The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - February 17th, 2020

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

Trump's ICE is at it again. John Iadarola, Nando Vila, and Francesca Fiorentini, 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another week here at the Young Turks.

Almost a damage report. I'm here. What's that? It's this other, it's this thing. It's like a webinar. That sounds more dignified than it usually ends up being. Nando, welcome back, Francesca. Great to have you here.

Good to be here. I've heard rumors, by the way, later in the week. Shank Yugar's going to be around. That's going to be a treat. Who's he? Also, never heard of him or that. I'm not really sure. Where am I?

What is it, Jank? Now, look, I want to give you an idea of what you can expect. First of all, in the second hour, Brett and Jason Carter are going to be here, so that should be a lot of fun too. This hour, we do have some news, and then we also have a lot of, it's Mike Bloomberg. I mean, because it turns out he talked a lot over the past few years, and it was almost always a bad choice. Yes, he has talked a lot. Oh, I thought it was because we all got checks over the weekend. Did you guys not?

I'm just, yeah. Not supposed to announce the endorsement yet. It's supposed to be Super Monday. Oh, right, right, right, right. But anyway, we're gonna go over some of what Bloomberg has been saying. Also, near the end of the hour, I had something that I wanted to talk about, and it involves some of what I've seen, especially in Meet the Press, of sort of like, Dem primary electoral math that I think is kind of ridiculous, so we're gonna address that near the end.

Yeah. But anyway, why don't we start off with something very serious, and then we can have fun with Mike Bloomberg and all of that. So down at the border, Donald Trump's war against any form of immigration. continues. In this case, a new tactic, more underhanded than I could imagine, maybe even worse than the caging, when it comes to a migrant children the way they've been treated during their mandated therapy sessions. So to bolster its policy of stepped-up enforcement, the Trump administration is requiring that notes taken during mandatory therapy

sessions with immigrant children be passed on to ice, which can then use those reports against minors in court. So, like, if you've ever been to a therapist, so I've been to a therapist, So I've been to a therapist, they take all those notes, presumably, they're not drawing or anything. All of that then goes to the people who are trying to build a case to send you out of the country. So any stories you tell about the time before you migrate, anything that happened to you while you were coming to America, any dreams you've had, worries or fears, any of this sort of stuff will be used by ICE officers to justify continual detainment or possibly even sending you out of the country. Now, we're gonna have examples of how this is played out, but I wanted your initial reactions to this tactic, because I hadn't heard about them doing this before. I, you know, when you talk about the Trump administration and the sort of a looming threat

of fascism, like I think a lot of the times that's semi overblown, except for in the case of ICE and its activities in the last four years, like this is just so textbook fascist-fascist-y, I would say. You know, it's absolutely horrifying that they would just, completely suspend any sort of ideas of habeas corpus, of due process of anything that is just, like the cruelty of this is just so unbelievable, like the extent to which they went to deport this poor guy in the example in the article is, it's just mind boggling, you know, that they could use your own therapy sessions, which are obligatory against you, you know,

like self-incrimination, all the stuff that we seem, that we claim to care about in this country just goes completely out the window when we're talking about an other, in this case, immigrants, which is just, you know, fascism 101. I mean, it makes me worried that say like there was a new administration, say there was a Bernie Sanders administration, like would ICE obey orders or are they just a, have they just been so radicalized and rogue that they would, that they would go completely, you know, brown shirts and out of control. Like, I don't, it's honestly terrifying.

Yeah, I mean, I would assume, I get, maybe that's a war we'll have to see. Yeah. I mean, I think that the specifics of this case are not actually all that specific, meaning the kind of terror that this child, because he just turned 18, had been facing for years. He's been in detention for two years already. But the kinds of things that he's been facing are the kinds of stories that we've been hearing from minors for now for so many years and there is a crisis because there are there is gang violence right in I think his country of origin is El Salvador and so he talks about to his

therapist under confidentiality right that he was beat by his grandmother who was an alcoholic and then she died and that was some relief but then MS-13 took over his home and then forced him forced him into selling drugs right which which is now being used against him, even though he was forced by a gang to do so. Then his cousin was also taken by MS-13, refused to comply with MS-13, and then he was forced to brutalize his own cousin in front of the gang in order to spare his life. This child has been through so much. And in fact, a judge ruled that he had been through enough and that she was, I can't remember

who it was, but they were gonna give him bond and he could leave. Well, then ICE intervened again and said, no, no, no, no, we're gonna, we're taking it for him, we're gonna redetain you, you can't get out on bond. And I guess when it comes to immigration, this administration, part of that fascism is deterrence, right? Like we're going to make it so horrible to immigrate to this country, whether it's, you know, by the wall, by Customs and Border Patrol, whether it's ICE, whether it's not giving you medical attention, whatever it's going to be, that therefore you will not, you will not

immigrate. Well, what are you doing then? You're directly competing with who? MS-13. Yeah. You are competing and saying, no, no, no, we can be worse than MS-13 and you should stay there. Essentially, you're becoming a gang. Yeah, no, it is tough. So when Trump rails against how, you know, well, it's these gangs and we're letting them into this country, no, no, the victims of gang violence are trying to seek asylum in this country. And your response is, no, we're going to be as bad as the gangs. And they just need to fess up to that and say, yeah, no, we're actually trying to be as bad as the gangs, and until we are, until the U.S. and Customs and Border Patrol is kidnapping people and forcing them in a drug selling, then children and people

who are escaping violence will always choose to leave. They will always choose to leave unless we get our own gang violence, which we're nearing there. Yeah, because we're talking about this, I want to jump ahead to the fifth graphic because Francesca gave you a good idea of that kid's life story that, like, abused by his family, forced to abuse other parts of his family at the threat of death, was going to be obligated to murder a random person to prove his loyalty to a gang he wanted nothing to do with. So he fled. Like you would think if America was worth anything, it could save that child.

But it can't, not the current America doesn't want to anyway. And so that life experience, which we just talked about and Kevin relayed to his therapist, here is how ICE described that. CASE notes provided by ORR. Per case notes, Kevin is affiliated with MS-13 in Honduras. Kevin was allegedly involved in a plot to kill his cousin. He has gang ties, poses a danger to the community, and is a flight risk. No, no, he's a death risk, as in if you send him back, you will be killed by MS-13.

Yes. But that's, they don't care, it's not their job to care. And what's horrifying to think is that, you know, MS-13 is obviously a direct result of long-standing US policy, whether it was the Reagan supporting death squads in Central America, which killed several hundred thousand people, which caused a huge migration crisis in the 1980s, many of whom settled in Los Angeles, then became involved in gangs and got caught up in the criminal justice system. MS-13 was created in Los Angeles jail system.

Then when they were deported, they brought that back to El Salvador. This guy is from Honduras, which it's worth remembering. the Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton-led State Department in 2009 supported a military coup in Honduras, which, and has since then, the United States has supported their right-wing we call it president, but it's like a pseudo-dictator, and has caused a huge social crisis in Honduras, which has led to this migration wave that we're seeing. So these are the direct results of U.S. policy. And it's interesting because we never hear about Honduras and El Salvador.

The country that we always hear about is our stated enemy, which is Nicaragua. They're not coming from Nicaragua. They're coming from our allies, which are Honduras and El Salvador. You mean political enemy because they have a more left-wing government? Yes, political enemy because they're the Sandinista government, which we hate because they won the war in the 1980s. So yeah, it's just, it's just, U.S. policy has its fingerprints all over this poor kid's life. Yeah. You know, from the moment he was born to the day he was deported back to Honduras, U.S.

policy has touched this kid's life in so many ways that are absolutely horrifying. And it's, you know, it goes to show that the Trump administration is obviously a worse iteration of what longstanding U.S. policy is. But it is a, just the tip of the iceberg of something that's been going on for so long in Central America. Well, we've reached a breaking point. So like I think when you have more authoritarian fascist tendencies, right, you're like, well yeah, well we should just, you know, lock them all up and put them in cages and deport them.

And then Democrats who've been willingly militarizing the border for decades now, and like you said, supporting coups in Honduras, which is absolutely there was a spike in violence after that happened, have also been pouring tons and tons of money into the very things that are making the humanitarian crisis in these countries even worse. So when you reach a breaking point, and that is sort of, I think why a lot of people have been pushed to say, let's abolish ice. Yeah. Because the reform is no longer a viable option here.

And we're either faced with these two horribly militaristic, xenophobic, you know, like abuses of human rights, or hey, let's just demilitarize. Hey, why is this body even here? It's not doing good. Yeah, I wanna, in addition though, so if you read the full article, which is available on the Washington Post by Hannah Dreyer. They do go into depth into Kevin's story, but there are other examples because this is a widespread policy that's affecting a lot of people.

I'll give you a few ideas of how it's happened. So in Arizona, there was a 15-year-old who told a therapist he had participated in 50 murders. A number he quickly took back and said it had been a boast. It wasn't based on anything. Obviously. No, I think he killed 50 people. Yeah. Jesus.

He was moved to high security detention and his asylum case remains under review. In California, a teenager who had been detained for 11 months already confided. to shelter staff that he wanted to die. In an asylum hearing, the confession was read aloud as evidence he was a danger to himself and should be deported. Yes, that makes sense. That's totally a thing that makes sense. Yep.

In Virginia, a 16 year old told a shelter therapist that his brother was wanted for murder in El Salvador. The therapist reported that the 16 year old himself was involved in a murder, and he was transferred that same day to secure attention. So look, I'm glad that she sketched out sort of how we got here and how the policies of our government have created it. At this point, they get here, all that, so we can't fix all of that. No. Hopefully therapy could do something, but that itself has been turned into a tool of oppression. And then, like, how easy would it have been to save Kevin?

To let Kevin in, integrate him into America, it would have cost America nothing. But we won't even do that. A fraction of what it costs to hold him for two years in the detention center. Which has gotta be expensive. Yeah, and then lawyers, all these deportations. deportation cases are hugely expensive. They involve judges and lawyers and all that stuff, and that stuff costs money. And instead of like, you know, you could bring him into the United States, attach a social

worker who is trying to help him and integrate him into society, you know, put him as part of our education system, you know, we could have saved this kid. Instead, we're probably condemning him to either instant death or he's probably gonna have be forced to choose if he still has this option to rejoin a life of gang violence. violence. Right. And if it's interesting because like we talk about the broken criminal justice system and it is very broken and when it comes to people currently living in this country and citizens.

But then when you talk about immigration law and like the, like, you know, courts on the border and in all the, like it's even worse, if we can imagine how we're, how much more terrible it is. Like I remember hearing this one immigration judge and she was saying, well, it's like issuing a death sentence or a life and death case. It's like ruling on a life and death case in traffic court. So you're just sort of processed in and out. But that is the difference between people dying, people living. And I think, you know, when you think about a 17 year old, 18 year old being held in detention for multiple years, yeah, they are going to become a risk

to themselves because it will drive you crazy. And now you have someone who you were told was going to listen to you in confidence is using your own words against you. It's terrifying. Yeah, yeah. It's obviously a very sad story. We do have to take our first break. When we come back, things will get a little bit lighter, although the implications for the election with Mike Bloomberg pretty dark. But anyway, we're going to evaluate some of his recent statements. 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 comment, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows.

But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned.

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. After this. Welcome back to the Young Turks, everybody. Back into the news, I did want to read some of your comments, I saw member comments from the architect who just said, we are the monsters. That sounds very ominous. So it's like a villain into like a Bond movie.

Exactly. The architect. Just saying we are the monsters. Unfortunately we are. And in the Ethernet said President's Day treat power panel on Monday. It's unofficial but yes. Clever name in the Ethernet. Exactly.

Armando says, on the super chat, when will Nando get his own TYT show? Well, you know. Make it happen. I mean, you'll have to fascinate. Like Ken Clippincide says, rise and grind. Right, rise and grind every morning. Okay, so let's see. And then on the hashtag TYT live, Melissa Matrice says, nothing is better for your mental health

than being tossed out of your country to die. Yeah. You can't have mental health problems if you're dead. Think about it. That's so dark and true. Okay, with that, let's moderately lighten things up. We've got some Mike Bloomberg for you. Yes.

I apologize to both of you. I know neither of you want to talk about this, but we're going to talk about Mike Bloomberg a bit. It would seem that Mike Bloomberg would have some issues in his past that would affect him in a Democratic primary. Stop and frisk seems like a pretty big one. His whole relationship with multiple communities that are non-white inside New York, but he is trying to get out in front of it.

Out in front by, I mean, he's got some ads we're trying to show you. Bear in mind, he's never had to go on a debate stage, he hasn't been interviewed. There's been no communications between Mike Bloomberg and the electorate that he has not controlled through his own advertising revenue. But he does have that revenue. And so here is some ads that have to do with his record in that area. Here's the first. When I came home for president, my sons were in their teens, I got involved in juvenile justice.

I didn't want them to go through the same thing I went through. Michael Bloomberg created the young men's initiative and helping keep other young men and young women from answering into the criminal justice system. And we see it. We see it in young people being employed. We see young people being removed out the system. And that's what justice looks like for me. And I think that's what Mike Bloomberg's done for my community and throughout the city of New York. And that ad just hurts on a very fundamental level to watch. I just hope everyone in these ads is getting well compensated. That's all I could say, get that money, you know, like, take it. It's fine.

I'm not trying to not what he's doing. Yeah, no, listen, take the money. I'm not really mad at that. But saying that Mike Bloomberg has tried to stop young black men from entering the criminal justice system is just the most cruel thing. anyone's ever claimed Mike Bloomberg's policies are the reason many young black men entered into the criminal justice system to begin with after being thrown up against a wall just by the color of their skin and the neighborhood they were walking in.

So please spare us. This Mike Bloomberg campaign is a hugely clarifying moment for me and I think for a lot of people who see that a lot of the liberal elite is just straight up for sale. and don't actually care about any of the things they profess to care about. Like if we've been, the sort of Democratic Party has branded itself the party of minorities for the last 20 or for 30 years. Minorities have always suspected that they take that their support for granted and don't actually believe any of the things they profess to believe about being committed to anti-racism,

being committed to ending, you know, the criminal justice, heinous criminal justice system that we have, but the reality is that a huge chunk of those people don't actually care about any of that stuff, because if you see anyone supporting Mike Bloomberg, that's what that tells you. It tells you that they don't care about any of that stuff. Any of the stuff they propose to care about in the last 20 or 30 years. So it's gonna be a very clarifying moment. And the other aspect of is that he has so much money that he can single-handedly prop up

an entire TV network with ad spending. I mean, if you look at the numbers, I mean, that's like the bottom line of a ton of news organizations throughout the country could be single-handedly dependent on Mike Bloomberg's money, which is going to, once again, prove like every single Chomskyite in, you know, reading Chomsky like in their dorm smoking weed has a better understanding of the way the media works than, you know, these people who pretend that these things don't have an effect, because what you're going to see is a bunch of networks treat Mike Bloomberg with kid gloves. Yeah, yeah, so far he hasn't even gotten within a mile of the gloves.

So honestly, we don't know because apparently if you have enough money, you can buy all the ads you want, and you never have to answer to literally anyone. Well, he owns his own cable news network, that has a small little detail, he has his own entire cable news network that he could just turn into a campaign propaganda arm. And so in terms of the clarifying moment, it is both that he is the rejection of all of what these elites have said they care about, but also happening at the same time that you have a candidate that has the coalition, they've been saying they want for literally decades. So they have to throw that to the side as they embrace, Mike Bloomberg. And look, by the way, there are some people, some regular people who are gonna be duped by all of these ads. He's the only person they'll have seen because he's advertising literally 50 states simultaneously. And they will be fooled into thinking not that he has the right positions because you can watch as many ads of his as you want. You'll never know what any of his positions are, but that he can win, which relies on you having no idea how elections actually work because he is a disaster.

Bloomberg has 60 sexual harassment cases against him. Yeah. Six, zero. Those are all the only ones that were actually, you know, reported. I mean, there could be many, many, many, many more instances of actual sexual harassment that were the woman didn't have the courage to actually, you know, file a lawsuit. Or felt especially at that time that if she did, she would lose her career and no one would listen to her. Exactly, like, but look, we think of all these Democrats who were blue in the face outraged at Trump's grab them by the blank, blank tape, rightfully so, but if they could then turn around and support Mike Bloomberg,

then I'm sorry, like, you cannot be mad about it. But he doesn't say it openly, okay, there's a difference, you know? He's not caught on tape. He wasn't caught on tape saying it openly. And when he, he didn't use the P word, he used the V word, and that was just respectful. He's woke. No, listen, Bloomberg has a, exactly, he has a longer record, if it is possible to have a longer record of being a racist and sexist, then Trump, that's Bloomberg.

Bloomberg has more of a political record. Yeah, Trump has a non-political record of being a racist and a sexist. But like, Bloomberg's actually actually enacted his racist policies. And especially, you know, I know we might look at a, you know, black America for Mike. Like, no. And whenever I think of anyone who's viable and who can, like, beat Trump, I always think about how Trump will co-opt a progress. aggressive critique of that candidate to his advantage, like we saw him do with Clinton

all the time. And we know that actually, you know, other candidates like Bernie Sanders are a lot less weak on that front. But when it comes to going against Bloomberg, it's like, Trump is gonna not stop talking about stop and frisk, it'll be endless. And his lies about how African American unemployment is down and his lies to the African American community, like, which are again, just as full of, you know, nothing as Bloomberg's, he will weaponize that.

Yeah. Yeah, and I love that on like cable news, there are a couple figures so you can see smoothly transition from a, yeah, it looks like Bernie Sanders could beat Trump, but he's never been attacked before, too. Bloomberg's the guy. I think Bloomberg can totally do it, but they do that. Okay, so I'm getting from both of you that this first ad hasn't won you over. No, but I'm open-minded. You're not Bromberg's yet. Yeah, my Venmo account, Mike Bloomberg, is at Nando Arvila. If you deposit a million dollars. Yeah, because my name's Rodriguez hyphen villa. It's very long.

You're gonna get a dollar. Well, okay, I can't confirm that he didn't give you that money, but he does have a second ad. So let's take a look at that. For hundreds of years, Americans systematically stole black lives, black freedom, and black labor. And I know my story would have turned out very differently if I had been black. So today I'm proposing a sweeping strategy to invest in black wealth creation. The wealth gap is inextricably linked to the racial in qualities of the past. And I'm determined to make breaking that link a centerpiece of my presidency. That is the most intellectually offensive ad I've ever seen in my life.

Like it's inextricably linked to the inequities of the past. It is. But in some cases, it ain't that far in the past for years. Your administration in New York. What the Bloomberg administration in New York taught us, which by the way, he did the thing that Evo Morales was military couped for, which was extensive. his term limits to three terms. That's right.

But we don't talk about that ever. But what the Bloomberg mayorship of New York has taught us is that a huge swath of well-to-do, middle class, white liberals will accept a sort of soft fascism, like a light police state in their own world, as long as they are personally not affected, but they do not care about any of the underclass at all. And this is a good example of why that is, because like as long as someone uses the right words, if someone says like, oh, you know, systemic racism is linked to the past or whatever, but you know, what can be done about it, you know, all that stuff.

As long as they say the right buzzword, they sound like a campus, you know, speaker or something in 2020. What about reparations? Yeah, Louvre's gonna come out for reparations in two seconds. Dude, honestly, come out for reparations. That's where that ad was going. It was like, you know, the histories of systemic. racism, but reparations.

Do it, Bloomberg. Come on, just come on, go on, go on. He could personally do it. Yeah, he could personally pay. Yeah, he can personally pay reparations. Do you think he'll, but he will definitely get pushed on that, right? Like he'll be asked by, you know. You're talking about his record in this area?

Yes, yes, he'll be asked about reparations. Remember how all the candidates about, you know, six, ten months ago or about, are you four against reparations? I know Bloomberg is going to get asked about that. Here's the thing. The only difference between Mike Bloomberg and Donald Trump is that on the, on the their way from Earth to Elysium, Bloomberg will air drop a bunch of diet soda. That's, you know, that's love, thank you, we are thirsty.

Yeah, no, it's, the whole thing has me in a very, very dark place, to be honest, like the prospect of Bloomberg buying the Democratic nomination. Well, I don't even think he could, because he can't win outright, I genuinely don't think there is a path for him to win the 1990 delegates. To get even a plurality, let alone the majority. Yeah, I don't think so. So the only way that he gets the nomination is through some BNC chicanery at the convention, in which case there will be absolutely be a rupture in the Democratic Party.

It would break the party apart. It would go the way of the wigs in the 19th century when they couldn't pronounce themselves on slavery issue. They're like, you know what, maybe we'll just do like a middle of the road policy on it. It's still a long way off, but I don't want to make any promises, but there are political environments that I would have very little interest doing this job. And I can see multiple of them potentially come in. I guess the only thing going against that is that I have no other marketable skills.

So I guess we'll see you in the future. Just join the Bloomberg campaign. Yeah, honestly, give in, join the campaign. They could use you. I don't know if I have enough Instagram followers for him to value my influence. What do you guys think about him on the debate stage though? I think he is going to be, like I saw a movie called Crawl and there was a scene where a person is torn apart by five allegations. at the same time, I'm hoping that's what it is.

Here's the one thing, every single billionaire in the world has in common, which is that they surround themselves with yes men. They are not used to being told that whatever it is that they're doing is not right or anything like that. And they really don't like actual pushback on any of this, like they freak out. I mean, that's, and that's what's gonna happen on the debate stage. Bloomberg's gonna be surprised at the hostility coming to him from all the candidates. Because I think, you know, obviously Bernie has his own reasons, but I think every single

other candidate is going to start attacking him. And the ones that don't are going to be very telling, you know, it's like you're- I think it's going to be complete vindication for Bernie in his entire platform these, you know, six years, which has been talking about how billionaires have way too much influence are in our economy, in our political system. It's like a kid being like, mom, dad, the boogeyman's literally under my bed. And they're like, oh, that's so cute. And then like the boogie man comes in the living room, like, hey, sup.

Here's a giant bag of money. He's the bag with the dollar side. Do you guys want to work for me or what? And Bernie's gonna be like, look, right there. But I guess I feel like he should still not be allowed on the debate stage. And I know he'll have to answer for all of his policies and his BS, but I feel like if he goes ignored, there's nothing worse than being ignored. If he goes ignored, he's just sort of this weird offshoot candidate who's buying a lot

of ads and he's got people, I guess. And he'll poll a little bit, but he won't, it immediately takes him seriously and And there I say, kind of like the way we took Trump too seriously from the beginning, you know, later when he, you know, became serious. But we- But Trump didn't spend this kind of money. No, of course, but I feel like- And he's in a national poll today, he's in second. Yeah.

No, no, no. I still have- You think a debate will deflate him? I think, I think, well, look, the interesting thing for me will not be what the candidates do. I have a feeling of what the candidates are going to do, but it'll be interesting to see. Will the moderators just start listing his quotes the way Megan Kelly did with Trump back in 2016, bring up the kill it, bring up the minimum wage should never be raised, bring up the Israel should bomb Palestinian hospitals and schools, bring up the-

The NSA should read every email, like every issue. He's got the worst imaginable position on it. Just list them. I'm going to do that tomorrow on the damage board, by the way. The top 10 worst-my-counter video, just hand it to mail it to all the moderators. But will they do that? No. Okay, so look, we have a lot more to talk about.

I do want to transition to another topic, though. But still, Mike Bloomberg. One of the top issues in this Democratic primary, I think we had a little bit of an issue there, one of the top issues this Democratic primary is health care, obviously. We want to know where all of these candidates stand on health care. And we're still getting an idea with Mike Bloomberg, but a recent video has come around the internet today where he does talk about one place where he would draw a line when it comes to health care.

Let's listen. If you're bleeding, I'll stop the bleeding. If you need an x-ray, you're going to have to wait. That's just, and all of these costs keep going up. Nobody wants to pay any more money. And at the rate we're going, health care is going to bankrupt us. So not only do we have a problem, it's going to bankrupt us. And we've got to sit here and say which things we're going to do and which things we're not.

Nobody wants to do that. You know, if you show up with prostate cancer and you're 95 years old, we should say, go and enjoy, have an ice cream, leave a long life. No, it's your. And you can't do it. If you're a young person, we should do something about it. Society's not going to do that yet. So we're gonna bankrupt us. So if you're old, you know, like we were talking before the show about there was the myth of the death panels.

Like this formal thing that you go before and they decide whether you get care or not. He's found a way around that whole thing? You don't even get the panel? No panel. Just executive order, you die. By the, this, by the way, this, what Bloomberg is saying is a totally mainstream belief amongst both the establishment of the Republican Party and the establishment of the Democratic party.

Both establishments believe that entitlements are gonna bankrupt us and that they need to be cut. So it's not, the thing about Bloomberg is because he's so rich, he says the quiet part out loud. It's another reason why this is a hugely clarifying thing, because he, you know, most at least Democratic politicians have the sense to not say those things out loud, they say it behind closed doors and in private, they don't say it out loud because they know it would just destroy their popularity with voters, because that is literally the most unpopular position in American politics, is cutting healthcare spending and cutting Social Security.

But that is an absolutely mainstream view amongst in the establishment of both parties. Yeah, I mean, obviously, let's just listen, let's just remember that if he had, if anyone else other than Bloomberg had said, if you get prostate cancer, say LaVie, write it out, buddy, like absolutely disqualifying, totally disqualifying. And Bloomberg, I will hold you to that, buddy. 95, we're checking your prostate, man. I will personally, I will personally check Bloomberg's prostate. Listen, we're taking one for the team here.

Nando's taking one for the team. I'll do it. I've done worse. He's checking Bloomberg's prostate. You think any billionaire will, will, billionaires want to live forever. We know that. I think though, the thing for me is that what Bloomberg's doing and what Nando you were talking about was that we talk about health care costs as if there's some, they just sort of fall

on us like dew drops in the morning. Like we don't know where they come from, they're just like, it's like the tooth fairy. We're just suddenly, you know, blessed with tons of debt. No, healthcare costs are rising because private health insurers are making a killing off of our sickness. That's why the costs are going up, and yet we are never able to talk about reining in those costs And actually reining in those industries, whether it's the private health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, it's like, that is the thing that Bloomberg's, yeah, look this.

Yeah, that's what we're talking about. No, listen, I was having a great moment. But no, please, please, please take it off. What Bloomberg is basically saying. Let's talk about the rectal exam again. Let's talk about the rectal exam. What Bloomberg is saying is that he will not confront the health insurance industry, that he is too scared, he is too cowardly, and he's too in the pockets of health insurance industry,

the health insurance industry or pharmaceuticals, but he's not going there. And I think we should hear that when he says those things, and we should hear that when anyone says, well, the costs are just going up, no, they're going up because someone is making them go up. Yeah, and by the way, almost everything, like I could actually do it, but I know good people who would just start making the ads against Bloomberg because he's providing everything you possibly need. People actually do kind of hate billionaires, like they've gotten a taste of Trump, I don't

think they want another one. Like, imagine this guy going around saying, you know, when you hit a certain age and you get sick, you're gonna die. You think Bloomberg's gonna die when he hits 95? No. Bloomberg could be 107 years old with some sort of weird degenerative uranium poisoning. And he's gonna get, he's gonna get $20 billion worth of medical care. He will always be fine.

He says minimum wage should never be raised. He's gonna be fine, money wise. Like the idea that they're not running ads against him yet, and perhaps they're worried about the thing you said about like sort of legitimizing him. I would argue when he hits 20% in the national polls and he's in second, you should probably do something about it. It's just, it's insane. And by the way, the example he gave there is you hit 95 and you get prostate cancer.

Do you think that's actually where he would have them draw the line, 95 in prostate cancer? No, that's gonna be a lot lower in practice. It already is in practice for most people. Even people who are lucky enough to have health insurance aren't necessarily receiving the coverage necessary when something truly disastrous happens. And that is a status quo that he is perfectly comfortable with continuing because he doesn't exist in that status quo. He exists in Elysium, where they get the best medical care imaginable, technologies we've

never heard of before. Exactly. Well, and the worrying thing about Bloomberg is that I think he says those things, not because he's in the pocket of anyone because he's richer than all of them, he has no monetary interest in any pharmaceutical industry or anything at all, it's deep-seated ideology, and it speaks to his natural tendency toward authoritarianism, which is what he is. He is a Republican authoritarian. I mean, he was a Republican up until two seconds ago, and he instituted a massively authoritarian

state in New York City. So these things are deep within him. They are what he believes. They're his honest ideological commitments. If he was in the pockets of X, Y, or Z industry, I'd almost be more forgiving. You know, because then you can get some other one to be in the pocket of whoever, you know, like. But the ideology is that no one can lose money no matter what. Right.

No matter what we can all, we like people need to be able to make money and by people, I mean, you know, my friends on my spaceship. Yeah. Okay, I wanna show you one more video. We only have time for brief responses, but I think this is an interesting one. Okay, we're gonna do that after the break. We're gonna take a short one. I'll be back after this.

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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-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. Welcome back to the first hour, everybody, with Francesco Nando and myself. Let's see, we've got some hashtag TYT lives. Fun. I'm the Derpy Dragon says, don't you guys know we got to fight fire with fire. So to beat a racist, sexist, billionaire, Democrats need their own racist sexist billionaire. That was Joanne Reed said on MSNBC.

Yeah? He said that exact argument. To mock it? No, to be like, you know, Bloomberg's a Republican. Ironically? No, she was dead serious. She was like, oh, you know, Trump's a Republican, maybe to beat a Republican we need one. And Bloomberg's a Republican, why not him?

So why don't we run Eric Trump? Yeah, that would be, that would be to Trump than Trump. I would like that. I'm not opposed. Not Don Jr., though. No, no, but we could pick off, Eric. Yeah, let's get rid of the constitutional requirement of age. We'll run barren.

Okay, I'm not going to get in trouble on CNN now. Okay, so Jason Pierce says, forget about it. They drummed Al Franken out of the party, and he didn't have anywhere near 60 accusations. That's Republican-level hypocrisy. Good point. Well, if he gets busy harassing people, then someday perhaps he can run for president. That's a requirement now, apparently. Okay, with that, why don't we jump right back into the thick of this?

Bloomberg is a billionaire, and so it's not necessarily obvious that he understands the plight of regular working people, but he has occasionally been on video talking about different sort of workers, what their workers like, and so I want to take a look at this. Now, he is talking about different sorts of economies, different technological levels in those economies. Here he is talking about the difference between old-style agrarian economies and the technological economy of today. Technology is reducing the ability to give them the jobs. We're just more and more, if you think about the agrarian society lasted 3,000 years, and we could teach processes. I could teach anybody, even people in this room, so no offense

intended, to be a farmer. It's a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, bad water, up comes the corn. Then we had 300, you could learn that. Now comes the information economy. And the information economy is fundamentally different because it's built around replacing people with technology. And the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and analyze. And that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a different skill set. You have to have a lot more gray matter. It's not clear the teachers can teach or the students can learn. Okay, so amazing.

There's a few things there. It's amazing. I wanna start with what I think is like we can have a discussion about the merits of any individual part of that. But the money quote there is, you have to have more gray matter, which is funny for two reasons. One, because he is still in effect saying that people that are outside of the information economy aren't as smart.

And two, he seems to think that to be smarter, you need more broadly. brain. Yeah. And that's, I don't think that's how it actually works. What Bloomberg said there about farming is as if I said, I'm, you know, business is easy. All you gotta do is buy low and sell high. That's what I heard. That's what you're gonna do.

And I promise you that Bloomberg, if he were forced to farm to live, like if he were forced to farm his own land to eat and survive, he would die. Like, he would not have a single crop would grow from one of Bloomberg's farms. Yes, as someone who, listen, I can edit a podcast, a video. I know Instagram very well. I know pretty amazing. I can't keep succulents alive. Okay?

Mike Bloomberg. I think we need to start hashtag farmer Mike. Let's see you keep just one house plant alive without your help watering it whenever it needs watering. Like, yes, farming actually takes a lot of skill and a lot of analysis and understanding about like, I don't know, farm stuff, wind, weather patterns. Irrigation, planning, testing. There is a ton of work. But listen, we all don't just suckle glucose from stalactites while we hang upside down in our bunkers. I get that you don't eat real human food.

Okay. I don't know what billionaires eat, is what I'm trying to say. And the thing is, like, I know that the whole X is the same as Trump gets thrown around a lot. But the idea, like Trump's favorite thing to say is nobody. He knows more about X than I do. And that statement just reeks of that to me. I don't know a lot about farming, but I'm pretty sure that he doesn't either. Like I tried to grow tomatoes once, and I grew a massive tomato plant that never once had

a tomato on it. I don't even know how that's possible. It was like a tree, and there were no tomatoes. And I have YouTube, and I can do Googling and all that stuff. So like, but importantly, I wouldn't stand here and say, that's simple, it's so easy. And here's the thing. Like, yes, to some extent he is trying to make an analogy or metaphor or whatever. But he's also the sort of person that supposedly is so savvy and electable, but he goes

around and insults people casually talking about how they don't have enough gray matter. And I can't wait for Trump to run that in an ad against him in the Midwest or, or literally wherever. Anywhere. Regular people are gonna love that. The billionaire saying, ah, you guys who dig around in the dirt, you don't have the brain matter, Whether that's actually what he intended to say or not, that is how it is going to be received. Well, first of all, that's 100% what he intended.

I mean, I think the intention is very clear. And it's the, again, it's the deep-seated ideology of Bloomberg is an unbridled hatred and contempt for regular people. Like it's just, it's so obvious it seeds from his pores. And I'm just like imagining his next ad in like his next ad buy in like Iowa or Nebraska or something and it's him like tilling the land. You know, he's like, well, this is fun, you know, it's just amazing. It's just the whole thing is so depressing. I mean, seeing liberals line up behind him, you know, it has been in a very, very deep, dark place. To be fair, many of them have received large amounts of money from them, either individually

or for their cities. Some of them haven't, though. And that's what I don't understand. Yeah. So, look, that's an interesting route to take. But look, I wanna transition now to talking about Bloomberg in comparison to some other candidates because at some point he is going to have to interact with them. And recently online him and Bernie Sanders have been getting into it.

So let's talk a little bit about that. Recently, Bernie Sanders has been quite critical of Mike Bloomberg and his obvious attempt to buy this election. And so Bernie Sanders had tweeted out, the simple truth is that Mayor Bloomberg, with all his money, will not create the kind of excitement and energy we need to. defeat Donald Trump. So to that, Mike Bloomberg and his 5 million employees rapidly produced an ad, take a look at this.

It is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse. Yeah, so Bernie Sanders says he wants to be civil, and I think he has a reputation as being a guy who very rarely chooses to attack anyone. It can be frustrating sometimes, but did you know that people who might or might not actually support him have been online? And remember, as we were going through that, multiple of those tweets had hashtag Yang gang in them, which sounds like they might be Andrew Yang supporters. But the music, John, the music.

It was traumatic. I mean, what's so funny about just using random tweets, many things. One of them is none of those tweets said anything about Bloomberg. And I kind of, I feel like the internet's changed since Mike's entered the race. In fact, I think Mike Bloomberg is a great unifier. Because whether you're for Buttigieg or for Warren or for Sanders or for Yang, you know, we can all come together and hate Michael Bloomberg. And that is unique.

I think the internet's actually been a better place. But I also think people misunderstand what Twitter is. is for, like Twitter is just a public pillow that we scream into because we can't afford therapy. Like that's it, you know? And to take these tweets out of context with like, what Tanky underscore Yankee 69 tweeted on behalf of the Bernie Sanders campaign, I know it was official. It's like, man, get over it, calm down.

It's just, it's so funny to see like boomer, like I watched it and I'm like, suddenly I feel And I'm like, oh, Twitter is terrible. You know, I think this ad for Mike Bloomberg is the definitive jumping of the shark moment of the Bernie bro narrative, right? Which has always been in bad faith. It's always been disingenuous. Every single candidate has supporters who say mean things online. This is 1,000% true. There is zero evidence to suggest that Bernie supporters are disproportionate.

proportionately hostile online than other candidates. What this does is it has the effect of causing people to doubt themselves, causing supporters of Bernie Sanders to get a little bit of like, oh man, I don't know if I should go there. And what it reveals is that Bernie's passionate support is a source of strength for his campaign. It is not a liability the way the New York Times would tell you or the mainstream media would tell you, it is actually a great source of strength. Because if a candidate like Bernie Sanders who has basically zero media support, like they need some sort of independent media so that their supporters can feel confident about themselves, can

feel like that what their arguments are superior arguments, that they're gonna win, all these things that they keep hearing that they're actually not. The Bernie bros online, for lack of a better term, are a massive source of strength. Which is why they keep on attacking them incessantly. So don't doubt yourself, don't give an inch, not an inch to this, because it's in bad faith. I also think, yeah, continue with the bad faith thing. I think when we're talking about Bernie Sanders, and we're talking about Bloomberg even, like, I feel like we forget who Trump is and the kind of hate that he's stirred specifically online

from white nationalists. I mean, these people, do they know about 4chan and 8chan and 32nd Chan? I don't know, like how deep does it go? But we're talking about actual white supremacy being fomented and funneled upwards through the likes of Breitbart, like these are the trolls to be concerned about, right? And yet that falls by the wayside because someone hashtagged a snake, you know, or whatever it was. Like that, that's so disingenuous and so misses the mark about what we're up against.

And when it comes to sort of online harassment, yeah, there is real online harassment happening, but it tends to be from far right extremists and those who are stirred and inspired by Trump. Yeah, yeah, and I think that they're trying to make those seem like the same thing. Yes. But the thing is, like with Trump, he's like, yes, his fans abuse people, they harass people, they spread, like all that, but I've never been focused on what Trump's supporters say online. Right.

It's what Trump says. What Trump does. Yes, some of that is then reflected in his fans, but I don't think I've ever like just like shown you a whole bunch of screenshots of crazy stuff, MAGA people, like because you don't need to. And I want to be very clear about this, why that ad is such a sad admission. I don't need to just show you things that Trump fans said because I can talk about what Trump has said and more importantly what Trump has done.

If they could do that with Bernie Sanders, they would just do that. But they don't want to talk about his platform because that will make him more popular. They can't go to his statements because they're advocacy for the working class. They have to go to what they have. And that is random people that might or not might not actually support Bernie Sanders. We've never had to do that with Donald Trump. And it's worth reminding people that Bloomberg has 60 sexual harassment cases, one of which he told a woman who told him that he was pregnant to kill it, okay?

This is the guy we're supposed to be, you know, that's supposed to be policing the discourse online, this guy has in real life been an absolute monster. So that's why I think it's like the jump of the shark moment. Anyone who takes this seriously, it's like you can just look at him and be like, you're ridiculous. You should not be taken seriously on anything else you say. Absolutely. And obviously the ad has a great clip of Bernie Sanders, which is so funny because it's literally

proving that the candidate is a far cry from any so-called supporters online. What I want to say about a lot of centrist and maybe some media. figures, giving Bloomberg far more of a fair shake, that's so frustrating to me is because when it comes to appealing to Republicans, oh, well, Bloomberg appeals to Republicans, well, he was a Republican, well, let's, he's perfect. He gets lauded for that, whereas Bernie Sanders, whenever he appeals to Republicans by talking about working class populism or going on Fox News or how fair trade, free trade agreements were terrible for working people, he gets hammered.

So it's fine to be a Republican when you're supporting elitists. And it's not fine to be a Republican if you're speaking to working class people. Great, just want to make that clear. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, again, I tweeted earlier today, I wish that he, like, theoretically Michael Bloomberg could still qualify for the debate stage, I don't think that's going to happen. But I wish you would be there because I think it is way long past due that he start to be critiqued by someone who is not hosting an online news show.

Like, we're doing what we can. But at some point, like, has Chuck Todd? Don't sell yourself short. I think this show can take down Mike Bloomberg. Well, we're going to try. I think this segment could take him down. Yeah, or at the very least, presentive enough of a threat that he'll have to put. Or give him a free cross-dine exam.

But anyway, like, if we had to fill 24 hours a day, as CNN and MSNBC do, couldn't you at least pretend? Like, he's got so many scandals. Think about the drama. You could interview the people who have accused him of sexual harassment, like hour after hour of drama, and they don't care at all. But anyway, let's go to- Think of the drama.

I love that being a cell. Yeah, if you were like some cynical producer, like segment producer at CNN, you could do some killer content. You could think, you would think, yeah. Okay, so look, I want to turn to one other thing that's been bothering me and it has to do with the current state of the Democratic primer. So let's turn to that. You might recall in the wake of New Hampshire, like right after the results are pretty clear

and it was clear that Bernie Sanders is going to win, you started to see things like, this tweet I'm going to show you right now. So this is from Meet the Press, data download. If you look at the, they're all data download. If you look at the combined percentages of the centrist's candidates versus the liberal ones, the centrist performed better in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And so you see there, if you add together Buttigieg in Klobuchar and Biden, which is not a thing that happens in elections, it's higher than the liberal vote. And that's why Bernie lost in both those states. So that didn't happen. So here's the thing. The idea there, and I saw this literally the night of, they had it ready to go.

They had a template ready, they started punching in the numbers, is, okay, so Bernie won the popular vote in Iowa and he won New Hampshire. But hey, pump the brakes, that doesn't mean he's going to win. Because hypothetically, if there weren't all these centrists muddying the vote up, one of them would be able to beat him. So I want your reactions, and then we're going to get to the actual data that they're alluding to but not addressing. So my first reaction is that one of the dominant strains in the American political discourse is that no one has any sort of memory at all. Like they don't remember what happened three months ago, let alone four years ago. But I remember what happened four years ago, which is that they said the same exact thing

in the Republican primary. They were like, oh yes, Trump got 30% of the vote in this state. But if you add up Kasich, Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Jeff Bush, they beat him. So yeah, so Trump lost. And yeah, what happened? one, because that's not how politics works, as you said. So the fact that they can say this with a straight face and not realize that they said the exact same thing four years ago and it didn't play out is absolutely mind boggling to me.

I just think the word ceiling, like I've been hearing that repeated a lot and you'll see sort of these like these little code words that are then picked up like I heard my mom say, but I'm worried about the Sanders ceiling. I was like, what, where did you read that? What graphic was that from, right? Probably. Well, what they don't understand is that the ceilings in politics are a real thing, but it's when you measure favorability to unfavorability.

Your unfavorability rating is more or less your ceiling. Like if someone's made up a bad opinion about you and it's bad, it's very hard to change that person. But what happens with most politicians is that they have a favorability rating, then an unfavorability rating, which is much smaller, and then a whole group of people that don't have an opinion. And those are the getable people. So ceilings are real.

But Sanders has the best net favorability rating out of any of the Democratic candidates. The ceiling thing is fake. He doesn't have a lower ceiling than any of the other people. That's just a media invention. And I think that you might be on to something, because what if, what if we didn't hypothetically add together a whole bunch of candidates that are not the same person and can't be combined like a megazord and power rangers? What if we actually polled people?

Here are your two choices in the Democratic primary, how would these things go? Again, the data download is intended to make you think that if there was one centrist who's just murdered together of all of them, they'd beat Bernie Sanders. Hell, they'd beat Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Okay, well, let's test the hypothesis. So there was a study, let's see, a poll. What if it was Joe Biden? It was just him and Bernie Sanders.

Bernie would win by four. Okay, Elizabeth Warren versus Bernie, it's a slightly different thing, he still wins by two. But then once he get beyond that, it gets ridiculous. He beats Bloomberg by quite a bit, Buttigieg by almost 20, Amy Klobuchar by 21 points. Yes. So the idea is, well, I mean if Klobuchar, if Buttigieg dropped out, and then Klobuchar got that support and Biden's kind of down, like it's lucky for Bernie that it wasn't just Klobuchar, no, if it had just been those two, this race might be over right now.

Yeah. And it's no offense any of they can, if they're doing the best they can. But the data download and all of these conversations on panels on CNN, MSNBC, are pretending we don't have access to data that they're going to just speculate for hours about. Well, the other thing that that data tells me, and it's kind of a hot take, what it's that, you know, at this point, Elizabeth Warren's candidacy is only harming Bernie Sanders. So if she actually cares about any of the progressive policies that she claims to care about, the best thing she could probably do is drop out and indoors.

And that would be a great way for her to get back some of the good faith of people in that movement, perhaps for a later run. I just want to say that if, you know, back to what Nando was saying about Trump and how the media tried to add up all the moderates to, you know, overpower Trump, and how they get it so wrong every time, listen, if you like Bernie Sanders and you're mad that the media is getting it so wrong about him, just take that as a win because it means he probably will. Yeah, that's a good point. The media gets it wrong.

If the media is getting it wrong, then that means, basically it's opposite day every time you turn on the news. Yeah, I was talking about approval ratings earlier. If you look at the media's approval rating, it's somewhere at like 9%. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I mean, bankers literally have a higher favorability rating than the media. So if the media hates your candidate, you're probably doing something right. And that candidate probably is going to win because people will do whatever the opposite is of what the media tells them to do.

Can we end on a slight positive note, potentially? Yes. So they didn't just do this for Bernie versus everyone. They did it for all the different candidates. So let's, after one third of a billion dollars spent, let's see how Mike Bloomberg, who has had 100% control of the message in a way that I don't think any candidate in our lifetime has ever had, how does he fare against all of these people? Well, Bernie Sanders crushes him. Elizabeth Warren crushes him. Almost the same amount. Joe Biden beats him handily. Pete Buttigieg beats him. Klobuchar beats him. So I know that this is, again, I'm almost doing a data download.

This is not how it's gonna go. You're not gonna have just Mike Bloomberg in one of these necessarily. But if you did, as of right now, this is really pre-critique. He loses to literally all of the other candidates. But he's so electable. So electable, as long as you don't have to actually run him an election against one person. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, John. Hopefully this will not be the last time we talk about Mike Bloomberg. No, please no. He's a lot of fun. Again, the great unifier. Exactly. Of us anyway.

Where can people find more of your right work? Nando Arvila on Twitter. Yeah, at Frannie Fio on Twitter and Instagram. There you go. I deactivated my Instagram. Good for you. I took the plunge. You know, it's just not good for you, I don't think.

And yet you're on Twitter. But the animals. I can process Twitter better than most people, maybe because I'm weird like that. But Instagram is just, it's just a distraction. Okay, okay, we'll talk more. Okay, stick around, second hour coming right after this. 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.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.