The Young Turks - Tucker Is Triggered

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Rick Scott has some very special defense against McConnell’s attacks. MTG makes the most hypocritical comment. More people believe in fake news than you’d think. Conservatives make their opinions on women who don’t have children. Greedy cost-cutters are going after seniors in homes. Host: Ana Kasparian 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. Woo! It's up! We're going to be able to be. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. Apologies for the later start today. We had a few

technical issues. Hopefully they're all sorted out now. But since we have limited time, because of the technical issues, I'm going to go ahead and dive right into our first story, because it's a sign of exactly what the Republican Party wants to do. It's just that a few of them are smart enough not to try to do it when it could hurt them politically. Senators Mitch McConnell and Rick Scott, Senators Mitch McConnell and Rick Scott have not been getting along lately, mainly because for as much as I dislike Mitch McConnell, he's not a dumb guy. Rick Scott, though, seems pretty stupid because he tried to cut certain social spending programs, privatize things like Social Security, which McConnell knows is the third rail, knows you should not try to cut because it will destroy them politically. Now, interestingly enough, Rick Scott's plan does have support from the Republican Party. There's no question about that.

But more importantly, Rick Scott's plan to essentially do away with Social Security as we know it is something that is favored by the donors, particularly groups like Club for Growth, which is a billionaire funded organization that spends tens of millions of dollars each election cycle to ensure that they get people like, Rick Scott elected so eventually they can gut social spending programs like Medicare and Social Security. Now before we get to McConnell and how he kind of plays into all of this, let's talk about what Club for Growth recently said in response to this tiff that McConnell and Rick Scott have with one another. They want McConnell to stop going against Rick Scott. They think McConnell is a bad guy for thinking strategically about what would hurt the

the party, what would help the party, and they have shown their support for Rick Scott because this is a billionaire organization that doesn't want to pay taxes to fund Social Security. So let's talk about what Rick Scott had proposed and why McConnell is against it. Now, it's an 11 point plan that Scott put out, and sub point seven and point six reads as follows. All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. The plan doesn't single out Medicare and Social Security specifically, but these are programs that were established by federal legislation

and would thus disappear under Scott's proposal unless renewed every five years. Okay, let's just talk about Congress in the context of funding the government, passing an annual spending bill. We know what that's like. We know what it's like to see government shutdowns as a result of Republicans demanding cuts to social spending programs and what remains of our social safety net. So the idea of putting Medicare and Social Security up before Congress every five years would do exactly what you would suspect it would do.

It would eventually just obliterate these programs. And that's why Scott proposed it in his big plan, which McConnell was. against. Additionally, by the way, Scott initially proposed everyone in the United States should pay some federal income tax. Since about 40% of U.S. households currently do not owe federal income tax, mostly because they don't make enough money, Scott effectively would have raised taxes on about 75 million households, the poorest households among us. So privatize or cut Social Security in order to save taxes for the wealthiest people in this country while simultaneously demanding that the poorest among us pay more in federal taxes.

Great. I mean, it shows you exactly what the populism on the right looks like. I mean, when you compare the United States to other developed countries, what we have in terms of a social safety net is abysmal. But it's still not good enough for. for the billionaires in this country. They want less of a social safety net, which should blow your mind considering how many of our fellow Americans are living on the streets today. Can't afford rent, can't afford a mortgage, can't afford to send their kids to a decent college. Or if they're in an area that doesn't have decent public schools, can't send their kids

to a private school because that's expensive, can't afford health care, can't afford childcare, can't afford elder care for their parents. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. paid family leave, you want me to continue? But not only do Republicans love that, and not only do the billionaires who fund their campaigns love that, they want to chip away at what's left. And Club for Growth loves that. That's the whole purpose of Club for Growth. They don't want to pay taxes, so they want to cut whatever social spending we might be engaging in. Now, of course, nearly all of them already pay other taxes. When we're talking about

poorest Americans, they might not pay federal income taxes, but they pay all sorts of other taxes, which has more of an impact on them economically than the taxes that the wealthiest people in this country pay. So think of things like sales tax, you know, if you're living in a high tax state, chances are they're probably paying something in state taxes as well. Now, we should talk a little bit about what's at play here between Mitch McConnell and Rick Scott, why there's this growing beef between them, because Rick Scott's just doing what his donors paid him to do. But McConnell's a little more strategic than that. McConnell understands that it's political suicide to go after Social Security and Medicare. So he immediately dismissed the plan,

and Rick Scott got real salty about it. Okay, now on a radio show in Kentucky the following week, McConnell tried to even distance himself from the Republican Party and the Republican Party from this proposal entirely. Let's listen. President Biden is out shopping his state of the union claims and still selling the point that the Republicans, he names Rick Scott, that the Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare. So is that true? Well, unfortunately, that was the Scott plan. That's not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan. The Republican plan, as I pointed out last fall, if we were to become the majority, there were no plans to raise taxes on half the American people or to sunset Medicare or Social Security.

So it's clearly the Rick Scott plan. It is not the Republican plan. Now, I want to be a thousand percent clear. Cutting Social Security and Medicare absolutely is a Republican plan. There's no question about it. There's endless evidence of that in the form of television interviews, proposals to raise the retirement age, which by the very nature of doing that, you're cutting social security. Okay, they want to raise the retirement age to 70, which is insane. So the only difference between Rick Scott and Mitch McConnell is that Mitch McConnell

understood, hey, we're campaigning for the midterms and we're not going to attack incredibly popular social spending programs right as we're trying to get people or persuade people to vote for us. What are you doing? You're crazy. But Club for Growth and it's billionaire president, David McIntosh didn't like that. And so they just released a statement. This is a specific statement from David McIntosh, president of Club for growth, dinging Mitch McConnell for this.

While other Republicans have caved to massive tax and spend packages that have strained our economy, Rick Scott has consistently championed small government solutions that are meant to, of course, allow us to pay less in taxes. That's what I added, but I want to help you guys read between the lines. centered around fiscal responsibility, and because of that, he's faced the unfounded and false

attacks of liberal Democrats like President Biden and even establishment Republicans like Leader McConnell. Leader McConnell wants to cut Social Security too, and they know that. It's just that McConnell, again, isn't stupid enough to go through with that plan as they're campaigning for the midterms. Now, I thought that Biden really holding Republicans feet to the fire during the state of the union was an important moment. He got them on record denying that they want to cut Social Security, even though we all

know they do want to do that. And hopefully he continues to hold their feet to the fire. But we are in a precarious situation when we have corporate Republicans who have always been clear about how they want to gut our social safety net, along with corporate Democrats who not be as vociferous against social security or Medicare, but certainly in the past, they have been open to cutting it or cutting those two programs. So as precarious as it is, I don't want anyone to freak out because it is clear, based on the reaction from Republicans during Biden's state of the union, that they don't want to deal

with the political ramifications of cutting wildly popular social spending programs in the country. But it is something that we have to keep our eyes on and ensure, that we don't waver in our fight and our support for these programs, because the second we take our eye off the prize, the second we don't pay attention to what they're up to, I guarantee it, they will try to cut these programs. Now, David McIntosh continued to say that Rick Scott has a proven conservative who has promoted economic growth and fought reckless spending in the Senate. The group Super PAC intends to spend big on Rick Scott's behalf, in the next year's election, which as of now features no Republican primary opponents.

The group also spent a whopping $60 million on Senate races in the last election cycle alone. So these are moneyed interests. These are the very people who have captured our members of Congress, captured our legislature, and to the point where they don't really serve the best interest of their constituents and tend to serve the best interests of people who are already doing real well in this country, literal billionaires. And if you're wondering who those billions are, the last round of funding for Club for Growth came from two billionaires in particular, Jeff Yass and Richard Eulen. They don't need Social Security and they hate paying into it.

And let me just mention, part of what makes Social Security long lasting, and popular. The reason why it's considered untouchable by many is because it's a universal program. Sure, those at the very, very top might not need it. But when we see how easy it is for Americans to lose everything in this country, especially with our broken health care system that could cause you to go bankrupt in your elderly years, I think Americans understand the importance of maintaining these programs and ensuring that we don't privatize them or cut them in any way. Now, it's not that McConnell, again, doesn't want to cut Social Security. He wants to do it.

He's just a little more strategic. He's looking for the right opportunity, so the political ramifications won't be as awful. And McConnell has said, quote, I mean, it's just a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for Scott to deal with this in his own re-election in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any state in America. And he's right about that. And according to a 22 study, 88% of the 50 plus age cohort also identified Social Security as an extremely important issue when determining who to vote for. When broken down by party line, 91% of registered Democrats compared to 87% of Republicans and 83% of independents identified it as important or very important.

Let's keep that graphic up for a second, because 87% of Republican voters see social security as an extremely important issue when determining who to vote for. Mitch McConnell might be evil in his own ways, but make no mistake, Homeboy's not dumb. Okay, he might be the smartest and most strategic Republican lawmaker in the country. And he's surrounded by morons who don't understand that, hey, you know, I get it, you're supposed to serve your donor, your slave to your donor, that's the only thing you really care about. But you've got to at least provide the illusion of giving a damn about your constituents. You got to at least look at the polling and understand what Americans want to protect, including 87% of Republican voters. But I cover this story not because I want to give Mitch McConnell kudos. No, Mitch McConnell, when giving him,

given the right opportunity, we'll cut these programs. I talk about the story because it's important to understand who the real kingmakers are, right? These billionaire donors, who really controls the legislation and whether or not it's ever proposed or passed? And more importantly, it's important for us to keep our eye on this issue and never let up because the second you do, they will cut these programs, they will privatize these programs, They will do anything their billionaire donors want.

When asked, 92% of voters also said they would be more likely to support a Senate candidate who opposes cuts to workers earned social security benefits. This position is overwhelmingly true for Democrats at 97%. And also extremely high, 90% among Republicans and independents. And by the way, you really don't have to look too hard to find other Republicans openly promoting changes to Social Security and Medicare. Get a load of this. From the first time I ran in 2010, I just laid out the reality of Social Security. It's a legal Ponzi scheme. It is. I mean, it's a pay-as-you-go system because we have 70% of our budget, off-budget. We call it mandatory spending. But it's completely out of control.

Nobody ever looks at it. It's just an automatic pilot. We ought to put everything on budget so we're forced to prioritize spending. We ought to be looking at the budget in total every year. Again, that doesn't mean sunsitting anything. That doesn't mean putting on the chop in black. That doesn't mean cutting social security. But it does mean prioritizing lower priority spending. Yeah, that means cutting social security. I mean, what do you think it means prioritizing other spending objectives? And what are you referring to? I mean, if you want to talk about fiscal conservatism, if you voted in favor of the two trillion dollars in tax cuts for the rich under Trump's watch, which Ron Johnson did, I'm not really interested in hearing about your so-called fiscal responsibility. Sit down. But that's Ron Johnson just recently, a senator, Republican senator, making it very clear,

he's targeting Social Security, because that is what they all want to do. So don't let them lie to you. understand who motivates them, what motivates them, and what their real objectives are. And don't let up, because they've had their eyes on cutting social security and Medicare for decades. All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the train wreck, otherwise known as Marjorie Green. She has some thoughts about rail safety.

Fascinating. Later, we'll also talk about the right-wing reaction to Chelsea Handler's comedic video on not having children. That and more coming up. Welcome back to the show, everyone. I hate to do this to you, but we got to do another Marjorie Green story because it's on a serious matter. So let's do it. What we have to do is we have to make sure that our rails are safe. Democrats passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and only $5 billion went towards rail safety. This is a failure.

It would have never happened under a Republican-controlled infrastructure bill. Is that why Marjorie Green decided to vote against the infrastructure bill? Because she was concerned that $5 billion for rail safety just wasn't enough money? Is that why she voted against it? Of course that's not why she voted against it. And I guarantee you if that bill had a provision appropriating $20 billion for rail safety, Marjorie Green, much like most other Republican lawmakers, would give it the middle finger. Now, we should also remember that when Donald Trump was in office,

he did this, you know, cute little thing called deregulation of the rail industry, essentially reclassifying certain chemicals in a way. that would allow for the transport of these chemicals in an unsafe way should have required a lot more safety, other protocols, but of course that deregulation had an impact. And I'll give you the details of that in just a moment. But of course, while Marjorie Green pretends to care about rail safety, she goes out of her way to pretty much ignore the deregulation angle. Let's hear more from what she had to say during this interview on Hannity's show, and then I'll tell you the truth.

every single day, and now thousands of people, birds, animals, they're all sick, and we don't know the consequences of this horrible accident in East Palestine. But we have people like Ilhan Omar, she wants to crack down on corporate greed when it comes to rails and the privately owned sections of rails. But really what we have to do is we have to make sure that our rails are safe. Corporate greed has a lot to do with why the trade derailments have been happening, why our rails are unsafe. I mean, it's amazing to me because she's like,

Elon Omar wants to talk about corporate greed. Yeah, because corporate greed is tied to what we're seeing right now in the rail industry. Don't believe me? All right, I'll give you the details here. So first, why don't we actually hear from, you know, the railroad, railroad workers united, because they pinned the threat on rail industry cuts to inspection staff and the elimination of safety protocol. The East Palestine train was hurried, the nonprofit said in a statement, and though a cause

hasn't been fully determined, it appears the train was not properly inspected. Now, I don't know, guys. I don't know, why would the rail companies eliminate these incredibly important workers, especially since these workers were tasked with following safety protocols, doing the proper, you know, inspections to ensure that the trains were safe, the rail system was safe. Why would they cut all those employees? Could it be maximizing profit, which is tied to, you know, corporate greed? Let me give you more.

They cut so many workers that at the peak, there used to be a million rail workers. Keep that number in mind. Rail companies laid off more than 20,000 rail workers during a one year period between 2018 and 2019, representing the biggest layoffs in rail since the Great Recession. And the nation's rail force has dipped below 200,000, the lowest level ever. down from one million at its peak. Gee, I wonder why they would do that. Could it be because they want to cut cost tied to labor?

So they can, you know, engage in corporate stock buybacks, maybe some dividends for their shareholders, because that's exactly what happened. That's corporate greed, Marjorie Green. That's what that is. Let's give you more. they have cut the hell out of the workforce, and there are big plans to cut it further. Just because the rail companies are profitable, doesn't mean they're healthy. And that's according to a former Norfolk Southern freight engineer.

Of course, Norfolk Southern is the rail company that had the East Palestine train derail last week. So, I mean, is this something that concerns her at all? Or is she going to attack Ilhan Omar out of nowhere because Ilhan Omar accurately pointed to corporate greed and how it relates to all the derailments that we're seeing and experiencing in this country? I mean, it is amazing though, right? Because just yesterday, Marjorie Green is like, I don't know, what can I talk about that doesn't touch on corporate greed because I can't upset the corporate donors to the Republican

party. I just, I need to avoid it. So what can I blame this on? Oh, I know. The workers, they're lazy. These lazy workers, there's a labor shortage. I mean, there is some evidence to indicate there aren't enough workers. But even before the pandemic begun, the companies were laying off a ton of rail workers. To do what again? Oh, yeah, to cut. costs to provide a higher return on investment for their shareholders. That's called corporate greed. I mean, it is amazing. And then there's the deregulation angle.

There's a lot going on there. We've talked about it before, but let me remind you again. The U.S. Transportation Department in 2020 approved a rule to allow liquefied natural gas or LNG to be shipped via rail with no additional safety regulations. trains can now run 100 or more tank cars filled with 30,000 gallons of the substance, largely from shale fields to saltwater ports. Hmm. So 2020, who was in charge in 2020?

Oh, that's right, it was Donald Trump. Yeah, that deregulation, not a good idea. But look, to be fair, the Biden administration should have reversed that. We'll get to that in a moment. Just 22 train tank cars filled with LNG, by the way, hold the same amount of energy as the Hiroshima bomb, a coalition of environmental groups, wrote in comments to regulators opposing the LNG rail rule change in 2020. And look, the Biden administration was like, yeah, we're going to reverse the deregulation that Trump did for sure. Like we're on it, we're on it. Except they haven't done it.

Okay. So according to the Guardian, under the Biden administration, the Transportation Department, which of course Pete Buttigieg is the head of, has proposed a suspension of the Trump-era LNG rule, allowing the substance to be transported via rail and to replace it with a new rule. But you know, the suspension was supposed to be published in June of 2022, but it and the new rule have been delayed, not once but twice, and are now supposed to be final in March. We'll see if that happens. David Sorota just caught Pete Buttigieg in a lie where he tried to pretend as though the Department of Transportation can't unilaterally regulate the rail industry. You want to know how David Storota caught Buttigieg in a lie?

The Department of Transportation responded to his reporting in the form of a tweet to say, no, no, we actually totally do have the ability to regulate the rail industry unilaterally. Oops. So look, when Marjorie Green goes after Pete Buttigieg, she's right. I mean, she's attacking him while also ignoring that it's her daddy who did the deregulation in the first place. But I have no problem with the critique toward Pete Buttigieg, because there absolutely could be more action taken by the Transportation Department. And I also agree that he is really not fit for that job, wasn't qualified for that job, but hey, he did drop out of the primary race to give President Joe Biden a boost during the

Democratic primary. So favor for a favor, quid pro quote. you know how that works. Now, let's skip ahead a little bit because I want to talk about that corporate greed and exactly what these rail companies do with the money they save from cutting their workforce so much so that they ignore safety protocols and also overwork the employees who remain, which is why rail workers were about to strike because they're not even allowed to take a day off without retaliation. Family emergency, who cares? We don't have enough workers.

There's no one to take your position or fill in for you if you have a family emergency. So no, you can't do it. Now, what they do with that money is fascinating. Let's focus on Norfolk Southern specifically, okay? This headline says it all. This is from the Motley Fool. It was published yesterday. After double-digit revenue growth last year, is Norfolk Southern stock a buy?

By the way, their stock is doing great, totally doing great. This disastrous story in Ohio that is putting the local community there in jeopardy. Their health in jeopardy, their health at risk, didn't really hit the markets. They're a little dip, a little dip right back up. So Motley Fool's like, should we buy this little dip? Because we know it's going to do well pretty soon. And by today, stock is back up. But let me give you some more details on just how healthy Norfolk Southern is financially.

Railway operator Norfolk Southern enjoyed record revenue and operating income last year. Last year's record, 12.7 billion in revenue marked a 14% gain on an 18% jump in yearly revenue per unit. Oh, they're doing so well. You know, just fire a bunch of employees. Sure, I mean, you put local communities at risk. There's that whole issue with train derailments, but the profits, the shareholders love the profits. And in a shareholder friendly move, Norfolk Southern Corporation NSC announced that its board has authorized a new $10 billion stock repurchase plan starting in April of 2022. So this is, this was something that was published last year.

And I think it's important for you guys to know where their resources go. Because they're not investing back into their company to ensure that they have the appropriate workforce to do the proper inspections and avoid these train derailments. No, no, no. They fire workers. They save a bunch of money by doing that. And then they take the billions and they park it into their shares to, if it's a basically artificially inflate the value of their shares. Let's also keep in mind that the

executives mostly get paid in stock options. So they literally have a vested interest in beefing up the value of their shares. So that happens. But there's more. Norfolk Southern also rewards its shareholders by paying out dividends. Evidently, NSC has hiked its quarterly dividend payout thrice from April, from March of 2021 to March of 2022, the most recent dividend hike was announced in January of 2021, to be specific, when NSC decided to purchase its quarterly dividend by 14% to $1.1.24 per share. And they announced that in 2022, not 2021. But you guys get the point. The system is set up to work this way. All right. So if you don't want to call it corporate greed, then just call it the fiduciary responsibility, something that I talk about

on the show all the time. This is how the system works. The executives at these rail companies aren't concerned about East Palestine, Ohio. They're not concerned about rail safety. Their number one priority, like any other corporation that's publicly traded in this country, is their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. That means maximizing profits, ensuring that their stocks doing real well, ensuring that their shareholders are happy with their fat dividends, and everyone else can F off. That is how the system is set up, period. So when Marjorie Green talks about how Ilhan Omar is crazy for mentioning corporate greed, just know that the dumb one is Marjorie Green because she is literally a United States lawmaker who doesn't even know how our system

works. She's pathetic. I would just love one day where I'm not embarrassed by the lawmakers in Congress, just one day, just one. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you why everyone hates the news. Welcome back to the show, everyone. In the second hour, Francesca Fierantini will be joining me. John Iderola is out today. Also wanted to give a special shout out to progressive, B, who gifted a tier one sub on Twitch. Thank you so much.

Same to dragon, mage queen who also gifted a tier one sub. We really, really appreciate you guys. Thank you for doing that. And finally, Syke Dragon has subscribed for 25 months on Twitch. And the comment is, save this till I could share it with you, our salt queen. Keep up the hard work. You're making a difference. I hope that's true. In the very least, I hope I'm giving you guys some information that's hard to come by in legacy media outlets. With that said, though, I'm going to cover something's a little different in the first hour.

It has to do with Chelsea Handler, and I just love this story. Any opportunity to talk about what it's like to be a parent in this country, great. Whether she knew it or not, Chelsea Handler trolled the right wing pretty hard with a video that she made for the Daily Show titled A Day in the Life of a Childless Woman. Now, the sketch is readily available online. I highly suggest you watch it. It's clearly meant to note preposterous things that she allegedly does as a childless woman. But the best part about it was the conservative reaction to it, which we'll get to in a moment.

You don't want to miss that. First, let me give you some more details about what she says in the video. So in the very beginning, she says that she wakes up in the morning. She's like, I wake up at 6 a.m. I remember that I have no kids to take to school. So I take an edible, masturbate, and go back to sleep, which is pretty hilarious and sounds like a good time. Now, later in the video, she describes more outlandish things that she obviously doesn't

do, but again, it's a sketch. It's meant to be funny. It's meant to be fun. She's like, I go to my favorite spot in Paris and grab a croissant. Then she says, the weightlessness of my existence has generated me, or I'm sorry, granted me superhuman powers. Okay, obviously that's not true. It's just meant to be fun. And then she says, I teleport myself back home. Then I get ready for a night out with whatever hot guy I met on Raya that morning or Raya. Now it's time for a workout. So I hit Mount Everest for a quick climb.

And then later she says, I invented a time machine to go back in time and kill Hitler. So again, The video is fun, it's meant to be funny, I thought it was hilarious, but conservatives lost it. Because for some reason, they care deeply about whether or not we're procreating. And for some reason, they are hell bent on putting out into the world that childless mothers are the most miserable people on the planet. Okay, look, I can't speak for all women, obviously. I can't speak for all women who have not had children. I do not have children, and I love it. I love it for a lot of different reasons.

Living in America and seeing all of the threats and risks to kids, like for instance, the weirdo parents that would show up at school board meetings or would show up on campuses and harassed children who wanted to wear masks, like I would murder someone. I don't want to go to prison. You get what I'm saying? It's all about knowing yourself and knowing whether or not you would be a good parent. I'd be a good parent, but my rage at anyone who, even slightly offended my kid would be pretty devastating for my life and possibly the life of

the person who offended my kid. But anyway, with that said, why don't we first go to Tucker Carlson's conversation about this with his co-chud, some guy named Jesse. That's what you see women like Chelsea, Han. They're feminist like Chelsea. They're going with now. They've been lied to by their society forever. that you could be a girl boss and you can do anything a man can do, which everyone who's ever seen a woman back of a vehicle knows that's not true. But either way, they've been told that they should do career and don't do a family or anything like that. And soon you're Chelsea Handler.

Soon it's Valentine's Day and your womb resembles a dried up tumbleweed blowing down an old Western town. And your Valentine's Day date for the 10th year in a row is a 10-year-old copy of Magic Mike and a half full bottle of Xanax. And you're trying to pretend like you're happy, but you're not happy. And it's actually not her fault. She's been lied to by a country that has lost this way. How do you know she's not happy? Like, I could just say that about you. I mean, that guy looks miserable.

Like, why do you think that she's drinking bottles of wine and guzzling down half bottles of Xanax, like just completely made up, completely made up? But also, look, this is the most important point that I want you to really absorb as we continue giving you more details about this. Why do you care? Like, why do they care? Why are they so hell bent on ensuring that Chelsea Handler is miserable? And why do they care about her decision to not have kids? I don't even care.

I have difficulty caring enough about my own friends having kids. Why would I care about a complete stranger and whether or not they're having kids? who cares? Who cares? But there's more. There's Matt Walsh who says nothing more pathetic than the coping done by a childless woman pushing 50. She could have had kids and still be doing basically whatever she wants with her life today. That's not true. Kids aren't toddlers forever. She could have her freedom and a family. Instead she'll die alone. You know, there's a lot of commentary coming from men on this issue. But fact of the matter is having a child when you have a wonderful supportive husband is still incredibly challenging. Okay.

Having a child with a typical husband who isn't going to come home after a long day of work to do the cooking, to do the cleaning, to do the diaper changes and all that stuff, that's torture. So the idea that like, you could pop out all these babies and still have it all. I mean, they're not toddlers forever. You're right, they're not toddlers forever. Later, they end up going to school. You've got to figure out whether or not the public school in your neighborhood has been defunded to the point where it's just untenable to send your kid there.

So then you've got to do lottery programs to see if some charter school take your kid. If that doesn't work, you've got to consider maybe $25,000 for a private school. Yeah, you're right. They're not toddlers forever. After that, they go through their teen years. I don't know how old Matt Walsh's kids are, but I can't wait for him to experience that. I was a teen once. I remember what I was like.

No, having kids is incredibly difficult. And for once, finally, in this country, parents are being honest about it. And I love that they're being honest about it. They're being honest about the postpartum depression. They're being honest with the medical bills associated with maternity and childbirth. They're being honest about how incredible. hard it is to be a woman who's working toward career objectives, career goals while raising babies. It is hard. And it's especially hard in a country that provides absolutely no support.

We'll get to that in a moment. But more comments. Oh, Raya, Raychick, whatever her name is, lives of TikTok woman, says, this is one of the saddest videos I've ever seen. Really? That's one of the saddest videos you've ever seen? I mean, we're inundated with awful video content on a daily basis, but a comedic video featuring Chelsea Handler celebrating the fact that she made the right decision for her is the saddest video you've ever seen. Okay. Ben Shapiro, the best thing about this video is that it features her explaining that she can do

whatever she wants as a person with no kids. And so she names a bunch of stuff she didn't do because, her actual life consists of drinking a bunch of wine and being really, really sad. But how do you know that, Ben? And yeah, she listed things that she didn't actually do because it was meant to be a sketch. It's just a funny video. But we should talk a little bit about what it's like to be a parent in America who doesn't work at a company that can offer a talentless chud like Stephen Crowder, a $50 million contract.

Okay, because most people don't live in that economic situation. Most Americans don't even, 40% of Americans have an income that's so low, so low that they pay nothing in federal taxes. I mean, the inequality might have something to do with the fact that people are deciding, nah, having kids isn't for me. Because they can't afford it. There's no social safety net. There's no support at all, especially when you compare the United States, which is supposed to be the greatest country. the world to other developed countries, and we're going to do that right now. utilized for the story. Surprise, surprise. American parents are the least happy parents in

the Western world. How much do you love that stock image? It's great. Okay. So here's another one from time. Many parents are happier than non-parents, but not in the United States. And that story had to do with, that story had to do with a study that looked at the life satisfaction of 22 Western countries, and they did in fact find that in some parts of the world, yeah, parents are actually happier than non-parents. That's not the case in the United States, though. Let me give you the details. A council of contemporary family's briefing paper based on a longer peer reviewed report argues that parental discontent is neither global nor inevitable, but in some countries, humans with offspring actually report higher levels of well-being than those

without. Now, the researcher here says our results indicate that the parental happiness penalty very substantially from country to country. In fact, in some countries such as, oh wow, what a surprise, Norway and Hungary, parents are actually happier than non-parents. That's also true on average of parents in such places as Portugal, Finland, Sweden, and Spain. Hmm, what do those countries tend to have that the United States doesn't have? At the very bottom of the list of the 22 countries is the United States, because this is the country, based on this study, where parents are likely to be less happy than non-parents, okay? Now, of the 22 countries, the researchers studied, America has the biggest happiness differential between parents and the child free,

meaning that parents are miserable and people who actually decide to not have kids tend to be happier. On average, that's not the case for everyone. Again, if you have certain resources, if you have certain support, might be different. Might be easier to raise a kid. But for the vast majority of Americans, no, it is not easy to raise children in this country. In fact, most Americans just do not have the resources to do so, right? the resources to provide the child care so they can go back to work. And please spare me the BS argument about like, oh, the mom should stay home.

The mother should stay home. Yeah, except she can't. You need a dual income household to provide for that family. That's the economy we're living in. Let's acknowledge that. Let's get out of our multimillion dollar bubble and acknowledge what the vast majority of Americans are dealing with. If you care so much, and by the way, I don't care if people want to have kids or not at all.

Okay, you do you, I do me. Okay, I want to live my life. I don't want anyone involved in my personal intimate decisions. I don't want the government involved. I don't want people at the Daily Wire involved. None of your goddamn business. But since they seem to care so much about why people decide to forego having children, I'm just giving you the information you somehow missed while living in this country.

Okay. So it can be largely attributed going back to that study and how. the United States is at the bottom of the list when it comes to happiness after having children. It can be largely attributed, says lead author Jennifer Glass, a sociologist at the University of Texas, Austin, to the average cost of child care for a two-year-old and the number of paid vacation and sick days people can take a year. In the U.S., the former is way too high, and the latter way too low. Unlike its economically developed counterparts, the United States has done little to offset the cost of raising children and ameliorate the incompatibility between employment

and child care, the study says. And I'm sorry if I'm preaching to the choir. It's just that there's a handful of folks who don't understand this and they need to know. The negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirely explained by the presence or absence of social policies, allowing parents to better combine paid work, with family obligations. And this was true for both mothers and fathers. Countries with better family policy packages

had no happiness gap between parents and non-parents. None of this should be surprising, folks. And by the way, how much does it cost to raise a child in the United States from age seven to age 18? It's a lot. And when you compare it to Finland, it'll blow your mind.

So why don't we start with Finland? because Finland was one of the top countries when it came to happy parents. And it's easy to understand why when you see the amount of support Finnish parents tend to get. Let's watch. Finland's healthcare system has helped give it the lowest maternal death rate in the world. And it's available here to everyone for next to nothing. Dr. Iden Tekai is the chief physician on the labor ward.

Every mother here gets a private room and even the option of a one. quarter birth. A hundred euros you will pay, and of that you will get almost 50% back as an reimbursement. That's under $60 to have a baby, compared with the US where the average natural birth costs over $12,000 and insurance doesn't cover all of it. The maternal death rate in the US has nearly doubled over the last three decades. In Finland, they've cut it in half. And the government also wants parents to spend time.

with their babies. In Finland, you're guaranteed around four months paid maternity leave by law. And parents can then split another six months paid parental leave, though not at the same time. Four months, mandatory paid leave. I mean, minimum, that's the minimum. You get more time after that that you split with your partner. And when you look at the maternal mortality rate in the United States compared to countries like Finland, I mean, we're not just talking about making the decision easier for Americans. We're also talking about saving lives when we discuss the importance of these social programs.

Now let's compare that to what it's like to be a parent in the United States. If we had had two kids in full-time daycare, it would have been a lot more than rent. So that's why it just absolutely wasn't an option. And when we looked at the numbers for full-time nannies in the San Francisco area, they all charge about 80 grand a year. The average family with at least one child under the age of five typically spends around 13% of the family's income on child care, according to a September 2021 Treasury Department report. That's about one out of every $8.

That's more than what the average household spends on groceries and nearly double what the government considers affordable for low-income families. That sounds like a tough time to me. And it has been a tough time for many parents, especially during the pandemic, as mothers had an incredibly difficult time going back to work because they couldn't afford child care for their kids. I mean, the cost of child care has blown up. In fact, let's go to Graphics 16 here. Childcare costs have actually outpaced inflation. In 2020, for instance, child care expenses rose 5.03% year over year compared to the annual inflation rate of just 1.2% at the time.

And it continues to go up. The build back better agenda that Biden barely fought for included funding for child care. It would have alleviated some of this financial burden for parents, but Republicans fought a tooth and nail because I don't know, do they want people to have kids? Because it doesn't seem like it. They certainly don't want to offer any support. And one other thing I want to mention is the cost of raising kids also goes up and seems to be outpacing inflation as well.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture published a report using 2015 data that estimated child rearing expenses from birth through age 17 in a two-year-old. child middle income married couple, middle income married couple family is $233,610. So from birth through age 17, meaning it doesn't even take into account the cost of college. And look, maybe all these conservative public figures had the kind of reaction they did because Chelsea Handler is who Chelsea Handler is. Maybe they see a liberal woman and they're like, like, ah, we got to pounce. But you know, it seems like Dennis Prager, who's no liberal, seems to agree with her. Let's, let's watch. I have a zero romanticization of children.

Children are among the meanest creatures on earth. How you make a child into a good adult? Is the single most important question any society can ask? Essentially, there's no close second. Because we don't start off all that wonderful. Well, Dennis, when it comes to you, you didn't end up all that wonderful either. But hey, hands off the Dennis Prager. Let's attack Chelsea Handler for allegedly being miserable for making a decision that was right for her. And in the meantime, you want people to have babies, you want Americans to feel comfortable starting families. How about you stop gutting what's left of our social safety debt?

And maybe people feel like their financial situation is stable enough to start that family. In the meantime, I don't want to hear a damn thing from conservatives who laugh at the notion of paid family leave because they're not helping, they're just hurting anyone who actually wants to start a family. All right, we got to take a break when we come back. Francesca Fierintini will be joining me for hour two. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more

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