The Young Turks - The Walrus

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

John Bolton said he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countries. The Biden administration is discussing the possible lifting of its ban on U.S. sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, but any final decision is expected to hinge on whether Riyadh makes progress toward ending the war in neighboring Yemen. A woman has shared her story of an employee of a Walgreens drugstore refusing to sell her a box of condoms. The employee told her that selling condoms was against his religious beliefs.  Host: Ana Kasparian *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. 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 Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey ▶ https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Watchlist with Jayar Jackson ▶ https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt 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 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we've got a lot to get to today.

A little foreign policy news in the first hour of the show, which I'm really looking forward to sharing with you slash not really looking forward to considering anything related to U.S. foreign policy tends to be pretty disastrous. But we'll get into those details in a little bit. In the second hour, Joe Biden was just like you to know, he's looked at the polls. And he thinks America's in the middle of a love affair with him. Anyone who denies that is just full of malarkey. Okay, so we'll get to Biden's delusions in a little bit in the second hour,

where John Ida Rola will be joining me to help discuss some of these stories. We also have an awesome second, I'm sorry, not only second hour, but bonus episode today for our members. We'll talk about the never-ending oppression Olympics among right-wingers who aren't really dealing with any oppression at all. And there's a man in Minnesota who committed fraud just to show the world what a big victim he is. Luckily, he got caught and he's facing charges as a result. We'll get to that in the show for our members later. So you can become a member by going to tyt.com slash join or if you're watching us on YouTube, just click on that join button and you can become a member that way. Now with that

said, why don't we get to our first story? Somebody who has helped plan coup d'etat, not here, but you know, other places, it takes a lot of work. Ah, yes, a nice coup d'etat takes a lot of work. There you have Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton admitting very casually during a conversation with Jake Tapper that he has taken part in the planning process, the orchestrating of coups, which means essentially overthrowing leaders or governments in countries across the globe. He doesn't get too specific about what he's referring to, mostly because we're dealing with someone who's interviewing him,

who doesn't really seem to grasp how important it is to ask a follow up immediately. We're going to get to all of that in just a moment. But why don't we take a look at Bolton's statements in more context? They're having a discussion about the latest January 6th hearing. During that hearing, we saw more damning evidence indicating that Donald Trump was fully aware of what was about to go down on January 6th with rioters descending on the Capitol. It was interesting to say the least, right? But he used that as an opportunity to make a point about how, well, what Trump did cannot be classified as a coup.

I would know a thing or two about coups. I'm much more sophisticated. So here he is making that point. It's also a mistake, as some people have said, including on the committee, the commentators, that somehow this was a carefully planned coup d'etat aimed at the Constitution. That's not the way Donald Trump does things. It's rambling from one half vast idea to another, one plan that falls through and another comes up. That's what he was doing, as I say, none of it defensible.

But you have to understand the nature of what the problem of Donald Trump is. He's to use a Star Wars metaphor, a disturbance in the force. And it's not an attack on our democracy. It's Donald Trump looking out for Donald Trump. It's a once in a lifetime occurrence. I don't know that I agree with you to be fair with all due respect. One doesn't have to be brilliant to attempt a coup. I disagree with that.

As somebody who has helped plan coup data, not here, but other places, it takes a lot of work. And that's not what he did. So does it not count as a coup? if the attempt was an incompetent attempt? So it's only a coup if it's sophisticated enough in the mind of someone like John Bolton. But honestly, that to me is the secondary point, the secondary issue to get to, right? I think Bolton is completely wrong about his analysis in regard to what Donald Trump did. I think that the hearings that we've been seeing have displayed far more detail, far more

evidence indicating that Donald Trump knew what was going on, was inciting the riots, both ahead of time and during the riots. I mean, you have to watch our coverage of it, you have to watch the hearings for yourselves if you haven't seen it, but to just simply minimize what the Trump camp did in the lead up to January 6th and honestly even after January 6th is in my opinion indefensible, right? He keeps saying what Trump did as indefensible, but I wouldn't classify it as a coup because he's incompetent and I'm much more sophisticated and I would know what it's like to plan and orchestrate a coup.

So let's get to that because I think that part of the story is really, really interesting. Now to be fair to Jake Tapper, he didn't ask a follow up question about the coup comment immediately after Bolton made that statement. I don't know if a producer was in Tappers ear and told him, hey, yo, maybe you want to follow up on what Bolton said about coups, you know? Maybe a follow up question there? I don't know what happened. But he did luckily eventually ask a follow up question about it.

Maybe we'll get more clarity about what John Bolton is referring to. So let's watch. I do want to ask a follow up when we were talking about what is capable or what you need to do to be able to plan a coup. You cited your expertise having planned coups. I'm not going to get into the specifics, but successful coups. Well, I wrote about Venezuela in the book, and it turned out not to be successful, not that we had all that much to do with it, but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president, and they failed.

The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable. But I think there's another- I feel like this other stuff you're not telling me, though. I think I'm sure there is. Oh, I'm sure there is John Bolton. And unfortunately, since he didn't want to disclose more detail in regard to one other coups he took part in or attempted coups he took part in, we're going to have to speculate a little bit, but I've got some data that we'll get to.

We'll get to some coups that were orchestrated under his watch as he was working for the State Department. But before we get to that, I just want to note that, you know, John Bolton makes this case that U.S. orchestrated coups in other countries where oftentimes we overthrow democratically elected leaders, he thinks that we do that. The U.S. government does that to look out for our interests, right? Our interest meaning U.S. citizens. It's great that we overthrow democratically elected leaders. It's great that we intervene and we overthrow a government of a foreign country because it benefits ordinary Americans. We're looking out for them. When in reality,

whenever the United States orchestrates and executes a coup, they don't do it on behalf of the American people. They specifically do it on behalf of business interests within the United States, oftentimes multinational corporations that can't stand the fact that left-wing leaders are nationalizing natural resources that these multinational corporations can take full advantage of and get rich off of. Again, these coups are not done to benefit anything or anyone other than business interests. It's always about profit. So we'll get into those details in a second. But what was amazing is that that admission by Bolton did lead to some backlash, as it should. And when he was asked about that backlash, he decided to just kind of sum it all up

as, well, it's a bunch of snowflakes crying. Let's watch. The U.S. is a world superpower. And were you surprised that some of the pickup there was about, you know, your talk? Obviously, you've written about Venezuela a lot in your book. Well, I think there are a lot of snowflakes out there that don't understand what you need to do to protect the United States. I'm not going to get into specifics. I did write a bed Venezuela in my memoir. And I think that any president that's not willing to do what it takes to protect the interest of the American people needs to have some counseling. So there he is. First of all, calling people snowflakes when we're destroying other countries by orchestrating these coups, when we're using precious resources on those coups, when in reality we should

be thinking about, hey, what can we do to actually take care of the American people who are, to be sure, suffering economically, suffering from a broken political system as well. It's not about benefiting ordinary Americans. He mentions Venezuela. That's the only thing he was specific about. And I also want to be clear that the Trump administration was trying to install someone who was not democratically elected, right? They wanted to overthrow the government under Nicholas Maduro and replace that government with Juan Guaido, not democratically elected. The people of Venezuela have not supported him. It's just a puppet for the United States that, again, the Trump administration tried to install. But I want to be clear, the Biden

administration comes into power, and that's one of the first things that Biden said, that he recognizes Juan Guaido, someone who has not been elected as leader of Venezuela, as the rightful leader of Venezuela. Okay, so there's, this is not a partisan issue. We have seen this type of trash foreign policy with both parties. And I want to be clear on that. Now let's move on, though, because I want to talk about other potential coups that Bolton was probably part of. For instance, there was a successful coup. It was short-lived, but there was a successful coup in Bolivia back in 2019, again, under Donald Trump's watch.

And what we know about this is that there was this accusation by the Organization of American States, OAS, that Evo Morales had not actually been reelected as the leader of Bolivia, that the election had irregularities. There was very likely fraud involved. Now, the OAS is mostly funded by the United States. And Bolivia, especially under a leader like Evo Morales, certainly has far more leftist policies that look out for the financial well-being, the economic well-being of their people, as opposed to the profit motive of multinational corporations. And so Evo Morales and the Moss Party in Bolivia was a target. And unfortunately, the OAS comes in.

They claim that there was election fraud without any evidence. Then you have the U.S. media do exactly what it's paid to do, right? Just regurgitate that talking point, regurgitate these findings by the OAS without any real evidence. and Eva Morales ends up stepping down. He goes to Mexico, he flees to Mexico, and then what happens after that? Again, this is in 2019. So very likely John Bolton was part of this garbage, right? What happens after that?

Well, then a right-wing authoritarian by the name of Janine Agnes just decides, I'm leader. She's installed as leader of Bolivia, even though she was not elected. There was no election for her. But she comes into power, she starts brutalizing the indigenous community in Bolivia. That leads to mass protests. And at the end of the day, the Bolivian people were so strong that they were able to overcome that coup. There was a special election held. And luckily, another figure from the Moss Party was elected, which gives you even more evidence that,

hey, turns out that Evo Morales did not commit any type of election fraud. He would have very likely won if it weren't for the OAS getting involved and alleging that there was election fraud involved. So again, Janine Agnes, by the way, eventually ends up getting imprisoned because of her involvement in all of this. There was analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which rejected the OAS's statistical analysis of the election of Evo Morales. They put out a report on this. There were human rights experts who also wade in on the situation. And they concluded that Anez's government's path to power came with irregularities. Okay, so there was some criminality in the way that they came into power, of course.

And eventually she was convicted for charges committed during the political crisis. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison for this. And so, look, luckily Bolivia didn't have to deal with the same fate that Iran had to deal with as a result of the United States orchestrating a coup when its leader decided, hey, maybe we should nationalize our oil. This is in 1950 when Mohammed Mosedek decided, no, why are we allowing business interests in other countries to get rich off of our natural resources? I'm gonna, I'm gonna nationalize our oil. That's what he decided to do. By 1953, United States comes in and overthrows this democratically elected leader, and they installed the Shah.

And now, and now, all of a sudden, of course, you have the United States whining and crying about the religious zealotry that they see in Iran, how much of a threat Iran is under the leadership of these religious figures. we love doing this, right? We love going in destabilizing countries. We did it in Guatemala. We did it in Iran. We do it all over the place.

And then when these refugees flee these countries that we have destabilized, when they come to our border seeking refuge, seeking asylum, what do we do? What do people like John Bolton do? What do members of the Trump administration do? They cry about it. They whine about it. And to make matters worse, to add insult to injury, they point fingers at those refugees and they make them out to be dangerous individuals that

we should all be afraid of. Now the dangerous individuals sit in the capital building, in the White House, in the Pentagon. What they do is scheme and try to figure out ways to do right by business interests, right? They're the ones who go in and terrorize these countries by overthrowing these governments. And John Bolton just flat out admits it. He admits it during this interview, with CNN. And I don't know why there was a delayed reaction from Jake Tapper, but that was a huge moment. And I wish Jake Tapper had just the historical context necessary to challenge Bolton on this a little more. And by the way, just going back to Bolivia for one second, why would we want to do or orchestrate a coup in Bolivia? Well, Elon Musk actually provided a lot of clarity

on that. Now, when we're talking about electric vehicles, we need a very precious resource for that. Lithium. We need lithium for that. And when it was very clear that the United States very likely engaged in orchestrating that coup in Bolivia in 2019, Elon Musk was very irritated by the fact that there was criticism toward that. You know what he said on Twitter? We'll coup who we want. Because hey, you know, Tesla's got to get their hands on that, that resource, they need that lithium for those electric vehicles, will coo who we want. So when we talk about state sponsored terror, when we talk about all these shadowy, dangerous figures around the globe, those people exist, I'm not denying that. But I do think it's important to take a good, hard look at what the United States has done through its foreign policy. how it has destabilized other countries, how that has led to refugee crises around the globe,

and then maybe consider changing the way we approach foreign policy before we point fingers at other world leaders. I think that's an important thing to do. Recently, the Biden administration hosted the Summit of the Americas, which I attended to do some coverage at. And it was interesting because there were specific countries that were not invited. Cuba was not invited. Venezuela not invited. And when I asked one of the individuals that I interviewed, actually the U.S. ambassador to Mexico about that, I was like, so why not?

I mean, isn't this all about getting countries together, trying to move forward in a diplomatic way? And, you know, he gave me some nonsense answer. But the fact of the matter is, when you have countries that have decided, no, we're going to nationalize our resources and we're not going to allow multinational corporations to take advantage of us, well, there's no business deal to be made. And that entire summit was all about getting U.S. business interests together with Latin American leaders who are willing to open up their country to be exploited by these business interests. That's what's really going on. So when John Bolton talks about these things, when he talks about how it's going to benefit the American

people, when it's about national security. I know that you guys are probably already smart enough to know it's BS, but I'm here to just really confirm that and emphasize it is BS. Finally, a few more things I wanted to add. So since Bolton joined the government under the Reagan administration in 1982, there have been more than 350 coup attempts around the world, nearly 150 of them have been successful. Now, of those 350 plus coups, 191 occurred when Bolton held a position with the US government. That figure, however, includes coups that occurred when Bolton was serving in positions

that one might assume were less coup adjacent, like serving as an assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, or serving as an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department. But let's take a look at what has transpired under, you know, a State Department where Bolton is an employee, right? So the Bolton, then Bolton joined the State Department in October of 18, of 18, I'm sorry, in October of 1989, there was an attempt to oust Panamanian dictator, Manuel Antonio Noriega. He was removed from power following an American invasion that December. By the way, you want to know who empowered Manuel Noriega in Panama? The United States.

In fact, George H.W. Bush had been working with the homie since the 1960s. But once Noriega started to become a little too much of a liability for the United States, all of a sudden, we got to oust the guy, we got to overthrow, we need regime change. And that's what the United States did in 1989, in December of 1989. Let's get to some more of these coups in 1992. A coup in Afghanistan similarly led to the ouster of the country's leader, a longtime ally of the Soviet Union. There was also coup attempts in a number of other countries while Bolton served under President George H.W. Bush, including the Philippines, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh and Romania, where they ousted the general secretary.

Bolton then returned to government under Bush's son, George W. Bush. Besides the invasion of Afghanistan, perhaps the most significant coup tracked by the Klein Center's coup d'ata project was the March 2004 removal of Gene Bertrand Aristide, who was the president of Haiti at the time. Now, he blamed American... The new BMO, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points.

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Actors for the coup, but other countries saw similar attempts, including the November 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia that ousted the country's Soviet Allied leader. So it is interesting, right? Oftentimes when we see these coups take place when there is some suspicion regarding the United States, orchestrating those coups, it's always when there is fears of a communist takeover,

fears of a leftist leader, nationalizing national resource, national resources. And again, there is a very clear reason for that. It's because when a country nationalizes their resources, the individuals who benefit and profit from those resources are the people of that country. And multinational corporations ain't having that. So they rally the troops, the U.S. troops, and the United States government to do what it does best, in most cases, which is, again, overthrow these leaders to open the doors up for these business interests. Bolton admitted that in his own way, and if anyone finds that morally just wrong, if anyone

has a problem with that, you're just a snowflake. You're just crying about it. Also, I don't know why we have all these refugee crises all around the world. I don't know why people are seeking refuge and asylum here in the United States. What's going on? It's all connected, guys. It's really important to pay attention to what we do in regard to foreign policy, because it does have an impact, not only on us, but on people all across the globe who don't deserve to suffer in the name of multinational corporations. All right, I'm going to get off my, you know, I'm going to get off the story now. We've got to go to break. But when we come back, we have more foreign policy to get to, including Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia and his willingness. to renege on a very clear promise that he made on the campaign trail.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. I'm Anna Casparian, and we are going to get right into our next story. We've got a little bit of a foreign policy angle on the show today, so let's get right to it. President Joe Biden is visiting Saudi Arabia as the United States considers resuming offensive arms sales to the country. Let me just repeat that for a second. Not defensive arms to protect itself from imaginary threats. Offensive arms, meaning weapons that are used to carry out offensive military action. action. And I'll get to those details in a moment. But the Biden administration is discussing

the possible lifting of its ban on U.S. sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. But any final decision is expected to hinge on whether Riyadh makes progress toward ending the war in neighboring Yemen. Let's pause for a second. That condition kind of doesn't make any sense, right? So why would you resume sales of offensive weapons on the condition that they stopped the war in Yemen? I mean, what's the point of offensive weapons? Well, let's get to that. So there are defensive weapons, right? So these are weapons specifically used to protect yourself. And they're considered defensive based on their capacity to cause harm, the distance that these types of weapons can travel to cause harm, for instance, the UK and the US have

provided N-law and javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. The N-law can destroy a tank, but is only effective at short range between 20 to 800 meters. The javelin also has a range of 2,000 meters, right? So that's considered defensive. It's considered a weapon that would be used to defend yourself if there is some sort of threat against your country, some sort of military threat. But it's different from offensive military weaponry. By contrast, but contrast this with the ability of MIG jets to fly hundreds of kilometers into enemy territory, giving Ukraine, for instance, the capacity to attack across its borders. This is why Poland has been cautious in its attempts to supply Ukraine's air force with Soviet era mig 29s. There is a

a danger that this could be seen as crossing the line into an aggressive act. So again, offensive means you're the like offensive weaponry means the country that is using the weapons, very likely is using it to launch an offensive attack against another country. So the idea of just like using this condition of Yemen, I feel like is nothing more than a cover story. Like here's the PR narrative that will put out there. So the Biden administration doesn't like doesn't get the backlash that it deserves for resuming the sale of these weapons. But in reality, you think the United States really cares about whether or not Saudi Arabia is going to end its war in Yemen? I mean, I'm sure there are

some lawmakers who are concerned about that, who do want the war to end. But at the end of the the day, the Biden administration wants to resume the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, because at the end of the day, the Biden administration wants Saudi Arabia to produce more, what? More oil. That's what this is about. That is what this is about. So right now, Saudi Arabia has leverage because it is part of the OPEC cartel, meaning it is an oil-producing country that has manipulated the cost of oil by holding back. on production. I wish we were in a better place right now where we were more reliant on natural, renewable energy. So we wouldn't have to deal with, I don't know, Saudi Arabia

and Mohammed bin Salman, who ordered the execution and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi as he was visiting an embassy over in Istanbul. But now we have Joe Biden, you know, showing up to Saudi Arabia considering resuming the sale of offensive weapons to this authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia. And he's doing it specifically because he's trying to convince them to produce more oil. Now, Biden, by the way, as a presidential candidate, denounced Saudi Arabia pretty aggressively. And he did it on the debate stage. And I want to remind you of the type of language he used on the debate stage. Biden, not known. for being super aggressive, but he was in this moment. Let's watch.

Khashoggi was in fact murdered and dismembered. And I believe in the order of the crown prince. And I would make it very clear. We were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them. We were going to in fact make them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are. There's very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia. And I would also, as pointed out, I would end, end the subsidies that we have, end the sale of material to the Saudis, where they're going in and murdering children and they're murdering innocent people. And so they have to be held accountable. They have to be held accountable. Until we need them to produce more oil, in that case,

I'll suck up to Saudi Arabia, I'll visit Saudi Arabia. I will reconsider our ban on selling offensive military weaponry to Saudi Arabia. And again, this is after he made that promise on the debate stage. This is after the Biden administration commissioned an investigation into the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi. And of course, found through that investigation what we already knew that yes, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi crown prince, was the one who ordered that assassination, that murder. And so this is why it is a huge problem that we haven't focused more on getting the United States off of our dependence on fossil fuels.

Because we have engaged in so many wars over oil. We have overthrown leaders in other countries. We have overthrown governments in other countries in order to ensure that we have access to oil. It has caused a lot of damage around the world. And the fact that the Biden administration, along with, by the way, lawmakers across the board, both Democrats and Republicans, they have resisted the efforts to shift toward renewable energy. And to be sure that is the long-term goal, that is something that is worth continuing the fight over. But there is something that Biden could do in the short term that he's unwilling to do. Because there are American suffering right

now as a result of our reliance on oil. They're feeling it at the gas pump. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about what Biden can do. But I do want to just quickly get into how Biden is trying to provide cover for what's about to go down with Saudi Arabia, which is, again, friendlier relations with people who are brutal to their own. Let's be clear about that. But more importantly, who killed a Washington Post journalist and dismembered him. Like we were critical of Donald Trump when he was providing cover for Mohammed bin Salman. Biden deserves the same treatment if he's going to engage in the same actions. Now Biden wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post and it's titled, why I'm going to Saudi Arabia?

Why am I? Why am I going to Saudi Arabia? Okay, little to tell us, Joey B, why are you going over there? I'll travel to the Middle East to start a new and more promising chapter of America's engagement there. This trip comes at a vital time for the region, and it will advance important American interests. Ooh, important American interests. What are those interests? And to be honest, Biden is halfway candid here because he does admit its energy resources are vital for mitigating the impact on global supplies of Russia's war in Ukraine. And a region that's coming together through diplomacy and cooperation, rather than coming apart through conflict, is less likely to give rise to violent extremism that threatens our homeland or new wars that could place new burdens on U.S. military forces and their families. Now, he doesn't get into how he's very likely to resume the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia.

But I'm just, I'm really enjoying this whole war is peace, Orwellian messaging in Biden's op-ed here. I'm going to hit up the homies over in Saudi Arabia because that means, you know, more peace. More peace, everybody. I'm looking out for you. Now, he also wants to strengthen the alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia to counter Iran, which, by the way, what's up with the Iran nuclear deal? Biden said that he was going to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, which was an incredibly important thing to do.

Iran nuclear deal ensured that Iran would not develop nuclear weapons. They were safeguards in place. There were members of the international community who were able to go into Iran and ensure that Iran was following through with its side of the deal. Trump comes in, he rips up the Iran nuclear deal. Biden says he's going to reenter it, hasn't reentered it. Instead, he talks about strengthening the alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia to counter Iran, which sounds like you're taking a more combative approach here, to be clear, right?

By the way, Iran has been crippled by our economic sanctions, sanctions that were much more harsh as soon as Donald Trump decided to re-implement them after tearing up the Iran nuclear deal. It's just a complete mess. So what could Biden do? Because since we can't shift to renewable energies fast enough and people are really feeling the pain at the gas pump, you could do what Norway did. You can nationalize our fossil fuels. You can nationalize the energy that we're so reliant on. And then we would have a little more control over the pricing. And what I mean by that is since you have corporations controlling the oil and the natural gas in this country, they get to decide

what to do with it, including selling it to the highest bidder. You have all these so-called OPEC plus countries producing oil, and they can manipulate that by withholding production, right? And you see that happening with Saudi Arabia. But more importantly, if the United States decides, no, this is a natural resource that should belong to the people of the United States, well then the U.S. government stops subsidizing the oil companies. The U.S. government also ensures that the people of the United States get to benefit and profit from this natural resource instead of these private companies. But is Biden willing to do that? I mean, we have overthrown democratically elected leaders in other countries because they had the

audacity to nationalize their oil. We did it in Iran in 1953. We've tried to do it in Venezuela. So there's no way in hell Biden would do that. But there is a model that works, a solution for the short term. We are the top oil and natural gas producing country in the world. When the right wing tells you that we have scaled back on our production of these fossil fuels, they're lying to you. Number one country in the world when it comes to producing these resources. But they're not controlled by us. They're not controlled by the American people. We provide tax breaks and subsidies for these corporations, but we don't benefit from them. They price gouge us. And of course, they export these natural resources to other countries. So when we're feeling

the pain at the pump, it's because of this privatized model that ensures that a small group of people benefit from these natural resources, price gouge the American people and people around the world when it comes to these natural resources. They have the ability to manipulate the value and the price of these resources. It's a system that puts us at a significant disadvantage. But Norway figured out how to do it right. Is Biden willing to do it? Of course not. Of course. Of course not. Anyway, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about a pretty disgusting incident that happened at a Walgreens

when a married woman was just trying to buy some condoms. We've got that story and more, don't miss it, we'll be right back. Ice cream. Welcome back to the show. I want to get to some domestic stuff because we're already starting to see the ramifications of the reversal of Roe. And a lot of these religious zealots feel more emboldened now than ever before. And I want to share the story of Jessica Pence. Let's discuss what she experienced during a vacation in Wisconsin.

A Walgreens employee refused to sell a married woman, a box of condoms, citing his religious beliefs in denying the sale. Now Jessica Pence and her husband Nate decided to vacation in Wisconsin for the 4th of July weekend, I guess that was mistake number one. But nonetheless, they're in Wisconsin, it's a married couple. She forgot to pack some condoms, okay, it's vacation time, a little loving, you don't want to get pregnant, totally get it. But she deals with this unsavory Walgreens employees.

She'd forgotten her oral contraceptives back home in Minneapolis. So they pulled up to a drug store in Hayward, and she headed inside to pick up a box of condoms and some other items. Oh, I can't sell those to you, she remembers the clerk named John. telling her as she stepped up to the register with her purchases. So she was confused. She's like, was the register broken? Like what's going on? Confused, she gestured to the aisle where she picked up the box. Maybe John thought she'd carried in merchandise from another retailer into the Walgreens.

That would have made more sense than his actual explanation. Quote, well, we can sell that to you, he clarified. But I will not because of my faith. I told him, that's none of your business. He said, well, I'm sorry, this is what my faith demands. And she responded, I think accurately, by saying, you're not sorry. She remembers telling him as the line of customers backed up behind her. Now, eventually a manager was called, and the manager, like, this blows my mind.

The manager comes. The cashier, John, who's refusing to sell the box of condoms to a married woman, demands that he gets logged out of the register. So he's not in any way even digitally connected to the sale of the condoms. Manager does it. Sells, you know, is able to do the transaction. The woman is able to get the condoms. But it is outrageous because if you don't want to see blood, maybe don't be a surgeon.

If you don't want to do your, if your faith is somehow getting in the way of you being able to do your job, then maybe you should consider another job. That goes for the pharmacists who moralize about birth control and refuse to dispense birth control to women who have a prescription for it. You don't want, if your faith makes your job impossible to do, do another job. Go be a priest somewhere, go be a nun somewhere, go do missionary work. I don't know, I don't even care. But if your job is to be a cashier at a Walgreens, you don't get to pick and choose what transactions you will carry out.

This is a married woman who's just trying to buy a box of condoms, which, by the way, let's just address what condoms are used for. Yes, it is a preventative measure if you are trying to avoid unwanted pregnancies. That's definitely one of its uses. It's also used to stop the spread of diseases. So I don't know what John's religion is exactly, but. He believes in a religion that's pro-disease. Step down, resign, this is not the job for you. What's even more infuriating, though, is that Walgreens decided to release a statement

backing up their employee. Like, these companies never back up their employees, ever, ever. They'll throw their employees under the bus for anything. They don't want to pay their employees a decent wage. They don't want to take care of their employees with decent benefits. But this is when they step in, like, no, we're looking out for our employee. Our employee who refuses to do his job because his alleged religion prevents him from being able to sell condoms to a married woman.

Okay. So they release a statement saying, quote, our company policy allows team members to step away from completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection and refer the transaction to a fellow team member or manager who will complete. the customer's request. But what happens if stores packed? There's no one else available to carry out the transaction. If there is a core element of that person's job that the individual is unable to carry out because of their faith, how does it make sense for that person to be employed doing that work? Now, I think this is very different from, let's say, I remember there was a story

years ago, a case involving an employee at Abercombeian Fitch, a woman who wears a headdress worked there. And Abercombeian Fitch had some sort of, not a uniform, but they had a dress code, and they demanded that she take her headdress off. Now, this woman wearing a headdress doesn't prevent her from doing her job. She's just wearing an item on her head that they don't like. But that doesn't in any way stop her or prevent her from doing the job she was hired to do. That actually made its way through the courts. The court sided with her. She was able to continue wearing the headdress. But in this particular case, or in the case of a pharmacy, refusing to dispense birth control to someone who has a prescription for it, they are refusing to do

a core part of their job. So don't do that job. Reefusing. design, find something else. And guess what? This isn't the only incident. There was a recent video posted by a TikToker by the name of Abigail Martin. And she had a very similar experience at a Walgreens, not with condoms, in this case with oral birth control. Let's hear what happened. I don't want to be biased against any religion. But the lady that was helping me was older. She was one of the only people working there.

They weren't busy. And she had two crosses, not one, but two crosses hanging around her neck. And when I told her what I was there for, my birth control, she looks me up and down and goes, hmm. excuse me? She then says, yeah, we're not going to refill that prescription. You need to call your provider. And I said, you won't refill it or you can't refill it. And she goes, you just need to call your provider. So that's what I do. Then I get a message saying that it's delayed now, that it's, that I can get it, but it's now it's delayed. And then I get a message saying it's out

of stock. What is it? So I call Walgreens again. The amazing lady who helped me this time was great. She said, I don't know why we haven't refilled this for you. You have former refills left and your provider called approving it. I'm going to refill this for you, but would you mind asking or would you mind telling me who helped you last time? I was intrigued. So I told her and I said, could I ask why? She goes, I know exactly who you're talking about and we've been having this problem for the last two weeks. They've been having a problem with women not being able to get their birth control for the last two weeks. Yeah, that Walgreens employee should be fired.

I also think it's problematic that these major corporations like Walgreens and CBS are starting to become, you know, the only pharmacies you can go to to get your prescription drugs. A lot of these smaller pharmacies are just being destroyed by the monopolistic nature of these big chains like Walgreens and CBS. So it's not, there's no easy solution if we start dealing with this prevalence of Walmart, I'm not Walmart, Walgreens employees, even Walmart, they have pharmacies as well, like basically saying, no, I'm not going to do my job. I'm going to stand in between you and the health care you need. I'm going to stand in between you and the medicine, the drugs, whatever it is that you need

because religion. Let me tell you something about religion, okay? You should be able to practice your religion. But your religion should not cause harm onto others. That is, that is, that's the rule. You want to believe whatever you want to believe, right? You're a person of faith. Awesome. Awesome. Religious liberty is important because faith is a huge part of a lot of people's lives. But if you believe in a particular religious doctrine, go ahead and follow that religious doctrine and everything that it entails. Do it. More power to you. But what frustrates me beyond belief is that everyone else has to be either demonized, victimized, brutalized, whatever it is based on whatever religious belief an individual has. My faith prevents me from

just being a decent human being and selling you a box of condoms as a married woman. By the way, Who knows what she needs a box of condoms for, right? Maybe she's trying to prevent pregnancy. Maybe her husband has some sort of illness or some, I don't know, I don't know. But it's none of his business. If you can't do your job because your religious beliefs prevent you from doing your job, you should be fired. You need to find another line of work.

Step down, resign, it's over. But we don't live in that world. We now live in a world where you have all of these zealots who are emboldened by what the Supreme Court has done in reversing row. It's not just about the reversal of Roe. It's about Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion where he, of course, agrees with the reversal of Roe. I mean, come on, why not? Okay.

But he felt the need to write a separate opinion to target previous Supreme Court rulings that actually valued the privacy that married couples have in their sex lives. Because he's a creep. These people are creeps. As Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. the majority in erasing abortion rights for half the country, he revisited his shopping list of other demonstrably erroneous precedents. The court could tackle next. He included the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruling that guaranteed married couples a right to privacy in their

bedrooms. Oh, because no, including the right to buy contraceptions. That was what the case was about. But no, we can't have that. Clarence Thomas wants to know whether you, And you and your partner are having a protected set, you can't be having protected sex. Clarence Thomas won't have it. Clarence Thomas sitting there in the Supreme Court thinking about whether or not people are engaging in oral or anal sex. Like the disgusting creep that he is, Mr. pubic hair on a Coke can, disgusting. These people are perverts.

It is none of their business. Again, you're a person of faith, you have a problem with condoms, have at it, do whatever you want to do. You don't get to dictate whether or not other people should have access to birth control, should have access to condoms, whether or not they use condoms, whether or not they engage in oral sex, whether or not they engage in sodom, but doesn't matter. It's none of your business. I mean, it's hilarious that we pretend like we support and value liberty in this country

when we have the most powerful people in government, including within our judicial system, talking about banning certain sexual acts in the bedroom. Again, none of your business. And why are you thinking about this? This country is a disgrace. It's a disgrace because the left has sat by. And I'm talking about elected lawmakers. They have just taken all of our freedoms for granted, things that people,

had fought for aggressively and had accomplished, we all took it for granted. We just did. And over the last 50 years, we've had religious zealots doing whatever it took to chip away, chip away, chip away, chip away, chip away, chip away at our liberties, chip away at our freedoms, chip away at our privacy, chip away at our civil liberties. And here we are. This is the culmination of that 50 year, one-sided battle. And I say one-sided because one side sat by and thought, No, everything's great. Everything's going to just keep moving toward progress. It didn't.

Because whether we like it or not, we have people in this country who don't love our constitution. They don't love freedom. They don't love the separation of church and state. They want to control everything you do in your personal life. That is what the abortion debate is about. It's always been about that. And that's what this is about. A weird, power hungry boy named John who wants to tell a married woman that she can't use a condom when she has sex with her husband.

It's disgusting. I'm not having it. We need to fight back aggressively against this garbage. And the fact that Walgreens stood up for that? What about your other employees? I hope you stand up for them when they decide they don't want to do their jobs. But they won't. I'm sure if they turn down a mandatory shift or some sort of, you know,

a mandatory overtime shift. If they turn that down, I'm sure they'll get fired. for that. It's unbelievable. Anyway, we got to take a break, unfortunately. So let's do that. When we come back, we've got more news for you. And hopefully I'll pick up the pace and get through more stories.

We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.