The Young Turks - ToiletGate!

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

Dave Chappelle personally came to a city council meeting and threatened to remove $65m dollars of investments from his city if they allowed a developer to move forward with an affordable housing program. Repeat STOCK Act violator Senator Tommy Tuberville called a stock trading ban for Congress ""ridiculous."" According to a new book, while President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper. Geraldo Rivera tangled with Tomi Lahren over the convoy of Canadian truckers who were protesting Covid-related mandates. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. We're going to be able to be. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Uyghur, Anna Kasparian with you guys. So later, Wardle will save lives, Republicans will back bullies, and everybody will have a little bit of gazpacho soup. So fun and exciting show for you guys tonight. Now I handed it off to legendary newscaster Anna Kasparian.

Unfortunately, we have to begin with Dave Chappelle disappointing us further because the transgender stuff just wasn't enough. And now he's trying to stop affordable housing. And he's succeeding. So let's discuss. I don't know why the village council would be afraid of litigation from a $24 million year company. Well, it's out the $65 million year company. I cannot believe you would make me audition for you. You look like clowns.

I am not buffing. I will take it all off the table. That's all. Comedian Dave Chappelle, unfortunately, put a stop to a construction project that would have developed affordable housing in the community that he lives in, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Now, he made his objection to this project clear and, as you can see, pretty forceful about how he objected to the project. And it wasn't the first time he objected to the construction of affordable housing in this community. And obviously, let me be clear, there are other community members who attended that meeting who were against it as well. Now, just to give you some background and context, the village initially asked for the development to advance affordable housing in the village, including an area that the village would later be able to develop into affordable housing, as well as more duplexes and townhomes.

After complaints from numerous residents, including comedian Dave Chappelle, village council voted two to two with one abstention on the revised planned unit development zoning. So what does that mean exactly? Well, the developer here, known as Oberer Homes, can move forward with a new development in Yellow Springs, but without the affordable housing component

initially promised to the village. That means the zoning reverts to what was previously approved, 143 single family homes on the lot with the homes starting at about $300,000 according to village documents. Initially, the development would have included the, you know, land that would be allocated specifically for the affordable housing to be built at a later time, which to be honest with you, that wording I was a little skeptical about, like, why not get started with the affordable housing immediately. Why are they planning on getting to that later? You know, that that raised a few red flags for me. But members of the community, including

Dave Chappelle, seem to have a problem with the idea of developing that affordable housing and also, you know, housing that would include duplexes, fourplexes. You get the point. Yeah. All right, well, I guess he's jumped a shark. So this is terrible. So he's enraised. that people that aren't incredibly wealthy might live next to him. So he won. Congratulations, Dave. So now there's going to be 143 single family homes and only single family homes. If he can't afford a home like that, that's your problem, not Dave's problem. And each of those houses start at at least $300,000.

Okay. And so no poor people for you, all right? So congratulations, Dave Chappelle, champion of the incredibly wealthy and the best. Business owner, CEO Dave Chappelle throws up. By the way, that's exactly the kind of threats ExxonMobil and other companies do. Hey, if you don't give us exactly what we want, we'll end our business with you. So he must be so proud. And then what was that stupid line about I'm not going to audition for you?

Hey, it isn't about you, jerk. It's about people who could have actually had a nice home there. And by the way, even for your story, side, right? This is called democracy. Okay, you participated. I'm happy about that. That's the only thing I'm happy about in this story. But he makes it sound like, oh, the city council is doing this to him. And they made him go and speak there, like when they should already know that a wealthy baron has already spoken. How dare you have me come out here and audition for you? So, I'm going to pull my $65 million from you. Do you know how wealthy I am? Shut up, Chappelle. You're kind of

You've become disgusting now. Yeah, well, let me give you context in regard to what he means, right? When he brings up the $65 million, he also mentioned, I think, $24 million in litigation. I'm guessing that he's referring to possible litigation if the council votes to undo what they had originally planned on doing, which is building the affordable housing along with multifamily homes, so duplexes and all of that. He's basically saying, look, if you're worried about that litigation, cool, but remember, I'm investing $65 million into this community, and he's doing so by building a restaurant, the firehouse eatery, and also a comedy club.

And so, look, this is getting a lot of attention because of the fact that it's Dave Chappelle, but this is very commonplace among city council meetings, town, meetings, you'll have members of the community, typically individuals who are affluent, who have significant amounts of money, come in and, of course, oppose any type of affordable housing that's being proposed and make threats like this, right? We're going to take our business elsewhere and what have you. And that scares city leaders. Like they're terrified of that. They're terrified of losing those types of investments. Also, just to be very specific about what the original plan was. The development that council voted on Monday night would have included 64

single family homes rather than the now 143 single family homes, 52 duplexes and 24 townhouses with an additional 1.75 acres to be donated to the community for affordable housing to be built later. That was the initial plan. Now all of that is scrapped instead of the duplexes, instead of the affordable housing, the only thing that they're going to build is the 143 single family homes. And other community members spoke up and said that they were concerned about congestion. There was one concern that I thought was legitimate that was brought up. And it was the concerns about how that original deal would also lead to an HOA in the area, which I don't care if I'm in a condo. I don't care if I'm in a house. I don't care if I'm living in a shack in that

community, if anyone proposes an HOA when I don't have to deal with an HOA, I'm against it. But I'm just keeping it real. But that was the only legitimate concern, if you ask me, because they're not going to make people who already have single family homes in the neighborhood who join an HOA. That's, every part of this is a is nonsense, okay? You're not going to get retroactively put in an HOA. It's just totally made up. Oh, the congestion. It's what every hateful group says. So I remember in my home. town of East Rosen, New Jersey, they were to put in a Hindu temple, and instant laborers say, oh, we're so worried about congestion. No, you're not. You're worried about a Hindu temple.

So, look, I think in that case, you can make the point that it's hateful. But I don't think it's always hateful. I do think that the argument comes from a place of selfishness, right, of not wanting to experience any type of what they feel would be an inconvenience, even though it would actually make so many people's lives better, and I would even venture to say would not make their lives inconvenient in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, I got it. And by the way, whenever there's changes, there's a little bit of inconvenience. It's true.

And especially in a city like L.A., there's tons of congestion everywhere. I understand that. And he supposed to look, there was no congestion in that part of town. I knew exactly what they were talking about it. It was nonsense. Most of the time, it's not about hate. And in this case, it's not either. This is about just nimbie, not in my backyard.

And look, guys, I know why it happens, and you should know why it happens, so you know they're not monsters. I understand the point of view. They're like, hey, look, I got a house here, and it's make up a number, $485,000. And you're poor people within a five-mile perimeter of me, I think it's going to go down to $435,000. Now, most of the time, that is way overblown. But could that happen? Theoretically, it could. And then the guy says, wait a minute, I lost $50,000.

dollars, that matters a lot to me, okay? That's why people get super angry about any type of affordable housing in their town, and that's why we can't have affordable housing anywhere, because everybody gets selfish and goes, not in my backyard, not in my backyard. The reason why I'm more mad at Chappelle is because he doesn't have to worry about home prices. Totally. He doesn't have to worry, okay, what, did your $10 million house become a $9.5 million house? I don't know anything about his house, but you know that Dave Chappelle's not hurt.

for money, he's talking about putting in $65 million into these businesses. He's got plenty of money, so if anyone shouldn't do NIMBY, it's Dave Chappelle. And apparently- That's such a good point. It's such a good point. I hadn't even thought about that. And to be honest with you, oftentimes when I think about the NIMBY folks, I don't really consider the fact that they're worried about a drop in their property values.

Yeah. And look, I think that that is a symptom, I'm not agreeing with it, and I'm definitely not defending it, but it is a symptom of a larger problem that we see in this country. We're literally the only way Americans were able to build wealth. And by the way, this isn't even an opportunity for people anymore. But the only one way that Americans could build wealth in this country was through buying a home and building equity. And so that's why they're so protective of it. Like I understand the logic behind it, not defending it. But it shows that there's a problem when people just see this one avenue to build wealth for themselves and their family. And there's no other opportunity

available. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, 100%. And so it's an incredibly selfish act. And if you're in the middle class, I understand why you do it, even though it's deeply frustrating. But if you're in the class that Dave Chappelle is in, in terms of wealth, it's inexcusable. And it's clear now that he has rich man's disease. And so this is exactly what billionaire NFL owners do. Well, I could take my team to another town unless

you build a massive stadium for free, for me. I'm going to take all the profits and I want the taxpayers, poor middle class and otherwise, to pay for my stadium that I will take profits off of because I am rich and I deserve everything,

right? And I mentioned ExxonMobil earlier because, by the way, there's a very similar case, a little bit different, but you'll get the point. Former CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, who was also Trump's Secretary of State for a short period of time, did fracking all across the country, made gazillions of dollars off of it as the CEO of Exile Mobile. When they were going to do fracking near his house, he said, not in my backyard, fracking is dangerous. Oh, okay, so it's not dangerous when you do it in our backyard, but when all of a sudden it comes next to a rich man's house. And a guy was made, I don't know if it's tens of millions or hundreds of millions

dollars from fracking. Then turns around and says, not in my backyard. So congratulations, Dave Chappelle. Now you're in that category of people. So Dave Chappelle responded to all the backlash he's receiving through a spokesperson. We'll get to that comment in a second. But I just want to note that this isn't the first time he has voiced his objection to the development of affordable housing in that community. In fact, according to the Dayton Daily News, in December of 2021, Chappelle noted he was invested or had invested millions of dollars in town and said he was adamantly opposed to it. If you push this thing through, he said. What I'm investing is no longer applicable, Chappelle said. Now, a spokesperson did respond to, you know,

calls for some statement, you know, there has been a lot of backlash. And here is what Carla Sims, the spokesperson has to say. Dave Chappelle didn't kill affordable housing. concerned residents and a responding village council killed a half-baked plan, which never actually offered affordable housing. Nonsense. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. There's more. Neither Dave nor his neighbors are against affordable housing. However, they are against the poorly vetted cookie cutter sprawl-style development deal, which has little regard for the community, culture, and infrastructure of the.

the village. The whole development deal cloaked as an affordable housing plan is anything but affordable. Three out of the 143 lots would have been for future affordable housing. The rest of the homes were to be priced between $250,000 and upward of $600,000 in Yellow Springs and in many other areas or places. This is not considered affordable housing. So then Dave, did you go and make it? I say Dave as if I know him, but I don't. I just want to be clear. But Chappelle, did you ever fight for affordable housing that was real affordable housing in your opinion? Did you ever make it clear before you got blowback that you, oh, I'm actually for affordable housing? I just don't think this is affordable enough. Did you push forward

that project? Did you ever explain that? Did you ever clarify that? No, you didn't. All you said is, I don't want no goddamn affordable housing near me. I'm rich now. I don't want the affordable housing near me. Put it next to other people, maybe poor people. So screw Dave Chappelle, he's, look, guys, these guys get in a bubble, right? And then they have other rich friends and they all get together and they're like, oh, yeah, man, being rich is, oh, we're the victims. We should put him in that billionaire rich men crying compilation now, right? Oh, no, the wealth estate tax.

Oh, the wealth tax is the worst thing in the world. Oh, poor people or middle class people living next to you. It's the worst thing in the world. And they all agree, they're all like, oh, yeah, yeah. And they slap each other asses. Oh, yeah, you're so right. Being rich is awesome. Being poor sucks.

Let's kick him out of town. Shut up, Chappelle. Go and hang out with your right-wing rich friends now and enjoy that. No interest. And by the way, hasn't been funny in years and years. Like, people are laughing there. Why? Because he's a celebrity and you think he's going to be funny.

He was just yelling at poor people. What was funny about that? All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, the latest twist, in the congressional lawmakers engaging in insider trading, some of them are now speaking out very openly against any proposal that would ban them from trading individual stocks. We'll give you those details and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jenkin, Anna, with you guys.

Apparently we've got a hype train going on on Twitch. Keep it going on, guys. Much love. Casper, go. The one thing Democrats like Senator Tommy Tuberville and some, or Tuberville, and some Democrats agree on, is corruption, including the ability to trade individual stocks. In fact, Tuberville was recently asked about proposed legislation that would ban members of Congress from being able to trade individual stocks. And you'd be surprised, right, that he is 100% against it.

It's very transparent about how much he opposes it and says this, I think it's ridiculous. They might as well start sending robots up here. I think it would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve. And look, to be honest, that's kind of the point. If being a member of Congress is something that draws individuals because they know they'll have insider information and they can trade individual stocks, Maybe we don't want those people representing individuals in their district or their state. He also says that, you know, the truth is, members of Congress, Jenk, they're really struggling. They're really struggling.

He says, I've been surprised since I've been up here. We got people sleeping in their offices. You know, he's amazing because he's just kind of brazenly saying, like, I thought everybody here was rich like me. And I thought we were up here to get rich. And it turns out some people are sleeping in their office. What's wrong with it? What are they trying to represent the people? Get out there, make some money, man.

We got all this insider information. Tommy Tuberville is one of the most right-wing guys in Congress. And he's, and one of the biggest Trump supporters there are. He was an integral part of supporting Trump during the coup. And he's of the ideology that, yeah, of course I'm for the rich. I'm rich. Of course I'm going to come up here and use everything to my advantage and take advantage of the suckers who elected me.

Look, what are the people of Alabama want? elect me. You could make sure black people don't have rights and the rich get tax cuts. Well, that's what I'm doing. So mission accomplished. Now, give me the money. Give me the money. And what are you going to do? Defeat me in Alabama? Democrats aren't going to win in Alabama. We just say black people, boo. And you'll reelect me no matter how much of a crook I am. So you shouldn't take what he says about members of Congress at face value. They are not poor. They are not struggling. The salary for U.S. Senator as of 2021 is $174,000. But that's nothing. That's just their salary. In fact, Congress has quite a few millionaires. Let's take a quick look at the richest senators according to data from 2018. And this is based on financial disclosures, which by law they are supposed to file. So Senator Rick Scott, 259 million dollars in 2018.

He made most of that money ripping off Medicare, largest Medicare fraud in history. A total criminal is a senator from Florida. True, but their wealth continues to grow. In fact, their wealth grows at a faster rate than other individuals invested in the stock market. They always beat the stock market, right? And the reason why is because they're privy to information

that we are not privy to. And also, it's a huge conflict of interest of interest because these are lawmakers who are supposed to make legislative decisions that would impact the very corporations and companies they're invested in. So do you think that they would pass a regulation, for instance, that sorely needed, but would hurt the bottom line for these corporations? That would mean that the value of the shares they're invested in would go down and they would lose profits.

So it's a huge problem. And yeah, let's go back to that graphic because Mark Warner, this is not a Democrat or Republican thing, right? You got Mark Warner, $214 million, he's a Democrat. Senator Mitt Romney, notoriously wealthy, $174.5 million. You have Senator Mike Braun, $136.8 million. Like, these are not hungry individuals, okay? Or not hungry in the way that we would think of, like where they're struggling and they need to sleep in their offices because they have no other choice.

That's a joke. Now, he's also one of the biggest violators of the relatively toothless Stock Act. The Stock Act doesn't prevent them from trading individual stocks. They just have to disclose their stock trades. And apparently Tuberville has violated the Stock Act, which prevents members from using non-public information. They learn in their official capacity for personal benefit. A whopping 132 times accounting for $894,000. So he's got a dog in the fight, Jake.

Yeah, he's a right winger. So he thinks I'm above the law. Right-wingers can just break the law any time we want, and it won't matter. And in this case, he's right, because almost everybody in Congress is a criminal. So they're like, oh, why would we, if we punish Tuberville, we'd have to punish Nancy Pelosi. We're not going to do that. Nancy Pelosi is one of the richest people in Congress. So is Diane Feinstein.

And they let everyone off, because if they prosecuted them, they'd have to prosecute themselves. So the Democrats are super happy to say, oh, Republicans, you didn't do anything wrong. Okay, keep on robbing people with inside information. You know what the chances of a random group of people always beating the stock market is? Zero. Right. Okay. No, the only way that you always beat the stock market and not just one person, but a collection of people, is if you have information that other people don't have.

You have an unfair advantage. By the way, that's not the free market. And right wingers don't believe in the free market. They love a rigged market. Tupperville's like, oh, you rigged it to my advantage? Why would I give that up? Of course, I'm going to rob me for more and more money. And so Richard Burr, by the way, made $1.6 million off the stock based on insider information on COVID.

And you know what the Justice Department did? Nothing. They let him off. Why they let him off? Because he's among the elites. If they punish Richard Burr, they definitely have to punish Democrats. Okay, pause. They're actually, he is being investigated.

So. No, the Justice Department announced in January that it would not file charges against them. Of course, investigated my ass. Wow. That was a cover your ass operation. Are we investigating Richard Burr? Oh, yes, we are investigating him. Wow.

Okay, Nancy Pelosi, we are really busy investigating him, right? What a waste of time. Justice Department and Nancy Pelosi are not supposed to talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Biden administration filled with rich people who constantly do insider trading are not going to prosecute Republicans who do the same thing. Well, we're not done yet because there is a Democrat in the House of Representatives. who also spoke out pretty openly about her objection to any legislation that would ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks. This time we're talking about Representative Elaine Luria, who is a very proud, moderate Democrat.

And so while speaking to Punch Bull News, she said this. You know, I think the whole concept is BS. Because I think that why would you assume that members of Congress are going to be inherently bad or corrupt? It's hilarious. So I'll show her why in just a second. She's obviously pretending like she doesn't know why. But the rest of her statement is, we already have the Stock Act, again, toothless. And all it really does is force them to disclose their trades.

Hey, Clown, Coverville just violated it 132 times and nothing happened. You think you have the Stock Act? No, you're a liar. And I don't care that you're a Democrat. Oh, we have the Stock Act. There's no enforcement of it at all. It's a goddamn joke and you know it. The people that you're electing to represent you,

it makes no sense that you're going to automatically assume that they're going to use their position for some nefarious means or to benefit themselves. So I'm very strongly opposed to any legislation like that. Well, look, what led to the Stock Act was the nefarious behavior of members of Congress. Now, the Stock Act is nothing to write home about. As I've mentioned a billion times,

it doesn't really do much. toothless. There's no real enforcement mechanism, especially in the House of Representatives. And I want to remind you all of, again, what transpired in the lead-up to the Stock Act? Market moving information, and they'll act on that information. I mean, information is king. A groundbreaking 2004 study by a group of professors and researchers examined the records of U.S. senators between 1993 and 1998. The study found that a portfolio tracking the stocks that the U.S. senators bought during the same time period outperform the market by 85 basis points each month in a portfolio that tracked the stocks that the senators sold during the period lagged behind

the market by 12 basis points. The study concluded that the senators knew appropriate times to both buy and sell their common stocks. So that's an older study but more recent studies have been done and similar findings come out, right, that members of Congress outperform the stock market. And when When you look at Luria's portfolio, you'll get a better grasp in regard to why she's so against any policy that would ban this disgusting and corrupt behavior. Luria's net worth is more than $8.5 million, and she trades millions. Her 2020 filing shows that she had assets worth between one to $5 million, separately in Facebook and computer design company, Navidia.

She also had between $500,000 to $1 million invested in Netflix. She also has at least $652,000 and up to $1.38 million combined in Apple, Walt Disney, Snapchat, Navy Federal Credit Union, a pharmaceutical company, Navy Mutual Aid Association, and Alibaba. Lurie and her husband Robert sold on March 31st, 2021, between a quarter million to a half a million dollars in Alibaba stock and purchased a quarter million dollars to half a million dollars of Uber stock the same day. This is what they're engaging in. So let me just ask you guys, do you think that Luria and her husband are interested in any policy that would prevent them from investing in these companies that, again,

Luria likely has a lot of information about and will make decisions about, especially when it comes to any type of regulation that could hurt these company's bottom line. Okay, so by the way, they passed the Stock Act under Barack Obama, and he pretended that it was historic, the press pretended it was historic, it was toothless. We said it at the time, all of his so-called financial reforms were toothless, they refused to jail any bankers, and Obama was a gift from the heavens for them. A guy who pretends to do something actually does nothing and helps them cover up their crimes. So that's why he's such a legend in corporate media.

hyped them up to be a demigod. So now, Luria, now she's got a million bucks in Facebook. You think she's going to break up Facebook? Cost herself money on that million dollars? She's not going to break up Facebook when she owns a million dollars in stock in Facebook? Everybody knows that. So when she comes out like, how dare anyone accuses of corruption? Why would you assume that?

First of all, it isn't about you. It's about human nature. If you've got millions of dollars on the line, even really, really good people will do the wrong thing, right? And you guys all take combined billions of dollars in corporate donations for your campaigns. The only people stupid enough to not think that that's corruption is people who work as reporters in Washington. The rest of us all know that that's organized systemic corruption. Those corporations don't give you money for general welfare. They give money to buy you. And it is a very effective investment because you

never, ever oppose your donors. And of course, Aiden Abed by CNN, and I'll get to that in a second. But guys, remember what these guys did a little while ago. On the filibuster, they said the Voting Rights Act, so that every American can vote, we can end the insane gerrymandering, return back to democracy, make sure that fascists don't take over this country. No, the filibuster is more important. Did you know that a couple months before that they actually got rid of the filibuster for lifting

the debt ceiling? Now, I think they should lift a debt ceiling, but wait a minute, I thought you said the filibuster was sacrosanct and you couldn't ever get rid of it for any policy and you couldn't make any exceptions, but you did make an exception. Why? Because if they didn't lift the debt ceiling, the stock market would have crashed. And all of them have millions of dollars in the stock market. They weren't going to let their best friend and their own personal interests get in the way of that.

So no voting rights for you, but millions for me. Yeah, that's why I get irritated by the annual faux drama about the debt ceiling. It's like reporters either have short-term memory or just are, I don't know. But anytime you see like a drama unfolding about, oh, are they going to do it? Are they going to lift the debt ceiling? Rest assured, they will lift the debt ceiling, report on something else, it's a waste of time. I'm not even kidding. I don't know if reporters are schmucks or if they're in on it.

But here, we have the CNN clip, right? Look, so this is how they hyped up Luria before. They're like, oh, the squad, they're getting a lot of attention, you know, AOC and the rest of the just Democrats. So we'll pretend that there's another squad made up of conservative Democrats that people are really excited about. Right, and they referred to them as the badasses. So let's take a look at that video. Cheryl and Elaine Luria, Air Force veteran Chrissy Houlihan, ex-CIA officers, Alyssa Slotkin, and Abigail Spanberger, a band of sisters who bonded while storming

the unfamiliar terrain of politics. Their previous service taught them to be fearless, which comes in handy now. There's not a vertical chain of command structure, so, you know, I preview. Well, there is, but obviously it sounds like you guys aren't following it. No, but no one can fire us, I mean, except the people that elected us. None of us came to Congress from a district that wants us to just sit here and be quiet and learn the ropes. They want us to engage and they want change and they want it now. Oh yeah, lots of change like maintaining a system of corruption that puts your own constituents at a severe disadvantage. That was corporate media propaganda 101.

That squad does not exist. It's not a thing. And what are they looking to change? They said, we're looking to change things. No, you're not. You just said, don't change it. Don't change it. We're making money.

Hand over fist. Don't change a goddamn thing. And they are so fearless. Fearless in what? Taking corporate money? Fearless in what? It's a literal question. Did they buck the system in any way, shape, or form?

No, they always voted for the status quo. So CNN, we're not interested in your propaganda for the most corrupt politicians in America. All right. Now we move on to Toilet Gate, a story that made me roll my eyes. but we have a piece of evidence that might prove this to be true. So let's talk about it. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman details how Donald Trump allegedly tried to flush White House documents in the toilet.

Now, she's detailing what she learned in this next clip. Let's watch. I learned that staff in the White House residence would periodically find the toilet clogged. the engineer would have to come and fix it and what the engineer would find would be wads of, you know, clumped up, wet printed paper, you know, meaning it was not toilet paper. This was either notes or some other piece of paper that, you know, they believe that he had thrown down the toilet. What it could be, Brianna could be anybody's guess, it could be post-its, it could be notes he wrote to himself, it could be other things we don't know, but it certainly does add, as you said, another dimension to what we know about how he handled

material in the White House. We have known for several years since my colleague Annie Carney broke the story that Trump was ripping up pieces of paper and that his staff was having to tape it back together for archival purposes. This is how he has handled documents and pieces of paper all his life in terms of ripping them up. But this was something different and it was not, as I was told, an isolated incident. So this is part of the growing controversy involving Donald Trump either ripping up or doing away with official White House documents. These are documents that are supposed to be saved, maintained. The National Archives are supposed to keep track of this.

In fact, recently they had to travel all the way to Mar-a-Lago in order to grab boxes, dozens of boxes of documents that Trump took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. We covered that earlier. The toilet story, I just, I just feel like anything involved, Trump and a scandal or investigation, it has the same timeline, right? And it just gets more and more absurd and crazy. And then eventually it leads to nothing, which is why this story made me like roll my eyes. But what do you think, Jay? Yeah, well, look, I think Trump had a fair excuse when he was asked to explain it. So let's watch what he had to say.

it dumps they call them dumps big massive dumps uh in michigan in pennsylvania and uh all over if you if you take a look at um you just take a look at just about every state that we're talking about every swing state that we're talking about and they did these massive dumps of votes and all of a sudden i went from winning by a lot to losing by a little Okay, oh, he meant for the ballots, I got you. Okay, so when he started talking about massive dumps on Pennsylvania and maybe Avenue, I thought maybe that was gonna be his excuse. No, in reality, he actually put out a statement and it was just as funny.

He had misspellings in it, of course. He misspelled camouflaged, it's not an easy word to spell, I don't care about misspellings. But what that shows you is, this is the former president of the United States, and he doesn't have a single person who could just help him with a simple edit, right? And he said, oh, the documents with the archives, we had no problems at all, okay? We cooperated fully, besides which I looked into it. And I don't have to give them any of the documents back. And Clinton didn't either. Yeah, we have those statements. Should you read them? Sure, go ahead. Well, in regard to the flushing of documents, he denied that, saying,

another fake story that I flush papers and documents down a White House toilet is categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book, which I got to admit I'm also getting very tired of the Trump-related books, like it's nonstop. No, I got you, but this is almost definitely true because of another clip we're going to show you in a little bit. Right. The rest of his statement or parts of it that I think are relevant, he said the media's

characterization of my relationship with the National Archives is fake news. I love how easy it is for him to just write anything off by saying it's fake news. It was exactly the opposite. It was a great honor to work with them to help formally preserve the Trump legacy. The papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis, which is different from the accounts being drawn by the fake news media. He's been out of office for over a year. The National archives went to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the records and the documents about a month ago. Yeah. So the next quote in his statement was, in fact, it was viewed as routine and, quote, no big deal. In actuality, I've been told I was under no obligation to give this material based on

various legal rulings that have been made over the years. If there was no controversy about you giving the papers over, why did you ask for legal rulings on giving the papers over? He's so dumb. You can't say, hey, you know what? There was no controversy. I gave it and said, I've been checking for a year on my legal rights on keeping the papers. So apparently there was a controversy. And I'm not the guy who said it.

You're the guy who said it, you schmuck or schmucks. By the way, he also said, how about Hillary Clinton? Yeah, exactly. You ran a whole campaign saying, can you believe that she kept the emails? And then you keep the documents. Unreal. Then he said, you know, she got rid of a lot of the documents. And acid wash the emails.

There is no such thing as acid washing emails. You acid wash pants and jeans, not emails. I mean, maybe he was speaking figuratively. No, he doesn't know anything. So did he actually flush him down the toilet? And what does that mean? Well, when the story came up, Anna and I remembered, wait a minute, Trump had said something that just didn't make any sense near the end of his term.

We're like, why is he randomly talking about toilets? Here, watch this clip. We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on in areas where there's tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don't get any water. You turn on the faucet, you don't get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. It's dripping out, very quietly dripping out. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water. 10 times, 15 times, huh? So that was, clashing. Context is important.

We tell you that a million times. That was in the middle of a completely different issue. It came out of left field and we're like, why is he talking about his bathroom problems? And it turns out it's because officials were going to Trump and saying, stop clogging up the toilets with the evidence you're trying to get rid of, okay? And so it's on at the top of his mind, even though none of us know it at the time when he was president. It's top of mind for him because officials are constantly telling him, stop flushing down national documents in the toilet. So he comes out in the middle of a critch, and you know, the toilets, it's got a problem, it's going to probe them, you moron.

Why did you bother saying that publicly? Now, it's obvious that that's what you were doing. And guys, I know right wingers, you have no attachment to logic anymore. You hate the idea of someone being rational. But why would you flush papers down the toilet consistently? To keep them? Because you weren't worried about them? No, you do it to get rid of them.

You know who does that? Someone who's guilty. It's so obvious if you weren't blind. All right. Well, we've got a fun story coming up. up after the break, looks like Tommy Laren and Geraldo got into a bit of an argument, a heated argument in regard to the truckers demonstrating in Canada. Don't miss that story. We've got videos and more. Come right back.

All right, back on TYT, Jane Canana with you guys. More news. Let's do it. All right, let's get to it. bridge that they have blocked. What about the working people, the hardworking people who've gone to work every day during this pandemic and now can't get to work or can't work because there's no parts in their factory to work with? Tommy Laran and Geraldo got involved in a heated debate about the so-called Freedom Convoy, which includes Canadian truckers demonstrating against vaccination mandates and other measures meant. to protect people from coronavirus, which means I think it might be time for a catfight. They don't really play with that, so we'll see what happens. But more importantly, Tommy Laren has adopted a trend that we're seeing in the right wing, where they co-opt populist pro-worker language and apply it to their own causes.

When in reality, they're usually not there for workers when they're striking for better working conditions or for better pay. So without further ado, let's hear what Tommy Leran had to say in support of these demonstrations in Canada. I think we're starting to see those actually essential workers stand up for their rights and their freedoms. And these are people that are the forgotten Canadians and also here in the United States, the forgotten Americans that normally just sit down, shut up and do their job. Well, that is until for two years you infringe on their ability to do their job. You infringe on their medical rights and their health freedom. Then they're going to stand up.

You've poked the bear. You've poked the beast. And that beast is awake now. And people are going to listen. Governments are going to have to listen. because these are the actual essential workers that can shut down Canada, can shut down the USA too, a new kind of shutdown that the elites will not be able to ignore. Listen, the demonization of the working class, the blue-collar folks that keep Canada and

keep the United States and keep the world running has to end. And this is part of the frustration. Yeah, I found that to be an interesting statement. What does actual essential workers mean? So when it comes to our frontline healthcare workers and nurses, the very individual, who have not gotten a single break during this pandemic, asking people please get vaccinated. Please, our hospitals are overwhelmed during every COVID surge due to unvaccinated patients. Please get vaccine. Do those essential workers matter at all?

Because she keeps saying actual essential workers and a common misconception that I keep seeing play out, both in corporate media and among the right wing, is that the demonstrators are blue-collared, working class, working class Canadians. Well, no, it turns out that a lot of them are actually the owners of the trucking companies. I'll give you one statement from Harold Yonker, who's a trucking company owner. He said this to BBC. We want to be free. We want to have our choice again, and we want hope, and the government has taken that away. David Dole from the Rational National was on the show yesterday, and he was talking about how this is mostly organized by the right wing, funded by the right wing, and the individual.

who are taking part in this are in fact the owners of these trucking companies and others have now joined in, but the people who have joined in are very much against regulations pertaining to COVID. Yeah, so look, people are complicated and this story is complicated, both for Geraldo and the story overall. So in terms of the convoy, there's parts of it that I love. And I don't know if that surprised you, but it shouldn't, because it's direct action and it hits people where it matters in economic interests.

And that's why it's gotten so much attention, because once you affect the dollars and cents, it moves people, right? And of course, the part I don't like is that it's on the most absurd, useless cause, right? I want the right to make other people sick. That's the thing you got organized for? Jesus Christ, imagine if we did a convoy for higher wages, for truckers. That would get a lot of people's attention. Right. And then maybe we could have a conversation about that.

actually help all truckers, right? I mean, there's been so many strikes, and there's been a lot of labor militancy lately in the United States. And I haven't seen a lot of support from Tommy Laren or anyone else on the right. And look, Jake, to your point, whether we agree with the cause or not, I support protesting. So I'm not against the notion of these individuals going out there demonstrating and making their voices be heard, but it's the way in which they're carrying it out. The fact that they're going out of their way to harass people living in Ottawa who still want to wear masks, right?

They want to protest in order to protect their freedom, but they don't in any way value or respect the freedom of other individuals who feel more comfortable wearing masks. Like, what is the issue here? And look, I think that Geraldo actually did a pretty decent job in debunking much of what Tommy Lerrin had to say there. So why don't we hear his side of the story? Well, I think, first of all, that Tommy is way too kind to the freedom convoy, so-called. One man's freedom is another man's oppression. Their behavior has been nothing short of thuggish in Ottawa. They've kept people in the neighborhood awake all night, revving their engines, blowing their horns.

They've deprived Ottawa businesses of tens of millions of dollars. Now they're blockading the international bridges. They are laying off people, cutting their shifts short in automotive assembly. because they can't get the parts from Canada to the United States. They used their crow bars to threaten cops who were going to tow their trucks away that were blocking. They've told tow truck drivers that they'll remember them when this is all over. A clear intimidation tactic. To give them the mantle of freedom fighters is absolutely appallingly naive.

Listen, the demonization of the working class, the blue-collar folks that keep Canada, and keep the United States and keep the world running has to end. And this is part of the frustration. I just, like, the adoption of rhetoric that's meant to value workers and protect workers, it really frustrates me. Because again, like, where was Tommy Lerrin when John Deere workers were striking? There's a concrete worker strike taking place in Seattle right now. It's been taking place for nearly three months.

No attention on that at all, zero percent. They're not in any way economic populace, okay? They will, I mean, they think people who strike are bums usually. Yeah, no, no, Anna, this is such a great point, especially about the construction workers, let alone so many other strikes that have happened that they derided. Okay, so in reality, so look, there is one thing here that I'm happy about, which is that the right wing is beginning economic protests. Whether they mean to or not, whether it's on an issue that makes sense or not.

And the reason why that's a good trend is because when the left wing does it, the media just ignores it. They think the left wing is totally irrelevant and to be hated and treat it with disdain. So the left wing does a teacher strike, a construction strike, any strike at all. And they're like, no, not going to cover it. Nah, don't care. Oh, you're doing protests of pipelines won't cover it for months, right? the right wing does a protest they have to take it seriously because they've been kissing right wing ass for decades they don't know how to not kiss right wing ass so they're like the right

wing is doing this must be serious and important let's give you both sides well okay good now we on the other hand are principled blocking roads I think it's perfectly acceptable is it a giant pain in the ass yes it is but that's what a protest is supposed to do it's supposed to make you uncomfortable draw attention so you go hey let's focus here people not acceptable. So the story's coming out of Ottawa where they're trying to rip with people's masks off. There's a fire that was lit in a apartment building that was complaining about the noise at night, et cetera. That's typical right-wing lunacy and totally unacceptable.

Yeah. And remember, I don't agree with their stance at all. But we're going to protest too, and we also protest on things that matter, wages, health care, protecting your community. and sometimes we block roads. And when we do that, of course, the entirety of the media. 200% of the media says, how dare they? This is criminal and unacceptable. And Geraldo's also complicated, because he's going with a pro-business line here.

They're disrupting the beloved business avenues for distribution, et cetera. On the other hand, I've hated some of what Geraldo says in the past, but on the harassment stuff here, he's absolutely right. And he has been right on a couple of issues. So that's why, hey, guys, and I'm saying this to both left wing and right wing. Maybe we don't cancel everyone because you never know. He might be terrible on one issue and then have a really interesting and important take that he brings to a conservative audience on Fox News.

So I just want to respond to how corporate media doesn't cover certain protests while it loves to cover others. So they're all over this trucker thing. They've been covering it from the very beginning. But this isn't a labor protest, right? The corporate media doesn't pick between right or left. They pick between labor or circus, right? And this trucker protest has become a circus, and they love it, and they're focused on that.

Look, the John Deere workers were not left-wingers. Let's keep it real. Yeah, that's a great point. But it was an economic protest against big business. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. And big media will always support big business. That's exactly right. Yeah. So all right, with that said, though, I want to fill in some more details in regard to what Geraldo was saying there. First off, it's absolutely true that there are people in that community in Ottawa who have been harassed by some of these demonstrators. Let me give you a few examples. One person said, I just don't feel safe to be here. This is Justin Romanov, who travels downtown every day to work as a food delivery driver. I do not feel safe in downtown Ottawa right now because I'm I have a feeling if people will learn that I'm a refugee and a gay, I'm afraid of some trouble there.

I'm afraid of some trouble there. And to be honest, I'm a little bit disappointed that this protest is still happening across Canada. And he has good reason to be worried because you should take a look at one of the main organizers for this demonstration. This is the gentleman I'm talking about. Let's take a look at Patrick King. Trudeau, someone's going to make you catch a bullet one day. For the rest of this government, someone's going to do. You might want to change your name to Ishmael?

Or drop a bunch of chains down the stairs and call yourself Chongqing, Ching, Chang. Now you want to say, oh, the Indians culture and everything. The natives' culture is a disgrace. It is 100%. That's right, Al. I've seen the mosque up in Fort Mac. Ladies and gentlemen, we are being overrun. The Anglo-Saxon people of Canada are our God-given culture,

the Anglo-Saxon and the Francophones. We are losing our culture to other ethnic religions. So when one of your main organizers has that kind of ideology, it's going to look, fish rots from the head down, It's going to trickle into the demonstration itself. One woman, a nursing student living in downtown Ottawa, who requested anonymity over fears for her safety, told NBC that she had been accosted multiple times for wearing a mask by people appearing to belong to the Freedom Convoy. They're targeting anyone who's wearing a mask, anyone who's respecting public health policy. I myself have been accosted at least three times.

I had one man try to rip my mask off. I've been screamed at, I've been told to go back to my country, she said, after someone heard her speak with an accent. Yeah, right wing, classy as always. So, by the way, why is this kind of mania spreading in Canada? Canada is historically much more progressive than America, and that's why the right wing in this country oftentimes hilariously blame Canada for anything that goes wrong. And there's a whole song in South Park over it, because it's so absurd.

and fairly consistent that Republicans do in attacking the progressives in Canada, right? So now we've got the lunacy taking hold there. Now, is it because there's never any right wingers and all of a sudden there are? No, of course there's right wingers in Canada. There always been. There's been areas, regions of Canada that are more right winged than others, some of the oil producing areas, etc. Right. But now they have developed the same strain of madness as in America.

And my theory on why that is is because in the past, all they got was traditional. media, television, radio and newspapers. And Canada regulates that much more strictly than America does. So the Canadians wouldn't even get Fox News because the Canadian government said that's propaganda. It's not true. So we're not going to give it to you as news, right? And so they, hence, they weren't, their minds weren't poisoned with corporate propaganda and they were more progressive. Now because of the internet, they're also going online and going, oh, I heard that Ivermectin and the mass and the nonsense and blah, blah, blah, and Q and on. So now, great, our right wing media has begun to poison the right wing in Canada

and turn them from right wing into lunatics. Always happy to export our best qualities. Yeah. Yeah, all right. Well, we got to take a break. When we come back, don't worry, the CEO of REI is engaging in union busting, but he does make sure to announce his pronouns before doing so. We've got that story and more when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free,

access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.