The Young Turks - Trump's Bitch Behavior

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

CNN investigates a Syrian prisoner's alleged false identity. Trump sues the Des Moines Register and a top pollster, accusing them of ""brazen election interference"" and fraud over a Harris poll. Shocking percentage of young Americans say UnitedHealth CEO slaying was acceptable. Kamala Harris’ digital chief discusses Democrats “losing hold of culture.”" HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. Hi, welcome with the Young Turks, Jake U Gran and Kisparan with you guys live from the Polymarket Studio here in L.A. We've got a lot of stories for you guys and lots of twists and turns here. There's a couple that I love, including the TikTok ban and how that exposes everyone. AOC apparently did not get the position she wanted, but the details are more damaging. The details are where the unfortunately the devil lies.

All right, so let's get to it. I actually want to begin with a story that I'm sure is very humiliating for CNN. We all make mistakes, but we should be a little more careful. So take it away. After three months in a windowless cell, he can finally see the sky. My God, the light, he says. Oh, God, there is light. My God, there is light.

Okay. Okay. Sit, sit. Stay with me, stay with me, he repeats again and again. Well, that report out of Syria has turned into quite the humiliating debacle for CNN reporter Clarissa Ward, who was sadly duped by the alleged prisoner. He, in fact, wasn't really a prisoner of Bashar al-Assad's regime. He was actually someone who worked on behalf of Assad.

So let's get into the details. CNN, to their credit, did correct the story. They corrected the record just recently and admitted to falling for this hoax. So a man who was filmed by CNN being released by rebels from a Damascus jail was a former intelligence officer with the deposed Syrian regime. And that's according to local residents and not an ordinary citizen. who had been imprisoned as he had claimed. So that was the correction that they issued to the story on Monday evening. Now CNN initially found the man while pursuing leads on the missing US journalist by

the name of Austin Tice. Clarissa Ward was being accompanied by a rebel guard who took her inside of this prison in Damascus. And so after shooting a padlock in order to get into said prison, they came to across a man who was alone and he was completely covered with a blanket inside a cell. When he emerged into the open air, the man appeared bewildered, questioned by the rebel fighter who freed him. The man identified himself as Adele Gourbal from the central Syrian city of Homs.

Now in her initial report, Clarissa Ward said that the man also said that he had been kept in this cell for three months, which should have honestly been a red flag. because if he had been kept in the dark in that cell for three months, I feel like he'd have a difficult time exiting the cell out and then going outside and like looking into the sky with his eyes open, no? Yeah, well look, I've got a lot of thoughts on and then it goes in a couple of different directions. But yeah, that was a hilarious piece of acting.

He was like, oh, the sun, I mean, he was so over the top. Look, I, first of all, in Clarissa Ward, I think that she's done some other stories. were actually pretty good. Yes, I agree. Yeah, and so I know some people get on her for a little bit of, you know, histrionics and over-dramatizing these things, et cetera. But here, she did correct it. That's a giant difference between the people who don't correct it, right? And, and so I'm not as, you know, driven as others to be like, ha-ha, CNN, et cetera. And you know me, I criticize CNN a billion times. So it's not personal, it's not anything, it's just based on the facts. And she's done very good reporting, too.

So I'm not bothered by that. I am bothered by something else, which is who was CNN's sources that led to this photo op, right? Because to me, the thing that people are totally missing in this story is that the West wants to put out a positive image of the new leader, who's a former Al-Qaeda guy, right? So I don't know much about him because it's being filtered through so much Western propaganda. Yes. And so why were they desirous of an outcome where someone would heroically be rescued from this cell and make the, and if you remember, I told you right after they took over Damascus, every mainstream media article was talking about, then they freed all of the prisoners.

And I was like, wait, a lot of those guys were ISIS and Al Qaeda. I'm not sure that's such a good thing, but they all painted it as it was like a heroic uprising. And I'm like, wait, there's sectarian conflict. Assad's a terrible guy and a butcher, but he represents a number of people who are minorities in Syria and there should be some concern about them. And so there's so much nuance here. And instead we've got a story about a heroic rebel leader overthrowing Assad, which makes me think that we were an enormous part of the, you know, the toppling of Assad's regime. Well, we were. I mean, the United States was very much part of the proxy war that was taking place in Syria as this, you know, internal civil war was starting to develop and in fact we armed the rebel groups in

order to assist them in toppling Assad and so that's very much real and you're right jank this is a nuanced story this is not a black and white story and there are so many different international actors at play when it comes to what has transpired in Syria but just to give you more of what happened in this particular case with the hoax that you know CNN unfortunately fell for and look I want to say something, people are going to make mistakes, okay? And as long as they're not in knowingly engaging in propaganda in a disinformation campaign, and as long as they correct their errors, like, we just have to understand journalists, yes, are going to make mistakes time to time.

This is a big mistake, but at least they corrected the record. Let me continue though with what happened next. So again, in her initial report, the man said that he had been kept in this cell for three months, and that the prison in Damascus where they discovered him, was the third prison that he had been confined in. Now the man also said that he was not aware that the Assad regime had fallen. He was being held in a jail that had been run by the Syrian Air Force's intelligence services until the Assad regime collapsed. But again, all of this ended up being BS, okay?

So CNN later obtained an image that proves that the man is actually someone else, okay? Not who he claimed to be. He was a lieutenant in Bashar al-Assad's Air Force Intelligence Directorate, and also Homeboy's real name is different. It's Salama Muhammad Salama, multiple residents of Homs, where he said he lived in or came from, said that the man was Salama also known as Abu Hamza. Now the resident of the Bayada neighborhood in Homs gave CNN a photograph said to be of the same man while he was on duty in what appears to be a government office, obviously a government

office when Bashar al-Assad was still in charge. Now facial recognition software provided a match of more than 99% with the man CNN met in the Damascus prison cell. The photograph shows him sitting at a desk, apparently in military clothing. CNN did not publish the photo to protect the sources and anonymous. I mean, we know what his name is now, but they didn't publish that photo. Now, CNN was able to also get, is not able to get in touch with him anymore. So what happened to him? Well, it's kind of unclear. So verify S.Y, which says it is a Syrian fact checking website, was actually the first to identify the man as Salama. It said that he had been jailed for less than a month because of a dispute over profit sharing from extorted funds with a higher

ranking officer. Now, CNN says that they have been unable to verify that independently, but after the rebel guards had found him, he was handed over to the Syrian Red Crescent, but now his whereabouts are unknown. Now, Ward's report did lead to some anger on the ground in Syria as well, so I wanted to, you know, voice their concerns. Take a look at that. Since this video has been published, many have doubted its authenticity claiming it to be state, including Syrian reporter Hussam Hamud on X. He's worked for France 24, Media Park, Arte, he strongly criticized the CNN report, saying that amid thousands of real vivid stories from Syria, we certainly don't need fictionalized

scenes to convey the truth, while also reporting on these Syrian women who are protesting and protested against this CNN report by Clarissa Ward, saying, It's staged and offensive to the plight of detainee families. And when it comes to, you know, the war that was taking place in Syria, I feel like that particular conflict led to so much disinformation, so much. I mean, the Syria conflict, every war, of course, there's the fog of war, there's a lot of misinformation that goes floating around. But Syria is on another level. It is. And so that's why I mentioned that the West was likely involved, because right now the West is not admitting that. I don't want you to get it wrong. They're pretending that it was just like organic insurgency. That's been going out for over a decade. They didn't have any power before then. So yes, the mainstream media articles mentioned Turkey as a potential, you know, folks who, country that helped these guys over turn aside. I guess we've decided, and I guess Turkey's okay. with that but it's not if you think this is just Turkey that's hilarious Israel

bombed the living crap out of Syria before the rebels took over that's why the Assad regime had almost nothing to defend themselves with and it was on mitigated bombing the Syrians could had nothing to respond with the Russians are too busy in Ukraine etc and and it was interesting because the the new leader in a video yesterday was talking about well you know we hope to not get in a conflict with Israel and he seemed like puzzled, like what's going on here. And now I'm overreading it, I'm sure.

But my read of that was, he's like, wait, I thought we had a deal. You guys help us take over the country. We go back to al-Qaedaing or whatever it is that we're going to do. And then later we'll have a huge fight like 10 years from now. You'll say, we never saw it coming. But you were supposed to stop attacking us. And Israel afterwards did not stop attacking them. Israel not following through on a deal would be shocking, I know.

But so, but I'm being clear that that's all not known, it's me piecing it together from what we know about the Middle East and what we saw happen with our own eyes. But the West will not admit that, Israel will not admit that. And the West is pretending that they had absolutely nothing to do with it when all of a sudden, and this is why I get frustrated, this would be my main critique of CNN overall. But all of the mainstream media, when someone leads you into a prison and says, I have a heroic story for you. Pause, like, and think, who is this person leading me to this story? Or when sources from intelligence agencies start telling you about how the Syrians are celebrating

the streets, you might want to ask which Syrians. Exactly. That's a good point. Oh, the prisoners escaped into freedom. Wait, before you call it freedom and celebrated, who were the prisoners, right? So I just think a lot of this nuance is lost and a lot of Western media is propaganda without realizing it. I don't think Clarissa wards thinking, hey, I'm going to help the Pentagon get this message out, blah, blah, blah, I don't think that at all, right? But somewhere in the organization, someone has handed a piece of information and it usually comes from our governments, right?

And so I'm asking those reporters to be careful with it. Of course, those are, that's falling on deaf ears. So now, I think there's another part of this that's really interesting. First, real quick on the guy again. So he worked in intelligence. One of his jobs was to find collaborators. Okay, like, he's as bad as it gets. Yep.

And so that's why a lot of his victims were like, that guy? That guy's the hero of the revolution? No, no, no, no, which goes to the point I wanted to make. Look at the power of new media. In the old days, we would have never even found out that this was a fake story. I mean, definitely 20 years ago, probably 10 years ago, where they would have CNN would have run this story. Nobody would have found that because people of Syria would be like, what the hell?

that's the wrong guy, but they can never get their messages out. But now all they do is take out a smartphone, shoot a video, send it to the press, and then all of a sudden there's outlets in Syria that are independent even, and then they start doing the story, and then independent outlets in other parts of the world start doing the story, and then people go, oh my God, it's the wrong guy, and then CNN has to retract it. So it's a new day in the world, and as you see all the downsides, including this horrible, horrible civil war that Assad is massively guilty over, right?

There is some rays of hope here as the information gets a little bit more equalized and not so much top down because the top down is almost always propaganda. Well, I want to move on to something entirely different and talk about media in a different context, especially when it comes to intimidation tactics and stuff like that. So take it away. I'm doing this not because I want to. I'm doing this because I feel I have an obligation to. I'm going to be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster who got me right all the time.

And then just before the election, she said I was going to lose by three or four points and it became the biggest story all over the world. Well, unfortunately, President-elect Donald Trump is making good on the promise to sue the Des Moines Register and the pollster known as Anne Seltzer for putting out a bad poll, showing that Kamala Harris was going to win in Iowa when in reality she lost Iowa and she lost big. Now, he has officially filed this lawsuit and he is doing so following the victory that he experienced with the defamation lawsuit that he filed against ABC News. ABC agreed to settle for $15 million. Now, Trump's latest lawsuit is not over defamation, but rather what Trump believes is election interference. And look, before I give you more details about this story, I just want to get this off my

my chest because it's so, this is bitch behavior, okay? And I say that because Homeboy won, you won the election, Trump, you won the election, this looks so petty and so pathetic, let it go, you won, this is a waste of time, and this is so dumb, okay? Yeah, well, look, Anna, I'm gonna double down on that. So he was a sore loser when he lost in 2020, to the point where he said terminate the Constitution, and we all know the whole story, right? But now this is a different level.

He's a sore winner. But brother, when you win is when you get to be classy. So what are you going to sue this lady over your ludicrous conspiracy theory? And I want you guys to understand that conspiracy theory. So they said it before the election. Oh, she's ringing this poll. It's a fake poll so that it'll seem like Kamala Harris is winning. So when the Democrats cheat and declare her the winner, they'll say, oh, well,

Anne Seltzer has this poll. the other polls and that shows that Kamala Harris actually won. Except they didn't do any of that. Kamala Harris didn't cheat, she didn't win, and when she didn't win, she immediately accepted the results. So the whole theory was utter nonsense, and it's proven by your victory. So what are you doing here? You're going, well, I don't care that my ludicrous conspiracy theory was obviously

disproven. You're needlessly attracting attention to your maniacic. idea that proved to be utterly falls when you should be celebrating your victory. So like not only is it wrong and our job is to point out things that are wrong and preposterous, but as a matter of strategy, it is very poorly played for them. Look, it makes him look weak. It doesn't make him look like a strong leader. It makes him look like the kind of person who's so obsessed with personal grudges that it's

going to distract him from engaging in the type of leadership that he purports to want to. engage in. This is a sign of weakness, not a sign of strength. But anyway, let me give you the detail. So again, this election is allegedly about election interference. That is what he claims this is about. So Ann Seltzer's poll had shown that Kamala Harris was leading Trump by three points. Obviously, the election did not play out that way. There was a great deal of excitement among Democrats over the poll. And I thought it was ridiculous because a single poll, shouldn't give you the kind of confidence that some Democrats were displaying in the press after it came out.

But ultimately, Trump did win Iowa by a whopping 13 points, okay? It wasn't even close. Take the win and move on, but he can't do it. So Seltzer's poll was so wrong and so humiliating that she decided to go into retirement. Okay. Now even though Trump comfortably won the election and even secured the popular vote, he has opted to act the way that he's acting by filing this lawsuit. Trump's attorneys are suing under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act alleging that defendants

engaged in an unfair act or practice because the publication and release of the Harris poll caused substantial unavoidable injury to consumers that was not outweighed by any consumer or competitive benefits which the practice produced. So the lawsuit which was filed on Monday night in Polk County, Iowa, under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and related provisions says the following. It seeks accountability for brazen election interference committed by the Des Moines Register and Seltzer in favor of now defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris through use of a leaked and manipulated Des Moines Register MediaCom Iowa poll conducted by Seltzer and CNS and published

by the Des Moines Register and Gannett in the Des Moines Register on November 2nd, 2024. So his legal team also took issue with when the poll was released, and it was days before the election took place. Additionally, the suit argues that as Seltzer knows, this type of manipulation creates a narrative of inevitability for Democrat candidates, increases enthusiasm among Democrats, compels Republicans to divert campaign time and money to areas in which they are actually ahead and deceives the public into believing the Democrat candidates are performing better than they really are. So Trump's legal team argues that the Iowa poll actually did cause damages to the campaign, because after the poll came out, they claim that they

flooded Iowa with with finite resources in order to help Trump improve his performance in the state. And so what are they expecting to get out of this lawsuit? Well, Trump is demanding actual damages upon trial of the case. Statutory damages three times the actual damages suffered. An order in joining defendants ongoing deceptive and misleading acts and practices relating to the Harris poll and compelling defendants to disclose all information upon which they rely to engage in the deceptive and misleading acts relating to the Harris poll. And finally, they're asking for attorneys' fees and costs associated with the case to be covered by the defendants. Okay, so a lot more to say here. First of all, this second

theory that Anna just laid out for you there is, so this is to suppress the MAGA vote. Because if MAGA thinks that Trump might lose in Iowa, what, they're not going to show up to vote? Well, they are known to not want to fight. Oh, yeah. Oh, well, if we're going to lose already, we'll just go home. We're just going to give up. Yeah. No, they would be more animated to show up in Iowa, and maybe they were.

Maybe that's why he won by 13, right? So, and by the way, this was Hillary Clinton's dumbass strategy. I'll just keep telling everyone that I have no chance of losing. Well, and I'll talk about all the polls that are showing me leading. We'll have that turn out for her. It suppressed her own vote. So if that is a strategy, it's the world's dumbest strategy. And oftentimes counterproductive.

Second of all, they said, well, you know, it caused us to flood our resources to Iowa and it costs us so much. Wait a minute, I thought you said it was a fake poll from the minute that it was introduced. In fact, I remember you saying that. And I remember you launching all these conspiracy theories about this poll. Did you secretly believe it? And guys, if you're MAGA, think about it for a second. They're now asking you to believe that they panicked over the poll and it sent an army to Iowa to try to win that state when at the time you saw with your own eyes, them going, what a stupid fake poll, no way, we're not going to react to that.

So which one is it? Which one is it? What are you trying to win some money here? Dude, I thought you were a billionaire. This is so sad and pathetic in every way. I don't think it's about money. I think that, look, I think that Trump has very similar frustrations toward the media. that you vocalize on this show right? Yeah, but I don't do it in a ridiculous way. No, you don't. You don't lash out by, you know, being like ridiculous and litigious and anyway. But that's what Trump does.

He holds grudges and he pursues, you know, retaliation in this way through filing these lawsuits. When in reality, he would look like a much stronger leader if he just let it go, took the win. I mean, again, he didn't just win the electoral college, okay? He won the popular vote. This was a big win for Trump. So move on. Show yourself to be above it. I just can't stop thinking about how silly it is after you win to complain about a poll where

you were losing. Who cares? The actual election happened. Right. Okay. Now, last thing is, I know this will cut back to me, which will be fun. Okay, because you said about how I handle the media, right? So, but I want to ask in between, wait, is Hillary Clinton now allowed to sue all the

pollsters who said she was going to win the election? That she had a 98% chance of winning the election, a 91% of winning the election. I mean, she flooded her resources in all the wrong places. She, it suppressed her vote because they said she was going to win. Can she go back and sue all the pollsters? I mean, as long as politicians are all suing everyone, which is what Trump is asking all the politicians to do, can every politician who loses a race, or now apparently even wins a race, sue every poll that didn't have it exactly right?

Can they sue every critic who said, oh, you should have done this or you shouldn't have done that? Well, oh, boo-hoo and cry, sue, sue, sue, okay? All right, how about me? Can I sue? Because when I ran for president, yes, I did that. Yes, it's now looking back on it. It seems funny. But, hey, we tried to push Biden.

Now we did. Anyways, I pulled a 2%. That's it, I'm suing. Should have been at least 3%. Okay, I mean, this is absurd. It's insanity. How do I know if that was the right number or not the right number? I don't know.

And so they're doing the best they can. And when they get it wrong, it's not like, our conspiracy worked and Trump won't. Wait, no, she's embarrassed. She retired, right? Because she got it wrong, not because she was part of some lunatic conspiracy theory where Trump would lose by winning. Okay. And finally, so I'd say all this in social media.

And then Laura Lumber replies, which is fun. She's very level-headed, so I'm curious to hear her take on this. Yeah, she's like, see, he's back to attacking Trump. That's why we should never forgive him. Laura, we are not like you, okay? I think you're crazy. I want nothing to do with you. The idea, she's demented.

Like she thinks I'm trying to like position myself to be allied with her. We think you're crazy. We want nothing to do with you. Okay, Laura? Wait, wait, listen. Who asked you for your forgiveness? Ain't nobody asked for no forgiveness? I want nothing to do with nothing from you, nothing to do with you.

Let's be clear about that. And then they'll say this like, aha, you see that? And by the way, the radical right will look at that and go, aha, you see they're not with Trump. How many times do we have to say we're not with Trump? Okay, we do a news show here where we criticize politicians. And by the way, we also give them credit when they deserve it. Exactly. So Trump, I know this is shocking news to you.

as a politician, and to the Democrats, I know this is shocking news, but Biden and Pelosi are politicians, and we criticize all of them, because they're always constantly doing things wrong. And very few times they do things right, we give them credit unlike any other news show, right? So it's called honest reporting, look into it. And so nobody's asking for anything, and we're going to give you the same exact opinions we gave before. And on this, Trump is a total and utter clown. So I hope that's clear enough for everyone. All right, when we come back from the break, we have some big updates on Luigi Mangione,

the individual who assassinated the United Healthcare CEO, along with some polling about where hearts and minds are for young people in regard to whether or not assassinating an executive is okay. We have that and more coming up. Don't miss it. I was valedictorian in college. Oh, well, I'm sorry. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys. Nicole C, thanks for becoming a member, we appreciate it. She hit the join button below on YouTube, that's awesome. TYT.com is another way to join, Anna.

All right, well, let's talk about this next story, some updates on Luigi Mangione. A shocking new poll finds that more young Americans actually condone the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson than those who don't. And we're going to get to the details of that poll in just a second. But there are also some pretty big updates in regard to the assassin himself, Luigi Mangione, and a New York grand jury has indicted him this afternoon. Mangione is charged with one count of first degree murder in furtherance of terrorism and two counts of second degree murder, one of which is charged as killing as an act of terrorism. The terrorism, the terrorism, the terrorism, label is interesting in this context. Maybe we'll talk about in just a minute. But he's also

charged with the in, or he's charged in the indictment in Manhattan Supreme Court with multiple counts of criminal possession of a weapon and a single count of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. And Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg added terrorism charges. They were warranted, he says that they were warranted because the slaying was intended to evoke terror. So if Mangione is, he is. convicted of these charges, obviously he would be given the maximum sentence and would likely spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mangione is currently being held in Pennsylvania, but New York Governor Kathy Hochel is expected

to file an extradition request so Mangione can be tried in New York. Now Bragg stated that he has indications, Mangione will waive his right to an extradition hearing and consent to the move. I don't know why he thinks that, but that's what he thinks. So before we get to the shocking polling results on this issue, Jank, thoughts on the charges. Yeah. So first quick comment from Superchat as we're doing the show live. You know shows live 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern every day.

Rage Rock for announces, I have an eerie feeling that if Mangioni ever takes a stand in court, he'll have a terrifyingly articulate explanation for why he's not a criminal. In fact, that's going to lead into the poll. We're going to tell you in a second and why I said from day one, I don't think they'll let him testify. Even if he wants to testify, even if he's got every right to testify, my guess is that the government is at least going to try to stop him from exercising his constitutional rights and testifying because they do not want to get his message out. So now the problem here is most of the killers in our world, almost all of them, have lunatic messages. There's something wrong with them. That's why they did the killing in the first place.

Unfortunately, in this case, Luigi, his complaint is one that is shared by a lot of people. Again, that's going to lead to the polling in his sec. So he might be right about his critique of the healthcare industry while being completely wrong about the way that he carried out that protest through murder. So in terms of what do I think of the charges, this is the most obvious charges of all time. Look, I don't care if you call a terrorist or not. He should get life in prison, period. It's a cold-blooded assassination, murder.

it doesn't get any more clear murder than that. So if he's saying, look, I'm a hero and I decided to spend the rest of my life in prison to make this point, okay, but that's what you're going to get. Like, I don't see any reason in the world why he should get anything less than a day off from the rest of his life being in prison. So the terrorism element of it kind of bothers me because, first of all, it's making an assumption about what the real intentions were here, like beyond what Mangione himself stated in his manifesto, which was to evoke fear or terrorism or a sense of terror, I'm assuming

with other corporate executives, but is it just because other corporate executives feel scared? Is that all it takes for? I mean, when there's anyone is killed in cold blood, you know, we're all get a little bit more afraid. so I suppose you could call that terrorism. So look, in my experience, I don't know about this in particular because I'm not sure about New York law and if one of something he did triggers a technical legal definition, but did they want to call him a terrorist, very likely they did.

And in my experience, the overall point is that whenever the government doesn't want any message getting out, they call the carrier of that message a terrorist. So if somebody, and the point is not that he didn't do violence or those people didn't, is that when someone else does violence, but the government is not as upset about their message, they don't get called terrorists. Yeah, I think that's why this bothers me so much, right? Like the very selective use of specific terminology, especially from someone like Alvin Bragg, right? Like, when you read about the stories of certain violent crimes and even murders and dismemberments

that have taken place in New York in recent years, but haven't been prosecuted to the same extent that this is being prosecuted, it makes you wonder. But I do want to also talk a little bit about some fascinating polling results, because today the New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said this of the reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson. Quote, this was a senseless act of violence. It was a cold and calculated crime that stole a life and put New Yorkers at risk. We don't celebrate murders and we don't lionize the killing of anyone. But as we mentioned earlier, a lot of young Americans specifically have not only celebrated this, they do condone the assassination of Brian Thompson. So here's

some data from Emerson College. They're the ones who did the poll. They found that 41% of voters ages 18 through 29 find the killer's actions acceptable. 24% say somewhat acceptable and 17% say completely acceptable, while only 40% find them unacceptable. As for Americans overall, the results are different. Okay, so a majority of voters, 68% think the actions of the killer of the United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson are unacceptable. 17% find the actions acceptable, while 16% are unsure. So take a look at this graph, a final data point that I'll show you.

So 40% of Americans between the 8% percent of Americans, between the 8%. ages of 18 to 29 think Mangione's actions are unacceptable. 56% of voters ages 30 to 39 think unacceptable. 69% of voters ages 40 to 49 think that Mangione's actions are unacceptable. So you guys get the picture, the older the individual responding to the poll, the more likely they are to find the assassination unacceptable. Yeah, so first let's talk about how startling this is for most folks. And then let's talk about why. So when you see those numbers and you see that even

of the 40% that found it unacceptable among the young, even 7% of them said only somewhat unacceptable, 19% said, well, I'm not sure it could be, could be acceptable, could not be acceptable. So that only leaves 33%, one third of young voters in this country who think that it was totally unacceptable to kill an executive. That is amazing, okay? So I've never seen a poll like that in my life. Now, having said that, I'm not overly surprised by it. And why am I not surprised by it? Because young people in this country are furious with corporate rule. And so this is a very unhealthy way to show that, obviously. But when you see young people celebrating the assassination of a corporate leader.

It's not random. It's they didn't see one video on TikTok. No, it's a cultural phenomenon where young people are not getting their news from television, not even close. They haven't watched cable ever in their lives. And so they've never been the victims of mainstream media propaganda, where they tell you, no, the status quo is great. And you should accept your fate.

And no, if you don't pay the ransom, health insurance companies are allowed to kill you. If you don't pay the ransom, the drug companies are allowed to charge you anything they want. And if you don't pay it, then again, you can go ahead and die. You can go ahead and die in 18 different ways. You're not going to ever be able to buy a home. You're not going to be able to afford college or any hope for the future. And then you wonder why they have a reaction like this. They have a reaction like this because they're furious at corporate rule.

Yeah, and look, I find murder to be wrong, period. I don't think that that is a solution to the systemic issues that are infuriating Americans. By the way, across the political spectrum, this is not a right or left issue. You see the celebratory nature of some of these posts on social media coming from people on the left, people on the right. And I don't think that this is a good solution. But at the same time, it's really up to our elected law. to understand that you can't finger wag your way into a society that would condemn it entirely,

right? Like, you could go ahead and shame the people who reacted to this poll the way that they did. That's only going to make them more angry. There's something broken in our country, right? There's a lack of hope among young people, and I don't blame them for feeling that way. So we need to find real solutions. We need to improve people's lives. People need to have hope. That's really the only way to change things. But, you know, I look at our current political landscape, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. So the finger wagging will continue. And the revolution will continue. And now, unfortunately, in unhealthy ways. So the healthy way to do a revolution is to do a political one and to get money out of politics

and end the corruption so that we end corporate rule. But, but they're giving our current politicians are so corrupt. And so is our current mainstream media that they give no space for that to happen. So it comes out in unhealthy ways. Finally, Bernie and Warren, Elizabeth Warren came out and said, look, it's the same exact thing we're saying. The murder is reprehensible. There's no excuse for it. But let's look at the root causes as to why people are having this reaction. And of course, Biden advisors then went all over television and we're like, no, we demand to be dumb. And we don't want to discuss the root causes. We don't want to discuss anything. And they blame Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for having an intelligent conversation about it.

They say no, right after the death of this person is not the time to talk about what's wrong with health insurance. And then if you ask them, okay, then what's the right time? They'll never give you an answer. Right. They don't want to talk about it right now because the whole country's talking about it. So they're like, sheesh, those are our donors. What are you doing, Bernie and Warren?

Yeah. You can't hurt our beloved, beloved donors. Everybody shut up about health insurance. Those are the guys who pay our bills. And that's why we hate establishment politicians. Yeah, the best time to have talked about reforming our health care system might have been, you know, during the presidential election we had, where health care wasn't mentioned really at all, with the exception of the one debate between Donald Trump and

Kamala Harris, where Trump said that he has concepts of a plan. That was it. That was it. And what was Kamala Harris's plan? No plan. What was Democratic leadership plan, right? No plan. So before she said Medicare for all, when she was obviously lying and trying to get votes in

the 2020 primary, and if you don't think she was lying, then you are just a total naifool. I'm sorry, but really wake up from the propaganda that you're watching. Of course she was lying. She never meant Medicare for all. None of them meant it other than the progressives. So then you say, okay, well, I mean, Jesus Christ, at least a public option. So there's a way that you save someone's life, right? Right.

If they want insurance from the government, they can still get private insurance. The reason she didn't mention that super weak sauce option is A, again, she took $774,000 for the health insurance industry in this campaign. so she's literally paid not to have that position. I'm sorry if you're a Democrat and that breaks your heart. That's how this works. And then secondly, Joe Biden said he would do the public option, lied, never even proposed it. So that was embarrassing.

So that's why they didn't want to mention it. Here's an idea for Democrats who'd like to win. Maybe actually try to do the things that you said you'd do instead of lying about a 24-7. When we come back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about some lessons learned by some Democrats. following the shalacking the party suffered in the presidential election. You don't want to miss it? They have some thoughts about media strategy. All right. Back on T.O.T. Jank and Anna with you guys.

But also, our most active recent member, Mark Sewell, upgrade to premium. You could do that through the join button as well. And that helps everybody because it keeps prices low. Thank you, Mark. You're awesome. Will, thank you, brother, for joining as well. And Rio Han, thank you for gift and 20 memberships. That's beautiful and generous and we appreciate you. Casper. All right, let's talk a little bit about some of the lessons learned by Democrats and Democratic operatives following the presidential election in which, of course, Democrats were shellacked. But nonetheless, let's get to the details. Kamala Harris's Deputy campaign manager, man by the name of Bob Flaherty, am I saying that right?

Flaherty. Flaherty, yes, has some groundbreaking thoughts about the value of using mainstream media to win campaigns. And by groundbreaking, what I specifically mean is that he's come to conclusions that we have been talking about on this show for literally years. And doesn't mean it. Yeah, probably. You're probably right about that. But let's take what he's saying at face value for the purposes of this discussion.

In an interview with Max Taney over at Semaphore, he says that there's just no value with respect to my colleagues in the mainstream press in a general election to speaking to the New York Times or speaking to the Washington Post because those readers are already with us. I want to pause there already. Why are those voters, or I'm sorry, those readers already with you? I mean, there's a little bit of an admission there, no? that there's a bit of a slant in the reporting.

100%. Yeah. So look, guys, this, and remember, he's an establishment Democrat. So what he's saying about the New York Times and Washington Post is 100% true. When the right wing says that their left wing outlets are progressive or liberal or et cetera, that's only half true because they're left wing on all social issues, okay? But they are not left wing on corporate issues. On corporate issues, they're arguably what used to be called right wing, but very pro-establishment,

pro-satisfactory and pro-satisfactory. But that's exactly where the establishment Democratic Party is and where Kamala Harris is and Joe Biden is. So they're like New York Times and Washington Post is basically our propaganda outlets. So there's no need for us to go talk to people who report into us. We're their boss. And that's true. Yeah, yeah. So that admission was incredible.

But let me continue with the rest of what he had to say. He says when Trump did the McDonald's thing, it was smart, it was smart, he's right about that, it was smart because it was a thing that obviously drove television coverage, but it also drove social media engagement too. And those things often happen in tandem, but they don't always. And so it was the sweet spot. It drove traditional coverage and non-traditional coverage. By the way, another example was Trump's decision to go to East Palestine, Ohio, after that Norfolk

train derailment, and he did that before any of the Democrats did. He went to a McDonald's there and bought food for all the first responders. That was smart, and I remember getting a lot of hate for admitting that that was smart. But listen, game understands game. And when you see a politician basically carry out really, really smart campaign strategies, the Democrats should learn from that instead of going after pundits or media figures who give Donald Trump credit for engaging in smart campaign tactics. No, look, I got to be honest, that one really bothers me because we said here,

hey, that was a smart photo op, good strategy by Trump. And all the Kamla fans that were like, oh, you guys are betraying us and you're supporting Donald Trump. You're secretly right wing. So you're secretly right wing, et cetera. Meanwhile, it turns out at Kamala headquarters, they were saying the same exact thing we were, which is, oh my God, we got played that McDonald's. photo op was brilliant, and it worked perfectly in mainstream media and in online media,

just like we told you. But they know that, but they still set their minions out to attack us for having the correct opinion. Correct. Because God forbid you should turn around and actually run a smart campaign. There's more. He also says, quote, I don't think TV is dead. It's still probably the most important thing, but it's the literal TV and what's on it that matters.

Let me explain what that means for folks who might not understand what he's mean. Like, TV used to be what we used to call cable, right? But he's now saying on TV, there's also smart TVs, and there's also YouTube, and there's all these different things. So they might be watching the TV set, the literal TV, but they're not watching the cable that we thought they're watching. They're not watching MSNBC, CNN. They're watching, you know, Rogan on Spotify or Young Turks on YouTube, or whatever it might be.

And so he's at least woken up to that way, way, way. way too late, right? I mean, this is 10, 20 years too late. We've been saying this and we've been called radicals the entire time. And they're never going to change, but keep going. So later on in the campaign, Flaherty said that he actually realized their failure to gain traction in alternative media spaces or new media spaces and that it was reflective of a much deeper problem for the Democratic Party, which by the way is definitely true.

He's concerned about the Democratic Party losing the culture, okay? Yes, 100%. So let me give you his exact verbatim quotes. So this is from semaphore. They write that the Harris campaign representing what many voters saw as an embodiment of the status quo was running contrary, not just to ideological distrust of establishment figures, but to media trends. The media successes of 2024 were independent, non-traditional online personalities who themselves were avatars of the rewards of going up against the establishment. And then he says, quote, the reason folks are seeking alternative sources of media and are turning

away from political news is because they don't trust our institutions. That's absolutely right. They don't trust elites. They don't trust the media. They don't trust all this stuff. So the party of elites and institutions is going to have a hard time selling to people in these places. Okay, I got to jump in there, too. But why do you think they don't trust those institutions?

For the exact reason you said in the beginning, which is, well, we already controlled the New York Times of Washington Post and CNN, et cetera. Well, that's why they don't trust them. Because they know you control them. they know that they're going to say exactly what your candidates are saying. They know that that's, and that's why were people so outraged Washington Post, L.A. Times didn't endorse, because they assume that they must endorse and will endorse Kamala Harris. You must tell everyone to bow their head and support the establishment candidate.

So that's why they lost credibility, because no one believes they're honest. They believe that they're pushing out an establishment agenda. Look, again, the right wing, in my opinion, misses it. They think that, oh, it's left wing versus right wing. No, it's establishment versus populist. Those same papers love Mitch McConnell. They love all the establishment Republicans, the guys that the right wing calls rhinos because they're also corporate politicians.

The thing that the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN and Matt Massachusetts will get together and do a circle, you know, a one around, is whenever Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell come up with a bipartisan deal to cut taxes for the rich. Because it's always in favor of corporations. Always, always. And to the detriment of the other people. said, ship, we love this. And meanwhile, the country is vomiting it.

They hate it, right? And then they wonder how they lost credibility. That's how you lost credibility, brother. And so these, you want to fund corporate robots to do the news for you and push out your message. But you're missing it, brother. In online media, robots don't work. Authenticity works. That's exactly right.

And so they did do big ad buys for independent news, right? So YouTube channels, for instance, that were incredibly friendly to Kamala Harris. So if they noticed that there were some news shows on independent media and they were more favorable to Kamala Harris, they pumped those shows with money. But it's arguably no different than investing in mainstream media platforms where audiences are also largely agree with wanting to vote for Kamala Harris anyway, right? The point is to reach out to undecided and independent vote. And those voters, by the way, aren't going to be watching hyper-partisan YouTube channels.

Yeah. And so look, now to information I have that these folks don't, which is that they demand propaganda. So they will not advertise on any show that questions them. Right. And they don't support any kind of media that would ever question them, even 1%. So then what do you think is going to happen to you online? You're going to, you know, fund and support propaganda outlets that act like robots that are totally disingenuous.

Will you get a whole bunch of blue and on folks to watch that? Yes, you will, right? And then they'll go, yes, Joe Biden is young. Joe Biden is dynamic. Joe Biden's in charge. He's the best candidate we've ever had, right? Because that's what their host are telling them 24-7. That's what they wanted to hear anyway.

Is that going to help you win an election? No, not at all. because they're not addressing a single undecided voter. But when you come to shows like ours filled to the room with undecided voters, they go, no, you don't support us and you won't do our marketing and our propaganda. So we don't care about your undecided voters. We're going to spend our money on decided voters who already love us. Okay, good luck to you, brothers and sisters.

But if you constantly attack your media that's on the left wing that is actually authentic, Well, then you don't be surprised, what happened to our side? How come the right wing's bigger online now? We were paying everyone for propaganda. Why didn't it work? Because that's not how it works online. Get it through your thick head. But they won't.

They'll learn absolutely nothing from this. I'm positive of it. So let's talk a little bit about culture because I would venture to say that the Democrats losing touch with culture has also been a mass, it's been to the detriment of the Democratic Party. And like this elitism and we're better than everyone else attitude, it's not going to play out so well. So he acknowledged that Democrats have lost touch with voters, in part because of mainstream media's growing irrelevance. He says the campaigns in many ways are last mile marketers that exist on terrain that is set by culture. And the institutions by which Democrats have historically had the ability to influence culture are losing relevance. You don't get a national eight point shift to the right without losing hold of culture.

I mean, that is absolutely true. And in fact, something that I've been vocalizing to my own detriment because of all the hate I've been getting for it is the parties have kind of flipped culturally in certain areas. So back in 2007, 2008, I remember the party that was the most censorious and the least willing to hear ideas that conflicted with their own preconceived notions was the right wing. Okay? They were the ones who were constantly crying about comedians. And I hated it. I thought they were so pathetic and weak. And now you see a lot of that taking place on the left.

And so just consider how that comes across to ordinary Americans, especially in an electoral cycle. He says the solution isn't as simple as just going on Joe Rogan's podcast, and I agree with him on that. You've got to speak their language. And I think there are plenty of cultural touch points. I mean, Joe Rogan was at least recently for Medicare for all. Theo Vaughn is really against money in politics and the way that pharma has flooded our communities with opioids.

Those are all things that Democrats have something to say on. And yet that is true. That is true. But as long as we seem like the party of the system, the people who are anti-system and are looking for anti-systemic media, we're going to have a hard time connecting with them. Yeah, because look, so does he understand it now better than almost all the other Democratic consultants? It sounds like it. So a lot of what he said there is true.

But even for him, I would be shocked if the next time around he's like, guys, that's why we need to find an authentic populist candidate that can actually fight for universal health care and all these things that actually are enormously popular in the country that our side never fights for, right? We might have it as our policy on a website somewhere, but we never get caught trying to actually pass those bills, right? No, he's not going to say that. My guess is, and it's a guess, brother, you could prove me wrong, that he's going to say, no, we need to have a new script for our new and improved corporate robots. And those corporate robot 2.0, i.e. Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom, will come out there. We are slightly better corporate robots.

We have been trained for more authenticity, right? It's not going to work. And so why are they going to go in that direction? And why am I so confident about it? Because the root of the problem isn't how they message. The root of the problem is that they take the corporate money and they serve the corporate money. If they didn't serve the corporate money, all this would be super easy. You just go on Rogan or Young Turks or anywhere and you just say, God damn right, we're going to stand up for the American people.

We're going to get you higher wages through higher minimum wage and other actions. We're going to preserve your jobs. We're going to fight for your health care. We're going to get you paid family leave. But they're never going to do that because when they go to ask permission for their donor cause, may I please, sir, fight for a little bit of health insurance for the American people. No, shut up. Okay, okay, okay, well, if you're a candidate like that, which all of the establishment Democrats are like that,

it doesn't matter if you give them a new script. It doesn't matter if you set up new propaganda outlets online as opposed to mainstream media. Never going to work, okay, because of the, and so that's the core political reason. The core cultural reason, I'll just expand on what Anna is saying. So number one, first of all, that hatred of the establishment is part of the culture now because that establishment has not led to a good life for most Americans. Top 10% live like kings and they're super happy. That is why they are genuinely bewildered why anyone is upset.

They're like, what do you mean? This is a great country. I'm living great, all these ungrateful millennials, et cetera, right? And Gen Z, oh, they're so ungrateful. No brothers and sisters, they live a different life than you, but you won't listen to them because all you do is listen to the donors. But that's not all. Culturally, again, inauthenticity doesn't work.

Corporate robots don't work. And then to Anna's point, look, I hated that the Republicans had become the authoritarian Party were always, what I realized was they were always the authoritarian party. I write about it in my book, Justice is Coming, right? But now we're over here, and all of a sudden, we got the authoritarians on this side as well. So you, and it's, that you got the establishment saying you're not allowed to step an inch out us outside the guardrails, otherwise you're a radical, we cut off funding, we cut off access, we cut off everything, we try everything in the world to destroy you first before we even get

to the Republicans, because we secretly agree. with the Republicans on our corporate agenda, but you populist progressives are a real pain in the ass, so we hate you? Okay, well, that's authoritarian, okay? Telling me what I can't say is authoritarian. And then all of a sudden, some portion of the left slipped into radical left, and they started saying what you're not allowed to say. Okay, no, that's going to hurt the bodies of Asians and Indonesians. That's it. You're hurting bodies. You're hurting bodies, okay? So, no. Now you're not allowed to say that, you're not allowed to disagree, I'm the king here. Who the hell elected you king or mayor, et cetera, and who are you to say what we can and can't say?

And part of it is this shaming culture. And you know who likes shaming? No one. No one likes shaming. This whole like, yeah, I think everyone who disagrees with me is a racist, sexist, bra, bra, bra, bra, bra, bra, bra, bra, okay? But others, sometimes they are racist and sexist. But if you say it every time about everyone, then it loses all power. What it does is it makes you look like an ass who's making it up, which actually hurts

the cause of fighting racism and sexism. What it does is it hurts, it supports your cause of seeing the most pure, you're not allowed to say, I'm the most pure, right? Okay, well, you became authoritarian and I hate it. So that's, on the policies we're never, ever going to change. But if they keep telling us both the establishment Democrats and the radical left, that you're You're not allowed to disagree with them. No one wants that.

The whole country hates that. You've got to get that through your thick head, otherwise you're going to get annihilated in these elections. When we have the popular policies, you're burying our policies in your culture of shaming and authoritarianism. Yeah, it's super narcissistic thing to do. It's about an individual as opposed to what's best for the country. Anyway, we gotta take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll talk about the latest school

shooting who the shooter was and we'll also talk about the victims and later in the show, it's worth talking about the leadership struggles taking place in the House of Representatives where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned her back on progressives and got trounced in return. We'll be back.