The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 23rd, 2020

Episode Date: January 24, 2020

Jamie Dimon is complaining about socialism, but he wasn't complaining when he got millions in taxpayer dollars during the Wall Street bailout. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Welcome to the Young Turks, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rolla with you. What's up, John?

How's it going? Hey, today's rundown is bananas. And I've come to appreciate these wonderful opportunities to do deep dives into the dishonest actors who want to smear progressives, namely Bernie Sanders. And so today we have people who worked on Obama's campaign trying to smear Sanders. We have Jamie Diamond, the CEO of Chase trying to go after progressives in. general over their socialist policies. So we're gonna talk about those stories, but more importantly, we're gonna give you important context that I think is missing from a lot of the, you know, mainstream discussions.

Who are these people, who do they represent, what motivates them? Those are important questions to answer, and we're gonna do that on today's show. And then later we'll have Brett join me on the post game for members only. It's gonna be fun, we have some stories prepared for that. So make sure you check that out. If you're a member, if you're not, you can become. by going to t.com slash join. And I believe he's going to be doing that right after filming happy half hour, so there's

a good chance he's going to be wasted. So it'll be really good. So it should be fun. By the way, happy half hour is, yes, it tapes, but it doesn't air live. However, you can check it out if you're a member on Fridays right after the main show. Yes. Yeah, so make sure you check that out. All right, without further ado, let's get to the news.

Jamie Diamond has decided to go after progressive presidential candidates, and he's fearmongering about socialism while also demonstrating that he's really unsure of what socialism really is. And so this calls for one of my favorite segments when rich men cry. So, Jamie Diamond didn't name Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. In fact, he tried to prevent naming anyone when he went on this anti-progressive rant. But while speaking to CNBC, he did talk about how he believes democratic socialism is a huge threat in America. You poll young people about the word capitalism, and they may be on the socialist side of things. I don't think they understand. Honestly, I don't think people understand what socialism is.

Socialism is when the government controls companies. There is no example where the government controls companies, they do it well, and they don't start to use it for votes, satisfying people. They don't even want competition because if we're two government companies, you know, why have competition? Why do it for jobs and votes? They have bad allocation to capital. Most state-owned enterprises don't do a particularly good job.

Just take a look around the world, and they become corrupt over time. That does not mean that capitalism is perfect. It doesn't mean that every public company is perfect. No, they're flaws. So he's worried about corruption, you know, because in a great, strong, capitalistic country like the United States, we don't have any issues with corruption. Right, so look, a lot of times there's fearmongering about Karl Marx. People are referred to as Marxist because there's this notion that Marx's work focused on government

control, right? But his work actually did not talk about the government controlling companies or the means of production. Socialism is a framework, right? And it can be applied in different ways. So a worker co-op where the employees actually own the company, own the means of production, that can be considered a socialist way to run the company. But that's exactly the type of way someone like Jamie Diamond would not want a company to be run.

He likes the top down approach, I mean, he's the CEO of a predatory bank. And we'll get into how predatory it is in just a minute. But John, I wanted to give you an opportunity. Yeah, yeah, look, he either is incredibly ignorant about what socialism is and how the term is being used in modern American political discourse, or more likely he's being incredibly dishonest about it. He speaks about it the same exact way you would expect Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson or whoever to talk about it.

It has nothing to do with government control, that's not what any politician, Democratic, Socialist or otherwise is actually talking about. Thankfully, I think that more and more voters all the time are understanding that. Right. I think the reason that favorability of the term socialism is becoming far higher is because they're not listening to, first of all, they're not listening to Jamie Diamond, but they're not listening to anyone at Davos, basically, maybe Greta, that's about it. And that's not what it means, that's not why people are rallying around politicians like Bernie

Sanders, AOC, others like that. It's just nonsense. Exactly. Well, here's the second part of what Jamie Diamond had to say. Do you think that Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren are socialists in the construct that you talked about it or in the contract of this idea of a democratic socialist, which is something that may feel more European in some ways? I don't want to talk about any particular people, but if you're talking about governments

controlling corporations, that's socialism. You can do it in a small way or you can do it in a big way. The small way is to put a commissar on your board. Remember the old Russian comissars? You know, that's all? They're just going to sit in the room. You know, the, or do it through regulatory or stuff like that. The other way is that they actually own the company. And, you know, that's where if you look at all these other countries, they start to take over the oil companies and the steel companies, then the utility companies.

And the banks. And the banks. And then the banks start making loans not to a good company, not because they're probably allocating capital to its highest and best use, but to keep that factory open, the bridge to nowhere, to make sure the mayor doesn't lose jobs in his town. And once you do that, you will have an eroding society. So he's concerned about an eroding society.

The type of society that would privatize utility companies, or yeah, it would get rid of privatized utility companies. Luckily in states like California, where we have privatized utility companies, they use all of their profits to fatten their bank accounts, but don't actually use any of that money to upgrade their equipment. And that has led to devastating fires in the state of California. But that doesn't erode society, does it, Jamie Diamond? One other thing I wanted to note is that Bernie Sanders is best when he's aggressive and

when he speaks the truth, right? And here's an example of it. He responded to Jamie Diamond with a tweet saying, that's funny, Jamie Diamond seemed fine with corporate socialism when his bank got a $416 billion bailout from American taxpayers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically what this is, is he's a very rich, powerful person who is surrounded himself with other rich people. They get together for this sort of thing and they're all rich together.

And he's afraid that hypothetically, the overwhelming headlock that American corporations have had on the US government for longer than we've been alive might be challenged in some small way. Not in the BS way that he's describing, like full control of corporations by the government, a commissar in the room, nothing like that, it's not being proposed, but he has to come up with this apocalyptic scenario to scare the American people and not asking for any reform whatsoever so that we can maintain the status quo, which is that they have overwhelmed our politicians, bought them off, paid for campaigns to get people in who are favorable to them.

And so you're not going to have a commissar in every corporate boardroom, but you are going to have a bunch of lobbyists in the halls of Congress at all times. They're going to have their representatives. And so what he wants to do is he wants to scare you about some idea of what the future may be like so that you'll protect, you'll start, you'll forget how bad things are right now, how slanted things have been. And understand, while he fearmongers about government rule, oh, the scary government is going to control your life, the system that we're living under right now is corporate

rule because of the legalized bribery that's allowed. That makes someone like Jamie Diamond incredibly powerful, and he is unwilling to let go of that power. That's really what motivates and fuels the commentary that you see here. And so when you have a candidate like Bernie Sanders arguing that healthcare is a human right, first of all, he's correct. And you need to understand that in other, you know, developed countries, every other developed country, it not only is considered a human right, it's decommodified.

In America, it's a commodity, okay? Health care should not be functioning under a profit model. But that's exactly what we have here in the United States. And Americans are literally dying as a result of that. And it's gross. So let's talk a little bit about Jamie Diamond, who he is as a person and how he has specifically helped to erode American society. He's got into a lot of trouble because of his bank's predatory practices. And back in 2013, there was, at the time, a record settlement that J.P. Morgan Chase agreed to pay.

We have some info on that. Take a look. J.P. Morgan's $153 million settlement with the SEC. All of this resulting from the SEC's investigation and resulting charges into the way J.P. Morgan marketed its complex mortgage securities transactions just as the housing market was starting to plummet. Now, under this settlement, all of the investors harmed will receive all of their money back. That is what is significant. The SEC alleged that the time that some of these deals closed back in May 2007, what they're saying is investors did not know that there was a large hedge fund. on betting against the long position investors were taking. There was an email in which J.P. Morgan employee noted, quote,

we all know Magnusdor wants to print as many deals as possible before everything completely falls apart. The president's biggest bank is facing a $13 billion fine this morning for its role in the mortgage meltdown. J.P. Morgan Chase negotiated the tentative settlement on civil charges with the Justice Department. The deal does not end a criminal probe, and it could set a new standard in crack. down on bank behavior?

What Jamie Diamond and J.P. Morgan executives would have us believe is that mostly this was a result of what they bought in Bear Stearns in March of 2008 and then Washington Mutual in the fall of 2008. What I'm hearing actually is that the majority of this may actually be from J.P. Morgan Chase's own behavior itself. So they've been trying to have people believe that, hey, we were just trying to help the government out. We were just trying to help the American people out by buying Bear Stearns, buying Washington Mutual. And this is the reward that we get a $13 billion penalty. But in fact, I think more than people think

was actually in the JP Morgan business line itself. So of that $13 billion settlement that JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay, $9 billion went to investors, and $4 billion went to homeowners who were screwed over by these predatory bank practices, right? So just to give you a sense of where the priorities lie in this wonderful country that apparently isn't eroding

society at all, under a system that's not eroding society, according to Jamie Diamond. And then one other thing I wanted to note is that there's a lot of talk about how we need to think of our veterans, we need to support our troops, they put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms in this country. Apparently, Jamie Diamond's bank didn't think so when they targeted members of our military when it came to their shady practices. Take a look.

A mortgage scandal forced a major bank to apologize for targeting, even threatening, members of the U.S. military while they were on active duty. J.P. Morgan Chase today admitted overcharging 4,500 service members, and foreclosing on 18 of them. It was a rare apology from one of the big banks to service members targeted, rates height, and in some cases, foreclosed upon. I'd like to express to the men and women serving our country, Chase's deepest regret over the mistakes we made. I commit to you that we will get this right. And listening to that apology today, Captain Jonathan Rolls and his wife, Rolls, a U.S. Marine endured a five-year battle with the bank.

Overcharges, threats of foreclosure, even though his wife was paying on time. So Jamie Diamond, tell me again how democratic socialism would erode society. Because he's done a good job in eroding society here in the U.S. And so he'd be an expert on it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if you're going to launch into a career of criminal behavior, here, definitely get in an area where the worst case scenario for you is that everybody gets caught, but no humans have committed any crimes. Lots of crimes are committed, but not by people.

And so some company will use other people's money to pay fines, but that's it, there's no consequences. And then, like, your name isn't even sully. You'll still get invited to Davos and get to speak on nice panels and all that. It's a pretty good gig. The great thing is, these are opportunities to not only debunk the disinformation that we see, on some media outlets, regurgitated by bad faith, dishonest actors like Jamie Diamond, it also gives us an opportunity to look into who these people are and what they represent

and how they have played a role in leading the country to where we are today, where the wage gap, the income gap is ever widening, where working class people are struggling to put food on the table for their kids. This is a good opportunity to educate others about what's really going on. and doing so in a calm, rational, logical way. That's what we need to do. We have the facts on our side, we have the people on our side, and I'm sick of them lying to us on television every single day in order to maintain this system that's only working

out for a small group of people at the very top. We need to fight back with the facts because we have them. Yeah, and really fast, like the criminality that was exposed around the last, the great recession, you know, it makes it really obvious what they were doing. But the thing is, you don't even need that. If the system is working the way they want it to work, what do we have? We have a recession every 10 years effectively. People's savings are wiped out, pensions are wiped out, all of that, regular people.

Not the people at the top, they always get golden parachutes, they're always going to be fine. That happens every 10 years. Every 40 to 50 years, it's way worse, and far more damage is done to the economy. But they will always bounce back because they control the people that determine who's going to be bailed out. It'll always happen. It was really obvious, the criminality, the last. time around.

But this is the way it's been going decade after decade after decade. And along the way, they've locked it in where effectively wage growth and inflation are always going to be right around each other. And so no matter how much productivity gains American workers experience, they're never going to actually benefit in any way from it. That's when the system's working. That's when the system doesn't crash. It's set up in a way that you will literally never benefit no matter how hard you work.

Exactly. And I want to read one quick comment from one of our members because I think this is a great point and it's accurately stated. So Dave Peter says, I don't understand why people aren't saying this, even TYT. Democratic socialism is the reverse of state socialism. It puts the power in the hands of the employees, the workers, and away from the government. And I think that's a really good point because the way that it's being portrayed in the media is that it's this dictatorial top down approach.

But the way that people like Bernie Sanders have argued their policies or in favor of their policies is to empower the people to be in charge of things that, first of all, shouldn't be commodified in the first place, things like Medicare or healthcare, I should say. So it's a really good point. Thank you for making it. And if you'd like to become a member of the show, go to t.t.com slash join. Members help to keep our show afloat, we couldn't do it without them. All right, we gotta take a quick break when we come back, we have more news for you, including

including pending entitlement cuts by the Trump administration. 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-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 not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the

propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Well, welcome back to TYT. I want to go through some super chat comments real quick. All Things Knoxville says, funny how, meaning Jamie Diamond, is worried about the government making unnecessary loans to keep jobs nowhere, to nowhere. What about the bailouts to companies that cheat us?

Absolutely, and that was the point that Bernie Sanders was making. SUD says, Obama just sent me a letter asking. sent me a letter to ask for money for the Democratic Unity Fund. That's funny, Bernie would be the target of that money's usage. I just submitted my most recent up-ed, which will be coming out hopefully in a few days, is about what they mean when they say unity and what we mean when we say unity. 100%. You're gonna love it, the person who wrote that comment.

Also, Sage and Fool says, Jamie Diamond talks about corruption, but no one asks about his criminal investigations. Hint, 48 charges of bank fraud and racketeering. You know, it's funny because the charges usually lead to nowhere when it comes to the rich and powerful, right? He's still the CEO of J.P. Morgan. He still gets invited on cable news to trash Democratic socialism and share his expert opinion. It's pathetic. The bud says, T.YT should ask Diamond to come on the show for an interview.

I would love to interview him. Let's see if that'll ever happen. They should have you debate him at Davos next year. Yeah, right. I would love to do that, by the way. So Meg from our member's segment also says this is a full drag of Jamie Diamond and I'm here for it. Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed it. Let's also just give you a few quick updates and announcements. First off, Aspiration is doing a sweepstakes. They're one of our partners and obviously we're working with them. And so the sweepstakes is to basically get flown out to LA and have dinner with me, Jank and John. It's super exciting. If you want more details, go to t-y-t.com slash dine in L.A. At that point, you sign up for one of the spend and save accounts that's free over an aspiration.

And then you register your eligibility. All of the details are on the link that I just shared with you, t-y-t.com slash dinner in L.A. After that, you just swipe to gain entries to win a chance to fly to L.A. And have dinner with TYT hosts. By the way, currently we have 500 registered participants in the sweepstakes. So don't miss out, super exciting. Also, our Friday Power Panel will be available for members only. This is our way of providing more exclusive content to the individuals that help to keep us

independent and somewhat financially stable. So, yeah. So tomorrow's Friday Power Panel on The Young Turks will be available for all of our members on Pluto TV, Zumo, and on Pluto TV, Zumo, the Roku channel, YouTube channel. TV, Comcast, Xfinity, all of that stuff, so check that out. And then finally, our TAP program, we're doing an affiliates program where if you help us sell some of our membership, you will get a cut of the member payment. The recurring payment, basically.

So as long as the person that you help to sign up as a member continues to be a member, you get a cut of what they pay each month. So right now we have 563 TYT affiliates. Our affiliate competitions are underway, three competitions and three prizes, including a personal phone call from Jenk. You can learn more by going to TYT.com slash win-win. Yeah, you just sign up a few people, it'll pay for your membership, actually. Right.

Mm-hmm. That's true, it's a good point. All right, let's talk about entitlement cuts. The White House is eyeing yet another tax cut for the wealthy, and they're actually being incredibly transparent about it. During a recent interview with Steve Mnuchin, we found out that there's a lot of focus on cutting taxes and possibly cutting government programs to save some money. Take a look. Can you explain a little bit about what this plan is and how quickly you think you can move forward on it? Sure. Well, let me first just put this in perspective because there's no question

that the president's economic agenda is working, the combination of tax cuts, regulatory relief, and now trade, getting the two big trade deals done last week. And the president has asked us to start working on what we call tax 2.0. And that will be additional tax cuts that fuel the economy. What will they look like? Well, there'll be tax cuts for the middle class. And we'll be also looking at other incentives to stimulate economic growth. Can you give us any hint as to what that is yet?

I won't preview them here today. But again, they'll be focused on items that will increase economic growth. So again, that is current Treasury Secretary and former predatory banker, Steve Mnuchin. And he talks about how it's gonna be a middle class tax cut, which was the same ridiculous lie that was told over and over again by the Trump administration in the lead up to the Trump era tax cuts, version one. And the truth of the matter is, that's not really what happened. The tax cuts greatly benefited the wealthiest Americans, and it's been a disaster for a lot

of people in the working class. So talk of election year tax cuts comes amid a swelling budget deficit that eclipse one trillion dollars for the 2019 calendar year. In addition, total government debt recently passed $23 trillion, despite President Donald Trump's promise that economic growth would wipe out the deficit and pull down the federal IOU. That did not actually happen. We all knew it wasn't going to happen. We all knew that the talking points on the Trump-era tax cuts relies to begin with.

And that's why the Tea Party is so furious with Donald Trump. So they care about the deficit and the national debt, and how dare he lie about that? And then blow up all of it. No, they don't care, they're not interested, it's not a Democratic president, so it don't matter. They don't care, of course. Mnuchin maintained that the tax cuts would pay for themselves, even as growth has fallen well short of the administration's promises of 3% to 4% annually.

He did concede that the level of spending needs to be curtailed. Economic growth has fallen below 3%, and the red ink has continued to grow. So how exactly would he cut some of the spending? Talks about it in the next clip. This is all happening as the deficit looks like it's crossing some new high levels. How do you kind of look at that? When do you expect that that deficit will be tackled and how we're going to do that? Well, that's a good question.

And let me just step back for a second and comment on the first tax cuts, because I stand behind my comments that the tax cuts will pay for themselves, despite the New York Times disagreeing with me today. Let me just say, aside from tax cuts, we also did have increased government spending. And the reason for that was the president felt it was important to rebuild the military. It had been underinvested. So if you look at the increase in the deficit, a significant component of that is additional government spending.

We did a bipartisan deal this year. But there's no question. We need to slow down the rate of growth of government spending because we can't sustain these deficits growing at these levels. We're following our projections. and we think it will pay for itself. Now, that's different than you can't spend the money on tax cuts and spend the money on increased government spending. So over time, we need to slow down the rate of growth of government spending.

So when he talks about government spending, what is he referring to? He's not talking about cutting back on the bloated military budget. He's not talking about cutting back on corporate welfare or government subsidies for research in development for some of these massive corporations. What he's talking about is entitlement cuts, government programs that we as middle class and working class Americans have paid into. So here he is, here's Donald Trump. You know, he has these moments of insane transparency that I actually really appreciate.

And here's Donald Trump telling us that he would cut entitlements. Entitlements ever be on your plane. At some point they will be, we have tremendous growth. We're gonna have tremendous growth this next year. It'll be toward the end of the year. The growth is gonna be incredible, and at the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that's actually the easiest of all things, if you look, because it's such a big percentage. If you're willing to do some of the things that you said you wouldn't do in the past, though, in terms of Medicare.

Look, we also have assets that we never had. I mean, we never had growth like this. That's not true. The growth is at the very top, okay? The middle class and working class continues to struggle. Wages continue to be stagnant. I'm gonna show you some facts and figures to back that up in just a minute. up in just a minute, but John, do you want to jump in?

Yeah, look, GDP is a pretty horrible, antiquated way to measure economic growth. But even GDP growth like quarter by quarter lately has been like it was under Obama. What do you mean, we've never had growth in this way? It's nothing compared to the 90s even. So that's nonsense. He tweeted today, I'm the only one who will protect Social Security. He just came off of an interview where he's like, oh yeah, no, not only are we going to cut it, but it's the easiest thing to do and why not?

I don't rely on it. Rich people really don't rely on it. They get a similar amount that the poor do, but they don't. need it because they have so much more money. And Mnuchin's talk there, I just love the way this pattern plays out. They say we're gonna pass these tax cuts, it's gonna pay for itself, and there's gonna be huge economic growth. We say, that ain't true, fast forward like two years, it didn't pay for itself, there

wasn't economic growth, but they have a solution cut spending. So hand all the money to the rich and then try to balance it by getting rid of the government spending that actually benefits regular people. That talk, you're gonna hear no matter what. But if Trump loses, that is all you're gonna hear on the news going into a Sanders presidency. Is, you know, after these wild years of rising deficits, now it's the responsibility of the Democratic president to cut government spending and balance the budget, you know, and cut all these programs to help working Americans, and then the working Americans will hate

them. Right. And then in four years, they'll elect another Republican because they'll be pissed off at the Democratic Party. So the reason why there are so many attacks against Bernie Sanders is because he's not susceptible to caving in on those demands, right? Like he's not going to be pressured into cutting the programs that so many Americans rely on. These are popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.

And so the leeches in the background who wanna do anything and everything to destroy him are thinking about that. They're thinking about how these tax cuts and this gravy train will not continue under his watch. And that's why they hate him. Well, and that's also why, look, let's say he wins, okay? But we don't do what we need to do all throughout these primaries and get the right Democrats to win congressional primaries, Senate primaries, and then win and enter the government.

He can go into the White House and say, I'm not going to be cutting these things. And then he can find himself with Republicans who want to cut all these programs and enough Democrats that want to cut those programs that any attempt to institute big new programs that might cost something, they'll be saying, you know, economically, we just can't do it with all this deficit, everything. So we need President Sanders, but we also have to get the right legislators to work with President Sanders over the next four, eight years. I definitely agree with you on that. We need to focus on getting progressives elected, and that's why we do so many interviews with progressive candidates who in a lot of cases are trying to challenge Democratic incumbents. But at the same time, I also think it's important to not discount what Bernie is doing when it comes to empowering people.

So, look, he gets compared to Trump a lot, and there is one area where I see a similarity that I'm not even ashamed about, right? So why are so many of these Republican lawmakers willing to carry out what Trump wants, even though we know they don't agree with him, they don't even like him, they can't stand him? Because Trump is popular among Republican voters. And these lawmakers know that if they go up against Trump, right, these Republican lawmakers, then their political careers are over.

Now unfortunately, Trump is a nefarious figure. He is a disgusting, greedy, self-interested narcissist, and it's a devastating situation under his watch. But when a candidate like Bernie Sanders and hopefully a president like Bernie Sanders uses people power to actually accomplish a better society for the working class, then we have a model that's excellent, right? But that doesn't mean that I'm discounting the importance of getting. progressives elected in Congress as well.

Yeah. So I promise that I would talk a little bit about what happened in the aftermath of the Trump era tax cuts. So I'm just gonna go through this real quick so you understand where are commentaries coming from. So this is reported by the Wall Street Journal, which is not some progressive news outlet. They published some information about what happened following these tax cuts. Savings went up 17% in 2018 from the previous year, according to figures from the Commerce

Department. Economists say the recent rise is likely being driven by the wealthy. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimates that the wealthiest 10% of Americans accounted for more than three-fourths of the increase in their saving rate since the tax cut. Now, why do I bring you that figure? First of all, obviously it demonstrates that the people who benefited the most from the tax cuts were the super wealthy.

But more importantly, it proves the point that they didn't take that money and invest it in creating jobs or making sure that wages go up, they didn't do any of that. They're like, oh, more money, okay, in a lot of cases with the corporate tax cuts, they've bought shares of their own stocks, artificially inflating the values of their shares. And then in other cases, they're like, okay, well, let me go ahead and hoard more of this money. And that's what they're doing, that's what they're doing. That's why everything that keeps getting sold to the American people as a middle class tax cut is complete and utter BS.

And my only follow question would be then, why didn't they? Why did they save it instead of just creating more jobs? And I think that the answer is important for people to understand. It's the most, it's literally the most fundamental thing in economics. I did not get an economics degree, I did the minimal classes you needed to do in it, but even I was schooled in this, it's because that's not how it works. You don't just have a bunch of money and then say, oh, then I guess I'll hire a bunch of people, you hire people to accomplish a goal, a goal that is driven by a need for more

employees, a need that is driven by a demand for products and services, which is driven by spending. And if all the money went to the rich and they don't have anything to spend it on, they're not gonna magically create jobs that are unneeded because there's no new demand for the products or the services. And by the way, every single rich person understands that, Steve Mnuchin understands that. He doesn't think it's gonna stimulate economic growth and then aw shucks it. didn't, he wants the money. That's all it is. And he knows that the worst case scenario for him

is none of his promises for the tax cut actually come true. And he'll be asked a milk toast question on CNBC at Davos and then he'll go back to eating shrimp and drinking champagne. And that's it. There's no consequences for it. We go through this cycle like every seven years of this country. There's always going to be another big tax cut. It's never going to do what they promise it's going to do. And nobody learns anything. We just keep repeating. the same thing. Your favorite thing is, that's the definition of insanity I hear, but we keep doing it. I know, exactly. It's the exact opposite. But I keep saying it. Yeah, yeah. Expecting a different outcome. So does everyone else. Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's really

nothing else I can add to that. Just understand how they're lying to Americans right to our faces, pretending as though their actions are meant to benefit us when in reality it's to benefit themselves. All right, well, we have one other story about Mnuchin, so let's get right to it. Today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin went after a minor, Greta Toonberg. Apparently, that's the trendy, fashionable thing to do among Republicans, attack kids because they don't like their activism. And so during an interview, Mnuchin said the following, is she the chief economist?

Who is she? I'm confused, before clarifying that he was supposedly joking. And then he was quoted as saying, after she goes and studies economics in college, she can come back and explain that to us. Now of course, Mnuchin and other right wingers hate what Greta Toonberg represents because she is drawing much needed attention on the severity of climate change and the urgency to act. And so that threatens profit, that threatens privatized companies, fossil fuel industries.

You know, the companies that have made people like Steve Mnuchin very wealthy. And so he wants to protect them. And so he was asked about his comments during the interview on CNBC. I want to go ahead to C3. That's the next video. C3, please. Some of your comments about the environmental, 17-year-old environmental activist, Greta Thunberg. I just would like to get, I know you were just joking about some comments,

but she's here to great fanfare. Is that a commentary on anything? Do you think about Davos or about where we are in the world in general in terms of climate alarmism, etc? Well, let me just comment because obviously the climate issue is something that is being talked about this week. And I think, quite frankly, our environmental policies are misunderstood. The president, absolutely believes in clean air and clean water. He supports a clean environment. So it's hilarious to hear him talk about how our climate policies are misunderstood. They're not misunderstood at all.

Obama passed mild policies to protect the environment. They were important policies to pass, but it didn't go nearly enough to protect the environment and to address the severity of climate change. The Trump administration came in and they rolled all of that back. So it's not misunderstood at all. The evidence is out there, anyone can read about it, anyone can see how disastrous it is. There are now forever chemicals in drinking water throughout the country. I mean, there are disastrous stories every single day.

They even rolled back regulations when it came to pork production. So it's not misunderstood. And someone like Steve Mnuchin, who honestly looks like there's nothing going on behind his eyes, like there's pure emptiness. For him to say that other people don't understand what's going on is pathetic. But yeah, yeah, I'm assuming he knows what he's supposed to say. And that's why he did that weirdly Trumpian thing. No, of course Trump likes the environment.

He wants clean air and clean water, that's not what we're talking about. Sure, I guess carbon's a pollutant, but that's that we're not talking about cleanliness. We're talking about a change in the chemical composition of our atmosphere that is leading to an overall warming trend that's having disastrous effects on weather patterns, you know, ecology, all of that. That's what we're talking about. Sure, he's really bad in terms of pollution in the air and the water, too. There's even news on that today.

He stripped away some more regulation stopping pollution from entering our stream. So it's a lie when he says that he cares about our water and our air, but that's not what we're talking about. That's not what Greta is talking about. We're talking about climate change. And those, like, Manuchin, the guy asking me question, it's, you know, like there's this talk about climate change. What does that mean? They're sitting in a castle, noticing that the peasants are burning alive and not getting that that could be a problem for them eventually.

And Medellin doesn't care. He doesn't care if the climate changes. If he has to flee from the coast, he's going to be fine to do that because he's got all the money in the world to do that. But for the rest of us, people who are going to be, they're going to be dislocated by rising ocean levels. They're going to lose their livelihood because if they're farmers in the third world, suddenly there's going to be huge areas.

They can't produce any agricultural output. These are huge problems. And they are going to delay, delay, delay as long as possible so they can keep making money off the way things are. Yeah, you're 100% right. Greta Toonberg had an awesome response to Steve Mnuchin's elitist comment about studying economics in college. She said the following, my gap year ends in August, but it doesn't take a college degree

in economics to realize that our remaining 1.5 is that a typo? That's how they do it in some countries. Oh, okay, I got it. and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don't add up. And then she also says, so either you tell us how to achieve this mitigation or explain to future generations and those already affected by the climate emergency why we should abandon our climate commitments. I love it. I mean, she's so incredibly smart. And don't be fooled into thinking you need a college degree in order to be intelligent enough or knowledgeable enough

to talk about serious issues like climate change. She does it every day. She does it in a concise, easy to understand, easy to digest way. And that's so important because for far too long, climate change has been thought of as like this complex, you know, thing that people can't understand. It's not that difficult to understand. She breaks it down perfectly. Yeah, the overall idea is not that complex.

Even Donald Trump should understand it. He doesn't really. Yeah, and the degree thing is a dodge. They don't care. Like, okay, so you don't listen to her because she doesn't have a degree. What about like all the scientists and all their research, all their papers, all their studies? Do you listen to them? No, you don't care about what they have to say.

It's just a dodge. They don't care. She does get under their skin in a special way, driven largely by the fact that these are authoritarian who think about the world in a hierarchical fashion. And she is multiple of the sorts of people that are not supposed to be challenging them. If you're that young, you're supposed to stay quiet. You're not supposed to challenge them. If you're a woman, you're supposed to stay quiet.

You're not supposed to challenge them. If she was black and gay, that would be the only thing that could more get under their skin. But it drives them all crazy. All the pundits, the conservative pundits who line up to get dunked on by her and her other defenders. People like Mnuchin, Donald Trump can't stop thinking about the fact that she was chosen for the cover of Time magazine. She has an AOC-like quality of getting under their skin and just reciting in like the vulnerable parts of their brain. Well, speaking of AOC, she also chimed in on this writing, if you don't have an economics degree like Greta, they'll mock you for not having one.

If you do have one, as I do, they'll claim it's illegitimate. Hater's going to hate and deniers will deny. They will deny logic, science, and environmental consensus in order to protect oligarchy. Yeah. And it always goes back to that, the money. Yeah. Yeah, and by the way, the other thing that those two have in common, AOC and Greta is, both of them have like an almost supernatural ability to condense complex topics.

They're not necessarily scientifically complex, but complex rhetorically, and to deliver them in a very easy to digest fashion. And it bothers some people, I know. But so what do they respond? Do they respond with, well, you of your scientists, I have mine, no. Both of them are actors, both of them are being manipulated from behind the scenes, both of them are just playing a role, they're delivering a script. It's this inherently fundamentally misogynistic way of silencing some of the most outspoken

and thankfully popular voices in political discourse over the past few years. They're all gonna be like actors. They're all gonna be manipulated behind the scenes according to the right. We have some awesome congressional candidates that we've interviewed you. Morgan Harper, Nabila Islam, and others. I can't wait for them to be on the national stage actresses being manipulated from behind the scenes. We gotta take a break.

When we come back, we'll focus a little bit on the impeachment of Donald Trump, including Lindsay Graham's wonderful to watch meltdown. We'll be back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. 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.

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I want to make a quick clarification on something that. that I mentioned at the top of the last segment. So I had said that Friday's power panel show is only available to members, the live stream, and that's not correct. The live stream is available to members, but it's also available on anyone who's watching on Pluto TV, Zumo, the Roku channel, YouTube TV, Comcast, Xfinity X1, and Xfinity Flex. Jesus Christ, how many different versions do they have? It's crazy.

I just, okay. I thought you made that clear. For members and on these other services. Yeah, so if you're not a member, you feel like something's being taken away from you, it's not, you can still watch like the clips. Every single story we do goes up on YouTube, every single one, right? So you can still watch it. It's just that the live stream will be available on those various platforms.

Yeah. Anyway, let's move on. There's other news. I'm super like not in the mood today, like for anything. Anything that's not the news, I just want to do the news. So let's do it. Okay, let's use it up. Yeah, Senator Lindsey Graham seems to be feeling mighty guilty about how he's helping Donald

Trump cover his criminal behavior in the White House. And so in an effort to cover up just how guilty he really feels, he's been lashing out at Democrats. And here's a good example of him lashing out in response to the Senate impeachment trial. If I were the president, I wouldn't cooperate with these guys at all. I'm the same guy that said, you can't fire Mueller. I encouraged him to work with Mueller. Mueller is a man of the law.

Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi impeached this president in 48 days. I wouldn't give them the time of day. They're on a crusade to destroy this man. And they don't care what they destroy in the process of trying to destroy Donald Trump. I do care. So to my Democratic colleagues, you can say what you want about me, but I'm covering up nothing. I'm exposing your hatred of this president to the point that you would destroy the institution. Nobody would be saying this about a Democratic president if a Republican House had done this.

You wouldn't even ask me that question. All of you would be in our face. saying that there's a Democratic president and you're denying that person, here is she a chance to go to court and litigate these matters because you hate them so much. It shows you how complicit people have become when it comes to Trump. So his acting there was just pathetic. It does show how complicit people have become when it comes to Trump. Like, we get it, Lindsay.

We get that you're feeling guilty, you're helping Trump cover up his criminal It sets a really bad precedent for the future of this country. But if you want to sell that, you need to come to Hollywood, come to Hollywood, lots of acting schools. It'll teach you how to seem at least a little convincing. That wasn't. Wasn't convincing even in the slightest. But if you fell for it, let me just note that literally on the same day, on the same day,

while he was pretending to be so outraged at how Democrats have handled this impeachment trial, He walked up to Adam Schiff, who's been front and center on the Democrat side when it comes to this impeachment trial. And he apparently told him, quote, good job, you're very well spoken. It's been reported by multiple reporters. So there they are shaking hands, Senator Graham walking out of the Capitol encounter Schiff shakes his hand and says, good job, you're very well spoken. Yeah.

They're all so ridiculously fake that whole performance. You can't just do this and that means you're mad. But then you're like, you're like smiling again. You're complicit. He like, the thing is, I get the incentive. I get why you're just supposed to explode and attack them. Like he did it during the last Supreme Court hearings and all that. And the right loves it and Trump is gonna love it.

All these performances are of course for Donald Trump who is watching TV around the the clock. So it doesn't have to be convincing to a regular person. I have to be convincing to him. But everything that he said about, you know, they're being mean to Trump. And so I wouldn't give him the time of day. This isn't about like friends or something like that. We're talking about the constitutional obligation to cooperate with an investigation. They are obligated to investigate you and you have to go along with it. And if he says he's being denied his day in court, his ability to litigate, he just finished saying that. Is he the one pushing for Donald Trump to appear and to speak or for witnesses to come in or new information,

all those documents that Trump seems to think prove that he didn't do anything wrong, he's sure clutching him close to his chest and not letting us see them. 100%. I mean, Trump's not having, he's not gonna get his day in court. What do you think the Senate impeachment trial is? And it's overwhelmingly slanted in Trump's favor because Republicans like Lindsey Graham control the Senate. And so they have prevented Democrats from being able to.

call witnesses and subpoena documents that are incredibly relevant to this case. They are preventing, imagine a criminal case for a second, a criminal case where prosecutors are not allowed to provide evidence to make their case. What kind of trial is that, right? And we all know it, we all know it, right? And he knows it, which is why his acting is so pathetic and sad. And I hope that he has nights where he's staring up his ceiling and he can't sleep. because he hates Donald Trump.

We all know he hates Donald Trump. We've heard all the things that he said about Donald Trump before he thought that Trump would even be the nominee for the Republicans. So he despises him. But he's certainly doing Trump's bidding. He's certainly helping in a criminal cover-up. That's what he's doing right now. That's who Lindsey Graham is.

Someone who's so craven and so cowardly that all he cares about is his political career and remaining relevant. Something that he told the New York Times during one of the podcasts on the daily. You should check that out. Very transparent there about how much he cares about his relevancy. That is 100% true. It's complete trash. So let's move on to the next story.

This one will probably put me in a good move. So George Conway, Kellyanne Conway's husband, has been involved in something called the Lincoln Project. And the Lincoln Project consists of right-wingers that we probably don't agree with on almost everything or anything. However, they do think that there's a huge problem with Republican lawmakers who enable Trump's criminality. And so there are some vulnerable Republican senators who are going along with what Mitch McConnell wants, what Donald Trump wants. And the Lincoln Project, with the help of George Conway, Kelly Ann Conway's husband, is calling them out.

Their latest ad, which is vicious, goes after Susan Collins. Take a look. Senator Susan Collins, you aren't doing the job we elected you to do. While Mainers and the American people demand evidence, witnesses, and answers to Trump's corrupt Ukraine scheme, you keep covering for Trump. Oh, sure. You certainly talk a good game. You're concerned, troubled, worried. But one thing you're not, independent. Madam Senator, this time a finger wag will not cut it. You're a senator, so act like it. You work from Maine, not Mitch McConnell,

because Maine demands independence from our leaders. It's something we had with Olympia's Snow and Bill Cohen. Don't embarrass their legacy by protecting corruption. You aren't there to suborn corruption and loyalty to a political party, that's not the main way. That's the Trump way. Mainers demand independence, Senator Collins. We want a fair trial in the Senate and honest leadership. So either do your job, Susan Collins, or Maine will find someone who will. Mmm, delicious. That's so good. Vicious, I would say. Vicious and delicious.

Yeah, my favorite part, I don't know if my audio is up, but I bust out laughing and it was like, you're supposed to be working for us, not Mitch McConnell, and it's Mitch like. I was right, this one put me in a good mood. Yeah, so look, it's very effective. I saw, I didn't pay attention to that part this morning, but I love the ad. I will say it is, it is skillful and artful in its use of graphics and music to manipulate. I will say that. It's one of the, like, I love this ad because I do generally agree with it, but it also shows that these sorts of ads can be very effective on playing on your emotions.

Are you saying that classical music, including wonderful violin performances, is manipulation? I just, if I ever tell someone off, I am definitely going on like Fiverr and hiring violins to go bam-brum-br-bub-bub-bh because anything I say is going to be like, oh, dear. It's just so good. I don't watch Succession, but I imagine that's the soundtrack to most of it. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I think there are lots of. Violin solos, I guess.

Yeah. Perhaps a viola. Look, the one thing that I'm jealous of that Republicans execute really well is these attack ads. They're just so vicious. And look, I get it, the music and all that, the dramatic close-up photos. It is meant to drive the point home and it is a little manipulative, I guess. But the information that's being portrayed in that ad is accurate, right? Susan Collins, you know, she's not really carrying out anything that she believes in principle.

She's trying to figure out how to strike this balance in an incredibly difficult re-election campaign. And she's failing miserable, look, if I were in her shoes, and if I were in her shoes, if I were in her shoes and I had to choose between doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing, and either one could lead to me losing my reelection bid, I would just do the right thing, right? Because by doing the wrong thing, you're still risking your political career. Yeah. Like, I just don't understand what her reasoning is. I want to go to a quick.

Desire for relevance, probably. It's probably the same as Lizzie Graham. But they're already so rich. Just come away. I know, I don't get it. Like, especially when, like, is not specifically about her, but for a lot of them that are, you're on the older side. I mean, come on, like, how much longer are you going to be in office? Like, make a stand for something that matters. Like, I know you want to vote on the next Supreme Court justice or something, I'm sure. But like, you, you, when you were a kid and you were thinking about serving and you couldn't even dream to a bit of being a senator someday,

did you really think that you would sit there and spend every moment just trying to make sure that you can continue sitting there? Or did you want that position to accomplish something, some sort of principle, some discernible value being pursued? Look, look, you know, I 100% agree with you on this. We work here. You know, like there have been opportunities to do the wrong thing and work for a company that censors you and you're not able to actually get information out there. Sometimes doing the right thing does hurt you career-wise and professionally, but if you have

an opportunity to really change the country or make a decision that could lead the country in a better place, do it, do it. That's why you have the power that you have. Your constituents trusted you by giving you that power. And Maine does like independent. I mean, they're playing it up obviously in the ad, but Maine does like independent senators. So let me give you some details about what's happening in that race, because if you're curious about it, if you happen to be in Maine, you should know about the individual challenging

Susan Collins. So Collins, who has served in Maine Senate since 1997, is facing a tough reelection against Democratic challenger, Sarah Gideon, Speaker of Maine's House of Representatives in a race ranked a toss-up by the Cook Political Report. She's also facing four other Democratic opponents besides Gideon, so there are other people involved. But Gideon seems to be the individual who serves as more of a threat to her. So this week, Planned Parenthood endorsed Gideon over Collins, who the organization said

abandoned women with her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year. All of this stuff is coming back, Collins. But why is Planned Parenthood and Matt? She did whack her finger. Also, a morning consult poll released last week shows Collins as the most unpopular senator in the chamber with a 52% disapproval rating, handing Democrats an obvious opening that was reported by the hill. And just a fun headline, it's satire.

This didn't actually happen, but it does drive the point home about who Collins is. Andy Borowitz, who wrote, again, this is a satire piece, Susan Collins takes hours to decide on lunch before ordering exactly what Mitch McConnell is having. That's good. Which is definitely soup. Yeah. Yeah, she's in one of those races where like, obviously like I want the best, most progressive Challenges and all these races, I want them to win because I want a progressive president

to have a progressive Senate, progressive house. But symbolically, for the things they've done and allowed Trump to do, her, Mitch McConnell, there's a few standouts where if there is any justice in the universe and fundamentally there is not, they should lose. They should pay a price. Lindsay Graham should pay a price for what he has done. Ted Cruz should have lost in 2018 for his cowardice, for his political opportunism. They don't often pay that price, but I hope that Susan Collins is at least.

That seems like a layup. Definitely. All right, we've got to take a quick break when we come back. A little more on the impeachment investigation, including a weak defense by the Republicans. And then later we'll address some of the accusations against Bernie Sanders when it comes to his statements about the working class being treated as slaves. We'll be back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.