The Young Turks - Texas Massacre

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Episode summary: Gunman kills eight people at a North Texas outlet mall. After the Allen shooting, Texas Republican leaders downplay guns and focus on mental health. A Texas lawmaker, who previously said drag queen story hours would sexualize children, should be expelled for sexual misconduct with a teenage intern, committee says. "How’d that work out?": CNN host Jake Tapper grills judiciary head over Feinstein’s absence, compares situation to RBG. Dmitri Mehlhorn, who has financed many of the super PACs that target progressives in primaries, says they’re not going as hard after progressives now because he thinks the left has been sufficiently driven into the ground. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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! Thank you. All right, well, I'm the young tourist. Chinky Rann and Kasparing with you guys.

We've got some dramatic news on the political front, Donald Trump versus Ronda Santos news, Joe Biden versus Donald Trump news, all of it really large. But there are a ton of stories from Texas first. We've of course got the shootings where I will have to I will have very strong opinions. Really? I know that comes as a shock to everyone involved, but also a sex scan, a lot of Texas.

With a significant twist, is it by a Republican? Of course, almost all of them are. So without further ado, let's get started. All right, let's talk about yet another mass shooting in Texas. Another mass shooting in Texas. This one at a mall near Dallas, gunfire ringing out as hundreds, of shoppers on a Saturday filled the outlet mall in the suburb of Allen, Texas. Panicked people, as you can imagine, seen running from the scene as bullets flew.

Eight people were killed in yet another mass shooting in a mall in Allen, Texas over the weekend. The shooting took place on Saturday, obviously in the middle of the day. The 33-year-old gunmen opened fire at an outlet mall and was later killed by police. And more people could have died had it not been for a police officer who was nearby responding to a completely unrelated call. Now the gunman was armed with several weapons, including an AR-15 style rifle, a handgun. He was also wearing a tactical vest and had 10 rifle magazines and six pistol magazines. Authorities later searched his car and found more weapons in his vehicle.

There were also multiple, authorities also recovered more firearms from a hotel room where the gunman had been staying prior to the shooting. And there is a good summary of what transpired during the shooting. Let's go to that ABC news video and then we'll get into the details about the shooter and his political leanings when we return. Investigators reviewing this graphic video of the moment the gunman stepped out of a sedan and open fire at the Allen Premium Outlets. Thousands of shoppers now running for their lives. There's this guy dressed in all black, wearing a vest, has an assault rifle, and he's just

shooting at people. This surveillance video capturing a store employee leading customers to a service corridor to shelter. A police officer nearby hurt the gunfire and shot the gunman dead. Shooter is now. We believe at this point that the, the shooter acted alone. I need somebody to take command on the south side of this out of that wall.

We've got thousands of people down there now. Officers securing the crime scene, evacuating the shoppers from the mall, all walking out with their hands up. In addition to the eight victims killed, seven are in the hospital this morning. Three critical, four stable. The victims ranging in age from five to 61 years old. So this is the second deadliest shooting in Texas. this year, this is something that has become more and more common, of course.

Mass shootings were already a problem prior to the coronavirus pandemic, but the frequency in which we're experiencing these shootings seems to be escalating. And I don't know what to say about these shootings that hasn't already been said. And that's the issue that I keep running into. I think most people working in the news industry keep running into because at the end of the day, the only thing that, the only way anything changes is if we actually pass policies that mitigate, or at least stop as many of these shootings as possible, but there's no political agreement on that. There's no bipartisan support for that. And so we're going to

keep running into this brick wall over and over again. Okay, so number one, don't be surprised anytime these shootings happen. I'm just sick of several things. One is, especially Republicans pretending to be surprised. I can't believe this happened in Allen, Texas, of all places, it was so peaceful. Yeah, except for the fact that it's swimming in guns. And so anyone can pick up an assault weapon and murder you all. And except for the fact that there's more than one mass shooting every day in America. So why would you be surprised it's in your area? What is your area some sort of magical place where bullets can't penetrate? No. A mass shooting not only happened in almost every place in America already, but it's going to happen

again and again and again and again. It's actually a minor miracle of a mass shooting doesn't happen near you soon because more are headed down the pike. There'll be more dead bodies, more dead children, more dead grandmothers. It's an absolute rock solid guarantee. We do no gun control in this country and it leads to massacre after massacre. It's the facts. are indisputable. Gun homicides in this country are 300 times what they are in the UK that has very tight gun control. There's 600 times what they are in Japan that has very tight gun control. Saying that gun control doesn't work is counterfactual. It's a brazen lie or complete ignorance. I know a lot of right wingers are not politicians. They don't know all the

facts. And they heard on Facebook that gun control doesn't work. Okay, well, that's just nothing but a lie. It definitely, definitely, definitely works. The number of mass shootings in Japan and the UK, zero. We average more than 300 a year. In fact, now we're off to the races. Probably over 400 this year easily. There's already 199 of them, and we're in the beginning of May this year alone. So these massacres will continue unabated.

Here's another fact that is clear. Republican prayers don't work. Oh, are you offended? I'm offended that those kids are getting a bullet through their heads. Your prayers, like, for example, Ted Cruz, he prayed after the El Paso shooting in Texas. Thoughts and prayers didn't work. We had Yuvaldi. He prayed after Yuvaldi.

He didn't work. there was Texan A&M commerce shooting. I'm losing track of which came first and which came second. Now we have this shooting. Guess what Ted Cruz offered? More thoughts and prayers. Guess what his campaign contributors offered? $442,000 to vote against gun control.

So that $442,000 Ted Cruz was worth much more than your kids' lives, your lives. So if you live in Texas and you keep voting for no gun control or anywhere else in the country, Well, you shouldn't be surprised when a massacre pops up right next to you because you voted for it. You literally voted for the massacres. You can vote against the massacres by voting for gun control. It works all across the world. But okay, if you don't want to, just don't come tell me that, oh my God, I can't believe there was another mass shooting. We all know it.

Republicans refuse to do anything about it. So it is what it is. Tomorrow will come on, tell you about another mass shooting. We'll tell you about two more. I mean, it's not that Republicans are unwilling to do anything about it. Republicans, like the state legislature in Texas, has gone out of its way to continue loosening gun regulations, including concealed carry. You used to need a license in order to conceal carry.

And now it turns out that they have loosened those laws, so you don't even need a license to conceal carry. So that's an ongoing issue in the country. They keep pandering to the gun lobby that funds their campaigns. And none of this is surprising. It keeps happening over and over again. And I feel that most of the conversation now tends to just veer in the direction of what are the political leanings, right? And look, we're gonna talk about his friendly views toward white supremacy in just a moment, even though the shooter has a Hispanic sounding name.

But the whole point here is, what can we do to stop get, stop these people from getting their hands on these weapons? Like what can we do to mitigate this? What can we do to prevent it from happening in the future? I think that is the first issue at hand. But I feel like it's intentional to immediately go to, all right, let's just talk about the motive. Let's talk about what the person's politics are. That's exactly right.

And if you notice, I didn't start with the motive because really at this point, it's It's very important and not at all important. What do I mean by that? Yeah, most of the shootings are done by out of control right wingers with these crazy ideologies, etc. Christian white males is by far the biggest demographic, etc. But do I think it's related to that? Yes and no.

Yeah, there are ideologies driving them to do more violence. But overall, but we have shooters that are minorities, we have shooters that are this, we have shooters that are that are that. We have shooters that are totally random, right? There's one common thread. The weapons, the assault weapons is used in almost all these massacres. It should definitely be banned. The overwhelming majority of the country believes in background checks, age of 21, red flag

laws and banning assault weapons. But none of our politicians ever do anything about it because the Republicans are all paid off and the Democrats are cowards. So now let's get into what we're learning about the shooter himself and what might have motivated this shooting. So according to AP News, federal agents have been reviewing. social media accounts, they believe were used by Maricio Garcia, 33 year old, that is the shooter. And posts that expressed interest in white supremacist and neo-Nazi views, said the law

enforcement official who could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Garcia also had a patch on his chest when he was killed by police that read RWDS, which is an acronym for the phrase right-wing death. squad, which is popular among right-wing extremists and white supremacy groups, the official said. The insignia is apparently also popular with some members of the proud boys. And the concerns about his white supremacist leanings were confirmed by the FBI. Rolling Stone obtained an FBI bulletin that's meant to kind of brief the agents on what's going on. And in that bulletin, we learned a little bit about the shooter. The FBI's review and triage of the subject

social media accounts revealed hundreds of postings and images to include writings with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist rhetoric, including neo-Nazi materials and material espousing the supremacy of the white race. The bulletin reads. And also sources told ABC News and WFAA, a local news station that guard. Garcia had been in the U.S. Army in 2008, but was removed due to mental health concerns. Sources added that he disliked people of color and Jewish people as well. And I should note that, you know, this shooting happened in Allen, Texas. And Allen, Texas happens to be a pretty diverse part of the state.

It's about 25 miles north of downtown Dallas. And the population breakdown of the 105,000 people living there is 19% 80,000. 10% black and 11% Hispanic. And so again, we don't know for sure what the motive was here, but if he had these white supremacist leanings, and that was the motive, carrying out this act of violence, this terrible, horrendous act of violence in Allentown.

It's probably in Allen, I'm sorry, in Allen, Texas was probably because of the fact that it's such a diverse part of Texas. Yeah, okay, so look guys, It appears he's a neo-Nazi. And if you're wondering, well, Latino name neo-Nazi, how does that make sense? Dude, the guy's mentally ill. He thinks, you know, God knows what he thinks about the Jews, let alone other people of color,

et cetera, et cetera. When you have, they're all consuming the same media we are. So when he consumes the right-wing media that is extremist in nature, and they tell him how great white people are and how terrible people of color and Jews are, he believes it, whether he's a person, whether you consider him a person of color or not. We can easily take political advantage of this as everyone across political structure does in the media and go, oh my God, he's a neo-Nazi. It's definitely because of the right wing.

I mean, guys had right wing death squad on his thing, right? It's definitely the right wing and it's all their fault. Well look, the right wing definitely does way more shooting because they love the idea of guns, violence, and they promoted overall. But that's, but it doesn't matter. He could have been mentally ill for a different reason for having to do with politics, having to do with religion, having to do with none of the above. Oh, he was aggrieved about a workplace.

issue or a girlfriend or whatever it is. It doesn't matter because in our country, we just say, oh, you have mental problems and you like to murder people. Here's an assault weapon. No rules, no training, no license, no nothing. Go nuts. Kill anyone you like. Well, when you do that, it doesn't matter what the ideology is.

There's always going to be a certain percentage of the population that has mental health problems that are not just generic mental health. problems, the ones that are prone to violence, right? That's a specific group, that's a minority within the mental health issues, okay? But that's still that tiny minority, still a ton of people. If it was just 1% of the country, it'd be over 3 million people. And what do we do? We go, oh, yeah, have any guns you like.

Go ahead, kill us all. So that's the essence of the problem. And you're not going to solve it by trying to get rid of all the neo-Nazis in this country. by the way, which by the way, you should try. Believe me, you should try. There's neo-Nazis in other countries. They don't do mass shootings all the time. You know why? Because they don't have access to the kind of weapons that we give them access to. Who would be stupid enough to let Nazis buy any weapon they like? America. That's what we do. And it's amazing. So let's talk a little bit about the response from Republican lawmakers, particularly those in the

state of Texas, I want to focus on the deflections, which oftentimes have to do with, oh, we need to focus on mental health care. They never mean it, but let's talk about it. been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence that's taking place in America. And what Texas is doing in a big time way, we are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it. Texas Governor Greg Abbott was recently confronted with polling that shows the majority of Americans do in fact want common sense gun reform. Now that conference, on Fox News happened after yet another mass shooting took place in Texas over the weekend

on Saturday, which led to the deaths of eight individuals and several others are now hospitalized with injuries. So before we get into debunking some of his claims regarding mental health, why don't we actually go to the exchange showing him getting confronted with this polling from Fox News? Let's watch. This is just out from Fox News. When you ask people what they would favor, background checks for guns, enforcing existing gun laws, legal age to 21, requiring mental health checks, flagging people for danger to self, all of those score at more than 80%. At the state level, listen, this is something that we've been grappling with over the past year. And there are some potential easy solutions such as passing laws that we're working on right now to get guns of the hands of dangerous criminals and to increase penalties for criminals who possess guns. Shannon, we've seen an increased number of shootings in states with easy gun laws as well as states with very strict gun laws. I think that the state in which the largest number of victims have occurred this year is in California, where they have very tough gun laws where 11 people died.

And so one thing that we can observe very easily, and that is there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence that's taking place in America. And what Texas is doing in a big time way, we are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it. So I want to get to the mental health comments in just a moment. But prior to him mentioning mental health, he talked about how, oh, no, in Texas, we're actually thinking about some policy that would penalize people in possession of illegal guns. Okay, interesting, because all I've seen, all we've seen from the state legislature in Texas, all we've seen from people like Texas Governor Greg Abbott is loosening gun laws in the state. In fact, let's go to graphic nine here because I want to give you a specific, fairly recent example. So in June of 2021, multiple members of NRA leadership embattled NRA chief or chief executive Wayne LaPierre

and NRA President Carolyn Meadows joined Abbott for a special bill signing ceremony for House. Bill 1927, NRA-backed legislation that allows Texans to carry handguns for self-defense without a license from the state so long as they don't have a criminal history. So how exactly are you working toward common sense gun reform that the majority of Americans clearly want? I also want to just quickly bring up the polling that he was confronted with in that interview because there's something that he didn't really get asked about, which is the very last line there where the poll respondents were asked, you know, do you favor more citizens carrying

guns? Only 45% said that they support that. Now, we'll get to the mental health statements in just a moment, but Jank, I wanted you to chime in. So a couple things here. First, if 87% want background checks for guns and you don't have it, do you really live in a democracy? If 81% want to enforce existing gun laws and raise the legal age by guns to 21, but you don't get it? Do you really live in a democracy. I can show you at least two dozen issues, not just really the gun control, where it's over 80% of Americans say we definitely want that. And the politicians go, no, we got paid by lobbyists against that. So we don't give a goddamn that 87% of you want it. We're all crooks, okay? And this guy's a master crook. So let me get to Abbott specifically.

I want to read the next couple of graphics because I think they're so telling. But before I do, Let me give you one more factor about Abbott. Abbott said during a debate about, he said about gun control of mental health. He said, oh, there's already $25 billion going towards mental health. People are like, where the hell did he invent this gigantic number from? And it sounds like he's referring to some provision of Obamacare that helps in terms of Medicaid overall, not about mental health or specifically Texas. And Greg Abbott fought two.

a nail against it. So the guy's a giant liar. Okay, now I get you, most politicians are liars. None of the people in media ever tell you that. But Abbott lies for a living. So let's give you a sense of it. Let's go to graphic two. Abbott's off-sighted 105.5 million spending in response to the mass shooting includes $5.8 million to fund the Texas Child Health Access through telemedicine, 4.7 million for Health and Human Service Commission to include multi-system therapy across the state, 950,000 to the HHSC to expand coordinate, coordinate specialty care. Okay, that sounds, so hold on. That sounds pretty good, right?

What do you mean? I mean, it's not $25 billion, but $105 million sounds like a big number for Texas. He put that in, okay, let's, well, let's continue from ABC News. But it comes after a $210 million cut to HHSC, which oversees mental health services in the state over the past two years in order to finance Operation Lone Star, the border security initiative launched in March of 2021. So you see what he did there? Slide a hand.

Every reporter in Texas and across the country should call Greg Abbott a liar, which is exactly what he said. He said, I increased mental health spending by $105 million. What he didn't tell you is he decreased it earlier by $210 million. So he put half of it back and then goes, ha, ha, ha, ha, I increased it. What a terrible, sick, disgusting liar Greg Abbott is. And then I want to review this one as well. This is perfectly on point.

Also from ABC News, only 16.5 million out of the 105.5 million, about 15% of the total went to expand statewide mental health resources, while the other 85% has been allocated toward police training, personnel travel, and security upgrades for classrooms, including $50 million for bullet resistant shields. Bullet resistant shields for the kids or for the cops. So only 15% of the money he put back went to actual mental health. 85% went to the cops. This is all a giant lie.

Greg Abbott doesn't care about mental health at all. All he cares about is protect my gun donors. My gun, beloved donors, I'll lie and cheat and steal for you. Oh, the kids are all dead. Who cares? That's Greg Abbott for you. A total monster. I'll agree with Marjorie Taylor Green on this.

She said the reason for the mass shootings is evil force. Correct, evil forces like Marjorie Taylor Green and Greg Abbott. Well, we come back from the break. We've got more news for you out of the state of Texas, including a state lawmaker resigning because of his sexual misconduct with an intern. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, but also Paul Green. He just became a member and Joe Buda Stewart. So did Joe and he said, Crate, keep up the great work you all.

Thank you guys. We can't do without the members. So you keep up the great work, we'll keep up to great work. We appreciate it. You could hit the, you could join them by getting the join button below the video on YouTube or going to t. com slash join Anna. All right. Texas State Representative Brian Slayton, a Republican, a Republican,

has resigned following revelations that he had an inappropriate and potentially illegal sexual relationship with a 19 year old intern. Now the lawmaker is married and also happens to be one of these conservatives who loves to go around accusing members of the LGBTQ community of being groomers. But behind the scenes, he was getting allegedly an intern of his drunk past the point where she could consent and then engaged in a sexual behavior with her. We're going to get to those details in just a moment, but I wanted to read part of his resignation letter. He wrote, quote, it has been an honor to represent my friends, neighbors, and the great people and communities of House District 2. Slayton, a former pastor, wrote, adding that they voted overwhelmingly

to send me to the Capitol. Well, had he failed to resign a day after. After, meaning tomorrow, the state legislature in Texas would have voted to expel him, which hasn't happened in quite some time in this country, in the state of Texas. Now, Slayton is known, again, to speak out against members of the LGBTQ community, accusing them of allegedly being groomers. For the past few months, Slayton has been very vocal about protecting kids from sexual exploitation. I just want to give you a few examples. For instance, he had tweeted this.

We must protect Texas kids from sick adults who want to sexualize them. No drag shows, no porn in their libraries, no gender transition surgeries, yes to letting kids be kids. He also bragged about some of the legislation he championed writing, today I filed HB 4129, which bans erotic performances, including drag shows, in the presence of kids. The state has a duty to protect kids from being sexually exploited, and HB 4129 is the most comprehensive bill to stop the sexualization of kids by these performances. In April, a legislative staffer filed a complaint to the House General Investigating Committee alleging that Slayton was engaging in inappropriate relationships in an inappropriate relationship with one of his aides. And so they did an investigation, and they released an explosive 16 page report on his behavior,

which led to many of his colleagues calling for him to either resign or they would expel him. So I'll give you some more details about what he is alleged to have done in just a moment. Jank, what do you think? Yeah, so there's a couple of elements to the story. One is completely unsurprising. The other is very surprising. So hold for that twist. So Texas Tribune wrote about this.

I like this line in the article. Last year he called for a blanket ban on minors at drag shows saying it was necessary to protect children from, quote, perverted adults. So he had the 19 year old drink tons of rum and coke until she passed out. And then according to the fact pattern, it looks like he raped her. She was unconscious, apparently. and the reporting is that she could not, and the report says she could not consent. I don't know why no one's calling it rape.

They're like, okay, so we'll come back to that, okay? So the fact that a Republican politician calling others groomers and perverts, is himself a groomer and a pervert, the least surprising news story in American history. When I see a Republican politician talking like that, I think, oh God, somebody, make sure the kids around that guy, are okay, because there's a, that's a much higher percentage chance that that guy's doing something awful sexually, okay? So, and by the way, we've sometimes even called it out ahead of time

and been right about these pervert Republicans, okay? So now the surprising twist, the other Republicans in the state legislature in Texas were going to expel him. That's why he resigned. What Republican politicians holding one of their own accountable for us, for sexual crimes? I haven't seen that in decades. I'm floored by it. I didn't know Republican politicians had 1% morals left. So I'm flabbergasted by this story. And we're honest to you guys about it.

You know, we could just say, oh, he resigned or whatever. No, the other Republicans drove him out of the legislature. I can't believe it. It's absolutely shocking. Well, the report is so damning. I mean, it's not some, it would be one thing if there was a serious accusation against the lawmaker and there was nothing to corroborate it. And Republicans were like, eh, whatever, we're just going to ignore it and pretend like

it's not an issue. In this case, you have this explosive 16 page report detailing what he had done. And I want to read some excerpts from that report because it gives you a sense of, well, the Republican party in the state of Texas was backed into a corner when it came to this issue. If they didn't demand that he resigned, if they didn't threaten to expel him, I think that that would be political suicide for them. Especially when their only platform seems to be, we don't like LGBTQ people and we're just going to call them groomers repeatedly. I know, Anna, but I don't know that it would be political suicide. I mean, Republicans supported Roy Moore and there was,

like, there was literally a notice of the local malls that this guy's a pervert who tries to sexually assault underage girls. But there was a difference in that case, right? And the difference is had they not supported Roy Moore, a Democrat would win. In this case, I don't think they're concerned about this lawmaker being replaced with the Democrat. That's an excellent point. No, if it wasn't a deep red district, no, I'd take back at least half of the credit

I just gave to other Republicans in that state. Because if it was a purple district, they'd do what they did with Roy Moore, with Donald Trump, I mean, Donald Trump right now probably going to get convicted of rape in a civil trial, not a criminal trial. I mean, he pretty much admitted it himself in his testimony. And Republican voters are like, don't care at all, right? So we can go on and on with that list of Republicans who've done sexual assault that they don't care about.

But here, they're like, okay, I guess some PR damage. But I'll take it. I'll take any good action. I agree. I mean, I think they did the right thing here, regardless of what their motives were for doing the good thing that they did. But I want to read some excerpts from the report because it's pretty damning. And I also want to make a clarification because some reports refer to her as an intern.

Other reports refer to her as an aid. So when you see aid or intern, we're talking about the same alleged victim here, okay? So here is one excerpt that's relevant. Let's go to graphic four. The aid stated that over the time at Slate, I'm sorry, the aid stated that over the time at Slayton's on April 1st, she consumed a lot of alcohol and that she felt pretty rough, really dizzy, and had split vision. So the AIDS friends tried repeatedly to get her to leave, but she wouldn't, probably because she was severely inebriated. By around 3 a.m., everyone

but the aide and Slayton had left. And the next morning, she spoke to one of her friends who went with her to Slayton's place to talk to him about what had happened, okay? So the aide's friend asked the aide, did you have sex with him, meaning Slayton? And the aide replied, yes. The aide told her friend that Slayton did not use a condom. The aide also bought Plan B medication that morning. The aide told her friend that she was in love with Slayton. But it doesn't matter if she felt that way about him or not.

If he is getting her drunk to the point, past the point where she can consulate, then that is very clearly sexual misconduct, and it appears that the report has basically concluded as such, right? Now, in the following weeks, the aide also told her friend on multiple occasions that if she hadn't been drunk, she would not have had sex with him. The report found that the aide could not effectively consent, nor indicate whether sex was welcome or unwelcome, the committee did not address the question of whether Slayton committed sexual assault saying it did not have sufficient facts to undertake the analysis. And the committee noted that Slayton likely committed, likely committed a number of crimes. And outside of the

potential criminality of what he did, it's also worth noting that we're talking about a 19 year old intern working for the state lawmaker. There's obviously a very significant power imbalance there as well, which goes against some ethical rules. Okay, I want to be even clear about what the committee concluded. It concluded that she could, quote, could not effectively consent to the intercourse and could not indicate whether Slayton's conduct was welcome or unwelcome, end quote. Well, if someone cannot consent to sex and someone has sex with them anyway, that is rape by definition according to our laws.

So now it'll get adjudicate or maybe it won't get adjudicated, but it should get adjudicated in the courts. And a jury can decide whether she gave consent or didn't give consent. But they're not even bringing them up on rape charges. I mean, they're like, well, you've been a bad boy. Now you lose some of your power and you go back home. No, that's not enough. And the report said that he committed three different crimes and they didn't even include sexual assault. Right.

So let's get to those three different crimes. Let's go to graphic eight here because I think it's relevant. Now, it refers to her as a minor even though she's 19 because, you're not supposed to be drinking alcohol under the age of 21. So that's why they're referring to her as a minor here, even though technically she's not a minor. In addition to accusing Slayton of violating House rules, the committee report found reason to believe Slayton committed three crimes,

all Class A misdemeanors that carry a maximum punishment of one year in jail and a $4,000 fine. And that includes providing alcohol to someone under the age of 21, abuse of official capacity, which occurs when public servants violate a law relating to their office or employment. and official oppression, which can occur when a public servant intentionally subjects another to sexual harassment. So those were the findings of the report, and those findings were strong enough for the Republican lawmakers in the state to have difficulty ignoring. Let's just put it that way. After Slayton allegedly assaulted his aid, he tried to intimidate her, by the way, to stay quiet.

And that's a relevant part of this story as well. As the Texas Tribune reports, Slayton showed the aid a supposedly anonymous email he had received from someone saying they knew the representative and the aid had sex, but that nothing would happen as long as her and her friends keep quiet. The aide told the committee that she understood the email to be a threat, but also suspected Slayton may have fabricated the email. The committee also found that a fellow representative had called Slayton to ask if he had had had, sexual intercourse with a staffer, which Slayton confirmed, the representative said that the next day he told Slayton to resign, at which point Slayton asked if the phone call could remain between us. And apparently it did not, for good reason. Yeah, so here's my last points on this. To Anna's point about how red this district is, it was already represented by a very conservative Republican. Slayton beat him in a primary by being more. extreme and saying things like maybe Texas should secede from the union because

America is too liberal and Texas needs to be just absolutely barbaric in how right wing it is. But that would not have worked if he wasn't well funded and it turns out he was very well funded by West Texas oil and gas billionaires Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes. So why do they fund guys like this? Well maybe they're also religious zealots, lunatics, etc. like Slayden but their main interest is in the money, LeBowski, so they get guys like Slayton so that they never ask any questions about regulations or tax cuts. No, you are to do no regulations. You are to allow us to do any kind of pollution, carbon in the air, any kind of things to do abuse of the energy grid. You shut up and do exactly

as you're told. So he's a servant of these oil billionaires in Texas. And that's why you got this extremist in the first place. And my favorite part of this story and an awful, awful story is his excuse. I mean, this gives you a sense of how guilty is. He didn't say he didn't do it. He didn't say that it was, you know, I don't know if he's going to claim later or in court that it was consensual, et cetera. But we haven't seen much about that. But he said, no, it's okay. It wasn't in my office. It was at my house. Unbelievable. Okay. If that's your best excuse. That's the guy running around calling drag queens groomers. That's the guy running around.

demonizing transgender kids and demonizing medical professionals who provide care to transgender people like it's just whenever they're screaming the loudest about grooming you're right chink let's do a little investigation and see what they're up to really 100% look super last thing on what Anna just said he didn't just target trans people drag queens etc though he targeted the entire LGBTQ community so there There should be tax cuts for everyone except people that are LGBTQ and people who are divorced. Now they're coming after divorce people. This is like the second or third guy we've reported.

He must be very concerned that his wife might have reason to want to divorce him. Now, if you get divorced now after sleeping with, you know, sexually assaulting the 19 year old, I guess you shouldn't get tax cuts anymore. They're all giant hypocrites. And so yet they're the ones who pass these laws. They've proposed over 600 laws the Republicans have against the LGBTQ community. at the state level and dozens have already passed, moralizing others while they're the perverts and groomers

doing the sickest things behind the scenes. When we come back from the break, Jake Tapper apparently grows the set and we'll show you what that looks like, kind of. We'll be right back. All right, back on CYT, Jay Hannana, with you guys. More news. Well, we like to be critical of cable news and cable news hosts like Jake Tapper.

But in this case, it seems like he's asking the right questions. All due respects, sir, you and your fellow Democrats were very ginger and very polite when it came to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and not pushing her to retire when you, had a Democratic majority in the Senate. How'd that work out for you? How'd that work out for Roe v. Wade? Look at Jake Tapper getting real spicy while interviewing Senator Dick Durbin, who of course is part of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He's the Senate Judiciary Chair. And the topic at hand is, of course, Senator Diane Feinstein, who has been out with shingles for several months. and that has held up the confirmation of federal judges, which is an incredibly important thing

for the Senate Judiciary Committee to do. So Senator Durbin was asked, why aren't you guys urging her to resign? Obviously, she's not able to do her job. Now, as I mentioned, she's been gone for months as a result of a shingles diagnosis. And she claims that she will be returning to the Senate soon. But her mental capabilities have also declined significantly in recent years. We have talked about that. And as a member of the Judiciary Committee, her absence has delayed their ability to confirm new judges to federal courts. Since, of course, without her, the committee is split 10-10 between party lines. So that makes it very difficult. In other words, the only nominees that can be voted out of committee is the ones that actually have bipartisan support.

So again, this is a huge hindrance to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But before we get to what Feinstein is saying about all of this. Why don't we get back to the exchange between Jake Tapper and Senator Durbin? We need her. It is a challenge in the Senate Judiciary Committee to do our business. For example, you raised a question of a subpoena and I haven't reached any conclusion on that. But if we go down that path, we need a majority on the committee. Right now with her absence, it's a 10 to 10 committee and the majority is not there. And a proxy vote doesn't count in this circumstance. So it's a complicated situation.

I hope she does what's best for her and her family and the state of California and makes the decision soon as to whether she's coming back. I mean, all due respects, sir, you and your fellow Democrats were very ginger and very polite when it came to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and not pushing her to retire when you had a Democratic majority in the Senate. How'd that work out for you? How'd that work out for Roe v. Wade? Well, I can tell you that you can play these out and try to guess what the Supreme Court opinions resulting from it will be.

I want to treat Diane Feinstein fairly. I want to be sensitive to her family situation and her personal situation. And I don't want to say that she's going to be put under more pressure than others have been in the past. But the bottom line is the business of the committee and of the Senate is affected by her absence. So he has also said on record several times that her absence is slowing down the confirmation of federal judges. Back in April, for instance, he said, I can't consider nominees in these circumstances because a tie vote is a losing vote in committee. Durbin said, asked if her presence has longer ramifications on the Democrats' ability to confirm nominees. The Senate chairman said, yes, of course it does, pointing to the long process of getting nominees scheduled for votes during precious floor time.

This is so frustrating because obviously the confirmation of federal judges is very important, especially following the Trump administration and how successful Trump was in nominating and confirming hundreds of federal judges, which obviously has a huge impact on the outcome of some of these controversial cases that we care a lot about. What I'm wondering is, if she resigns, couldn't they promote a Democrat in the Senate to her position in the Senate Judiciary Committee? Yeah, they could. So look, first let me give credit, then let me go to discredit.

So Jake Tapper, good, aggressive questioning, like it, always want the reporters and the anchors to be as tough on the politicians as possible, no matter what party they're from. Dick Durbin's standard, the most plain, boring man in America without corporate campaign contributions, that man couldn't get elected dog catcher, okay, but he's been in the Senate for approximately 280 years, like all of them have, only because of the corruption. He's the least dynamic person in America. I don't know what you're talking about. He seemed super charismatic in that interview.

Yeah, I mean, he gets aggressively challenging. He's still like, no, no, no, no. I've never heard Dick Durbin on TV and walked away thinking, oh, this is what he was trying to say, like one clear line, right? Like, you just watch that yourself. What did Dick Durbin say? No one knows, right? Because it was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, I got- Was he pro-fine or anti-fine sign? I couldn't even tell. Yeah, that's a good point. What I got out of his messaging in that interview was, this is a problem, and we're not going to do anything about it, which honestly is Democrat Party 101. You took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to say Dick Durbin 101. Why Dick Durbin in particular? He's the number two Democrat in the Senate, and he's been the number two Democrat for, like, I don't know, like I said, about 80 years or so, right?

And if you need the Democrats not to do something, Dick Durbin's your guy. He will go out there and go, look, I promise, we're not going to do a goddamn thing, okay? And he always delivers on that promise to be fair to him. Now, look, I keep it real. Part of the reason why Jake Tapper's so aggressive on this is because establishment has some, has group think, right? And in their group think, the Democrats not pushing Ruth Bader Grinsberg out earlier before she passed away. it was a terrible mistake.

So he's not really being too aggressive here. He's actually just saying what the establishment group think is. So he feels empowered to challenge a senator on that because he knows that the elites that are watching him and care about it are going to go out of boy, Jake. But still, I'll take it. It's a good, tough question. So now to Anna's question, look, guys, this is so easily solved.

First of all, journalists should ask the question, look, the politicians won't come on our show because we actually, I used to call us talk show hosts, but apparently we're better journalists than almost anyone else in the country. And that's why the politicians won't come on our show, because we're going to ask some real questions and they can't answer them. But when they go on cable news, they never get the real questions. So you think that was tough? The real question asked Dick Durbin is, who's the actual senator from California? Because it's definitely not Diane Feinstein. She's in a hospital bed. Nobody's been able to talk to her for months, but forget the shingles.

She hasn't been mentally well for years. So who is the actual senator from California? If you ask that question in a way that a Democratic politician is forced to answer, they have no answer. It's some staffer in her office, but I'm not sure they even know which staffer is the actual senator from California. Right? That question begins the process to get her out. And no one's willing to ask that question.

I think it's a great question. You're right about that. And regardless of who that person is, whether it's one of her staffers or otherwise, that person can't fill the role of confirming the federal judges. Exactly. So that gets to how would you solve this easily? Well, out the fact that Diane Feinstein is not mentally well and has she must resign. It's not a question.

No, I'm not going to have random Joe Blow staffer pretend to be the senator from California. No, this thing is over, you gotta go. Then what happens? Gavin Newsom appoint someone. Well, that's easy. It's a Democratic governor. He's going to put a Democrat in. So what's the holdup? The holdup is that Gavin Newsom earlier promised when he thought he didn't have to do it that he would appoint a black woman. Well, who's the most logical black woman? Barbara Lee. Well, the problem is she's a progressive. And they would rather have all judicial appointments blocked than put a progressive into that seat. So Newsom, right now is building a list of random African-American females in California in order to not give it to Barbara Lee. Okay, and I already know the excuse they're going to use, and you could take this to the bank. They're going to say, well, we would have given it to Barbara Lee, but she's now running for the position herself, so we don't want to bias people, so we're not going to give it to her. Instead, we found this corporate stooge who checks off the identity boxes and if they even go in that direction. But for the moment being, they're going to keep

wheeling. They used to wheel in Diane Feinstein, but she's now, they can't even do that anymore because she's incapacitated. So they're basically going to go, so what? We're going to let the Republicans fill all these seats when Trump beats Biden instead, because we couldn't stomach the idea of a progressive in that seat from California, one of the most progressive states. So I want to talk about the actual consequences of this, give you some real numbers here, because it's serious. So for instance, Feinstein has missed 60, 60, 60 votes of the 82 taken in 2023 so far,

including two prior to her illness. Of the votes she has missed while ill, 25 were for judicial nominees, three of whom were appointed to California federal courts, and 13 were for executive branch nominees. All of those nominees advanced, but Feinstein's absence impacts whether nominees are brought up for a committee vote as Durbin, you know, described in his answer to Tapper. So this is having legitimate consequences. But, Jake, it's just, this is the problem I see across the board, whether you're talking about Democrats or Republicans. It's all about them. It's not about the American people. It's not about the individuals who voted them in these positions of power. it's all about them. It's all about wheeling and dealing.

It's all about, you know, doing what they can to promote their flank of the Democratic Party. As you mentioned, you know, let's work hard to avoid Barbara Lee from, you know, sitting in this position or getting appointed in this position. It's a disaster. And the people who end up suffering at the end of the day are not these politicians. It's people like us. Yeah, so I'll build on that. last two things. One is, look, 90% of the conversation around this is centered around what, how should we be polite to Diane Weinstein? She's a legend based on what? I don't

know. Almost nothing in her several hundred years of being in the Senate. Oh, she was fought against CIA spying. No, she didn't. She fought against CIA spying of the Senate. She didn't care about the CIA spying of citizens at all until they spied in on her. Oh, she once did something about gun control like 20, 30 years ago. Yeah, that's because she was nearly shot when Harvey Milk was shot in San Francisco. So it affected her. She only does things that affect her. And now the whole conversation is, well, I know we're not going to get these judicial

appointments, but how does it affect the elite Diane Feinstein? And how does it affect the other elites? I'm so sick of them. We're all sick of them. All right. The last thing is, we got to read her tweet though, which I highly doubt was actually written by Diane Feinstein. This is what the tweet says. The Senate continues to swiftly confirm highly qualified individuals to the federal judiciary, including seven more judicial nominees who were confirmed this week.

There has been no slowdown. That is objectively false. I read you the numbers. That is a lie. So two things about that. Number one, there's a 0% chance, Diane Feinstein wrote that tweet. Whoever is the actual senator from California probably wrote it, but literally have no idea who that is. And number two is, look, what Feinstein's office is trying to mislead you with is some of the judicial nominees are getting confirmed.

So who's getting confirmed? The ones that are completely non-controversial or pro-corporate. Or they're not controversial because they're completely pro-corporate. So the Republicans are like, oh, that's fine, let them through. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, but if anyone is mildly in favor of the average American and not in favor of corporate America, they're getting stopped. So all the ones who are getting stopped are the very best ones, the most progressive ones. And then, by the way, the Democrats go, oh, did the couple non-corporate ones we put up get stopped?

Oh, I guess our mistake. Yeah, I got to say a lot of this feels intentional. It really does. Because think about it, during the Trump administration, Chuck Schumer decided to strike a deal with Mitch McConnell to fast track Trump's judicial nominees, hundreds of them. And now, when they have an opportunity to, you know, make up some of the damage that was created under the Trump administration by appointing better judges, federal judges, confirming them, they've decided, no, there is an obstacle here, and we have decided to maintain that obstacle. Of course, they always invent an obstacle when the Democrats are in charge. If Schumer and Durbin are not in on it and helping to push a corporate agenda by speeding up when the Republicans are in charge is slowing down when the Democrats are in charge, then they are the most ineffective, incompetent and impotent leaders that any political party has ever seen. These things are super obvious.

Yet everyone in media is like, oh, the beloved Chuck Schumer, what a great leader. total and utter loser in a best case scenario completely corrupt in the more likely scenario. We got to go to break. But when we come back for the second hour of the show, oh my God, wait until you get a load of this interview that Ryan Grimm did of a Democratic strategist and a tech entrepreneur, Jake is going to lose his mind. And he should because what this guy has to say about progressives and the Democratic Party is fascinating. Don't miss it. We'll be right 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 podcast at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host. is Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.