The Young Turks - Trump's Most Bitch-ass Moments

Episode Date: January 21, 2021

Hosts Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola discuss Biden’s inaugural address as well as Trump’s final remarks at Joint Base Andrews. Plus a look at how Trump skipping the inaugural was a bitch-ass move but was it the most bitch-ass moment of his presidency? 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. 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, Plac and tartar.

Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. Howdy everyone, welcome to TYT, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rola with you. John, it's Wednesday, and it happens to be the day then. Joe Biden has been inaugurated, so I'm really happy to be able to do the show with you today. Me too. The Wednesdays this year have been out of control, by the way. I hope next Wednesdays just chill for once. Right, right. Well, I will say though, even though John typically hosts with me for both hours on Wednesdays, and while Jenk is supposedly taking some sort of sabbatical to write

write his book, I literally contacted him at six in the morning today and said, are you really not going to do the show today? Because I won the bet. But we're gonna have a debate about that. He will be joining in for hour two. I believe he's trying to move the goal post, but I'm not buying it. I will make my case, we will discuss it in hour two. But in hour one, lots of news surrounding Biden's inauguration, lots of punk-ass behavior from Donald Trump. Now the former president. So really looking forward to, you know, sharing what his morning was like with you all. And we have some policy stories to get to as well. But first, before I get to all of that, I just want to make some programming notes for you, including a programming note for TDR,

the damage report for all you feisty little dragons out there watching the show wanting to know what else John Iderall is up to. The damage report is now on TikTok. What can you expect? They'll be posting short snippets of the show. So leave a comment and share your ideas and suggestions for what you'd like John and the TDR team to do on TikTok and what to post. You can also follow the damage report on Twitter by going to the damage report at the damage report, and that's also the name for the TikTok page. Happy Half Hour, by the way, is now on Twitch.

So join Brett Ehrlich, who is the super producer for the show, by the way, for a special extended happy half hour tonight, actually, on Twitch as he celebrates the inauguration of Joe Biden at 8.30 p.m. Eastern Time, 530 p.m. Pacific. That's at twitch.tv slash t-y-t. Okay. Now, with that all said, I didn't want to start off today's show with discussing Trump's antics. I actually wanted to start off with what the big news story is. Joe Biden has been inaugurated. So let's discuss. Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46 president of the United States, and of course, he did give a speech to really note and highlight what he wants the tone of his presidency to be. So we have a few snippets of his speech for you. Let's take a quick look and we'll discuss. on this hallow ground we're just a few days ago violence sought to shake the capital's very foundation we come together as one nation under god indivisible to carry out the peaceful transfer of power

as we have for more than two centuries so he's of course specifically referring to the rioters, the insurrectionists who breached the Capitol and then proceeded to murder a police officer with a flagpole and a fire extinguisher. And then, of course, four other people also died during those riots. So it really hasn't been a peaceful transition of power, unfortunately. And Donald Trump conceded only after the riots took place, and he was pressured to do so. But it was kind of strange to see the events at the Capitol today and kind of juxtapose that with what we experienced a few weeks ago. Oh, I thought you were talking to another one, yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah. You thought I was talking to the other co-host?

No, I thought you were throwing to a video. You had a very declarative end of your statement. But anyway, yeah, no, 100%. And like one of the things that I try to bear in mind in terms of the speech, like look, I think that Biden's fine. I don't think that he's one of our best public speakers or anything like that. I generally liked the message. And I thought that the delivery for him was pretty good. There were only a couple of stumbles. So we also have to bear in mind that apparently it was based on Bernie, which we'll get to incredibly cold there. And it is more difficult to give a speech during that. But, you know, having a person who sounds relatively in, you know, with his message of unity, like if that carries too far into his political strategy,

it's going to be a massive problem. And we have reason to believe that it might. But in terms of having a person that is not either explicitly or like wink, wink, inspiring more extremism is a good thing. Like we had to sit through Trump's inauguration speech and his states of the union and his various addresses the nation. And everyone generally was horrific. But even before that, as you're watching it, you're just waiting for the shock. What insane line is he going to say? And I didn't really fear that during the Biden speech, which was a nice change of pace. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, as you guys know through watching our show and listening to our analysis on Joe Biden's record and some of his proposals and, you know, his cabinet

picks as well, there's plenty of critique and criticism to be made. And we're going to continue on with that in an honest way that provides the receipts. But at the same time, I think the one giant difference, and this is exactly what you're alluding to, John, is that on one hand, you had someone like Donald Trump who love to provoke violence in this country, who love to divide and conquer. That was really the essence of his governing style, if you could call it governing. Whereas with Joe Biden, even if you disagree with him politically or policy wise, you at least see that he's someone who understands the importance of the constitutional protections we have in place, understands the importance of our democratic process, understands the importance

of doing what he can through his rhetoric to at least attempt to, you know, identify people. Obviously, I'm very skeptical about the ability to do that. But it really does start at the top. We need leadership in the country that doesn't seek to divide the country further in order to use that as a tactic to accomplish more of what he wants to do. And that's what we saw with Donald Trump. So we have another video where he talks a little bit about domestic terrorism and violence, racism in the country. Let's hear what you had to say about that. A cry for racial justice,

some 400 years in the making, moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer. A rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, that we must confront and we will defeat. Our history has been a constant struggle. between the American ideal that we're all are created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.

So I agree with that last sentence, certainly. But I do worry about how he intends on rooting out domestic terrorism in the country, right? Because what we've seen, especially through the riots that happen in the Capitol, is that you have members of the military, you have members of the Capitol police and local police departments throughout the country who are sympathizers for the kind of ideology that persuades these guys to go march in Charlottesville and chant things like Jews will not replace us. There needs to be a robust investigation into the military, into law enforcement, to ensure that the very people who have taken an oath to protect and serve, the very people who have taken an oath to serve the best interests of this country are actually doing that and not engaging in the extremism and the racism that is helping to tear the country apart. I worry that his policies, whatever may come moving forward to root out domestic terrorism, is going to put most of the surveillance. and onus on ordinary Americans, but really we need to look at systems and see how systems help to perpetuate the system of violence and racism that was exploited by Donald Trump for his own political purposes.

Yeah, and hopefully, like we've been through a period where you not only have Donald Trump and up-and-coming Republican politicians being willing to say or do whatever to get popularity, even if it radicalizes people, cause them to believe in saying things about the about the country, about their political opponents and those sorts of things. You have tech platforms that create algorithms that have, whether the intent, they have the effect of radicalizing people and a very fraught history of trying to reform that in recent years. And certainly, look, there are things that Biden could aim to do in terms of fighting the terrorism that we might consider to be overreaches in terms of domestic surveillance. Sure. What I would like, though, is to not have a president

who seems to be there to ensure that the FBI, the DOJ, all of that, take a very hands-off approach to militia groups, domestic terrorism, racist attacks, and things like that. I guess the hallmark version of this is them dismantling that organization that looked into domestic terrorism. But in general, like, I have a feeling that that is a philosophy that pervaded. It's not to say that they didn't successfully stop certain plots. They did. They caught Cesar Ceyac. You know, the Coast Guard lieutenant who wanted to start some sort of war. There was the militia that wanted to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. There were other plots and things like that.

But we also have to remember that, and maybe some other countries that have failed have had this, we have this melange of extremist groups that have the benefit of having a massive media organization in Fox News and the rest on the right, that in best case scenario with the most extreme terror, we'll just not talk about it and we'll pretend that it's not there. But in some cases, we'll actually run defense for those attackers. Tucker Carlson, his monologue since that capital attack had been about how this isn't a big deal and you shouldn't worry about it. And these are just people who love their country and all of that. And that's what we've seen for all of these. Cesar Sayak, he just got out of control. He wasn't really trying to

kill anyone. These are the things they spent years saying. And so Biden is going to have to fight not just the actual terrorists, but whatever he does to try to investigate that, to find them and all of that, he's going to be attacked constantly by right wing media for doing this. That he's targeting right wingers or he's infringing on whatever, their cue patriotism. I don't know. No, they're going to cry and cry and cry because the very people who claim that, oh, the left, they engage in victimhood all the time. The right wing loves engaging in victimhood. It's their bread and butter. It's what they thrive on. I mean, people like Ben Shapiro wouldn't exist if it weren't for right wing victimhood. But I just think that the most important way

to help better our society, and I love the fact that you mentioned social media, is again, to look at how certain systems are set up, right? So there shouldn't be this ability for social media platforms to literally set their algorithms in a way that increases or incentivizes divisive content because it increases engagement, right? Like that has been a pretty big problem. There's also the issue of information bubbles. People end up, you know, just existing in these information bubbles within social media where they only get access to certain narratives that further reinforce their preconceived

notions or further reinforce whatever propaganda they're getting from right wing media. There needs to be a real discussion about the way media is set up in this country. And I'm so tired of the false equivalencies. I'm tired of people pretending as if CNN is the left wing version of Fox or OAN. Like let's please stop drawing those false equivalencies because that is exactly what stands in the way of having a an honest discussion about real solutions. And so I do wanna go to one more video featuring Biden because here he talks about something

that's been bothering me since he won the presidency. And it's this talk of unity. We want the country to be calmer. We do want people to unite. But at the same time, I feel like some of his language here comes off as naive. Okay, let's watch. To overcome these challenges to restore the soul and secure the future of America requires so much more than words.

It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy. Unity. Unity. My whole soul is in it. Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this. bringing America together uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American

to join me in this cause. The way of unity. We can see each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature.

For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury, no progress, only exhausting outrage, no nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. So there's a lot of talk of unity, John, but there isn't really much of a discussion of how you accomplish unity through the executive branch. I mean, again, toning down the hateful, divisive rhetoric is important, and he no doubt has already done that and we'll continue to do that. But there are policies that are important, right? So is he planning on, you know, a continuation of Obama era type policies, or is he really going to follow through on something, you know, closer to the left, right?

We're not going to get what we want with Medicare for all. I mean, he's been very clear about his willingness to veto that type of policy, but he certainly has moved to the left when it comes to other important agenda items for the left, including, you know, a more robust approach toward combating climate change. If you like read the details of his climate plan, it's not the Green New Deal, but it comes pretty close. And, you know, he seems to be more on board with real economic relief as opposed to being so concerned with deficit spending and what it does to the nation's debt. So I like that messaging. And it's hard to really sit here and speculate because you have to really see what kind of actions he takes

once he's finally governing. But based on his rhetoric, it seems like there are some positive forces having a positive influence on him. So we'll see how that goes. But one thing I will say real quick, and then I'll turn it over to you, John is. I get the that everyone wants to be super cynical. I get that everyone's pessimistic. I'm queen of pessimism. I totally get that. But at the same time, if you start off from a place of low expectations, then you're not going to appropriately hold him accountable or apply appropriate pressure to organize and possibly accomplish some policy goals that we want. So don't start off with like a defeatist mentality of like, nothing's going to work,

he's just going to be a disappointment and I'm going to check out. No, I mean, we need to at least have high expectations and fight. We have to fight. And we have a better chance at accomplishing things under this presidency as opposed to Trump's presidency, which I'm elated he's not going to have a second term for. Yeah, and it probably doesn't need to be said. But you have a much better chance of succeeding if you actually try rather than if you just, you know, detach yourself from politics and go off for a few years and then come back for the next presidential election or something. That's not going to work. Yeah, there are areas where he during the primary said some really disconcerting things. I mean, obviously about healthcare, but in general,

I mean, the quote that we go back to a lot is nothing will fundamentally change. I get that he means it more in the way that that speech was talking about, but that's worrying. That said, as you point out, there are areas where in theory he could do quite a lot. And it seems sort of like, I mean, the fact that he's pushing for, you know, $15, you know, an hour minimum wage or, you know, a climate plan, at least on the road to the Green New Deal is basically thanks to awesome progressives, especially Bernie Sanders running at the national level in two cycles now. Even Joe Biden has been pushed to some of these positions that he certainly wouldn't have held 10 years ago. So that's, that's definitely good. My fear remains, though, that when he says, like he does his speech about how, We'll never have peace without getting rid of the divisiveness and all that. That's good.

I think a lot of people want to hear that stuff. But I really hope that he gets that it is just not a thing that all Americans agree that what we want is peace. We don't all. Like in theory, you can have situations where there's an escalation of tensions and partisanship and all of that. But everybody wants to get back to some sort of normal thing. But that's not for a significant portion of the country, that's not what they want. But these Maga people, the Q people, they're not interested in peace with the Satanists. They believe that we all eat babies. They don't want peace with us. And perhaps more importantly,

right wing media is in an arms race with itself to get those people to watch them. And so they will say whatever crazy thing they need to to do that. And we already have a ton of people who want to be the next Trump. They are going to be spreading insanity for the next few years, Not peace. I don't know who's going to win the next Republican primary, but it's not going to be their version of a Joe Biden. It's going to be some form of a crazy person doing a Trump impersonation. That's probably what it's going to be. I don't think it's going to be Nikki Haley. She's bad enough, but it's going to be a Josh Holly or a Tucker Carlson or Ted Cruz or something. And so I just, I say that just I hope he is ready. Like you can, you can do your unity speech

and all that. You can even try a little bit, but don't waste four years like Obama did reaching your hand out into the lawnmower blade. It doesn't get you anywhere. It certainly doesn't fix our problems. No, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Like right now, I mean, a perfect example of that. And that's what I meant when I said that he sounds naive.

And I'm sure he has some knowledge of how awful some of these people are. I'm talking about the Josh Hawley's, Ted Cruz's of the world who can literally experience this insurrectionist riot in the Capitol building and then continue on with their sham allegation. sham allegations of widespread voter fraud of which there's absolutely no evidence. So those types of people are never going to change. They're always going to be self-interested. And they're going to always do what they can to undermine any possible success that Biden could have in passing policies that are good for the American people. So yes, he's definitely naive in that regard. But I will also mention that I lost my train of thought. It's totally fine.

I did want to mention, though, one other thing from the inauguration today that stood out. So Senator Bernie Sanders, of course, attended the inauguration of Joe Biden, and he went viral, mostly because of his choice of attire. And it's a perfect example of what people love about Bernie, because he's real. He's 100% real. And this picture is probably one of my favorite pictures. It was making its rounds on Twitter this morning. And so you see him there with his adorable mittens on, his hands or his arms crossed, his mask on.

And, you know, he's looking a little grumpy. I like that tweet where Rachel Sim writes, I need this picture to become the new, I would prefer not to stand in, which I love. And then you might recognize the jacket that Bernie's wearing because it was the same jacket that he wore in the notorious YouTube ad asking for. for campaign funds, small dollar donations, of course, during the Democratic primary. I am once again asking for your financial support. So it was just a cute image and really did warm my heart. Yeah, it was a fantastic meme. I love that. Yeah, and so that that new image has become one. I'm sure you've seen the photoshopps of people putting that into things. Like, I saw the classic like the workers sitting on like a beam in Manhattan or whatever, they put them on that.

And I started to work on a Photoshop of him in the council of Elrond and I just, you know, like I don't need to put 30 minutes into that in the middle of a work day, but it would have been great, it would have been great. But anyway, it's just, yeah, like you see it and you just think it's like maybe it's just that he like us is like good, good, good, now let's get back to work, you know, maybe he's doing that or he's probably thinking a little bit about how close he potentially came at two different occasions. And so my heart goes out to him for for that as well. Did you happen to see the photo of him with the envelope from before that point in the day? I did. I did see that image. It's just like the idea that like he's going to head to CVS and the

post office afterward. Like he's got his whole day plan. I'm going to accomplish so many errands. Yeah. Oh, Bernie. Oh, Bernie. And one final thing. So I love what Ben Mankiewicz says about pictures. You know how there's like that saying that pictures speak a thousand words, Ben Mankowitz argues that, no, pictures don't say anything. They can often be, they misrepresent oftentimes what's really going on. So we don't really know what he's thinking. And while he might look grumpy in, you know, the original picture that we showed you guys, we don't know if he was actually in a bad mood or anything like that. I will say, I mean, he's been criticized for being crumogenely or grumpy in general. And based on the interactions

I've had with him, I can see why people would think that. But I actually really, really like that about him. I like that he's not fake. I like that he doesn't put on a show for people. It sucks because in politics, I think that you kind of have to do that a little bit. And I'm one of those rare people who runs away from people who live in my building who are actually very polite and nice and want to have conversations. And I run toward Joe, who's like the 98 year old who like does not want to talk to me at all. I'm just like, Joe, Joe, every time I see him in the lobby, like I want to strike up a conversation. So I don't know. I just, I like, I like that authenticity. And I just think that he's the kind of guy who's been fighting for the same things for literally

decades while serving in Congress. And it's an incredibly frustrating process that leads to a lot of disappointment. But he keeps fighting. And so let the man be grumpy if he wants to be grumpy. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. He's earned it. And he's like, he's not going to way. We're talking about him. He's still there. He's going to be doing great work, I hope. Yeah, yeah. No, I just wanted to share some Bernie love. Like, you know, I know the inauguration ain't about him, but we can make it about him. All right. So we got to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll discuss Trump's little punk behavior this morning. And the media's obsession with like, like criticizing him for not going to the inauguration.

Who cares? Who cares? Anyway, we'll talk about that and more when we return. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the government. conventional wisdom. In each episode of On The Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount

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So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. What's up, everyone? Welcome to our social break. If you're looking for new TYT gear, today is the day to purchase it because ShopT TYT is having its inaugural sale. So you get 15% off site wide if you just shop now at shoptyt.com, lots of fantastic apparel, including the You're Fired.

apparel, which of course is dedicated to Donald Trump and how he's been fired from the White House. So 15% off, just use the promo code, bye-bye, B-U-H-B-Y-E, B-U-H-B-Y-E. Also, there's a new design in the ShopT-YT-T-YT store. It's referred to as the Orange Menace. I'm sorry, Shop the newly released United in Progress merchandise. So shoptty-t.com where you can learn more about that. Let's move on to some member comments. I can't keep with mass inertia, keep up with mass inertia, writes in and says, we have a lot of work left to do. No, no, no, I don't know what you're talking about. We're going to go to brunch tomorrow.

That's it, we're done. Oh, let's. Of course we have a lot of work to do. We were so gaslit. It's as if an establishment politician privy to corporate issues seems like a savior right now. Man, that was a rough four years. What do the next four years hold in store for us? us? Well, I mean, I really think that if Biden is committed to improving this country,

he can't continue on with the same type of, and I hate using this word, but it's literally the right label, the same neoliberal policies that led to inequality in the country and all sorts of other issues. And he also needs to avoid coutowing to the Republican Party and the right wing media. He needs to be a bold leader. And that's really the only hope that we have in solving some of the issues we're experiencing right now. Tina says this in the member section. I feel and agree with Anna about fear of Biden's response to domestic terrorism. I just have to say as a black woman to finally hear president actually acknowledge, even acknowledge systemic racism and white supremacy was monumental. A president has never mentioned

it, let alone in an inaugural address. I agree with you. In fact, Obama was pressured into disbanding a department within DHS that was investigating right wing gang members in this country, right wing militias. And it was really disappointing that he did that, that he caved into conservatives pressure to disband that group in DHS. All right, let's, we have a minute left. So I want to thank our new YouTube members. We have Andrea Larson, Cecilia Watkins, Shiana, Shanna Taylor, and Enix Sound. Thank you so much for becoming members on YouTube. We really appreciate your support. And there's really no better way to be financially sustainable by remaining accountable to you guys. So thank you. And we have 35 seconds. So Jim Emmons wrote in with YouTube

super chat and said, way to go, Sleepy Joe. Okay. Vatim wrote in and said, no progress, only exhausting outrage. Was that a swing at progressives? I don't think so. I think it was just a swing at Trump supporters who for the last four years were consistently outraged and consistently like they felt they were the victims of something, even though their guy was in office and they had Republicans in charge. Anyway, with that said, let's get back to the show and have a good time. You know, I'm going to be. Welcome back, everyone, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rolla with you.

Let's move on to the rest of our news today. So Donald Trump has had a difficult time accepting the fact that he has lost his re-election bid. And he did not attend Joe Biden's inauguration. We kind of expected that. I don't know why everyone in the media seems to be losing their mind about it, I would prefer that he just not be there. I think it's actually a blessing that he's not there. But nonetheless, he did decide to leave the White House this morning by boarding Marine One. He had like a small group of people there to kind of cheer him on. He did speak to some reporters. He did not, you know,

engage in the typical traditional ceremonial events centered on the inauguration of the incoming president. Because again, he's bitter, he's angry about the fact that he lost. He's angry about the fact that possibly for the first time in his life, he wasn't able to exploit some sort of loophole or muscle his way into getting what he wants. And he can't stand that. So he did give a self-congratulatory speech, which we'll get to in just a second. But John, what are your thoughts about his unwillingness to attend the inauguration. Like do you even really care? Well, I've gotten the pretty strong signal that you don't. So I'm going to pretend that I don't too, because I want domestic tranquility. No, look, I almost brought up in our first hour of coverage this morning,

like hypothetically, this is sort of a hypocrisy check or whatever, if he had been there, what would we say? Because I doubt what we'd be saying is good, yay, awesome, okay good, he's being responsibly move on. We probably wouldn't be saying that. But that said, I think that in theory, some of the peaceful transfer of power norms could be good. I think that it's, I think, undisputable that if he were there, that would potentially get some of his followers to marginally accept the credibility of the election a little bit more. Him fleeing is another signal to them that it doesn't count, that Biden's illegitimate and all of that. I'm not saying they'd love him or anything, but they've always done it.

We've done it for 150 years and he wasn't there. I don't care, I'm not losing sleep over it. I'm just saying I think if I could press a button and have had him there quiet, not making any like drawing any attention to himself, I would have preferred that probably. I mean, he's not, I don't think he's capable of that. And he would suck all the energy out of the whole event with his antics, like Trump is Trump. Like that's what Trump does. I don't think it matters. I think that his supporters are always going to interpret things in whatever way they want to interpret it. So if Trump gives some sort of

address or releases some sort of statement discouraging violence, they'll go ahead and read that as, oh, he doesn't really mean it. He was pressured or forced into doing this. If he had gone to the inauguration and said unequivocally that Joe Biden was the fair winner of the election, His supporters would still go along with this ridiculous deception about the election and how it was stolen from Trump. Like at some point, you have to acknowledge that there are some people who aren't interested in having a reasonable discussion about anything and will, they'll be fluid with whatever conspiracy theory they have so it can adapt to the situation on the ground. Like, we've seen that happen so many times where QAnon's ideology will like morph into something different depending on what the current events are in any given moment. So, but who knows?

I mean, we're both kind of speculating here, but I would bet money that it would change nothing. And if anything, Trump being there would be a giant distraction. So he got, he gets on Marine One. And he wanted to make sure that he flew to Florida while still the president of the United States. That was really important to him. And he did give a speech before leaving. So let's hear a little bit of what he had to say.

All right, so that was just some B-roll of him, you know, boarding air Marine One. But here's a snippet from his speech. We also got tax cuts, the largest tax cut and reform in the history of our country by far. I hope they don't raise your taxes. But if they do, I told you so. And if you look at the regulations, which I consider the regulations. cuts to be maybe even more important. That's why we have such good and have had such good job numbers.

The job numbers have been absolutely incredible. When we started, had we not been hit by the pandemic, we would have had numbers that would never have been seen. Already, our numbers are the best ever. If you look at what happened until February a year ago, our numbers were at a level that nobody had ever seen before. There are plenty of Americans living in poverty now, plenty of Americans who are experiencing poverty for the first time in their lives right now because of Donald Trump's incompetence

and unwillingness to lead because of his self-dealing, because of his narcissism and self-interest. All he did was cut taxes for the wealthy. All he did was ensure that interest rates remain low so corporations can benefit from it. And he loves to talk about the stock market. The stock market is not a good indicator of what the real economy is actually experiencing. And when you have 8 million Americans who are in poverty now, like who weren't in poverty and started experiencing first time poverty, like poverty for the first time since the last summer, that was an incredibly inarticulate way of saying it. But you get what I'm saying. Eight million more Americans fell into poverty since the last summer. That's a better way of putting it. So to argue

that like, oh, it's the best economy in the world, no, it's been a disastrous economy. And of course, part of that is COVID. But COVID was compounded by his unwillingness to do what it took in the short term to ensure that people were safe. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and story and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect

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who admitted on tape that he was intentionally downplaying this severe virus. He was a complete, another disaster. And to give a speech, a self-congratulatory speech is 400,000 Americans are dead from coronavirus. It just shows you how shameless this guy is. Are you implying that he didn't do enough just because he did absolutely nothing? Yeah, no, like we created so many jobs. We're leaving with, he's leaving with three million less jobs than America had when he became president. Okay, you're right. The stock market is not the economy. But let's pretend that it is.

He did worse in that by far than Clinton, Obama, and Reagan. He did better than George W and George W's dad. That's it. He didn't even do great in that. And he'll say, well, yeah, up until last February. Okay, but as Anna pointed out, you could have recovered quite a bit since last February, you made a bunch of conscious decisions that caused that not to happen. They didn't just hurt job growth and the stock market. They also killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. And even if that weren't the case, like, what, nothing happened under the previous presidencies that artificially impacted things.

It's like someone in the chat said, like I had the best relationship ever until last February when she cheated on me with a bartender. Well, no, that counts. You don't get to say before the bartender. You got to count the bartender, Trump. Yeah, yeah. He, and what always frustrates me is when you look at his presidency as a whole, in every single area, he failed. He deserves no credit. And for people who love to use the phrase Trump derangement syndrome, because they like to immediately deflect and talk about the failures of Democrats, which by the way, there are many, right? And I think it's fair to bring up the failures of Democrats. But when you, you use that as a strategy to deflect from the issues that we've experienced under the Trump administration, we have a problem. Because show me a policy that, let's say, Obama engaged

in where Trump somehow was better. Because Trump wasn't better in any way. Trump took neoliberal policy and injected it with steroids. That's who Trump is. When it comes to foreign policy, failure. I see some leftists on Twitter today talking about like, well, you know, he didn't engage in any new wars. I mean, not without trying, guys. And I think you know that. Ripped up the Iran nuclear deal, implemented additional sanctions on Iran, including during the pandemic to prevent humanitarian aid from getting to the country. Started 2020 by assassinating their top general, which of course is an escalation, which could have led to a full blown war. I'm lucky, and we're all lucky that we didn't get to that point. But that's just Iran. Consider

the fact that our government, our Congress, which typically loves to engage in forever wars, actually passed a bipartisan bill to pull the United States out of involvement in Yemen. And you know what Trump did with that? He ripped it up. Maybe I mentioned that. Maybe mention that when you give him credit for not starting any new wars. Enabled Israel to further persecute Palestinians through a number of different, you know, things that he engaged in like, you know, naming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He knew how provocative that would be. He did it anyway, he doesn't care.

The list goes on and on, record weapons sales to Asian countries like Japan to further destabilize that region because he doesn't like China and wants to beat the war drums against China, something that Steve Bannon has been pretty encouraging on as well. I mean, again, list goes on and on. If you have issues with neoliberal policies, which you should, at least acknowledge, the fact that Trump took those policies and not only implemented them himself, but put them on steroids. Record tax cuts for corporations, record tax cuts for the wealthy, did not cut corporate tax loopholes. They still exist. Record stock buybacks under his watch.

I mean, it just goes on and on and on and on. It did. For four years, it went on and on and on. For four years. But hey, you know what? Trump derangement syndrome. That's what we're engaging in. Trump derangement syndrome. Yeah. Yeah, F off. Anyway, we got to take a break. Let's do that. And we'll have more news for you when we return. I'm going to be Bye I You know, I'm going to be able to be.

Hey guys, sorry, I got a little heated toward the end of that last story. Mostly because I can't handle the false equivalencies that I see people putting out there. And I can't stand like the apologist behavior that I'm seeing in regard to Trump. No, like don't exaggerate things, but at least call things how they are. And as I'm a damn lib writes in our members section, Trump also of course abandoned our Kurdish allies in northern Syria, essentially paving the way for Erdogan to go in with his troops and slaughter them. So that happened. But let me move on to some super chat comments. City Witt writes in and says, TYT, this is a gigantic thank you for making the past four years bearable. You guys have been

the rock in our hard place, long live progressive media. Thank you so much. I read it verbatim. So don't make that face, Brett. Danger Dave says, I think that Trump's followers will lose that blind faith because the media is going to change. His views won't be as public and or normalized. I'm sure he'll still be talking, but to a much smaller audience. Also, jail? That I'm definitely pessimistic about. I mean, I certainly think that he has engaged in criminality while in the White House.

But we'll see if those investigations actually lead to real criminal charges in jail time. Our Stone writes in and says, how can we be united when we don't know who can be trusted? Democracy was violated and you can't move forward until we learn the lessons that facilitated the riot. I agree. I mean, that's why I mentioned the importance of doing real investigations into, like, what kind of vetting takes place when it comes to our military or police? Like, we need to root out the white supremacists who have been part of policing in this country forever. That is a big problem. And I know it's a big task, but I don't think we can have real healing unless that happens.

That Bernie Bro says, I cross. Oh, go ahead, John. Oh, I was just say, I remember, and I think one of the lethal weapons, he was like he was suspended because of a psychiatric evaluation. But now I'm thinking that that was just a movie thing. I don't think they actually do that. That Bernie bro. There was big vetting, big, beautiful vetting. I crossed my arms like that when I'm cold.

I bet Bernie was at least a little glad. Also, John, that was a fantastic Bernie impression, laughing my ass off. That was from that Bernie bro in our super chat section. All right, so just a quick thank you to some of our Twitch subs. TALS, 420, gifted 26 subs. Thank you, Kerr Chung, two months prime, Lord Owl Bear, three months tier one with the comment, having someone in office that cares about anyone or anything but himself is a step in the right direction. I agree. Take the small wins when you can get them, but that doesn't mean you

avoid holding him accountable when you can. So we have more news to get to, and I'm looking forward to this next one. So stick around. We'll be right back. I don't know what I'm going to be able to be. And so many, you know, I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be. Hey everyone, welcome back to TYT. John Ida Rola has a quick announcement to make. It's not an announcement. It's super fast. It was something we were talking about the social break. In terms of not moving on from what happened in the Capitol before we understand what happened,

there's like one thing in particular that I don't get how we haven't, like we heard that some Some representative gave Tors and people think it might be Lauren Bovert and she says it's not. Aren't there not like a thousand cameras in those buildings? Why don't they just check? How is this the thing that we're debating? Like is anyone investigating it? I feel like it would be just playing back the tape and seeing a group of people being led by a congressperson wouldn't be that hard to identify. Not to sound like Dave Rubin, but I agree. I agree. You're absolutely right. Oh, I agree. All right, well, let's move on to a fun segment. Just to kind of reflect on the

last four years since today is Biden's inauguration. So Donald Trump skipped the inauguration of his successor, Joe Biden. And it's the first time an outgoing president has done this in over 150 years. It's a move one can only describe as bitch ass. So we're dedicating this bitch-ass segment to the bitch-ass-in-chief, Donald Trump, who not only today, but throughout his entire presidency, embarrassed himself as someone who tried to appear as a strong man, but was nothing more than a bitch-ass. So let's begin with what happened in the 2020 election, something that he refuses to acknowledge. If you look at the total vote tally, Joe Biden beat him by a lot. Millions of votes, seven million votes to be specific at, you know, more than 81,000

people voting for Biden and a little over 74,000 voting for Trump, which by the way is still a pretty devastating number, to be honest with you, that we have that many Americans who have voted for Trump. But nonetheless, he has refused to accept the outcome of the election. And Trump to this day winds incessantly about how everything, everything is just so unfair. I wish, I wish we had a fair media in this country. Is it so unfair? It's so unfair. You're never going to treat me fairly, many of you. Worst, most unfair press treatment, they say, in the history of the United States for

president. What they did to him is very unfair, in my opinion. And what they did to General Flynn is very unfair in my opinion. And what they did to so many others is very unfair. fair. I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there. They always said Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse. Yeah, no, I don't take responsibility at all. So, John, the guy who refuses to accept the fair outcome of the election, thinks that everything

is just unfair to him. Unfair. He's not being unfair. He put it in historic context. Yeah, once Jim Acosta asked him a tough, tough question, and I would have rather been shot in the back of the head. It was really unfair what Jim Acosta did. Anyway, yeah, the whole alpha thing doesn't mean anything, but like I wish it at least meant that you didn't constantly complain about how unfair everyone is to you. Like it's a great con to constantly whine and people think you're the tough one. You should be emperor.

I don't understand it. You know, what was also unfair was that, you know, the. The symbol of America happens to terrify Donald Trump. This is what I'm talking about. And of course, I feel like I would fail you guys if we didn't provide a still image of that wonderful interaction. The face he makes. Uh, like yeah, it'd be a little bit scary. If that was the only thing, okay, maybe eagle, eagle's a little bit scary, but that dude has such a toxic relationship with animals in general. Like he constantly talks about like people being like beaten like a dog.

Like why do you talk about dogs like that? What's your whole issue with other animals? I don't get it. Yeah, that's a really good point. I never thought of it that way. But like the eagle is restrained. Like you can see the green, you know, restraint on the eagle. Like he, if you're afraid of eagles, then don't do this photo op with the eagle. But, you know, this is what a bitch ass would do. He would want to present himself as like this patriot strong man who's terrified of a bird. Now, he also was so vain during COVID that he refused to wear a mask. And he literally told the press this, even though he knew that not wearing masks would, you know, increase the number of people contracting the virus. But he was worried about how it would make him look if people were wearing masks.

He said, I didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it, meaning why he chose to refuse wearing masks. Then there was the situation with Greta Toonberg, where he decided that a real strong man would bully a 16-year-old climate activist. And he tweeted this, so ridiculous, Greta must work on her anger management problem. Then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend, chill Greta, chill. John, I'm going to just step back and give you a moment to reflect on that bitch-ass moment. I mean, I've thought about it multiple times and I get, it's difficult to because the longer you think about it, the crazier you get. And so it's less productive. I can't ever prove.

And it frustrates me that I can't ever prove, but I am sure that that has. some sort of sexual connotation about hanging out with a friend or going to a movie. And I I don't like any reason for that that he could possibly have had. The whole thing, that's, that might be the biggest. Like you getting so mad that a 16 year old girl got a award because you wanted it instead of her. And then that would be sad enough. Like I would be so ashamed at myself to feel jealous, but to then not be able to stop myself from tweeting about how much envy I have for this little girl. That is the saddest thing ever maybe for Donald Trump. Memoir of a bitch ass. So let's also remember the fact that when those Nazis were marching

in Charlottesville and chanting things like Jews will not replace us, he really felt the need to pretend as though that group consisted of, well, let's watch the tape. And you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. Very fine people on both sides. That was one of his earlier, I mean, I would say foibles, but was it really a foible? No, it was something that he intentionally engaged in rhetorically on a regular basis. He would constantly serve as an apologist for the worst parts of this country, for the racism, the division, the hatred, the right-wing extremism. He always felt the need to refer to these people as very special. That was the exact wording he used when referring to the insurrectionists that breached the capital. And so he loves these kinds of things. He loves them, absolutely.

Yeah, no, it's so pathetic. Go ahead. Yeah, it's either that he actually genuinely feels affection for them, or he's worried that, like, grifters are always worried about losing their marks, like they've got this audience, the audience gives them money, you live in fear then of saying the thing that's going to drive them away. And if he's not willing to potentially drive away the worst people in America, bitch ass. Exactly, just like Lindsey Graham, by the way.

Lindsey Graham and people like Ted Cruz, who had lots of harsh criticisms for Donald Trump during the Republican primary in 2016. And then as soon as Trump was in power, they could not lick those boots hard enough. So you have a ton of right wing pretend strong men who just at the end of the day are so terrified of losing what power they have. We also can't forget about Sharpie Gate. That was when he said that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama, which was incorrect. And he literally used a Sharpie to change. This is the, remember this video? So rather than admit his mistake, his bitch ass pulled out a Sharpie. Okay, this is tough now because that's not not as sad necessarily as the Greta thing, but it's, it might be more pathetic if those are

two different things. Can you bring up that image because there's one thing that I don't think is stressed enough about that image. Can we bring it up? Okay, so you can see it. The white circle, the black circle, okay. So he couldn't just admit that he was wrong, fine. He thinks I'm gonna mark on it to make me right, even though the image is out there elsewhere. Okay, that's embarrassing. He makes it black instead of white like the rest of it. That's embarrassing. He only added it to the top. Like he could have extended the whole circle. What did he think that like the hurricane was just going to like snap to a tighter size once

it got to that line? That's not even how hurricanes work, you big, dumb, stupid idiot. I know, John. That's, no, that's the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life. You can't have like reasonable expectations for someone like Donald Trump. Like this is a guy who thought, no, maybe maybe we should throw a nuclear well. a nuclear bomb into a tornado, like, who says that? Who says that? Who thinks that's a good idea? He said it out loud, guys. He thought that there were certain military jets that were literally

invisible, that they were made to be invisible. He thought that, guys. I saw it in the Wonder Woman sequel. So did you not see that movie or did you not do your research on this? I actually did not see that movie because unlike everyone else, I'm not interested in watching a terrible movie just to be part of the conversation on Twitter. I got other other I also watched it because of Galgado. Let's be clear. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. Okay, so a few more things about, you know, just reflecting on Trump's behavior in the last four years, because this stuff was not normal and it should never be normalized. You know, he came into office on his inauguration day, literally lying to the American people

about crowd sizes, as if that should even matter to anybody. So let's take a quick look on, Well, first a graphic from the Hill, this is from January 22nd, 2018. Spicer, Sean Spicer, the press secretary at the time, inaccurately claimed a day after the inauguration that Trump had, quote, the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period, both in person and around the globe. Now, if you take a look at this side by side showing what Obama's inauguration crowd look like versus what Trump's inauguration crowd look like, which is on the right hand side, I'm Sean Spicer might not be right, might not be right. I mean, you judge for yourselves. Yeah. And it's like, okay, I get that you're so small and sad and pathetic and you have such a small

amount of actual self-control and self-respect that you have to lie to everyone about it. But like you, you know that Sean Spicer knows that that's not true. When he did the Sharpie Gate, all of those like AIDS and stuff know what he did. If I did things like this, the people that work with me know how small and pathetic I am, that would eat me away like acid in my stomach. And I guess he's more afraid of the nation knowing, I don't know. It's just, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing.

Like I don't know how people in his personal life stick by his side. Like I wouldn't want to be associated with it. I would be his estranged daughter. I would, I don't know. If my father went out of his way to lie to people about how popular he is, I wouldn't be able to live with that. I don't know. Let's go to more, though, because during the civil unrest over the summer, after the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump decided to hide in a basement rather than maybe realizing that this could be an opportunity to change the course of his presidency, maybe take this seriously, maybe understand the need for reform, of course he's not going to do that. But while he was hiding in his bunker, he was also plotting to do what he did at Lafayette Park, where he tear gas peaceful protesters, and by the way, journalists, just so he can grab a photo op.

And that was absolutely disgusting behavior, his willingness to sick the military on Americans practicing their constitutionally protected right, their right to assemble, their freedom of speech, Donald Trump never valued those constitutional rights. He never, ever cared about what the Constitution granted the American people. He would use the Constitution for his own agenda or his own purposes, or at least cite it for his own agenda or his own purposes. But at the end of the day, he only cared about free speech when it would benefit conservatives and more importantly himself. And by the way, he just stood there like an idiot holding the Bible while it was upside down.

Well, it's a waste of an opportunity. And like he still doesn't get that photo ops are not gonna, it's not gonna be a strong play from him. Yeah, it's so pathetic, it's a Bible. I, like it makes me think of when Joffrey put on his armor and he went to the battle and then ran away when he got scared. He just, the thing is, it's two things at the same time. It's an inability to understand what would actually look or be strong.

He doesn't have that, but what he does have is millions of Americans who are just as deluded about that as him. Like, it's a special kind of crazy to think that like gassing protesters so that you can stand there like book is a strong move or an admirable move, a presidential move, a sane move. But we have a lot of people in America who've made a lot of money making a lot of other people in America absolutely out of their goddamn minds. So this list of bitch-ass behavior is so long. We can't get to everything.

However, I feel like I would not be doing my job correctly if I didn't mention the fact that Donald Trump spent a considerable amount of time discussing how he fell in love with North Korea's dictator. Watch. I was really being tough. And so was he. And we'll go back and forth. And then we fell in love. Okay? No, really? He wrote me beautiful letters. And they're great letters. We fell in love. And then following those statements, he proceeded to hold the enormous love letter like a true bitch ass. So here's that image. Look at how happy he is. He has a giant smile on his face because he fell in love. Okay. And if you if you can't tell from the smile, the rest of the evidence he's covering with the envelope of how happy he was.

Oh my God. I think we're going to have to leave it there, John. That was fantastic. So John, it's been a long four years. And as you know, we We have another long four years ahead of us. Luckily, with less divisive rhetoric, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. But I also want to just thank you for being such a great friend. You're more than a colleague. There have been so many difficult moments during the last four years where we've had to really rely on each other and lean on each other.

So John is exactly who you think he is. He's a really good person. and I wouldn't want to work with anyone else. So love you, John. Thank you for doing the show with me today. Same deal. Always. Thank you.

All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Jank Yugar will be joining us for the second hour of the show. 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. At apple.com slash T-YT. I'm your host, Jank Yugar, and I'll see you. soon.