The Young Turks - Social Insecurity

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

Uvalde Police Chief has been fired, and he complains that the victims' families are targeting him “because there is no one else to blame.” The House Leadership delays social security expansion while simultaneously crafting tax breaks for the rich. TYT Investigates if progressives are being excluded from Pipeline discussions. Emails show that Dr. Oz used medicine for COVID the World Health Organization advised against. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist ▶ https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey ▶ https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Unbossed with Sen. Nina Turner ▶ https://www.youtube.com/unbossedtyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! All right of the young church, Jake Ugar and Experian with you guys. A lot of news today. A lot of it, very interesting.

Casper, what do you got? All right, well, we've got some breaking news. I'm worried about your mic, that's why I'm making a face. But anyway, why don't we get, you know what? We'll do it live, who cares? Can you switch over to the other mic again, please? Just real quick. Really?

Okay, so these mics are a disaster. We're doing this, we're doing, hey guys, is it worse or better? or better? That's better. That's better, right? That's better. Let's go with that. Okay, all right, apparently it's better. We did it live. There you go. Okay, yeah, you, anyway. All right, let's get to our first story. Let's do it. We have just been told that Mr. Eradondo is not going to be here because he doesn't feel safe. And I'm going to sit here and say that nobody has threatened him. Do not take this into closed sessions. We deserve to hear. Our babies are dead. Our teachers are dead, our parents are dead.

The least y'all can do is show us the respect to do this in the public. You just watched a meeting that was taking place in Uvaldi, Texas, and there was supposed to be a decision about whether or not Pete Aradondo, the head of police for the school district, should keep or lose his job. And while he didn't even bother to show up to the meeting, meeting, the school board did in fact vote to fire Aradondo from that role. Now, Peter Aradondo, of course, is the individual who is taking the majority of the blame following a terrible police response to a mass shooter at Rob Elementary School. That was a shooting that led to the deaths of

19 elementary school students and two teachers. And here's what we know about the outcome of the meeting and also how Aradondo has decided to have his attorney put out statements that make him look like an incredible coward. Now, the board made its decision in a closed session meeting lasting nearly an hour and a half. Several members of the audience applauded after the decision was announced, one person was heard repeatedly shouting, we're not done. Now, as I mentioned, Aradondo didn't even bothered to show up to this meeting. And instead, he had his attorney put out a 17 page statement. And we have a few excerpts for you in the statement, which came less than an hour before the meeting started. Aradondo's attorney, George Hyde, argued that a letter from the district

suspending him without pay does not count as an official complaint required by law to consider termination. He also wrote, and this is directly from the letter, Chief Aradondo will not participate in his own legal and illegal and unconstitutional public lynching and respectfully requests the board immediately reinstate him with all back pay and benefits and close the complaint as unfounded. And also in this statement, Hyde says that the chief was not notified between June of June 22nd and July 19. of a school district investigation that was done in regard to his job performance and failures in responding to an active shooter on the campus of Rob Elementary School. In response to that, George Hyde also says the district cannot withhold its information for months,

present only that which they find supports the superintendent and then disclose it without a reasonable opportunity to review it and the opportunity to discover impeachment or optional completeness evidence. And as I mentioned, Aradado's a massive coward because he purports that the reason why he didn't show up to this meeting is because he was afraid of violence against him. Apparently he's been getting death threats. And so Chief Aradondo, according to the attorney's letter, does not believe he planned district, does not believe the planned district meeting is safe and is certainly not going to appear. without exercising his state rights to be armed unless the school district discloses in writing

its safety protocol to ensure Chief Aradondo's life and the lives of those in attendance, including both the board, its superintendent, and the media. And so remember, this letter was sent to them less than an hour before the meeting even began. So if they would actually take the letter seriously and comply with it, they really had no time to even do that. That wasn't even an option. Okay, so let's clarify one thing first. And then I'll tell you how absurdly guilty Ardondo is, at least in terms of the perceptions here.

So number one, he's not a scapegoat because scapegoats are innocent and get scapegoated by the people who are guilty. He's a fall guy. The difference is the fall guys are oftentimes guilty, but they take the fall for everyone else in the system. Okay, so Ardondo was perfectly guilty. He was part of the people that were there. He was a commanding officer at Yuvalde and he was part of the cowards who decided not to go in because they thought their lives were more important in the kids, period. That's obvious. That's obvious to the left wing.

Finally, that's obvious to the right wing. That's obvious to every wing, okay? So I wanted to make that clarification. Now, get a sense of the entitlement he has as a cop in this country. He thinks, well, I don't even have to note the irony that I'm telling you, and in hearing about whether your kids were safe or not saved with me in charge, that I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe.

I mean, the hearings about how I let someone kill your kids, but I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about my safety. But actually, that was the problem. In the first place, Ardano, that you were so worried about your own safety that you didn't go in the building to save those kids. How do you not notice that irony? You don't notice it if you're living in a world of entitlement. And this one has nothing to do with race. It just has to do with, in this case, the profession. Every cop in the country is told a thousand times

over that their lives are more important than the citizens. Better to be judged by 12 than carried up by six. Do not ever, ever endanger yourself. I mean, look at the lengths he goes to here. And in a part of the letter, he says, unless the school district discloses in writing, it's safety protocol to ensure Chief Aradondo's presence, Ardondo's life, that he will not come. Yeah. Wait, how about the safety protocols that you had in writing say that you were supposed to go and save the kids? Now you're worried about safety protocols and writing. I mean, Jesus Christ, how do you not see it? And he doesn't.

I mean, he's both an idiot to be honest, because I mean, now you've had all this time in the national spotlight and you still haven't figured it out. But generally it's because cops think, cops think my security is a billion times more important than all of yours. So his reaction is unsurprising to me. And this is the reason why when we talk about instances of extreme police brutality. and the police get to enjoy impunity. There are no consequences for what they do, even if it's caught on tape. One of the consequences of that is it sends a message to bad cops all throughout the country

that they get to do what they want and they don't ever have to worry about consequences. So his reaction is actually pretty normal and rational, given the precedent this country has set in regard to police malpractice or police, police doing their jobs poorly. He's probably shocked that he is the fall guy. He's probably shocked that he is suffering some consequences for the fact that he was, was he was in charge, but he certainly didn't act like it and even stopped some of the officers from going into the classroom when they were trying to get in there and do away with that shooter.

And so again, I think it's important to understand the culture that we've built in this country when it comes to policing, the message that we've sent to police by allowing them to get away with what they've gotten away with in the past, even in cases where they shoot and kill unarmed people who are running away from them. And so, yeah, there's that. The other thing I want to mention is, listen, Jank, Aradondo wasn't going to show up no matter what. There's a reason why that letter was sent to the school board less than an hour before the meeting started. He didn't want to be confronted by the parents who lost their little kids in this shooting, little kids who could have been saved if Aradondo stepped up to the plate and actually acted the way a leader should

act in a situation like that. So it's just an excuse. And he looks like a coward and he looks pathetic either way. But there's no way he was going to show up at that meeting no matter what, even if there were armed guards ready to protect him at all costs. Yeah. So I mean, look, one more on the irony and then I'll tell you what I think is happening. So Ardondo says, well, I can't go in there unarmed. Then I wouldn't be safe at all. Why? Don't you have police protection in the town? So you have such little faith in your own department's abilities to protect anyone that you're worried that if you aren't on armed for a second, the cops will not come in to save you. I mean, God, Jesus, giant neon blinking sign of irony.

He just can't get it through his thick skull. Okay, so now what's what's happening here? Now look, partly, of course, he's just trying to protect himself. If he goes and says things in public, it might be used against them, maybe even in a civil or criminal trial. So that's clear, right? But brother, right now you are the fall guy. If you weren't primarily responsible, you got to get out there and defend yourself.

And by defending yourself, how? Don't give us this cop talk that none of us are interested in. Well, I mean, I didn't want to endanger the lives of my officers. And there were just little kids, who cares? They haven't lived that long anyway. Now, if you do that, yeah, then you will get more enraged. But if you point out that there were 19 different departments there, and there were officers that ranked much higher than you there,

and they also didn't do anything, well, that, that, that's, something that's interesting. But my guess, now this is a guess, Anna, is that the Abbott team and all the Republicans and all the cops in Texas are saying, hey, listen, if you step out of line and blame any of the rest of us, it's going to be off with your head and we're not going to protect you at all. But as long as you're a good boy, okay, and you don't throw any of us under the bus, and you keep lying about or just not talking about our involvement, the fact that we They were all there and there were hundreds of us there from all those different departments. If you shut up about that, you know, we'll be on your side.

Will they actually? No, at the end, of course they'll throw them under the bus. He just doesn't get it. So to be fair, I mean, obviously there's been an investigation into the police response. And while Ardondo certainly is getting most of the negative attention, the report showed an overall lackadaisical approach by the 376 local state and federal law enforcement officers who responded and were at the school. So there's an official report making it abundantly clear that it wasn't just Aredondo who's a problem, right? So I mean, your theory is interesting. He certainly hasn't lashed out on any

other specific individuals. But the fact remains that this isn't a one person problem. The overall police response to that active shooter in that elementary school was a disaster. And it debunks the main talking point we hear from right wingers when it comes to doing nothing about gun control and just arming teachers or ensuring that there's an armed guard on every campus. There were 376 cops on the scene. They were there before he was there. Some of them. Some of the cops were there before he was there. Some of them saw him running into the school with his weapons. One of them had the opportunity to shoot him or stop him and they didn't do it. So again, that fact remains and it's really important to not just think that this is a one bad cop situation. All right,

my last point is actually one of our members. They made this a while back when we were talking about this issue. They said 376 of any profession, put them outside of a school. In a situation like that, 376 dentists, 376 accountants, it doesn't matter, pick any profession you like, and they go into the building to save the kids. The only profession that doesn't is cops. Think about that and you'll know exactly what's wrong with the policing system in this country. Well, when we come back from the break,

we have a segment dedicated to Democrats behaving in the worst way possible. possible, Nancy Pelosi single-handedly blocking an expansion to the wildly popular social security program. And we also have a wonderful TYT original reporting story to share with you in regard to the Democrats as well. So we're gonna take a quick break. We'll come back with all of that. See you in a few. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna, and Kenny with you guys. Kenny Turner just joined. Can't remember by hitting the join button below.

Anna, there's a lot of comments from YouTube members about your eyes, but that's gonna have to wait till the next social break because we got news. So let's do it. All right, let's get down to business. So Nancy Pelosi is Pelosiing again. Gotta talk about it. Nancy Pelosi is single-handedly blocking a bill that would expand social security and even protect it from being privatized in the future.

Now, this is a bill that has widespread support among democratic lawmakers. Even Biden is urging for the passage of this expansion to social security. But Pelosi has decided to block it. And instead, the House has been focusing on, you guessed it, tax cuts for wealthy retirees. Now let's get to the details here. Social Security 2100, the first expansion to the New Deal program in 50 years would increase all checks by about 2% of the average benefit, offset through a payroll tax on wages above $400,000. The bill long championed by Representative John Larson and introduced with nearly 200 co-sponsorses was set for a markup by the Ways and Means Committee in late. July before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office axed it. I should also note that the chair for the House Ways and Means Committee is Richard Neal, a Democrat. Remember that name because it's going to come up again in the future. Now Wendell Primus, Pelosi's brain, if you want to call it that,

on policy matters and a long time strident expansion opponent stands in the way. Primus's philosophy is in line with an older generation's belief that Democrats should fight only to maintain the last scraps of the social safety net rather than do anything that might broaden it. So not only is Pelosi pretty terrible when it comes to these issues, her top staffer, this Wendell Primus figure, is against the programs that are widely, wildly popular in this country, like social security. And so, of course, he's not going to want to beef it up. He's not going to want to expand it. he's not going to want to provide protections to ensure that it isn't privatized in the future. Now, Representative Rokana was pretty furious about this. And while he tends to be a little more

friendly in his rhetoric toward corporate Democrats, he didn't hold back in this case. He said, quote, someone should tell Wendell that if he really wants to exert this kind of leadership, he ought to try to run for Congress or at least get elected dog catcher first. So, Jank, Pelosi has taken her staffer's advice, she has blocked that bill from coming to fruition, even though it has widespread support. And before we get to the tax cuts for wealthy retirees, I want to get your thoughts. Yeah, look, guys, that's why you've got to watch this show. That's why you got to read independent media like the American prospect that broke the story, because you're never going to get the real story out of corporate media. This is the real story.

gives you a perfect juxtaposition between what Democrats say and what Democrats do. And it also shows you who's guilty and not guilty. For example, John Larson, apparently a wonderful Democrat, you know, probably doesn't get enough credit, trying to expand social security. Doesn't make sense in this day and age to bring it up by 2%. Well, of course it does. We have massive inflation. And so everybody's talking about inflation and inflation, so you want to bring up social security by 2%. Oh, hell no, what happened?

I thought you were concerned about inflation. Oh, you're only concerned about it in relationship to the stock market and how it affects rich people, not how it actually affects American voters. Of course, but give Larson Credit. Give Rokana credit. I mean, that's a hell of a quote, man, that's a one quote I underlined in that piece. That is a frontal attack on Nancy Pelosi's top staffer. And so you have to understand Wendell Primus is one of the most powerful people in all of government. And a person that has almost never talked about. Like corporate media will use the excuse of, well, you know, look, nobody's interested in those little details of the staffers and stuff. Well, it depends,

doesn't it? If they're the ones making the decisions, then I think people would be enormously interested. And in the case of a lot of these older politicians, and I'm not saying this to take away any responsibility from Nancy Pelosi, I think she herself is massively corrupt, and we've talked about it many times. And that's why she surrounds herself with corrupt staffers like Wendell Primus. But but it's also true that a lot of the Democratic leaders are in their 200s, right? They're so old. So they hand off decision making to guys like this. And Wendell Primus runs that office. He's also the one that meets with donors. We've covered this in previous stories. So if the drug lobby wants to kill a bill, they invite Wendell Primus.

He gets a bag full of checks, he goes home, and then he kills the bill. And that's how this ballgame is played. Everything else is theater and nonsense. This is the reality. And that's why the lobbyists win on everything and the American people lose on everything. So one other note that I should mention because, of course, corporate Democrats have to provide some sort of cover story for why they are destroying any opportunity for good legislation. to pass. And so they told Larson that, well, you know, midterms are coming up and some of the, you know, Democratic incumbents in these purple districts are concerned that if we expand

a very popular retirement program, that it could hurt them. But what's amazing is that is easily debunked because the candidates themselves, the incumbents who are running for reelection themselves. Co-sponsored the bill. They want the bill to pass, so that doesn't work. The bill already has the support of a majority of Democratic frontliners, such as Sanford Bishop and Matt Cartwright, who represents a district Trump won by several points. It is the culmination of a two-decade push to move from a defensive to offensive position on Social Security, not only protecting the program from Republican threats of privatizing it, but also adding to it, right? Now, let's get to what's really going on, okay, what the real focus is here.

And the fact of the matter is, anytime something comes up that would actually help wealthy people, in this case wealthy retirees, they don't hesitate. So what Richie Neal, who's the head of the House Ways and Means Committee is working on right now, is essentially increasing the amount that individuals can contribute to their 401k. And that overwhelmingly benefits wealthy people because they're the ones who have the funds to max out their 401k. And if you have a traditional 401k, what that ends up doing is when you're contributing to it, the amount you contribute to it is not taxed. It could lower your tax liability because it could even in some cases take you to a lower tax bracket. So you actually end up saving money on your taxes by contributing as much as possible to a traditional 401k.

And so Richie Neal is focusing right now on increasing the amount that rich retirees can contribute to 401k programs. The other thing I should mention is that Democrats have assisted Republicans on a win. They help Republicans pass a retirement related bill that's actually very popular with labor unions. And so I want to talk about that. As Larson's bill was being sidelined, another social security bill, sponsored by Republican Representative Rodney Davis, earned enough bipartisan support to bypass markup, and he fast tracked for a vote. Davis's bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, would repeal the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset, which prevent public servants in states with special pension plans from getting social security benefits. And while

labor unions are going to celebrate this and, and, you know, government workers are going to celebrate it as well, because they might qualify for this, for what this legislation entails. There are substantive concerns with Davis's bill. It is not paid for. So the addition of public sector pensioners could actually cost the Social Security trust fund as much as $147 billion, according to Larson. Ironically, he said, that could over time decrease benefits across the board for Social Security recipients. It's just infuriating, absolutely infuriating. Yeah, so I want to draw your, of course, what happens? It's what we predict all the time. If you watch this show, isn't it amazing that you know what's going to happen before it happens? Or maybe it's not amazing at all that the journalism is actually super, super simple, just follow the money. The lobbyists wanted the second provision that Anna told you about to pass, mainly not because it helps the wealthy, yeah, that's important, but because it gets the people who run the mutual funds more money.

They make way more money, including incredibly influential companies like BlackRock. So once they send in the lobbies, it's over. That's going to pass. So that gets to one of the first points at animation. John Larson has been told to go to markup. If you watch the election coverage we had the other night, Congressman Jamal Bowman was on. And he talked about this issue. He said, whenever there's a progressive priority, they tell you that it's got to go through this process. And it's got to get marked up. Okay. And that's when they go through committees, they mark up the bill, they change it. And they're like, it's got, there's no way around it. It's got to go through

markup. And they'll sit in markup for years and years, right? But whenever lobbyists want something, as Congressman Bowman explained, it flies through. There's no markup. And so when the rich wanted something, it fixed the Social Security, it flew right past markup. Okay, Why? Because the most corrupt are the ones at the top. And that's not an accident. So remember Mo Brooks, the Republican House member, explained on the campaign trail. In order to be a committee chair like Richie Neal is in the house, you have to get at least a million dollars and give it to your Democratic Party committee or Republican Party committee, right? And where do you get the million dollars? Mo Brooks explained, you get it from the

industry most affected by your committee. So the more corrupt you are to serve the corporate interests that are affected by your committee, the more likely you are to be the leader of that committee. Now, take that and multiply it by 20, and you'll know who's the leader of the party. So Pelosi and McConnell, as Schumer, are the most corrupt because they've collected the most amount of money, and they've collected it from corporate interests, and that's who they're going to represent. So the thing that would have helped you this year, senior citizens, Pelosi made the decision to bury the thing that would help rich people, she made the decision to elevate that and pass it. It's not a coincidence. That's exactly what's supposed to happen. And this is

exactly how we all get robbed on a daily basis in Congress. And the people driving the yet away car is corporate media that never lets you know about it. All right, Jank, you've got a story for us. Time for you to present. I get to sit back and comment. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. Okay. Watch that happen. All right, here we go. The Inflation Reduction Act and mansion finally made a deal with Biden and Biden meekly gave him the pen from that deal. But there was a side deal there too. The side deal was even worse, helps the fossil fuel companies more. There's carbon projects and hydrogen projects, the carbon capture that are potential scams. And it's a massive gift to the fossil fuel industry.

Good news though, they don't have to pass a side deal. The Inflation Reduction Act already passed. And just like when infrastructure was already passed, Mention killed build back better and said, ha, suckers, should I never agree with what I was saying. So now I'm not going to pass your bill. So obviously progressives have every right to do likewise. Say no, we're not interested in your side deal, we're going to vote no. And good news, some Burma more saying that.

Okay, so hey, look at that slightly improved situation for at least progressives in Congress. Now, is that side deal going to happen anyway? Well, we're about to find out. But TYT reports has got an exclusive now from one of those House members who's fighting back, and yes, the Justice Democrat. In this case, it's Raul Grijalva. And he's asking other progressives to sign onto a letter sent to Pelosi saying, we're not interested in this side deal, and you should kill it. Now remember, Pelosi can kill it all by herself or she can promote So let me explain first Candace Cole reporting for TYT investigates.

Representative Raul Garhava is asking House members to join him in a letter urging Democratic leadership not to attach legislation easing pipeline permitting to any must pass legislation. Brahava's dear colleague email obtained by TYT was sent to House members yesterday with a deadline of tomorrow for them to sign on. So that's today. I don't know why every progressive in Congress wouldn't sign on to this. There's absolutely no reason not why are you in favor of an extra dirty fuel pipeline being built just to make mansion happy and the american petroleum institute happy no progressive in their right mind should agree to that deal right and so i so grahal was doing a great job give him credit everybody should sign the letter i don't know if they have we'll check

up on that and we'll get back to you on whether people did sign or not but there's another critical part in there that I hope you didn't miss. Pelosi apparently is part of the Schumer Mansion deal, and she's not just going to let them vote on it, because if they voted on it, it might not pass. Progressives might vote it down in the House, not in the Senate, right? She's going to instead put it in a must pass budgeting bill so that she could then turn around and bully the progressives and say, oh, what are you going to vote against the entire budget, you radicals? Vote for petroleum pipeline. You're still not sure that Pelosi's our opponent?

Look at how much Pelosi's helping mansion destroy the planet. Remember, this deal is totally unnecessary. It's unattached from a bill that already passed. Okay, so here's what's in the letter, by the way. Representative Garhael, did a great job he wrote. According to media reports, Democratic leaders have agreed to advance a series of anti-environmental and anti-environmental justice provisions at the behest of the American Petroleum Institute, these destructive provisions will significantly and disproportionately impact

low-income communities, indigenous communities, and communities of color. Pelosi, I don't know if it's true. When reading that part of the letter, laughed up Rory. I like the low income. They don't donate to us at all. Okay, that part I'm making up, but you can imagine it in your mind's eye. All right, finally, Candace Cole writes, the question now is whether progressives will honor a deal, they weren't party to in order to help mansion and support new commitments that will worsen climate change at the cost of black, brown, and indigenous communities. Well, that is an excellent question. I'm on pins and needles, Anna, I don't know which way Pelosi and Democrats are going to go. We know, obviously we know. Look, I love to see progressives fight or at least have a strategy, think of a strategy,

do something to prevent the passage of horse crap legislation. So whether their policy ends up working or not, I'm uncertain of that. But it is important for them, at least for their constituents, to demonstrate that they are trying and trying hard to block this kind of legislation. For me, this little side deal between Mansion and Schumer is unacceptable. It totally poisons any positive press that the Biden administration and the Democrats have received in regard to, you know, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which is wrongly named because it has nothing to do with inflation. It drives me crazy. But nonetheless.

So we'll see what happens. I will say, you know, signing letters is fine. There needs to be more strategy behind it than just the letter. That's like the bare minimum in my mind. Yeah, but look at what Garabu's doing. He's also telling the press, us, right? So that is a bold move because normally at best progressive leaders sign letters behind the scenes. And that's a best case scenario. But they never dare tell the press because then that would be internal fighting in the Democratic Party and MSNBC will yell at them. Okay. But here Garbal was having the courage to say, damn right, I'm sending a letter. This is how strongly worded the letter is. And I'm asking other progressives to sign on to it. And I'm asking you to fight publicly

against democratic leadership. I think that is bold. And so I encourage that. And that's at least, Anna, the beginning of the right way to fight. Yeah, I agree with you on that. And it's about time. So more power to them. I'm not, I'm not being critical toward what they're doing at all. But It's more of a cautionary piece of advice because we know that corporate Democrats always have some plan to squash progressives and their efforts to ensure that good legislation is passing and bad legislation is being blocked. So they have to stand strong once whatever strategy it is that the corporate Democrats have is implemented. Once they get all of their media buddies to start reining terror on progressives for allegedly being the bad guys for blocking legislation

that corporate Democrats want. So we'll see how it plays out. More power to them. They should stay strong. Yeah, last thing, guys, we told you from time to time. Hey, we get more members. We can hire more folks. Wouldn't it be amazing if we had a Washington correspondent? What we do now, Candace Cole. Look at the story she broke. So otherwise, that letter might never have made it public. So now there's pressure on everyone in Democratic Party, which side are you on? It makes a difference if there are progressives in Washington asking the hard questions and finding out the truth. So thank you to everybody as a TYT member and made this possible. And by the way, we'll have the links to the articles in the description box below.

If you're watching later on YouTube or Facebook, always check the description box where we've got more information. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about some of the celebrity behind the scenes who are pushing the Trump administration to promote the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID. An incredible story, don't miss it. We've got that and more coming right up. All right, back on TYIT, Jake and Anna with you guys and all of you wonderful folks out there. How you doing? Look, I'm glad you care about the news.

You came here and you want to know what the real news is. That's awesome. We love you guys for it. Casper, take it away. Give it to him. All right, let's do it. We've just learned that Dr. Oz was sending emails urging the Trump administration to begin promoting the use of an anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as an unproven treatment for coronavirus as

early as the beginning stages of the pandemic. Now we know this because there is a new select House committee report on the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And through that investigation, they uncovered emails that Oz had sent to members of Trump's administration, including Jared Kushner and Dr. Deborah Birx about the use of hydroxychloroquine. And we're going to share some excerpts from those emails right now. So in one of the emails that he sent to Dr. Deborah Birx, he said, quote, we cannot hide behind study protocols if we are not allowed to proceed. I want to push brave Americans to join trials on my show tomorrow, but cannot without a game plan for accessing drugs.

Oz wrote that he would, quote, personally recruit and pay for a trial, but was having trouble finding the anti-malaria pills. He cited the testimony of French microbiologist Dr. Dieter Rout, who said that the drug was effective in clearing 24 patients of COVID in a test that wasn't randomized or peer reviewed. And as we all know at this point, hydroxychloroquine was never proven to be an effective treatment. for coronavirus. And I don't know, I've been looking into why Dr. Oz was so adamant about the Trump administration, promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine, was there a financial motive for Dr. Oz? I haven't really been able to find concrete evidence in that regard.

But it is fascinating that he was one of the individuals behind the scenes who was urging the Trump administration to, again, promote the use. Now, on the same day, by the way, Oz emailed Jared Kushner and was just kind of like demanding a faster rollout of hydroxychloroquine to combat the pandemic. He wrote, quote, you should outline that 130 million hydroxychloroquine pills are coming into the market, which can treat 5 to 10 million people and offer an accurate timetable for additional supply to slow down coronavirus. When Kushner responded saying that clinical tests or trials for the drug were starting that week, Oz replied that such studies would be a plotting process, which will take a month before we have results. He encouraged Kushner to make trials for hydroxychloroquine a national priority and insist on immediate enrollment. He even says it has been almost a week since we learned of the French data.

And over a month since the Chinese data, and we still have no patients in trials. Doctors and nurses are already struggling to find pills for off label use. But at least we have a potential pandemic solution at our fingertips. And Kushner responded with, well, what do you recommend to speed it up? And uncertain what his response to that is. But what's clear to me, Jank, is that he didn't really care too much about ensuring that the efficacy of the drug was proven. he didn't really care too much about going through the protocols and undergoing the clinical trials. He just wanted the Trump administration to roll this out and promote the use, even though there

wasn't concrete evidence showing that hydroxychloroquine, again, an anti-malaria drug treats COVID. Yeah, the Republican Party has just become a nest of vipers and con men. So it's one con man shilling to another con man about a drug that is not pertinent to this issue at all. Why? Probably money. But on the other hand, maybe like Dr. Oz's on a role in advocating for fake medicines that don't work. I mean, that's what he did on the TV show over and over again and got called into Congress for miracle cures of this and that. Maybe he's just become like a weirdo conspiracy theorist that think that thinks that like what the medical community says is wrong. he's somehow smarter than 99% of the rest of the doctors in the world and he knows secret things without data.

Ridiculous, totally. When this guy used to be a top heart surgeon, man, incredibly well respected. And then he just lost his mind, greed is a hell of a drug. So a bunch of scammers and we have to sit here and try to dissect every scam, why, like how are they going to make money out of this one? But what we do know is hydroxychloroquine. I know it's a hard one. Okay, ironically I have COVID right now. Maybe I should have taken it.

I'm kidding. So I couldn't spit that word out. Anyways, we know it doesn't work, right? And so I don't know why Dr. Oz is pushing it. I do know that you shouldn't trust any Republican politician as a doctor for their medical advice. medical advice. That's the literally the, it's like a life threatening problem if you do that. So I should also note that while these revelations are interesting, you know, to see the kind of communications that were happening behind the scenes is important. Oz didn't really

hold back in promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine publicly. And so I'm going to show you a video from April of 2020 where he went on Larry King's show and did this. same thing. Let's watch. What is hydroxychloroquine? What is that? I think the reason that a lot of Americans heard about this medication is there's a famed French researcher, Deereauld, who's invented a bunch of solutions and actually discovered different species of viruses who was of the belief that when combined with azithromycin or Z-PAC, this malaria medication could be effective. He did some very small initial studies, too small to draw any conclusions from, then it did a larger study with 80 patients, we had what he believed were good results.

So for the select House committee investigating the response to COVID, I think what they need to look into if they're, I mean, I don't know if they're looking into it at all. If they are, they should really focus on it. Everything has a motive, right? And I'm curious if there was a financial motive behind promoting the use of drugs like hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin. With Ivermectin, there's more evidence out there showing that there was a financial motive for people promoting it. But they should look into whether that was the case for hydroxychloroquine as well. And that way, they can prevent grifters from grifting when it comes to a pandemic in the

future. So there's actually two other possibilities, Anna. One is that Dr. Oz realized the same thing to Carlson realized, but a little bit earlier in the field of medicine. The American people love conspiracy theories. If you give him something where you go, well, the authorities don't want you to know this. But if you really take this flag seed oil, all of a sudden you're going to be 20 years younger, they're like, yes, right? So he realized that that was a shortcut to popularity. And I think that that he abused that. And maybe he just got in that mindset. So that's a possibility. And that by the way, that's kind of his best case scenario. Okay. Another possibility is this really interesting thing that I learned about just a couple of days ago in an interview I did about Q and on followers

and the people who are directing Q and on I did on the conversation. Okay. So by the way, if you missed the conversation, you can get it in our podcasting network. And I think you really should check out those interviews. They're really interesting. So in this one, they explained that sometimes the right wing will pick something that no one else is talking about because there's nothing on Google about it. And they will fill that information hole with their info, telling you how great it is and fake studies, et cetera. And then they'll fill it with a way to sell that stuff, right? And so that's why they might have picked random medication like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine so that they could, because it was in an

information hole and they could fill Google with their own information on it. So it is, really interesting, the different scams that the right wing runs. But consult an actual doctor if you want real advice. Exactly. Well, let's move on to the top grifters in the country and those are CEOs who are rooting for a recession because it'll make workers desperate. The CEO of a real estate corporation worth more than $3 billion known as Douglas Emmett, Inc., is actually rooting for a recession because a recession might actually lead to desperate workers, and desperate workers will comply with what their bosses want them to do. Now keep in mind that this real estate corporation has a portfolio of commercial real estate and they want their tenants

back. They want the workers back in the office because their profits have been suffering from the fact that people have been working from home. Now during an August 2nd earnings call, Jordan Kaplan, the CEO of Douglas Emmett Inc. stated that recession could be good for commercial real estate. The executive Kaplan then repeated that the thought would be that unemployment would be up and therefore employers would be in the driver's seat to bring people back in the office, which is where they want them. Meaning that's where they want the real estate company wants them. Now Kaplan made the remarks in response to a question from Citigroup analyst Michael Griffin, who said that quote, we've seen some of your office peers come out and say potentially that a recession could be good for the office space.

curious kind of to get your thoughts of what we could expect from an impact on the portfolio, just given the central recessionary environment on the horizon. And real quick, this is during an earnings call, which by law, they have to be as honest as possible. Because if it's an earnings call, it's with investors. And if the company is found to lie to the investors, they're defrauding the investors. And that's a big no-no in America, right? That's where you'll actually suffer some consequences. So the one area where there are robust regulations, it's this area. During these earnings calls, they have to be honest about what's going on or what kind of outlook they have when it comes to things like recessions. By the way, earlier in the call, Kaplan stated that our

number one goal is to get our lease rate back up over 90%. Remember, we went into this around 93%. Currently, he said the company was soundly up over 80%. utilization, meaning utilization of their commercial real estate. Shank. Yeah, so first fun inside baseball side note here. Kenny Clips wrote this article for The Intercept, and he used to work at TYT. And our managing editor, Jonathan Larson's specialty is go on investor calls. Because not only do they tell you, are they forced to tell you the truth on investor calls,

they also brag about their profits and their revenue and all these things. And then later they go on cable news and go, oh, we had to cut wages, our profits. No, no, wait, wait, I was on the investor call. You were bragging about your profits. So anyways, great job for Ken Klobstein breaking this story. Now to the important part of it, okay. So look, I think Kaplan is not the most guilty party here, okay? So they ask them a question about what other CEOs are roundly saying in commercial real estate.

And he says in the full context, look, I don't really agree with them. I think recession is bad for us. I think that we're less people will rent office space. But yes, the silver lining is it'll force workers will have less leverage. And then their boss will have to force them to get back to work. And in commercial real estate, back into the offices helps commercial real estate because we're the offices, right? So I'm giving you the full context of it. But the most important part of this is not necessarily is Kaplan, a good guy or a bad guy. But what does the industry think? And what do CEOs in general think? Now, so he's like the least guilty potentially, right? The other guys are way worse. But on top of that, you have all these other industries that Ken also wrote about.

So, for example, anonymous business executive, Texas business executive told the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve this quote. I suspect the workforce pulls its head out of its rear when a correction or recession makes jobs scarce and people start to feel a pain or fear of not providing for their family and loved ones. To them, that's a good thing. When their workers are in fear that they won't be able to provide for their loved ones, then they got them. And then they can pay them as low as they want and have them work under any conditions they want. And they're pretty brazen in admitting this left and right. Yeah, I mean, but Jank, that's not the bug, it's the feature, right? There's a reason why there was so much pressure on lawmakers to end unemployment benefits early during the pandemic.

They wanted to make workers desperate. Desperation for the employers is perfect because they have all the leverage. And that's essentially what's being communicated over and over again during these earnings calls. And it's absolutely disgusting. And so look, at the end of the day, profits over people. Like, that's how this system works. They have the fiduciary responsibility to return on investment for their shareholders. And they see labor as the top cost. It is the top cost because you've got to pay wages. You got in some cases you've got to pay for benefits. And in this very, specific case, if you've got commercial real estate in your portfolio, well, the health of that

portfolio relies on people showing up to the office. And workers don't want to show up to the office, because to make it very obvious, if it isn't for some of these deregulation lovers and, you know, pro-corporate people, if you don't make it easy for people to find child care that they can afford, then they're not going to want to go back to the office because they don't know what to do with their kids. That's number one. Number two, gas is really expensive, even now with the prices going down a little bit, right? So how about incentives to convince your workers to go back into the office? But you know, those incentives will also cut into their profit margins. They don't want to do it. So that's the issue here. That's the

underlying issue. Yeah, and Ken did a great job of also going back to an essay written in in 1943 by Michael Kalecki, where he explained this entire phenomenon. So it's been around forever. And it's not just profits. Excuse me there, I'm a little sick. So it's not just profits. It's that they want to have leverage over their workers. And they're worried that if the workers have a little bit of comfort, they will develop class consciousness, and they will have the luxury of being able to do strikes and make more demands. And they don't want the workers to feel comfortable. So they are happy in situations, including recessions, which maybe even cut into their profits,

as long as it keeps the workers basically in their place. And that is a really sorry indictment of capitalism. Absolutely. Well, when we come back, there's a big controversy over a podcasting conference banning Ben Shapiro. Was it a good move? We've got that and more coming right up. F around and find out. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work. access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple.com slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon