The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - August 5th, 2020

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

Noam Chomsky and Bernie Group Team Up For Biden 2020 | Justice Democrat Cori Bush WINS Primary!!! | "Vulnerable" Rashida Tlaib CRUSHES Primary Opponent | Trump's Idiotic (and Dangerous) Response To Beirut Explosion | McConnell and Trump FACEPLANT on COVID-19 Aid 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, What's up, everyone, welcome to TYT. I'm your host Anna Kasparian, joining us today, as he does every Wednesday. Ida Rola, hosted the damage report. What's up, John? How's it going, Anna? Glad to be back. Glad to have you back. And it's going. I mean, I'd love to say it's going well, but considering what's going on in the world, it's hard to make that argument. But we do have a great

rundown of stories to share with the audience today. Later, we will get into an in-depth conversation about Lebanon. Not only will we give you the details of what happened with the explosion in Lebanon, but I think it's important to also talk about the political repercussions and what motivated Donald Trump to, you know, wrongly accuse or say that that was an attack or a bombing when, in fact, as far as we know so far, that explosion was an accident. We'll also give you an update on the stimulus bill. But first, a quick note about our partner aspiration. We are doing a sweepstakes to give away an e-scooter. And the way that you can enter to win is to open an aspiration, save and spend account.

You can also enter to win if you have that account by referring friends to aspiration. Learn more by going to TYT.com slash green summer, t.yt.com slash green summer. I also want to do a quick programming note that's important for you guys to know about. We're going to host another special. This time, the special is going to be about looking toward the future called What's What does the future look like? Easy to understand. There it is.

So you can check that out, Tuesday, August 11th, that's 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time, 4.30 p.m. Pacific. And we're gonna have a wonderful guest on that episode, including Derek Johnson, Dolores Huerta, Nomi Prins, one of my personal favorites, Nicholas Thompson and more. So check that out again, Tuesday, August 11th, at 7.30 p.m. Eastern time, 4.30 p.m. Pacific. All right, and then just a quick look at our thermometer. As you guys know, we're trying to raise some money for TYT to stay sustainable. And the best way to do that is to rely on you, our viewers.

So our goal for August is $200,000. Clearly, we are falling behind, which is not a good look for me since I've taken charge of promoting this while Jenks been away. So if you'd like to help a sister out, go to tYT.com slash go to contribute to TYT. We're a little over $10,000 for the month of August. All right, let's get to the news. Pro-Berney Group Roots Action, which was actually pretty harsh and aggressive in criticizing the Biden campaign during the Democratic primaries, is now urging progressive voters in swing states to vote for Biden in the upcoming general election.

Now, one of their efforts involves a pretty effective ad that they've spent about six figures on. It will air in swing states. And the whole point is to talk about not how great Biden is, because, you know, obviously they were very critical of Biden, but more importantly, how critical it is to beat Donald Trump. That is the focus. And you're certainly going to notice that in this ad, which uses the voice of Noam Chomsky. Another four years of Trump may literally lead us to the stage where the survival of organized human society. is deeply imperiled. The most important issue that humans have faced in their history is the impending catastrophic climate disaster.

According to a new report, experts say that we have until 2030 to avoid catastrophe. Trump is the worst person in the world on this issue. All of this with the global warming and a lot of it's a hoax. It's a hoax. So we have a choice between trying to find a way to survive or ensuring disaster. That's just the beginning. The traditional left position is you don't vote for, you vote against. It doesn't matter how I feel.

It doesn't matter whether you like Biden or not. That's your personal feelings. It's relevant. Nobody cares about that. What they care about is what happens to the world. I have to get rid of Trump, key pressure on Biden, just as Sanders and Associates of them doing. Politics is activism, not taking five minutes to push a button.

Look what's happening in the streets of the country. The greatest social movement that has ever developed, led by Black Lives Matter, take sunrise movement, managed to put the Green New Deal on the legislative agenda. This generation is going to decide whether organized human society can survive. And the crucial part of this decision is to get rid of the major barrier to survive. Which happens to be in the White House. So, John, I really want to just discuss.

the, I guess you're perceived, your perception of the efficacy of an ad like this, especially in swing states. It is targeted toward progressive voters who have become incredibly discouraged with electoral politics. You know, do you think it'll be effective or do you think this isn't enough to persuade people? I think it's a good ad, you know. I, my inclination is to say that that it will be ineffective for a few reasons and not necessarily the ones you might think. I think one reason that it will be ineffective is that I don't think it's as necessary as it might seem. I think that like I remember in 2016, you know, warning people about what Trump was going to be like and then spending the last few years experiencing all of that coming

true. I think that a lot of people kind of just get it. Like I don't think that the case needs to be made quite as much. So that's not really a point to its efficacy, but the need for, I think that that's one thing is that I think that the number of people that sort of would need to be reached by an ad like that is significantly smaller than it was four years ago. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I definitely agree with you on that. I also think that in terms of really changing someone's mind, if this is one of the things that's sort of core to your political identity is that I'm not going to do it, if you don't, If you don't think of political engagement the way that Noam Chomsky just talked about there,

where it's about what you're doing all the time and voting is one of those things, rather than I think some people just think of their vote as a judgment on who they are as a person and what their convictions are or something like that. It's the most important thing. If you think of that, then I don't know why that ad would necessarily change your mind. And it's again, not necessarily much of a criticism of the ad. that seems like an incredibly difficult thing to do. But I don't know what an ad would have to look like to change someone's mind if that is, if that's how they approach election day. Right. And so I'm of two minds of this. First off, I actually overwhelmingly love the ad.

And the reason why I love the ad is because, well, first let me see, I agree with you. I don't think that that group is as big as some might think. I think most people understand the importance of getting Trump out of office. That's point number one. But point number two is what I loved about that ad is that it started with, you know, this statement about how important it is to get rid of Donald Trump. But, you know, you're still left with that problem of, you know, having a candidate or voting for a candidate who has pushed for policies that have been, you know, just disastrous for this country, disastrous for working Americans. There's no question about that. But toward the middle, it switched to a message that I think is super important. And it's the message that

encourages the type of political activism that we've been seeing lately. And it's not just about Black Lives Matter. It's about the sunrise movement. It's about worker strikes. It's about labor getting together and trying to figure out ways to hold their employers accountable for their actions. And for me personally, watching that ad in the beginning, I was just kind of like, I know, I know, this is the right thing to do. I get it. And then all of a sudden, And it like really hit me like a ton of bricks. Because we are winning electorally when it comes to some of these congressional races. There's no question about it.

We're going to talk about that later in the show. You know, Corey Bush's win, for instance, is huge. Rashida Talib. Everyone was telling us that it was, you know, she was a very vulnerable candidate and she won by a large margin. I mean, we're seeing progressives really make a name for themselves within Congress. Jamal Bowman, the list goes on and on. But aside from that, aside from electoral politics, I really do think that the activism that we're seeing by the people is incredibly important,

right? And I like that the ad not only touched on that, it really emphasized that, you know, beginning in the middle of that ad to the end. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And again, like when I said at the beginning that it's a good ad, I think it's incredibly well done. I think the visuals are powerful, obviously, Noam Chomsky speaks with, I mean, you know who he is. You get what he's saying. Like it is powerful, like it's always going to be with him. I get that. One of the things that I guess sort of, it's like a bitter edge to the ad is that I'm watching it. And a lot of it is in the beginning is about climate change. And so you probably think, well, this is made for John. This is something that he cares about it is. But it's also like this is coming

after a few years of, like for regular people, it is still so hard to get them to care. And like I'm watching that. I'm thinking, man, you're right. No, he's so powerful. The idea that he had four more years devastating to our efforts to stop climate change. But I also know that although it is gradually working to convince more people to put this sort of central of their politics, it's still a very difficult task, getting people to care about climate change and dealing with it, especially in this time. In 2020, it's harder than it was in 2019. or 2018, because obviously we have these big things that are punching us in the face literally every day. And so that's another reason. I wonder if that will be a sort of messaging that

will work now. Are enough people going to be primed to think, oh yeah, no, that should be the most important thing that we're planning for and I'll act accordingly. I don't know. I was reading a report today about how by 2070, about 19% of the planet will not be, like people people can't live on 19% of the planet. And I'm talking about, obviously I'm not talking about the ocean. I'm talking about livable land that people are currently living in right now. Have you heard of boats? Will be so hot that people won't be able to live there anymore.

So the mass migration is actually already begun. Sorry, that was not the most articulate way to explain what I was talking about. But you guys get the picture. So it is a huge problem. People are experiencing it firsthand and I do think that moving forward, this type of messaging is gonna be much more persuadable than it has been in the past. But why don't we talk a little bit about electoral politics and some of the success stories and the wins that progressive experienced yesterday. Starting with Cory Bush. Justice Democrat,

Cory Bush, has defeated 19-year incumbent Representative Lacey Clay. Clay's family has actually represented Missouri's first district. That's the St. Louis area for more than 50 years. So this is an important upset, a stunning upset, and an upset that luckily led to a speech like the one you're about to listen to. We've been called radicals, terrorists, we've been dismissed as an impossible fringe movement. That's what they called us. But now we are a multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational, multi-faith mass movement, united and demanding change. in demanding accountability, in demanding that our police, our government, our country, recognize that black wives do indeed matter and that these are not just words or symbolic

gestures, but with concrete actions, and we will measure those with our outcomes. This is Cory Bush's now second time running for that congressional seat the first time, as many know, she lost, but that didn't deter her in any way. She decided to run again. And luckily she won. And this is big news. Bush is someone who made a big name for herself as one of the leaders of the 2014 Ferguson protests. She had a difficult pass. She was homeless. So she understands the economic instability and inequality of this country. And having her represent the progressive interests of this country is so incredibly important. Now, Clay dominated Bush among mail-in and absentee ballots, leading some outlets to prematurely call the race. But Bush actually surged back with a commanding election day lead narrowly topping clay by three points when all were counted. Now, Bush ran for the same seat in 2018. And just to give you a sense of what the situation was like, just two years ago, she lost by 20 points

back then. But again, she didn't give up. And that's why I love this story. I love it on so many different counts, you know, considering what she went through in her past and how she rose up, she ran for that congressional seat two years ago. And even though she lost by 20 points, she's like, I'm not going to quit, I'm not going to stop, I'm going for it. And she certainly did. Now, I love this tweet that she also shared after her stunning upset. She tweeted Bernie Sanders's quote or his campaign slogan, not me, us. And I also want to note that the narrative among centrist Democrats was that when Jamal Bowman won, for instance, against Elliott Angle, they called it a fluke, right? I mean, they wanted to really undermine how big a deal

that win was. They said, oh, it was because of Elliott Angle's hot mic moment. It's because of the fact that Elliott Ankle didn't spend enough time in that district. But after Bowman's win, you know, one Democrat anonymously told the New York post this. New York voters want demographic changes in the House. They don't want old white guys who don't do anything. Not only old white guys, but old white guys who only work when they're up for reelection. People are punishing these kinds of lawmakers. If you're old, white, and lazy, you're going to get kicked out. But the The reason why I have an issue with that framing is because it intentionally and purposely leaves out what Cory Bush represents.

She's not merely someone who's going to be tokenized, right? And someone who has the aesthetics of the elite class. What she represents is the working class. She has called attention to injustice, both racially and economically in this country. And by the way, her opponent was black himself. So you can't say that, oh, people are looking for, you know, a certain race to represent them. That's not the case. People are looking for the right message to represent them. And Corey Bush certainly has that. As the Intercept reported, Clay, however, is not old. He just turned 64 years old, white or lazy. Clay did not remotely take Bush for granted, launching a full scale negative campaign to try to take her down. and has been focused on her as a threat since her loss to him in 2018. He's a fixture of the community because he and his brother, or he and his father, Bill Clay Senior, a civil rights activist and co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, have continuously held the seat since the 1960s.

So again, this is not an issue of race in this congressional district. This was an issue of working people who were not being represented. They weren't being represented when it came to their economic interests or when it came to issues surrounding justice. And one final thing, John, that I wanted to bring up, Clay's defeat, as Ryan Grimm writes in The Intercept, is also ominous for incumbent Democrats as he was hammered at home by an outside anti-monopoly group for his work with the financial industry to undo an Obama-era piece of Wall Street reform. So that's what this is about. And again, Corey Bush was an excellent candidate. She's an excellent progressive and I couldn't be happier that she won. Yeah.

So look, it's not that there can't be multiple reasons that certain incumbents are finally losing or that incumbents in general are finally losing. There can be multiple reasons for that. But it is amazing the lengths to which that some of these anonymous Democrats will go to deny that policy or ideology has literally anything. to do with it. The idea that the candidates can be putting forth bold new ideas, that those ideas can be communicated accurately to voters, that voters can look at their circumstances economically, environmentally, and all of that, and have a preference for something new, and then vote accordingly,

seems like the most obvious thing in the world. But how often have you actually heard that being listed as the reason for any of these people losing, whether it's Clay or Engel or Crowley or whoever. It's always something else. It's always demographic or it's always just randomly hating on old white guys or something like that. No, maybe look for the constant across all of these candidacies. It is generally profiling, or I should say highlighting certain big policy ideas and focusing on it. That's something that's reproducible and it will be reproduced. I guess it's in our interest for them to not learn that lesson, but they sure seem resistant to doing so.

Right. And I look, that denial in their minds helps to maintain their own financial interests, which is why they try to minimize how Americans are really feeling right now about inequality and injustice. And I also want to note that Cory Bush was elected on the same day that voters in Missouri supported an expansion of Medicaid. So again, it goes back to ideology. It goes back to policy and don't let anyone either in the centrist democratic group or in mainstream

media tell you otherwise. This really is about policy and ideology. One other thing I do want to bring back is a tweet that didn't age so well. It's from July of 2019 when a Fox News reporter spoke to an anonymous Democrat. And here is what the Democrats said. No one is afraid of those nerds in reference to Justice Democrats. They don't have the ability to primary anyone. Oops.

Oops. I wish I could know who it was. I probably wouldn't know who that is. But wouldn't it be great if it was someone we knew and if they finally got identified? Wouldn't it be great if they weren't, like, if they didn't say they weren't afraid while going anonymous and making that statement, right? Like, oh, we're not afraid. I mean, I'm not going to reveal what my identity is or anything, but we're not afraid of those nerds.

Yeah. Sometimes I'll like, I'll send someone. letter that tells them to say that to my face. Stupid. By the way, also let's just quickly acknowledge, and I'm sure that Jank did in his video because I know he did a live video immediately after it was announced, but the principle that he has been continually repeating on the show is it is great if in your first race you can win it. It's great and probably very rare.

But that second race, after people have gotten to know you and after you've started to learn how to put a campaign together and you've got the ground team and all of that can be much more successful. And we're now in the time of the second race for many of these new candidates. And she's like the perfect example of it. She's someone who came into politics the right way through activism in something that's very important to people, that she ran a great race. And then one of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't

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get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Earned from the experience and took those lessons and actually won two years later. I think it's a great example that hopefully will see repeated, especially across many of, I know it's been difficult that this election so far. There's been some great congressional primary candidates. that unfortunately didn't quite make it. Jessica Sizneros, Nabila Islam, and a number of others, by the way. That's just a couple.

And who knows, maybe in two years, maybe in four, some of those will be Congress people. Yep, I mean, look, I really hope that Jessica Sissneros runs again, because that was a very narrow defeat, and I think she's got a good shot if she runs again. All right, well, we do have got to take a quick break. When we come back, we have more good news, which is very rare these days on what occurred during yesterday's elections. Come right back. So tomorrow on the damage part for the first time in a full co-host capacity, my co-host is going to be Gary Chambers, the Baton Rouge activist who went viral in a video challenging

the name of a local high school, the Robert E. Lee High School. It was an awesome, impassioned, you know, defensive changing the name. And it did end up getting changed. I know small part thanks to his work and we interviewed him on the show previously and tomorrow he's going to be co-hosting the entire show. So you should definitely check it out live. All right, awesome. And we do have an update on the thermometer because you guys deliver and it's incredible. Incredible. Let's take a look at it. When I get excited, I slur my words a lot. Look at that. Look at that. Wow, it's a significant increase. It is moving, okay? I almost want to sing 90s dance songs to you guys.

because I want to celebrate. But I won't do that unless you guys donate a little bit more. So we'll check in after our next break and maybe you'll get a little la da da-da-di-da-da-da-da-da. Can they donate? Not too. No. Be my love are going to be my. All right, let's get to the news. How about that? Actually, I do want to read a few member comments because you guys are super excited just like I am today with all the great news. Messier 87 says, amazing, this is a great sign that progressives are getting stronger. This is in reference to Cory Bush winning in Missouri's first district.

Centrists need to negotiate with us or face the probability that they will lose their reelection to us. We can no longer be ignored. I love that message. I love our members. You can be a member by going to t.yt.com slash join. That will also help to support the show. And no more trigonometry says that sweet feeling of getting in just in time to catch the show. Nice.

I feel you. All right. Well, without further ado, let's talk about more wins from last night. Progressive incumbent Representative Rashida Talib defeated her rival Brenda Jones for Michigan's 13th congressional district. Let's take a look at just how large that can of whoop ass really was. If you take a look at this chart, you can see that Rashida Talib did win by a giant margin, 66.1% to Brenda Jones's 33.9%.

But you know, it is kind of incredible that the narrative leading up to this congressional race from the mainstream press specifically was that Rashida Talit was just so, so vulnerable. We really need to watch out as progressives. She might get defeated, it's very likely. If you don't believe me, here are some examples of the ridiculous headlines that you were likely to come across prior to the election taking place, squad member Talib may be vulnerable and tough primary. That isn't it? Here's another one. Squad member Rashida Talib faces strong primary challenger. Squad member Rashida Talib on the ropes in Michigan primary. So one of the

reasons why this narrative existed was because some of the polling, oh actually no, the polling did not indicate that Rashida Talib was in trouble at all. Let's take a look at an example. 52% of respondents said they'd vote for Talib. Well, 24%, 24%. Let me repeat it at a certain time, 24% favored Jones. The remaining 23% said they were undecided. And so this is great. It's great because it shows that progressivism is something that is favored, certainly by people in this congressional district and many others that we've been talking about on this show. And as much as the, you know, third way narrative takes a hold of how mainstream media reporters report on these candidates, doesn't really matter. They can be delusional about what the truth is. But the fact

of the matter is the people want someone who's actually going to fight for them and their best interests. Yeah. Yeah, I like wishful thinking as much as anyone, but that's what this was, the idea that, you know, and it's not that she couldn't face, you know, a significant challenge and she couldn't be on the ropes. It's her first reelection bid. That's usually the most difficult. But you have to have the polling evidence to back that up. It's such a specific thing to say. Like a strong challenger, okay, maybe that means that she's got some funding or an endorsement or something. But on the ropes, that means significant damage. Like, I'll I'll give you she's only up by a few, but I would have to assume she should be down for you to be saying that unless it's on the ropes like after the fight at the turnbuckle with like the belt lifted in the air. And I don't think that's what they meant. It's just ridiculous. The same thing about AOC when they were saying that MCC's gonna take her down. She's got that Wall Street money. She's gonna take her out. It wasn't even close. And I look forward to the same thing happening with Alhan Omar in less than one week now. And so we'll see. We'll see.

There was a target put on all of them as soon as they won and that has been renewed any number of times because of what they've done in office that the establishment doesn't like. But the attempts to take them out just they're coming up as basically like parody at this point or farce, I should say. And Talib responded to those headlines after her win saying quote, headline said I was the most vulnerable member of the squad. My community responded last night and said our squad is big. It includes all who believe we must show up. for each other and prioritize people over profits, it's here to stay and it's only getting bigger. Mmm. Mmm. So delicious. Tasty, tasty. Yeah. And again, just to really fast say, like we definitely needed this. We need like after a year where it really looked like Bernie was going to be the nominee and then devastatingly he wasn't and other other great candidates have lost, including one that works with us, like it was a rough beginning to the year, politically, let alone in terms of public health and the economy and all of that. So we did need this. We needed to get some new wins and we've got that in New York

and now with Cory Bush as well. And we needed to not backslide losing some of the best elected officials we have across this country. And it looks like we're going to go 100% at least on that category. Yep, definitely. So yeah, lots of great news to start the show off with. Hopefully more great news moving forward with some of these congressional races. But I do want to say that really changing this country for the better, changing it systemically, requires not only participation and wins in electoral politics, but of course the activism and the type of movements that we've been experiencing lately. We really do need to continue applying pressure to keep this kind of momentum going.

So I'm really happy to see it, and let's keep fighting because I guarantee you there's going to be plenty of additional bad news that should motivate us for a better country and a better world. Well, speaking of terrible stuff happening in the world, let's go to some international news with Lebanon. An explosion in the Lebanese capital of Beirut has killed hundreds of people, and the death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers dig through the rubble and destruction. in search of more victims. Now, at least 135 people were killed and more than 5,000 were wounded. An official with the Lebanese Red Cross, George Katane, warned that the death toll could further rise, which makes a lot of sense, as again, they're still searching through the rubble to see if there are any other victims. Around 5,000 people were injured in Tuesday's explosion and up to a quarter million individuals were left without homes fit to live in. So there's been a lot of devastation in Lebanon. And please keep in mind that this is a country

that was already grappling with a huge economic downturn that was made worse by Donald Trump's sanctions on Syria. Syria was an important trade partner for Lebanon. And they were still doing some trade, some, you know, some trade with Syria, you know, despite these sanctions. But now with the destruction of that port, a lot of economic devastation is going to follow this. So the Trump administration has taken, what I would argue is not a surprising approach in messaging about this explosion. What caused it? Well, Prime Minister Hassan Diab, he says that the explosions were actually caused by negligence, careless welding ignited 2,750 tons of ammonium, nitrate, a highly combustible material used as fertilizer, and for bomb making, by comparison,

just to show you, you know, how serious this is and how giant this is, Timothy McVeigh used about 2.4 tons of the same chemical in the 1995 Oklahoma city bombing. So it kind of gives you an idea of the scale of destruction that was caused as a result of this accident. But even though so far it's being reported as an accident, including by authorities in Lebanon, Donald Trump wanted to change the narrative. And so let's take a listen to what he had to say to reporters about this yesterday. Hundreds more were very badly wounded in a large explosion in Beirut. Our prayers go out to all the victims and their families.

The United States stands ready to assist Lebanon. We have a very good relationship with the people of Lebanon and we will be there to help. It looks like a terrible attack. He gave no evidence that this was a so-called terrible attack. There's been no indication that Lebanon was attacked. And the Pentagon actually released a statement indicating that they disagree with Donald Trump and they are not following this narrative, luckily. One official said that if there were any indications, anyone in the region pulled something

off of this scale, it would trigger automatic increases in force protection for US troops. assets in the region, if for no reason, then worry about retribution attacks. The official noted that none of that has happened so far. Also following Trump's comments Tuesday, Lebanese officials raised concerns that U.S. diplomats, or with U.S. diplomats, I should say, about the use of the word attack at this point. But I want to be clear. The mainstream media narrative is that Donald Trump said that simply because he's an incompetent buffoon. Don't get me wrong. He's an incompetent buffoon. However, there are political motivations that you should be aware of.

And I want to just turn to a quick snippet of an interview on democracy now that gives you an idea of exactly why Donald Trump would try to push this type of narrative. Then you have Pompeo, the Secretary of State, calling not the current prime minister, but the previous prime minister. Well, this is the ideological amateurism and ignorance of the American government. government being exhibited at the level of the highest political class in the White House and the State Department. These people don't care about Lebanon or the Arab world. They don't know anything about it. They're basically following a rulebook that is dictated by internal American politics linked heavily to fundamentalist Christian extremist skinheads who are very, very linked close to Israeli settler colonialists.

And this is something that's been consistent for the last three and a half years, and it will continue to be there. They're campaigning against Iran and Hezbollah. And anything that happens in Lebanon that's bad, they're going to link it to Hezbollah and Iran. So I would completely discard anything that Trump or Pompeo says about this. And the fact that they called Hariri, not the prime minister, the president is fascinating because they don't care about humanitarian suffering. 300,000 people have lost their homes. They don't care about that. All they want to do is talk to somebody in there who can link them, say, to the Saudis or the Emirates or somebody who can, you know, help them push against Hezbollah and Iran. And in fact, some of the latest sanctions on Syria were intentionally meant to be indirect sanctions on Lebanon. So, you know, this is the geopolitical angle that I think people need to be aware of and not

just fall for this mainstream media angle of, oh, there are no political motivations, Trump's just an idiot, and that's why he said what he said. I think that he is an idiot, there's no question, but there are political motivations behind referring to this as an attack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it could also be mixed. It could be that, you know, those political motivations might be the main thing driving the response of his administration, but not necessarily him individually. I wouldn't put it past him that he was handed a paper that he didn't read. And he heard there's a big explosion. And he thought, oh, it's an explosion in the Middle East. I know what that is. I don't know. I have no doubt that whatever comes out of this situation

vis-a-vis Lebanon with the United States government is going to be entirely driven by those longstanding political motivations. But I do know. know that he doesn't care at all about what has happened or what will happen to those people as they, you know, engage in the almost impossible task of recovering from something as devastating as this, starting off at a point where they were about as ill-equipped to deal with this sort of tragedy as any place in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the U.S. government overall, I mean, this goes beyond the Trump administration, never ceases to use any type of tragedy or, you know, accident as a way to further their own geopolitical agenda.

So, you know, I bring all of this up to say that be careful with any messaging coming from the Trump administration, specifically the State Department under someone like Mike Pompeo. These are things that we should be focusing on, paying attention to and being skeptical of as this story continues to develop. But with that said, we do need to take a break when we come back. I'll give you guys an update on the stimulus. Oh, yeah, we're back, baby. We're back. And two super chats before we go to the thermometer, Wingway writes in and says, you had me at 90s dance songs.

Carlo Ortiz, 90s songs, let's go. And why would we go? Well, let's take a look at the thermometer and see where we're at. Because during this show, during this show, during this show. We have raised $2,102. You know what? You ought to know by now if you want to be my lover, gonna be my lover. Come on, John, give it to me.

Hey, Anna, I got a question for you. Who let the donations out? How much does John hate this? He hates it so much. He hates music and he hates dancing. I don't hate it. I'm just deeply uncomfortable. I'm not drunk enough for this.

What you need to know is rhythm. You can feel it, people feel it, rhythm. Is it going to get you? Rhythm is an answer. We're going in opposite directions there, but okay. Thank you so much guys for helping us stay sustainable and stay accountable to you. We love you. And for those of you who want more of my singing, I can't imagine you too, but go to t.

Wait a second. go. If we do, if we do, if we get to the next thousand mark, I want you to sing a bit of it's not unusual. I know you love that one. Your favorite song, literally. One time I asked John, hey, what's your favorite song? And he's like, I don't know, it's unusual. I don't. But I will sing it. I don't think that happened. I can't guarantee it didn't. How dare you? It definitely happened. But look, we'll talk about that during the post game. We do have to move on. We have more news for you guys, including an update on the stimulus negotiations. So the stimulus debate continues between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Unfortunately, the White House is also very much involved in these talks. And based on what we recently heard from White House Economic Advisor, economic advisor, it's not a good sign. So this was during an interview with Poppy Harlow on CNN. and this is going to give you a little insight into where the White House is when it comes to the enhanced unemployment benefits and whether they're going to be expanded. Take a look. If you pay people a lot more to stay home than to go to work, then the idea that there will be more people going to work, it just doesn't add up. And so I think that what Republicans are trying to do is fix the study from July. I mean, you saw the Yale study from just a few weeks ago. The Yale study was early data. Can I quote from it? Quote, we find no evidence that more generous benefits, disincentivized work either at the onset of the, or the expansion, as firms look

to return to business over time. It's wrong? Right. Well, that's based on, no, that, yes, it is wrong. And when we get the full data, that result is almost surely going to be reversed. But think about it, Poppy, just think about the logic of it. If I pay you, so if you take a typical median family, say, in Tennessee, that if they don't go to work under the $600 plan, then they get about $90,000 a year. And if they do go to work, they get about $50,000 a year. And so the assertion that staying home and getting 90,000 are going to work and getting 50,000, that that's not going to have an effect on your decisions. It just doesn't add up. It's not economics. And so, you know, I wonder, you know, I haven't played with their data yet, but I really, really

don't believe that study. All right. I believe and have heard from so many Americans that they want to go back to work and they want to go back to work and they want to feel safe. Even the University of Chicago numbers shows it's about one in five that are doing what you're saying. I mean, the ability of these people, of White House officials and of members of the GOP to just lie the way that we just heard right now, like blows my mind. Who's earning $90,000 a year on unemployment? Who? Who? I mean, it's simple math. No one's earning $90,000 a year. So that was intentional hyperbole to make it appear as though these enhanced benefits are too much and serve as a disincentive to get back to work. But you know, an easy way to respond to this,

John, is let's take a look at how many people are unemployed, tens of millions, literally. And let's take a look at the number of jobs that have been lost during this pandemic due to quarantining, closures, you know, the common sense stuff that people needed to do in order to slow the spread of coronavirus. It's just, look, I think Poppy Harlow did a decent job in that interview. I'm not you know, criticizing her. But where do people, where, where does the White House and where does the GOP expect individuals who have been laid off to find new work? Because they're making it appear as though they're not looking for work. They don't want to go back to work. And by the way, there are people who legitimately should not go back to work, especially when the virus is

spiking in the number of new cases in this country. The number of deaths is also spiking, something that you brought up during our break, John. And so, you know, I want to, I want to, I want to turn to you. What do you make of all this? Yeah, well, as a, so yesterday, 400 deaths were reported over the last 24 hours anyway, which is a lot. It's almost tripled from the low point of the pandemic in the middle there. And it is interesting that people like him, and I don't even remember his name, but there's a lot of them. They're all the same, basically. We'll continue to assert, whoever it is, they'll continue to assert against all of the evidence that this is, that obviously Obviously, the fact that they're temporarily making a little bit more money is 100% driving

their behavior. And they will not acknowledge that one way you could incentivize people to go back is to provide a safe workplace by actually dealing with the virus. That can't be affecting anyone's consideration when obviously it is. There's nothing I want more in the world than go back to work. But I know it's not safe for us all to be there. So they hold those two things. And one of the issues I have is you are supposed to in American politics pretend that

everyone agrees on a few things. One of them is that people voting is a good thing. We don't all agree on that. And if you don't understand that, politics and political activity isn't going to make a lot of sense to you. And also that people should make more money. We don't all agree on that. Workers agree on it. People who advocate for workers agree on it, but the people who represent those doing the paying do not actually want people to make more money. They want to pay as little as possible. So which is a better explanation for what you're seeing, from suits like him and Mnuchin and Navarro and all of those, that all these studies are simultaneously wrong and they would just love to pay people more money, but we just, we know that

it's affecting people's behavior, or they have a philosophical opposition to workers making more. That drives everything they've done and it's continuing to do so. And people like the like her, they need to, they need to point that out explicitly. You don't want people to make more money? Shareholders need a return on their investment, right? And so paying workers a livable wage is not something that goes along with ensuring that your investors get the biggest return on their investment. There's no question about that. That's why they keep pushing for the system that not only destroys the quality of life for the average worker in this country, but also doesn't even have a safety net in place when people are in a crisis like the one we're experiencing

right now. Because in order to fund that social safety net, what do companies need to do? What do corporations need to do? What does this country's wealthy need to do? They need to pay their taxes. It's a lot harder to pay your taxes, just like the middle class and the working class is expected to do when you're a corporation that needs to do what? To ensure that your investors have the highest return on investment. It always goes back to that. We need to start thinking about the real motives behind the narratives that we're hearing by members of Congress. That includes the GOP, that of course includes former economic advisors, like the one we just heard from for the White House. And it also includes some Democratic members of Congress as well. But here's one thing that

our lawmakers have no problem spending money on. Something that Trump has recently referred to as the so-called super duper missile. So let's take a look at that nice phallic imagery right there. So according to Gizmodo, while we still don't know how much, while we still don't know much about the missile specs, hypersonic missiles are almost certainly the future of military posturing during the new Cold War as Russia is developing something very similar. In fact, Colonel Anthony Mastelair from the space wing commander, he's a space wing commander, also said the following. This launch demonstrates that we are able to provide the range support needed to facilitate this test during peacetime operations in the midst of COVID-19 operations, signifying that our nuclear enterprise is safe, secure, reliable,

effective, and ready to defend the United States and our allies. Oh, thank God, because, you know, the 30 million Americans who have come to rely on the enhanced unemployment benefits were really really worried about protecting our nuclear enterprise. That was really top of mind, you know, when it came to issues like paying their rent or being able to avoid eviction. Now, the White House is considering executive orders, according to Yahoo money, involving renewing the federal eviction moratorium, suspending the collection of payroll taxes, which I think is a trick. And I've talked about that before. I think it's meant to gut Medicare and Social Security. applying unused funding towards extra unemployment. But, you know, we're not getting good signs

from Republican lawmakers either. So far, the best option that they've put on the table, you know, would not continue the enhanced unemployment benefits for a significant period of time. For instance, U.S. Senators Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Martha McSally introduced legislation today, Wednesday, that would extend the current expired extra unemployment benefits through the end of the year, but not so fast. They're not so great. The new legislation would allow states to extend $500 in extra universal income per week for August or $400 per week if the state prefers not to change the payment amount again in September, but then provide $400 per week in in September and provide 80% wage replacement or seek a waiver for $300 per week in extra

universal income for October through December. So it's nonsense. It's nonsense. It's purposely meant to be complicated and difficult to understand. It's purposely meant to give Americans less money during this economic crisis and this public health crisis. It's nonsense, it's garbage, and we shouldn't fall for it. Yeah, it's so needless. extra complex and insulting, that once we hit fall and winter, when a lot of experts have been saying, like, that is when we're going to get hit by the true second wave, that at that point we'll be transitioning people down to less money and probably eventually they can go through the process yet again to seek a waiver to get a tiny little bit of money. If they were successful

already in going through the multi-week process of finally getting through to someone and finally getting these payments and then proceeding along and they lapse because our government really doesn't give a damn. And it takes literally weeks for them to finally resume once a deal is reached, assuming it's reached anytime soon, that you'll then be kicked off again later this year and have to seek a waiver for an insultingly low amount of money to allow you to continue to survive in a pandemic that you had nothing to do with creating. All right. Postgame is next. We'll see you soon. listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access

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