The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - December 6th, 2019

Episode Date: December 7, 2019

Will Trump testify? Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, David Dayen, 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Drop it. All right, Power, Power Panel, Jane here, John Iderall.

David Day and everybody, great to have you back, David. And we're looking forward to a lot of show today for you guys. By the way, of course, David is from the American Prospect, and it's always great to have of you here, man. Thank you very much. So now, we've got Trump doing curious things, Devin Nunes doing curious things, and then news about the campaigns as usual. So lately, and this is a good day for it, I'm on the warpath, I hesitated before saying,

is it really warpath? Yeah, I think it is. how the media is smitten with Buttigieg and refuses to write anything negative about him. And if we have a comical example of it today, so you don't want to miss that story. And we'll do a Wibber on it. What if it was Bernie rule? Okay.

I haven't heard that term before. I've used that a lot, but I haven't heard that term. Yeah, that's because I invented it. I invented the word fake. Yeah, trademark. Yeah, so we found out that Bernie worked for Blackwater for a few years, but he says he has an NDA, so hands off. You can't talk about it.

I can't talk about it. I can't talk about it, yep. Yes, all right, let's do it, let's get started. Yeah, just before we jump into the first story, just a quick little update to the Duncan Hunter story, because he had pled guilty, he has now announced that he will resign. So he's going to be transitioning out, that is obviously good news, he was terrible, but one One interesting little note, and I think possibly just a little bit of not corruption, it's not illegal or anything like that, but just a little bit of Duncan Hunterness on his way out.

He announced that he will be resigning after the holidays. I think, well, why would you do that? You're leaving, you can't do any votes, why not at least go and be with your family, and that's it? Well, somebody pointed out, and he's not proven that this is why, but if he waits until after January 1st, when they come back from the recess, he gets another month of his congressional salary. Yeah, you got extra paycheck. And if he's facing a fine of half a million dollars potentially, that wouldn't hurt. Johnny Isaacson is leaving the Senate, did the same thing. He's leaving at the end of a year. Yeah. Well, it could also affect elections. So I, you know,

but I don't know if they're going to hold a special election on that, etc. So we don't know how that's going to work out. But Amar Kampa-Najar is running in that district, a wonderful progressive. So KampaCampaign.com. Check them out. See if you like what you. what he's got. And so I don't know if his chance are better or worse now that Duncan Hunter is leaving, but I don't- Daryl Issa is running in that seat. Really? Yeah.

You really? Issa moved to the Duncan Hunter district, so he's gonna run- Oh my God, okay. Well, see that's what I like though. If guys like Amar can take down two progressives for the-pros, I mean two conservatives for the price of one, that would be amazing. So I'm looking forward to that matchup if it happens. All right, okay, why don't we launch into the news starting off with just a little update and a bit of speculation about impeachment. We're mostly done with the whole hearings thing on impeachment. Nancy Pelosi says that the charges are coming.

We do have to wait a little bit. But in the meantime, there was some interesting speculation on Fox News about how this whole thing might develop. And one really dramatic possibility was suggested by Judge Apolitano. We're going to have that for you in just a second. But before we get to that, first of all, the judge who has been critical of Donald Trump on this issue, does he believe that there is enough evidence for the charges that are coming soon? If you ask me if there is enough evidence on which to base articles of impeachment, the answer is yes, because impeachment is essentially political. If you ask me, will they get more evidence if they wait to hear from Secretary Pompeo, director Mulvaney, former ambassador. that are Bolton, the answer is yes. You'd have to go to court to get that.

Yes. Apparently in the caucus yesterday, she said we can do that, but it's going to take a lot of time. Right. So, Napolitano they're saying that hypothetically, some of the witnesses who have refused to come forward, some of which have been blocked by Donald Trump himself, while at the same time complaining that the people who have direct information aren't there, he's the one blocking them, should they theoretically wait to get more evidence? I think that's an interesting question.

I think that they're sort of damned if they do, damned if they don't. The fact that they're rushing ahead with impeachment is being attacked by the Republicans, but if they were to drag it out closer to the election, they'd be attacked for that as well. And they'd be attacked actually more for that. So if they said, hey, listen, what are we going to do? We've got to wait for the courts to decide whether Bolton and Mulvaney, et cetera, have to testify. The Republicans would cry and cry and say, oh, my God, you're dragging this out through the entire election process.

And now that will be in the middle of the conventions when we're in the trial for the Senate. It'll be an unbelievable mess. And now, so they go, okay, fine, we'll hurry up. They hurry up, and then the Republicans bring on their only lawyer they could find in the country that would halfway support them in impeachment. And Jonathan Turley says, well, my main problem isn't that he shouldn't be impeached, it's that you guys are doing it too quickly. And it's messing with my dog.

It's a Goldilocks situation, right? Yeah, yeah. It's too hot or too cold. Yeah, and that is, this is exactly why the Republicans don't want to talk about substance. That's why they're distracting you with, oh, two, you. Too quick, too slow, too quick, too slow. Well, did he actually do it? I don't want to talk about that.

Kevin McCarthy assiduously avoided that question recently. He's the leader of the Democrats in the House. If the leader of the Democrats in the House is avoiding that question, it's a pretty bad question for the Republicans. Yeah, and so we talked about a couple of people that hypothetically could have testified already, but what about new witnesses that could testify and some potentially on behalf of Donald Trump, who will defend him? If you go to a Senate trial, who testifies on behalf of the president?

Himself. You believe that could have? I do. I think it'll be the most dramatic, legal, political event in the history of our era, with the president of the United States testifying under oath in front of the chief justice on the full Senate and a 200 million people watching the television. Thank you. So, what do you think? Any chance?

No. No, I think there is a chance. You do? Yeah, I do. Do you watch the Supreme Court? So, first of all, brilliant gambit by Napolitano. So the most dramatic television event may be in history. That's true.

200, 250 million people watching. That's true. It would be like the Super Bowl. And what does Donald Trump be bigger than the Super Bowl? And what is Donald Trump most obsessed with? Ratings. He's constantly talking about, oh, no, the Mueller testimony was a disaster, low rating. Well, Donnie, this would be your golden opportunity to get the greatest ratings of all

time. Even if you run out of office, you get to say I had the best ratings of anyone that has ever lived. Whoa, that's compelling, okay? And for the rest of us, we think, no, that's mental. Not this make any sense, who cares about the ratings? But there's one person who cares a lot, it's Donald Trump. And look, David, I think you could go to him into it.

I think you could. You could go to him into it, but I mean, when's the last time Donald Trump showed up on turf that wasn't his own, right? He goes to red states. He goes to these very, you know, sanctioned meetings, these rallies. He goes to Twitter. When he's in public, he whims out. When he's standing next to Macron, he whims out.

When he's standing next to Trudeau, he wimps out. He's not going to do this. So, David, that's a great point. In fact, I'll back up your point by. mentioning how Donald Trump ran from the debate when Megan Kelly might be one of the moderators. You remember that? Exactly. And he was like, oh, no, I'm gonna do a thing to raise money for veterans later, by the way,

he tried to keep the money. But anyway, I mean, if he's scared of Megan Kelly, he ain't gonna go testify in front of all these folks. But, but, I mean, look, we can start hashtag Chicken Donnie now. Absolutely. Oh, we've actually got something for you. So really fast, I got interested in the possibility of him testifying before the Napolitano thing. And so I asked people to just retweet if you want him to testify. And it was pretty popular.

But I think that we need to be a little bit more direct than that. Napolitano goading him is one thing. But he spends all of his time on Twitter. So now it's on you. So I want you to tweet, very simple tweet. Just hey, at real Donald Trump, do you have the hashtag testes to testify? Will you actually go into the lion's den? What a strong, bold move.

Can you imagine him answering questions? Like any of them, but like now, how excited would Kamala Harris be? No, he wouldn't answer questions from the Senate. The Senate, they're the jurors, right? He would have to answer questions from the House managers. He would have to answer questions from Schiff. He would have to answer questions from Nadler. I wonder when this would be.

That's who he would have to answer questions. I wonder if it'd be in April. Okay, so look, guys, another angle to pursue here is, telling Donald Trump, your advisors don't want you to do it because every one of his advisors will be like, no, oh my God, no, whatever you do, don't testify. Do not go under oath and testify on national TV about what you did or didn't do. But the other thing to go to talk to him about is, do your advisors think you're stupid? Do they think you can't handle it?

I guess they think you're weak. Yeah. And they think that maybe you're lying. So do you think that's what Napolitano was doing? Do you think he was playing a mind game here? I think so. Maybe. I think so.

I mean, he's been messing with him on this issue. Right. No, no. He was an instrumental tool in the whole Tucker Carlson, Shep Smith thing, remember? Yeah. He was basically one of the weapons wielded in that war. No, I hear you. And it's obvious that Napolitano is not on friendly terms with Trump at this point.

But I have been watching what he's saying very closely. I do believe that he genuinely thinks these are impeachable offenses. and being a true conservative actually does care about the Constitution. These are his, you know, if you said to me, Sean Hannity, I would say, oh, he's driven by loyalties and whatever power play he's doing, et cetera, and you can go down the line. But with Napolitano, right or wrong, I've gotten the sense that he's earnest about this and that he thinks like, no, guys, this is legally obvious. That's what he's been saying all along.

So I'm not going to agree to this, whatever force you're playing here, but he will turn around and be very conservative on other issues. So he's not remotely left-wing or not even remotely moderate. So I think he genuinely does mean it, although at this point since he genuinely said, I think this is problematic, then Trump attacked him, and then there was bad blood, right? So it's a little bit of both, but mainly I think he's being honest. So on the other hand, I do think that he is at this point, since there is a little bit of bad blood, I think that's. him goading him. Right? And it's a really smart way of goading him.

And just for context, back, I guess it would have been more than a year ago, I saw video of Napolitano on Fox News. They were talking about him potentially going and testifying to Mueller before Mueller. He told him not to talk to Mueller, to do it in written, if at all. Right. Yeah. So didn't he say that he was thinking, he was strongly considering testifying when Pelosi Sort of goaded him into this, and he was asked in the Nadler hearing, do you want to send somebody?

They didn't do it. So, I mean, the history here is that he chickens out. Yes. Yeah, 100%. But so the last thing out of it is, if he, if and when he chickens out, if that's what happens. But I still think there's some chance that we could go to him into it. But if he does chicken out, the Democrats have to be really on their toes and frame it as we gave him all of the opportunity. to show up.

He chose to run. He did. He can't make the defense that this process has not been fair anymore. Look, this is not a criminal trial, you know, so you're not endangering yourself in that sense in any way, shape, or form. So just show up, make your case. If you don't make your case, we gave you all the opportunity in the world, and you ran because you're guilty, and everybody knows it.

In fact, Donald Trump himself has said in criminal trials, which is a different matter and more serious. He said, if you use the Fifth Amendment, that means you're guilty. So if you don't show up to your own trial, by Donald Trump's definition, it means he is definitely guilty. Yeah. Well, why don't we go to our first break? When we come back, we're going to have a couple of Joe Biden's stories for you. He is picking fights with everyone. There was the pushups earlier this week, and now he's taking shots at AOC and young climate activists. We'll have that for you. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-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. or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew

about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training

or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. All right, back on a young Turks. Let me read some comments for you guys. Let's start with members.

TYt.com slash join to become a member. I stole McConnell Shell writes in when TYT. I always give people that I haven't heard that a moment to laugh. So he writes in, when the TYT chant starts on the entrance theme song on Friday, I chant too. I love the TYT chant. Well, thank you. We appreciate that. You could use the shell actually as kind of like a bugle horn while you're chanting.

I bathe in a very stable geniuses tears writes in. These arguments are pointless anyway. McConnell will not allow a trial in the Senate. It's a no-win situation, he'll hide in a shell and take the rest of the Senate with him. I'm gonna stop right there, one, because we already have a shell. And two, because that's actually not true. So McConnell has said that they would have a trial, which I found to be super interesting.

You know, it's like an interesting reason why that the members of the Senate have to sit there as jurors and say nothing six days a week. And the timing of this would be a month before Iowa. So you have Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and all the other people running for president stuck in Washington weeks before the first primary of the season. And you don't think Mitch McConnell knows that, and he wants to do that? Yeah, well, the second reason is, I honestly believe he's keeping his own political options open, because somewhere in that shell is an eject button. And so- That's also true. Right.

He's polling it between 26 to 36% in Kentucky, McConnell this. So he's in a whirl of hurt. There's gonna come a point in the spring where he goes, well, Bonnie, it was nice knowing you. Eject. So him immediately coming out and saying, yes, there will be a trial, was definitely an interesting note, okay? So Ruth M says, I stand on my head to have Trump testify under oath, no less, okay? And Carla Fornia writes in, loving today's power panel, David and John, two of my favorite

journalists, flanking the best of the best and news analysts, Cenk. Oh, well, thank you. We all thank you. That's very kind of you. leave on one last one, the math magician on Twitter says, the great David Dan and the one and only Johnny I. Congrats on his marriage, by the way. Thank you very much. Writing hour one today for the power panel with Jane. Great. Yes. So congrats, John. I don't think I said it on air. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah, there was a post game yesterday.

If you're a member, Anna Kasparian and I, we talked a bit about the wedding, also a little bit about hers too, but we had a lot of fun. Yeah, TYT. I will, because I wasn't in that post game. No. Okay, all right. So t-y-t.com slash join. I love looking at members-only content that I haven't seen. So. It was a lot of fun. Okay, why don't we jump into a little bit of Joe Biden?

Joe Biden was being interviewed by Axios and he was asked about his position on Medicare for all. And he's gonna answer, that's important, but also look at who he throws under the bus while doing so. Medicare for all. Do you think that's poll? The party's not there. The party's not there at all. Some of your opponents are. Yeah, but the party's not there.

You know the numbers. What do you think of? You guys got it all wrong about what happened and what it happened. You sound like Trump. Yeah, I do. No, look, you know, it's not fake. It's just bad judgment. You all thought that what happened was the party moved extremely to the left after Hillary.

AOC was the new party. She's a bright, wonderful person. But where's the party? Come on, man. So there, look, he says the party's not there. like Medicare for All, obviously we've got the actual numbers on that. But I think more importantly, he was not asked about AOC, nothing about AOC, the squad, anything like that, nothing about the future of the Democratic Party.

But in answering a question about Medicare for All, he, of his own volition, came up with AOC's name and decided to try to assert that he, not she, represents the future path for the Democratic Party. Yeah, I actually want to get the numbers right away. Sure, okay. But as you do, John, I want the audience to understand that Biden's not necessarily talking about the voters. There's a difference between Democratic Party voters and the Democratic Party.

So after you hear the numbers, then let's talk about that. Exactly. And remember, he said the party's not there. He said, come on, you know, you look at the numbers. 70% said that they supported providing Medicare for All, also known as single payer healthcare for Americans. 42% of respondents said they strongly supported the proposal, while 28% said that they somewhat support it. Now obviously, 70% in a poll is high, but I want you to bear in mind, I did not

just give you the results for the Democrats there. That's the overall number. That includes Republicans too, 70%, with 42% strongly supporting the proposals. What else in American politics the 42% of voters strongly support? And Joe Biden wants you to forget about all that. Now those results mirrored a Reuters poll release in August, which found again 70% supported Medicare for all. And just so that you understand that this AOC comment, it wasn't a one of, Biden has questioned Ocasio-Cortez's broader influence in the past, saying over the summer that while she is a brilliant, bright woman, she has only won a primary.

Asserting that it was so easy to win in her general election then, it doesn't really count for anything. I mean, how influential could she possibly be? I mean, I'm partially fascinated by Biden wearing like a sweater under a suit jacket, but Moving on from that, I think Jank made the absolute right point. There's a difference between the voters and the party. When he's saying the party is not there, he's talking about the blob of consultants and whatnot that are around the Democrats and also the Democrats in Congress who are having trouble

passing a health care bill or a drug pricing bill that's worth a darn. So, you know, there's this victory lap. being taken right on july 18th get excited this is big for the summer's biggest adventure i think i just smurf my pants that's a little too excited sorry smurfs only dinners july 18th right now uh because comla harris left the race because warren has had trouble and and they've they've pinpointed medicare for all see medicare for all it's like you fly close to it you get burned uh it's it's it's it's There's a concerted effort to blame Medicare for all for the troubles of those campaigns. And so when you say the party's not there, that's coming from the party.

That's who's trying to do that. Yeah. So what I want to do is look up the most recent poll for you guys, and I just did. So I had it in my memory, but I wanted to confirm. So John gave you a poll that is a very fair representation of where Medicare for all has. stood throughout all these different times. And so they've tried to attack Medicare for all in the beginning, in the middle, but now at this point, they're voraciously attacking it.

A Republican group is spending $6 million against it, and hence in favor of Biden and Buttigieg in the primary states. Insurance and hospital coalition is spending a million dollars in Iowa and New Hampshire. That's the partnership for America's healthcare future. Half of all political spending in Iowa in a certain period of time, I believe a week or two weeks, was by that group. And this is during the primary, right? This is during when all the campaigns have their ads out. Half of all political spending came from just that group pushing an anti-health reform.

Forget Medicare for All. They're against the public option. They're against Biden's idea, too. Yes. But certainly those ads hurt Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren the most because they're for Medicare for all. But now, let's get to the main issue of, well, how's it polling? Well, the latest New York Times UGov poll had it at a lower number after all of these attacks. And by the way, remember, it's not just those ads, it's every Republican against it,

and almost the entire Democratic Party against it except for Warren and Sanders. So after those, that three-way attack on Medicare for All, they finally brought it down to 55% in one poll, okay, in that poll that we're talking about. So that is for the whole country. The fact that it was stood a barrage of millions of dollars of propaganda and still stands at 55% is amazing. But wait, it gets better. Independence back it at a clip of 64%.

Still. Yes, still to this day, okay? And the only reason why it's at 55% because it's lost all Republicans support because all of the corporate Republicans, Democrats, et cetera, are saying, no, no, no, no. Hey, Bernie and AOC like that. So you don't want health care. They're like, oh, you're right, I don't want health care. Okay, so then how about Democratic Party voters?

Because in this case, when in regards to Biden, that's the most important one. 81%. So when Joe Biden's not there? Yeah, when Joe Biden says the party's not there, he doesn't mean the voters. The voters are completely there, 81% there. No, he's talking about all of us corrupt corporate Democrats, we're not there because we take money from the insurance companies, the hospitals, the drug companies. So the Democratic Party is betraying its voters, yes, but the party apparatchiks, the operators,

the corrupt people who run the party, we're not there. So ha ha, voters, we're not going to give it to you. Well, there's one set of folks that are still going to weigh in on that. They're the voters. So you got a primary coming up, Joe, you keep going in that direction. Let's see how it turns out for you. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't know if Biden doesn't get what the criteria should be for establishing

who either should be or will be the future of the party. But what you've pointed out, that dichotomy between deciding on policy based on where the biggest donors or the supportive industries are coming from or the leadership of the DNC or whatever versus actually following the will of the voters, that is just another way that AOC is clearly the future of the Democratic Party. I would defy you to come up with an area where Joe Biden better represents where the party will be in five, 10, or 50 years than AOC does. And I would just say this, I understand there's still a lot of factions in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party could not be

luckier than to have AOC represent where the party is going. If they had a handful of AOCs, 50 AOCs, 300 AOCs, they could not be better positioned to win elections across the country over the next few decades. And it's telling that her name popped out, like immediately. He couldn't help but think of her. Right? I mean, the brand of AOC is extremely strong, such that she's in the heads of all these corporate Democrats, including Biden. Exactly.

I'm going to read you the last line from the New York Times article. And by the way, the New York Times article kind of buried the lead on their own poll. They mainly talked about the wealth tax. They didn't even have Medicare for All in the title. They mentioned it later on in the article, oh, by the way, Medicare for All is intensely popular. So, in fact, it was more popular than the wealth tax, which is astoundingly popular. So in the last section, they say, and Medicare for All doesn't divide Democrats the way that the wealth tax does. Democrats of all ages, races and education and levels support the policy by similar margins.

So all of the Democratic voters are united in favor of Medicare for All, but the party says, we don't give a damn about you. We're not going to give you that. We're going to give whatever the donors want. So be super clear about what Biden and Buttigieg are saying. And it's amazing that when you have a poll like that that shows that virtually everyone who could possibly take part in this primary supports Medicare for all except the vast majority of the candidates on the stage. And think about that. Think about in what rational democracy would, at its height, I think overall in the different times, 27 candidates. And now, look, some of them are for Medicare for All that are not just Warren and Sanders.

Actually, Andrew Yang's in favor of it, and there were some others, right? But at least 20 were opposed to Medicare for all, even though 81% of the voters in their primaries wanted. Think about how extraordinary that is because their whole career rides on it. They could be president of the United States, and they still go, no, no, I'd rather screw over the voters and take my chances in losing that actually support something that my donors don't support. It's kind of amazing to me on it is that you had Bernie go out and announce the Medicare for

All Act. And every senator that was thinking of running for president runs behind him in that press conference, right? Gillibrand, Booker, Harris, Warren, all of them, right? And that was before they had to face donors and try to figure out how they were going to get money without doing a grassroots campaign. And everyone who had to face donors then, who was in that picture, which you could call up, ran in the other direction.

It's really quite telling. Well, why don't we turn to another aspect of Joe Biden that's causing us in troubles recently. A sunrise movement posted a video of a young climate activist talking with Joe Biden about his concerns over Biden's position on climate change, and it did not go well for the former vice president. I'm Aaron. What I'm wondering is, how can young folks trust that you're going to fight for us on climate change when your climate advisor, your hand-picked climate advisor, served on the board of a fossil fuel company? That is not the person who's doing my advisor. And by the way, yeah. Heather's work for us in the administration.

No, no, I know. But she also worked. Yeah. Look at my record. Yeah. Look at my record. Just look at the record. I have President Biden. Right. President Biden. Well, I tell you what, if you look at my record and you still doubt about my commitment, then you should vote for somebody else. I've looked at your climate plan. Why doesn't it ban fracking? Well, I wouldn't ban fracking because you can't ban fracking right now. You've got to transition away from it.

Look, you're going to ban fracking all across America right now, right? I would love to. Yeah, I'd love to, too. I'd love to make sure we don't use any oil or gas, period. Now, now. Is it possible? Yes. Well, you ought to vote for something.

Okay, and he said yes to that question, despite the fact that he could have been choked at any second. The body language is amazing. Look, Biden is old school. Do whatever you want with how he touches people, right? And so that's a guy, by the way. You know, say he gets a lot of critique for touching women that way, but he also touches guys that way. It doesn't make it any better, by the way. But look, this activist who's trying to get in his face is leading away from him.

He's like, okay, all right, dude, stop. Really fast. I just last weekend just got married, and when I talk with my now wife, we don't talk that intimately with the hands on the shoulders. Okay, but look, that's a tiny, tiny part of the story. Back to the substance. So that's why I love the Sunrise Movement does this. That's exactly what you should do.

If you're a citizen, whether you're part of any activist group or not, go ask the candidates questions, whether they're presidential candidates or any other candidates. You know why? Because it's your government. They're supposed to be your representatives. They're not the boss of you, you're the boss of them. And so look, I'll give Biden credit on this. He keeps telling people not to vote for him, right?

And he says, look, this is my position. But in seriousness, like he says, that was almost Biden as, no, guys, it's not a joke. It's not a joke. Okay, I'm being serious. No, I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. Okay.

But seriously, he says, look, if you want to end fracking right now, I'm not your your guy. It's true. He's not your guy. He's like, I'll, you know, I want to do it at some indetermined time, but certainly not in my presence. I mean, he didn't say that, to be fair, you saw the tape. But that is his attitude.

I mean, he told his wealthy donors, nothing will fundamentally change. But what he said was, we can't do it, right? Oh, I'd love to, but it turns out we can't. I checked with somebody and we actually can't do it. I checked with the person who's the head of a liquefied natural gas company who's his advisor. The truth is you can do it. We have the technological capability. We actually, at the prospect, just ran this entire issue called the Green New Deal, which

is a practical application. We did 22 stories on how you can actually accomplish a Green New Deal, that it's possible with today's technology, with today's financing, all we need is the political will. And so what he was saying was, oh, no, you need a transition. You need a bridge fuel. No, you don't. We have the ability right now to build out a zero carbon economy. And he's just wrong about that.

So I wanna tell you guys, if you wanna read that, it's prospect.org slash green new deal. We'll have the link down below if you're watching this later on YouTube or Facebook, so you could just click on it. And if only Biden was running for a position that had a lot of power, then maybe he could do something about it, but he's only running for president of the United States. United States. Yeah, that whole thing about using natural gas as a bridge fuel for 10 years or 20 or 50 years in some of these plans, that is actually a very good idea if you have a controlling stake in a natural gas company and you wanna make money for the rest of your natural life. It's good for that.

Like Biden's major advisor. Exactly, exactly. And I wanna be clear, she's made over a million dollars according to the reporting by being on the board of that company. Then Biden does hire her to be the top climate advisor. And so when he said in the beginning, no, she's not, that's not the person advising me. He was wrong. It is the person that's advising him.

And he seemed to verify that later. You saw the exchange for yourself, but he said, oh yeah, she worked for us in the administration. That's true. That's also bad. That's not good either. She went to a natural gas company, which is worse. She went through the revolving door. She was in a position of power and then went to industry.

Yeah, and if you're choosing an informal advisor specifically on climate change, like, I don't know, I'd go for like a scientist maybe. Do you know how many people I'd have to go through to get to anyone who had even been affiliated with a natural gas company? Yeah, no, I mean, we just literally LOLed at that. I mean, in a democracy, if you didn't have the corrupting influence of money, your top advisor on climate change would obviously be a scientist. And in this political landscape, that's so funny that two progressives laughed out loud,

like that a politician would have a scientist as an advisor. Yeah, so here's the issue with the whole natural gas. First, one bit more of information about Biden from the Sunrise Movement, and then here's why him being wrong on that issue specifically is so bad. So overall, in case you missed it, earlier this week, Sunrise Movement released their scores on climate change for the top three candidates, giving Bernie an A-minus, Warren a B-minus, and Biden a never-before-seen F-minus, and recommending parent-teacher conference time. You haven't seen my report card from middle school. That's true. Ben Mangwitz has a story of how one of his uncles, who then wound up becoming a legendary director, got an F-minus was.

And he went to ask the professor like, Jesus Christ, what happened? He's like, well, I couldn't give you a G. Yeah, I mean, look, they're going to be scoring other candidates. We'll see if they pass out any Gs or anything like that. And you can get more information on the website. They break it down in incredible detail about how they came to these scores. And they said, by the way, all of the candidates can improve. And they're not endorsing anyone yet, so just bear that in mind.

But here's the issue specifically on natural gas. New data shows that natural gas, which is less polluting than coal, but still a fossil fuel, has become the biggest driver of emissions growth globally in recent years. Now, global emissions from coal, the worst polluting of the fossil fuels, unexpectedly declined by about 0.9% in 2019, although that drop was more than offset by strong growth in the use of oil and natural gas around the world. And if you break it down over the course of 2000 to 2018 for the different sorts of fossil fuels, you can see that coal did keep going up and then it's sort of moderated itself.

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Well, I mean, just to be clear, what that's showing is that activists have done a really good job of closing coal plants. I mean, it's not that coal got cleaner somehow. It's that we've retired a ton of coal plants around the world. And that's what moderated that, it's action that has moderated that, but a lot of that has been moved into the natural gas area. And so you almost see a symbiotic relationship as coal goes down, natural gas goes up. Yeah, and to be, to add to that, it's, when we said we shut it down, it got shut

down because it became unaffordable and couldn't keep up with market conditions. Particularly around natural gas was as much cheaper. Yes, and natural gas and now finally renewable energy. as well. And so if you don't know, there's a lot more jobs in America in the renewable energy industry than there is in the coal industry. So there's a lot of mythology about that. But the reality is there are more jobs and higher paying jobs in renewable energy.

Yeah. And I just found this interesting. I think it's important that you know. Can we jump ahead to the next chart? It's gonna show CO2 per person across the US, China, the European Union, India, and the rest of the world. And you will notice that, hey, turns out we are number one in certain areas. not necessarily the ones we should be.

And so there is still an incredible amount of work that needs to be done, which means that we need someone who is not only right in the rhetoric and not only writing the policies, but that prioritizes it. And we'll pursue these solutions with the passion necessary to push them through a Congress and lobbyists and all of that that are going to be fighting to the death to stop it. You can't afford to have a person who's like, yeah, I technically sign on to the plan. And that's it. Is that the person that's going to push it through?

I don't think so. One of the stories we have in our series talks about every country in the world that has signed on to the Paris Climate Agreement. And out of all those countries, there are only two that actually have implemented policies that would limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is what the climate, the Paris Climate Agreement says. Morocco and the Gambia. So not exactly the heavy hitters on CO2. And so that's where we're at. And we do need leadership all around the world. So Joe Biden, in essence, is telling you two things.

One is that he just doesn't get it. He genuinely thinks, well, I put us back in the Paris Climate Accords, doesn't that do it? No, Joe, it doesn't do it. We're way, way behind. And he's so out of touch that he genuinely doesn't understand the urgency of the situation. The second thing he's telling you is, there's just no way we could catch Morocco. And so if you want a president who says we can't possibly beat Morocco, Biden's your guy. Yeah. Why don't we take our second break?

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All right, back on the Young Turks. Happen to be watching the live show for the first time since finally treating myself to membership? Thank you for doing that. TYT.com slash join to become a member if you'd like to do as Annie did. Or you could also give it as a gift during the holidays. TYT.com slash gift as a gift of membership. Anyway, she, Annie continues. I've been catching the live replays the next morning at the gym.

And after watching on the YouTube app for years before I was over the moon, when I realized I could turn my screen off and still get audio. Life changer. Why did I wait so long? Oh, yeah. Agreed, Annie. Okay. TY.D.com slash join you love it. Okay, now, Gabby Marita asked, shouldn't the mere Iderola be off on some board game themed

honeymoon right now? Yes, I can guarantee you that as soon as I get home, we're gonna be playing one, but the process of planning the wedding was so- What? I hate to disappoint, but I was talking about a board game. But anyway, no, the process of playing the The idea of planning a honeymoon to, get out of here, next year, next year. Okay. We had a great trip to Hawaii earlier this year, too.

All right. Now, here's a handle I could really get behind. Jenks' triceps for all who wanted, writes in. As A.O. I did promise you guys a tricep looking behind the scenes. So I will try to do that soon, okay? T.Y.T.com's like trying. For those who want it.

I hope I don't miss it. As AOC once said, new party, who dis? Standing against hopelessness says, Joe's vote for someone else, comment is an add-on to itself. I hope Bernie picks up on it and runs with it. And finally, Michael Richie on Twitter says, Biden is more arrogant and unlikable than Hillary and has worse poll numbers. I didn't think this could be possible. I hope he keeps telling people to vote for Bernie, hashtag last gasp, hashtag TYOTLive. So on the poll numbers, I actually not convinced that he has worse poll numbers than Hillary

on the general election side, but on everything else, I think you're right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and with the weird way that sexism works in American politics, he can be demonstrably worse in those respects than Hillary, and he'll still get support. Yeah, it still might get more support, and that's terrible. Exactly. Okay, let's turn to another aspect of the Democratic primary.

P. Buttigieg has a little bit of explaining to do about a number of topics. One we're gonna focus on today involves his work for McKinsey. This is a global consultancy firm with annual revenues, revenues of over $10 billion. He worked there from 2007 to 2010, but that's as much detail as I can give you about his time there because we don't know and he's not talking. Now, why is this a concern? I mean, everybody who runs for president has worked a few places. He's worked at fewer because he's 23 years old.

But McKinsey has done a number of questionable things. And even recently, when it comes to their work for the federal government having to do with ICE doesn't look great. So McKinsey proposed cuts in spending on food for migrants, as well as on medical care and supervision of detainees. McKinsey's team also looked for ways to accelerate the deportation process, provoking worries among some ICE staff members that the recommendations risk short-circuiting due process protections for migrants fighting removal from the U.S. Let's pause there for one second. Their recommendations were so extreme that ISIS staff members were like, are we being mean to these migrants? So let's just note that.

Now going forward, the consultants, three people who worked on the project said, seemed focused solely on cutting costs and speeding up deportations, activities whose success could be measured in numbers with little acknowledgement that these policies affected thousands of human beings. In what one former official described as heated meetings with these consultants, agency staff members questioned whether saving pennies on food and medical care for detainees justified the potential human cost. So clearly there were people in those meetings doing the right thing, they just weren't working for McKinsey. You know office space, the office space, you know the bobs, that's McKinsey.

They're the bobs. They're the bobs. Yeah. Now, this is outside of Buttigieg's time there. We don't know that he ever worked on any issue relating to immigration or anything like that. But the reason we don't know is because he's not saying anything. And we do have more detail in that, but I figured, Jenka, I figured you probably want to jump in. Yeah, so quick thing out, McKenzie, then I do want to talk about the press reaction as well,

because it's very interesting. He says, Buttigieg says, he, in fact, I have a quote. He says, it's infuriating to see the choices they have made, especially in the years since I left the firm. Because before McKenzie was making fantastic choices, and after Buttigieg left, they're like, oh, good, the one moral guy is out. Let's now go make immoral choices. Look, I want to be fair and clear, okay? So everybody who works at McKinsey or these consulting companies are not bad guys.

A lot of them are perfectly good folks, and they work on oftentimes perfectly good projects. But sometimes there are projects that are not great, okay, and oftentimes they will say, and it might be justified, it might be unjustified, it might be justified to maximize profits, but not on a moral level. So there's this whole range, right? But sometimes they'll say, come in, and they'll pull the bobs and be like, Okay, you gotta fire these people and then, and their frame of mind is that of executives. And they're hired by the executives.

So they don't often tell companies to cut executive salary because the executives hired them, right? But they will often tell them to fire non-executives and cut salaries, benefits, et cetera. So for Buttigieg, for some folks to say McKinsey is all bad and everybody who worked there is bad is crazy talk. I don't think that's true. On the other hand, for Buttigieg to go, oh my God, when I was there, we were doing God's work. Okay, and since I've left, they've become immoral is preposterous. So a couple things. We know a little bit about what Buttigieg's did there.

And we know he spent time in Rock and Afghanistan. And what we know about what McKinsey was doing at that time was assisting the, you know, Special Inspector General for Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, coming up with ways to build markets in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we kind of know how that turned out. It wasn't exactly great. Has Afghanistan caught China yet? I think they're just behind them. The second thing is the reason that Buttigieg gives for not telling you exactly what he did at McKinsey is that he signed a nondisclosure agreement.

He signed this NDA. Sorry, guys, I signed an NDA. I'll get sued. I can't do that. Do you really think that McKinsey would sue a presidential candidate who broke his NDA? And wouldn't that be the best thing that Buttigieg ever did in terms of being a popular, in terms of being popular in a presidential race, to stick it to his former employer and say, I'm going to tell the American people what was going on.

I did, how bad is what he did that he has to hide behind this NDA? Well, so I wanna say a couple of things about that. So first of all, this is a Trumpian excuse, oh John, I'm being ordered you. I'm being on it. It's the same. It's the same. Wait a minute, let's be clear. So if you say I'm under an NDA and when I was working for such and such company,

I can't tell you their finances and I can't tell you what their problems and issues were and how we address them, and I can't tell you salaries and other information, that makes perfect sense. If you say, I can't tell you what project I was working on at all, even vaguely. No, that doesn't make any sense. I don't even know that the NDA covers that. The NDA tells you, don't give away inside information about the company. And maybe if it does, it shouldn't.

And this is a policy issue, right? Yeah. You're putting gag orders on people who move from job to job in a way that just does not seem kosher. So, you know, Buttigieg could be taking a stand here on the half of workers by saying, I'm gonna break this, I don't think that I'm, you know, having any kind of detrimental impact on McKinsey by telling people what I did. Yeah, and I'm telling you, I'm not sure that he even has to break it.

He could easily tell you the projects he worked on without revealing any private information about those projects. Yeah. This is Buttigieg's M.O. So they destroyed his campaign finance records. Now in Indiana, that's allowed, and so that's part of the law. This is another story that Jonathan Larson wrote for TYT investigates. But Buttigieg might have his own campaign finance records that show who his donors are.

He refuses to share them. So that's interesting. And so, now look, the press has been so soft on him. And the Hill article is a pretty good example of that, but what they do is if the press is soft, which is 99% of them, they'll go and they'll give them comments, et cetera. When you have real journalists like Jonathan Larson, they just ignore them. They go, look, it's not, it's not the New York Times. The New York Times loves me, so I don't have to answer to you.

If you're not an outlet that loves me, I don't have to answer to you. That's not a very progressive way of doing things. is, again, pretty Trumpian to say, yeah, I don't care. So, yeah, go ahead. Warren came out yesterday, and she named Buttages by name and said, I think he shouldn't have secret fundraisers. He should let the press into them. He should give the names of the bundlers.

You should give the names of the fundraisers. And so you're starting, now, you know, the media, they're like a pack of children chasing a soccer ball. Now that one has, a candidate has called the other out by name, maybe you'll start to see that rise. Nonetheless, it's not happening yet, so I want to go to the Hill story, but go ahead, John. Sure. Now, you can get into that. I want to give some general commentary about my frustration of the media coverage.

Yeah, so, by the way, Warren is exactly right, because remember Buttigieg was adamantly for Medicare for all in 2018, then he, and then he decides, no, I'm going to do these big bundlers and take all this giant donor money. And then conveniently, he becomes against Medicare for all. So it's a very fair question to ask, what happened in the meanwhile, right? And who did you talk to in the meanwhile that convinced you to be against this program that you were previously for? So now all these legitimate critiques also his terrible record with African Americans in South Bend. Again, go to t.com slash investigates to see all the different issues there.

And some of those are ticking time bombs. Because Eric Logan was killed by cops in South Bend. That's coming in February, that trial, in terms of criminal and civil cases that are proceeding forward. The cops are on tape. John Larson broke this story where they're saying white people are going to be back in charge. Buttigieg's donors are going to get him to fire the police chief, and he does move the police chief out.

And those tapes might come out in the summer, in another trial that's coming, that's another ticking time bomb? And by the way, if Buttigieg is the nominee, too late, then those bombs explode after he's the nominee. And so those are all interesting. Now, with all this context, the Hill writes a story, and look, there's parts of the hill that are great, but in this case, this is how they describe the critiques. The first line is, the knives are out for South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Wait, is it a real critique, or are people being jerks by knifing poor Pete Buttigieg. He is hiding the McKinsey's records.

He is hiding his campaign finance records. He is hiding the tapes. His lawyer also has the tapes of when the cops talked about racist things. He's hiding all these things. He's hiding his bundlers, but the knives are out for Pete Buttigieg. Okay, if that was the only one, you would say, hey, Jake, maybe, let's be fair. No, every paragraph. The next paragraph, liberals are tearing at Buttigieg, viewing him as a threat.

So wait, everyone's been using literal kid gloves, well not literal, but kid gloves with him. No, but not only that, it's not that it's a critique that I as a reporter should look into, it's that liberals are tearing at poor Pete Buttigieg. It's not reporters are, reporters are investigating, it's liberals are being unfair to Buttigieg by bringing up real issues. It's amazing, I'm not even done. That's how political reporters go, right?

They sit atop a mountain top and say, well, he is, fighting with him. And that's the only way that things get covered. They can't investigate it themselves. Of course, unless it's Bernie Sanders. Have you ever heard any article, let's go to Weber Rule, what if it was Bernie Rule, right? Have you ever heard an article saying moderates are tearing at Bernie Sanders, right? No, they just say, oh, Bernie Sanders did this, right?

And I'm the reporter telling you what a bastard Bernie Sanders is. Okay, so again, look at the framing. Next paragraph. Progressives have begun questioning his past consulting work. Why don't you question his past consulting work? You're the reporter. But all of it is framed as poor Pete Buttigieg. But it gets worse.

Next paragraph, Democrats say the attacks against Buttigieg are a sign of his strength. Oh, come on. For God's sake. If I read you all of it, it would take up the rest of the show. So everything is framed as poor Pete Buttigieg being unfairly attacked by progressives on stuff he's trying to keep hidden as a candidate. Well, you know what, though? I decided as a reporter, it actually shows how strong he is.

Two reporters on the byline of that. Took two reporters to figure out who was attacking who. Yeah. And it's like of all of the top tier candidates, not even top tier, top tier, middle tier, middle bottom tier, we know the least about him. And yet, he's gotten glowing, like, front page articles. I just read a GQ piece from last month that said, whether he wins or not, he's going to be shaping politics for years to come.

With what? What policy? But here's the thing. If you're going to give all of this coverage to him and you know nothing about him, aside from what instruments he plays, what languages he speak, maybe look into his background a little bit, maybe do a little bit of reporting, maybe put a little bit of substance to the articles that you're writing about him, we know a lot about Joe Biden, we know a lot about Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and others, even others that are polling it way less.

If he shoots up into fourth place, he's getting 8, 10% more in some state polls, what are we going to wait until February, April, to find out who he actually is and what he actually believes? There's a perfect example of that, and it's not about his record, but about his policy ideas. So there's this big fight that's built up around college for all, right? And he says, well, I don't think millionaires and billionaires kids should be able to go to college for free. And this is my story. The truth is, is that his college plan starts phasing out at $100,000 a year of family income. That's two income family making the median income. That's when it starts phasing out.

That's not a millionaire. That's not a billionaire. But it's all framed from his angle of attack, which is millionaires and billionaires' sons and daughters should. And you wanna know the real trick to that? The trick is, if it starts phasing out at $100,000, then millionaires and billionaires have to pay less taxes to support free college for everyone. That's correct. Okay, so that's change on the outside, continuity on the inside.

That's why the donors love Buttigieg. And what's really discouraging is the mainstream media, these reporters are not wealthy, okay? I don't know their personal finances, but overall reporters are not the richest people in the country. The group think in Washington is so strong that the donor classes co-opted the mainstream media into doing their talking points for them. Yeah. We are unfortunately over. Okay, so we got a great hour coming up for you guys.

Everybody check out not just prospect.org, but prospect.org slash green new deal. It's a great new series that they've got out there. David, thank you for joining us, appreciate it. Absolutely. Oh, can I just plug one thing? Oddly enough, available at the hill. My most recent op-ed, if you can go take a look, it's on why Donald Trump's biggest fear in the election should be running against somebody running on so-called socialist policies. It's available on the hill. Take a look.

Yeah, and that's why we're fair, and we do credit where credit is doing. Even though we make appearances often on the hill and we write for the hills from time to time, we still criticize them when it is merited. Okay, and also check out the damage report on all of our live linear channels, Zumo, Roku, Pluto, YouTube TV, and now Comcast. All right, guys. We'll be back in a minute. Thanks for 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.