The Young Turks - Town Hall Turmoil

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Episode summary: CNN insiders were horrified watching their network conduct the Trump town hall: "an unmitigated disaster." CNN town hall audience laughs as Trump mocks rape accuser. The Biden administration is set to dramatically limit asylum in the wake of the expiration of Title 42. A new rule is rolling out Wednesday that mirrors a Trump-era policy requiring migrants to first seek and be denied asylum in another country before attempting to do so in the U.S. Arson, burglary, death threats: Abortion clinics see uptick in violence post-Roe. Corporate giants buy up primary care practices at a rapid pace. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Welcome to the Young Turks. Thank you, Granite, I'm with you guys. America, I welcome the. We are going to have a fantastic show. Of course.

All right, what are we going to talk about? We're going to dissect the Trump town hall a little bit more. Okay, get in there and do a little surgery, as my daughter says. like a high school science class from the 1950s. Right. Not from now, not from now. Okay, but in this case, it'll be the media and politics that is the frog that we are dissecting. Okay, so and a lot more where that came from, including finally super babies.

I told you. Okay, that's going to be later in the program. Casper. Well, why don't we begin with that ferocious debate in regard to CNN hosting that townhouse? I know you said earlier that you will not comment on the platforming of such atrocious disinformation, but I would. I think it was a profoundly irresponsible decision. I don't think that it would, I would be doing my job if I did not say that.

And what we saw tonight was a series of extremely irresponsible decisions that put a sexual abuse victim at risk, that put that person at risk in front of a national audience. and I could not have disagreed with it more. It was shameful. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pretty viciously criticizing CNN and its decision to host Donald Trump in a town hall. Now, that took place just one day after Trump was found guilty in a civil case involving the sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll, a writer, and the defamation of her after the fact.

Now, there are criticisms coming at CNN both internally and externally. For instance, CNN's own Oliver Darcy wrote about the internal criticisms. And I want to get to that. But before I do, Jank. Yeah, so look, I couldn't disagree more with AOC there. I think that it's a totally wrong-headed way to go. Guys, on the left, we should not be worried about other people. speaking, we should speak and defeat their ideas, okay?

So you're not going to be able to shut Trump up anyway. He'll just go on Fox News, news, max, et cetera, et cetera. You think you're not going to platform him when he's the leading Republican candidate? Do we really think we're going to keep the head of the Republican Party and a former president off of all of the airwaves for the rest of the campaign? That is an absolutely preposterous idea. a much better idea, but we'll talk about that as we proceed. I believe that the meltdown that's currently taking place in response to that CNN town hall is more an indictment of the

Democratic Party and its inability, in their minds, by the way, to beat the nonsense coming from Donald Trump. Because the way they're coming across, and I don't think they realize this, But the way they're coming across is, oh my God, we need to suppress him. We need to avoid giving him the opportunity to speak. Because when he speaks, his message is so alluring and so popular that we couldn't possibly conjure up the policies and the courage to stand against him, right? Stand up against him. And, you know, like, I don't understand. The thing is, I think we should have a lot more trust.

in the independent voters, really, the election is going to come down to that. And what gives me faith in those voters is we've already seen how they've rejected Donald Trump in the midterm elections. Now what do I mean by that? He didn't run in the midterms, right? But he kind of did. All of his endorsed candidates, yeah, they won the Republican primaries. And then they proceeded to lose in the general elections in various congressional seats that they ran for or Senate seats that they ran for. And I mentioned that because have some faith in the American voters. The thing that I will say about that town hall that I didn't like is when you stack the audience, the town hall audience with Trump supporters who applaud every terrible

thing he says, it provides an allusion to the viewer that his ideas are popular. Yeah. That was a problem. Well, I agree and disagree with you. I get to to that in a second. But first, look, no one's saying, or at least no rational person is saying that what he said about E. Jean Carroll wasn't atrocious, and how the crowd reacted wasn't atrocious. It was. But that doesn't mean you should censor it. And remember, guys, this is an old mainstream media trick done mainly to progressives. I would like what you have to say. Well, that's it, we're not allowing you on air. That's how they banned almost all progressives for the last 40 years from being on air.

Now, do we say atrocious things like Donald Trump? No, we say things like, hey, maybe everybody should have health care. But to corporate media, that is considered atrocious. And they've, quote unquote, shadow banned us all these years. And your solution to that is let's also ban Trump? No, let's get everybody out there and having an actual conversation, which the people who are saying, like, hey, you know what, CNN should do a progressive town hall.

Yes, it's exactly. be right. You counter with more speech. You don't go cower in a quarter and go, oh, Trump said something. So what? You have to run against the guy, which leads me to one of my main points, which is, why isn't Biden asking for two town halls? Why isn't he asking for one town hall? Why aren't his advisors livid? This CNN is not doing a town hall for him. I'll tell you why. Because they don't want him out there, because they think he sucks. And so when, to Anna's point, when you say, I don't want Trump to talk because he might convince everyone, and I don't want Biden to talk because he's not good at it. Well, I got news for you. You're going to lose.

If you have Biden as a candidate, and that's your attitude, you're definitely, definitely going to lose. I mean, the Democratic Party has already determined on our behalf, without us having any say that Biden is our candidate. That's it. That's it. No primaries. The DNC doesn't want to hold any primary debates, and we must support Biden. No. Okay. But, but. No? Why? No, exactly. Why? Why do we have to sign on to someone? Look, the reason why Biden won and the tactic he used to win worked the last time. I don't think it's going to work this time. Remember what his tactic was? Just keep your profile low. 100%. Don't go out there, stay in the basement. And by the way, give Trump enough rope to hang himself. And he did. Biden won.

but that's not going to work this time around because the memories of how Trump bungled the coronavirus pandemic is no longer fresh in the minds of all American voters. Keep that in mind. And the other thing is, look, if you have already served four years as president of the United States and most Americans have either noticed no difference in their quality of life from, you know, that transition from Trump to Biden, that's a problem too. It's a massive problem. Okay, that is an indictment on the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, okay? This is not me saying I like Trump or I can't wait to hear Trump speak.

This is me saying the Democratic Party is so weak and pathetic that they would rather suppress a message that's awful that I do not think is popular with the majority of American voters that actually, you know, fight back against that message with policies that are more popular and more appealing to the American people. It's pathetic that we think we can't, and hence we are trying to shut Trump up. If I was as opponent, I'd let that idiot talk all day long. Go ahead, Mr. Verbal Diarya, tell us more atrocious things, and let me use it against you with independence.

But we have total weaklings representing us in the Democratic, but Trump, he said something mean. Well, why don't you say something back? How about you try that? Look, if you're wondering what my disagree with Anna was, she's absolutely right that the crowd makes it seem like his ideas are really popular because it's a totally Republican crowd. And honestly, this is a trick both I've used and Ben Shapiro is used and then Shapiro used it in the debate against me where you stack the crowd. Once you stack the crowd, the crowds, it makes a giant difference in people's perception.

On the other hand, the part I disagree is it's a Republican town hall. So Republican voters are going to come. So like what do you do you want to do a Republican town hall with Democratic voters? No, I think it would be in my opinion, and you might disagree with this, I thought it would be far more interesting if the audience was stacked with undecided voters, independent voters, right? Because we know that. Look, Republicans are going to support him. That's it. They're going to support him. We know that. The elections always come down to the independent voters. I hear you, Anna. And that's a great, great point. And I think their questions should be asked.

Oh, and totally agree. And by the way, there's a lot of different formats. You could just do a straight interview. You could do one that Anna is suggesting, et cetera. But the reason why I don't think it may, it's, there's two reasons why I think it made some sense to do it this way is because we're not in the general election. We're in the primary section, and there's a very healthy primary in the Republican side. Now everybody else is getting their ass kicked, right? Right.

But they're in there and there's a whole bunch of them and dissent is supposed to beat them. So if you're in a Republican primary, you talk to Republican voters. Look, guys, we didn't like how the Republican crowd reacted. That means we learned something, like because everybody's shocked. Like, I can't believe they laughed at that stuff. I can believe it. So I want to show you guys an example. So this moment definitely stood out. This is the moment that AOC was referring to. And to be absolutely clear, it is just one of the most atrocious moments of featuring Donald Trump. Okay. So it was bad. But the audience's reaction is what made it even worse. Let's watch. We had this great chemistry, and a few minutes later, we end up in a room, a dressing room,

of Bergdorf Goodman, right near the cash register. And then she found out there locks in the door, so she said, I found one that was open. She found one that was open. What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up, and within minutes, you're playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, okay? I don't know if she was married then or not. John Johnson, I feel sorry if you're John Johnson. President, can I ask for this? I know you're recounting what she said, but Mr. President.

Let me just, if I think, because you asked the question. This was a jury, though. If I was walking in a department, because I was very famous then, and I owned the Plaza Hotel right next door, and I own buildings around it, I'm not going into a dressing room of a crowded department store. Then I say, if she was being raped, and by the way, they said she wasn't raped, okay, that was her charge. They found that you sexually abused her.

They did. But they didn't, they said he didn't rape her. And I didn't do anything else either. You know what? Because I have no idea who the hell she is. But Mr. President, can I ask? So he's mocking her, the crowd's laughing. It was horrible, obviously horrible.

Our politics happen to be horrible. There's a portion of the country that minimizes sexual assault and abuse of women. And the fact that they were laughing, yeah, it was really difficult to take that in. But those people exist. They're part of the electorate in America. And pretending like they don't exist or suppressing them and hoping that it won't come back to bite you later, I think is ridiculous and is not going to help Democrats win a damn thing. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Hey, guys, look, so it's terrible what he said, and I covered it live and I told you guys instantly how terrible it was.

And he smeared her later, et cetera. And the crowd's reaction I said at the time was even worse than what Trump said, because they're egg. him on and they're laughing at her nationally. It's disgusting. But those are actual Republican voters. And so, and what's really important about this is that people that are in power, people in D.C., people in the Democratic Party, people in media, they still don't get it. That's a third of the country. A third of the country absolutely positively thinks like that and doesn't think there was anything wrong with last night. They look at that clip and they don't think there was anything wrong with that clip. If you got your head buried in the sand and go,

I don't see it, I don't see it, and no one else should see it. I swear to God it's not going to help. We have to get up and fight back. That's what helps. And guys, for the Democrats that are going out there, oh, well, Biden beat him last time. But when Biden beat him last time, Anna Poe already pointed out Trump was in much worse shape. But Biden was around 50%. Now Biden's a 36%. That is a gigantic difference. So anyone, I get it, a lot of these arguments are made in good faith. You mean, you see that disgusting display on CNN and you get mad at Sienna and I get it, right? But what I'm trying to tell you is there's a more productive way to do it.

You hear an argument, oh well, Biden did win last time. It sounds pretty good until you realize, well, except he's 15 points lower this time. And that's a monumental difference and almost guaranteed, and he barely won last time by 43,000 votes in three states. So it nearly guarantees a loss this time. So we're trying to snap people out of it so we can actually beat this monster instead of hiding in a basement. I want to get to Oliver Darcy, who is an employee of CNN's. He put out a newsletter today.

And the newsletter indicates that there are some people working at CNN who are pretty furious at their decision of hosting this town hall. So he writes, CNN and new network boss Chris Licked are facing a full. fury of criticism, both internally and externally over the event. So, by the way, Lick totally rejects the criticism, arguing that it's important to hear from all sides and that Caitlin Collins did a masterful performance. By the way, Caitlin Collins, I think, did the best she could given the situation, because Trump's not interested in a conversation. He steam rolls, he talks over people and that's what he did to her.

And she did a pretty good job fact checking in real time, but Trump's a steamroller. That's exactly what he did. So Brian Stelter, by the way, had a thread regarding how the new head of CNN has reacted to the criticism and what some of the internal criticism has been. You do not have to like the former president's answer, but you can't say that we didn't get them, licks tell staffers, many of whom are angry about the town hall. Caitlin pressed him again and again and made news, made a lot of news, and that's, that is our job. He also says, while we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, and that was also,

this is what you said, Jank, an important part of the story. And then he adds, because those folks represent a large swath of America and the media screwed up by missing that part of the story in 2015 and 2016. And I think he's right about that too. I mean, it's true. I mean, I definitely missed that in 2016, which is why Trump's win was such a shocking event on election day of 2016. Yeah. So look, I, you know, I did videos say and watch out.

I think Trump's going to win in 2016, and I said it on ABC. And the reason I said it is because ignoring these guys doesn't make them go away. I went across the country. All I saw was Trump banners. No, nothing in the swing states for Hillary at all. And everybody said, don't worry, Hillary is definitely going to beat them. They were wrong that time. They were wrong this time.

And look, I'll be honest, I wish we had a steamroller on our side. Now, when you're a steamroller, you don't have to say terrible things. You could say good things. You can say, hey, why don't we have paid family leave when 84% of America is wanted? Why can Estonia afford 82 weeks of paid family leave? We can't afford one day? Okay, you could steam roll in a positive direction. But the Democrats don't have any steamrollers, at least in Democratic leadership and corporate Democrats.

They're all useless. They're like put, put, put, put, put, put. Final thing I'm going to say about this, because I think this is important. Trump was stupid enough to brag about how he's responsible for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which is not popular. Yes. Give him enough rope to hang himself and then have a message that is far more popular than his. That would require Democrats to, A, actually want to do something to improve people's lives. And I'm not talking about small businesses' lives or corporations' lives or executives' lives. I'm talking about ordinary people, okay?

I'm not talking about government contracts to private companies, to do infrastructure projects. I'm talking about real material change to improve people's lives. Give them something to vote for rather than something to vote against. And they just, they're unwilling to do it, right? I mean, Biden bragging about the incredibly weak policies that he passed, pharmaceutical companies are already ready to go to war to scrap the Medicare negotiations for just 10 pharmaceutical drugs. And that's like one of the things that Biden likes to brag about.

Yeah, it's nothing. It was a total cover your ass operation that helped the drug companies actually keep 99.9% of their monopoly and our inability to negotiate prices. Biden is just a corporate servant. That's overwhelming fact. It doesn't matter how many times mainstream media lies about it. No one's going to believe it. They don't believe it now.

You can say, oh, Jake, it's your fault that Biden's at 36%. No, I got news for you. It's called personal responsibility. Exactly. It's Joe Biden's fault that he's at 36%. And all of us enablers among the Democrats in Washington. Hey, if you guys don't want to kick Donald Trump's ass, why don't you move aside and let us do it? All right, let's take a break.

When we come back, we'll talk about the big immigration story in the news today. Title 42 is expiring. What does that mean? And how does the Biden administration plan to respond? All right, back on TYT, Jake and Anna with you guys and also Peter Angelo, who just became a member. Thanks, Peter. We appreciate it. Peter hit the join button below the video. I like to point down like my dad. He likes to use his hands a lot when talking. All right, Anna.

Let's talk a little bit about immigration. Tonight at 11.59 p.m. Eastern time, the pandemic era title 42, health order will end. Starting at midnight, people who arrive at our southern border will be subject to our immigration enforcement authorities under Title 8 of the United States Code. Here is what that means. If anyone arrives at our southern border after midnight tonight, they will be presumed ineligible for asylum and subject to steeper consequences for unlawful entry, including a minimum five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is outlining what the Biden administration intends to do now that Title 42, the pandemic era policy that just automatically rejected asylum seekers is expiring. Now, Title 8 is interesting, especially since they're now touting that. Title Eight is what the Biden administration had implemented in order to just reject asylum seekers, or a better way of phrasing it is, severely limit and restrict asylum as people come to the border. So according to the Hills reporting on this, what the Biden administration plans to do is take aim at those who travel through Latin America and other parts of the globe on a journey to the United States. The rule requires them to first seek protection in another country along the way that offers asylum.

Mayorkas also talked about it during a recent press conference. There's a few more details that I want you to hear from him, and then we'll go to Jake. Let's watch. Our current situation is the outcome of Congress leaving a broken, outdated immigration system in place for over two decades, despite unanimous agreement that we desperately need legislative reform. It is also the result of Congress's decision not to provide us with the resources we need and that we requested. Our efforts within the constraints of our broken immigration system are focused on ensuring that the process is safe, orderly, and humane, all while protecting our dedicated workforce and our communities.

I want to be very clear. Our borders are not open. People who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain will be promptly processed and removed. So I got to say, Jank, it seems like they're just extending Trump-era immigration policies, right? Because previously, if someone had entered the country through illegal means, let's say they did not go through a port of entry and instead cross the border illegally. If they were caught by border agents, they could just say that they are seeking asylum. And then they would get their opportunity before a judge, an immigration judge, who would make a decision as to whether or not their asylum claim is legitimate.

Trump changed that. So Trump implemented a policy where, no, you come in through illegal means, then we are not going to process your asylum claim. You have to go in through ports of entry. And then he, of course, had border patrol agents block ports of entry. So that was the one thing he did differently from what Biden is about to do. But, I mean, I thought Biden was supposed to be the more humane individual here. In fact, in one of the debates when prodded by Julio Castro was running against him,

Biden claimed that Donald Trump was the first president to do this exact policy. And he found it to be horrible, horrible atrocious, can't believe it. Well, congratulations, Joe Biden's now the second president to do it. I actually want to show you guys the receipts. So this was on the debate stage with Donald Trump right beside him. Let's watch. This is the first president in history of the United States America. There's anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country.

That's never happened before in America. That's never happened before in America. You come to the United States and you make your case that I seek asylum based on the following premise, why I deserve it under American law. They're sitting in squalor on the other side of the river. And they will continue to sit in squalor on the other side of the river. That is exactly what will happen. Okay, now let's talk about how politically irrational this is, I'll be kind.

So you're going to copy Donald Trump's policy that you're on tape, both in the primaries and in the general election, say it was a terrible policy. Okay, so now, how many MAGA votes do you think you're going to pick up with that? No, serious question. And but you have to understand something. For all of you at home, you all think like, well, we all get it, Jake. What's the hard party? He's not going to pick up any maggot votes, any Republican votes. How could he pick up any votes by copying Trump's policy, right?

But you have to understand the reason why I'm saying it is because everyone in Washington thinks it's a brilliant policy. They're like, oh, bravo. You go right wing, you know, because they think they're already in the general election. They're not worried about a primary. You go right wing and you pick up their votes. Why would you pick up their votes? They're already right wing.

But it's a thing that people in Washington have believed for 40 straight years. Why, by the way, there's a real reason why. Because all their donors are right wing. So they want an excuse to be right wing. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. If you want to get votes, you do the exact thing as the other party. And what do you do? You also take energy out of your own base who now don't want to support you.

And you seem like a hypocrite. You literally could not play it any worse. Okay, so best case scenario, what's going through the Biden administration's mind is we're not going to pick up MAGA votes. But maybe if we implement the same policies as Trump, maybe the conservative media will back off and stop attacking the Biden administration. They probably are that, again, I'm going to try really hard not to say dumb or stupid. So they probably are that irrational that they would think. Irrational is a good word, because that is an irration. national thing to think.

Yeah, conservative media, now they'll go easy on you, Joe. Brilliant. But guys, okay, first let me give you some more details about Biden's response to Title 42 expiring because there's more to this. So as Mayerkis also noted in that press conference, quote, we are finalizing a new rule to encourage individuals to use available lawful, safe and orderly pathways to enter the US. The rule presumes that those who do not use.

use lawful pathways to enter the U.S. are ineligible for asylum. So again, if they don't enter through a port of entry, then their asylum claim isn't even considered. They're immediately deported and they can't even apply for asylum for five years. So the other thing that they're trying to do is get migrants to just try to get citizenship in some other country that they would otherwise pass through to get to the southern border. The other thing they're doing is, hey, how about you use this handy dandy app that's super glitchy that has given us all sorts of problems to just check to see if you would even be eligible for asylum. And that'll be more efficient, except it hasn't been efficient.

And you're asking migrants, many of whom are being smuggled by human traffickers, okay, many of whom might not even speak English. You're asking them to use a glitchy app to figure out whether or not they would be eligible. for asylum. That's the big solution to all of this. It's ridiculous. And look, I'm fair in noting that the executive branch can't unilaterally solve this, okay? So what Majorcas said in regard to the inaction of Congress was absolutely correct. That is one thing that he said that I agree with. Congress dropping the ball on this and Republicans having the simultaneous meltdown over Biden's response is ridiculous. How about you guys do your jobs? But they refuse to engage in any type of conversation regarding legitimate, robust immigration reform. So if you're not going to do your

job, you can't then turn around and cry about the migrant crisis. And to be sure, they're expecting, this is from the Biden administration, they're expecting at least 13,000 people to come to the southern border every single day. So that, that's a crisis. And to just have this, honestly, in their mind's easy solution of going back to what Trump did is not the right answer. So look, guys, there is, of course, something you can do this. I always like to do constructive critique, not just tear things down. So could Biden do something differently? Of course, you could say, look, I need funding for thousands of judges at the border. Because what we need to do is we're America. When people come to us, we give them a fair shot, okay? That's something that

is base would love to hear. And a lot of independence would love to hear. But we need to process these quickly. And we need people to say, okay, you've come in. We're not just going to let you run into the country. There's a border. Okay, so you're going to have to come. And you, but you get to make your case for asylum. But in order for us to do that efficiently enough, so we're turning people around, right, accepting whoever makes sense and unfortunately not accepting folks who don't have a legitimate claim. Well, then I need judges. Then you ask the Republicans for it. And when the Republicans say no, which they will, then you turn around and go, exactly. The problem at the borders is the Republicans fault. They won't let us process these guys.

Sufficiently instead they're letting him just run into the country because they won't let us give us the resource we need. You would need a strong leader to do that, and Biden ain't that guy. And final thing I'll say about this is, Biden's entire campaign in 2020, his whole platform was, vote for me because I'm not Trump. Vote for me because I'm the one who can beat Trump. Vote for me. I'm the more, like, decent, humane person. How exactly does he plan on pushing that message when some of the main policies that he attacked Trump on are the very policies that he is now falling back on, like this immigration policy? Yeah. A little bit of a, you know, liability for his reelection campaign, no?

Obviously, except for everyone in Washington. So look, that's the last thing I'm not on line on, which is to people in Washington breaking your campaign promises is a savage. thing to do, right? Like so, for example, they always give credit to savvy politicians who say one thing in a primary and then turn around and say the opposite in a general election. They're like, well, in the primary, you're trying to appeal to your base, so you lie to them. And then in a general election, you're trying to appeal to all that is centrist, et cetera, so you lie to them. And then when you get into office, the savvy politician doesn't do either one of those things because he lied to all of them. No, that is not winning politics.

I know every phony in Washington thinks it is. And it's because they never intention. to do anything for you guys, all they're ever going to do is serve corporate rule. But if you had an actual fighter for you, a real representative, yeah, yeah, they're actually supposed to do the things that they promised on the trail, right? But to people like Joe Biden, actually delivering on your campaign promises, it's just a joke, right? It's a punchline, ha, ha, people are so dumb, they'll never figure it out. And mainstream media will just cover our ass.

No, you're clearly breaking a campaign promise, we see you, brother, we see you. violence toward various abortion providers in states that still have abortion available for women. The National Abortion Federation has completed its annual report on basically the number of violent attacks and threats that abortion providers have dealt in a given year. In this case, they're looking at 2022. And unfortunately, what they've noticed is a pretty significant uptick in violence toward abortion providers, specifically in states that still have reproductive rights in place that still allow for abortion. So here's what they found. If you take a look at this graph, it'll give you a sense, a comparison between 2021, that's the light blue and 2022, that's the dark blue.

And as you can see in every category that's noted on this graph, the number of these violent acts or violent threats has increased in 2022, and that includes arson, that includes invasion of abortion providers or abortion clinics. Even bioterrorism threats has increased from zero last year to four this year. You have death threats and threats of harm, went from 182 last year to 218 this year. Far more burglaries. There were 13 last year. I'm sorry, 13 in 2021, I should say, and 43 in 2022. Same with stalking. You see an uptick there. There was only 28 in 2021, and now there was 92 in 2022. So you can see that trend. And what the report also notes is that since abortion providers shut down in various states that have effectively banned abortion,

the anti-abortion activists have gotten far more active in states that still have legalized abortion. And so we'll get into some of those numbers in just a minute. But, Jank, it's, it is incredible to me, right? Because this kind of violence doesn't even seem to register in the national consciousness these days. Exactly right. Look, it's a form of terrorism.

They're trying to intimidate people. There's hundreds of cases of stalkings of these. these poor women at their most vulnerable state when they're making a super tough and personal decision. And these people come in and terrorize them. But since they're Americans and about a third of Americans agree with them, the media is super scared to point it out. They just pointed out and here is there, okay, it happened. But did they talk about it as a as a thing we should be concerned about, a phenomenon? No, no, no, no, no, no, we're gonna hurt people's feelings, okay? Now look, one of the things that I can't stand is the double standard.

So they're allowed to do that kind of violence and it's considered perfectly normal. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, every once in a while there's a bombing of an abortion. Like, oh yeah, every once in a while they murder a doctor who performs abortions. Imagine if the left did that to them. If we went into churches that considered themselves pro-life, every once in a while, we kill them. We bomb their churches, et cetera. By the way, do not ever do that, okay? So that would be monstrous and everybody would lose their minds. These terrorist liberals, we have to do something about this phenomenon. The right wing does it. Nobody barely had people. No, you're, you're totally right. Actually, I'll give you an example, which even though we condemned it on

the show, we did not agree with it at all. It certainly did not rise to the level of bomb threats and stalking, right? We covered that story at San Francisco. Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush, and a refreshing anti-bacterial mouthwash, all designed to work

together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. Disco State University where an athlete was giving us a talk to basically discuss how she disagrees with Leah Thomas's participation in NCAA athletics, right?

Now look, whether we agree with her or none, we don't agree with her, but nonetheless, like the reaction from the students there was ridiculous. I mean, they barricaded her in a room for hours. She couldn't leave until the cops came to release her. There was outrage about that. And there should be outrage about that. But why is there no outrage about the fact that abortion providers are dealing with, like, all these threats, including burglaries, bomb threats, I mean, arson, bio, like, bioterrorism, right? There's no coverage of this stuff.

If it weren't for this report, I wouldn't even be aware of how widespread this was in 2022. Yeah. And look, the double standards are everywhere. And the fact that people that people in media don't point it out drives me crazy. So like the crisis pregnancy centers, they're just flat out allowed to lie. So you, these conservative things are pretending to take care of you when you're pregnant and you're considering an abortion. When you come in, they lie to you about everything. And they tell you, oh, abortion can cause breast cancer. They should make things up. Oh, my God, you know, environments will take over your house if you get an abortion. I'm just like crazy stuff. I made that one up. But who knows? They make everything up, right? And everybody goes,

oh, that's totally fine. That's totally fine. If you went into Planned Parenthood, and they just started lying to you, and they're like, oh, yeah, everybody should get an abortion because after getting an abortion, you'll win a lottery. People are like, what? That's outrageous. They should shut them all down, shut them all down. Crisis pregnancy centers are funded by the government in a lot of these red states. We, the taxpayers, pay for them to lie to women in their most vulnerable position, And somehow that's normal. I don't find it normal.

I find it outrageous. So let's talk about what's happening in states like California, for instance, where reproductive rights remain intact. As I mentioned, the anti-abortion activists, the right-wing zealots, have focused their attention on these types of states, right? So in states where abortion is protected, stalking for instance, increased by 913% from eight cases in 2021 to 81. to 81 cases in 2022, okay?

So as they shut down more clinics, the crazies are targeting the smaller number of critics, clinics that exist, including in states where it's legal. They're like, oh yeah, good, now we have less targets. We can constrate our forces, our terrorists, against these particular clinics. Let me give you a specific example that was outlined in a HuffPost report on this.

So Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access Abortion Clinic in Casper, Wyoming, and also co-owner of another abortion clinic, Hope Clinic in Illinois, recounted how weeks before the Dobbs decision came down, anti-abortion extremists broke into her Wyoming clinic and set the building on fire. She and her team were set to open the new clinic in just a few weeks, but the fire destroyed everything, forcing them to renovate for another 11 months before they could finally open and see patients. And look, if you go back several decades, this is not uncommon. These kinds of threats, these types of acts of violence have happened for decades.

And it's just, it is interesting to see how the double standard plays out, how certain acts of violence, not related to anti-abortion terrorism, get lots of attention, but this kind of stuff, barely any. The National Abortion Federation has tracked incidences of violence and disruption since 1977. In that time, anti-choice extremists have committed 11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons, 531 assaults, 492 clinic invasions, and 375 burglaries. So guys, if you think terrorists is too strong a word, I mean, what do you call a fire bombing? What do you call an assassination? That's literally the definition of terrorism to do that to civilians for a political cause.

So an easy example, if a Muslim fundamentalist came into a prominent church and firebombed it, what do you think would happen? The whole country would talk about that nonstop. It would be referenced for not years, but decades, right? Did you all hear about the Wyoming firebombing? I'm sure some of you heard it because you care about the news, etc. I mean, you're progressive, and you care about women's issues. But I bet you tons and tons of you didn't even hear it. And you guys pay attention to the news more than anybody else does.

Barely a story at all, definitely not a national story. They firebom the place. But in America, when the right wing does terrorism, it's fairly normal. So we don't make a big deal out of it. That's disgusting. What's also disgusting is primary care consolidation, which is making health care even worse in America. We've got that story and more coming up. Don't miss it. or t-y-t.com slash join.

By the way, also check out our podcasting network. So get our shows that way. And there's some audio-only shows as well to check out. All right, Casper. I want to talk a little bit about primary care in America, which, of course, was already deeply flawed. But unfortunately, it's getting worse and will continue to get worse. Primary care in America is being consolidated as these major companies and corporations

buy up doctors groups and even private practitioners who are operating, you know, their own private business. Now, this is an issue because the consolidation usually translates to less options and poor care. And we're also talking about primary care doctors who typically, you know, in the medical industry, get paid the least and are incredibly overworked. But when it comes to the profits they bring in for hospitals, and in this case, corporations, let's just say that big capital sees dollar signs. So this is what's happening. It was a great report, by the way, in the New York Times. This is a good example of some of the good reporting they do. And just to give you a sense of how widespread this has become, between 2010 and 2011, the total capital

raised for private investment in primary care in the United States increased by a factor of more than 1,000 from 15 million to 16 billion with a B. Okay, so that gives you a sense of how much money is being poured into this. And I'll tell you who some of the biggest players are, CVS Health, of course, with its sprawling pharmacy business and ownership of the major insurer Aetna paid roughly $11 billion to buy Oak Street Health, a fast-growing chain of primary care centers that employs doctors in 21 states. And Amazon's bold purchase of one medical, another large doctor's group for nearly $4 billion, is another such move. Now, remember, there's also this privatized Medicare model, which is something else that kind of, it's like a perk for these corporations,

because it allows for them to essentially overcharge the Medicare system through Medicare advantage. I'll give you the details on how that happens in just a moment. But Jenk, just when you think that the privatized health care model, the for-profit health care model in America couldn't get worse, here we are. They always find ways to make it worse. 100%. So in this case, when you see some of the top finance people in the world pouring in a thousand times bigger investment into an area, into a sector, that means they find that to be an attractive place to invest. Why do they find it to be an attractive place to invest? Because they think that there are efficiencies to be found.

Now, what does that mean? And efficiency means, well, we're gonna cut our costs and we're gonna raise our prices. And that because they think that the costs are too high, the services are too high, there's too many employees and not enough revenue. So that's why they rush in and they pump up the prices on you guys. They cut the employees so you have less employees to have. help you. And then they cut services to you and they go, boom, efficiencies. So I just made a lot more money by making sure you got way less and you paid me more for it. That's why they're getting

a thousand times the number of investments in there because they figured out the government ain't going to help you. Nobody's going to help you. We could just come in and rob you. By the way, for our audio audience, I totally misspoke even though I read it clearly. The numbers that I gave you earlier was from 2010 to 2021, not 2011. And so yeah, it went from 15 million in 2010 to 16 billion in 2021. Now I want to give you a few other examples, including insurance giant United Healthcare, which is of course another clear example of these consolidated services. So United Health Group owns the major

insurer that has nearly 50 million customers in the United States and oversees its ever expanding subsidiary, Optum, which has bought up networks of doctors and medical sites. Optum can send patients from one of its roughly 70,000 doctors to one of its urgent care or surgery centers. You guys see how this game is played, right? So essentially they use the primary care doctors to feed more business into the other medical services provided by this like medical conglomerate. That's a good way of thinking about it, right? So if we're thinking about CVS health, for instance, the primary care physicians who work under the umbrella of CVS health would then write the prescriptions and urge the patient

to fill their prescriptions, where at Costco or CVS health? They'd fill the prescriptions at CBS, one-stop shop, find ways to have certain elements of the business, feed, more business to other elements of the business. Like that's the way that they're doing this. Yeah, that's called synergies. And guys, look, I said they use this to rob you in the past. So what do I mean by that? That sounds, you know, mainstream media would say that sounds hyperbolic.

These are lovely, legitimate business interests here. They're just improving efficiencies, et cetera, right? Well, the government is supposed to protect you. That's what regulations are. There are laws that apply to businesses. And they're supposed to be a cop on Wall Street, too. And they're supposed to say, hey, here's the minimum number of services you have to offer if you're going to do X. Hey, you can't create a monopoly.

You call it a synergy. I call it a monopoly. It depends on the facts, the circumstances, et cetera. But there's supposed to be a cop on that beat to look out for you guys, especially on health care where your life is on the line, right? But all the cops, well, they did defund the police. It was just the police on Wall Street, right? And so now, because the Republicans did that, there's no one here to protect. you. So they will increase those prices. They will lower the services. They will do all of these

things. They'll direct you to only their stuff, not anybody else's stuff, because they're going to make more money doing that, and no one's stopping them. So Elizabeth Warren is urging the Federal Trade Commission to take a closer look at these deals. You know, because of the consolidation and the monopolization of the healthcare industry, she feels that the FTC might be able to do something about this. We'll see. I mean, so far, the FTC clearly hasn't blocked any of these acquisitions through antitrust grounds. But Elizabeth Warren has noticed it. I would like to see a more aggressive fight in preventing this from happening, from preventing this consolidation from happening. And then the final thing I wanted to just quickly get into was how this is

also robbing the taxpayer through Medicare Advantage, which is the privatized model of Medicare, right? It might be publicly funded, but it is privately run. That's how Medicare Advantage works. And so the growing privatization of Medicare is alluring to these corporate giants. More than half of Medicare's 60 million beneficiaries have actually signed up for the privatized model of Medicare Advantage. And the federal government is now paying the insurers, the private insurers that run it $40 billion a year. And guess what they do? They overcharge. They over bill. That's like the whole model here. Amazon's one medical scooped up a practice specializing in Medicare Advantage. Only about 5% of one medical's 836,000 members are enrolled

in that federal program. But roughly half, half of its revenue comes from that tiny slice of patience according to its 2022 financial statements. It's insane. It's so frustrating. Look, I'll end on a ray of hope. Normally, most political stories end with no hope. But in this case, Elizabeth Warren might not be wrong. We'll see, we'll see.

But at least we've got a fighter's chance because we're always fair. You see us criticizing Biden a lot, but there's a couple of things he has done right. His labor board is strong. And the person he put in charge of antitrust is pretty strong. Lena Khan, right? Yes. So let's give it a shot. Let's see what happens. Open mind. And there are, there are good folks in there. And by the way, guys, please do nuance. Like if folks tell you, I don't get it, are you for Biden or against Biden? The answer should always be, it depends. What's the policy? Did he do it well or did you do poorly? So in this case, there's a little bit of hope. And that's about as much as you could hope for in today's politics. Let's take a break. When we come back, I've got more news for you all, including Diane Feinstein. She just, she needs, she needs to resign, like immediately. There was a pretty terrible incident that happened.

I'm going to share it with you. Later, though, we're also going to talk about some union busting, both in the state of Florida and also at Starbucks in Ithaca, New York. And don't forget about the super babies. Right. Those are also coming. 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.