The Young Turks - Toilet Trouble

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

A billionaire who supported Trump in 2020 says he talks to Joe Manchin every week and urges him to ‘stay tough.’ Arizona State Police are recommending charges for the protesters that followed Sen Sinema into the bathroom. Five Veterans quit Kyrsten Sinema’s advisory council in protest. Bernie Sanders to Host “What’s in the Damn Bill” online panel discussion about Democrats’ package. AOC warns that Corporate Lobbyists would love people to ‘Give Up Before the Deal Is Done.’ ‘You Are WEAK!’ Don Lemon ERUPTS on Biden, Democrats: ‘It’s Not Our Job to Sell Your Agenda for You!’ Hosts: Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur 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 to the on Turks, Jake, you know, I figured out when I'm in a really good mood. It moved so well that people start to say, is it the too strong God be or is he high or what's happening, right? Is when all my work for the day is done and I sit down here and I'm ready to go and I'm like, let's do this. Yeah, you got me presenting, that's why.

Yes. Right? See, genius. No, I got to be honest, this is my favorite part of the day as well. Like all day long, it's grunt work, grunt work, grunt work, grunt work. And then it's all for this moment. This moment is what makes it all pay off. Oh, there you go, okay.

The rest of the day, we're making sausages. You don't want to see. All right, anyways. So lots of news, as always, good stuff, disastrous stuff. So Casper. Let's talk about the company Senator Joe Manchin likes to keep. So Senator Joe Manchin apparently has been meeting with a Trump supporting billionaire, and he's been doing so regularly.

In fact, the billionaire went on. went on CNBC to talk about how they're homies, how he's encouraging Senator Joe Manchin to fight back against Joe Biden's build back better agenda, which would improve Americans' lives with things like paid family leave, universal pre-K, do something finally about climate change. This billionaire's name is Nelson Peltz, and here's what he had to say about his special little relationship with Joe Manchin. Manchin seems Senator Joe Manchin seems to be one of, if not the most powerful person in Washington these days, with all due respect, of course, to the president of the United States. Is that how you see it? You are 100% right. Joe is the most important guy in D.C. Maybe the most important guy in America today. He is keeping our election.

elected officials somewhere in the middle. But I gotta take my hat off to Joe, who's been an old friend of mine for 10 years. I call him every week and say, Joe, you're doing great. Say tough, stay tough, buddy. He's phenomenal. So he's been doing great, he's phenomenal. I've talked to him on a regular basis. Now what is he referring to exactly?

How exactly is Joe Manchin doing great? Well, Manchin, along with Senator Kirsten Cinema. Centrist, by the way, is a frustrating label to these corporate sellouts. But anyway, has been working to cut programs and costs out of Biden's so-called build-back better plan, which would spend hundreds of billions of dollars on social programs and the fight against climate change. The price tag for the plan was initially set at $3.5 trillion, but it is now pegged at around $1.5 to $1.9 trillion.

And let me just also note, as I covered in detail yesterday, the corporate tax increases that were proposed by Biden in that legislation have been cut out. So there will not be corporate tax increases. Biden also cut out the two years of free community college. He is not going to make the child tax credit permanent, as he had promised. It will only last an additional year if the legislation passed. I mean, everything that actually mattered is now on the chopping block. And it's because Joe Manchin decided to, you know, hold the line in regard to refusing to vote in favor of the legislation.

Same with Kirsten Cinema. And we've talked in great detail, Jank, about what's really motivating these people. It's not that they're honest actors who are fiscally conservative and genuinely concerned about the future of the country. It's because they're taking calls with these corporate donors, with these Trump supporting billionaires. I'll give you more details about this guy in just a second. And they're the ones who have more sway over their governing than we do as their constituents. Yeah. It's the fact of the matter.

So this guy is a billionaire. He works in Wall Street and he's a Republican. So we're going to get into it more in a second. But even if you weren't any of those things, you've got what Professor Larry Lessig calls politicians leaning to the green. They lean to the green, right? So they do that in several different ways. One is corporate contributions and executive contributions to not just the candidates, but to super PACs and to dark money groups to funnel the millions of dollars.

That alone would do it for them to lean to the green. That's basically legalized property. Then there's a personal financial interest. Joe Manchin did a little bit on the nose. He literally owns a coal company. As TYT is reported, he's made at least five minutes. million dollars from that, his remaining assets in that company is worth at least another $5 million.

So he leans to his own green. But usually the way that that works is somebody like Peltz would make an implicit promise that if you're a good boy, Joe, and you hold up these tax increases, which will save me hundreds of millions of dollars. Later, I'll hire you for $2 million, $5 million, and it'll still be a bargain for me, okay? So that's the second way that they lean to the green. The third way that Professor Lessig talks about is just be in the room with them. Like you're influenced by the people that are around you, you're influenced by your family,

friends, et cetera. Well, Joe Manchin, congressmen and senators like Joe Manchin constantly talk to incredibly wealthy people. So in their bubble, oh my God, he's a hero. All he's hearing all day long from billionaires is you're the most heroic man in America, moderate centuries. By the way, also the media, that's the other thing he hears, and the media is constantly telling him what a wonderful moderate and centrist he is representing the middle of the country

and the real Americans with his moderate stances. Now of course when we showed you the polling that's not remotely true, and of course the billionaires don't represent the actual voters, but that is all the different ways that these corporate politicians lean to the green. It's kind of incredible how much things have changed since the 2012 general election. And Mitt Romney's tremendous wealth was not a positive thing. It was considered such a liability that he and his campaign went out of its way to pretend like he could really connect with the ordinary American, pretending like he's buying

his button down shirts in these three packs sold at Costco. I remember that was like a hilarious line from his campaign. In reality, I mean, it was a liability to him, but somehow things changed in the very next general election in 2016 when all of a sudden the country was convinced that a businessman, even though he was a failed businessman, would be better for the country. Now you have all these members of Congress flaunting their wealth, personally invested in individual stocks, personally invested in companies and other ventures, there are no laws against it. Just today, Senator Elizabeth Warren was talking about how federal officials should not be

able to trade individual stocks. Okay, that's great. I respect Senator Warren, but what are you going to do about it? Tweeting about it's great, I guess, but that's, in my opinion, at this point, nothing more than performative, pandering to people who are incredibly frustrated. Your U.S. Senator, what are you guys going to do about it? And the answer is obviously nothing. Because just yesterday, of course, the Voting Rights Act got voted down by the Republicans, even though they should have no say at all. They're not in the majority, but the Democrats value their Republican colleagues more than they value

their voters. because all of this, everything that you're seeing in the Biden administration is a public negotiation between Democratic Party and its own donors. So which leads us back to Mr. Peltz over here. Let's find out a little bit more about him. So Peltz, as Jank mentioned earlier, is a Republican. In fact, he gave a tremendous amount of money to Donald Trump and was a huge supporter of Donald Trump's up until January 6th. So as CNBC writes, Peltz was previously a big supporter of President Donald Trump, former President Donald Trump, which led to his Florida home being a venue for one of the former commander in chief's 2020 re-election

fundraisers. Tickets for that event, by the way, went up to over $580,000 per couple and was expected to raise $10 million for Trump's then joint fundraising committee that also helped raise cash for the Republican National Committee. Now, data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that Peltz contributed, get this, over $200,000 to the Republican National Committee just during the 2020 election cycle. So that's the guy who's in Joe Manchin's ear on a regular basis. He brags about it on CNBC. And so when his constituents in West Virginia are wondering, why isn't Manson listening to us?

We overwhelmingly support the budget reconciliation bill. Why isn't he fighting for us? because he's fighting for himself. He's fighting for that guy that you see in the image next to me. This peltz guy who, I mean, again, he's a billionaire. His only priority here is to defeat the very legislation that would improve people's lives because he doesn't want to pay his fair share in taxes. He didn't become a billionaire by paying his fair share, right?

Like, this is a guy who wants to game the system and continue gaming the system to his advantage. And they'll do anything and everything to make that happen. Yeah, so it's funny because Trump had all the rhetoric about, oh, the global elites and the big funders and bankers and controlling all the whole world. Turns out he was taking $580,000 per couple from the global elite. You see what a fraud Donald Trump is? Now back to mansion. So Peltz is in finance and there's good guys in finance and there's bad guys and finance and Pels looks to be, okay, but Pels looks to be, I read what their description of their

company was. It's not definitive at all, but it's, it sounded like they're more vulture capitalists. They look for companies that are down and out and they pick them up and then do unspeakable things. Such a productive member of society. What would we do without them? But by the way, in the Wall Street circles, all those guys are considered demigods. If you're wealthy, it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter what you did to get that wealth. And to them, they're like, yeah, we're rescuing these companies by getting tons of debt and then putting that debt in our pocket. And then if they happen to miraculously survive, great. And if they go bankrupt, I already got the money and I already put it in my pocket.

And everybody on CNBC applauds. So what they do is they take out debt on behalf of the company and then they pay themselves a tremendous amount of money. And if the company fails, who cares? They've already paid themselves. Yeah. And I'm not saying that his company does this because you'd have to have more details about it. But some of these private equity guys will literally say, okay. we're going to take out $2 billion on a giant company like Sears, right?

And of the $2 billion, well, we have it now, so we're just going to put it in our bank account. And we're not going to spend it on Sears. And maybe we bought Sears for $500 million. So I already, they already doubled their money. And then with the billion dollars, the $2 billion was supposed to be spent on Sears, but they don't spend it on it. They don't, you mean they're not creating jobs and investing in the company? In fact, Sears then starts to fall apart. A lot of people think this Circus City and Sears and Kmart all went under because of Amazon and Internet.

No, they went under because of private equity guys that absolutely pillaged them and then left them to die. And so that is not something to be celebrating. That's a guy that talks to Joe Manchin every week. Yeah, and by the way, Joe Manchin has other friends that you should be aware of. In fact, CNBC also reported that Manchin has been targeted by the influential libertarian. And I love this libertarian leaning. They're libertarian. Libertarian Coke Network.

Mansions political operations saw massive corporate contributions in the third quarter, including checks from J.P. Morgan Chase, Duke Energy, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, UBS, Americas, and PG&E, Mansions re-election committee finished the third quarter, raising over $1.5 million. So he's definitely getting rewarded for his bad behavior. Yeah, and if you remember the one other guy who said they had regular weekly calls with him was the lobbyist for ExxonMobil. Any reporter treating Joe Manchin like he's a real honest actor is not a reporter. By the way, that is almost every mainstream media reporter.

Every article talks about, oh, he's concerned about the debt and he's concerned about inflation, things he was never concerned about under Trump when we were giving away trillions of dollars to the rich. He voted no, but then didn't raise us think about the debt, didn't talk about it, didn't hold things up. Didn't do any of that. And those reporters still write it dutifully. Oh, Joe Manchin is concerned about inflation. Dude, he's concerned about the checks he's getting from Exxon Mobil and Peltz. It's the most obvious thing in the world if you can't see that. Reporting is literally the very worst job for you. But, you know, he's not getting

much pressure on the other side. I mean, the nonstop concessions that we're seeing from Biden, the weakness that we're seeing from Biden. Biden's really the one. who deserves a lot of the criticism because he hasn't used any sticks. I mean, he's letting Mansion get away with all of this. Look, Mansion isn't immovable. We've talked about that so many times on this show. So yes, he's corrupt. He's acting based on self-interest, but he knows that there are no consequences to that, right?

He's not expecting Joe Biden to act the way that Donald Trump would. I mean, think about how Donald Trump would handle this situation. Oh my God, he would have obliterated the Republican senators. who are approves to him. It's traitors to the great people of America. We're going to have to get primary. I'm very disappointed in these senators, very disappointed. You know, if somebody were to take their, you know, get upset and go over to their office,

I would certainly understand. He would say things like that. I mean, look, he's still going after Mitch McConnell, who did Trump's bidding throughout his presidency. But Mitch McConnell spoke out just a little bit after January 6th. And Trump won't let it go. Right? So look, Trump is a dangerous person. Let's just put it that way.

However, he's willing to fight for what he wants. Whereas Biden's like, I don't know, how much more can I give Joe Biden? Joe Manchin. What else can I give up for my own agenda? It's pathetic. Anyway, let's move on to other news. Police from Arizona State University are recommending charges for the four individuals who followed Senator Kirsten's

cinema into the bathroom to protest the fact that she is opposed to the passage of the budget reconciliation bill. These protesters wanted answers. They wanted an explanation for why she's doing this. And so as a result, police from Arizona State University, where cinema teaches, are recommending that four people involved in the incident receive misdemeanor charges related to disruption of an educational institution and disorderly conduct. Neither charge is related to the law that bans recording someone in the bathroom. I want to remind you all of what that scene looked like, and then we'll discuss these proposed charges. Let's watch.

I'll be back. Instead of we want to talk to you real quick, we'll talk to you all right? Actually, I am heading out. But right now is a real moment that our people need in order for us to be able to talk about what's really happening. We need a build back better plan right now. We knocked on doors. We need solutions to build that better plan, need out the solutions that we need. We knocked on doors for you to get you elected.

And just how we got you elected, we can get you out of office if you don't support what you promised us. Now, the law in Arizona indicates that you can't record someone when they don't know about it as they're, you know, in the bathroom doing what they're doing. But clearly, she's in a stall. I wasn't here when you guys covered this story, Jank. I obviously saw the story and I had my own thoughts about it. But it's just fascinating how much rage there is toward these protesters who are just asking for a little bit of this lawmakers' consideration. The same consideration that she gives to her corporate donors, to American donors living abroad in Europe. She took a trip to Europe recently to hold her fundraiser there.

Now, if there's money involved, she might lend you an ear, but if you happen to be a group of activists who want some answers, even if you happen to be an individual who did campaigning on her behalf to help her get elected, she's not interested in listening until, you know, there might be a little bit of money involved. And that's how the system works. So now these individuals might face some misdemeanor charges for what they did. Yeah, so we just said a story about how this billionaire peltz and brags about how he talks to Joe Manchin every week. Exxon Mobil lobbyist brags about how he talks to Joe

Mansion every week. So cinema, if you're a donor, you can get her at any time. In the middle of negotiations, she flew back to Arizona for what? A fundraiser. And then in the middle of the next set of negotiations, she flew to Paris, for what? A fundraiser, right? So if you're a donor, talking to Manchin of Cinema is the easiest thing in the world. Okay, you just calm up and you say, hey, I have a check. They go, yes, sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes, sir, yes, Please, sir, I'm begging you, please, I'll talk to you for hours and hours, right? If you're a constituent, she's like, have them arrested. Have them arrested.

She referred to their behavior as not legitimate. Not legitimate, she said. And then she also said they deceptively entered a locked, secured building. It's a state university. What are you talking about? That's absurd. Okay, yes, we can go to state universities. I know you hate the public, you despise the public.

But the state university is the public university. Right, it's funded by the taxpayers, that's us, that's them, the people who were there. On that day we talked about how of course you shouldn't go to the bathroom, that's overstepping. I say of course actually John and others disagreed. Interesting. Yeah, but does that mean that you should be arrested and locked up when you politely ask questions? Yes, in the wrong place, but no, no, I tell you don't go to people's homes, don't go inside bathrooms, but the people are desperate to talk to their own so-called representatives.

They will not talk to us under now penalty of law for us, not them. And so what are we supposed to do? They won't, cinema will not listen to anything. By the way, people politely came up to her at the airport, the airplane, they asked very gently, they gave heartbreaking stories about their own families. She doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want to hear it, and she had the ring that said F off earlier. meant for her voters, and then she, but it's not who she is.

She's not a tough guy. She's, because you can tell it, when it's the donors, she's incredibly solicitous. All of a sudden, the tough guy act is gone. The same with mansion. When you remember the call with, that mansion had with the donors. And he's like, oh, please get the Republicans to do the things that we need so we can all win. To give people the illusion of bipartisanship in the Senate, because he doesn't want to do away with the legislative filibuster in the Senate. it because that would mean it would be far easier for Democrats to pass legislation that

we desperately need to get passed. But to be honest with you, like really put this all in perspective, okay? Because this is a debate about civility, that's all this is, it's a debate about civility. And I get it in a world where lawmakers are actually listening to their constituents and they're genuinely honest actors as opposed to self-interested narcissists who are just looking out for their own financial. incentives, then yeah, maybe it goes too far. But while that visual that we showed you might seem uncivil, just take a moment to consider

the lack of civility in watching people literally die due to poverty, right? When we talk about the budget reconciliation bill and the child tax credit, that child tax credit was supposed to lift 50% of children out of poverty, which doesn't even go far enough if you ask me. But cinema and Mansion are like, nah, nah, even the 50% that we could lift out of poverty, let's keep them in poverty. I would argue that that's far less civil than what we saw on tape there. And what the elites want, and definitely including the corporate media, is be civil to us. It is not going to be reciprocated.

Exactly. Okay, so when we bomb little kids in Yemen, we're not awfully civil to them. But no one in media really cares. But oh my God, you did something wrong to a senator. I mean, you followed her to a police. Arrest them. Arrest them. But well, how about the people who condone endless killing of civilians, the torture, and all of those things, right?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Those are the elites and they're above the law. And for the rest of you, we present to you the law. Which now you realize it was never about justice. It was about protecting the powerful. The rules are never applied to them. They're only applied to us. That means it's not a justice system.

It's a system to keep us in our place. When we come back from the break, we'll talk about how some who had been working for Senator Sinema are quitting and we'll tell you the reasons why. We'll be right back. All right, back on the Young Turks. with you guys. All right, more devastating stories about Democrats, later Republicans. All right. Five veterans who were serving on Senator Kirsten Cinema's Advisory Council have stepped down from their posts after it turned out that Senator Cinema was a massive disappointment.

These are individuals who had supported her, individuals who were working for her, but she has completely turned her backs on them and of course her own constituents. The veterans took cinema to task for her refusal to abolish the filibuster and her opposition to parts of Mr. Biden's multi-trillion dollar social safety net education, climate, and tax plan stances that have stymied some of his top priorities. So one of the individuals who signed on to this letter and also stepped down was featured in an ad against Cinema. And I want to show you what that look like. This is Sylvia Gonzalez Andresh.

Dear Senator Cinema, as members of your Veterans Advisory Council, we feel as though we are being used as window dressing for your own image and not to provide counsel on what's best for Arizona. You've repeatedly ignored our feedback, urging you to act on three issues that support our veterans and protect the heart of our nation. We must protect voting rights by passing the Freedom to Vote Act. We are appalled by your failure to address this issue. You campaigned on lowering prescription drug prices, but now you're opposing the Bill Back Better Act. Are you choosing to answer to big donors rather than Arizonans? You are a no-show on the vote to establish a commission to investigate the insurrection. These are not the actions of a maverick.

As such, we respectfully resign from your veterans' advisory council. Sincerely, Sylvia Gonzalez, Andrew. David Lucier, Peter, Terry, Aravan. Dana, Alman. Call on the Senator's cinema to support the Billback Better Act now. I love that. Now, the letter that the veteran signed also said the following. You have become one of the principal obstacles to progress answering to big donors

rather than your own people. We shouldn't have to buy representation from you, and your failure to stand by your people and see their urgent needs is alarming. Yeah, you know, I feel pretty good about one thing, and it's pretty significant. When we started talking about the donor money 20 years ago on TYT, everybody thought we were, in media, thought we were nuts. The viewers always believed in listeners, and I don't mean progressive viewers. Americans of all sorts have for a long time, over 90% I've thought the donors were corrupting politicians.

But we couldn't break through. There was a corporate media wall, and so they would never, ever discuss it. The wall's breaking. And so corporate media tear down that wall, okay? And so now it's leaking everywhere. You know, veterans who supported our talking about donors, progressive media is talking about donors nonstop. Ryan Grimm goes on MSNBC, talks to Chris Hayes about it all of a sudden, AOC's talking about donors, Jamal Bowman's talking about the donors, they're on CNN, all of a sudden, water's coming

in from everywhere, and eventually corporate media is going to have to go, all right, donors exist, all right, and maybe, maybe they affect the votes. Like for you guys and for us, it's been the most obvious thing for 20 years. And by the way, I started Wolfpack 10 years ago, 10 years ago, because I was like, well, we can't get anything done. Because all they ever do is listen to the donors. If you don't get the money out, this is gonna happen. This, cinema and mansion.

Well, this is a good opportunity to tell people who might not know about Wolfpack what it is and what it's trying to accomplish. Because there are efforts to get money out of politics. I think Wolfpack has the right strategy, although it is honestly the most challenging strategy. But it's the strategy that actually has lasting power. Yeah, so that's the conventional wisdom. And I don't blame you for thinking there. But I actually think it's as hard as it is, it's the easiest strategy, the most doable strategy. So what is it?

So I studied all of this legislation and why it failed for all the time that we were on the air for 10 straight years and realize there's only one issue that decides everything else. And it's money. And so, well, if you want to get money out of politics, you have to basically go above the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court has said in Citizens United in other cases, no, corporations are human beings. They have unlimited free speech rights to talk to politicians, and they talk with money. And I'm not joking. Those are actual decisions by the Supreme Court. So the only way you can go above the Supreme Court is to change the Constitution. So how are you going to amend the Constitution, which, by the way, the Founding Fathers loved, they did it 10 times, 12 times actually.

Okay, and so you're supposed to amend the Constitution. Now all the media says, don't, don't, that's radical, don't amend the Constitution. The Founding Fathers did it. They wrote the Constitution and then amended it, right? So the problem is you can't do it through Congress because Congress got into power through corruption. That's why later I helped start Justice Democrats, because we needed some honest politicians that didn't take corporate donor money. All right. Now, the other way, though, isn't the Constitution. It's amazing. You don't have to go to Washington at all. If you just

get two-thirds of the states to call for a convention, you could propose an amendment. No matter what, three-quarters of the states have to ratify it, that's why Anna says it's hard. Of course it's hard. But even if Congress proposed it, three quarters of the states would have to ratify. But it's been done 27 times before. It's not like it can't be done. And it's much easier to go to the state level where now Republicans are super mad about elections and Democrats are super mad about the way elections are funded. You get a convention. You propose these amendments. The elites hate it. Because it's the only realistic path to get the damn money out of politics so that mansion and cinema, and by the way, every Republican that

are helping the corporate donors right now can stop. So go to wolf-dashpack.com to learn more. If you want to support them or volunteer, wolf-dash-pack.com slash go. It's their 10th anniversary just now, so there's a perfect time to participate in their help. But one last thing, guys, it's a wonderful group of people. None of them are politicians, none of them are lobbyists. They're like literally nurses and mechanics, et cetera. It's the most wonderful group of Patriots you'll ever see and it's nonpartisan, go check it out so we can actually regain our democracy. We've already won in five states. We can do this. And just quickly going back to this story about the veterans on the advisory council stepping

down, you know, the one other thing that gives me hope is that there is a lot better messaging coming out of activist groups. And I think that they're a lot more vocal and just the ads that I'm seeing, to be honest with you, remind me of Republican ads. Republican ads don't hold back. They're pretty vicious and they attack pretty aggressively. For the longest time, at least as long as I've been doing the show, you see like this timid behavior on the left. But now it's like, no, we've got the resources necessary. We've got the messaging necessary. We're going to put out these ads. We're going to slap them in the face real hard until we get change. And that makes me happy. Like I'm seeing organizing now, both in regard to activists and on the labor side of

things, that's giving me a little bit of optimism. And I'm not a very optimistic person. No, no, there's definitely optimism with labor movements, et cetera. Last thing is, speaking of veterans, the first Republican to ever give a speech in favor, Wolfpack, was in Vermont. And it was a state legislator who said, my son went to Iraq and died. My son didn't lose his life for freedom so that we could lose it over here. We're not going to be ruled by corporations. We're going to be ruled by the people. That was a Republican in Vermont.

Vermont was the first state to pass it. And like I said, four others did it too. If you want to help, we'll put a link down in the description box, which you should always check for links. Wolf dash pack.com slash go. Well, the messaging on corruption continues in this next story. So let's discuss. Senator Bernie Sanders, along with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other activists held a panel discussion on the budget reconciliation bill.

Now, this is, of course, Biden's agenda, the build-back better agenda that includes all sorts of programs that are supposed to improve Americans' lives, things like paid family leave, child tax credits, universal pre-K, funding for elder care, free community college, all of these programs that are now really in peril because of the fact that you have corporate Democrats in the Senate, like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema, standing in the way. Now, in this panel discussion, the whole point was to express to Americans what the bill is all about. In fact, it's titled, What's in the Damn Bill? That's the name of the panel. And what I particularly enjoyed was the commentary and messaging in regard to what really motivates these corporate

Democrats who were standing in the way. Let's watch a quick video with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You and I, Bernie, have had a front seat at, is just the intense presence of corporate lobbyists throughout the process of reconciliation in drafting the Build Back Better Act. They want you and everyone who's out here watching at home, they want you to give up before the deal is done. Because it's way, easier for them to try to get away with the things that they're lobbying for and against if people at home aren't watching. And that's exactly right. But the difference that I'm noticing is that people have had

like a boot on their necks for such a long time. And the economic anxiety and the economic pressure that Americans have been facing, which has only been compounded by the pandemic, it's made them a lot more aware of what really fuels and motivates these corporate lawmakers, right? These Democrats who are standing in the way of programs that I think a lot of people are actually aware of, right? I mean, people have already been receiving the child tax credit deposits in their bank accounts. And that's going to be taken away. It was supposed to be made permanent. But now, if we're lucky and the budget reconciliation bill gets passed, it'll last just another year, that's it. I mean, it's like Democrats love to lose. They won't do away with

the Senate filibuster, which is necessary to do in order to pass the voting rights bill, which honestly has to do with the, not just the future of elections, but the fate of the Democratic Party. Yeah. So look, good news, bad news, right? So the bad news is the same as always, which is we've been talking about it all show. The reason I started Wolfpack 10 years ago, was because if you don't get money out, you can't win on any of these issues. But it's not rhetorical, it's actually literal. So everybody's surprised. I don't know why you're surprised.

Everybody talked about it. Did you think it wasn't going to happen? So I'm just flummoxed by what not progressives, but what Democrats in general thought was going to happen. Even a lot of the establishment Democrats will say, oh, money is the most important issue, right? Right? But why is the most important issue? Because they give money to cinema and mansion, and cinema and mansion block the bill. And it's not just them. There's tons of corporate Democrats behind him. Just the other day, we're telling you about Robert Menendez and other Democratic senator from New Jersey. And he's like, oh, lowering drug prices. I don't want to do

that. One of my top donors is drug companies. There's a whole bunch of conservative Democrats in the House who are like, no, we don't want to lower drug prices. They take tons of money from drug companies. We don't want to fight climate change. They take money from fossil fuel companies. So they're literally blocking the bill because they get bribed. What did you think was going to happen? This is what corruption looks like. And by the way, this is only, you're only seeing it because it's an intra-democratic party fight. And democratic leadership has basically allowed corporate media to talk about this to some degree, right? Normally, there'd be no fight. at all. The progressives would have been booted out. They would have been shamed and

tard and feathered. And all the Democratic leadership would have been like, no, no, of course, this is historic. They would have passed nothing. It would have passed flimsy bill, and they would have called it historic, and everyone in corporate media would have said historic, they're gods, they're amazing, and back to the status quo. So now the good news is, look at this uprising. AOC, Bernie Sanders, they're like, okay, media you don't want to cover it, we'll do our own stream. People love them. And so they'll check it out. And they do out and they do and we cover it. And all of a sudden, tons and tons of people see reality.

And so now they're finally saying, yeah, guys, it's other Democrats. And yeah, it's their donors. And they never said that before. No one ever said it until really Justice Democrats. And so not even Bernie, to be honest, before Justice Democrats. And by the way, now we're seeing outlets like the Wall Street Journal of all places, do pretty good reporting on how the sausage is really made in Congress. And I love to see it.

A story that was just published in the Wall Street Journal today about why Biden agreed to do away with the provision in his build back better plan that would have provided two years of free community college. Because there's lobbying taking place by four-year public and private universities that don't want that. So real quick, let me just read that to you. Lobbyists for public four-year colleges have said states might redirect funding from their institution. So they're worried about that. They're like, no, no, we want enrollment at our four-year colleges. So those are public universities, right? But then what about private universities?

Barbara Mystic, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents four-year private institutions, said that free community college is untested federally, and the program's bureaucracy, they always love to use that word. The program's bureaucracy would have to be built from scratch, okay? Whereas Pell Grants, that's what they're calling for. They're like, no, no, no, no, why don't we just have more robust Pell Grants? Because they would potentially benefit from Pell Grants as well. 100%.

That's all they want. They want the money to go to them. That's all it is. So, and I was wondering, I'm like, wait, why did Biden like preemptively decide to do away with two years of free community college? That wasn't even a provision that Mansion or Cinema was protesting against. And it has nothing to do with Mansion and Cinema. Mention in Cinema are awful, okay?

They're corrupt and they want to do away with tax increases for corporations, among other provisions. But there are other lobbyists at play as well. And so when we pretend as if Biden is like a warrior for his own agenda, he's not. He's clearly not because all he needs to do is listen to some of these lobbyists, get influenced by what they demand, and he'll preemptively cut these provisions out of the legislation.

And there you have it. Developed country that does not offer free college. So guys, you're not, I'm just being honest with you, you're not going to find out what the real news is unless you're watching either progressive media or listening to progressive politicians in a stream like that. So did you, did you hear on cable news, any of the news that Anna's talking about in regards to how other colleges are torpedoing efforts to get your free community college? No, you never hear that, right? And so in this case, for example, in West Virginia, did you know there's only 13,000 jobs in any way related to coal? And did you know that this bill alone creates 31,000 new jobs in West Virginia that swamps the number of coal jobs in West Virginia? So if the, I mean,

but yet the corporate media says, well, Joe Manchin is concerned about jobs in West Virginia. Well, that's counterfactual, that's alternate reality, alternative facts. And as long as it's For corporate rule, mainstream media says yes, but no, progressives say no, and now there's a fight back. And I'll give you one last stat. Manchin keeps saying, we've got to do means testing because I don't want the rich getting this child tax credit, for example. So we got a cap it at $60,000. By the way, two people making $30,000 a year are not rich, okay? They're not rich in L.A., but they're also not even rich in New West Virginia, okay?

But did you know that the current legislation already has a cap that 150? So the rich were never going to get the child tax credit. So Mansion is saying the middle class should get it between 60,000 and 150,000. So Manchin is literally making an argument against the middle class. Did you ever hear that from anyone that isn't progressive? It's in the bill. These are facts. And so unfortunately, we've got to do an end run.

But unfortunately, we're doing it and they're doing it around the corporate media. Otherwise, you're hearing propaganda. You're not hearing reality. By the way, next time they should do that stream on TYT. Keep it real. All right. We're going to take a break when we come back. Apparently, we're not the only ones who think that President Joe Biden is being incredibly weak.

A host on CNN also has some thoughts. We'll share that video with you and more. Come right back. All right, back on TYT. Jank, Anna, News Forward. Republicans blocked Democrats' efforts to pass an election reform bill. This is not the first time that this has happened, and the reason why it's able to happen, even though Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate, is because the legislative filibuster

is still intact, something that the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, could do away with if Democrats actually wanted to pass legislation. Now, none of this should be a surprise to anyone, and I'll give you some details about what we've experienced in the recent past in regard to the attempts to reform our elections. But before we do that, I want to give Don Lemon of all people some credit for a rant he had in regard to Joe Biden and his weakness. Let's watch. Republicans and the former guy, mostly the Republicans are in office right now, are going around the country. And they are winning with a lie. They're able to get people on their

with a total lie and Democrats can't get people motivated with the truth, I am going to get their attention. I'm going to make sure I have their attention. I'm going to tell them what is in the bill. I'm going to tell them what I'm selling that is going to help them and everybody in red American, everybody in blue America and all Americans. I'm not just going to sit back and expect the news media to do it for me because it's not our job to sell the narrative. It's our job to discuss what you are doing. And yes, part of what's in it, but it's not our job to sell your agenda for you. They are not selling their agenda.

Democrats get your butts in gear and get passionate about saving this damn country. You're not doing it, you're weak, you are weak, you are weak. Look, Democrats are in fact weak, but that's not the full story, right? the Democrats who aren't really fighting to pass legislation that they desperately need is mostly due to corruption, money in politics, their own personal financial investments, both in individual stocks and other business ventures. There's all sorts of terrible things happening because the system is set up in a way to ensure that legislation that actually does improve your life doesn't really get passed, right? So I agree with some of what Don Lemon is saying

there, especially in regard to Joe Biden. We're having a discussion about Joe Biden's agenda. And I don't really see him out there making a robust case for it. Not at all. I mean, where is Joe Biden? I mean, he's giving all sorts of carrots, all sorts of favors to the very corporate, corrupt Democrats in the Senate who are standing in the way of passing his so-called buildback better agenda. Like, he gave Joe Manchin's wife. a job. He did that. Yeah. He keeps giving Joe Manchin all sorts of concessions. And has Joe Manchin committed to voting for the bill? No, he hasn't. Even with all the concessions that Biden recently made with cutting the most popular elements of that legislation. Yeah. So guys, there's a number

of indisputable facts here. So number one, Joe Biden did promise voting rights. And by the way, canceling some student debt. And we can go down the list of about A dozen things. Reversing the Trump era tax cuts. Right, so a dozen things that he promised and isn't even bothering to do. And then there's a super important dozen that he's kind of trying to do right now. But he's letting corporate Democrats block almost all of it. So that's a fact, there's no question about it.

And Anna, I don't mind him giving carrots. Like so hey, I'll put your wife on some important board that no one else cares about. But you guys get to call yourself elites in West Virginia and your wife. walk around or go around on your yacht. No problem. But if you don't do what we want, then you got to bring the sticks. But Joe Biden doesn't have any sticks. His whole history in the Senate is known as a guy who surrenders on negotiations. He gets the deal done because he goes in usually to the Republicans and go, what do you need? I'll give you 95% of it. And then we'll both brag about how historic it is. And so- You guys, he ran and claimed

that he would be the best president because he knows how to negotiate, not just to convince corporate Democrats to play along, but he tried to sell to the American people that he'd be the top negotiator in getting Republican lawmakers to play along. Now in this context, Don Lemon's talking about Republicans, right? Because Republicans in the Senate were the ones who succeeded in blocking the voting rights bill. But I mean, Biden can't even get members of his. his own party to support his own agenda? Like, is he ever going to be held accountable for

that? Did he lied and had like these delusions about how successful he would be in getting Democrats and Republicans to go along with what his agenda would be? Like, just let that sink in for a second. No, I'm not kidding. And this is embarrassing, but I have to say it. If he wasn't lying about getting Republicans to play along with him, and I get it, you know, lying's a harsh word. But it's political marketing, like, oh, I'm running for office, Trump is so divisive. I'll say we're going to unify the country. Obviously, Republicans will never vote for anything I say. But I'll say that I'll work with the Republicans until they then, of course, never give me a single vote.

And then I'll give up on it. That's a political marketing trick, okay? I can live with that. But if he actually meant it and he really thought he was going to get these Republicans to give him votes on Democratic priorities, that's borderline. unintelligent. That's devastating. Like you can't, that means you don't know anything that's happening in Washington. You're the president. You don't know that the Republicans aren't going to give you any votes. We said it ahead of time. You said you'd get them. We said there's no way

you're going to get any Republican votes. Who was right and who was wrong? So a voting rights bill. It had a preposterous negotiation. By the way, it's not just Joe Biden. They're all in on this stupid, stupid game. Cory Booker is wasting his time, wasting our time, having negotiations with Tim Scott on the Republican side about police reform. You thought the Republicans were going to do real criminal justice reform, real police reform? How could anybody be that stupid? You know what Congress did pass last year?

They didn't pass justice reform, criminal justice reform. They didn't do that. In fact, the police reform bill, they've dropped it. They're not going to pass anything in that regard. But last year, Congress did manage to pass something that no one knew about, no one was paying attention to. I covered it on the show yesterday. They made it easier for local police departments to obtain militarized vehicles and weapons from the Pentagon as long as they claim they're going to use that equipment to fight back against climate change.

So. Well, that'll, I'm not even kidding. Now, by the way, guys, that's Trumpian. Remember when Trump asked whether we could nuke a hurricane, so that, I mean, how preposterously dumb is that? But how are you going to use tanks with local police departments to fight climate change? But they need those weaponized tanks in order to save their constituents when they have extreme weather events. Absurd. And of course, they lie about that.

They don't actually use the military equipment for that. They use it to intimidate protesters. They use it. They're using this military weaponry in these vehicles to. to serve warrants. Now, it's playing dress up. It's so stupid. If you want to join the military, it goes to join the military.

But we're not the occupied people of America. I know, but my point is, Congress has no problem passing that kind of legislation. 100% right. And what does Biden do? He goes and gives a speech the other day saying we should give more funding to the police. So that's indisputable fact number two, which is that Joe Biden is conservative. He doesn't actually want to do any of these things. He thinks, well, I mean, it looks like this is the moment where progressives are a little

more ascendant, I'll go a little bit, half-heartedly go in that direction. But does he have passion to, like, I've got to pass this. My God, we gotta do something about the planet, it's burning. And I'm the president, I'm gonna be known as the guy who let the planet burn. No, he doesn't have any of that. He's just like, where do I get a deal? Well, who do I surrender to? He's confused as to who to surrender to. And they won't take this surrender.

So now he's just floating in the wind, just totally clueless. And but look, back to Don Lemon, I love the cable news is finally, saying what we've been saying for 10, 20 years about the Democrats. Of course they're weak. They're paid by their donors to surrender. So weakness is built into the party. Why do you think you think just naturally all Republicans are strong and all Democrats are weak? Wait a minute, Lyndon Johnson wasn't weak, FDR wasn't weak, JFK wasn't weak. The only reason they're weak now is because the Supreme Court in 1978 legalized corporate donations given to politicians. And that's it.

They're paid to lose. When are you going to figure it out? And look, the Democrats would need to get rid of the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate. That's why Republicans are able to block their efforts, even though they have a slim majority in the Senate. They don't have 60 senators. They have 50 senators with Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote, right?

That's what the legislative filibuster is essentially doing away with because you would need 60 senators instead of 51. With that said, to your point about weakness, Jank, this is Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, okay? I'm going to read you his quote about this. And then I want you to think about what Mitch McConnell would do if he were still the Senate majority leader. He said this, what we saw from Republicans today is not how the Senate is supposed to work. Ooh, don't kill him, Chuck. What is that? What is that?

Why would you ever think that a single Republican, especially in this political climate, would want to vote with Democrats to strengthen our elections and to reform our elections? Republicans, state by state, are doing what they can to rig elections in their favor through gerrymandering, through voter suppression laws, all sorts of things. Is he asleep? No. He's not asleep. He knows, he knows.

What is that garbage? Okay, guys, I'm not kidding, I made up my mind. We're gonna get a national reporter in D.C. And we're gonna get one in California, because California is so important, it's driving me crazy that there's no reporters here. So, and the reason is, if somebody do some real tough journalism, okay? When Chuck Schumer says, okay, I can't believe the Republicans didn't vote for the voting rights bill, that's not how the Senate is supposed to work.

There has to be a reporter that says, excuse me, Senator Schumer, are you an idiot? Name me 10 Republicans who thought we're going to vote for the voting rights bill. You can't name one. You can't possibly believe that. Because we don't actually think Chuck Schumer is stupid. But don't patronize us and don't pretend like we're stupid. No, the problem is your party. You could end the filibuster tomorrow.

And here's another indisputable fact. When you say that you are not going to end the filibuster, the Democratic Party says that. They're saying that at a best case scenario, that they view Senate traditions to be more important to their voters. They say, hey, look, my Republican colleagues want to block it. And I think they're more important than my voters. The parliamentarian wants to block things. I think the parliamentarian is more important than my voters.

These are indisputable. I think Senate tradition. That's our best case you know. No, it's not that I care about the Republicans. It's that my beloved Senate tradition, because we have tea and then we have crumpets. That's part of our tradition. And another part of it, we dress up in a certain way. And then another tradition is we have this filibuster that's almost always used to block voting rights for black people.

And so that's part of our tradition. And I care about that tradition more than I care about our voters. Well, the message is delivered loud and clear. By the way, the next time you run for office, you idiot Democrats, it doesn't matter what you say. Exactly. Because no one will believe it. Exactly.

But honestly, Jenk, this goes beyond screwing over their own constituents. They're screwing over their own party's future, right? Because not only will they continue to fail to serve their constituents' interests, we're talking about the voting bill, like the election reform bill that mitigates the damage that's being done with all of these voter suppression bills on a state by state basis. Yeah. But I mean, okay, great. But I just don't want to hear it from them. I don't want to hear the whining and the crying and the nonstop fundraising off of how terrible the Republican party is. No party in this country emboldens the Republican Party more than the Democratic

party. They're doing it right now and they're pretending as if they're the good guys and Republicans are the bad guys. They know the Republicans are the bad guys, but they enable it. And then they turn around and cry about it to fundraise. That's what this is about. Paid to lose. So last thing, guys, and by the way, you want to help us hire watching the correspondent and at California one, t.com slash join. We'll hire right away, okay?

As long as, and we always do things together. But already, the last thing is a prediction. So now that people on mainstream media are calling Biden weak, my prediction is he's finally going to bash someone. And is it going to be Mansion or Cinema or Republicans? hell no, he's going to try to prove how tough he is by bashing progressives. Oh, that's a given. Okay, so, and he's partly doing it now in the negotiations.

We had come down to $3.5 trillion. Manchin started at $1.5 trillion. Biden's saying to progress is now, you better take around 1.7 to 1.9. Well, that's almost Manchin's number. That's not anywhere near our number. He's like, shut up and take it. Yeah. And so it's begun, and soon he'll come out on TV.

and start insulting progressives to show how strong he is. If he was actually strong, he would go after the donors. But he's not strong. So he will show his weakness by attacking the people who he thinks aren't actually powerful. And so that's how this game is played. All right, that does it for our first hour. When we come back, Tucker Carlson is spewing lies about the 2020 election. We'll show you that video and more when we return, don't miss it.

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