The Young Turks - The Young Turks - October 26, 2020

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Trump's Chief of Staff indicates that the White House has given up trying to control the pandemic. 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. Thank you. All right, welcome to the Young Turks, Jake U Granite, Consparing with you guys. It is eight days before the election. Eight days before we decide what is going to happen to this country.

Anna, I am both incredibly excited and now nervous. And I'll tell you, the main reason I'm nervous is not necessarily. necessarily the polling, although it has tightened in some places. I think it's, I think Trump is doing everything wrong right now, luckily. And so I think it's going to expand again, as there's some indications that's happening right now. But God, never underestimate the ability of a Democrat to bungle things. So cross your fingers, anyway, in about maybe eight days, maybe 10 days, maybe 12 days, whenever

the election is called, either you will hear these magical words. Down goes, oh, Anna, how good is that going to sound? If that happens, how good is that going to sound? Sure, yeah, that'll be great. Let's, why do we, why do we play these games? We don't know what's going to happen. We're wasting time making these predictions. We have lots of news to get to. Let's just do our news. Said the queen of salt. I'm in a mood today. Yeah, yeah. All right, hashtag queen. I'll skip everything else. Let's go forward. All right, let's do it. Oh, I love that. So we actually start off with some pretty depressing news.

Nearly 225,000 Americans have already died from coronavirus. And Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, they're in a white flag during an interview with Jake Tapper over the weekend. Watch. Your website is talking about, well, now we think the spread is coming from small social groups and family groups. First, it was large groups. Now it's small groups. It's coming from all sorts of places. Well, that's exactly the point. That's exactly the point. So here's what we have to do. We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics, and other mitigation areas because it is a contagious virus, just like the flu. Yeah, but why not

make efforts to contain it? Well, we are making efforts to contain it. By running all over the country, you not wearing a mask? That's what the vice president's doing. We can get into the back, back and forth. Let me just say this is what we need to do is make sure that we have the proper mitigation factors, whether it's therapies or vaccines or treatments, to make sure that people don't die from this, but to suggest that we're going to actually quarantine all of America, lock down our account. No one saying that. Well, they are. Joe Biden saying that. He says, lock everybody down. We're going to have a dark, we're going to have a dark winter. We're going to have a That's what health officials say.

That's what health officials say. So there you have it. He says we're not going to try to control the pandemic. I think that that was already pretty obvious based on the numbers that we've been experiencing here in the United States, especially compared to other developed countries. And again, 225,000 Americans, nearly that many Americans dead during this pandemic. And, you know, the Trump administration to their credit, They do say the quiet parts out loud.

You know, on one hand, you'll have Scott Atlas, you know, engage in the motions of pursuing herd immunity, which could lead to as many as, you know, four million Americans dying from this pandemic. But then at the same time, denying that they're engaging in herd immunity or implementing that kind of strategy. And then you have Mark Meadows, again, saying the quiet parts out loud, saying that they're not going to try to control it. The administration continues to consistently disregard advice from government health.

experts, for instance, to wear masks, social distance, and avoid large gatherings as a way to curb the spread of the virus. Easy things to do. You don't even need to shut down the economy to do this. The White House is also facing a potential second outbreak. We're in the middle of it right now, we're at the beginning of it, actually, of the virus after at least five people in Pence's inner circle have tested positive in recent days. And, you know, Pence is considered a so-called essential worker because he's essentially doing campaigning for Trump and for the Trump administration, that's the most important thing he can do. So it doesn't matter that he's been around people who have the virus. He's still doing campaigning. The administration is still

refusing to take this coronavirus seriously. And so more Americans will die as a result. Okay, so first of all, let's clarify Mike Pence being an essential worker. That's what Mark Meadows claimed in that interview. He could be an essential worker. as the head of the coronavirus task force, but he could do that remotely while quarantined. But that is not what he's doing. He is going and campaigning as vice president to get reelected. What part of that is essential? It's essential maybe for his career, for Donald Trump's ego, but that is not an essential health worker or an essential worker in any other definition. And it's much more dangerous because he's now going in front of crowds without masks,

even though five people on his team now have tested positive for coronavirus, including his chief of staff. So they couldn't find a better way to advertise how little they care about you. So now let's go to Mark Meadows. You know, when I saw the headline that he said, we're not going to try to contain it, I thought, I wonder if it's taken out of context. Because even for this White House, that seems so insane, right? So I watch the whole thing and he does say, hey, we're going to do the vaccines and the therapeutics, etc. And that's in almost all the media stories. But over the course of at least six minutes of that interview, about four times he downplays the idea of trying to control or contain the disease through mass.

So it was not taken out of context, and it was completely accurate to what he was trying to say, which is we'll treat the disease, but basically we're not going to try to contain the disease. We've given up. So, hey, it spreads like the fluid, spreads like the cold. Now, you could take measures, but we have chosen not to. And when asked why, over and over by Jake Tapper, he kept saying, freedom. You know, we don't want to take away people's freedoms when they come to the events for Donald Trump to rallies.

We make everything optional. We don't require masks. Pence wears the mask, he said, sometimes, and he doesn't wear it other times. Trump never wears it now. And Tapper clarified, so you're telling Americans to follow those CDC guidelines, but you guys are clearly not following the CDC guidelines yourself. And he had no answer for that. His answer was, we're not trying to control the disease or contain it.

We're trying to just treat it afterwards. Okay, that is giving up. And it's a stunning thing to say eight days before an election. Unreal. So, and then, and I also want to show the graphs here because I want people to understand what we're talking about when we say it's raging now. It's not, hey, this is the third time around and it's another bump up. No, this is the highest it's ever been in the whole 11 months. So over the last seven days, they do a seven-day average.

It is the highest seven-day average since the beginning of this year, since we ever found out that there was a coronavirus. So you remember the huge spike in March and April? Well, you see it there. There's the April spike, right? You remember that as a huge April spike, right? No, but actually the July-August spike was worse. and now the October spike is even worse. This chart right here is what incompetence looks like.

Yeah, absolutely. And what you'll hear from the Trump administration, it's been a line that has been used for months now, is that the reason why the United States looks so bad is because we just do a better job than anyone else when it comes to our testing, but that's not the case. So if you take a look at the daily coronavirus tests per capita, per capita.

So this accounts for the difference in populations in all these countries. The United States is not the best when it comes to testing. We're all the way at the bottom of this list. Luxembourg, the UAE, Bahrain, Spain, Singapore, Belgium, the UK, Ireland, Russia, all of these countries perform more tests per capita than the United States. And this is according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Now, if you look at daily coronavirus cases, these are new cases. The United States is at the top of that list.

It does not look good. This is the seven day average. The United States is above 61,000 new cases per day. And if you look at the total COVID deaths per capita, we're pretty high up there, although there are a bunch of countries that are ahead of us, not in a good way, obviously, in the the number of coronavirus deaths per capita, Peru, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Spain, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico. And then you have the United States with 68 COVID deaths per capita. But remember, we're talking about the richest country in the world with so many resources that could be utilized

in order to keep people safe. And just a simple campaign that encourages people to wear masks when they're out in public, encourages people or discourages people from gathering in large groups. The Trump administration is incapable of doing any of it. Donald Trump believes, and he has said this, he has said it explicitly during an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he believes that when people wear masks, it makes him look bad. It goes back to his own vanity, and it shows that he has absolutely no regard for people's lives. What he cares about first and foremost is how he appears.

Even when he knows that discouraging people from wearing masks means more people are going to die under his watch, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care. Okay, so let's be fair and share the per capita numbers across the board. So yes, overall in raw numbers, we're number one in most cases in the world and number one in most deaths in the world. Now, obviously there are more populous countries than us like India and China, but we are among the more populist countries. countries. So what is it per capita? Well, both in cases and deaths, we're number nine. Hey, that's better than number one, as in the worst. But that means we're ninth worst out of over 200 countries. Not out of 10 countries, not out of 20 countries. We're ninth worst per capita in both cases and deaths out of over 200 countries. So yes, all those countries, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uruguay, you name it, it doesn't matter. We're ninth worst per capita.

And so we do a lot of testing, but Anna showed you the per capita testing. But other countries like Singapore, which has done a fantastic job of containing the disease, they test 10 times as much as we do. So then finally, Trump says, well, we do a lot of testing. We're among the leaders in testing, right? Okay, well, then he's implying that that is why we have so many cases. All right, now let me break that down for you real quick. So, guys, if it was because of the testing that we are reporting more cases,

the more testing we do, our percentage of people who have coronavirus to the number of people who have been tested would go down. Because we're testing so many people, you'll have a lower and lower percentage of cases if the number of cases are not really that high, right? But recently, the number of cases per test has gone up, not down. And that means no matter how much you test, we're getting a higher percentage of people testing positive because tons and tons of people actually have it. And so now they're starting to get overloaded in El Paso, Texas. These are the hospitals and health care providers.

And in Utah, guess where the worst outbreaks are? The Dakotas, number one and two, North Dakota and South Dakota. Huh, what happened in the Dakotas? Oh, right, that biker rally, Sturgis, and they were all tough guys, and they didn't wear masks. We don't need no sticking masks. We're not going to get coronavirus. Oops, they got it. A lot of them got it.

That's why North Dakota and South Dakota are number one and two. By the way, Montana's in the top five. Idaho's at the top. Gee, I wonder what happened right around there. Minnesota's near the top because of them. because if you don't wear masks, the disease goes out of control. And now the Trump administration has come all the way back around to go, yes, so what? We're going to let this disease that has killed 225,000 Americans rage out of control and hope to treat it at a later time.

Yeah, it's just absolutely devastating. And what's devastating is even when members of their own administration suffer the consequences of their disgusting, anti-science message, they still don't make any changes, which takes me to our second story on Mike Pence. So several of Vice President Mike Pence's staffers have tested positive for coronavirus. But Pence refuses to self-quarantine, even though the CDC indicates that he should self-quarantine. He claims that he and his wife have taken coronavirus tests and they've tested negative. So as a result, as a so-called essential worker, he's going to run around and do campaigning for Trump in several different states. So at least five people in Vice President

Mike Pence's orbit have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days. That includes his chief of staff, Mark Short, close aide, Zach Bauer, and outside advisor Marty Ops. Short has been a key aid involved in the U.S. coronavirus response, he has been reported to have advocated for an economy first approach to the pandemic. He has also been one of the driving forces in the Trump administration to basically discourage listening to Dr. Anthony Fauci or any of the advice he has in regard to the pandemic. Now, Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, recently had an interview with Jake Tapper, where he indicated that they believe that Mike Pence truly is, an essential worker. Let's watch. Short is now positive for the virus. That's correct. So

CDC guidelines say that vice president Pence should quarantine for 14 days. Now, I understand the White House is trying to get around that by saying the vice president is an essential worker. But Mark, how is going all over the country? How is that campaigning? How is that essential work? It's not like he's helping to contain the virus. In fact, the opposite, he's holding rallies that could be spreading the virus. Well, actually, he's not just campaigning. He's working. He was in a campaign rally in Tallahassee. He was just in a campaign rally in Tallahassee. I'm not saying he's not campaigning. I'm saying that that is only part of what he's doing. And as we look at that, essential personnel, whether it's the vice president of the United States

or anyone else, has to continue on. Jake, CDC guidelines. Well, no, Jake, CDC guidelines does say essential personnel. Yes, it says they wear a mask. If they wear a mask. And I spoke to the vice president last night at midnight. And I can tell you that what he's doing is wearing a mask, socially distancing. And when he goes up to speak, he will take the mask off, put it back on. This is all about helping Donald Trump campaign and nothing more. It's not about doing essential work. Essential work would actually be sitting down, listening to members of the CDC, listening to Dr. Anthony Fauci, and carrying out their guidelines, encouraging Americans to wear masks and keep themselves safe during this pandemic. Pence has engaged in none of that, zero percent of that.

The essential work that they're referring to is campaigning, and I'll give you the specific examples. Pence, for instance, is going to Minnesota on Monday and back to North and South Carolina on Tuesday. He's also expected to return to the upper Midwest this week. The official said Pence would continue to be tested, but like Trump, still plans to be on the road every day for the next week. And of course, he's rarely seen wearing a mask while he's doing this. So, Cenk, take it away.

Yeah, well, how about the Biden-Harris team? You know, there was an outbreak of two people on Harris' team that got this a little bit earlier. Oh, yeah, she stopped campaigning. Is Pants going to do likewise? Of course not. And look, I think they fundamentally don't understand simple facts, even when it comes to their own health. I mean, Trump keeps saying, even after you got coronas, I learned a lot when I got coronavirus. You should have learned a lot on our behalf 10 months ago.

Anyways, but then he goes on to say, you know, I got treated. Some say a cure. No, no one says a cure. You're an idiot. You don't know a thing. So Mike Pence keeps saying, no, it's okay. I'm getting tested. No, I know that's good.

Then you know whether you got it or you didn't. But that getting tested doesn't mean you prevented it. I mean, do you not? It's possible they don't understand this really. simple things like that. Testing is after the fact to see if you have it. The test doesn't prevent you from getting it. I don't think they even understand that. They're incredibly dense. And of course, whatever they do understand, now if you're MAGA and you go, no, they get it, man. They just want to spread it to us. But they're smart enough to understand they're spreading

it. Wait, how's that better? We showed you that video of a rally there. Almost nobody had mass. They're all scrunched up next to one another. I mean, it's, this is Darwinism on steroids. If Darwin was around to see this, he'd be like, hashtag told you. Okay. But Jake, but the one thing, the one thing that I wish people would understand is if Mike Pence gets coronavirus, it's not like he's going to show up to an overcrowded hospital and they're going to tell him to F off because they don't have the resources to take them in and treat him.

That's what average Americans are going to deal with. And that's assuming they have health care coverage and feel comfortable walking into a hospital without having to deal with bankruptcy later. So the point that I wish people overall average Americans would understand is that the world that these people live in, that Trump administration officials live in, is very different from the world that average Americans live in. If you get sick in El Paso and you're an average American, you show up, it's very likely right now considering how overwhelmed their hospitals are at the moment that you'll get turned away. That there's no way that you're going to get the treatment you need. And that's again, assuming that you have health care coverage. Let's say you don't have health care coverage and you're lucky enough to get taken in by a hospital that isn't overwhelmed. You're very likely going to deal with bankruptcy later on. I mean, we live in a different world than members of Trump's administration. They're so brazen about their disregard for human lives.

It's unbelievable to me, it absolutely is. Okay, now speaking of El Paso and Utah, let me read you a quote from how Utah is handling the overflow at their hospitals. Quote, this is from here, I'll give you the source in a second. It's from a local paper. They said, under the proposed rationing criteria, patients who are getting worse, despite receiving intensive care would be moved out first. People who are getting worse would be moved out of intensive care first. Why? Because they're already going to die. Hold on, let me keep reading. And back to the quote, if two patients' conditions are equal, the young get priority

over the old since older patients are more likely to die. That's a literal quote. That's That's from the Salt Lake Tribune. Guys, do you know what that is? That's a death panel, literally, literally. And I don't blame the hospitals. And I don't blame them for asking for guidance from the Utah state government or the federal government. I'm overflowing, I do not have enough beds, I do not have enough doctors and nurses.

I've got to prioritize, tell me who I should let die, and who I should try to save. So that is a fair question under the circumstances. But the government has gotten so bad, so incompetence, so inept, and now Mark Meadows declaring, no, we're not going to try to contain the disease, that they've got to give them guidance on who to put on a death panel. So, I mean, after they made up a thing called death panels about Obamacare and pretended they cared so deeply about it, now we have actual death panels in the country under Trump.

They're like, who cares, man? Just let him die from the pro-life party. The herd immunity idea, don't wear masks, we'll all get it, and eventually it'll go away, means yes, when we all get it, a certain percentage will die. We've already had a couple hundred thousand die. That means a lot more people will die. And it's a death panel. So what?

We'll ration and care. Now, on top of all this, you still have Republicans, some corporate Democrats, and almost all the media asking Kamala Harris and Joe, are you guys socialists? Are you in favor of socialized medicine? Wait, are you in favor of privatized medicine? Privatized medicine, along with the inept Trump administration, is what's killing these people in the first place. So if you don't understand, guys, this is so important. Not only do I want you to know this, but I want you to go tell your family members and friends of this,

because it's true and you could look it up for yourself. The rest of the world, as they're dealing with coronavirus, they don't have to worry about paying for tests, treatment, or any of that. They just show up and they get treatment because they have socialized medicine. Everybody gets treatment. Here in America, well, do you have the money? You don't have the money? Go die.

You have another issue? Well, we're not containing it anymore. Go die. Oh, I didn't make a profit off of you staying alive. Go die. The rest of the world thinks we're barbaric. You're going to tell me that there's somebody's got a coronavirus and you're going to reject health care for them?

And we go, yeah, sure, why not? The rest of the world goes, you guys are nuts. You let your own citizens die that way. They're like, but we go, yeah, but we protect them by spending all of our money on the defense industry. What are you talking about? Who's invading America? So you wasted all of your money on tanks and missiles and all these things that you never even use? And when people are actually dying by the hundreds of thousands inside your country, you just let them die.

Yep. So this system we have here is absolutely. immoral and barbaric. Yes, we need to have universal health care like the rest of the civilized world, and that is not where we are. So which then, when we're talking about non-civilized world, leads me to Fox News. So Fox News has a contagion, coronavirus spreading throughout the building. Say it with me. Of course, of course it is. Now their top anchors are having to quarantine. Where do they get it? They got it while covering the last debate.

And was it because they might have been exposed to Republicans? Likely, yeah. All the Democrats wear masks. The Republicans don't wear a mask. Fox News covering the debate gets coronavirus. Gee, I wonder where they got it from. Now, it could have been from something else. It could have been at the airport, et cetera.

But it could not have been on a plane that they were sharing with others because one of my favorite parts of this story is they apparently go sick. on their private jet on the way back to New York. I do declare, okay? Well, that must be nice. Well, it would turn out not to be so nice because then they spread it to one another and they're all going to have to quarantine.

So the guys that are quarantining now are the president of Fox News Media, Fox News Media, Jay Wallace. Enjoy this irony. Chief political anchor Brent Baer, Martha McCallum, Dana Perina, Juan Williams. Now, do we wish ill on any of them,

their staffers or the people quarantining. I'm not saying the people whose names I read are quarantining. They don't necessarily, they haven't tested positive for coronavirus yet. They're getting tests now. So do I wish them poor health? Of course not. And especially because there are people like Juan Williams in there who've been fighting the good fight, trying to tell the Fox News audience, you guys are nuts.

And he got exposed as well. The staffers, God knows what their political affiliations are. And I feel terrible for them. But for the folks on air who kept telling people it's not a big deal, now it turns out they got to quarantine themselves in the middle of this election. It's hard to feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for them. So I'll quote the president who they love so much. It is what it is. All right.

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All right, back on a Young Turks, Jane Canana with you guys. As folks have said, a dark winter is coming. And luckily, we've got you guys on our side and a couple of sponsors that have stuck with us through thick and thin. As part of why we're going to do this aspiration fund contest. After the election, I'm going to get together with four of you that have aspiration accounts. It's just a private meeting slash call, obviously, in these times. And we're going to talk about what happened in the election, and we're going to talk about what the strategy is for progressives going forward.

So if you already have an aspiration account, you don't have to do anything, you automatically get entered. If you don't yet, aspiration.com slash t-y-t. And then when you get an account, we plant 10 trees, you get entered into this contest, so that you and I can talk after the election. And they keep planting trees, by the way, the more. you use the account and they never put your money in fossil fuels and they have great rates. So check it out, aspiration.com slash t-y-t instead of a traditional bank.

All right, and then I wanted to see where you guys are in t-y-t.com slash go. That's what has kept us healthy, sustainable, and intact this year, $95,000 and $4. That's wonderful. We're trying to get to $200,000. So, you know, every amount helps. We get to 96,000 before then the show. That would be amazing. That helps keep us in business and all the folks that are working here.

Speaking of which, let me read some wonderful names that just signed up on YouTube. Melissa Streeter, John Dylan, essentially, Angelin, all just signed up and JazzT upgraded by hitting the join button below. If you're watching on YouTube, you're watching anywhere else, t.com slash join. Speaking of anywhere else, on Twitch, we got Ford Prefect, who just signed up as a sub. And Irene Man, Tremu, Batiki, and Depressed Progressive, all donated bits, which, again, all of this makes a huge difference. So thank you guys from the bottom of our hearts. Time for just one comment. Ryan Walton using Super Chat said, telling people to wear a mask is taking away your freedom, but you wear a seatbelt to save lives and protect yourself.

What's the difference? And of course, the reality is there is no difference. By the way, back then, conservatives fought wearing seatbelts. They thought it should not be mandatory and that we should allow people to fly out of their cars through their windshields and onto the pavement head first. They were wrong then, they were wrong now, since we didn't listen to them, we saved literally millions of lives. All right, Anna, back to you.

Anna, you're muted. I was muted. I'm not anymore. Yeah, I was going to say, I didn't know whether I couldn't hear you. Yeah, I couldn't tell if I couldn't hear you or if the whole country. Mark Zuckerberg did it. Yeah. Okay. All right, sorry, my, my mic was muted, okay.

Mark Zuckerberg did not do it. Let's talk about Santa. So, health and human services scrapped a strange coronavirus program and evolving Santa Claus performers wasting $250 million in taxpayer money. Now the brainchild of this project was Michael Caputo, who's still on a 60 day medical leave because he spouted insane conspiracy theories. But let me tell you about what this plan entailed. HHS assistant secretary Michael Caputo wanted the Santa performers to promote the benefits of a COVID-19 vaccination and in exchange offered them early vaccine access ahead of the general public according to audio recordings. Those who perform as Mrs.

Clause and elves also would have been included. Now, there were some issues here. And the main issue was that while this might seem like a public health PSA coordinated PR stunt, really at the heart of what was going on was more pro-Trump campaigning. And so officials kind of figured out what was going on and they scrapped the project. Again, Caputo, Caputo is still on a 60-day medical leave, but here he is saying that Santa Claus performers are essential workers who are incredibly important to this cause. Listen. It's quite clear, but for my essential workers, health workers, we'll be among those early vaccine or vaccinated early. And from my perspective is,

If you and your colleagues are not essential workers, I don't know what it is. Oh, I love you. So the person you heard. Oh, ho, oh, oh, oh, that was real, by the way, that was real. No, it was real. No, but, okay, let me just say the person who was ho ho hoeing, He sounds like a lovely gentleman. His name is Rick Irwin. He's the chairman of the fraternal order of real bearded Santas. I just love that that's a thing and it exists. And I love that Santa Claus performers have some representation. Like that makes it, that genuinely makes me happy.

But anyway, Caputo's insane. And finally, HHS realized what was going on. They had to scrap the project. But they wasted $250 million in taxpayer money on the project before it was scrapped. It's just out of control. I have more details, but Cenk, why don't you jump it? Yeah, so first of all, on the Santas, they wanted to make sure that they get them out there by mid-September. Santa's in mid-September. Wouldn't it make sense to get people the vaccine information, because that was supposed to be the heart of it, the vaccine information. Number one, when the vaccine comes out, it hasn't come out yet. And number two, around the time that you would normally see Santa.

Gee, I wonder why they wanted it in September and October instead. Hmm, what happens right after October? Oh, in November 3rd, there's the election. I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. They just wanted Santa to get out there early. You know, early, Santa gets the worm. So, look, I don't know whether to make light of it or not because, normally the fact that Michael Caputo is on leave for having a mental breakdown is not something

you'd be lighthearted about. But they're treating Caputo's ideas like they weren't mental. To be fair to Caputo, I don't know why Trump's not on the same leave. Trump says the same things as Caputo. Trump believes the same conspiracies as Caputo. And Caputo said, oh my God, Trump's going to love the Santa idea. Does anyone think that he wouldn't have loved the idea of Santa coming out in October to tell people that there's a vaccine when there isn't one? So, I mean, then you really got to break a couple of different pieces of news to your kids about the vaccine and Santa.

So there were, look, there were several things wrong with this plan. Number one, there's no vaccine. And he was planning as though a vaccine had already been approved. And he had promised that the Santa performers would be able to get a, like, get early access to the vaccine if they take part in this project. And so, I mean, it was, it was a win-win for the performers. And it really did get their hopes up because, keep in mind, like, because of coronavirus, they're worried about their livelihoods. They're worried about whether or not they're going to get the seasonal work that many of them rely on. And so this got their hopes up when it came to that. But it also got their hopes up in regard to having early access to a vaccine, which again, doesn't quite exist yet. There are some promising studies being done right now, some promising, you know, updates on it, but we still don't have a firm date or a firm vaccine to rely on. Also, the coronavirus ad effort titled COVID-19 public health and reopening America public service

announcements and advertising campaigns, it was very lengthy, was intended to defeat, despair, inspire, hope and achieve national recovery. It was to include television, radio, online, and podcast announcements starting immediately. But as I mentioned earlier, and we did talk about this story, at least a portion of this story earlier, there were celebrities who were supposed to take part in this, including Dennis Quaid, and they ended up dropping out once they realized that this was really more about pro-Trump campaigning than it was about spreading accurate information for public health reasons. In fact, here's Dennis Quaid getting real salty about it in an Instagram video.

So I did a PSA for Dr. Anthony Fauci, and he was kind enough to grant me an interview as well. And the interview and PSA were about raising awareness of COVID-19 and what we can still do to prevent lives being lost by this terrible, terrible virus. It was about the importance of wearing a mask, about social distancing and it was in no way political. In fact, Dr. Anthony Fauci and I both talked about it before that it was not to be political. This virus is not political. I was not paid one penny for doing this interview and neither was Dr. Anthony Fauci. I am really disappointed that some people who call themselves legitimate reporters don't do their homework.

Okay, Mr. Quaid, but like I get that in his mind this was all about, and I'm sure he had no idea that this was really meant to put out pro-Trump propaganda ahead of the campaign. I'm positive he had no idea that that was really the heart of this whole project. But the Trump administration is known for pulling these kinds of tricks. Instead of getting angry at the media, maybe get a little frustrated at the lack of communication between you and whoever was communicating with you from the Trump administration. But anyway, he's not at fault. Dennis Quaid is not at fault. He thought he was doing a kind thing, a good thing.

And unfortunately, he got the short end of the stick. So I don't want anyone to get upset with him. But this is the kind of stuff. These are the types of stunts that members of the Trump administration pull all the time. And again, I'm going to just mention that $250 million figure because while you have right-wingers nickel and diming the American public when it comes to coronavirus relief, they're just throwing money away at nonsense like this. It's just infuriating. Yeah. So first of all, on Dennis Quaid, I'll double down on he didn't do anything wrong.

And he said later, you know, people saying this was to help Trump, nothing could be further from the truth. So that's an interesting indication. And certainly, if you're him and you're talking to Fauci, you don't necessarily think you're doing anything political at all. But one of the reasons why people are getting on him is because I think they're confusing him for his brother. Randy Quaid is full-blown mental and supports Donald Trump 120%. So, I mean, if you've ever seen any of Randy Quaid's videos online, you're like, whoa, what in the world happened to that guy? So Dennis Quaid's got to be super frustrated given the situation and what people are assuming about him. But, you know, and I keep using the word mental here and people say, hey, Chang, is that right or whatever?

But guys, there's a giant percentage of this country, 30 to 40% of the country, who are following people with literal mental breakdowns, whether it's Caputo, it's Roseanne Barr, Glenn Beck, Randy Quaid, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, Kanye West, you name it. So if people were not taking them seriously and they were getting them mental health counseling, I'd be. the first one in line to say, yes, let's get them help, right? But when they say, no, no, they're not crazy. Randy Quaid and Donald Trump and Giuliani have it figured out. And it's because the fake media is creating a COVID, COVID, COVID, as Trump is saying. And they won't, you know, maybe I should make it illegal for them to talk about it. Well, if you're going to say that, well, then I'm going to call you mental. And so don't, don't pretend that these people don't have mental health problems when they clearly do. You keep pretending it. I'm going to keep

pointing it out. Now back to the program, finally, look, $250 million is a giant amount of money, even for the government. That's a huge amount of money. And don't get it twisted. If they actually had a vaccine and they were doing real public service announcements to tell people how to take it and how to be safe about it, there'd be nothing wrong with that. The problem here was it turned out that it was just propaganda for Trump. And when people realize that, they're like, no, no, you're not allowed to do that. You can't pretend to be helping people with a vaccine that doesn't even exist in order to do Trump commercials right before the election. Not only is that ethically wrong, it's actually also illegal. It's a violation of the Hatch Act. I'm sure to which Trump said,

so what? I'm above the law. They impeached me and those Senate Republicans, they're my dogs. And they told me I could break any law I like. So I broke that one too. Well, that's true. They are your dogs and they do allow you to break any law you want. It still doesn't make it right and people should not participate in it. When we come back from the break, Amy Coney Barrett is currently getting confirmed to the Supreme Court. We'll give you updates on that and more come right 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 our data.

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ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. All right, back on a young church, Jank and Anna with you guys. There's only eight days left before the election. Obviously come here for election day, not just night, but election day. It might turn into election week, but it starts at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern.

John Ida Roll is going to kick it off, and we are going to be here throughout the day. And most of our hosts are going to join us throughout the day as well. It's going to be amazing. I know conservatives are going to tune in, so progressives should as well. So can't wait, come and see. Now I'm going to go to you guys, the members. Charlie said, what a ho-ho horrible idea. Progressive pirates said that the Santa sounded like Jank.

Some truth to that. Pocket in a pocket rode in, oh, come on, Jank. You know very well that the reason Santa's are coming in mid-September. It's because they won the war on Christmas in the months of September through November are the spoils of war. Good point. I hadn't considered that. That's why we do the show with our members. TYT.com slash join to become a member. Get your comments read first. And members on YouTube that just joined are James Tillman, not that Donald, and Hector Cruz. They hit the

join button below. If you're watching on YouTube, that's the way to do it, or to upgrade. And finally, Game Set John rated with 62 viewers on Twitch and donated 300 bits as well. What does any of that mean? You'll have to go on our Twitch channel to find out Twitch.tv slash t-y-T. Rating is actually a good thing, not a bad thing on Twitch, and also for the Young Turks. We're raiders of the best sort. All right, Casper. What?

I said, Casper. All right, let's do it. Oh, I thought you said Kara. I'm like, we'll get to that story later, Jake. In the post game, we'll talk about Kara Eastman, amazing story. or you don't want to miss tyt.com slash join to become a member. All right, now let's talk about not so great Amy Coney Barrett. All right, so Amy Coney Barrett is set to be confirmed by the Republican controlled Senate, and it's likely to happen today, landing Donald Trump, his third, that's three

Supreme Court confirmations before the upcoming election. The final vote is scheduled at 7.30 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, meaning that the, if things are going as scheduled, it's happening right now as we 30 days after Trump announced, he was nominating Barrett for the seat left vacant by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on September 18th. The vote could be held later, though, if Democrats forced delays, which means that the vote is happening right now. Democrats are not able to do anything, including forced delays. The White House is considering holding a swearing-in ceremony for Barrett after the vote, either late Monday, meaning tonight or Tuesday, according to an administration official.

Now, there were some attempts by Democrats to filibuster, but to filibuster virtually. Let's see how that went. Hi, everybody. And thank you for joining us for our court, Our Voices, Digital Rally. We're going to go right through until 7 p.m. tonight, which is when we think Mitch McConnell and his Republican-led Senate

are going to hold the vote on Amy Coney Barrett. Vote. Vote early. vote with your friends. Call everyone you know across the country. Make your voices heard. That is how we will end the hijacking of our democracy. So it's exciting to see how everyone is mobilizing people from coast to coast

to demand that our Supreme Court remain our court. With that much at stake, I'm voting no on Judge Barron's nomination. Thank you for having me here today. and for all you've done to support the cause of equal justice under the law. Remember, this isn't Donald Trump country. It is Americas. And yeah, this shouldn't be Donald Trump's judge. It should be yours.

But we have the final word. And the final word is this election. Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans know that you want to vote before the Senate does. Make sure they know that you do not want your health care terminated by President Trump. So keep speaking out, keep telling your stories, know that your voices make a difference, and know that we're going to keep fighting to protect our health care. Wow, that looks like it really worked. No, Clarence Thomas is going to administer the constitutional oath to Amy Coney-Barritt.

tonight based on Fox News reporting. So full steam ahead. The Republicans have the votes necessary to confirm Amy Coney Barrett. And one more point I want to make before I toss to you, Jank. So remember, Senator Lisa Murkowski had some strong words. You know, no, this is wrong. I think that we should wait until the next president gets elected and that president gets to decide who the next Supreme Court justice to be confirmed should be. And she has changed her tune. So according to NBC News, Senator Murkowski reversed course over the weekend and said that she would vote in favor of the nomination, despite previously voicing opposition to confirming a justice before election day. Senator Susan Collins, who is one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans running for reelection, said that she would vote against Barrett.

So Murkowski is a yes, Collins is a no, but it doesn't matter because as we know, the Senate Republicans have enough votes to confirm. firm Amy Coney Barrett. Okay, I have a lot to say. First of all, I don't want to criticize the good people who put that together in terms of the progressive groups that were involved. They're trying their best, not their fault. But now let me clarify for the Democratic senators involved. There is no such thing as a digital filibuster. That's a made-up phrase. It's not a thing in law. There's no such thing as a filibuster for Supreme Court justices because Mitch McConnell took it away. Right now, Joe Biden is reluctant to take away the filibuster. if the Democrats get the House, the Senate, and the White House, without taking away the filibuster

on legislative issues, the Democrats will get exactly zero passed. Nothing will be passed. Mitch McConnell took away the Supreme Court filibuster in a second. He did it immediately without any hesitation because he plays hardball. Democrats, meanwhile, are still playing patty cakes. So there is no filibuster. Could they have done anything? Yes. When Amy Coney Barrett was announced, I told you guys there was five different legislative maneuvers they could have done to delay the proceedings. And they only needed to delay it by about a week. And here we are, eight days before the election, and they couldn't even delay it one day, not one minute, not one second. Because there are no such things as digital filibusters.

There's actually legislative moves, you can go back and watch our videos to get all the details of what they could have done. You know out of the five maneuvers, how many they did? Zero, they did absolutely none of them. And so this whole expanding the court, I'll just give you one example. Why was that an idea in the first place? It was so that to tell the Republicans, if you try to put Barrett on the court, okay, then you're going to force us to expand the court. So we're telling you right now you put her on the court and we're going to put four new people on the court, or three or five or whatever it is, and it'll be out of our hands because you'll have forced

our hands. So don't you dare do it. Instead they were like, I don't know, we might pack the court later. That's not a political threat. And then what happened? And then since you didn't know what the hell you were doing, and honestly on this one, Joe Biden was totally incompetent, it became a liability. Because no, he never told people why they were thinking of expanding the court. He never actually said it's because you're putting Barrett on the court and you block Garland. So it seemed like out of nowhere, the Democrats want to unfairly pack the court because they suck at this. And I get frustrated because the media is a bunch of fluffers for the Democratic establishment. So are you ever going to point out their epic incompetence? You couldn't, the Democratic

leadership couldn't get Merrick Garland on the court and they had over a year, they had over a year, they're putting, the Republicans are putting Barrett on the court with a week left before the election. And yet every media person when you ask them, hey, what do you think of Pelosi and Schumer? They're like, oh, brilliant, master tacticians. Joe Biden, everybody, brilliant, brilliant, really. The way they constantly give away all of our advantages of the Republicans, There's such geniuses. And then when I criticize them now, people say, Jake, this is not the time to criticize.

When do we criticize after she's on the court? Well, you know, it's right before the election. And remember what they're saying in the video. Vote for me, give me power. To do what? To do what? You just bungled one of the most important issues. Remember what they say?

You've got to vote for Democrats because of the Supreme Court. Here they go, screw the Supreme Court. We're not going to do anything to stop the Supreme Court nomination. But vote for us anyway. Wait a minute, that's the exact opposite of what you've been telling us for decades. And you know the other point of that was not to actually block her. It was to raise money for their own power. Fine, no problem.

As long as you use that power to get people on the Supreme Court and to block their nominees. But you don't because you are historically bad at politics. But yet no one in the media will call them out. All right, we got to go to a post game. What a corporate Democrat did to Cara Eastman is beyond outrageous. So we're going to do that in the post game for members. Hit the join button below. We'll see you there in a minute.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.