The Young Turks - The Young Turks 02.07.18: Budget Deal, DACA, Sheriff, and Russian Tumblr Trolls

Episode Date: February 8, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from February 7, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Ana, Mark Thompson, & Michael Shure. Congressional leaders unveiled a sweeping budget deal Wednesday that would add more than $500 billion in federal spending over the next two years, delivering the military funding boost demanded by President Trump alongside the increase in domestic programs sought by Democrats. White House chief of staff John Kelly said Tuesday that President Trump is unlikely to extend the deadline for work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on March 5 if Congress has not reached a deal on immigration by that date. Hour 2: Ana, Mark Thompson, & Maytha Alhassen. Sheriff laughs at suspect being shot. Video of the crime. The sheriff then boasts about the killing. The Sheriff has been cleared. Buzzfeed investigated Tumblr to see if the site was susceptible to trolls posting fake news like Facebook during the elections. 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. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks, and the reality is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show. So that's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join.

Thanks for watch. Hi, everybody. Welcome to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian. Joining me today is Michael Shore and Mark Thompson. Jank is out. And as usual, I didn't expect him to be out. He usually has all of these other plans.

And then I'm notified on the day of. But it doesn't matter, he'll be back soon. And we have an awesome panel for you in both hours. Maita al-Hasson will join us for hour two, and there are some pretty incredible stories in that hour as well as this hour. Michael Shore dressed for a job interview? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Very nice. And I'm dressed for a garage sale.

It's perfect. Well, it's weird because I'm going to a garage sale place to try and get a job. Wow. Maybe I'll see you there. I'm representing both outfits perfectly. I think I'm in the garage sale category, for sure. Anyway, there is a lot of news to get to, and we'll start in just a moment. But for those of you who are members, there will be a postgame show tonight.

So make sure you stick around for that. And also, when we come back from our first break, I will tell you about a pretty significant perk that you're getting if you are a member. And it involves our big anniversary party next week. So we will get to that a little later in the show. But with that said, let's get started with the news because there is quite a bit going on. Senate leaders have agreed on a bipartisan proposal to fund the government. This is a spending deal that would essentially be a long-term spending deal that both Republicans and Democrats admit they don't love, but there are some concessions for each group, and I will

give you the details. You can decide for yourself whether or not you think this is a good deal. Now, keep in mind that even though Senate leaders have agreed on this proposal, now it's up to the House to also vote on it and, you know, essentially vote to implement it. So based on what this bipartisan deal indicates, there will be $6 billion added to government spending to fight the opioid crisis. That's spending that is desperately needed. $5.8 billion for child care development block grant. Also, $4 billion for veterans' medical facilities. Good to know that we have lawmakers that are finally focusing on that. $2 billion for critical research, $20 billion to augment existing infrastructure programs,

$4 billion for college affordability. So there are some significant portions of this proposal that I think are good. But of course, there's one massive concession, and that is the issue of DACA. This proposal has nothing to do with immigration reform. It has nothing to do with protections for dreamers. But it does provide funding for programs that are incredibly important. Also, the deal would raise the spending caps by about $300 billion over two years. The limit on military spending would also be increased by $80 billion in the current fiscal year and $85 billion in the next year, which begins October 1st.

The limit on non-defense spending would also increase by $63 billion this year and $68 billion next year. So there's a lot of funding for additional funding for the military, and that's something that those on the left are concerned about. And then those on the right who consider themselves so-called deficit hawks also don't like this spending proposal or government funding proposal because they feel that it worsens. they feel that it worsens the current deficit that we're dealing with. And that's consistent on their part because they're the ones who voted against the tax bill because the tax bill would also add to the deficit. This is an old-time spending bill, right? I mean, this is what they used to do in Congress.

And there were some people who were happy. There's some people who weren't in this case. It's not even just some people. Everybody's giving up something here. So a huge spending bill is not going to make the Freedom Caucus and those real conservatives happy. On the other hand, it's going to be tough for a lot of Democrats, DACA aside, and that's kind of a separate thing with this spending bill, to vote against all this spending. Democrats are tempted by that. When you say old-time spending, you mean that a lot of people got a lot, that a lot of things are funded.

So it's not as though it's bipartisan in that sense. Everybody's equally hurt, everybody's equally benefited in a sense. And the Democrats here are giving up, they're not giving up DACA. But what they're still reliant upon is the word of Mitch McConnell. Which drives me crazy. Right. It drives me crazy. And look, to Nancy Pelosi's credit, she is not in agreement with Senate leaders on this proposal.

She believes that DACA is something that needs to be taking care of right away. And she is essentially asking for, you know, Paul Ryan to make a promise that they will eventually debate and vote on immigration reform, specifically protections for. for these dreamers. Now, I want to go to Mitch McConnell and Schumer in just a moment. Before I do so, let me give you other components of this spending proposal that I think are important. The deal also includes a $4.9 billion, two years of full federal funding for Medicaid and Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. And the Children Health Insurance Program is extended for four years. So again, there are good components to it. There's no question about it. But of course, there is a deadline looming in regard to these DACA recipients,

March 5th. And so Nancy Pelosi is concerned about that. And she's saying, I'm not going to vote in favor of something like this until I get a promise that we are going to vote on immigration reform. And she's, I mean, not only is she saying that. She's into her seventh hour as we speak of essentially filibustering the House of Representatives. You can't as a House member filibuster. It's a different, that's a Senate rule. But you can, if you're in the leadership, they have these things called magic minutes in the morning. So members of Congress go before the Congress for one minute. They get recognized for one minute. And they can talk about anything. That's when they talk about the post offices, the high school football team, whatever. But they also talk about things

that matter. Leaders can talk for as long as they'd like. So she's in four-inch stilettos, which, I mean, I haven't worn since high school. And but I remember them being difficult to stand up in for more than 10 minutes. And she's doing it for seven hours now, taking sips of water and reading letters from Dreamers. She is serious about this. And she's speaking not just to America, but to her Democratic colleagues to say, this is important enough to vote against this bill. They're not all going to do that because there's too much sweet stuff in it.

But if they can get a deal that was similar from what the senators got from McConnell in the Senate, then that's going to go a long way toward, I think, toward helping me. them, you know, at least hold these people's, you know, to the fire on this stuff. You really think so? I definitely do, because it's so public. That's what makes it different than it's ever been. That's the one benefit of holding it out is that you can really, you know it's a widely popular bill on both sides, with the American people. And so to the extent that you can hold it out, you can gain some political capital by doing so. Now, as you suggest, there is a deadline that is fast approaching, so you can only hold it out for so long.

But that is the benefit that, you know, you can increasingly paint the GOP if you're the Democrats as the party holding this wildly popular thing up. So recently, as recently as yesterday, Donald Trump said if he doesn't get the funding that he wants for his wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, then we'll just have a government shut down. Let's shut down the government. Let's shut down the government. I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but I feel like that was a perfect opportunity. for Democrats to really hold the Republicans' feet to the fire and say, we're not going to vote in favor of a spending bill unless there are protections for DACA. You have Trump on the record saying, let's shut down the government. Let's shut down the government. He said I hope they shut down the government. Thank you. So his exact words. And then also polling indicates

that when the government shutdown happens, they're not blaming Democrats for it. They're blaming Republicans and the president for it. I feel like this is the perfect opportunity. for them to do more than, you know, look, the seven-hour filibuster, as it stands now, is impressive. But I feel like other measures can be taken to force, force Republicans to vote on a measure that would protect these DACA recipients. You're right. But when you're in the minority, it's very, very difficult to do more than what they're doing right now, which is to extract some kind of a guarantee that this is going to happen. And then that's when they hold their feet to the fire. I'd love for them to be able to do it. I'd love for them not to vote for

this because of that issue. One of the things that Mark said is important, though, is that there's a popularity to this issue. If America starts to hear that this issue is causing the shutdown of the government, this issue is going to be a lot less popular. And that's what happens. It's sort of, it macerates in this, in this sort of stale, you know, the stew of people blaming it for stopping this government. And if that's the cause of it, and they're able to spin it, then it's not so popular. Then it's tougher to get something. done. Right now McConnell and Ryan know that it's popular. And by the way, this budget bill goes against the White House. So you're seeing that they can go against their White House,

which is also something that should be noted. Yeah, that's an important point. Of course, Trump will never read this budget. He'll get, it'll get explained to him, you know, on a, on a note card, if he'll even read that. But the point is, were he to read it, he wouldn't be happy with it, because they push back essentially. And this is what you're going to see more of, I think you're going to see more pushing back on a crazy White House occupied by a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about. So, okay, at the risk of making this drag on too long, I have to make one more point. So why aren't Democrats better at spinning things?

Because if it is a popular proposal to provide these protections for DACA recipients, which, by the way, if you poll Trump supporters specifically, there is a slim majority that is in favor of protecting DACA recipients, believe it or not. So if it is so popular, okay, the Republicans might try to spin it as, oh, look at the Democrats, they're refusing to fund the government based on this one issue. Can't Democrats hit back and be like, well, this is an incredibly popular proposal? Even your supporters like it, why are Republicans refusing to listen to their constituents and represent what they want?

They spin it as you're going to hold up the whole American government and you're going to not fund our entire country. country's budget just for a million people who aren't technically American citizens anyway? Those are a million people that Americans actually want to provide protections to. You guys are going against what they want. You are not listening to them. You are not representing them. And they say, yes, we will take it up. But we're not going to take it up right now in this budget. Pass this budget and we'll take it up. And you end up with this kind of stalemate. And as Michael suggests, you can increasingly nudge this DACA issue into sort of a radioactive territory where it doesn't become as popular as it was.

You can dirty it up, which is what the Republicans, I agree with you. I've said it on this show many times. They're so much better at the messaging. There's so much better at this nasty, slimy spin. But if those DACA recipients who are by far employed in much greater numbers than the American people are employed, educated in much bigger numbers than the general American populace is, If that group is dirtied up in the way that Republicans generally dirty things up, I think it'll be a rough, rough day. I mean, we'll all regret it.

Well, Speaker Ryan has responded to Nancy Pelosi through a spokesperson, and here's what he had to say. Speaker Ryan has already repeatedly stated we intend to do a DACA and immigration reform bill, one that the president supports. The thing is, I don't really know what the president supports. Well, that's a great point, I know. Nobody knows what the president supports. They don't know what his position on this is, which is also reassuring because it, like this spending bill, which the president doesn't support, really, if you look at what he said and what the White House has said, like that, it gives Congress the autonomy to do a DACA bill.

And if Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan know the popularity of this issue, because they do, they know they're in the minority, so they want to get this spending bill done, they want to fund the Defense Department. And Democrats, to their also, I would say, strategic credit, don't want to be blamed for shutting down the defense department and, you know, keeping our soldiers at home, even though that's obviously, you know, ridiculous. But that's how it is spun successfully, right or wrong. That's what they do. They say they're holding up the government. They're holding up our defense. We are less able to defend ourselves because of the shutdown that the Democrats forced. Now they have it on Congress. So if they have Ryan and they have McConnell, Ryan will probably try to appease McConnell before he tries to. appease the president, so think the Democrats. Right. So we'll see how this plays out. Again, even though Senate leaders have agreed on this proposal, of course, members of the House need to also agree on the spending bill. We have some extreme ideology in the House, especially when it comes to those on the right who feel like this is incredibly irresponsible with how much government money and spending is

involved. Yeah, the deficit created is enormous. And I want one more thing that you're right about, Anna, is that you say you wish they would fight back there. Nancy Pelosi is trying to get Democrats to vote against this bill. That's as much fighting back as she can do. And she's doing it in a way that is just, you know, powerful with this, Philip of this, whatever we'll call it. Yeah. But it's, so that's, she's, they're listening. They can only do so much, but they're doing it.

So it's called magic minutes? Well, they call them the magic minutes when they, like, you know, 40 congressmen go up in front and say, can I be, I have to be right? recognized for one minute to advise in semi-remarks, recognized, gentlemen, recognize, gentlemen, the gentlelady is recognized, and they talk about a post office. Nice. Yeah. Okay, well, let's move on to another DACA story that I think is incredibly important. White House chief of staff, John Kelly, was recently speaking about whether or not Donald Trump

plans on extending the deadline for protections for DACA recipients. As we know on March 5th, the protections for some of these DACA recipients is set to expire, and there is some worry that Congress isn't going to pass something that will protect them further into the future. Now, recently during an interview, John Kelly said, don't think Trump is going to extend that March 5th deadline. In fact, here's his exact quote. He said that the White House is not so sure this president has the authority to extend it. I doubt very much. He also said something kind of interesting about DACA dreamers, okay? And he differentiated between the DACA recipients, the individuals who applied and got this protected status and these workers visas and those who did not.

Now, I want you to hear from him yourselves, so let's take a listen to the first video. I can't imagine men and women of goodwill who begged this president to solve the problem of DACA. And as generous is that four pillars have been, I can't imagine they would vote against it. I mean, this is more than they could have imagined. And I would offer that if before the champions of DACA were members on one side of the aisle, I would say right now the champion of all people that are DACA is Donald Trump. He believes that the current champion for these DACA recipients is Donald Trump. the person who essentially ended the protected status for them with a six-month delay

until Congress can figure out what to do. That guy who's holding these DACA recipients hostage over the issue of a border wall, that's the guy. That's the guy who's a champion for these dreamers who have been in the country since they were children, okay, they didn't make the decision to come here. They came here because family members brought them in. And in order to get that protected status, you have to prove that you're a productive member of society.

You have to prove that you're educated, that you're a job. job creator that you add something to this country. It's not like anyone who applies gets the protected status. It's just so incredibly frustrating because you guys are right when you say that Republicans will spin things and it works. It's slimy. It sticks. But to say that Trump is the champion for these DACA recipients is just. 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 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. Ridiculous. What more about John Kelly than it does about any of the other people? And John Kelly, you saw him, you're like, oh, this guy seems reasonable. coming in, he's going to fix the White House. He's somebody who thinks this guy is the big, they're all the same. They are. They are all the same. I'm waiting for it to happen with James Mattis, who is still to me the last holdout of reasonability in that, in that whole

world there. Well, not to divert completely on Mattis, but he's changed his stance on nuclear arguments completely. I mean, he's all of a sudden gone scary like Trump, so we can get to that another time, but I agree. I sort of held Mattis to a higher standard, but I don't know about that anymore. And this is empty messaging. This is what they do. You know, it's sloganism. He's the champion for the DACA recipients. And then the base sort of regurgitates that. And Sean Hannity says that over and over again.

And it's BS, obviously. Only Donald Trump says that, right? I'm the best friend that DACA recipients have ever. Right, and they just regurgitate whatever Trump has to say about himself, you know. It's like a cult. And again, if he genuinely Trump genuinely cared about these DACA recipients and wanted to protect them, then he would be pressuring Congress to pass. a standalone bill that extends, you know, their workers visas and their protection,

but he's not doing that. He's literally using them as leverage in order to get what he wants, right? And just the last thing, because I think you make a very important point. This is a group of people, and to hold this over their head. I mean, and as Anna said, she ran through a couple, the statistics are overwhelming as to how productive a group of people these DACA recipients are. And to hold this over their head, I think, is it's almost inhuman as you read what, I mean, it really, it lacks any humanity, I should say that. Because if you read the stories of those who've come here when they were eight, nine, ten years old as teenagers, and they've built lives.

The L.A. Times is doing a series on this, and they follow through what's happening to these people. They've built businesses, and as Anna says, they've employed people, and they've paid taxes and all of these things that are associated with being a good citizen and contributing to the society. And now, to see this turned on its side, it's really, it lacks a humanity that I think is not reflective of America. I mean, some of them have either served or are currently serving in our military. I mean, it's just, and again, again, the American people in general are right on this issue. It is a popular proposal to continue protecting these DACA recipients. But again, they're being used as, you know, hostages in this ridiculous debate over. we're funding a border wall that we do not need and isn't actually going to help,

you know, protect the border. And everybody in Congress knows we don't need it and that it's not going to help protect the border. It's so frustrating. At least it's affordable the border wall. Yeah, that's true. Billions of billions in taxpayer money to fund a wall that members of Congress agree is a waste of money.

Okay. So with that said, let's go to the second video. And this is what I want you to pay close attention to. This is where John Kelly tries to differentiate between those who applied for DACA protection and those who did not. It's kind of a vaudio more than a video. It's a Vodio. That's a good word. Yes.

Take a listen. There are 690,000 official DACA registrants. And the president sent over what amounts to be two and a half times that number to 1.8 million. The difference between 690 and 1.8 million were the people that some would say, were too afraid to sign up. Others would say we're too lazy to get off their asses, but they didn't sign up. So that seems like a small thing. But the reason why that stood out to me is because it's the consistent messaging that you hear from members of this White House. You know, just like sometimes it's very explicit and overt where they make it seem as though, you know, these are

criminals and these are dangerous people that we need to watch out for. And then sometimes it's a little more subtle, like the lazy comment that he made right there. Oh, really? Where your numbers. Who says that some of them are lazy? Who says that some of them are afraid? Like, he just kind of pulled that out of his ass. The ones in the military, lazy, afraid. Yeah, the job creators, lazy, afraid. They're only in the military because they didn't have bone spurs. No, I mean, you're right. It's a smear. And that's what they're going to increasingly do. They're going to smear this group of people. And we've already, and I won't do it again, talked about who they are and how they don't deserve to be smeared. But this is what they do.

And Anna is right. Sometimes it's a bullseye attack and sometimes it's a kind of a side swipe attack. And this is kind of in that side swipe. But either way, it dirties up that group so that Americans slowly begin to rethink it if this becomes a front and center issue in the next month or so. And rethink Kelly. I mean, that's the other thing. It dirties up Kelly, who everybody had seen, or not everybody, but a lot of people had come to rely on as kind of a stabilizing force in the White House who saw things and whispered in the president's ear. you can't say you're the champion of DACA recipients. Well, now he's saying it himself. So it has that effect, too, aside from the- Yeah, that's so true. You recalibrate on Kelly, don't you, Anna? I mean, you start thinking- Yeah, and look, to be fair, I mean, I think the reason why people on the left started seeing Kelly in a more favorable light is because relative to other members of Trump's administration, he seems halfway decent. But, you know, I love the comment that you made earlier, Michael, they're all the same. I mean, maybe they're different in their public rhetoric. But overall, when it comes to ideology, they're the same. And that side swipe regarding DACA, not DACA,

but dreamers who didn't apply for DACA protection, referring to them as lazy is just another example of them throwing that anti-immigrant propaganda out there. And by the way, if he's concerned about people not applying for the protection in the future, I mean, think about it. Put yourself in a dreamer shoes, would you do it? Would you go to the government and say, hey, I'm applying for protected status, knowing that there are, you know, bad actors like Donald Trump and members of his cabinet that would aggressively go after you in the future if they don't get everything that they want from Congress? Yeah, well, the ice raids are, you know, are being played of so big and so high profile and so brutal. And some of these ice raids are separating families right there on the spot without warning. They won't even let you go back for a pair of shoes.

And they're random and symbolic. They're not, you know, it's not like this is well thought out. And so to Anna's point, I mean, of course, it makes you think two and three times before you want to register with a government. I certainly wouldn't want to. Yeah, you want to stay in the shadows. It's just the opposite effect of that, what you want. We ought to take a quick break. Let's do that.

And when we come back, Democrats flipping. districts that were heavily, you know, red. And then later on, we will also talk about the military parade that is actually going to happen. 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 No. Hey guys, welcome back to TYT.

Anna Casbury, Mait the Owlhausen joins us. Yes, I'm really excited. I'm always excited to be here. Yes, you add a much-needed intellectual, like, just intellectualness to the show that I appreciate. She's a PhD, like you're a professor, like you're a real professor. I don't have an appointment now, but I do have a PhD. Yeah, I mean, she's amazing.

You come with your research, and I love it, because you always offer perspectives that I hadn't even thought of. So I love it. Okay, Mark Thompson also joins us. Mark Thompson is also great. No Ph.D., though. I'm not likely to get one. I'm just going to be honest.

I'm thinking about it. Well, maybe I'll get it. No, you shouldn't get one. That's not worth it. I can show you a lot of white hairs under here. All right. I have an exciting announcement for you guys. So as you can see, Jank isn't here at the moment, but he is hosting Rebel headquarters tonight

after the main show. And I want to make sure you're aware that he will be interviewing Randy Bryce. He is running against Paul Ryan, and he is picking up some serious steam. People are super excited about him. He does refer to himself as a Justice Democrat, so as you know, he is very progressive. And if you want to hear about him and more, make sure you check out Rebel headquarters after the main show today. Also, I want to read a few TYT lives for you guys. Ray for Madness says climate change happens on a geological time scale. What we're going to be experiencing for the

next several centuries if we survive has already been baked into the cake, even if all the emissions go down to zero tomorrow. He's absolutely right about that. So even if we do everything that's needed to do, that we need to do to cut the carbon emissions, we've already caused a significant amount of damage to the environment. We've reached a tipping point on climate. That's absolutely true. That doesn't mean that we can't make some changes because what we're doing does hasten the process of global warming and climate change generally. Absolutely. It's very scary. Okay. Let's move on to some other news. A federal lawsuit has been filed against a sheriff in Tennessee.

His name is Audie Shoup of White County, Tennessee. And this federal lawsuit has been filed by a widow, a woman who lost her husband in a shooting that Sheriff Shoup was very supportive of. Now, the man who lost his life was Michael Dyle, and he was in a low speed pursuit involving cops who wanted to pull him over because of a suspended license. Now, he was driving an incredibly old truck, a 40-year-old truck, and as a result, he wasn't going very fast. He couldn't go very fast. And cops wanted to essentially ram him off the road by kind of nudging him with one of the police cruisers. When the sheriff found out that they were

attempting to utilize that tactic, he wasn't very happy about it. He didn't want to damage one of his police cruisers. So he advised the cops to essentially shoot this guy. And they did. They shot at his vehicle and Michael Dial lost his life as a result. When a deputy had successfully nudged Dial off the road, reserved deputy Adam West, who was in pursuit in his own personal vehicle, fired three shots as the vehicle went down into a ditch, dial died of a gunshot wound to the head. All right. So with that said, we have some evidence of what the sheriff had said. He didn't realize that his commentary was being picked up by another cop's body cam. Before we get to what he was saying on the scene, let's take a look at the first video that shows what the scene of the

chase look like. Take a look. including deadly force. Come up. 59. Each deadly force is necessary. Take this subject out by any means necessary. Here's central bear's eyes

and sits in the right here. All right. Okay. So again, the cops had successfully nudged him off the road. his car was already in a ditch, and at that point, one of the cops exits his vehicle and immediately start shooting, no questions asked. Keep in mind, this was over a suspended license. This wasn't, and it was during a very slow pursuit, 40 to 50 miles per hour max because his vehicle was so old. Really, you think that someone should lose their life over a suspended license? I mean, okay, so there's that part of the story. We have more damning evidence against

sheriff in just a moment, but I want to open it up to the panel. Well, I was going to make one point, and I think it's an important thing that you hint at here, which is that oftentimes when cops address the issue of using deadly force, it's if this person in this case that they're pursuing is a threat to the community. I mean, if it were like a heavily populated area and they're driving recklessly and very fast, and it would still be something that they would likely be quite hesitant to do, But at least then they could wrap their head around the logic of using deadly force. But as Anna says, slow speed chase, rural road, he's already off the road, it amounts to an execution.

And he doesn't represent any threat to the community. And keep in mind, I mean, the sheriff ordered the cops to take them out by any means necessary. And what you're about to hear is even worse because the sheriff apparently thinks, hey, you know what, this is the right thing to do. This is the kind of stuff I live for. Okay, let's take a look at the next video. The cop, by the way, is distraught after this shooting occurred, and the sheriff basically tries to calm him down, pay close attention to what he says. Hey, Adam, you're good.

You call you wife, tell him you're all right. You don't want to worry about this. I made the decision. You don't have to worry about it. I took that way from y'all. You don't have to worry about nothing? Everything's too. You done them just exact right.

Hey. Hey, God. Hey, I love. I told you that. I thought you done the right thing I tell you you're doing the right thing

you kept somebody and getting killed this food was crazy call your wife for everything good I made that decision you don't have to worry about nothing you got your phone with you

are you don't have to be scared brother I know it's natural but you don't have to be natural hang in there you're tough I know you didn't want to do it

that's all right Hey, we're good. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of that. I ain't worried about this at all. Of course you're not worried about this at all. I mean, we've already set a precedent in this country where an unarmed person can get shot for something as minor as driving with a suspended license. And, you know, the community will back you guys up. Politicians will back you guys up. We've set that standard. And it's sad to know that people can easily lose their lives over something like this. so many thoughts around this. One, of course, that this is a situation of aggressive,

aggressive force that was uncalled for. And there's even additional tape that was picked up by the body cam where the sheriff actually says, I thrive on this. We have that for you. You know, I apologize for interrupting you, but I want to have the audience listen to that, and then I want you to continue. Okay. Take a look. I told him, I said, take him out. I heard. Then I won't give a shit. It wasn't long after that. I heard. They said, we're ram, I said, don't ram him shoot him. Like that shit, ain't gonna turn my cars up, but I got two cars tore up again.

I know. Yeah, well, right now, we don't know if Charlie shot him or if Adam, but it looks like Adam shot him. But Adam's took it hard. Hey, he talks that big shit. Now he's in the big league. You know, if he can't take it, he needs to get out. Tell you some, God, they don't think I'll give a damn water to kill that motherfucker. They fun shit.

I don't know. Take him out. I'm going to the damn down in the damn county. You're deadly for. Shit. I love his shit. God, I tell you more, I thrive. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives.

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one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com, com slash t yt you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for t yt fans that's ex p r e s s vpn dot com slash t yt check it out today i love this i thrive off of it yeah yeah and if you can't take this you're in the big leagues now this is not even a part of your job description this man was unarmed he did not pose a threat a very active And we always end up dismissing this because we think and we are told the propaganda of law enforcement is a very deadly job, right? They don't even make the top 10 in terms of the most deadly jobs.

I believe bartender is up in the top 10. So that should give you an understanding of the context of actually how much they are overarmed, overprotected by the. the law and by the weapons that they carry. And the other thing which was so interesting was that he kept on using the phrase by any means necessary, by any means necessary, right? And it's interesting because somebody who was very famous for that line, Malcolm X, who meant freedom, justice of equality, will get to it by any means necessary, was vilified for allegedly advocating violence.

And this man is actually advocating violence by any means necessary. Right, of course, of course. And look, he loves it. He loves it. It didn't matter what the offense was here. It didn't matter whether or not that person posed a threat. He very openly admitted without realizing that that body cam was picking up his audio, that he loves taking these people out.

You know, it doesn't matter if it's over a suspended license. He literally said that he didn't like the fact that they were trying to ram, the cops were trying to ram him with the police cruiser because he didn't want to ruin one of his cop cars. Yeah. And this is a chase for the most. part was 30 to 40 miles an hour just to give you some sense of it. I mean, we're used to seeing these high octane chases where people are going 100, 110 miles an hour and you can say, well, you know, your adrenaline's going and, you know, stuff happens. This is a 30 to 40 mile an hour

police chase. It's, and to Anna's point, guess what the deputy attorney's investigation found? He's cleared. Yeah, no wrongdoing. So there you go. They, they know they can get away with it. And this sheriff, he was a sheriff, right? I believe the sheriff in Tennessee, he knows that likely his officers can get away with it. So this is an illustration like we always talk about of, oh, there's a couple bad apples, they always say in cops, right? The cop that did the shootings of bad apple. So this is an illustration of how it works from the top down. The guy was driving, I think he was in his own personal truck, the particular one, Adams.

And once they got the directive, A, shoot by any means necessary, don't ruin your car, stop ramming him, shoot. he pulled out his gun. Then once it went down, he shot. Then he was distraught and the sheriff's calm down. We're good. It's all good. It's fine. Don't worry about it. From the top to the bottom, it's telling the people that you're working with and working for this is how we do it.

It'll be okay because they already know it. So it's not a bad apple. It's how it's done. It's protocol. And then, of course, he was right, as Mark just said. He was justified in the shooting because that's the way it's supposed to be. And he already knew it. He said, you have nothing to worry about, man. Don't cry. Don't worry about it. Go home to your wife.

and chill out. This is taken care of. And he was right. I mean, how disturbing was it, how unnerved he was. And to try to like paternalistically calm somebody down who shot somebody that didn't deserve to be killed, to be executed, as Mark was saying. Even worse, you know, to later criticize the cop for being distraught over the fact that he just shot and killed someone, basically telling him, if you can't handle this, then you need to get out of the force. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. You heard exactly what he said. I mean, Look, there are so many issues at play. Yes, there is the problem of poor police training. But when we mention the poor police training, I feel like oftentimes we're being overly fair or overly generous.

There are significant bad apples within the police force that sheriff being one of the primary examples. He is not a result of bad training. He is a bad actor. He has no business being a cop. So, you know, we'll see how this plays out. Again, there's a federal lawsuit, and hopefully the widow in this case gets some form of justice, you know, after the cops took her husband away over a suspended license. But the worst part about these stories is how society reacts to them. And I just want everyone to just take a moment to put themselves in that woman's shoes and understand what it feels like to lose a loved one over a suspended license.

because you have overzealous cops that think it's acceptable to kill someone over that. And at least the cop who fired the killer shot was overtaken by emotion. At least he understood the gravity of what he had just done. The sheriff, this Tennessee sheriff, he's, as J.R said, don't worry about it, buddy. Everything's fine. I got it. I told you to do it. Don't sweat it.

It's as though the importance of what has just happened here is completely lost on him. It's deeply disturbing to think that that's going on in law enforcement. I just want to echo on Anna's point for one second to just also imagine yourself if you have a traffic infraction suspended license or today's the birthday of Sandra Bland who passed away because she was, I say she was killed by a police officer for a broken, for not signaling, sorry, for not signaling. Does that amount to being, to being killed? Like, it just, I can't even justify your murder. Right. Yeah, there are some portion of this country that believes, yes, absolutely. Even if they've been driving with the suspended license or a DUI or anything else.

Yeah. Okay. Moving on to other news. BuzzFeed has investigated the social media site Tumblr to see whether or not it was riddled with the same. issues that other social media sites like Facebook dealt with during the 2016 election. Did Russian trolls try to pose as certain groups of people to push fake stories in order to divide the American electorate? And what they found was, yes, there were similar issues with Tumblr that people were completely unaware of until today. Now, the accounts allegedly

shared content on issues, on issues such as police violence to appeal to young. African Americans. In fact, the individuals posting some of these fake news stories or misleading news stories were really individuals from the internet research agency posing as black Americans. Now, popular posts criticized Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, supported independent senator Bernie Sanders and highlighted police violence against black communities. In one case, they shared a story that showed a a black woman, you know, allegedly being sexually assaulted by a cop, and they identified the cop as a current police officer with the NYPD. It was fake. And that is incredibly scary

to know that, you know, your name, you can be an innocent person, an innocent cop, and your name is attached to this type of propaganda. Now, it's important to keep in mind that this isn't just done to support Trump's candidacy. It was basically done in order to divide Americans in general, cause chaos among the electorate. To give you a perfect quote to kind of sum this up, one researcher said it's not about promoting one candidate or message, but about sowing political distrust and confusion and feeding into fears that society is already having. Tumblr is really popular among teenagers who are very vulnerable and very susceptible to political messages because they haven't formed political identities just yet.

And she's right about that. And the reason why they were able to determine that the Internet Research Agency, which is essentially that Russian troll farm, was involved in the fake posts on Tumblr, is because they used similar usernames on Tumblr as they did on other social media sites. So they were able to kind of track that and find what was going on. I kind of have mixed feelings around the story. Was there Russian interference in our election for sure? And were there posts that were leading up swing voters? Yes, probably. But I think the tone of this article and the suggestion that black folks would fall for some of the stuff

to maybe not go to the polls or vote for Trump and they're not making that explicit correlation or connection, that's a little insulting. Because there's been a lot of rhetoric post-election that black people, because they didn't come out in significant droves or percentages like they did for Obama, that they're the ones who were responsible for the Dems failing, right? That's ridiculous. Yeah, no, there've been op-eds who've tried to suggest this. And I feel like this kind of is a little consistent with this argument, this sort of dependency

on black folks who are overwhelmingly part of the Democratic Party to save America. It's the kind of rhetoric we also saw in what's the Senate race with the pedophiles. Well, no, Doug Jones isn't the pedophile. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Roy Moore. Right, right, right, right, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's, thank you. It was actually an acknowledgement of black folks saving that election for sure, but it also was this expectation that they would do it. Right. So I don't know if it's the same thing because I actually haven't come across the same op-eds that you're talking about, but anyone who would blame black Americans for Trump's win.

I mean, that is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard, right? But with that said, I think that there was a concerted effort by foreign actors to, you know, take the racial tensions that were very obvious. America and just stoke those tensions, you know, further divide the country on these issues because I myself came across the very story that I just mentioned right now of the, you know, young black woman being assaulted by would appear to be a cop. And I saw it on Instagram. I saw the video footage on Instagram and, you know, the description of it being a New York police officer. And I like researched it immediately because I thought if this is true,

this is a story that I'd want to cover. And sure enough, I found that it was completely false. And I don't know if the account that had shared it was a real account, but it had a ton of views and a ton of angry people. And so I think it was more about dividing the country and more than, you know, trying to. Right, right. It was about dirtying up the election process. It was about dirtying up the democratic process. It seems clear that there was a placement in a big way. I mean, sort of a carpet bombing of social media by the Russians. And I know that. TYT viewers, I know, Jimmy Dorr, and we can go back and forth on this, and whether or not it had an influence on the outcome of the election was less important than just dirtying up the

process. And so you saw this fake video, you saw the, and that's along racial lines. You also saw the fake Muslim video that was along religious lines. They were trying to take existing divisions, these schisms in American society, and make them greater. And you'd have to say that to the extent that social media has an issue. impact, they were successful along with a lot of other disinformation out there. But it seems as though this was just one component in their overall tactic to do just that. For me, sorry to interrupt

you, but for me, this is a lot less about the outcome of the election. It's more about what we all felt during that election, which was this, you know, almost tangible anger. It was crazy. Everyone was down each other's throats. Everyone was angry. Everyone was sharing stuff that was propaganda. I saw it all over my news feed. And so the reason why I bring these stories up is not to get into this debate about why Hillary lost. I'm much less concerned with that. I'm more concerned about what Americans are reading, how they're being influenced, and whether or not there's a way that we can prevent this type of propaganda coming from foreign actors in the future. And if you don't care about that issue, I don't know what's wrong with you. I really don't. Well, but I think

we have to understand that we are in some sort of protracted experience of the Cold War. And this is very much a Cold War tactic that, like, the Soviet government and China had used against the U.S. was exploiting how bad they were on anti-blackness to them, either by like embracing black figures and allowing them to come visit, like Paul Robson, Vicki Garvin, in China got a teaching position there, people who were critical of the U.S. government. even Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was president of Egypt, what he did was one of the girls who was not allowed to attend university in an area that was supposed to be integrated. He allowed her to get a scholarship to Egypt to study.

So I think this is part of a larger political, diplomatic sort of strategy, but it is underhanded, for sure. And we've done similar sort of things as well. It's a diplomatic strategy by whom? by the Russians? I mean, because, I mean, look, the Democrats, or I should say, the progressives who think they're more progressive than everyone else that consistently defend the Russians, did you forget the fact that Russians are now persecuting the gay community in their country?

And journalists. And aggressively so. And murdering journalists. Like, we're all pretending like, you know, back in 2012, when you had pussy riot imprisoned for two years over nonsense, over protesting in a Catholic church, liberals and progressives were outraged by it. But now all of a sudden, you know, you throw Hillary into the mix, you throw a 2016 election in the mix, and it's like, oh, we got to protect the Russians.

Let's just keep it real for a second, forget about the election for a second, okay? Because this is, it goes way further than the election for me. It has to do with bad actors, bad foreign actors trying to spread propaganda and division among our electorate. And we need to do something to prevent it from happening in the future. Right, right. No, I agree with you on that. I totally, I definitely get into these debates all the time with the ultra-leftists, with anti-imperial leftists about what Russia is now, right? The Russia that they defended during the Cold War and the- It's not the same Russia. Exactly. It's Putin's Russia. This is a Russia that is basically somebody who headed the intelligence branch of the government

who want to resurrect the Russian Empire. I mean, this is a stated goal, right? And so also very violent in Syria, in Ukraine as well. And leftists haven't held Putin's Russia to account in those regards either. And the violations when it comes to freedom of expression for journalists and for artists, for sure. My basic point was that we have to look back at history to understand the tactics that were used in the Cold War to understand this moment as not an aberration, but as consistent with some of the strategies that were used.

Yeah, that I agree with you on. And to Anna's point, I think, in that regard, this is an ongoing problem. It's not like it just ramps up right before the election. We noticed a spike in it before the election, but this is the notion that this propaganda could begin to flood these social media networks. There's so many more ways to get that disinformation and propaganda out into, and when we say propaganda, I mean, it's not as though they're even taking forward. facts and spinning them. These are completely false stories, completely fake to videos that

stokes divisions in this country. And as a result, it muddies the water of what's real and what's not and what divisions are worthy of our attention and what divisions are not. Exactly. Okay, we got to take a break. Let's do that. When we come back, my favorite story of the day, how the airline industry is lobbying the Department of Transportation in order to treat you even worse. Unreal. Than they already are. Unreal. Come right back. Only in America. 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 ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank yugar and i'll see you soon