The Young Turks - The Young Turks - December 29, 2020

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

Mitch McConnell has blocked an effort to get American's $2,000 direct stimulus checks. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur 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. All right, welcome the Young Turks. Jane Cougar and Consparing with you guys. Lots of news ahead, of course. And we're wrestling over the COVID relief bill, a $2,000 direct checks.

plenty of criticism to go around for Republicans and Democrats, but there is a hero in the fight. We'll talk about that a little bit later in the program, or actually fairly quickly in the program. Also want to remind you, there's only a couple of days left in our t-y-t.com slash go program. You guys have already done amazing work to keep us sustainable and to keep all of us here through these tough times. We appreciate it. We'd love to finish strong. There's only 28,000 left. Now, in a minor miracle, we might make it.

So t-y-t.com slash go. Thank you, everybody. Really, really appreciate it. We bring change to this country together. All right. Speaking of which, Anna, let's get started. All right. Well, turns out that the pressure is on for the GOP in the Senate to pass $2,000 direct

checks to Americans as part of the coronavirus. relief effort. Now, this was a standalone bill that overwhelmingly passed in the House. And now, of course, it's up to the Senate under the leadership of Mitch McConnell to allow for a floor vote and see whether or not the GOP is willing to go along with what Donald Trump himself is demanding. Again, $2,000 direct checks as opposed to the measly $600 direct checks that were previously approved by Congress. Now, we do have an update already on Mitch McConnell. his tactics. Just to give you some more background, though, the House passed the bill to plus up stimulus checks with a bipartisan 275 to 134 vote. The proposal called the Cash Act aims to boost

the $600 payments authorized in the massive year-end spending and relief package that Trump signed Sunday by another $1,400. Now, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made the request to take up this House passed bill on the Senate floor. Mitch McConnell has already objected without further comment. Now, he did do something pretty sneaky, though. He has put forward his own piece of legislation that does address the $2,000 direct checks, but it includes poison pills, something that Senator Dick Durbin, the Senate Minority Whip, explained during a recent interview with CNN. Let's watch. Now, let's get down to the basics here. The bill that passed the House of Representatives guaranteed $2,000 per person. It's on the desk of Michigan.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, and what is he saying? I want to throw a few poison pills in there, see if I can discourage people from voting for this. Let me throw in a reform of the internet while we're at it here. Let's do some work here and investigate the last election. For goodness sake, stop looking for poison pills, Senator McConnell. Pass this right now, America needs it. And so what Mitch McConnell is doing here is he's including, you know, a proposal to have some sort of committee to investigate unfounded claims of election fraud, something that Donald

Trump demanded. And the second poison pill in McConnell's version of this legislation includes repealing Section 230, which provides a liability shield for social media platforms that, you know, would not be held liable if a third party or a user posts something that could be illegal or defamatory on their platform. So again, Trump has this big grudge against tech companies because they've been fact-checking him throughout the election, and he wants to retaliate. Mitch McConnell knows that including those poison pills in the, you know, stimulus proposal might not work to the Democrats' favor. It might not work to Donald Trump's favor. So, Jenk, I'm really curious what you think about this tactic that McConnell's using.

Yeah. So there's two different guilty parties here, but maybe even three. But certainly Mitch McConnell is the leader of that parade. So he. is, in some ways, single-handedly blocking $2,000 checks to American people. And he's doing it with the procedure that we just explained. But the second party here is the most important. McConnell is not actually doing this just by himself. He obviously talked to the other Republicans. He is the leader of the Republicans in the Senate. And he's basically saying, look, I just won my reelection. I'm not up for another six years. I'll take a bullet on this one from Trump and everyone else to protect the rest of you guys, so you don't have to vote.

So Leffler and Purdue and almost every other Republican in the Senate, with the exception of Josh Hawley, don't actually want this. They don't want it at all. Now they're forced to lie and say that they want it. In fact, you're going to do so awkwardly as you're going to see in a minute. So by McConnell single-handedly blocking it, they get to go, oh, well, I would have voted for it. I mean, I would have, but you know, what can I do? I'm kind of blocked it.

Girl, right? So that's the game that's being played. Kelly Loeffler and Purdue, definitely, definitely not in favor of this. No question about it. None of the Republicans are. Again, with the exception of Holly, you can tell he's been on that side from the very beginning. So credit where credit is do. Now that that's the first part of it.

The second part of it is, and Dick Durbin is absolutely right, and I don't often say that, let alone almost ever say that. But as, but I have to point out, again, he's a terrible messenger for this. So poison pill is a term of art in politics, and a lot of you might know it, but most Americans don't know it. He has to explain by packaging up in the next round of the vote, the $2,000 bill with a nonsense, insane voter fraud investigation that no Democrat would vote for to do an investigation of something that didn't happen that's already been investigated. a thousand times, including by Trump's Justice Department, and then to also include this insane provision against the social media companies, because Trump has a beef with them, well, that'll kill

the bill. Of course it'll kill the bill. The Democrats can't vote for, the Republicans can't vote for it. McConnell's doing that on purpose to make sure that you do not get the $2,000. That's the whole point of McConnell's actions in both procedures. So no one should ever be unclear that Mitch McConnell and the entire Republican Party are guilty, and they're the ones who blocked your $2,000 check. And I'll put Trump in the exception case, too. He's clearly pushing for $2,000. It might be for his own political benefit, but I don't care. He and Holly are fine. The rest of them don't want it at all. And when you get on television as a Democratic leader, it is really important for you to clearly and forcefully explain who the bad guys are.

Right. No, you make such a great point about how Mitch McConnell through this proposal is providing cover for GOP lawmakers in the Senate who certainly don't want to provide additional relief to Americans who are struggling right now. Remember, when the negotiations were happening in regard to the relief bill that was just passed and just signed by Donald Trump, you had GOP lawmakers who literally felt comfortable, transparently claiming that they're worried about the debt. They're worried about deficit spending. I mean, it's just hilarious because less than two years ago, they voted in favor of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, massive corporate tax cuts without getting rid of any of the corporate tax loopholes and deductions. That cost our government

$2 trillion over the next 10 years. And all of a sudden, oh, we're so worried about the debt when it comes to actually doing the right thing and helping Americans who are suffering right now due to no fault of their own, of course. And since you mentioned Purdue and Leffler, who are, of course, concerned about getting reelected in the Senate runoff races in Georgia, David Perdue told Fox News the following. And of course, I don't believe him either. He says, I'm delighted to support the president in this $2,000. It's the right thing to do for people in Georgia. And then Kelly Leffler had an incredibly awkward interview herself, where she spewed all sorts of lies, which will debunk in just a second, but take a look at what she had to say.

So will you support that bill, that encouragement from the president once it gets to the Senate? Well, well, look, the president has fought for our country from day one. He continues to fight for every single American. I've stood by the president 100% of the time. I'm proud to do that. And I've said, absolutely, we need to get relief to Americans now. And I will support that. But look, here's the issue. Democrats have blocked relief time and again. That's why we're in this situation as a country. We've tried to pass that release since this summer. Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, they've admitted that they held it up because they were playing politics. The only person who held up the Heroes Act, which passed literally

months and months and months ago, was Mitch McConnell. The House had already passed a second round of relief for the pandemic. And what happened once it reached the Senate? Mitch McConnell blocked it, refused to vote on it. The bipartisan effort in the Senate was to propose a skinny version of that legislation, which of course didn't provide nearly enough help for Americans. One of the first proposals coming from this bipartisan group of senators was $500 billion. And it did not include direct checks to Americans. It did not include the robust unemployment benefits that people need right now since so many people are still laid off due to, you know, closures and shutdowns. So she's just flat out lying, absolutely lying. The only person who has consistently

held up relief to Americans has been Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Okay, so let's clarify a couple of things here. First of all, it's Fox, so of course, they're not going to correct her. But if she was on an actual news program, the anchor should have said, I need to tell the audience what you just said is totally untrue. and then point out the facts that Anna just told you about how it is indisputable that the Republicans blocked this bill for about eight months. It's indisputable that the House had passed it. And then I would go on from that though and say, well, wait a minute, in the Republicans' first

proposal out of the Senate, there was zero dollars in direct payments. Kelly Luffer, you're a current senator in the United States of America, you're in that caucus. you did not object to that publicly at all. You never objected to the $0.00 when it got moved up to $600, you didn't object until Trump objected. So did Trump make you change your position, which earlier was to give zero, nothing at all to the people of Georgia? Or did you secretly believe it, but you were too scared to oppose Mitch McConnell and thought, let's crush the people of Georgia by giving them zero? Because that was your position. There's no question.

It was your position, so can you please level with the audience? Of course, not only is there no one on Fox News who would do that, but there's no one on cable news who would do that. Oh, it's a senator, oh, what if she doesn't come on our show again? Yeah, what if you did a news program, that'd be amazing. But I've got to add one more thing to that. Notice that he asked, it was a softball friendly question from Fox News, hey, do you agree with this bill?

She never actually talked about the bill. So she's like, oh, yeah, the Democrats blocked it earlier or something, whatever, right? Joe, we wanted it all, you know, we mean, we suggested zero dollars because we really, really want it, wink, ring. But she never actually said anything about this bill. So no, she definitely, definitely doesn't want you to get the $2,000. The rest of it is complete political theater. Yeah, definitely.

And she's not the only one who's engaging in this political theater. A number of other Republicans have come out alleging their support for $2,000 direct check to Americans. Of course, they weren't vociferous about this prior to Donald Trump, you know, throwing a monkey wrench into these negotiations. Marco Rubio, for instance, is one of the senators who's now all of a sudden calling for the $2,000 checks. He said the following. I agree with the president that millions of working class families are in dire need of additional relief, which is why I support $2,000 in direct payments to Americans struggling due to the pandemic. I share many of my colleagues' concerns about the long-term effects of additional spending.

But we cannot ignore the fact that millions of working-class families across the nation are still in dire need of relief. One of the other Republican lawmakers in the Senate who said something similar was Senator Lindsey Graham, who was golfing with Trump over the weekend and urged him to sign the, you know, the version of the economic relief bill and the spending bill that doesn't provide enough relief to Americans. But he did so promising that he would fight to get $2,000 direct checks to Americans. So maybe it's part of the deal, but I just really want to emphasize that this is not

something that GOP lawmakers were in favor of. It's not something that they fought for. This is something that they have completely switched gears on because, again, the ball is in their court and people are really suffering right now. As I mentioned, eight million additional Americans are now living in poverty since the the past summer, this is the first time poverty for these Americans. And it's because of the lack of real relief in response from our congressional lawmakers and the federal government.

And so, yeah, go ahead, Jane. So a couple of things. There's two different camps that are pretending to be in favor of this after they were opposed to it in the first place. What is the Lindsey Graham camp? Those are the people who tricked Trump into signing the COVID relief bill overall. And they said, oh, we promise we'll bring up the 2000. And they knew that they'd bring it up in a way that included the poison pills so that it would never pass.

And they also knew that Trump is too stupid to understand any of that. So that's why Lizzie Graham is following through on his end of the deal here, saying publicly in a way that is totally irrelevant to the vote, oh, I support Donald Trump's $2,000 stimulus checks, which he never supported before. He knows that McConnell blocks the first time and then bipartisan block. on it the second time. So that his statement is totally meaningless to appease the idiot Donald Trump. Marco Rubio, on the other hand, is doing this because he's planning on running for president

in 2024. So he sees Josh Hawley saying $2,000 so, and Josh Hawley's gonna run. So he's like, oh, yeah, I meant $2,000 too, before Rubio was in favor of $0. So that's his political calculation. It's so important for reporters to give you this context. And a lot of times they patronize you and they baby you and they don't say it because part of it is political correctness. Oh, I don't want to offend Marco Rubio.

Maybe he honestly changes position from $0 to $2,000 overnight, not because of his political ambitions, but because he had a change in principle, no way, but they're too afraid to say it. I mean, look, that's honestly why not only the untricks exist, but you guys made us as big as we are, so we can actually tell you the truth about what's happening in politics. Now, the, I want, but I want to go back to the Leffler and Purdue. So they were never in favor of this, they were in favor of zero. So look, a rebellion pack, it was set up partly to do super tough ads that point out things

are super effective ads that point out things that Democrats won't do. So in this case, it's super easy, quick ad that's going on digital media and the more people give and help the Rebellion. com more this will run in Georgia. This is a fact, and they should clearly state it as a fact, and that's what this quick digital ad does. So let's watch that. The only thing stopping you from getting $2,000 of COVID relief are the Republicans. Vote Democrat, early or on January 5th. So that's Helpderrebellion.com is one way to donate to that so it could run more in Georgia.

Georgia Rebellion.com works too. So look, guys, in this case, it is really, really, really, that simple. And getting that message out has already begun to work. That's why Lefleur and are in a panic. If you vote for the Democratic senators, they will actually, I know it's unbelievable, but the Democrats are too far on the record now because they thought that McConnell was going to block it. They're right about that. But if they win the Senate, now they got to deliver, you will get the $2,000 check if you vote for those two people. If you vote for the Republicans, you definitely, definitely will not get it. There's never been an election that's clearer than this. By the way, you got a family of four, you get four checks. And look, if it's just a

matter of giving away money, like the Republicans always do to their rich donors, I'd be against it. But in this case, people actually need it. It's a crisis, and it's the right thing to do. So it works for the voters, and it works as policy. So that's why Rebellion Pack is running that ad as much as humanly possible all over digital media in Georgia. GOP lawmakers suddenly changed their minds on, you know, whether they support the $2,000 direct checks to Americans or not purely based on politics. There are wonderful progressives in Congress who have fought for the right thing from the very beginning. When we come back from the break, I'll tell you how Bernie Sanders proposes to fight back against Mitch McConnell and how it might

just work. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic. or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must have learned 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. with you guys. So tonight, ABC has a special called The Year 2020, and it's on 9 o'clock Eastern. Why am I telling you about it? Well, Corey Bush is on it. That's awesome. Mark Cuban, Joel McHale, now I love community. So still, you're wondering, okay, that's good. That's good. I'm happy. Oh, former TYT host, Karama Brown is on. So that's awesome. Current host of producer Bruner Alec is on. So Brett is going to be on ABC tonight at 9 o'clock Eastern, the year 2020. Unlike that graphic, he will not be the only one on.

Well, other progressive heroes like Cory Bush will also be at other progressive heroes, Brett. You hear that? Okay. So check that out tonight at 9 o'clock Eastern if you can. All right, let's go to our members, t.yt.com slash join to become a member. and we read your comments first. Salti T. writes in, go Bernie. He never stops his fight for us, and we must continue to fight for him and us. The struggle continues.

We're going to tell you about that next. You're exactly right. And Jess writes in for several decades. We've known that Americans were the only, we're only one paycheck away from financial disaster. And here it is disaster. Unfortunately, that's true. And then two great points and questions here that I really want to address. Someone who likes Bernie Sanders wrote in,

The other GOP senators are definitely on board for blocking this. If they weren't, McConnell isn't a god. They could replace him with a new majority leader and bring the bill to the floor or use that threat to stop McConnell from blocking it in the first place. 100% right. And you understand politics way better than almost any mainstream media reporter. And by the way, a lot of the corporate Democrats, the mainstream, they're all like, oh, McConnell, McConnell, McConnell.

No, guys, it's the entire GOP, otherwise McConnell couldn't do it. So I love how smart our audiences. Okay, now speaking, which I go to Ecclectic, Mr. Linia, and he says, well, he asks, why are even establishment Democrats suddenly pushing for $2,000? Is it because of the Georgia races? Is it because Trump made them look bad by asking for more than them? Are they afraid of a revolt by progressives who could make things difficult for leadership this time around?

No, definitely not the latter. They're not at all afraid of progressives. The first two, yes. The latter, no. I don't think they're afraid of progressives at all, because we're not organized, period. We're not. So look, I don't think the corporate Democrats are in favor of it at all. In fact, I think you're going to see that in the next story.

So let's get to it. Let's get to the burning fight. So we can show you how in reality, again, no reporter says this because they are totally in bed with corporate Democrats. They don't even know it. It's just a cultural thing. It's group thing. But we're about to show you the reality of why most of the Democrats are actually not in favor

of the $2,000 check, even though. they're pretending to. All right. Well, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked a standalone bill to send direct checks to the tune of $2,000 to Americans struggling during this pandemic. But Bernie Sanders actually has a tactic to fight back that may work. Now, in order to understand the context, it's important to point out that right now, the Senate is set to vote on two different bills, technically vote on two different bills. One would be in regard to the $2,000 stimulus payment, something that McConnell has already blocked. But the other bill is to override Donald Trump's veto on the defense spending bill, the National

Defense Authorization Act, which Trump threatened to veto. He did in fact end up vetoing that bill because it did not repeal Section 230, which would essentially end the liability shield for tech companies and social media platforms. And it also took, did not take out the proposal to rename military bases that have been named after Confederate soldiers. And so Trump vetoed it. The House has basically voted to override Trump's veto. Now it's up to the Senate to do the same.

Now what Bernie Sanders is saying is, no, I'm not going to vote to override that veto. on defense spending unless I get what I want and what the American people need. So he writes this on Twitter. The House passed a $2,000 direct payment for working people. Now it's the Senate's turn. If McConnell doesn't agree to an up or down vote to provide the working people of our country a $2,000 direct payment, Congress will not be going home for New Year's Eve. Let's do our job.

And then he also wrote, today Senator Markey and I demanded a vote on $2,000 for working people. It's simple, no vote, no New Year's break for senators. So what he would do is refuse to consent to overriding that veto, which could delay the defense spending bill, which could prevent them from, you know, going home for the New Year's break. And so it's really, it's an interesting strategy. I think that it has the potential to work. He is playing hardball. And so we'll see how Mitch McConnell handles this.

But I do want to just quickly point out. before I go to you, Jank, that Senator Dick Durbin, the Senate Minority Whip, a Democrat, has disagreed with this strategy. Here's what he had to say about it on a CNN interview. Do you support that tactic? Is that tactic helpful at this point? I don't want to use this defense bill for the national security and for the men and women in uniform as part of the strategy. It is going to pass. I can tell you, knowing the Senate rules as I do, it is going to pass. Let's put the pressure on Senator McConnell to call the measure that passed the House for $2,000. They've got a bipartisan roll call there.

I think it's got enough votes to pass here. We'll never know till we try. So I'd say to Bernie, I'm with you on the goal of $2,000. Let's not do it at the expense of the Department of Defense. Yeah, they're just so pathetic. As always, as always. So let me break down the different layers of this. So first of all, he's like, but not at the expense of the Department of Defense.

Our troops are men and women in uniform. Okay, Dick Durbin, those are Republican talking points. Very, very, very, very, very, very little of the defense bill actually goes towards to the troops. The troops make $19,000 a year when they first come in. They make almost no money. I just interviewed Ken Klobyside from the nation earlier today where he explained that the troops have to pay for their own COVID tests.

The money's not going to them. The money's going to the defense contractor. who finance not just the Republican Party, but Dick Durbin and the Democratic Party. So when Bernie says, let's block this vote so that we can get the $2,000 checks, you wouldn't be blocking the defense bill overall, although I think I would love to block it, right? But he's saying that's an opportunity to delay it until we get the $2,000 check. I can't imagine a better place to block a vote.

Okay, so at this, when you block the defense bill, it doesn't hurt innocent people who were going to get unemployment, checks, who were going to get the direct relief checks. It doesn't hurt any of that. It only potentially delays payments to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, Boeing, et cetera. So Dick Durbin, acting like a 1,000 percent Republican there, go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, the troops, Bernie's hurting the troops, right? Hey, Bernie, I agree with your goal, let's do it another way. Okay, I'm open to different strategies and doing a different way.

So what's your way, Dick Durbin? Oh, you don't have a way. Oh, let's try to pressure Mitch McConnell to have a clean vote. Really? What's your strategy for pressure him? This, what Bernie's doing, is an actual strategy to pressure Dick Durbin. I'm sorry, although, yes, you should pressure him as well. Pressure Mitch McConnell into an actual vote.

Durbin is saying, I have no plan to pressure him. I have no plan at all. I just want to make sure that Bernie doesn't win, because my donors, I mean, the defense contractors, I mean the troops have to get paid. So it's pathetic. Now, in terms of creating the right kind of pressure, if you notice, Bernie said there was somebody else joining him on this. And normally Bernie's always alone, right?

He does the right thing. All other corporate Democrats are the worst. They never support him because they're actually Republicans. So, but in this case, if you notice, he mentioned Ed Markey. Ed Markey is supporting him. Guys, there's a super important political point in there. that I want you guys to understand. Ed Markey supported Green New Deal with AOC, and so when he was running for re-election in

the Senate, the corporate Democrats turned on him, and they had Kennedy run against them. And even Nancy Pelosi said, you should defeat the sitting Democratic senator in Massachusetts and should vote for Kennedy. And the reason she said that, she said, oh, it's because I love the Kennedy clan and dynasty. It's a sickening, gross reason to support them. In reality, Kennedy raises more money for corporate Democrats. That's what she wanted it. But Markey won, he was losing.

He was losing, and he won by rallying progressives to his side. Since progressives delivered for Markey, now Markey's solidly in the progressive camp going, yeah, Bernie, what do you need? You need backup on this? God damn right, I'll call out Dick Durbin on it. These guys weren't on my side when I needed him, progressives were. And now our alliance grows. So Bernie is being super smart and strategic here.

And it's exactly right thing. One more thing. In terms of, well, Durbin says it eventually it'll pass is just a delaying tactic. But remember, even if that were, even if that's, it turns out to be true, it's a super important delaying tactic because it keeps Leflor and Purdue in D.C. and not campaigning in Georgia. Every Democrat, especially Durbin, should be in favor of that. But he desperately doesn't want those $2,000 to go to the Americans. And he desperately wants the defense contractors They get all their money exactly when they want it and demanded. So you understand that the last layer of that is a Democratic leadership actually doesn't want you to get the $2,000 checks.

If they did, they'd support Bernie on this. No, they know that McConnell's going to block it. And then later, I guarantee you that same Dick Durbin will go on TV and go, well, it turns out there was nothing we could do. After he defeats Bernie actually trying to do something. So they're liars, they don't actually want you to, they're Republicans, they don't want you to get the check. And the whole media plays along as if Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Blosley actually want you to get the $2,000 check. They don't. Yeah, I mean, look,

the easiest way, simplest way to understand this is Dick Durbin knows, you know, everyone knows that there's a unique opportunity here where the Senate Democrats who actually do want direct $2,000 checks to Americans, you know, have leverage. They can use this leverage in order to get what they want, right? And the leverage has everything to do with utilizing delay tactics that keep Leffler and Purdue in Washington, D.C., when it's like the final stretch of their campaigning. They don't want to be in D.C. They don't want to have to vote on anything. They want to continue campaigning. They want to get reelected in these Georgia Senate runoff races. Why wouldn't you use this leverage? The only reason why you wouldn't use the leverage is because you don't want to use the leverage.

care about getting those direct checks to Americans. Because look, the fact of the matter is whether the delay tactic is utilized or not, the $741 billion for defense spending, it's going to pass. They will eventually override Donald Trump's veto. There's no question about that. And so I have no doubt in my mind that Durbin knows that's eventually going to pass. So what's the big deal? Why is he so concerned about delaying it a little bit, especially when you know that delay could give you leverage in getting Americans the relief that they desperately need? He doesn't want it. And I think you're absolutely right about that, Jank.

All right. I do want to, do you have anything else for this story or should we move on? Okay, cool. So I do want to move on to a video that is pretty infuriating and it gives you a sense of, you know, the type of the type of people who influence. Democratic administrations to do the wrong things in providing relief to Americans. So former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers recently had an interview with Bloomberg, and during this interview, he had some pretty strong statements against providing $2,000 direct

checks to Americans. He's worried that it might overheat the market. Let's watch. I don't think the $2,000 checks make much sense. We have stimuli. already much more than filling out the hole. And given that lots of the hole is from the fact not that people don't want to spend, but that they can't spend because they can't take a flight or they can't go to a restaurant, I don't necessarily think that the priority should be on promoting consumer spending beyond where we are now. So I'm not even sure that I'm so enthusiastic about the $600 checks.

And I think taking them to $2,000 would actually be a pretty serious mistake. And I have to say that when you see the two extremes agreeing, you can almost be certain that something crazy is in the air. And so when I see a coalition of Josh Hawley, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump getting behind an idea, I think that's time to run. for cover. So I would argue that the crazy one is the person who thinks it's crazy to give Americans the relief that they desperately need during this pandemic, which has led to record unemployment numbers to no fault of their own, by the way, because of this pandemic, something that they didn't have control over. The House overwhelmingly voted in favor of $2,000 direct checks to Americans. Forty-four Republicans switch their votes in order to support the direct

checks to Americans, 275 to 134 in the Senate. One other thing I want to note is, we need to stop thinking about this as a so-called stimulus, because that's not what this is. The direct checks to Americans is not about more consumerism. It's about survival. They're survival checks. People need to pay their rent, Larry Summers. People need to provide food for themselves and their families, Larry Summers. That's why you're seeing these insane, long lines at food banks across the country. This is about survival. It's not about stimulating the economy. The Federal Reserve, I assure you, has got that on lock, providing printed money to all of these corporations and banks to artificially inflate the stock market, which is why you can see

this record unemployment, you know, mixed in with, you know, the stock market doing so incredibly well. That disconnect is there for a reason. And it's because the Federal Reserve is stimulating, you know, private industry, whereas average Americans have been like left in the dark and haven't gotten the relief that they need. So I mean, this guy was, you know, he worked for the Clinton administration, worked for the Obama administration, you know, absolute toxic garbage that has led to all sorts of poor decisions in our economy, all sorts of poor decisions that have led to more inequality in America. And that's why we find ourselves where we are right now. So let me explain to you why we're doing a story about Larry Summers.

So he is the very core of the establishment, and he shows you that when it comes to economic issues, there actually are no differences between Democrats and Republicans. So first of all, how can I say that? Well, I mean, Larry Summers was not only the chief economist of the World Bank, but he was Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, and he was the director of the National Economic Council under Obama. He was arguably the most important person in economic circles in the both Clinton and Obama years, 16 years basically, this guy was in charge.

And he was, as I just told you also at the World Bank. He is the epicenter of the establishment. And what does he say? He says, I don't even know if we need the $600 checks. What did Mitch McConnell say? I don't know that we even need this $600 checks. He agrees in this issue and on most economic issues, 100% with Mr. Mitch McConnell. That is the guy who is the lead for both Obama and Clinton years in their

administrations. He is a Republican on economic issues. I don't know and I don't care what he thinks about social issues. His job is economics. And he is, his job is to funnel as much money into multinational corporations from your pocket as he can possibly do and help you as little as possible. So where's my evidence? Well, here it is, right here in this case, let alone, by the way, dozens of times that we covered him under the Obama and Clinton years. So, or at least under the Obama years, and I covered him earlier during the Clinton years. So he says, we might overheat the economy. Well, first of all, I know a thing or two about the economy. I'd be curious to see what his argument is. I'm not close-minded about it. Okay,

what would be the downside? Like, are you really? You think this economy is doing so amazing that we might overheat it. If you're talking about the stock market and all of your buddies on Wall Street, maybe you're right. And I'd be interested to hear that argument. I don't even know what the downside would be of quote unquote overheating the market in any way. But is the market overheated for actual Americans? Well, that's a joke. That's a joke. People are about to get thrown out of their homes. They don't have any money. Their back rent is through the roof, we're overheating the market for Americans now, but now, let's talk about what Larry Summers was in favor of earlier. Like everyone else in Washington, he didn't mind the

first bill that sent trillions, not millions, not billions, trillions of dollars to multinational corporations. Then we were not overheating their economy when it went straight into the pocket of his, the people who hire him now, who pay him now, who've always, He's been in, that he's been in the back pocket up. But when it comes to helping you, ah, we're overheating the market. I don't want, nah, nah, all my buddy's already got trillions. I don't even want you to get 600. And then lastly, oh, the extremes.

He says, if the extremes agree, then you know that we've got problems. No, no, you know what the extreme is? The middle, the so-called middle, the middle of Washington, not the middle of the country. Corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans have been screwing us for decades. By the way, the other people involved in that unholy alliance is the corporate media. So the guy interviewing him, every person who's ever interviewed Larry Summers in corporate media. Oh, yours. Oh, bipartisanship. So great Larry Summers. Oh, tell us about how extreme Bernie Sanders is. So extreme the way he wants to help Americans. Tell us how great your

proposal is, oh, don't worry, I won't let the audience in on the fact that you're getting paid to say all this. I won't let the audience in on the fact that you were not, that you were not, that You were totally okay with trillions going to those corporations. And so the whole thing is Kabuki theater. It's not Democrats versus Republicans, it's both of them versus us. And also cable news is on their side. It is definitely not on the side of the people. When we come back from the break, we'll tell you how, you know, some bosses believe that

taking bets on whether you're going to get sick and die from coronavirus isn't meant to be cruel. It's just meant to boost morale. Who said this? And what are the details to that story? I'll give you that and more when we come back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data.

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Anyway, you can see we got 27,000 left at T-Y-T.com slash go. We're almost there, guys. So let's make more change possible. We did not, unlike the cable news, we were not taking advertisements from defense contractors and drug companies and all those giant corporate advertisers. So that's why we rely on you. And I'd rather be tied to you guys than to them. So all right, now let's go to the member section. Kid tested, Politburo approved, writes in, funny handle. One can only hope that Jank incorporates a Bernie wrestling ad into the TYT library, hitting McConnell with a chair maybe. Well, that would be

awesome. He's doing that proverbially at this point, of course. Badger Gow says, what the heck does overheating the market mean anyway? Exactly. It could have a meaning, but he never explained it. And he certainly didn't bring that up when they were giving trillions to his friends. Poor Chop Express says, I'm tired of rich old white man telling the majority of Americans what's right for us. And he doesn't even care about you. He's not telling you what's right for you. He's just only talking about the stock market because that's all the wealthy care about. Marbee, not all the wealthy to donor class. Marbee writes in about corporate Democrats being afraid of progressives. As a group, I agree they aren't, but I think Chuck Schumer is afraid of AOC running for his seat when

he comes up for reelection. I think that's why he's fighting for things like student loan relief and supporting Bernie more often. Marby, once again, you understand politics is probably better than most reporters in the country. But even some mainstream media reporters have pointed that out, no question. And this is why it's important for Justice Democrats to win and for progressives to win. is when they do, they create pressure, not only did AOC knockout the fourth ranking Democrat in the House, she's now got the Senate leader for the Democrats that worried about his seat and going left. That's exactly how you create smart, strategic pressure to actually get things

done. Toss a coin to your progressive candidate says if Bernie pulls us all, I 100% guarantee Pelosi will get all the praise from the media. Well, it's already happening. The maneuver that Bernie did to block the first piece of legislation, every article now says Schumer did. Yes, technically, Bernie's pressure got Schumer to do it. And so they say Schumer did it. But they just, but they then leave Bernie out of that equation completely. But it doesn't matter. Unfortunately, Bernie's tactic won't work because his problem isn't the Republicans. It's that his own party doesn't agree with him and doesn't actually want the $2,000 checks. So that's why he has almost no chance of success, unfortunately. So, so many more here. Leroy, not Jenkins, writes in,

I hear Markey, what's up with Warren Do? She's really quiet. Super fair point. Super fair point. Okay. I had to speak up for that one. On votes that matter, on when you have the strategy lined up and it makes sense, that's when you got to show up. If you don't show up, well, then there's nothing we can do about it. All right, we'll be right back. Back on TYT, Jenkin, Anna, with you guys. Lots more, Anna, take it away. All right. Well, earlier we shared a story involving the Waterloo Tyson Meatpacking plant and how it's facing wrongful death lawsuits from the family members of employees who died as a result of contracting coronavirus. Well, seven managers at that plant have,

have been fired, and one of them is speaking out because he thinks it's important for everyone to know that they're not bad people. They're actually great people who are just trying to make the work environment fun, especially when they were taking bets on how many of their employees would get sick by contracting coronavirus. So former Tyson manager, Don Meershbrock, said managers conducted the office pool last spring within minutes following mass testing of the plants roughly 2,800 work. County officials said last May that more than 1,000 workers tested positive for the virus,

which hospitalized several and killed at least six. Now the family members of four of the employees who had died are, you know, suing in wrongful death suits. And Mershbrock says, no, I mean, we're not, again, we're not bad people. We're just trying to boost morale. This is the exact quote. He tells the Associated Press, it was a group of exhausted. supervisors that had worked so hard and so smart to solve many unsolvable problems. It was simply

something fun, kind of a morale boost for having put forth an incredible effort. There was never any malicious intent. It was never meant to disparage anyone. And just to give you some more details on what this pool entailed. Again, it was a pool among managers at this meatpacking plant in Waterloo, Iowa. The office pool involved roughly $50 in cash, which went to the winner who picked the correct percentage of workers testing positive for the virus. He also added that those involved didn't believe the pool violated company policy and that plant's positivity rate would be lower than the community rate due to their mitigation efforts. So let me just quickly mention what the mitigation efforts were. Based on the allegations in these lawsuits,

there were none. The employees are alleging that they were told by their employers to ignore any symptoms that they may have as a result of contracting coronavirus. They were pressured to continue working. And they were, of course, packed into tight quarters as they were working with no social distancing. And again, the allegations include the fact that they didn't provide protective gear like masks to prevent contracting the virus. So those are the mitigation efforts. that this former manager who's been fired from Tyson wants to point to. So, guys, I don't want you to miss something really important in this story, which is Tyson trying to whitewash what's happening here by blaming the managers.

So it doesn't mean the managers weren't guilty. And I mean that in a legal sense, I just mean it in a sense of moral culpability. No, you should not bet on how many of your workers are going to get sick. By the way, it turns out the correct number was a thousand, a thousand of their workers got coronavirus, six died. So four of the deceased family members are suing now. And so Tice, that manager said something important about how, oh, just boosting morale, talking about how the workers are going to die and how many of them are going to get sick.

How it was fun for us managers? I don't think that's fun, and if that's to boost morale for managers, that's pretty sick. Having said that, the real culpable people here is the company, because that that manager says, look, they told us to solve this unsolvable problem. And on that, he's right. They say, okay, don't take precautions, shove them all back into a building where we know they're likely to get coronavirus. and then afterwards, we'll blame you guys for not getting enough production and having

too many people get sick. But wait a minute, it was executive's decisions, not even the managers, but executives hire in the company that made that decision. So are they more culpable? Absolutely. And so in this particular case, what do they do? And this is what drives me crazy again about the press. They hire former attorney general, Eric Holder, to do a whitewashing effort.

And he says, yes, the managers are guilty, but the company's fine. Well, they paid him to say that. He's a lawyer. I get it. He has a job. His job is to help companies avoid lawsuits, et cetera. So Holder's doing his job, but the press should not give any weight to the fact that he's a former attorney general.

He was hired a whitewash. He whitewashed. And it's the, and they make it all seem like, oh, it's only the manager's fault. No, it's in this case, it's Tyson's fault for giving them, telling the managers, shove them back in there, don't take their precautions. The only thing that matters is the bottom line. And then go, oh, golly, gee, they made a bet. I can't believe they did that.

It's, it's only their fault and not our fault, nonsense. Yeah, I mean, look, the executives have more power and they really do call the shot. right about that. I also think that there's one other group that should take at least some of the blame. And again, I'm not clearing the executives at Tyson of any wrongdoing at all. But remember, early on in the pandemic, one thing that was noticeable for people who would go to the grocery stores is that there was a shortage of meat. There was a shortage of all sorts of products because of how our supply chains work and because of the fact that we outsource the manufacturing of pretty much everything. But when it came to meat, we did experience some empty shelves.

In response to that, I mean, it feels like an eternity ago, but remember, the Trump administration forced meatpacking plants to reopen. And that impacted the Waterloo plant as well. And Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, was quoted saying this at the time in regard to the risk of community spread of coronavirus. He said, it's the workers' home and social lives that are. spreading the virus. So what he was trying to do there is blame the workers and what they do during their free time, rather than blame these companies for not taking the appropriate measures

to mitigate the spread of this virus. And of course, he and the Trump administration aren't going to take responsibility for forcing these companies and these meatpacking plants to reopen during a time of crisis without providing the PPE necessary. There was a shortage of PPE in the beginning of the pandemic because, of course, the administration didn't take it seriously. And in early February, Mike Pompeo even bragged about shipping PPE over to Wuhan. That tweet, by the way, is still up. And so there's plenty of blame to go around. And I don't want to clear the incompetence and the cruelty of the Trump administration in this case either. Yeah, but the interests of the Trump administration and multinational corporations

are the same. That's right, yeah. They fund Trump and the Republican Party. And in a sense, even Trump, it's just a water boy. When the business interests give them money and they say, do as you're told, Trump has said a thousand times, why wouldn't I do what people tell me to do if they give me a lot of money? He said that about the Saudis, he said it a thousand times. So they say, here, carry out this errand for me, water boy, and Azar does it, Trump does it, they

They all do it. And the bottom line is the bottom line. So Tyson wanted to make more money and they didn't give a damn who got sick or who died. And so they now have a convenient fall guy in the managers who amply deserved it. But no way that you should let Tyson off the hook. And I'm curious if in the lawsuit they'll bring up how much Tyson has donated to politicians. Because that's how they control the politicians in the first place. So if you want to know why the politicians give them lax environment where they can brutalize

their workers, it's not hard to figure out, it's the checks they write them. All right, well, let's move on to the issue of free speech, something that many in media claim to care about. But weirdly enough, don't ever talk about it when it impacts someone who's using free speech to challenge people in positions of power like Donald Trump. So a doctor who criticized Trump's irresponsible behavior when he was hospitalized with coronavirus has been fired from Walter Reed Medical Center. Dr. James Phillips criticized Trump's drive-by with Secret Service in the SUV with him. This was when he was hospitalized with

coronavirus, and he decided to go out and greet his supporters who were, you know, standing by the hospital. And so, you know, Dr. Phillips did criticize Trump for that, saying that it was incredibly irresponsible because he's putting the lives of those Secret Service agents at risk. So he says this in regard to getting, you know, axed from Walter Reed Medical Center. He says, today I worked my final shift at Walter Reed ER. I will miss the patients and my military and civilian coworkers. They have been overwhelmingly supportive. I'm honored to have worked there and I look forward to new opportunities. I stand by my words and I regret nothing. And so, you know, just to remind you all of what he said exactly verbatim, he said the

irresponsibility is astounding. Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary presidential drive by just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die for political theater commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity. Yeah. So there's two layers of- of this story that are really interesting. So the first one is, you know, as usual, petty grievances by Donald Trump leads to firing people because he has the thinnest skin in the world. This is, again, how dictators act. Oh, you have offended the ego of the dear leader. So we don't care how great a doctor you

are. And by every account, he's an excellent doctor. Who cares? By the way, that's Walter Reed. Oh, treating our veterans with great care. Fire him. Who cares? He offended the dear leader. So as Anna pointed out, the right wing who says, oh, cancel culture. I can't believe that any of they'd cancel people based on what they said. Now, turn around and go, he criticized the dear leader.

That's a castle him. Castle, fire him. Fire him right away. Get him, get him out of here. Get him out of here. I don't ever want anyone saying anything against our beloved leader. First Amendment is nonsense. We hate the First Amendment. Fire anyone who disagrees with Trump. Right-wingers, you support actions like this. You're pathetic. You never believed in our Constitution,

and you definitely never believed in the First Amendment or free speech. All you believed in is, I just want to say racist things. Please let me say racist things. Okay, but just keep it real. So now the second part of it is this great quote that the Medical Center gave. So NPR has it, and I want to read it to you guys. The medical center, quote, provides requirements for contract employees to the contract agency. The contract agency then works together with contract employees to determine initial individual schedules. Here it comes. There was no decision made by anyone at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to remove Dr. Phillips from the schedule.

He just got removed magically, apparently. No, nobody actually made the decision. It is just when the schedule came out, oh, look at that. He's not on it. I wonder how that have. Oh, he criticized Trump. I mean, nobody knew that. It doesn't matter.

Nobody makes decisions at Walter Reed. That's why he was magically taken off just by the non-decision fairy. Yeah, I mean, it's, and look, I mean, this is the kind of speech that absolutely needs protection because he is challenging someone in a position of power, but more importantly, he's doing so from the standpoint of an individual who knows firsthand what it's like to suffer the consequences of people not taking the pandemic seriously. We're talking about health care workers who haven't gotten a single break since the beginning of this pandemic because people haven't taken it seriously, people refuse to wear masks. We now have these situations in states like

California, by the way, where they're like speak easy type environments where people are like businesses are like having these secret get-togethers in order to keep business running, even though it goes against the rules and regulations of the state, right, in order to slow the community spread. Right now, there are no empty hospital beds in the state of California as a result of people still getting together, having private parties, going to businesses that It shouldn't be open, but they're, you know, operating underground. All of this stuff is happening, all of this irresponsible behavior. And it's important for someone in the healthcare industry, someone who knows firsthand what

it's like to experience such a giant influx of coronavirus patients to speak out and call Donald Trump out for what he did in putting those people's lives, the secret security agents in the car, putting their lives in danger. But yeah, I guess this just isn't the kind of speech. that anyone wants to protect. The only time we should get up in arms about free speech is when people kindly ask us to refer to them by their preferred pronoun. That's the only time free speech is an issue for the right wing.

And I want to give the last word to one of our members. Mr. Lumberg wrote in, like China, we now fire doctors for keeping it real. Yeah, America, SMDH. And that's right. Ironically, Trump has turned us into what he would call communist China. They fired doctors in the beginning for telling people about coronavirus, and now Trump is firing them for correctly stating that the Secret Service guys could get sick in that car, and you're endangering their lives, and you shouldn't do it.

He's like, that is correct, but it is not politically correct. If you're factually correct, medically correct is irrelevant if you're a doctor treating our veterans. The only thing that matters is if you're politically correct, and we agree with the Chinese communist government that you should fire anyone who criticizes the leader. That's disgusting. That doesn't make America great again. It doesn't even make America America. When we come back, we'll share a story that shows that maybe Biden, Biden isn't as persuasive toward the Republicans as he thought he was. We'll share the details of that and more will

be returned. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. 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.