The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - July 29th, 2020

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

A white supremacist allegedly posed as BLM to vandalize property. John Iadarola 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. Thank you. What's up, everyone. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Kasparian. Joining us today is John Ida Rola. As I've mentioned earlier this week, Jake Ugar is off for this week and next week, but he'll be back after that. John, thanks for joining us today, as you do every Wednesday. Happy to anytime, but just Wednesdays. Just Wednesdays. Well, you have your own show.

Yeah, no, you've been having some great co-hosts throughout this week. So, you know, I would be very hesitant to take up one of those spots. Yeah, look, I was super jealous that Benjamin Dixon was co-hosting on your show regularly. So you can't do that. You can't just like hog him for yourself. So we had them on yesterday. It was great. Oh, I get it.

You know, I remember for instance when Brett used to produce for my show and then he was taken by the main show. So no, I understand how things work. Looks like Brett has some preferences, not saying anything. Anyway, I have some announcements to make. So let's get to that. As you guys know, we have partnered up with Aspiration, which is a wonderful place to do your banking. It's a financial institution that cares about the environment and does not invest in the fossil fuel companies.

And we are doing a sweepstakes with them. In fact, we are giving you an opportunity to enter to win an e-scooter. This is an electric scooter. J.R. looks really cool on one, which means that you'll probably look really cool on one. And you can find more information about this by going to tyt.com slash green summer. Some of you who already have a spend and save account think that maybe it's too late. I can't enter the to win. But that's actually untrue.

Even if you have an aspiration account already, you can enter to win by referring friends to aspiration. Again, just go to tyt.com slash green summer to learn more. Also, we have entered a partnership with Parkland Rising, and this is a wonderful documentary that we're actually going to be screening here at the Young Turks on August 3rd at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, 4 p.m. Pacific. The film follows the stories of the high school students and families who became fierce leaders of the national movement for gun reform following the shooting at Marjorie Stoneland Stoneman Douglas High. So again, you can watch that on August 3rd at 7 p.m. Eastern time at YouTube.com slash the Young Turks or TYT.com slash live. And finally, some fun that John was not

invited to, but it's okay. TYT is hosting a game night on our Twitch channel. This will take place tomorrow night at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Just go to Twitch.com. Twitch.tv.tv slash Twitch.tv.tv slash TYT to participate and watch at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific tomorrow. All right, without further ado. Maybe it'll still be fun. I don't know. It's okay. Maybe one day you'll be invited. But that's all right. Let's talk about provocateurs because we have an update on a story that you guys definitely need to know about.

The man's seen smashing windows of an auto zone in Minneapolis in the early days of the George Floyd protests has actually been identified. And this was based on a tip given to authorities via email. And there has now been an affidavit identifying this individual as 32-year-old Mitchell Carlson. And he does have a documented history of violence. He also has ties to white supremacist groups and certainly is not part of any Black Lives Matter protest. He is, in fact, an agitator who caused some serious damage to that auto zone. And that had a domino effect that led to more violence, more damage during that protest. Now, according to the Daily Beast, in a search warrant, in a search warrant affidavit,

police say they have received a tip that a man, or that the man is Mitchell Carlson, a full-fledged member of the Hells Angels and a known associate of the Aryan Cowboys. The Aryan Cowboys are a known prison gang out of Minnesota and Kentucky. Although the search warrant does not charge Mitchell with a crime, it stated that investigators were seeking data from cell phone towers that would provide information as to his whereabouts during the incident. The affidavit David also noted that within a short time after the looting started, the AutoZone was set on fire. This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city. And for those of you who maybe didn't catch this story when we reported on it or maybe forgot what this story was about, I do want to just quickly toss to the video showing the destruction that this man was causing again in the early days of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis. So John, even first talked about this story on the show, you know, I pointed out that

there were Black Lives Matter protesters who were trying to stop him. And he refused to stop. He also spray painted some ridiculous stuff onto the building, including free stuff for everyone's own, you know, trying to basically characterize, yeah, trying to characterize these protesters as individuals who are looking for free stuff. But I wanted to get your thoughts. Yeah, or at least as people who advertise free stuff for other people. It seems more giving than usually the stereotype is. So I have a point to make, but I do have a question beforehand because it seemed to me initially when I read these stories that this was the person, but the police seem to be acting as if it's a tip but not confirmed. Are they accepting

that this is the actual individual present in the video you showed? It seems like they want more evidence, which is why the search warrant affidavit makes it clear that they want cell phone tower information to confirm his whereabouts. So he's identified as the top suspect in this case. And when you look at his history, you can see why. So for instance, he's been implicated in other incidents involving violence. He was allegedly present when the Aryan cowboys were accused of harassing a Muslim woman in late June.

In February, he was charged with making terroristic threats and domestic abuse by strangulation. In February, he was sentenced on a misdemeanor level for the threat. But the abuse charges were later dismissed. In a separate case last month, he was convicted of domestic abuse. And yeah, go ahead. And that's why, I mean, look, we've talked about a million times. I know that we don't, you know, we're not necessarily going to go on ad nausea about it, but our country doesn't take domestic abuse nearly seriously enough.

And when we don't take it seriously, it leads to these people committing other crimes. Like so often, this is one of the things you find with people who go on do, not necessarily generally do things like this, but eventually end up killing people, is that they had domestic abuse cases in their past as well. And we generally just ignore it. We don't treat it as the serious crime that it is. But in terms of this, the thing that's depressing about this coming out is like we knew. I mean, we knew as soon as we saw that video that that's not like Joe DSA who's like, you know what, I'm gonna use an umbrella. And I support the movement. That's why I'm doing this. Nobody actually thought that. But it's that it gets confirmed. And it's just the latest

of a number of videos where the worst sort of crimes, the worst violence in all of these protests has always ended up being traced back to white supremacists, militias, the boogaloo boys, all of that stuff. And no matter how much it is, no matter how many confirmations there are, no matter how many murders there are, people running into crowds, their cars, like the people who are talking about how unacceptable the violence is at these riots, like Fox News and Trump and Barr and all of that, they'll never even acknowledge that any of these cases exist. It doesn't, It doesn't matter. Like even if the investigation is done, this person is found and they're charged, that's a tiny

bit of justice for the actual event, but not for the situation that we have. The attempt to demonize the protesters and ignore their justifiable desires will continue in part because all of the people who have actually been committing violent acts, including murder, they just get ignored. Right. I mean, I can't get over the way some police spoke about. about Garrett Foster, who was shot and killed by an individual who was planning on driving into a crowd of protesters. This happened in Austin, Texas. We shared the details of that story

earlier this week. And it's amazing how this guy was shot and killed. This protester was shot and killed. And based on what witnesses are saying, he was shot and killed as he jumped in front of his fiancee who was in a wheelchair, and he did it to protect her as this individual was trying to drive into the crowd, but he's the bad guy. The victim who was shot to death and can't defend himself, can't speak for himself today. And you're right, those are the kinds of stories that you don't hear about on Fox. But they do love to latch on to imagery of violence, the so-called looting, the property damage, the graffiti in order to just completely mislead people about what this movement is about. And, you know, it's really hard to argue that police brutality

isn't a problem in this country when we see nonstop images of police brutality and the violence that they engage in when dealing with these protesters. You know, they prove the protesters right every single day. And we have more examples of that throughout the show. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what's happening in New York because, you know, we've been talking a lot about federal agents, but local police in New York have done some pretty shady stuff just recently. So plain closed police officers in New York ganged up on a young woman and dragged her into an unmarked vehicle. This was a video that went viral last night, drew attention by a number of elected officials, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

and Jerry Nadler. And so the cops are part of the NYPD Warrant Squad. These are not federal agents. I want to be clear about that. But the footage is highly disturbing, especially when you consider the number of cops who hang up on her and drag her into an unmarked car. And also think about the fear and terror someone would feel if plainclosed cops, you know, you don't know if they're cops are dragging someone into an unmarked car. You don't know who they are. You don't know what they're doing. And it's terrifying. So I'm going to toss to the footage and I'll give you more details when we come back. So to go out, get back, you know.

Yeah. So to give you some more context, in the footage, multiple men can be seen grabbing 18 year old, 18 year old Nikki Stone, who was among several other protesters leading a larger group of demonstrators participating in a 24-hour protest. Stone was among 12 people who were arrested according to the New York Police Department. Now, the NYPD claims that Stone was damaging police cameras and five separate criminal incidents. She wasn't doing anything questionable when they decided to arrest her. And the way that they arrested, at her is clearly a problem here, because again, they're plain closed cops, dragging her into an unmarked car. The cops then complained about protesters, you know, going after them, throwing rocks at them because of the fact that they were trying to arrest Nikki Stone. But the protesters don't know who these people are. You get what I'm saying? I mean, if you're protesting with your friends, if you're protesting with your fellow citizens who actually care about changing society for the better, and you see random men, several of them,

dragging your friend into a vehicle that's unmarked, yeah, you're going to want a defender because you don't know who they are, especially when you consider some of these right-wingers who show up to the protests to provoke people and to cause problems. Yeah, I guess I'm surprised that no militia or white supremacist group has done this yet, just kidnap a protester. They hate the protesters, they want to get back at them. This is provided cover where now plausibly some people, you know, might not intervene fully. Like you have people who are sort of just watching because now we've seen this going on for literally weeks and some people will assume, okay, well, this is obviously terrifying. This is American fascism. This is, you know, all of that. But it happens. And so, so what are you supposed to do? Like if I'm walking down the street and a minivan pull a Kia pulls up and four people jump out and try to drag me in there, should I fight back? What if I fight back and it ends up being a cop? I mean, there's no way of knowing generally. But what if I were to fight back if I not

was a cop. I could face far worse charges than whatever they would have made up in the first place. Think about the position that it's putting on people. It's this assumption that you are guilty. And if you do literally anything to question the insane tactics they're using, then in their eyes, you will be. You will be guilty. And God only knows what will happen to you then. Yeah, also what blows my mind is, so they're accusing her of damaging police property, specifically police cameras. So they're not accusing her of posing as any type of imminent threat to anyone. She hasn't assaulted anyone. But the accusation is that she damaged property. Why do you need plain closed cops to drag her, by way, multiple plain closed cops to drag an 18 year old

woman into an unmarked vehicle? Why is that the way they've decided to arrest her? And it's a form of intimidation. If you're a protester, if you're out there protesting and you see that happen to someone, you know, you might think twice about protesting. I think it's a form of intimidation. I think it was purposely done to send a message. Those are my thoughts on this. Do you think, look, obviously we've been rightfully critical of the NYPD for a very long time. Is this just the NYPD being the NYPD, or is this them learning from troops, you know, national goon squad that they've started doing this and Trump's, you know, totally fine with it. Barr is not going to do anything.

Is that the NYPD thinking, oh, this is something we can do? Okay, well then let's just dispense with, you know, whatever pretend police stuff we were doing. before and now we're just dragged people away. We can just do that. And we can brutalize them. We can be as rough as we want. And, you know, we don't have to, we don't have to identify ourselves. We don't even have to dress as cops anymore. We can jump in any car we want. Is that them learning from what they've seen in Portland and other cities? You know, the fish rots from the head down. So I definitely do see this as something that it's been given a green light by the feds. There's no question about it. If you know that you can treat people this way and you can violate their

constitutional rights this way, then yeah, why wouldn't you do it, right? I mean, if the federal government isn't going to, if the federal government is doing it, I have no doubt that local police departments see it and think that it would be okay for them to do it as well. I mean, it's amazing, John, because a month ago, there was a woman in our neighborhood who clearly, she's homeless, she clearly has mental health issues, but she was going around and physically assaulting people. I was out with my husband, and she, She came up to me, she spit on me and she threw her fountain drink at me, right? But I didn't call the cops or anything because, like, are cops really going to do anything

that's going to make the situation better? I let it go. The next morning I find out that she assaulted a pregnant woman. She hit a pregnant woman at a Starbucks nearby. And so people called the cops and the cops found her, but they decided that they would not arrest her because they did not witness her committing the crime or she would wasn't in the middle of committing the crime. And it's just amazing to me how in this case, this young woman is accused of damaging property and they drag her into an unmarked car

the way that we just saw. It blows my mind and it's absolutely wrong. Luckily, we do have some elected politicians who have chimed in on this, including Representative Alexandria Acosio Cortez, who said via Twitter, our civil liberties are on brink. This is not a drill. This is no excuse for snatching women off the street and throwing them into unmarked vans. To not protect our rights is to give them away. It is our responsibility to resist authoritarianism. But unfortunately, Mayor Bill de Blasio, you know, the guy who had all this tough talk when it came to cops when he was running for mayor, had his own thoughts on this. Let's take a look. I think it was the wrong time and the wrong place to effectuate that arrest. The arrest, as I understand it so far,

was for damaging police property. I want to affirm very clearly. No one is allowed to damage police property. That is a real offense. That is an offense that can lead to an arrest. And my message to everyone, if you're out there protesting, protest peacefully. That was an incredibly embarrassing statement.

That's my take on it. You know, I hadn't actually seen that. We talked about this video on the damage report this morning. At that point, he had avoided commenting on it. And I really hope, I really hope that there was a lot more to that because if his issue with what we saw was the time and place that happened as if, you know, if it was a few blocks away or later in the day, it could somehow be okay. And it clearly, no, we have an issue with what they did. Doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter when, why did they do that

particular thing? They're police, it's NYPD. Like that's about as big as it gets. They have all the resources in the world. They're like a small military. They can't send actual cops if they have the evidence. And if she actually did it, then they can arrest her the way they arrest anyone. Like are you ever going to see, you know, like a Wall Street banker who's committed fraud, just like, you know, a bends pulls up and they grab him into the car or anything like that, that would never happen. So why is it justified in this case for a far lighter offense? It doesn't make any sense. He's, look, he's got some good positions on some of the issues historically, but generally he is way, way too deferential to the people with power in New York.

And the NYPD is definitely way up there. Absolutely. We got to take a quick break, but when we come back, if you thought what we've already shared with you is bad, you don't want to miss this next story about how people are basically being told that they can't protest based on small, ridiculous charges. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing the Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations

are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, The UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it.

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're up. brooding 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.

I'll be right back. Hey guys, welcome back to TYT. We always tell you different ways. that you can help support the show, but there's a super easy way you can do that right now. Like the stream, just like it. If you like it, then like it, why wouldn't you like it? And then you can share it. That's another way of helping us out, and you can ring the bell if you're watching on YouTube. I don't think it's a complicated process, but I'm not going to explain how to do it because I can't visualize it at the moment.

It's a button that you press. Or if you don't want to like the stream with the button, just enjoy it. Like it, you know, just like it. Come on, we're good, we're good. Come on, like it. I hope you guys like us. Well, let's take a look at the thermometer real quick because, as you guys know, we're trying to raise some money to keep TYT sustainable. And we are up to $180,381 for this month. So we're super close to hitting our goal for the month. I just want to thank you guys so, so much for, you know, contributing, even if you can't contribute and you watch every day and you support us that way. Thank you. I know it's tough times out there with this pandemic.

And so any bit of support, either verbal, visual, or financial goes a really long way. It keeps us going. I'm going to read a few member comments and we'll move on. The math magician says, gee, one of the most famous violent protesters turned out to be a white nationalist with a criminal record as long as my leg. What a shock. You got some long legs, huh? Okay, I see you. Progressive Pirate says, a looter usually loots, not just break windows and paint right wing memes on a wall, inviting others to loot a store. It's a good point. Hammer Dan says the cops that oversee these demonstrations are almost always absent at the locations of vandalism and looting. They're busy elsewhere, pepper spraying veterans, moms, dads, dads, and grandparents,

hardly a coincidence. You know, and it takes a lot of courage, really, to be one of these protests, who knows that you're likely going to be met with this kind of violence. But the videos and the images that have been, you know, publicized are important because it really does prove the point that these protesters are trying to make, that the brutality has gone too far. It's gone on for too long. And I think that's part of the reason why we're seeing, you know, the support for Black Lives Matter increase. You know, it's definitely the support is much higher today than it was when the movement first began. And, you know, I'm really proud of all the people out there who have remained strong and they still show up

to voice, voice, you know, their anger and their displeasure at how they've been treated for so long. Hypergamer says she was a young trans woman too. I didn't know that. That's how trans folk end up murdered and that extra layer of fear on top. It's absolutely disgusting. Hypergamer, Thank you for sharing that with us. I actually had no idea that Nikki Stone was trans. All right, well, let's move on to the rest of the news. All right. Federal judges are assisting the Trump administration in violating the constitutional rights of protesters. Specifically, their right to assemble and protest. There's freedom of speech. And this is based on investigative reporting done by ProPublica. This reporting indicates that federal authorities arresting protesters in Portland, Oregon on offenses as minor as failing to obey an order to get off the sidewalk on federal property and then tell them they can't protest anymore as a condition for release from jail.

So they'll get arrested for allegedly failing to move off of the sidewalk and then they will not be released unless they agree to avoid protesting moving forward. So at least 12 protesters arrested in recent weeks have been specifically barred from attending protests or demonstrations as they await trials on federal misdemeanor charges. One release document instructs do not participate in any protests, demonstrations, rallies, assemblies, while this case is pending. So John, I have more details on this. I wanted to get your thoughts. Well, I mean, you'll be shocked to find out I'm against it.

But you know, my initial knee-jerk reaction is how can, you know, how can you make, you know, your release contingent on giving up one of your constitutional rights? And then I realized, okay, so there are instances where that does exist. You know, for instance, you could potentially be barred from owning a firearm based on your experience committing violent crime or something like that. Roger Stone, for instance, wasn't allowed to continue going on Twitter because he was rampantly, you know, trying to intimidate witnesses and things like that. But as a general case, this sort of extreme light misdemeanor, meaning that one of your core rights, the first ones that you have could be taken away, is so obviously unacceptable that

I can only imagine what the First Amendment warriors in the Independent Dark Web are going to do when they find out about it. Because free speech rights are being violated and not just some sort of general speech, but literally your ability to do political activism, to protest for what you believe. I mean, they're going to be so worked. Obviously, it's ridiculous. They're not going to care at all because this isn't about, you know, a right wing speaker getting a check for $50,000 for doing like an hour speech. This is about real people actually fighting for change. But how is this acceptable? How can this continue? This is a sort of thing that happens on like judge TV shows, these sorts of ridiculous stipulations before you, but this isn't a TV show. This is reality. Right. And these judge TV shows have to do with civil suits and nonsense. This has to do with federal agents. arresting protesters on ridiculous charges, including, I mean, literally failing to move off of a sidewalk. I mean, is there evidence that the protester heard? Was it a chaotic scene? And maybe the protester didn't hear. And I just think that if you take a step back and you look

at the broader picture of the tactics being used by authorities, everything is specifically being done to intimidate people and to prevent them from feeling comfortable in practices their constitutional rights. We are supposed to have the right to protest. We are supposed to have the right to voice our opinions. This is a perfect example of our free speech being violated. And I'm not the one saying that. You have constitutional experts, constitutional lawyers who spoke to ProPublica for this investigative report, and they make it abundantly clear that this does, in fact, violate the constitutional rights of these protesters. So when you see these federal agents dragging people into unmarked cars. That is a form of intimidation. That is done to send a message to other

protesters. Hey, you should be afraid. You shouldn't come out here in protest. You could be next. When you see this type of behavior, think about it. If you're one of the protesters who was arrested by a federal agent on nonsense charges and you're detained during a pandemic, you know, it's terrifying. You don't know when you're going to get out and they dangle your free speech rights right above you and tell you, look, you got to give up your rights in order for us to release you. You got to agree to never go to another protest again. And I honestly don't blame the protesters who do take that deal. Who would want to be held in in federal detention? I wouldn't want that. Yeah, well, and especially as you mentioned during a pandemic,

it's, you know, being taken in is a threat to your life, being held there for longer as a continuing threat to your life. But honestly, I would wonder if someone, I'm not a lawyer, you know, I'm not a lot of things, I'm especially not a lawyer, but if someone took this sort of deal, obviously, you know, watch out for yourself. But like my, my, again, my needy reaction would be, go back to the protests. And if they take you in for violating it, then I would, I would try to, you know, send that up, you know, the judicial system as far as I can. Like, let's, let's have an actual battle about some judge's ability to strip away your First Amendment rights so that you aren't held for committing some misdemeanor. I mean, God only knows what's going on in America.

I would assume that that couldn't possibly stand, but in 2020, who knows? And again, I want to be super clear. The people that we're talking about here have been charged with federal misdemeanors, okay? So again, I give you the example of failing to move off the sidewalk because, first of all, that's one of the examples given by ProPublica. That was a literal federal misdemeanor charge that someone's dealing with. But we're not having a conversation about people who are actually harming others, you know, causing any type of violence. These are people who really, I think, should absolutely be allowed to go back in protest. I want to give you some specific examples.

So as ProPublica reports, those terms were given to me, according to one of the protesters, after being in a holding cell for 14 hours, okay? So this individual was actually charged on July 24th for failing to obey a lawful order. It was pretty cut and dry, just these are your conditions for getting out of here. If I didn't take it, I would still be in holding. It wasn't really an option in my eyes. Now, constitutional lawyers said conditioning release from jail on a promise to stop joining protests were overly broad and almost certainly a violation of the First Amendment right

to free assembly. And there's also some confusion over whether federal agents will finally leave Portland. I want to just quickly talk about that as well, because some of the local politicians in Portland are arguing that, okay, we finally struck a deal with Vice President Mike Pence, and he has agreed that the Department of Homeland Security will pull these federal agents out of Portland. But that actually is not the case. So for instance, Governor, Oregon Governor, Kate Brown announced that the Trump administration has agreed to begin withdrawing federal tactical teams from Portland, Oregon, which for weeks has been the site of violent clashes

between officers and protesters, but officers from customs and border protection and immigration and customs enforcement, you know, were allegedly going to start pulling, you know, their agents out tomorrow on Thursday. But the Department of Homeland Security is expected to retain a presence in the city, however, and the Trump administration pushed back on the suggestion that agents would begin leaving as early as Thursday. Brown said a limited contingent of federal officials will stay focused on protecting the interior of the federal courthouse that has been at the center of the unrest. But DHS Secretary Chad Wolf pushed back even more aggressively arguing, and this is a direct quote, the department will continue to maintain our current

augmented federal law enforcement personnel in Portland until we are assured that the Hatfield the Hatfield Federal Courthouse and other federal properties will no longer be attacked, and that the seat of justice in Portland will remain secure. As we know, and we've seen in multiple stories, federal agents have no interest in simply protecting federal property. They have pepper sprayed peaceful protesters, including Vietnam veterans. The wall of moms have been met with extreme violence at the hands of these federal agents. They're absolutely lying about why they're there and what they're doing, and they're only escalating

the violence in the area. Yeah. Well, let's also talk about one dumb cop in Nevada. And I say dumb because apparently he doesn't know what his job is and he's too sensitive to be a cop if you ask me. So a message of equality and inclusion triggered one Nevada sheriff so much that he actually threatened to withhold aid if his department is called for help. Now this has to do with a library which shared.

a message of inclusion and support for Black Lives Matter. And the Douglas County Sheriff Daniel Coverly responded to the Douglas County Public Library's proposed diversity statement that condemned racism and expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement by publishing a letter on the department's website. So let me be clear about something. This letter said nothing negative about cops. All this letter was about was, hey, we believe the people should be treated equally. We believe that lives matter. We believe the black lives matter. We want to spread a message of inclusion. And so then you have this Douglas County Sheriff, Daniel Coverly. Let's take a good look at this strong, brave man who gets triggered easily by messages of inclusion. And he published a

letter of his own. And he was not very happy about that. Again, the statement said that everyone is welcome and that the institution denounces all acts of racism, violence, and disregard for human rights. I would argue that an individual who has taken an oath to protect and serve would agree with that statement, but not coverly. One other part of this said, we support Black Lives Matter. We resolutely assert and believe that all forms of racism, hatred, inequality, and injustice don't belong in our society. So what did the whiny sheriff have to say about this. He published his own letter and said, due to your support of Black Lives Matter, and the obvious lack of support or trust in the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, please do not feel

the need to call 911 for help. I wish you good luck with your disturbances and lewd behavior. Now, John, if you decide that, let's say, someone in management does something you don't like and you don't do your show on any given day, what happens? What happens? I mean, because you're not doing your job, right? Let's find out. No, nothing good, I would imagine. I assume I get probably fired eventually. The taxpayers are paying for the Douglas County Sheriff's Department.

And the fact that this message of inclusion made him so upset blows my mind. And I checked to see if the library still had that letter posted online and they don't. So they had some sort of conversation. And it seems like they came to some sort of agreement. But why are they conceding to this person? The person who's wrong here is the sheriff who apparently can't handle, you know, a message about inclusion, about how Black Lives Matter. You know, one of my friends who owns a restaurant, he said something really funny, but it's also

sad because of how true it is. He's like, cops are basically getting yelped right now and they can't handle it. But in this case, he's not even getting yelped. He's not dealing with a negative review. He's just angry at a letter that's supposed to make people feel welcomed in the library. Well, and I mean, I assume this is fairly obvious, but just in case, I mean, the fact that they say we support Black Lives Matter, there's nothing about the cops. And in his letter, he says the obvious lack of support or trust with the police office really says a lot about what he assumes people assume about them vis-a-vis this community. And of course, I thought the

idea was that the people who are opposed to Black Lives Matter will say, well, no, obviously, I'm not against that. It's that I believe that all lives matter. And I'm just against the criminals. I obviously agree with the sentiment, but I'm against the criminals. Now it's it's just if you literally say the phrase, if you just talk about equality, that is enough for me to assume that I should not help you out, that I should subject you to lewd behavior. I I don't know why he immediately goes to lewd behavior. I'm not really sure about that. But this is how he treats a library, like the least offensive establishment ever.

Like what is he going to, it's like a thread store puts up a sign. I don't know. Do you watch Parks and Rec? No, not really. Oh, yeah, you don't. You don't. I don't actually. I don't actually.

But I do like libraries, though. Yeah, no. And this is the thing like, you know, for all I know, he hasn't gone and cracked someone's head with like, like, you know, a club or something like that. Like he's not one of those cops yet. But this makes you wonder. So I thought those were supposed to be the bad apples, the people who are running their car in a crowds. But now we find out, no, there's other people that are just, you know, easily triggered and whiny and defensive and, you know, obviously philosophically opposed to the idea that black people shouldn't be killed on the streets of

America and probably a lot more than of them, honestly. Well, we are going to share a story about billionaires when we come back. This story is incredible because of the quotes a billionaire was willing to give Bloomberg business in regard to COVID, and it just proves that they're just as callous as you would believe. So we have that and more for you when we read. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. 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 EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. All right, welcome back to T-Y-T. Casparian and John Ida Rolo with you. I want to read some super chats, some member comments, and we'll move on. Let me tell you straight from the super chat comments just said, Anna and John

with a little heart emoji. So we love you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We also have Andrew writing in saying, no video show bottles or rocks being thrown. You're right. They allege it. In the video, you can see that fellow protesters are trying to, like, you know, help her. That's the only thing that I saw. You can't really see bottles or rocks. But I don't blame the protesters for doing that. They don't know who these individuals are, and that wasn't a proper arrest. I mean, several men, like, ganging up on one person, especially like an 18-year-old woman and dragging her into an unmarked car is terrifying.

You don't know who they are. Yeah, and multiple people there said that there were. was not that violence that they were literally skateboarding and eating pizza. And you can see at the beginning of the video, she has pulled off of a skateboard. So. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's a form of Antifa cavalry that she had like weapons and a skateboard. But I kind of doubt it. I think that they tracked her down and they pulled her off regardless of what was happening there. I want to read a great comment from none other than Gabby Marita from the member's comment. You can be a member by going to t.yt.com slash join. She says, I'm 100% with John. If the

police ordered you not to protest as a condition of your release. Call their bluff and go protest again, make them explicitly arrest you for the crime of protesting. See what all those First Amendment right wingers have to say then. Well, we know what the First Amendment right wingers are going to say. They're going to say nothing. In fact, they're going to try to justify what the federal agents are doing and the rulings by the federal judges. But, you know, again, I just want to say There are protesters who put their lives on the line every single day to join this movement. And I'm really proud of them because that's not an easy thing to do, especially when you experience all these forms of intimidation.

All right. Well, let's move on to what's happening with billionaires in Silicon Valley. So Silicon Valley billionaires testified before Congress for an antitrust hearing. Now, for the most part, Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee actually did ask questions pertaining to antitrust issues. But unfortunately, then you have Republicans who make it very clear that they don't really understand how tech works, thus embarrassing themselves, and asking questions like this. I may ask a specific of you.

It was reported that Donald Trump Jr. got taken down for a period of time because he put something up on the efficacy. hydroxychloroquine. Why did that happen? So why did that happen, John? Why did that happen? The funny thing is it's great to like in a in a conversation where the sort of cruxes of it is that Facebook allows misinformation that ends up confusing a lot of people stereotypically but not exclusively these older people that have a more difficult time understanding you know what's what's true and false on the internet and the question is being delivered by someone

that I have to imagine is exactly that. Like he's confused about the room he's in, let alone anything else. So just to give everyone some context, the question that Sensen Brenner from Wisconsin was asking there, and I think that Zuckerberg actually did a decent job answering it, has to do with the misinformation that was posted on Twitter by Donald Trump Jr. Now, Mark Zuckerberg, you guys know, is not the CEO of Twitter. He's a CEO of Facebook. Facebook did take down a video that had misinformation about hydroxychloroquine and masks. And as Zuckerberg mentioned, the reason why they made that decision is because it spread

misinformation that could really hurt people and, you know, cause them to do things that would get them sick and they could possibly die. That's the right answer. But look, the way I feel about this hearing, I think that antitrust issues are serious. I think that this hearing will lead to nothing. I'm just keeping it real. I think this is all about political theater. And while Democrats certainly did have some decent moments, it's one thing to talk to talk. It's something entirely different to walk the walk. And so, sure, there might be some good footage from today that Democrats can use. Republicans further embarrass themselves,

which their voters absolutely love. So I guess it's a win for the politicians, but a lose for us Americans who are actually really worried about Silicon Valley's ever-growing power. Now, I also want to talk about how Silicon Valley has profited handsomely from this pandemic as tens of millions of Americans are really struggling. Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, John. They've lost their health care benefits as a result of that. Congress has shown an unwillingness to really do what it takes to offer real economic and financial relief in the next stimulus bill, and that's terrifying. But Bloomberg business did speak to one of these billionaires. And although this individual has not been identified, and you'll know why, once I read

some of his quotes, it just gives you an idea of how callous they are and how they live in a completely different world and know and accept the people are struggling. And they just don't care. So before I get to those comments, I wanted to open the floor to you. Yeah, I mean, I love some of the elements you have upcoming. So I'm not going to spoil that. And it seems to fit into one of your favorite themes. But yeah, the entire thing about the hearing at least, I did want to comment briefly on that, because look, as you pointed out, and I think I'm reading you right, if the hearing had been productive, God only knows what would have ended up happening, probably nothing good because we don't trust the vast majority of people in there.

None of the Republicans, almost none of the Democrats. That said, like, this is what government is at this point. With Trump in the White House and with divided Senate and House, this is like the best case scenario, I guess, is the Republicans come in, they pass massive tax cuts, and then government becomes a farce for the rest of the period. Every hearing, like we got the Democrats in the House. So now they call the hearings, but now the hearings are just, let's have Candace Owens come in and talk. Let's have diamond, let's ask questions about diamond and silk. They're all ridiculous sideshows, both the individuals, but also the use of the time in the hearing. And that to someone

who believes that the time of government should be spent in trying to improve the lives of working Americans is a huge loss. But for the Republicans, they can just, they can go in there and play card games. They don't care. They got what they wanted. Now it's just pump the brakes. Just waste time, make sure that nothing passes. They already got everything out of government that they require. Anything else would just be spending that theoretically could result in higher taxes that they want to avoid. And so the entire thing just becomes them wasting our time to make make sure nothing gets done and vice signaling to their fans that I believe the same nonsense conspiracy theories you do. I hate the same people you do, so reelect me to waste another four

years. Yeah, it's just so depressing, it really is. And we should feel like hearings like this aren't a waste of time, but they typically do end up being a waste of time. Especially, you know, since Mark Zuckerberg has testified before subcommittees, how many times and what happened after that. He's more powerful and more wealthy today than he was back then. And just to remind you all, you know, the CEOs who took part in this today included Jeff Bezos with Amazon, you have Apple, Google, Microsoft. Those are the four major tech companies who took part in this hearing. But let's hear from one of the other billionaires. I actually don't know who this billionaire is because Bloomberg business did not identify this person. But we do know that.

that this is a white male. That's all they've said to identify him. And he said in the beginning of the pandemic when Bloomberg reporter Max Abelson spoke with him, quote, what the F? I'm not worried, meaning I'm not worried about the pandemic. I'm sure I already have it. What do I care? Well, it's easy to say that when you're not worried about being able to provide yourself the proper health care if you do get sick. But let me give you more from this callous billionaire. Later, when the situation actually became more serious and more Americans began seeing COVID-19 as a real threat, the billionaire said the following. Some people are going to die, but it's old people.

And if they do, it's okay. Not that it's okay, this isn't that bad. Okay. As Abelson reports, he seemed to know how cold and disconnected that sounded. Some billionaires take pleasure in playing up nasty reputations, but this was a lot of one considers himself to be thoughtful, generous, lucky, and friendly to his workers. I asked him if he talked to the boss of one of one of the biggest banks, J.P. Morgan Chase and Co's Jamie Diamond, and he sneezed. And this is what he said. Now if you're on a bus and you start sneezing,

everybody gets upset, he said. I asked if he actually takes the bus. No, he replied. What could a bus cost, $10? Yeah, it's ridiculous. Also it's ridiculous, and I know you've pointed out with Cooperman and all that, but isn't it crazy that like if you're a billionaire, you just get interviewed just for being a billionaire. Like that's all it takes. But yeah, look, he said, you know, it's just going to be old people, so who cares? And that's certainly callous, but that's every Fox host for the last four months saying we shouldn't

worry about it because it's only the older people. And then look, just earlier today, I believe it was, Vance Ginn, the chief economist for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, he tweeted, among other things he was noticing about coronavirus in Texas is, it only kills old people and Hispanics. He eventually took down the tweet because wow, but he felt comfortable enough to tweet that initially. This is how they think. This is how they think.

This is how they think. think. That's why I actually do like that they're getting interviewed, because this is really what they think. Let me give you more from this Bloomberg billionaire. I say Bloomberg because he was interviewed on Bloomberg. I mentioned the other rich people were scrambling to protect their health. Some were securing special access to virus tests and experimental drugs, if not their own ventilators. And here's what the billionaire said. I could get my hand on a test, he said. He told me his peers were quietly inquiring about reserving beds at private hospitals in case they got sick. He had connections to the boards of the best hospitals, but said he'd call in

favors only for the people closest to him. And this is how you have two Americas. And by the way, he totally minimized the problem of inequality in the country. He's like, we've always had inequality. And the reporter was like, it's gotten a lot worse. And he's like, no, no, it hasn't gotten worse. It just seems like it's gotten worse because of social media. No, it's definitely gotten worse. We have like 800 billionaires in the country and, you know, 50% of the US couldn't afford a $400 emergency before the pandemic. I'm sure the issue is much worse now. By March 23rd, New York City's case count was rising by thousands each day. People at Rikers Island jail fell sick in the hospitals, the city hospitals were running out of masks and gloves. The U.S.

was threatening to become a new hub for the virus. When I spoke to my billionaire that day, I thought, he might be scared or sad. Instead, he was irritated. Everybody's working remote and realizing remote sucks, he said. I asked how it was different from the 2008 financial crisis. I have to make individual calls. It's so hard. It's so hard to deal with all these things. You can't get five people in a room. Anyway, that's what we're dealing with when it comes to billionaires in this country. They clearly do not care about the pain and suffering of everyone else because they've benefited from it. Check out the post game. Lots of great stories. TYT.com. join to become a member see you soon 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 dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon