The Young Turks - Steve King Can't Hide His Bigotry And Pathetic Clinton Strategist Goes After TYT

Episode Date: March 21, 2019

Steve King doesn’t know what a dog whistle is. David Brock needs to get his facts right. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, welcome the young Turks. Thank you, Granite, Kisperin with you guys, tumultuous day. So as usual, we've been attacked under the auspices of a white flag. So we're going to get to that story very soon. Establishment figures criticizing us while pretending that they're not criticizing and that no one should ever criticize. But this is maybe one of the most brazen examples of it ever. And then they also at the same time go after a person on Bernie Sanders team on the same exact

day. So please spare me your nonsense about how you don't attack. And you use the mainstream media to attack progressives every single day and then go, they punch you in the face politically and then go around and go, no, no, no, no, no, it's like Routy, righty Piper. We're gonna do that later, and Bernie Sanders reveals his team, his campaign team, and it's fantastic, filled to the room with progressives and women and people of color, et cetera. So we're gonna get to that as well.

But first, the racist Republicans. Yes. We're on the heels of a ridiculous debate involving Representative Ilhan Omar and accusations that that she is anti-Semitic simply because she had the audacity to criticize the behavior of the Israeli government specifically. Now following that, Steve King, Representative Steve King, who has said all sorts of racist things throughout his career, but particularly after Trump's election, is doing a town hall and he gets asked about his white supremacy.

And he still has a hard time condemning white supremacy. Case in point, the video you're about to watch. Do you think a white society is superior to a non-white? I don't have an answer for that. That's so hypothetical. America is not a white society. It's never been a completely white society. We came here and joined the Native Americans.

We're here many times, the numbers greater than ours. I've long said that a baby can be lifted out of a cradle anywhere in the world and brought into any home in America, whatever the color of the folks in that household, and they can be raised to be as American as any other. as any other. Okay, so that's the easiest question in the world. Do you think a white society is superior to a non-white society? The easy answer is, no, I don't think it's superior, I believe that all humans are equal,

and whether some, I mean, I can go into detail, you don't need to go into detail because it's so simple, no, I don't think it's whites or superior, right? You can go into details about geopolitical situations and why different countries in different areas and geographies might develop at different rates at different times, et cetera, et cetera. But you don't know, just say- No, no, no, no, I don't think that. And it's a layup, right? It's the easiest thing to do, especially given the criticism that you've just received, the fact that you've been kicked off of all of these committees, right?

It's so easy to do it. I don't understand why he has such a hard time. And then like the whitewashing of American history in his answer, like yeah, we were just, you know, we came in, we were living alongside the Native Americans, everything was so great. No, that's not how it worked, we all know that. Yeah, and he said in case you didn't hear it clearly in the video, you can go back and rewind it, I don't have an answer for that. That's so hypothetical.

So you think it is possible that a white society would be superior? I mean, come on, we're still having a conversation. And look, are the Democrats right now working on a resolution in the House to condemn Steve King? No. The Democrats, the reason Anna brought up Ilhan Omar in the beginning is Democrats love to punch themselves in the face, right? They twisted her words.

She said, I don't want to have a double allegiance to any country, right? And they said, oh, are you saying Jews have a double allegiance? No, she didn't say that. She said, I don't want to have a double allegiance to any country. including Saudi Arabia, et cetera, right? But Steve King says something incredibly clear. Well, it's a hypothetical. I don't know, white suicide babies.

But look, we're going to give you other stuff. He constantly talks about how we can't rebuild our civilization with other people's babies. Well, what's complicated about that? This guy is as clear a white supremacist as you could possibly find. But yet, there's no House resolution condemning him. But what are we waiting for? I mean, even Liz Cheney, the number three Republican in the House, what a Cheney has to tell you you've been monstrous.

You might be over the top monstrous. Even she says, I think he should resign. Even Mitch McConnell says he should resign. House Democrats, where are you? I know you love to punch yourself in the face. How about you actually attack real racist, racist? And if you're a right winger, you want to get triggered by it, have that at it, Haas. If you're going, well, I don't know, I don't know, maybe white society is better.

That means you're a white supremacist. It's an absurd notion that any one race would be superior to all other races. It's preposterous. And if you don't realize it's preposterous, yes, you are a racist and a bigot. Now the woman who asked the question is from a small town in Iowa, population 5,000 people. And I just want to give her some love, her name's Mary Lavelle. And after seeing what happened with the mass shootings in mosques in New Zealand, she was worried about Representative King's rhetoric and how it could potentially fuel, you know, violent acts here

in the United States. And so she brought this up and she was dissatisfied by his answer for obvious reasons. But I also want to go to another portion of this event where he was asked about this notorious photo, you know, he took a picture in his office and he had the Confederate flag. It was posted all over the internet. And so someone asked him about that as well. And here's what he had to say. Reporters, not invited to ask questions, but we did.

Congressman, before you say your goodbyes, I just want to give you a chance to explain the posting on Facebook, which talked about red states having eight trillion bullets in case of another civil war. I think it's interesting that nobody here has that question. Yeah, can you explain why you post you? Anybody here that's interested in that question, it was this that I found out about it being posted yesterday morning at the same time, and I thought that it had been taken down about 8.30. It wasn't until a few hours later. It's the only people that care about that are national news media. Nobody has raised the issue

around here. And so no, we're done. I've answered your question. And we were going to take any questions from press, but I answered your question. Okay. Then I've answered the question. Do you look at that page? I found out that that was posted yesterday morning. And I don't, I don't manage I don't manage that, I don't, I'll say again, I don't manage that Facebook page. And I could control it, but I don't manage it. So I wasn't aware that that was posted until yesterday morning. And I was also under the understanding that had been taken down right away, it wasn't. I wish it had never gone up.

All right, so let me apologize and clarify something. So he's posted so much, or so many Confederate photos and and content on his page that I wasn't sure if this was referring to the Confederate flag photo or if this was referring to the other confederate thing that he posted recently. So it was about the other thing, and let me give you the details on that. He faced scrutiny after a post on his Facebook page speculated who would win a second civil war between red states and blue states. And it also had the caption that read as follows, folks keep talking about another civil

War, one side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn't know. Doesn't know what bathroom it wants to go to? Yeah. Okay. All right, so talk of a civil war, that's really great. Do I believe him that other people might be posted like his staffers might be posting on his Facebook page? Yeah.

But he's the kind of guy who would hire staffers that would post about a civil war where the red states murder everyone in the blue states. Is there any chance that a progressive would hire a staffer like that? probably not and by the way do I take him out his word no I do not is it possible he posted it sure it's possible so but that talk is very dangerous as we now I mean we showed you a clip on the young Turks Steve Bannon going around doing a tour in the country now one of the women said oh you know I never thought I'd say this but I want a dictator and it's Trump and Steve Bannon applauded everybody on stage sat

there all conservatives no one objected to that kind of language Donald Trump was talking about, oh, I have very tough guys on my side, and if things get bad, they'll act very tough. So there's all this nonstop threats of violence, extreme violence, civil war, and they don't mean politically. They mean literally on the Republican side. Steve King encourages it. And so, and yet he's still in Congress and the march and the band plays on.

That's exactly right. And it's not just what he's done recently or the way that he's done recently or the way that he answered these questions during this event. It's just his history of saying questionable things, racist things over and over again. The statement that he made to the New York Times that initially got him in trouble with the Republican party and got him kicked off of his committees was this. White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization, how did that language become offensive? He said that.

And then, you know, there were all sorts of videos where he talks about the dreamers and And how, no, no, don't be fooled by the dreamers, some of them are actually very dangerous. You remember this video? For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another hundred out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves of sides of cantaloupes because they're all on 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. All right, I gotta just address a couple of things that are over the top stupid by Stephen King.

So Steve King, they're dreamers, they're already in this country, they came to this country when they were young, that's why they're dreamers. They didn't have to walk across the border carrying marijuana. That doesn't make any sense, you idiot. If they walked across the border today and you made that charge, it would still be preposterous candleloughed cabs, etc. But at least there'd be some rational nexus in one part of this. They're already here, all right.

And then I get to answer his question, when did white supremacist become offensive? I don't know, when they lynch people, maybe? the white supremacists put on hoods and burned crosses in people's front lawn and then went and found them and strung up on trees and murdered them and then burned their bodies alive and then took pieces of the body home for memorabilia. Maybe that's when it became offensive. And if you can't figure out when white supremacy became offensive, if you can't figure out that no race is superior to another race, well, then we have our answer.

So I'm only asking one thing, because Democrats are never going to do anything, right? I mean, Jesus Christ, wouldn't you take action, right? The Republicans, come on, the Republicans, the main reason the Republicans are mad at Steve King is because he's saying it out loud. They're like, hey, we're supposed to dog whistle. You're getting carried away with the Trump thing. Remember the southern strategy is we appeal to racist by using coded language. We don't just come out and say we're for white supremacy.

Steve, you're giving up the game. We're letting everybody know what's going on, so they're not going to do anything real. So I mean, they're like, wow, we took them off of committees. This guy's in the United States Congress. So all I'm asking is, when someone asks if Steve King is a racist or says he clearly is, because it's all over the record based on his own comments, can you just not cry about it for a second? I know the right wing loves to cry. Like, hey, white supremacist is lynching people, not a problem, Steve King being called.

a racist for saying that he doesn't say anything wrong with white supremacy, that's a problem. How could you call him a racist? How could you call him a racist? I just go cry in your own corner. That's all I'm asking. Let's take a break. When we come back, we are going to do a breakdown of Better O'Rourke's first 24-hour

of fundraising versus Bernie Sanders. That was a huge story throughout the week. But we have some more details that I think are super relevant to that story. How many donors? What was the average donation? We'll give you those details and more. And one of the biggest hatchet men in Democratic politics attacked us today. So, and then he asked us not to attack back.

Oh, we're gonna play. Yeah, we will not honor that request. We'll be back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich. and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-the-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different

historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed

over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on a young church, Jank and Anna with you guys. Let me read a couple of comments for you. Gabby Marina writes in the comments section, you know who wishes for a civil war? Traitors. That's a pretty good point. So on Twitter, Freak Management 1 says, the only people I see posting eagerly about another civil war are conservatives. I know, it's shocking. I should have warned everyone to sit down before reading this tweet. They're openly looking forward to another civil war. So why would you do that? One, because you love.

violence, but two, because you know you're on the losing side. The winning side isn't looking to do a civil war, a literal one, because we're the country. We are America. The people looking to do a civil war are the people that are not in favor of America. Okay, so Viscuous Cree says, Steve King basically described white families that having given back immigrant kids who were separated from their families at the border. Some dude writes in, literally, that's his handle on in the member section. Raging against Steve King is about as useful as raging against a snake for being a snake,

his nature will not change. But look, there's a reason why we do it, because otherwise the press nonstop does false equivalency. And then the Democrats go along with it. That's why we need to fight back. Because who, yeah, in the mainstream media, they're not going to be passionate. They're going to be dispassionate and then brag about it and be like, oh, we were totally neutral to Steve King's racism. And yes, we equated it to something that wasn't at all racist.

Well, we're dispassionate. Okay, well, that's not what we do here. And all right, there's so much more. I'll just give you one last fun one to end here. Uper Meg's 056 on Twitter says, my kids love doing the air guitar to your intro music. We're proud members and part of the TYT. Army. Thank you guys.

We do appreciate it. And thank your kids for me. Okay. Now, on to David Brock. Yes. David Brock was a huge supporter of Hillary Clinton back in 2016. And he has been salty about the fact that here at the Young Turks, during the primaries, we did what people in the media should do.

Do analysis of the candidates who are running and decide. who's progressive in their policy ideas, who isn't so progressive, which policies we like, which policies we don't like, we're up front, we're honest about our political perspective. David Brock and people like David Brock have been bitter about that and continue to be so. So today, David Brock puts out an op-ed titled, Democrats, let's not eat our own. Okay, sounds good, sounds very civil, sounds like he wants us to all get along and have a conversation. And so he goes on this long diatribe about how it's unacceptable to attack Democratic candidates and that it's okay to foster an environment of debate, but it's not okay to attack fellow

Democratic candidates in a way that can be then utilized by Donald Trump in the general election. And then he says the following. The Young Turks, a news organization that prominently supports Sanders' candidacy, disseminated a false narrative about shadowy democratic elites conspiring against the senator in their coverage of his recent town hall. So let's stop for a second before I read the rest of that, okay? Did we ever say anything about CNN conspiring with these operatives? No.

We did a lengthy video, which David Brock should probably check out before he writes this ridiculous commentary about us. And what we said was, these comments are fine, these questions are fine. In fact, a lot of these individuals ask great questions, but CNN purposefully misidentified these individuals who asked the questions as American University student or mother of two. Come to find out, we then later find out that these people are either working in their state Democratic parties, one of them was an intern for a lobbying group in Washington, D.C., and so my point is, and this is very simple, it's journalistic ethics 101, it is your responsibility as a journalistic

news organization to be as transparent as possible about the individuals who are taking part in any type of political event, any type of news story, misidentifying them and hiding the fact that their political operatives is problematic, period. So now, this is greatly ironic because he's accusing us of a judge. doing something that isn't true, when in fact, he himself already in that sentence that Anna read, and there's more to come, has said two things that aren't true, that we prominently support Bernie Sanders candidacy. No, we prominently support progressives, and we don't hide that.

Our slogan is home of progressives. But right now, Elizabeth Warren is a great progressive, and we point out her wonderful policies. By the way, when other candidates have great progressive policies, we support it. and are enthusiastic in our support. For example, Cory Booker did wonderful work on criminal justice reform, and we talked about it and gave him tremendous credit for it. When people sign out for Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, we love that if they actually mean Medicare for all and Green New Deal.

And it is, yes, our job to figure out if they actually mean it. If they say Medicare for all, but then they turn around and say, well, I didn't mean that I meant Medicare buying. Well, those are two different policy proposals. Our job is to tell you that. For some reason, the mainstream media goes, oh, no, it's all the same thing. But no, wait, it's not the same thing. Who's spreading false narratives, right?

Those are two different policy positions, and our job is to point that out. So no one, this network has never taken a position on it. Our individual hosts take positions eventually on different candidates, and we don't hide the ball on that. But right now, none of our hosts have even taken a position on any other candidates. Some of our hosts outwardly like other candidates, okay? And by the way, we all like all the candidates for different reasons. Inslee does great work on the environment.

But we're not going to then say someone who says, hey, I'm against Medicare for all. Oh, I bow down to him and I agree with him. I don't, I'm for Medicare for all. And I'm clearly telling you that. But for him to say that the network supports Bernie Sanders alone in his candidacy, it's just empirically not true, if you're not going to watch the show, then don't put out false statements. And then to say that we talked about shadowy democratic elites who picked the people who were asking their questions, we never said that.

No such thing. So that's two lies. Two lies in the first sentence. And by the way, so I have a real problem with Democrats coming after us for saying very accurate things about CNN. First off, CNN announces that it's going to hire a Republican operative, right, Sarah Eisger, to have editorial control over the election coverage, the upcoming 2020 election coverage.

You don't think that's problematic? Of course that's problematic. So we bring that up, we fight and make sure that, A, our audience knows about this, but more importantly, that there's additional pressure for CNN to change course. And guess what? changed course. Now, we can't take full credit for that, obviously. I don't know if we've had any influence, but the most important thing is that a political

operative does not have editorial control at CNN, right? So now she's gonna be a contributor, that's fine. But then when we call out CNN for misidentifying individuals asking questions at the town hall, that was a legitimate criticism, any journalistic expert in ethics will tell you that. And guess what? CNN put out a statement, confessing that they did the wrong thing. So who's wrong here? Is it us?

Or is it you, David Brock, who just completely lied about what we had said in the first place? So I want to give you the statement from CNN. A CNN spokesperson spoke to the New York Post and said the following. Though we said at the beginning of the town hall that the audience was made up of Democrats and independents, we should have more fully identified any political affiliations, okay? So first of all, of course, we're gonna assume that people in the audience are Democrats, but no one's gonna assume that one is an intern for a DC lobbyist, or another individual owns his own political PR firm, or that other people asking questions are actual leaders

within the Democratic Party in their own state. Now again, their questions were fine. All I'm saying, and all we were saying, is that they should be identified for full transparency, Period. Yes, we never said they were malicious, and in fact we asked for equally tough questions for all the candidates and for clear identification. So now, given that you just heard the quote from CNN, acknowledging that they were wrong about that, and we were right, and by the way, that's two times we helped to correct CNN when

they appeared to be doing things that did not help progress them. So for the entire Democratic Party, you're welcome, okay? But we don't get a welcome, we get these attacks. Let's read the rest of David Brock's quote. They did opposition research on Sanders' questioners, imputing their motives by pointing to an internship one of them had done. And the composition of the board of directors of a nonprofit that another one of the questioners once worked for.

This type of conspiracy mongering hurt us in 2016 and will again in 2020. You want to know David Brock would hurt us in 2016? The DNC doing anything and everything they could to manipulate the outcome of the Democratic primaries. Because let me tell you something, when you have Bernie Sanders supporters find out about what the DNC is doing, and then you demand that all of those Bernie Sanders supporters tuck tail and vote for Hillary Clinton, you think that they're gonna do that? Of course they're not gonna do that.

They were angry. They were angry by the actions of the Democratic establishment. They were angry about the manipulation. And that's the lesson that you failed to learn. That's the lesson that establishment Democrats failed to learn. And I find it hilarious when they point to us and blame us simply for doing our jobs in analyzing who these candidates were, what they really stood for, what their upsides and downsides were.

And I'm so tired of people telling me specifically, right, who I need to support. Because his op-ed was really a veiled attempt to demand that we support whoever the establishment decides needs to be the candidate. No, we're not playing ball, okay? And if you want to fight, you want to play these games, I'm ready, we're ready. I'm not gonna sit here and allow this clown to put out this fake narrative about us and what we're doing. Okay, so let's continue.

He says they did opposition research for Sanders. And then later talks about conspiracy mongering, do you have any evidence that we were doing Opposition Research for a candidate? No, you don't, because we weren't. When you actually investigate the facts of a situation that is called journalism. Now, why does he assume that it's APO research? Because that's what he's done his whole life. He was a Republican operative who did APO research against the Clintons.

Then he turned and became a Clinton operative who did APO research against progressives. And what does he do when he does opposition research? He gives it to journalists. And the journalist printed without ever disclosing that it was opposition research. That's right. So since he has been guilty of this, his whole career, he assumes we do it. No one from the Sanders team told us to do that. We looked at and thought, hey, that's weird.

It appears that these people are not necessarily what CNN labeled them to be. By the way, they didn't, the person who's an intern didn't raise their hand and misrepresent themselves, CNN mislabel them, right? So that's called journalism. What you do in APO research and then planting it with your buddies in the mainstream media is called APA research. And then to turn around to say, our facts that were proven 100% right is conspiracies, while he launches conspiracy after conspiracy is hilarious.

In fact, we're going to get to one of those that he did in 2016, but understand the whole point of the article. Remember, it's titled Democrats, let's not eat our own. And then he viciously attacks us with a completely false narrative in the article and then And goes, what, what, what, what? You see how the young Turks and every other Bernie, anyone who might consider supporting Bernie Sanders, any other progressive should never ever criticize our candidates. And so the way that they criticize progressives is they do APA research, they plant it in the media,

and then the media runs it. And so then they don't have their fingerprints on it, and they go, well, I didn't attack anyone. Now you see, David Brock screwed up here because he put his name on it, okay? So this is what he normally has his friends do. And they write the op-ed and saying, oh, yeah, anyone who's progressive, like young Turks, homo-progressives is bad. And then they smear you with lies, et cetera, right? Now, Brock put his fingerprints on it, but normally he doesn't, although there is, again,

we're gonna get to the case where he famously did so in 2016. And then if we're open and honest, and we come out on air, I mean, he sounds like a conspiracy theorist like Mr. Reagan, who did that video on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the other day. Oh, the young Turks secretly do this. How can we set it on air? Okay, it's not much of a secret. If you broadcast it, we are honest, you are dishonest, which leads us back to 2016 since you opened up these can of worms.

So in 2016, it was no surprise to anyone, or it's no surprise to anyone today, that there were paid bots all over social media, particularly on Twitter, and it was almost night and day. All of a sudden, if you were a Bernie Sanders supporter, you would see this giant, you giant group of Twitter users attacking you and calling you all sorts of names, you're a Bernie bro, defaming you. And so then a story comes out by The Daily Beast. It was written by Ben Collins. The title is Hillary Pack spends $1 million to correct commenters on Reddit and Facebook.

Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. So those aren't real people, those are people who are paid. They spent a million dollars. You know what they're called, there's another word for them, they're called trolls. They're paid operatives, political operatives from David Brock's group who went to attack progressives online. So I believe that that would be attacking other candidates. And you did it with fervor and you did it with donor money. And now you're going to turn around and say, oh, golly, gee, I would never attack anyone.

And I can't believe that anybody on the progressive side would ever dare criticize the policies of my chosen candidates who you must bow your head to. No, we do not agree. So I'm going to read from this piece because it's important to either refresh your memory if you already knew about it or let people know about the kind of games, losers play as they're losing because they can't win based on ideas or policies. They have to win based on manipulation, which is what the DNC attempted to do in the last election.

And is it okay for me to bring that up, David Brock? Am I losing my integrity by letting the audience know the facts of what happened in 2016? Let me give you the details. Citing lessons learned from online engagement with Bernie Bros. A pro-Hillary Clinton's SuperPack is pledging to spend $1 million to push back against users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram. Correct the Records Barrier Breakers Project boasts in a press release that it has already addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter.

The pack was created in May of 2015 when it was spun off from the American Bridge Super Pack, which was run by longtime Hillary and Bill Clinton supporter David Brock. So this is the guy attacking us. And you can understand why he's bitter. He doesn't want people like us criticizing Hillary Clinton. He doesn't want people like us doing a fair analysis. of the candidates from a progressive perspective. And by the way, in his recent op-ed, he argues that all of the candidates running right now

in the Democratic Party are progressives. Hilarious. Hilarious. All right, so look, you guys judge on your own who you think is the honest actors. So during the 2016 race, as you saw for yourself, if you were watching back then, Anna and I had a long, long disagreement about whose education policy was better. I was on Hillary Clinton's side, she was on Bernie Sanders side in terms of their plan for college tuition for kids, okay?

We criticize Bernie Sanders for his policy on guns, and we said Hillary Clinton was better on that. Now, on the other issues, Bernie Sanders was more progressive than her, and in fact, almost everyone in the media would not only agree to that, but would criticize him for that. Oh, he's too liberal, too progressive, right? Right now, we're saying he should release his tax returns. Now, do you see them being equally critical of their own candidates? No.

Not only will they never, ever criticize their own candidates in an honest way, but they will demand that no one else ever criticize them. So when you say they're all progressive, what do you mean? More than half of them have said, no, we don't think we should scrap private insurance and do Medicare for all. And to great applause from Anderson Cooper, CNN, et cetera, right? Okay, so that is, by definition, less progressive. And by the way, that's okay, you might be for a less progressive position.

It doesn't mean that the more progressive position is right every time or right for you as a voter. So when Klobuchar came out and positioned herself, she very transparently positioned herself as the moderate candidate. And she's progressive? She's not even claiming to be more progressive. I mean, he's, why are you insulting our intelligence, right? Not just our intelligence, but the intelligence of American voters.

You think we're stupid? And so, and then you go out and then you do barrier breakers where you pay people to attack actual supporters of Bernie Sanders. The Bernie Sanders supporters were not paid. They were real people who actually cared. You bought people because you were, your position was so unpopular, you couldn't find real supporters to do it. So you had to pay people a million bucks.

to be trolls online. And now you write an article saying Democrats, let's not eat our own after you paid millions of dollars to eat our own and to viciously attack all progressives. And then in the middle of that article, you attack progressives. And then you ask us to never criticize your candidates. No deal, not even close. We will do our job and we will correctly identify the policy positions of the candidates. The fact of the matter is people like David Brock are really angry with people like us because

we have an interest in letting our audience know the truth. And people like David Brock do not enjoy when we call out other news organizations for lying to the American public or for doing things. that lack journalistic integrity. Now, CNN has confessed that it lacked the integrity when it refused to clearly identify the individuals asking the questions in that town hall. They did the right thing in admitting that, and they did the right thing in removing Sarah Eisger from an editorial role.

But David Brock doesn't like all that stuff. David Brock would much rather support the dissemination of misinformation, as long as it helps whichever candidate he decides and the establishment decides, they're going to jam down our throats. No, we're not playing that game, we're not playing ball. The primaries happen for a reason, and it's to decide who the best candidate is to represent the Democratic Party. It is not some sort of dog and pony show, and it's not some make-believe thing that happens

for pageantry. It's something that happens for a purpose, and I'm not going to allow people like David Brock to make decisions for the American people. It's not gonna work that way. Last two things, look, we're also fair to CNN. After they corrected themselves on those two decisions, we gave them credit. Because they were responsive to the people who, not just us, but way more importantly is our audience, their audience, the viewers, who they have an obligation to be frank with.

And they were afterwards, so that's a good positive thing. And I'd like to ask David Brock one thing. So are you going to then not plant any articles in the press against Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or any other progressive? You promise not to do that? And if we catch you doing that, will you retire from politics? And just, I don't know, go be a dentist, go get an education, do something else with your life. No, no, you won't promise that at all.

And even if you do, you will not keep that promise. Because your aim is to plant stories against progressives in the mainstream media with your Apo research and attack progressives in the shadows while pretending to be for unity out in the open. And so we see that game, you think you're clever, you're not that clever. I want to take a break. Okay, when we come back, Bernie Sanders reveals his team. upsides and downsides to that conversation and Beto O'Rourke actually beat Bernie Sanders and fundraising in the first 24 hours.

We'll give you the nuances of that, both the upsides and the downsides of that. And I guess David Brock will cry because we gave you the truth about upsides and downsides. Oh my God, don't do that. And just last thing guys, think about it. He's basically saying don't do your jobs in reporting the news, you should only fluff Democratic candidates. No, no, no. What a preposterous request. All right, Young Turks. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. All right, back on a young Turks. Marky Mark 9-1-1-2 writes in, yes, Queen Anna, I love when you go off. You guys know when you're doing something right because the establishment shook.

Thank you. Baby Zebby says, looks like David Brock is condemning this circular firing squad by shooting in a circular firing squad, irony much. So these are all in our member section. Then FX7, I'm sorry, FXS7 says, Tulsi Gabbard is a progressive, I don't hear TYT ever mentioning her. She's not a progressive. No, that's not fair.

On foreign policy issues, she's not a progressive. But- No, that's also not fair. Look, and you see that? We have disagreements. We do have disagreements. Okay. And so I think Tulsi Gabbard is wonderfully progressive on many, many issues, including a lot of our anti-war stances, I also think that she's not as progressive as others in other issues, including

drone strikes, in how she frames issues about radical Islamic extremists, as she calls them. She says she's hawkish on the war on terror. Okay, et cetera. That is her quote, not mine. By the way, those are good discussions to have. That doesn't mean Tulsi Gabbard's a bad person. I think she's a wonderful congressperson, okay? And so, should you be having those dialogues?

Yes, our hosts have those dialogues. And some of our hosts absolutely love Tulsi Gabbard and are convinced she's more progressive than the others in the race. Great, let's have that conversation. And let's use facts, let's use policy positions to have those conversations. So there's no group think. I know it blows their mind. Because they're used to, in Washington, there must be group think, okay.

And by the way, we've said it a billion times, but let's say it again, Tulsi Gabbard is invited on the show. Every single candidate is invited on the show. Whenever she wants to come on, she is more than welcome to talk out all of these issues, including the foreign policy issues that personally I have a hang up with. But anyway. Look, I've interviewed Tulsi what, half a dozen times. I honestly have no idea why she's not coming on the show.

So, so, and they're all invited, I mean, do they, like, Inslee's great on the environment. Does he want to make that case or does he not want to make that case? So it's on them, man. We've invited all of them. All right. Washbelly 3,000 says 26, sorry, Nicky Fowlerdo says the establishment is shaking, it means it's working. I was on Twitter, and since I read your name, Washbelly 3,000, it's a cute story.

And well, I didn't love the ending, but anyway, the 2016 election was on my wife's birthday. She was pregnant with our first child. That's where we go, aw. I wrote in Bernie Sanders because I want to show my daughter what integrity is and we're gladly do it again. See, now, I don't agree with that vote, and I set it on air. I think that you don't know if you live in a, if you're sure that you're really in a blue state, as it turned out Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin weren't, and that you should have voted

against Donald Trump with a candidate who had a chance of winning, which in this case was Hillary Clinton. But I don't hate you for your ideas. I say, okay, that guy thought that that was the thing to do with integrity, and it was really personal to him about his daughter. And it's A, okay to disagree about that, and B, still really like each other and respect each other. We could do that among progressives, but all they ever do is attack us from the establishment side.

And one other thing I wanted to mention, look, there were important lessons that I personally, you know, want to implement in this election. So I think tone matters. I think that the way that you lay your case out regarding the candidates and how you analyze them, who's better on these issues, whatever, like, there's a way to do it where you're not angry and antagonizing the individual that you might disagree with, right? I think I did a little too much of that in 2016, and I want to be able to give you guys the facts in a calm way.

I want to give you my analysis in a calm way. Not me. Hold on, but here's, I know, I get it, whatever. This is the lesson that I've learned. This is the way that I want to do it. I just want to be as calm, cool, collected as possible. Because look, at the end of the day, my feelings and my passion and my rage, whatever it is, is irrelevant.

What matters the most is that you guys have all the information so you can make the best choice for yourselves, right? You'll know what my preferences are, but again, my preferences are simply my preferences. You make the decision for yourself. And so, when the David Brocks of the world come at me, though, I am not going to be cool, calm, and collected. Oh, okay, there you go. So, like, that's the distinction, right?

I see what you're saying. So if you want to play David Brock, let's play. I like to play, right? But when I'm doing the analysis on the candidates, I am not going to, I'm not going out of my way to, like, antagonize people. I just want to do fair analysis and give people the information. Yeah, so, all right, enough said. Look, one last fun thing now turning, it's my birthday tomorrow.

Yay! Okay, thank you. I wouldn't go that far. But, and are we using as an opportunity to build homo progressives, yes. So what we're doing is t.t.com slash birthday. So if you want to give me a birthday present, go get someone the gift of TYT membership, okay? Or get it, you know, or sign up yourself.

So, a little goofy, okay, but we are home of progressives. And usually what happens is on my birthday, a lot of people tweet in and say wonderful things and thank you guys, I'm gonna thank you ahead of time, maybe they won't this year, okay? So, but we wanted to give you an option for t.wit.com slash birthday if you want to help to show and spread the progressive message, okay? Thank you guys for anyone who chooses to participate. All right, Anna, what's next? the announcement that Beto O'Rourke will be running for president in 2020, there was a lot

of news about how much money he raised in the first 24 hours. And he did raise a lot. In fact, he raised more than Bernie Sanders had raised. But we now have some more information, which actually makes this story a little more interesting for me personally. So the fact that he had raised about $200,000 more than Bernie had in the first 24 hours didn't really find that interesting. But when you do a breakdown to see how much the average.

donation was and how many donors there were. Now we're having a conversation. So you look at Better O'Rourke, and in the first 24 hours, he told reporters that he had 128,000 unique donors. Now, he didn't elaborate on what he meant by unique donors, with an average contribution size of about $48. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, had 225,000 individual donors with an average contribution size of $27. So while Better O'Rourke did certainly raise a little more money, it does appear that Bernie Sanders had more donors who gave a little less. So I wanna give credit to Beto O'Rourke here, but there is something a little weird about

this story. So first, I think it's a big deal that he raised more money than Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is a ton of online supporters from last time he ran. There's a giant advantage for Bernie Sanders. So Kamala Harris had a great day on the first day, and she raised over a million bucks. And then Sanders came in and blew her out of the water with getting to nearly six million. So when Beto matched and did better than Bernie Sanders, that is impressive. And on last Friday's show, Tommy Vitor was on, from Ponce of America.

And we all said, including Tommy, like, it was weird that Beto was not releasing how much he had raised in the first 24 hours. And so we had assumed that he had not raised that much. apparently that was wrong. So he raised a lot and in fact more than Bernie, which is this, no, I'll go as far as saying that's pretty astonishing. And so credit there. Now if you, but he did it with 100,000 less donors, individual donors. So that means he came in with a ton of maxed out donors.

Now that's okay. And if people are super excited by him and they want to give $2,700 or for the primary and And in general, you can give 5,400, okay. But I would be curious to see that list because now remember the corporate democratic groups, and that's not a slur or anything, they're proud to be corporate Democrats. The new Democrat coalition, which Beto O'Rourke was in when he was in the House, and third way, which is the bankers that support the Democratic Party. They're clearly pro corporations, they say they're for big men, they say they love Beto.

And they wanna support him, they know how important it is to have a big number on the first day. So the number was not published for a while, then it comes out, and it's a little bit better than Bernie with a ton of big donors. Now, not big donors in terms of corporate packs, Beto doesn't take that, and he hasn't taken it from the beginning, and we have given him credit for that a thousand times over, okay? So my guess is you're gonna find out a lot of maxed out donors, and a lot of them work at giant corporation.

I guess, but we'll see if he ever published it. And he might have to publish the numbers, we'll look into it, et cetera. So it's a little bit of a mixed bag, but that doesn't take credit away from Beto for still, that's even if you just take the number of what he calls unique donors. I don't know why he's using terminology that's different than everybody else. I don't know if that means something or it means nothing. But anyway, 120,000 people, it's a lot of people. So that is formidable and it's a great job overall.

It's just those weird asterxes, that's all. So the thing that really stands out to me, and this conversation has already been had, but I want to bring it up again, is how ridiculous and how ridiculously expensive it is to run for president or run for office in the United States. So we're not even talking about how much they've raised so far, we're just simply having a conversation about how much they've raised in the first 24 hours following the announcement of running. So $6 million.

I mean, Bernie Sanders, 5.9 million, better or work, 6.1 million. That's how much they raised in the first 24 hours. Now, they're running for president, of course it's going to be expensive to run for president. But what I want to talk about a little bit is what it signals to everyday Americans who want to be politically active, who might even have the dream of running for president one day. That is daunting. You look at that and you think to yourself, yeah, I don't have a chance. I mean, you look at AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and in one of the Justice Democrats videos,

she said something about how, you know, I'm a bartender. Like, I didn't think that this is even, like, possible. This is following her nomination for Justice Democrats. And I can understand why she would feel that way and why so many Americans could feel that way. And so it's so important to have politicians who understand what real Americans are going through every single day. When you come from money, and I know Bernie Sanders doesn't, I don't know better O'Rourke's family history, but regardless, but if you've grown up in poverty and you see numbers like this, I feel like it really discourages you from aspiring to be a candidate one

day. Yeah, the O'Rourke's are relatively well off, but I don't think they were the Koch brothers or the Mercer's or anything like that, I know they weren't. But, you know, he, I don't think it's relevant to this conversation, his bottom line on O'Rourke's background in terms of money. But I do, what is relevant is who's giving money to him now. So look, to first to Anna's point, that's why Richard Orgetta already dropped out of the race. So he came in, he was from West Virginia, he had closed the biggest gap in all of America,

but it wasn't enough because he was in a 49-point pro-Trump district, right? And so he thought, hey, maybe I could run for president. Come to find out, no, you need a lot of money for the infrastructure to run for president. You need to go to Iowa, New Hampshire, you gotta get those plane tickets, you need staffers, et cetera. And as an average American, it was, he thought, literally impossible. The only reason that Bernie Sanders can do it is because he's been fighting for these positions for 40 years and he earned that trust and credibility, which he then turned in at 2016,

and people believed in him and gave him that money. And now he's in a position with infrastructure already built to be able to raise that kind of money. But who else has 40 years to sit around to build that credibility? ability to be able to run as an average American. And so there is something really wrong with our system in that sense. Now that's, but we can do it at the congressional level, and that's why we did do it at the congressional level with Justice Democrats.

By the way, they're doing it again, just Democrats.com slash donate, okay? And I love what one of our followers said because, so David Brock contacted us today on real clear politics, op-ed, he wrote. And the guy wrote in, I'm sorry I forgot the name, he's like every time they attack, and of course he attacked progressives. He said every time they attack progressives online, I'm going to donate to Bernie Sanders campaign. Okay.

And so they've awakened a sleeping giant and that's the American people. Before no candidate that wasn't backed by corporate money had any chance. Now at least one does and maybe several. And so, and the more they attack him, the more he's gonna raise money. So go for it and see how you like it. By the way, the guy then tweeted, you know what? I became a TYT member too. And I was like, I love it.

So tyt.com slash join. We're not playing, we are homo progressives. But one last thing. On this issue, look, I don't know it yet, I am doing political analysis here. I have covered politics for over two decades. My guess is after Thirdway said they love Benno O'Rourke and want to support him, they were very motivated to raise a lot of money on his first day so he could come out ahead of Bernie Sanders. So someone should look into, and it's funny because David Brock accuses of doing APA research,

I wish we had a team that could do APA research, right? Not APA research for on behalf of any candidate, but actually find out facts, right? We have a small team which was also funded by the audience. or our investigative reporters at TYT Investigates. Anyway, but somebody should look into where the big donors came from and whether any of them are connected to the third way, because it would be very surprising if they weren't. Yeah. Okay, but nonetheless, 128,000, that's a lot of people, so give Beto O'Rourke credit.

Moving on to other news. Bernie Sanders has decided to hire a pretty large group of women in leadership roles within his campaign. So the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign has announced 15 new hires in key positions, 10 of whom are women. And this is incredibly important. He wants the campaign to be as representative of the individuals that he wants to represent. And so having more women involved is of course incredibly important.

Overall, the national leadership team is around 70%, 70% women. So I'm gonna give you some of those roles in just a minute. But one of the women who has been hired for a leadership role, it's his campaign political director, says, I think it's important to ensure that a campaign is reflective of the individuals they're trying to reach and a campaign is better served when it has a more representative staff. As a grassroots organizer, when I've worked in diverse teams, it just creates more dynamic and positive outcomes.

And I also want to note that he made a point, or at least the campaign, I keep saying he, The campaign made a point to hire women of color as well. And so this is great news, I'm really happy that he's doing that. So look, it's great that there's diversity and obviously we value that as progressives in and of its own right, not because you're checking off a box, but because they actually have lived those lives and have that perspective that could help a campaign, understand the perspective of all Americans, as evidenced by the quote that Anna read you. But I also deeply like how progressive this team is.

And these are all heavy hitters from the progressive community and they're not D.C. political operatives. And I know that because I've seen a lot of their work and appreciated their work for a long time. So I mean, look, I don't know them all, but I could just speak to the ones that I know a little bit like Sarah Badawi, deputy political director, previously legislative affairs director for a progressive change campaign committee, wonderful progressive. So I mean, he's not picking people just on, because this is the right wing way of thinking.

Oh, he's just picking people based on their gender or their, no, he's picking wonderful progressives that are luckily also giving him all these different perspectives, right? Ariana Jones is great, Brianna Joy Gray is the national press secretary, she was just at the the intercept. She's fantastic. She knows politics inside and out is a great progressive. So thrilled with that. And then Fast Shakira is his campaign manager, Ari Rabin Hutt, is chief of staff, Josh Orton. These are guys who have been in progressive circles forever. David Sorota is a communications advisor, a speechwriter, senior advisor, is Tim Tagaris. These are all die-hard progressives.

So one, I like that they're in that side because I'm a progressive and I like that. And number two, like Bernie Sanders, all those folks have earned credibility in progressive circles. Because they're not Johnny Come Lately's, they've been working at this for a long, long time. This is the fruition of that young progressive movement now being in a position to be able to win. So, and they've all got deep legislative histories, but insisted on being progressive in some places that were more establishing places, some places that were wonderfully progressive,

it's a great team that he's put together. Look, and now some of them, of course, immediately attacked. The establishment says, don't attack anyone, and then they immediately attack. So look, I'll mention briefly, David Sorota, and I'll be upfront with you guys, He was a TYT contributor, I like David a lot, okay? So they came after him, they said, oh, you were supposedly a journalist, and now you're working for Bernie Sanders. So what?

I mean, there's a thousand people who worked in media, then worked in politics, and then worked in media. In fact, the establishment of media is littered with that. And no one ever raises an eyebrow over it. But if a progressive ever does, oh, okay, well, can you be objective about it? And so Brianna Joy Gray was just at the intercept, so what? And the intercept generally looks at things from, I don't want to speak with that, but does it from a progressive perspective.

Yeah, so does the nation. And then there are people who do it from a conservative perspective, and then there are people who hide their perspective. I mean, again. CNN just hired the spokeswoman for Jeff Sessions, and they initially hired her for an editorial role pertaining to the 2020 election. They later changed her role to contributor so she wouldn't have any editorial power because she shouldn't.

But like this is common in this world, unfortunately, to be honest with you. Yeah, no, no, I don't, it depends. It depends, are you open and honest about it? Are you, what, did you work in journalism before if you're going to a news organization like CNN? Well, she'd never worked in journalism. Whereas David Serroto, for example, used to be, I think he was chief of staff for, or speech, sorry.

Oh, I see what you're, for. For Bernie Sanders, he was, press secretary for Bernie Sanders when he was in the House of Representatives. Okay. So the idea that you can't New Jersey, like what they want to do, and here comes Edward Isaac Doveray again, he went from Politico to the Atlantic, huge, you know, attack against David Serota and he's like, I can't believe you were criticizing the other candidates and then you joined Bernie Sanders team. Have you ever read any of his pieces? Edward Isaac Doveray attacks Bernie Sanders and progressives nonstop.

He's the one that did that hit piece on Politico, I'm sorry, in Politico on our revolution. He's the one that wrote all those absurd things about like Bernie Sanders' management is, you know, problematic at our revolution. And then he later admits in the piece. He doesn't manage our revolution and legally can't, right? So that's who he is. And then for him to turn around and go, no, no, no, look, I attack all progressive candidates, but hey, I'm a journalist.

When you point out fundraising or better or or work or facts about other candidates, you're not a journalist. No, I'm tired of that nonsense. Look, and then they start nitpicking and Sarota deleted some tweets. In my opinion, he shouldn't have, but who cares? The question is, are you guys being open and honest about who you support? No, the establishment media says, oh, I don't support anybody. I write attack articles against progressives day in, day out, but hey, I'm neutral, I'm neutral.

People feed me oppo research and I write it, but I'm neutral. But how dare anyone who ever worked in the media work for Bernie Sanders? No, no way. So we're not gonna do unilateral disarmament. You wanna fire everyone who worked in politics and media? Do you wanna do that deal? I don't think you want to do that deal, do you? You only want a double standard against progressives.

We're not gonna have it. This is a fantastic team. Let's take a break. When we come back, we do have other news, including, hmm, what are we gonna talk about when we come back? Oh, well, Joe, speaking of progressives or non-progressives. Joe Manchin does not sign on for protection of the LGBTQ community. And then we're told, hey, why don't you support all Democrats?

Why don't you support us as the question? We'll talk about that when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Heuger, and I'll see you soon.