The Young Turks - The Young Turks - December 23, 2020

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

Congressional leadership is scrambling to amend the covid relief package after Trump announced he would veto this version. John Iadarola and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. 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. Hello everybody, welcome friends. You're watching The Young Turks with Anna Casparian, John Iderola. It is the last day of the work week before we hit the holidays. TYT will be having a little bit. of a break. We'll have Thursday and Friday off. But there will be some new content released on our YouTube channel for those of you who are just itching for political commentary during the holidays. Maybe you're not getting enough during, you know, your family, well, you shouldn't be having family get-togethers. But, you know, usually holidays are tied to uncomfortable

discussions about politics. But you can get all of your ammo by watching TYT. You can get all the good talking points there. So yes, check out our YouTube channel. And John, As always, it's Wednesday, so it's always a pleasure to have you. Always the pleasure to be had. All right. And I was on John's show The Damage Report yesterday. So everyone checked that out. It was always, I mean, it's always fun to do your show.

It's a little stressful because we all have a lot going on, but I always love doing it. If I didn't have the main show to worry about, it'd be like doing your show on a regular basis. But everyone check out the damage report. That's the show that John hosts every day at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1 p.m. All right. Well, let's get right to the news today. There's a lot to talk about. Let's do it. I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple. I'm also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation. And that was Donald Trump, who released that surprise video via Twitter, essentially indicating

that he planned on vetoing the relief bill that of course is tied to the government spending bill, which had all sorts of goodies for corporate lobbyists, all sorts of funds appropriated for things that honestly we don't really need to fund, especially during this time of crisis. And so his message certainly went over well with many people across the board, many people who had an opportunity to look at the details of that relief package and notice that it did not go far enough in providing actual financial relief to Americans, while again appropriating all sorts of money for all sorts of corporate lobbyists and private interests. And so now all of a sudden you have Democrats, specifically Democratic leadership, who I would argue

didn't fight hard enough, scrambling in order to, you know, provide an amendment to the bill to provide more money, more relief to Americans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted, Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the president wanted for direct checks. At last, the president has agreed to $2,000. Democrats are ready to bring this to the floor this week by unanimous consent. Let's do it. I do want to note, though, that unanimous consent is not the best idea because all it takes is one person to essentially block it. And we are expecting some members of Congress to vote against this. So bringing, you know, House members back to Capitol Hill to have them actually vote on a new version of this legislation that includes the $2,000 direct

checks to Americans is a much better way of doing this. On the Senate side, you have a Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who says, I'm in. What do you say? referring to Mitch McConnell, who has been quite an obstacle when it comes to providing actual relief to Americans, let's not get bogged down with ideological offsets and unrelated items and just do this, the American people deserve it. Now, I want to be absolutely clear that progressives have been fighting to get more relief to Americans. They've been demanding it. They have wanted not just one-time direct checks to Americans, but recurring checks to Americans as this pandemic rages on, and that makes a lot more sense. So the commentary that I'm about to share right now

is specifically in regard to House leadership. Because what Nancy Pelosi said was, you know, I mean, we didn't know, we didn't know that the president wanted, you know, a higher number in the direct checks. We didn't know he wanted more than $600, except that's a lie. That's not true. And to provide some evidence for why I believe that's a lie, last week on Friday, on this very show, I shared a video of Donald Trump speaking to Brian Kilmead from the previous Sunday. And he said that he wanted more money sent to Americans. Let's take a quick look at that video. Donald Trump recently, and we have a video on this, had a conversation with Brian Kilmead. This was just this past weekend where he's urging congressional lawmakers to do more, to do more,

that these one-time checks need to happen and they need to be robust. So let's take a quick look at that. video. What about an aid package for the peer of the American people? What could you do to get the $900 billion out? Well, I want to do it. I'm pushing it very hard. And to be honest with you, if the Democrats really wanted to do the deal, they do the deal, they should do it right now. I want to see checks going for more money than they're talking about going to people. Okay, so there's Donald Trump on the record just this past weekend, demanding one-time checks, direct checks to Americans, more than what's currently being offered, which is six. $600. You know, he's mentioned $2,000. So use that video to your advantage, Democrats,

if you genuinely want to increase that one-time check to Americans. So Trump made that statement and had that interview with Kilmeat on December 13th. And then later that week, the Washington Post published a story indicating that Donald Trump was demanding $2,000 checks be sent to Americans. And White House, aide had to intervene to stop him from formalizing that request. So we talked about that on the show as well. Now, do I believe that Donald Trump is engaging in like this good faith action because he cares about the well-being of Americans? No, I don't. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that his statements can easily be used as leverage by Democrats who claim that they've

wanted more relief to Americans. And again, I'm specifically speaking about Democratic leadership that's been, in my opinion, pathetic when it comes to these negotiations. John? Yeah, I don't know how they didn't remember that interview, especially because so much about it that we commented on at the time was so maddening. The idea that he's talking about, the Democrat should take the deal. I want bigger checks. Yeah, but they don't have the bigger checks.

They're pushing for the bigger checks, which is your position, but they don't have that. The Republicans are standing against it. And the only thing that's barring the deal at that point was the presence of things like the corporate liability shield and talking about state and local funding issues he doesn't talk about in that interview. The whole thing was maddening. It's really difficult. I don't always believe that the right knows what position their elected representatives are actually on. Trump keeps pretending that he and the reps are pushing for the bigger

checks. But anyway, it does exist. The only defense I can put up for Nancy Pelosi is that she said the Republicans wouldn't tell us what size check he wants. She apparently doesn't have TV and and can't ask the president herself, she requires all information to be given her by the Republican Party in Congress. Or she could have alternatively not cared to ask and just pushed forward herself, especially with an incredibly consequential double runoff elections coming up in the Senate right now. Like you could have, we're at a position where now we have an opening, which is good. And I'm glad that we're both very happy about that. I'm sure that we both are. But we could have been in this position anyway if they had just been leaders, either in advance

of the election, especially after winning the election. And so we've got this opening, and I'm sure we're going to be very critical of the Republicans in just a couple of minutes, but we can also acknowledge that basically the centrist Democrats did nothing to get us this point. The progressives, at the very least, we're trying to fill the gap when they were being effectively abandoned by Democratic leadership. The entire thing is, I guess it's serendipitous, but it's also sort of depressing when you think about the path that got us here. No, absolutely, absolutely depressing. And it looks awful for Democratic leadership, because remember, Nancy Pelosi goes on the House floor and talks about how the $600 direct checks to Americans is significant, when in reality, it is not significant. And in reality, all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, you have Donald Trump on multiple occasions indicating that he wants more sent directly to Americans, right? And so why didn't she use that leverage? Why didn't she fight hard enough?

And it's not just about Pelosi. It's also about Schumer, right? Because Mitch McConnell, believe it or not, they have leverage over him as well. And I talked about that during a recent segment for the show I do for Jacobin called Weekends. You guys can check that out at YouTube.com slash Jacobin Mag. But here's the argument that I made regarding the leverage over Mitch McConnell, which is very important in these negotiations. Watch. Mitch McConnell just recently admitted that Kelly Leffler and David Perdue, who are, you know, running in the Senate runoff races in Georgia, are currently being hounded due to the lack of direct checks to Americans. Of course, this is part of the relief package negotiation, something that Mitch McConnell was not in favor of in any way at all. However, once he realized that this could hurt the chances of Leffler and Purdue getting reelected, He jumped on a call with GOP lawmakers and urged them to send a direct check to Americans.

Now, that's important because we know that Republicans don't want to lose control of the Senate. And so since Democrats have that leverage, why not use it? So look, I'm showing you these videos from last week because the point I'm trying to make here is how is it that these arguments were being made over and over and over again. And you still had this fecklessness by Democratic leadership. You know, you have Nancy Pelosi before the election turning down Donald Trump's $1.8 trillion stimulus offer because, look, it did have some pretty terrible things in there, including the corporate liability shield. But it obviously had more robust benefits for Americans who are struggling right now.

And then immediately after the election, she turns around and says, oh, no, except this awful deal that doesn't have nearly as much in economic relief for Americans. That doesn't look good. And then we learn details about all the money that's being appropriated for garbage things that we don't need to be spending money on right now as Americans are suffering. Yeah. Yeah, it's frustrating. Again, going forward, we have this opening. That's good, regardless of how we got there. And we can also, at some point, I'm sure, we're going to go a little bit into why Trump is actually doing this, how genuine we think he actually is. But Nancy Pelosi is not one of the heroes in this particular situation, just important. No, not that it

necessarily needs to, since it's really the case. And I don't want it to get lost in the conversation. Donald Trump followed that statement with, you know, the next administration will have to provide the relief and maybe it'll be me, right? Maybe it'll be my administration. I don't think that his desire to overturn the results of the election and just remain in power is separate from what he's encouraging Congress to do right now. I think that he is a fake populist. I think that all he's trying to do is garner favor among voters. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that you could use his statements as leverage. And obviously what he's saying is is incredibly popular across the board, regardless of political ideology, because being a Republican doesn't

make you immune to living in poverty as a result of how this economic system is set up. So there are plenty of right wing voters who want more relief. And so again, Democrats, please use that to your advantage and get something more robust past to provide the relief that Americans need. And I also don't want to forget about progressives in Congress, because as I mentioned, they had been fighting aggressively to try to get more money in these direct checks to average Americans. You know, you have Senator Bernie Sanders, who was one of the most vocal lawmakers in regard to wanting more relief. He responded to Nancy Pelosi's tweet yesterday, saying, that's great. I first introduced a bill to provide a $2,000 direct payment with Senator

Kamala Harris and Ed Markey. By the way, Kamala Harris probably should have spoken up as well. Seven months ago, now, Mr. President, get Mitch McConnell and your Republican friends to stop opposing it and we can provide working class Americans with $2,000. Let's do it. I should also note that Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican who pretends to care so much about debt and has consistently voted in favor of tax cuts, actually blocked Bernie's proposal twice. And then AOC also wrote in response to Nancy Pelosi, let's do it. Rashida Taleb and I co-wrote the COVID amendment for $2,000 checks. So it's ready to go. Glad to see president is willing to support our legislation. We can pass $2,000 checks this week if the Senate GOP agrees to stand down. And of course, we had a similar

statement from Representative Talib. She wrote me and AOC, have the amendment ready, send the bill back, and we will put in the $2,000 we've been fighting for that your party has been blocking. So I'm terrified that this opportunity will be bungled, but I'm trying to stay positive and optimistic about this. This is overall good news as long as Democratic leadership is willing to play hardball, willing to play politics, and fight to get Americans the relief that they desperately need. Exactly, yeah. Thankfully, we have people very recently, you know, pre the Trump, you know, fireball, he threw into this whole thing. There was a point less than two weeks ago where the bill didn't have any checks at all, like it was even worse than it was a couple of

of days ago. And the progressive caucus banded together and got checks in, even if they were too small. And it's good that we've had people like Bernie Sanders and others in the Senate that have been pushing for this from the very beginning. Like the, the only reason that the government hasn't 100% left everyone out alone in the dark during this pandemic is because of those good individuals. And so, you know, it's worth acknowledging that. Definitely. Well, I was talking about Democratic leadership, but this next story just shows you how dumb and feckless Democrats can really be. So instead of using Donald Trump's support for $2,000 direct checks to Americans as part of the coronavirus relief bill as leverage to negotiate with GOP lawmakers, Amy Klobuchar,

a Democrat, is actually going in the opposite direction. She is making the, essentially the winning argument from Donald Trump, something terrible. And she herself is terrible because she's not willing to fight for the American people. Based on the statements that she says in this upcoming video, we're going to show you, making her the perfect candidate for today's dumb and the feckless. One of my prayers is that the Republicans will take back their party. Things keep dripping out, drip, drip, drip, drip, and the truth comes out. So while speaking to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Senator Amy Klobuchar, again, let me just say a Democrat,

called Trump's widely popular proposal to provide 2,000 direct checks to Americans during this economic crisis, an attack on Americans. I don't know, maybe she has a good point. Let's hear what she has to say. This is an attack on every American. People who are struggling to get by right now out of work, whose unemployment, the unemployment is going to basically end the day after Christmas if this doesn't pass. People who are out of work for him to turn this down.

Obviously, we have the votes to override his veto in the houses. We have those votes. But he should not be doing this right now. When his own Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, was involved in the negotiations from beginning to end. He is literally trying to burn this country down on his way out. What is she doing? Like, what are you doing?

You want to do something that's incredibly popular. You want to do something that's going to provide more relief to Americans who are suffering during this pandemic. And guess what? That is an attack. And I am threatening to veto it. What? Oh my God. I mean, she just sucks. She sucks. There's no other way to put it. Let me, well, let me try some other ways. So let's see if any of these are reasonable explanation.

So one would be, look, we, I don't know exactly where we come out on how genuine we think Trump is being or how much we think he actually cares. Is it possible that she thinks that he is so not being genuine and so doesn't actually care about this, that it's actually not an opportunity, that he's going to undercut it, he's going to behind the scenes, reassure the Republicans, that he's not actually going to veto a bill that doesn't have it, that he's just doing it to generate a couple of days of good press for the Senate races or whatever. Is it possible that she's reading his psychology so well that she knows that this is just a trap and we should avoid it? I mean, I saw the way she campaigned in the Democratic primary, I don't think she's very good at reading psychology or reading anything, including a room

that she's in. Amy Klobuchar was given a giant gift by Donald Trump. Whether we believe him or not, honestly, it doesn't really matter for the purposes of these negotiations. Okay, all you need is the sound bite. All you need is the Washington Post article indicating that he was in the White House formalizing his request for $2,000 checks to Americans until White House staff intervened and prevented him from doing it. Use that information as leverage in these negotiations. Right? You got to at least try because the $600 checks were so insulting. And again, this is like, Trump is like, here you go. It's a gift. I'm giving you a gift. And Amy Klobuchar is like, no, no, we have enough votes to veto that. Okay. What is wrong with you? What's wrong

with you? This is not the, it's embarrassing, honestly. It's incredibly embarrassing. And I can't believe she thought it was a good idea to sit there and make this argument. Now, do I think that Donald Trump ever does anything out of the kindness of his own heart? No, I don't. On the same day that he released that video, he also pardoned for war criminals, people who had been convicted of murder because they opened fire and used grenades against Iraqi civilians, including one nine-year-old boy who was shot in the head. So Donald Trump pardoned those people. Donald Trump is not a good person. He doesn't do things out of the kindness of his own heart.

He does things out of self-interest. So what is the self-interest here? Donald Trump is super salty that Mitch McConnell isn't going along with his lies about widespread voter fraud. He's been attacking Mitch McConnell pretty regularly over the past week. So he's probably doing this to put Mitch McConnell in a tough spot. Let him, let him fight. Take advantage of that. What are you doing, Amy Klobuchar?

And it's it just gives you a sense of how dumb and feckless some Democrats can be. Yep. Yeah, I think the only explanation I can come up with that would justify concern about restarting the negotiations, but I would say that even that can't survive the fact that this would be such a bigger check going to people, might be if it's just about the timing, if it's enhanced unemployment is about to lapse and getting it restarted, even if it's included in a bill that eventually gets passed in a week or whatever. would kick people out of the system, they'd have to sign back up, that could mean a month or two wait for millions of people. Like if you're really concerned about that, or if you think that, you know, the government being shut down even temporarily would cause too much chaos during a pandemic, maybe that could be an argument as to why we need to really expedite this thing. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones too. When they're

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with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. But to have your initial reaction, not just be so out of line, with the best interests of your constituents. But she even, it wasn't just like she got the breaking news and had to respond without getting what the party was gonna do. The party had already come out against her at that point. So she's against both the constituents and the party line. I don't know what position she's actually representing there. You know, it does remind me of how she campaigned during the primary because, you know, she kept referring to herself as a progressive,

which was laughable. But then she would also just unapologetically tell voters like, I will do nothing for you. You know, like she's just kind of unapologetic about things like that. So I don't know if that's the mindset behind the statements that she made while speaking to Rachel Maddow. I don't really care. I just think that, first of all, the point that you made is fantastic. I mean, at that point, you have tweet after tweet public statements from your own party

indicating that they want to include the $2,000 checks. So did you not see that? Did you not consult with anybody? Why did you think it was a good idea to go on the show and go against something that, again, is wildly popular among voters across the board? But this kind of mindset, by the way, isn't just shared by people like Amy Klobuchar, corporate Democrats, corporate Republicans, corporate politicians. It's also shared by members of the corporate media. And I just want to show you how Stephanie Rule from MSNBC reacted to this news. So we're just going to show you a statement that she made, and then the framing of her questions when she was interviewing a panel on Donald Trump's statements demanding more direct relief to Americans. So let's take a quick look at that.

The big stimulus bill was a glimmer of hope, an important step for many people who are struggling. But last night, after Congress had already passed the bill and lawmakers went home for the holidays, President Trump threw a monkey wrench into the entire thing. by saying he might not actually sign it. Here's what President Trump tweeted last night. I'm asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple.

Sure, on the surface, more money might sound good, but it is not that easy. This bill is more than 5,500 pages long. It took eight months to pull it together, And while the president had all of that time to get involved in the negotiations, he never did. Why would he refuse to sign this bill? What I don't get is what part of his constituency? Who does this serve? Who's watching this going right on, man? What do you mean who does this serve and who's watching this and thinking right on, man?

What are you talking about? The $600 direct checks to Americans who haven't got, they have not received financial relief since March. That was the last time. That was when the CARES Act passed. They love the fact that the president is demanding more. How do you not, well, she doesn't understand that because she was a Wall Street, you know, goon before she decided to be an anchor on MSNBC. And she was, you know, a killer with hedge funds and things like that. And so, yeah, she comes from a different world and she doesn't understand.

She doesn't care to understand. $600 is a joke. And the amount of money that was appropriated for nonsense in that bill was incredibly insulting. incredibly insulting, but I guess she just doesn't get that. Yeah, I think, I have no idea if this is her position. I'm playing devil's advocate today. I'm trying out for a job with the Vatican eventually, and so let me demonstrate my credentials. If she was just saying the timing of it, like who does it serve that you jump in at this point?

I think that would be a good argument because he apparently, insofar as he is able of maintaining a consistent position on something, He at least for a week or two appears to have maintained the position that we should have $2,000 checks or at least bigger checks. And all the while, Mnuchin is on hundreds of phone calls organizing all this. Mitch McConnell's at all these meetings. They're having all of them come back. They met with Donald Trump during this time and conceivably they have phones and can DM him. Like he could have gotten involved earlier. I think that that is a perfectly fine point. He could have been much more clear. Even if he doesn't want to literally sit in the negotiations, which I would argue he should considering the stakes, he could have made these public statements

before it's literally time to pass it. I get that. I told that. And that is a fair criticism of Donald Trump. Nonetheless, we're now in a position where, again, we can use the desires of a president who has a rapidly loyal, you know, base. and wants to do everything he wants to do. Like, he's demanding more. Again, use that to your advantage. And the thing that, the point that I just want to make about Stephanie Rule is she's just so disconnected from the discourse. Like so disconnected from what Americans need and want right now that she's like perplexed.

She's like, who would want this? Who thinks that this is a good idea? No, this is great, this is great. I get it, it's super frustrating that this is happening in the last. minute, but we're now in a position where we can leverage what he's saying to get more relief to Americans who desperately need it. End of story. So and bless you for playing devil's advocate because I think it's important to raise some

of these questions. But I don't give people like Stephanie rule the benefit of the doubt, especially considering the way she handles certain interviews with progressives like Bernie Sanders. She despises the idea of paying more in taxes, she despises the idea of well, redistribution. And so that's who she is. And so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she would have a segment like that following Donald Trump's demands for more relief to Americans. We do have to take a break. When we come back though, we'll talk a little bit about, oh, look, Amy Klobuchar isn't the only one who's out of step with what her party wants.

Mike Pence is apparently out of step as well. And so we'll share this hilarious video of him saying something that he probably shouldn't be saying out loud. 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-F-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.

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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. We'll be right back. Hey everyone. Welcome to our social break. Just a few announcements and I'll read a few comments. So if you are watching this online, which many of you are, you should be protecting your online activity through a VPN.

Luckily, we have partnered up with PureVPN and if you choose to buy their service, you get a pretty giant discount just for being a TYT viewer. Go to t-y-t.com slash pure VPN. Again, t-y-t.com slash pure VPN to learn more about how to protect your online activity. Also, if you're a big fan of planting trees as I am, but you don't want to get your hands dirty, you don't want to actually plant trees yourself. You can do it by just using your credit card, your debit card, And every time you do, a tree gets planted on your behalf. Learn more about that by going to tyt.com slash trees. And also, if you are gifting on Twitch, there's an awesome TYT program that's happening right now. TYT gifts back on Twitch from now until the end of December. We're tallying up your gifted subs and rewarding the top three gifters with a shop TYT mystery box. So if you're not in the top three, don't worry. We'll also select one person from the top 10 to receive a bonus box as well. So you can check out more by going to twitch.tv slash t-y-t. And, you know, we have lots of exclusive Twitch programming there as well. So it's a lot of fun. Definitely check that out. Okie-doke. Let's, I can't believe I just said ok-doke. That's not how I talk. Where did that come from? I'm going to read some member comments. Okay, doke. I've been saying the word folks as well, which I never said before.

I don't know where that comes from. Maybe Trump, I think Trump says folks a lot. Progressive, I know, progressive veteran says, I actually agree with Trump for the first time. I'm feeling sick now. No, but don't feel sick. I mean, if you are not loyal to a particular political party and you're specifically focusing on good proposals, then you shouldn't feel like Donald Trump is a sick person, don't get me wrong. because you support his take on this, on providing more relief to Americans. And again, it's

self-serving. I don't think he's doing it out of the kindness of his own heart. Doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you overall support Trump. I can't stand Trump. Nipple Pierce Jenk and skinny jeans writes in and says, I don't think Trump cares at, I know, I don't think Trump cares at all about helping Americans. I believe he's doing whatever he can to create chaos and stick it to the Dems, Republicans and the people. You're probably right. But I think we can outsmart Trump. I think we can use this to our advantage. And dystopia says, Biden was in the news saying he would push for a new stimulus bill because the current bill wasn't enough. Hours later, Orange Clownface called for raising the stimulus to each American. It's about

taking shine away. It's about shine from anyone but him. But if America can benefit, so be it. Totally agree with you. All right. So I'll read more of your comments during our next social break, but for now we got to get back to the show and get back to some of these incredible stories that we have prepared for you. We'll see you in just a bit. Hey everybody, welcome back to TY, Anna and John with you. Let's get back to the show and talk about what else is happening in the news today. So, you know, while speaking to conservative students at a Turning Point USA event, which, by the way, was meant to help bolster Kelly Leffler and David Purdue and Georgia, they're the Republicans in the Senate runoff race,

Pence overtly admitted that he doesn't think it's right to help the poor. I'm not even kidding. Here's what he said. They want to make rich people poorer and poor people more comfortable. Is that, is it a bad thing to make poor people more comfortable? Like, do we want poor people in this country, the richest country in the world? Don't we want to make sure everyone's comfortable, that everyone lives a life of decency and dignity, has housing, health care, food on the table? I guess the Republican Party just doesn't want that. And by the way, I mean, talk about being

out of step with what his own president demanded just yesterday, which is more direct relief to Americans in the form of $2,000 direct checks. But it's just, I mean, this is, this is actually what the Republican Party really is. This is who they are. This is what they represent. This is what they've represented forever. This is not something new. And so when you hear all the fake populist, jargon coming from people like Tucker Carlson or whoever. Of course they're not being serious. Of course they're not being sincere. I mean, really, the air of Swanson.

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And he's playing the same game that Donald Trump did in the 2016 election. What Mike Pence said there is what the Republican Party really believes. That's what they really represent. Yeah. And the whole thing is so confusing. Like, he, in that line, he's trying to make the point that the Dems just want to make them more comfortable, I guess, not actually improve the quality of their life. By giving them money, he's implying that that won't actually change their life, even though he has always been in favor of giving the rich as much money as possible via tax cuts and all that. And they liked it in the audience.

The young conservatives were like, yeah, that's true. Don't just hand them money or whatever. And so then Trump comes out and says that he wants to do the bigger. checks. And so do they hate that? No, they definitely don't hate that. They love Trump. They love everything that Trump does. So are they in favor of it or not in favor of it? And like, if it's good to do it one time, why not do, why don't like, let's put forward one of those wealth taxes we were talking about and redistribute the money. Since they liked it when Trump did it, we'll set it up. It'll be the Trump wealth tax. We can remember it that way for the rest

of time. And we can help people out on a recurring basis. And I understand that that seems crazy based on the Trump that we have now. But remember, it wasn't that many years ago that Trump was calling for a massive wealth tax to eliminate the national debt. So it wouldn't even be totally out of place for Donald Trump, the guy that they worship. I saw a tweet from one of the rights intellectual leaders, Kevin Sorbo. Kevin Sorbo was saying he was doing one of those like faux populous things like that Tucker Carlson always does, where he's like, I can't believe these elected leaders We're earning $100,000 this year. Now they're debating, giving us $600, which is like a fine point for a leftist to make.

They make tons of money, they don't actually do anything, and now they're giving us scraps or whatever. But like, until Trump said it, did he even support the checks? Most of the right does not support the checks, let alone ongoing policies to produce the sort of economic equality that this is temporarily trying to stimulate. I just wish they would decide what their actual position is. Here's what their position is, okay? And I'm talking about like the right-wing intellectuals that you just cited, all they want to do is own the libs, right? All they want to do is own the libs and make it appear as though, you know, they understand

the weight of this issue far better than Nancy Pelosi does. Because, you know, in these arguments, there's always Nancy Pelosi weaved into it, which I think is actually not a bad argument. Nancy Pelosi, I mean, the woman who thought it was a good idea to put out that ice cream video in the beginning of the pandemic, as tens of millions of Americans have just gotten laid off and have just lost their health insurance during a pandemic. Nancy Pelosi, who, you know, rejected a $1.8 trillion stimulus offer from Trump before the election. And then right after the election, encouraged Congress to favor a much, Like a pared down much crappier version of stimulus that, you know, bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate agreed on.

Like Nancy Pelosi has been awful. And all these comment right wing commentators want to do is own her, own the libs, make them look bad. And you know what? I don't care. Because quite honestly, she does look bad. And if Kevin Sorbo has to be the messenger to convince Republican voters to support. a more robust version of this economic relief package, great, please own the lips. I'll help you. I'd love to do it. Like, I just want more relief to average Americans. But again, it's not based

on any real ideological value or belief, right? Because we can't forget what the Republican Party has represented for so long in this country. And what Mike Pence did in that speech was remind us. He reminded us. And I do want to show you another portion of that speech with a quick note. What you're about to watch is going to include B-roll that we included, that J.R. Jackson included, to kind of rebut the claims that Pence is making in the statements in this speech. So with that said, let's take a look. Under the guise of Medicare for all in a Green New Deal, Democrats are embracing the same tired economic theories that have

impoverished nations and stifled the liberties of millions of people over the past century. But let's be clear. It was freedom, not socialism, that gave us the most prosperous economy in the history of the world.

It was free. freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery won two world wars and stands today as a beacon of hope for all the world. It was freedom, not socialism, that's moving us beyond the prejudices of the past to form a more perfect union and extend the blessings of liberty to every American regardless of race or creed or color. It's freedom. That doesn't mean it. Yeah, Americans have gotten a lot of that freedom that he's referring to. And it's not even actual freedom.

You know, his argument is obviously complete nut or garbage. And the videos that were used to, like as a counterpoint to what he's saying, I mean, just help you visualize like the real pain and suffering that people are feeling right now as a result of the Republican Party with the help of establishment congressional lawmakers, you know, pushing through tax cuts, deregulation, more goodies for military contractors, more war for military contractors. Like, that's the freedom he's referring to there. We're suffering the consequences of, you know, the policies that he is using the euphemism of freedom to cover up for. Like, it's just, no. But again, Mike Pence represents.

Republican, that's what the Republican Party is. And don't forget it. No amount of insincere nonsense coming out of Tucker Carlson's mouth, no amount of Donald Trump claiming he wants to provide more economic relief to Americans is going to erase that. It's not going to change what the facts are. But I am saying that if we have an opportunity to use Trump's, you know, statements as leverage to get more relief to Americans, we should do it. We should definitely do it. Let's not forget who Republicans are though. Yeah, it's just like listening to speeches like that. And that's, that room is filled with conservatives who think of themselves as like the next

generation of the serious right. And he's talking to them as if they're three-year-olds using political language in such a condescendingly vague faction. Yes, he's just in favor of freedom. The right likes freedom, he likes freedom, which is why he's in support of you controlling what happens with your own body, he'll let you do whatever drug you want. And he thinks that even if he's just talking about, like, freedom in pursuit of capitalism, which I think is what he's sort of implying, even though he doesn't want to say that. He doesn't believe that we should have a free flow of labor between countries that could potentially enhance, you know, private industry here.

You can't even buy like whatever products. He doesn't actually believe it. People don't believe these things. I just wish that people were more critical in the way they absorb and utilize political language because we're not actually children. and we should stop talking like it. He doesn't even believe that most that you should be free to be with another woman in the same room when you're married to somebody. Like he believes in far less freedom than even other Republicans believe in. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. I mean, zero freedom when it comes to your own personal life and personal choices, your own personal relationships, all of that, but lots of freedom for multinational corporations to basically do whatever they want.

hoard all the wealth, you know, put their money in tax shelters abroad, exploit, you know, underpaid labor in other countries. That's the kind of freedom he's talking about. And just be clear about the fact that that so-called freedom has, without question, destroyed the economic stability of so many Americans today. To talk about the greatest economy in the world, as you see homeless encampments, not just in California, across the country. I mean, you Utah has problems with homeless encampments. You see it everywhere. Eight million additional Americans fell into poverty since this past summer.

Eight million, eight million. And he has the gall to stand up there and talk about the greatest economy that the world has ever seen. Spare me, it's just complete and utter BS. We have to take a break. We'll be back with more stories, including more details on the murderers that Donald Trump decided to pardon yesterday. Thank you.

So, I'm going to be able to be. Hey everybody. All right. I'm going to read some super chats. Forrest Dudley writes in and says, love seeing Anna and John doing the show together. I love it too. Sometimes I think Anna should have gotten the name Ghost Dragon since Jank likes to call her Casper, which by the way, Casper is my favorite nickname. Then I hear her classic 100% justified rants. And I changed my mind. Someone wanted to name me the Annihilator Dragon or something along those lines, which I thought was a pretty cool name too. Mary Freeman.

Did you hear Christian's suggestion? No, what was it? After you left the show, they were suggesting for Christian, they said that he should be the pepper dragon to your salt dragon and also because he's hot or spicy. I forget exactly what they said, but okay, okay, I like that. Yeah, someone also, because I was talking about his butt, Someone said we can go with gluteus dragon as well. Anyway, Mary Freeman and Dan V, thank you so much. Ethan writes in and says it's it's BS to say that it was eight months to

pull together. It was blocked until it was watered down to almost nothing regarding the timing of the bill. Gray C says live inauguration coverage coming, probably. Gray Davis. Definitely do something. Yeah. Yeah, I have no doubt. Gray Davis, Right. Is it that Gray Davis? Probably not. Was Gray Davis the one that was recalled? I can't remember. Yeah, it was. Yeah, Gray Davis was recalled to put in governor, what's his name? I'll be back. That guy. Schwarzenegger. I just blanked on his name. So weird. I'll be back. It's not a tumor. Okay. And then. And then. So sometimes I get mixed up. Captain Lieutenant says Democrats, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory since 1952. Totally. Thank you so much for your message. We have a minute left. I'm going to do some

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years. Happy holidays. Thank you so much, guys. We got to get back to the show. We'll see you there. 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 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. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install.

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and John Ida Rola with you. If you're watching this live, I encourage you to share and like the stream. It's one of the best ways to support the show and get the message of TYT out there. So thank you if you've already done it. And thank you if you're about to. Now let's get to the news. And I want to warn you this next story is pretty disgusting and tragic. And it gives you a sense of just how awful Donald Trump really is. So Donald Trump issued 20 pardons and commutations yesterday. And the most gut wrenching involved black water guards private contractors who had been convicted, convicted of killing civilians in Iraq. One of those civilians, by the way, was a nine-year-old boy who was sitting in the back of his parents' vehicle as these Blackwater security guards

opened fire, used grenades, used machine guns in order to indiscriminately open fire. on civilians in the area. There was also a doctor who was killed while driving his mother to an appointment. So to give you more details on how terrible this incident was back in 2007, the BBC writes that Nicholas Slayton, Paul Slow, Evan Liberty, and Dustin heard open fire in Baghdad's Nassur Square in 2007 while guarding an American diplomatic convoy. Now, these four people were among 19 Blackwater private security contractors who, who were assigned to guard a convoy of four heavily armored vehicles carrying U.S. personnel on September 16th of 2007. Now, according to the U.S. Justice Department, at about noon that

day, several of the contractors opened fire in and around Nassur Square, a busy roundabout that was immediately adjacent to a heavily fortified green zone. So they had claimed that they, I mean, it's the same thing that we hear from cops in America, right? They claim that they believe that someone was posing an imminent threat, that they needed to do something to protect the armored vehicles and to do their jobs. But there were quite a few witnesses there who ended up testifying in this case against these Blackwater private security contractors. When they stopped shooting, by the way, at least 14 Iraqi citizens were killed. They were dead. 10 men, two women, and two boys aged 9 and 11.

Iraqi authorities put the toll at 17. But based on how the FBI investigated this, they said that there were at least 14 civilians who were killed in an illegal way. So there was an investigation into this. There was a trial. And so in 2014, a federal court found Slate and guilty of murder, while Slove Liberty and Herd were convicted of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and other charges. Slayton was sentenced to life in prison, and the other three were handed 30-year terms,

although the other three later had their sentences reduced 15 years for Slough, 14 for Liberty, and 12 for Hurd. And so the point here is what they did was absolutely awful, awful. And I want you guys to really visualize and understand how much this terrorized, the local community there, how much this terrorized innocent civilians living in the area, many of whom had to witness the bloodshed that occurred that day during this massacre. So the New York Times had put out a video report on it back in 2014. I want to share some snippets of you right now, snippets of it with you right now. Let's take a quick look. The garage of bullets sprayed Nassur Square, killing 17 Iraqis.

He was afraid and he was running, then they hit him from the back. And his head was open like this. Open. And a person who's labished dacha, varby in his soder, he's down. Mr. Wesso is one of Deso. Wesso is one of dozens of Iraqis interviewed by the New York Times, who witnessed the now-famous Blackwater incident and have reconstructed it in similar detail. Mr. Wesso's account is startling because he is staunchly pro-American and a member of the

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party. U.S. Army personnel, who arrived shortly after the shooting, said in a report that it it appeared Blackwater Guards shot at the fleeing vehicles. This video, obtained by the New York Times, supports those statements. It shows bullet-ridden vehicles pointed away from the square. The white truck appears to have been hit with a 40-millimeter grenade, a weapon used exclusively by Americans. And we don't have a graphic for this, but I do want to share an excerpt from the attorney who represented the victims in this trial. He wrote about the young boy, the nine-year-old, who was shot and killed in this massacre.

And his father, Mohammed, I mean, he's obviously devastated not just by the fact that his son was murdered, but also by the fact that the person who murdered his son will be free pretty soon. Muhammad quickly, according to this excerpt from an intercept piece that the attorney wrote, Muhammad quickly got out of the car and saw blood inside the rear window. Ali, his nine-year-old son, was slumped over against the glass. When Muhammad opened the door, his son fell toward him as his skull opened and a large part of Ali's brain fell onto the pavement between his father's feet. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road of, on the road

in the Suras Square. So that is what happened. That is a part of what happened on that day. And Donald Trump looks at those details and says, no, no, I'm going to go ahead and part. pardon them. Eric Prince, the brother of Betsy DeVos, my education secretary, is the founder of Blackwater. And so favor for a favor, why not? Let's do it. Let's pardon these four people. Yeah, why not? And doesn't it really put into perspective how how fundamentally evil this entire endeavor was that we got into, that this event, that every detail that you learned

just makes it more and more horrendous. The graphic that you read, actually, when we cover this morning, I didn't even read that because I just couldn't bear to. It was so, so horrible. But it puts it in perspective that this event, which is so singularly evil that you could make an entire movie about it, the vast majority of Americans probably didn't remember that this happened, that it was a case that was talked about years and years ago. Yeah, the rapidly fleeing vehicles must have posed a real threat as you were trying to kill everyone before they could get out of range of your weapons. But why should we expect anything else. They're private contractors that we gave the power of life and death. And they've

been protected all along the way. You had to really go overboard to even temporarily now have suffered any consequences. And why should we be surprised honestly about the pardon? A year or two ago, he pardoned that guy, that there was an insurgent who was being treated medically. And the guy just took a knife, walked up and executed. He stabbed the prisoner to death. They pardoned that guy and that guy has become a minor celebrity on the right because he's a knife wielding murderer. These people, at least they were in a combat zone, they can sort of pretend that there was something going on. These should be easy pardons for Donald Trump by comparison. And what do you know?

The same advocate, which we're going to get to, Pete Exeth, was advocating for both groups of war criminals. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. I mean, the fact that the right wing can tell us that they're pro-life with a straight face while advocating for the release of these private military, like private, you know, contractors. They're, they're- There's mercenaries. They're mercenaries. They're mercenaries. Yeah, that's, thank you. Yes, exactly. They're mercenaries. They're not part of the military. They were contracted as mercenaries to provide security in Iraq.

And all they really did in this particular case, and in others, by the way, this wasn't the only case where Blackwater did horrendous things in the Middle East. But in this particular case, I mean, the details are so gruesome, so awful. And how can the right wing on one hand say, no, no, no, we need to control the bodies of women, because we're pro-life. And then on the other hand, celebrate the release of a murderer, murderers, right? One of whom was sentenced to life in prison. How do you celebrate that after he killed not one, but two children and, you know, 12 other adults? And by the way, there were also many who were injured as a result of this as well.

But, you know, they're pro-life. He's just, he's either, either they were lobbied to Trump or my theory is that they are him or Stephen Miller or whoever, they are looking for people like this to pardon to send a signal to their base. If you murder the sorts of people that we hate and fear, then we're going to protect you. They did that with the border patrol and the same group. We've got these. We've got the prior war criminals. He is in every case that he can. He is trying to find people who killed the right sorts of people.

people and he is sending a signal to the right that this is the person that you want. You want Trump because he is going to elevate these sorts of from their point of view heroes. Yeah, exactly. Well, we do have that Pete Hexit video, but let's go ahead and do that now. Let's talk about how Fox News has handled this new information, these pardons. So Donald Trump pardoned former Blackwater contractors who had been convicted of an unprovoked massacre in Iraq back in 2007, that led to the deaths of 14 civilians, innocent people, including two

children, one nine and the other 11. While non-sociopathic people have a problem with Trump pardoning these murderers, Pete Heggzith on Fox News decided to give Trump kudos. Let's watch. What the president did for those blackwater contractors, it's been described as a massacre. What it was is the fog of a moment where they were doing their job to protect state department employees in one of the most dangerous parts of Baghdad at one of the most dangerous moments. A lot of the evidence totally mischaracterized, mishandled by Iraqis, many of which had ties to insurgents. They were tried in a civilian court which has no connection to what it's like to be in that war. They volunteered to be there. And a huge credit to the commander

in chief, who there's no upside to a call like this other than sending a signal to our warfighters, whether you're a contractor in uniform, we're going to have your back when you make tough calls on the battlefield, much like some of the pardons he gave for other members of the military before. So kudos from my perspective to the president for doing what he did for those Blackwater contractors. So you heard it here. Pete Higgsith thinks that the only upside to this is that it communicates to mercenaries, you know, murders for hire, that the American government has your back if you decide to

open fire indiscriminately and kill two children. 12 other adults who are completely innocent civilians. He sees that as an upside. He's being honest at least in that it does send a signal and they want that signal to be sent. And look, when we say, I don't know, is it even considered like is it even like on the line when I say that they actively want more people to be killed, whether it's immigrants crossing the border or people in the Middle East that they actively are bloodthirsty for that? I don't think it is. I mean, they supported Donald Trump who is a guy who was constantly calling for more killed civilians saying that we're going to We're going to track down the families of terrorists and kill them, that we're going to loosen

the rules of engagement. All of this is designed to kill more people, more civilians especially. So yeah, yeah, they want to send that signal. Pete Hagsith is probably considers himself to be pro life or whatever, at least wants to present himself that way. He is a defender of an advocate for war criminals, explicit war criminals, not even like in this case where he says like there were there were ties to insurgents. There were children. who were killed. None of them had any weapons. Oh, and it was in a civilian court. How that's unacceptable that our soldiers would be held at the same sorts of account for murdering, for massacring civilians that anyone else would. It's effectively in a war, it's in a war situation,

but it's an act of terrorism against civilians. That is what happened there. But he's going to defend them in the same way. Again, he defended the guy who murdered a prisoner with a knife, stabbed someone to death, not in combat. They weren't locked in hand to hand. There was a person over there. He grabbed the knife. He went over, he killed the person. And Pete Hengsteth could not defend this guy enough.

He wanted him to be free, free to go out there, to live his life, and possibly end others again. Yeah, and remember, the, I believe it was a Navy SEAL who did that. He then proceeded to pose in pictures with the dead body of the prisoner that you're referring to. And yeah, Pete Higgsith was on the record multiple times defending that soldier. And I want to remind everyone that after this massacre took place in 2007, military personnel showed up and they found overwhelming evidence that people were fleeing this indiscriminate shooting by these mercenaries, indicating that they were not actually serving as any type of imminent threat to these mercenaries. Prosecutors noted that they used machine guns, sniper fire, and grenade launchers.

In the trial that Hegsith seems to be very critical of, please note that there were 30 witnesses who testified against these Blackwater contractors. And also an FBI investigation looked into this and found that 14 out of the 17 deaths, civilian deaths were unjustified according to the rules of engagement for security contractors in Iraq. So based on our own FBI's investigation, they found. that the actions that took place by these mercenaries were unlawful and that they should face the consequences for that. But Hexas doesn't think so. Donald Trump doesn't think so. And just think about the type of message this sends to private military contractors who currently get hired to provide security in the endless wars that we engage in. This is a complete, nutter disaster. And I just don't want to hear right wingers ever tell me that they're

pro-life again, because they're absolutely full of it. Evidence shows, over and over again that they don't care about life, they don't care about human life abroad. They don't care about human life here in the United States as people are dying on the streets because of homelessness and the lack of, you know, income necessary to live a healthy and decent life in this country. They don't care about anyone other than themselves, other than deregulation, other than tax cuts. And I'm so sick of them pretending as if they're the moral ones with the moral high ground, they are not. All they want to do is punish people. for living their personal lives the way that they see fit.

They want to punish women for making decisions about their own bodies. And they use all of this nonsense, you know, garbage about how they're pro-life. When again, the facts don't bear that out. All right, we gotta take a break. So let's do that. Let me take a breather. And when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about Deutsche Bank. There's some drama involving some of the people that oversaw Donald Trump's, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans.

And later in the show, we'll also talk about, um, is there any fun in the show today? Yeah, cabinet wins. Later, later we'll talk about some cabinet wins, maybe. We'll be back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.