The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - December 11th, 2019

Episode Date: December 12, 2019

Nancy Pelosi just got owned by Mitch McConnell. John Iadarola and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. If you like the Young Turks podcast, I think you'll love a lot of the podcasts on the TYT network. Old school, it's one of my favorites, one of the favorites for a lot of the listeners. Please check that out, subscribe, share it, that makes a big difference, and give it a five star rating. Thank you.

What's up? Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Casparian. Jeng is away today. But John Iderola, my trusty co-host is here. Even better. Yes, it actually is. He's not watching. I'm looking forward to it. I am too. He is not watching. He's doing some other stuff. But we have a lot of good news stories to share with you guys today. We're probably going to get to every single one of them, which makes me super excited. So we're gonna give you all the details in regard to Pete Buttigieg's time working for McKinsey, which is a consulting firm.

There is more information that he was pressured to share with the public, and we are gonna give you those details and more. That's later in the show though, but first we're gonna start off with me saying that I was right about- No, but it's true. About what? It's actually, it's a giant injustice that Jenk is. isn't here for this first story we're gonna do because we had a disagreement about Pelosi's decision to announce the trade deal.

Really, really fast. I later on will say that I was right about something, but you have to stay tuned to find out what topic it was on. Oh, okay. That's a much better tease than the one I gave the audience. All right, but with that said- I think you just passed me with that though. Let's get to the news. Let's start off with the trade deal, so.

We will not be doing USMCA in the Senate between now and the end of next week. That'll have to come up in all likelihood right after the trial is finished in the Senate. Yes, the latest devastating example of Democratic incompetence is Nancy Pelosi making the ridiculous decision to announce that the Democrats had struck a deal with the Trump administration on his USMCA trade agreement. And the reason why that was a problem is because she announced it on. On the same day, Democrats announced articles of impeachment against Donald Trump.

Now as always, Democrats allow Republicans and the Trump administration to set the framing of every type of debate, every type of discussion, every type of political issue, and this is no exception. So there was a tremendous amount of pressure by Republicans for Democratic leadership to show that they could focus on impeachment, but also focus on legislating. And so Pelosi was like, yeah, yeah, see, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We're gonna pursue impeachment, but we're also gonna make this trade deal. We're going to, you know, in her eyes, get the Trump administration to agree to a number

of concessions and, you know, things that Democrats want, and then we'll strike this deal, and then I'll make this big, you know, flowery announcement about it, which is what she did yesterday during a press conference. Well, now Mitch McConnell is saying, eh, ha, we're not gonna vote on it. until after the impeachment trial. So it's all about optics, right? Because this was a way for Republicans to get what they wanted without helping Democrats with the optics that they're hoping for.

Because what they wanted to ensure is that, hey, we want American voters to understand that we are still legislating, right? And here's an example, we're negotiating, we are holding the Trump administration accountable. But in reality, what Republicans are going to keep doing, and they're better at messaging than Democrats are, is they're going to keep harping on how the impeachment was a waste of time, a waste of resources. They didn't find any wrongdoing by Donald Trump. And of course, we know that's untrue.

But it doesn't matter. It's all about optics, all about how they play this. It's all about messaging. And so again, here's Mitch McConnell saying, we're not going to vote on it until after the impeachment trial. Oh, I- Here are the facts on Shifty Shift, this honest guy, makes him. up my statements. He said, the president of Ukraine repeatedly declared that there was no pressure, but he didn't want to say that. We said, say it. Say it, you crooked bastard, say it. After years

of waiting, many, many years, many, many decades, they've been looking for this, and then we got it done, and we've been waiting for a long time for Nancy Pelosi to announce USMCA. And she did it on the same day that they announced that they are going to impeach. The 45th president of the United States, and your favorite president, I think. They announced impeachment, and then an hour later. So I show you that video, and it's from Trump's rally in Pennsylvania, because this is exactly what I knew the Trump administration was going to do. They were going to exploit, in my opinion, the Democrats concession in their political ads,

in the rallies, they're going to help Trump in his reelection campaign. And understand this trade agreement was something that he was hyper-focused on accomplishing for his reelection campaign, and Nancy Pelosi helped him out. And so, look, I'm not the only one saying this. There's a tweet that just perfectly summarizes exactly what I've been trying to communicate to our audience and to Jank. So this is a Bloomberg congressional reporter, Eric Wasson, and he says, this will allow Republicans to continue to attack Dems for stalling USMCA due to impeachment over the holidays.

Yeah, hypothetically, hypothetically, they could come back and say, we've proved that you could literally vote on it today. I know they're not going to because they're terrible at communicating. I think I agree with you on the specific way it was rolled out, the specific timing it was rolled out. It should, in a perfect world, in a rational world, where optics wasn't everything, it shouldn't matter. Hypothetically, you could move to impeach the president and move forward on an important piece of

legislation on the same day because the president is an important person in this country, but he is not everything. And hypothetically, if it was a good bill, it matters for, you know, like your constituents and all of that. But yes, Mitch McConnell is not interested in doing absolutely anything. And if the idea was, we wanna make sure that people know we're still doing the important work of governing in this country, they can continue pointing to the like 400 pieces of legislation that they've already passed this year that the Senate is not picking up any

of. Yeah, but that would require an understanding of effective messaging. And Democratic leadership has failed on that front time and time again. And look, one other thing that I actually disagree with Jank on. So Jake made this argument yesterday about how. No, look, don't be too critical of Democrats if they're willing to work with Republicans on issues that matter, right? Now, he wasn't trying to argue that this trade agreement is a good one.

It is slightly better than what we had with NAFTA slightly. But remember, there is no legislation yet. It's not as though the Trump administration has written hundreds of pages of legislation, and they've already gone through these debates and these negotiations, and now it's going to be be signed into law. No, the actual legislation hasn't even been written yet. So what Pelosi agreed to was a handshake agreement. Who knows what the final legislation is gonna look like?

Who knows what the final policy is gonna be? My point is, she allowed Republicans to set the framing, and she responded to their framing, which was pressure to prove that the do nothing Democrats are actually doing something, right? And then why, why do they always do this? Why do they fall for their framing? Why? I think because a lot of them are, this is not attacking people who are older, but people who are older who have existed in a context for a long time, get used to it.

And think that that's either the way things are supposed to be or at the very least that's how things are. And so perhaps they continue to act as if they were still in the political realities of the 90s. Or like Biden, they act like we can return to that political reality. I just think that it's Democrats need to be smarter and they need to have better political instincts. Yeah.

Because this, look, if this was a huge progressive win, right? If the trade deal, if there was written legislation, they had debated it, they had negotiated it and it had real protections for American workers, then I would argue, okay, in those cases where you're not about to be played for a fool, definitely, it's okay to work with the other side. not what was happening here. It has some relative improvements or protections. Exactly.

So we talked about those improvements or protections on yesterday's show when this story made news. But I'm gonna share them with you again. But I also wanna reiterate, this is not in any legislation yet. So again, we don't know what the final legislation is gonna look like. So among the provisions that Democrats got added to the deal were tougher patent and price rules on pharmaceutical companies. So they're trying to ensure that patents aren't so lengthy that generic drugs aren't available on the market.

More stringent enforcement of labor rights in Mexico specifically, and greater restrictions against outsourcing of jobs to Mexico and 12 weeks of paid parental leave for federal workers. So look, the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico, based on my rate of it, it wasn't really all that significant. It wasn't like a robust policy to prevent the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, but it would improve the situation a tiny bit. I mean, it's the typical thing you can expect from establishment Democrats, that incremental change. Yeah, and a lot of it is based on assuming that Mexico were to agree to this framework,

that they would also then, under this, they're obligated to pursue certain pieces of legislation of their own to, you know, that has to do with both unions and pay. and hypothetically, how strong those are could influence overall how beneficial this is. Not just for workers in Mexico, but also for workers in America. Yeah. But we don't know. I just think it's strange to announce these articles of impeachment. Talk about how Donald Trump is a fundamental threat to our constitution, to our democracy.

And then like an hour later, have the Speaker of the House announce like this complimentary, you know, a positive thing that she was able to do with the very person she's accusing of being an imminent threat to our democracy. Yeah, I'm torn, the government still has to function, so I am torn, and it's not, like, if it was like an hour later, it's like, you know, we've decided 10 billion for the wall. But the government's not functioning, that's the point that I'm trying to make. Mitch McConnell is not going to allow a vote on this, okay? So let me give you some tweets, let me give you some tweets, you're right.

Can we just all stop being stupid for a second? No. Okay, like, let's all stop pretending as if we live in like this united situation where we're all playing patty cakes, we're playing hopscotch, we're having a good time. No, we're very divided. We have one party that gets involved in obstruction, blocks actual legislation that's been passed, bipartisan legislation that's been passed in Congress. They're not playing balls, so why are Democrats allowing them to set the tone and set the framing

for every issue? Well, that, yes, but saying that they're letting them set the tone also implies that they then can't come and they can't say anything. They can't do anything in response. They don't. Yeah, she won't, but others might. And so, look, Trump doesn't want to do anything with the Democrats for the most part. Mitch McConnell wants to do even less.

So hypothetically, the Democrats could all just, I don't know, like take up Sudoku for the next like year, but they can't do that. I still think it's important that they pursue writing legislation and passing it, even if it's not going to go to the Senate. That may be all that we have, but it's better than them just sitting. Here's what a master legislator would do, okay? A master legislator would look at Trump, look at Mitch McConnell and say, here's what I want in the legislation.

I want the vote to occur in the Senate first, and if we like it in the House, we'll bring it up for a vote, okay? That's what we do, right? Like why, why are you, anyway, okay, like prematurely agreeing to something that's It's not even on paper yet. Because the idea is that hypothetical, I think, look, this is just like devil's advocate. Obviously I don't agree with Nancy Pelosi's political strategy, but I think she would say that hypothetically, if they pass it in the House, then you could potentially have a media

cycle where all the media's like Democrats are making, they're making progress on this, this has these little improvements or whatever, and Mitch McConnell isn't doing anything about it. So hypothetically, if the media were to play ball, then it could look good for the Democrats. I think that's the strategy. It's a dumb strategy. So let me go to Michigan McConnell's tweets. I'm sorry.

Maybe like Brett disagreed with me on this. It seems like you're kind of disagreeing with me. And it blows my mind. It really blows my mind. I can't understand how anyone thinks this was a good idea. So McConnell via Twitter said. I want to be very clear. I don't think this specific thing was a good idea, but they do still have to pretend that

the House of Representatives is a functioning body. They have to do something. So McConnell tweets, Democrats impeachment obsession has delayed crucial governing responsibilities to the 11th hour. Funding for the federal government, money for our troops, must pass legislation for national defense, basic bipartisan work for our country that Democrats have been blocking. They're just going to straight out lie, guys. You have one side that's not interested in playing fair. They're not interested in legislating. They're not interested in doing what's best for the American people.

They're interested in their own political careers, so much so that they will put our constitution on the line and our democracy on the line just to preserve their political careers and to defend Donald Trump. That's all it is. That's what's happening here. So once you realize that you're not on an equal footing, right? And I feel like democratic leadership should have realized this by now. It's been years at this point.

That should inform your decision on how to proceed forward. Don't give Donald Trump a win, especially when we're in the middle of an election. Yeah, we can't go on forever. I think that we're jumbling up a few things in this. Like the idea of him getting a win versus the particular way that they rolled it out versus how their strategy could have gone forward. I mean, we could agree or disagree on several different things there, I think. Like, I'm not overall convinced that the Democrats shouldn't do anything in terms of

legislation that could hypothetically be pitched as a win for the president. I'm not saying that either. They have worked on legislation, as we mentioned earlier in the story, hundreds of bills that they've passed, many of which were actually bipartisan bills, and they're getting blocked in the Senate, right? They're getting blocked in the Senate for political reasons, right? So if you know that that's the type of person, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is, well, then you've got to use that information to inform your decision on how to

proceed. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, and what I would do is I would be less focused on, you know, press conferences and things like that, I think they could be part of it. But I would say especially with Mitch McConnell up for reelection and polling really badly, I would use that in the advertisements targeting him and make him desperate for a win in anticipation of his election day. All right, let's go ahead and move on to our next story.

So, well, let's go to my one shot real quick, all right. Politico is reporting that there is some serious drama in the White House among Donald Trump's health policy aides, that means that it's time for as the White House turns. Ha ha ha ha ha. Made some very big mistakes. I asked for his resignation. I'm disappointed in the Attorney General. All right, so what's going on within Trump's administration?

Apparently there is some sort of fight happening between two officials, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, and Centers for Medicine and Medicaid Services Administrator, Seema, Verma. Now, they're feuding to the point where Donald Trump actually had to get involved and tell them to knock it off. So according to anonymous sources who spoke to Politico, the scale of bickering has appalled and horrified people internally. Okay.

This is a White House official, and this White House, they're appalled. They're appalled, which is saying something, right? I mean, there's appalling activity happening within the White House every single day. But apparently, the feuding between these two health officials is so significant that even they're concerned about it. So as I mentioned, Trump has gotten involved and he thinks it's going too far. And according to Politico, already Trump told Azar and Verma to knock it off and get along, to no avail, said two senior administration officials. In fact, one White House source was quoted as saying, what an effing so far. opera, this does not help either of them.

So there are rumors that they're both likely to be let go if they don't work things out immediately. But what are they fighting about? What's the big issue? First, let me preface this by saying that they're both terrible people, okay? And I'm gonna show you why in just a minute. But the two have clashed over matters small and large, according to Politico, including policy issues such as the president's desire to lower drug prices, seen as a key talking point for his reelection campaign.

Azar has come under fire for cutting Verma out of the department's decision making and attempting to block her access to the president and a high profile event related to a Medicare executive order. The health secretary blocked Verma from traveling with Trump on Air Force One in October for the unveiling of a Medicare executive order in Florida, according to a half dozen officials with knowledge of the multi-day episode. Verma was only allowed aboard the plane after the White House intervened. Now Azar is known for his fierce temper dubbed by a senior administration official as the

purple rage because of his face color when he becomes angry. Is there any chance that we have a photo of him? I don't think we have the role of. Yeah, good job announcing that in real time. There we go. Yay, we do. Okay, so he's the guy with such a fierce temper. They call it the purple rage, like a barbarian, like a Viking warrior.

The rage just overcomes him and he fights for what he believed. You little weenie, I read everything I could about this feud and I still couldn't tell you what they actually disagree on. To be honest with you, the way that I've read this, and you're right, I mean, they don't talk about a policy disagreement because they both- It's something about lowering drug prices. Right. Does he want to do it more, faster, broader?

I have no idea, and I doubt they do either. It's politics, and I have a feeling this is more about a power struggle within the administration. Even though they have two different jobs, it seems like a power struggle. I mean, look, why is Azar blocking her from access to Donald Trump? It's a power struggle, that's what this is. I mean, the same thing that you could expect at any other highly politicized work environment, it's happening within the White House. Yes, but I think even more so in this one.

What we have is one of the characteristics of like a tin pot dictatorship. It's like personal access to the president, and in particular one who is so simple-minded and has such a short attention span that we've known for a long time, whoever the last person he talked to he tends to go with and believe that of course you want to block her from having access to him. She'll say something about drug prices, he'll have no idea what she's going with, but she'll say it forcefully and he'll think she's smart, so he wants to stop that from happening.

If the president had a coherent ideology and an actual map to how he wants to get to his preferred policies, then he would hire experts and they would go off and they would do their work. But he's a flighty, frenetic little child. And so whoever comes into his office, that's who he's gonna go with. And so that's what he does. It's ridiculous. You're so right. And look, I have a video of Verma to just kind of give you, to buttress your point, right?

But she's not an expert, she has no idea what she's talking about. And while Azar is the so-called Purple Rage and he seems like a bad dude who hangs out with a lot of bad guys, the reality is Verma is no better. In this next video, she starts fear-mongering about Medicare for all. I'm always very concerned that we're hearing conversations about more government, more Medicare for all. I think those kinds of things are very scary to me because we see the day-to-day problems with the government-run system.

We have a very talented team at CMS, and we can see sometimes what needs to get done, but we can't do that because some of the antiquated laws and special interest groups don't want to make those changes. I think we just talked about drug pricing, and the Part B program is a great example of that. The government says we're going to pay the average sales price. So a lot of the problems that we have in healthcare are rooted in government policy. What? I mean, none of that made sense.

The only thing that did make sense, she had like a moment of clarity where she mentioned the involvement of special interest groups. And those special interest groups are private healthcare insurers, pharmaceutical companies that are looking out for their bottom line and they have no interest in a policy like Medicare for all. Like I like how she's like, you know, we here at the government really want to lower drug prices. But you know, Medicare for all gives too much power to the government, we wouldn't be able to lower drug.

What? It was better word salad than Trump. It showed a better understanding of the content and the English language than Trump can. But when she's saying, when we hear that they want more Medicare for all, I mean more Medicare for all, it's a policy. It's not something you fill a basket with. What are you talking about? And then she says, well, you know, I just worry about government involvement. Government's pretty incompetent.

You're the government. You're in charge of it. You're saying that you're incompetent. And the special interest, she said, won't make those changes. They're not in charge. You're in charge. The special interests that are standing in your way are the very people who would be negatively impacted financially by a Medicare for all system that would do away with the middlemen

and the administrative costs that are associated with private insurers that we're dealing with today. But look, look, I don't want to get too lost in a Medicare for all discussion. We're actually going to talk about that a little more later in the show. But I do want to give you more of who she is because Verma. While she has a huge issue with government involvement, really loves taxpayers basically covering her ridiculous costs, right? So this was a story that broke earlier this week, but we didn't get to it.

So Verma's not so innocent. She tried to have taxpayers reimburse her for $47,000 worth of properties stolen during a work trip. Verma also has come under fire for spending millions of dollars on Congress. for Republican communications consultants whose jobs entailed boosting her public profile. Do we know, I think I know the answer to this, but that's taxpayer dollars for the consultants? Yes, she wants taxpayers to pay for consultants who help her out with her career. Well, I think, you know, she, you want to have, you know, a PR person, a style, wait, why are they having communications reps for themselves? For the agency, okay, I can understand that.

No, it's ridiculous. I mean, they're the definition of government waste. So they will turn around and tell the American people, we're not gonna do anything for you when it comes to lowering drug prices. We're not gonna help you out when it comes to healthcare in America. We're not gonna even attempt to fix a broken system. We don't want government to get involved, right? We wanna make sure that we don't spend too much money.

But then they'll turn around and expect taxpayers to foot the bill for their little PR stunts. Yeah, for her, it's PR stunts and jewelry that she might or might not have had stolen, that might or might not have actually cost $47,000 for price. It was the tactical cargo pants that he wanted to spend a bunch of money on. He wanted taxpayers to pay for him to be shuttled around so you can buy hand lotion. All of these sound ridiculous, but they really live it up when they're in charge, these people who are worried about government waste.

Definitely. We mentioned purple rage and hand lotion in the same story. I just want to put that out there. And just something to think about as we go to break. When we come back, we will discuss how Donald Trump is threatening how Donald Trump is threatening public colleges with federal funds. And the reason that he's giving is particularly ironic. So come right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing 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-F-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must 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 and John with you. By the way, you should check out John's show the damage report every morning, Monday through Friday. What time do you air live again?

I always catch it on our app, which you should also download because it's awesome. Yeah, that's 10 to 11 Pacific time, which is Eastern time, they'll insert it in post. One or something, I don't know, they're really far away, it's weird. All right, I wanted to do a quick announcement that I'm going to read member comments. So on the conversation tomorrow, we're gonna have a special congressional candidate on. He is running for California's 25th district, and we are gonna spend the entirety of the first half hour of the conversation to discuss his congressional run. His name is Jake Yugar.

You might be familiar with him. I thought you were gonna say it at first. And he's appearing as a guest, not as a personality, a host, producer, none of that. He's strictly on as a guest to talk about his congressional race when he's. He does that. Awesome. And you know I'll ask him tough questions, even though he is my boss. I wanna see an Anna eviscerates Jank title later.

You should watch the live show. I do it every day. All right, so tune in tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific, to catch Jank Yugar, congressional candidate for California's 25th District. Live, it'll be good. Again, it'll be tomorrow, t.yt.com slash live. All right, let's get to the comments. Lots of good member comments today, Dr. Chaos MD says, serial bungling is the brand of

Dem leadership and they're really effective at staying on brand. Look, and I think there are some people in the progressive community who, like, will preemptively criticize Democrats and maybe unfairly. But I think in this case, that's not what's happening. I think that they miscalculated what they're doing and it was a bad play. We should have a different speaker. Zeke says, I totally agree with that. Zeke says, I knew I should have made a bet.

I said to my partner yesterday that Trump will cut out of the USMCA due to impeachment. Make no mistake, Trump is behind this. He just asked McConnell to be his surrogate so he looks less childish. Okay, it's an interesting theory, but I agree with the overall message here. And then I like this handle, Grooven Granny says, I think Pelosi could be setting a trap. the ad saying McConnell refused to pass anything except tax cuts for the rich. Okay, so I hope you're right. I hope you're right and I'm wrong, but that would require effective and aggressive messaging

from Democratic leadership. And if you look at their track record, they haven't been so great with that. Yeah, I mean, one, like, it's an ad that's kind of dishonest. So you probably can't get it on TV only on Facebook, but you could do an ad that's just a bunch of videos of Trump saying, we need this trade deal, we need this. This trade deal, it's gotta happen, and then you just have McConnell saying, no, I'm not doing that anytime soon. And then you run that in his state.

Yeah. Turn off some of those Republican voters. It's not even hard, guys. That's the thing. Like good messaging isn't even hard. I don't know why Pelosi has such a difficult time with it, but it is what it is. We'll update you on that story as we find out what happens. All right, so let's move on to our next story.

Donald Trump, who just this week made headlines after giving an anti-Semitic speech in front of members of the Jewish community, has decided that he's gonna sign an executive order threatening colleges by saying that they would take away federal funding to these colleges if there's anti-Semitism on the campuses or in the curriculum. So fascinating, what does this mean? Well, they're actually going to define anti-Semitism for us, right? And one of the things that Betsy DeVos has already done is she has focused on the curriculum in Middle East studies and has argued that at universities, like Duke, for instance, they need

to restructure, reshape their Middle Eastern studies in order to be less anti-Semitic. I mean, you know where this is going. Okay, so let me give you more details. The order would empower the Department of Education to potentially withhold funding from campuses for insufficient action on anti-Semitism if they failed to combat anti-Israel rhetoric. Wait, but that doesn't sound like the same thing. It sounds like the beginning of the sentence doesn't match up with the end of the sentence. This woman- There must be a typo in that graphic.

This woman who thinks it's totally fine for universities to ignore and refuse to investigate instances of sexual assault and rape on campuses is now saying, if you don't do enough to hit people back at their interpretation or their perspective on the Israeli government, well, then we're gonna pull your federal funds. Okay, so let me give you more. No, this is crazy. I mean, this is more of what we saw in Congress with the resolution to condemn BDS, right? Now you can disagree with BDS as a movement or as a tactic to hold.

the Israeli government accountable, but we live in a country that's supposed to celebrate freedom of speech, and that is nonviolent political speech. To have members of Congress vote in favor of that resolution is disgraceful, and now what we're seeing in the executive branch, in the form of this executive order, is even more disgraceful. Yeah, it's just, it's insane that that passed. I mean, you have freedom of speech, you also, it's not specifically laid out, but freedom of economic activity.

You're not obligated to purchase any service or good. I would think Republicans would agree with that. It's fairly fundamental to a free market economy. And understand, this isn't about actual anti-Semitism, right? That's what's the most sick about it. Right, so anti-semitism is serious, and it's a real problem in this country. There was a shooting in Jersey City just yesterday, and there is some evidence showing that the assailants had an anti-Semitic bias.

and targeted a kosher supermarket. So we'll get to that story later. But look, I bring that up because there have now been several instances of hate crimes, of murders associated with anti-Semitism in this country. And the Trump administration has made excuses for it or they've been silent on it. But when it comes to political speech in order to hold the Israeli government accountable for what they're doing to Palestinians, well, that's unacceptable. We've got to pull that money.

Yeah, and I made the joke about the beginning of the sentence, the end of the sentence, it's because they're saying, we don't want anti-Semitism, which is targeting the Jewish people. And then they say that what we're going to do is we're going to stop you from criticizing Israel, which is a country, it's a government. And it leads to sick things like, okay, so right now you could get in trouble hypothetically if you speak out against the government policies of the current right-wing government of Israel. Okay, so hypothetically in a couple of years, if the government switches and it's controlled by leftists, Then hypothetically, you better switch your commentary because otherwise, if you continue

saying the same thing, that will then be criticizing the government of Israel. And so you've really got to pay attention to the results of elections, because you could lose federal funding. And also, what is- Like- How is this constitutional? God only knows, but he'll be protected in the Supreme Court. The concept of free speech that disingenuous, self-interested grifters on the right have allowed to become the dominant way we talk about free speech. to ridiculous results where you could believe in free speech on college campuses, which

means that you want people to be banned from talking about, for instance, changing the behavior of the Israeli government with a boycott. And then you turn to wanting to bring on a speaker who talks about the global elites that are rigging elections and George Soros conspiracy theories about caravans. So you're stopping legitimate criticism of a government, and then bringing on right-wing speakers who will spread anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. That's exactly what's happening. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening.

So I want to hear from our members on this story, and proletariat rising has a comment about how the Jewish community has never really asked to chime in on what they consider anti-Semitic. As usual, no one asked us Jews, what is anti-Semitic and what isn't? Also, can you not call us a nationality, thus making us easier to isolate and deport? It's a great point. It really is. And that's what I was kind of trying to allude to in the beginning of the story when I said they're trying to redefine what anti-Semitism is.

But I want to show you what's actually anti-Semitic. And that's our president, Donald Trump. Take a look. I'm a negotiator like you folks, we're negotiators. Do you want to renegotiate deals? Some of us renegotiate deals. A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You're brutal killers.

Not nice people at all, but you have to vote for them. You have no choice. You're not going to vote for Pocahontas. I would say about 99.9. Is there anybody that doesn't renegotiate deals in this room? You're not going to vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let's take 100% of your wealth away. No, no.

This room negotiates. I want to renegate this room. Even if you don't like me, some of you don't. Some of you, I don't like it all, actually. Perhaps more than any room I've ever spoken to. Maybe more. It's okay. And you're going to be my biggest supporters

because you'll be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. I stood with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I stood with your prime minister at the White House. I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty. For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interest, they partner with these people.

In my opinion, you vote for a Democrat. You're being very disloyal to Jewish people. people and you're being very disloyal against you. Over and over and over again, you see Donald Trump either spout anti-Semitic remarks himself or provide cover for anti-Semitic hate crimes in this country. That's who Donald Trump is. And for him to turn around and threaten universities, to go in and tell universities how to conduct their curriculum as if the Trump administration has even an ounce of intelligence

or intellectual curiosity or intellect overall to chime in on curriculum. I mean, it's the most ridiculous thing imaginable. And this is nothing more than the Trump administration's attempt to pander to the far right in this country, to pander to those who want to see education dismantled in this country. And who want to see him pander to Netanyahu, who has been incredible. incredibly brutal to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Yeah. Yeah, it's sick.

It's this anti-Semitic slur, basically, the concept of dual loyalty. If you say something that could be interpreted as hinting at that, you're rightfully criticized. But if you just stand on the White House lawn and say it, it's totally fine. It's cool, as long as you crack down a free speech on college campuses. It's really bizarre. I mean, it also, I don't think it works. He believes that he can use these sorts of blanket states. about the Jewish people and that will convince them to vote for him.

But that's not how really any voter works, it's not how the Jewish community works. They are independent people who look at the policies, they have ideologies, a wide range, and we can look at overtime their political activity. Right. He thinks he can sort of like twist their arm into supporting him. I don't even think he's looking to earn their support. And you're absolutely right, if you look at polling, and not just during the Trump administration, historically in America, the Jewish American community overwhelmingly supports Democratic

candidates. But what he's doing here is he's providing more of what evangelicals, his evangelical supporters want. And Jank has talked about this and what the ridiculous mythology is behind, you know, Judeo-Christianity and all that. But nonetheless, like this is, he has this tendency to go after education, right? And so he is taking a very real problem in this country and twisting it as an excuse to target and dismantle education in this country.

And one more comment from our members. By the way, if you're a member, I want to include you in the conversation. So thank you for leaving your comments. Megan E says, I mean, by calling Jewish people a nationality, aren't they basically saying American Jewish people aren't Americans? I feel like there was a leader that did that. That is exactly what they're saying. That's why when this was initially announced, I saw on Twitter, people, a lot of them in media

I was seeing, are just saying, no, my nationalities, I'm American, that's what I am. I have a religion and I have my nationality, they're not the same, but how dare you say that that's, that you get to decide what nation I belong to. Exactly. So thank you for sharing your comments. If you want to become a member and support this show and get perks like that, you can join by going to t.yt.com slash join. All right, so let's move on to a hideous story involving Donald Trump Jr., Donald Trump

Jr. Prides himself. Donald Trump Jr. prides himself on being a terrible person. And one example of that is how he likes to go to various countries and hunt exotic animals. Now I know this is a very touchy issue for some people who like hunting, but keep in mind, in this particular case that we're about to talk about, and this was revealed by journalists at ProPublica, he shot an endangered and rare animal. Here are the details. During a week-long trip to Mongolia this summer, President Trump's eldest son reportedly

went trophy hunting and bagged a rare longhorned sheep facing population decline in its Central Asia habitats. The rocky highlands of Central Asia in a remote region of Western Mongolia are home to a plummeting population of the largest sheep in the world, the Argali. The endangered species is believed or beloved, I should say, for its giant curving horns which can run over six feet in length. So I just want to show you a stock image of what one of these animals looks like. And so again, it's an endangered animal and there are supposed to be some serious penalties

for hunting these animals. You could go to jail. Well, the opposite happened, right? So, first of all, let's just acknowledge, this is what Donald Trump Jr. looks like when he's hunting, this is what he's proud of, right? Very, very bold. Okay. So did he get in trouble?

Of course not. So the Mongolian government granted Trump Jr. A coveted and rare permit to slay the animal retroactively on September 2nd after he'd left the region following his trip. It's unusual for permits to even be issued after a hunter's stay. It was one of only three permits to be issued in that hunting region, and that's according to local records. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. So. If that was Hunter Biden, can you imagine that the foreign government going to these lengths to ingratiate themselves to the son of an American politician? And I don't want to take issue with the particular word choice of one outlet. But vice saying he bagged in our galley, no, he didn't bag in our galley, he didn't stalk it across the prairie for weeks and then hide by smearing mud on his face to camouflage. He was taken by a couple of guides to a place where he could use a high-profiled rifle

to blow its head off. That's what he did. He executed an Argolly. He's not a hunter. I understand that there are some people believe that all hunting is wrong, that's fine. Growing up, my father was a hunter. My father used a bow and he hunted deer. It was difficult, and when he got one, he ate it.

Of course your dad used a bow. Of course your dad used a bow. Yeah, he didn't get a high-powered rifle and they get taken a particular spot and the guy I probably steadied his arms for him. No, but like if there were a pop quiz, a TYT pop quiz, and the question was, whose father at TYT used a bow and arrow to go go hunting? It would be your dad. Maybe, maybe.

But he did that, that's hunting. Yeah, and we're not going to get into this specific, but there are areas where there are way too many deer, they need to be called anyway, so they're going to be killed one way or another, so hunter kills them and eats them, it's more productive. But anyway, this, like the fact that the lingering remnants of these amazing unique species exist almost solely these days so that wealthy people can go and feel cool for a day because they got to blast a hole in its side, it's sick. It's making a mockery of the decreasing biodiversity that we're experiencing across the world.

But also it shows you, again, and this is a reoccurring theme, that there are two different justices, right, or justice systems, whether it's domestically or internationally. Now, in the case of Mongolia, if some random person, if let's say you decided to show up with a bow and arrow and you decided to kill this animal, you think that they would retroactively grant you a permit? I doubt it. Doubt it, right? You have no power. You work here, right? But needless dig.

But look, this isn't the first time that a political decision was made by officials in Mongolia. In fact, the process of Argolly hunting permits is all political. There you have a major Republican donor and oil executive. His name is Kevin Small. And he also was, you know, he also did the same thing and he got the same pass. Look, I guess I barely even blamed the Mongolian government. It's a rare resource that they have. They need the resources, they certainly need an in to American politicians.

and business interests, so they're going to use it. I have way more of an issue with the individuals that feel like this is a worthy use of their time. Yeah, definitely. All right. Pet the Argolly, honestly, sneak up on it and pet it. And if it bashes you with its six foot horns, well, you'll have proven how much of a man you were by getting that close to it. There's nothing, this isn't 500 years ago. This isn't, hunting isn't what it was.

It just sounds to me that some of these guys are a little insecure about their purple rage. Seriously, every post on Instagram like this that's like bragging that, like, hey, someone brought me like a little kid and put me in the right spot and said, hey, hit that one and I did it, it should just be mocking comments from now on until they are so shamed that they will never post about their exotic hunts again. All right, we got to go to break. But before we do so, I just want to make a quick announcement. So for our members, we put together all sorts of specials and exclusive members only content.

One of our favorite exclusive members only shows we put together is called Hostmates. It's a game show. And this year it was the OGs versus newbies, okay? So there you see all the different teams matched up. And we are actually going to go to break by showing you a little teaser of Hostmates Season 2. Now if you're a member, it will be available for you on December 27th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, So that's when you can watch the full thing.

But if you're not a member, please join. Not only do you get these awesome specials and exclusive content, you also help to support this show. We want to be accountable to you, our audience. So thank you for all the members who have supported us. You have no idea how much we appreciate it. 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 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 cyber criminals. 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. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content, while support. reporting independent media become a member at t yt.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment.

Welcome back to TYT and John with you. So the hostmates tease that you guys saw during the break was edited by our very own Mary Ignatova. She's an awesome editor. She's a great job with that. And I love how it was like emotional. That music was perfect. I know. And then you get that middle finger bite.

Which is great. All right, a few super chat comments. Ariel writes it and says, it needs to be emphasized that Trump has been attacking the Democrats for not moving on the US MCA for months. If they were going to agree with it, they should have picked a better time. Anna is right. Thank you. He swayed me, I'm with you.

All right, progressive life. Bernie should call out Buttigieg at the next Democratic debate, yes. We're writing an article in 2000, praising Bernie and criticizing politicians like the one Buttigieg has become. That's true. Apparently, I don't know if it was on Instagram stories. I know exactly where, but Bernie did call out Buttigieg on something recently. I think it was today, actually. So that's not something he generally does.

You're right. So maybe we're seeing a bit of a shift. Sanders is very measured in his snipes, right? Yeah, they're reactive. That's it. He doesn't, like, attack people of his own volition. No, he doesn't like go out of his way to qualify for the debate stage only to attack others. You know, like, but no, but to be fair, I actually think that's useful.

Of course, yeah. Very useful. Okay, so let me read a few TYT lives, I'm not ignoring you guys. The mathematician says, why is it so completely unsurprising that Trump's son's hobby is slaughtering endangered species, getting away with it, and then laughing at the peasants on Facebook about it? It's the American plutocracy in a nutshell, this story. Can you see something crazy?

This is crazy. Pay attention to mediate. Does any, how many of you really believe, now this is crazy? How many of you really believe that if somewhere in the world you could pay to hunt humans, there wouldn't be prominent Republicans doing it? Okay, let's not give anyone any ideas, yeah, that's really scary. Do you really believe? Are you sure that they wouldn't?

Don Jr. wouldn't be like, wouldn't get drunk one day and boasts, but I could hunt down a person. Guarantee they would. I mean, they've certainly supported people who do, right? All right. And that, by the way, they're doing that right now in Yemen. Yeah. I mean, they do it in their own way. That's true.

Yeah, but Don Jr. never wants to go to the military or anything. Oh, yeah. And then finally, Razor, the Israeli government lobby are trying to make any criticism of Israel of Israel's treatment of Palestinians as anti-Semitic. It's a disgrace. Criticizing Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is based on Israel's behavior and is not a criticism of Jewish religion. I totally agree with you, right?

Look, we hold every other government accountable when there's wrongdoing. And so this is not a commentary on Jewish people or the people of Israel. It's strictly about policy by the Israeli government. So- And by the way, there's gonna be an amazing demonstration of that in the event finally when you see a shift in government policy there. Suddenly, there will be more support from the left broadly defined for Israeli government policy when they actually change. And it'll be weird because they will be just as Jewish as the right wingers they replaced. Yeah, all right, well let's move on. By the way, I mean, just to prove it's all about policy. I mean, our favorite candidate, the person who I endorsed on this show is Jewish.

I mean, like it's- Convenient cover. I guess, yeah, some of my best friends. Anyway, let's move on. So Tucker Carlson, who is a disgraceful racist, who's given a giant platform on Fox News, along with other disgraceful racists, brought on one other racist. He's the editor of the conservative city journal, and if you haven't heard of it, Don't blame yourself, most people haven't. He comes on the show, and they're having a discussion about Representative Alexandria Ocasio

Cortez's district. That's the 14th district in New York. And what they wanted to do was draw attention to how filthy that district allegedly is. This video is so gross, but this is what you can expect on Fox News. Take a look. We sent a camera to Ocasio-Cortez's congressional district and found that you won't be surprised to hear. it is filled with garbage, litter and trash piled in public parks, on the sidewalks that have been overtaken by the homeless, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

How can someone who claims to care about the environment so much he's going to ban air travel represent a district this dirty? That's a question we're posing tonight to Seth Barron. He's an editor at City Journal and he joins us tonight. So Seth, we're kind of sorts of irony on the show. But if you claim to care about the environment, you think that the little piece of America you're responsible for that you represent in the Congress would be clean, but hers isn't. Why? Well, part of the reason is because her district is actually one of the least American districts in the country. And by that, I don't mean that it's not part of America, but it's occupied by relatively few American citizens.

A very high percentage of her district is, in fact, illegal aliens. Now, the way they inhabit housing there is such that they live in a lot of illegal spaces like basements, and many people live there. So they wind up producing a lot of garbage that the landlords don't want thrown out normally. So hence you wind up with a lot of garbage on the streets. You have illegal food vendors pouring their pig grease into the gutters. Yeah, I mean, I worked out there. It can be a little gross. So let's obviously talk about facts to debunk the nonsense that that disgusting person is spewing.

So first off, there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that the majority of people living in that district are undocumented immigrants. He has no idea. No idea, right? Percentage, how many? He has no idea whatsoever. And look, he was brought on to the show specifically to say what he said, right? And Tucker Carlson knows what he's doing, right? It's all about doing what it takes to lead to like a visceral reaction, like the reaction

of disgust when it comes to immigrants. That's what they're trying to do here. So first off, what's the actual data about that district? Census Bureau data from 2018 shows that just over 45% of the population in congressional district 14 was foreign born with the latest share of the largest share of the district. of the foreign-born population coming from Latin America and Asia. And again, that's according to the census, right? But the Census Bureau data also does not show any link between the makeup of the community's

population and the state of the district, and there is no indication that the foreign-born individuals or the majority of the foreign-born individuals in that district are undocumented immigrants. There's no evidence to show that. In fact, I would argue that that district has quite a few people. Puerto Ricans living there. And so Puerto Ricans are Americans, right? But they won't mention that.

They have no idea. Foreign born does not mean undocumented. It doesn't mean not a citizen. Theoretically, if Trump and Melania ever actually lived together, half of the Lincoln bedroom would be foreign born. I guess that's why there's filet fish wrappers all over the place. That must be why, right? No, he has no idea whatsoever.

And importantly, they decided we're gonna send cameras to AOC's district and do what exactly, film every street and see what percentage had trash on it, or more likely go and find literally any trash they can find. Did they go to other districts and see how it compares to Republican districts? No. Here's what they did. They gave a guy a camera and they said, go find me trash, I can do that literally anywhere. I can do that in the kitchen in a couple minutes if you'll wait.

That's not hard to do, it's not scientific. It's New York, there's trash on the sidewalks in every district. That's what New York does, that's what they do. And it's not, like, that's how it works. People take their trash in bags outside on the sidewalk and it gets picked up, right? Am I wrong? I've seen it all over New York, including the Ritzie areas. So like, this is such a dumb story and it's a dumb way to go after AOC, right?

Like they will do anything to try to smear her, to try to go after her. They're obsessed with her. And the reason why they're obsessed with her is because she's powerful, she's influential, and they know it. She's young, she's smart, she's sharp, I mean, you see her in these hearings, I mean, her line of questioning to Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was incredible. She had the best line of questioning that, you know, got Michael Cohen on the record to say that that Donald Trump has committed fraud, both in the case of filing his taxes, where he deflated

his assets, and also in the case of inflating his assets in order to obtain loans that he wouldn't otherwise qualify for. I'm bringing that up because, look, she was the one who did her research, she did her homework, and there's a movement that she's a powerful movement in this country that she's part of. They're afraid of her. And so even though this story is just swimming with Xenophobic. and racism and hate, understand that the underlying issue that's getting under their skin is that progressives are slowly but surely becoming more powerful in this country.

And that's something to be proud of. Yeah, everything you said about AOC is true, but our office is messy, so I don't trust her. But so it is dumb if you want to actually believe that Tucker Carlson is one of these new Republican personalities, it's all about logic and reason and debate. And they care about the facts, not feelings. No, it's not that at all. It's him selectively editing footage to make it seem as if one area is dirty. And that somehow proves that we shouldn't care about carbon concentrations in the atmosphere.

Makes no sense whatsoever. There's no logic there. It's a deception. It's deception to anyone who happens to watch a show and his core audience as well. But I disagree that it's dumb because, look, in terms of the conservative worldview and their values, If you read George Lakoff or whatever, they do value cleanliness, they're afraid of becoming sick, those sorts of things, both literally and metaphorically, those are things that they value. And so in your rhetoric, if you imply that something is dirty or that it's like impure

or something like that, they do actually find that very effective. And that's why Tucker Carlson brings on guests to say that immigrants are dirty. That's why he himself has literally said that immigration makes America dirtier. It is racism, it is xenophobia, but it's carefully targeted. against people who love to eat that stuff up. Right, and I mean if anyone would have anything to say about trash, it would be literal, not literal, but it would be human garbage like Tucker Carlson and the guest that he had on. Look, I, we gotta keep our eyes on the prize, we gotta stay focused, you're right, you're

absolutely right, what they're doing and their messaging is effective, but don't forget what their audience consists of. Yes, they're the top cable news channel. But when you really look at the grand scheme of things and you compare numbers to cable news, the top cable news channel, and let's say some of the top digital media outlets, right? I mean, digital media is really outperforming cable news. And I know it's difficult to compare the two because there's different rating systems. We're talking about clicks versus, you know, Nielsen ratings or whatever.

But their audience is incredibly old, right? Young people have no interest in cable news overall, but certainly no interest in Fox News. They know they're losing, and this is the reason why they lash out like this. And it's easy to get angry and frustrated, and I feel that as well. But you gotta take a step back, and I can't believe I'm saying this because I'm the most pessimistic person on this entire network. But to me, this signals were becoming more and more effective and they're scared. Maybe.

I will say specifically, as a general point, I agree with you, specifically for here, I know AOC was tweeting about this after she was attacked that way and she was saying, this is why I've debated in the past going on Fox and this is why I will not, because I'm not going to use my name and my platform and all that to help generate ad revenue for an explicitly racist and xenophobic network. And I generally agree with that. I believe, for instance, I supported Bernie Sanders doing a town hall on Fox News. I'm not concrete like set and believing that that's always the best idea.

But I think that's one thing, this is what Tucker Carlson's show is. His mission is white supremacy, that's all it is. It sickenes me when people tie themselves into mental knots to try to say, oh, all of a sudden he's sort of saying the right thing, he sounds sort of populist, he's deceiving people, it is a con, that's all it is. The thing inside of the box is white supremacy, that's all it is. That's what his show is for, he brings people on who he thinks will help him advance that agenda, and that is why no one should be going on his show.

And I know some of you have people that you like that go on a show, please tweet at them to stop. They shouldn't do it anymore because this is what they're supporting. And the better people they are, the better name they have, the more respect that they command, they are helping to normalize Tucker Carlson's brand of white supremacy, that's all. And so I know that people think, well, I'll go in there and I'll change some hearts and minds or whatever, yeah, maybe hypothetically, but in the meantime, you're doing a lot of damage. And so if you have people that you like that are going on that show, it is on you not to blindly

follow their lead, but to advise them to stop supporting someone who is trying to enshrine in white supremacy. That was an epic rant and a very good one. Oh, was it ranting? I was just speaking. No, no, rant is a good thing. That was good. Thank you.

All right, well, we got to take a break. When we come back, we're going to switch gears a little bit and talk about another shooting that occurred this time in Jersey City, New Jersey. And later, we will give you the details on Pete Buttigieg's consulting work with McKinsey. Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.