The Young Turks - Texas Grinch

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

Long Island Rep.-elect George Santos came clean and admitted that he lied on the campaign trail about his education and work experience. Human rights defenders condemned Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and “extremist Republicans’ cruel values” after several busloads of migrants were dropped off outside U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ home on Christmas Eve. A water war is brewing over the dwindling Colorado River. Billionaires lost nearly $2 trillion this year. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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! Welcome to the Young Church, Jane Cougar, Anna Kusparian with you guys, post-Christmas special. Is there anything special about it? Not really, but we're here, and that's special enough.

And we're going to have a great show for you guys. I'm still sick. That's why we're at home. But we soldier on, we soldier on, okay? Great stories today. So buckle up. Price for Impact, Cass. Well, we're going to go ahead and start with an update to a story we covered recently involving a newly elected congressman in New York.

So let's do it. George Santos acknowledged to a New York radio host that he told us string of lies about his education and employment history. And I'm not going to make excuses for this. But he's about to make a lot of excuses for it. A lot of people overstayed in their resumes or twist a little bit or ingratiate themselves. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of that. In another interview with the New York Post, Santos admitted he did not have degrees from

Baruch College and NYU, as he had claimed. I didn't graduate from any institution of higher learning. I'm embarrassed and sorry. We do stupid things in life. And George Santos has certainly done some pretty giant stupid things in his life, especially leading up to his election. He is a Republican representative elect out of New York. And he has finally confessed to not just embellishing.

He lied big time on his resume, on his, you know, credentials to run for Congress. And that has led to calls from Democrats for him to step down. And of course, Republicans have been pretty silent for the most part. But before I get to their statements, I think it's important to talk about what he has admitted to lying to. So for instance, he never worked at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, something that he claimed when he was campaigning. And most of his lies were in fact uncovered by the New York Times after the midterm elections, not during the midterm elections, which is, you know, I guess better late than never, but better during the midterms than late. So voters can make a good decision about who they

want to elect into office. Now, he also lied about his alleged Jewish heritage. Let's watch. Santos also addressed scrutiny around his claims of Jewish heritage on his campaign website in a section now removed. He recalled his grandparents fleeing Jewish persecution. during World War II. I am Catholic, he told the post, because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background. I said I was Jew-ish. Jenk, I mean, give the guy a break. He didn't say he was Jewish.

He said he was Jew-ish. Oh, okay, all right. One final thing I'll mention is that he lied about owning 13 properties. Apparently he owns, hold on. Zero and he lives with his sister. Over to you, Jake. Which I say, of course, okay. So look, the Jewish joke is a joke that some folks make and I've been making for a long time. Like Malcolm Fleshner, who used to work here, used to make that joke because he's barely religious, right? But Santos is not barely religious, he's barely Jewish. In fact, he's not Jewish at all.

Okay, of course he made it up. But look, guys, I think that the the lies, that he told are telling about our politics. So apparently he thought lying about being Jewish would help him. Maybe lying, maybe lying about being gay might help him. So he was married until recently. It's an interesting quote about how he changed to become gay, which made me think that he's not at all gay. And he lied about being rich because he thought that would help in a Republican primary. Is that interesting? He lied about having 13. He didn't wasn't trying to relate to the common man.

He's like, no, I'm rich. I have 13 properties. I could do whatever I want, right? And all these things. So and it was almost designed for both right wing and mainstream media for how to have them go, oh yeah, yeah. This is a guy we like and not question him. And let's remember it totally worked. It did work.

You know, going back to his claims of being Jewish and how he thought that would be advantageous in the election, I don't know if it's necessarily because he thinks identifying as Jewish is helpful or if he wants to provide some sort of story of persecution in his family's background and how they were able to survive it. You know, people tend to like inspirational stories of perseverance and fighting, fighting whatever odds they're dealt. I don't know exactly what was in his mind, but he lied about everything. Okay, so you also referenced the whole, you know, I don't know what his sexual orientation really is. So I want to be clear that we're speculating, but since he's lied about so many major things, I don't think it's far-fetched to question whether his sexual identity is real. And this is what the New York Post wrote about him because he did grant an interview to the New York Post. They write, Santos, the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican elected to the House, also faced accusations that he lied about his sexual orientation with the Daily Beast reporting that he was previously married to a woman until shortly before he launched his unsuccessful 2020 campaign against Democrat Tom Swazi.

Now, it turns out that that is in fact true. He was married. He claims that he was married from 2020. to 2017, he divorced the woman he was married to in 2017. And this is what he said in regard to his sexual orientation. Pay close attention to his wording here because I think there might be some clues here. I am very much gay. I'm okay with my sexuality. And then he says, people change. I'm one of those people who change. Are you saying that you changed your orientation or are you saying you changed your

your comfort level with who you really are. I don't know for sure, but if he's trying to say like, no, I was into women and then one day I just decided, no, I'm kind of into dudes. It doesn't work that way. So I just thought that was a telling statement. A hundred percent. I've never known someone in the LGBTQ community who said that they changed. I've heard people say they've come out, they've come to terms with who they are, they've always felt

but I've never heard anyone being like, oh, growing up, I was loved women and I was into girls and I was really attracted to them. And then one day at the age of 37, I woke up and decided I changed and I like men. I've literally never heard that story out of the dozens of people that I know, if not hundreds and all the stories. So this is of course absurd. But again, interesting that he thought, and I agree with you that on the Jewish part, he's probably just trying to appeal to a heroic family story, that kind of thing. And we don't know the demographics of his district. If it's significant Jewish population, he might have been lying just on that alone, right?

But when it comes to being gay, I've said from day one, I think he was doing it so that he appears to be a moderate Republican because he lost the first time around being a hardcore Trumper. So he's the pathological liar is adjusting to more accurately get his mark. And he did, he got his mark, which was the media, which gave him a free ride so that he could win this seat. I mean, they did give him a free ride. I mean, the idea that it's, it makes more sense to actually investigate a political candidate after they've won the election is insane. The New York Times should have been on this from the jump. But nonetheless, they did release a report that made it abundantly clear that he's a liar. And people do deserve to know that.

Now, I want to mention that while there are calls for him to resign, he seems pretty defiant. And he wants to make clear that even though he's a weirdo, pathological liar, he allegedly has not broken any crimes. Let's watch. I'm not a criminal, not here, not abroad in any jurisdiction in the world, have I ever committed any crimes. To get down to the nid and gritty, I'm not a fraud. I'm not a criminal. who defrauded the entire country and made up this fictitional character and ran for Congress. I've been around a long time. I mean, a lot of people know me. They know who I am. They've done business dealings with me.

Now, in the beginning of that statement, what he was referencing was some of the criminal charges that he faced when he was in Brazil. He was accused of committing fraud there, which, again, not so far-fetched when you consider the lies and fraud, he's willing to engage in here in the United States when it comes to his own resume and his campaigning. And while the GOP on a national level has been pretty silent or, you know, they want power. They're not going to want him to resign. If he resigns, there's a possibility a Democrat could take that seat if there's some sort of special election. And so they've been pretty quiet. On a local level, though, Jank, they've mostly been quiet too, to be quite honest with you,

Except there is a statement from the Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman who says, while I have indicated that the congressman elect deserves a reasonable amount of time to respond to the media, voters deserve a sincere accounting from Mr. Santos. I will be listening attentively and I want to hear meaningful remarks from George Santos. I mean, that's really the only response that I've seen from any Republican. On a national level, there's one GOP leadership aide who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity. And this person says, as far as questions about George in general, that was always something that was brought up whenever we talked about his race. It was a running joke at a certain point, meaning the lies that he would tell.

This is the second time he's run and these issues we assumed would be worked out by the voters. Voters don't have perfect information clearly. And with the New York Times failing to do an investigative report on this guy as he was running is a good example of how the press really failed voters in this case. Yeah, the voters aren't going to sort out anything if they don't know about it. It's absurd. We just constantly ignore the elephant in the room, which is the role of media in how people, how voters find out who to vote for. Where do they get their information? And in this case, again, the guy got a free right. Okay, look, last things here, whenever you say, I'm not a criminal, you're in a lot of trouble politically. I'm not a cook. Exactly. So Richard Nixon line. And then he caught himself. He said, I'm not a criminal here.

And then he realized that sounded bad. So he's like, or in Brazil or anywhere else. Okay, sure, sure. He got the money from somewhere and it doesn't appear that it was from his 13 properties or his work in Goldman Sachs, none of which were true. We don't know where you got about it from, but two things that also are telling of our politics. I mean, do Republican politicians tell lies that are better than these? Generally, all of them? How about the election was stolen in 2020 from Donald Trump? Hundreds of Republican politicians say that. That lies way worse than any of these lies about whether this dude went to Baruch College or not, right? And then you turn to the lies at all politicians say that the media 1,000% lets them skate on, which is, no, the millions of dollars I took from in campaign contributions were not bribes.

I voted exactly as my donors told me, but it was just a coincidence. That lies a thousand times worse and never, ever called out by the media. No, I mean, the media is owned by the same corporations that fund these politicians. So of course, it's not going to be called out by the media. We should we should stop expecting them to. They're never going to. They love the corruption. They're part of the corruption.

So. Yeah, Anna, my last point on that is that that's why this guy is just a difference of degree, not really in kind from the rest of the politicians. They're all liars. It's just the matter of what they're lying about. Right. Well, I mean, if he remains in office and it seems like he's defined and will remain in office, just wait because he will tell worse lies.

I promise you that. I promise you. All right, well, why don't we switch gears a little bit and talk about the ongoing immigration debate? There's some big updates there. Let's do it. Texas, including children, were dropped outside the vice president's residence in sub-freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve. The White House called the move by Governor Greg Abbott a cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt. A spokesperson for the governor called the administration hypocrites whose immigration policies have overwhelmed Texas border towns.

That's right. As Americans were traveling for Christmas or spending time with family for Christmas. Allegedly, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent three buses full of migrants to the home of Kamala Harris with absolutely no notification. So these individuals could at least be greeted or get some help once they get to the destination they were sent to. Now, an initial two busloads were taking to local shelters, according to a Biden administration official. More buses arrived outside the vice president's residence. Later Saturday evening, so this is during Christmas Eve, a CNN team saw migrants being dropped off with some migrants wearing only t-shirts in the freezing weather. So the Biden administration has decided to go after Texas Governor Greg Abbott

by claiming that he has essentially just left kids out in the cold, you know, left them to fend for themselves. Luckily, there were some humanitarian groups who showed up. to assist them and help them out. Now, there's another massive update here because the huge flow of asylum seekers at the southern border is really the result of us avoiding dealing with asylum seekers during the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration had implemented something, a public health order known as sub as section 42. And really what it did was allow for us to just expel asylum seekers at the border immediately without hearing any of their claims. Well, those people still exist, they're going to still try to come into the country,

either through illegal means or they're going to wait until the Title 42 order is lifted. Once it became clear that it was going to expire, that's when you have this massive flow of migrants coming to the border looking for help, looking to seek asylum. And it's been such a mess, mostly because of the inaction and lack of preparedness that we've seen from both Congress and the the Biden administration that now the Supreme Court has weighed in and they have decided to re-implement Title 42 because there are 19 states, mostly Republican states, that have demanded for this to happen. And let's also keep in mind that these are also the same politicians who said that the coronavirus pandemic was over like two weeks after it was declared a pandemic.

So on one hand, they want to completely dismiss the pandemic. It's not a big deal. On the other hand, they're relying on a public health order related to the pandemic to avoid allowing asylum seekers to have their claims heard by asylum judges. But you know, now some pro-immigrant groups, people looking out for immigrants, are saying the same thing that I've been saying from day one on this publicity stunt. Is it public since done? Of course. Should they give advance notice? Of course, especially in the winter. This was less of an issue when they were doing it in the summer. but you can't drop people off with t-shirts in 15 degree weather and go, ha ha, got you,

prank you, right? But outside of that, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be bussed to other cities and states. Why should the border communities have to deal with all of this on their own? So if we have a problem, I don't see a problem with sharing that throughout the country. So and if the blue states are really, you know, going to live up to what they say, they should welcome these immigrants with open arms. And sometimes they do, but boy, they do howl though, as they're, as, and they've done a great job of being humane and getting them services and we should be super clear about that. But they do feed into the right wing talking points a little bit by constantly how

how outrageous this is. No, I mean, you do have a good point there. Look, I agree in that it shouldn't just be up to border towns or border states to deal with the influx of migrant seeking asylum. And so look, it is a political stunt. And the way that Abbott and other Republican governors have carried this out makes it abundantly clear that they're using human beings as political ponds to make a political point about their political opponents.

And I have a huge problem with that because the way they're carrying this out is insanely cruel and is hurting individuals who have already gone through a dangerous and oftentimes, incredibly violent trek to the border seeking safety, okay? At the same time, though, no, Jake, this touches on something that I've had a problem with the Democratic Party for a long time, right? They love the rhetoric. They do. They love to weaponize identity for their own political benefit, for their campaigning. In this case, the identity I'm talking about are asylum seekers or migrants. But when push comes to shove, do they actually do anything? Do Today, I mean, it's real easy to say, we are a sanctuary state when you're not concerned about

migrants flowing into your state, right? So you got to actually do what you say you're going to do. And I agree with you on the howling, right? But look, ultimately the biggest issue here is we need immigration reform. We've needed immigration reform for some time now. And the fact that Congress has failed over and over and over again in delivering that says something about how ineffective our politicians have become. And the fact that the Biden administration knew that Title 42 was eventually going to expire and is still caught flat footed on this issue. Says a lot about the administration as well, in my opinion. Yeah, well, last couple of things here on the politics of it. Unfortunately, in politics, everything is shrouded in lies, right?

And you've got to weed through all those fabrications to get to the reality. So, for example, The Republicans now say, oh, it's so much worse under Biden. But wait a minute, Biden's been doing Title 42 the entire time, which was a Trump policy. So you're saying Trump's policy sucks now and is causing the real problem. But that's literally what you're saying if you're a Republican, except they don't say it that way. They say it's Biden's fault, even though he's doing Trump's policy. Meanwhile, Democrats lie in the other direction and go, oh, Joe Biden's such a humanitarian at the border. He's so open-hearted. What do you mean? He's doing the same exact policy as Trump.

So both sides are like 100 out of 100 on, if not outright lying, certainly misleading you on purpose. And meanwhile, the media, of course, never clarifies anything. Look, Ronald Reagan did blanket amnesty, not like kind of amnesty, not the fake amnesty that the Republicans talk about now. Real, no, you're all here illegally. I don't care that you don't have documents. You're all now going to be citizens, okay? He did it for 13 million immigrants. Now the Republican part, he couldn't get elected in the Democratic Party, let alone the Republican Party. They're not doing immigration reform and they're never going to do immigration reform because there's no accountability and we don't really have a democracy. So both sides lie. The media helps them lie and no one

ever sells the problem. You know, one other thing I wanted to mention about the Supreme Court's ruling. So they have decided to keep Title 42, place until they hear arguments to keep it in place indefinitely in February. So we know that at least till February, Title 42 will still be in place. One of the justices who dissented with the majority opinion was actually Justice Gorsuch. And he wrote his descending opinion, even though the liberal justices agreed with his overall decision, they did not join him in the dissent. They gave no reason for why they They ruled against re-implementing Title 42.

But Gorsuch said that the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis. And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort. Now look, there are many issues that I disagree with Gorsuch on. But on this issue, at least what he wrote in his opinion here makes all the sense in world and the fact that the majority of Supreme Court justices did exactly that, provide cover for the lack of policy that we've seen from Congress, again, says a lot about how broken

our political system really is. Yeah, here's how much I agree with Gorsuch on that's particular statement, 100%. And so novice viewers of TYT might say, but wait, I don't get at, which side are you guys on? You usually tell me that Gorsuch is a bad guy. Because it's not about personalities. The rest of the media makes it about personalities and teams, etc. No, Gorsuch is wrong on, and we show you factually why he's wrong in the overwhelming majority of the cases. But when he's right, why would we disagree with him? Just because he's on the other team or the other side? No, he's definitely right about this

issue. Title 42 no longer has anything to do with COVID and pretending that it does is is yet another lie. All right, we're gonna take our first break. When we come back, we've got more news for for you, including the water wars, which have already begun here in the United States. That and more coming right up. issue with Anna's computer, but she'll be back out hopefully in a second. I'm just going to read a couple of comments real quick from YouTube members, and then we'll get to the next story. Pan Monhollen, Rodin, I love T.O.T. Pam, we love you right back. Such a Christmasy, wonderful thing to share with us. Deidre F says, I watch you guys every day. You are my sanity. Happy

holidays. Deidre, happy holidays right back at you, sister. So I'm a big holidays guy. But it's not been a good holidays for the billionaires of the world. So let's tell you. about that. All right, it's a very, very sad holiday season for the billionaires in the world. Prying emoji. They've apparently lost a lot of money this last year. And so, golly gee, what will they do with less billions? Let's find out. Forbes is a really concern. They wrote this. It's been a bad year to be a billionaire and not just for those who blew up their businesses or got themselves arrested, well, sure enough, that that is somewhat true, as you'll see in the facts here. The ones who got arrested, it's been a really bad year, but for the rest, I think they're going to be

okay. But let's give you the details. As a group of planets billionaires have lost $1.9 trillion dollars in 2022, according to Forbes estimates, with their collective wealth dropping 13.8 trillion on New Year's Day to 11.9 trillion on December 9th. God, you're telling me 2,500 people only have $11.9 trillion right now. But somebody get the food and water, shelter, whatever else they need, these poor, poor billionaires. I will talk about why in a second, for example, look, oh, the U.S. has suffered the most because guess why? We have the most billionaires. China, the second most because they're the second most billionaires. This is not surprising. Then Russia, of course, with the sanctions got hurt.

They're billionaires. They didn't get hurt. The billionaires got hurt. Of course, the real people got hurt way worse. We'll get to that a little bit later, too. Germany, because of the war situation, also having problems. But this is worldwide. Now, techsman hit the hardest. So poor Mark Zuckerberg is now some $78 billion poorer this year,

as shares of Facebook parent meta platforms have fallen by 66%. By the way, that is a bit of a tough break. I mean, losing two thirds of the value of Facebook. Ouch, it's got to hurt the big guy. But don't worry, in virtual reality, he's still just as rich. In fact, he's twice as rich. It's virtual, what difference does it make? All right, and by the way, I mean, even when he loses $78 billion in one year,

he still has so much money that he and 12 generations of Zuckerberg couldn't possibly spend it in all their lifetimes. All right, but now let's go to Bezos, poor, poor Jeff. Jeff, shares of Amazon have cratered by nearly 50% helping knock more than $80 billion off of founder Jeff Bezos, the net worth. Google parent's Apple Alphabet stock is down 36% lapping more than $40 billion apiece from the fortunes of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. But who is the biggest loser of all in 2022? Good question. Correct answer. You're not going to be surprised. Elon Musk. So the biggest loser of 2022 by far is Elon Musk, as Forbes explains, who has shed more than $115 billion of his wealth in 2022. He began the year the planet's richest person by a huge margin, some $70 billion ahead of French luxury goods, kingpin Bernard Arnaud. But the French kingpin is now on top. He's the richest man in the world. Elon is crying into the rest of his business.

billions, having lost the top spot, guys, this, all of these trillions of dollars in losses affects their personal lives, zero percent, okay? They still have so much money. There's no way in the world they could spend it. There is one very dramatic thing that it affects though, their ego. And so their ego has been deeply bruised. So there's going to be more wealth inequality to enforce upon the rest of us soon, I'm sure, usually by the government officials that they have purchased. I'm going to get into that in a second. But speaking of the rest of us, let's find out how we're doing. The coronavirus pandemic has also become an inequality pandemic. Never before have we seen such a simultaneous increase in the gulf between

the haves and the have-nots around the world. The virus has exposed, fed off, and increased existing inequalities of wealth, gender, and race. Hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty, while the richest, both individuals and corporations, are getting even richer thanks to soaring stock prices. I've been in the health care industry, nursing aid, in-home aid. I've been in fast food, McDonald's, Burger King, Waffle House. But none of those jobs have paid enough for her to have her own place to survive. Ishauni lives with her mother and her son who was born premature.

See now Ishaunay needs help. Folks around the world need help. The very last thing we need is sympathy for people who lost money that they really can't even keep track of and don't even use and is irrelevant to their actual material lives. Now, by the way, of course, remember that they got a lot of these gains during the pandemic, the very, very wealthy did. And tech stocks had shot up because everybody was staying indoors, but not just the tech sector. Lots of sectors went up and government handed out tuss and tons of money, not just to individuals, but more importantly, to giant corporations. So off of government largest and some of their own doing, obviously, they had grown to be spectacularly wealthy.

And there was no check on any of it by the U.S. government or by a lot of other governments, but particularly the U.S. government, because instead of saying, well, okay, you guys are doing fantastic, but others are deeply, deeply suffering. And we should focus on that suffering and try to help alleviate it through many different things, government programs like paid family leave, child tax credit, et cetera. We did none of those things. And we left the poor and the middle class defend for themselves. And instead of doing, increase taxes on the wealthy, since they're doing okay overall, especially in two years where they're piling in all this money before they lost a small percentage of it this year, or in some cases you saw there, a sizable percentage. What they could have done is increased taxes on those folks and at least gotten help to the people who actually desperately needed. But we cut taxes instead during the Trump era. We have not put back any of those taxes under Biden. He said he would. He's done absolutely nothing to do that. So bottom line is as much as they have lost in theoretical digits on a bank account in the real world, in their material lives, they have lost absolutely nothing as the rest of us continue to suffer. All right. So we got to take another quick break. We'll try to get Anna back on for you guys. If not, I'm here all day. You can't get rid of me. We'll be back. Okay, Merry Christmas, everybody.

My cough is back, but Anna isn't. So we got a little bit of a worst case scenario, but it's okay. we soldier on because we're TYT. All right, so let's go to the next story. For Biden, he's like Rodney Dangerfield. He doesn't

get any respect even when he's doing a really good job. Oh, poor Joe Biden. He doesn't get enough respect. If the media kisses ass more, then you would know how great he is. Well, they're going to have a lot more of that kind of discussion.

So let's go to the next clip. You don't hear that one-by-one comparison between Trump's achievements and Bidens and the Trump economy and Biden economy. You hardly ever hear that done. All you hear is that, you know, a dozen eggs cost $4, and that's on Biden. Che can't you get Democrats to get with a better program, explain themselves, take a bow? Well, I think it was LBJ said that I think the difference between liberals and cannibals is cannibals don't eat their own family, you know, and I think there's a constant sense among Democrats that we are. We're really awful, I think, to each other. We don't talk about Biden's accomplishments enough. We don't tell them. You hear a lot of complaining on the Democratic side constantly. all right well this one's got a roller coaster ride right so number one should Biden do a better job of touting how strong the economy is yes I've talked about that on the show all the time the reason part of the reason we have inflation is because the economy is so strong and unemployment numbers are low okay so if they just made that point well God bless right but the idea that Joe Biden is some sort of hero and has accomplished so much And he just won't get credit for it.

It's like such a mainstream media thing that no one else believes. I've got polling to show that in a second. But man, people who watch mainstream media and read mainstream media, they believe it 100%. You ask any mainstream Democrat now, not just in Washington, go ask your friends that live across the country. If they are establishment Democrats, they'll tell you, Upto Biden's not getting enough credit. He's just been a world beater, world beater. Look, I can't stand the gaslighting. So number one, he didn't even get voting rights passed.

Before he got an office, they said voting rights is a layup, lay up, lay up, lay up, lay up. They have promised to the African American community, the whole community. My God, it would have ended gerrymandering, okay? It would have ended, it had anti-corruption parts that were so good. I was positive they weren't going to pass them. But they had things to preserve voting in a way that could, not only help democracy, but honestly help the Democratic Party as well, because they do better in a more true democracy where more people vote, not less people vote. Real voters, legal voters, right?

And they didn't even do that. They didn't even do the bare minimum for self-preservation. They didn't do the bare minimum that they promised African-American voters their core constituency. They said, oh, $15 minute wage, Jake, I don't know why you're sweating it. It's so easy. That's definitely going to get done. Then they voted it down themselves. They had eight, Democratic senators join the Republicans in voting it down. They purposely destroyed the thing that they said was the bare minimum and would be super easy. But the media didn't notice. Instead, the media has segments like that. I mean, MSNBC is such a hilarious joke. Do they give you the context in that story about all of his failures, paid family leave, child tax credit?

The list goes on and on, build back better. You guys know, I mean, even if you live, watched mainstream media, you noticed that Build Back Better was killed by Mansion and Cinema, right? That it was gutted. They took out 85% of it. And then they passed a tiny amount in the Inflation Reduction Act. We all sew with their own eyes. And then immediately afterwards, the media came and said, that's it. He got it all done. Joe Biden is the greatest. He got all of this done. His entire agenda. What an amazing hero. Wait a minute. You just A second ago you said that he didn't get it done. And now you turn around and you're gaslighting us. Like he got everything accomplished and passed. It's just, it's just bizarre. And it's just

propaganda. But it isn't working. So let me go to the most recent polling from the Hill. And the most recent you gov poll, 54% of voters don't want Biden to run again with just 26% in favor. Every demographic is against the Biden re-election attempt, except black voters who back a Biden re-election at 46% in favor to 32% against. But that's also a miserable number because black voters generally back Democratic presidents at around 90%. And this is half that number. So the American people are saying, no, we don't want Joe Biden. And the press is telling you, no, Joe Biden's an American hero. you guys really do want him. It's just not true. I think we can bring Anna back in here.

And I want to ask her about this because there's also a twist here, Anna. I mean, liberals, progressives, people on the left do actually tear each other apart oftentimes. But this is like the worst example of it because that's not what they're doing here at all. In fact, most of the establishment is getting together to buck up Joe Biden instead of tearing him down, which might make sense, because corporate media does stick together with corporate Democrats. Yeah, I mean, when when I comment on the left tearing each other down, I'm talking about the ridiculous circle, you know, the circular firing squad that you see on social media where various public figures within the left want to one up each other

and seem like they're the purest because they're all competing for the same viewership and all of that if they're an independent media. That's mostly what I'm commenting on. But in regard to people in positions of power, politicians who have power and who have the ability to actually deliver on what they campaign on. Well, when they fail to deliver, they absolutely deserve the critique, they deserve the criticism. I mean, remember when Biden was running for president in 2020, there were two things that he really ran on. Number one, I'm not Trump. So it's great because I'm not Trump and I'm the only one who can beat Trump. Remember, that was the line that we heard over and over again by the press. Okay, so delivered on that. But let's also not forget the second

half of what he had to say, which is I basically, I'm a career politician. I've worked with these guys my entire life. I know how to persuade them. I know how to get them on my side. I know how to pass these policies. He couldn't even get members of his own party to play ball. So please spare me the garbage talking points about how we need to all bow our heads to a weak and ineffective president when it comes to certain policy proposals. It's just, look, I'm not interested in providing cover for anyone. I want to be clear about that, right? I'm not interested in providing cover for leftists, for moderate Democrats, for anyone

who says they're going to do something and then they do the opposite. Okay, I'm not a tool or a mouthpiece for any political group. We've been very clear about what our objectives are policy-wise. And if politicians claim that they're going to fight for those policies and then they fail to do so, they deserve the criticism that we give them. And no one on MSNBC, and especially no freaking Democratic strategist is going to convince me that I need to play ball because Biden's a Democrat. I don't give a damn. Yeah, I mean, Adam brings up a really great point there. Look at their assumptions about media, right? It's not just Democratic Party, but the media has to do a better job

of propping up Joe Biden. That's not how media is supposed to work, okay? And guys, What you don't see and why Anna is saying what she's saying is, whether it's on Twitter, social media or behind the scenes, we get yelled at all the time. By everyone. Yeah, and they're like, how dare you not support Joe Biden? I'm like, look at your assumptions, man. Isn't that amazing that you expect media to be propaganda? No, we tell you the truth.

And by the way, we support Biden on some things the mainstream media doesn't support him on, like Afghanistan withdrawal. Why? Because facts matter and we're in the news business. He actually got us out of Afghanistan and everyone else promised and never delivered. He delivered on that. It was a messy exit, but he actually did something that he promised. Mainstream media wants perpetual war, so they actually criticize them on that. Like, what are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense, right? But when he doesn't deliver, which unfortunately is a great majority of the time,

they then run cover for him and they send Democratic strategists on MSNBC to tell you to bow your head and get back line. And finally, the part that were this will be most relevant is if Biden decides to run again, MSNBC is going to do segments like that 24-7 and bludgeon any progressive that would dare run against Joe Biden in a primary. They're going to say he was God's gift to politics. He got everything accomplished. They're going to lie a thousand times about what he didn't accomplish. And they're going to try to pretend that he's super popular until the Democratic voters make the mistake of putting him back up as a candidate. And then they're going to run into those polls and see that the American people weren't kidding. And he's going to get annihilated in

2024. And then they're going to say no one could have seen it come. Dude's in his 80s. I mean, come on. Like we're really having this conversation. We're really having this conversation. He ran on claiming that he wasn't going to run for a second term. Step down. It's over. It's over. Let someone else run. I just, I mean, but it doesn't matter what the voters want, right, Jank? It doesn't matter. The majority of voters, according to that poll, want a different Democratic candidate. It's insane. Anyway, let's move on. There's other news to get to, including the water wars that are taking place within the United States. And I think it's worth discussing. All right.

The climate-fueled water wars have already begun. They're here in the United States. And while the Pentagon has cited climate change as a national security threat, because countries will be going to war over. the limited resources that we have, well, maybe they didn't consider that maybe some of these states might go to war over precious resources, including water. So in 1922, seven states in the west, in the river basin specifically signed something known as a compact that splits the Colorado River equally between its upper and lower halves. Later, they promised additional water to Mexico too, but near the middle, they put Lake Powell, which is a reserve for the

northern states and Lake Mead, a storage node for the south. Now, I mention all that because all this water, including its reserves, are supposed to be shared. That's the agreement, right? But it turns out that some of these states are actually hoarding most of the water or using most of the water, particularly states like California and Arizona. And so the upper states are actually pretty furious about this. And with the ongoing drought and the limited amount of reserves available, the real question is, what are we going to do moving forward? Because a lot of these states are furious about the limited supply and how, again, California and Arizona are taking up most of it. So, Jank, before I give you the details on how much the drought has impacted our water supply on the West, what are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, I'm worried about, look, I don't want to be hyperbolic, but about a civil war. And so I don't think that it'll be violent in the beginning. But the states are going to start to rumble. They're going to fight amongst each other significantly. So that's here in America, in the world, we used to have the oil wars. And I'm sure that that's how history will eventually describe what happened in Iraq's couple times and et cetera. But I'm worried that soon we'll have the water wars because the water is running out.

And that's going to cause significant conflict within the United States first. And there's less water to share. So let's get to how much the drought has really impacted these Western states. So the average amount of water flowing in the system has dropped by nearly 20%. And again, that's because of the drought. So when the original compact gave each half the rights to 7.5 million acre feet of water, the river was estimated to have flowed with as much as 18 million acre feet each year. But over the 20th century, it averaged closer to 15. Over the past two decades, the flow has dropped to a little more than 12.

In recent years, it has trickled at times with as little as 8.5. So if you look at, let's say, Lake Mead, for instance, you'll notice the diminishing supply of water there. In fact, we're starting to see, well, we reported on this earlier, there was a body that was discovered in a barrel that, you know, someone had been murdered, stuffed in a barrel, and then thrown into the lake. And the only reason why we were able to discover it is because there's so little water left in the lake that it's possible to discover it. Now in 2021, the rain and snow fell heavily across the rocky mountains and the plateau of the Grand Mesa and almost as if it were normal times. But here's where the issue is. Since the drought's been going on for such a long time,

soils parched by the lack of rain and rising temperatures soaked up every ounce of moisture. By the time water reached the rivers around Montrose and then the gauges above Lake Powell, the flow was less than 30% of normal. So even when we have heavy rains, the land is so parched that it soaks up all that water and very limited supply is flowing to these reserves, which again need to be shared by several states, but ends up getting used up by two states, California and Arizona. By this spring, Lake Powell shrank to 24% of its capacity, its lowest level since the reservoir filled in the 1960s. So you're very right, Jank, to be worried about a civil war because which state you live in really determines

how much water you're using. And both Arizona and California say that they're following the compact, exactly how they should follow it and they're able to use up more water because they've found loopholes and it's actually really smart to do so. But let's not forget that there are people who also need water in states like Colorado and they're furious that they're not going to get, they haven't been getting the same access to some of these other states. And the lower basin states still used up more more of that water. So the upper basin states, for instance, used about 3.5 million acre feet last year, less than half their legal right under the 1922 compact. The lower basin states took nearly their full amount, which is 7 million acre feet.

Yeah. So look, California and Arizona have been hoarding the water and the other states are getting pissed. Arizona might have actually started storing an underground. And it's kind of amazing that we don't know for sure. And I get why they're doing it. And by the way, companies are involved, giant agricultural companies. And they're, of course, going to take the maximum a lot, but no matter what. And that has left some Native American tribes with literally 10% of the water they used to get. Now, why are they only getting 10% while other people are taking in as much as humanly possible? Because they don't have political clout. And so, and because of the old contracts that were written literally 100 years ago, exactly 100 years ago.

And so it's allowing some of the states to get an unfair percentage. And of course, they're taking advantage of that. And the folks who are not politically connected are getting hammered. But there's only so much amount of anger and frustration and injustice that can build in different states before they go, no, we're not going to take this anymore. And I'm sure you, of course, don't know this. But a project that I did on a summer internship was writing about the dam in Turkey over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and those rivers flow into Iraq and Syria.

And when Turkey built the dams on those rivers, Iraq and Syria were furious because that meant that the people at the top of the river, in this case Turkey, controlled all the water They promised, of course, they would share equitably. Did they? Well, I haven't followed up on that report was written now almost 30 years ago. But my point here is whoever's at the top of the river eventually goes, you know what? I'm building whatever goddamn damn I like and I'm keeping however much I like and what are you going to do about it? And I'm really worried when we get to a point where the states say to one another, what are you going to do about it? about it.

One final thing that I'll mention is that there are other countries that have dealt with extended droughts and they found solutions that honestly I wish we were more serious about because climate change is here. The drought is here. Also in the West, we're talking about regions of the country that are deserts. People weren't really supposed to live there, right? So the way that L.A., for instance, gets its water is pretty miraculous. The infrastructure that needed to be built in order to provide water to people living in Los Angeles is pretty miraculous. But if you look at other countries like Israel, which has dealt with drought conditions, they have found other solutions. So for instance, Israel went back to the drawing board on its irrigated crops.

It made drip irrigation standard, built desalination plants, which I wish we were a little more serious about, Orange County recently nixed a project that would allow for a desalination plant to be built. And then what else did they do? They reuse the water again and again in essentially recycling the water. Today, 86% of the country's municipal wastewater is recycled and Israel and its farmers have an adequate supply. So desalination is a possibility. Recycling the water is another possibility. But keep in mind that this is incredibly expensive, it would require quite a bit in appropriations. And I don't know if the political will is there, but it's getting pretty desperate. There's no question about that.

Yeah, I think this is where climate change rubber hits the road. Because once you start to run out of water, humans are going to get super ugly. It's going to go from, oh, theoretically, the effects on the environment is going to hit us in 50 years or 100 years to, No, no, it's here and I need the goddamn water and we're going to have issues. By the way, the part that's left out of that great story about Israel is that they also are partly keeping the occupied territories because of water reasons. And that part's usually not written about it. But the other parts that Israel is doing is great and we should look into copying them as soon as we can. And there's no technological reason that we couldn't do it.

It's just politics that gets in the way. And part of the problem is that the entire right wing in this country is pretending that climate change doesn't exist. Even on the rivers, I mean, look at that stark number that Anna gave you earlier. In that case, going from 18 and a half million acres of water flow to, or 18 to 8 and a half recently, that is devastating. The water is either there or it isn't there. And when we run out, there's going to be a lot of problems. All right, that does it for our first hour. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including Donald Trump lashing out after it was clear that some of his supporters are really turning on him.

That and more coming up in the second hour. See you there. slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon