The Young Turks - The Young Turks 01.22.18: Ryan Bribe, Income Inequality, Restaurant CEO, and Minimum Wage

Episode Date: January 23, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from January 22th, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Just days after the House passed its version of the federal tax law slashing corporate tax rates, House Speaker Paul Ryan collected nearly $500,000 in campaign contributions from billionaire energy mogul Charles Koch and his wife. Just 42 people hold the same amount of wealth as 3.7 billion poorest people in the world. Don Imus “retiring.” Was told by a syndicater that he will not be offered a renewal of his contract. Hour 2:  Restaurant CEO on servers being entitled and not being proud to be servants--says they’re going to school now and don’t want to work. Min. wage in Washington going up to $11.50. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Go do it now. Go. All right, back on a young turks. I've got a lot more stories for you guys, but I want to read some comments sent in here as well. Karen Schmidt writes on Twitter and use hashtag TYT Live to communicate to us during the show. Love that you're working with Dan Rather. Thank you, Karen. Then you've got T. Lee Q writing, has Trump put a flat earther in charge of NASA yet?

Hold for it. Okay, hold. The flat earthers are back. They're, they're, I mean, insanity is everywhere. How could the earth be flat? Couldn't we just go to the end of it? Anyway, okay. DULC. Cardinal writes in, TYT plus Dan, rather, this is amazing. I'm happy to be part. of this revolution. And you are part of this revolution. So I mentioned that in the beginning, and I want to do my member shoutouts of the day right now to James Eaton and Lisa Dexter. Look, members make all these shows, including Dan Rather's show possible. So thank you guys. TYT network.com slash join to become a member and support all this programming. All right. Last couple of comments for you, and they come from YouTube super chat, which also helps the show. Sophia Lambert says, thanks, Jenk, for mentioning gypsies,

were part of the roundups. We usually get forgotten. My Nana was only one in our clan who survived. Trump and company are acting straight out of Nazi Germany. And it's scary as fuck, as she says. Okay, Sophia, thanks for writing in. Connor Lazarus says, the red hats are also targeting the polls. So they used to be the brown shirts. Now there's the red hats. And that is a very scary proposition. And they are in terms of voting. Brian Missouri writes in, there needs to be a Jenk versus Jimmy Door debate on the Russia issue. And Alan Dumont writes in, I second this. Jank versus Jimmy Russia debate.

Well, we had a mini one with Michael Tracy, Nomi and I. This is the topic probably that has the widest disagreement within the network. But that's okay. It's okay for everybody to disagree, but I wouldn't want to do that to Jimmy. Okay, I'm just playing around. Okay, I'm not saying anything. Okay, no, it's guys, Jimmy and I disagree.

It's okay, watch this show, watch our show, make up your own minds. All right, let's go over here and do more stories. Okay. So we told you here on The Young Turks that the tax bill was for the rich and for large corporations. Now, it doesn't take a rocket science to figure that out. 84% of the benefits went to the top 1%. Problem solved. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes.

But the powerful who give donations to politicians thought, I thought, well, let's just make it doubly clear. I mean, no one's paying attention anymore anyway. They almost never talk about it on TV. They'll talk about Trump's tweets or whatever is the latest rage. But they don't talk about the corruption because they're part of the corruption. And buying all those TV ads work for the Koch brothers and the Mercer's and all other people. Because TV now doesn't talk about them almost at all.

Those billions of dollars are going to TV. So what are they going to do? They're just going to, you know, do their corruption right? out in the open so that you could all see it. So let's take a look at it. Well, I.B. Times reporting 13 days after the U.S. House passed this version of tax legislation, Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, combined to donate nearly $500,000 to House Speaker Paul Ryan's joint fundraising committee, according to a new campaign finance report released on Thursday, Alex Koch, doing good reporting there for IB Times. I like how they didn't bother waiting.

They didn't even wait two weeks. They're like, okay, Paul Ryan, did you do as you were told? Good boy, good boy. Here's $500,000 as a bribe. I'm sorry, a campaign contribution. Because here in America, we have legalized bribes. So none of this is illegal. The Koch brothers can give a lot more than that if they want.

They can give it in dark money to the tune of tens of millions, hundreds of millions dollars, and they do. And then they later brag about it. But this one, they just kind of wanted to rub in your face a little bit. Was the tax cuts for the rich? Did we buy off politicians like Paul Ryan? It's like they watched the young Turks and they wanted to be able to say it for the first time too. Of course, of course they do.

So not anywhere near done with this story. Let's give you more details. On the same day as there are donations to the Ryan Committee, Charles and Elizabeth Coke, each donated the maximum possible amount of $237,000 total to the national Republican congressional committees main legal and building accounts as well. So, and that Paul Ryan Pack also gives money to other Republican politicians as well. Legalized bribes for everyone. Come on, come on, come all. It's a freaking auction. So what do the Koch brothers want? Well, let's take a look at the tax bill.

Coke Industries, one of the largest private corporations in the nation, operates refineries and manufacturers a variety of products. So the new tax law, which slices corporate tax rates from 35% to 21% slashes estate taxes and includes a special deduction for oil and gas investors, is expected to save the Koch brothers and their businesses billions of dollars in taxes. I mean, they're going to save billions on the estate tax alone because the two Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, have a combined $100 billion. dollars. So if all they did was save 1%. Now, but they're not going to, they're going to save a lot

more than that. On corporate taxes alone, 35, 21%, that's a giant savings. And then you've got your income tax, and then you've got the pass-throughs, and then you've got the special things that are designed for them in specific. I'll get to that in one second. And then you've got the estate tax. They're going to save tens of billions of dollars. So $500,000 to Paul Ryan to buy them all. There's like a nickel to them. Like here, here, chase after a boy. They probably didn't even hand it to him. Probably threw it in the floor and made him grovel and pick it up.

This is how they buy all of our politicians. It's gross. Get money out. Get all of it out. Wolf-Pack.com. Nonpartisan, get the left-wing money out. Get the union money out. Get the right-wing money out.

Get it all out. If we allow private financing, they will work for private interest. It's the most obvious thing in the world. So do public financing, so they work for public interest. So if you noticed in there, there was a nice little clause, a special deduction for oil and gas investors. Do you know what one of the main lines of work for the Koch brothers are? Oil and gas investing. No, a special deduction just for them.

And then right afterwards, they give you legalized bribes. They're laughing at you. They're just laughing at you. And then the Republican Party goes and has a candidate that talks about how things are rigged. God damn right they are. And you guys rigged it. Okay, we're not done. Five other donors, including billionaire businessman Jeffrey Hildebrand and William Parfay,

each contributor $100,000 in the last quarter of 2017, according to the records as well. So, and there's a lot more where that came from, the Ricketts family. They also threw in money. All the rich are like $100,000. you just gave me billions. This is such a good return on investment. First time that a billionaire or a corporation gives money to a politician, you can say, hey, well, look, men, they don't have to do what they want.

They can just take their money in both the other way. The second time a corporation give money to a politician, that means they got a good return on investment. That means that guy's now working for us. Give him a little bit more money so that he gives us billions in return. And that's exactly what Paul Ryan is. He's just a pathetic errand boy for the rich. Okay, in addition, as political reporter Gabriel Dibon Neddy, sorry for the terrible

pronunciation there, noted, of the roughly $5 million Ryan received in the fourth quarter of 2017, more than $330,000 arrived in the two days after the House passed the tax bill. So the Koch brothers at least waited 13 days. many others are like two days later great finally here you go here's some more legalized bribes you give me billions i give you $330,000 in two days then i buy you forever look at all the money paul ryan got and the rest of the media you frustrate me greatly one you never report on this in its entirety ib times do a great job here a little bit of reporting here and they're from print journalists as usual political washington post on television oh don't trump's tweets this is the

corruption. This is the main story. And then secondarily, you treat the money as if it's something good. The reporters will talk about like, oh, Paul Ryan doing great, raised $5 million. No, Paul Ryan doing terribly. Got bribed $5 million. Again, it's all legal in this insane system. That's why you need an amendment to get it out. Paul Ryan gets bribed to the tune of $5 million and then does whatever the people who bribed him asked them to do. And then you reward it by going, Bravo, what a great fundraiser. By the way, it happens on the Democratic side as well. Nancy Pelosi, hey, what have you ever done?

She says, what do you mean? I raise the most amount of money for Democrats. What do you mean? I'm the best of taking bribes. Diane Feistine, likewise, mansion, likewise. I can go on and on. But the Republicans have cornered the market on this corruption. So when they talk about a rigged system, please, and the swamp,

they're the original swamp creatures. And then one more little thing here to rub it in from the Koch brothers, they put out their spokesperson there, Tim Phillips, who works for their so-called think tank, president of Americans for Prosperity, which is already a funny title. They're like, we're for the prosperous, please. They're not hiding it. He says, this final tax reform plan delivers relief to the working class while unleashing opportunity and growth for America's small business owners and job graders. He says undoubtedly with a smile on his face. He says, undoubtedly, with a smile on his face.

Small business owners, Coke Industries is the largest private corporation there is. Coke Industries, they have Charles and David Coke, just two people, have a hundred billion dollars. What small business are you talking about? For small businesses?

You're really going to write that, Tim? Well, I wrote it. The media will just report it like we're for small business. They got a good laugh out of it. By the way, let's go to that propaganda real quick. This is right after the election, Wall Street Journal doing good reporting on this one. Notice print always better than almost always better than television. Conservative groups led by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Coke are beginning

a multi-million dollar public relations campaign to highlight the benefits of the freshly passed legislation. So sorry, not right after the election, right after the tax bill passed, okay? So right afterwards, they're like, good, good, good, let's do more propaganda because there wasn't enough. They explained that's despite the Republican-aligned group spending at least $30 million to market the bill as good for the middle class. But it didn't work. So the Coke-led groups alone spent more than $20 million promoting the legislation, according to a fact sheet, they themselves provided.

So they're bragging like, yeah, we spent all this money to educate the masses. It's called brainwashing. But in this case, because of the internet, they can't just rely on not only buying television ads, but through those ads, getting the television host to shut up, otherwise it endangers the billions of dollars their companies are going to make off of this corruption, right? So they used to have a lockdown on this stuff, but they're a little frustrated because it's not working as well because of the Internet. So the effort comes amid dismal polling for the tax legislation, a new Wall Street

Journal, NBC poll found that 41% of Americans surveyed the bill as a bad idea up from 35% in October. So that poll was done in December, and the numbers have only gotten worse since then. people hate this bill. So what do they need? More education. In other words, brainwashing. So finally, freedom partners and Americans for Prosperity will go door to door across America, call people at home, hold town halls, and put up nationwide TV, radio, and digital ads about the tax legislation. So part of the bribes goes to the politicians. Part of it goes to trying to manipulate you. And what do the politicians buy? A lot of times they take those campaign contributions

and independent expenditures, and they buy more and more ads meant to trick you. They know that over 80% of the benefits of the tax bill are going to the top 1%, but then they'll run ads saying, oh, this is for small businesses and for average Americans. Oh, my God, the Republicans have your best interest in mine. And that's how this game is played, and that's how they rip all of us off. Okay, now, what does that lead to, at least the gross income inequality? So let's talk about that. Okay.

Oxfam has a new report out today, and it is fairly devastating about income and equality, both here in America and across the world. Let me go right to that report. The world's richest 1% raked in 82% of the wealth created last year, according to a new report by poverty fighting nonprofit Oxfam. 1% got 82% of the wealth created last year. But then they'll turn around and go, what, the stock market's up? Oh, all the markets are doing great.

Are you getting it? No, the top 1% is getting almost all of it. But then they make it seem like, well, you should be happy. Maybe it'll trickle down to you. Well, let's find out if that happened. Get a load of this. This is worldwide. Just 42 people now hold as much wealth as the poorest 3.7 billion people, the organization said.

So that's just 42 people with the same amount of wealth as half of the world's population. Amazing. In America, it's actually worse. The country's three richest people in the U.S. have the same wealth as the poorest half of the American population. Just three people. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett have as much money as 50% of the population in America. That is over 165 million people equal to just three people.

Gee, I wonder if we have income inequality. Or maybe it's trickled down to us. Does it look like it's trickled down? Okay. Billionaire wealth has risen by an annual average of 13% since 2010, while the average workers' wages have risen an average of 2%. Wait, I thought it was supposed to all come down to us. It looks like you guys kept most of it.

The billionaires get 13%. That's six and a half times the rate of wage increase that you got. Okay, it gets worse. While billionaire income was booming last year, the poorest half of the world saw no increase in wealth. So overall, wages went up just 2% that it includes the rich. Okay. When you look at the bottom half, it didn't go up at all, at all.

What happened to trickle down? Nowhere. Okay. The Oxfam report, which is based on, data from Forbes, an annual Credit Suisse global wealth date book, blame the wealth gap on tax evasion, corporations increasing influence on policy, erosion of workers' rights, and cost cutting. This is what I tell you all the time.

It isn't an accident. It isn't what naturally happens. They rigged the rules in their favor. And part of that is lowering taxes on corporations like they just did, lowering taxes on the rich like they just did. Part of that is never raising the minimum wage. Minimum wage nationally is still $7.25. That gets you $15,000 a year if you work all year.

$15,000 a year. And then you go, well, this wealthy inequality just came out of nowhere. I guess there's nothing you can do about it. Of course there's something you can do about it. By the way, defunding the IRS, attacking them with fake scandals so that the rich can get away with tax evasion, which also leads to income inequality. All these are coordinated and they lead to them. a macro result that is shocking.

Now, I want to show you something that Oxfam didn't show in their report. I talk about this from time to time on the show. And this is what you really have to absorb and how I think this is the crux of the matter here. Let's show you a chart where you see productivity and wages from 1948 to 2013. See productivity sky high and continues to rise. Congratulations, American workers. You have done a fantastic job up 243% in that time period. Hourly Compensation going right along with you guys until the 1970s, and then it flatlines.

So hourly compensation since 1973 has only gone up 9.2%, whereas productivity has gone up nearly 75%. So they took most of that productivity, and they kept it for themselves. You worked for it, and you didn't get it. You know how much? This is an amazing fact. The difference on average between those two charts, those two lines on that chart, is for the average American worker, over $17,000. So if you go to the next chart, you'll see it, okay? So $17,867 is what you would have made more if wages had just kept up with productivity.

If you have just gotten the fruits of your labor, on average, you'd be making more than $17,000 more than $17,000 more. than what you make today. And they took that from you year after year after year by rating the rules to their benefit. So one of the ways they do it is through the tax code. Let me show you this chart. Back in 1952, corporations paid 32% of all taxes. In 2015, that dropped to under 11%. So cut by about a third. Now it's going to be cut even more than that, because that does not include the Trump tax cuts, which cut corporate taxes to the bone, even less. Social insurance and retirement used to be 9.7%. That's the payroll tax.

The rich don't even pay it after a certain point. So that is the most regressive tax we have. That's the one that hits the middle class the hardest. So what happened to that? That rose to 33.5% of all taxes being paid in 2015. Now it'll be even higher. You know what they just did? Through those laws, they shifted the burden, the tax burden, onto you and away from corporations and the rich.

So it is not surprising that the money did not go down. It went up to billionaires and millionaires. And the bottom half got nothing at all. And everyone else got a 2% increase. Over the span of 40 years, just a 9% increase, they took so much money out of all of our pockets. That's why we have the inequality that we have. So final stat for you guys. There are now 2043 billionaires worldwide, okay, 2043.

In 12 months, the wealth of this elite group of 2043 has increased by $762 billion. That's just in 12 months. That's enough to end extreme poverty seven times over. See, taxes do make a world of difference. If all you did was taxed at billionaires in the world, just one-seventh of their gains from just this last year, you could erase poverty worldwide. Now, that sounds ambitious, but there are stats that backed that up as to how you could deliver food in the process by which, and then they calculated those numbers.

So you might say those numbers might not be perfect, and you might have some arguments around the edges. Fine, bring it up to one-sixth of what the billionaires earned. If you had that one tax, you could erase poverty. Nope. That tax does not exist. In fact, taxes on billionaires just went even lower under Trump. Wealth inequality is not an accident.

It's not the bug. It's the feature. This is exactly why they put money into politics so they could buy our politicians and rigged the rules on their behalf. And they have on July 18th, get excited. This is big. For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only date is July 18th. And they've gotten spectacular results out of it. And what we've gotten is a great American robbery. All right, one last story for you guys in this segment. And it's a small one. Shows, as my kids would say.

But I think it has some relevance. to the media landscape. All right. Don Imus. I'm going to ask you if you remember him. Some of you might. Some of you might not. He was a talk show host for a long, long time, and had a lot of influence for a while.

He does a morning show. Well, it turns out he's done. March 29th, 2018 will be the last Imus in the morning program. Turn out the lights. The party's over, they explain. Well, let me explain why he got kicked off, I guess, is a fair term in this case, and why it matters. Media report, the move doesn't appear to be the shock jock's choice. IMAIS said he was told by a syndicator cumulus that he would not be paid past the end of his contract.

So to give you a sense of how long he's been on the air, except for a two-year hiatus in the late 70s, Imus has had a continuous presence on New York airwaves since 1971. So for almost half a century, he's been on the air. Now, Don Imus is a complicated character. A lot of his politics is conservative. That is why he got a lot of coverage in the past, both positive in general. Like, hey, Don Imus, he's so amazing. He's for rich people.

Yay. Okay. And at times, he's got positions that are progressive and things. that you can't quite put your finger on. And that's fine. And he's an interesting guy to do a talk show if he's hard to pin down. And it's also gotten him some trouble, some conservative points of view. He had some racial slurs to say about the Rutgers women's basketball team that got him

kicked off the air for a little while and got him in trouble with advertisers. At the time, I said, I don't think he should be taken off the air. I think we need to have these discussions. Now, let's be clear. Number one consequence of this and what it flows from, actually, is that conservative talk radio is dying, and I've been telling this for a long time, and here it is, on death's doorstep. So in March 29th, Don Imus, who's, again, not necessarily pigeonholes the conservative talk radio, more of the old school shock jock, but had a lot of conservative opinions.

and was on Fox for a while, he's going to be gone. Number two, we need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today, and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. As I've been telling you all along, there's no one actually listening to these radio guys. Their ratings now so poor, they're literally being taken off the air. So why do they have any attention at all? Because it serves some people's interest. So you think Rush Limbaugh has a much bigger audience? No.

Hit Rush Limbaugh's audience has never been verified. Glenn Beck's radio audience has never been verified. No one knows what it is. They just make up numbers. And they keep saying the same number year after year after year. Wait, has it been steady all that time? No. And the only reason why they have extra power is because the media gives them that power.

But nobody's talked about Don Imus in a while. So what affected Don Imus have? Nothing. Nothing at all. If all they do is their radio shows in a cave, they have no influence and no power and no audience. They have a bunch of incredibly old people who still give some ads because they run the local used car dealership or whatever in the furniture store. And that's it. That's it.

But a lot of times the media will take the Rush Limbaugh's of the world and make them seem like they're huge. Oh my God, Rush Limbaugh said this, Rush Limbaugh said that. Who gives a damn what Rush Limbaugh said? Look, I do it to run them out of town, to stand up to their BS, but at some point, and a lot of you have emailed in and tweeted in about this, and you guys are right, we just got to cut off their oxygen because they no longer have any audience or any relevance. Let's just finish them. And as you can tell with I miss and the rest, time is not on their side. They're in an ancient format with an ancient audience. TikTok, TikTok. The good news for the rest of the country is a lot of this poison that they put in to the media and unfortunately, the bloodstream of America back when people used to listen to radio is soon going to be gone. And good riddance is my final word to them. Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through.

So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free. These are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join, and you'll get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. All right, back on the young church, Jenkins John with you. I'm a derpy panda writes in, bipartisanship equals Democrats surrendered again.

Dan Tanvia writes in, dude, I would totally rock TYT suspenders with little bitchy riches running down them. I can imagine some sort of like progressive on Wall Street or something like drinking coffee, making deals with the bitchy riches. With his cofefee Coozy, which he also got from shoptyt.com. Okay, Jay Thomas Gordy writes in, are we all really surprised Democrats always take the gold medal in caving to the GOP slash Trump, vote them all out, primaries begin in March. I don't want to see anyone who couldn't stand up for Dreamers and Chip employed in 2019. And I've told you this a billion times, primaries are everything.

Don't wait to complain during the general election that you have the choice of lesser of two evils. In a primary, a lot of times you've got really good progressives that are uncorrupted. Don't take corporate PAC money. Go vote for them. Make a difference. And as you pointed out, if you were to try to go into one of the primaries for this year, there's probably no time. But, I mean, I look forward to personally getting in a whole host of new representatives this year and then watching their ass next year. And if they suck too, primary them then.

You might not be the run this year, but you could probably run in two years or two and a half years at this point. Yeah. At Rebel Headquarters, I talk to a guy who, of course, Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, 18th District of Special Election that's coming up, they wouldn't let him run. They just pick some rich guy and they think being rich is like the most important qualification in the Democratic Party. But he didn't give up, and he's just going to run in November when they have the regular election. Keep on going, keep on fighting. All right, John, what's next? Okay, just a little bit of fun before we pressed on with some of the other issues.

Over the weekend, Chuck Schumer said that he was finding it frustrating that in his attempts at negotiating an end to the shutdown, Donald Trump was basically nowhere to be found, that he wasn't actually working, which is odd, because he's a great dealer and he's a great dealmaker and a stable genius. But the White House didn't like that, and so they wanted to show how hard. Donald Trump is working to get the right sort of deal. And so they put out some photos. And this first one's probably my favorite. There he is, working hard.

And this was in an email from the White House saying the president, hard at work. He is on a phone. He took off his tie. So I guess he's working hard. Then there's this next one. He's walking from one room where he's working to a different room where I have to assume he will be working. Same hat.

This is called a photo op. Okay. And then we have one more. This actually could be a meeting. But I think he's hanging out with friends, but. Okay. Yeah. So a couple of points that people have made, so this is not new commentary from us,

because it's obvious when you look at the pictures. Number one, it's a pre-designed photo shoot. So by definition, not only is he not working at that time, he's taking work out of his schedule to do a photo op. All right, now you will walk resolutely. from one place to another. Okay, but remember, don't comb your hair. Let's put a hat on.

Like, he didn't even bother doing that. He's like, wait, wait, wait, I don't have time to shower. I was watching Fox & Friends all morning. Okay, throws a hat on and then they do this. But my favorite, put up the first picture one more time because I want to give credit to Aaron Gloria Ryan from Daily Beast. She's an editor there. And she said, I too conduct most of my important work with a phone in my hand

and nothing on my desk while staring vacantly. off into space. Excellent work on that tweet. Yeah, I mean, what's he doing there? Who's he calling? He's doing nothing. And it's obvious that he's not in the middle of work because he's looking at the camera. Yeah.

He can't help himself, right? So these photos came out, and it just makes the whole organization look ridiculous. But I actually feel a little bit bad for the photographer and whoever set it up. Maybe it was OPEX, I don't know. I'm sure that they realized how ridiculous it looked, and I bet they wanted to make it look like he was really working, but his lazy ass, that's probably the best he would do for them. Like, I'll sit at the desk for a second. Is that good enough? They're just like, I don't want to deal with him. Probably would happen. I also feel a little bit bad for him because, so I went to the Arctic for a couple

months last year to produce a docu-series, which is about to come out. And for the most part, I'm being filmed as we're just going about our day. But for like promos and stuff, we had to do a few shots where they're like, you walk along the fjord or whatever, just walk towards the camera slow and I did it, but I felt ridiculous. Not Trump, to him, that is working. That is working. He's like, what do you mean? I gave the appearance of working. Isn't that work? Because what else would he do? Would he be reading a briefing memo at that point? He doesn't read. So, and so what, if they were going to do this and have any credibility at all, and don't get me wrong, guys, politicians of all stripes do photo ops. Some of them go well, some of them don't go

well, some are more artful, some are less artful. You remember the photo op that Trump, I'm sorry, the Bush did during Katrina, where he flew over it and was looking outside the window, right, of the plane. That was a terrible photo op, but it was a photo op. Obama does them well, oh my God, the photo they took when they were killing bin Laden in the situation room, that's a golden photo op. Now, they didn't, they planned to have a photographer there because they were aware they're going to put that picture out later.

Yeah. But they didn't all pose. They weren't goofballs like Trump go, oh. Okay, here I am on the phone, right? Probably the photographer took a million pictures and took the one that made them look coolest and put it out there. So just know what's going on in the world and how politics works. But Trump can't even do that right because they have no examples of what he would look like when he's working because he never works. So even the photographer doesn't know how to put it together, the staffers don't know how to put it together.

If they were going to do it right and it was real, he would have invited Congress. to the White House, and they'd be working on a negotiation and a deal, and in the midst of that, they would take a thousand pictures and then take one that looks cool. But he didn't invite any congressman, because he's not doing any work. Look, if they really want to be honest and show what he's actually up to, especially on the weekend, it's a photo of him in bed eating a hamburger, watching Fox and Friends. Take a picture of that. Anyway.

Work. Yeah. Okay, why don't we move to one of my favorite stories of the day? At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

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That's EXPRE SVPN.com slash TYT. T-Y-T. Check it out today. This weekend was the second woman's march, both across the U.S. and across the world and across the entire world. A lot of people took to the streets. Well over a million people in total, actually. We've got

some video that's going to show you a few aerial photos. I was at the L.A. March, and I believe it was the single largest. Over 500,000 people, which is amazing, but also less than last year. That's how big it was last year. You're seeing huge marches there. New York City had 200,000, San Francisco had between 50 and 100,000, Oakland, not far away, 40,000.

Chicago had 300,000, which is actually more than they had last year at the first Women's March. And then there's thousands gathering in Rome and London and Paris and Sydney, other cities in Australia. And then, you know, I mean, there's well over 200 in the U.S. alone. We're talking about, like, Philly had a small one, in Houston and Dallas and San Antonio all over. And it was incredibly inspiring, a number of great speakers. I took a lot of photos, and it was awesome. I went with my girlfriend and some of our friends who are also activists, and it was very inspiring.

And then you get back home and you go on social media and you see the right wing attacks against it, just like last year, which are disheartening, at least briefly. The amount of disrespect lobbed at these people who are, like, you know how hard it is to get people in the U.S. to march, to actually go somewhere, and to do it two years in a row and to get a million plus people is amazing. But they're just, it reminds me actually a lot of the arguments that were cast against Occupy Wall Street. Like, what are they actually there for?

They don't have one leader. They don't have one policy they care about. And so they disregard it. But on the other hand, I'm going to jump in for one second. You get 12 goofballs dressed up in colonial gear and call it a tea party rally. and you'll get cable news covering it nonstop. Oh, my, what's the Tea Party doing? What are all 13 of them doing?

Let's cover it nonstop. Could you imagine if the Tea Party got a million people in the streets? Oh, my God. They'd be like, this is the greatest political movement the world has ever seen. And look, I know for some people, even for some progressives, women's issues specifically are not at the top of the list. And so it's easy to look at it and say, well, where is the passion for my particular issue? But I was there.

I took pictures of the signs. Whatever issue you care about, there were people there marching for it, passionate about it. And so one more interruption there, John. Sorry. Just to close the loop on the tea parties. They always say you're absolutely right about Occupy or this. Oh, well, what do they want anyway?

The Tea Party claimed that they were against the bank bailouts. Didn't do a single protest of the banks. Yeah. Or the bailouts. I mean, you want to talk about what are you for? they should have been screaming that from the rooftops for the empty party. They got formed because they were mad about the bailouts, and then they did random things where they dressed in costumes and brought guns,

and then were like, I think we're angry about health care. What? So they had no freaking idea. They're the model of what the hell is your point. But look at the contrast in the coverage. Yeah, no, totally. And I would also argue, if you ever find yourself asking of a protest group, Like, of the Women's March, also some people say this about, you know, the whole kneeling thing.

What do they actually want? Have you considered asking them? You can talk to them, you know. They're holding signs, actually. You can probably see some here. There's anti-war messages. There's anti-capitalism messages, anti-fascism messages. There's message pro-science, all sorts of things. But another criticism is, well, they're just marching. Some people, generally people who don't like marching because it's hot and they don't like walking around, like to denigrate. It has not being important. But I would argue that it's not just a march.

I think that this movement, which in its purest form, I think, is here in the march, is going to make a huge difference in fall. And so we have numbers for that. And it's just March, and it's also running, okay? At least 79 women are exploring runs for governor in 2018, potentially doubling a record for female candidates set in 1994, which is amazing. The number of Democratic women, likely challenging incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives, is up nearly 350% from 41 women in 2016.

Nearly 900 women contacted Emily's list, which recruits and trains pro-choice Democratic women about running for office from 2015 to 2016. Since President Trump's election, more than 26,000 women have reached out about launching a campaign. Now, that's just one example, but obviously you can look at Justice Democrats and you can look at a number of other groups like that.

They're helping. So these people are not simply marching, they're not simply talking, which would be a big thing by itself. they're also running for office. And when they do run, and when the election comes, they're going to make a difference. A poll came out today, and the woman's vote is going to be huge. Democratic candidates win support from two-thirds of women, 64 to 29 percent, up from 55 to 40 percent in the fall.

That's a huge shift. Now, the race for men, where the Republicans have the advantage by nine points, is steady since Donald Trump's election. And so you're seeing there, there's movement amongst a number of different demographic groups, but perhaps nothing like amongst women. And so it ain't just marching, man. It's running for office. It's supporting candidates that they will then vote for. It's donating.

It's mobilizing people to vote on a number of different issues. I mean, there were great speeches about DACA, about a number of different issues there. And so for me, events like this, marches like this, and we had a number last year, a way to sort of recharge to get out of the weird political media cast and go and see real people, real activists trying to make a change. All right, I have a bunch of things to say about that. So you mentioned just Democrats. Slightly more than half of the candidates are women in that group as well.

And they didn't pick them, and I didn't pick them, the staff did. They didn't pick them because they're women. They picked them because they were the best candidates available in those races. And by the way, nearly half are men. And so it's amazing what happens if you actually practice diversity, not in forced ways, but in natural ways where you actually look for the best possible candidate. And it turns out, hey, look, that kind of matches the population of the U.S. if you don't put bias into the equation, okay?

So now, in terms of the women vote, well, look, what John said, I'm just going to double down on it. just a couple months ago, there's a 15-point lead for Democrats among women. That's already gigantic. Now, it's a 35-point lead. I've never seen anything like that in my lifetime. For one demographic like that, and it's a pretty important one, 51% of the population, a 35-point lead. That's heading into congressional elections.

So the most important sign you're seeing is the one that's right behind John. Grab them by the midterms. Okay? There are a lot of things like that. That's right. Yeah. And that is exactly right. So, but in order to do that, though, you have to actually read the signs. You have to actually talk to these people. I'm talking about Democratic leadership talking to these people.

I'm not even talking about the right wing. And you have to find out, what do my voters care about? Yeah. So when you do what you did today and you don't include the Dream Act in a compromise, you're going to drain the excitement out. And right now, the number one reason why the Democrats are, slated to clean up in these next elections is because of

excitement. It's up six points among Democrats and Democratic leading independence since November that is their likelihood to vote. Their chance of showing up. So in all these categories, in almost every

demographic, the number of people saying that they're going to show up that are Democrats are much higher than average, much higher than usual. Why? They're fired up to fight Trump and the Republicans, it's true, but they also want to be fired up for change that goes in their direction. So if you say, okay, get fired up, but if we win, we're not really going to do anything. And by the way, I've seen articles like that already the Democrats are talking

about, well, if we win this time around, we've got to keep our powder dry so that we win the next elections too. No, no, that's the exact wrong point. You have to deliver if you win this time. Otherwise, you don't get marches like this. You don't get energy like this and you don't get wins like that you could have. Right now, the Democrats have a historic 14-point lead in a generic matchup of Democrats versus Republicans in Congress among likely voters. 14 points, that's a landslide. If that's across the country, the number of Republican losses might be shocking.

But Democratic leadership, listen to progressives. Give them a reason to show up. If you don't give them a reason, they stay at home and you lose. Or hopefully many of those in the Democratic leadership that are saying if we win, we're going to keep our powder dry, we'll lose in primaries this year and won't be around and make that decision come November. No powder dry. Fight, fight, fight, fight. Resistance is not supposed to be a gimmick, okay? It's supposed to be we fight back and then we win and then we get change.

Because if you don't get policy change, then what's the point? And all those people out there, they want change and they want it bad enough that over a million people showed up. So more than the cable news knuckleheads, more than the right wing, more than anything on social media, Democratic politicians, you're the ones who should listen to them the most. Great. All right, we've got to take a break. Yeah. All right.

When we come back, we've broken a story for you guys that I think is very important and some other folks in the country are talking about. So we'll share that with you as well. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of the Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do because that's free. We want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall. No ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join.

Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to 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, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.