The Young Turks - Slinging Accusations

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

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Oh, of course, Matt Gates blurring the line. Not the first time he's done that, just a different context. So a lot to get to, having said that, let's just do it. Let's just do the news. Casper. Well, Jank, when Trump goes low, just expect him to go lower because that's exactly what he did today. In an unhinged speech that we absolutely must talk about, there are other implications involved, let's get right to it.

There's a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta, say a racist. And they say, I guess, they say that she was after a certain gang, and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member. And this is a person that wants to indict me. She's got a lot of problems, but she wants to indict me to try and run for some other office. A very sweaty former President Donald Trump lashes out at Fawney Willis. As he stares down, of course, his now fourth indictment involved. his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Of course, Willis is the district attorney for the Fulton County in Georgia.

And she has been investigating Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the election for the last two and a half years. And it appears that the fourth indictment coming from her office is likely going to happen very soon. She had announced about a month ago that she was expected or expecting to announce charges in this case. case as soon as September. Now we have some more details for you, including more video, but really what this centers on. And the reason why Donald Trump is lashing out there is because he's expecting to be indicted for the fourth time. And he very clearly doesn't like it. So look, before we get to some of the other clips, some background into this case. As you know, Trump has been indicted on a federal level by special counsel Jack Smith. And over the

two, last two and a half years, Fondie Willis has been investigating the same incident, but mostly focusing on his actions in her state. Now, fortunately for her, there's a pretty open and shut, it's not an open and shut case per se, but there is some pretty damning evidence against Donald Trump in this case, especially in regard to how he communicated to election officials in the state of Georgia. Just a quick reminder of that. The ballots are corrupt, and you're going to find that they are, and which is totally illegal, It's more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal, that's a criminal offense.

All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. Now Trump refers to that as a perfect phone call. In fact, he says that it's a perfect phone call, much like the perfect phone call he had with Vlomir Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine, which got him impeached, by the way, for the second time. But, Jank, Fannie Willis says, you know, that they have accomplished the work. We've been working for two and a half years, we're ready to go. What are your thoughts on Trump getting indicted for the fourth time, but this time on a state level?

Yeah, so look, there's so many interesting parts of the story. just to fill out what Anna was saying about the perfect call in Georgia. He said the other call, the Ukraine call was also perfect, but this one is even more perfect. More perfect, got it. I'm not sure something could be more perfect, but okay, all right, we're going to go with that one. And guys, American politics has changed so much over the last, you know, seven, eight years since Trump has entered it, that it's unrecognizable from eight years ago. So eight years ago, if somebody had said that a black prosecutor was racist against white people with no justification or evidence for it, it would have been outrageous, like the biggest outrage in the country, right? And that was the tame part of his statement.

Yeah, exactly. But then if he had said with no backup at all, I think she's sleeping with a gang member. But let's keep it real. That's also part of his racist attack against her. Yeah, of course, of course, of course. Completely unfounded, no evidence whatsoever. It doesn't matter. He's trying to discredit her. He's trying to insult her. But what he's really doing, what he doesn't realize is he's showing to the world how

incredibly terrified he is. He's lashing out. This is what a scared puppy does. They lash out when they're expecting yet another indictment because of their potential criminality. So in the old days, mainstream media would have said that saying anything like that would have gotten you immediately basically expelled from either party. But as it turns out, no, Republican voters are totally okay with it.

They've had 2,000 chances and at every turn they say, yeah, nope, I like that, give me more of that. You have no evidence and you just want to accuse a prosecutor of sleeping with gang members because of your racist assumptions, we're here for it. Here for it in spades, he's got like a 50 point lead to the Republican, nothing moves it. And this stuff doesn't move it down. It moves it up. Democrats still can't say anything about Republicans. So like if a Republican, if a Democrat had said a Republican prosecutor was sleeping with gang members with no evidence at all, they'd be, they'd be house hearings about

it. It would be the biggest scandal. Fox News would talk about it 24-7. All the, they were just laptop, laptop, laptop. They just repeated 2,000 times as if it was like the worst thing that ever happened. Meanwhile, Trump does it on the regular. He does it every single day. No one That's an eye. This is unreal. So I'll get to the indictment in a second. Yeah, I mean, look, what I thought was interesting. And he was giving that speech in New Hampshire.

And usually when he says unhinged things like that, the crowd goes wild. And what stood out to me was, as he was saying those unhinged things, the crowd was pretty much silent. And I'm wondering why that is. Well, it could be that it's New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a little bit more moderate than some of the other states that he gets those big applause lines in, it could be that a lot of the Republicans now are all over television turning on him, right? So when the race started, it was very mild and tepid. And it was like, Donald Trump is great and wonderful and he shouldn't be arrested over anything. And I'm sure

that he won that election. But could I politely disagree and say that I'm slightly better for reasons I can't quite clarify? And now Chris Christie started this, but now Ron DeSantis is saying, yeah, he definitely lost the election. And people are starting to pile on, former lieutenant governor of Georgia, same state, but a Republican, talking about how Donald Trump is unconscionable and humiliating to the Republican Party. He's like, I never thought the Republican Party would sink this low, that we have this obvious clown, right? This con man trying to defraud America and get rid of an election. It's just unbelievable, unbelievable.

So there's tons of that pouring in. And so maybe that will have take its toll, and maybe it's beginning to take its toll now. But the latest polls we've seen, he still has a gigantic lead. So it could just be the room. So we'll see if it's a trend or if it was just a head fake. Well, I do think that there's something to be said. Look, finally some of the other Republican candidates are willing to name names and speak out against him, sure. But one other trend that I'm noticing is even some members, I mean, it's sparse, but it's certainly

different from what we saw previously. Some members of conservative media are starting to use words like loser to refer to Trump. So just yesterday, I was kind of surprised to see Brit Hume of all people, who's, you know, a conservative member of the media, was responding to, He quote tweeted one of Charlie Kirk's Trump loyal, like, you know, he's a Trump fanatic, right? So he put out some video where he's supporting Trump in some way. Brigham quote tweets it and basically calls Trump a loser and says maybe, maybe the party doesn't need a person who keeps losing. Maybe we need someone else, right? Yeah, so look, first of all, Fox News is the leading channel in the right wing ecosystem that is calling out Trump half the time.

And but it's startling because you never see it on Fox News before. And now all of a sudden you're seeing the Brit Humes and the Steve Ducey's, et cetera, going, well, I mean, and then the legal experts saying he's guilty, you know, he did it and he didn't win the election. And so that stuff was totally forbidden earlier. And now that's reaching some percentage of the audience. By the way, among the diehard MAGA guys, Fox News has a lot less of them than Newsmax OAN and other media outlets.

And in fact, the Fox audience is now kind of split on Donald Trump, which is really interesting. That was in a recent poll, whereas the rest of right wing media, and I would make that distinction, I haven't seen the rest of right wing media break at all. Like newsmax is just cheerleading for Trump 24-7, OAN, same thing, all Mark Levin, et cetera. You'll know that Trump is actually in trouble if daily wire starts to wobble. Like Ben Shapiro doesn't like Donald Trump at all. He's just pretending and he hides his real opinions. It's all super obvious.

To be fair, look, I would largely agree with you. I think that his disdain for Trump runs much deeper than he's allowing his audience to know about. However, every once in a while, he can't help himself and he will just openly talk about how Trump is wrong or, you know, he'll say things that are against Trump. He'll get blowback as a result of that because it's audience. I think that's what you're seeing with Newsmax, that's what you're seeing with OAN. To be honest, I think OAN and Newsmax have also made a business calculation to go in the opposite direction of Fox and, you know, essentially be the networks that promote Trump and everything he doesn't, but basically provide cover for him regardless of the potential criminality. But you also have, like, national review, you have Fox News, you have the New York Post here and there, you know, there are some examples. And I'm very curious to see how much of a difference that makes.

They're kind of an outlier in that regard, but all the conservative media that's turning against Trump, at least 50% is Fox News, New York Post, Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal has had a number of devastating op-eds, all owned by Rupert Murdoch. And the reason that Republican politicians are coming out stronger now is not because the donors told them to. The donors have turned on Trump a while back. But more, I think more specifically, the donors have given them permission to. Like, you are now allowed to criticize Donald Trump. Oh, that's so sad. You know, he's against the Democrat, no way.

We want our goddamn tax cuts. Besides which most of the donors on the Republican side, not most, half of the donors on the Republican side, like what Trump is saying. The other half really don't. And those guys have given permission to the politicians that they have purchased, that you are allowed to criticize them now. And that's why you're seeing it a lot more on air. And so we'll see if that all adds up to actually moving the numbers,

because if you don't move the numbers, all of this is totally academic, right? And so, and then now back to the indictment in Georgia, look, against any other human being, it's a perfectly solid indictment. You got a guy on tape saying, I need 11,780 votes, one more than I need. I mean, it's the most brazen attempted fraud you've ever seen in your life. It is. It's an open and shut case if anybody else does it. With Donald Trump, the bar is so high, right?

You have to prove it beyond every doubt of any magad dude ever, right? And so that's certainly in the press because they turn everything into 50-50. In courtrooms, I think that he's going to get a different environment, right? But do I know for sure that they'll win on this case? Of course, there's no way of knowing that for sure. So let's talk a little bit about Fannie Willis's legal strategy here. And this is what she is expected to do, although obviously she has not brought forth the indictment yet. So we don't know for sure.

But here's what we know so far based on the reporting. So some experts say that Fannie Willis may settle on racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations or RICO charges in bringing a case against Trump. RICO statutes are typically used for organized crime. But in Georgia, it's a little different. The Georgia statute is broader than its federal counterpart and can be geared toward any enterprise enabling the use of the statute for a wider variety of conduct. I also just want to note that when we're looking at these indictments, again, so far he's been indicted three times in three separate cases, this would be the fourth indictment.

The state indictments brought forth by state prosecutors, I think those cases are more important because let's say in a tombstay scenario where Trump gets elected, he wins the Republican primary and he beats Biden or whoever the Democrat he's running against. he beats that person and becomes president again, he would potentially, I mean, this would be unprecedented, this has never happened before, but there is a theory that he could potentially pardon himself in the federal cases. But he would not have the jurisdiction or the ability to do so when it comes to the state prosecutions. Yeah, I think Dan Abrams other night on News Nation, not News Max, argued that Willis should drop these cases against him because there's already, Jack Smith is already pursuing similar charges, but that's at the federal level where he can pardon himself. Now you need these state charges as well. But having said that, guys, I want to temper your

expectations. So if in the hypothetical that Anna laid out, yeah, he wins the presidency, partners himself from the federal charges. But what good are the state charges? They're not going to put him in prison while he's president. And theoretically, once he leaves office, then they could pursue imprisoning him. It's not, I mean, it's just not going to happen. That's point one, point two, and there's, I could, you know, we've gone over it before there's many different practical reasons why, as to why they wouldn't do it, even though they should do it. But most importantly, if he got reelected, then I don't like, then the mission's already

not accomplished. Because I'm not, I'm not worried about Donald Trump as a candidate winning. I don't, so he has opinions I don't agree with that I think are loathsome. That's not the issue at all. So does Ron DeSantis, so does every other Republican candidate in the race. No, the problem is if Donald Trump wins, he might never leave office and democracy might be gone. So those state charges, after he leaves office, if he ever leaves office, border on irrelevant. So that's depressing, but real.

You see what I'm saying? Okay, well, thanks for that. I guess we'll just move on because what's the point of talking about this? No, the point is, look, in my opinion, there's one giant point here. I think the people expect him to go to prison before the presidential race are kidding themselves, right? The giant point is, will the country, most importantly, independents, pay attention to the trials? Will they see the overwhelming evidence against them and wake up, whichever portion of independence and maybe even a tiny percentage of Republicans, wake up enough to go, oh, oh, this guy is a criminal.

Oh, I didn't realize it was that. Oh, my God, he's actually trying to overturn tomorrow. I didn't realize that and and that's important for the general election, but I mean, ideally now this is almost too much to wish for, but maybe, and that's exactly what we're talking about, enough Republican voters see it and they go, maybe we don't want this guy's our candidate because it increases our chances of losing. Maybe we go with someone who isn't a total loser and criminal. Yeah. So look, if you trust polling, and I know you trust polling more than I do, about a third of Trump voters are loyalists, they're not going anywhere,

right? They don't care. They're not paying attention to these indictments. They're not, you know, pouring over these documents and paying attention to what's being said. Yeah, I said, 37%, to be exact, totally immovable. They say there's nothing that would change their mind. According to a New York Times Sienna College poll, right? But the rest are persuadable. In fact, a significant portion of Republican voters consider themselves never Trumpers. I did a pretty extensive story on this. So these are Republicans who are already against him, right? So I don't know how this is all going to play out. I do want to just give you some more detail about what the legal strategy by Willis is here. Because again, going back to the potential RICO strategy

that she could implement here, doing so would help weave together different elements of the Trump campaign's efforts. Connecting a plot carried out by numerous actors, it would also allow numerous conspirators to potentially be charged alongside the former president. I just want to note that the grand jury has also listened to more than that phone call with Secretary of State Brad Brathensberger. They've listened to three separate phone calls that apparently implicate Donald Trump in this case. It's also likely that one of Trump's allies will face perjury charges.

Now RICO charges would also allow prosecutors to sweep in criminal statutes in Georgia that aren't directly tied to elections, which would be used to address broader Trump campaign efforts to access, and this is important, voter machine data in Coffee County, Georgia. This story is so insane, and there are so many moving parts that I actually forgot about this. I'll explain what the Coffee County issue is in just a moment. RICO also allows Willis to sweep in conduct outside of her Fulton County jurisdiction in the broader indictment, such as the Coffee County computer probe and phone calls made by Trump and those in his orbit to election officials residing in other Georgia counties.

And so for those who might have missed the coffee county debacle, months after the election took place, two months after the 2020 presidential election, a team of computer experts traveled to South Georgia to copy software and data from voting equipment in an apparent breach of a county election system. They were also greeted outside by the head of the local Republican Party, who apparently was involved in efforts by then President Donald Trump to overturn his election loss. Okay, so you have actual government officials in Georgia who were allegedly in cahoots with Donald Trump. This particular official gave these computer experts access to voting machines and the computer systems so they could download voting data in order

to suss out whether there was voter fraud, which by the way, was a breach of their election systems. And so that's part of this investigation, potentially part of this indictment as well. And so we'll see how it plays out. But as you read the details and you see the mounting legal woes for the former president, you can understand why he's lashing out the way he is. He's issuing threats on truth social, saying if you come for me, I'm going to come for you. He's making all sorts of ridiculous, unfounded allegations and insults toward Fawny Willis. This is how he acts when he's backed up into a corner. He seems desperate.

And honestly, he does seem worried that in that video, if you watch the entirety of his speech, he looks terrified. Yeah, look, he's been terrified his whole life of going bankrupt, being a loser, and certainly going to jail, right? And so he's been scared throughout. That's why I had that crazy prediction that at some point he was just going to pack up and go home. Because he's so insecure, he's so nervous, he's so weak. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size.

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I never thought they went after him in a really strong way. Obviously, they lost him in 2016, nearly lost him in 2020. So, but now these cases are very real. They're not like Democrats. This is legal. He is in actual trouble. especially if he can't win the election, then there is a chance he could go to prison.

And a coward like Donald Trump is going to be soiling himself thinking about that. Now in our members only bonus section today, I want to share with you some of the other parts of his speech that are worth talking about. So that'll be saved for our members. You can become a member if you're not one by going to t.com slash join. Don't miss it. He goes after Chris Christie in a pretty brutal way, and I can't wait to share those videos with you. But for now, we're going to take a brief break. When we come back, we'll talk about a former military officer who is drawing some attention to parts of Jack Smith's indictment against Trump that he feels deserves a lot more attention.

So we're going to share that with you and more when we come back. I did everything right, and they indicted me. All right back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you. But also, you can answer to Gutierrez and C, I'm sorry, SJC, 230. They just became members by hitting the join button below on YouTube. We appreciate you guys. Of course, everybody can do it at tyt.com slash join. Come be American heroes, come do the honest reporting and fight for positive change along with us.

Casper. All right, well, the former senior counsel to the former HHS secretary, John Kelly, has spoken out in regard to the indictment against Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Now, Kevin Carroll, of course, is not a Democrat. He's not a liberal individual. Of course, he's been in the military, worked for John Kelly, hardcore Republican. But after reading the indictment, he says that his blood ran cold, especially in regard to two elements of that indictment that he wants to draw attention to. So in a piece that he wrote for the dispatch, he explains what his concerns are, how Trump and his cronies attempted to turn the, or we're considering turning the American military again.

civilians and the American people. So let me give you a few excerpts from his piece and we'll discuss. So he writes that as a veteran, my blood ran cold reading two particular passages in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment. They suggest that part of the former president and his co-conspirators' autocratic plan to remain in power, despite knowing that they lost the 2020 election, was to make the United States military choose between subservience to civilian control or refusing to undertake an anti-democratic, domestic, political role.

He continues to write that, quote, it appears that when a deputy White House counsel warned assistant attorney general Jeffrey Clark that if Trump remained in office despite the absence of any evidence of outcome determinative election fraud, riots would break out in U.S. cities, Clark responded, Clark responded, that's why there's an insurrection act. I remember when all of this was happening, the idea that, well, of course, I mean, if Trump tries to like overturn the results of the election and go against the will of American voters, there very likely would have been riots. And the idea of using the United States military against actual civilians was very much in

the bubble. Definitely something that they were considering here. Yeah, look, there's some things that I go nuts over and I'm always surprised that people don't pay more attention to. So when the hang Mike Pence chant, it took forever for the rest of the media to go, oh, yeah, they were thinking of murdering his vice president. The minute it happened, I'm like, that's the biggest thing there. They were going to execute his own vice president.

That's amazing, right? So now people have generally caught onto that good, right? And then the fake elector's scheme, you guys have seen me say a thousand times on the show. Why aren't they doing something about the actual coup attempt? And finally, Jack Smith did. And I was like, oh my God, what a relief. That's when I was like, okay, we finally have a real prosecutor, someone who knows what they're doing. And before that, like nobody was talking about it.

That's why when he released the indictment, everybody was shocked. They're like, it turns out there was a fake electorate. Of course, why don't you pay attention to the news? It drives me crazy. I mean, you're right. That's the more substantive charge here. Everyone was hyper-focused on what transpired on January 6th, which was bad. But the reason why there was so much focus on that is because optically,

speaking, that's going to grab way more attention. I mean, rioting in the Capitol. Yeah, I never agree with that. I hear you. And so videos alluring and that's what TV cares a lot about. And that's definitely why they focused on what they focus on. But doing a coup against America is kind of a big deal. That's an attention grabber. So thank God, Jack Smith actually knows what the hell he's doing. Because otherwise, media and Democrats were barely talking about it at all. Now this is the new part where everybody's shocked and chagrined. But you can go back and watch old young dirks shows where I'm like they're talking about the Insurrection Act. That's martial law. They're going to use the military. I was saying it while they were

discussing it because these leaks have been around forever. They have, you're right. And so I'm like guys, you have no idea how close we are to them actually doing a full-blown coup with tanks, right? And so, and then when we found out the extent of the conversations, one of those conversations took three hours in the White House, Trump was leaning in their direction, you know how they talked him out of it? Every single person that was not part of the Cooke lawyers,

including White House counsel and everyone else said, we're going to resign. If you say we're going to use the military to basically do a coup, we're all going to resign, okay? So, and by the way, and I've said this in the past too, credit to those officials, they're so massively right wing, they were still with Trump to the very end, but even they had a line. Trump didn't have the line, but they had a line. They're like, no, we're not going to do a coup against America and roll out tanks against our own citizens. Finally, someone has noticed that it's in the indictment.

It is in it. Right. And so this guy was legal counsel for Homeland Security. And he's like, yeah, no, that's what the Insurrection Act means. That's what it means to do martial law, you roll out the tanks and you order the military to fire against your own citizens. And he would know, I mean, he's a former military officer. He also talks a little bit about John Eastman. So here, what I've shared with you already had more to do with Jeffrey Clark, which again,

assistant attorney general during the Trump administration. He definitely had some loyalists within his administration who were willing to carry out this coup. But when it came to the kooky lawyers, John Eastman is certainly one of them. And so he draws some attention to what John Eastman was up to as well. In the second, the indictment reports that when similarly warned of the risk of riots, Trump's outside counsel, John Eastman, responded that there were points in American history when violence was necessary to protect the republic.

But understand that this wouldn't be using the military or using violence to protect the Republic. This would be using the military against the Republic, against our democratic process in order to install an authoritarian dictator who does not value democratic elections. Yeah. John Eastman was the same guy who said we better get a pardon, otherwise we're going to have to get lawyers because he knew that they were giving him ridiculous legal advice and one that was not going to hold up in court and was criminal. So yeah, doing a coup against America. So that's why the Republicans are like, ah, it's just freedom of speech, man. We just, we just planned a coup.

We're just talking, right? And we were talking about rolling out the tanks and murdering American civilians that protested us stealing the election, just talking. No, not just talking. That's planning a coup. And it's totally illegal and unacceptable. And even one of the authors, John Eastman knew it. That's why he was desperate to get a pardon before they left office. That's right, yep.

Finally, I'm going to go to the last graphic here. he writes that generals would be forced to choose whether to abandon an unbroken tradition of American military obedience to civilian control or turn their guns on civilians to facilitate a losing candidate remaining in the White House beyond inauguration day. So I'm glad that it didn't get to that point, but I do wonder what would have happened. If the military generals were met with and asked to do just this, to basically carry out the will of Donald Trump against the will of the American people, right? What would they do? And I don't know the answer to it. And that's the terrifying part.

No, it's, we just saw this happen fairly recently a couple years ago in Turkey. And there was a coup attempt. They rolled out the tanks. And then they, and the civilians came out. And in that case, It was a coup attempt against the right winger, Erdogan. And Ardoin told everybody to go in the streets. And they listened to him. His supporters did. And they climbed all over the tanks. And they killed a whole bunch of Turkish civilians.

And then it got to a point where they're like, we just can't kill more civilians. So they gave up. And that's in Turkey. That's in Turkey. And that's a good case scenario. Even though the coup was against the right winger, it isn't about politics. You don't do coups, right? You don't do coups against right wingers or left wingers.

You don't do coups, period. And so, but if it happened in America, I mean, here we are. You know, then at this point, we're a banana republic where, you know, our democracy is no longer special and might not even exist if one of these coups wins. And if he doesn't get punished for this guys legally, if there aren't ramifications, it's going to be a giant green light to anyone else that ever wants to do this again. And then we're all in a world of trouble because whether it's a Democrat, which seems incredibly unlikely or any other right winger.

They think what's the downside? Trump tried to do a coup and got away with it. True. So we might as well give it a shot because we've already lost anyway. Maybe we'll win through the coup. So it's a near guarantee that they'll do it again if he isn't prosecuted. All right, let's switch gears and talk about something entirely different because there was a special election today.

We don't know the results quite yet. The election is still going on, but we should talk about Ohio. Hi, are you registered to vote? In November, Ohioans will decide if their state constitution should include protections for abortion access, something that, according to a recent poll, 58% of voters there support. It's a big number, but whether it's enough to pass will be determined by today's special election on what's known as issue one. Well, today, Ohioans have been going to the polls in order to vote on HR1, which is a Republican-backed ballot initiative that would make it

much, much harder to amend the state's constitution. Now, an important thing to keep in mind as I give you the details of the story is to understand that this is really a proxy battle in regard to abortion rights in the state. And you'll understand why, as I give you the details, okay? So since 1912, when Ohioans authorized ballot initiatives at a constitutional convention, adding an amendment has required approval by a simple majority of voters. The new referendum, what they're voting on today, would raise that threshold to 60%. So a good way of thinking about this is in the Senate, there's that legislative filibuster, where out of 100 senators, you would need 60 senators to vote in favor of the legislation in order for it to pass. And the reason why that

legislative filibuster exists is to basically prevent the legislation we want from passing, from passing, okay? So that's the whole idea behind this to just make it more difficult to amend the state's constitution. So kind of like the measure would make, make it tougher to get amendments on the ballot, requiring petitions to gather signatures from 5% of eligible voters in each of Ohio's 88 counties instead of the current 44 counties. And so how exactly is this connected to abortion rights? Well, as you can imagine, much like other states in the country, legislatures in Ohio have been pushing to restrict abortion as much as possible. In fact, the state had passed a six-week abortion ban, which has been placed

on hold since a judge has ruled that it's too restrictive. So we'll see how that plays out. But if successful, that November amendment would effectively invalidate any laws that bar abortion before the point of fetal viability, including a state law currently on the books that would prohibit abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Even though they passed that law, I just want to reiterate again, a federal judge has put a freeze on it. And we'll see how this all plays out. So in October, a county judge did place that hold arguing that it violates a right to an abortion that is already implicit in the state's constitution. And this measure, H.R. 1, provides that every individual has the right to make their, I'm sorry, the measure

provides that every individual has the right to make their own reproductive decisions, including a contraception on contraception and abortion, and prohibits the state from prohibiting or interfering with the voluntary exercise of this right. So just in sum, what Republicans want to do is prevent this ballot initiative from ending up on the ballot in the first place. Yeah. So since they already have it in the Constitution, what the Democrats are trying to do is just be extra clear that abortion is definitely legal in Ohio.

That's why they want to pass that ballot measure. Now, there's three different issues here, and that's why this election is so important. By the way, if you haven't voted yet in Ohio, go ahead and vote. And so obviously we want no vote. Anybody watching this obviously is going to vote their own conscience. But why do we want a no vote? Number one, the biggest problem here is how undemocratic this is. So there's a reason why things pass at 50%.

That's the majority, right? And so they are, but Republicans all over the country, not just in Ohio, are starting, starting to turn against ballot measures because the ballot measures are not gerrymandered. The districts are gerrymandered so they can make them artificially lean Republican. And they do in almost all these red states and often in the purple states. So they lock up the legislatures and it doesn't matter if they're a minority because they gerrymandered the hell out of the districts. But with ballot measures, you just need 50.1% the pass.

That's actual democracy. So they despise that. So they're trying to end that in so many different places. And in this case, they're like, yeah, did we say democracy's 50%. No, we meant 60%. It's worked brilliantly in Washington, as Anna pointed out with the filibuster. It blocks all progress. And Republicans are like, yes, blocking all progress, especially if the masses are going to vote for it.

Remember, these are the guys pretending to be the populist party. No, they represent the elites and only the elites. And so number one is democracy that's already over. Like that's crazy. That should lose 90 to 10. But of course, propaganda, which we'll get into it in a second. But the other two issues are abortion, obviously, as Anna pointed out. And the third one is there's going to be a ballot measure for the minimum wage coming up for the next election.

$15 minimum wage in Ohio. Right now, Ohio is a $7.25. So it is brutally low. It would obviously pass. It passes in every state. It doesn't matter how red the state is, because people want to have higher wages. And so the Chamber of Commerce is furious about it, and they want to make sure you have lower wages. And guess who funds all the Republicans in Ohio?

The Chamber of Commerce, of course. No, but this story is incredible for so many different reasons, because I love that you mentioned that the Chamber of Commerce is involved, because these are moneyed interests that typically buy our politicians, and they do it on a state level, they do it on a federal level. In this case, what you'll notice by these Republican politicians, the state lawmakers, is that they have co-opted the anti-corruption rhetoric that oftentimes you'll hear on this show in order to kind of cloud the information and the reality of HR1. So I want to give you an example. Here's one Ohio Republican, the Ohio Republican Secretary of State during an interview

months ago trying to make it seem as though moneyed interests are the ones against. this measure. Let's watch. So yes, it's about abortion, but it's about so many other things as well. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose first proposed raising the threshold to 60% last year. We don't want to see a really radical abortion amendment put in our state constitution. But is changing the roles at this state in the game, isn't that stacking the deck? No, not whatsoever. I mean, again, the game, as you called it, is an ongoing public conversation about public policy. As abortion rights groups in Ohio raise funds nationally for a November vote on the amendment, LaRose says changing the state constitution should be rare and

require a broader consensus. I've been consistent all along that this is about good government. This is about protecting our state constitution from out-of-state special interests. Out-of-state special interests, right. Now, I want to give you another example. A summary of the argument in favor of issue one prepared by two Republican lawmakers states that a yes vote protects our constitution from deep pocketed out of state interests. By passing issue one, the people will ensure constitutional changes are widely accepted and declare that Ohio's constitution is not for sale. So again, they're co-opting anti-corruption rhetoric in order to make their case, when in reality, they're the ones who are corrupted. They're the ones who are corrupted. They're the

ones who were bought off by the Chamber of Commerce, which of course represents the business interests that do not want to pay more than $7.25 an hour in minimum wage in the state. Yes, and they're very concerned about out-of-state interest. That's why they refuse to take Richard U-Line's money, who is from Illinois. Oh, wait, hold on, breaking news. Graphics 6. U-Line was also the top contributor to protect our Constitution, the main organization backing issue He donated $4 million to the group out of the $4.85 million it raised in total. That's not the only money that they raised. They raised $25 million.

In fact, nobody knows if it's yes or no is going to win today. It should be a slam dunk for no because 58% want abortion rights in Ohio. That alone should settle it. Well, over 60% want it for minimum wage. So why are we even having a discussion about this? Why is this going to be a close vote? Because $25 million buys you a lot of propaganda. And so that liar that you just saw on on tape there, number one, he's like, we're trying to prevent something really radical.

Really? Over 50% of the people who live in your state are going to vote for something really radical. So that by definition is not really radical if it's over 50%, but he's a professional liar. And in that case, the reporter let him lie about that. And then the reporter, of course, didn't bust them on the fact that, no, most of the money you got was from out-of-state interests. And you did it because, not only because you're, you're actually the radical on abortion, only a tiny percentage of the people in Ohio agree with you, let alone in the country. 58% of Ohioans support passing an amendment to protect abortion rights. That is a clear majority, but it's not quite 60%.

Yeah. And by the way, that's not just for a bill, but that's for an amendment to the Constitution. 58% of what is now a red state, Ohio, saying that. And he's like, oh, the 58% are radical, but the, my tiny percentage of people from out of state who are paying me $25 million to do this propaganda are not the radical ones. And guys, remember, for business interest, yeah, sure, they care about abortion because it keeps the Republicans, you know, propaganda going against Democrats about out of their baby killers and all that stuff. But the main thing they care about is the economic issues, because all the ballot measures, people are saying, yes, we want higher wages, we want health care. We want our government to serve us, and business hate interests hate that idea. They didn't buy all those Republicans and half the Democrats to have democracy work.

They despise democracy, and they get crooks like that to lie 24-7 on television. That's why this vote is close. Make sure you vote today in Ohio. Vote no, in my opinion. All right, we're gonna take a break. When we come back, we have a pretty terrible update in regard to Joe Biden's student debt release. when it comes to for-profit colleges that have defrauded students. You don't want to miss that story. We've got that and more coming up.

You can't let that happen to me. Jank, Anna, and Cricket Mac, who just joined by hitting the join button below. I'm going to read a couple of Ohio comments because we just did the story. Kevin Flynn says super nervous about the results in Ohio. Looking forward to a great show with Jank and Anna. And Amanda Okun, these are both YouTube members. Amanda wrote in so many people voting today in Cleveland, Ohio, refreshing. And now I know we got this.

We are not dumb. Our leaders are. Yeah, no, no, Democratic voters are great. Democratic leaders, not so much. Keep voting. I don't know that it's locked in at all. polling didn't look great. So I'm a little worried about it. Make sure you're voting in Ohio. All right, Anna. Well, unfortunately, we have some bad news when it comes to Biden's student debt relief

program. Let's get to those details. A federal appeals court has put on hold a Biden administration program that would make it easier for student borrowers who have been defrauded by for-profit colleges to have their debt canceled. Now, This is a little different from student debt relief overall because it is hyper focused on students who have been defrauded by for profit colleges. Now for profit colleges run differently from other traditional nonprofit colleges or state universities. They are run like businesses.

They have a board, they have investors, and the whole point is to maximize profits. And as a result of that, they had been found guilty of engaging in fraudulent activity. misleading students and telling them inaccurate information about the programs they offered, the gainful employment they can expect, and the vast majority of the revenue that these companies would make would come in the form of federal student loans. So they would encourage these students to take out these massive loans and they would fill their pockets with taxpayer money, okay? Leaving these students with useless degrees if they finish the programs and the inability to find gainful employment afterward. So now let's get to the decision by the Federal Appeals

Court. The New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction freezing an initiative known as the borrower defense to repayment while it hears a lawsuit by several Texas-based for-profit schools challenging the government's ability to offer the program. Now, unfortunately, this three-judge panel gave no reason as to why their grant, this emergency injunction, which is of course sought by this trade group. And oral arguments are expected to begin in November. Now, students applying for debt relief may have to wait longer for approval while the injunction is in place if claims are processed at all. And I do want to just go to a quick video. Because about 10 years ago, ABC News did this undercover

investigation into for-profit colleges. The University of Phoenix was the for-profit college that they did this investigation into. And this is going to give you a sense of the kind of lies that recruiters tell to potential students. Let's take a look. This is an undercover ABC News producer posing as a prospective student at the country's largest for-profit, mostly online college. Our degree is recognized. You follow them the same accreditation as the same accrediting bodies as say your Columbia as your NYU, Notre Dame, USC, CLA, Harvard, right.

The recruiter says with their degree and some student teaching, he'll be set. I can go to University of Phoenix, do you my bachelor's degree, and 100% for sure, I can go back to either Texas or in New York, and I can sit for those exams, and once I finish those exams, Then you can teach. I can teach. Yes. That is true. But it's not true.

That degree alone won't allow him to teach public school in many states. There was a lot more evidence uncovered in that excellent investigative report. We'll have another video to show you in just a minute. But Jenk, what are your thoughts on this circuit court's decision? So the Fifth Circuit is the most conservative circuit in America. So it's not surprising. A lot of the anti-Biden challenges come through the Fifth Circuit. circuit. So we don't know which way they're going to go. Ultimately, this is just them

freezing it for now. But it's not good news that it's in the Fifth Circuit. And they almost always rule for business interests. And here the businesses want to make money. They already robbed the kids and they don't want to pay it back. And so look, in this case, it's really about freezing the payments that are unnecessary. Why give more to these guys who who, who basically defrauded them, not basically, defrauded them, period, right? But for conservatives, that's a real head scratcher, like, wait, should we or should we let these guys get robbed? And most, a lot of the times, they say, yeah, let him get robbed. And so that's, I mean, it's unbelievable. But yeah, this is not Biden's $20,000 student debt relief for everyone

who has student debt. These are for people who are already defrauded. These are people who were lied to, again, defrauded, right? They were victimized by, it's a crime. It's a crime to defraud people. And this was a big issue during the Obama administration. So I want to back up real quickly to kind of give you important information so you can juxtapose the Obama administration from the Trump administration from the Biden administration. So the issue with for-profit colleges defrauding students was a big deal during the Obama administration. And so he implemented some guidelines, some additional regulations in order to protect students, and he also implemented a program in order to help these students cancel the debt that they incurred

as a result of going to these institutions, these for-profit colleges, and getting defrauded by them. Now, after that happens, the Trump administration comes in. What's one of the first things he does? He taps Betsy DeVos as the education secretary. Betsy DeVos loves four-profile. colleges. In fact, one of the first things that she did as the education secretary is fill that agency with a bunch of former executives from for for profit colleges. And she just completely ignored this Obama era program that was meant to help these students discharge, get rid of, cancel these loans. Because she didn't want to help them out, right? Of course, she wanted to look out for the for-profit colleges. Now, Biden comes in and he re-implements the Obama-era policies

with a few minor tweaks in order to make the application process easier for the students. And, you know, luckily a lot of students did get their debt canceled as a result of this. Let's go to Graphic 5 here. The Biden administration has canceled 14.7 billion in debt for 1.1 million borrowers, a figure that includes a major settlement. of claims from students who sued the Trump administration. Last month, after new rules for the program went into effect, the administration approved $130 million in claims from 7,400 student borrowers who were enrolled at a Colorado chain of for-profit colleges.

But while those students luckily had their debts canceled, there are still plenty of students who were victimized by these disgusting for-profit colleges who now have to sit and wait and see how this is all going to turn out as this process goes through the courts. Yeah, so look, I'm very skeptical of Biden to begin with, and he has done things to alleviate 10% of the debt that exists student debt. Oftentimes mainstream media makes it seem like 100%. No, most of his initiatives got blocked by the courts. And my speculation, and to be fair, it's just speculation, is that Biden was perfectly happy to have the courts block those. I'm not sure he's happy to have this one blocked. This one is more core to the fraud as opposed to

general student debt relief. Biden never really seemed to believe in student debt relief. And he's like, oh, golly, gee, the courts block it. Okay, but that's one thing. Well, his bankruptcy bill made it so students can never discharge their student loan debt, even in the case of bankruptcy. So there is, I just want to make that point because it does reinforce what you're saying. Yeah, and so he has a history of screwing over students, to be honest. And now, having said that, Trump was, as usual, found a way to be way, way worse. So look, and I get skeptical about Democrats, because Betsy DeVos saying, I'd like to help the criminals in this case. Like, so no Democrat could figure out a way to make that a giant issue.

Some of you might have heard it. It was around the edges, but did all the whole American people know? that she was helping the criminals commit fraud? Can I jump in there? Look, to be, I'm going to be somewhat fair to Democrats, but then I'm also going to be critical of them, because they were just inundated with Trump's nonsense. There was so much.

Remember, the news cycle was nonstop, filled to the brim with Trump scandals, crazy things that Trump said. And what I think the Democratic Party did in lieu of focus on how he would financially victimize people, they instead decided to focus on what they thought would play better with the electorate, which is look at this guy saying terrible racist things. Look at the, you know what I mean?

And I would like to believe that that was much more persuasive among the electorate, but it wasn't. I think that when people are much more persuaded by things that impact their pocketbooks, let's keep it real. Yeah, look, there's a lot of things you could have done. get all the students there who need that debt relief on this issue, surround the education department, and start chanting, stop the fraud, stop the fraud. And there's just a hundred different ways that you could have highlighted what Betsy DeVos

was doing. So look, the Democrats in this case are better than the Republicans. They actually try to stop the fraud, and then the courts, the conservative courts, block them, right? So that's a fact. Now, having said that, do they try really hard? When it comes to economic issues, not really, right? But as always, we're stuck with a Hobson's choice. You either go with the criminals like Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos, who helped the other criminals rob you blind, or you go with the Democrats and they, and they're half-hearted attempts to stop the Republicans. And I want to end with a specific person who was victimized

by these fraudsters, a woman who wanted to be an elementary. school teacher and she was lied to. Let's take a look. We went undercover after meeting Melissa Dalmire, a single mother of three who dreamed of leaving her factory job to teach. I want to be an elementary education teacher. It's something I've always wanted to do. I want to give back to our future, our children. She says a University of Phoenix recruiter told her an online associate's degree was her ticket, much as the recruiter told our undercover. producer. So you can have a bachelor's degree in basketball leaving. Still be a teacher, but they just want you to go through the credential program for that state. For that. So what I want to know is, I mean, it sounds like if I get a bachelor's from here, we're going to be okay there. They told me after two years I could start teaching that they had an agreement with Illinois State Board of Education and that as soon as I finished their program, I'd be ready to start working. What Melissa wasn't told was that degree, was that degree. was essentially worthless to her. It wouldn't allow her to teach in Illinois.

So imagine you take out the debt, you go through the program, you finish the program, and you find out in the very end that that degree is worthless, that everything the recruiter told you was a lie. And then when the government has a program in place to help you cancel that debt that you incurred because you were lied to, well then another administration comes in gives you the middle finger. And that's essentially what happened here. Remember, that video is from 2010. We're 13 years in here and nobody's gotten relief. And you know, you watch some media and they say the Republicans are great at everything. You watch other media, they say Democrats are great at everything.

The reality is the Republicans are awful and Democrats are suck, but don't suck as much as the Republicans. Which media is telling you that? The reality, they still don't have the relief that they should have had if we lived in a democracy. We're gonna take a break when we come back. members of the Washington, D.C. City Council are calling for the National Guard to step in due to rising violent crimes and homicides in their district. That and more coming up. Don't miss it. 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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.