The Young Turks - Tyson KO's Shapiro

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Israel somehow threatens Ben and Jerry’s over their decision to not sell in the Occupied Palestinian Territory anymore. The 40 cities that could be poised for a housing crisis. Humanity has flipped the Amazon from a carbon sink to a carbon source. A House race in Cleveland captures the Democrats’ generational divide. The first athletes have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Olympic Village. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to Tixti, I'm your host Anna Kaspareen, and joining us today is Francesca Furentini, also known as Franny Fio and host of the vituation room. What's up, Francesca? Oh, I'm good, just still, you know, not present in the studio, missing, just missing sharing air particles with you, Anna.

Me too, me too. You know? That's too bad. And, you know, I trust you enough to not even want protection. We don't need no air filter when Francesca's in here, you know? I don't know, dude. I've been doing live comedy indoors and I definitely don't trust any of those people, especially not comedians. So maybe we take it slow, girl.

Okay, fine, fine. One step at a time. I got you. Smart, smart, smart. Anyway, we've got a, look, I'm going to be honest with you. We have an okay show for you today. It's summertime. Journalists are on vacation. We do analysis here. We share the facts. We do analysis. But journalists are on vacation. So we got a lot of, honestly, We picked the best stories available today, if you ask me, but everyone needs to get back to work, okay? Get back to doing some investigative reporting so we can do our jobs. But I am looking forward to our bonus episode today, which will be dedicated to my good friend and the late Michael Brooks. Today marks the one-year anniversary of his untimely and tragic passing.

And so we're going to share some videos of Michael in his career. share some personal stories of Michael, with Michael. And who knows, I might even share some never before heard stories in the bonus episode. So if you wanna hear some of that, if you wanna watch that content and more, if you wanna support TYT and what we do here to help keep us sustainable,

you can become a member by just smashing that joint button as the cool YouTubers say. And you get to choose which tier you join at, but just know that there are a lot of perks, along with keeping independent media sustainable. But I'm really looking forward to the bonus episode. I'm not going to lie, it's been kind of a tough day thinking about him and how he's no longer with us. But I think that his lessons are valuable and we can still learn from him even though he's no longer with us.

So that's the point of the bonus. And I'm looking forward to sharing that all with you. But before we get to all of that, let's talk a little bit about some international news because, believe it or not, there is. is a situation in which people can be upset with Ben and Jerry's, so I want to give you the details on that. Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennett is now issuing some threats against Unilever, which is the company, the corporation that Ben and Jerry's falls under. Now, why is this happening? Well, it turns out that Ben and Jerry's announced that it will no longer sell its ice cream in occupied areas of Israel, particularly the West Bank.

And this led to some backlash from the Israeli government. And I want to share those details. So first, a little context. Ben and Jerry said in a statement on Monday that it had informed its longstanding licensee responsible for manufacturing and distributing the ice cream in Israel, that it will not renew the license agreement when it expires at the end of 2022. And the reason why they're making this decision is because of, you know, Palestinian territory that has been occupied by Israelis.

That is something that is considered a crime, international crime. The international community has condemned it with the exception of the United States. And so Ben-Njeries wants to take a stance on this, and inevitably that has led to some pushback. Let's start with the prime minister, the relatively new prime minister, Nafdali Bennett. Prime Minister Bennett spoke with Alan Jop, CEO of Unilever, which owns. Ben and Jerry's and made it clear that he views with utmost gravity the decision by Ben and juries to boycott Israel and added that this is a subsidiary of Unilever which has taken a clearly anti-Israel step. Also Israel's foreign minister has weighed in and criticized the

decision on Monday as a surrender to ongoing and aggressive pressure from extreme anti-Israel groups and said the company was cooperating with economic economic terrorism, economic terrorism. And so the statement from the prime minister, Francesca, was essentially that the Israeli government plans on fighting back aggressively. I don't know what that really means, right? So what are the consequences supposed to be when you're talking about a company that has decided to take a political position on something by not selling its product in an area

that is occupied, right? They have their own values and their own ethics on this issue. And so they're following through on that. But the Israeli government is issuing kind of like this vague threat about it. Yeah, I mean, it is especially ironic given the year that Israel, Palestine, and specifically people living in the occupied territories and occupied Jerusalem have experienced to call something like a nonviolent boycott of. on ice cream companies to call that terrorism when you see the state-sponsored terrorism that the state of Israel has been raining down on the Palestinian people for decades, and especially this year, right? So, you know, and it all is part and parcel of the fact

that Israel has an agenda to stop any kind of resistance, right? So the question I always ask Zionists is what kind of Palestinian resistance or what kind of civil resistance from from the international community in support of Palestinian human rights, do you accept? Right? If you say that you don't support, you know, the actions of Hamas, right, that's fine. If you say you don't support, let's say nonviolent protests, we know that the IDF regularly open fires with live ammunition on young protesters and kills them. If neither of those things are okay, then what is okay? Is an economic boycott that is nonviolent internationally? Okay. Clearly the answer is no.

And they're running scared, man. And how else do you get triggered by chunky monkey? Like how do you? And it's because you know, you know that throughout our history, right, throughout world history, that boycotts work, that whether it's the civil rights movement in the South and companies that boycotted segregated estates or whether it's in South Africa apartheid, right? And the companies that boycotted that regime leading eventually to, you know, isolating it economically

and diplomatically and leading for it to change its policies. It is a well-worn tactic. It is a non-violent tactic. But again, they see the writing on the wall and they're trying to jump out ahead of it. Yeah, what I think is so fascinating is, you know, various camps, various groups that refuse to ever take any responsibility or more importantly, see foreign relations or even domestic politics through a nuanced lens. So that's certainly the case in Israel where on one hand, of course you can understand the importance of a place for Israelis to live safely without any fear of retaliation from Hamas or any other group of people. You want a situation in which people can live in peace and prosper. On the other hand, it seems as though for a very long time, especially in U.S. media, any effort to justifiably criticize the action specifically of the Israeli government in their aggression toward Palestinians, whether it be in Gaza or the West Bank or East Jerusalem, has resulted in the most insane accusations of anti-Semitism, of hatred toward Jewish people, which is, I think that's absolutely insane, right? It's a way of shutting down the conversation immediately, and I think it's wrong. I mean, you see similar actions on the left in regard to issues like Syria, for instance, right?

On one hand, you obviously can say we shouldn't invade Syria, we shouldn't do intervention in Syria. But you can also look at Syria for what it is, and you can analyze and critique the actions of Bashar al-Assad. But like this absolutism that I'm seeing in various international issues is toxic and awful. And honestly, the people who see things in a black and white way and then urge everyone to see everything through their lens, they're not helping the situation. At all, at all. That kind of black and white thinking doesn't lead to any real solutions on the ground. Now I say that obviously by thinking about Michael Brooks, because he was one of the few people who was able to provide international analysis that was nuanced, that was well researched.

And he talked about Israel quite a bit, honestly. And there have been videos that have gone viral of his, after his passing on this very issue. One of the videos that actually has not gone viral, but I wanted to share with you all, has to do with the allegations of anti-Semitism. Anytime anyone wants to do, again, justified critique of the Israeli government. Let's watch. The reality is that Ilan Omar is correct on the merits. She's correct on the policy.

Saying that she said this comment about dual allegiance is a great leap to begin with. And I have to say, I find it extraordinary that people on the right, who sometimes accurately, by the way, not always, but sometimes accurately, say people on the left, you know, jump to accusations too quickly of various bigotries and read into things. They've been reading into every single thing that the Congresswoman has said from the beginning, most of which are substantive critiques of a sovereign nation state that happens to administer a horrific regime that violates people's rights on a daily basis in Gaza, the West Bank, and even inside, Israel in some respects. The new indictment about Netanyahu isn't just garden variety corruption. It involves actually undermining democracy. So I support Ilan Omar. I don't buy, and I also, in fact, support Corbin, in fact. And the reality is, is that these things are going to become debated on the merits. And we're not going to have a false equivalency

and actually drag down the profoundly serious issue of anti-Semitism by equating it with all criticism of a sovereign nation state that administers apartheid in reality. That was a debate that Michael did on I-24, and I highly recommend everyone, look up that video on YouTube. You will enjoy that debate. But Francesca, I wanted you to jump in because I can hear you kind of agreeing with what Michael said there. Yeah, absolutely. We need to pull these things apart, and we need to call things what they are. If it's a human rights violation, if it's illegal under international law for Israel to be occupying the West Bank.

And when we say occupying, we mean further encroaching. There's never been a status quo, sadly, in Israel, Palestine, meaning there's always more settlements. What does that mean? There's always new roads that only settlers, only Israeli settlers can drive on, can use. There's always diversion of water, of land access. There's toppling of olive trees that have been there for, you know, thousands of years. You know, there is constant displacement. This is a moving, you know, you cannot be neutral on a moving train as, as, as, you know,

as Howard Zinn once said, right? And that is Israel Palestine perfectly. And here's the thing, we see every time the right likes to weaponize their brands against causes, right? Like gay people getting married and living in peace and harmony and love. Yeah, so like, you know, chick filet,

go for it, right? Hobby Lobby, oh please deny all the birth control you can from your workers. That is all fine and good. That's not cancel culture, that is, That's not censorship, but then when it comes to Israel, the right and the Israeli lobby are so, so knee-jerk when it comes to a private corporation taking its own action to try and do what it can't to mitigate the continued suffering, the Palestinian people. And one of the ways is say, hey, man, I'm not going to have my products sold in these illegal settlements. That makes all the sense in the world.

And I would actually add that, you know, people on the left could pressure Ben and Jerry's to even withdraw their ice cream from Israel itself. Like, because Israel doesn't see a difference between its occupied territories and itself. Like, and we know that a lot of boycotts have asked, let's say, you know, Stevie Wonder and other, you know, other artists to not perform in Israel as a sign to say we don't support the actions of this government. It's not to say we don't support Israeli people, that we don't support, you know, their right to live in peace and all of that, to. defend itself, but this is a highly unequal situation. This is a defenseless population in the case of Gaza being completely bludgeoned by, by one of the most, if not the most advanced military on earth. Absolutely. And you know, you mentioned the right wing's knee-jerk reaction on this very topic. One of the things that the right wing has kind of taken on as part of

their project, even though they're certainly hypocrites on it, is the issue of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech. And what's really fascinating about this particular story and its ties to free speech is just how easily the right wing forgets about the First Amendment, as long as criticism toward Israel is involved. For instance, Israel's ambassador to Washington, Gilad Erdan, said that he raised the Ben and Jerry's decision in a letter to 35 U.S. governors. Here's the relevant part, whose states legislated against boycotting Israel. So remember, we've talked about in previous episodes of the show about how right-wing governors or right-wing state legislatures have legislated against the BDS movement, which has this not been challenged in the courts? Because regardless of what you feel about the boycott divestment movement, we're supposed to have. freedom of expression in this country. We're supposed to be able to engage in

political action, political speech, without the government retaliating against us. Right-wing governors retaliating against Americans who hold these political views or speak truth to power in regard to the Israeli government, being punished for it is unconstitutional. But the right wing doesn't mind this at all. That's totally fine. Yeah. And I do think, you know, it is disappointing to know that senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have supported the, you know, anti-BDS calls and legislation in Congress. And that everyone save for, I believe there were 16 progressive Congress people who did not support an anti-BDS policy, that most people are just sort of willing to go along with this. Again, we're talking about a nonviolent form of protest, right? This is not about, you know, endorsing Hamas. This is not about, again, this is not about even endorsing like nonviolent process.

This is literally about, no, we should remove money from if there is profiteering from occupation and from human rights violations, right? So, I mean, you got to call these, you have to call these Democrats out. And you got to wonder with all the talk about trying to end forever wars and we really need to get out of, you know, Middle East, you know, changing our relationship with Israel is so pivotal to that. So folks like Sanders and Warren and Kamala Harris and Corey Booker who all voted for this anti-BDS legislation should be held accountable. How do you expect the United States to extricate itself from its terrible role in the Middle East without changing its relationship to Israel, without changing its relationship to Saudi Arabia? That absolutely Saudi

Arabia and Israel, they might seem like enemies, they very much were. work hand in hand when it comes to baiting the United States into more war, into more aggression. They love it. They can't get enough of it. Well, we'll leave it there and take our first break. When we come back from our break, we'll talk about the Amazon rainforest, which is typically known to absorb CO2. Turns out that deforesting the Amazon has now led to a situation in which it's emitting CO2. So that sounds great. We've got that story in more for you when we return.

What's up, everyone, welcome back to TYT. Just want to let you all know that Woznia, hosted by Wozni Lombray, airs tonight at 7 p.m. Pacific time, 10 p.m. Eastern on our Twitch channel, Twitch.com. TV slash TYT. Wanted to make sure you guys had the right time for the record. So again, 7 p.m. Pacific, 10 p.m. Eastern. Also, for those of you who are lucky, enough to listen to our social breaks during the breaks. I couldn't remember my favorite Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor. Brett, as always, reminded me of what I forgot, and it's Netflixed and chilled.

It's so good. It's my favorite. Anyway, this is not like a paid advertisement. Just want to be clear about that. This is organic. What is even in that? It's like, I love like peanut butter incorporated some way, so there's like peanut butter ice cream happening. I think there's brownie in it too.

brownie in it too and then there's like salty pretzel. There's nothing better than like eating something sweet and then all of a sudden you get that crunchy, salty bite. No. It's the thing Americans are good at. Look, I don't believe in American exceptionalism except for when it comes to salty and sweet combos. That's it. Totally, totally. Yes, yes. I go to Mexico if I'm looking for spicy and sweet, their candies. Sure. Chamoi? Chimoi all day. I'll put chimois on anything. I love it. Anyway, all right. Let's get to a pretty serious story actually involving the Amazon rainforest. There is a devastating development in the fight against climate change.

Oftentimes when we think of the Amazon rainforest, we think of it as an important part of fighting CO2 in the atmosphere, because it's known to absorb CO2. However, because of the damage done to the rainforest, which was accelerated under Bolsonaro in Brazil, Now, there are parts of the rainforests that are actually emitting CO2. So I want to give you these data points because it gives you a sense of just how much damage human behavior is doing to our planet, to our environment. Findings from the nearly decade-long research project published in the journal Nature suggests that deforestation, I have a hard time saying this word, deforestation and fire, among

other factors have dramatically undercut the Amazon's ability to absorb heat-trapping carbon emissions from the atmosphere. The results showed the greatest changes to the ecological balance in areas that had suffered large-scale deforestation and had been heavily burned to dispose of dead trees and to clear land. So I want to direct your attention to this map that gives you a sense of how much damage has been done by essentially chopping down trees. If you look at the pink areas, those are the areas that indicate the most deforestation. And so it's not a surprise that as you get closer to Brazil, the pink areas are a little more common because Bolsonaro certainly had no interest in protecting the Amazon, and he certainly was

very much in favor of allowing for an accelerated rate of deforestation to take place. I can't wait for him to lose to Lula de Silva in the upcoming elections in Brazil. But this is just terrifying stuff, Francesca. I mean, we talk about climate policy in the context of the United States. But really, this is something that requires collaboration globally. And it's just, we have to keep fighting, but it's difficult to see a light at the end of the tunnel with the United States, for instance, It's still using incredibly hawkish rhetoric toward China and Russia. And then it's also difficult when you think about other right wing leaders globally who also don't seem to take climate change very seriously and have rolled back any progress that's been made on this effort.

Totally. You're 100% right. I mean, this is what happens when you let strongman demagogue dictators run amok throughout the world. I mean, that and that's what Bolsonaro does. And there's no reason for Bolsonaro to negotiate with Trump, right? Because you just get into this endless what aboutism, I mean to negotiate with Trump before or, you know, or anything. So that's what happens when you have strong men in their own camps. Your chances of diplomacy completely unravel. And the reason diplomacy matters is because climate change is a global issue that has to be

tackled globally. And I know it's hard for leftists who are like, man, can the U.S. do anything good in the world? It's a good question. But if there's one reason why we need to keep on trying, it's to stop climate change and to curb climate change. And there's a number of ways that that can happen. First of all, countries like Brazil need to be paid to preserve the Amazon, full stop. Because the only reason that these fires are burning is because it's more profitable to use that land for monocon. crop and culture, whether it's soy, wheat. Most things are actually for export for foreign cows,

that's like foreign cows, but for cattle and livestock to eat to then sell to Americans and other first world countries, right? So like it's all this self-perpetuating, you know, terrible recipe for climate chaos. It's got to be more profitable for that country to preserve the Amazon. So no one, you know, it should be illegal to be illegal to, be buying anything like feed from formerly deforested Amazon rainforest. That's that like that should be illegal. And countries like the United States, countries like China, countries like, you know, in Western Europe who have contributed vastly to the amount of CO2, disproportionately to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, need to be shelling over the dough. There is no other way at this point.

Yes, Bolsonaro has a role to play, but there needs to be a carrot at the end. end of that stick. And otherwise, you're going to keep on seeing this. And just to, you know, explain, y'all know that, like, the Amazon lungs of the world, like rain clouds that form in the Amazon, like, you know, end up, you know, falling on Southern California and Texas and all over it, right? So, like, extreme drought in the U.S., a lot of it is thanks to this deforestation. Yeah, no, you make such a great point there. And you know, if you look at some of the regulations in a state like California, which to be sure, governance in California I have complained about quite a bit recently. And I stand by those criticisms. However, there are certain environmental protections in California that I'm fond of, including a recent story involving a family who bought a home in Joshua Tree, California, and decided that, you know, they're building. They're expanding this home, they're adding some additions, and they're like, look, these four Joshua trees are in the way, so we're going to go ahead and uproot them and

get rid of them. Well, it turns out that there are strict regulations against chopping down or getting rid of Joshua trees, because I didn't know this, they're actually endangered. And so they had to pay these pretty hefty fines as a result of what they did, and so I think that in some context, the stick works, right? The fines, the penalties, real consequences could work, especially domestically. But you're right. I mean, internationally, we need to find ways to collaborate, but also to provide incentives, especially to countries that aren't as privileged as the United States is, to ensure that they're protecting their

environment or, you know, the nature that surrounds their country. So yeah, I think that's a really great point. One final thing I wanted to bring up in regard to the recent studies that were done into this. So researchers who routinely tested the atmosphere of four areas in Amazonia, twice a month over a nine-year period found that not only are carbon emissions higher in the eastern areas of the rainforest than in the western areas, but that the southeastern area is putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it absorbs. Going back to what the lead of the story is, the eastern Amazon is a hot spot of deforestation to facilitate logging and agriculture, including cattle ranches.

So whenever it comes to business opportunities versus the health of our planet or the lives of actual human beings, under this model, the profits, the corporate incentives are always going to outweigh what's in the best interests of mankind. And again, like the incentives are just in the wrong place. Short term, short term profits seem to rule all of the decision making that takes place not just here in the United States, but globally. And we got to change that structure. That's really at the heart of a lot of the pain and suffering that we're seeing around

the world right now. Yes. All right, let's move on to our next story. So let's talk about Ohio's 11th district. Because corporate Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to basically destroy the chance of Nina Turner winning this congressional seat. So the Democratic primary for Ohio's 11th district is heating up with progressives up against the Democratic establishment. Now progressive Nina Turner is up against a corporate Democrat by the name of Chantelle Brown, who has the backing of corporate Democrats. and I'll give you those details in just a second.

But the New York Times just covered this race and I wanted to share their framing on it, but also some of the information that we know regarding who's supporting what and where everyone stands on this particular race. First, an interesting excerpt from the New York Times piece, Democrats, there's no specificity here, just Democrats. Democrats say there is little broader significance to this individual House primary contest, one that people, hits two black women against each other in a safe democratic district that had been represented by Marsha Fudge before she was confirmed as President Biden's secretary of housing and urban development. By the way, a position that Fudge before being named for that position thought she didn't want because typically it just goes to someone who's black when in reality

she wanted to be in charge of like the agriculture department. Anyway, I just, I wanted to give you guys that context, I think it's important. But with that said, what are your thoughts on that first excerpt that I read? So why are we talking about it? I mean, this is what's amazing, right? You're like, oh, it's largely not important in the sort of the grand democratic strategy, but we got to stick it to the progressives and keep them in their place. Literally all, they're just admitting that it's not strategic. And yet hundreds of thousands of dollars from, from like moderate Democrats. I mean, is the D-Triple C involved? at this point. And actually pro-Israeli forces in the United States have been just funneling money

into Nina Turner's opponents. So that's all you need to know right there is that actually they want other Democrats to lose. Meanwhile, progressives are always being told, oh, you hate unity. Why do you hate unity? Honey, Nina Turner was leading by double digits up until you funneled all that money into her opponent. So we were fine with unity before that. I think you're against unity. anyway. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So, you know, Nina Turner and her campaign had done a poll just to see where everyone stood in this race. And she was leading. I mean, Chantelle Brown was so far behind. And that was when Hillary Clinton got involved and did her endorsement. At first, I was like, who cares? I mean, Hillary Clinton is not a popular figure. So if I were Nina Turner, I'd be elated about this. But

But Jank made an important point, and I think he was right. That was Hillary Clinton essentially doing like a loud call to corporate Democrats and their funders to get involved in this race and show their support for Chantelle Brown. And that's exactly what happened. So that excerpt that I read you from the New York Times was immediately followed with this. Yet in the final weeks of the campaign, the party establishment is throwing copious, this is correct, copious amounts of time and money into an to stop Ms. Turner, a fiery former Cleveland Councilwoman and Ohio State Senator. And let's be clear on the differences between Nina Turner and Chantelle Brown. Nina Turner fights for everything that we experienced during the Bernie Sanders campaign. Not just in 2016, but also in 2020, Medicare for all, a living wage, free college, you know, all of the bread and butter issues that progressives find incredibly important. I think the majority of Americans find incredibly important to to be honest.

Chantelle Brown though, even in this article in the context of this legacy outlet has made it clear, like she's just this laid back, you know, won't go against the grain candidate. The Congressional Black Caucus's political action committee though has endorsed Chantelle Brown, that's Turner's main rival. The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party chairwoman, so have Hillary Clinton, and the highest ranking black member of the House. Jim Clyburn, who will be campaigning this weekend for Brown. They argue that Brown is the better candidate with a unifying message, a reference that Francesca made a little earlier.

But to be fair, Nina Turner also has backing. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York will be knocking on doors for the first or for her the same weekend Representative Clyburn will be in town. Bernie Sanders will join the fray in person the last weekend before the election. I should also note that the working families party is forming a pack in order to provide some funding for Nina Turner's campaign. They're going to give at least $150,000, but up to $200,000. We'll see what the end result is.

But the money is one thing, I think the support is incredibly important. Getting people motivated and excited is incredibly important. And yeah, I mean, Nina Turner winning is very important, okay? I don't think that electoral politics are the end all be all. In fact, I cringe any, anytime anyone tries to say that electoral politics are the most, like it's the most important thing, nothing else matters. No, grassroots organizing matters. Pressure from outside matters, right?

Like, there needs to be this outside, inside strategy. We need more labor unions, we need to empower labor. That's a huge part of the equation. Something that you talk about quite a bit, Francesca. And, you know, if you care to elaborate on it, I'd love to hear it. Well, yeah, I think you're totally right about inside outside strategy. And what this shows is that the Democratic Party is deathly afraid of the outside strategy. They are terrified of the grassroots, right?

Whereas the Republican Party loves their grassroots. Oh, you've got extremist views. Love it. Now, Democrats don't have extremist views, right? Like, Democrats are like, you know, hey, we want health care. Hey, we want a green new deal. You know, you see how the Amazon's burning? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stop that as soon as possible. Thanks. Hey, I want to live. I want to have a family and maybe grandchildren anyway. Like that's, that is so, that is seen as extreme. And I will also say this, Clyburn, man, couldn't involve once again, Clyburn. Oh, thank you, Mr. Middle of the Road. And, and like, and here, here's what we, the lesson of 2020 is very interesting.

And I'm curious what you think. But I feel like this says to us that Democrats are taking away from 2020 that once again, the way to go is middle of the road, is keep it safe, is don't cause too many waves. Republicans think that Joe Biden is a communist. I know. They think he is a socialist. It doesn't matter then if you put up an actual Democratic socialist. You're still going to get the same critiques.

And I would argue that like, look, I think getting headlines is good. if Nina Turner is in Congress, she'll get headlines, and that will benefit the movements for all of the things that we're talking about and that we want to win. It's just that they're so afraid. And I don't know, I think the last point is one thing that keeps on getting trotted out. Oh, you hear it all the time on mainstream media. Oh, defund the police really hurt Democrats. Defund the police really hurt.

Black Lives Matter really hurting the debt. Really? Because actually, if you look at the studies, there was more voter energy because of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, because of everything that popped off after George Floyd was murdered, that that galvanized people to the polls, right? So you want to say Biden was your safe choice? No, no, I say that that movement energy, that outside energy also propelled you into victory. So don't turn your nose and turn your back on that grassroots. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party doesn't get called out enough regarding the gaslighting that they engage in on a regular basis.

We all saw what happened in 2020 with these congressional races. The Democrats who lost their reelection bids were not progressives. Okay, they weren't leftists. They were the milk toast, incredibly boring, refused to stir the pot corporate Democrats, who thought that it would be a smart strategy somehow to position themselves as well. weaker Republicans in their races. And guess what? They lost. They lost. Because if you're a voter in that district and you get to choose between an actual Republican and a watered down Republican, just go for the Republican. Just go for the Republican. Right? I mean, and I remember the media

propaganda leading up to these congressional races, all of the fear mongering regarding AOC, oh, it looks like AOC might not win. Oh, looks like Ilhan Omar might not win. Looks like Rashida Talib might not win. They won by massive margins. Massive. Massive margins. So don't come at me and tell me that, oh, it's, you know, it's that progressive messaging that doesn't really sit well with voters. No, that's not what actually played out during the 2020 election. And anyone who tries to say otherwise is just a liar who refuses to accept reality. But I think more importantly, is intentionally gaslighting people because in order to be honest, they'd have to accept reality. And reality doesn't sit well with their corporate donors. That's what this is

really about. Totally. Yeah, they want people to go back to brunch so bad. They want middle of the road candidates to sort of appease, you know, high rolling Democrats, comfortable Democrats, Democrats who, you know, really don't need health care because they've got it all, you know, in the bank, whateves, they want to appease that base of donors and have them all go home and just sort of bear your head in the sand, you know? Whereas like, especially now, man, you're listing off all the things that Nina Turner is for. Now we're in a night and day moment when it comes to the health of our economy and the health, literal health of our people after this pandemic and during this pandemic. What kind of policies do you think are going to support the American people

going forward. Are they going to be trickle down economic policies? Are they going to be means tested policies? Or is it probably a safer bet? Is there a bet if we support the social safety net going forward? And so that, you know, people can go see a doctor without being stuck with a, you know, $100,000 bill. Like where, what are we really talking about here? So, but Dems want us to all go night night. I'll take a little nap and let them just keep on doing their dark money wheelings and dealings and never get called out on anything. Look, I mean, just a few more, I know we're running out of time, but just a few more parts of this article that I think are relevant. Because, look, New York Times, Washington Post,

typically when they cover these types of races, I get salty, jank gets salty, because they frame things in a way that's unfair to the left. However, in this case, there were excerpts that I was actually very fond of, including this one, Brown, Chantelle Brown, has the most reliable voters, many of them older, more affluent, and white. Also, they write that Brown, with an easy-going demeanor, pushed back hard against the characterization of her as a Washington puppet. And then they followed that with this excerpt. Her campaign is staffed by help from SKDK, a powerhouse Democratic political firm, stocked with old hands from the Clinton and Obama days. Her endorsements include moderate House Democrats like Representative Gotham, many of whom are motivated by Turner's

favorable statements on Palestinian rights. Going back to what you were saying a little earlier, Francesca, about how Nina Turner standing up for Palestinians has also turned off some of these corporate Democrats and their donors. So that's encouraged them to get involved in this race as well. I mean, and for once, you know, they're not relying on just sort of empty identity politics because Nina Turner herself is a black woman, you know? So in a sense, what you're saying is, yeah, you want diversity, you just don't want diversity that's actually going to fight. Cool.

I just want to make sure that's what moderate Democrats are saying. They want diversity that they can handle. And look, it speaks to the Congressional Black Caucus, which a lot of black progressives in Congress and out have understood that they have long been, been irrelevant, that they have not had the fire that they had when they initially were formed. And a lot of people across the country are disappointed in their black leadership and say, no, we actually have black leadership. We need more of it. You know, we need more Cory Bush's and Ayanna Presley's. Those are the people that we want to empower. Jamal Bowman, et cetera, right? Like, we got that.

But you all who've like had, you know, the, their grasp on leadership and power need to step aside. Yes, absolutely. All right, well, let's take a break. When we come back, though, Ben Shapiro had a conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson about transgender rights. You don't want to miss this story. We're going to share that and more when we return. All right, welcome back to TYT, everyone, Anna Casparian, and Francesca Furentini. Francesca, you're the host of the Bituation Room, airs every Sunday.

Do you want to tell the audience a little more about it? Yeah, live Sunday 580 Eastern at Franny Fio on my YouTube channel and listen wherever you get your podcast, the Bituation Room. I always bring on a comic and an expert or an activist and we throw down. So we talked about Britney Spears and the tar sands in our last episode. And it was wonderful. Love it, love it. It's a great show.

It's entertaining and informative. Everyone check it out. One other show, though, that is entertaining sometimes, but not very informative, is Ben Shapiro's. And we talk about it time to time. But very rarely does he have someone on who dunks on him. So that's why we're going to talk about it today. This is wonderful. So Ben Shapiro had a conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson about science.

science because you know, conservatives care so deeply about science. This time the topic was specifically about transgender rights. He refers to it as transgenderism. And I'm guessing he was hoping that Neil deGrasse Tyson would go along with whatever narrative he was trying to push. And we know that Shapiro has not been so kind to the transgender community so you can imagine what kind of narrative he's trying to push. But what I appreciated was how Neil deGrasse Tyson responded to Shapiro's statement in this video. Take a look. The argument is made that trans women are women, for example. And what that seems to mean is that trans women are identical to women.

Now, if people want to say trans women are not biological women, obviously that is the case. But people don't seem to want to say that, although that is obviously scientifically true. Transwomen are not biological women. Biological women are biological women. But where are you going with this? What is your, what are you trying to accomplish by asking yourself, is it science or is it not science? It's how, it's people in society. But this is a perfect example of an area where suddenly it doesn't matter to say things that are just true. Like why is it, why is it bad or wrong? I have another way to approach this. I care what is objectively true in the world as a scientist. But let me not say even as a scientist. I just

simply care what is objectively true. And science happens to be, a pretty potent path to invoke, to find out what is true. And so if people express themselves on a gender spectrum, and that is an actual thing and an actual society, if we have not fully explained that scientifically, that's an interesting frontier to study. If you want to say it's only sociological, then it's the purview. of the social sciences. I don't care who studies it.

It's an interesting fact about society that's worth learning about it to make it, to fight someone to say, it's not biological, it's just your decision. It's real and it's there. We've got some more clips from this interview, but Francesca, I want to go to you first. How did Neil deGrasse Tyson handle that? Were you in favor of it? Could he have been a little stronger? And look, for me personally, I love the first reaction to Ben Shapiro's statement because it was like,

bro, where are you trying to go with this? Like, what is your indesion here? Because that's really key in understanding the motivation behind the framing and the line of questioning in this interview. Yeah. I also, I love what he just like folds his hand is like his mind is just going to outer space. Like, find the peace, Neil. Like you're hearing a lot of shrill nonsense and he just like folds his hands and goes there. And then comes back with your right, an incredibly very smart retort, which is why?

Why are you obsessed with this? And that's the same thing with anti-trans extremists all the time is what's your point? Let's say you're correct, right? So, so what? Right? And the answer is, well, I don't know. I just, I want to keep people from living their truth. I want to keep people from accessing the same services. I want to keep people from health care. I want to make sure that there's more hate crimes against them. I want to send them to, you know, camps so they can re-educate themselves about what gender they really are. And what is the next level here? Because that's what it feels like. And if you're so obsessed with it, Do you have something to tell us? Do you like, do you also have feelings like you're in the wrong body? Like what? Yeah, I mean, I think it's similar to the mentality against same-sex marriage, right? I think that there's an element to this where I don't think elements of the right wing take the transgender community seriously in that they seem to think that it's some sort of lifestyle choice. Right? And it's, it's so, that's why they're so focused on the biological arguments, right?

Biologically, it's a woman, it's a man, not a woman, biologically this, biologically. They're trying to like hone in on, you know, in their minds, this perverse way of living and a perverse lifestyle choice that people are making. when in reality that's obviously not the case. Who the hell makes a decision that basically makes them vulnerable to the worst forms of hatred, brutality, violence, discrimination? And also, yeah, why do you care? Like if your whole ideology, and look, I think Ben Shapiro is actually different from other right-wing media figures in that I don't think that for him, this is just a culture war to deflect from economic issues. Ben Shapiro was writing anti-pornography books way before he was like a known

figure, right? Like these are issues that he deeply cares about. But the question is the most backed up. I mean, I swear if there's anyone who's more backed up than Ben Shapiro, I'd like to see him. I'm sorry. Well, like his whole thing is like, I don't know. I mean, he's got a wife, he's got kids. Like I've heard that the proud boys don't allow themselves to masturbate. Like I would argue maybe they're a little more backed up. But no, Ben Shapiro does seem to have some issues. Like, the fact that he lost it over a Cardi B song and like the idea of women getting aroused like really offended him. Like there's something, there's something up.

And I would just argue that if the majority of your ideological beliefs revolve around denying others their rights because you disagree with their lifestyle choices, which have no bearing on your life, you got to really rethink what your priorities are. You really do. There's something wrong with you if your political identity is about snatching rights away or denying rights to people who just have lives that are different from yours or identities that are different from yours. That's what Ben Shapiro is. I mean, I keep track of his podcast. Like, I'm curious, like, what is he talking about today?

And the majority of his content is, I don't like the way you're living. I don't like what you're rapping. He's like the woman from our HOA who's like constantly like snooping in on us and trying. trying to figure out whether or not we're doing anything right or wrong. Like just get out of our lives. Get out of our lives. And it's also, it is exactly, you know, Ben Shapiro is someone who trots out the Holocaust all the time. He talks about, you know, which is fine, right? But he weaponizes it against people like Ilhan Omar and calls them anti-Semitic whenever they criticize Israel, right? But like, looking at his ideology, whose ideology is more in line with

Naziism, right? Like people who say that everyone should live their truth and live the identity that they feel like they want to live and love who they want to love, or the person who's like, n'uh, there's a right way and a wrong way, there's a pure gender and a not pure gender. That sounds like some Nazi crap, all right? So like, again, and the last thing I'll say is, I said this before on the show, and if you are obsessed with men, so-called men, going into so-called women's bathrooms or dressing up as women or pretending to be a woman in order to get a gold medal in an Olympic sport because you know that just happens you know when you transition suddenly you're really good at sports um that's because your little twisted perverted brain it would do

that not because anyone else is a pervert it's because you're a pervert because it would only occur to you perverted cisgender dude to be like well i could i could just go up in the women's restroom and and i touch all the boobies not No man, like that's no trans person thinks that. You think that. Because it's the same thing where this is so stupid. You know whenever like men are like, oh yeah, if I had boobs, I'd like touch them all the time.

Like do you, hey, as a woman, do you like touch your own boobs? Like, no, we don't, we don't actually. Kind of. Not on the show. And no judge, and no judgments if we do. But you know what I'm saying? Like, it's the same, it's just dumb, cis, gross logic. Yeah, I totally agree.

I totally agree. Look, I can't help myself. One more video. Let's go to the next one. This is earlier in their conversation. Let's watch. The argument that is typically made by gender theorists is that gender is entirely separate from sex. You've seen the argument made that it makes no difference on average if men are stronger than women are, and that if we were to allow transgender women to compete with non-transgender women, then this would somehow not disadvantage biological women. And this seems to me absolutely a scientific, that if we're actually going to have a discussion about gender and sex,

that that should be based in data, which suggests that mammals are, in fact, binary in terms of their sex, unless you have intersex birth defects, typically, or genetic defect. I'm happy to opine on this. This only matters because to do, Today, we segregate most, nearly all sports, by gender. Otherwise, why do we even give a shit? What's what someone identifies with.

We live in a free country and with consenting adults and people's free expression of who and what they are. I mean, I don't love what I agree with you. I think it does matter what you teach the children. And so there's the, there's the matrix. of, you know, what you are biologically, how you express yourself, who you choose as a sexual partner. If we actually live in a free country as we tell ourselves, people's freedom to behave in any of those ways should not concern you at all. Nor are they requiring that you

behave that way. This is for their own freedoms because we live in a free country. Look, I love that he uses the rhetoric that's typically championed by conservatives, you know, regarding freedom, and we live in a free country, and no one's forcing you to do this. I think that it's effective. And, you know, if you watch the full conversation, Shapiro kind of struggles to respond to it. It's so big of Shapiro. I'm sorry. But just hats off. It's a little band Shapiro for having, I'm someone who actually believes that the earth. rotates around sun instead of the other way around, as many of my viewers probably believe. And that I know, and I know that might trigger some of the flat earthers out there. And there's, I mean, no offense to them. But, you know, like, is it great?

Like, I love that he's got an astronomer. I know. I know. I know. You know. And of course he's going to lose. He just lost, destroyed. Neil DeGrasse Tyson destroys Ben Shapiro in that.

And, and again, women's sports, look, women's sports, I will take you seriously on women's sports, right wingers, the day that you put women's sports on television. That's it. The day that you put it on television, I'll believe that you care at all. The day that you're like, oh, we've never won a World Cup. We've won like four with the women's national team. Start caring about women's sports first, and then we'll talk about trans people. Yeah, by the way, one of our members wrote in and said, you know, it's pretty rich of Shapiro to ask like an astrophysicist about like, issues pertaining to like genetics and gender and all of that, you know. But I was under the impression that all scientists are the same. All scientists study the same science, don't they?

I mean, don't all scientists also look into why it is that women would feel any type of arousal during sex, which I've failed to provide my own wife. And that's why Cardi B literally triggers me and I'll do an embarrassing segment on it. Anyway, that's who Ben Shapiro is. By the way, pay attention, he doesn't even blink when he's asking these insane questions. But I'm glad he had the conversation because I enjoyed having the discussion on our show. And maybe he should have more scientists on. More scientists, less cranks. I think that it would do a world of difference for Ben Shapiro's show. And maybe even Ben Shapiro's ideology. We'll see. Well, that does it for our first hour. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to give you an update on

what's going down with coronavirus and how the Olympics in Tokyo are looking with this pandemic still raging on and later in the show we'll discuss Tucker Carlson and you know Tucker Carlson doing Carlson things I mean there's really no other way of putting it we'll be right back thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t yt I'm your host jank huger and I'll see you soon