The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - June 8th, 2020

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

Two Buffalo police officers are facing justice for their actions. 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. All right. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Huger, Anna Kusferi with you guys. So it's Friday. I'm sorry, Monday. How do you like that? I don't like it at all, actually. The whole thing. All right. So lots of stories for you guys, certainly about the protests and the reaction of the different government officials. Most of the negative, but some positive. We want to ask you guys an important question about how we should fight back. So that's a little

bit later in the show as well. Trump's disastrous poll numbers. I mean, it's so bad that it does ask, beg the question of, is it recoverable or not? Let's cross our fingers. So, lots to get to. And as always, I'll start by pointing out, of course, we're doing our fundraising to make sure where we can press on and we're healthy and sustainable. TYT.com slash go. You guys have been wonderful over the weekend. Wanted to point that out. And with that having been said, Anna, let's take it away. All right. Well, I wanted to start off with. an update to a story we did last week, lots of updates to it actually. So the two Buffalo, New York police officers seen pushing an elderly man, a 75 year old activist named Martin

Gugino to the ground have been arrested and charged with second degree assault. To give you some more details, the officers Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe were charged with second degree assault during their video arraignments on Saturday and were released on their own, uh, and are expected back in court on July 20th. Now, I just want to remind everyone of how horrific that scene was. It was a difficult story to cover, a difficult video to watch, but I think it's important for everyone to remember just how obscene and vicious and violent the treatment of Gugino was. In this case, again, this video is graphic.

But take a look and then I'll give you more details on this update. Let's go, get back. Get back. You better get an ambulance for him. We have a EMT on scene. So the cops in this case, Jenk, as you know, claimed that he had slipped and he fell. I'm wondering if that's the defense that they're planning on using in this second-degree assault case.

But what I found interesting about this story was the defensive nature demonstrated by the county district attorney. He gave a press conference to detail these charges. And it seemed like he needed to justify the charges. So let's take a quick look at that video and we'll discuss. Thursday night, we had two of our police officers cross the line. We had two of our police officers who were charged and arrested this morning and a rain in front of Judge Hannah this morning on assault in the second degree.

And this particular assault charge in the second degree is a felony. I'm not choosing sides. I'm prosecuting 39 protesters. There's no sides here that I'm choosing. I'm not on anyone's side. I'm on this country's side. That's whose side I'm on. I'm on justice's side.

All I'm doing is my job. It's perfect. It's black and white in the letter to law. It says right there, anyone who's a victim 65 years or older and the perpetrator's 10 years younger, it's a felony. I can't disregard that. I can't turn a blind eye to that and say, oh, you know what, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to jam these guys up, you know, it's a felony. I can't do that.

I got to do my job. There's a law on the books I have to follow the law. I mean, it's just, Jake, what do you make of that video? I mean, why is he, like, you did the right thing. It's like he had to qualify what he did in charging these clear criminals with assault by mentioning all the protesters he's also prosecuting. It's just so stupid. I mean, it's, anyway, go ahead.

I know, I know why. And so, to be fair to prosecutors across, country, they're always so apologetic when they're prosecuting the rest of us. When they're prosecuting low-level criminals for selling loose cigarettes or something, they're always like begging for forgiveness about a prosecuting. No, they crush you, marijuana possession. They'll grind you up, man. They'll throw you away, throw away the key for a long, long time.

So why is he apologetic in this case? And you know he's not going to put his, you know, back into it. No way. He's just doing the bare, bare minimum and get the hell out and try to avoid political fallout. The reason is, Anna, not everybody thinks like us. So, and all the cops are super powerful. The police union is super powerful within all these governments. And then they have, that's level one, level two is they have a lot of voters who also say, no, no, no, Cops should get to beat up people, including 75-year-olds. Cops should have free reign to kick anybody's ass they like and crack any skulls they like.

That's a serious contingent in America. So that's why when you dare to hold the police accountable in any slight way, you have the police union and everyone attached to them roar in opposition. And you have some percentage of the voters who say, how dare you? I like them cracking skulls of left-wing protesters, even if they're 75 years old. Oh, that guy was a devout Catholic who did it out of conscious. Yeah, make sure he's bleeding from the ear. We love that.

So that's why he's apologetic there. Gugino is still in the hospital in serious but stable condition. He's still in the hospital, okay? He was laying there bleeding from his ear, and none of those cops helped him. In fact, one of them attempted to and he was discouraged from helping this protester as he was laying on the ground with blood gushing out of his ear. That's what happened. Yeah, but Anna, I gotta say, look, he did.

And Cuomo comes in and makes a statement about it. I know we're talking about the mayor at a later time, but Cuomo, the governor of New York obviously said it was wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful. The problem I have with that is sure, that's good, that's true, but everyone makes it seems like it's an aberration. Like, they make it seem like, oh, these are the two bad cops we found in Buffalo, and their conduct was outrageous. The reason the 57 other officers resigned in what they called literally in disgust is because,

one, they like it. That's what they've been taught, and that's their culture that they like to kick ass and assault civilians. They do. That's just what they, to be fair. Yeah, they love elder, elder abuse. It's great. Elder abuse is awesome.

Nothing demonstrates their willingness to protect and serve, like beating up on 75-year-olds. Yeah, but I'm being fair, they were trained to beat up on everyone, including 75-year-olds. And so when the Cuomo's and the mayor of Buffalo and the prosecutors are all like, oh, my God, golly gee, we found these two guys. And now, why are the other 57 guys upset? Well, the other 57 guys are wrong, but they're upset. because you told him to go kick 75-year-old's asses. You told them to crack the skulls of left-wing protesters and definitely black people.

And don't, well, I didn't technically say that. Yes, you did. You said, in every training of every cop in the country, you tell them to use overwhelming force. Take control of the situation. Don't let anyone question your authority. You tell me, any cop in the country, put aside how the voice that I did it in, You tell me they don't train you on that total lie. There's no one would, I don't even know if anybody would be outrageous enough to lie like

that. So, hey, I got an idea, Cuomo, mayor of Buffalo prosecutors and the whole damn movement. Don't talk to me about bad apples when you told them to do that. You told them to use overwhelming force. Don't pretend that you're indignant when they actually do. So I agree with you in that the training is a problem. But I also think that, you know, I don't want to emphasize training as the main problem when you see this type of behavior, because I think it takes a certain type of person to

be comfortable doing what we saw in that video, right? Like if someone, if I decide to be a cop and I get trained to treat an elderly person that way, I'm at least the type of person to understand that that's wrong and I'm not going to do it. But these people, it's like they're giddy at the opportunity to do it. It's like they enjoy it, right? And then you have those 57 cops who resign from that unit. No, no, show us how much solidarity you feel. Quit the police department. Step down entirely, right? You step down from that special unit. That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean anything. You want to show us how much you support elder abuse, go ahead and step down entirely. Don't be a cop anymore.

Don't be a cop. And by the way, the mentality isn't just shared among police in this department. It's also shared among some of the people in this community, which was demonstrated when two of these cops, the two cops that engaged in this elder abuse were released, right? And they were greeted by a crowd of people applauding the elder abuse that they were engaged in. Here's the video of that. See a lot of elderly white people in that crowd love to see how they would feel about being shoved to the ground the way that Cugino was in that video. It's so disgusting to see that.

That video is proof positive. A few bad apples, my ass, it's right there, it's all of them. Look at them. They're all applauding. They're applauding the two guys who cracked the skull of a 75 year old and let him bleed. out of the pavement. They showed up to applaud them. They took time out of their day to go and say, oh, I can't wait to applaud the guys who mercilessly attacked a 75-year-old in our community. So that's the barrel right there. That video you just saw there is the barrel. And it's all bad.

Look, Anna, we do have a slight disagreement about this. And I've had this disagreement with Jimmy Dorr for as long as I can remember. Yeah, I get it. So people who sign up, to be cops to some degree sign up to be willing to use force. So if you're not willing to use force, you're not likely to become a cop. So it does pre-select in some ways. But training and culture is so overwhelmingly important if once the whole group tells you that something is good, everyone in the, you have to be extraordinarily strong to say no, I think that your morality is wrong and I'm not going to do that.

So we're going about this the whole wrong way. We're going to talk later in the show about the Democratic Party and they got to get rules that they're tweaking. Some of them are good. Some of them are mediocre. But no, you've got to tell the cops to stop using overwhelming force and to celebrate thugs in their midst, celebrating thuggery overall. So anyone who sees that video, you're really going to tell me just those two guys.

And by the way, on the 57, I don't want anybody to miss on. understand me. Hashtag fire the 57. I mean, how is that not the easiest lift? I mean, it's like what they're stereotypes of millennials, which does apply to some rich millennials. Oh, that's the job you gave me emergency response. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do another job. I'm not doing anything, but you're paying me. No, if you don't do the job you're assigned, in any job, you are fired. You don't get to resign from your responsibilities, but keep your paycheck. Okay, hell no. They should all be fired tomorrow. And, and by the way, this is how you hold public officials accountable. So if the police chief does not do that, he should be fired.

If the mayor does not force that, then he should be recalled and he should certainly be voted out. It goes to the top. Don't just punish the bottom and tell me the top didn't do anything wrong. It's the top that's the cancer that's causing this problem in the first place. So let's talk about leadership in Buffalo, New York, because there's a huge issue there as well. So after police officers were seen in a video viciously shoving a 75-year-old man to the ground, the mayor of Buffalo, New York, who is the leader, he's the person who answers to the police brutality that takes place in Buffalo, New York. He gave a radio interview and described the protester, the elderly man who was shoved to the ground, who was seen bleeding from his ear as an agitator.

Listen to what he had to say. We're informed of is that that individual was an agitator. He was trying to spark up the crowd of people. Again, that was a curfew violation. Those people, pardon me, again, those people were there into the darkness. Our concern has been what we've seen in the community when it has gotten dark. There is the potential for violence, that there's been vandalism, there have been fires set, there has been property vandalized, there have been stores broken into and looted.

We wanted to end the potential for those kind of. activities. Okay, so you heard the way he described Martin Gugino, a long time, peaceful activist, who's 75 years old. Now that you've heard the description by the mayor, just want to remind you all of what that scene actually looked like. And you can judge for yourselves whether or not this 75 year old man served as an agitator or any type of threat to the dozens of cops who were there on the scene.

Again, this video is graphic. It's difficult to watch, but it's important to understand what actually happened. Take a look. What's the way? Who? What's your head? He is flicking. He's bleeding out of here.

He's bleeding. He's bleeding out of the ear. Get him out of here. What the fuck you walking up on here? I'm going to grab. Grab you back. Come in back. You don't want this.

Back up. Back up. Get off the steps. Let's go. Get back. Get back. You better get an ambulance for him. Okay. Let's also note for the record that it was not remotely dark. We all saw that video very clearly in the daytime. Yes, it was past curfew. So, Byron Brown is exactly what's wrong with Democratic politics. And he's a close ally of Andrew Cuomo, rose up through the Democratic machine. And so he's the guy they send out to say, now remember, the cops are right. Okay. And anyone who's left wing is an agitator. Now, mind you, Byron Brown is a so-called Democrat. So we elect these Democrats, and then they don't do anything we ask them to do. They support

the power structure 100%. But then they go, no, no, no, no, it's okay. It's okay because I'm a Democrat. And in his case, he happens to be African-American. That's perfect for the Democratic establishment. Oh, no, no, you can't criticize him. Oh, watch me. Watch me. Okay, so no, he's not an agitator. He's a peaceful protester. If you don't appreciate that, well, that's downright Trumpian of you. Oh, who cares about the First Amendment? If anyone dares to agitate, i.e. protest me and the cops, my beloved cops, and my power, we should crack our skulls, right?

Because that's your clear implication, but I were not done with him. Byron Brown also said, I am not calling for the police to be fired. Okay. Why not? Because you care a lot more about the police. You care a lot more by your own political career and you think the police union and the power structure that benefits from the police cracking down on the rest of us, but only serving the rich, actually helps you byron Brown.

That's why you're not calling for them to be fired. And he said about Gujino, he said, the mayor said, he was asked to leave numerous times last night. Wait. So does that mean that they should have pushed them down? why are you justifying it? And I'll tell you why you're justifying it. Look, no, no, no, I want to be even harsher because all you care about is your own ass. That's why you're justifying it. You don't give a damn about Guccino. You don't care about the protesters. You don't

shouldn't care about any of the political movements. All you care is, Andrew Gormwood, did I do good? Am I good political ally? Democratic establishment? Did I do good? Police union, have I kissed your ass enough? So that's what Byron Brown's about. You know, he's not going to get a She just throw that bum out of office, total utter bum. You should throw them completely out. Because, guys, it isn't about the two cops. It isn't about the 57 cops. It's about the people at the very, very top telling them to do that.

And Byron Brown now, we know for sure, based on his comments, is among the people telling them, you're doing great. I would never fire you for assaulting civilians. I would never fire you for having them bleed out and not even treat them. I would never hold you accountable for anything, because I would never fire you for anything, because I like that you crush the poor and the middle class and support only the powerful. That's the kind of cops I want. That's the message that Mayor Brown is sending. And I mean, we're talking about taking out Jacob Frey in Minneapolis. Brown should be at the very,

very top of the list, a so-called Democrat backing the worst thugs in policing. I want to give you the entirety of his statement because it's just, it shows a disconnect. between what is afforded to cops who engage in this type of brutality and what isn't extended to the general public. He says, I'm not calling for the officers to be fired. I want the investigation to be conducted. I don't want to jump ahead of the investigation. It's very important for officers to know they are getting due process.

So did Martin Gugino get due process? Because here's the thing. First of all, the curfews are just utterly ridiculous. Okay. But if you want to, if you want consequences for demonstrators who refuse to abide by the curfew, the cops don't get to be the judge, jury, and executioner. They don't get to decide whether someone lives or dies because they broke the curfew rule, okay? What you do, and it's very simple, I know, it might be very difficult for those dozens of cops to understand this, because there were dozens of cops there against one 75-year-old elderly man, okay? What you do,

is you put him in handcuffs because of his civil disobedience and you take him away. Okay, that's what you're supposed to do. You don't get to decide to push him to the ground and then discourage the one cop who wanted to help him from doing so. Okay, it's just, it's incredible to me that due process is being uttered by this mayor when that due process was not something that was, you know, extended to or given to all of these people throughout the country who have been shot dead by police, who have been choked out by police, who have been tear gassed by police, who have been pepper sprayed by police.

What about due process in those cases? The cops are supposed to be part of our justice system, and they've been carrying out injustice for how long now? It's just a disgusting lack of leadership, and you're absolutely right, he should not be a mayor, He should not be in any position of leadership because he failed miserably in this one chance for him to prove that he could be a leader. And he's not. He's not one.

Last thing's here, to your point, Anna, due process is only for the powerful. So if you're a protester against the government, you got no due process. You'll get your skull cracked and you'll like it. So Mayor Brown believes the due process for the rich and powerful in this case. So, and do as progress is, do we believe in new process? Of course, but what are we talking about here? If you're talking about the criminal justice system, no one's saying lock them up without a trial.

Not one person is saying that. No, if you're talking about new process when it comes to firing people, well, wait, you have total authority to fire people. And I know you've got to go beg the union who, the one union that's powerful in this country apparently, and you have to go kiss their ass and ask for permission. But if anyone else did that on the job, they'd be fine. immediately. Can you imagine if somebody else pushed a 75-year-old cracker skull and walked over them? At any other job, they would immediately be fired. But more importantly, I think

there are 57 officers who said, I will actively refuse to do my job, and you should pay me my salary anyway. Okay, well, you have due process. You report to work to the job you're given, otherwise you turn in your badge and guns, and you're fired. That's due process. But you don't want to do that. You're not doing any of that. Instead, all you're doing is protecting the cops. because you think that helps you politically. While the good people of Buffalo should send a message that that doesn't help you politically, they should fire you so that the next person understands, hey, maybe I should represent the actual civilians and citizens of Buffalo rather than just the powerful.

When we come back from the break, we'll talk about some of the more positive developments from these protests, including Minneapolis taking action when it comes to their local police. 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-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical, episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that

be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training

or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back in the Young Church, Jeng and Anna with you guys. Maui, Greg, writes in from the member section. Someone hit me up last week to tell me that

Jake read my comment out there and finished it by saying he wanted to visit Maui. The advice is always open to any TYT host. You come to Maui. I'll supply the WOWI. Yeah, I like it already. Sounds amazing. Yeah, thank you.

We appreciate it. But for now, just being a member is great. Okay, t-y-t.com slash join. I read the members on our website. I read their comments first almost all the time when we come back from breaks. T-y-T.com slash join. If you join through YouTube, I read your comments when I do the live videos and I see all of your names and I really appreciate it.

Souten-Soughton-Soughton writes, and he's afraid of the cops. He's terrified about his future. I assume you're talking about either the prosecutor or the mayor or both in Buffalo. And Irene says the police union is too powerful in the wrong way, fight for good pay and benefits, not for impunity or immunity. I was told that unions are always angelic and 100 percent, right, 100 percent of the time by some leftists. That's interesting.

Anyway, Meg writes, and conservatives, not all cops, 57 Buffalo cops. Actually, yes, it's all of us. Meg, I love that comment. That's exactly right. And then YouTube Super Chat, Lonely Soul says, keep on speaking truth to power. Thank you. We appreciate it. And thank you for using YouTube Super Chat as well. Let's take it real quick at t.com slash go. So 50,095. You guys literally make this show possible. Thank you for participating. Every amount helps. And we just get us to 2021. And I think we'll be fun from there. But let's keep this thing healthy and strong. Thank you.

We do this show together. Anna, what's next? There are some positive developments in Minneapolis where George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvid in broad daylight. Now, nine members of the city council have made a veto-proof pledge to dismantle the city's police department. Now, a common rallying cry that we hear among protesters throughout the country is to defund the police.

In this case, they want to completely reimagine. policing in their city. Council members said in interviews on Sunday that they did not have specific plans to announce for what a new public safety system for the city would look like. But they promised to develop plans by working with the community and said they would draw on past studies, consent decrees, and reforms to policing across the nation and the world. I do want to just quickly note that the mayor is not in favor of this, but it doesn't seem to matter because of the fact that this is a veto-proof pledge.

Jenk, before I go to you, I just wanted to hear quickly from the city council president, Lisa Bender, who shared the news with demonstrators. Take a look. The commitment is to do what's necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth that the Minneapolis police are not doing that. Our commitment is to end our city's toxic relationship with the Minneapolis. police department to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.

Mantling the police department. One of those people who disagrees is actually the mayor of Minneapolis. What are your thoughts? I think it's a complicated, nuanced issue that is not served well by these black and white wave that they're treating this. So, and I honestly, I'm unclear by what any of that means, because it's the devils of the details. So if you said to me, let's restructure the funding of the police and take away a giant chunk of their funding and give people who are better equipped to handle different situations.

So for example, when we send people that are having issues related to mental health, let's send in doctors or EMT rather than police. Right now we send the police, and a lot of times those folks that have mental health issues wind of getting shot, killed, et cetera. I say I love it, definitely. It makes no sense to send the police, send in medical professionals instead. And I can go on and on in different ways. And everybody watch the interstores.

I think the entire cultural policing in this country is dead wrong. It should needs to be revamped. But if you say, no, let's have no police. And I think some are actually saying that. No, that's, that'll, A, I'm not in favor of it. B, it'll never work. But C, mainly you'll lose all the voters. And instead of getting action, real action on change, we could actually have.

And I'm not talking about half measures. I'm talking about totally retooling the culture and training of police, having independent prosecutors, et cetera. Instead of that, you'll get pushback and you'll get nothing accomplished if people think, oh my God, at any moment people can come into my house and take myself because there's no cops left. If that is not the impression you want to send out, you're not doing a very good job at it. I'm just keeping it real. And so, look, I want to ask you guys about it too.

We'll do a poll when this clip goes up on all the of our platforms. So we'll have the link in the description box. T.Y.T.com slash defund. Do you think defund the police is good framing? Yes or no? I think, honestly, it's not good framing at all. And if you actually mean completely defund them and have no police, that's crazy and never going to work.

Look, I want to be clear about something because I think that this misinformation is purposely being spread by dishonest people who want to support the police regardless of what they do. Okay, Megan McCain being one of them, we'll talk about her later. Defunding the police, there are, there's a very tiny, tiny group of people who call to abolish the police. That is not an actual movement. And the call to defund the police might sound like a very simplistic way of handling this. And I get it. And it's also vulnerable to misinterpretation and all of that. But when you consider the fact that defunding the police would just simply take some of the funding that the police departments have been given throughout the years and divert

some of that funding to actual social services that are supposed to be handling certain issues within the community that it makes a lot of sense. So for instance, cops are asked to do all sorts of things that they are just not experts in carrying out. They are not mental health professionals. Clearly, they're not mental health professionals. So instead of funding mental health in our communities, we're increasing the budgets for local cops. And it doesn't make any sense, right? We criminalize behavior that should not be criminalized. We should be diverting that money to creating social programs that help solve the issues we're seeing in our communities, like homelessness. In our community, Jank, I'm sure you've seen it. I've experienced it firsthand.

You see homeless people out on the street. And what happens? People living in those neighborhoods don't like it. They call the cops. The cops come in and they start. issuing citations and criminalizing being homeless, being poor, that doesn't make sense. Instead of funding the cops to take care of that, why don't we use that money to do something about affordable housing in our communities? So it's a complex issue. I get that the rallying cry comes across as overly simplistic. But my issue is, you know, for all the naysayers, they're going to have an issue with whatever

the rallying cry is. They have no interest in actual, like if the rallying cry was simply reform the police, you don't think that conservatives would still have some sort of problem with it? Of course they would. And this is a complex issue that you're trying to get the message across for. So what do you, what should the message be? What would be the accurate message that would not be purposely misinterpreted by dishonest actors? Look, Anna, there's a couple of things there.

First of all, yes, I agree with you the right wing, and including centrist Democrats, including Joe Biden, would push back on any message. But we don't have to make it easy for them. And that's what we're doing when we say defund the police. It'll immediately gut check. Folks that are regular voters and not knee-deep in activist politics, immediately go, what do you mean? Does that mean I'm going to be unsafe and there's not going to be no cops?

I'm out. I'm out. Look, I'll guarantee you to you right here. Look, I'm cured, the reason I want to do the polls, because I want to get a sense of what you guys think. You're progressive, and so, and your opinion doesn't always match mine, obviously, right? And Anna and I often agree. But every instinct that I have, political instinct I have, says that this will poll disastrously. Now, why does that matter?

Because if you don't win elections, you can't actually get the goddamn change. So we want to feel good about chanting things in a protest. Great. can't defund the police. If you don't lose 80% of voters, go for it. But I think it's a terrible idea. That's my opinion. Look, we got the video of Jacob Frey getting boot out of the Minneapolis thing. I mean, look at it. Look at it. You tell me if there's, if they don't mean abolition of police, they have a funny way of showing it. Can we go to the video? Jacob Frye, we have a yes or no question for you.

Yes or no will you commit to defunding Minneapolis Police Department? What is that saying? We don't want no more police. Is that clear? We don't want people with guns toting around in our community, shooting us down. You have an answer. It is a yes or I know. It is a yes or I know.

Will you defund the Minneapolis? The Minneapolis Police Department. All right. Outer? I do not support the whole appellant. All right. Why? Don't waste our time.

Get the f*** out of here. Get the fuck out of here. Go home. Go home. Go home, Jacob, go home. Go home, Jacob, go ho. Go home, Jacob, go ho. Go home, Jacob, go home.

Go home, Jacob, go home. I'll say right now, that video is an absolute disaster. For you want to win elections so we can get change so we can defund a third, 50% to 30s depending on the context of the police to get it to the right agencies that should be working with people including the homeless, you've got to win elections. If you tell people we're going to totally abolish police, he'll never. never win another election in the entire country. I don't care if it's in the most Vermont area in the world, in the country. You won't win an election. That's crazy. That is the most

damaging video I've ever seen for the progressive movement. Those people do not speak for the majority of progressives. And look, there are variations depending on which city you're in, because this is a complex issue that impacts cities in different ways. So what the community in Minneapolis would like to see with the police department is probably. very different from what the communities in other areas of this country want, right? So in that particular video, you have protesters, yes, who called for the abolition of the police department. Got it. But what I'm seeing, and I think that most people can agree with this, is a call to divert some of the budget that's directed toward police departments, towards

social services that make sense. To give you a statistic that should blow your mind, because it blew my mind. And I tweeted the report about this written by David Sorota. The Urban Institute did a study that looked into population growth between 1977 and 2017. The population in the United States grew by 50%. But the police budget for local police departments grew by 173%. These are bloated budgets. And we are doing this to the detriment of social.

programs that need to be funded that have been severely defunded throughout the decades. Okay, so when you have coronavirus completely ravaging the finances of municipalities throughout this country and you see an increase in the budget for the local police department while everything else gets cut, including education, you got to ask yourselves, like, is this really what the priority needs to be right now? Because I'll tell you something, when people don't have opportunities, what do you think happens? Lack of opportunities has a strong correlation to an uptick in violence and crime. People are desperate. And I just think that the priorities have been wrong. So I don't want

to generalize and pretend as though every protester out there is on the same page and wants the same thing. That's just not the case. Yeah, look, I don't know you could find anyone in this country for the last decade that has been as loud as I have been, and we have to change police culture completely. It's all wrong. They're told to do overwhelming miles. They have a giant budget that is totally not proportional to the needs of the communities. But if you go and tell any community in Minneapolis, any race, any income group, it doesn't

matter. Should we abolish police altogether? They're going to say no and they're going to say no in overwhelming numbers. So those 20 activists there that are chanting against the mayor, they do not represent any so-called community other than hard left progressive activists. And if you're in that community, I love your brothers and sisters. And maybe you're doing a great job in pushing the Overton window. And that's why some people might vote that, hey, it is good framing because it pushes the

conversation so far in one direction. And then maybe we settle in the middle. That's an interesting strategy. But if you actually believe you're going to get Americans to abolish police, that's not, you live on a different planet, not this one. All right. When we come back from the break, I'll show you some of those dishonest actors who can't even spend a minute of their day to read a single article about what's really happening in this country.

We'll show you a debate between Megan McCain and Kamala Harris on this very issue. We'll be right back. at t yt we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data but that doesn't mean we have to let them it's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech and one of the best ways is with express vpn express VPN hides your IP address making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers express VPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. 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 EXP-R-E-S-V-P-N.com. slash t yt check it out today all right back on young church jink and anna with you guys i want to thank our progressive sponsor aspiration dot com slash t yt go sign up you keep your money there and you use that for your debit card especially it helps the environment we plant 10 trees for signups we plant more trees if uh if people use the debit card and check off the the right box if you're interested in rounding up. It's no fossil fuel money and keeps your place in a place where you have peace of mind and gets your good results. Asperation.com slash TYT. I'm going to read more comments in the postgame today because they're so good. TYT.com slash join to become a member,

but I'm going to read just one here. Mickey C says lawsuits should come out of police pensions or the union, hitting them in the pocket may get their attention. Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for their criminality. That's such a great point. That is why it'll never be Because that is the thing, like, if we, if the cops had to pay for the actual lawsuits from the, from the violence that they do, they would just wouldn't even do their jobs. They just sit at home. They would never, ever hit anyone again, okay? You know, Jenk, that happened in New York.

Remember when NYPD was like, oh, you're, now people are proposing consequences and we don't like it, so we're going to stop policing. And so they stopped policing. And guess what happened? Nothing. The community thrived. Yeah, crime actually went down. But anyway, so the reason why they'll never do it, Mickey, is because it's such a good proposal. They're like, whoa, that would definitely make the difference. Do not do that. Okay, so anyway, let's go to the next story. All right.

On the view, Megan McCain did what Megan McCain was hired to do, pretend as though she doesn't understand common sense proposals like defunding the police and diverting that money over to social services and programs that would actually lead to opportunities and help communities thrive. Now, the video that I'm about to go to, I want to give you some context because this was after Kamala Harris gave an incredibly long answer detailing what it means to defund the police. And here's Megan McCain, not listening to a single word of it. Are you for defunding the police? How are you defining to fund the police? Well, I'm not for anything remotely for that. So I would ask the protesters the same thing. But I assume it's, I assume, and again,

this is something that is new to me, I assume it's removing police. And as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar said, bringing in a whole new way of governing and a law and order into a community. And my understanding, again, this is something that has just come into my understanding recently is that you would not have police officers like this Minneapolis City Councilwoman said that I would be a place of privilege if someone broke into my home and I wanted to call the police. So that was her whole spiel and she's right. She has no understanding, which is why she used the word understanding like 12 times in there. But here's Kamala Harris, reiterating what it means to defund the police.

Again, we need to reimagine how we are achieving public safety in America. And to have cities where one third of their entire budget is going to policing, but yet there is a dire need in those same cities for mental health resources, for resources going into public schools, resources going into job training and job creation, come on. We have to be honest about this, that there is an actually. not a consensus around this because if there were, we would actually see smarter distribution of resources in our country to address the issues that need to be addressed.

So that's a really good explanation by Kamala Harris. And so the problem here, honestly, and that's why we have a poll about it, to ask you guys whether you're thinking deep on the police is a good framing, T.O.T.com slash poll slash defund, is that it allows the Megan McCain's of the world ago, I guess you just want to get rid of cops, right? And by the way, some progressive activists do. And so it gives them space. But Megan, she explained what it was. You know that at least from Conlon Harris's perspective and the perspective of most progressive activists, it means reallocation of some resources. It doesn't mean abolition of police. I think it's a fair follow-up question to ask.

ask Senator Harris, do you mean abolition of all police? And then she says, no, and then you've got clarity, right? But to keep pretending that you don't know what it is when she just explained it to you, that's the problematic part. Well, look, the problem with the individuals who deliver our news, right? And I mean, I don't know if you want to consider the view a news show, is that the hosts are either, you know, paid millions of dollars in their contracts for their salaries, and they have a complete disconnect, like their lives are completely disconnected from the needs

in the very communities that they live in, right? So that's issue number one. Issue number two is Megan McCain doesn't know what it's like to be homeless, to not be able to afford mental health care. She's a trust fund baby. So when she hears about reallocating money to social services that she's never going to need or desire, yeah, she has a vested interest in pretending like she doesn't understand what defund the police is. She is someone who refuses to like pick up a single article and read the

details of what's being proposed herself because she doesn't care. She doesn't care. She's one of many news actors who are not qualified to do what she does. And so she's just not going to understand what it means to depend on these social services that have been viciously cut and defunded year after year after year, she'll just look into the account that her mama and papa set up for her, and she'll live her life the way that she's been living her life, completely and utterly clueless, vapid, and stupid. That's it. That's Megan McCain. Okay, well, you are clear on that. But to me, the most interesting part was the end where Megan McCain was like something to the effect of, are you saying that if they break into

my incredibly wealthy house that nobody's going to come protect me? But saying that I think is problematic, right? But that's obviously her number one concern and why she keeps going back to that. And plus, they want to put us in a negative light. That's why I think defund the police is not a great slogan because it helps Megan McCain do a hatchet job on us, which I think is unjustified. So let's talk a little bit about Biden because Joe Biden was asked whether he agrees with defunding the police.

He was attacked by Donald Trump as someone who doesn't support law enforcement. wants to take funding away from our brave and heroic cops. And of course, that's the framing that we're going to hear from Donald Trump. And you would expect, or at least hope that as Trump's opponent, he would demonstrate a little strength in his response. But that is not what we got from Joe Biden. In fact, Andrew Bates, who's a Biden spokesperson said, Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded. He hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change and is driven to ensure that justice is done and that we put a stop to this terrible pain.

Now Biden backs advocates calls to increase spending on social programs separate from local police budgets, but he also wants more funding, more funding for police reforms, such as body cameras and training on community policing approaches. In fact, he's proposed $300 million in additional funding for local police departments in order to retrain them and help them with some of these reforms. See, this is why I'm against the slogan of defund the police, because it lets Biden off the hook completely. When people hear that Joe Biden does not want to defund the police, he'll probably get more

popular. But if you look at his actual proposals, they're crap. They're terrible on this. Listen to this. Okay. So Anna read you some, but also funding for public schools, summer programs, mental health, substance abuse, treatment separate from funding for police. Now you might say, hey, those are all good things.

Yes, but those are all things we already have. And Biden is saying, well, let's increase the funding a little bit for them. This reads like nothing will fundamentally change. He talks about community policing programs. We were trying to add under Clinton. So, you know, this is just tired retreads, diversifying police departments. We were supposed to do that 70 years ago. Additional funding for body-worn cameras, we already have that.

This is absolutely drivel. It's not, it's nothing. It's Biden saying, hell no, I am not part of this movement. I am not progressive, and I will not touch the cultural policing in this country. And if you see his track record on that, it makes sense. He's very right wing on policing. And he did the 94 crime bill, which was, helped the cops, military, get militarized and be atrocious, overwhelming force body that they are today.

So yeah, Biden's a disaster. there's a terrible, terrible proposal that does nothing. Yeah, does nothing. And by the way, I forgot to mention the $300 million that he's proposing would also go toward hiring more police, more police to do community policing. And by the way, where's the activists who are yelling at the mayor of Fry and all the other people? You should be yelling at Joe Biden to get an actual proposal.

He's got a great chance of being the next president of the United States of America. Try for actual change. That's the guy who can do it. Don't let him off the hook with this nonsense. All right, postgame is next. TYT.com slash join. We'll see you soon. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash TYT. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.