The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - February 13th, 2020

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

The Senate passed a bill to limit Trump's war powers. John Iadarola and Cenk Uygur, 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. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Hugo, John Idera with you guys. Lots of news as always.

Are you kidding me? Here we are in February. Nevada and South Carolina are next. I'm starting to call it Nevada. For you, fine, you people of Nevada win. It's Nevada. They will be soon enough. So anyways, and then Super Tuesday, obviously, March 3rd, so monumental.

So also Trump trying to rip up the Constitution as we speak. But the Republicans fight back. Kind of. I'll explain the trick in just a minute. So lots to get to, and oh, our birthday's tomorrow, but we'll tell you more about that tomorrow. And importantly, earlier this week we had this video about Chuck Todd being very unreasonable when it comes to Bernie Sanders and supporters. We're gonna give him a second try today on the show.

That sounds amazing. I bet he gets it right this time. I think so. And one more thing, guys, second hour, Kara Eastman, one of the most important progressives in the country running in Nebraska, one of the most exciting. exciting primary nights from 2018, so great to have her here. I got another progressive in the conversation, I got Tom Hartman in the conversation, so it's a progressive extravaganza today.

All right, John. Okay, with that, let's jump into the news. Some time ago, the House passed a resolution to try to bar Donald Trump from engaging in willy-nilly aggressive actions against Iran that could land us in a full-scale war with that country, thus doing their constitutional duty, and as of the passage of the War Powers Act half a century ago, the doubling down of their constitutional duty. So they did it, and then it was going to go to the Senate. In advance of this vote, Donald Trump tweeted this.

It is very important for our country's security that the United States Senate not vote for the Iran war powers resolution. We were doing very well with Iran, and this is not the time to show weakness. So, you know, attempting to put pressure on Republicans to not flip over and support the Democrats on this. And that, for him, unfortunately, failed because eight Republicans did actually vote with Democrats and it passed in the Senate. So what does the resolution actually do? It directs the president to terminate the use of United States armed forces for hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran. So we do have that going for us.

Okay, so hey, the Republicans vote against Donald Trump, they are independent. Okay, so you want to know what the trick is? First, let me tell you who the Republicans are, then I'll tell you the trick. So half of them are not surprising. So you've got Rand Paul and Mike Lee, so they're against further wars, they're libertarians. I think that they do generally mean it in this case. If he really needed the votes, they'd probably give it to them. But, okay, fine, I'll give it to them.

Murkowski and Collins, the so-called moderates, fine, but that's part of the trick, and Lamar Alexander, because he's retiring, so you can only criticize Trump if you're retiring. Okay, but there's some other folks in the list. So what's going on here? It's meaningless. Trump's going to veto it. They need two-thirds, even though like 55, 45, we won. No, we didn't win anything.

So the House will pass this version. It'll go to Trump. He'll definitely veto it, as you saw on the tweet. he's massively against it. So what it does is, and you can tell when Mitch McConnell lets Republicans vote against the Republican Party or against Trump, and this is a well-known tactic. I don't know why the press doesn't write about it more. From time to time they do write about it.

That's how I learned about it originally, right? But they never noted in these articles when they're in the middle of doing it. So McConnell has released the votes, meaning good. Now, Susan and Lisa and all of you who are running for reelection, pretending, to be moderates, you can now go home and tell the good people have made, oh, no, I vote against Trump. Yeah, I'm so independent, and I'm really moderate. I voted against Trump in that meaningless resolution that we knew wouldn't pass.

I mean, I mean, I limited his war powers, because I am a moderate, and the press will call me a moderate because of this senseless, meaningless vote. Yeah, I think there's, that that's a consideration, I think there are a few. I mean, one is that with the way that Donald Trump approaches his entire situation, I have no doubt that he would use specific authorization for use of military force against Iran. He'd just say the AUMF or whatever. And of course it doesn't allow for that, but he'll just say that it does. So they pass it and he'll veto it.

I mean, even if they overrode it, like, do you really think he's going to be like that he's going to feel limited by that? And there were references in the talks around this, even from Tim Kane, who was pushing for this, that, well, you know, if a specific action was needed like an airstrike in case of an imminent threat, that would be different, except that's what they said about Soleimani, and there was absolutely nothing there. So all of that is true. The issue is, so then what do you do? I mean, supposedly there are supposed to be checks and balances. They're exercising it. Yes, in the Senate case, it's a bit of a facade. But still, I mean, this will at least require

Donald Trump to veto a bipartisan effort to stop him going to war with Iran. I know that that's not the same as actually stopping him, but hypothetically, that could be used in campaign. ads? So listen, I think that I'll take any progress while we fight for the full loaf. So I'm not against the vote, and we're starting to inch towards Congress actually asserting its authority towards any president, I hope, knock on wood, including a Democratic president when it comes to issuing a declaration of war and using military force. So we've made some progress in that direction.

And rhetorically, and as a matter of precedent, it's important that we have, we can say, eight Republican senators have voted with us, right? So I don't want you to get the misimpression that it is a bad thing. Overall, sure, we'll take it. But it is a crumb off the table of the establishment. And yes, it's definitely a trick. As long as you don't give credit to the people doing the trick and call them all moderates because of this vote that has no effect, then I'm totally fine with it.

And let's go to the next vote and the next vote and keep building a coalition. that actually will vote in favor of congressional power rather than executive power on the issue of war. Look, I think that this should be one part of what should be a developing strategy, months in advance of what I feel is likely to happen, is that Donald Trump, as he has alluded to, many times in the past, feels that a president should start a war with Iran to try to get reelected. I think that he brought us right up to the brink, probably considered going farther, and I fully believe that he will attempt to do that as we get closer to the general election. I think that all of the Democratic campaigns and the Democrats in general should expect this and should already be preparing for what they're going to do when he does that, because he will do it thinking it will improve his odds. They need to make sure that that doesn't happen. Ideally, they would make sure that it doesn't happen, that he literally can't take us to war.

They apparently don't have that capacity. But they at least have to stop him from cynically using it to win reelection. Part of that we got today with they can at least run ads saying that the Senate knew that he was going to push. for war. They came together, both sides to try to stop him. He overrode that. They need to pitch him not as someone who is protecting the national security, as he said in his tweet. No, he's hot for war with Iran. That's all it is. He's a warmonger. And he literally will go against both parties to push for the war that he's been just salivating over for literally years. I don't know exactly how you put all of that together, but I do think that they need to be ready for it. Yeah, so last

two things on this. One is, another upside of this is that, look, you can tell that the Republican voters are tired of war because Republican senators would not break on anything that was core to their voters or core to their donors. So if the Democrats said, hey, now in order to appear moderate, we're gonna ask you to vote for tax increases on the rich. You'd get zero Republican votes. They would be like, this is not time for moderation. I don't even care if it's a show vote, I don't know way, no, no, right?

So this means these Republican senators get a sense that their own voters are like, maybe we should start heading towards the exits on this one. It's not going to be that unpopular to oppose Trump on the issue of more wars. So that's a great development for the country overall if the Republican senators are feeling that pressure and they almost never feel pressure. And then finally, this is a small point, but part of what's wrong with the Democratic Party, Tim Cain does a good job on the resolution. I give him 98% credit on it, and then as he's giving this speech, he says, we need a Congress

that will fully inhabit the Article I powers. So what's wrong with being smart, because that's a perfectly good sentence, that's a smart sentence, and educated going in the right direction. No actual American knows what you're talking about, okay, like mentioning the Article 1 powers and then quickly explaining it, I could live with. Using words, like, fully inhabit the Article I powers, I mean, I think people will be quoting that for centuries. Like, for God's sake, can you guys talk like a real person for a second?

So, like, can you say, hey, he's not going to be able to take congressional power away from us, not on our watch, or whatever, however you say it, right? I say it, that way you say it any way you like without sounding so professorial. Every time Trump's like, we do good things, they do bad things, America. They're against the flag and he wins. You're like, we will fully inhabit the Article I powers. People are like, okay. If he wants to go to war, he's gonna have to come to our house, which is inside of Article

1, that's where we inhabit. Okay, it's a small thing, but please. But unfortunately, the showmanship does matter because you're trying to win voters and you're trying to get them on your side. So please, if you could find a way to speak like them, that would be great. That'd be a start. Okay, so very important news. We're going to see that they have to reconcile the House and Senate version, and then Trump will probably veto it.

So look forward to that soon. But we have to take our first break. When we come back, though, Chuck Todd takes another swing at attempting to understand this whole Bernie Sanders thing. We'll see how he does. 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-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTRTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew of. 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. After this. All right, back on a young Turks. Samurai TYT in the member section says about limiting Trump's war. powers. How about other countries such as North Korea and Iraq? Iran is not the only country

Trump wants to attack. Agreed, would do it in a second. I guess baby steps, you know, headed in the slightly the right direction. Let's hope he keeps going. Marit, the Norwegian Viking, writes in, what a great twist. It's three minutes in February 14th for me, but you in the studio are still in February 13th, my birthday. Happy birthday, TYT. Okay, so you're the first one to wish us happy birthday? Well, you're not actually, but in fact, but we appreciate it, technically, you might be the first one that is in February 14th, which is a happy birthday, but we're actually seeing a lot of your birthday greetings on Twitter and Instagram, and you're kind of awesome.

We appreciate it, we are turning 18 tomorrow, 18 years strong, okay? And I guess it's also Valentine's Day, sure, and you come celebrate with us, of course, 6 p.m. Eastern, like we usually do on t.y.t.com slash live. And you can continue to support progressives, independent media by signing up for membership at t.yt.com slash happy birthday. Ooh, that's a twist. What, what day does that actually represent when you say it was the birth? Was the first show? It was the first show that aired on Sirius Satellite Radio because it was the first day that Sirius Satellite Radio launched, and we were their only original talk show. Yes. That's kind of badass, right?

Now, last couple of ones here, Celeste says, you guys are such a breath of fresh air. My roommate who voted for Trump has listened to me watching TYT for months. I already love this story. He said to me, quote, it's getting really hard to keep defending him. I said, well, why do you? He had no response. I love you guys. You're spreading the truth.

But Celeste, so are you. Okay? So wherever you are, have that turn their TV to TYT so that more people can hear that message. And I'll do one last one. Jess Ortego from Twitter says, wore my F climate change shirt today. We have that at shopty.com. I think we're doing a clearance sale, so you might want to check that out.

Anyway, and Jess says, and I've never been approached with such interest. Everyone listened and absorbed versus listen to respond. Pretty epic. Thanks. I love that. Our shirts are definitely conversation starters. So check that out at shopt.com. All right, what's thanks, John?

Okay, I think we're going to have a little bit of fun. Earlier this week, Chuck Todd got in a bit of trouble online when he referred to Bernie Sanders supporters in an incredibly derogatory sense. And he was criticized a lot as a result of that. And I think that he is making an effort to be more understanding of Bernie Sanders, more diplomatic in the way he talks about them. And I think that that really comes through in this clip. Who's a frontrunner, right?

The guy winning delegates. No, but is he a frontrunner? He doesn't certainly not getting the president from her. And the problem is the, I don't understand how Bertie is considered a frontrunner. This is a guy that had more people showed up to the polls, highest turnout ever, and his percentage went down that up. His total number went down that up. And new voters actually voted for Biddigit in Klobyshire.

Okay, yeah, and young voters voted for Bernie more than literally all of the other candidates combined. But so we had his numbers go down. We'll get to that. First of all, he was aghast at the idea that Bernie was not the frontrunner, but a frontrunner. Chuck Dodd does not believe that Bernie Sanders is a frontrunner. Yeah. That seems amazing. No, we live in two different worlds.

We really do. And I know some good folks who just believe in their core, of course, that Bernie Sanders cannot possibly win, because they're stuck in the old days, in the old days like, oh, socialist. I'm done with the conversation and I'm moving on with my life. And that's because we know in 1963 we used to hide under our deaths when we thought we were gonna go to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and those are the communists. But they can't get it out of their heads. And look, that's what happens actually to folks when they're taught something when they're

young and especially when it's repeated and repeated. So it's so hard to get that propaganda out of people's head. So by the way though, that is also a reality in terms of trying to win over voters. But luckily, the numbers are in, we don't have to guess at it, so independence support Bernie Sanders more than any other candidate, and Bernie beats Trump by the biggest margin of any of the candidates. And now he has a double digit lead nationally among Democrats. So when Biden was ahead nationally for a full year, but he started slipping in New Hampshire

and Iowa, they said, no, no, it's okay, Biden's still the frontrunner because he's leading nationally. Now Bernie in two different polls is a 10 point lead nationally. They're like, nope, no, that standard is old, he's not the frontrunner. We don't care how much our lying eyes tell us he wins over independence, which is what you need to win the election. We don't believe in numbers, alternative facts, alternative numbers. See, I think even like, so Biden is leading forever in the national polls. He starts to go down in Iowa, New Hampshire, but he doesn't really seem to mind that he's still

at that point earlier was doing well in the states that he expected to do well. And I think at that point, it is perfectly fine to call him a frontrunner. He was still leading in the national polls. But now Bernie Sanders won both the states, got the most votes in both the states, and is doing best in the national polls and has raised the most money. Like if the word frontrunner is supposed to mean anything, I'm not saying that you think he's gonna win the primary or he's going to win against Donald Trump. But he is in the front, in the running, he's at the front, thus the front runner.

Those words don't mean anything if they don't apply to Bernie. It doesn't mean he's the only front runner. You can say that there are front runners, he is the front runner. Maybe Pete Buttigieg is doing really well, Biden's still okay in the national polling. A case can be made. But there is no case to be made that he isn't a front runner. Yeah, well that's 100% true, but when you won New Hampshire and Iowa and you have a 10 point lead nationally, you are the front runner.

Yeah, yeah, he's the front runner. It's not close. And by the way, go back and watch old Young Turks videos. I would tell you that, hey, I think Biden's lead is going to erode, but he's currently the frontrunner because facts matter and numbers matter. And we told you that a thousand times, Biden's leading in the national polls. We'd say, hey, here comes Bernie, he's catching him in Nevada, he's catching him in Iowa, etc. We told you when Warren took the lead.

We told you when Buttigieg took the lead in Iowa briefly, et cetera. We tell you on election nights, hey, you know what, Buttigieg is closing in. It's getting closer than we expected. Because we actually care about things called reality, okay? But when they see reality, they're so biased, they can't see straight. They're like, oh, he's got a 10 point lead. That's why the person who's in third is what's most important. And a literal thing said on MSNBC a couple of days ago, it's not important who wins,

it's important who comes in third. We should remember that in November. Because who won the election last time? Was it Gary Johnson or Jill Stein? Gary Johnson had the third most votes. Oh, well, that's probably why he's president now, right? Well, he's not president, but it is a stronger showing. So hypothetically, if we could have Chuck Todd here, how would he respond to us pointing out

these things, do you think? I mean, you know more of these media people, like is he being dense? Is he being dishonest? And he says the word front rudder, what does he actually mean? Yeah, no, I look, I know some folks have bad intent. So when MSNBC brings on Wall Street people and Democratic donors and Democratic consultants, and they have a vested interest, they are basically trying to deceive you on purpose. So when you see a Jim Messina, for example, he has a ton of corporate clients who he is worried

would be heard and they are worried they would be heard in a progressive administration where we would actually serve the American people and not just the corporate donors. So when Messina comes in, his job is to deceive you and to do propaganda. He doesn't mean a word of it, right? So there is that second category. Believe it or not, and maybe I'm wrong about this and maybe I'm still naive about it to this day. But I believe that people like Chauta who are on TV are not, like they don't get together in a room,

like let's screw over Bernie, right? I agree. I don't think that actually happens. Although sometimes we have seen the press be intentionally malicious. But I think that he has a series of excuses and they're on a loop, they're endless. If you work through every one of the excuses, which you won't be able to because they just literally, like you will tell someone who believes these things. Bernie wins has the biggest lead with independence and they'll go, no, I don't believe that.

They'll literally say you'll show him the poll and they'll be like, yeah, but I think that's misleading. You could show them seven polls in a row. They're like, they're all misleading, they're all outliers. But then they'll get to their second layer of excuses. Like, well, he's leading for now, but that's name recognition. I don't remember you saying that about Hillary Clinton, right? But it's a name recognition and it'll go down. Okay, it'll, the lead will go down.

I don't remember you saying that about Biden. And besides, you did say it about Bernie and it didn't go down, he did win Iowa. He did win New Hampshire and he's, and his leader's going up, not down. But it's built in to have one after. Like fundamentalist religious people, right? There's nothing you could tell them that they wouldn't come up with a God works in mysterious ways. Yeah, right? So they're like, establishment works in mysterious ways, Bernie will lose no matter what, you can show me, he could win the election and it still be like, did he?

Misleading. I mean, he won the electoral college and the popular vote by a lot, but did he? Yeah, and just bear in mind that Chuck Todd is going to be one of the moderators at the upcoming debate. upcoming debate. And look, we found out, you know, that he thinks earlier this week that he thinks that we're digital brown shirts if you support him. Now he says, no, he's not one of the front runners. The only silver lining to all this is there's no reason for Chuck Todd to go viciously after Bernie Sanders at this debate because he's not even one of the front runners. Why spend your time on him, Chuck? And, and oh, here's another magic excuse they have. They say, well,

he's leading now, but he hasn't been attacked enough. Like, swear to God, one of the top things, that they say, Bernie Sanders has not been attacked enough. But they genuinely believe it. They're like, we barely touched him, we only did 1,000 negative pieces. If we do 7,000 on behalf of the Republican Party and the corporate Democrats, maybe we'll get them. Meanwhile, women and people overall, but I remember this particular woman we showed you guys, are telling MSNBC anchors, oh, I voted for Bernie, because you keep attacking him.

Yeah. So it's counter effective, just like with Trump, by the way. And they're like, nope, nope, we're gonna get him. If we're just negative enough against them, we'll drive down his numbers and we'll have You'll say, oh, did you know he's against fracking? Oh, that's going to hurt him in the Midwest. It's going to hurt him in the window. If we keep saying all these things over and over again, it's going to hurt him.

And the last thing, guys, to go back to what he said in the beginning, Chuck Todd did, saying, well, look, his percentage in New Hampshire went down, not up. Look, if you don't at least, if you don't at least qualify that sentence, I mean, it's Hack 101. And then they'll get really offended. They're like, what, what? I was trying to do propaganda against Bernie Sanders to make sure that he would lose. And now you're calling me a hack. I'm so offended.

I don't understand what you're talking about. His numbers did go down. Okay, so there was one person running against them last time. This time, there were nine people running against them. Chuck, you might want to finish that thought at least. You wouldn't want to deceive your audience, would you? MSNBC not deceiving their audience. Okay.

And by the way, do you know politics at all? You're the host of Meet the Press. You're the political director of NBC. You don't know that a person, no matter how popular they are, is not going to get the same number of votes when there's 10 people in the race as when there's two people in the race. You don't know that? Come on. And if the situation is reverse, you think they'd be like, well, now technically, like, Hillary Clinton

did win Iowa, but her numbers went down. I don't remember any of that ever. So he's met the press, has he, like, talked to them? Has he learned anything from them? You should absorb something. Anyway, just so frustrating. Yeah, now that you said that, I get one last thing is, look, I know for a fact that they, those media figures are seeing what we're doing on social media.

I don't mean just Young Turks videos, Twitter, et cetera, right? And they are deeply wounded. They like, when you criticize them even 1%, they're like, oh my God, that's why he said digital brown shirts. Like they're like, oh my God, because you know why? There's one, there's something called, well, I made it up, let's be honest, okay? But I like it. Elite privilege, I'm allowed to attack you a thousand times, but you're never allowed to

even object to my attacks, let alone it's counterattack. And if you do it once, rude, mob, brown shirt, right? But they genuinely believe it. They think, well, wow, wow, I'm not attacking you. I just punched you in the face seven times. I just called you a Nazi. Yeah, what do you mean? I mean?

No, but you said something, you called me a hack, these monsters, these monsters, can you believe that? And they do, they have this little circle, I'll leave it at that, where they're talking to one another, and they all, like, get in a room and this does actually happen. And they're like, oh, my, they're all terrible, right? I mean, oh, my, they once criticized me. That happened on the panel, basically. Yeah, did they once criticize you? Or they, I knew it. How dare they?

Why won't they know their role? Yeah. Our job is to criticize them viciously and get away with them. And their job is to sit there and take it, but they won't do what they're told. And that's what we're seeing right now. Yeah, so we're going to go from holding them accountable to doing what they should be doing, actually looking at the record of one of the candidates that's rising the most recently in National Polls.

And that's where we turn to next. Michael Bloomberg's past is fun in a dark way if you're a journalist to look through because virtually every time he opens his mouth, he says something quite objectionable. of that here, you might have seen the beginnings of this store going around. I want to add a little bit of context to it. It involves, you gotta go back to April of 2012 when he was mayor of New York City. And on Wednesday night in April 2012, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced that negotiations were finally complete on a living wage bill that would require some recipients

of large economic development subsidies to pay their employees at least $10 an hour. Now to be specific, that is not a living wage bill for all of New York City, all the workers of New York City, and it's $10 an hour with benefits or I think 1150 without benefits for the employees of certain companies that are given tons of money and aid by the city. It is a very limited number of workers. But I want you to see how Michael Bloomberg responded to that, even though it's just for some workers, not for all of them. He said this, it's interesting if you think about it, the last time we really had a big

managed economy was the USSR, and that didn't work out. well, it would be great if all jobs in the city paid a lot of money and had great benefits for the workers, not good for the employers. But if you force that, you will just drive businesses out of the city. Again, $10 an hour for a very small number of workers. He started talking about Stalin effectively. Yeah. So sometimes people make excuses and say, well, I mean, we can't have a minimum wage that goes to $10, $12, $15 in Missouri or Kentucky. We have to crush the people of those states on behalf of their Republican politicians and donors, I don't agree with that.

But they'll say, well, we understand why you can do it in a big city. Pretty sure New York's a big city. I get it that it was eight years ago, but by the way, we were for $15 minimum wage back then, okay? And so this is not $15, it's $10. It's not living wage, it's not $15, it's $10. It's not for everybody, as John explained, it's just for the new developers. Yeah, Stalin.

Stalin. And so look, I think this is actually really bad for Bloomberg. One of the things that should have hurt Trump for the longest time was him continually saying that wages are too high. For some guy that wants to be seen as a populist, it seems like that should be a death knell. But I wanna be clear, because this is the story that I was going around. They're gonna do a living wage, and he talks about it as if it's Stalinism or something like that.

But I wanna be very clear, that is not the entire story here. So there's gonna be this bill, he speaks out against it in a radio interview. It does not end there, by the way. He vetoed that bill. It did pass, he vetoed it. So they then passed it with the majority needed to overrun his veto. Do you know what he did after that? He sued the city to block it from going into effect.

The lawsuit seek to overturn two past measures that were linked together in this known as the living wage and prevailing wage laws that would increase pay for janitors, security guards, and other service workers at some companies that received government sub-submitage. or lease space to a city agency. So he vetoed the bills, the council of erode it. The bills were supported by unions and pro-labor groups, as you might expect, but the mayor argued that higher wage requirements would discourage companies from moving to New York or entering the contracts with the municipal government.

So he speaks out against it, he vetoes it. When they finally pass it, he sues them to block it. He's not successful in that, by the way. It goes into effect. And then shortly thereafter, about a year after, he's about to transition out of being mayor of New York City. Do you know what he did as one of the last things that he did as mayor? He sued them again to kill it.

So he couldn't sue them to stop it successfully. He sued to kill the bill. This is not, as it's been portrayed in the news today, an offhand bombastic, Trumpian Fox News comment about a living wage bill. That was the opening salvo in a more than year-long legal effort that he spearheaded to make sure that this small number of workers don't make $10 an hour. hour in New York City. What's referred to as a living wage when at the time, and so I looked in July of 2013, the second lawsuit, the average rent in New York City was $3,017 a month.

And he thought $10 an hour, not on my watch. Yeah, it's almost as if he was a Republican. It's like that. It's like that. He was a Republican. And this is not decades ago. This is when he was the mayor of New York and he was in power, but it's not just that. He believes it. He believes it in his core that if the average worker gets $10 an hour in the biggest city in the country for a tiny fraction of the jobs, that it's the end of capitalism, as we know it. He believes in protecting big business, giant corporations with everything he's got. You think this guy's going to fight for you. Yeah.

So every, now what you'll see on TV all over the places, well, maybe we need a billionaire to fight for us if he actually fought for us. So do you see that happening? He's in favor of redlining. He thought it was the right thing to do to target only black and Latino young males and not whites. He and he thinks that $10 back then was, you know, a communist, communist. And by the way, you wasted a lot of taxpayer money on those lawsuits, money that could have actually gotten to just paying people.

That's a little apples and oranges because the city can't pay people. But at least there'd be a bigger pool of money in the world instead of wasting taxpayer money trying to make sure that the... And remember, these are not in Republican mindset bums. Every person there is working, right? People who are working by getting the least amount of pay, you fought tooth and nail to make sure that they got paid less. Yeah, and I think this is important for two reasons. And as we go forward, we're gonna do our job, which is going back into his record and

finding out who he is and letting you know about it. We've been doing that for a year for all the other candidates. He just waited until right before the contest started to sneak in, perhaps to avoid a little bit of that scrutiny, but we're gonna try to catch up and we're gonna describe the person that he is, what he actually stands for. And you need to know these things for two reasons. One, he would do bad things if he were president. I believe that this is still, like he apologized for stopping for us like two months ago. No, he still believes that it was the right policy. He still believes that wages should be kept as low as possible because that's what's good

for business. He believes those things substantively. But in the short term, it's also important that you know this, because he is going to be, if he's the nominee shredded by Donald Trump and the Republicans for all of these stances. You don't think that they're going to run a million ads over stop and frisk and him trying to sue to keep people's wages down. So in terms of electability too, all of these, these are substantive and they're also landmines if he were the actual nominee that they are going to exploit. I think that, I mean, Donald Trump is going to be hard to beat no matter what.

If we have Mike Bloomberg, that is perhaps the worst odds we have to actually take him down. And it would neutralize our advantage against Donald Trump serving the rich, because Bloomberg's like, hold my beer, I'll serve him even more than you do. That is not the way to beat Trump, that's the way to lose to Trump. That's almost the only way to lose to Trump. And we're not against all rich people, and we're not doctrinearians. For example, in this bill, they exempted small businesses because they wanted them to be able

to grow. So this was a fraction of a fraction, and he still said no. And look, Steyer has done a lot of good work. By the way, Bloomberg's done a lot of good work on guns and the environment. And so if he said, hey, I'm gonna keep doing that work, I'd celebrate it. And I think Steyer has actually been positive in this campaign because he's gone into the debates and he's made great points about corporate power and how they've captured the government. So it's not about who they are personally, it's not personal in any way, shape, or form.

It's about what their policies are, how they would campaign and how they would run the country. And the more you find out about Bloomberg, the more disaster. just the full picture is. Yeah, it's those things, it's also with Bloomberg, it's personal. Some of the stuff I'm doing a lot of research on him, a lot of it is actually also personal. Really fast, we can't talk about this very long, but I just thought, you know, that guy pretty serious, let's lighten things up for just a little bit. I wanted to show you a tweet that I saw that I thought was interesting.

So the tweet is that Michael Bloomberg seeks to move past stop in first controversy. This tweet brought to you by Bloomberg politics. What happened, I thought they weren't supposed to cover the race. Yeah, I guess he seeks to move past. I had an argument with my girlfriend once, and I sought to move past it. Yeah. That doesn't mean, that doesn't mean anything, though. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's Buttigieg framing, right? Yeah. Like when Buttigieg gets attacked, they're like brave Pete Buttigieg has withstood the completely unfair attacks of progressives with littered with facts. Yeah. And but he fended off the facts bravely and moved past it, which can only help his campaign, said almost every article about almost every attack. against Buttigieg based on facts. Yes. And this Bloomberg saying Bloomberg is moving past the attacks against him.

Well, okay, if that's what you say. God, I've got to set up my own newspaper. Okay, why don't we take another break? When we come back, updates on the coronavirus and also a little bit of fun to close out the first hour. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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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 T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. 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 supporting independent. media become a member at t yt.com slash join today in the meantime enjoy this free segment all right back on t yt uh bernie bro battalion leader mountain division writes in troy is gonna be terrified uh Bernie just keeps off floundering he plummeted to a win in Iowa

he cratered to a win in new hampshire and now Bernie's nose diving into frontrunner status it's That's terrible. What are you trying to get on cable news? Captain Cornball says Chuck Todd is working on golf-style scoring system. At the moment, Globerchard is looking good on 3% for a birdie. And then Debtz Without Regret writes in on YouTube Super Chat, and we appreciate everybody using that. I wish I could read all your comments.

Anyway, he says just a rando thought, how come for profit colleges can file for bankruptcy, But students cannot. Well, there actually is a reason for that and its name is Joe Biden. Joe Biden led the passage of the bankruptcy bill and the bankruptcy bill is what makes it nearly impossible for students to get rid of their debt. That's a fact. Yeah. Okay.

Last one. Yes. Hashtag not me, us revolution says on Twitter, OMG, Kara Eastman, one of my favorite progressives in the country on hashtag TYRT live tonight. Best source of news bringing in the best fighter in politics. Now that's a must watch. I'm glued to the screen, super exciting. Awesome.

Thank you. Carr's going to be on in the next segment, and she is an awesome progressive fighter. Just Democrat running in Nebraska. You should definitely support her. but she'll be on in a minute. What's that? Oh, sorry, one more thing, guys. Not a comment.

I forgot to tell you guys. You know what we're always trying to do is get a win-win. So when you win, you can earn commission on selling membership, which spreads the progressive message, helps the show become sustainable, and you also get a side income. So right now we've got 693 affiliates that are doing that. You go to t-y-t.com slash win-win affiliates, meaning people who are selling membership. They're having weekly conference calls around the country for best practices, learning from one another. And last night, they apparently went to a local Bernie meeting, printed up cards with personalized

linked, and passed out over 20 to interested people, always thinking, I like this. We figured you guys would be smarter than us on how to sell it. So t-y-t.com slash win-win and get paid to talk about progressive politics. Sounds pretty good. All right, what's next? Okay, what's next is unfortunate news. One of the completely unnecessary factors that has made the initial spread of coronavirus, the response to its spread much harder is the lack of willingness on the part of the Chinese government

to initially acknowledge what was going on. There's a belief that information is still being hidden. And in many cases, the individuals in China who have attempted to spread information against this sort of government roadblock that's been set up have unfortunately been. going missing. So let's see, Chinese authorities reportedly arrested a citizen journalist on Monday after videos he took of dead bodies piling up at a crematorium went viral on social media. Feng Bin refused to respond to police request to leave his apartment so the authorities surrounded his home, blocking off any possible escape routes. Eventually firefighters broke down

his door. In a bid to ensure his safety, Feng had told his followers he would post a video every morning, so people knew that he was safe. No video was posted on Monday. And so a proactive effort to try to make public the apparently intimidation that had been coming in for some time. But at a certain point, the government apparently decided that, oh, it's going to be abundantly clear what it means if he stops posting videos, but we believe that we need to do that. So the government announced near the end of December, beginning of January, the Chinese government did, that the coronavirus existed. It turns out they knew at least a month before then.

Now, trying to keep things hidden and blocking people's freedom of speech is a political issue, it's a moral issue, but in this case, it's also a health issue. Because if you don't tell other countries, well, people came out of the market that where coronavirus started and started going all across the world. And it's one thing for them to go across the world. It's another thing for people to not know about it. And so no one else was prepared and the virus spread and it spread and it spread because the Chinese government was trying to bottle up the news. And then famously, of course, the first doctor to report about it, they were furious with him.

They made him sign like some sort of loyalty pledge saying that he had, you know, done things that were against the good order in society and things as long as it be know your role. I feel like I've heard that somewhere before in another country and know your place and don't speak out against what the government says. And the world health organizations and everyone else suffered for it. And now over 900 people have died, tens of thousands are infected. That's why freedom is important so that we could work together to solve these problems. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, the reaction was very strong.

When that doctor died, we also have a former human rights lawyer, Chen Kui Shia. who started spreading information about how much had apparently been known before it was publicly known outside of China or even in most parts of China. This is Chen Quichie. Chen's reporting in Wuhan has shown how taxi drivers there knew about the outbreak as early as mid-December and how medical staff at Wuhan's hospitals had become infected with coronavirus despite government claims to the contrary. So Chen doing the very brave work of speaking out despite the possible threat of, you know,

some sort of government clamped down, and Chen went missing afterward. So this is scary stuff, but look guys, China has set up concentration camps for a million, you can pronounce it Uyghur Muslims or Ugar Muslims in China. So, and they're doing re-education as well. So this government of China, they wear a suit and they could do business and they're respected throughout the world and they're very powerful. And so they use that power to earn even more respect. Well, I don't know about the word earn, but demand more respect and concessions. But the reality is they are quite brutal.

So they're aggressive in the South China Sea. And I mean, a million people in camps. And then this virus breaks out. And instead of telling the world about it so we could all be safe, they bury the news and then start making people disappear. who told you about it. Yeah. And then that doctor, he said, you know, he was worried that it would be human to human transmitted

from person to person. And China lied and said, no, it is definitely not transmitted originally from person to person. And they were wrong or on purpose. They misled people on purpose. It of course does, and that's part of the reason why it spread so much. That's a danger to the world. It doesn't mean that we should go attack China or anything like that. We need to have reasonable responses, but we should be very concerned about their oppression

in their own country. Exactly. And just a little bit more information, another whistleblower went missing but has since resurfaced, but without access to his WeChat account that has apparently been blocked by the government. And I mean, look, I think we spoke yesterday in the show about Donald Trump's lack of seriousness around this, like slashing the budget of the CDC and other organizations which would help to fight these sorts of things, literally as it's developing. You also, China for weeks refused offers from the U.S. CDC and WHO to send experts to China,

perhaps because once they're there, it's harder to stop the flow of information from leaving. And the issue is that this sort of control, it isn't actually in pursuit of good order. Good order is, you know, that's what stops people from traveling internationally, infecting other people, those sorts of things. They weren't interested in that. They were interested in attempting to control sort of public relations around this so as to not look incompetent rather than worrying about whether people actually were being endangered? Well, I suppose there's two ways to get the order. One is oppression and the other is justice.

So if you do things the right way, then you won't have uprisings, but that's hard. You could just go with the oppression model, and that's exactly what China is using now. But that usually leads to blowback, and you don't know if you got well over a billion people there when that contagion of wanting freedom spreads. Because after talking about the coronavirus and being blocked on all these different apps, they started championing freedom of speech. Technically, in the Chinese constitution, you're supposed to have that. Of course, they don't believe that, and they certainly don't practice it. So now people are saying, well, maybe we need freedom of speech to protect our lives.

Yeah. And that sounds right. Yeah, and as I mentioned on the damage report this morning, Japan just recently had its first fatality from coronavirus. There are 14 people infected inside of the United States, a number of countries in Europe, Australia, others, now having some number of infections. So that continues to develop as well. That's right. Speaking of that, you should check out John every morning on the damage report. You could check out damage report on YouTube, Facebook, but also on t.com.

And if you're a member, you could watch it live and any time, t.t.com slash join. If you're watching on YouTube, you could also hit the join button, see the different layers of membership. You certainly would get John's show onto the 999 model. Yes. Why don't we close out the first hour with a little bit of fun. Okay, two Daily Beast authors have a book coming out soon. It's called Sinking in the Swamp, How Trump's Minions and Misfits poisoned Washington. They cover a lot in the book, but I want to focus on one thing. It involves Reince Priebus, who for about six months was Trump's chief of staff from the beginning. So during that sort of like growing pains period, he was the guy Trump would turn to when he wants

to understand how things work. And these Daily Beast reporters have found that he did actually turn to Reince for a better understanding of the world around him. So during that time, Trump would often, quote, waste previous time during briefings about foreign and domestic policy by pelting in with questions about badgers, the book says. If you're just listening to like on the podcast, I did say badgers, the animal, after Trump was reminded that the short-legged omnivore was practically synonymous with the badger state where Prebis is from, he'd make a point of bringing it up at seemingly random occasions to his beleaguered

chief of staff, they write. And to give an idea of what he wanted to know, quote, are they mean to people? He at least twice asked Prebus in the opening months of presidency. Quote, or are they friendly creatures? The president would also ask if Prebus had any photos of badgers he could show him. And if Prebus could carefully explain to him how badgers work. Exactly. How badgers work.

I love that he's treating them like aliens. Do they mean harm to us or are they friendly species? Are ghosts real? And how do ghosts work? Another part that I love is that since previous is from Wisconsin, he assumes he's a badger expert and carries around badger pictures with him. Oh, I'm glad you asked about badgers, Mr. President, because I haven't. I've been to have several pictures of them, seeing as I'm from Wisconsin.

So the serious part of this is that this would be in the middle of important domestic or foreign policy discussions. So how many troops should we keep in Afghanistan? And he'd be like, good point. On the other hand, badgers, friendly or evil? No, I, so there's the fear about whether they might be evil. But I like, I think this is the first instance of empathy that I've ever seen from Donald Trump. He wanted to know, are they mean to people?

Oh, that's an interesting. He's worried about whether something is mean to people. No, you know why? He's worried about going to Wisconsin. Like in his reelection? No, I'm serious. Because you know he's, he was scared of that eagle, he gets scared easily. He doesn't mean other people, he means will they be mean to me if I encounter one of these

badgers? I hear the sum of them don't even care. I hear that. Is that why Hillary didn't go? Were they mean to Secretary Clinton? Are they friendly creatures? Does he have any pictures? And how do they work?

That I think is actually like a Zen Coen. Like what is a badger and how does it work? So that wasn't the end of his questions. Trump also wanted to know if the badger had a personality or if it was boring. What kind of damage could a badger do to a person with its flashy, sharp claws? No, that's a Saturday Night's a skit. I mean, this guy's a walking parody of himself. They have to do this.

But if you saw it and you didn't know the references of the story, you'd be like, well, it's not that funny because you're getting carried away. That's true. But it's not. Flashy sharp claws. Right. It's like the killer bunny of Jimmy Carter. So, but million times worse and real, my favorite in that batch was, is the badger exciting

or boring? Well, I ran into a badger once, he bored the hell out of me. I mean, he just would not stop talking about his wedding. Like, I got it, stop showing me the wedding video. Enough about the weather, badger. Okay. Anyway, look, look, this is fun. How could a badger be boring?

What does that mean? Do something, you badger. Anyway, okay, so look, it's fun to read these. I look forward to the book, but look, we don't want to just tell you what other people are writing. We want to add something extra. We're independent media, and we rely on you for support, and many of you have supported us. And so, look, I don't know if I'm supposed to announce this, but we have been using some of that money to develop a new technology to attempt to, you know, make our reporting better. And so I think that this is honestly like the perfect opportunity to finally roll it out.

What is Donald Trump now, this is 2017, what is Donald Trump thinking about now? We've developed a technology that will read his mind. I know what you say, you can't do that with a human. Well, he's barely one, and his brain does not much in there. I think we can isolate it. Let's cut to the White House now and see what we've got. It really is pro-veteran. I mean, we do love you.

We're proud of all the things you've done. I'm very grateful we have had the help of merchandise. I don't know if anyone remembers that video, but I couldn't be happier. The only one I remember is the honey badger. Okay, yeah. Okay. All right, but last thing guys, I'm gonna go with John here that actually for a different reason, this is slight credit to Donald Trump.

Is the first time I've ever seen him be intellectually curious about anything? That's true, right? That's true. And I wouldn't, and if the president randomly asked about badgers on his off-top, time, yeah, nothing wrong with that. I mean, you could Google it, but, you know, he's not a Googling kind of person. So if he's got thousands of staffers, I wouldn't bother my chief of staff with it, but if maybe you pull in an assistant to the assistant and go, I know it's silly, I was randomly

curious about Badgers. Can you get me a write-up on Badgers? And that would be fine. That'd be totally fine. But like, Condahar, Condor. Okay, okay, I got it with the Condahar stuff. But badgers, exciting? Would they rate? Would they rate? Would they get good ratings?

Or would I have to fire them? Are badgers lame? I love the idea, too, that like, you know, I always wonder, like, hypothetically, you might be an amazing prodigy at pianos, but you'd ever try, so you don't know. Or, like, you might, like, sort of long for something that you could have done and been good at. I occasionally think, like, what if I had stayed in, like, one of the hard sciences or something? I love the idea at, like, his mid-70s, Donald Trump is, like, he's president, he's got it all, but he's still, like, thinking back and wishing that he had instead been a badger.

By the way, wait till he gets a load of the fact that Betsy DeVos is from Michigan. He's going to be, like, Wolverine, what's got bigger claws? Badger or Wolverine? I've seen it. Really sharp claws. Is that true? And really, I mean, he can't die. That doesn't make sense.

How quickly does he heal? Okay. You think we're kidding. It's on a movie. Okay. All right, guys, J.R. Jackson and Cara Eastman, the legendary Kara Eastman, when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work.

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