The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - June 15th, 2020

Episode Date: June 16, 2020

Rayshard Brooks’ final moments were captured on video. Cenk Uygur 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. We're going to be able to be. All right, welcome the Young Church. Jay Hugh Granite is sparing with you guys. So lots of stories, obviously, and great guests as well. Tomorrow we're actually going to have Jamal Bowman on.

He might be about a week away from unseeding the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee for the Democratic Party. So Jamal Bowman on the war path, he is so close to be. beating Elliott Engel. Make sure that you check out that interview tomorrow. The interviews are before the Young Turks now. It's at 5.30 p.m. Eastern. So t.y.t.com slash live. So, Jank, just a little bit of breaking news today. Turns out that the Congressional Black Caucus has chosen to endorse Elliott Engel, the incumbent Democrat in that seat. And I only mention it because Elliot Engel was caught on a hot mic saying that he had no interest speaking to Black Lives Matter protesters. And the only reason why he was doing it was because of his primary. I just find it unbelievable.

I mean, maybe I shouldn't find it unbelievable. But yes, that's the situation with the Congressional Black Caucus. The establishment wants to protect the establishment at all costs. And that's certainly the case here. Yeah. And so let's just be absolutely clear about two things about that. And then we'll move on in case you're wondering at home, Elliot Engel, not black. Okay, so, and if Jamal wins, here's what's going to happen. They're going to turn around on a dine and pretend that they're all his best friend ever. Then they're all going to tell Jamal, whatever you do, black or white, do not ever support a challenger against an incumbent. So that's how that game is played, okay?

Congressional Black Caucus. Okay, anyways. Now, let's check in on our thermometer as we do at the beginning of each show to keep us strong and healthy as sustainable. T.Y.t.com slash go. We're trying to get the $65,000 by the end of Friday show. That apparently didn't happen because it's not the beginning of Monday show, 64,768, but every single dollar is appreciated. We're trying to get to $200,000. And, and, and, and, And you guys make this show possible. So if you can participate, we can hit $65,000 now, that would be great. Thank you, guys.

All right, let's do this show. Unfortunately, there are some very tragic stories today in the show. Yeah, the top half of the show is pretty heavy. I apologize for that, but they're important stories to cover. So we begin with Rayshard Brooks. An Atlanta cop, an Atlanta cop has been fired, and one other has been placed on administrative leave after one of them shot Rayshard Brooks in the back twice as he was running away from them. The cop identified as Garrett Rolf has been fired, as I mentioned.

And then Devin Brosnan, who was the other cop on the scene, he was called Later. He's also been tested on into Atlanta Police Department Chief. Erica Shield has resigned in response to this controversy. So let me give you the background before we go to the video. and I do want to note that the video is graphic. I want to give you ample warning before we go to it. So this all started when Brooks was in his car allegedly asleep at the drive-through line of a Wendy's restaurant. So at that point, someone calls the cops on him to report him. At that point, the Atlanta cop shows up and knocks on his window to see what's going on.

and is very compliant with the police officer. He's checked for weapons. They pat him down. He's checked for weapons. He doesn't have any weapons on him. At that point, he's asked to do a field sobriety test, which he complies with. He does it. And then at that point, he's asked to do a breathalyzer test.

He does the breathalyzer test, and he fails. At that point, Brooks asked the officer if he can lock up his car up under their supervision and walk to his sister's house, which he, He says is a short distance away, I can go home, he says, to the cops. Now unfortunately, they didn't allow him to do that and things quickly escalated. Two officers have been at the scene for more than 27 minutes at this point. When the breath test is complete, Officer Rolf tells Mr. Brooks, he, quote, has had too much to drink to be driving and begins to handcuff him.

Less than a minute later, Brooks is shot. So here is one of many videos that are available online that show what happened, how things transpired. But I want to emphasize that Brooks was running away when the officer fired three shots, two of which hit him in the back. Again, this video is graphic. It's difficult to watch. So there's your warning. Let's watch. Joe! Yo! What's up, my man?

Hey, just come in. Now. All right. Don't go back to sleep. Just put it over there. I got you. Okay, all right, thank you. I said, how much have you been drinking?

Just a couple. I had one and a half. That was it. Is it a couple or is it one or is it one and a half? I think you've had too much to drink to be dry. Put your hands on your back to me? Here, put your hands on your butt. Hey, hey, stop on.

Stop on. So he did manage to grab Officer Brosnan's taser. Of course, he was running away. And in that video, you can see him trying to fire the taser at the cops. But it appears that he missed. At that point, the other cop, you know, takes his taser, puts it in his other hand, and then grabs for his gun in his whole hand. and shoots three times. Again, two of those gunshots hit him in the back and later killed him. Okay, so some more context in this story. So first off, this is not a shooting that is like some

of the others that we have seen. In some of the shootings and deaths we've seen, there was just absolutely no reason for it, pulling up to Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old in a park in Cleveland area and shooting within two seconds. You didn't even find out what was happening. In this case, they did know what was happening. In the beginning went perfectly fine. So it was a good interaction between the police and Brooks. Do they have to go to the drive-through when somebody falls asleep there? Yes, they do. Somebody's got a call. Some of the cops have to show up. Should they do field sobriety test. Under those circumstances, yes, I would say they should. Did he pass it? He did not. Okay. Was Brooks wrong to try to run away? I think he was. Was he wrong to grab at the

taser? I think he was. Okay. Now, having said all that, that is where most of the police will then say, I mean, the guy's got one of our tasers. He's firing back at us. I imagine, and we'll probably see those stories starting to come out soon, that a lot of the cops, including in Atlanta and other places will be flabbergasted that this police officer has been fired. Like, the guy's got a weapon, he's firing it at us. Everything you ever taught us is to kill him. And I actually don't think that that's wrong, okay? I think what they were taught is terribly wrong.

But I don't think it's wrong if they were taught that. So my guess is that every cop in the country is now outraged that they can't kill a guy in that scenario. And the reality is, you can't. The guy is running away, he's firing the taser like basically into the air, but I don't even care if he's firing at you. Now, it's not that I don't care, he's in the wrong, but you already have his ID, you already have his license plate.

You could easily go get him later. So as he's running away for, the only reason to shoot is if you think you're about to die or someone else is about to die. And the reality is that is not what we teach the cops. And we theoretically tell them that, and then we tell them, matter to be judged by 12, and to be carried out by six, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, right? And they do. So, but I'm thrilled that he was fired because now cops are going to think twice before shooting

and killing someone. Good. I want them to think twice. I want them to think three times before they needlessly kill someone. You're right. I think your analysis is completely right. I think that, first off, I don't think anyone is trying to pretend. end as if Brooks did absolutely nothing wrong. The real question here is, do cops have the right

to decide whether someone gets to live or die, you know, based on their perce- I mean, if that person, if the suspect does not pose an imminent threat to their lives. And in this case, Brooks is running away. And some people might say, well, he got the, he got the taser. Well, what are they supposed to do? just let him go? No, they're actually, there is protocol, supposedly, that cops are supposed to follow in situations like this where it's abundantly clear that the person is not armed with a lethal weapon. Remember, they did a search to make sure he didn't have a gun or anything like that when things were going okay, right? He was complying. There weren't any issues. And so there was a great interview, actually, by a retired LAPD sergeant, Cheryl Dorsey.

She was speaking to CNN about the culture of policing, but more importantly, what should have been done in this case. Because just running away, especially after you failed a field sobriety test, you're in your car. That's not okay. No one's saying like, oh, just let him go. But what are you supposed to do as a cop in order to both avoid killing him and ensuring that justice is served and no one else gets hurt? So here's the interview.

Again, this is retired LAPD Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey. What I see are poor tactics used by these officers. They clearly did not anticipate that Mr. Brooks might run away. You should always anticipate that a suspect is going to try to get away when you try to put handcuffs on him. It's apparent to what we do. And so what the officers should have done was, as he ran away, they should have set up a perimeter. They should have got on the radio, requested additional units, direct them into the area, provide a description of the suspect, a direction of travel, and then try to contain him within that perimeter.

You don't get to shoot someone in the back because they take your taser and because they run. I said from the beginning, this was punishment. And now we know in the officer's own words, we hear one of them say, he took my effing taser twice. And so this was about catching him, punishing him. And when they got close enough to do just that, one of the officers murdered Mr. Brooks and even said in a victory lap, got it. Yeah, you know, even before I saw that interview, Anna, As soon as I saw the whole interaction and read all the details, I thought they could not go back to the precinct with that guy having gotten their taser.

And here's another part of the culture that's wrong. I guarantee you every other cop would have made fun of them, the little them, ridiculed them. Somebody took your taser and you didn't murder them. Ha ha ha ha ha, guaranteed. And so don't tell me there's nothing wrong with the culture of policing. Don't tell me it's just bad apples. And so that was definitely a component to it. And then, of course, there's the issue that we've seen hundreds of times, which is after they shoot him,

do they attend to him right away to make sure that he doesn't die? No. In this case, it was over two minutes before they started doing CPR. Again, that's better than the other stories we've seen where they just let the person bleed out and never, ever attend to him. Maybe they've seen some videos of cops getting in trouble for letting somebody bleed out for eight, nine, 10, 12 minutes. But either way, they seem to, as in the beginning, as usual, more concerned about their career than tending to a guy who is bleeding to death on the ground.

While, by the way, witnesses were saying, he's still breathing. He's still breathing. Obviously, please get him some help. Well, if you thought that story was bad, we're about to move on to something even worse. So let's talk about what happened in California over the weekend. So a growing number of Los Angeles County residents and even officials are demanding an in-depth investigation into the death of Robert Fuller, whose body was found hanging from a tree in a Palmdale, California park. Now, this is part of the Antelope Valley, and there is a history of neo-Nazi activity, hate group. in that area, and we'll get to that in just a minute. But I do think it's important to know about it in order to understand why people are skeptical of what the county sheriff department originally

deemed in this case. They deemed that this was a suicide. The family is arguing, no, we're not buying it. We don't think this is a suicide, and we think that this should be investigated. So the 24-year-old's family is fighting to get a thorough investigation into this. And luckily, there are some local politicians who are signing on to it as well. So neo-Nazi groups have been reported in this area. There have also been Justice Department actions over alleged discriminatory housing and policing practices in Palmdale and the neighboring city of Lancaster. And I think it's also important to note that less than two weeks before Fuller's death, there was another black man found hanging from a tree in nearby Victorville in San Bernardino County.

say they were investigating the death of Malcolm Harsh, who was found on May 31st. Harsh's family told the Victor Valley news on Saturday that the explanation of suicide does not seem plausible. So, Jank, I wanted you to jump in on this a little bit. And it's just, this is too much. I mean, two black men hanging from trees in, you know, similar areas that have a history of neo-Nazi activity. You have current neo-Nazi activity.

I just wanted to get your thoughts. Yeah, so I have some personal interaction with the Palmdale Sheriff's Office, too, that I can tell you about because I ran for Congress there. But first, let's note the literally unbelievable coincidence that Anna's talking about. So Victorville and Palmdale are about 50 miles from each other, and these two deaths happen about 10 days apart from each other. So, and I don't know if you know this, I don't know if the cops know this, I suspect that they do. There's a history of hanging black men from trees in this country. And so to find, to find one person who is not black hanging from a tree in a park is incredibly

unusual, right? That would make everybody go, whoa, what is, what's going on here? Why in public? don't normally do suicides in public. To find a black man hanging from a tree should give you tremendous pause, given the history of this country. To find two black men hanging from trees

in nearby areas within 10 days of each other and to rule both of them suicides without autopsies. Oh, come on. I mean, is there a coincidence that large on the planet? Maybe, but that wouldn't be my first assumption. Jake, we're harsh just to give you some more info on that. After Harsh's body was found, the county failed to do an autopsy for 12 days. Yeah, that's what I was going to get to next.

So in the Robert Fuller case, they say they haven't done a full autopsy yet. I don't know what that means, because I have read countless articles on it. And so they say they're going to do a full autopsy soon. I don't know why they keep saying full. Did they do half an autopsy before? You know, maybe they did, you had a doctor look at him without doing an autopsy. But you didn't do an autopsy on a black man hanging from a tree, and you just declared it a suicide.

That is more likely to be a suicide. In the case of Malcolm Harsh, he's got blood on his shirt. They say there is no other sign of foul plate. Blood on the shirt is good enough for me to have an autopsy done before 12 days. I don't know what happens to a body in 12 days. I'm not an expert on it. And people say, oh, it's really busy in Victorville. Really? There's so many public hangs in Victorville that they can't get to the autopsies

in 12 days. I just, all of this seems so unbelievable to me. And so it is possible. It is, I'm not saying that it's impossible. But man, that would be awfully strange. And it has to be like your 12th assumption, rather than your first assumption. And the important part of this guys is without public pressure, they would have both been called autopsies. I mean, suicides and we would have been done with it. And in this case, I don't know if the police are driven by racial animus. We don't have any evidence to that effect yet. But they're at a minimum driven by incredible laziness. Like, I wrap it up. It's a black guy. Who cares? Let's go. More importantly, or more relevantly, I'm keeping it real here. Black and not rich. So if you

got a black mayor hanging from a tree, they're going to do a bigger investigation. They're going to do an autopsy, et cetera. You got a millionaire hanging from a tree. Everybody's going nuts. You think that if a millionaire was about hanging from a tree, that they would not do the autopsy for 12 days. Does a single person in America believe that? Of course not.

No, but if you're not powerful, well, hey, that's a shame. So, you know, just to give you an example, Jank, I know I'm definitely comparing apples and oranges here, but it's related. So Beverly Hills, California just passed a regulation. indicating that no more than 10 people can publicly assemble. And of course, this is an immediate reaction in response to the Black Lives Matter protests happening around the country, right? So I'm just bringing that up because when it comes to protecting the privilege of the wealthy,

when it comes to keeping them in their comfortable little, you know, moat-surrounded bubbles, elected officials will do what it takes. But when it comes to the powerless, they don't care at all, including in cases like this. where a man's body is found hanging and for 12 whole days, they refuse to do an autopsy. I also want to know one other thing about the incident involving, I'm sorry. Is it Fuller or Marsh? Sorry, Fuller, Fuller, yes. I wanted to make sure I got it right. So in the incident involving Fuller, the investigators argued that there was no footage or surveillance

of what happened, but there's a reporter named Billy Jensen. who actually went to the scene and was like, uh, not buying it. And so I want to go to Jensen's tweet. The city said there were no outdoor cameras. I counted four facing the tree where Robert Fuller was found in Palmdale. Uh, and then, and then asked the sheriff, uh, did you ask for the footage, uh, from Ochoa Digital from whispering Palm's apartments? And then, you know, you can see in the images there that there are cameras facing the area where Fuller was found. So I just, It just seems like there's absolutely no, there's apathy. There's nothing but apathy when it comes to these cases and they just want to like call

it something and get it over with, but they need to investigate this. Yeah, so look, Victorville and Palmdale are relatively near one another, but there are different jurisdictions. And so I don't know about Victorville at all, but I do have some personal experience in Palmdale. And so in the Sheriff's Department did show up to something that I was attending. It was a candidate's forum at a Muslim American Community Center. And a bunch of far-right MAGA guys that showed up to disrupt the event, because presumably it was at a Muslim American Community Center, and they knew me and called me by name. I don't know if they showed up specifically to also heckle me. So, but it didn't matter because they

weren't just heckling me. They wouldn't let anyone speak at the forum. Now, as it turns out, it's a Muslim American Community Center, so only Democratic candidates showed up to the forum. So the sheriff had to be called in. They come in, and the people who showed up, all the officers took it incredibly lightly. The lead officer there was smiling, grinning the entire time. As by the way, those guys were yelling horribly bigoted things. Take your hijab off. You don't belong in this country to the Muslim attendees.

One guy tried to grab at a woman's hijab. And, you know, you guys are terrorists and you don't, you're not Americans, et cetera. And the whole time, the guy's smiling and refused to take him out. He said, no, that if you don't like them talking, just end the event. So they ended a congressional candidate forum because right wingers wanted to yell bigoted things at Muslims. They're like, wow, we can't, we can't tell who's right and who's wrong. Like, wait, they have freedom of speech.

They can actually ask those bigoted questions at the end of the forum. Nope, didn't care. And eventually, we had to leave. And so that's my interaction, my only interaction with a sheriff's office in Palmdale. And they did not seem particularly empathetic to minorities in that situation. By the way, one of the candidates was African American. One of the right wingers yelled at him to get off the plantation. Cops still smiling, didn't do anything about And instead of removing the right-wing guys looking to destroy the event, they facilitated destroying the event by telling us we can leave if we want to. So look, that doesn't mean that's indicative of the whole sheriff's department.

That's just one anecdote. But having said that, am I surprised at that office looks at a guy hanging apart, goes, I don't see any cameras, whatever, let's wrap this thing up. We'll do a full autopsy later, maybe if there's tremendous public pressure. now city officials are doing a good job of rallying around the community. But they found the guy Wednesday morning. And now the city officials and everybody else didn't spring in action until hundreds of people protested in Palmdale on Saturday. And by the way, if you're wondering, hey, maybe it's a copycat thing. And sometimes folks see it in the news and then they do

likewise. And that does happen from time to time. No, amazingly, Malcolm Harsh's death was not even reported in the local news for 12 days. So there's almost no chance Robert Fuller could have even known about it. Well, Jen, I mean, look. Interesting news story that there was a black man hanging from there. I mean, what the hell's going on in Victorville? No, no. There's a lot going on in Victorville, Jane. There's so much going on in Victorville. Victorville, I've been to Victorville. There's nothing happening in Victorville. Like, the decision to avoid covering that story was a conscious decision. I know I'm making a pretty strong accusation. I stand by that accusation. What could possibly be happening in Victorville? That's so important that finding a black man hanging from a tree is, it doesn't make it.

It doesn't make the rundown, not important enough. Anyway, not only didn't make the headlines, not only didn't make the front page, no news about it, none. Until then they, you know, they finally find Robert Fuller hanging and they're like, oh yeah, wasn't there a guy also hanging in Victorville, it's both damning of the media in their, in the overall area, as well as the police. So guys, one of the morals of the stories, for God's sake, put pressure on your local officials, both the police and the government. Without pressure, they're not going to do anything. But with pressure, hey, I might lose my job. All of a sudden, they find a way to care about you. Right. When we come back from the break, we have an important Supreme Court.

ruling that has conservatives upset. And later in the show, probably in the postgame, to keep it real with you, we'll talk about Ron Perlman dunking on Ted Cruz, which is the story that no one knew they needed, but definitely need. We'll be right back. 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 powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned.

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. fun announcement. Some of you might remember a show that we did called Common Room that John Iderola led. It's back. So tonight, 10 o'clock on Twitch. We've got a new channel on there, Twitch.tv.tv.com. T.Y.T. John Iderola, Brett Ehrlich, J.R. Jackson, and a Cusparian, all tonight at 10 o'clock Eastern. They're going to rotate on different episodes and other people are going to rotate in, friends of the show as well. It's a more non-political commentary. So one of our lighter shows like Old School and Between Me and Ugar. Between Me and Ugar is also on Twitch.tv slash

T.YT. Check that out. All right, Anna's Margarita Salt writes, and just wanted to say thank you to TYT for introduce me to Aspiration. I've had an account with them for a couple of months, and it's been wonderful. I just got a message from them telling me that I've planted more than 30 trees. It's just a small number, but it makes me feel like my use of aspiration card is doing some good deeds. Every little bit helps. Absolutely. That's awesome.

Aspiration.com slash TYT when you sign up, that's 10 trees right there. And the more you use it, the more trees they plant. Next to you know, you got your own forest. Asperation.com slash TYT. It's great. Megan E. says, no, jank, it is the same. Referring to all the shootings, police shootings, there's still no reasoning running away with a taser doesn't change the context that much.

And as I explained, I don't think that that shooting was anywhere near justified. So I'm not sure if she wrote that comment before. after I said that. Someone who likes Bernie Sanders wrote in, that was a total muscle memory out of the part of the cop. A guy turned and made an aiming firing motion and their instinct is to shoot because that's what we've trained them to do. I think that is true. And that's why I'm saying don't train them to do that. So no more trigonometry says, I was fine with how the cops handled everything up until they shot him in the back, was not necessary at all. And because of it, he makes a great point. When in a cop's hand, a taser is a non-lethal weapon. If it's

in a suspect's hand, oh my gosh, my life is under a media threat. I have no choice but to kill him. That's literal because in court, the police have argued that tasers, when they use them, are not lethal weapons. So if they turn around now and say, my life was in danger, well, that defies everything they've ever said previously to that. Lots of wonderful comments on YouTube Superchat. Thank you so much for writing in.

Matthew Petronovich with kind of an interesting comment here. He says, as a white male, I do agree with Black Lives Matter, but at the same time, I feel like an enemy because of my skin tone. How do I, how do you show support without feeling like an enemy? Matthew, on one hand, I hear that you are feeling uncomfortable for whatever reason, and I can't deny your reality and how you perceive it. But no one is trying to make you feel like an enemy. And so I love that you support Black Lives Matter. Please keep doing that. If anyone is doing that, I don't think they represent the movement remotely. So don't get discouraged by any loud voices.

Overall, the movement loves allies. So please keep it going. There's so many great instances here of people with personal experiences on Twitter. I'm just going to read one because it's just, this is already really long. But the inventor great wrote in, for suicide, you have to include psychological investigation as well as a medical examination. My father killed himself. Police are required both investigations.

Suicides are nearly a private event. This clearly, this is a Reich winger killing. So I don't know what it is, but I do know they were awfully quick to make generalizations about these two hangings without nearly enough information. It's a great point about the psychological investigation. And I don't have any evidence that Victorville or Palmdale did that. So we'll stay on top of those stories. Yeah.

All right. The Supreme Court has just ruled that existing federal laws, which forbid employers from engaging in job discrimination based on sexual orientation or sexual orientation or gender also applied to individuals in the LGBT community. So there were lower court rulings. This went back and forth, back and forth, indicating that, oh, maybe these workplace protection don't cover members of the LGBTQ community, but this case eventually went to the Supreme Court and I'm happy to report that the Supreme Court voted in the right way in this case.

So by a vote of six to three, the court said the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person's sex, among other factors, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination. And what was surprising about this decision, especially the majority's decision, is that it was written by conservative judge Neil Gorsuch, who was, of course, appointed by Donald Trump. Here's what he wrote in the majority opinion. An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person

for traits or actions. would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undistinguishable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might have anticipated, might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. Now, of course, since Neil Gorsuch ruled this way, voted this way, and also wrote the majority

opinion, conservatives had their meltdown. I'm not going to go through all of them, but I do want to read my favorite meltdown, which was by Ben Shapiro on Twitter. He said this Gorsuch decision is not originalist in any way. He acknowledges as much. No, he doesn't. It is simply a bad outcome-driven legal decision, and it throws religious liberty, free speech, and employment law into complete turmoil.

And then in that thread, he also says that Gorsuch himself acknowledges that Title VII obviously wasn't meant to cover sexual orientation or gender identity. Democrats know that too, which is why they've attempted to pass separate legislation concerning these issues. This has nothing to do with textualism, obviously. So what he's arguing is that Neil Gorsuch's interpretation of the law was not based on the actual text of the law or the literal meaning of the law, Gorsuch actually is very clear in stating, no, I'm interpreting it literally. And in this case, even if the people who drafted this legislation didn't expect it in

the future to cover the transgender community, for instance, the law is the law. And it applies evenly to people regardless of what their identity is. Okay, so let me give you an important legal context here. So conservatives have two different principles in interpreting a law like this. And in this case, I think that they are in conflict. One is a strict plain reading of the text. The other is the original intent of the people who wrote the law. Now, conservatives use both of those principles and rely on both of those principles

as a regular course. But in this case, they are in opposition to one another. The plain reading of the text, discrimination based on sex, especially, you know, and they're in opposition, in the trans case. Because in that case, if somebody says, hey, I'm a woman and you don't let them use facilities for a woman and all the other discrimination that flows from that, you're discriminating on them based on their sex. So Gorsuch is saying, there's no argument that a plain reading of this text indicates that you're discriminating against them in violation of this law, He says it was not the original intent, but the plain reading of the text is more important.

So those things are in conflict. It is true that the people who wrote this law did not consider the LGBTQ community. They did not intend it for it to apply to the LGBTQ community. But Gorsuch, as a conservative, is saying the plain reading is the plain reading. The text is clear. And so if the text is clear, that trumps everything else. And so you could argue that it is a principled conservative decision that he made. But the Ben Shapiro's of the world are not interested in what the principal conservative legal position is.

They're interested in what the conservative political position is. So it's great, it's very ironic that he says, oh, they just got to the result they wanted. No, Gorsuch is a political conservative. He didn't, by all evidence that we have, he did not want to reach that political decision. But he reached it apparently because that is what he thought was the conservative legal opinion. Me, I'm a little bit more conservative legally. Politically, I'm very progressive. I love what they did politically.

Legally, I'm very surprised they went in that direction because usually judges and justices find a way to get to their political beliefs instead of their legal beliefs. And here, Gorsuch and Roberts, the Chief Justice, who also joined the decision, had an easy out. They could have just went, original intent, original intent, but they didn't. So that was really interesting. And you should give them credit for actually sticking to conservative principles judicially. But of course, no conservative is doing that right now. They're all tearing their hair out. Although I will give credit to one guy who finally found out what all these Supreme Court picks are all about. It was some conservative. I don't remember his name. It's a name I haven't seen before. And he said, it's almost like they're just picking judges based on what they're

going to let, like, he says something about libertarian political economic principles. In other words, they're going to let companies do whatever they want. Say, of course, that's right. That is definitely how Republicans speak. Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll have abortion. We hate gay people. Sure, we'll get to it if we can. Gorsuch is the guy who said that a company can kill someone, in essence, I'm oversimplifying here, and they're still not liable. So when it comes to companies, it's a total radical. But in terms of political things that conservatives want, apparently, no, he really is judicially conservative and did abide by those principles. I also want to note that this Supreme Court ruling has to do with hiring and employment

practices, it does not deal with something that the Trump administration finalized late last week, and that has to do with reversing protections for LGBTQ members in the Affordable Care Act. So Trump has decided to reverse that rule that was part of the ACA, and the rule again focuses on non-discrimination protections laid out in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. That federal law establishes that it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in certain health programs and activities. In 2016, an Obama era rule explained that protections regarding sex encompass those based on gender

identity, which is defined as male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female. So of course, this is the type of stuff that upsets conservatives. The Trump administration promised to reverse those protection. for members of the LGBTQ community. And that's exactly what he did. It was finalized late last Friday and is expected to go into effect in mid-August. Okay, I want to say one more thing about this. Look, I want to be super clear, because a lot of people lie about this, including the mainstream media who try to make everything even.

By saying that they don't care that Gorsuch applied conservative legal principles, and Roberts did too, basically almost every conclusion. almost every conservative commentator in the country right now is saying, I don't give a damn about the plain text of the Constitution or any laws. I never cared about conservative legal principles. No, I'm here to hate gay people and trans people. That's what I'm here for. And so, and the fact that Gorsuch and Roberts don't allow us to do that drives us absolutely nuts. This reminds me the Confederacy arguments. Well, no, no, Confederacy wasn't about slavery, man. And it was about something else. Well, really, what was it about?

And in this case, they're like, no, no, this isn't about discriminating against gay and trans people, but that's literally what you want to do. I know, I know, because of my religious liberty. Religious liberty to do what? To hate gay people, that's what I thought. Okay, so just own up to it. And the reason I say that is there's still some members of the LGBTQ community, who say, oh, no, no, I love Republicans.

And they don't want to take away my rights. That is flat out wrong. And for someone who theoretically reads the news is a flat-out lie. The Republican Party, including the Trump administration, in their actions in health care, and in this case, clearly want to take away rights from LGBTQ community. It is inarguable. If you say otherwise, you're lying. And if you're telling people, oh, yeah, I don't need my stinking rights.

You're right to discriminate against me. You're disgusting. When we come back from the break, we'll talk about how Americans feel about their personal economics situation. And Larry Cudlow believes that people on unemployment are earning too much through the unemployment program. We'll be back with that and more when we return. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the

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Random shout out here to Julia Avicenia. She is a young Turk. She's been with us for five years now. She works in marketing and PR. My nickname for her is Quiet Thunder. So I love all that Julie does, and she works so hard and we appreciate her. All right, my gay marriage rights in the member section. Today is certainly a day to celebrate, though it's also important to keep in mind that rights

given by a nine-person court can also be taken away by the same court. And seeing as this ruling only addresses the workplace, Democrats need to explicitly pass legislation protecting LGBTQ people against any discrimination when they retake the Senate and the presidency this year. It's a great point. That's why I read it. This is just about workplace. They really need to get it so that it applies to all accommodations, and it's not just dependent

on a court ruling, but it's actually the law of the land. Just a fun one here, nipple pierced Jenkins, Skinny Jeans, writes, I was hoping for Ben Shapiro Anna impersonation. So we didn't get that in this case. Another time, somebody on a YouTube super chat shouts out Anna for her Spotify music list. Eos, thank you for your donation, brother. here's a shout out to you. Really appreciate it, especially during the hard times. And he says, thanks to TYT for your work on Progressive Ideals. And the person who gave you the shout out on

your Spotify was 0-1-1-1-1-1, Anna. But thank you guys. All right, Anna, you're on. All right, thank you. Okay, I'm sorry if you guys can hear drilling. There's renovations happening upstairs that didn't start until literally when we started the shows. But I'll move on. The vast majority of Americans say that their financial situation did not improve under the Trump administration, which is unsurprising to anyone who has a pulse. This is something that we've been talking about for a long time, but now there's actual polling done by bank rate to prove it. It was covered in Bloomberg, and it says that the Trump bump has not benefited most Americans,

with fewer than one in six saying their personal finances have improved since Donald Trump became president. Almost twice as many respondents said they're actually worse off since Trump moved into the White House in January of 2017, while about half of the U.S. adults polled, 45 percent, said their financial situation has stayed about the same. Three out of five of those surveyed said that they failed to see any improvement in their personal wealth during Trump's presidency, even before, this is important, even before the coronavirus slammed the United States, cratered the economy and eight into stock market gains of the past three years. So the economy did improve for a very specific group of people based on this survey. Usually it's people

who are white males earning $80,000 or more per year. They were more likely than any other demographic to say that their finances actually improved under the Trump administration. But, Jank, as you know, there are still tens of millions of Americans who are unemployed because of coronavirus. 40% of those jobs are unlikely to ever return. But I do want to just quickly go to this video because Larry Cudlow is saying, no, no, everything's great. And in fact, the real problem is the more robust unemployment benefits that are given to Americans during this time of economic crisis. Take a look. Should American families that are receiving these extra $600 checks right now, expect that money to stop in August?

Well, unemployment benefits will not stop in August. What may well stop and this reform is necessary, I mean, almost all businesses, frankly, on both sides of the aisle or mostly both sides of the aisle, understand that the $600 plus up, that's above the state unemployment benefits that they will continue to receive, is in effect a disincentive. I mean, we're paying people not to work. better than their salaries would get. And that might have worked for the first couple of months. It'll end in late July.

I think that returning to employment, we are in the administration. The president is looking at a reform measure that will still provide some kind of bonus for returning to work, but it will not be as large and it will create an incentive to work. So what he's basically saying is the, like let's say in California, the state unemployment if you get the maximum amount is $300 a week. He's arguing about $300 a week. He's arguing, do not add the additional federal benefit of $600 a week because that's too much.

It discourages people from going to work. Isn't the problem that employers are unwilling to pay people a living wage? No, it's not a problem to him. Just wants to get people back out there to work. It doesn't matter that we're still in the middle of this pandemic. And people are still dying. I know the press isn't covering it as much because there's so much going on, but this pandemic is still serious and it's still spiking in various states.

So everything in life is framing and marketing. I'm just keeping it real with you. So first, let's start with the $600 check. The Republican framing on it is people are choosing not to go back to work. There's just plenty of, there's all these jobs available, but would you golly, gee, we can't fill them because these bombs, you know, they immediately turn lazy when we give them $600. a week and won't take a job. Really? I literally have not even heard one anecdote of that, let alone any data to back that up. There's tens of millions of people got fired. They didn't all quit, like, voluntarily. Hey, you know what? I hear the government's giving away $600 a week.

They all got fired, Larry. They got fired, okay? And they would love to get their job back. So, I mean, it's unbelievable. On the other hand, when they remember during 2008, when they able way, tons of money, and we were arguing that they should not give bonuses to the bankers that bankrupted their own companies. And the cutlers of the world said, oh, but bankers work so hard. They deserve that money because they work so hard. Rich people work hard. Poor people and middle class people are bums. That's the framing. And it drills into people's heads. And every time we have to debunk it, but we debunk it, most of the mainstream media doesn't even bother debunking it. Now, when you turn to the other part of it, it's even crazier. The Trump bump,

look at the framing on it, look at the title on it. What bump? Twice as many people say, I'm making less, not more. There's no Trump bump. There's a Trump dump, but it's not called Trump dump. And instead, we're having an argument about how much did Donald Trump help your wages. Instead, the question should be, how much did he devastate your family's wages? Because twice as many people are making less money than more money. And the people making more money, by the way, you're going to be shocked to find out, are largely white. More importantly, make more than $80,000 a year.

So the people who did better were the wealthiest people to begin with. So there's your Trump dump, but almost no one else talks about it that way. Right, exactly. And while people are understandably focusing on what's happening with unrest in this country and the police brutality and the racism, the Trump administration is behind the scenes deregulating the way our 401ks, our retirement accounts, our pensions are being invested. He has opened it up to private equity firms, which will be able to make decisions about these accounts that would lead to giant fees. David Serota is the one who wrote about this.

Let me see if I can just quickly go through one or two of these graphics. So Cerroda writes that as news cycles were consumed by Trump deliberately inflaming social unrest and threatening domestic military invasion, the president's political appointees were approving a regulatory change that would transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of Americans' retirement savings to private equity firms, the guidance to Switzerland-based investment firm partners group effectively change the enforcement of federal law protecting workers' savings accounts. So this opens up savings accounts to these firms which charge notoriously giant fees and don't invest the money in ways that are actually beneficial to the person who has the 401K.

It's beneficial to the private equity firms that make commissions off of this, who charge these high fees. It's just devastating. And people who don't know better are going to be, prayed upon because of this all right we got a lot more in the post game for you guys uh really you got to check it out it's really important t yt dot com slash join to become a member we'll see you there 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 podcast at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon