The Young Turks - The Last Walz

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Israel strikes deep in Lebanon after the rocket attack and stokes fear of wider war. Walz jokingly calls himself a monster for passing universal school lunches. FTC Chair Lina Khan responds to calls for her firing." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) 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 ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt 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 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. I'm so upset. Oh my God. Begha! All right, welcome to the Young Turks, live from the Polymarket Studios in L.A. Janku Granite is sparing with you guys. We have the usual war politics, Democrats, Republicans.

Who is Kamala Harris going to pick? We've got updates on that. I'm starting to develop favorites. We're going to talk about at least one of them today. So lots of stories to get to. And J.D. Vance and his weirdness in a little bit as well. All right, Casper, what do we got? We begin with some international news, some concerning international news at that.

So let's take it away. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since October 7. But it's feared this escalation could trigger all out war. The U.S. has called for restraint as Israel bows to retaliate, warning there will be a price to pay. But backed by Iran and with its massive arsenal of missiles, Hezbollah is a far more formidable foe than Hamas in Gaza. A deadly rocket strike that is being blamed on Hezbollah has tragically killed 12 people in Israel's illegally annexed Golan Heights over the weekend. Sparking worries that this escalation will drive to a broader regional war in the Middle East. We've been talking about the possibility of a broader regional war in the Middle East ever since Hamas attacked Israel.

Israel retaliated by invading Gaza and killing tens of thousands of people. Now, the majority of the victims were in their teens and were playing soccer when this strike occurred. Here are more details about the aftermath of this deadly strike. The children were playing soccer just behind me when the sirens went off. They then tried to rush to the shelter. You can see it's pop-marked with shrapnel, but there simply wasn't enough time. Before that rocket slammed into the pitch, and you see these charred children's bicycles left behind. These paramedics arrived 10 minutes later.

The whole scene was truly chaotic. People screaming, searching for their children. We found only dead kids. It was really hard to watch. I've never seen kids like that. And I've seen dead bodies, but not like that. Now the victims of this strike were between the ages of 10 to 20 years old. And the specific neighborhood where the strike happened is known as the village of Majal Shams.

Now, all of the victims were Druze. This is a minority within Israel. They are Muslim Arabs. And Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Mohamed Afif, told the Associated Press that they vehemently deny carrying out this attack. But National Security Council spokeswoman, Adrian Watson said in a statement on Sunday, quote, this attack was conducted by Lebanese Hezbollah. It was their rocket and launched from an area they control. However, a senior U.S. official who spoke to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity says that the Biden administration believes that the attack was an

accident by Hezbollah. Hezbollah says that they've been firing rockets at an Israeli army post in the Golan Heights in response to Israeli airstrikes on villages in southern Lebanon. And so I have some more details in a moment, but I'm really curious what you think about this, because, you know, it could have been an accident by Hezbollah. Hezbollah typically takes responsibility for the airstrikes that they conduct. And we know that ever since the beginning of this war, there's been, you know, tit for tat retaliation happening in this area between Israel and Lebanon. Yeah, tons of nuance here. So first of all, normally as well takes responsibility, except in this case, there's 12 children and teenagers dead, so they're

less likely to take responsibility. I don't really trust the statements of Hezbollah or Israel or America. I just don't trust them at all. None of them have proved to be overly reliable. So it's very hard to tell what happened. Now, we do know the bigger picture, for sure. So since October 7th attacks, Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging missiles back and forth. And so, you know, in these conflicts, they always try to find who started it, right? Okay, we can go a thousand times over and over about who started it. There is no question about two things, though. Number one, this entire conflict exists because of the illegal occupation that Israel has had of West Bank Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.

There's no question that is the underlying cause of it. There's no second argument. The idea that it's, oh, they don't mind the occupation. They just happen to hate Jews or something is insanity. It's stupid. It's meant to shift the argument to charges of racism, anti-Semitism, et cetera. Instead of the obvious underlying giant moral cancer sitting right there, you're occupying millions and millions of people. for decade after decade, that's why they're not fans of yours, okay?

So that's point one. Point two, in terms of what could make this particular round go away is, at least Hezbo has been very clear about it. They don't want a broader war. There's no question about that. Now, Israel says they don't want a broader war, at least in the press today, but in the past, as in like a day before the bombing, Nanyahu had been pushing for a broader war over and over and over again.

So one side definitely has pushed for a broader war here, and the other side has not. Now, that doesn't mean Hezbo is innocent. They've been firing missiles the whole time, okay? So now, a slight good news for Israel on this front, at least, they've killed a lot less civilians here, especially as a ratio to fighters than they have in Gaza, where they've killed a little over 90 civilians, but 450 fighters, which is not that bad a ratio. It's bad. Every civilian debt is terrible, but their ratio in in the north is way, way better than it is in Gaza. Hezbollah also has killed about 21 soldiers and 13 civilians, if I remember,

right? So that ratio, not as good as the Israelis, by the way, in that case, but also not disastrous. But what did you argue that Hezbollah is a more formidable enemy? Of course. Compared to Hamas. It is. It is. How formidable Hezbollah is, I don't really. know because look, they don't have the jets that Israel does. Israel is going to take out all those tanks and missile banks you just saw in about 10 and a half minutes, and that's going to be that. The real danger is an endless guerrilla warfare. So the kind that started in Afghanistan

and in Iraq. So and so where Israel and the U.S. are overconfident is, oh, it doesn't matter. We have jets, we have nukes, we have everything. And we crush these people for centuries on end. there's never going to be any repercussions, but eventually something always explodes. And in this case, I think the real problem if you had a bigger war is the guerrilla warfare that would happen on a scale we've never seen before, including with drones, which are much, much harder to knock down, especially if they're launched from nearby. So the Israel should not be overconfident. Your security is at risk if there is a larger war.

Your securities, they think, oh my God, if we don't retaliate and bomb the living crap out of every Muslim we see, we're at risk. No, you're at risk for doing that, not because you're doing that. So anyway, one more thing that's important here. So Hezbollah has said, oh, we're just doing this to support Hamas and the Palestinian people in Gaza. The minute there's a ceasefire, we're definitely going to stop our missiles. Again, you take anything you want with a grain of salt, right? But that is, that does match their earlier actions, okay? So, and Hamas has agreed to the ceasefire.

Literally everyone has agreed to the ceasefire except Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben Gavir, and Smotrich. So the Israeli government is holding up the ceasefire, which is what caused all of this in the first place. So you then assign moral culpability in any way you like, but those are the facts. Now let's talk a little bit about how Israel claims it's going to respond to this. They already have, luckily the response hasn't been as devastating as one would expect. especially considering how Israel has conducted itself in the Gaza Strip.

So why don't we begin with Naftali Bennett arguing that Hezbollah has now declared war on Israel. We spoke with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett last hour. He said both Hezbollah and Lebanon have effectively declared war on Israel, and Israel must now respond accordingly. The state of Lebanon essentially shot a rocket made in Iran. We know the name of the guy who shot it. His name is Ali Mahmoud Yehya. These rockets were made in Iran, Iranian rockets, 50 kilograms of a warhead. And it's time that we hit back. And hit back they did. Now, Israel's security cabinet authorized the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the defense minister, and the defense minister to essentially respond on

the manner and timing against Hezbollah. Netanyahu argued that Israel's response would be severe. But luckily, so far, and I hope I don't jinx this, Israel strikes on what the IDF said were Hezbollah weapons caches, and infrastructure fell short, according to the Washington Post of the furious response. Israeli officials had threatened. Now, who knows, they could continue responding in a far more severe way. But I do think it's also important. important to talk about what members of that local community that suffered this strike are saying, including a 72 year old who lived his entire life in Majal Shams. His name is Fausi Jabber and he says, I wish to be finished with this tragedy and this

crazy war. The United States must back peace, not the war, and not the Israeli government, which doesn't want peace, not in Lebanon and in Gaza, but in all the Middle East. And I think that he has a point there. And when I say that, I'm specifically referring to Prime Minister Netanyahu, egging on a war with Iran, trying to drag the United States military into a war with Iran. And unfortunately, you have American congressmen, including someone you're about to hear from, essentially regurgitating the same talking points that Netanyahu was spewing while he was speaking

before a joint session of Congress. So I want to get to that next. This statement that you're about This statement that you're about to hear from Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer, again, is very similar to what Netanyahu has been saying. And I think that this is an attempt to manufacture consent for a U.S. invasion into Iran. Take a look. I think what this shows us is of Iran and it's continued attack on our allies, but also on democracy in the United States. As the foreign minister, one of the foreign ministers recently said from Hezbollah said, Israel is merely a tool.

The main war, the real war is with America. The bigger point here is whether you're talking about the Houthis and their attack on Israel, but also on the United States, on our service members, other Iranian-backed proxies in Iraq and Syria continue to attack the United States and our service members around the world. What you see here is terror, you know, at its worst, and that's really what Hamas and Hezbollah and all in Palestinian Islamic jihad and others and the Houthis, that's what this is about. It's an attack, not just on Israel, but an attack on democracy.

There are incredibly serious claims from Representative Gautheimer, who is part of the problem solvers caucus, a caucus that apparently is trying to cause more problems. I wanted to look into the statement that he made about the foreign minister of Hezbollah, saying that Israel is just a tool and that the real war is with the United States. He's fear mongering about how, you know, oh, you know, we gotta be careful, this is a threat to our democracy. I looked into it, it wasn't a foreign minister who said this, it was actually the head of Hezbollah. And I want to read you verbatim the statement, because it was not what Godheimer is claiming.

The quote is, America is entirely responsible for the ongoing war on Gaza and its people. And Israel is simply a tool of execution. Okay. Yeah, so look, first of all, gee, I wonder why people in that area blame America when we've given Israel, $300 billion over the course of, you know, its existence. We just gave it $26 billion after we saw them. At that point, butcher about 37,000, 38,000 people. Gee, I wonder why they're upset at America. No, it probably has nothing to do with us funding their endless slaughter of Muslims in the region.

Oh, I bet they're just against democracy. What a joke Josh Gotheimer and these clowns are. You think Hezbollah and Hamas gives a damn about Albuquerque? The only thing they care about is stop funding Israel. They're slaughtering us and they're oppressing us and they're occupying us. That's complicated? That's not complicated. You really think this has to do with democracy?

Look, Donald Trump actually tried a coup attempt with fake electors. But these clowns in the democratic establishment, now, they never even cared about that. I know they didn't care about that because that's the same clown who was like Biden's totally fine, who cares if we lose the Trump? Don't care at all. Because Josh Godheimer is a neo-conservative Republican anyway. He's a giant corporatist. We'll do anything that a corporation asked him to do and a donor has him to do. So he doesn't care about the Democrats losing. He doesn't care about democracy or any of that garbage. But he thinks Israel's super important, more important than America. So we have to make sure that we start wars on behalf of Israel. And what's the talking

point lately. Oh, it was Russia before? And by the way, they'll bring Russia back on this, too. But now everything is democracy. So all of a sudden, Israel having, they have to occupy Muslims for 50, 60 years. They have to make sure they have no rights and bomb them to oblivion anytime they want. And that's, if they don't have the right to do that, then we don't really have democracy. And these no good Muslims, they're against democracy. Okay, you're a joke. Anybody who believes that is a joke and a propagandist. So I'm past the old school stuff where these guys would gaslight us. Now they look like comical fools. I don't know, a single of a real person that doesn't, isn't following politics in politics, lives

in Washington, who doesn't think guys like Josh Gottheimer are the most obvious, corrupt joke of so-called representatives. And they're lazy. I mean, honestly, find a new bit, okay? I just love how threat to democracy is now attached to anything Democrats don't like. Yeah, and by the way, That's why I actually, this is like false charges of racism. If you actually care about racism, false charges of racism are disaster because they make everybody go, oh, I guess it's not a real issue because you're using it for political theater, right? Boy who cried. So now when you use democracy for, hey, I got to kill more Muslims, that's democracy. Well, now when you actually worry about the fake electors, no one believes you. No one believes you

because of joker liars like Josh Gottheimer. Okay, so let me continue. He said, oh, this is Terror at its worst, really? Okay, let me ask you an interesting question. So 12 kids and teenagers killed there, and that breaks my heart. I don't really know that it breaks Netanyahu's heart or that right wing government, monstrous government in Israel currently, because those are Druze Arabs and they're illegally occupying Golan Heights. They don't view those people as Israelis, and those people don't definitely don't view themselves as Israelis, they hate Israel. And they didn't want any Israeli officials at the, at this burial. They're occupied. They're not Israelis. But now all of a sudden Israel cares a lot about

them now that Netanyahu has an opportunity to start a much larger war. But okay, for real people, whether you're on Israel's side or Palestinian side or any side, you care about those 12 children, right? Good people in Israel care, good people everywhere care about those 12 children. So everybody says, well, Israel's got a right to defend itself because these children been killed. Interesting. Okay, fair. So wait a minute, 15,000 children were killed in Gaza. Likely more. So do the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves? I mean, 12 children dead obviously have a right to defend yourself. 15,000 dead, no right to defense. What form can that defense take? Because if the Palestinians do violence, obviously goddamn terrorist, savage

Muslims, obvious, we all agree. Then if they go to the U.S., they're like, oh, goddamn savage terrorist, wait a minute, what the hell? We're going to the UN, just like Israel did to get a state. You do diplomacy, you try to have reporters and doctors and nurses go to the wall. You remember that a couple of years ago? All executed, shot in the head by IDF. So there is no form of protest by Palestinians that is allowed. There is no right of defense for Palestinians ever, even with words, even with diplomacy. So Israel can kill and bomb endlessly for a right defense, self-defense. But if any Muslim ever dares try self-defense, after slaughter, after slaughter, after slaughter, well, of course, these savages, you know, like, the racism

pours out of every pore of these corrupt politicians in Washington. They don't care about Muslim lives at all. And now to use these Jews as like your fodder for war, as if you give a damn about them, please. By the way, currently 81% of the Gaza Strip is declared an evacuation zone, meaning millions of Palestinians are told to evacuate to just 19% of land in a region that was already incredibly tiny and densely populated. That is what's going on right now in Gaza, that is what Palestinians are dealing with. Everyone's focused on a million other stories and they have been forgotten for the most

part, especially by our media here in America. But I do want to thank democracy now for staying on that topic because I wouldn't know that fact had I not watched their broadcast on the issue. But, Jenk, I guess I'm in the mood to, I guess, provoke or evoke your fury because Gottheimer was outdid by an appearance by Mark Dubowitz, who's the CEO of FDN for Defense. of democracies. He was on Fox. Democracy, hilarious. And he thinks we, all we really need to do is worry about arming Israel more. Take a look.

Is Israel capable of fighting a two-front war? Well, it's actually a seven front war for Israel right now. With the Lebanon and Syria, the West Bank, Gaza, the Houthis, attacking them from Yemen, Iraqi Shiite militias from Iraq and Iran itself, which attacked them. directly on April 13th. So the problem is that the Biden Harris administration's policy is completely failed. I mean, the policy is to ask Israel to stand down. They've put immense pressure on Israel. They're not providing Israel with the munitions that Israel needs to fight a seven-front war. And they followed a strategy of maximum concessions to Tehran. And it's really been a collapse

in American power, deterrence. And Israel is now paying the steep price for this. So the argument here is, no, no, no, a ceasefire is a failed policy, a failed idea. Because we don't have a ceasefire, you have, first of all, you have Hezbollah retaliating against Israel because of the ongoing war in Gaza. Today, Erdogan declared that Turkey is going to get involved. I don't know if he's bluffing, I don't know how serious he is, but now he's arguing that Turkey wants to defend Palestinians and they're willing to go into Israel. Yeah, by the way, Turkey is the second largest army in NATO, more critical to American security literally than any other military in the world, larger than the German military, French military, UK military, etc. And they are a bulwark for NATO, a critical part of

the pillars of NATO. Should we go to war with that? No, I will guarantee you that if there is the slightest conflict between Turkey and Israel. America will throw the Turkish military away and go, who cares about NATO? Who cares about our stupid defense and Russia and all the things that we've been saying? Those Turks are no good Muslims. We're not going to keep them. If Israel says to get rid of them, we'll just make NATO smaller. And we'll get rid of the second largest military that's been protecting us against all these threats on the front in the in the first place. You know, I talk about how Israel's the only democracy in the Middle East. First of all, it's obviously not a democracy.

They're occupied five and a half million people. That's like saying the South back in the day was a democracy. They're like, oh, what? As long as you don't count the slaves, we're a democracy. So the slaves are occupied as the Palestinians are occupied. Does that offend you? Well, the occupation for 57 brutal years, destroying all of Gaza, that offends me. We're equal.

We're not anywhere near equal because occupation is a moral cancer and is causing all of these problems. So by the way, to Anna's earlier point, Gaza is the size of Las Vegas. The best estimate I saw is that over 100,000 bombs have been dropped in an area the size of Vegas. Gee, I wonder what's the, what is Godheimer's words? Terror at its worst. Imagine, imagine if the Palestinians or any Muslim had dropped a hundred thousand bombs, 2,000 pound bombs, 500 pound bombs, et cetera. In an equivalent area in Israel, we would have nuked all of Islam. We would have probably killed about a billion people by now. So look, guys, the good news is no one believes this crap anymore. That guy is a giant propagandist for Israel, doesn't

care about America at all, doesn't care about our allies or any of it, okay? So he's like, Of course, you have to rush more money and weapons to Israel. They haven't murdered enough Palestinians in Gaza yet. And they need to occupy for several more decades. And those people don't deserve freedom. That's why we destroyed over 80% of their buildings. And they're all homeless and refugees now. Then we need more money, more money, more money to make more Palestinian refugees,

more Palestinian deaths. So no one believes you anymore. Obvious BS propaganda. You can get Joe Scarborough and you can get every idiot cable news host to bob their heads like idiots like, oh yeah, Israel's the victim. Israel's the victim. I don't know anything about occupation, no. Yeah, that's easy, but cable is full of crap and no one believes they're garbage anymore. So come to the rest of the country and ask them, hey, who do you think is their aggressors here? Even with all the massive bias against Muslims in America, even now the polling shows, no.

No, obviously Israel's the aggressor, obviously. No, gee, 100,000 bombs. The whole place is leveled, 40,000 dead. But you're the victims, your tiny little David fighting on seven fronts. Oh, we're so, we only have nukes and in the entire U.S. military. And we could kill you at any time. We could kill all of you. And they brag about it all the time.

They're like, it's not a genocide. We only killed 40,000 of them. We could have killed them all. Don't make us do it. Oh, you guys sound real humanitarian. Israel should get zero dollars. They're not an ally. All they do is drag us into more wars.

Now they'd like to drag us into the biggest war the Middle East has ever seen. No thank you. Israel is not an ally. All they've ever done is cause us massive problems in the Middle East. Got their kids killed, gotten, spent hundreds of billions of dollars. Hey, if you're such a special ally, why don't you give me your 300 billion back? That's something that Republicans and Democrats can agree on. I'm tired of you killing people with our money.

But even if you're not tired of that, where's, hey, special ally, where's my goddamn money? Why don't you give me your 300 billion back and then we'll be special allies again? Until then, a giant glass of shut up juice for these propagandists in Congress and media. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll get back into domestic news, including potential VP picks for Kamala Harris. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking?

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And Swadane Dragon and Jesse, thank you for gifting memberships. You guys are beautiful. Anna. Well, there is one potential Kamala Harris VP pick that seems to be getting a lot of attention from progressives. And it's mostly because of what he's been doing in his own state on economic issues. Let's see who he is. Trump is trying to paint Vice President Harris as an ultra liberal.

Of all her potential running mates, you might have the most progressive record as governor. I know you were more of a moderate when you were in the house, but you've legalized recreational marijuana. You've passed universal background checks on guns. You expanded LGBTQ protections. You implemented tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans. There's free breakfast and lunch for school kids.

Do you think your record is an asset to the table? an asset to the ticket or would it risk fueling Trump's attacks as you being a big government liberal? What a monster. Kids are eating and having full belly so they can go learn. While we still have no idea who presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will choose as her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is clearly marketing himself and his accomplishments as governor of Minnesota. And here he is rattling off all of the policies that he has managed to implement in his state while speaking to Jake Tapper on CNN. What a monster kids are eating eating and having full belly so they can go learn. And women are making their own health care decisions.

And we're a top five business state. And we also rank in the top three of happiness. Look, they're going to label whatever they're going to label. He's going to roll it out mispronounced names, you know, to try and make the case. The fact of the matter is where you see the policies that Vice President Harris was a part of making, Democratic governors across the country executed those policies and quality of life is higher. The economies are better. All of those things, educational attainment is better.

So yeah, my kids are going to eat here and you're going to have a chance to go to college and you're going to have an opportunity to live where we're working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you're going to have personal incomes that are higher and you're going to have health insurance. So if that's where they want to label me, I'm more than happy to take the label. I particularly love his unapologetic style, the fact that he doesn't seem to be the type of person who's going to easily cave to the questionable framing that Jake Tapper had in that question because he tried to make it seem like, I don't know, your progressive policy implementation in your own state might not be an asset to Kamala Harris, right? Which I thought was an interesting way of framing that question, but he hit back, Walls did with, in my opinion, the kind of unapologetic strength that politicians on the left should have. And I'm glad to see that he does have that. One other point that, oh, go ahead, Jank.

I have another point I want to make about. Yeah, I have a lot of points to make about Tim Walls. But in terms of the question, the framing, look, by itself, I don't mind the question. As long as you've got someone that can actually answer it like Tim Walls, my problem for the last 40 years has been Democrats, usual answer that is, oh no, I'm sorry, I'm not a progressive. I'm as a Republican, close to his Republican as I can possibly get. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, right? So it's so refreshing to hear someone say, God damn right, we did these policies. And look at their fantastic results. And he does it with a smile on his face is a perfect answer. But like,

but the context is Anna is correct about. Jake Tapper and every cable news anchor for my entire life, whenever you do anything decent for the average American, they're like, Doesn't that make you radical progressive? Okay, if progressive means helping kids get lunch and making sure you got health care and higher wages, yeah, great, please shout it from the rooftops. Last part of the, you know, dishonest framing on that is people are pretending that Kamala Harris is progressive. So they're like, wait, is there a problem to have two very similar progressives on the ticket? Yes, such a good point.

Yes, yes, yes, keep going, keep going. Yeah, similar, how, what do you, what is Kamala Harris done that's progressive? You guys are just calling her progressive just because Donald Trump is calling her far left progressive. Why is cable news helping Donald Trump with a ludicrous talking point? Kamala Harris hasn't done anything progressive. So I have a theory on that. In terms of economic policy, she is not a progressive. There's no indication that she's progressive.

In fact, back in 2021, when she had the ability to essentially do away with the Senate parliamentarian to essentially allow for the passage of a higher minimum wage, like she didn't do that. Oh, cool. She didn't take that opportunity. The reason why they see her as progressive is because she engages in the culture war optics of progressivism, right? Like, that's all it is. But in terms of like, barely. No, not barely, okay?

like the promoting of cops bad, all of that stuff. Like she did engage in that. And that, and it's- For a brief time. But what she actually did was she was a cop, right? Okay, she was. She used to be a very effective prosecutor back in the day. Once that came out of style with the Democratic Party, she immediately pivoted to, you know, defund the police and all of that stuff.

So a six-month rhetorical pivot, rhetorical on one tiny issue, apparently makes her a far left progressive. I wish she was a progressive. Okay. She's not anywhere near a progressive. But what's also not helping, and I really want progressives and leftists to be aware of this, is the fact that they went from hating her, thinking that she's a cop, to now promoting her like crazy, right? And that gives this air, it gives this idea that Kamala Harris is beloved by leftists and progressives.

And what I'm trying to communicate here is they have given their leverage away. Because obviously, you want someone like Tim Walls to be the running mate as opposed to someone who's more conservative or moderate like Mark Kelly, right, a senator from Arizona. And so if progressives are already 100% on board with Kamala Harris, what leverage does she have or what leverage do they have to push her to choose Tim Walls over Mark Kelly? Now, you look at Mark Kelly, consider that he's from Arizona. He has attacked his own party, the Democratic Party over border policies. Kamala Harris knows that she's going to be targeted and attacked by Trump on immigration.

So right now, really, it's the moderate to conservative Democrats who have the leverage to push Kamala Harris to choose Mark Kelly rather than someone like Tim Walls. Stop giving your cookies away, progressives. Okay, like this coconut pill thing is embarrassing. Okay, you can support her. And it's based on nothing. It's based on nothing. So look, I'm not going to agree with any kid who just showed up. 14 year old who's like, oh my God, Kamala Harris is so progressive.

Show me a policy. Show me a policy. Don't tell me, oh, did you know she's the first black woman vice president? Hey, 14 year old, yes, I know that. That's not policy, okay? So I'm not interested in her identity. And that doesn't prove a damn thing. Ben Carson is also African American. You should look into that. Do you know who he is? Is he progressive? I don't know. I don't know. And anyways, look, cable news has an agenda. Their agenda is pick the most corporate friendly candidates, period. So that's why they're saying like, oh, more progressive or populist-leaning people, especially if they're economically populous, as Tim Walses and Josh Harris is in Pennsylvania.

Okay, I'm sorry, Josh Shapiro. Oh, okay. Okay. And so they're like, oh, that wouldn't balance the ticket. You have to balance the ticket. Mark Kelly, since Kamla Harris is a progressive, Mark Kelly. as a total corporatist, conservative, boring white dude would balance the ticket, right? That's the agenda, when in reality, if you actually cared about balancing the ticket,

Kamala Harris in all of our actions has been, to say, very corporate friendly, would be an understatement, okay? You would balance it with someone who is an economic populist like Tim Walz or Josh Shapiro. You wouldn't go to Mark Kelly because that's more of the same, but you will get the exact opposite propaganda on cable news. Yeah, that's a really good point. Now, I just want to remind you all that Tim Wals and the state of Minnesota has been getting props for some time now over the implementation of wonderful economic policies. In fact, this is an MSNBC interview from a year ago where they listed some of those

policies. So let's take a look at that. The list of accomplishments for this recent legislative session is impressive. Democrats codified abortion rights, paid family and medical leave, sick leave, transgender rights protections, driver's licenses for undocumented residents, restoration of voting rights for people when they're released from prison or jail, wider voting access, and adopted background checks for private gun transfers, and a red flag warning system to take guns for people deemed by a judge to be a threat to themselves or others. And that's just a few of the things done this session.

So he doesn't talk to talk, he walks the walk. And again, that's a video from a year ago, well before Kamala Harris was going to be the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. And so I do think that he would add something robust and important to the ticket. It would certainly calm some of my concerns about Kamala Harris, especially considering the fact that she's been taking a lot. lot of money from the business community. I mean, she was, Reid Hoffman, who is the co-founder of LinkedIn, donated $7 million to her campaign, hoping that she will get elected and fire Lena Kahn, the head of the FTC, who is hated by the business community because she actually wants to enforce antitrust laws and break up big

monopolies. And so we'll see how that plays out. But right now, all of the incentives for Kamala Harris, considering the fact that progressives are already on board with her, indicate that she should go for Mark Kelly as opposed to someone like Tim Walls, and I'm concerned about that. Yeah, so look, my thoughts on the vice president candidate, vice president's candidate are narrowing significantly. So I thought a doubling down on an all female ticket with Gretchen Whitmer, not policy wise,

but strategy wise politics would have been savvy, would have been a good strategic move, but she's now withdrawn from the race eight different times. So I'm assuming that she's correct on that and she's not really available anymore. Bashir is much more conservative, but he's won in Kentucky twice. I still have him as a dark horse potential just on the winning part. Not necessarily, again, not on the policy part. Mark Kelly does nothing. Buttigieg does nothing.

It's just more corporate friendly guys who are not remotely economically populist. They don't connect with the average person telling me that they're an astroval. or they're gay, doesn't help at all. Those are just random things having nothing to do with policy or strategy, okay? And by the way, you shouldn't count the fact that people who are just gay against them either. Or Shapiro being Jewish or any of the random things, oh, I think Americans hate this or that. And I'm gonna, no, no, no. What Americans want is somebody that fights for them.

They don't care if the person is gay, Jewish, black, Muslim, they don't care about any of that, okay? They just want somebody to fight for them. And if that's, that is the right way to pick it, a balance ticket is better, it unifies the party. And so that leaves me, and although I would love Bernie and I would love Jamie Raskin who I've mentioned 17 different times, those are not realistic at this point. They're not in consideration, right? So other people that are in consideration, to me, Tim Walsh is a great one. I mean, how much more do you want him to do in Minnesota?

And he's got both progressive social issues and progressive economic issues. Tons of economic populism there that delivers for the average person in Minnesota no matter who they are, okay? And Shapiro in Pennsylvania went after the Wall Street guys that charge way too much for the pensions, kicked out a bunch of Wall Street firms. That is super courageous because that pisses off a lot of the donors and actually gets a lot of money back to the average worker in Pennsylvania. He went against predatory lenders. Again, economically populist, politically courageous. They're both good speakers. Shapiro sounds a little

much, a little too much like Barack Obama. 100%. Okay, like bring it down, bring it down, even though I like him. Just be a normal person. Yeah. Tim Walts is a great speaker and it sounds and looks like an average dude. Yes, totally. And that's the optics of politics, that helps. I agree. I I totally agree. All right, well, we'll stay on the topic and give you updates as we learn more about who Kamala Harris is vetting and speaking to. For now, though, we gotta take a quick break when we come back, yet another big money donor goes on CNBC and urges whoever ends up getting elected to ditch Lena Con. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank Anna, Be Nice, 1969.

Let's see, I like these handles. They just joined through t.com slash team. And on YouTube, James Stewart just joined by hitting the join button below. I don't know if that's Jimmy Star, oh, come on now, cut it out. Or if that's James Stewart former running back for the Jaguars. Anyway, Jay Bomb Dragon gifted five memberships and said, enjoy the subs. I'm celebrating my good blood test results and excellent dental hygienist report. Oh yeah, good for you.

Okay, that's awesome. You'd be flossinging. Okay, more shout-outs later in the program. All right, Anna. Well, we've got some more updates on how the business community is looking to destroy Lena Khan, the head of the FTC. So let's get into it. When you talk to other business leaders here, do you get the sense that some of those who had even switched to Trump? Yes, they'll switch back? I think it's possible. Yeah, I would hope so. I mean,

I think that they, I think, listen, they are a herd of pragmatists. And when the wind shifted and it was really clear, if Biden was staying in, Trump was going to be president. I think when that changed, I think again, for everybody, and it certainly did for people who were wavering or who said for economic reasons, like, oh, let's chime into Trump quickly. Yet another big money donor has his sights set on getting rid of Federal Trade Commission chair, Lena Kahn, for enforcing antitrust laws, preventing mega mergers from happening, something that those who are already incredibly successful really, really don't like. They want to increase the barriers of entry, something that Lena Kahn is trying to,

deal with. Now, Barry Diller, who's the chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia group, says that business leaders were already placing their bets on Donald Trump, donating money to him, planning on supporting him as the new president of the United States. But now they're reconsidering since Biden is no longer the presumptive Democratic nominee, since Kamala Harris is. And so she might be more receptive to the idea of getting rid of Lena Khan. Diller, by the way, called Lena Khan a dope. And he elaborates on how much he dislikes her in this next clip.

There have been reports that a number of prominent Democrats have been lobbying Harris to drop people like Lena Khan. Do you think that's gonna happen? And would you lobby for that? Yeah, I would. You would? Yeah, I think she's a dope. Barry, what's the biggest problem? It's just the regulatory, the idea that nobody's allowed to do any mergers or acquisitions

with Lena Con, what's your biggest issue? I think what it is is that there's an absolute conviction based upon what she has done that almost anything that business wants to do to expand itself, to combine with others for efficiency and other reasons, is just not allowed. It's almost like it's a wet blanket that has been thrown on all of this. And I don't think that's productive. I mean, look, there are very clear cases where competition needs to be regulated, et cetera, et cetera. But it seems her point of view is everything is bad.

I would have, and everyone is bad. Okay, I don't think this needs to be explained, but just in case, let me explain why it's important to have someone like Lena Kahn as the head of the FTC, when you have these mega mergers, you end up with less options as the consumer. So think of it this way, let's say you're living in an apartment building. You don't get an option in regard to who your cable service provider is or your internet service provider. For me, I have to rely on spectrum. I have no other options.

So spectrum can charge me whatever they want. And by the way, they do every year, they increase the rate by $10 to $20. I have no other choice. Lena Khan is the kind of person who sees that as an injustice in our economic system. So when you see these billionaires talking about doing away with Lena Khan, they're at war with you, the consumer. They want you to have less options. They want these mega mergers to happen.

So you only have maybe one, maybe two options when it comes to various services, various businesses that you might be interested in being a consumer of. So it's just so incredibly for us, look, I think they're gonna do it. I think Lena Khan is done for, to be honest with you, because there's a lot of money going into Harris's campaign to do away with Lena Khan. I'm sure that similar lobbying is happening on the Republican side as well. And so her days are probably numbered, but it's just so sad to see it. And it's sad to see that there's like no aggressive pushback on these talking points by executives.

I would like to see some Democrats provide some cover or defense of Lena Khan, but they're not doing that. Of course not. They don't want to anger corporate donors. But to be fair, the Biden administration, they did put in Lena Khan. So that's a huge, you know, positive and credit you should give to Joe Biden for doing that. So now look, I don't necessarily agree with Lena Khan on the so-called tech monopolies. But here's who agrees with her on monopolies overall. Adam Smith, the guy who literally wrote the book on capitalism. And so, you know, if you went to business schools I did, or if you took any kind of economics class, you know, one of the first things they teach you is that when you're setting up a capitalist system, you must have a check on monopolies.

Because monopolies naturally form, and when they do, they immediately try to kill off the free market. So if you want to maintain a free market, you must bust monopolies. If you don't, you're going to lose the free market entirely, and it's just going to turn into corporatism. or crony capitalism, there's a couple of words for it, right? So that's what Lena Kahn is doing. If you want to disagree around the edges, hey, I don't think she should go to the tech industry as much as the oil industry, et cetera. Okay, great, good intellectual conversations to have, good important policy conversations

to have. You want to talk about overregulation? I'm all ears. Sometimes Democrats do overregulate. For example, I don't agree with their regulations on ride shares. The Uber's, the Lyft, et cetera, the regulation they passed in California. I don't necessarily agree with rent control. We could have rational discussions about economic policy.

But when I see every owner of a giant multinational corporation on TV going, I'm giving millions of dollars. And in return, I would like the head of this political appointee, proverbially, of course, and politically. And I want you to fire her because I just bribed you. I mean paid you. I mean gave you a campaign contribution. And I don't care to have a nuanced discussion about what she's right about when she

is wrong about, she's preventing us from having giant companies that rule over your lives, occupy you, and oppress you. And so she's got to go. She's, if she's, she's bothered us because we demand to have complete control over your lives. You're living under corporate rule. And so here's the heads of these giant corporations going, how dare you raise your head? So make sure that you fire her now that you've gotten your orders, Kamala Harris. Whether she does it is a different question.

Understand that Lena Kahn is not a legislator, okay? She is not making up rules. She's not passing legislation that increases the number of regulations. Her job is merely to enforce the laws and the rules as it pertains to antitrust. They don't want her to do that. They don't want a cop on the beat. So that's why they want to get rid of Lena Kahn. Now, I'm sorry Anna, can I just add one quick thing to that? Guys, they're saying not saying nonsensical things. And Barry Diller and Reid Hoffman are super smart guys. They're not dummies, right? They're saying like, oh, she's fighting against monopolies. That's terrible. Why is that terrible? That's a dumb thing to say for very smart people, okay? No, if you say,

hey, I have an issue, I don't think in this particular industry, it is monopoly power. Okay, that's a fair comment to say. But if you say that you're against her because she's fighting against monopolies in every industry, well, then you're saying, I don't really believe in the free markets or capitalism. And so that's why it's totally unacceptable what they're saying. I mean, Diller called her a dope. That's ridiculous. You're gonna call Lena Khan dumb, really? Oh, then why are you so worried about her? Why don't you run circles around her? Because I acknowledge Barry Diller's very smart. If she's a dope, you could easily run circles around her. Apparently, you're actually worried that she's not a dope. Now, while members of the Democratic Party haven't really

done much to defend her and the excellent work she's been doing, luckily she's good at defending herself. And she's always composed, she's always principled, and she always stays on message. So let's take a look at how she defended herself while speaking to Bloomberg. But I've heard specifically multiple tech executives and investors complain about how they can't do deals on your watch. Do you have any concerns that your agenda has at all alienated the tech community or could impact the impact of your agenda going forward? You know, it's been such an honor to serve in the Biden Harris administration and, you know, we're just focused on doing our work. What I oftentimes hear from the business community,

including small businesses, including entrepreneurs, is that they want markets to be more open and more fair and more competitive rather than incumbents being able to squash out nascent competitive threats. I mean, our free enterprise system is one where the best ideas are supposed to win. And we've historically seen that it's the disruptors and entrepreneurs that have been a key vector of innovation. And so our job at the FTC when we enforce the antitrust laws is to make sure that our markets stay open and fair and competitive. And that's something that, you know, most businesses and most entrepreneurs should really be able to get behind. enemy number one, according to these corporate executives.

What she just said there is empirically true. Big business not only winds up having a monopoly power and being able to raise your prices, as we saw during inflation, they bragged about price gouging and shareholder calls. We've shared that with you many times. They're like, oh, it turns out that they could bear more costs. Why? Because they don't have any options. You own all the supermarkets.

So they raised prices way beyond inflation and they bragged about it. So you see how it hurts that. But it also hurts small businesses who are trying to compete in a so-called free market. And by the way, you can tell that that's true because the right wing has invested in a lot of smaller businesses fighting against the big tech companies. And all of a sudden, they're for bringing up the big tech companies and they're against monopolies. So be careful of everybody's interests. And I tell you, and I'm honest about ours, for example, we're a smaller company generally in digital media. And we have a lot of different interests.

I don't want Google broken up. I don't think that that's good for the country, but I also don't think it's good for us. And I'm honest about that, right? On the other hand, there's people who would love to have Google broken up. Like people who invested in Rumble and are competing with YouTube. That's Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, literally himself invested, et cetera. So strange bedfellows here, but everybody's actually just arguing for their own economic interest and not for the average American. But the point that Lena Khan is making is indisputably true.

Whenever you say big businesses should be able to get bigger and bigger and bigger and swallow up everyone until there's almost no competition, you're definitely hurting the average consumer and you're definitely hurting small businesses and entrepreneurs. Final thing I'll say is these mega mergers happen to be part of the reason why, actually a big reason why our media is broken. Right? Our media has been bought off by these major corporate conglomers. And those major corporate conglomerates control the message, right? So when you look at the things that are broken in American society today, just consider where the money comes from, what companies control whatever institution you're critical of or you're seeing issues with, media conglomerates buying up, you know, journalistic outlets has been a terrible, terrible development for journalism in America.

And so I love a lot of the work that Lena Khan is doing. I think you make a really good point, Jank, that if there are issues, those issues should be debated in regard to what she pursues through the work she's doing. But to do away with her entirely because she actually wants to enforce laws that are already on the books is insane to me. And all of these corporate executives are making clear that they're just annoyed that they have to deal with regulations to begin with. All right, we gotta take a break when we come back for the second hour.

We'll talk about a Republican mayor who has decided to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. Don't miss it.