The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - February 25th, 2020

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

Trump wants a pat on the back for the US coronavirus response. John Iadarola and Emma Vigeland, 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. Hello, and welcome to the Young Turks with me, Johnny Roland, also Emma Vigland is here. Oh, good Jack and Crushin.

Thank you. Thank you. Do, give me Anna Kasparian. Nope. See, that's what she would have said if I asked her to do that. Yes, good job actually. Thank you. But anyway, so look, we've got an awesome first hour.

We're gonna be starting things off. Jared Jackson's gonna be joining us just a little bit later on, and then all three of us will be going through the second hour when you will be taking the reins. That will be great. Looking forward to it. Should be very exciting. We've got great stories. We've been talking about coronavirus, very exciting and terrible updates there.

Let's see, we've got a lot of Bernie Sanders basically, last night there was a town hall with CNN, so we've got some clips from that, new attacks against Bernie Sanders, we're going to be breaking those down, and lots more where that came from. But before we launch into that, I did want to let you know that later on today, starting at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, 7 p.m. Pacific time on T.y.t.com slash live. We are going to be giving live reactions to the South Carolina debate with Emma. We'll be here. Jank and J. I will likely be here. I am currently scheduled to be doing live commentary on CNN, but I will likely be kicked,

rightfully so, and I will be back here giving commentary on T.O.T. instead. I'm kidding. You just feel burned. It's happened a couple times. You just feel burned. It's happened a couple times. But anyway, I'm supposed to be on. I feel like this is the time for you.

We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Anyway, if you're interested in that, I'll be on from like 7 to 715 Pacific, and then later on as well, I'll give more details on social media. But that comes later. For now, let's launch into the news. Situation with coronavirus continues to develop, and depending on who you talk to, things

are either very well contained, that's what you hear from the US government, or the numbers are rapidly spreading, that's what you hear from reality. And so we're gonna give you an update on how things are going around the world. As of Tuesday, there were more than 80,000 cases of COVID-19, that is the new scientific name for coronavirus, in nearly 40 countries. More than 2,600 cases outside of China, that's an increase from around 500 cases just over a week ago. So obviously a large number of cases inside of China, a rapid expansion of cases outside

of China. And to give an idea of a few countries that are particularly hit by this, South Korea now has the most cases other than China at 977 today, up from only 30 a week before. As of Tuesday, Iran reported 95 cases, including 19 deaths. Its outbreak was first identified days after authorities said they had no COVID-19 within their borders. We're gonna give you some updates on America as well, but that's sort of a first-pass overview on the world situation.

What do you think? Well, I just trust the United States government because they've never lied to me before, right? Especially Donald Trump. He has no incentive to make sure that the American people think that he hasn't bungled this. You know, his approval ratings have hit a high for him, which is actually shocking. And so there's nothing to derail that, like the threat of a deadly virus entering our borders

and it being because maybe Trump wasn't as proactive as he possibly could have been. Yeah, exactly. And look, we're gonna play some of the videos of Trump talking about this in just a little bit. I did want to give you a bit more information about the current status across America. The CDC, let's see, the CDC issued a warning Tuesday that it expects the illness to spread in the U.S. and that Americans should prepare themselves for significant disruption in their daily lives. There are 35 cases reported in the US as of Tuesday. Epidemiologist Mark Litt Lipschitz estimated to the Atlantic that between 100 and 200 are likely

actually infected. So more than we have actually tracked down so far. Now that is what we know and what some who are tracking this believe. You take that with a grain of salt, but let's go to what Trump has been saying recently. He's on this international tour, here's what he's saying about the spread of the disease. We're almost in between countries where people weren't going to take them and they're Americans, but they're fully quarantined. They call it fully quarantined.

So, you know, we did the right thing. If you were out there, if you were an American and you refused to have any help from your country, these were wonderful people. It wasn't their fault. So, but we're down to, we're really down to probably 10. Most of the people are outside of danger right now. But we've had a very strict, we've had a very strict line on the people that would take in the areas from which we take. And I did it very early.

It's never done before. And I did it early. So I think it was a good decision as it turned down. Bizarre combination of denying reality, lying about the number of cases, and then like sort of patting himself on the back. Say what? No one else has done what? Try to stop the spread of infectious disease before. It's never been done before.

I mean, he just has one mode. It's go back to making yourself seem like you're amazing, just over the top, raggedoshness. But the difference here is, is sometimes it can be borderline amusing, usually it's offensive. No, this is dangerous because people cannot underestimate the spread of this disease when he's downplaying the amount of people potentially infected in the United States. This is playing with people's lives here. This isn't Trump saying that his crowd size was the biggest. As the coronavirus continues to spread, we need a leader who's going to be clear-eyed about the actual effects of the virus. And the CDC report said, this is obviously doomsday scenario, but 40 to 70% of people could be infected at the rate that it's going by the end of the year.

Worst case scenario, that is terrifying. And to have Trump saying, you know, I did it. I was the one that ended this basically. I dealt with it very, very early. There's only 10 people which is counter to reality that it's just completely the opposite of what the leader should do to say the least. Exactly, it's this bizarre need to declare victory to give yourself congratulations for it when we honestly don't know.

I mean, look, we are trying to be responsible. We have to dwell in the ground between just crazy fear mongering and what Trump is doing, which is either not understanding the situation. We'll have video that buttress is the possibility that it just has no idea what's going on, doesn't have the brain capacity to understand it, or is knowingly lying, either because it benefits him in the short term politically to lie, or because he thinks it will be better for people to not understand the actual threat that we face. I think that that's probably what's going on, but in terms of the not understanding

disease and how it spreads, here is Trump from, I believe it was a few weeks ago, talking about why he thinks that coronavirus is probably only a short-term threat. He feels very confident. He feels very confident. And he feels that, again, as I mentioned, by April, or during the month of April, the heat, generally speaking, kills this kind of virus. So that would be a good thing. But we're in great shape in our country. The virus. They're working hard. Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer and miraculously goes away. I hope that's true. But we're doing great in our country. China. I spoke with President Xi, and they're working very, very hard. And I think it's going to all work out fine. Rough stuff. I tell you, rough, rough, rough stuff. But I think it's going to work out good. We only have 11 cases, and they're all getting better. We're great. We're the best. It's this bizarre sociopathic approach to like, you know, it's rough stuff, but it's going to be good, it's all going to work out.

Oh, thousands of people died, well, let's forget that. It's all, it's all good, it's all going to work out. You know, the heat will flush all that out. I mean, when have you ever heard of disease spreading in hot places? Oh my, I know, that's the exact opposite of what happens. The heat's going to make it worse, if anything. I mean, your scientific knowledge is way better than mine. Not in this area.

I'm sure mine is better than Trump's. I'd love to know what he thinks the mitochondria is. Yeah, and look, so, again, that would be interesting. How exactly did it evolve? A porn star. Oh, my God. So, look, I want to talk a little bit about a bit of the trouble that is facing us. So one thing is, in some countries, we've seen a rapid spread of the disease.

I mean, the absolute numbers in Italy are not particularly high, but they have been rising relatively quickly over a short period of time. We gave you the numbers for South Korea recently. There are some places, obviously, where it's hard to get information. But one of the things that is, like, some people will look at this and they'll think, Well, I mean, we've had so much notice now. This has been news for months. How could it have spread to new countries and then rapidly spread?

We should know to be on the lookout for it. Well, the problem is that not that many laboratories actually have the ability to screen for this disease. You think, oh, we've got doctors. No, not all can. I read one number. I think it was of like 100 labs in the U.S. that hypothetically do disease screening.

Only two actually had the ability to screen for COVID-19 at that point. That's a problem. And that's America, where we theoretically, up. until Trump at least put a lot of money into the CDC. He wants to cut it by billions of dollars, but it has been funded in the past. I read until last week, now this is a situation that is changing, thankfully, but in Africa, only two countries. Senegal and South Africa had the lab capacity to screen for the virus.

Other parts of the world are facing similar issues. So right now, it's hard to even track it when you literally don't have the lab capacity to do so. And although a vaccine is being worked on, and apparently that work is proceeding quickly, at some point you are going to need to administer it. to hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of people, and that is going to be a logistical problem I can't even imagine trying to solve. And when you're entirely focused on the political ramifications of a virus as opposed

to actually serving not just the American people, but the world as someone who's a steward of so many people and has so much power, then you're going to be less inclined to actually work on a solution as opposed to just patching up the PR of it all. For Donald Trump, it always comes down to PR. And that's why he can only go into one mode, braggadociousness, just complete arrogance. It's the opposite of what is needed in a public servant, to say the least. You know, that's really what it all comes down to. Agreed.

And, you know, for everything that I just said, I'm not trying to fear my group either. This is obviously, there's an international response to it. People in power who can take things seriously are taking it seriously. Trump is obviously not a part of that group, but other people are. And I expect that they're going to do literally everything they can. It is possible, as we talked about, that it could spread to a significant percentage of the world population. Thankfully, the, look, the fatality rate is not like the cold, which is something Rush Limbaugh

said today. But it is relatively low. There are more minor versions of the disease, which unfortunately increase the chance that people will spread it because they won't be as affected, but the mortality rate for that is lower. So these just things that you need to understand. There is one potential consequence going forward of the potential. for an international pandemic around COVID-19, and that would be the possibility that could

affect elections, either in the U.S. or abroad. Supposedly, it is already having an impact in Iran, where there are projections that turnout is something like, I believe it's 40% instead of 60%, which it was in the last election, and some people have been showing up wearing masks. If disease is spreading, then you are going to be worried about going to very crowded areas. If in November, coronavirus is a significant problem in the United States, it is not inconceivable that that could have an impact on the election, although not a constant, not a consistent impact. Rural areas are going to be relatively less affected, dense urban areas, more affected by fear of congregating in an area with a large amount of people.

So that is something that hypothetically we should be planning for. Absolutely. Yeah. And look, I'm going to say that this is by far the least important news around this, especially considering the 80,000 plus cases and thousands have already died, but supposedly there is a possibility that the Olympics will be canceled. They're supposed to be taking place in Tokyo. Obviously, that is an area that is dealing with coronavirus now.

And I apologize in advance, but Dick Pound, the longest serving member of the IOC, said the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo could face cancellation because of the spread of coronavirus. He said that organizers could wait up until May to decide on the fate of the games, which were slated to begin on July 24th. Oh, Dick Pound said that? He did. I should have just put an official with the IOC, but that's what the graphic is. Why not go with Richard?

Anyway, look, and like I said, it's by far the least important consideration, but for some people, that's a lifetime of training in the making that hypothetically could be thrown off. It's not the sort of thing where you can just be like, oh, just go to Toronto. It's complex. Again, logistically, it's a huge complex problem and even delaying it as a problem. So much money behind it as well, so much infrastructure and investment. Exactly. So obviously that is not high up on the list of priorities, but it is something that you should know if you are a fan of the Olympics. With that, we are going to take our first break. When we come back, lots more news together.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-Bing 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 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. Hello and welcome back to the Young Turks with me and with Emma Vigland. Hello.

Now, I say John and Emma, other people have come up with other ways. Nipple Pierce Jenkins skinny jeans says in the member comments, No. Really, doesn't that say at all? But anyway, no. Nipple Pierce, Jenkins, Skinny Jean says, woohoo, John and the Vig. And then I bathe in the DNC's tears says, Johnny and the Vig sounds like an awesome television show filled with two crime stopping reporters.

Sounds like Hootie and the Blowfish. It does. Wait, who started saying that? I didn't say that on the show, did I? Johnny in the Vig. Well, now there's gonna be a T-shirt. Okay, let's see. I don't know what there's gonna be a T-shirt.

Okay, Kevin Gretzinger says, I cannot believe that, this is a super chat, by the way, I cannot believe that he is telling the public that it will disappear with the warm weather. It's exploded under a week in Iran, pretty sure it's hot there right now. Yeah, and it's like China isn't one temperature. It's like there's parts that are cold, there's parts that are warm. It's spreading. It's kind of a disease. Kind of a big nation.

Yeah, and Stephen Payne on hashtag TYT Live says, lying about the number of coronavirus cases, just like China. And why shouldn't we expect the same approach from our government? They're both increasingly authoritarian. Okay. But anyway, I did want to let you know that there is a final sale collection going on right now on ShopT. Some of these are going to be gone soon. Go to ShopTyT.com for your last chance to shop these exclusive TYT designs before they're retired and currently redacted. But if you want to know what they are, you should probably go and take a look.

We're not kidding. We say they're not coming back. Sometimes they're not. I'm being curious. Yeah, I want to see. I don't even know, actually. But anyway, go take a look. Okay, and with that, why don't we jump back in the news?

Last night, Bernie Sanders had a town hall with CNN, and look, he was asked what he can expect to be asked in every appearance like this. How is he going to pay for his programs? In this case, though, he came prepared with receipts. I am really excited about getting a Democrat in office. And when I hear you speak, I get really excited. But I remember that Trump excited his base with a promise to build a wall with no real plan to pay for it.

Your plan for free college tuition and Medicare for all seems like a way to excite the Democratic base with no real plan to pay for it. Now how is your position in your campaign different than what Donald Trump did? Oh, I think. Chris, I'm going to give this to you. I thought that question might come up. All right, here it is. This is a list which will be on our website tonight of how we pay for every program that we have to vote.

So I'll tell you exactly how we pay for it. We pay for it to a rather modest tax on Wall Street speculation. That is how we pay for that, all right? You will remember 12 years ago, the Congress against my vote bailed out the crooks on Wall Street who nearly destroyed this economy. I think a modest tax on Wall Street speculation right now to make sure all of the Congress, of our kids who have the ability and the desire, get the education they need is something that we should do. So look, that was a bold move.

He knew he was going to be active, asked about it. So he brought papers and then put them back in his thing. Hey, the control room loves it. Demonstrating a point. Demonstrating a point. But anyway, look, so look, I was interested in seeing that. I saw that Cuomo took a brief glance at it. I went to the website and looked in detail, and let's give you an idea of what you can find.

If you go to that, and it's all available right now. So on British traders.com, it says, for instance, it will cost $2.2 trillion to make public colleges, universities, and trade schools, tuition free, and to cancel all student debt over the next decade. Lawtable goals, obviously. It's fully paid for by a modest tax on Wall Street speculation that will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over 10 years. Now, obviously for each of these individual components, there is more to it, which

you can find, and we can have a debate about whether the numbers work out the way he's saying, but it is all there. Hypothetically, that should cut off some of these constant repetitive questions about how you pay for when it is available for you if you want to know. Yeah, and also when you look at that figure for $2.2 trillion, you would assume I'm forgetting the exact number of how much money is indebted to students, but that's a good amount of it, the trillion dollar figure. It would be cut into because the annual cost of paying for public colleges and universities tuition free actually is not that much. Yeah, much of it's the debt. Much of it's the debt. So that would just be the initial cost, but the way that the program would be sustained over time

is actually quite cheap and could be paid for quite very easily by that very speculative tax that he's talking about. But it's amazing how he talks about taxing Wall Street and they're trading in this nonchalant way when that just gives donors and wealthy folks a heart attack because that's how they make a lot of their money. But that's because of deregulation over time. It wasn't always that way, and it's caused a lot of problems, to say the least. Yeah, and by the way, so like he's talking about, here's what it costs, here's what we're

going to raise a direct one-to-one that you can see. But hypothetically, we could engage in the sort of talk around these things that you hear, for instance, when Republicans talk about cutting taxes. So they say, we're going to cut taxes on the wealthiest people, and then they're going to plow that money back into the economy. And so I know it seems like the government would make less money in tax revenue, but somehow it'll actually be more. That's obviously not how it works.

These people already have more money than God. When they get more money, they don't suddenly spend it all. That's not how it works at all. Much of it ends up outside of the country. But for a regular person who hypothetically could either write a check for $600 a month to Sally Mae or could go out and spend it on hamburgers and cars and TV and clothes and all that stuff, that is very easy to understand constant stimulus on the economy. And that's not factored into this.

This hypothetically could help to pay for it. And that's not even considered a part of this. Well, that's absolutely accurate. And the fact of the matter is that the reason home ownership is down, the reason young people don't invest in the stock market at the rate at all of the older generations, also because of the fact that we live through the financial collapse and know what devastation that can be. But part of that is because they have so much money tied up in student debt.

And yeah, so the banks making their, getting their interest payments from students who just want to get an education or basically the students getting their money back and they're able to pump that money back into the economy because wealthy people save their money, they hoard it. People who are middle class, poor people put their money back into the economy and it creates a more robust spending system and a better economy for all of us. But when you're actually just representing the interests of the powerful and couching it in pretending to care about the economy, that's what you get with Republican talking points. and even CNN screaming a lot of the time when they're talking about this very issue.

And a version of sort of what I was laying out there, some of the other ways that, you know, it's not literally in the calculations, but that it will be affected. That stuff is included in some of the more complex, more expensive proposals. So as an example, let's jump ahead to the Green New Deal graphics. So there's a lot here, so we just screenshot apart of the page. But it shows you they have that $16.3 trillion proposal. And then they break it down into a number of different components, including fossil fuel industry being forced to pay for their pollution.

You have the wholesale of energy for a number of years before energy, electricity in the US eventually transitions over to effectively being free, it's renewable obviously, reduce military spending by scaling back military operations on protecting the global oil supply, a cost that is rarely talked about in forums like this, you have extra income tax revenue from jobs that have been created, as well as less social safety net spending that will have to be given out because people will have the jobs from this proposal. So some of these are more complex, but it is all there, and there's more information besides if you're interested in that.

Just an aside really on this, it's truly incredible that basically one congresswoman and grassroots organizing group have forced the green deal to be on the national conversation, in the national conversation as the litmus test for progressive climate change policy. policy, just a remarkable achievement that only took around two years. Yeah. Really incredible. It is. And we can't go through too much of what happened at the town hall, but we did want to show

you one video of, he was asked, you know, about whether he's a radical, whether his proposals are radical, and he had a great response. Slick giving me this piece of paper. I know, I know. The criticism is there is a lot of detail in here. You can look forward for yourselves on the website. It is not matching the price tag that some put it about $30 trillion for the Medicare for all.

But you get about halfway there, the question becomes how do you get the rest of the way? We get there. You know, there was a study, Chris, I don't know if you happen to see it. I don't know if anyone-30 trillion over 10 years. A study came out from Yale University, a number of epidemiologists, a really quite good study. What they said is when you get rid of all of the administrative waste that we have now, having to administer. You believe that thousands and thousands of separate plans. When you get rid of all of that administrative waste, which other countries do, when you get rid of the profiteering of the

drug companies, we can, in fact, pay for Medicare for all and substantially lower the cost for the average American worker. Now you want to know how we're going to pay for it. But we can go on for several hours, very briefly, number one, for the average person. How do we pay for it today, Chris? You know how we pay for it? The average family in America makes about $60,000 a year. That family is paying premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket expenses, and co-payments. That $60,000 a year family is now paying $12,000 a year for health care. It's outrageous sum of money about 20% of the family's income.

What we do, among other proposals in there, is to say, all right, you are that average $60,000 a year family. you're going to pay a 4% tax exempting the first $29,000, leaving $31,000 of taxable dollars, which is about $1,200 a year, a heck of a lot better than what you're paying today. We also have a payroll tax. We have a payroll tax on employers, which will save them substantial sums of money. And because we're taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, Nobody in America on the Medicare for Wall pays more than $200 a year for prescription drugs. Okay, so that's my mistake, but it was a happy mistake because that video was great too,

because he very clearly and succinctly broke it down, not just in terms of the absolute numbers that you need to know for paying for the whole program, but how it would affect an average family under this new program? He pretty much did exactly what Chris Cuomo was asking him and what the media has been asking him to do this entire time. Will it affect any of the talking points that come out about how Bernie can't pay for anything. I want your prediction on this, John. No. The funny thing is, like, I remember there was a moment like this at the last debate, and he broke down how we could pay for it.

I think he referenced the Lancet study about how much money would be saved and how many lives would be saved every year if we switched over to a single payer healthcare system. And the camera went to Buttigieg's face, and Buttigieg looked like he was in pain. It was inconvenient that all of these doctors had come together and pointed out that we could have it all effectively in terms of paying for it and saving lives, that should be a thing that we all then rejoice about, okay, we can do it, let's get to that. But that wasn't the reaction from a Pete Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg was like, oh, God, I don't want to have to acknowledge that.

Can I just go back to my Medicare for whoever, you know, ends up with it plan or whatever? Yeah, well, he could have just debated himself on cable news around nine, ten months ago, praising Medicare for all is the compromised position. And, yeah, the judge has no core principles. We know this very well. Exactly. Okay, very briefly, the video that I alluded to before, I made a mistake. But let's go to that about whether his proposals are too radical.

Could you please share how you will allay the fears of those who see your political ideology as too extreme? How do you respond to Americans who believe we need to beat Trump more than we need extreme political policies? You know, I know if you look at the media, they say Bernie's ideas are right? radical, and they're extreme, they're out of the mainstream. Let me just tell you, I don't think that that's true. Is raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour a radical idea? It's making sure that all of our kids have the opportunity to get a higher education, regardless of their income, because we're going to make public colleges and universities tuition free.

Is that a radical idea? This is the scientific poll. You're hearing this? Is guaranteeing health care to all people as a human right a radical idea? No. Is addressing the existential threat of climate change a radical idea? No. All right.

I rest my case. See, that was pretty good. Let's see that at a debate, perhaps. I love the call and response. He's done that before. He did that at that Fox News town hall when he just started running for president, and he asked, well, it was a sort of version of it. I guess it wasn't calling response, so just scrap everything I just said.

But when he had the, it might have been, never mind, not important, he had the Fox News audience raised their hand about if they would be in favor of a Medicare for all type system and it was quite overwhelming. So when he interacts with the audience, it does well, he does well. It's a good tactic that he has when he really has one mode. I mean, when you go to his rallies, like, it's the same speech every time. And so I like when he switches it up and gets to be a little looser in this kind of format. Yeah, yeah, it's always funny when they like the people on stage get surprised by the audience.

It doesn't always even take Bernie. There was a live Fox and Friends where they had a crowd and they asked about, I don't know, it was about medical debt or something and the idea was supposed to be that the crowd was like, no, everything's great. And like all these hands went up and the host were like, oh geez. I know, Brian Kilmead's face melts even more than it already is currently. That's rough. Okay, with that, why don't we move on to more from Bernie Sanders?

The big controversy around Bernie Sanders this week that's supposed to tank his presidential bid is that he said something positive about Fidel Castro and about Cuba. Here is his response to that brewing controversy. Singing the praises of a murderous tyrant, response. The response was when Fidel Castro first came to power, which was when, 59, is that so right? 59, 60. Okay, you know what he did?

He initiated a major literacy program. There's a lot of folks in Cuba at that point who are literate. And he formed the Literacy Brigade. You may read that. He went out, and they helped people learn to read and write. You know what? I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing. I have been extremely consistent and critical of all authoritarian regimes all over the world,

including Cuba, including Nicaragua, including Saudi Arabia, including China, including Russia. I happen to believe in democracy, not authoritarianism to the Democrats who say, you don't say good things about Fidel Castro. He destroyed freedoms in that country. He played picks winners and losers and killed them and put them in prison forever. You don't give them a pat on the back for anything. It's not a question. Truth is truth.

I believe that I've literally said that on the damage report over and over again. First of all, it's not singing praise, it's not patting on the back, it's acknowledging an objective fact. It's not saying he helped improve literacy among the poor, and thus we should be Cuba, obviously. And I think everybody understands that. Some people this week who have not been doing very well in some of these early contests and don't look like they're gonna have a great Super Tuesday are pretending that they don't understand that, and pretending that what Bernie Sanders was doing was attempting to convince you that

you should support him, but really what you should support is Castroism. Factually, he's absolutely correct. Is it a good political move to double down on this? I think that's an open question. We've lost Florida on this alone. But he's not doubling down. He said, yes, I'm not going to pretend that literacy went down under him, but he denounced it as a brutal regime multiple times.

Yes. Which is what all the critics are saying. want him to do? And yet they seem non-placated when he does so. I agree. Factually on the question he is, and the answer that he's giving, he's absolutely right, per usual. Yes, there are some nuances when we're looking at the Castro regime in Cuba, but there

are also some really devastating aspects. And it's such a raw issue for Cubans, specifically in the state of Florida, that if you're making political calculations and looking towards the general election, perhaps it's not the best move to double down on this. We've seen that Bernie Sanders is not above making political calculations. He distanced himself from the Zephyr teachout op-ed that called Joe Biden corrupt because Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have a lot of crossover voters inexplicably. He did the same thing with Nina Turner's comments in the past about other candidates.

So he will back away from things when he sees that there's a political risk. I think there's political risk here. And I don't know if doubling down is the right move. But again, he's right. So I get it. It fundamentally bothers me that we are a culture that cannot dwell in nuance for even, we can't dip our toe in nuance. Everything has to be black and white.

But that is the culture, right? And- But how do we change that? By capitulating to the black and whiteres? But he barely capitulates. He operates in nuance and he operates in intellect about the left and has changed the conversation nationally on so many issues. You don't need to die on a hill, specifically when it's going to hurt you and the Democratic

Party in the state of Florida and in other areas where there are a lot of Cuban Americans come to general election. Okay. Well, look, it's possible later tonight. He will face this will be brought up 100%. Probably is the first question from the moderator. It's not even like you have to wait for one of his opponents to bring it up. They will tee it up for Pete Buttigieg to hit at him.

And why do I choose Pete Buttigieg? Well, because he's already doing so. Here's an example. So this is part of what I'm getting at when I say that in our one shot, to defeat Donald Trump, we should think carefully about the consequences of nominating Senator Sanders. I don't want, as a Democrat, I don't want to be explaining why our nominee is encouraging people to look on the bright side of the Castro regime when we're going into the election of our lives. We need to stand unequivocally against dictatorships

everywhere in the world. And so you don't think that's a good excuse. He says he thinks he's a dictator, but literacy is a good thing. There's no nuance to that. Why are we spotly, of course, literacy is a good thing, but why are we spotlighting the literacy programs of a brutal dictator instead of being unambiguous in our condemnation about the way he has treated his own people? Yeah, so what Don Lemon was doing there was entirely reasonable. He was saying, you say you want him to say that he's a brutal dictator. Oh, by the way, he's already done that. Does that placate you? And Buttigieg says, no, I need this. I need this so bad. It's still not. acceptable.

Well, he was never gonna be happy with the answer. Like he's thought for a moment about Castro in his life before today. Yeah, I mean, he's like Marco Rubio's brother from another mother in some ways, like, like, you know, don't you remember? The political performances you're saying? Political performance, it reminds me and then they both get hung up on that issue as well. But he was never going to be happy with any of the answers that Bernie Sanders provided.

It's just a political football for him and he's using it to kick him because he sees him as the specific target that's gonna lead him to some long shot chance at the nomination when he has zero path because I know it's really hard for him to accept but there are black and brown voters in other states and you do really badly with all of them and perhaps you should maybe think about why as opposed to just going on the offensive about Bernie Sanders specific comments and the nuances with which he condemned Fidel Castro and the Castro regime. It's just political theater. Look, I know that we haven't hit Super Tuesday yet.

I just want to briefly say to those who have been crowing about unity for the past year, the main message was, Bernie, you're going to lose to Biden. So that means don't criticize Biden. Don't put anything out there that's going to hurt him when you're long gone and Biden's going up against Donald Trump of the general election. Doesn't matter if it's true, don't say it because it'll hurt him. And yet you have Pete Buttigieg saying, we're going to lose. Florida, we're going to lose Florida. Why? Here's why. I'm going to repeat it over and over

and over again, even though I have zero chance of getting the plurality, let alone a majority of the delegates. It looks almost certainly like Bernie Sanders is going to be that person, but I will torpedo him and the party's chances if it seems to help me briefly. But I'm not even as mad at Pete Buttigieg as, I apologize I don't have the name here, but a DNC spokesperson went on Fox News today to talk about this and to attack him. In particular, to put it out there for Fox News to amplify those in the DNC who have been saying that unity is the goal. We have to have unity. How could you possibly hurt our chances?

They're doing everything they can to hurt Bernie Sanders. And because like it or not, from their point of view, Bernie Sanders is likely to be the nominee, they are hurting him in his quest to beat Donald Trump. Yeah, I was about to bring up that despicable, you know, segment on Fox News, which I thought liberals were supposed to completely avoid, the DNC official is going on there and making critical comments about Bernie Sanders, just really for no reason. I thought we were supposed to stand behind the party candidate. I guess you stand behind the party candidate when they're the one keeping the lights on

at the DNC because you guys got so deeply in debt after you paid all of those consultants and Hillary Clinton had to bail you out, literally paying your bills as you were supposed to preside over a neutral primary between the two of them. So, obviously, that's what you need to do to get fair treatment by the DNC or just be anyone other than Bernie Sanders. It's a good start. Option B. Exactly, don't be Bernie. Always be not being Bernie. That's the rule. I don't know the acronym for that. Let's turn to another story involving this, though. On The View today, they were talking about Bernie Sanders and the Fidel Castro comments. And while I have an issue with how, for instance, Pete Buttigieg has talked about it, the women of the view went even first.

Here's a bit of that. I have been extremely consistent and critical of all authoritarian regimes all over the world. The truth is the truth. And that's what happened in the first years of the Castro regime. So what is he saying? This is the same thing that Bernie's been saying for a long time. This is nothing new. And he just doubled down on it.

And the suggestion that Castro came in and taught people how to read without saying more, without saying what all of you were saying, that it's a thing. such an oppressive regime. I mean, he's killing political dissidents. The Latinos from Cuba that are there in Florida, they hear this word revolution. They, they, they don't hear it in English. They hear it in Spanish, and it reminds them over and over again of what happened in Cuba. It's a dictatorship. Yeah. There is nothing groovy about a dictatorship. It's just nothing good about a dictatorship. But if you're talking about how Maduro is a good guy, Castro did some good things. For me, it's no different than saying,

Like, hey, Hitler was a good orator. It's that insane. It's that, that's bad thing. How about Mussolini with the trains run on time? Exactly. Exactly. This is as bad as, as you know who's saying they were good people on both sides. It's the same, it's the same thing.

There's no way to get. I don't agree. Oh, I do. Once you start saying, well, you know, you know, Hitler wasn't so bad because he. But no, he didn't say that. But to a Cuban person. Yeah, yeah. It's just as bad.

I agree. Joy. Thank you for saying I don't agree, but please just say more. I mean, I didn't have the full clip, but just come on, we need someone that was insane. This is not the same thing at all. Yeah, and- And he did call the dictatorship. He did, he didn't.

No, he couldn't have because Sonny just said. He talked about the literacy and then did go on to condemn the dictatorship. Your producers need to show you the full clip before you make comments like that on one of the most popular television shows in the country. They reached so many people and the bar is so low for. for them. But good on joy there. And look, I agree with any number of them occasionally.

Sonny often is the most reasonable one there, but not in this particular case. Joy is the most reasonable one. Sonny was concerned that Bernie Sanders isn't technically a Democrat when AOC went on to stump for him. It's just the most shallow political analysis you could possibly have. I know you started that hashtag for me, but would I even make it out alive if I were the host of the view? I don't know.

I don't know. Orator. But anyway, and here's the thing. The irony of mispronouncing that is not. I know. It almost makes me think that it's done ironically. Nope. She's not incapable.

But anyway, here's a little button on all of this. We've been talking about all of this stuff with Fidel Castro and everyone is so frustrated with Bernie Sanders. Yeah, he wasn't the only one who did it. Let's see if you can recognize this person. And I said this to President Castro in Cuba. I said, look, you've made great progress. in educating young people.

Every child in Cuba gets a basic education. That's a huge improvement from where it was. Medical care. The life expectancy of Cubans is equivalent to the United States, despite it being a very poor country because they have access to health care. That's a huge achievement. They should be congratulated.

But you drive around Havana and this economy is not working. It looks like it did in the 1950s. Oh my God, Obama was a communist the whole time. But anyway, really, let me just read a quick quote from Eric Levitz of New York Magazine. It says if offering an accurately positive assessment of any aspect of an authoritarian communist regime's record is tantamount to endorsing its form of rule, then Barack Obama is an authoritarian communist. Eric Levitz is one of the best writers in the country, one of my favorites.

He really, you guys should check out his work. Perhaps since I know people the judge has been studying up on his President Obama impression, maybe he wants to take a look at that video so he can copy it verbatim at the debate coming up tonight. Yeah. Just to maybe educate himself on what kind of comments are acceptable about the Castro regime. Yeah. Yeah, look, I think, look, if you're gonna study a politician to try to mimic the way they speak,

I totally understand that, but you have to remember to also speak when you speak. You don't just make noises, you say something, and he doesn't have that. It's always lost in his impersonation. But there's such articulate noises. And sometimes they're in broken Norwegian. Exactly. The shape of his words are the destiny of America's futures. Hamburger's.

Anyway, okay, we're going to take another break, but lots more to get to after this. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install.

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In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. Welcome back to The Young Turks, everybody. Hey, Jerry Jackson's here. How's up? I feel like John Ida-Rolla on a Friday after he's been annoyed with doing 17 shows. So you're in a good mood, basically, you're saying, right? Ready to party. I think it was that you were really annoyed.

It was a Friday. The news affects us. Like, that's both why we're good when we're good and when we're bad, it's the same reason. But I feel like John's annoyed is just my regular mode and most people's everyone, you know. You know, it's weird that you should say that because there were a couple of messages that sort of alluded to that. Okay Boomer, one of our members, t.y.t.com slash join if you'd like to be a member and send in messages that I will read like this. While Anna is like table salt, Emma's New York City personality makes her like rock salt, still loving every minute of it. New York City personality, I'll take it.

There you go. Is rock salt more salty than table salt? We're gonna have to test to find out. But I know where we can do that test because I bathe in the DNC's tier says, still think there needs to be a TYT version of the view called The Salt. My dream lineup would be Anna, Ida, Adrian, Emma, and Francesca. That would be absolutely awesome. And the stoned Buddha sent in a hashtag TYT live that said, ah, Emma and John, the humor is dry and the sarcasm is brutal, love it.

But now we got JR. Everybody's sending something nice about JR. Make him feel welcome, since he's not having the best day. And I did want to let you know, by the way. We were talking about the membership program. So one of the ways we get members is we promote it here and people sign up. But did you know that you can actually make money by signing up other members through our affiliate program?

You can join the 747 TYT affiliates we have right now. You can help add TYT members and make money while doing it. It's free to join at TYT.com slash win-win. And bear in mind for our current affiliates, there's a weekly conference call tomorrow on Wednesday to connect with other affiliates to talk about best practices and get live help. Go to tyt.com slash win win and get paid to talk about progressive politics. In short, effectively, if you sign up a member, you get a percentage of their membership fees every month that they remain a member.

The more you sign up, the more you make every single month. It's a win win. And with that, why don't we jump back into the news? There's a big debate brewing across the country on bias in the Supreme Court. Some in the Supreme Court believe that some of the justices are biased towards the Trump administration. Trump believes the opposite effectively. Let's talk about where this started from. So on Friday evening, by a five to four vote, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration's

wealth test for immigrants to take effect in Illinois. All four liberal justices dissented from the order, which changes relatively little. Thanks to the conservative justice's intervention in January, the wealth test was poised. to take effect in 49 states. Friday's vote lets the government apply it in the last state left. And there was a dissenting opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who effectively made the case that when lower courts rule against the Trump administration, the Trump administration goes running immediately to the Supreme Court and says, this is an emergency,

you need to save us and overturn that lower court ruling. No multi-year process of working its way up through the courts, you need to take this up. right now and you need to help us immediately, and she's noticed a pattern in the way this plays out. Here's a bit of her dissenting opinion. Claiming one emergency after another, the government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming limited court resources in each. And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow. She added perhaps most troublingly, the court's recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others, a reference

obviously to Donald Trump and his administration. And that's really the problem. They have five justices now. If a lower court rules against them, he has a get out of balance of powers free that he can go to anytime he wants right now. Yeah, so basically the Trump administration is using the Supreme Court, not in the way it's intended, but as a funnel to rubber stamp, it's very controversial policies. and often racist and discriminatory policies.

And that's not how the court system is supposed to be used. So Sonia Sotomayor here is pointing out that she's troubled by the way that the Trump administration is funneling basically their policies through because they know that they have these five conservative just going to okay whatever the Trump administration wants to do. But that's really what the legislative arm of the government is supposed to be participating in. It's theoretically supposed to be a body that's encouraged to be compromising. In this era of partisan politics where everyone's bought off, that's not the reality. But just because that's not the reality doesn't mean you get to use the court system in the way that the legislature is supposed to be used in that sense.

So this isn't even anything where Justice Sotomayor is pulling this out of nowhere. Trump has said this. He said it over and over again. He's like, well, we have the Supreme Court. As long as they have the Supreme Court, everything will be okay. If this goes to the Supreme Court, it'll be okay. Everything that has any kind of pushback from other under court systems, he makes sure he says, we can send it to the Supreme Court and it'll be okay.

He and Mitch McConnell talked about how the biggest legacy they have is switching over the courts in this country because that's a legacy that lasts forever. You can be in office for eight years, but then if you put someone in a permanent position in a court, on the Supreme Court especially, it'll live on forever. We saw how it happened at the end of Obama administration to the beginning of Trump's, and how they want to keep packing the courts. Now, they'll do exactly what they say everyone else is trying to do. These lips trying to pack the courts and flip things and make sure everyone actually has rights

and freedoms in this country. What we want to do is push a conservative lien to all these courts, and it's exactly what they're doing. There was a graphic that they put forward about the number of judges that Trump has appointed in his three years now versus the eight years under Obama, and guess who was chuckling like a demon about it, was Mitch McConnell. He's like, that's not by a mistake. laughing just like that.

So when- It's eerie. So you can have pushback on what Justice Sotomayor said, but you have to have pushback on what you've already said in the past, because it's exactly the same. Yeah, yeah. For right now, I mean, I'm glad that she was able, or I guess I should say willing to be so honest. You know, you have her writing these dissenting opinions as part of the four liberal minority on the court, and if Trump gets reelected, we can look forward to her continuing to do that

as part of the three liberal, or two liberal, or maybe by the end of eight. Eight years, one liberal minority on the Supreme Court, those will be exciting times. And what sort of justices will he be replacing the current ones with? Well, we know what he wants and what he wants is loyalty, certainly hates disloyalty. Here he is talking about the bias he believes exists on the Supreme Court. What is the basis for your opinion on that? Well, it's very obvious. I mean, I always thought that, frankly, that Justice Ginsburg should do it because she went

while during the campaign when I was running. I don't know who she was for. Perhaps she was for Hillary Clinton, I can believe it. But she said some things that were obviously very inappropriate. She later sort of apologized. I wouldn't say it was an apology, but she sort of apologized. And then Justice Sotomayor said what she said yesterday. You know very well what she said yesterday because of a big story.

And I just don't know how they can not recuse themselves or anything having to do with Trump or Trump related. The right thing to do is that. Now as a Supreme Court justice is a different standard. But at the same time, I think it's a higher standard in a certain sense. So they'll have to decide what to do. But her statement was so inappropriate when you're a justice of the Supreme Court. And it's almost what she's trying to do is take the people that do feel a different way and get them to vote the way that she would like them to vote.

I just thought it was so inappropriate, such a terrible statement for a Supreme Court justice. So there he is talking about his belief, his wish, his fantasy that the two of the liberals on the court should recuse themselves from any case involving him. And because it's Donald Trump, historically, that means it's gonna be a lot of cases. So he's got the majority in the court, and two of the four liberals should just, they should just butt out of every single one of those cases that he and the DOJ and the Trump administration in general gets the Supreme Court to pluck out from the lower courts and immediately take up to make his agenda happen.

Why does he even care? Five conservative just gonna vote with him anyway. And so it's just really all ego because he sees these two very outspoken Supreme Court justices talking about what they see as an undemocratic, unconstitutional way of going about things in terms of the judicial system. And they are of course correct here. And I love how he's lecturing people on inappropriate statements. And another piece of hypocrisy and how it's just all projection with a lot of conservatives

these days is he expects loyalty, as John said, from the Supreme Court justices, even though they don't serve him, but he's one of the most disloyal people in American history to the people that he works with. So it's just another irony on top of the many ironies that are, that Trump personifies. I dare one of these conservative justice to actually rule on a large enough case against Trump and see what he has to say about them then, this whole loyalty thing and how great it is that he pointed these people on the courts. If any of them has any kind of wavering support of him, it'll turn and we'll see more revelations

about what he really thinks of people. So we're talking about recusing themselves. You mentioned I may not know the word recuse. He only learned it because of Jeff Sessions. That's true. He was upset about the fact that he did do it. But I was reading an article earlier this day and I didn't think it would be relevant, so I skimmed it.

But Jenny Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Court, that same Supreme Court that Trump wants the loyalty for and wants two justices to recuse themselves from. She works on making sure that the White House has rid themselves of all of these snakes and backbiders and disloyal of people after the impeachment process. So she's mad about that and she's whispering the ear of White House aides about personnel at the White House as well as ridding them of other folks that aren't loyal enough. That's not a connection to the Supreme Court, the wife, a political conservative activist

in our country is connected to a Supreme Court justice who always, always rules in favor of conservatives and particularly this president. And two of the people that she was suggesting be on staff is Dan Bongino and Sheriff Clark. So justice Thomas shouldn't be recusing himself on everything related to Trump because your wife is directly related in meeting with Trump officials about person on the White House and also ridding other people so that things can stay loyal within his lawlessness. That's a great point, but you are just counting the fact that Clarence Thomas is one of the ten worst people in the country.

And also, Trump specifically said that he didn't like what Ginsburg said, and so we don't have to worry about that with Thomas since he's never spoken in public, actually. Because he's loyal. Exactly. It's weird, if you only have to be, you only have to be principled, which by the way is not even a principled stance if they recuse themselves, you only be principled if it's something that's associated with being against Trump. So if you're against me, then your principal to step aside.

But again, when Jeff Sessions was trying to be principled and recused himself, that's disloyalty has nothing to with principles at all. That's how low the bar is for being principled. But Jeff Sessions was trying to be principled. That's just basic ethics then. Yeah, yeah. Okay, with that though, I do think we need to end the first hour. I know Emma's got a full rundown for the second hour that she's gonna lead us through.

So we're gonna take a short break when we come back, lots more to get to. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.