The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - July 28th, 2020

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

America is facing an eviction crisis. Benjamin Dixon and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. 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. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off.

But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. hormone harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common issues such as hot flashes, poor sleep, low energy, bloating, and more. With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24 seconds, the results speak for themselves. A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Thank you. What's up, everyone? Welcome to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian. And joining us today is Benjamin Dixon, because guess what? Damage Report isn't the only show that gets to have all the fun. Thank you for having me, Edith. It's great. It's so great. It's so great to have you. I've been wanting to do an episode of TYT with you, hopefully more to come in the future. We have lots of great stories. Well, we have lots of great analysis to share in response to some pretty terrible stories.

stories, including Attorney General William Barr's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. We have a lot to get to when it comes to that particular topic. And we're also going to talk about what Democrats and Republicans are thinking, what they're doing when it comes to financial relief, economic relief, in response to this horrible pandemic. Later in the show, of course, we're also going to discuss some updates on coronavirus. and unfortunately a viral video on social media featuring a doctor who thinks that gynecological issues are caused by having sex with demons in your dreams. That happened.

So we'll get to all of that in just a minute, but first let me just give you a note about one of our partner's aspiration, which is a financial institution that actually cares about investing money ethically. It's aspiration and you can get a chance to win an e-scooter, an electric scooter. So to learn more information about this, just go to t.t.com slash green summer for your chance to win. You must sign up for a free spend and save account and register your account in order to enter to win. And listen, if you have already opened an account and you want to take part in this competition, You can still do it. The way that you enter is through referring friends to aspiration.

So again, just go to t.wit.com slash green summer. That's where you will learn more information about it. All right. Without further ado, let's get to our stories. Even though William Barr is the hot topic today, we'll get to that later. I think we need to talk about the economy first. So unless Congress takes action, millions of Americans are likely to be evicted from their homes very soon. And this problem is more than just a crisis. This is a crisis that the American people are dealing with. But there's also a crisis when it comes to Congress and how utterly feckless our lawmakers are when it comes to providing the economic relief that Americans desperately need.

So there have been numerous stories published about the number of Americans who are likely to be evicted, but these numbers keep ballooning. So, for instance, last week the federal moratorium on evictions and also on federally backed mortgages expired. And so there are some states that have implemented their own eviction moratoriums, but you have to keep in mind that some states have not done so. And we still have tens of millions of Americans who are jobless, who have lost their health care coverage as a result of being laid off in the middle of this pandemic.

And then you also have Republicans who refuse to extend the unemployment benefits that were provided under the CARES Act. That was the additional $600 a week that Americans would receive if they filed for unemployment. Unfortunately, it seems like there are some members of Democratic leadership who are going along with the lies and the deceptions that are being messaged to the American people. So before we get to that, I want to share some statistics with you. The Urban Institute estimated that provision covered nearly 30% of the country's rental units. And I'm talking about the moratorium on evictions.

By one estimate, some 40 million Americans could be evicted during the public health crisis. And of course, this is the most unsurprising part about all of this. Minority groups are the most vulnerable when it comes to eviction. So people of color, according to CNBC, are especially vulnerable. While almost half of white tenants say they're highly confident they can continue to pay their rent. Just 26% of African American tenants could say the same. Around half of Hispanic tenants said they have little to no confidence they'll be able to stay in their homes. And if you look at data state by state to see how states are impacted by this,

You look at Louisiana, for instance, 50% of tenants say that they can no longer afford their rent. You have 51% who say that they can't afford their rent in Florida, 58% in Tennessee, 59% in West Virginia. And again, Benjamin, I'd love for you to jump in. The frustration here is the utter lack of leadership, not just in the federal government with the Trump administration, but also with Congress. Right. What we're seeing here is just it's, it's shocking, but it's not surprising, right? It's almost like the natural culmination of how our leadership has been leading, the direction they've been going. They are really pushing the people as far as they possibly can. I think our friend Ken Klippistain on Twitter said that they're trying to find the very least that they could possibly do without causing a riot. But, you know, when these numbers start hitting the fan, right, when people actually are put out of their homes with nowhere to go and then if they if they're lucky enough to get in a homeless shelter, like we, we, we, we, we, do not have the capacity to house all of these people in the homeless shelters across this country. But even in that scenario, they would then be exposing their families to COVID-19. This is not something that's tenable, but the fact that they're playing chicken and taking it all the way to the wire is disgusting.

Absolutely. So you have the moratorium on evictions on one hand. And then you also have the issue of the unemployment benefits, which are set to expire on the last day of July. And so, of course, when you hear the rhetoric coming from the Senate GOP and also from the White House, there's this lie that keeps getting repeated over and over again about how, well, these unemployment benefits are just too high. And as a result, people are refusing to go back to work. In fact, one of the Republican senators who was perpetuating this nonsense was Ted Cruz over the weekend. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. And then I want to compare what he said to Democratic leadership. Listen. In terms of the unemployment benefits, do you object to providing

any kind or any amount of federal boost to unemployment at this point? Because not everyone is choosing to be out of work. The policy that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are pushing adds an additional $600 a week of federal money to unemployment. We have the unemployment system. And the system we have had- And McConnell wants to take it down to 70% of prior wages. The problem is for 68% of people receiving it right now, they are being paid more on unemployment than they made in their job. And I'll tell you, I've spoken to small business owners all over the state of Texas who are trying to reopen and they're calling their waiters and waitresses. They're calling their busboys. And they won't come back.

And of course they won't come back as the federal government is paying in some instances twice as much money to stay home. If you're open to a lesser amount? Look, what we ought to focus on instead of just shoveling trillions out the door, we ought to be passing a recovery bill. Now, what's a recovery bill? A recovery bill would be lifting the taxes and the regulations that are hammering small businesses so that people can go back to work. A recovery bill would suspend the payroll tax,

which would give a pay raise to everyone in America who's working. That actually gets people back to work. The recovery bill that Ted Cruz is talking about there has nothing to do with increasing wages for the average worker at all. In fact, what he's referring to is payroll tax cuts, which would gut Social Security and Medicare, okay? And Benjamin, you know, I've talked about this on the show, but maybe I'm wrong. I'd love to hear from you. How exactly does unemployment work? So let's say you're collecting unemployment, right? You were laid off as a result of the shutdowns following the pandemic or during the pandemic.

And then your employer says, okay, we're opening back up. We want you to come back to work. What happens then? Exactly. You get no more benefit. If you have the opportunity to work, there is a small provision in the CARES Act that says that they are not required to search for work during the pandemic. But in any normal case, if you're offered work and you turn it down, you no longer

get that unemployment benefit. And then they snuck something in there. Mitch McConnell's trying to get people 70% of their prior rages. We're talking about people whose wages were not sustainable in the first place, people who couldn't afford to pay rent and now you only want them to get 70%. Listen, I've been on unemployment and I've seen it's like $240 a week, and that's just not something that you can live on, especially when you're taking care of a family.

So they're playing the same game they always play. Absolutely. And so they're lying about how the system works and essentially defaming people who need to rely on unemployment during this pandemic. And then on top of that, you know, the argument just on its face is disgusting. Because even if what they were saying were true, which it's not, don't you think that there's a problem that $600 a week is so much more than what employers are paying their employees, right? So if in this, in the middle of this crisis, this CARES Act has provided more of a stable income for the average. American than what corporations and companies in this country offered to their employees,

that's a problem. That's a huge problem. But unfortunately, House leadership, like House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, seem to completely buy into this narrative. Here he is. Some Republicans say is that $600 serves as a disincentive to go back to work. It is more in some cases than they say that people were making at the beginning. So what do you say to that? And I think that's an argument that has some validity to it, and we ought to deal with that. I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly. It does seem like you might be willing to come off some from $600, not to $200, but you're not demanding $600 or bust? Look, it's not $600 or bust.

Speaker Pelosi said the other day, which I thought was a great line. We don't have red lines. We have values. And we're going into these negotiations with values. to say that 600 or nothing, no, that's not where we are. Okay. We're prepared to discuss this. Yeah, absolutely pathetic.

Benjamin, care to comment on the values of Democratic leadership? Yeah, thank you for setting it up exactly like that. Because Nancy Pelosi always talks about this phrase, show me your budget, show me your values. They showed us their budget last week when they refused to take 10% off of the Pentagon budget. All the Democrats are the majority of the Democrats refuse to do that. that's where their values are. Their values are not in protecting the American people. It's not creating a sustainable system to keep people safe in their homes until this pandemic

is over. It's the consideration of opening schools back up to force people into untenable situations. I don't want to hear about values from another politician when they are up there playing games with our lives. Absolutely. I mean, I couldn't agree more. And this is why it's so important to primary politicians like Steny Hoyer. You know, sometimes we win, sometimes we don't. But it doesn't matter. We need to challenge this type of thought process. Because what's the point of having a two-party system when, you know, you have democratic leadership that goes along with whatever nonsense Republicans are trying to put out there? I mean, the demonization of workers in this country is incredible, especially because the vast majority of people would like to go to work. But people have health concerns. People don't even have the opposite.

in a lot of cases to go back to work. We still have tens of millions of Americans who are jobless right now and don't have health care as a result of that. So the last thing we need is this type of rhetoric coming from Democratic leadership. But unfortunately, this is what we get because they're completely disconnected from what the average American is dealing with right now. And I also, I would say that they're complicit, right? At this point, like for years, I always thought the Democrats were either just feckless or they're cowards, but they are completely. with this. They have enough people working on their staff to know everything that we know and then some. And the fact that they come out here and this is what they want to say, they are complicit with the ruling elite who doesn't do, do not care.

I have to watch my mouth when I talk about these people. They do not care about the working class. Well, let's talk a little bit more about what Republicans are proposing because it appears that there is a little bit of a disconnect between the White House and the Senate GOP. So the GOP's coronavirus relief bill contains funding to essentially construct a brand new FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. And if this proposal is carried out the way that the White House, Donald Trump specifically, is envisioning, it could make the Trump organization quite a bit of money. Again, going back to nonstop violations of the emoluments clause, Democrats refuse to hold Donald Trump accountable for that. And now we see in real time, we've been seeing in real time, how much of an impact it has on our tax dollars and decisions that are made by Congress. So Trump would like this brand new building in Washington, D.C. The previous plan was to build the FBI headquarters in the D.C. suburbs.

But there would be an issue there because it could potentially open up some competition for a Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. So the White House has been trying to find ways to include funding for this new FBI building in the next stimulus bill in response to the pandemic. Now, it turns out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was blindsided by the inclusion of the provision in the Republican proposal. I want to go to the next video where you can see his real thoughts on this. Why is funding for the FBI building in this bill? I'm not sure that it is, is it? There's a limitation to home in, so we'll get more information for you.

Look, I think this is a starting place. You can see that we've had a lot of our members involved, and we can't pass a bill in the Senate without Democrats, nor obviously can it pass the House. So every bill has to start somewhere. The Republicans are in the majority in the Senate. This is the starting place, and we'll get you all have plenty of stories to cover along the way as we have these discussions back and forth across party lines and with the administration.

So Benjamin, obviously the funding for a brand new FBI building, nearly $2 billion to fund this, by the way, has nothing to do with financial or economic relief. related to coronavirus. I just wanted to get your thoughts on the video we just watched because it was clear that Mitch McConnell was blindsided by this and does not agree with the inclusion of this particular provision. But you forget, Anna, inside of the bill, it says that it's in to help the FBI prepare for the coronavirus. So, you know, I'm not sure exactly how they're going to prepare for it when it's a full blown pandemic in this country. And it's kind of late for that. But the rub here really is Donald Trump's role in this and the role he's, his concern

with the FBI building potentially becoming some competition for him. But when I researched this story a little more, and I went back to some of the talking points they gave originally in 2018, they really cast this as something as because Donald Trump is a real estate mogul, and that because he has the insight and he has the ability to make sure that the American taxpayers get the best deal. And that was kind of the end of the conversation. I think what has to happen here is that reporters have to press every single day that this comes up, but they should not have ever stopped back in 2018 and just accept it at face

value that because he made some money in real estate, that he was qualified to dictate where the FBI headquarters should be stationed. Yeah, look, I totally agree with you. I mean, asking reporters to do their jobs shouldn't be difficult, but apparently it's a very, yeah, exactly, exactly. And Mitch McConnell isn't the only Senate Republican who is against funding this new FBI building in Washington, D.C. Senator Lindsey Graham was asked about it. He said that makes no sense. And Senator John Barrasso also said that this funding should actually go through the annual government funding bill instead and added to me it's not coronavirus related. Now let me be clear, I'm not I'm not giving

Republicans any brownie points. I mean, they have covered up for everything Donald Trump has done time and time again. So it wouldn't surprise me that the Trump administration would find some shady ways to sneak in funding for this new FBI building. But yes, the FBI building that's currently in D.C. is near the Trump Hotel. And if they were to vacate it and build a new FBI headquarters in the suburbs, that plot of land could be utilized for a brand spanking new hotel that would compete with the Trump Hotel, which is exactly why these types of conflicts of interests matter. They matter. For all the Americans who thought, oh, this awesome candidate who's gone bankrupt six times happens to be a great businessman. So why don't we elect

him because he'd know what he's doing? Obviously he doesn't know what he's doing. The only thing he thinks about are the conflicts of interest and how he can use the office of the presidency to benefit himself, to enrich himself, and benefit his own businesses. That's it. It's just so devastating considering what millions of Americans are going through right now with a lack of income, with lack of financial relief from Congress, no health care. This is America. This is what we're dealing with. And it's shameful to say the least. We have to take a break. So let's do that. And when we come back, we have more for you guys, including Donald Trump, now very overtly attacking Anthony Fauci. And later in the show, of course, we have much to get to when it comes

to Attorney General Bill Barr's testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called

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Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Benjamin Dixon with you. Such a pleasure to have you, Benjamin. That was such a great segment. Thanks for having me, and it's always pleasure. I'm like fan girling here. All right, so I'm going to read a few member comments. And actually, I'm going to start off with a super chat comment because it's so on point. Crystal, thank you for making this point.

Remember, $600 a week equates to $15 an hour for a 40-hour work week. The people have been staying afloat because they had a living wage. Can't have that now. And I just thank you for breaking it down that way because it's one of those. facts like that you know and you forget to communicate so concisely and clearly on the show. So and when I say you, I mean me, I fail to do that. So I love that you made that point. And you know, when you look at the way economists have discussed how Americans have spent that money, it's actually pretty incredible. Like they're, they're impressed by it because for the first

time in a long time, so many Americans are able to like put some money aside in savings. pay down some of their debt, pay down some of the bills that they've been completely drowning under. And it's amazing how you hear these like success stories with a policy and Congress has the wrong take on it. Like, oh wait, we did something that worked? No, no, we got, let's get rid of that. It's infuriating. Micah says, this is utter insanity. We as a country couldn't even cut 10% of the Pentagon budget, but millions of Americans. don't deserve unemployment benefits, similar point to what you said during the show, Benjamin. And Gabby Marita says, oh my God, yes, Ben Dixon is here. I love seeing more cross-pollination.

I love it. It's an interesting way of putting it. I'm glad to be cross-pollinated? Okay. Between my favorite progressive outlets, like the majority report and the Benjamin Dixon show, waving from across the river in Cambridge, Ben. Thank you, Gabby. And let's go ahead and move on to what happened with the House Judicial Committee today because it's a lot to get to, a lot of different angles, and I want to cover all of it.

So, Attorney General William Barr testified before the House Judicial Committee and I'm sorry, the House Judiciary Committee. Let me start that again. Attorney General William Barr testified before the House Judiciary Committee. And the exchanges were incredibly fiery at times. There were many different topics covered. But I think the most important to discuss considering the moment we're in is how federal agents have been treating peaceful protesters in Portland and now in Seattle and how the Department of Justice was involved in this decision making. So without further ado, I want to start off with

one of the more notable exchanges, which happened between Congressman Jerry Nadler and William Barr. Let's take a look. Yes or no? Have you discussed the president's re-election campaign with the president or with any White House official or any surrogate of the president? Well, I'm not going to get into my discussions with the president. Well, have you discussed that topic with him? Yes or no. Not in relation to this program. I didn't ask that. I asked if you discussed that. I'm a member of the cabinet and there's an election going on. Obviously, the topic comes up. So the answer is yes. Well, the topic

comes up in cabinet meetings and other things. It shouldn't be a surprise that the topic of the election. I didn't say I was surprised. I just asked you if you've done that. So as part of those conversations with the presidents or as people about the re-election campaign, have you ever discussed the current

or future deployment of federal law enforcement? In connection with what? In connection with what you just said. In connection with your discussions, with president or with other people around him of his re-election campaign, have you discussed the current or future deployment of federal law enforcement? As I say, I'm not going to get into my discussions with the president, but I've made it clear that I would like to pick the cities based on law enforcement need and based on neutral

criteria. But you can't tell me whether you discussed... No, I'm not going to discuss what I discussed with a program. And you commit today that the department will not use federal law enforcement as a prop in the president's reelection campaign? We're not using federal... So, Benjamin, I wanted to get your thoughts on that line of questioning. We actually have a second part of what Nadler was saying here.

I actually, you know, despite some of my issues with Nadler in other areas, I'm glad that he asked this line of questions because I think that it's pretty clear that Donald Trump is in a moment of desperation, realizes that he's falling behind on polling and has been for over a month now, and has tried to latch on to this narrative that he's the so-called law and order president and that he's going to be tough on crime. But really what he's doing is, in my opinion, dismantling our constitutional rights. Absolutely. I mean, that's precisely what he's doing it and doing, and he's doing it for the benefit of his campaign. But the thing is, though, the sad irony of this is that this narrative of law and order itself is not sticking,

right? You have the recent data that came out to show that Antifa has not been associated with a single murder in the last 25 years, whereas Donald Trump supporters, right-wing extremists, have been associated with every single murder that took place in the year of 2018, every single extremist murder that took place in 2018. So there's a disconnect, but that doesn't stop him from using his troops like Gestapo to go in and make a scene video after video. So that's exactly what he's doing. Yeah, and it's just so fascinating because we've already seen a Trump campaign ad,

fear mongering about how, oh, this is what Biden's America is going to look like, except this is what your America looks like. And he's only further escalated tensions and escalated violence in places like Portland by getting federal agents involved. And so I'm glad that, you know, William Barr and Donald Trump are getting called out for this. I think it's hilarious that William Barr is pretending as though like he's shocked that people would honestly see what's going on here, right? Like his facial expressions in that video cracked me up.

But let's go to the second part of this exchange and see what Barr has to say. You really can't hide behind legal fictions this time, Mr. Barr. It's all out in the open where the people can see what you are doing for themselves. The president wants footage for his campaign ads, and you appear to be serving it up to him as ordered. In most of these cities, the protest had begun to wind down. before you marched in and confronted the protesters. And the protesters aren't mobs. They are mothers and veterans and mayors.

In this moment, real leadership would entail de-escalation, collaboration, and looking for ways to peaceably resolve our differences. Instead, you use pepper spray and trunchons on American citizens. You did it here in Washington. You did it at Lafayette Square. You expanded to Portland. And now you are projecting fear and violence

nationwide in pursuit of obvious political objectives. I think it's important to identify who some of these protesters are. And, you know, we don't talk about strategy enough, but I think that these protesters are getting a little more savvy about optics, right? And so the Wall of Moms, I think, is important. The veterans who have gotten involved, that's incredibly important. you know, Donald Trump fear mongering about them and defaming them is absolutely disgusting. And then you have people who are now increasingly carrying American flags while they're protesting.

And the imagery of federal agents, reigning terror on these peaceful protesters as they're holding American flags is really powerful imagery. Yeah, what it requires, Anna, is it requires for Republicans and conservatives and Donald Trump supporters to separate the images of America, the images of white suburbia, you know, separating white suburbia away from what they consider to be real Americans. And that's why this narrative isn't working. Now, I do personally have a problem with the fact that it requires this type of imagery, but we have to be strategic, right? And so the fact that you have middle age, middle income, white women who are getting assaulted by the police and you have older white men,

veterans, Navy veterans getting assaulted by the police, I mean, it creates a cognitive dissonance in the minds of conservatives that forces them to just expose their hypocrisy and their bigotry. Yeah, you make such a great point. And you're absolutely right about that. It says something about our culture when you have to see this brutality towards specific groups of people for Americans to find it, you know, abhorrent, wrong, unconstitutional. That is definitely a virus in, you know, our collective thinking. There's no question about it. But the optics certainly do play a role in Donald Trump getting defeated when it comes to the narrative that he's trying to build here. You know, he's actually been pretty good at marketing. But when it comes to coronavirus,

when it comes to the way he's dealt with civil unrest, I'm really happy to see that people out on the streets who are practicing their First Amendment rights aren't letting him get away with taking charge of the narrative. And unfortunately, William Barr took this opportunity to basically make excuses for the tactics used by these federal agents.

In fact, you're going to hear a little of that in this next clip. Ever appropriate, Mr. Barr, for officers to use force against peaceful protesters, yes or no? Not against peaceful protesters. So you also don't mention in your statement today or your testimony that federal officers have even tear gassed elected representatives.

So let me ask you, sir, do you think it's ever appropriate to use tear gas on peaceful protesters? Yes or no? Well, the problem in these things sometimes occur because it's hard to separate people who may. Mr. Barr, my question is very specific. Do you think it is ever appropriate

to use tear gas on peaceful protesters? Yes or no? It is appropriate to use tear gas when it's indicated to disperse. On peaceful protests? To disperse and unlawful protesters? assembly and sometimes, unfortunately, peaceful protesters are affected. I mean, he's just absolutely lying. We've shown you so many videos of peaceful protesters

who are doing absolutely nothing wrong. I mean, when we first learned about the deployment of federal agents, it was because they were showing up in unmarked cars, wearing military fatigues, but with no tag or label indicating that they were from customs and border patrol, no indication that they were federal agents. They were snatching peaceful protesters up, shoving them into vans and detaining them without any charges, no probable cause. We've shown you videos of veterans getting pepper sprayed in the face. We showed you one yesterday of a veteran getting pepper sprayed in the face because of a Vietnam War veteran. And you have federal agents pepper spraying him in the face. I mean, it's so frustrating, Benjamin. Like, it's so

unbelievably frustrating to sit here and listen to those lies. Luckily, you know, some Democrats did a really good job in, you know, dismantling bars nonsense. But it's still infuriating to see what the Trump administration is doing. And honestly, how, like, fragile our constitutional rights are. You know, that's the thing, right? I was going to say something totally different. But I think people really have to take in consideration how fragile this country is in general. Once we got somebody in the White House who just did not care, he had no shame. He didn't care about protocol and decorum. And he absolutely doesn't care that they are defining peaceful protesters based on their political ideology.

That's where we are right now. So if you are a person out there protesting against Donald Trump, then you are seen as a threat and you are not viewed as a peaceful protester. I don't care how much attorney Barr tries to pervaricate around that. It's clear because when we've seen the opposite coming from right wing protesters, they're treated with love and kind and the white glove treatment. Yeah, I mean, when it came to the coronavirus protests, these were right wingers who were furious about social distancing and about businesses shutting down. And, you know, I had a little bit of empathy for them because I can totally understand that if Congress is not meeting your needs financially during this pandemic and your businesses are shut. shut down. I mean, yeah, people are going to get angry. But you had some of these protesters showing up to Capitol buildings completely armed. And the treatment by Republican lawmakers

was, well, Second Amendment, Second Amendment. At the same time, I mean, we did the story about a young man who was shot and killed by a driver who was intentionally trying to drive into a crowd of protesters. And the cops were making excuses for it because he was open carrying an AK-47 type rifle. And so I bring that up because which one is it? Are Second Amendment rights protected only in instances that benefit the right wing? Or are they protected for all? I saw a quote from, I don't know who it was the original quote is attributed to,

but Chris Hayes put it on Twitter today. And he said that in this kind of instance, it's anything and everything for our friends and rules and order for our enemies. And that's really what we're facing. They give an extended amount of grace to anyone who's on their side politically. And if you so much as spray graffiti, I mean, remember that's the images that they were tweeting out, the Department of Homeland Security acting secretary, Chad Wolf. He tweeted out images of graffiti as a justification as to why they're bringing down the federal troops. Whereas when they threaten the lives of the governor of Michigan, right, threatening to take her out of power, nothing. They just stood there and smiled. Incredible. So I want to talk about Pramila Jayapal. I'm going to reset this because I think her exchange was something to be celebrated and applauded. So Representative Pramila Jayapal had an excellent line of questioning for Attorney General William Barr as he was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. What I love about this video is her strength and her

unwillingness to back down. Let's watch. When protesters with guns and swastikas and Confederate flags, excuse me, Mr. Barr, this is my time and I control it. You are aware of certain kinds of protesters, but in Michigan, when protesters carry guns and Confederate flags and swastikas and call for the governor of Michigan to be beheaded and shot and lynched, somehow you're not aware of that. Somehow you didn't know about it, so you didn't send federal agents. in to do to the president's supporters what you did to the president's protesters. In fact, you didn't put pepper balls on those protesters. So the point I'm trying to make here, Mr. Barr, that I think is very important for the country to understand is that there is a real discrepancy in how you react

as the Attorney General, the top cop in this country. When white men with swastikas storm a government building with guns, there is no need for the president to, quote, activate you, because they're getting the president's personal agenda done. But when black people and people of color protests, police brutality, systemic racism, and the president's very own lack of response to those critical issues, then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers, pepper bombs, because they are considered terrorists by the president. You take an aggressive approach to Black Lives Matter protests, but not to right-wing extremist threatening to lynch a governor if it's for the Trump's, if it's for the president's benefit.

Did I get a right, Mr. Barr? I have responsibility for the federal government and the White House is the seat of the executive branch. Mr. Barr, let me just make it clear. You are supposed to represent the people of the United States of America, not violate people's First Amendment rights. I can definitely say, someone who's had to sit here and talk about stories involving the Trump administration

and it's dismantling of our constitutional rights. And just like the utter frustration that I've felt, watching a video like that, Ben, it has been, it made my day, really, to see that kind of strength, especially from someone, I know she's a progressive, but she's still part of the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party has been so frustrating when it comes to so many issues to see Prameela Jayapal speak up like that and not let William Barr get away with his expected lies. It felt good. It felt good to say the least, but I want to open it up to you. Yeah, no, it definitely felt it was cathartic to say the least. But this is how we have to approach

them. Like, this is the baseline. Like, we're not playing, we're, we're, we're not playing around with people who are going to engage in good faith. They will burn this system to the ground in order to maintain political power. And if we don't understand the score, if we keep playing with them as though we can all go and get a scotch or a bourbon after we get done arguing on the Senate floor, then we're going to continue to lose our constitutional rights. And we're going to wake up and be in a further right-wing country than we are now, if you can even imagine that. Yeah, you just, you crystallized it for me because I didn't really know how to put into words what it was about that video that spoke to me. But you're right. It's one of the rare instances

where you see a member of the Democratic Party treating a member of the Trump administration the way he should be treated. An individual who does not argue on good faith, an individual who doesn't value our system of government, who doesn't value our rights, our freedoms, who would love to solidify and increase and expand the power of the executive branch. I mean, he's very clear about that. He's been very clear about that. That's who William Barr is. And to see some someone finally follow through with a line of questioning that someone like William Barr deserves was cathartic to say the least and felt for the first time in a long time that someone was actually fighting on behalf of the people. So I really appreciate that video and that exchange

by Representative Pramila Jayapal. I hope you guys enjoyed it too. We got to take a quick break, but we have more from this hearing, including the topic of Donald Trump pardoning all of his disgusting buddies. We'll be right 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 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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And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE S-SVPN.com. TYT. Check it out today. Welcome back to TYT, Anna and Ben with you. I want to read a few member comments, update you on our thermometer and fundraising effort, and then we'll move on. So eclectic miscellaneous from our member comments, and you can become a member by going

to TYT.com slash join, writes in and says, I love the word feckless, especially when Anna says it forcefully. It always reminds me of another F word while being 100% okay with sensors. Yeah, I think I have noticed that I emphasize certain words and I think subconsciously it's because I want to curse. That's literally why I use it, Anna. It has the same impact for me. Right, right? Because like you have that urge and you need like it's an it's an itch and you want to scratch it.

And it's like a good way of doing it without getting in any trouble. Someone who loves Bernie Sanders writes it and says, I've said this before, but this rule. of thumb never seems to fail. Whenever you hear about a new bad thing happening in America, like evictions, assume it's hurting black and brown people more. That's right, because inequality is a serious problem in this country, but it's further exacerbated for minority groups. There's no question about it. We're seeing that happen right now when it comes to the demographics that are most impacted by coronavirus in terms of illnesses and deaths, when it comes to evictions. And it just, This pandemic, Ben, I mean, I feel like it's really highlighted every societal ill we have.

And you would think that it creates an opportunity for lawmakers to actually do something. That was my naivete at the beginning of this pandemic. I actually thought we were going to make a better society, but here we are. I know, I know. It's so depressing. So let's take a quick look at the thermometer. This is our fundraising effort to keep TYT stable and afloat. And so for this month, we're at 175,950. Please go to t.wit.com slash go so we can be funded by you rather than corporations or any company that we disagree with.

So with that said, let's move on to our next story. During Attorney General William Barr's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, he brought up some of the something that's been debunked over and over again regarding race and crime. Let's hear what he had to say. The demonization of the police is not only unfair and inconsistent with principles of all people should be treated as individuals, but gravely injurious to the inner city communities. When communities turn on and pillory the police, officers naturally become more risk diverse and crime rates so.

Unfortunately, we are seeing that now in many of our citizens. cities. The threat to black lives posed by crime on the streets is massively greater than any threat posed by police misconduct. So he is, you know, repeating this whole black-on-black crime narrative, which of course is incredibly misleading. And so, look, I have some facts and figures to share, and we'll get to that in just a second, but I want to open this up. Ben, And I don't know how many times this needs to be debunked, right? And so, but okay, let's do it. Let's go ahead and respond to this nonsense.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're going to have to debunk it every day because they have no intention of engaging in good faith with us, right? Black-on-black crime does not exist any more than white-on-white crime exists, right? It's a caricature. It is something that they use as amused to demonize the black community, to vilify us to make it seem like there's some moral inherent failing an inherent moral failing in black people that we have crime unlike any other community.

White people kill white people at the same, nearly about the same rate. Hispanic people kill Hispanic people at about the same rate as black people kill black people. So what it really is is a testament to the fact that we kill people who we live next to and the people who we know. So if anything this says is that we still have a pretty segregated community in this country because we don't have a lot of interracial murder. We're killing our neighbors and we're killing the people that we live next to. Yeah, you know, this is one of the things that always frustrates me about right-wingers who claim, no, no, no, we have the right laws. I mean, what do you mean systemic racism? Systemic racism doesn't exist.

And they'll note that, you know, everything is desegregated, except it's not. On paper, on paper, it might be deemed that segregation is wrong and illegal. But if you look at what inequality does and how communities certainly are segregated, then you'll understand why it is that white on white crime is very prevalent. Black on black crime. You're right, Hispanic on Hispanic crime. And it's because people who commit these crimes tend to do it to members in their communities, people who they know. So let's focus on white on white crime right now. And I'm basing this not on some like progressive blogger. This is based on FBI statistics. So in 2008, you know, the FBI crime data indicates that there were 3,315 white victims.

That's what they have on the books. What number of those white victims were victimized by white offenders? Out of 300, I'm sorry, 3,315, 2,677 of the offenders were white. So the vast majority of the offenders against white victims were white. And you'll see similar data on every race. Because what you said, Ben, is absolutely right. People tend to commit these crimes against members of their own communities and people who they know. And this like narrative of, no, the cops are the good guys.

I mean, yeah, sure, they shoot unarmed black people all the time. We have so many examples to share with you. But let's go ahead and muddy the conversation with this nonsense that's been debunked over and over again. And Anna, if I could just point out one last thing. Like, it really is Donald Trump has done. If Donald Trump has done anything for the black community, it is to so into the national conversation, the idea that there is some moral failing in black people. Like, like, that there's just something wrong with our community in terms of our moral ethics. Like, we don't have a guidepost.

Like, we don't have a North Star to guide us. So we need the help of a strong man like Donald Trump. And that's exactly what the black on black crime narrative. This is not to absolve the Democratic Party of their historical problems with the war on crime, the 94 crime bill. But it is to say that we're we're having a resurgence in this type of white supremacy and this type of narrative. So I want to go to the last portion of our coverage on this hearing. So as we all know, Donald Trump has gone to extreme lengths to do face.

for his buddies who have committed crimes. Roger Stone committed crimes. He was convicted of those crimes. They were serious crimes. And Donald Trump got the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr to meddle in the sentencing and try to get a lower sentence for Roger Stone. Now, in the end, it didn't matter because Donald Trump ended up pardoning his little buddy. But, you know, Barr was asked about this by Congressman Eric Swalwell during the hearing today. And I want you to hear the exchange. Mr. Stone was convicted by a jury on seven counts of lying in the Russia investigation. He bragged that he lied to save Trump's butt. But why would he lie? Your prosecutors, Mr. Barr, told a jury that Stone lied because the truth looked

bad for Donald Trump. And what truth is that? Well, Donald Trump denied in written answers to the Russia investigators that he talked to Roger Stone during the time Roger Stone was in contact with agents of a Russian influence operation. There's evidence that Trump and Stone indeed did talk during that time. You would agree that it's a federal crime to lie under oath. Is that right? Yes. It's a crime for you, it's a crime for me, and it's certainly a crime for the President

of the United States. Is that right? Yes. So if Donald Trump lied to the Mueller investigators, which you agree would be a crime, then Roger Stone was in a position to expose Donald Trump's lies. Are you familiar with a December 3rd, 2018 tweet where Donald Trump said Roger Stone had shown guts by not testifying against him? No, I'm not familiar with that. You don't read the president's tweets? No.

Well, there's a lot of evidence in the president's treats, Mr. Attorney General. I think you should start reading him because he said Mr. Stone showed guts. But on July 10 of this year, Roger Stone declared a reporter, I had 29 or 30 conversations with Trump during the campaign period. Trump knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably, but I didn't. The prosecutors wanted me to play Judas, I refused. Are you familiar with that stone statement? Actually, I'm not.

So how can you sit here and tell us, why should I investigate the president of the United States, if you're not even aware of the facts concerning the president using the part intercomutation power to swap the silence of a witness? because we require, you know, a reliable predicate before we open a criminal investigation. And I just gave to you, sir. I don't consider it. I consider it a very Rube-Gulberg theory that you had.

Protesters, let's go ahead and rein terror on them and defame them as violent criminals. But when it comes to an actual criminal, someone who is convicted on seven felony charges, including intimidating a witness in an investigation. Oh, this is, I mean, it's unfair. In other parts of this testimony, William Barr said that the sentencing was unfair. This is an older man. He's in his 60s. Do you think it's fair?

But what's interesting is later in the testimony, when Representative Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia asked about the sentencing guidelines for prosecutors, Barr agreed that prosecutors' recommendations was within sentencing guidelines. and guidelines. Thoughts. Yeah, there's nothing that you can do with this, right? You saw that he really, he said that he doesn't believe that there's anything substantive to there that he could have investigated for criminal charges. But he had the words of Roger Stone.

Like, these are Roger Stone's own words. And he rejects that. So there's literally nothing that you could do with this type of person except get him out of office. Now, the Democrats have been loath to make a move to impeach him. But at a certain level, by not impeaching him and not at least going through that process, they are setting a precedent for future attorney generals to behave in this fashion. This is not going to go away once Donald Trump is gone, right?

This type of mentality and this type of thinking and this complete disregard for the Constitution exists inside of the Republican Party. And it will come back if we don't take care of it now. All right. In our postgame show today, we'll cover Trump's attacks against Anthony Fauci and more. Please become a member. TYT.com slash join to become one and support this show. We'll see you soon.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.