamp pack. The new group dubbed Make America Great Again Again will be led by former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi,

a longtime ally of the former president. Kimberly Gouffoyle, who is a former Trump campaign official and girlfriend of Trump's eldest son, Don Jr. will serve as the Super PAC's finance chair. The new Super PAC will effectively replace Make America Great Again action as the singular super PAC authorized by Trump, Make America Great Again actions.

All their net assets will be transferred to make America great again, again, the group said. Again. Okay, there's two parts of this. One is they had to set up a whole new pack. And so I was wondering why, what's going on? So they fired basically Lewandowski from the earlier pack. And, but it turns out Lewandowski's on the board. And Lewandowski's a right winger and a pretty vicious one.

So he probably was like, no, I'm just going to ruin the whole organization. I'm not getting off the board. And you can't make me. That's my guess as to what's happening. So they're like, all right, now we have to rename the organization. We have to start a whole new pack and make sure Lewandowski is not on the board. Okay, so that it just did this controversy with Lou and out here, the latest one with him, just happened a couple of days ago.

It's all the same people, Pam Bondi, et cetera. So they move over to the new group. And by the way, my God, this group for all you Republican voters, enjoy, send them money. I don't give a damn. They're going to rob you blind. Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend and every scam artist in the Trump orbit is in this. They're all going to get salaries, giant salaries. They're going to use Trump properties and you're going to pay rent on those properties.

They're going to be exorbitant. You're going to love getting robbed by these people. So enjoy it. Enjoy it. Send all your money because they got to buy new properties. They got to live off the high off the hog off of your money. So I don't care if they rob you at all. Send them the money.

I don't care. They're going to keep most of it. They're not going to use it for politics anywhere. If I thought they were going to use it for politics, then I'd say, oh, then I'm concerned about you sending the money. No, my guess is they're going to keep an overwhelming lion's share. Us progressives, we're suckers, we actually care about people, right? I started three different packs. You know how much I've taken from those three packs?

$0.0. Because it's actually about bringing change to people and actually helping people. Now, do you think Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle are going to take $0? Do you think Pam Bondi is going to take $0? If you do, you're an idiot and a sucker. Go ahead, send them money. See how it turns out. You know what?

They laugh at you behind the scenes. They go, these idiots, they're suckers and losers that send us money. And then we just keep it. Okay, that's what they're going to do, but enjoy. Now, the second part of the story, of course, is the name. That's the best you got. Make America great again, again. And by the way, David, it is the best they've got.

I Trump bragged about it the other day. He thinks it's a genius thing. Maga again. Well, maybe this will also, you know, to enable them to do all sorts of other things again, especially if Corey Lewandowski is anywhere near this. Since we mentioned it, it was a GOP donor, Treschelle Odom,

who recently wrote in Political about being sexually harassed. She wrote, On the evening of September 26th in Las Vegas, I attended a dinner to support a charity and spend time with wonderful friends. he repeatedly touched me inappropriately, said, vile and disgusting things to me, stalked me and made me feel violated and fearful. Again, Treschelle Odom. Fearful, again, and again, and again. Okay. They're like Joaquin Phoenix's character in Gladiator, you know, the villain.

Again, and again, and again. So, yes, Lewandowski with another sexual harassment one more time. And by the way, why did he get fired or they tried to fire him, at least from the group? Because that was a donor. Before when he did the staffers, when he did to other people, oh, Cory, come on back. Who cares? That's just regular folks. Even if you're on our side, who cares? A donor? No, those are the holy people. You cannot touch a donor. You cannot talk to a donor that way. That's a cardinal offense. But by the way, I'll say one last Democrats have the opposite problem. Like, clearly the Trump people oversimplify with, you know, make it very great again, again, again, right? But Democrats come out and they speak

in a language people don't understand. And they were like, oh, subsection two, three of the clause, third clause shows you that we've had a precipitous decline and hence, we must move henceforth to make this happen. People hate you. People hate you. So you can go a little simpler and the republicans could have a thought or two. So, by the way, the abbreviation for this is going to be MAGA! Can we meet in the middle and not just be ruled by nerd bureaucrats that can't communicate to regular people and just came in yelling MAGA! In all caps, all caps with MAGA!

All right, David Schuster. Everybody, check him out on Rebel League. You guys are going to love the videos. He's awesome. And when we come back, we've got another Rebel H.Q star, Adrian Lawrence. And we have amazing stories for you. Wait, what's my favorite one? I'm trying to find it for you guys. Now, of course, I have lost my piece and totally destroyed this tease. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, Mike Pence. Oh, I love that story. The groveling from Mike Pence after barely escaping X. execution. These are the insane times we live in. We'll be back. Again and again. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.