The Young Turks - The Young Turks - January 5, 2021

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

Trump’s supporters are a threat to democracy. Ryan Grim 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. What's up, everyone. Welcome to TYT. I'm Anna Kasparian. Joining us today is Ryan Grimm, a contributor for The Young Turks, and also, of course, one of the reporters at The Intercept, one of my favorite reporters at The Intercept. Ryan, thank you for joining us. Well, thanks for having me here. It's good to be here.

So I'm really looking forward to getting to some of the discussions regarding House leadership. Later in the show, we're going to discuss how House Democrats are thinking about replacing Nancy Pelosi after her term is up. Now, she did just get reelected. But in two years, she's expected to leave the speakership. And so we'll discuss some of the options there and what the best tactics are in good. getting the right progressive or right person in charge in the House. We're also going to discuss a little of what's going on with Donald Trump's refusal to concede to the election. Yes, that saga unfortunately continues, but it has ramifications outside

of what we've been warning about. It goes beyond right-wing violence. We're now seeing that in local races, Democrats who've won by small margins are essentially being, there refusing to put them in charge, even though they've won the election. So we'll get to that later. But first, a few programming notes that I want to share with you all. Today is a big day. We have two Senate runoff races in the state of Georgia and TYT will be covering them after the main show. So you can look forward to that coverage at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific at t.y.com slash live and all the other platforms that you can typically watch us on.

And we will have Ida Rodriguez, Benjamin Dixon, Jank Yugar, and myself hosting. Also, later this week, candidate for Louisiana's second congressional district, Gary Chambers, will be on the conversation. This is airing tomorrow at 5.30 p.m. Eastern Time, 2.30 p.m. Pacific. He's speaking with Benjamin Dixon about his congressional race. You can tune in at t.y.com slash live. All right. Without further ado, let's get to the news today. I figured since we have two important Senate runoff races, why don't we get started with some updates on that? Officers have been deployed at polling locations across Georgia due to the Georgia Senate runoff elections. And this, of course, follows some pretty, it seems specific

threats against polling locations or polling workers in these locations. Now, we don't know the exact nature of what these threats are. For some reason, authorities have refused to share those details with us. But here's what we do know. The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office said Sunday that it learned of a threatening email that went to several county employees regarding threats to polling locations on Election Day. Employees at several other counties received the same email. Now, both the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into this matter. And of course, the runoff races, I say happen to be important because it will determine which party ends up controlling the Senate. Now, prior to election day, Joseph Cousin, who is a pastor at the Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church, had to cancel an event called Women for Warnock because the Democratic Party notified him that it would be dangerous to hold the event because of some of the threats that are coming in.

But while most of these threats have been issued anonymously, there are some Republican lawmakers who feel brazen enough to issue subtle threats during cable news interviews. So here we have Representative Chip Roy speaking to Fox News about the election. What happens tomorrow, Georgia, if we have a democratically controlled Senate, I mean, we're now basically at full-scale hot conflict in this country, whereas right now we're at a cold civil war. We've got a major problem in this country where the American people, the regular people out there that are working every day, hardworking Americans, that are getting trampled by a system that is rigged against them, as you said. That is what is at stake. And if the American people in Georgia don't show up, if Georgians don't show up and ensure that we hold the Senate in Republican hands, then that's what's happening. So, Ryan, I want to go to you immediately because we keep hearing from right-wingers who seem to be encouraging a civil war. Or at least they use civil war rhetoric in talking about these elections and losing control,

Republicans losing control of various congressional seats. And of course, the presidential election. We heard a lot of that kind of language following or prior to the general election taking place. What are your thoughts on these threats? Do you think it's just rhetoric or do you think that, you know, they are, in fact, trying to encourage people to, like, take violent action? No, I think some of this is certainly real. I'm getting a little bit of feedback, by the way.

But if you look at Nashville, for instance, you know, there was an explosion there. It seems like the guy had some beef with AT&T over a conspiracy that connected 5G to COVID. If you look at some of the speeches that are being made in Washington now by the right-wing protesters who have come, there, it's really a soup of all sorts of different conspiracy mongering. You know, if you have a conspiracy that is that is wild and it accuses some obscure power of whatever, you can kind of slot it into, you know, whatever this kind of twisted populist strain is that's coursing through the Republican Party. And you're eventually going to find, you know, some number of people who are going to commit

violent acts. Now, people talking about civil war are going to confuse people. Because civil war in the 19th century, you know, pitted geographic regions against each other, north versus the south. Whereas today, it's really, you know, cities and suburbs against rural areas. So, you know, I don't quite see it unfolding that way. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with you. You know, It is interesting, though. I do see some people on the left kind of minimize what's happening with the right, what's happening with the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories. In fact, unfortunately, I think there are some pretty extreme elements even on the left who have picked up some conspiracy theories themselves. And so this stuff just really spreads

across the internet rapidly. I think people are in, we're living in a country that doesn't seem to make much sense in terms of how it's being governed. When you think about how desperate Americans are right now for economic relief, all we get from Congress is what feels like a middle finger, really, with the $600 direct checks to Americans. You know, nothing seems to make sense. And I feel like people are trying to make sense of what's going on. And what they do is they turn to some of the more vociferous conspiracy theorists online. But as we've seen in a variety of cases, and I love that you mentioned the, you know, the Nashville case. Some of these people put action behind their conspiratorial beliefs, and people legitimately get hurt as a result

of that. What are your thoughts on inauguration day? There's a lot of word regarding Trump supporters showing up to D.C. to protest the outcome of the election. You know, the women's march happened after Trump won the election in 2016, but that was obviously a very different type of demonstration. There weren't threats of violence. With Trump supporters, it's a little different. Right. In 2017 was interesting because on actual inauguration day, you know, you did have, what, several dozen, maybe a couple hundred at most, Antifa folks who kind of ran around DC, smashed up a limousine, maybe, you know, knocked around a bus stop, and then got got cordoned by D.C. police and hauled off. And then you had these kind of high profile in DC trials over the next

several months. So there was an aggressive, militarized approach aimed at a very small number of violent protesters and violent in the sense that they smashed windows and cars, not violent in the sense that they were attacking other people. It will be very interesting to see how the police respond to whatever it is that the Trump protesters are going to do. Because the police in general are kind of a radicalized right wing force in this country. But when it comes to being in Washington, D.C. and kind of standing up for, their job is to protect the inauguration. So we'll see if they kind of bring the same energy to like the proud boys and the rest of the folks who are in D.C. to cause chaos. In 2017, there were tons of people around.

You know, A, it was pre-pandemic. B, people weren't really worried about Antifa. You know, they didn't think that it was going to, it was going to lead to, like, physical violence. Whereas this time, downtown is going to be pretty much empty. You know, the mayor is telling people to stay away. Businesses are closing. You know, so it's going to be just police and protesters, which is going to be an unusual and interesting dynamic. Yeah, I agree with you. And, you know, it's one thing to have members of the proud boys call for some sort of violent armed protest. It's something completely different to have Republican lawmakers encourage violence. And so I just want to go to this video of Representative Louis Gohmert, who in a recent interview said something that he did get a lot of backlash for. So let's take a listen to what he had to say, and then we'll discuss.

Bottom line is the court is saying we're not going to touch this. You have no remedy. Basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you've got to go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM. You got to go out there and be as violent as Antifa and BLM. He walks the statements back later after there was enough backlash. But it is kind of incredible to see how many Republican lawmakers are willing to put their name on attempting to disdemeanor. our democratic process and also put their name on encouraging violence if they don't get their way in overturning the election results. I think you're muted. Sorry, it was getting a little bit loud around here. No worries. So, yeah, if all they do is what Antiva did in January 2017, then DC will need a new bus stop,

more or less. But, you know, Gohmert seems to be pushing people, you know, in a much more aggressive direction. And doing it kind of, you know, and doing it very much in league with the Republican Party, because that's also a huge difference. You know, if you're a Republican, you like to think that Antifa and the Democratic Party are kind of one and the same. And Antifa probably leads the Democratic Party. That's kind of their version of the world. But as you and I know, That's not remotely close to reality. You know, Antifa despises, you know, if you're in Antifa, you probably despise the Democratic Party. You certainly are not taking orders from them.

The Democratic Party, you know, has no interest in any relationship with them either. But that's the difference between the Democrats, the Republicans here. Republicans, you know, are very much sowing this wind. You know, they're very much feeding into this. It's Trump who really, you know, by refusing to concede and by insisting that he lost, you know, has pumped all of the energy into this. You know, Gohmert is a, he's a cuck, but he's a member of Congress. You would never have a Democratic member of Congress urging people to go out in the streets and get violent and loot and riot. You know, Democrats get criticized sometimes for not, you know, putting out a statement fast enough every time there's a riot in a city.

This is a Republican who's, you know, urging people to commit the very thing that he would be quick to say Democrats aren't fast enough to condemn. And so that's an asymmetry that is going to work itself out, you know, one way or another in this system. But it's not something that's sustainable long. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

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

of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Turn. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Kasparian, and Ryan. Ryan Grimm with you. Ryan Grimm is the D.C. Bureau Chief for the Intercept and also a TYT contributor, but most of you probably already know that. We apologize for all of the technical issues we had. It was very unexpected, very difficult to fix. Luckily, this next segment goes a little smoother, but I do want to thank you all for being patient and sticking by us as we figure the tech issues out.

Now, before we get any other issues, let's go to the next story because I want to share as much news with you as possible. And this has to do with George Will, a conservative who's speaking out against people like Josh Hawley. George Will, a staunch conservative, has penned a scathing op-ed against Senator Josh Holly, a Republican, and other congressional Republican lawmakers who have decided that they will challenge the electoral vote certification on January 6th. That's mostly a ceremonial event that is spearheaded by the vice president. President Mike Pence. And the whole point here is honestly to appeal to Trump's base because Josh Hawley, there's no question, is eyeing a 2024 presidential race. Now, with that said, the op-ed written by George Will in The Washington Post, I have to hand it to him. I mean, I don't agree with him politically on most things. I agree with him on this matter, that's for sure.

But very eloquently written, pay close attention to what he's implying here. Holly's conscience regarding electoral proprieties compels him to stroke this erogenous zone of the GOP's 2024 presidential nominating electorate. Holly stance quickly elicited panicky emulation from Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, another 2024 aspirant. Cruz led 10 other senators and senators elect in a statement that presents their pandering to what terrifies them, their Trumpkin voters, as a judicious determination. Hawley, has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment? And Cruz have already nimbly begun to monetize their high-mindedness through fundraising appeals. And that is something that we talked about on the show, how Ted Cruz was putting out

advertisements on Facebook, for instance, asking for donations to help with these Senate runoff races. However, that money actually goes straight to Ted Cruz's, you know, pocket for campaigning in the future. So I love the fact that George Will has brought this up. And, you know, there are real consequences for this. Now, we've explained before, but I'll explain it again, even with these Republican lawmakers challenging the electoral votes and questioning whether to certify, it doesn't matter. At that point, both the House and the Senate get to vote on the issue, and clearly, since Democrats control the House, it is incredibly unlikely, nearly impossible for the House to overturn the results of the general election. So these lawmakers

have made a political calculation, and they realized, well, we don't actually have to overturn the results of the election. We don't need to turn the results of the election. We don't to worry about that, but we can at least put our names out there as Trump loyalists because it'll help us out politically in the future. And I think that's a pretty disgusting thing to have to do. And that does have some consequences for the country. And I want to bring you in, Ryan, to share your thoughts on this. Because while it might sound like fun in games when it comes to the outcome of the general election, I think that there are some other consequences including encouraging Republican voters to engage in violence

because they genuinely think that this election was stolen from Donald Trump. That's right. And so when you think about what Holly and Ted Cruz and the others are up to here, you have to start asking whether or not the other consequences are intended or unintended. There's a generous reading that says, look, you know, this is just a stunt. These are folks who are just trying to position themselves with Trump's base for the 2024 election. You know, they're not really, you know, trying to undermine democracy. They're not trying to create violence in the street. But the undermining of democracy and the

violence in the street that can be created by this is so predictable that you start to have to question that assumption. And then you look at the movement that Ted Cruz and Holly have come out of. And it is, you know, 40 years of, you know, pro authoritarianism. You know, So there has not been an interest in the right wing of the kind of American political parties pretty much ever in having everybody vote in expanding the franchise. You know, the right wing has always had kind of a tenuous relationship with democracy. But, you know, in the 80s, when, you know, throughout the 20th century, you saw, you know, mass voter suppression throughout the 19th century mass, mass voter suppression.

And so there is a real authoritarian strain. And so you have to wonder, is the undermining of democracy a feature or a bug of what Holly and Cruz and others are doing here? Do they, you know, are they doing this, you know, for electoral gain, but they feel a little bad about themselves? You know, they feel like, you know what? We claim to be constitutionalists. There's nothing in the Constitution that says the same. Senate or a senator has any role whatsoever in counting the, you know, in how the electoral

college determines who the president is nothing in there. In fact, quite the opposite. The 12th Amendment is very clear, you know, whoever has more electors shall be the president. That's it. There's no, you know, if the Senate, you know, consents or advise. It's none of that. These guys are constitutional, so they claim to be constitutional. So do they feel bad about that?

You have to wonder. Are they actually eager to foment this, you know, what we're seeing now and to undermine democracy? Because, you know, for 40 years, they have been trying to implement a minority rule system. You know, they have known for a long time that kind of demographically and politically they would fade if you had everybody in the country voting. And so they've been trying to lock in place, you know, voting rules. and, you know, judicial dominance that would allow them as a minority of the country to continue to dominate the majority. And so maybe this is kind of a piece of that. You know, I was reading this book regarding the power of the Republican Party, which I think is really important

to look into. And the argument made in this book, and I'm sorry, I'm blanking on the author's name, the argument that was being made was that Donald Trump is actually an incredibly weak president, because the system has been kind of set up in a way that helps the Republican party get what they want, while also simultaneously pushing back against Donald Trump through the system, right? So a perfect example of that would be what just happened with the Pentagon budget. Donald Trump, of course, vetoed it, and both chambers of Congress stood up and through unanimous consent, managed to pass a veto-proof version of the NDAA.

And then also, you know, any issue that, when you look at the public polling, public opinion, it's pretty easy for Republicans to get away with not representing the best interests of their constituents or what their constituents really want. But you make a really interesting point. And I think that since we have such short attention spans in the media, we quickly forget, not just about the voter suppression that's taken place over the years, but the voter suppression that took place prior to Election Day, prior to Election Day 2020, when you have Lewish DeJoy dismantling the post office and ensuring that it was ill-equipped to process an influx of mail and ballots. Now, luckily, the Post Office did manage to get it done, but there was a lot

of worry about that ahead of time. You had Donald Trump consistently, constantly sharing disinformation about mail-in ballots and discouraging people to vote by mail. Of course, you have issues like gerrymandering. Both parties do it, but Republicans have certainly done it more in a way to benefit them with the way that these districts are drawn up. And even with all of those actions that took place prior to the 2020 general election, Joe Biden still managed to win. And what also kind of shocks me, Ryan, is the fact that like the Republican Party seems to be totally delusional about how poorly Donald Trump has run this country, especially during a pandemic. When you have hundreds of thousands of people who have died as a result of the federal government, the executive branches in competence in response to this pandemic, of course people are not going to be as supportive of you. Like are they, what world are they living in?

This is, this is the result of the election and it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Right. And they're living in a world where they're okay with, with that outcome as long as they can maintain a hold, a foothold in power. And your analysis is right on in the sense that the Republican Party is immunized in a lot of ways from public pressure because of the way that, They're able to exert dominance in the Senate. People understand why every state gets two, so they can only, they can win, you know, in some scenarios, 35% of the vote and still, you know, maintain control of the Senate, even if they lose it tonight or after the votes are counted over the next few days, the path is pretty clear for them to retake it either in the next cycle or the cycle after that. And so they have a feeling that no amount of failure will allow them to fail. And if you can't lose, that's the ultimate political freedom. And so what they do with that freedom is, you know, unleash these forces on the democratic process itself.

As they're going into 2018 midterms, for instance, if you recall, they were facing a tough house election. They were willing to throw away the house in order to get their $2 trillion plus tax cut through because they know that there aren't really going to be consequences for them. Okay, so they won't control the house for a term or two, but for $2 trillion, that's worth it because we're not going to be driven. We're not going to be driven fully from power. And that's a structural arrangement in a two party system that you can't do anything about without developing a new system. Because the two parties have to work together and there's virtually no way for voters to thoroughly punish a party that so fully breaks from norms. Yeah, I mean, one of the best ways they could is if there's enough organizing. to be able to trigger rolling, you know, general strikes.

Once you start challenging the capital among their donors, I think that's when you have a different conversation. But I think as a country, we really need to have more detailed discussions about that, you know, finding ways to apply pressure outside of the system, you know, new ways of doing it, that basically forces our elected lawmakers to represent our best interests. I want to go to a few other excerpts from George Will's piece because I actually really appreciated a lot of what he had to say. There was a lot of strong language in there, not only to people like Josh Hawley and Louis Gohmert, but he also calls out Vice President Mike Pence.

First, he writes that they know that every one of the almost 60 Trump challenges to the election has been rebuffed by state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, involving more than 90 judges, nominated by presidents of both parties. But for scores of millions of mesmerized Trump Republicans who think the absence of evidence is the most sinister evidence, this proves that the courts, too, are tentacles of the deep state. So, you know, he's explaining a little bit of the ridiculous reasoning that goes on in the minds of Republican voters who just simply want their guy in office, even though he didn't win fair and square. And then in regard to Mike Pence, this really amused me. He writes,

To fathom Pence's canine devotion to Trump, watch a video from June 7th, 2018, seated next to Trump in a meeting, Pence saw Trump take his water bottle off the table and place it on the floor. So Pence did likewise. And I had not seen this video. Apparently it went viral at the time. So of course, I immediately looked for it. And he's absolutely right. Just take a quick look at this video. We just unbuild a new strategic plan. It's not just a plan for FEMA. It's a plan for the whole community. It's a plan that I'd like to unify the federal government response, but also down through our state partner. We just unbuild a new strategic plan. It's not just a plan for FEMA. It's a plan for the whole community. It's a plan that I'd like to unify

the federal government response, but also down through our... So look, if that was just an isolated incident, it doesn't mean anything. But what I love about about it is how that video symbolizes what we've seen among these so-called strong men within the Republican Party. You know, men who would puff up their chest as like the big tough guys who symbolize traditional masculinity. And then Donald Trump comes in, this incompetent buffoon. And they're so afraid of him that, I mean, it gets to the point where he can literally call your wife ugly and you'll end up phone banking for him. It's amazing. Not just phone banking for him.

The arc of that particular relationship is absolutely astounding, starting from, you know, that moment to Cruz now leading an effort, you know, in Congress to overturn the election. It's crazy. It's one thing that phone back and raise money for the guy. This is a guy who has memorized the Constitution. And, you know, we'll tell anybody he meets that he has memorized the Constitution. And it is the thing that he cherishes above all else, except apparently one thing. And that's devotion to Donald Trump. The man who, like you said, mocked his wife as ugly, said that his father was involved in the JFK assassination, who Cruz, you know, famously remember he refused to endorse Trump, you know, from the podium at the.

the Republican National Convention, you know, got all these jeers and booze and stood through it. But then when he saw that Trump was actually now powerful, all of that, all of it melted away, his principles and all of the personal insults that have been thrown his way. It's just a sight to see. So I mean, I don't know. If I were campaigning as a Democrat, I would definitely point that out and mock them on a regular basis because they certainly are not who they represented themselves to be. They're not strong men. In fact, all it takes is someone like Donald Trump for them to fold because they're so afraid of his base. So we're running out of time in this segment, but I do want to just quickly get to the next story because I think

this is a perfect example of the consequences that we're already starting to experience as a result of Donald Trump refusing to concede to Joe Biden and the general. At TYT, we've Frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

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this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. elections. There's an insane coup taking place right now. And I'm not talking about the general election, although a case could be made for that as well. Not in D.C. This is actually taking place in Pennsylvania specifically. So a progressive lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, is doing everything he can to fight back against Republican lawmakers in the state who are trying to prevent a lawmaker from coming into office, even though he's been elected.

and has won the election in this particular seat. So let me give you the details. The GOP controlled Pennsylvania State Senate just refused to seat Democratic Senator Jim Brewster, even as numerous other senators did get seated after Brewster defeated his Republican opponent by 69 votes. So what they're doing here essentially, 69 votes, what they're doing here essentially is trying to copy what Trump is doing on the national stage. is happening in Pennsylvania on a state level, but it's a very similar tactic, similar talking points. The dispute is overdates on envelopes, on a handful of ballots. Those specifics actually aren't important. What's important is that this case has already been decided in the state.

Washington Post reports that even though the outcome is already certified and the state Supreme Court upheld the contested ballots, the GOP candidate has gone to federal court to over return the results. So again, very similar to what we've experienced with Donald Trump and his refusal to concede to Joe Biden in the general election. Pennsylvania lieutenant governor John Federman, a Democrat, said the original agreement with senior Republicans was that Brewster would be provisionally sworn in. But if he somehow ended up losing in federal court, he would step down and his Republican opponent would be seated instead. And by the way, it's very likely that the federal court will defer to the state. That is the likely outcome. Fetterman,

who is the state senate's presiding officer, tried to block the refusal to seat Brewster, so Republicans voted to remove Fetterman and replace him as presiding over, I'm sorry, replace him as presiding officer with the Republican interim Senate president pro temp, Jake Corman. So they're doing everything they can to prevent this Democratic lawmaker from taking office and being sworn in. It's crazy. Yeah, and this was chaos. It was chaos because, you know, Fetterman is like 6-8, 6-10. And so you can kind of order him off the dais, but that's about all you can do. You can't physically remove him. And he and he didn't move. And so the president pro tem came up and tried to preside over the Pennsylvania

State Senate simultaneously with Fetterman, who continued presiding, who insisted that, you know, that the attempt to boot him off was completely illegitimate. I mean, this is really Trump and the Republican loyalists who are enabling him in Congress have really opened the floodgates for awful behavior moving forward. I mean, I don't think that this is going to be contained to this election cycle. I think we're going to experience a more brazen, a more emboldened Republican Party that will stop at nothing to prevent fairly elected lawmakers from being sworn in. and, you know, serving the constituents who voted for them.

And so, look, I think these stories are important because I think that far too often, because we know that our, you know, system is set up in such a way that Joe Biden will be the president. There's no question. People minimize some of the ramifications and some of the consequences that come along with Donald Trump's refusal to concede. And this is yet another example. I think we're going to see more of these types of examples moving forward. I don't know what the solution is because I think it would rely on Democrats to actually hold these lawmakers accountable, to fight back, to, you know, launch investigations into, I don't

know, maybe Senator Lindsey Graham, for instance, arguing that certain ballots should be thrown out to give Donald Trump the upper hand in some of these battleground states. That is unbelievable. That is a criminal act. And what are we hearing from those? Democratic Party in regard to holding them accountable. I mean, we'll talk about it a little later in the show, but Hakeem Jeffries, not good, very bad. I was just going to say that. The crime is still in progress, and Hakeem Jeffries said, you know, we're looking forward, not back. You know, it's like there's a, there's a burglar that was still in your home. And you're like, yeah, you know what? It's all good. Don't worry about it. This was in the past. The burglars like,

no, actually, this is not in the past. You know, you can't, you can't insist to the burglar that it's in the past. He's, you know, he's still in the house. He's still rifling through things. And like you said, you know, in Pennsylvania, you saw a manifestation of it where this duly elected and court-approved senator was, an elect was refused to be seated. In Wisconsin, even though the Trump campaign's lawsuit didn't prevail there, it was a four to three ruling in the Wisconsin. Supreme Court with an utterly hairbrained case that the that the Trump campaign brought. There was absolutely nothing there. And they only had a four to three majority because there was this kind of democratic wave

that focused on electing us, you know, winning this Supreme Court seat very recently. You guys covered that here. That was a real, we didn't realize at the time how, just how consequential that would be. If that had been a conspiracy nut Republican judge, you could have had a four to three vote the other way. And then all of a sudden, the media starts covering this stuff with a little bit more credibility because now it's an actual fight. I think the media's approach to this played a significant role in it not going anywhere. Oh, I agree. I absolutely.

I think Democrats and the media both tactically at this, for this time, made the right call to say, like, no, look, this is over. You know, Rudy Giuliani is just an absurd, ink-stained wretch over here, who's just embarrassing himself, you know, in front of this sex toy shop. And we, you know, we can all laugh about it. But like you said, you know, it's not going away. You know, it tactically, that's, that was probably the smart play this time. But they're They're going to have to come up with a longer game here because this is the kind of bullet that you can't just keep dodging because eventually when one hits you, you're dead. You know, it's not like you get another cycle, you know, two years later if they're going to try to, you know, gut the mechanisms by which a party normally comes back into power. Yeah, let's continue this conversation. We have that Hakeem Jeffries video for you all when we come back from the break. You don't want to miss that story. And later in the show, we'll discuss how House Democrats are starting to finally think about who will take a leadership role once Nancy Pelosi is no longer speaker. We'll give you those details and more when we return.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access, members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon