The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - April 8th, 2020

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the 2020 Democratic Primary. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. 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. What's up, everyone, welcome to the Young Turks, Santa Casparian and John Ida Rola with you. Huge newsday, lots of big updates on the Democratic primaries, not necessarily good updates, but updates nonetheless. We also have some pretty disastrous updates when it comes to Donald. Trump and his handling of this pandemic. As always, please help to support the show. We're doing

our best to provide content for you in the middle of this pandemic. And your support means the world to us. So there are two ways you can do that. You can go to tyt.com slash go where we're raising some money in order to remain sustainable. And the second way, of course, is a longstanding way that you can support TYT and it's to become a member. Go to tyt.com slash join. Members get the whole show, commercial free, whenever they want to watch it, and on top of that, all sorts of exclusive election coverage and, of course, the postgame show. John, how are you doing? Oh, you know, just happy to be alive, living my best life, all that stuff.

Yeah, right there with you. Great day. So, yeah, well, I'm happy that I get to do these stories with you today. It's always a pleasure doing the show with you, John. So why don't we just jump into it? Let's get it out of the way. Let's talk about some pretty devastating news when it comes to the primaries. So Bernie Sanders has officially dropped out of the Democratic primaries, indicating that now the

Democratic nominee in the general election will in fact be Joe Biden. Let's hear what Senator Sanders had to say. I wish I could give you better news, but I think you know the truth. and that is that we are now some 300 delegates behind Vice President Biden, and the path toward victory is virtually impossible. So while we are winning the ideological battle, and while we are winning the support of so many young people and working people throughout the country,

I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful. And so today I am announcing the suspension of my campaign. Please know that I do not make this decision lightly. In fact, it has been a very difficult and painful decision. I know that there may be some in our movement who disagree with this decision, who would like us to fight on to the last ballot cast at the Democratic Convention. I understand that position. But as I see the crisis gripping the nation,

exacerbated by a president unwilling or unable to provide any kind of credible leadership, and the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour, I cannot, in good conscience, continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour. So Sanders has always been very clear about how important he finds it to beat Donald Trump. I'm sure that there was mounting pressure for him to drop out. We had seen some reporting and various, to be fair, establishment news outlets about how there were members of his own campaign urging him to drop out in order to coalesce around Biden.

Now, we're going to go to the statements that he made about Biden in just a second. But, John, before we do that, I wanted to get your thoughts. Yeah, look, I think that there, I mean, there's probably behind the scenes pressure. We know that there was public pressure. I mean, virtually everyone on TV and in the Democratic Party has been implying that he to get out, he needs to get out ASAP. They were already basically like preemptively blaming him for Trump winning for staying in, even though he hadn't.

And as you pointed out, I think, on Twitter, he has now dropped out far sooner than Hillary Clinton did back in 2008 when she was running against Barack Obama. But it's also possible that he's looked at how the last few cycles of election days have gone. And he doesn't think that there's a path. I mean, the last time he was asked about this, you know, a week or two ago, he said that there was a path, it was a slim one, but not much of a path. And it's a couple of months until, you know, the next big set of elections since so many have been postponed. And when you

combine that with the crisis that's gripped the country, it is possible that he has made the calculation that it just wasn't going to happen, that he wasn't going to be able to do it. So he talks a little bit about Joe Biden in this next clip, but he also talks about what he sees as the path forward for the progressive movement. Let's take a quick look at that. Today I congratulate Joe Biden, a very decent man, who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward. On a practical note, let me also say this. I will stay on the ballot in all remaining states and continue to gather delegates. While Vice President Biden will be the nominee, We must continue working to assemble as many delegates as possible at the Democratic

Convention where we will be able to exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions. Then together, standing united, we will go forward to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history. So he did not do like a full-throated endorsement of Biden, but I would argue dropping out now and referring to him as a very decent man, that's a strong statement. That is a strong statement. But that is what he says. But, you know, it doesn't matter what Bernie Sanders has to say about Joe Biden. The establishment is still going to criticize him for not doing

like a full-throated endorsement, you know, demanding that everyone like bowed their head to Biden and talk about how incredible and wonderful he is. And then on the other hand, like, I'm really struggling. Believe it or not, I'm struggling more with this election than I did with the previous election in 2016, because for all the things that I disagreed with Hillary Clinton about, you know, she was, of course, the eventual nominee, and I, you know, held my nose and decided to vote for her because I did understand the importance of beating Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton did not have a sexual assault allegation against her.

And so I don't know how I feel about any, well, I do know how I feel about this. And I know I'll be shamed for talking about how I feel about this. Is this very decent man going to address the allegation against him? That's what I want to know. I can't refer to anyone as a decent person until they at least acknowledge the accusation against them and at least provide some evidence for why this person is, supposedly not credible. Because so far I haven't seen anything other than citations of a pro-Russia blog she wrote on Medium. Oh, wow. She thinks that Russia is a great country. Who cares?

That doesn't immediately cancel out a very credible and detailed sexual assault allegation that she put out against Biden. But I know, I'm the bad guy for even mentioning it, I'm sure. Well, among many other reasons. But no, I mean, and that's why people were trying to get it to be something that was raised to Biden early and not later, because here's the thing, it is going to be raised. Could have been before the primary was over. Now it'll be during the debates against Donald Trump, perhaps by Donald Trump, by the way, because if anyone who's a big Biden supporter thinks that Trump is, he's just going to be too

polite on the debate stage to bring it up. He's not going to mention it. Are you crazy? He's going to be talking about it. It might be the first thing out of his mouth when he stands on that debate stage with Joe Biden. And so it is going to be raised. We tried to raise it back when it could have been adjudicated, hopefully to everyone's satisfaction early on.

And they avoided that. And so it will like equivalent issues back during 2016, it will become a significant issue at literally the most dangerous time. That you can certainly guarantee. So the other part of that video was where he mentioned the delegates. And I actually think even though he's getting a lot of heat from Biden supporters for doing this, I think it's a smart strategy. Because what Bernie wants to do is accumulate enough delegates to apply political pressure on Biden. So he has to basically concede to some of the demands of

progressive voters. I think that that's a smart strategy. He's trying to tow this line, Bernie is, between, you know, appeasing his progressive base, which I think he will always do right by, but also ensuring that, you know, he finds a path forward that ensures that Donald Trump doesn't get reelected. But at the same time, like, you have to consider that Biden himself as a candidate has significant weaknesses. So Bernie can fight as hard as he wants. The Biden supporters can fight as hard as they want.

But ultimately, it's up to Joe Biden to deal with his weaknesses and his flaws in a way that would increase his base. So he ends up defeating Donald Trump. Yeah, look, I think Bernie is obviously, he's a smart guy, an experienced guy. I don't think that he picks his political strategies lightly or flippantly. And I'm sure that he acknowledges those flaws just as much as we do. He might not do it publicly, quite as much, at least yet. But I'm sure he acknowledges it. And so he probably thinks that, like, he has to do even more work. If he does believe it's as important as he says to defeat Donald Trump and he understands how difficult a path that's going to be for Joe Biden, then that's probably one of the reasons

why he's probably going to fairly early on work to get him elected. As, by the way, he has said that he will in interview after interview, debate after debate, question after question, article after article, stretching back for more than a year. Ad nauseum, they asked him over and over, no matter how many times he said it, and he is being consistent as he always is on everything. So one other thing that I want to bring up is the reaction from Biden himself. And so he's at least signaled that he's willing to work with progressive voters on things that they want. And to be clear, progressive voters have already compiled a list of demand.

So we'll talk about that. So Biden tweets the following. We know how hard this is. You have put the interest of the nation and the need to defeat Donald Trump above all else. And for that, we're grateful, but we want you to know, we'll be reaching out, you'll be heard by me, as you say, not me, us, and then he continues to say, and to Bernie supporters, I know that I need to earn your votes, which by the way, already that's more than Hillary Clinton was ever willing to admit or say, right?

So he knows he needs to earn progressive votes. And I know that might take time, but I want you to know that I see you, I hear you, and I understand the urgency of this moment. I hope you'll join us. You're more than welcome you're needed. So that's an admirable message. I'm going to be fair, but he has to put action behind those words. And look, I think I really don't want people to misunderstand me.

For me, yes, he needs to cater to what progressive voters want if he wants to earn their vote. But even after that, like the Democratic Party needs to address the allegations. They have to address it in a real way because there are women out there. who are uncomfortable casting their vote for any candidate, whether it's Trump or Biden, who has serious and credible allegations against them. So look, I understand the importance of getting Trump out, but you also have to deal with your own personal principles, morality, and I have my own moral compass. So if you're going to come back at me with, you know, Trump has multiple sexual assault

allegations, Biden only has one, that doesn't make me feel any better. I just want them to address it. And the fact that they're trying to bury it and the fact that they're smearing the woman who's come forward with the allegations, it's very similar to what we've seen Republicans do, especially when it came to Brett Kavanaugh. And I'm not okay with that. So that's one other thing that needs to be addressed. Maybe they learn the wrong lesson from that.

He's on the Supreme Court now. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I mean, powers power and they know how to pursue it. And the two issues that you just pointed out, the actual, um, the actual, um, the Supreme coming clean and addressing the allegations to whatever extent you can, as well as actually substantively courting the vote of progressives. You should not just do that because optically it looks good or because it might help you with that particular block of voters. You should do it

because it's the morally correct thing to do and also because it raises the chance that you'll actually win. And if that's what you actually want and you're asserting that it is, then you should be doing these things. You should be at least as wise as Bernie Sanders is in pursuing this office that you say you want. And I also want to just note that a number of progressive organizations like Justice Democrats and Next Gen America have put out a list of what they would like to see from the Biden campaign. Daniel Moranz, who's a reporter from Huffington Post, tweeted about this saying that Justice

Democrats and Next Gen America and others urge Joe Biden in an open letter to court young voters with progressive policies. For so many young people, going back to the way things were before Trump isn't a motive enough reason to cast a ballot. And their demands include 100% clean energy by 2030, government manufacture of generic drugs, half the number of incarcerated people, a wealth tax, and also a commitment to appointing officials who endorsed Bernie or Warren. So there are clear demands there.

We'll see if there's actual action in proposing them, trying to accomplish them, as opposed to just lip service. But one thing that I will say, I guess one piece of hopeful news or hopeful commentary is that Bernie and the movement that he's pushed for is it's now gone beyond Bernie, right? So congressional races matter. Focus on that. Focus on getting progressives elected into Congress. I know that right now we don't have like a clear progressive leader for president in the future.

But who knows what type of political talent we're going to develop or come across as this movement moves forward. It's not just about Bernie. I do think that it's important to keep fighting. I do think it's important to keep pushing the envelope when it comes to leftist policy proposals. And so let's try to focus on that and not allow this pretty heartbreaking day to stop us from the momentum that progressives have really created since 2016. Yeah, and I would say that, like, I, some people are going to need more time. I am not ready to just immediately today be all. Like, here's the next fight.

Let's go do it. I need a little bit of time to process it. And I don't think that that's wrong. But if you are ready to move forward, as Anna said, there are any number of candidates who are going to need your help. And more importantly than that, they need your help now more than they did yesterday and more than they did a month ago. Not having Bernie Sanders at the top of the ticket is going to hurt, you know, primary

contenders that might win their primaries and go on. good progressives, as well as the fact that because the coronavirus is going on right now, right now in the primaries, they can't canvas. A lot of the sort of activity that allowed candidates like Ocasio-Cortez and others to win, they can't do. It's been cut off. And for those who can rely on name recognition and the money that they have, generally incumbents, that gives them even more of an advantage than usual, which means they're going to need your help. And as I say a lot, Like, I know that a lot of, a lot of people are probably feeling like, what's the point of any of this, look what's happened, and just feeling like checking out.

That is certainly what they want. That's what the establishment wants. And like I said, like if there would be no bigger failure for me personally, if the only thing I inspired you to do politically was to watch my show and support a president, honestly. And that's not true for everybody. Like, you think Tucker Carlson cares if you ever protest, if you ever join an organization? I'm like, no, watching his show is enough. And there are people like that online too.

But no, you have to stay engaged. And if one door is closed, you got to go for another one, another door, a different window, something like that. There are lots of organizations and individuals that need your assistance. Would be glad to have your assistance. And by the way, Bernie Sanders is not done. So why should we be? Yeah, that's such a great point.

And we do want to hear from our audience about, you know, where they stand. By the way, John's 100% right. it's totally okay to give yourself some time to process what's going on right now. I know that I'm there mentally. So for people who might be watching this, thinking that I had much more aggressive commentary, just give me a moment. Like I just need to really process what's going on and think through how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking. And as this goes on, I'll be clear with you guys about where I am. But we want to hear from you. So we do have a poll at t.yt.com slash vote. That's t.yt.com slash vote.

We want to know who you're planning on voting for. So all the options are listed, A is Trump, B is Biden, C is someone else, meaning maybe you're going to write someone in, and D is not voting at all. So let us know what you guys think. Again, it's tyt.com slash vote to participate in the poll, and we're looking forward to hearing from you. All right. So that conversation went a little longer than I expected.

Why don't we take a quick break? But when we come back, we're going to continue talking about Bernie's decision, because while we've given you a response from Biden, there's a much more, I'm just going to keep it real, disgusting and dividing response from some Hillary Clinton staffers and from other people online who think that it's fun to mock the very people who they need to vote for their Democratic candidate. So we'll give you those details and more when we come back. talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-I-N-F-T-R. As a

young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it.

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. for as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Hey, everyone, welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian, and John Iderola with you. Just a few announcements before we move on to the rest of our news. So if you are wondering, hey, where can I keep my money, especially at a time like now where major corporations are getting bailouts and things like that, you know, a place where I feel my money is safe, it's an ethical institution, aspiration is where you want to go, go to Aspiration.com slash TYT. The financial institution is one of our partners for good reason. They do not

invest money in the fossil fuel industry. And they're also environmentally conscious. In fact, they are planning trees. That's one of their latest missions and you can learn more about it by checking them out. Aspiration.com slash TYT. One other quick announcement and you'll learn more about this as the week goes on. But I am going to be working on a project with a good friend of mine, Michael Brooks. We are putting a little programming together for Jacobin. And so I'll give you more details as soon as we have them available. But we're going to be launching soon. It'll be a fun weekend show very different from what's going on here at TYT, and it will not impact my role at TYT at all. It's just something that he and I have been wanting to do for a while.

And I think that it's going to be just an awesome fun project together, just to keep this momentum for the progressive movement alive. We want to keep having these conversations. Again, it's not just about Bernie Sanders. It's about a movement beyond his candidacy. And we're hoping that we can keep that alive. All right. With that said, let's move on to the second half of our Bernie coverage today. So Bernie Sanders has officially dropped out of the Democratic.

primary race. He is still going to keep his name on the ballots in order to collect delegates. This is a way of him applying political pressure on Joe Biden, so Biden can actually work with progressive voters towards some of the progressive policy proposals that they're demanding. So it's a strategy that I think is actually pretty smart. But of course, Bernie's announcement has led to some bad actors, mocking his supporters, saying terrible things about Bernie, even though he's doing what he can to ensure that Donald Trump gets defeated. And so I want to give you the reaction from CNN specifically following Bernie Sanders' address to his supporters announcing that he is dropping out of the race. What struck me the most there is Senator Sanders in saying goodbye, did acknowledge

that Joe Biden had an insurmountable lead, but he didn't say anything nice about Joe Biden. He did not say he had spoken to him. He did not say he would work with him. He said it was imperative to beat President Trump, but there was no big embrace of Joe Biden. He said nicer things about Joe Biden back during some of the Democratic debates than he said and saying goodbye. It was really noteworthy that that was not part of his message at all. In fact, it's funny you say that as he was speaking, I was texting with people in and around Joe Biden asking if he had gotten a phone call because it was so glaringly absent from Bernie Sanders' speech. Wow, Dana Bash is really like on a losing streak lately with her commentary.

Now, what did Bernie Sanders actually say about Joe Biden in his speech? I don't know. Let's take a look. Today I congratulate Joe Biden, a very decent man who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward. He referred to Joe Biden as a very decent man. Understand that Bernie Sanders is addressing his supporters and explaining why he is suspending his campaign. And he was very clear in stating that he's suspending his campaign because he wants to do everything possible to defeat Donald Trump. What do you think that means?

That means embracing Joe Biden as a candidate. Do they have problems with like listening comprehension? It seems like they do. I mean, what are they paid millions of dollars for to not listen to anything and then share incredibly ignorant commentary? It's amazing to me. You believe? Jesus Christ. Yeah. There's a case to be made for some of them. Have you seen a solicilist?

But yeah, there were four people there combined, what would you say combined yearly salary for those four? I mean, it's in the many millions. And not only did John King say something that was equal parts, dumb and untrue, but none of the other three corrected him, indeed Dana Bash agreed with him when he very clearly did compliment Joe Biden probably will be attacked by some people for complimenting Joe Biden. He's also being attacked for supposedly not doing it. And that's the thing with Bernie Sanders.

Like, I know we, you and I and others have been frustrated sometimes with the way he messages, the way he defends himself. But the thing that he always has to face is he will be attacked for everything he says, everything he doesn't say, and the inverse of both of those things. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, damned in every possible way. How is Bernie Sanders supposed to exist in a media environment where people can be so willfully dishonest about what he's saying? What they're directly responding to him saying and lying about it.

Let me just be clear about something. The way that they're handling this, that conversation on CNN is so counterproductive to what they want because they are not incentivizing any type of unity whatsoever. On one hand, they believe that the onus is on progressives to unify. And then when progressives take the first step, when Bernie takes a massive step in suspending his campaign and referring to Joe Biden as a very decent man, okay, and talks about how he needs to support, we need to support the candidate who can defeat Donald Trump. Like, he should be, I mean, based on what the establishment claims they want, based on what

corporate media says they want, they should be celebrating that. But instead, they provide a disincentive by smearing Bernie Sanders and claiming that he didn't say something that he clearly freaking said. Like, why would anyone want to work with these types of people? Because you're right. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, you're going to get hated on, you're going to get criticized, you're going to get mocked, you're going to get smeared, regardless of what you do.

He called Biden a very decent man and said he's suspending his campaign because he understands the importance of defeating Donald Trump. Come on. After running a campaign, engaging in debates, and being far less than vicious, even as vicious as people who support him would want him to be against Biden. He ran a very night. Like, he honestly does seem to see Joe Biden as a sort of friend, like a close colleague. He's been consistent about that. What he said tonight was pretty much what he's been saying every time he's talked about Joe Biden throughout this campaign. He has never once gotten any credit for that. He will never get any credit. for that. We point out how many times that he did, what, 43 events for Hillary Clinton? He's

got more time now for Biden. What do you think he's going to do? Depending on the pandemic, is he going to do 50 events? Is he going to do 75, 150? Will he get any credit for the months and months of work that he's going to do to try to get people to vote for someone that isn't going to fight for those votes himself? He will get no credit for that. I get that there's a portion, a pretty significant portion of the Democratic Party that never wants to take responsibility for anything, including the giant, obvious flaws of the candidate that they have propped up. They did it in 2016. They're doing it again now. I just want to make clear that if they want to defeat Donald Trump, they need to take responsibility. They need to tackle Joe Biden's

flaws and do something about it immediately. And more importantly, because I'm seeing a lot of this today online. You need progressive votes in order to win. So mocking Bernie Sanders supporters, going after Brianna Joy Gray viciously on a day like today, is going to do nothing for your cause. And you can go ahead and whine and cry about how Biden lost because progressive supposedly didn't give you anything and everything you wanted without even trying to cater to their needs or without even trying to appeal for their vote. But you've got to take responsibility for your actions and no one's buying it, right? The behavior that I'm seeing today is so ridiculous and they just refuse to ever, ever acknowledge how much they divide the party, how much they

go against their own so-called message of unity. And then one final example for you is what a bunch of Hillary staffers did recently. So Bus Feed News reported that less than an hour after Bernie Sanders announced that he would be suspending his campaign, dozens of former Hillary Clinton staffers received a mass email with a link to a Zoom call. So BuzzFeed News writes, invitation, bye, bye, Bernard. And then it says, Hillary for America Celebration toast, the email to former Hillary Clinton staffers read. He's finally gone again. Join for a celebratory toast if you can, and yes, you can loop. And then also after, I'm sure this got a little bit of backlash,

or maybe someone raised some concerns about putting something like that out there. Later on in the day, the name of the Zoom call had been changed to a more generic Hillary for America, end of primary celebration toast with no mention of Sanders. Still a toast. So she's not in it, so it's sort of weird to have the toast. Yeah, what a, look, I know this isn't directly her, but look, she's done more than enough in the past few months. What a weird sad life to just spend the rest of your life talking about Bernie Sanders.

Like, we rightfully attacked Donald Trump for years later, talking about the 2016 election. She is, that is the thing she's going to talk about in media appearances for literally the rest of her life. If Joe Biden loses in November, I'd like to think that he's not going to spend his remaining years talking about Bernie Sanders. But for Hillary Clinton, that is the thing she wants to talk about. about and that's it. Because she felt that she was entitled to becoming president.

And again, going back to the statement I was making before, she just refused to ever take responsibility for what she did wrong. Same with the DNC. And they have unfortunately already made the same mistakes and they refused to correct course. So this is my plea of the Democratic Party. If you want to beat Donald Trump, then show that you want to beat Donald Trump, show that you take that seriously? Because so far, we haven't seen enough of that or much of that from the Democratic Party. I mean, propping up, in my opinion, the weakest Democratic candidate was mistake number

one. But now we have him as the candidate. So what are you guys going to do to correct the course that we're on? Because it's not the type of course that's actually going to help us defeat Donald Trump. Anyway, all right. Well, let's talk about Donald Trump because he is a hideous person and And he does hideous things, especially in the middle of this pandemic. So the federal government has been seizing orders of medical equipment that were supposed to go to various hospitals throughout the country. Now there is a lack of transparency as to why this is happening. There's a lack of transparency when it comes to whether these hospitals will ever receive

the supplies that they order themselves. But here's what we know so far based on reporting from the Los Angeles. Times and the New York Times. For instance, in Florida, a large medical system saw an order of thermometers taken away, and officials at a system in Massachusetts were unable to determine whether its order of masks went or where it went. Peace Health, a 10 hospital system in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska had a shipment of testing supplies seized recently.

So they make these orders. Obviously right now, we're dealing with the federal government who has told states to fend for themselves, get the equipment and the medical supplies that you need on your own. Don't look to the federal government for any help. Don't look to our national stockpile because we're incompetent buffoons that didn't actually maintain and replenish that federal stockpile. And so hospitals are doing what they've been told to do. And then in the meantime, you have FEMA intercepting these deliveries and seizing the very medical

supplies that these hospital administrators have ordered. In fact, Richard DeCarlo, who is the COO of Peace Health, was quoted as saying, it's incredibly frustrating. We had put wheels in motion with testing and protective equipment to allow us to secure and protect our staff and our patients. When testing went off the table, we had to come up with a whole new plan. So you have all these hospital administrators who are adapting and they're doing what they can to deal with the situation that's in front of them, with this incompetent federal government,

and with this horrible pandemic. And then you have Trump basically telling FEMA to seize these shipments. Now, the lack of transparency is certainly an issue. Here's what we do know. Here's what FEMA has said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

Federal officials say they are trying to expedite the shipment to the United States of large quantities of medical supplies procured by private health care providers. But here's what really does concern me. FEMA allows those distributors to sell about half of the equipment to companies and counties that had previously placed orders. The other half of the shipments must be sold to counties that the federal government prioritizes by the severity of the outbreak, supposedly, based. on data compiled by the CDC.

Now, the reason why I say supposedly is because Donald Trump is the type of thin-skinned egomaniac that likes to retaliate against states that have not been overwhelmingly supportive of his presidency. So if he's seizing medical supplies that states have ordered, that doctors and hospitals have ordered, and he is making decisions as to where those supplies go, I'm very much concerned that those supplies are not going to end up going to the counties and the states that desperate need them, but they're going to end up going to places like Florida, for instance, where the governor has received 100% of the request that he's made to the federal government

because he's incredibly friendly to the Trump administration. That's the kind of stuff that I'm concerned about. Yeah, and like under normal circumstances, we could be worried about incompetence and, you know, like, you know, bureaucracy getting in its own way, you know, we've had disasters that the response has been mangled. And we've definitely had politicians where we worried that they were perhaps influenced by racial animus and bias, things like that in their response to certain types of natural disasters. But the personal stuff in terms of Trump is like a new layer that I haven't really had to

consider in past presidencies, where he is so clearly driven by his own personal political interest, as you pointed out, the thin-skinned way that he, like, personalizes the relationship between the federal government and states and governors. And so with all of these moves, we have to worry, what are the FEMA heads being told? You know, what contradictory information are they receiving from, for instance, potentially high-ranking medical experts on the one hand? And then people like Donald Trump or Jared Kushner or, you know, whoever on the other. And it's a really terrible position to be in where you look at these case counts go up day by day in different states and the death counts go up and you just have to wonder what if it wasn't Trump,

what if it was someone else? Even if we were to bake in the horrifically slow response, let's say as of two weeks ago, would Michigan have gotten more? Would California not have gotten a shipment of 100% broken ventilators, for instance? And New York in particular. Like, it's a really terrible position to be in where you have to worry that Donald Trump's personal anger, jealousy, or hatred towards individual politicians could result in people dying. Absolutely. And just to provide a little bit of evidence that some states, some counties are being treated favorably by the Trump administration, the New York Times reported earlier this week that

advisors to Jared Kushner have surprised FEMA officials in recent weeks to deploy supplies to communities after the area's representatives got through to Trump, even if the state had not yet gone through the formal process to secure supplies. So clearly, there are some stricter standards for certain parts of the country. But when it comes to political, local politicians who are nice to Trump, who have had conversations with Trump, they don't even have to go through the formal process in order to secure the medical supplies they need. And let me be clear about something.

I think that every state, every county that request these medical supplies should be able to get them, right? So I'm not saying, oh, we should hoard all of these supplies for blue states or blue counties. No. But what I am saying is that I do not trust the Trump administration to actually do an assessment that's fair and then determine where these supplies can go. One other thing that I'm concerned about and everyone should be concerned about is that Trump's administration has done nearly nothing when it comes to price gouging by private

companies in the middle of this pandemic. And that's also disgusting. So there are people who are losing their lives right now. More than 14,000 Americans have already died because of the coronavirus. And Trump is playing political games because he doesn't care about their lives. He cares about his political career and he cares about doing favors by people who have been willing to stroke his ego. And that's it.

Yeah. Anyway, all right, we got to take a break. We have more news for you when we return. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace,

and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online

and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Welcome back to T-Y-T, Anna and John with you. We're going to get right to our next story.

So, this is not shocking, par for the course. Donald Trump has decided to attack the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic that has already killed more than 14,000 Americans, okay? Not to mention the countless people who have died already throughout the world. Now, Trump twice stated that the United States funds the majority of the organization's budget, but keep in mind that according to the World Health Organization, the United States provided 14.67% of its funding in 2018 to 2019. I just want to provide that fact check before you see Donald Trump's unhinged rant against the World Health Organization. Take a look.

WHO, that's World Health Organization, receives vast amounts of money from the United States. And we pay for a majority, the biggest portion of their money. And they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. And they were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things and had a lot of information early and they didn't want to, they seemed to be very China-centric. They called it wrong.

They called it wrong. They really, they missed the call. They could have called it months earlier. They would have known. And they should have known. And they probably did know. So we'll be looking into that very carefully. And we're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO.

We're going to put a very powerful hold on it. So you just heard him. He said, we're going to put a very powerful hold on funding to the World Health Organization. And so since that's fresh in your minds, I want to just quickly go to the next clip because there were follow-up questions about it from reporters and just changes his message depending on that exact moment or second. Take a look. Is the time to freeze funding to the WHO during a pandemic?

No, maybe not. I mean, I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but we're going to look at it. You did say that you. We give a tremendous, no, I didn't. I said, we're going to look at it. We're going to investigate it. We're going to look at it. But we will look at ending funding.

Yeah. Because you know what? They called it wrong. And if you look back over the years, even, they're very much, everything seems to be very biased toward China. Okay. We're going to place a very strong hold on funding to the World Health Organization. And then all of a sudden, he changes his message. Well, to be fair, she said you said you were going to freeze funding.

And he didn't say he was going to put a very big freeze. He said a very big hold. He would have said a very cold freeze if that was what he was going to do. Yeah, no, he said he was going to do it. And it's because he's, it doesn't matter. Like just assume that we have basically a familial dictatorship that controls our country. And almost every expectation you'll have for how the rest of our time with Trump is going to go is pretty much going to be accurate at that point. And yeah, why not kill the funding to them and get more people killed?

I mean, it's only, what, it's only been 15,000 reported deaths so far in America, 15,000 people that on election day in 2016 didn't realize then, but that Trump's stupidity, lack of respect for science, lack of empathy for their lives would result in them dying. They had a couple of years left. Basically, they had a terminal case of Donald Trump being president. And he's making sure that, you know, God help us. We get past coronavirus.

We're done. We don't think about coronavirus anymore. He is going to make us as vulnerable as possible for whatever happens after it. And the one that happens after that because he doesn't care because it doesn't affect him. Yeah, it's his brand. It's what he does. I mean, understand the reason why he's targeting the World Health Organization right now, because he feels that they crossed him.

The World Health Organization in the early days of COVID-19, when, you know, because it's a rapidly developing pandemic. And so in the early days, when the idea of banning travel from China was floated, the World Health Organization did say that they were against it. But obviously, they have changed their messaging quite a bit as this situation has evolved or devolved, okay? And understand that Donald Trump is just trying to retaliate because they had the audacity to disagree with him. But Donald Trump himself has been a complete, and utter disaster.

when it comes to his inaction to prevent coronavirus from spreading. So as we know, as recently as mid-February, the Trump administration didn't take the coronavirus seriously at all, and they actually shipped quite a bit of medical supplies to China, okay? So that's point number one. Point number two, very late in the game, Donald Trump did announce a travel ban, but he announced to travel ban from where, from Europe, with the exception of the UK, because he has businesses in the UK. I mean, everything that he's done has been based on his own personal, political, and financial interest. And then he has the audacity to turn to an international organization

that we need in the middle of this pandemic and threaten to freeze funding. I'm going to put a very strong hold on funding. Yeah, they called it wrong. All of them internationally. They called it wrong. Trump always knew what was going to happen. But I love particularly drawing a distinction between himself, the WHO on this. So it's a simplification, but sure, let's go with the simplification. He wanted to ban travel from all these countries, and they thought it was a bad idea.

And they were so wrong, so stupid. Because sure, that's the only thing he did, but he did it. And they were wrong. And it succeeded. And that's why nobody has coronavirus in America right now, because of how awesome. A move that was to ban travel. You didn't have to do anything else. You could just ignore it as weeks and weeks go by, and that's why nobody has coronavirus.

He's a hell of a president. He really is. You know, on one hand, we have Donald Trump who's been, again, a disaster, a complete disaster when it comes to the federal government's response to this pandemic. And then on the other hand, our other option is a presidential candidate who encouraged people to go vote yesterday in Wisconsin in person. It's, it's, people are dying, okay? We need leadership. We need leadership. I don't care about political party right now. I care about saving lives. I care about doing the responsible thing. And we are not left with much to work with right now.

It's just people who live in their ivory towers who don't think that this, you know, matters, doesn't affect them personally. But people are dying. Americans are dying. in what's supposed to be the wealthiest country in the world, what's supposed to be the greatest country in the world. Our hospitals don't have enough beds. Our doctors don't have enough medical supplies. Our nurses don't have the protection they need to prevent themselves from getting this virus. This is what we're dealing with right now. It's just a complete and other lack of leadership. And then you have actual medical experts who have to walk this fine line between informing the public, giving them the reality,

and avoiding hurting Donald Trump's ego. Here's Anthony Fauci, who was asked about Trump's comments regarding the WHO. Dr. Fauci, as you know, the president's very upset with the World Health Organization, thinks they've been too soft on China. Some of their predictions were far off in terms of human-to-human transmission

and other matters. He wants to freeze U.S. funding to the World Health Organization. Do you agree? You know, to be honest with you, I can't get a number of, involved in that kind of discussion, I just need to focus on what my job is to see what we can do in this country and globally to put an end to this.

The interaction between the WHO is something that I really prefer not to get involved with. Because he can't get involved. If he crosses Donald Trump, he runs the risk of getting fired because Trump likes to retaliate against people who don't agree with him 100% of the time. So I totally understand why Fauci wouldn't want to comment on that. Yeah, yeah, Fauci. And then also there's reporting that, um, uh, I, A number of other doctors behind the scenes who work at the administration are being told

not to talk publicly about hydroxychloroquine if it would potentially contradict what Donald Trump has said about the drug. Like you're not supposed to talk about the side effects, the fact that it might kill people. Certainly don't bring up the fact that Donald Trump and others in the administration stand to make a lot of money if they sell a bunch of it. Yeah, because the science is given at best a back seat to Donald Trump's own personal and financial interests. All right.

Well, I'm going to skip ahead. Just a little note to Brett, I want to just quickly talk about Trump's firings, the Attorney General story. I know I'm skipping ahead. So with that said, Donald Trump has indicated that he plans on firing or replacing, I should say, more inspectors general. And that is a disaster situation because he wants to replace these watchdogs. These are supposed to be federal watchdogs with his loyalists.

So real clear politics was the first to report on this. Susan CrabTree tweeted the following. Breaking, Trump is firing seven IGs in one fell swoop. Sources confirmed to real clear news. Most likely will be the IGs that were appointed by President Obama or beforehand. He wants his own people in those positions now. Trump during his briefing said he has, quote, put in seven names. Now, this has been a pretty big week for inspectors generals because a lot of them have been

let go. So for instance, or if not let go, criticized pretty aggressively. So for instance, there was Glenn Fine, who was the inspector general for the DOD. Trump has decided to let him go, but he was supposed to oversee the stimulus spending to ensure that there wouldn't be any fraud, to ensure that those bailouts didn't turn into a personal slush fund for the Trump administration, he's being replaced by a guy named Brian Miller. So let's talk about him a little bit. Trump tapped senior associate counsel to the president, Brian Miller, to assume one of the

country's most important jobs, the inspector, the special inspector general for pandemic recovery. The position would make Mr. Miller the watchdog for $500 billion or $500 billion Treasury Department bailout fund meant to. rescue businesses stricken by coronavirus. Keep in mind that this was a person who was part of Trump's legal team during the impeachment investigation and helped to stop Congress from getting the documents it needed in the middle of that investigation. Yeah, look, no matter what we knew that that fund was set up to be looted. I saw, I think the NBC News said, you know, there's an

expectation that up to $200 billion might be lost to fraud and corruption. And I was like, yeah, that's the whole thing. That's what it's designed to do. And of course, he's going to replace anyone that could be even hypothetically independent from him. That money's gone. It's out the door. It's going to go to these corporations. Maybe, you know, ProPublico will have a write-up about the corruption in a couple of years. It'll be awesome, well-researched, and we'll never get the money back. And he's going to get rid of the rest of him. It's like I said, just a segment ago. Just imagine that we have a familial dictatorship. And most of your predictions about what he's going to do are going to be accurate. Why would he abide by any sort of relatively

independent IGs or even IGs that have just been around for a long time. Like, he'll always say they served under Obama. It doesn't matter if they also served under George W. Bush beforehand. He's going to clear it out because there's no more oversight. We've already been through impeachment. We're not going to go back into it. He survived that. Now he can do whatever he wants. It's like we said day after day as you're going through that process. He has now freed up to do literally anything he wants. And he's simply acting on that. This is why when Democrats are willing to concede to Republicans and offering a massive bailout to corporations who don't have to deal with the means testing that average citizens

needed to deal with in order to qualify for stimulus, it's ridiculous to say, oh, but don't worry, we're going to ensure that there's oversight. First off, as we know, that oversight was weak to begin with. But whatever weak oversight they were able to accomplish in that legislation, Donald Trump doesn't care about rules. He's going to go in there and he's going to wipe away. any type of oversight in order to personally benefit from those funds. All right, our postgame for our members is next.

Become a member. Go to t-y-t.com slash join. For everyone else, have an awesome night. We'll see you tomorrow. 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-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.