The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - August 12, 2020

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

Cenk has an exciting announcement! Cenk, Ana Kasparian, and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks.   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. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you'll open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business.

Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. All the Young Turks. I'm Jake Huger. I got a big announcement for you guys. We're going to have fun. All right. So let's do it. All right, time for a big announcement. I am starting something new. Here comes a rebellion. All right, let's explain. So I started my campaign amazingly just a little while ago. And obviously we didn't get the conclusion that we wanted in the congressional campaign.

But look, never, ever surrender. So I'm back. Not running for office. No, what we're going to do is take the campaign resources and we are going to help other progressives. Because that's how we roll. So we are starting a whole new pack. It's called the Rebellion Pack. Already love it.

You can already help by going to help the Rebellion.com. So now let me, I'm going to show you an ad in a second. Our first ad is out already. You're going to get to see it here first. But what's the thesis here? Well, look, every progressive is outgunned in every race because the establishment of Democrats and Establishing Republicans take corporate PAC money. So the idea here is to even the score. Well, you know, it turns out that there is a couple of things that I'm good at. What is raising

money because of you guys? Because you're awesome. And my partner is really good at it as well. I'm going to explain who that is in a second. But what we want folks to think is the media a lot of times say, well, you don't want side takes corporate pack money, so they're going to win, right? Now obviously we've begun to change that equation. I think you might have heard of some of these folks, AOC, Rashida Tili, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Presley, Corey Bush, Jamal Bowman, and Marie Newman, and the list goes on. So now you can win with that corporate PAC money. But now if the rebellion enters the race, there's a new sheriff in town. So look, we built the Justice Democrats brand. And part of how that helped was it helped AOC win. And we're going to get to some of the folks

behind that in a second as well. But then, very importantly, when Jamal Bowman and Cory Bush ran, especially those two, others as well, but especially those two, then they weren't random progressives. They were Justice Democrats. And that got the attention of the press. Oh, this is the same group that helped with AOC and the squad. And now they're helping these folks. Do we win every time? Of course not. But have we won a lot lately? Yes. And there 10 Justice Democrats going to Congress next time around at least. And now I want to send more there. And we do this together. So the executive director of the group is not me. It's my partner in this group. And some of you might know her as well, Brianna Wu. So Brianna

was known for a couple of fronts. She ran for Congress. But she also, well, honestly, was one of the biggest targets of Gamergate. And she is unbowed. Hey, that's how we roll, we hit back and the rebellion hits back. So Brianna is fantastic, she's been wonderful at organizing this, and she's our fearless leader, literally. And Brianna and I together in our congressional campaigns, I've raised over $2 million. Here on the Young Turks, you guys helped to raise $2.5 million in 2018 for just Democratic candidates.

So watch out if the rebellion is in your race, because if you thought you had it on Easy Street, you should probably think twice, because here we come. So speaking of which, I want to tell you one other person, and then I'll show you that. Our first person on the advisory board, Shoycott Chakrabarty. So Shoycott is one of the co-founders of Justice Democrats, I've known a thing or two about that, who've been great partners for a long time. And Shoycott also went and ran AOC's campaign in 2018, had a bit of success there. And then he was AOC's chief of staff.

So I think we're gonna get some pretty good advice from him. So without further ado, let me show you, now understand this. I'm gonna show you the ad and you're gonna see our first target. But I'll tell you ahead of time, our first target is a guy that goes by the name of Donald J. Trump. So we got to get rid of the cancer first. But even in this cycle, we're going to help progressives. But our long term goal is unquestionably help progressives get into office. And we'll do something like I said in this cycle too. But first, I want to show Democratic Party how you hit and how you hit hard. This will be one of many hard hitting ads, harder and harder

as we go along. The great advantage we have is that we don't listen to corporate donors. We don't take any corporate pat money at all. Of course, it's a clean pack in that sense. And so we're not going to listen to them telling us, hey, take it easy, be civil. No, not interested. We're going to come 100 miles per hour. All right, so let's watch the first ad that sets the tone for how we're going to take on Trump. It's time to wake up. I'm going to begin tonight with the president just moments ago saying schools must open in this country is now rolling back plans. Thousands of heavily armed soldiers.

You're all right. It would undermine our Ukraine policy. The articles of impeachers. We fell in love. Let him die slow. All right. It's time to wake up. Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.

Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period. Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts. Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire a comment. I don't remember as much as I would like to. This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. The trauma-related experience then is kind of locked there, whereas other details kind of drift.

What neighborhood was it in it? I don't know. Where's the house? I don't know. Upstairs, downstairs, where was it? I don't know. I am proud to shut down the government. I will be the one to shut it down. We don't use cages for children in the border facilities. It's not an interference. They have information. I think I'd take it. A U.S. military spokesman says it has pulled out of man-bidged Syria to make way for Russian-backed Syrian forces who have taken over the abandoned U.S. base. It's under control. How? A thousand Americans are dying a day.

They are dying. That's true. It is what it is. We've all gone numb to survive the last four years. But it's time to wake up. It's time to fight back. Vote in 2020, like your life depends on it. Well, because it might, our lives might depend on, and certainly the life of this country

depends on it. We're worried about our democracy. That's why you hit Trump first. So look, we will be more uncivil than normal democratic candidates or PACs. But also, we want to represent the underrepresented. And we want to make sure that we do it from perspectives that are progressive. So we were careful and on purpose set the framing as Christine Blasey Ford. So in a sense, we don't want to, just like she said, you don't want to go numb to all the horrors that have happened. What you want to do instead is fight back. And there is no better time to fight back than this election. So if you want to help put this ad on air more and more, go to help the rebellion.com.

We've already raised some money. We want to raise more and more to put this and other ads on Helpderrebellion.com. And if we raise it up, we could also make a 30 second version and put it on television as well. Swing states where it can make a difference. Remember, Trump only won by $78,000 last time. Can this pack make that much of a difference? I think almost certainly, but that depends on you guys.

Therebellion.com. And then finally, I want to talk big picture one more time. Look, we're going to use it to help progressives in this cycle and definitely massively in the next cycle. And I want to get it to a point we all do where the rebellion pack is so strong, so overwhelming that they cry uncle. And they go, well, this isn't fair. I mean, you guys can raise unlimited money and keep spending it in these elections and whichever election you come into, you guys win. So the minute we hear the rebellion is in the race, the race is already over. That's a dream come true. Because at that point, then they go, no moss. We got to get rid of super PACs and we got to get money out of politics. God damn right, you do. Okay, so helpderrebellion.com

We're coming. All right. Now I'll bring in John and Anna for you guys. So that is your first look at our ads and what we got going on. What do you think? I mean, the ad was powerful and I definitely love Brianna Wu. I think she's exactly how you described her incredibly strong. She's been through a lot and she, nonetheless, she persists. I love Choykhart Chakabarti. He is hated by corporate Democrats, so he's a great pick to work on this, you know, pack. The question I have for you though, Jank, is how is this, is this an addition to Justice Democrats? Are you working alongside Justice Democrats? Is this a completely separate thing? Like, how does this differentiate?

Yeah, it's completely different. And so will we be in a lot of races together? I'm sure we will, right? But will we be in some races that they're not in? Yes. And so there's a good reason for that. So and what is the decision here? What is Justice Democrats do and what is the the Rebellion Pact too, and why did we, why did I feel a need to create the Rebellion Pact? Just Democrats helps pick the candidates. So they encouraged Cory Bush to get in the race in the first place. Now, what? Four years ago, right? And so Cory Bush was the first candidate I ever talked to when I was at Justice Democrats. And by the way, she's gonna be on the show next week. And so, and then they helped the candidates with infrastructure and they helped them win, right?

And now this is a pack. All it does is raise money and spend money on ads. So that, and I'm so glad you asked Dana because the reality is that the ads are really, really needed by progressives. They need the infrastructure. They need to help the things like just Democrats and other groups too, R Revolution, P, C, et cetera. They need that help. But they also need the money. And they have barely enough money to run their own ads. And they have almost no money for to run attack ads. And so they got to build up their name recognition. Well, that's where we could come in. We could either help build up their name recognition or go after their opponents and do it in a way that no other pack would do. Yeah, if I could jump in, I would say I agree with

Anna about the team. It seems like a great two people to be working on this with. The ad was strong and as a nerd who's like designed things, I thought that the animation for the pack at the very end. I thought that was good. I like it. So profesh. It was very perfect. It was very It was very professional. It's good. The question I guess I would have is, so you have this ad which is sort of independent of any particular, it's not in support of one particular candidate or something like that. And you're talking about providing money for candidates to make their own ads. How do you figure out the split of those two things, making generalized political ads and dividing money up amongst particular candidates for them to then use for whatever? So, no, it's all good points and questions. First of all, we've got a lot of surprises coming up. One of them is, anyway, I want to tell you. But yes, the ads look great. Let's put it that way. And in terms of the logo, I love the logo. Can I, Brett, can you just play it one more time because, and then I want to get to John's main question, because I want you to notice what the

logo is. And we're going to put it in different colors. We're going to put it in the pride color, Black Lives Matter colors, et cetera. It's the first two letters of rebellion, R.E., and depending on how you display it, it could be a fist, it could be a flag, it's solidarity, its foundation, it's equality, it's rebel, its country, it's rebellion. I think it's all of those things potentially. I think it's mostly a fist. If I had to say, if you look at it, and you can see it, by the way, at rebellion pack.com or help the rebellion.com. If you look at it, it's equally a fist and a flag. That's why the logo designer did a fantastic job with it. And so there it is. And so the flag is ours,

and the fist is ours. Be careful. Yeah, it's pretty perfect. All right, and then, John, sometimes we'll give money directly to campaigns, but more often we will do the ads for them. So we can't coordinate because it's a PAC. So Brianna will not talk to the candidates. And so they they're, we're not giving the money to them to run ads. They need money for a lot of different things, staffing, et cetera, et cetera. But but likely independently, and that's how the PACs work, independently, we'll go decide. And sometimes, by the way, they might say like, wow, you hit my opponent a little too hard. I'm not sure I agree with that. But well, it's a sad day. We're in the hard hitting business. We're in the two by four business. So that's what happens

when you don't coordinate. But it's also what happens when you finally, finally have someone on your side. Nice. This is exciting. I mean, I definitely think progressive candidates need some defense in the form of ads because we've seen so many progressive candidates get targeted with ridiculous accusations. We've been talking about Alex Morris a lot on the show. We're going to update everyone on that story again today. So definitely stick around for that story after the break. But I think this is a great addition to Justice Democrats. And look, it's important to build strong progressive institutions. So there's a level playing field. Right now, there's a lack of power on the left. And I think this could be a really great tool to really

increase the power and help not only defend, but amplify the message coming from progressive candidates. All right. Thank you guys. Help the Rebellion. Not come. Here we come. And as I said a couple of days ago when I came back, I mean, it's kind of mixing metaphors here, definitely. But if you see me fighting a bear in the woods, help the bear. You're going to need it. So here we go. And by the way, speaking of Massachusetts, likely we will enter some races in Massachusetts. So wait for the rebellion to show up there, which makes sense. It's a good state to start with.

All right, guys, much love. Anna and John are going to take it from here. And I can't wait to see that Alex Moore story. You guys are doing Alex Mores for Congress.com. All right. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's

a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-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 unlearn 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. What's up everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rolla with you. I'm just going to make one quick announcement and then we got to get right to our stories. So as you guys know, we have teamed up with aspiration, which is an ethical financial institution that will not invest your money in fossil fuel companies. And we're doing a sweepstakes. And the winner of the sweepstakes will win a $2,000 e-scooter. It's nearly $2,000.

But you'll get it for free if you win this competition. Just go to t-y-t.com slash green summer for more information. Again, that's t-y-t.com slash green summer for more information. All righty, let's get to our news. So we actually have some pretty good news today. And that's rare these days. But when it comes to some congressional races, good news. Much like other progressive lawmakers who easily got reelected, Representative Ilan Omar did in fact win her re-election bid in Minnesota's fifth congressional district. And of course, prior to the election, it was reported that she was up for a tough reelection bid. There was all this fear mongering. She's probably going to struggle. There's all this money coming in to her opponent. But early Wednesday, Representative Omar

was leading her chief opponent Melton Mew by more than 17 percentage points. I mean, that number might have changed a little bit since this morning. But that's a pretty wide margin, John. Now, Ilhan Omar tweeted the following. In Minnesota, we know that organized people will always beat organized money. Tonight, our movement didn't just win. We earned a mandate for change. Despite outside efforts to defeat us, we once again broke turnout records. Despite the attacks, our support has only grown.

And just to give you an idea of how much money was poured into her opponent's candidacy during In the second quarter of 2020, Melton Mew raised six times as much as Omar did. And an analysis from the Min post, Minnesota Post, I'm guessing, showed about 20% of his large dollar donations came with bundling from pro-Israel political action committee. So one thing that Representative Omar is known for and both criticized for is her criticism of Israel's right-wing government. And so she was certainly a target for APAC, for instance, but apparently that money wasn't powerful enough to defeat her message.

Yeah, that's true. And I know that it's totally needless sidetrack, but I love that you would never have like from bundling from a pro America pack. Like what do you mean pro the whole country? Don't you have to be a little bit more specific about that? I know that's how it works in American politics. Anyway, yeah, she was outraised significantly in that last quarter. When you go around the country and you look at the money disparity, in the original races

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This is as well. Like being out spent six times is actually kind of competitive for the progressive. I mean, there was, you know, like down in the race in Kentucky, I think it was. I think it was a 48 times disparity, if I remember correctly, this massive amount. And like, you know, so on top of all of the advantages that I would point out to the establishment, like you could really save some money if you back some of these progressives, you know, maybe we wouldn't have to spend so much needlessly duking it out to reassert the establishment's control over these seats. Anyway, in terms of her winning, it's great news. It would have been horrible to lose any members of the squad. They've basically been the only things keeping myself and a lot of other

people feeling like there's any reason for optimism in American politics for a couple of years now. And knowing that we're going to have all of them and they're going to have support from new congressmen and women in just six months or so, that's definitely a good feeling. And when I think about the lessons that we can take from the fact that Ilhan Omar won re-election and that all the other members of the squad have, I think automatically about the insufferable things that would have been said had they lost. And then I just think about, well, clearly we've learned the opposite then. You know, because they would, like, think about if they'd lost, if AOC had lost, or if Ilhan had lost. It would be, you know, first of all,

your positions are way too radical. Out of the mainstream, no one's going to actually accept that. Maybe they'll be excited and they'll be confused initially, but then they're going to learn who you are. They're going to move on. That clearly isn't true. You know, saying these extreme things and really making a big spectacle of yourself, you know, trying to dominate the conversation, having protests in Capitol Hill, all of this stuff is a career killer, they might have said. But it hasn't happened. Rashida Talib, she was criticized for coming out in support of Trump's impeachment early and vocally. And they've won reelection. So maybe there are some lessons to be learned here. I guess

it's not in my financial interest to not learn them, though. For some people, that's not the case. Well, look, I agree with you. I think that especially after Bernie Sanders' defeat, it was important to show that progressive ideology, progressive policy is still a priority for a lot of voters in the country. And it's not just about the squad getting reelected, although I agree that's incredibly important. We now have more progressives elected into Congress. You know, you have Jamal Bowman, for instance. You have Cory Bush. We're going to fight like hell to get Alex Moore selected, even though corporate Democrats are doing everything they can to try to destroy his candidacy with nonsense. And we will talk about that a little bit later. But, you know,

this was, I think a lot of people saw this election as a test for progressive ideology. And I do think that we're just right. We're just right on the policies. And this presidential election, I think has a lot to do with people who are fearful. They don't want to see Trump get reelected. And ultimately, it was about ensuring that the most electable person, quote unquote, goes to, you know, basically goes against Trump. Right. Now, I obviously disagree that Biden was like the strongest candidate against Trump, but it doesn't matter. That's what voters were voting on. And luckily in this case with Congress, we are winning some seats and making sure that progressives get reelected. I do also want to show you some of the quick wishful thinking maybe that went

on in the media. So I'm just going to give you a few examples of the headlines that many of us saw prior to this congressional race. One of them reads Ilhan Omar's career on the line in tough primary. That was from Politico. Wrong again. Al Jazeera wrote, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, Redis for Tough Primary Challenge. And I'll read one more for you. Squad members, Rashida Talib, who got reelected. Ilhan Omar, who got reelected, facing tough primary challengers. Not so much, I guess. Not so much. Turns out that sometimes message and policy is far more effective than outside money. Just keeping it real.

That's the case. Well, look, I've been promising an update to the Alex Morse story, and there is an important update to it. So let's talk about it. We're learning more about the motivations behind some of the ridiculous accusations against progressive candidate Alex Morse. Alex Morse is the progressive candidate who's actually primaring Richard Neal, who is the head of the House and Ways committee in Congress.

So he's got a powerful position, but if you look at his record, he's a complete and utter disaster. He helped to defeat legislation that would have regulated surprise medical billing that many Americans deal with whenever they go to a doctor or have a procedure done. And, you know, you have all of these corrupt influences making headway in policy because of who Richard Neal is and what he stands for. Now, Alex Morris is challenging him. And it's important that Morse win this primary election. This is in the first congressional district. And as we approach this primary election, all of a sudden, the campus Democrats from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst put out this letter basically saying that Alex Morse made people feel

uncomfortable because he was on a dating app where he matched with people who were also students. They weren't his students when he was a professor or a lecturer, I should say, at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. But they were part of that university system. And they were also on these dating apps. They also had these specific preferences noted in their accounts. So in order for Morse to match with them on these accounts, they would have to basically set up their accounts to say that they're open and willing to date people in Alex Morse's demographic. Now, I tell you all of that because it's a two-way street. It's important to know that context when it comes to dating apps like Tinder or Grindr. But we're also learning more about the anonymous

accusations that came out against him. The intercept reporting that the man serving as chief strategist for the University of Massachusetts Amherst College Democrats, Timothy Ennis recently completed a class with Richard Neal, who of course, Richard, who of course Alex Morris is running against, who teaches a journalism course. Ennis, according to two members of the College Democrats chapter, was open about his hopes of working for Neal in the future. Sounds like there's a little bit of a conflict of interest there, but let me give you more. Because there were students who were part of this group, campus Democrats, who went on the record to speak to the intercept about what they experienced within this group. So Claire Sheedy is one of

those students, a rising sophomore and a Morse supporter. She was active in the college Democrats chapter and knew Ennis through their work, through their joint work on behalf of the Pete Buttigieg campaign for president. Ennis, she said, opened up about his respect for Neil in a car ride through New Hampshire. He spoke very highly of Mr. Neal, Sheedy said. What he said to me, was he wanted Neal to be his in to politics and work his way up from there. So there's one student who went on the record and specified this. And when we first reported this story, by the way, we also shared with you that Richard Neal donated $1,000 to this particular campus Democrats chapter. I'm sure that that had nothing to do with some of the motivations

behind their ridiculously vague accusations against Morse. Helena Middleton is one of the other students who actually spoke to The Intercept on the record. And she said she joined the group to socialize and be part of the community. But she noticed that the group's leadership pretty much had it out for Morse. Here's what she had to say. I tried to share volunteer opportunities for Morse's campaign, but the chapter leadership would ignore it while at the same time send out opportunities for candidates like Ed Markey and Joe Kennedy.

So it was clear to me that there was something going on there. Eventually, she said, she learned that a member of the group's leadership was a student in Neil's journalism course at the time. He made it very clear that he supported the election campaign and that he wanted to work for Neil, Middleton said. So now you have two students on the record who are part of this organization saying that there were some aspirations that led to, that might have, you know, influenced. the decision to put out this letter against Alex Morse.

Middleton, by the way, left the chapter several days ahead of the letter's publication, frustrated at the anti-Morse bias from leadership. Sheedy left the chapter after the letter was published. The current president, Andrew Abramson, reached out to Middleton last week to apologize for joking about the Morse race in the college Democrats group chat. So look, John, I want to hear all your thoughts on this, but let me just refresh everyone on what the accusations were. And first of all, there's no evidence of these accusations, but even if there were, this is

not, this isn't sexual misconduct, it's just not. And to equate this with sexual misconduct is absolutely disgusting and absolutely minimizes and degrades sexual misconduct and the victims who have had to deal with it. So the 31 year old, and he's very young, he's 31 years old, mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts was barred for allegedly having made students feel uncomfortable by sending them messages through Instagram and matching with University of Massachusetts students on Tinder, in addition to having sexual contact with students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he was previously an adjunct professor. None of these individuals who were all adults were his students.

He had no power over them, so I want to be clear about that. And in terms of the messages he sent to students, there's no specificity as to what the messages were. Did he write something that was inappropriate? Because we haven't seen a single example of that is the very act of messaging someone on social media inappropriate? Because if that's the case, then we're all perpetrators of sexual misconduct. Come on, no one's buying that. One other point, John, the college Democrats have not alleged that Morse had inappropriate relationships with students he taught, but rather accused him of having relationships with other students in Western Massachusetts, some at UMass Amherst. UMass, like most universities,

only bars relationships between students and faculty who have a supervisory or teaching relationship, not all students generally. John, jump in. I don't. It's such a weird situation because generally it's one of two parts of this that we need to focus on, sort of the, I guess the motivations or whatever behind the accusations, you know, is it trustworthy or is it not or whatever? And then breaking down, it's usually fairly obvious whether this is an acceptable action if it was in fact done or not. In this case, I don't know what I'm supposed to make of either of them. Certainly it looks like there was a sort of systemic pro-neal bias that was going on, that that certainly could have influenced the willingness to go along with spreading

this sort of thing, especially considering the content of the accusations. But even if there wasn't the bias, let's say that we hadn't discovered that, I don't know what I'm supposed to make of what he did. I guess it's up to individuals to say whether they think that's unacceptable or not, but I don't feel like a lot of people are going to think that this was some horrible, immoral course of action. You're talking entirely about adults, as you've pointed out. I mean, there are rules that he wasn't even breaking, like it would have been okay had he done other things that he didn't do, but he didn't even do those. I honestly just don't know what we're supposed to take away from this other than if you don't pay a lot of attention

and you just see some headlines, you'll think, sexual stuff, what are you going to do? Like, even if you didn't know all the needle stuff, if you actually look into the specifics of this, I don't know what you're supposed to take away that would cause you to write them off as a candidate. I mean, look, you, I think you hit the nail on the head. They are banking on. I think that this opposition campaign is really banking on people not reading the details of the story. and just basically going off of headlines, which are vague and don't really give you the details of what the accusations are. What Alex Morse did is called normal behavior, normal activity. If you're a college student and you find it traumatizing that someone matches with you on either Tinder or Grindr or whatever app you're on, then you need to get off the app.

Like that's the point of the app, right? Now, I think it would be problematic if he used his position of power, if he had some power over students and, you know, took advantage of that to engage in some sort of like sexual relationship. But that didn't even happen, not even close. And when he was on the dating apps, he was between the ages of 25 and 30. That's called normal. It's normal. And if these- He's a grad student age, basically. Yeah, and if these students don't want to match, like, you know, they made this big deal because they're like, oh, he matched with people as young as 18, which by the way is 18 year olds are adults, unless we want to now live in a society where we treat 18 year olds as infants. I mean, sure, we can do that. I don't think that they are infants. I think they're adults who can make decisions for themselves, but fine. We haven't heard from a single person who's had a sexual relationship with Alex Morris. And to be quite honest with you, I have no interest in hearing it. This is a Hungry now.

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narrative to begin with, especially because he's gay. And I think that they're purposely trying to tap into a stereotype about gay men preying on young boys. And it's hideous and awful. And then on top of that, like, in order for an 18 year old to match on Tinder, I mean, I can't believe it's been a long time, but I was on Tinder a long time ago. In order for you to match with someone in any age group, you have to set your profile. to indicate, hey, I'm open to dating people within this age group. It's a two-way street. So if you're genuinely one of these college students who matched with Alex Morrison, you were traumatized by it, okay, well, where's your personal agency? I'd love to hear about that.

It's just so pathetic. And I know what to make of this. I know what to make of this because I've seen it happen to various male progressive candidates. They try to like gin up some false narrative about how they're like scary predators with very little evidence behind it. And I'm sick of it. And what I'm more sick of is that progressives are so obsessed with seeming like they're the good guys that they immediately throw people like Alex Morris under the bus without even like doing a proper investigation into what the accusations are. Do we want to win or do we want to be pathetic fools? Because honestly, I'm tired of the pathetic behavior. I'm ready to win, I'm ready to fight, and we need to think about power as opposed to signaling to the rest

of the world that we're more moral. Because what's happening to Alex Morse right now is not moral. It is incredibly immoral. And the very lefties who are like buying this narrative would be disgusted if they were the targets of a smear campaign like this. We got to take a break. We'll come. 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 TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Right back. Welcome back to T-Y-T-Y-T. in John with you, make sure you guys check out John's show, the damage report, which is a quickly

growing program. And pretty soon I'm gonna have to squash you, John, your competitor. You've done what you can over the years. We'll see, you know, I wish you the best. Honestly, I wish me the best too. You're totally killing it. And I'm kidding, we work for the same company. If John does well, that means I do well. So, but I still want to do better than him. Yeah, okay, so let's read some member comments. Ruth Iverson says, Omar 1, 57% elbow from the sky. Okay, let me just move on. The scroll wears a mask says, this girl wears a mask says, there's a phrase in boxing that goes,

you don't become a champion until you defend your title once. And these wins solidify their political stopping power, and that's in reference to every single member of the squad getting reelected. Eclectic Michelinia says, more and more progressives are winning in spite of establishment Democrats and compliant media and going all in against them. In Tennessee, Bradshaw, a progressive who never ran before and who spent $25,000 won against someone who raised over $2 million. You're right, we talked about that story and it was incredible.

And just one more comment for you guys, and you can become a member by going to t.yt.com slash join. Gabby Marita says in reference to the Alex Moore story, this is 100% calculated in, I live in Massachusetts and I don't think it's a coincidence that these smears are coming out on the very day that voters get their ballots in the mail as I did today. Yeah, I mean, you guys know where I stand on it. I think that it's calculated and it's just, it's disgusting when you consider the stereotypes that they're trying to tap into to destroy his candidate. It's just so incredibly gross. And these are the same types of people who like to weaponize various issues, whether it's sexism, racism, homophobia, for their own political advantage.

So it's something to keep in mind as well. So just give people a chance and investigate what they're being accused of before you come to a conclusion. That's all I'm asking. All right, with that said, let's take a look at our thermometer. We're trying to raise some money to keep TYT sustainable. And for this month, we are, all right, we're a quarter of the way, you know, to where we want to be. We're trying to raise $200,000. I can't believe that it's already August 12th, but you can go ahead and it's so, it's so depressing. TYT.com slash go to contribute. TYT.com slash go. John, people really liked my 90s dance music singing last week and since you're hosting with me again today, I'm going to promise our viewers that I will sing

again today if we come back from the next break or on the post game and see, you know, another increase, a significant increase in our fundraising efforts. All right, with that said, let's move on to the next story. Donald Trump has officially reacted to Joe Biden's VP pick, Kamala Harris, and it went exactly how you would expect it to. Here he is speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News. Well, if you read the various political pundits, you would have said that maybe that would have been the one. A lot of people think it's a dangerous choice.

I think, you know, she's the most liberal person supposedly in the Senate. That's pretty liberal, but she's supposed to be the most. I'm not sure that's what the country wants. I think if it is, we've got problems, but I would be surprised if it is. She wants to raise taxes. She wants to get rid of your Second Amendment. No guns for protection, no nothing.

She's very strong in the Second Amendment getting rid of it. And very bad to the military. She wants to cut the military. She wants to cut spending for the military and the vets. And, you know, I don't quite get the choice. Okay, so I want to debunk everything that he mentioned in that look. long list of lies. But I want to first start by saying that Donald Trump referring to me as dangerous would be like the best day of my life. Like if Donald Trump called me dangerous,

I'd be like, damn right I am. Like that was a giant compliment. But you know. Anna, look, I just want to say he would definitely think you're nasty. I'll say that. I don't know about everything else, but he'd definitely call you a nasty woman. Dangerous, as my dad would say. No, but look, obviously there were some accusations there against Kamala Harris that I actually wish were true, right? So, for instance, the first accusation was that she's the most liberal person in the Senate. That's a strange comment to make when the Senate includes Bernie Sanders, who's demonstrably more progressive than Kamala Harris is. And on various issues, you know, you have Tammy Duckworth, who's also good, you know, has a progressive viewpoint on various. issues, even Elizabeth Warren, I would argue, is a little more progressive than Kamala. She's not the

most liberal or the most progressive or the furthest to the left in the Senate. We know that. I wish she were, but she's not. And, you know, he made it sound like she's the most liberal person in the Senate. And for the Senate, that's pretty liberal. The Senate's controlled by the GOP. What are you talking about? Like, he's trying to make the Senate seem like it's like this Marxist bastion in our, in our, you know, system of government. And it's just not, not even close. Yeah, I look, I know we're going to get to some other, like, takes the attempt to picture as, you know, like Mao's lefty, you know, cousin or whatever. It just like, yeah, if you just look at a couple of the scorecards based on Senate voting record, then you can put together

a rating of her that she looks super competitive. And I have no doubt that compared to like 15 20 years ago compared to those Democrats, yes, she's probably more progressive on certain issues. But okay, if she's that left, why didn't the left like her during the election? Why not? Why are they responding the way they are not? Should they be excited? I mean, if she's a radical, if she's a leftist radical, and now we've got one, wouldn't that be good? It's just, it's so, it's so ridiculous. Like, they really do think that they can try to fool their base or maybe fool us into thinking that it's the case. It doesn't work. We look at not only the Senate voting record, we look at how you stick to your guns on the most important issues, who you're willing to take on to advance those issues. All of it. Are you a leader on these things? There are leaders on these issues. There are far left leaders that we like. And I would like two years ago, if all of a sudden Kamala Harris had been that person, we would have loved it here. But we didn't. That means something.

Oh, would you look at that? I just got a notification on my phone. John Ida Rola tweeted one minute ago. How did you do that while we're doing this story? That's insane. Scheduled tweets. Oh, okay, got it, got it. Smart. All right. Well, there were other accusations there, including, you know, the fact that Kamala Harris would raise your taxes and get rid of the Second Amendment. Look, I think that getting rid of the Trump era tax cuts is important. And I've heard Biden say that he would reverse them. And I believe that Kamala Harris is on board. for that, but those are tax cuts that overwhelmingly help the wealthiest people in the country. So when Trump sends a message like that, it's basically sending a message to millionaires and billionaires that, hey, don't support this candidacy because Kamala Harris is going to raise your taxes. But honestly, even Wall Street executives are very happy with Donald Trump's

VP pick. In fact, they spoke to CNBC yesterday when it was announced that Kamala Harris would be the vice presidential pick for Biden. And they basically told CNBC that they're not planning on attacking her because they're relieved that it is a moderate ticket. Biden and Kamala Harris, moderate ticket. So it's not this far left, you know, a ticket that we would personally prefer, right? And then one final thing, you know, when the National Defense Authorization Act came up again, and of course that's the funding for the Defense Department and the Senate needed to vote on it. Bernie Sanders wanted an amendment to that bill that would indicate that the military would get a 10% budget cut, and then that money would then be sent to other governmental or, you know, agencies

that would help people. And Kamala Harris voted against cutting the military budget. She put out a statement saying that she agrees with cutting the military budget, but she just thinks that we need to do it strategically, meaning she's never going to vote to cut the military budget, let's keep it real. So everything that he fearmongered about there was nonsense. And it's funny because everything that he said there, again, is not something that I consider fearmongering. I just wish those things were true. It's just, again, demonstrably not true. And then one other video I want to show you, John, is the attack ad that Trump had ready to go against Kamala Harris. Here it is. Kamala Harris ran for president by rushing to the radical left, embracing Bernie's plan for

socialized medicine, calling for trillions and new taxes, attacking Joe Biden for racist policies. Voters rejected Harris. They smartly spotted a phony. But not Joe Biden. He's not that smart. Biden calls himself a transition candidate. He is handing over the reins to Kamala while they jointly embrace the radical left. Slow Joe and phony Kamala, perfect together, wrong for America. You know, John, what's also interesting is that the Trump campaign put out an email yesterday about how the left is basically angry at Kamala Harris as the VP pick, and that we're rebelling against the party.

So they're sending out two different messages. And I don't know if that's just a failure of coordinating within the campaign. The campaign's made a lot of mistakes so far, luckily. But that's where we're at. Yeah. Joe Biden's not that smart. You know, I would love to see the ads that they had ready for all of the other possible ones because conceivably they had to have them ready to go for six to ten names.

But they won't release them, I think, because they're probably virtual. the same ad. It's just they ran to the radical left and then insert anything that could be interpreted as semi-liberal, basically. Yeah, and by the way, the way that they're attacking Joe Biden, the idea that he's just too progressive or he's too left, like first of all, we knew that they were going to do that and we warn people to not choose a primary candidate based on fears that they would be attacked as a socialist because we said they were going to do that to anybody and they're indeed doing that to anybody. But also, it is really like the weakest way that they could have gone.

If they had something better to attack him with, they would have done that. Just pointing out that he's left, I mean, that's how they've ran virtually every presidential campaign throughout our lives. Yeah, yeah, exactly. My timing was really bad today because Jank kind of messed things up with his announcement. So we have like two and a half minutes left or yeah, two and a half minutes left. For this? Not enough time to do a story.

Yeah, I guess we can keep talking about this story, but I'm pretty much done. Yeah, I just got one other thing to say. And also, they've had all this time to prepare for Biden and potentially for Kamala Harris. They've been saying they wanted her to be picked against Joe Biden. The best they've come up with now is that he's sleepy or whatever while Trump is falling apart visually in each interview that he has. With Kamala Harris, they can't seem to decide whether she's this, you know, crazed cop, which obviously we have an issue with her background in terms of that. But in those ads, they're saying that she sided with, you know, the police and like she's totally out of step with these protesters. But then she's also saying, they're saying that she wants Portland, that she wants every city in America to look like Portland, that she's with Antifa and the protests. But those are diametrically opposed positions. And they can't seem to decide

which is going to be more damaging. Or maybe they just hope that their base can be convinced that both are true simultaneously. Right. Look, if Kamala wanted Portland to look the way that it's been looking under the Trump administration, well, then she would just allow Trump to keep doing what he's doing, because the civil unrest is happening under Trump's watch. I mean, like that, like the ad campaign, trying to like scare Americans about what the country will look like, using images and video from what the country looks like right now, like makes no sense to me whatsoever. But it goes to show you how little Trump really thinks of the people who vote.

for him. You know, he thinks they're stupid. He thinks that they'll fall for that. I think a significant portion of his core base will fall for that. And they won't be like their brains. It's like does not compute. These are current images, not from the future, but it doesn't matter. Alternative backs. Like they're just okay, okay. But what we what we really need to do is is really fight to make sure that people have their mail-in ballots, that people are not disenfranchised when it comes to casting their ballots. And unfortunately, Donald Trump is doing everything and anything he can to dismantle the postal service. So it becomes increasingly difficult for people to vote. And that's something that needs a lot more attention. And honestly, we need a real fight coming from

the Democratic Party. And I honestly haven't seen enough of that. So we will talk about that in more detail in the post game today, including the various crazy people like Ben Shapiro, calling Kamala Harris a Leftist. We'll show you that video and more. And so don't miss it. Become a member. TYT.com slash join to become one. And you'll get that. You'll get today's show and more and you'll get to support TYT, keep us sustainable. Love you guys. See you in the post game. 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.