The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - March 19th, 2020

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

Here’s how TYT will operate going forward. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Young Turks. We are doing the show remotely. And as you can see from my camera, it has been an unmitigated disaster. So it's been a frustrating day to say the least. But we're doing our best. And hopefully you guys will bear with us as we get through this pandemic together. So John Adirola joins me. Thank you, John. How's it going, Anna? I've seen better days for sure. But I'm trying to get through this without losing my mind. I think that's what the whole post game is going to be about, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We will have a post game show today. But I do want to fill everyone in on what we're planning on doing moving forward while everyone is essentially forced to quarantine and do social distancing. We're going to do our best to provide an hour-long show for all of you every day while

this pandemic continues. So we will start the show live at 3 p.m. every day, and we will do it one hour, and then after that one hour show, we will do a post game. So we're still going to give our members some content. And we're going to improve this process as we move forward. Today's obviously the first day and it's been a little rough. But there will be a post game after the first hour today. And then you can expect live videos on our YouTube channel moving forward. So to make up for the fact that we're not going to do two hours every day like we normally do because we don't have the same tech capability, we'll be doing live videos throughout the day, and we'll cover all sorts of topics to make sure that you guys have the same amount of content that we typically produce, but it's not going to be all in one live show. So go to t.yt.com slash live. And on YouTube, that's where you can watch us live. And on YouTube, you can watch our live videos. So Jank, J.R. Brett and I will also be doing those live and, you know, just providing

the content that we really want you guys to know about. With that said, let's go ahead and move on to our first story. You ready, John? I am. Okay. So the Trump administration has entered into discussions with members of Congress. They want to move forward with more economic relief, not just for Americans, of course. They certainly seem to be prioritizing businesses more than Americans when it comes to providing some stimulus money, some cash, so people will be able to pay their bills. So Steve Mnuchin actually discussed this proposal. It's coming from the Treasury Department on Fox Business. Let's watch. The second component, and I refer to this is checks in the mail, but that's the, it's really money direct deposited. Most people,

we have all their information. And the plan is $500 billion in two tranches. The first one would be $1,000 per person, $500 per child. So for a family of four, that's a $3,000 payment. As soon as Congress passes this, we'd get this out in three weeks. And then six weeks later, if the president still has a national emergency, we'll deliver another $3,000. So as you mentioned there, the payments, if they pass what they're hoping to pass through Congress, they would provide economic relief in two different phases. But Mnuchin also said that the White House's plan would allocate $300 billion for small businesses, noting that, quote, there will be loan forgiveness for employers who keep their work

on the payroll. Now, when it comes to the funds that would be given to Americans, if it comes in two phases, the first phase would be allocated on April 6th, and the second would be allocated on May 18th. So there's more detail that I want to give you, but John, I wanted you to kind of jump in and tell me what you think so far. Yeah, I mean, look, first of all, in terms of, I guess sort of optics or quasi optics, having him come out to be the person who is talking about that seems like a poor choice to me. I mean, has there ever been a person in government service who cared less about the experience of an individual working person, let alone like the working class? I kind of doubt it. And also the way he communicated about that, I found to be a little

bit dishonest. Like he runs through the example of what a family of four could expect. But then he goes on and talk about the later phases and just sort of, he just starts using that $3,000 figure as sort of a standard. But there are a lot of people who are not a family of four for individual people or for a couple, they're going to obviously be getting less money. And it's like you throw around the number 3,000 and it seems like, okay, I could see that taking care of a lot of people's needs. But if you're just an individual and you're getting 1,000, there are large parts of the entire country where that's not even going to cover your rent, let alone any other expenses you have as you're trying to survive this thing in a time when there's a very good chance that

you're not going to be working. So I think for some people, this is going to be very reassuring. it might temporarily stave off lots of concern, but there's going to be a lot of people where this is just sort of barely scratching the surface of what they need. Yeah, definitely. And I do want to clarify something that we were talking about on the show yesterday because there was a lot of criticism toward Democrats who wanted to go through a stimulus package that would include the whole notion of means testing, right? Should people qualify for it? And look, there are problems with that because means testing means that we'd have to go through bureaucracy. It would be more time consuming.

People need money now to pay their bills now. And so how about give out the stimulus checks? And then after the fact, you can go ahead and tax people who didn't necessarily qualify for it or didn't necessarily mean it or need it. But here's the thing. Under what the Treasury Department is proposing, under what the White House is proposing, some people wouldn't qualify if their income is over a certain level, indicating that they want to incorporate some level of means testing. Now, let's give credit where credit is due because Chuck Schumer and some other Democrats came out and said, no, this isn't enough. And so we've been critical of Chuck Schumer in the past when he deserves it, certainly. But in this case, he had some strong words for the White House.

According to CNBC, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer argued on the floor of his chamber Wednesday that sending one or two-time checks would not provide enough to support people who lose their jobs, essentially making the same point you just made, John. Schumer suggested that instead, you know, how about provide expanded and beefed up unemployment insurance that would cover Americans for a much longer time and would provide a much bigger safety net? What I don't understand is why can't we beef up the social safety net and provide stimulus? Yeah, why does it have to be either or? So, you know, there's a critique there for Schumer as well. But at the same time, I think he does bring up a really good point about how, hey, this is a good opportunity to beef up the social safety net.

The same social safety net, the Republicans have been aggressive in, you know, deteriorating. Yeah. And look, I know this is going to be a little bit repetitive. We keep, you know, sounding this. Horne or whatever, but had we already made progress on some of, for instance, Bernie Sanders platform of issues, what he would want to do, we would already be better place to weather this. We would need less emergency action. We would still need to do quite a bit. But people wouldn't have nearly the same concerns that they do about, is their health insurance going to cover the testing? If they lose their job, do they lose their health insurance? There's like a cascade of different ways that the way the system has been set up is, does I?

in a way that is not going to weather these sorts of crises. Where do you have, you know, not only a crisis in health care, but also a crisis in the economy. And the crisis in the economy is going to make the crisis in health care even worse. So like, look, if they're moving in the direction of these policies, I think that that's a good thing. I think that we should keep the pressure on them to make sure that this isn't like, okay, a one-time UBI. And then we will never hear those letters uttered again by the leadership of either parties. We need to show, we to make sure that people get the assistance that they need now, but also use this as a learning opportunity for a country that has been needlessly resistant to these sorts of policies.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think that this is really the best opportunity to make the case. That's why I think it's important for Sanders to remain in the race, regardless of what his chances are. Because the second he drops out, people stop paying attention, right, to what his message is and what he's proposing. And it's not even about Bernie Sanders. It's about what he wants to accomplish for the working class in America and how his proposals are really the only proposals that would have made us prepared for what we're going through right now had they been implemented before the fact, right? So it really shows the value of what he's proposing. And I want him to continue pushing that narrative so it would resonate with more voters. Because now it's just amazing to me.

Like, you know, some of my family members who aren't necessarily as progressive as we are, they're, you know, straight up Republicans in some cases. All of a sudden, they're demanding stimulus. All of a sudden, demanding unemployment benefits. All of a sudden, they're demanding the very things that Republican lawmakers have been against. And it's so incredible to me to see the likes of Joni Ernst saying, yeah, you know, I'm a little concerned about what this is going to do to the deficit and all that. But this is important, we really need to do this.

No, but we should have had a robust social safety net in place ahead of time. Rather than dealing with the symptoms of a flawed system, why don't we reform that system, right? Yeah, yeah, it was, this is maybe a weird, so you chose Joni Ernst, that's a great example. She's an elected Republican, I have a worse one, a more ridiculous one, but Ben Garrison, are you familiar with that name? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So Ben Garrison, like for people who don't know, he's the cartoonist. that does these like a parody of a parody of someone who's a Trump bootlicker, but like he does political cartoons for him. And he had one today that was like it was helicopter Trump. He

literally wrote that in the image. And it was Trump and Andrew Yang in a helicopter dumping cash over like a city. And like he's made cartoons before mocking UBI is this like far left plot. And so it's an opportunity though. Because some of these Trump supporters, they don't oppose these sorts of policies because they're actually opposed to them. And I don't even think that they substantively understand what socialism is to the level where they could be opposed to it. They just oppose it because they think their leader opposes it. But if he is going to even sort of in a selfish way or a self-interested way, if he's going to like dip his toes in these sorts of policies and people who might have been resistant to it because Fox News

tells them that they're bad, if they get a taste of it and they like it, then let's make sure that we have politicians that are providing that as not just a stop gap, but as a permanent path forward, a fundamental shift to our system that not only brings us out of this emergency, but make sure that when the next one happens and we probably will have, you know, a future COVID or some other virus, something like that, that we're set up as well as we possibly can to deal with it. Yeah, that way we're not wasting any time in Congress debating whether or not, testing and treatment for a pandemic should be free. I mean, what a waste of time.

Of course it should be free. I mean, it's just, it makes the country better prepared for these types of situations. We were devastatingly unprepared and we've wasted so much time debating things that we should have already had, you know. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. Hopefully, when we come back, you guys will see a better video image of me because I do have a camera set up that decided to malfunction right before we went live.

And then when we come back, we have other incredible stories for you guys, including what the Democrats are proposing. Luckily, we do have some strong progressives like Ilhan Omar, and I want to give them some credit because they are fighting for what we really need to get through this. We'll be right back. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Young Turks. Thank you for bearing with us. And I'm excited. I'm excited because now we have a better camera shot. We have what I worked on all night to set up. So I wanted to just encourage everyone who's watching to, you know, if you're interested in supporting the show, if you want to keep us going, obviously we're running on fumes right now. But you can support us by going to tyt.com slash go. TYT.com slash go is where we're doing our fundraising effort to keep TYT.S. sustainable. And look, more importantly, what we want to do through this crisis that the world is facing is continue providing you guys the stories, the information, the content that's so important. John's been doing a great job with damage report every morning. He's still doing his thing. We have the crew working remotely. We have everyone doing what they can to make the show keep going. So the best way that you can show your support is to watch. And if you can, because we know that it's a difficult time for everyone right now. contribute any little bit helps tyt.com slash go.

All right, with that said, let's move on to the rest of the rundown. There's a debate raging among left-wingers, let's keep it real, about who is really looking out for the best interests of American workers during this pandemic. Now, we've been seeing some questionable proposals coming from some Democrats. For instance, when it comes to the stimulus spending, there's been some talk of whether or not there should be means testing. Should people qualify for a stimulus check if that type of legislation comes through? And it has been interesting to see some Republicans say, no, let's just move forward. We need to get money into the hands of Americans,

right? Let's deal with the tax penalty later if someone receives money that they didn't necessarily need. But I do want to note that there are some Republicans who are doing some shady things. they deserve to be called out. And there are some Democrats who are proposing some pretty strong, robust solutions for people who are worried about their personal finances. So let's start off with Republicans, okay? Republican senators on Wednesday teamed up to kill an amendment introduced by Democratic Senator Patty Murray that would have expanded paid sick leave to millions of U.S. workers left out of a bipartisan coronavirus relief package. So look, I think that it's important to put cash in the hands of Americans, but I also think it's important to offer protections

so they're given paid time off and they're not as panicked about what their finances are going to essentially go through as a result of being forced to stay at home. A lot of people have been laid off already. A lot of people have been told like Christian, for instance, my husband, he's a bartender. So he was told, well, look, there's no work for you. So go home. And if he's not at work, he's not earning a paycheck. Under what Patty Murray was suggesting in his, in her amendment, you would have a protection where you would, yes, you'd be forced to stay at home, but you would at least have a protection where you'd be paid and you wouldn't be laid off.

So that's what Republicans did. And I don't think we did a good job in calling them out yesterday. So I wanted to make sure that we brought that up today. Also the amendment, which would have guaranteed two weeks of paid sick leave as well as 12 weeks of paid family leave and medical leave to all U.S. employees and independent contractors. So that's a pretty significant protection for workers. And unfortunately, every Republican president for the vote, 51 in total, voted against the amendment, while every Senate Democrat voted in favor. So before we get to what the Democrats are trying to do, John, tell me what you

think. Yeah. So one of the things that's been incredibly frustrating as the Senate has started to take this seriously is they want to reassure the American people that they take it seriously. But every tiny little knit that they can pick in these bills, every way that they can constrain it or handicap it or limited or segmented or means test it shows to me that they fundamentally don't, that they might see this as an emergency. But a lot of them are acting as if the main sort of emergency it is is a PR emergency, an emergency for their approval ratings there. Yes. You know, the chance that they might be reelected, Sure, they're helping, but they're not, it's not, you know, like, like no holds barred,

whatever it takes. And they definitely seem like they don't want to set up a precedent for this sort of policy continuing going forward. Like we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna be very narrow. It's gonna be very targeted. It's gonna be limited in duration. And there, I mean, the example you gave, it was unified opposition. It wasn't like a few people. Right. And so obviously they're not even scared of the appearance of being against this. Again, it comes back to a fundamentally unsurious, like it's not an emergency to these people, their approach so far. Yeah, exactly. And I think that it's really important to pay attention to their actions because when they're out there talking to the media, Republicans specifically,

Republican lawmakers have said all sorts of wonderful things about what they're going to do to really fight for the disenfranchised American worker, the person who's really panicking about their finances, but what they do in Congress seems to be very different from the rhetoric that they're using. And so I do see some action by Democrats that I think should be applauded. So for instance, when it comes to stimulus money, so this would be checks given to Americans in order to make ends meet while this pandemic continues, Representative Maxine Waters actually proposed something that I think is pretty good. So Maxine Waters proposed on Wednesday having the federal reserve sent $2,000 to every American adult and $1,000 to every American child until the crisis ends.

So this would be monthly. And look, I think that you should do this in addition to really strengthening our social safety net, which other Democrats have also proposed. But here's the thing. They need to be better in their messaging. I think they need to do a better job in, in, you know, the PR game. I am sad to say it, but every news story that I've seen on the surface makes it appear as though Republicans are really looking out for us while Democrats are giving us the middle finger or they're like dilly dallying with nonsense about means testing. And to be sure, some Democrats are dilly dallying with nonsense like means testing. But for the Democrats who are actually pushing for more, they need to do a better job in getting that message out there. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah. Oh, 100%. And look, in an ideal case, following literally months of Donald Trump and right wing media, like gaslighting the American public about what is likely to happen in regard to coronavirus, what we should have is a unified, serious, professional and responsible Democratic Party who is ready to step into the void, the gap of leadership that we're experiencing and do the right thing. Unfortunately, as with so many other issues, and in so many cases, that's not what we got. We do have some good Democrats, and a lot of the names that we're going to be highlighting and some that you've already named are the the ones that we've grown accustomed to listing in these sorts of situations. But right now,

I would say like Nancy Pelosi, they need to hold an intervention. That's what I tweeted earlier. Like they need to get her to understand the message that she is sending to the American people that is going to lead to more panic. And I would also say is going to be really damaging to the Democratic Party. So whether for moral reasons or pragmatic personal political reasons, She's got to take this far more seriously. And there needs to be coordination. They need to get together, figure out what their approach is going to be. Hopefully it will be the right sort of approach and then put pressure on not only Donald Trump,

but Republicans in the Senate. And I would say also governors around the country to move in the right direction. It just seems so cobbled together and haphazard and kind of the bickering in the back and forth. We don't, like we're in an emergency and not as big of an emergency as we'll be in soon because there's still a lot of Americans that are sort of like they haven't really figured out what's going on right now. But at some point they're going to and they're going to look to D.C. to have done something. You know, the thing that really does terrify me is in order to really beat this thing and not be in this precarious situation for an extended period of time, you need everyone to be on board, right?

You need all Americans in all states to be on the same page. Everyone should be practicing social distancing. And in red states, like Ron DeSantis from Florida, refused to shut down Florida's beaches. And as a result, a bunch of spring breakers were seen partying it, partying it up, you know, doing their thing. And cases of coronavirus actually shot up in places like Clearwater, Florida, where that spring break action was happening, right? And so that type of behavior is going to needlessly extend the period of time that we're going to be dealing with this crisis. Because the whole point of doing this is we need to slow down the spread.

We need to find a way to like, you know, prevent this from overburdening and overwhelming our health care system. And if you have red states that aren't on board, I mean, this is, this could last much longer than it needs to. That's what terrifies me. And so, yeah, you're right. I mean, there's a lot of weird cobbling together when it comes to the stimulus proposals. I hate that it keeps coming in weird waves and stages.

Like, why don't you guys get together and pass something that's robust and get money into the hands of Americans right now? Offer protections for American workers and their jobs right now. You know, I think it's interesting that with Steve Mnuchin's proposal, the White House's proposal, There's like this talk of we really need to protect these businesses and basically bail out the airline industry and the cruise industry. And then if they prevent any layoffs or things like that, then we'll do loan forgiveness. Okay, cool. But like what about loan forgiveness for American workers? Like what about, you know, doing more for the people who actually make those companies successful? Like, it's just, it's frustrating to see this.

I, 100%. I mean, you pointed out some of the bailouts that they're planning. And look, I have no doubt that some of that is going to be necessary. But I think the most egregious case that thankfully people have been talking about is what the airlines are asking for. They're asking for these tens of billions of dollars. And we know what they did following the last time that they were bailed out. They artificially inflated the price of their stock by buying back literally billions of

dollars of it. They should be 100% like steel, like lockdown, no ability to do that. And they should be put on notice that if they do engage in the same sort of wasteful activity after once again being bailed out, executives are going to be going to prison. You can tell it to the current ones, you can compile a list of the people who will be under criminal penalties if they do this again. But much more importantly, like I know that that's what DC is going to be focused on. I think obviously we're more focused on what's happening to regular people. And look, the checks are going to be helpful, although so far I would say that

the scope and scale is way too, is way too small. But there needs to be not only a secession of student loan interest, but also the student debt payments, that can go across multiple things. Various forms of medical debt, regular debt, rent, all of that. If there is not a halt to that, then those checks are going to come up short for a lot of people. John, I'm so happy that you brought that up and you're absolutely right. So just to give you guys a sense of, like, what's happening with, you know, us on a personal level, you know, I have a lot of family members who aren't working right now. They're not earning a paycheck because of what's going on and they're panicking. And so they come to me for advice because I'm keeping a close eye on what Congress is doing.

And so they want to know if there's any type of like economic relief coming or any plans coming. And the advice that I've been giving them is do what you can to avoid having to pay anything right now, right? Like so call your your mortgage lender or talk to your landlord and see if you can defer, you know, your student loan, see if you can defer while we're in the middle of this pandemic. And then I realized like, okay, but do we even have any protections for something like that? Because oftentimes when you defer, the interest isn't deferred, right? Like you, the interest really starts to pile up and, you know, your payments end up ballooning. And so I would like to see something done to protect people who aren't.

aren't able to pay their mortgages right now, right? I know that there's some positive movement when it comes to preventing foreclosures while we're in the middle of this pandemic, which is good. But I'd like to see Congress push that a little further. And by the way, to your point, Chuck Schumer did call out the amount of money that's being proposed for Americans. This is what he said. And again, credit where credit is due.

He said, quote, a single $1,000 check would help someone pay their landlord in March. But what happens after that? $1,000 goes by pretty quickly if you're unemployed. In contrast, expanded unemployment insurance, beefed up unemployment insurance, covers you for a much longer time and would provide a much bigger safety net. As I've said before, I think we should do both. I think that the amount of money given in those stimulus checks should be higher. And more importantly, I do think that we should use this opportunity to really make the case.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic or You 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. For pushing for a robust safety net. So these protections aren't just given to us now. But more importantly,

they're available to us in the future. So we're not constantly living in this like state of panic because we're paycheck to paycheck. And then he also, yeah. And one more thing. He said, if there's going to be some of these corporate bailouts, we need to make sure workers and labor come first. The people are not laid off, that people are not laid off, that people's salaries are not cut, if these big companies, many of which did buybacks, I love that he mentioned that, the airlines, I think, did about $45 billion worth of stock buybacks. They have to put their workers first if they're going to get this help. Now, as I said before, like talk is cheap. So it's one thing to say these things. It's another thing to actually put those words into

action. That remains to be seen, but I do like this rhetoric because it's true. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Talk is cheap. What are you going to actually write? into the law that's gonna stop them from doing that. And when they try to do it anyway, which they will, what are the consequences gonna be? Is it gonna be a tiny little fine that's like 1% of the money they save from whatever it is that they're doing? Or is it gonna be a massive fine and people spend time in prison?

I mean, we got through the last set of bailouts and nobody at the top suffered really any consequences. They made tons of money, in fact, and none of them spent time in prison. We need to make sure that we don't have that same situation. And I would say that people should look to, Bernie Sanders gave a digital address two nights ago where, or was it last night, might have been two nights ago, where he laid out what he wants to see happen. And he talked about, first of all, putting together a commission that's going to keep watch for corruption, price gouging, those sorts of things on the corporate side. But then also a commission that is going to be a centralized source for making sure that all of the sectors of the economy and individuals are going to be hit. All the demographics are going to be hit.

that there is a central source that's logging that because like giving the checks to individuals is certainly great. Unemployment insurance is great too. But there are people who've been out of work for a really long time that we want to make sure don't get left behind. People who are homeless who are not even necessarily in the system. We need to make sure that they, and they're going to be hit harder by this virus. People who are undocumented, people in prison, all of these different communities, many of them already more likely to suffer under the virus. We need to make sure that Congress doesn't forget about them because this is exactly the sort of group that generally does get forgotten in these sorts of situations.

Since you mentioned it, I can't help but ask you because we haven't talked about it yet. So the coronavirus conference that Bernie Sanders did, there was some news coming out of it because he got a little salty with Manu Raju at CNN. And he says he's dealing with an effing pandemic. And I just love how like these journalists, journalists, journalists are like, oh, he cursed at me. Like, really? First of all, I personally loved it because, yeah, I mean, I wish he was more like that from the beginning, right? Because anyway, I just, it's just funny to me how they're like so aggrieved at his cursing. Who cares? I'm shocked at what I'm hearing. Like, I've loved his ideas for a long time, but then

he said the F word, I'm not down for that. They're so disingenuous. It's ridiculous. Anyway, let's move on to our next story. And this one is a doozy. So Republican Senator Richard Burr apparently had warned some of his very wealthy donors during a luncheon that coronavirus was going to hurt them economically, that it was going to be a huge societal issue, that they should prepare for it. And mind you, he was telling them and warning them weeks ahead of the American people finding out just how serious the serious the social issue. spread of coronavirus was and how we needed to practice social distancing. So many people, of course, have been laid off already. The unemployment rate is starting to rise. And so the fact that Richard Burr, a Republican senator and also the chair of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate,

felt the need to warn his wealthy donors, but did it really ring that alarm to the American people is so incredibly disgusting and frustrating. And NPR apparently, was able to obtain audio, it was a secret recording from this luncheon that took place on February 27th, okay? So February 27th, his donors were warned about what was going to happen while we were kind of in the dark. Let me give you those details. He said the following to these people. There's one thing that I can tell you about this. It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we've seen in recent history. It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic. Also 13 days before the State Department began to warn Americans against travel to Europe.

And 15 days before Trump banned travelers from Europe into the United States, during the luncheon, Senator Burr said the following, every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they're making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on this. conference. Why risk it? I mean, this is, look, this story put me in a fit of rage, because this whole pandemic really did, you know, it blindsided a lot of Americans. Like, a lot of people didn't expect. Like, everything happened quickly. Like, of course, there was news

of the pan- I mean, there was news of coronavirus for months. But Trump was, you know, telling people, it's not a big deal. He was downplaying it. Richard Burr was not making these types of comments publicly at all. And so people are going to think like, oh, I mean, I didn't even think that we'd have to like self-quarantine. I didn't think that we'd have to do social distancing. I didn't think we'd have to be working from home. I didn't think most people would end up getting laid off or losing their jobs, right? And I'm paying attention to the news. And it was completely downplayed by our lawmakers. And the fact that these wealthy individuals were warned about it, his donors were warned about it before anyone else knew, before average Americans knew is so disgusting.

And it's just, it really does speak volumes of the disgusting corruption we have in this country. Yeah, and think about how powerful it could have been. If he actually was this worried, if he understood what was going to happen, and it's not like it's just like he came up with his fears, he's talking to people inside. He had secret information that we didn't have at that point. Think about how powerful it would have been if he had come forward and actually told the American people about it. If he'd gone on Fox News and given them a dose of inconvenient facts, because this was in the thick of Donald Trump and every one of the most trusted right-wing media figures in the country telling them this is a complete hoax. People are

freaking out for nothing. The only reason they're doing this is because they want to hurt Donald Trump. All of it is fake and made up. And he apparently knew that it wasn't. But the people he was telling are only rich people who potentially could save themselves. And we're finding out today apparently, I mean, he sold like half a million to one and a half million dollars in stock after telling everyone that we're fine. No, he needs to face criminal. Like, how is that not considered insider trading? Right. I mean, he has intel. He has intel that the public doesn't have access to clearly, right? And he is using that to make decisions about his stock. Like, that's insane to me.

And by the way, here's what should infuriate people even more, right? It's already a crazy story, but we know that there are a bunch of craven Republicans who only care about their political careers. And as a result, they avoid criticizing Donald Trump or telling the truth while Donald Trump is actually lying to the American people. Richard Burr is not seeking reelection. He is not seeking reelection. So he has the freedom.

He has the liberty, right, to go out there and warn the American people about what the reality is, and he didn't do that. He reserved that information for his wealthy donors. And look, I'm gonna give you more of what he told them, but I wanna give you some context and background information about what this luncheon was. As I mentioned earlier, it took place on February 27th. So again, well before the American people knew just like the seriousness and the gravity of what we're dealing with.

And the luncheon had been organized by something called the Tar Heel Circle. a nonpartisan group whose membership consists of businesses and organizations in North Carolina. So membership to the Tar Heel Circle costs between $510,000. And on the day that he warned his donors about what was really going on with coronavirus, in attendance were dozens of invited guests representing companies and organizations from North Carolina, According to federal records, those companies or their political committees donated more than $100,000 to Burr's election campaign in 2015 and 2016. This is what they pay for, right? They pay, you know, they contribute to candidates at their donors for these candidates because they do get special treatment.

They get special treatment in legislation, certainly, and they get special treatment when it comes to. protecting themselves both physically and financially when things get serious, when something terrible happens and when there's a crisis. Yeah, I mean, look, him individually, he probably saved himself at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. And God only knows how many people he knows that did the same, that they saved a ton of money. And the issue is that while I look at this as, well, obviously he's going to jail, right? This is obviously, insider trading and probably coordinated with a number of other people. We have no real reason to believe that that's going to happen because this sort of behavior has been going on throughout

the Trump administration. I mean, it's been going on for a long time too. But it's more, it's much more obvious. I mean, in the run up to, you know, the limited situation that we had with Iran earlier this year, there was all that that suspicion that defense stocks were being like purchased right in advance of it. Today, Donald Trump was talking about a number of individual drugs that supposedly he's going to like have them roll out in, in, you know, greater numbers because supposedly it might be able to help with coronavirus. And the share price shot up for those companies. Now it turns out it's not even close to being ready. It's going to be a long time from now. But if you knew that he was going to make that announcement for that one company,

let alone the others, you could have just made a ton of money in a short period of time. And look at his press conference like two weeks ago where he was naming CEO after CEO. I'm sure people were making money off of that. And do you really think that Donald Trump would feel any sort of ethical compunctions from sharing what companies he was going to spotlight or imply we're going to be involved in his effort? He personally has benefited. Has he ever felt any ethical compunctions? Like, he doesn't have that part of his brain, nor can he pronounce the word. No, it's it really is incredible. And any other average person would certainly face criminal charges for insider trading. But, you know, these people are above the law. And while we're sitting

around debating whether American workers should get $1,000 in their checks, or should they be means tested, or should they get $2,000? They're out there robbing people. Like, they're out there breaking the law to further enrich themselves. That's what we're dealing with right now. Let me give be more of what he said. So 16 days before North Carolina closed its schools due to the threat of coronavirus were warned that it could happen. So 16 days before he's talking to his donors and he says this, there will be, I'm sure, times that communities, probably some in North Carolina have a transmission rate where they say let's close schools for two weeks. Everybody stay home. Like if everyone was warned ahead of time, if everyone was warned ahead of time, think about how much more

prepared you would be for what we're experiencing right now. That's like that's another, that's one other part of this that just really kills me because I think about like my, like I don't procrastinate with taxes. I already did my taxes, right? And I didn't have to. Like I didn't have to pay my taxes as early as I did and I would have felt a lot safer right now and a lot more stable right now if I had that money like, you know, just there in case I needed it during this pandemic. And I'm sure a lot of Americans are in the same place and they didn't need to be. Yeah, exactly. Like he could have, he could have provided to his constituents, the country at large, Fox News, hell, he could have just sat down with Donald

Trump and gotten him to accept it a few weeks earlier. I mean, Donald Trump is just like barely taking this seriously now. Imagine if he had a month ago or two months ago, if he had already, you know, if he had put in like a government orders for ventilators to distribute or face mass, or if he had actually cared about the testing kits, which he he implied today that they've always taken the testing kits seriously. And they've been pushing for them from the very beginning. Like West Virginia got like its first testing kit like yesterday. If he had done that a couple of months ago, we probably wouldn't need to be doing what we're doing now. That's a great point. And and that's another reason why the Democrats bungling of this is so

frustrating because like if there was ever going to be some conceivable silver lining out of this horrendous situation, it's that this has been the ultimate demonstration of the conservative lack of regard for government and what it can accomplish, that they don't want it to be capable. Because generally when things are just going, you know, regular situation, the government giving it out of their way is a good thing. And they just roll along and they make a bunch of money. But when it's an emergency, you do need government. And they're demonstrating that they're just, they're not. They're not. set up in a way that they can they can run a government in an emergency. And unfortunately, the Democrats are, they're sort of muddying the waters and they're making it look like kind of a wash, like nobody's serious. Nobody can get it done. It's really, yeah, I mean, lives could have been saved. There could have been better preparation. It's just, it's frustrating to see just how much corruption really takes place and how these lawmakers really have no

interest in representing us or our best interest, just the bare minimum, keeping us safe. Yeah. Anyway, we got to take a break. When we come back, I know you guys have all been waiting for my commentary on Tulsi Gabbard. There's been some updates on her presidential campaign. And I'm looking forward to discussing it. So we'll talk about that and more when we return. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks.

If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. What's up everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rola with you. For those of you who joined in a little late on today's show, I just wanted to give you an update on what we're planning on doing moving forward as we're self-quarantining while we're practicing social distancing. TYT wants to make sure that we continue providing the news and information that is necessary and in order to do that with the limited tech capabilities that we have,

we're going to do a daily live show every day at 3 p.m. Pacific time, 6 p.m. Eastern. And after our live show, we want to make sure we do right by our members, and we will be doing a post game show right after that one hour. Throughout the day, various hosts at TYT will be providing additional content in the form of live videos on our YouTube channel. You can check that out at YouTube.com slash the Young Turks. And also you can watch our show live at t-y-t.com slash live. With that said, let's move on to an interesting development in the Democratic primaries. So Representative Tulsi Gabbard has finally dropped out of the Democratic primary.

And I say finally because she really never gained any traction. And some people were actually surprised that she was still in the race. And she decided to announce that she is endorsing a candidate. Who's that candidate? Well, why don't we hear from her? I feel that the best way that I can be of service at this time is to continue to work for the health and well-being of the people of Hawaii and our country in Congress and to stand ready to serve in uniform

should the Hawaii National Guard be activated. Now, after Tuesday's election, it's clear that Democratic primary voters have chosen Vice President Joe Biden to be the person who will take on President Trump in the general election. I know Vice President Biden and his wife, and I'm grateful to have called his son Bo a friend who also served in the National Guard. Although I may not agree with the Vice President on every issue, I know that he has a good heart, and he's motivated by his love for our country and the American people.

I'm confident that he will lead our country guided by the spirit of aloha, respect and compassion, and thus help heal the divisiveness that has been tearing our country apart. So today I'm suspending my presidential campaign and offering my full support to vice president. 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 prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN.

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That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. President Joe Biden in his quest to bring our country together. Amazing. So I can't tell how you're going to react to this. Look, we have titled this story, Anna's victory lap, because I'm going to take a victory lap. What did I tell you guys? What did I tell you? Like, no one believed me everyone, because I was one of the first to like actually care enough

to look at her record and look at the way that she voted on a number of issues. Look at her rhetoric, the way she talked about torture. Like in 2014, I'm sorry. By 2014, everyone knew what that torture consisted of. We knew about the waterboarding. We knew about, I hate to say it, rectal feeding. It was full-blown torture. And in 2014, years after we knew about how brutal and criminal that so-called enhanced

interrogation was, she sits there during an interview and questions the validity of a, you know, Senate report on the brutality of that torture and, and, you know, didn't give a straight answer about how disgusting and criminal that torture really was. I mean, that was like one red flag, but there had been so many. And every time I would bring them up, and every time I would question her so-called progressive label, people thought, oh, she's being catty. Anna's, what am I jealous of? There's nothing to be jealous of, right? I'm doing my job. And people just completely dismissed it, trashed me. I don't know what Tulsi Gabbard's political ideology is. She's all over the place, right? And I just, I want people to understand through this story that the only obligation

or responsibility that I ever feel is toward my viewers. And if that means I'm going to have to deal with some backlash in the short term, that's okay, because all dark things come to light, period. So, so the question I have is, I get, I get that you're taking a victory lap. I can see that. No, but it's, I get that. So is it is the victory lap that you predicted that she would endorse Biden specifically? No, my victory lap is more about the fact that she was never this like strong progressive who's going to uphold progressive values. I mean, look, first off, I know that the establishment thinks the primary is over, right? And it would be very difficult for Bernie Sanders to catch up to.

Joe Biden. But he hasn't dropped out of the race yet. And so she couldn't even wait until he drops out for her to make this endorsement. And by the way, it's one thing to say, look, he's not my preferred candidate, but he is better than Trump. And so as a result, I'm backing Joe Biden. But she put together this like super lengthy video where she's like, oh, Joe Biden and Bo, Bose, besties were like totally good friends. And he really believes in like peace and love and aloha. And it's like, come on, man, like you do really need to go that far? Because the fact of the matter is Joe Biden has been very much in favor of the forever wars that Tulsi Gabbard claims to be against.

Well, yeah, so that's why like I, I definitely didn't predict that she would endorse Biden. I definitely didn't predict that she would endorse Biden while Bernie was still in the race. But I mean, she has been very consistent that she would eventually endorse a different Democrat if she wasn't the person. That's why I wasn't that shocked by that. In terms of the eventually lining up behind Biden, I mean, it's sort of been there if you wanted to see it this past year. I mean, she has been, like there's basically two people she hasn't attacked. She hasn't attacked Bernie and she hasn't attacked Biden. Everyone else she was attacking. And we understand why she wouldn't attack Bernie. That makes all the sense in the world.

But why, like if your whole campaign is based around anti-interventionism, I'm like going from her pitch, from her point of view, then he is exactly who you should be differentiating yourself from, but she never did that. And in fact, early on, she defended Joe Biden on this exact issue. So like objectively from a mile high perspective, it doesn't make any sense that she would do this. But if you've been watching the primary, it's not that surprising really. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. When Kamala Harris called Joe Biden out for working, you know, with some of the worst Republicans in the past in order to fight against busing, Right? Tulsi Gabbard defended Biden. So that was like red flag number one. But look, it's not even about like, okay, she endorsed Biden. That's fine. But for me, this is consistent with a pattern that I've seen through her political career. That's problematic, right? That that's problematic for people who are genuinely looking for progressive candidates to support. She is not a progressive, period. Is she right on some issues? Yes. But I had a real issue with her.

presenting herself as like this strong progressive in the race, a strong progressive in Congress, when she is an avid supporter of Narendra Modi in India, who is a straight up fascist and has been brutal, brutal to the Muslim community in India, when she had made those statements about torture, when she voted to try to dismantle incredibly important protections in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. These are issues that are important. These are, you know, you need to pay attention to people's records because there are a lot of lawmakers out there who will latch on to labels because it's good for their political agenda in that moment. But who are they really? And that's what I wanted to focus on. I got a lot of heat for it, and that's fine. I can take

that heat. But I'm glad that a lot of people are starting to realize based on her endorsement today that she never really meant it. Well, I mean, I'm assuming this is probably a very similar thing to what was happening with Andrew Yang. Yeah. Probably wants some sort of influence over him, maybe to be included as Cabot or something like that. I do think it's probably going to be, it's going to be difficult for a lot of her longtime supporters, people who stuck with her to this point to understand why she would line up with a guy who, I mean, they're probably not big fans of. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for everyone who's watching. We got to go. And our post game for our members is next. 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 t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.