The Young Turks - The Big Lie!

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

Revealed: Ginni Thomas’ Shocking Big Lie Texts To Trump Aide | Biden Says Nato Will Respond If Russia Uses Chemical Weapons | Russian Forces Face Tough Battles As Ukraine Fights Back | Applebee’s Exec Says Gas Prices Could Help Cut Wages | Corporate Pacs Pose As Workers To Carry Out Political Bribes Hosts: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, Maz Jobrani  Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews https://youtu.be/z7f_srmCU_0 https://youtu.be/64t0sgsmusQ https://youtu.be/2bcchJ_W_Us https://youtu.be/lKphW5EtY0s https://youtu.be/cF4aVGhpIHw https://youtu.be/nRNlk8YrYPA 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. Three-a-teen, three-a-d-d-harmine, three-a-d-chee, three-maching, three-mach-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hack- Drop it like it. Hot. Our panel, Jank Uger, John Iderola, and we have Uno Moss host, Maz Jarbrani. Okay, Ma's great to see you again, brother.

Fists of marshmallow. Well, that's why we like you, Maas. You know, you are, you're, you're two gram crackers away from a s'mores. Okay, anyways, lots of interesting news today, okay, so do we have news of corruption in American politics? Of course, okay, is it in the Republican and Democratic parties? Of course. Of course, but Russia not just stalled, but perhaps losing in Ukraine, what is this? New reports, Ukraine is invading Russia.

I wouldn't go that far, but by the way, you joke. But of course, Fox News will actually say that in a minute or two. But yes, the Ukrainians seems to have the Russians on the run. There is actual evidence of retreat. So that is amazing. So don't get too carried away. We'll give you the details in a second so you know the exact context. But we are going to start with Ukraine. John, take it. We're actually starting off domestically with a bit of scandal here. But we will be getting Ukraine. Our whole next block is going to be about some fascinating updates on what's going on in

Ukraine. But why don't we start off with this video? Do not concede, she wrote. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back. Thomas urged Meadows to help the president stand firm. The majority knows Biden and the left is attempting the greatest heist of our history. The messages don't directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, but show how Ginny Thomas sought to guide the president's strategy to overturn the election, urging Meadows to make Trump's controversial attorney Sidney Powell the lead in the face. On November 24th, Meadows wrote Thomas, quote, this is a fight of good versus evil. Thomas replied, thank you, needed that. This plus a conversation

with my best friend just now. It is unclear who Jenny Thomas was referring to. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas often refers to his wife this way. I love being here with my bride, Virginia, who's a gift from God and my totally best friend in the whole world. So we've known for a long time that Virginia, Ginnie Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is an issue, should be an even bigger issue for the Supreme Court justice. She is a massive power broker on the right, raising money and providing it to different groups, different individuals. And we've all pretended for a long time that that's not supposed to be a conflict of interest. This is a pretty clear conflict of interest, though. In the time after the 2020 election, the wife of Clarence Thomas spent those months leading up to the insurrection.

communicating directly with some of the most powerful people in the Trump administration and trying to assist President Trump, then President Trump, in his bid to effectively end our democracy, to cancel the results of the election and stay in power. And I want to give you a few more specifics about some of the things she was communicating with Mark Meadows specifically with. She sent him a message saying, Biden crime family and ballot fraud co-conspirators are being arrested and detained for ballot fraud right now, in overcoming days. and will be living in barges off Gitmo to face military tribunals for sedition.

House and Senate guys are pathetic, too. Only four GOP House members seen out in street rallies with grassroots. Where the heck are all those who benefited by president's coattails? Listen to Rush, Mark Stain, Bon Gino. No, but this is the most amazing thing. We know that there are a lot of opportunists on the right. You know, Josh Hawley, raising his fist as the insurrection started. Green in her speeches and all that.

Now, she might be a true believer too, but people like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, they did what they did, not believing there was anything to it, but because they wanted to be a Republican, and that's kind of what you need to do. Ginny Thomas is a legitimate maniac. She believes that Dan Bongino has the answers. She believed not that Biden and his whole crew should be arrested, but that they were in the process of being arrested. That within days, they would be in barges off Gitmo.

She was saying this, not on Fox News to convince the rubs. She was texting this to Mark Meadows. She believed every word of what she was saying. She talked about having conversations with her best friend who has to be Clarence Thomas at this point. And there is plenty of evidence that Clarence Thomas was actually listening. And all of this we're supposed to pretend is not a big issue. Yeah. Well, I'm of two minds on this.

One might surprise you, one of my points, which is that, look, is Ginny Thomas Cray, cray. Of course, she's totally and utterly crazy. No, Biden and his team were not going to be rounded up and put on a barge off of Gitmo. You have to be a literal lunatic to believe that. Is Jenny Thomas a literal lunatic? Yes, but honestly, so are a lot of Republicans. They are mental issues. They are not attached to reality.

How do I know? Biden and his team are not on a barge off of Gitmo. Nor did they even stand 1% chance of that happening. That's cuckoo for Cocoa Pups. Now, so that's my opinion on that is not surprising. It's fact-based. If you don't agree with that, you're also detached from reality, okay? They are not off of Gitmo.

Nobody got rounded up into FEMA camps. You guys have never been right about a single. thing. Trump didn't get reinstated. We can go on and on, right? So, but the, the part where I diverged from mainstream media and many others is, like, they're always shocked that Ginny Thomas is crazy. They're like, there's like story after story. Like, did you know she thinks this? Yeah, she's a lunatic. So what? Right? Like, because, so why are they shocked? Because they're shocked that it's someone in the elites, someone that they know. They're like, a Supreme Court Justice's wife, it's crazy. Look, news flash. Like a quarter of the country is crazy.

Republicans have lost their minds. Then Trump lost 60 court cases in a row. Every judge, including every Trump appointed judge, said there's not a shred of evidence that the election was stolen. Yet at least 25% of the country believes unquestioningly that it was stolen. They are completely detached from reality, the definition of being crazy. So I'm not at all surprised that Ginny Thomas is crazy. In fact, I'm kind of annoyed that they write 20 different articles about the same thing as if it's like some shocking event, right? Get it through your thick skulls. Republicans have lost touch with reality.

So Clarence Thomas, is he crazy? Come on, guys. Of course he is. Oh, but he's a Supreme Court justice. The reason why people in mainstream media are like outraged by it is because they see. still believe in the mythology of great men. Like, oh, people who are on the Supreme Court and our institutions are great men. No, they're not. He's a idiot. He was put on there by Republicans to be an idiot, okay? And the other day he had the audacity to do a speech about they shouldn't

politicize the Supreme Court. Every single one of his decisions has been based on either politics or religion. There is no consistent judicial philosophy other than the right wing is always right, okay? He's a joke. Both him and his wife have IQ near in near single digits, okay? So none of that is surprising. But here we actually have a story. The story is, wait a minute, Justice Thomas is ruling on January 6 issues and about hiding evidence. He did not want Trump to turn over evidence on January 6th. Well, some of that evidence is literally about his wife. No, you've got to recuse yourself. Are there no bounds to your corruption, Clarence Thomas?

And the obvious answer is no, there aren't. In a sane world, he would obviously be impeached if he continued to not recuse himself on January 6 cases where his wife is deeply involved in the plot. That's so obvious. There's another really important legal wrinkle to this in a minute, but I want to let Maz jump in. Well, basically what we, right now, the right wing is come down to you're either a religious nut job or you're an open grifter. So you're either Marjorie Taylor Green, MTG, or your DJT, Donald John Trump or whatever his middle name is. But this is, this Ginny Thomas falls definitely into, as you guys have been saying, a true believer. And the problem becomes when these people start.

to believe that there is a religious thing and that Donald Trump is the calling. Like some of the messages that you see between her and Meadows are invoking Jesus. And it's just so crazy. And it reminds me being someone who was born in Iran, and I saw the cult of personality and how the Ayatollah Khomeini was a lot of people's savior. Donald J. Trump is the Ayatollah Khomeini of Republicans. That's basically what it is. And Ginny Thomas is one of these people who falls into this. I just did a little bit of research about her.

She was in a cult. She was in Lifespring and she got out of the cult. And then she did work to work against people against cults. And now she's found her way back into a cult. So it's crazy. It's nuts. And the irony of this, the crazy part of it, the craziest part of it is she's not. married to a senator who's Republican or a Congress member. She's married to a Supreme Court

Justice. Whose number one whole definition is that they're supposed to be neutral. They're supposed to be neutral. We've been seeing these in the hearings this past week when Katanji Brown Jackson has been saying, I would look at the case and make a decision. This guy's supposed to be neutral. And she's at home running this coup d'etat from the other room. it's at what there's no point like you would think she would have some level of you know what um i'm gonna you i'm not gonna talk to at all because we see it like kelly and conway and george conway right we know that family doesn't get along right but this is a supreme court justice at what doesn't he at least have a moment where he goes listen woman keep your thoughts to yourself you can't

you can't go to the rally the only reason she left the rally is because she said it was cold She didn't leave the rally because it was a bunch of crazy people that were about to attack the... She goes, it got cold, I couldn't stand the... That shows that she's not only crazy, she's weak. She didn't have the privilege to storm the Capitol. So if I were one of the stormers, I'd be even more upset. But really, Ginny, you left when it got cold? Yeah.

So she's got problems all over the place. And what's crazy is where a year and plus passed it, And these people are still able to be in positions of power. The fact that, you know, again, looking at Ginny Thomas, she originally supported Ted Cruz. That should tell you a lot. She supported Ted Cruz to say, who supports Ted Cruz? You got to be really crazy. Yeah, it's mind-blowing that the, I mean, I still am holding out, but I'm losing hope more and more

that the January 6th committee is going to go after some of these people. legally, legally, like you said, either, you know, somebody like Thomas should be impeached. He shouldn't be there anymore. Cruz, Hawley, all these people that were involved need to be impeached from their positions. And here we are sitting listening to the industry. Every time more evidence comes out, we're just like, of course, we knew this. So what's next? What are the consequences?

Maz, I was very surprised about that thing about the cold. I didn't know that. And it worries me because with the state of climate change, Our last defense against insurrections might be evaporating every year. But anyway, I would just go a little bit further. So you had said previously he should be impeached if he doesn't recuse himself. The thing is, like, even if we're forgetting all the other issues with his wife being involved with all the moving of money on the right and everything, he's already had multiple opportunities

and he chose not to, as we'll get to. So back in February of last year, when the Supreme Court rejected election challenges filed by Trump and his allies, Thomas wrote in a dissent that it was baffling and inexplicable that the majority had decided against hearing the cases, because he believed the Supreme Court should provide states with guidance for future elections. He's wording that in a way that sounds kind of reasonable, but what he's saying is that they should legitimize these challenges that judges have already dismissed, implying in doing so that those judges made a mistake, they should take it up.

And he says that's the reason, but what if his real explanation, real reason, real rationale, is that he wants to rule in favor of the Trump administration? What about just earlier when the court rebuffed Trump's bid to block the release of documents related January 6th? It was an 8-1 decision. All the other Republicans, three judges, justices that were put there by Trump ruled against him. But Clarence Thomas said, no, he shouldn't have to give that information. He's had two chances. That's not three strikes, but we're not playing sports.

This is the Supreme Court. I think that's enough. They're not going to do anything. They'd never take him out, even though imagine. Imagine if you found out that if Katanji Brown Jackson had been sending text messages to the leaders of BLM or something like that, how the right would say it would be a totally different standard. But this guy has already burned through whatever chances I think it's reasonable for him to have. Yeah, so of course the problem is there's nothing we could do, right? The Republicans are going to block all impeachment.

There's no way in the world the Republicans would impeach Clarence. I was zero on top of 0%, right? It doesn't matter. He could he could he could publicly try to kill a Democrat and they wouldn't impeach him. But look, on January 6th, they literally tried to murder Democrats. Yeah. That's literally what happened on January 6th, let alone the Republican vice president, right? And still there's no impeachment, no nothing.

And he's like, oh yeah, my wife was part of the plot. I don't care. They're not guilty. It's absurd. It's beyond absurd. The part of the problem is that we normalize it. It is not normal. She's part of a coup attempt.

And her husband's on the Supreme Court ruling in her favor. It's insanity. And remember, guys, it was 8 to 1. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, the handmaid's tail lady. They all said, no, no, you got to give the evidence over to the house, right? Clarence someone's like, no, you don't. That evidence is going to implicate my wife. No, I'm not going to recuse myself.

He has no morals, no principles. It's just gross. And so there's one person on the Supreme Court that is clearly massively corrupt. Ron Wyden, Democratic senators calling for him to resign. You're not going to resign. They're a meta-Republican, right? So, I mean, Wyden's not doing the wrong thing by bringing attention to it. But we just know that it's not fixable, unfortunately, in this current state.

But I wanted to come back to one other really important point. Jenny Thomas wanted the Democrats to be tried by a military tribunal. That's not just nuts. That is saying, get rid of democracy. Let's go to a dictatorship, a military dictatorship led by our dear leader Donald Trump. And my husband's on the Supreme Court, and he'll sanction it. My best friend. So we have at least one clear fascist on the Supreme Court, who says military tribunals for our political opponent sounds pretty good.

She talked to her best friend. So, I mean, we're getting to late stage fascism here. There's more stories about that later in the show. But as serious as that is, it is impossible not to point out how funny Mazza's point was. That she's like, this is so important and existential, we're going to lose the country. Oh, it's a little chilly. I've got to go inside. She took off.

She took off. I mean, who would have known that all it would have said, one more jacket and the coup might have happened. One layer of clothes. If she had just, if she had thermals underneath, it might have. Can you imagine Jimmy Thomas? I got my pets. It's just crazy, man. Who are the only people?

One thing I will know, going back to this whole thing of like the nut job religious types, the reason, obviously, they have all of their, you know, beliefs, whether it's with abortion or gay marriage or all this other stuff, I think that that's why they're so passionate in their support of someone who is clearly such a, un-moral human being, Donald Trump, but they feel that for whatever reason, he's their savior. And it does remind me again of these totalitarian states, whether it's Iran or other places that had that cult of personality and said, this guy, I alone can fix it. And so when they go that crazy, it's weird dealing, you're dealing with crazy. And unfortunately, in that household, crazy is living with another crazy.

She needs her own George Conway to maybe, you know, counter her points. But that's not going to happen. Instead, we got crazy squared. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think it's time to take her first break. When we come back, though, we're going to be giving updates on what's going on in Ukraine, including some pretty surprising developments on the military front,

all that and more after this. All right back on TYT, Jank, John and Ma's with you guys. John's got a lot more news. I do, but we're going to launch it up with this. Have you gathered specific intelligence that suggests that President Putin is deploying these weapons, move within the position, or considering their use? And would the US or NATO respond with military action if he did use chemical weapons? You know, on the first question, I can't answer that.

I'm not going to give you intelligence data, number one. Number two, we would respond. We would respond if he uses it, the nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use. And so that's a little bit vague there, asked specifically about the use of chemical weapons, which thankfully, despite several weeks of whisperings about, we haven't seen any proof that anyone has used any chemical weapons. But he does go on to say to another reporter, it would trigger a response in kind, whether or not you're asking whether NATO would cross, we'd make that decision at the time. So it's a bit jumbled in terms of what he's saying. But the reason that I want to focus on this is because we try to be fair here at the young Turks.

We are incredibly critical and have been for two decades now of war mongering politicians, which is why we've given credit to Joe Biden in his administration thus far in helping to try to tamp down. the tensions in terms of any sort of der... One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance,

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hint in that direction. So the idea that we would respond in kind to the use of chemical weapons, I have to assume he doesn't mean what he seems to be meaning because he certainly couldn't be implying we would then use chemical weapons. But if he's even implying any sort of direct military intervention, then That is exactly the sort of disastrous red line that we've been warning against from the very beginning. Yeah. So look, that was a Bidenism, the in-kind line. A Bidenism being a jumbled mess that's hard to tell because he's muttering and it's not quite sure. You're not quite sure what he's saying, right? So there's two possibilities. One is beyond disastrous and the other one is just awful. Okay.

So beyond disastrous is in kind, they use chemical weapons, we use chemical weapons. He can't possibly mean that, that's nuts, right? So I'm gonna eliminate that as a possibility because I don't think he's lost his mind. Because as John pointed out, look, we've criticized him 2,000 times I think his domestic policy is a disaster. But so far he's handled this in a way that is borderline excellent, finding a balance between crippling economic sanctions while not engaging militarily, right? So he can't possibly mean that we would respond with chemical or biological weapons. Okay, now, if he does, by the way, then overwhelming criticism, it's abhorrent and unacceptable. But the second option is not a very good one where he seemed to be indicating military engagement.

Military engagement of any source, sword is a massive problem. That risks war with Russia. And look, Russia is now apparently losing to the Ukrainian army. So that is, that doesn't mean it would be easy for us. But all that is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the nukes when it comes to the stability and honestly, the lives of everyone on the planet. So we cannot engage militarily.

So I hope he walks that back. That's a very bad idea. I know he's trying to deter them from using chemical weapons. And I appreciate that. But on the other hand, any talk of red line when you're talking about Russia or nuclear power is insanity. It's adjourned by neo-conservoirs like Lindsey Graham, who can't wait to mine the meteor. And just before we all die of World War III, he made a couple more bucks from his defense contractor donors, right? So hell no on any red line.

There's no red line here. That talk is insane. Maas. you know it's such a frustrating situation first of all i i have a hard time believing out of seven billion people in the world the one guy we get to lead this country is this prud i'm talking about putin is this crazy p o s who there's there's seven billion people out there there could have been one guy who might have had some level of uh um critical thinking and might have thought okay let me really think this thing out but this guy's ego like he is you know he is

Trump on steroids in many ways, his ego is such an ego and we're stuck in this situation. As you said, it's such a tough situation because I've talked to people who are analysts and they've said, look, if you don't do something now, if you don't protect the skies now, if you don't get involved now, you're going to be having the same conversation in a month, two months, three months as he gets further and further and who knows what he's going to do next. What's frustrating to me is this is Rocky Four. I thought Rocky Four was over. I thought, we're already in Rocky eight. The whole Ivan Drago, I will break you.

We are there now and we don't know what to do. And we need this moment of like, let's just, we need Gorbachev, we need somebody. I don't know what's going to happen because as you said, Jenk, I'm totally opposed to war, but I don't know what we do. What if they do use chemical weapons? The problem has been in the past. We have appeased this guy, this nut job over and over and over again. and he, you know, to Crimea, you know, Syria, you name it, there's been many times where we've appeased

them. And again, I'm not a proponent of fighting with weapons. And I love the fact that you said that we're doing these economic sanctions. But I'm at a loss. And I'm at a loss as to what Biden would have to say. I agree with both of you guys. I think they've done a good job so far. I think they've done a great job of putting out a lot of their intelligence to go, we know they're going to be doing this and then Russia does it. There you go. So it's almost like they're telling us what's going to happen and then it happens and it's happening

the way that they're telling us is going to happen. The one thing I will say is somebody had a tweet out there which was great. They said it's great to see our president meeting with the leaders of NATO and not pushing them out of the way. And it reminded me of that moment when Trump pushed the guy of Montenegro of all the places, the one guy

who's like in the smallest country. He's like, get out of my way. It's so nice to see a leader and his team. It made me realize I'm so happy not to have to watch Kellyanne Conway and Kaley McAnney and Stephen Miller. I'm so happy not to have to see those guys. We get to watch Jen Saki Talk. I just love that. So yes, I agree with you, Jank, a little bit of mumbo-jumbo, a little bit of Bidenisms.

But at the same time, I'll take a Bidenism any day over half a second of. Trump pushing people out of the way for, you know, just, oh God, I'm so happy. Well, and look, we do have a little bit of clear Biden communication in a video in one sec, but you'd asked about what else is being done. Well, at this meeting, Biden says he supports expelling Russia from the G20. He also talked about their continued efforts to try to keep China out of the conflict. And also says that one of the reasons he wanted to go in person to meet with the heads of NATO is to make sure that not only do they have this suite of sanctions, but that they will maintain it on for months a year, if that's what it takes to get Putin to finally, you know,

go to the table and figure out how to end this thing, also including figuring out how to set up a system of review violations of the sanctions and where, when, and how Russia is able to buy banned products. But that said, we're having this conversation about fears of Biden sort of violating what seems like a pretty ironclad. I'm not going to do anything that's going to lead to a direct shooting war with Russia. That said, some of the media don't seem to like that he's been that clear, as you'll see with this, ABC reporter talking to Biden. Sir, you've made it very clear in this conflict that you do not want to see World War III. But is it possible that in expressing that so early that you were too quick to rule out direct military intervention in this war? could Putin have been emboldened knowing that you are not going to get involved directly in this

conflict? No and no. Well, that was good. That was clear at least no and no. But I love you say that you don't want World War III. But it's world war three. That's the bad one, actually. They've gotten worse. Each of the sequels, it's usually how it works. Three is going to be a real doozy, The ABC. Yeah. No, the media has been, on the push for war has been just nuts. I mean, don't look up type of nuts. So what kind of question?

I mean, John is exactly right. There is no sentence that ends rationally that starts with you say you're against World War III, but, no, there's no but, no, I mean, you say you're against all of us dying, but on the other hand, we could mine the meteor and make force. trillion dollars before we all die, war is really good for ratings on television. Did you know that Senator, I mean, President Biden, right? No, you lunatics, no, we cannot have war with Russia and right now they appear to be losing.

I mean, Putin is going out there to do, are the economic sanctions working? Is Biden's plan working? Guys, when Biden's plan is not working like voting rights, $15 minimum wage, you turn into here, and we tell you, it is not working, okay, everybody telling you that it's working, is lying, right? In this case, it's definitely working. Putin's speeches are now have devolved to. Okay, maybe our both our legs are broken.

But I think we could still wheel around here, right? Like when he talks about the Russian economy, he's like almost crying. He's like, I know, we're completely devastated. No one has food. We're all destroyed. But hang in there, guys. Hang in there. Okay.

So it's getting worse and worse. The sanctions are definitely working. He doesn't care about the average Russian at all. But he cares about the average Russian oligarch and they're hurt dog. Don't ask them if they're all right. And to that point, our one defense against chemical biological and maybe tactical nukes that Russia might use is that if they go that far, it is then possible that they would also lose China. And China would come to our side and that Europe would then say, I don't care if gas is 50 cents more or $5 more. They just nuked the part of Europe.

We're cutting off their oil as well, in which case Russia would have. No money left. And at that point, it's a matter of time before someone makes a move or 12 moves against Putin internally. Because you cannot cost people that much money without some sort of consequences internally. You know, it's funny. It's almost like they're losing their sponsors. It's kind of like capitalism has won. Capitalism has won when you can unsponsor the country. So like I can imagine Putin doing a speech and going like this speech brought to you by Coca-Cola. And then someone moves the Coca-Cola. They go, no, no.

Oh, Kremlin Kola. Try Kremlin Kola. It's not like, it's like Coca-Cola, but it's from Kremlin. This brought you by McDonald's. McYurys. Okay, fine, McYurys. But my point is, these companies are pulling out. First of all, when Coca-Cola and McDonald's pulled out, my first thought was,

wait a minute, we're trying to punish them. We just made them healthier. We pulled out. You should be pushing more, like, American junk food. Doritos should be, like, stepping up their game. But here's what's interesting, because you were talking about, Jack, like, what's it going to take for other countries and other places to really, really sanction them completely? Because there's companies that haven't pulled out. Like, I read somewhere, and I don't know if this has happened since, but I read somewhere that Burger King franchises weren't pulling out.

The Coke brothers, I read, weren't pulling out their companies. I mean, how evil do you have to be where you're like, no, we're good. We'll keep sponsoring the war. We're the Koch brothers. So it would be great if in a world where we really could just all like just turn a switch and it's just full on sanctioned to the point where there's no dena. Because I keep hearing these reports of when are the Russian people going to start to see what's really happening and turn against him? And I think as body backs are coming home, as the sanctions start taking effect, we really hopefully can avoid having to escalate this war.

I mean, that's the hope. You know, that's the hope. I mean, they just found his ship. I guess there's a ship off of Italy. They're trying to figure out if it's Putin's is worth $750 million. And they said they started looking at the list of the people who work on it because it's never registered to him. You know, like any other crook criminal, he never registers anything in his own name. It's always in other people's names and they were like looking at the names of the people and it's like everyone working on the on the boat is

Russian and I was waiting for them to be like there, you know, it was like, you know, Putin Jr. or whatever, but it's clearly his boat. So like how many boats do we have to take away for this guy to really stop doing what he's doing? I don't know. And I really do hope that it's that it doesn't have to lead to us having to, you know, escalate this war. And as you said, World War III. Yeah, two quick points off of what Maas said. One, who's that evil? Charles Koch. That's your direct answer. Coke Industries, we did a story about it earlier, very clearly saying they will not pull out of Russia.

Because they think it's helpful to stay in Russia to put pressure on internally. Oh, shut up, you monsters, okay? There's not a dime that Charles Coke will turn away. It doesn't matter if the entire planet is in danger. I mean, he puts the entire planet in danger through his fossil fuel. investments and it's a huge part of his company anyway. He's like, I'm in the planet killing business, so this is no skin off his ass. I mean, he's like 120 years old anyway.

And so, so yes, there are monsters like that amongst our population. But, but Maz's point about capitalism is a, is a very important one. Funny enough, Black Rock CEO said this might signal the end of globalization. If you don't know Black Rock, it's one of the largest private, it's one of the largest, But it's one of the largest financial institutions in the country. In other words, the bankers, okay? And he's saying, well, if we all separate and we sanction Russia and they're isolated, well, then we're not a global economy anymore, which made me think,

I wonder if BlackRock has Russian money hidden, right? Because a lot of those private equity companies hide money for oligarchs all across the world. Okay, but anyway, putting that aside, that's just speculation. I think he's exactly wrong and that Ma's right. So Ma's, I think you're smarter than the top banker in the world, okay? Because I think that when you cut off Russia from the rest of global capitalism, they're hurt, they're hurt so bad, they're now partly retreating away from Kyiv. That's partly a military issue, but partly they've run out of funds, they've run out of supplies,

Their troops are beginning to starve. Their internal population is in a disastrous shape. If you get cut off from the rest of the world financially, that is a massive, potentially a massive deterrent. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too.

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in countries that don't have a functioning democracy and haven't for decades, there has to be considerations for, well, what if they just don't back off? And the devastation is being felt, but it's mainly being felt by regular people because Putin can fall back on the hundreds of billions of dollars he's stolen from Russia. John, I just got to address that real quick. We've talked about it before. Sanctions with a dictator never work. He just, like Kim Jong-un, you could sanction him until the cows come home, he murders his own civilians on the regular. That doesn't affect him 1%. But when you have a country that has a more diversified and larger elite base, like South Africa and Russia, sanctions do work because the rest of the

elites say, I'm tired of losing money. So they then put pressure in the form of either political pressure or at some point lead pressure on the leader and things get resolved in that way. Yeah, so it is what it is. Okay, we got to go to our second break. We do have more to talk about, though, to close out the hour, so don't go anywhere. Jank, John and Ma's with you guys. Also, naughty grandma, who wrote it on Twitch. Happy anniversary, T.I.T.

I still love you after 15 months together. I didn't even like my husband after that long. Oh, my God. Well, poor naughty husband. TYT, outclassing husbands since 2002. As we all say while being husbands. Okay. All right, John, forward. Okay, let's talk about some exciting news.

Ukraine spent basically the first week of the Russian invasion slowing the Russian advance. And then we had a couple of weeks of them settling into what became seemingly a quagmire for Russia. Their attempts to take over cities like Kiev were going nowhere. Their massive convoy of armored vehicles simply dispersed into the woods, the portions that weren't destroyed. And now there's actually evidence that some of the territory that Russia had taken is being retaken by Ukraine, according to the UK. We'll get to that in a second, but first the specifics, the town of Makariv, west of the capital in Kiev,

is now back under Ukrainian control. They said that the state flag of Ukraine was raised over the city. It's part of the fiercely contested suburban areas around Kiev, where Russia made large early advances, but then started to suffer problems. And according to the UK Ministry of Defense, Ukrainian counterattacks and Russian forces falling back on over-extended supply lines has allowed Ukraine to reoccupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometers east of Kyiv.

And they believe that that is likely to continue at this point. And by the way, there seems to be somewhat of an admission of this changing situation on the Russian side, with the defense ministry official Sergei Rudskoi saying just earlier today that the main goal of the Russian operation is, quote, the liberation of Donvass, which admittedly is what they pretended it was going to be initially. But it is clear from what they were doing in their first few weeks that their intent was to destroy the military capability of Ukraine entirely and take over as many major cities as they can. If they're now communicating that they are focusing once again on just the eastern portion, that could be a tacit admission of increased Ukrainian abilities and resolve. Guys, this is an amazing story. Look, when Russia stalled while doing that 40-mile line of tanks headed toward Kiev,

first of all, they were headed towards Kiev, and they got to 12 miles outside of Kiev, and their clear intent was the circled Kiev, the capital, they're nowhere near what the Russian minister was talking about, which is an eastern Ukraine. So there's no question he's lying about their original intent. But when they stalled, we were like, whoa, that is unexpected, right? And so it was unexpected by us, and it was more importantly, unexpected by Putin. Putin thought that they would be able to take Kiev in the entire country in two to three days. I don't think even Cheney believed it when he said that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq,

and they would throw roses at our feet. I think he was just trolling, right? And it was so easy to get to mainstream media to go, oh, yes, of course, Iraqis will love when we drop bombs on their heads. And that was, but that was clear propaganda. In Putin's case, it appears to be propaganda plus, a new streaming service. So it was propaganda plus, he actually believed it. And so they didn't adequately prepare. So one, the Ukrainians did an unbelievable job of fighting, unbelievable job.

And I mean, there's historic resistance, right? But number two, oh, the Russians had not prepared. So now there is real evidence. Not just propaganda, because the Ukrainians also do propaganda and actually really, really good at marketing. They've been great at that as well as military resistance. So I look out for, if it's just the Ukrainian government saying it, I'm like grain of salt. You know, a little salt bay on that one. I love the Ukrainians, but of course in the middle of a war, they're going to do marketing slash propaganda, right?

Yeah. But now there's actually heat mapping showing where the conflicts are, where they're actually firing back and forth. There's other external evidence showing the Russians are in retreat. They were 12 miles outside of Kyiv. They're now 20 miles outside of Kiev. They're going backwards. And there are reports that the Ukrainians have now surrounded. The Russians are supposed to surround the city.

But Ukrainians have beat them back so much. They have now surrounded 10,000 Russian troops. Now, again, this now gets into borderline marketing, who'll call it that. So it's impossible to know in the fog of war, but at least there's talk of mass Russian surrenders of thousands of soldiers. So if that happens, oh, so then either Russia is going to fully retreat and say, oh, yeah, we meant just to take another province in eastern Ukraine, right? As they're indicating now, or Putin's going to lose his mind that things are going to get

worse, right? But holy cowder, Ukrainians aren't just holding down the fort. They appear to be actually winning the war against Russia. Unbelievable. Well, listen, they're both tough people. Like, we know Russians are tough, you know, and we know Ukrainians are tough. I used to actually go to this boxing gym called Wildcard in Hollywood. Just to exit, I never got in the actual ring to like, even with the headgear.

this nose was not made for boxing because it's just a great target. But one time when I was in there, this is where Freddie Roach trains Manny Pakkow. It's like a real pros come in. And one of the Kuchko's was in their training. And when he would hit the heavy bag, the whole building would shake. I watched this guy and I go, if this guy even got close, I would die. So Ukrainians are tough people. But Russians are tough too.

finding out here is with the arms that we've given them, the West has given them a lot of, you know, military aid and military support, I think that these, that our equipment is definitely something that's really helping here. It reminds me of when the Taliban took back Afghanistan again and they were like sitting there in like American tanks and stuff. And I was like, oh, no, here we go. It's, you know, we've armed them and they're able to fight. And also it's their country by the way if you know if any country's going to learn that was america with vietnam we were there for several years and didn't win anything we left you know and so similarly anytime you try to take over a country like this i mean ukraine is like a country of 30 i think 40 million

people it's a big country and and what's a shame what's heartbreaking at the end is that these guys are neighbors and there's a lot of russian ukrainians and like this just shouldn't be happening and yet it is and it's it's heartbreaking but again like you know in a weird sick way i think we all get caught up in like we're like okay now i'm rooting for the ukrainians to kill the russians but i'm like i don't want the russians to die either i really would just like vladimir put into disappear somehow and maybe some open-minded leader would come in and go all right let's find a way to exist together but who am i i don't know i'm in vancouver where weed is legal so maybe i'm high i don't know

That does sound pretty good, but the legal weed in that, but 100%. So super quick. Vitalikov, by the way, is the mayor of Kiev. So that, you know, hitting the, that bag is a lot like the Russian army right now. It's shaking, right? And I just want to say on the toughness, the Russian people are super tough. But when your supply lines are cut, you're going to starve. And there's no toughness out of starvation.

Yeah. So those troops, if those reports are accurate or anywhere near accurate, those are, those Russian troops are in a lot of trouble. Yeah, and we will have to wait and see. As you said, and we have said a thousand times during this conflict, grains assault on literally every piece of information coming out of there. And also, devil's advocate, a retreat can mean many things. It could be a retreat.

It could be that they really do think that they can accomplish more taking over fully the eastern regions and then potentially using that as a staging ground for a reinvasion. It could be that they initially sent in logistical support for a conflict that could last one week. And it might have been sufficient for that. So it might be that they can retreat, actually send the additional reinforcements necessary as well as additional logistical support, and then go back in. This can mean a lot of different things. So don't get too excited. But, you know, take good news when it comes, including this good news.

If we could jump ahead a little bit, according to the Ukrainian government, there has been a prisoner exchange. And the guards from Snake Island, they're saying, have actually been freed. In addition to a number of Russian soldiers and Russian civilian sailors, which were transferred back to Russia. Now, initial reports that said there was a prisoner exchange of soldiers, but they couldn't confirm that they were the actual ones from that viral story. Since then, they have said it is actually the same people. I say grains of salt anyway, but it is good news that they were able to get their people back and that Russia was able to get their people back. That is fantastic news. Those guys are heroes. Exactly. Well, we are running very low in time. So let's jump into our last big story.

An executive at a company that owns a number of different franchises of Applebee's sent an email identifying a silver lining to the fact that gas prices are so high. But unfortunately, for that CEO, the email has been leaked. Thankfully, by the Reddit forum anti-work, which we've talked about many times on the Young Turks. And in this, this is Wayne Pancratz, whose LinkedIn page describes him as the executive director of operations for Apple Central LLC, sent an email back on March 9th. So very recently, titled, Why Gas Increase is Good for Hiring. And in it, he suggested that skyrocketing gas prices will, quote, increase application flow and has the potential to lower or average wage. So hey, good news. Goes on to say, most of our employee base and potential employees base live paycheck to paycheck. Any increase in gas prices cuts into their disposable income.

As inflation continues to climb and gas prices continue to go up, that means more hours employees will need to work to maintain their current level of living. Now this is not him expressing empathy. He thinks this is an opportunity. His email goes on to claim that the company is, quote, no longer competing with the government when it comes to hiring due to the end of COVID unemployment and stimulus checks, both of which expired last year, and says that, quote, benefits us as prices rise. People who are relying on unemployment money simply will have less money to spend.

It will force people back into the workforce. And in particular, into a workforce that this company will now have more control over, saying we all competed to hire out the limited applicant pool and there was a wage war. We all saw businesses hiring team members at $18 to $20 an hour. They will no longer be able to do this. Trucking is the backbone of America and as fuel costs rise, so will the charges for shipping. If those costs cannot be passed on to the customer in terms of menu price, the only area they can cut sizable costs will be in labor.

And so since the government has abandoned everyone, despite the fact that the pandemic continues and we're still losing close to 1,000 people a day, they're going to be desperate. And so they're going to come and apply and we won't have to pay them particularly well. We got to cut money somewhere and that's the only thing that I, a well-paid executive, think of. So they're going to be desperate and we're going to put the squeeze on them. So high inflation, high gas prices, bad for most people. But for some, it's an opportunity. So this is what late stage capitalism looks like. You know, if you haven't heard that term, this is what it means, where things have gotten so crazy that we've lost sight of what

our economy was supposed to do, right? The advocates of out of control, unregulated capitalism was that, oh, no, no, it's okay because it'll lead to rising wages in a better economy and it'll trickle down on you all over your head and then that will lift all of your boats, et cetera. That's not what's happening at all. What's happening instead is executives are saying, well, hey, bad economic news is good news for us because we'll be able to further brutalize our workers. They'll be more desperate.

That way we can cut their wages. Gas prices are higher so we can cut their wages. So they'll be less able to afford those gas prices. That would make them even more desperate and they'll even, they'll need us even more. And then we'll really have them. And look at the options that he considers. He's like, well, I mean, we could pass it on to the customers. Or we could pass it on to the employees.

Never is it discussed that maybe we could cut into our profits a smitch. It's not like Applebee's is losing money. They're still making tons and tons of not just revenue but profit. But it never even occurs to them. Hey, maybe we can cut it. Not get rid of our profit, but in tough times cut into our profit. Nope, doesn't even occur to him. They're just like, who do we punish?

Because it ain't us. It ain't us executives, that's for sure. Now, to that point, you know, you'll see, it's not just some rando executive at Applebees. You'll see all over cable news, people saying, anchors saying, oh, to pay prices, wages are too high. It's causing inflation. Stephanie Ruhl said it, I can name MSNBC, forget CNN, forgets Foxx News, I can name you half a dozen MSNBC anchors, okay? Ah, that it's the wages that are driving up inflation. You want to know what the reality is?

Inflation is up 7%. average wages for the average American workers up 2%, less than inflation. Now, except there is one category of workers where the wages are up more than 7%. You're going to be shocked to find out it's bankers. And not just their salaries, their bonuses are up 20%. Show me one cable news segment where they complained about banker bonuses and how it was driving inflation. You won't find it because the people on television are the elites and they're doing marketing for other elites. And so they're lying through their teeth when they're blaming you for inflation.

You know who makes a decision to raise prices? Companies do. That is that is a rule of physics. It's a rule of logic. It's a rule of math. There is no argument with it. Jesus doesn't raise the prices. Santa doesn't raise the prices.

It is literally a corporate executive that says, oh, because of economic conditions, raise prices. He could choose to say, no, instead of making 15% profit, let's make 11% profit. But they choose not to do that. Does anyone on television tell you that? No, they tell you the opposite. It's just a more sophisticated way of lying to you. But I've got to give you one last fact about those bonuses and how much Wall Street's getting. You guys have been, for last 40 years, you've barely gotten any raises when you take inflation into account.

It says, 1985, banker bonuses have gone up 1,743%. If minimum wage had gone up at the same rate, would it be $15? Would it be $20? No, 20's outrage. About $23, right? It would be $61.75. That's what minimum wage would be. It would be $61.

if it had gone up at the same rate as the bankers. Did anybody on TV ever tell you that? Never, right? Isn't that curious how they leave out that piece of information? Moss. First of all, Jake, now you make me want to be a banker. I'm going to go find a Wells Fargo and apply as soon as this episode is over. But secondly, who's this guy writing this email too?

Like, even if you have these evil, you know, crushing the worker ideas, is he sending it to Gordon Gecko? Who's he sending it to? This is like a greed is good speech that this guy wrote. And he's like, let me put it out there, not thinking, oh, other people are going to put it. And sometimes these executives, I really feel like everybody, by the way, they can afford to. They should have a common sense advisor, just a common sense advisor. And the guy should go, hey, I'm thinking to type in this email where I talk about crushing the little people.

and I'm thinking of sending it out to a bunch of people. Do you think it's a good idea? And the common sense guy goes, yeah, don't put it in writing. Don't put it in writing. Tell your other buddy at the golf game while you smoke a cigar. Make sure he's not recording it and move on with your life. But this executive, executives are A-holes.

You know, someone should take the Appleby logo and change it to A-hole B just for this. I want to see some A-hole B photoshopped logos. just for this guy and it should go with a quote of his and they should make that. That should be a meme for it. Let's just get it going a little bit. I think that's what should happen. So that's my two cents and I'm not getting a job at a bank. And Maz, first of all, who's he writing it to?

Other executives to tell him, remember, cut everybody's wages. That's who he's writing it to. Appleby's, of course, had an official announcement saying, oh, I don't know why he wrote that. I mean, that's outrageous. And of course, is not represent our company position, which to me was, I translated. that to human speak and it was why did he write it down right he shouldn't have written it down we all knew to cut their wages okay so I just have a simpler online viral idea than than Mazas I like Mazas but mine is just hashtag Applebee sucks okay okay okay by the way it's food

sucks too Maz and I talked about that in an old school episode it I love chain restaurants the food and chain restaurants, except Applebee's. How do you screw up classic American chain restaurant? They found a way. They probably cut costs on that as well. All the money goes to the executives. None of it goes to the food or the workers. All right, we are massively out of time.

All right, everybody check out Maz Giovanni everywhere he is. Maas, what's a good website for people to find your stuff? Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, everywhere. It's at Maz Jobrani on TikTok. My schedule for my touring is at mazjobrani.com and my podcast is back to school with Maz Jobrani. I've monopolized Maz Jobrani. That's good thinking. Good thinking, this guy's smart, okay? John, on the other hand, has monopolized every dragon on the planet.

So that's also good thinking. Okay, so damage report obviously led by Dragon Daddy over there. Check that out. All right, the return of the Vig, Emma Vigland, when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.