The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 30th, 2020

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

Joe Biden can't stop lying about his past? 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?

That's going. It's going. I guess that's better than not going. It's a news day. It's a news day, yes. All right, well, we have a lot of news to get to. We're going to start off with some election coverage. There's a lot going on with the Democratic primary, including some excellent reporting by

Sean King, which we will detail for you. Later in the show, we'll also give you updates on the Senate impeachment trial, including what Chuck Schumer is pretending like he's going to do in order to force the Senate to call witnesses in the trial. But if you were to ask me for my prediction, this whole thing is likely to be over by tomorrow because Republicans always get what they want, because they know how to fight for what they want. Anyway, so without further ado, why don't we get to the rundown? You ready? All right. Joe Biden has made all sorts of statements about his activism in the civil rights movement. Now, in the beginning of his career, he made similar statements that he's

making today on the campaign trail, and then he got caught lying, and for a huge chunk of his political career, he stopped telling those lies. However, Sean King, who is a wonderful journalist and activist, has done an extensive piece that looks into what he lied about before and what he's currently lying about, and he provided specific examples in the form of video evidence. And I think it's important to point these things out, because if someone hasn't actually been active or a huge part of the civil rights movement and uses it for their own political gain while campaigning, that's a huge problem. And it does pose a giant weakness should Biden make it to the general election. So let's start off with what Sean King finds. First, he kind of summarizes his

findings through his investigative reporting. He says, I've counted at least 31 different lies. Biden has told about being an activist, organizer, sit-and-demonstrator, boycott leader, voter registration, volunteer, black church trainee, and more in the civil rights movement. But every single time I dig, I actually find more interviews, more lies, more fabrications, and more tales he told to voters, reporters, historians, and more. Let's stop for a minute. I have no doubt that in simply covering this story, which I think is an important story to cover, we'll get backlash from Democrats who believe that the most important thing to do is to beat Donald Trump.

And so you're not allowed to do any critique or any criticism of any of the candidates. If you're interested in a show that's going to lie to viewers about the reality of these candidates, and you shouldn't watch this show, we need to be honest and we need to point to the weaknesses of these candidates to ensure that we elect the right person in this primary to go head to head against Donald Trump. So if you genuinely care about beating Donald Trump, you would look at these weaknesses and understand that Biden ain't it, okay? He's not the one who's gonna beat him. Let me give you more details.

In repeated interviews, campaign events, and national keynote speeches at the Democratic conventions of both Maine and California, Biden told wild tales of how he marched, sat in, and boycotted during the civil rights movement, and even went so far as to suggest that he had traveled to Selma and Birmingham with such actions. But with his campaign in tatters, he finally said they were lies, they were all. all lies in September of 1987. So in 1987, he gets caught. He's telling all these lies about his activism.

He gets caught and he finally admits that he actually wasn't that active. So on two very important occasions, Sean King writes, Joe Biden actually told the entire truth about his involvement in the civil rights movement. Nearly everything else has been a lie. So what was his first truth? This is a direct quote from Joe Biden from September of 1987. What is what he said. During the 1960s, I was in fact very concerned about the civil rights movement. I was not an activist. I worked at an all black swimming pool in the east side

of Wilmington, Delaware. I was involved in what they were thinking, what they were feeling, but I was not out marching. I was not down in Selma. I was not anywhere else. I was a suburbanite kid who got a dose of exposure to what was happening to black Americans. The second truth we learned about Joe Biden goes as follows. This is another statement from Joe Biden. I worked there a swimming pool back in the early 60s when Freedom Ride sit-ins and Bull Connors' dogs and firehors were starting to get people's attention. Attention, like everybody in America in those years, I was getting dramatic lessons about segregation and civil rights from newspapers and television. So this shows that Joe Biden was like most other white Americans at the time.

He was learning about the civil rights movement through media coverage, but he wasn't actually involved in the activism. Now, unfortunately, he has decided to revive these lies for his 2020 campaign. And so we're going to talk about that in just a minute. But John, I wanted to give you an opportunity to jump in. Yeah, those two portrayals, especially if at the time he's not super young, but he's not an older guy, okay, like yeah, it would have been better if you gotten involved. Some people did, including some candidates, but it's totally fine to learn about these things. You were

insulated from the realities of the world. That was what many of these communities were designed to do. And then you suddenly start to realize what's actually going. That would be perfectly fine. You would expect better positions in that time later on as he ages on things like busing and stuff like that. If he really was learning about all of this at the time, the lessons didn't seem to kick in for quite a while, but that would be one thing. It's then to say, well, that's not exciting enough, that's not interesting enough. I need to win in a particular election, and that history just doesn't do anything for me. So I'm going to craft one.

And the thing that surprises me was that it was discovered to be lies at all. Because we're talking like at the very beginning of the internet, it's much more difficult to track down information in this way. But thankfully at that time they did. Exactly. So let's talk about what's happening today, because I think that's what's what's what where you find the weaknesses in Joe Biden as a candidate and what Trump is going to use against him if he goes head to head with Biden. So according to what Sean King wrote, from 1987 until

2014, Joe Biden appeared to refrain from telling any lies about his role in the civil rights movement. But suddenly, while giving a speech at a King Day breakfast in January of 2014 for the National Action Network, he resorted back to the same old debunked lies. and also added one brand new one that had never been told in his entire life, saying he was regularly trained for the civil rights movement in 1960 on Sunday mornings in black churches. Here's that video. Take a look. A2. We got involved in desegregated movie theaters and helping, you may remember Reverend Moyer in Delaware and Herman Holloway organized voter registration drives coming out of black churches on Sunday figuring how we were going to. going to move? So he just decided to flat out lie.

I mean, by his own admission in 1987, he didn't get involved in any of that activism. But in 2014, while giving that speech, he talks about how he was active in the civil rights movement. Yeah, I don't want to go crazy with speculation, I guess. But I almost wonder if at one point decades ago, he crafted all these lies and then eventually was forced to own up to the fact that it wasn't true. And we understand what his actual situation back then actually was. As he gets older, I wonder to what extent like the lies that he used to told start

to be a reality in his mind. Not to say that he's not lying, clearly he is, but I'm saying like if he's been telling these lies, whether publicly or privately for literally decades, at some point do you start to believe some of what you've been saying? Every time you exaggerate a little bit more, you add new details, all of that, we see it with Trump all the time. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point, and we do know that people, like oftentimes when they want to justify

something to themselves, they'll tell themselves something until they actually believe it, right? And so that is something that does happen to people, but what I do find interesting is that for a giant chunk of his political career from 1987 to 2014, he completely stopped in telling these civil rights movement lies. At least in public. At least in public, and any type of fact-checked material, including his personal audio, autobiography, right? It's fact-checked, meaning that you can't just lie about what you've been involved in

in those types of mediums, whether it's books or fact-checked articles, those types of things. And so nothing about his so-called civil rights activism is included in his autobiography. So look, I don't know. I mean, the point that you're making is interesting because he does seem to have like these weird moments where I don't know what he's thinking. I don't know if this is like something having to do with his age. I don't know, and I don't want to speculate.

What I do know is, here's the evidence, here's what the record says, and here's what Joe Biden is currently campaigning on. And when he's up against Donald Trump, Donald Trump is it going to be like, well, you know, I was thinking about attacking Joe Biden on the campaign trail, but I decided not to because who knows, maybe he told himself these lies for so long that he's actually begun to believe them. No, and by the way, that's a weak defense anyway. I don't think it's a defense at all.

Yeah. Based on what I have read about the brain and memory and how it works, things, like, when you tell a story, it is to some extent dangerous in terms of your memory. Because the thing, like, if a thing happens and I recount it to someone, I'm not going to talk about all of the details of what happened. I'm going to talk about some of the details. The next time I recount that story, you're not going back to the original source memory fresh.

You're going back to the memory also of you telling the story, which means some things start to get reinforced in your mind. And some things, if they're exaggerated when you tell later on, and this is actually possibly true of Elizabeth Warren when she was recounting conversations with Bernie Sanders, if you exaggerate a bit when you describe something, and then you describe it again in that way, and then again, you start to believe the exaggerated version. Now, apparently there was actually nothing to what Biden's actually saying, but the biggest issue isn't just that he is trying to make his past more impressive.

Politicians do that literally all the time. But think about what it represents in this primary. specifically, as he enters into the first four states where it doesn't look like he's going to do very well, and his whole strategy is, hold the line until Super Tuesday when southern states can give me back the delegates I'm not getting elsewhere, well, then demographically to tell a lie that crafts this sort of identity as being a civil rights activist is really, I mean, that's disgusting. It is disgusting.

If your strategy is to stimulate black votes for yourself in the South, then that really deserves the fact checking that Sean King is providing there. Well, there's more. I mean, this is just the tip of the iceberg. And to be quite honest with you guys, we don't have enough time on the show to focus solely on everything that was unearthed by Sean King, which is why you should read his full piece. We'll include a link in the description box below.

But with that said, let's go to more of what he found. These are the highlights of what came across in my reading of Sean King's work. In Waterloo, Iowa, on this past December 5th, 2019, Biden began telling falsehoods again, that about being an activist and organizer and then added new color to the lie from 2014 that he was being trained as an activist in black churches on Sunday mornings. Here's that video. Because when I was about the age of the guys standing over there, I got involved in the civil rights movement. My state is a state that was segregated by law, and we have the eighth largest black population

in the United States of America as a percent of population. passion was ignited when I saw what was happening. When we moved down from a place called Scranton, Pennsylvania, we had very few minorities in that city. But I moved down to Delaware when I was in third grade, a little town called Claymont. And what I found out was that there was a significant African-American population. But guess what? They weren't able to go to school, the places that we went to school. And I remember asking my mom, what was that all about? And she explained to me, I thought, how can that be? And so I got engaged.

I never planned on running for public office. I love reading biographies of me now about how I knew I was going to run for the United States Senate. I knew I was going to run for president. Didn't know that at all. But I got my education, Reverend Doc, in the black church, not a joke. Because when we used to get organized on Sundays to go out and desegregate movie theaters and things like that, we do it through the black church. So Sean King shed some light in explaining why that particular claim is ridiculous and easy to spot as a lie. So he writes in 1960 during the civil rights movement, even in the deep south, even in churches pastored by Dr. King himself, Sunday morning was not at all like a Monday night planning meeting or strategy session.

Sunday mornings were sacred religious moments of prayer, song, praise, offering, sermon, and invitation. Even during the Montgomery bus boycott, Sunday morning services were almost exclusively religious in nature. And so for anyone who knows that history, you can spot that live from a mile away. And I do want to offer one other specific example of Biden campaigning on his civil rights activism that didn't actually happen. So on January 20th, so this is very recent, this year, Biden repeated his lies again at a special service at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina. Take a look. You know, when I was a teenager in Delaware, for real, I got involved in the civil rights movement. We have the eighth largest black population in America.

Most people don't know that. And I'd go to 8 o'clock mass, then I'd go to Reverend Herring's church where we'd meet. in order to organize and figure where we were going to go, whether we're going to desegregate the Rialdo movie theater, what we were going to do. And just to give you more detail and information into the context and the reality, Sean King writes, the Reverend Herring he speaks of is the late legendary Reverend Otis Herring of Union Baptist Church in Wilmington. Other times this year, when Biden tells this story, he says he'd leave Mass and go to

the late Reverend Maurice Moyers Church. I spoke to former members of their churches as well as people close to both families. Neither stories are true. Joe Biden met both of these men much later in life and only learned about their great work in retrospect. It's, look, politics aside, the campaign aside, you're right. I mean, to to brag about yourself and lie about what you've done when it comes to something as serious as the civil rights movement is just gross. Even if you weren't a politician, let's say he's a professor and he used that to his advantage to get his tenured position at some university.

It's gross, it's gross. Because there are people who lost their lives. They put their lives on the line for that movement. And many of those people have been forgotten. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional

wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the 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. Many of those people were never, never got the opportunity to see the outcome of that movement. And here's Joe Biden, he brags about how much support he has from the African American

community. I honestly get super uncomfortable with the way the horse race is talked about and how demographics are talked about because it feels like everyone is just, it's just. It's just an object, right? Each group is an object and like, what am I gonna do to win that object? And it's just, I don't think it's the right way to talk about politics, but it happens all the time. I don't know, I just, this is, I think, a giant weakness, but more importantly, I think this is very revealing about Biden's character and it really bothers me.

Yeah, and to go back to what you said at the very beginning about like, oh, how could you talk about this, it's gonna hurt him, and that could eventually, he could be the nominee. Well, like, wouldn't you prefer it comes out now rather than Trump? Because I got news for you. Trump is going to, he'll use everything that's possible, make up a bunch of other stuff. But he'll also use everything that's possible. Maybe we should find out about it now during a primary election where you're totally allowed to differentiate between the different candidates through their positions, their statements, but also their history is both real and imagined. And with Biden, the thing that bothered me the most is we can we can take all of what we're learning now, the stories he's telling and the reality, the stories he told back then.

But we can also put it in context of what we know about the things he was saying along the way. He told a story like three videos ago about having a conversation with his mother where he came to understand that African American kids couldn't go to school in certain areas. And that was a big learning moment for him. But then like 15 years later, when he's giving speeches about busing and he wants to show himself to be like the right sort of white politician, he demonizes busing programs. Right. So which is it?

Is it just a total lie, which apparently it was that you had that conversation? with your mom? Or did you actually have that revelation? But when it was convenient for you, I really wanted to appeal to racist white people. So you talked about busing as this societal evil that needed to be stopped or at least slowed down. So there was a lot of outrage over Rogan's, Joe Rogan's quasi endorsement of Bernie Sanders. The reason why I'm bringing that up is because people, I think rightfully so, have been

uncomfortable with things that Joe Rogan has said in the past, right? And they have taken Joe Rogan's statements and used it to attack Bernie Sanders. That was a huge story. It dominated news feeds for an entire day, and a little bit over the weekend as well. This story, I'm not seeing a lot of backlash about this. And that's what's amazing to me. Because here you have the candidate himself lying about his own record and his own involvement in the civil rights movement for political gain.

And that is far more offensive than Bernie Sanders getting a person. endorsed by someone you don't like. Yeah. Yeah, and in particular, like any candidate who's being shown to be persistently lying for decades, literally, that should be an issue. But if the identity that you've set yourself up as, like the person you are is the no malarkey guy, it's literally like the sign no malarkey tour was in some of those videos where he's lying, well, then that should be even a bigger issue.

Like you're saying the advantage you have is straight talk and honesty when you have a multi-decade long history of lying about this particular area. Look, we got a debate coming up next week. There's time for those moderators to look into this and to ask them tough questions. I'm sure, I'm sure they'll ask. Yeah, I kind of doubt it. Yeah, same. We gotta take a break.

We'll be right back with more news, including some accusations about Pete Buttigieg's campaign coming from his own staff members. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT and John with you. I was just saying during the break, like, what if this story that we just covered about Biden lying about his activism in the civil rights movement were? Long bendy Twizzlers candy keeps the fun going. Keep the fun. Believe you, me, I would be super apologetic about supporting him. And I would tell the truth about what he's done.

Like this isn't a joke, right? So if you're serious about beating Trump, this is not a joke. By the way, forget Trump for a second. If you're serious about electing the right person to represent you, to represent this country, this is a story you should care about. The record is something that you should look into. It's not about like, oh, this person's likable. So number one thing that people cite in their support for Biden is that they have been convinced

that he is the best candidate to beat Donald Trump. And that is just not the case. There's no evidence to that point, none. It blows my mind. Anyway, quick note before we go to member comments, Iowa caucus, that's happening next week. Everything's happening next week. Literally everything. Next week is giant.

The 2024 election is happening next week. Not literally everything, but a lot. So we have the Iowa caucus happening, caucus is happening, and we have exciting special programming lined up for you. So we're going to cover the Iowa caucuses starting at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific. Ben Mankowitz, Emma Viglind, John Iidrola, and Janky, Graham, myself will be part of the coverage. It's going to be great. It's going to be so exciting.

It's going to be great. Emma is not going to be in studio, but she's going to be covering the caucuses on the ground. So she's going to be reporting in, it's going to be awesome. So make sure you check it out. And if you can see on this graphic, and if you're listening to podcasts, you can't see the graphic, you can catch the coverage on a number of different platforms, including Roku, Zumo, YouTube TV, Pluto TV, Xfinity, X-1, Xfinity Flex. Okay, so there's a lot of Xfinity going on.

So make sure you check that out. All right, and then just a few comments before we move on. Meg says, Joe Biden was very concerned about the civil rights movement, like, concerned it would be successful. Yeah, that statement was weird. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was concerned about what was happening to the African American community. Yeah, yeah, he's said and done enough things for us to criticize him on that we don't have to assert motivations that we don't have strong.

Yeah, I agree with you on that. Also, Terry Teeter, a teeter-totter German teacher writes in from our member section. If the main thing is beating Trump, we need to vet out candidates. I totally agree, Trump will point to these stories in the general election, and then Nick, Look, you're, in my opinion, the winner with this comment, because it's so good. If you're interested in someone who won't lie to you to pacify the misdeeds of their administration, you should vote for someone else, which is something that Biden says to anyone who challenges him even a little bit. So, all right, well, let's move on to other candidates in the Democratic primary.

Some of Pete Buttigieg's staffers are concerned with the way people of color are being treated within his campaign. In fact, in interviews with half a dozen current and former members of his campaign, the New York Times has released some details of what these concerns are. Now, some of them, I think we should have a discussion about whether they're really as bad as the New York Times is making it out to be. But I do think that there are some valid concerns here that should be brought to the public's attention, especially when you consider Pete Buttigieg's record in South Bend, Indiana. as the mayor. We've done expensive reporting here at TYT on that. The police department had considerable racial tensions, and Buttigieg was very much ready and willing to fire the town's first African American police chief, Daryl Boykins.

But what are the new accusations coming from members of his campaign? Well, according to the Times, current and former staff members of color say they believed that Senator Buttigieg officials didn't listen to their concerns and ideas about the campaign. One said there was a daily emotional weight on people of color who felt they were employed in order to help the campaign meet its ambitious diversity targets. Now the people working on his campaign or the campaign itself is actually very diverse, but what they're arguing is in an effort to make it diverse, they didn't really care too much about the thoughts or the vision of these individuals, they just cared about meeting a certain quota.

Also, some Hispanic employees said managers asked them to translate text, even if they didn't speak Spanish, making them feel disrespected. So there's more, but I wanted to kind of get your thoughts before we move on to the rest of it. Yeah, so later on, you've got a couple of references that I think are probably definitely specific to the Buttigieg campaign. Overall, though, I would say, I mean, if you talk to the staff of any candidate, I bet there's a lot of these same sorts of concerns. Some candidacies are probably better than others, but I mean, like most of the candidates

are white. Most of the people that historically they choose as leadership in their campaigns are white. They're going to treat, like those, that sort of discrimination is I would imagine not unique to Buttigieg's campaign. Yeah, look, there have been issues with many campaigns on, you know, racial tension, lack of representation. has actually chosen people of color in high level positions within the campaign. So I do give them credit for that.

But if there are lower level staffers who aren't feeling like they're respected or being heard, that should be considered. And to Buttigieg's credit. Oh, definitely. I just wonder to what extent it actually has much to do specifically with Buttigieg's campaign and not just the sort of inherent racist nature of America. Yeah, that's a good point. So let me give you some of the specific accusations from the piece.

and then we can discuss. So some employees of color spoke about feeling disrespected by white colleagues. Others said they felt stressed from having to answer questions from friends and family members about working for a candidate struggling with minority voters. So look, I get that. I certainly understand what it feels like to have to answer to members of your community for working for a company or for a person that they don't particularly like or find problematic. But so far, there isn't anything specific, too specific.

So let's give you more. Well, I think that that's a little bit specific in that, like, people are throwing around polls where among African-American voters he's at 0% or 1% or 2% or whatever. I imagine that that's probably, first of all, it means that you're probably getting asked the question a lot just because it's one of the narratives about his campaign and that probably wears on you. But then also the sort of the implication is, wait, if you're a person of color, why are you working for someone who clearly has problems with this community? Like, if they just genuinely support him, that's got to suck too to have like your own identity used against you when you're just pursuing a political like, a thing that you support. Yeah, but my, okay, look, my point is this isn't something that Buttigieg did to the staffers. This is something that the staffers unfortunately have to deal with from, you know, people outside

the campaign who are concerned about his record. Now, his record is something that I think is fair game. But to say that his campaign is like actively doing something that's making them It's not like his campaigns like reaching out to people in various communities and telling them like hey Harass my staffers who you know, that's not probably not No, that's not what's happened but but there are other things so a second meeting they've been having meetings about You know how to make people feel Listen to appreciated and so a second meeting on January 2nd

Featured lengthy discussions of the importance of diversity and hiring and sometimes tearful descriptions of the difficulty of recruiting people of color to the staff. One employee also recalled a troubling incident for staff members of color. The campaign had planned a fundraiser with a donor who had helped try to suppress the release of video showing the police shooting of a black Chicago teenager. Okay, so that was the Laquan McDonald case. So let me give you the details on that, because that is the part that I find, like the worst act. aspect of this story because it is very specific and based on what the staffers are telling the New York Times, they raised their concerns and they were ignored.

So in October, the campaign was rocked by revelations that among the hosts of a scheduled Chicago fundraiser was Steve Patton, a lawyer who had tried to block the release of footage of the 2014 police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald. After black leaders, including Jesse Jackson, objected, the campaign distanced themselves from Patton. So it wasn't until there was like public outcry that Buttigieg's campaign was like, all right, maybe we should work with this guy, maybe this is a bad idea. But if the whole point of hiring people of color into your staff is to listen to them, it's

not just to like show the world, like look how diverse my staff is, it's to get their perspectives. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, if you're having meetings where it's like, man, like, you know, we acknowledge we need to have a more diverse staff, but like nobody wants to work for us. Maybe like diversifying yourself isn't the only issue, maybe there are bigger issues about who you are and what you're projecting out there about your priorities and your past and your refusal to answer questions about it. Like maybe you could solve both of those problems by making substantive changes in these areas.

The way that it comes off is, all right, I want to be like every other politician where I look polished and the aesthetics are there, right? Not aesthetics meaning how Pete Buttigieg looks, but more importantly, the aesthetics of his campaign, right? Look how diverse it is, but it's a very shallow attempt to address very real problems with his record, and it's also a shallow attempt at including voices that need to be listened to when it comes to important issues and proposals that are being put out by his campaign. So it doesn't matter if you have a diverse staff, if you're not interested in the listening to what concerns them and what their perspectives are.

Now, Buttigieg responded to the New York Times with this statement. We're proud of the staffers who stood up and made their voices heard to help our campaign improve and be more inclusive. We realize that we can always do better. And these honest discussions are how we make progress. And we will continue to provide our staff the safe space to have them. And look, to his credit, they did have the meeting. This is before the New York Times article came out.

So it's not like he was doing it for PR. they did have that internal meeting to hear people out because there was growing concern within the campaign about how people were feeling ignored and disenfranchised. Yeah, look, I don't know if he just doesn't really care to change. And by change, I mean your platform, like not just, you know, like I'm opting people into endorse you in emails and things like that, that weird story we talked about a few weeks ago. his refusal to be honest about what happened while he was mayor, he refused to answer questions about it at all. He's not cooperating with investigations, those sorts of things. I mean,

journalistic, not legal, investigations. Or if he's just decided, you know what, I've got the advantages I've got, there are some, I'm just going to ride this thing out. And you know what, if people don't want to support me, I guess I'm just going to double down in Iowa, New Hampshire and hope that momentum develops, like there seems to be a sort of, like maybe internally there's some effort, but substantively about his campaign, there's a great deal of apathy. Right. And I think that that is not just a thing that will hurt him in the primaries, that is definitely a thing that would hurt him in the general election if you were the candidate, because you

are taking for granted groups that you cannot take for granted. 100%. And I do want to read one quick comment from one of our members. Tommy Too Strong wants to respond to how you've handled this story and others. John is the most equitable person in the media. Stay reasonable, my friend. I don't know exactly what you mean, but thank you. No, you don't jump to conclusions, and I think that's important.

I try. Especially with stories like this, because we know from personal experience that there's all sorts of scoops that members of the media get. And it's coming from people with nefarious intentions and agendas. And so it is important to take these stories and take them seriously because if people are feeling excluded and ignored in the campaign, that is a problem. But also understand that sources like the New York Times don't have a good track record when it comes to covering some candidates. All right, so if you want to be a member, you can become one by going to t.t.com slash join. Thank you to Tommy for that comment.

All right, let's move on to other news. Oftentimes, when it comes to support from the African American community for the Democratic Party, Republicans like Donald Trump, would argue that Democrats just pay them off. There's go into these communities, give them money, or do so in the form of welfare programs, and that's the reason why black voters will usually overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates. First of all, let's just acknowledge how insanely insulting that is to the black community. But more importantly, let's also acknowledge that it's a classic case of projection because Trump allies have been going into predominantly African American communities and they've been giving

them money, literally. And they've been doing so in ways that could be deemed illegal, but it doesn't matter because it's Donald Trump. So illegal campaign issues apparently can't touch him. It's in pursuit of reelection, which is in the public interest, obviously, as we found out. We'll get to that story later today. But let's give you the details of this story reported in Politico.

The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin, landed cash gifts and increments of several hundred dollars stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works. So they're literally going into these towns. And they're holding these raffles, these Trump allies are holding these raffles. And the organization doing this is listed as a nonprofit that's giving out money as charity

because you can't buy people's votes, that's against the law. But this is not a charitable organization. They're listed as one, but their activity does not fall under the category of charitable, right? Yeah, so I don't know. I sort of feel weird about this. Obviously, it's condescending and underhanded, and it shows what these people think about these communities that they can try to buy them off.

But like, they can't literally buy the votes. Anyone there can take the envelope of money and be like, thank you. 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

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And then vote for whoever they want, and they did get the money. No. So-Jodd, this is illegal. It's illegal. What they're doing is- Yes. No, but clarify the illegality. That's what I want to know. Oh, you want to know the illegality?

I do, yeah. I'm open-minded. If you are a charitable organization, you can hold an event on like political issues. But you are not, because you have tax exempt status, right? You cannot endorse a specific person. Yes. They are endorsing a specific person. Secondly, in order to qualify as a charitable organization, the money that you're giving

out needs to be proven to be given to a person who is in charitable need. And that is not what's happening here. Let me give you the details. Okay, you go, you, what? Because we hold, like, for some reason, like here's the law, right? This is where you need to be to break the law. But with Trump, it's like he's here. But I don't know, is he breaking the law?

Yeah, this is law breaking. That's what's happening right now. Let me give you the details. First of all, he is allowed to break the law. Let's just agree there. Yeah, he's breaking the law every day all day. All day. He's violating our constitution.

I mean, but it doesn't matter. And that's the thing that blows my mind. I mean, there have already been illegal campaign contributions. in regard to the 2016 campaign. In the form of hush money payments to adult actresses, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, let's move on. By the way, my frustration is more toward the Democrats who chose not to pursue that. Let me move on. Nancy Pelosi, top of the list on that.

Can't stand it. The cash giveaways are organized under the auspices of an outside charity, the Urban Revitalization Coalition, permitting donors to remain anonymous and make tax deductible contributions. So the people donating to Trump's campaign under this charitable foundation, then get to turn around and deduct what they gave in their taxes. Fascinating. Let me give you more. Charities are required to spend their money on charitable and educational activities.

It's not immediately clear to me how simply giving money away to people at an event is a charitable act. Video of the giveaway posted to Facebook by the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows Lannier, He's one of the co-founders of this so-called organization, announcing one recipient, Terracita Jones Thomas, then declaring, she don't need the money, she don't need the money. A LinkedIn profile for Jones Thomas describes her as a senior director of accounting for a real estate management firm. Her son, Warriors Forward Omari Spellman, is set to make close to $2 million this season. I was doing well. So is that enough evidence for you?

Yeah, well, but I don't, I think you're, I think you're responding to things you might think that I'm thinking rather than things I'm actually thinking. So what are you thinking? Tell me. So first of all, I guess just philosophically, in terms of what should qualify as charity, look, that seems less charitable than other uses of your money. That is not charitable, John. Hold on, just let me, let me lay out my case before you attack me.

Okay. I'm really very attacked right now. If you were to go into a community of people actually in need and just give them money, how would that not be charitable? But that's not what's happening. And also, if you're doing so while endorsing a specific candidate, which is what's happening here. That's the biggest issue. That's the biggest issue.

There's two issues. I think they're both big issues. Number one, a charitable organization is not supposed to endorse. They're not supposed to use their charity as a political arm for a candidate. And that's what they're doing here. They get tax exempt specifically because they do not do that. Or in theory they don't do that. Look, we're telling you this story because I think it's outrageous.

Nothing's going to happen about it. So I'm just getting outraged for no reason. Because Trump is above the law. The goons that support him and do these disgusting things are above the law. And that's the country we live in, right? There is a two-tier justice system. If anyone else did this, they'd be in prison. Or they would have to pay a giant fine for using this tax-exempt status in order to push for a political candidate.

But with Trump doesn't matter. And it actually goes even farther because if the IRS was to investigate them and find them, Fox News would lose it. They're coming after conservative organizations, that's what they would say. One more graphic for you. The group's Christmas extravaganza event in Cleveland last month featured a $25,000 giveaway and an appearance by Geron Smith, a deputy assistant to the president. At the event, which also featured an appearance by television personality, Geraldo Rivera, co-founder Karim Lanier compared the investigative scrutiny faced by Trump to the plight of wrongfully

incarcerated black men, he also defended Trump's record on race. So this is the kind of propaganda that they're spreading. But no, but let's just hold on. Just forget about the criminality of what they're doing for a second. And just focus on the argument that was made there. They are comparing the weak investigations into Trump's criminal behavior in the White House to what black men have had to face in this country when it comes to our justice system.

That is so incredibly gross. Yeah, a little bit inaccurate too because generally those black men can't go into their courtroom and be like, I've decided no witnesses, no evidence, I'd prefer if you didn't do that. Yeah, it's a slightly different situation. Also not new though, this is the latest instance of it, but how many times did they call the impeachment inquiry or the Mueller report a high tech lynching? They kept saying that over and over again, effectively making the same comparison.

So, that's the story. I'm going to take a break, take a deep breath, and we will be right back. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks if you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media become a member at tyt.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Hey guys, welcome back to TYT. I want to read a few TYT lives and then I'll read some member comments.

And Sarah Jade says, congrats, TYT, I just got a Disney Plus subscription, and yet I choose to be watching you over Baby Yoda. I don't know if I'd make that decision. Well, I don't know about Baby Yoda, but like- Oh, take a look at him. Oh yeah? Then you'll know. All right, okay. When it comes to Yoda, you know, related topics and issues, I trust you.

Yeah, thank you. And it comes up a lot, you know. Yeah, okay. God, you're such a nerd. I love it. The queen, and I do actually genuinely love it, the queen of England says, when John said, I'm feeling very attacked, this is all I could think of. I screamed when Anna said, you should.

Yeah, we're still friends, though. It's not the same. Our friendships, you know, on a lower level than it was, but we're still friends. One of the hardest things to find is, by the way, we didn't even really have a big disagreement in that last story. But one of the hardest things to find is a colleague or a friend who you have like deep political disagreements with and big arguments with, and then you're still friends. Like, after that conversation, you can still, you know, have a friendly relationship like it never happened.

Why are you laughing? I feel like you're so nervous today. Like, I agree with the point you're making, but I, the description of, like, I didn't need, I think one of the reasons you were frustrated was because I didn't even really know what I thought about this story. Honestly, I'm like, keep it real. And so we were disagreeing. I wasn't even really, I didn't have a position that you were attacking.

So the way you just described it is deep political disagreements. Like I'm a libertarian and you're a GSA member. You didn't even listen to how I preface that. I said we didn't even really disagree on that story. That's true. Yeah. And then finally, I don't see the comment here, but one person was like, just let John play devil's advocate.

That's his role. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm doing that, but I suspect I'm doing that. You do that a lot actually. I do, because it makes the conversation more interesting, I think. Sure. You get no credit for it. Nobody likes it when you do that, but sometimes it's necessary. You got to goose the conversation. We got a cold open. To defeat Trump, we need a nominee who has always fought to protect Social Security. We are not going to cut the programs that millions of seniors and people with disabilities depend upon.

I love strong political ads. And one of Bernie Sanders' recent political ads is strong. It's against Donald Trump on an issue that's extremely popular among American, social security. So you got a little tasty taste of it. I'm about to show you the full video. Take a look. Trump's suggesting that he is willing to make cuts to social security and Medicare. Entitlements ever be on your plane. At some point they will be to defeat Trump. We need a nominee who has always fought to protect social security. We are not going to cut the programs that millions of seniors and people with disabilities depend upon. If they vote to Social Security, they may well not be returning to Washington.

I'm Bernie Sanders, and I approve this message. I love the phrasing, too. If they cut Social Security, they may not well be. Wait, how did he say it again? In the very end, like not returning to Washington. Yes, yes. Yeah, I like that. These are the kinds of political ads that I love.

Look, it's substantive. He didn't, I know people don't like when I applaud the Lincoln Projects. for their vicious ads against vulnerable Republican senators. I don't like the people. Don't get me wrong. I just like the viciousness of the ads because they're stating obvious things that should be used in attack ads. The Democrats usually shy away from.

In this case, it's super substantive. It's on an issue that is very popular. I'll give you some of the polling in just a second. And Bernie Sanders isn't lying. Like, he has a lengthy record of fighting to protect Social Security. And Social Security's been under attack for a long time now. There have been both Democrats and Republicans who have wanted to cut the program. Yeah, it's substantive both in the obvious way that's being described in the ad, but also

in a sort of hidden way that I wanna talk about a little bit later on. But I have a lot of respect for marketing. And so I wonder to what extent, like obviously I love that video too, and you love the Lincoln Project ads, to what extent is it that it's not that you love the aggression, it's that you love the aggressive violin solos. Both, both. I don't think there are any violinists right now that have any time. Their record, their schedules are booked.

Very booked, yes. Doing ads for everybody. I'm sorry, I can't play your wedding, I need to do this political act. I'm doing a Klobuchar ad or something. No, I like both and I don't think that you can have a vicious political ad without that music. And it's not just violent, just like the dramatic music. Can I ask you a question? Sure, yes.

So that ad right there is it's Bernie quotes and it's attacking Donald Trump. So very effective, it's making the case and also attacking Donald Trump. But is Donald Trump actually the target of that ad? Or considering the conversation that's been going around, not in the media since they don't care about the record of any candidate other than Bernie Sanders, but is this actually targeting Joe Biden? Oh, that's a really good question. In a way that stops him from being attacked for attacking Joe Biden.

It's not like, Neera Tandon can't be like, how dare you attack the possible eventual nominee. But he is setting out a standard where we need to take seriously people's threats to cut Social Security. Yeah. Wink, wink. I don't think Bernie Sanders is losing sleep over the thoughts of Neera Tandin. I don't think anyone should.

But with that said, I think that this is meant for Donald Trump. And I think it's actually very smart. Because just go back to 2016 and think about the kind of messaging Americans received from someone like Donald Trump, there was that, you know, fake concern about the working class. I mean, now it's very clear by his own actions that he doesn't actually care about the working class. In fact, he's actively tried to make their lives worse through his policies and his tax cuts for the wealthy.

Now, the only problem is you can't just assume that everyone's aware of what Trump's been doing. And so a political ad like that is so effective in nipping what Trump is likely to use in his campaign strategy in the bud, right? So you can't argue that you're this like populist who's looking out for the economic interests of Americans when you yourself, based on this audio, have admitted that you're gonna cut Social Security, you're gonna cut these government programs that are tremendously popular.

And just to show you how popular Social Security is, Pew Research did a study and found that 74% of Americans say Social Security benefits should not be reduced in any way. Who are the others? Probably like, you know. The richest people I get, but like the person in like the 80th percentile is like, I can afford to lose some social security benefits. What's wrong with you? Who knows?

But it's really hard to get 74% of Americans to agree on anything. It's designed to stop elderly people from starving to death after they retire. Who's against that? Well, there are people against that. We've actually heard them speak about it openly and publicly. 35% of adults aged 18 to 29 opposed cuts to Social Security, 77% of adults age 30 to 49 hold that view, while 80% of adults over 50 hold that view. And so look, the numbers just prove over and over again that these are popular programs,

which is why in the various times in this country's history where lawmakers have wanted to cut it, they haven't succeeded because luckily people get active. And we talk a lot about how we should get money out of politics. And I agree whether it's money and politics on issues that I deeply care about or issues that I don't think money in politics should have any influence on. So like the AARP is very powerful in lobbying. And so they do a lot of good lobbying in order to protect Social Security because they can run ads and they are effective.

And I like that Bernie Sanders is using a similar tactic and talking about something that's important, about something that Americans love and want to protect, and pointing to Donald Trump, his likely opponent, right, hopefully if he wins the primary in how he wants to cut Social Security in order to pay for the $2 trillion in tax cuts that he just gave the wealthy. And it's also, it's a wise thing to focus on strategically in the primary and the general election for the same reason that Bernie's support tends to drop as you go up through demographic age groups. Biden's support goes up as you go through those. And if he can sort of even out those lines a little bit can be very effective, and especially because the older you are,

the more likely you are to vote. So it's very wise. It's very strategic. And I do want to give you one more stat. Sixty-six percent of voters are more likely to back candidates who support expanding and increasing social security versus 18 percent who are less likely. That is an important piece of data. I'm aware. I'm pretty aware that Bernie Sanders is, you know, aware of of it himself and is using it to his advantage, and he should. His record is accurate, he's not lying about it, he has been a fighter. And what he failed at in 2016, if you ask me, is he didn't use his record enough. He didn't talk about what he accomplished and what he fought for enough.

He's known as the Amendment King, because while he hasn't passed too many pieces of legislation that he's authored in Congress, he's done a really good job in passing amendments to legislation to ensure that there are protections for the working class. And this is an example of that. So I love that he's doing it. I think it's an effective ad. And if you're online and you see it and you like it, you should share it because this is the kind of messaging that we need to get out there to defeat Donald Trump.

All right. All right. We've got to take a quick break. We'll be right 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.

slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon