The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - May 1st, 2020

Episode Date: May 2, 2020

Joe Biden has a lot of ignorance in his story. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. We're going to be able to be. All right, fine. I guess it's Friday, which means we have to drop it. It's Friday, which means we have a power panel, except we don't. It's just the two of us.

Anna Casperi and John Ida Rola, just the two of us. You know what, John? Yeah, we did. We made it. We made it and we tried. But I wouldn't have it any other way, John. Thank you for being here. We have an awesome show ahead for you, including a few late breaking stories that I hope we get to in this insanely packed rundown. Before we get to the stories, though, just a few programming announcements. First off, as we've been telling you about all week, we will be hosting a special, a three-hour special for Giving Tuesday.

our hope to not only provide you guys with some additional exclusive, not exclusive, but additional content to celebrate you, celebrate the show, celebrate the fact that we're still around through all the ups and downs of this insane media industry. But we also are hoping to continue raising money as part of tYT.com slash go to keep TYT sustainable. Our hope is to raise $55,000. And we know we can do it with your support, with your help, and we'll have fun doing it. So on Tuesday, May 5th, make sure you check us out right after the one hour main show. So starting at 7 p.m. Eastern time, 4 p.m. Pacific, we will be doing a giving Tuesday special. You can watch live by going to t.yt.com slash live.

And John, I think we're actually going to have a panel for that special. You're going to join both me and Jank. Yes. It'll be the first time, I think, since this whole thing happened. Yeah. It'll be fun. Well, we did the Wisconsin cover. which was pretty devastating. But yes, sort of, yeah. Just the whole thing just blends together. Yes, that's true.

We did. And we have some other programming news that's like super exciting. John was part of a pretty significant production called True North. It was about a docu-series about climate change, and we're able to provide it to you. If you're a member, you can watch it in the archives whenever you want. Tyt.com slash join to become a member. Oh, damn, a little tasty taste. John, tell us a little bit about True North.

Well, in that little tasty taste, and right now you can see not only myself, but also my co-host, she was right there, Shavala Madlina. We traveled to Norway and Svalbard and went on a ceiling vessel that's been converted into a research vessel by climate scientists. And we spent a couple of months up in the Arctic, just delving a whole bunch of really interesting topics, almost dying. It was a lot of fun. And I think it all looks so good.

So Taylor, who, Taylor Gill, who is our cameraman, his, the cinematography is so good. The drone shots are so awesome. It's just, you know, you want to be affiliated with something you can be proud of. And I definitely feel that. And now it's available as well as bonus content too for the members. I love it. I love it. So definitely become a member.

Go to tyt.com slash join to get that bonus content. All righty. Well, without further ado, let's get to the news today. And there are some pretty giant news stories, including an update on the Tara Reid allegations against Joe Biden. So let's get right to it. So Joe Biden has finally personally addressed the sexual assault allegations made against him by a former Senate staffer by the name of Tara Reid. This is a story that has continued to develop despite the fact that the Biden camp has attempted to pretend like it doesn't exist. They had only addressed it through a statement denying reeds allegations.

For those of you who are catching up to this story, I'm about to go to Mika Brasinski's interview with Joe Biden this morning. And I do want to warn you that there are some specifics and some details about the accusation. So for anyone who might have been a victim of sexual assault or is triggered by that, please be aware. But without further ado, let's hear what Biden had to say. Former Senate aide accuses you of sexual assault.

And please, to our viewers, please excuse the graphic nature of this. But I want to make sure that there is no question as to what we're talking about. She says in 1993, Mr. Vice President, that you pender against the wall and reached under her clothing and penetrated her with your fingers. Would you please go on the record with the American people? Did you sexually assault Tara Reid? No, it is not true. I'm saying unequivocally, it never, never happened. And it didn't.

It never happened. So that was him unquivocally denying the allegation against him. There's more from the interview. But I wanted to get some of your thoughts before we go to other portions of this conversation. Yeah. And of course, I mean, both you and I, I mean, we've talked about this numerous times now. Most of my thoughts are out there. It was one of the things that I had wanted was for him to,

have to answer to it himself, but not because I thought that it would then solve the whole situation and we'd know for sure exactly what happened and everything would be better. He denied it, which of course he was going to. He did it repeatedly. There are certainly issues that we can take with other parts of the interview, including aspects of the story that were not brought up, which is frustrating because if you're finally going to have them being interviewed about it, we'd kind of like all of the parts of the story that we know about to at least be included in that. And unfortunately, they were not. But this is, I mean, this is sort of what we should have expected. He's going to be asked about it eventually. We knew that that would happen. He would deny

that it was true. And we'd be kind of stuck in the same position we were in before. Yeah, I think that this, I agree with you in that it's important for him to address it personally and I'm happy that he has. But this has raised more questions, especially when it comes to his senatorial records and whether or not he's going to allow for a real investigation, because had she reported this, there would be some documentation. And that part of it I'm super curious about. But there were other follow-up questions by Mika Brasinski that I thought were important. So I'm glad she asked at least some of these follow-up questions. What you're about to watch is an example of that. Stacey Abrams said during the Kavanaugh hearings,

I believe women. I believe survivors of assault should be supported and the voice is heard. Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted, do we believe women? Do we give them the opportunity to tell their story? We must be a country that says yes every time. They now both support you. Nancy Pelosi falls into this category too, as well as many other leaders in the Democratic Party. Are women to be believed, are women to be believed unless it pertains to you?

Look, women are to be believed, given the benefit of the doubt, if they come forward and say something that they said happened to them, they should start off at the presumption they're telling the truth. Then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts. And the facts in this case do not exist. They never happened. And there's so many inconsistencies in what has been said in this case. So, yes, look at the facts. And I assure you, it did not happen, period, period. But why is it different now?

Do you regret what you said during the Kavanaugh hearings? What I said during the Kavanaugh hearings was that she had a right to be heard. And the fact that she came forward, the presumption would be she's telling the truth unless it's proved she wasn't telling the truth. So I personally have noticed a difference in the way. you know, Democrats have handled these accusations versus the way they've talked about or commented on accusations against other high-level politicians, political figures, public figures, like Brett Kavanaugh. With Brett Kavanaugh's story, which, by the way, anyone who's watched the show for a long

time knows, I believed her. I took it seriously. And that was one of the stories that really broke me during the Trump era because of the shan FBI investigation that took place in that case. There has been no investigation in this case. And all of a sudden, the Democrats are saying, including Joe Biden, that there's a qualifier. Like, yeah, believe women in like, that you should like hear them out. But then you need to do this investigation and you need to make sure that, you know,

what she's saying is the truth. It's just an interesting, like, new standard that's being presented that was not the case and was not presented before. Yeah, so I apologize if in advance, I have a hard time expressing this, because I think it's a complex thing that's frustrating me right now. So at the end of the day, assuming the allegations are true, the person who is obviously the most wrong is Joe Biden. In terms of the hypocrisy right now, my frustration is mostly, as you were saying right there, with other people, including, by the way, members of the media like Mika Brzynski, who was doing a great job in that interview, seemed to take it very serious. today, not a week ago or a month ago. And honestly, I don't really care about her that much as an individual.

But as a member of the media with a gigantic platform on MSNBC or CNN, it is one thing to take it seriously now, now that the candidate that I think we can assume you were supporting is the nominee versus doing it before. In terms of women being heard, like, it's not up to Joe Biden, it's up to the media to talk to the person and to spread her message and to be willing to bring her on, that sort of thing. Joe Biden is potentially the villain in the story, but he's not the goalkeeper on whether the media talks to her. And obviously, some reporters didn't are getting credit for that right now. And so it feels a little bit like to some extent, she's doing her job and asking him

the question, asking him the question. Yes, that's good. But also there's a little bit of like covering the ass of the media by implying that somehow that what Biden had been stopping them from taking the story seriously, or even asking him about it during the last few weeks since the story has been common knowledge, he's done many interviews, but they weren't asked about it. Now, maybe he set prerequisites on doing the interview. That's possible. If so, let us know that, because that then again makes him the villain in that particular aspect. But there's a lot of frustration that I think we should have, and it isn't just for him. It's also for the people who protected him up until this point. That's what's so bad about these

sorts of allegations, the culture that's been created, it isn't just the people that's doing it. It's all of the people who continually protect them and cover for them. And it seems like we're seeing that same thing still. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think that there's plenty of blame for the way Joe Biden has handled this. I mean, it has taken how long for him to personally address it. We also do know that the Biden camp released talking points for their surrogates and supporters. And those exact talking points were regurgitated by female Democratic politicians, right? What you heard Stacey Abrams say in her defense of Joe Biden was almost word for word what

was in the talking points of the Biden camp gave people. So I bring that up because there, I think that there is a coordinated effort to try to keep these accusations, you know, on the down low, clearly that didn't work. Because luckily, we do have independent media sources like The Intercept, Ryan Grimm doing incredible reporting on this story. And there was just this buildup of corroborating or at least elements corroborating parts of Tara Reid's story. So for instance, Tara Reid told The Intercept that her mom had called into the Larry King

show in 1993 to ask what her daughter should do. And then it turns out that video exists, Ryan Grimm reported on that. And you have investigative reporters with business insider finding two women who corroborated Tara Reid's story, one of them being her next door neighbor, the other being a former colleague of hers. This is all evidence that could have easily been found by these mainstream media sources that have unlimited resources, but you got to ask yourselves, why did they choose to try to bury this story?

It wasn't until it became a monster of a story that they finally decided to cover it. And I agree with you in that, you know, the way that it's been covered by them seems to be more in line with like trying to protect him as opposed to trying to get to the bottom of what's really going on. They could have covered this when the primaries were still happening because the allegation came out during the primaries. That would have placed the Democratic Party in a much better position to beat Donald Trump because we would be able to make a much better choice in terms of having a candidate who's

more electable. But anyway, I think that things played out. unfortunately the way that they were hoping it would. But that's my speculation. So minutes before Biden made his appearance on Morning Joe, he did release a medium post that I want to give you a few statements from. So he writes, I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago. They aren't true. This never happened. And then he says, responsible news organizations should examine and elevate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways,

he does not provide examples at all for how her story has allegedly changed. Her story has not changed. Her story has been more, I guess she elaborated on it more and shared the sexual assault component of it, but she has not changed her story. So I don't know what people are referring to when they say that. giving more context and providing more detail into what she experienced with Biden is not the same as changing the story. She also writes, she has said she raised some of these issues with her supervisor and senior

staffers from my office at the time. They, both men and women, have said unequivocally that she never came to them and complained or raised issues. News organizations that have talked with literally dozens of former staffers have not found one, not one, who corroborated her allegations in any way. No, that's not true. The high-level staffers who worked for him in the Senate say that they do not recall Tara Reid coming forward. And there was an intern that Tara Reid was overseeing who corroborated a portion of Tara Reed's story. Tara Reid said that once she complained about the sexual assault allegations,

she was abruptly fired. She was no longer overseeing the intern program. She was an overseeing it. And so she was fired abruptly. One of the interns did corroborate that portion of the story. That part was conveniently left out of his post. One other thing. So the former staffer, he writes, has said she filed a complaint back in 1993, but she does not have a record of this alleged complaint. The papers for my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personal files. There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be, the National Archives. The National Archives is where the records are kept at what was then called the Office of Fair Employment Practices. I am requesting that the Secretary of the Senate ask the archives to identify any record of the complaint she alleges she filed and make available to the press any such document.

But it turns out that the documents actually are unlikely to be there. An investigative reporter with Business Insider looked into this and wrote the following. Joe Biden said that Tara Reid's complaint can only be found at the National Archives at what was then called the Office of Fair Employment Practices. But a National Archive spokesperson told me that they do not hold records from that office. Instead, a Senate historical office staffer said the Fair Employment Practices Records are governed by a Senate resolution mandating that records containing personal privacy information closed by statute and records of executive nomination are covered. closed for 50 years. So when those records are actually going to be available to the public, it'll be two decades after this story blew up. So this is, there are actual inconsistencies in his story, but hey, let's just let that go, I guess. Or at least a lot of ignorance in his

story as to where records actually kept. But the frustration too is that even hypothetically, if we were to find that, that would show that he was either lying about the, um, an issue being filed or not remembering it, but it would be a, it would be about sexual harassment effectively because supposedly the actual initial complaint wasn't about the assault. So even that, even if we found it, which would be great. And again, it would show that his recollection or the way that he's been talking about it is incorrect, but it wouldn't prove the particular details. Right, exactly. They were the only two people who were there when this alleged assault happened. So it's a difficult case to prove. But my issue with this has been the smearing

of Tara Reid, the attempt to bury the story, the lack of transparency from Biden himself, the unwillingness to address it. These are all problems. And it's the type of stuff that does not make him the most electable person. Right. So look, we're principled. We're sharing the story with you guys. These are the details. This is what we know so far. And you get to make a decision about what you feel comfortable doing. It's just, it's such a devastating story. And I hate the fact that we're having a conversation about a credible sexual assault allegation against the one person who could get elected over Donald Trump, you know?

I mean, for all that we've heard from Democrats indicating that getting Donald Trump out of office is the most important thing, it's the top priority, then why wasn't this properly vetted earlier, especially when it first came out during the primaries. I mean, considering all of the other issues that were raised about what a candidacy of Joe Biden against Trump would look like, and that didn't bother them. I mean, adding one more thing to the pile is not going to, they were all in. Yeah, it's unfortunate. There's a lot about the primary that I wish had been done differently.

One of the things that's frustrated me, especially in recent days, and even this morning, as I was watching Biden talk about it, is that it's not impossible that. new information could come out that would substantially change our perception of what happened or verify details, but it seems unlikely that that's going to happen. Perhaps you'll have more corroborating witnesses or, you know, a document will show that there was a sexual harassment complaint or something like that. But it seems unlikely at this point that something massive is going to come out that's going to drastically change this story.

And so the status quo of, you know, we don't know exactly what happened. he's saying it didn't happen, it seems like that's probably going to hold. We'll see how it develops. We'll keep updating you all on the story. But this is where we are now. Luckily, there was enough pressure for him to address it. And I think if there continues to be pressure, then maybe he will release some of the documents that people are asking for. There should be an investigation into this. If I was disgusted with the lack of investigation when it came to the Brett Kavanaugh allegations, I'm equally disgusted by this. For me, party ideology does not matter. What matters is getting to the bottom of it and making sure that we're consistent

and principled. And we don't use allegations of sexual assault as a political tool, as opposed to, you know, something that we should learn from to improve society, not just for women, but for men, for anyone who could be a victim of sexual assault. We got to take a quick break. When we come back, we have a pretty giant TYT Investigate story. It has to do with basically doing away with some of our rights in suing our companies that we work for if we get sick from coronavirus. That and more when we come back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR.

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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 up. brooding and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get

informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. I kind of wish I could go to the beach, but obviously we can't. We're responsible human beings, plus Gavin Newsom has shut down all the beaches, including those in Newport Beach. All right, so let me give you some member comments and then we'll move on to the rest of the news. The good doctor writes in and says, Biden also said he didn't say in Congress to cut Social Security and Medicare cue video.

Yeah, that's one other thing. I mean, he denies doing things that he has done as a lawmaker all the time and is like, like outraged when anyone brings it up. So it's a little bit of an issue. Matt says so much for believe women, MSNBC should have had Tara Reid on the show first. Only having Biden on to refute is basically pointless. The viewers must hear from Tara herself. That helped give all previous accusers their credibility. I want to note that reporters have indicated that Tara Reid has been approached by Fox News several times and has said no. And she's hoping that either CNN or MSNBC invite her to come on and share her side of the story. So she's not doing

this as like a political hit job to help Trump, even though she's being painted and smeared that way. Yeah, if she was going to, she would be on Tucker Carlson tonight. She could do that if she wanted to. She could do the whole hour. She's not. And she's refused. Engineer says Biden claimed many inconsistencies in her story. Was there no follow-up asking what inconsistencies? Another fluff interview passing as journalism. So, to be clear, I don't think he mentioned the many inconsistencies in the interview. The big and small, many inconsistencies big and small, that was written in his medium post. But nonetheless, I think that Mika Brzynski should have asked about it for sure.

Like, oh, okay, well, what are those inconsistencies, both big and small? Anyway, all right, well, let's move on to the rest of the news. Workers from major corporations, including Amazon, Whole Foods, Target, and Instacart are walking out on the job today in order to protest the unsafe working conditions and the lack of hazard pay and fair pay, considering they are considered essential workers who are putting themselves out there in order to do their jobs. They're risking their lives. So they deserve the protection they're demanding.

Now, one thing that we should also be aware of is while they're out there protesting and striking, behind the scenes, government is working the way that it has been working. You have corporate lobbyists doing everything and anything possible to clear these companies of any potential liability should their employees contract this virus on the job. Jonathan Larson at TYT Investigates wrote a very detailed piece about this, talked about how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is part of this lobbying effort and how they're already having a great deal of influence on some lawmakers. According to his piece, corporate lobbyists, including former top aides to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have been quietly working

to curtail the legal rights of Americans regarding coronavirus. Disclosure forms show that lobbyists for individual companies and the biggest corporate lobbyists in the country have been pursuing legislative and regulatory restrictions with Congress, the White House, and federal agencies. So there are two things that you should pay close attention to when it comes to this story. One is referred to as the False Claims Act, and that would essentially squash potential whistleblowers. The other is the private right of action issues, and that blocks people from taking on corporations in court. So this would clear these companies of any type of legal liability should their employees

get sick or die from working during the pandemic. Among the lobbyists working on the CARES Act private right of action issues for the chamber, meaning the Chamber of Commerce, where G. Hunter Bates and Casey Higgins, Bates was McConnell's chief of staff. Higgins worked for the then speaker Paul Ryan. I bring that up because this is just the classic revolving door of politics. They already have nice, cozy relationships with these lawmakers. And then on top of that, of course, there are always campaign donations and the financial corruption that we talk about on a regular basis. And that unfortunately is going to persuade some of these lawmakers to push to protect these

companies that are not providing, you know, just the bare minimum to their employees, masks, gloves, social distancing. the guidelines that we've been told over and over again to keep people safe so they don't contract the virus. I have more, but John, I want you to jump in. Yeah, well, like, think about what's going on right now, that this is a time when, like in the last crisis, huge amounts of money are being handed over to corporations. And rather than that money coming with new strings attached to make sure that it's used

in the right way in ways that are going to help out workers and all of that, it's being accompanied with new powers, new, like being unhampered by regulations. I mean, we especially see that with the meatpacking plants, that in addition to what's going to be coming, which is as you're saying, they're going to be forced to bring their workers back in, the workers are definitely going to come back in because if they don't, they're not only going to lose their job, they're going to lose access to unemployment as well. And now if they get sick or injured on the job, they're going to be protected from any sort of lawsuits having to do with it.

And then at the same time, we talked about, you know, all of the different regulations on line, speed, inspectors, and all of that. that they're getting. So I'm glad that we're talking about this because we need to make sure that to the extent that we can, we stop them from getting these new protections from lawsuits during coronavirus. But what I'm worried about is them coming out of this crisis newly insulated from lawsuits that don't explicitly have to do with the pandemic, that might involve injuries on the job or loss of life from other things. And if they're being told that you guys have to get going, you have to rub up the economy as much as possible, and the overarching signal that they're

getting from the government is that you will be protected from the consequences of whatever happens. That's scary right now in the crisis. But I think it should be scary looking ahead, too. Once we're out, what is the state, what is going to be the state of these companies? What is going to be the state of the oversight and regulations that can remain? You make a great point. And what we've noticed in crises of the past is there are bad actors who use our moment of tragedy, our moment of crisis, to roll back regulations, to further insulate themselves from any real justice. And during the coronavirus, I mean, there have been a number of stories of the Trump

administration deregulating entire, like, sectors of our economy. Like, for instance, the EPA told massive corporations that they don't have to worry about any type of environmental oversight during the pandemic. That's a disaster. That means that they can pollute as much as they want. They don't have to worry about the FDA coming after them. I'm sorry, the EPA, my apologies. They don't have to worry about the EPA coming after them. Also, there is a big story. It was covered by The Intercept about how William Barr, the Justice Department, wanted to hold suspects indefinitely without even charging them during the pandemic. So there are all these rights and all these regulations that we have in place that are being

rolled back right now. And I worry that people aren't paying close enough attention. We already know about the types of civil liberties that were taken away from us because people bought into the fearmongering after 9-11 and thought, oh, we have to do this. We have to give up our rights in order to protect our national security. We now know that it was all a lie and we shouldn't allow them to fearmonger, to see scare us into, you know, basically giving up our hardened rights. That's what's happening right now. And by the way, I know that we're going to talk about the protests, the like

Michigan and the anti-lockdown protests and things like that. And these are people that supposedly, if you believe the reason they say they're in the streets, it's that the pandemic isn't the problem. It's the loss of your rights during the pandemic. But which rights are they talking about? Are they talking about the corporations that are like sending all their lobbyists to D.C. right now to find out how they can be freed up to do whatever they want while being handed hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars overall. Is that the loss of rights and freedom that these people are protesting against? No. It's just that they can't go to like a baseball game for a couple of weeks. Like once again, they have been so scared that they're distracted

by all this stuff that supposedly is super important, super high priority. And the people who have actual power right now, the swamp that they've been wanting to be drained for some time, It's all in D.C. and they're getting what they want. And none of these protesters seem to nowhere care about it. Exactly. You make such a good point. And I think part of the problem is this isn't, this should be a huge story. I mean, this is what should be at the top of a rundown for every major news organization because this actually has real consequences on people, on employees. And it's not really getting much coverage. So if you're watching this and you want it to get more coverage. You want this type of story to gain more traction. So people are aware of the

types of rights they're having taken away from them. Then share this story. We'll include a link to Jonathan Larson's piece in the description box if you're watching this online. And, you know, just share it. Share this stream. Share this video. Share everything you can because if you can't get the mainstream media to focus on stories like this, in the very least, we can kind of use our power to get this news out there. Because people need legal recourse. People need the ability to hold their employer accountable if the employer has decided that they're going to save a few pennies and refuse to provide masks for their employees. It's just, it's out of control. And by the way, this lobbying is working. So I want to go to the last graphic

here. McConnell said on Monday that any new relief must shield, must shield businesses or business owners from legal liability for their actions. And then President Trump has said he's planning to exempt companies from liability for their actions to facilitate them reopening. So you're right, not only do they get bailed out on top of that, they are basically held, they're not held accountable if they're not protecting their employees while they're on the front lines doing these jobs. Yeah. So why protect their employees? There's no reason. Because they just want to save a buck. It makes no economic sense for them to safeguard the lives of their employees if they know that they're going to be protected and paid off whether their employees live or die.

It's just out of control. We have more news for you, including Trump's ridiculous and debunked conspiracy theories when we come back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing 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. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also

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All right, so we got to get to these stories. We're taking too long with all these, and I want to make sure to give you guys as much news as possible. Let's move on. So Donald Trump is known for his ridiculous and debunked conspiracies, one of them being this conspiracy that the coronavirus was developed by these mad scientists in a Chinese lab. The intelligence community has already come out to say that this is not a human-made virus. But it doesn't matter because Donald Trump has taken it upon himself to allege that that's not the case.

Take a look. But, yeah, we have people looking at it very, very strongly. Scientific people, intelligence people, and others. What gives you a high degree of confidence that this originated from the Wuhan Institute of Ruralism? I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that. Several sources tell CNN that top administration officials have been pushing the U.S. intelligence agencies for evidence to support that theory.

So far, the intelligence community has not come to any conclusion, saying today in a remarkable statement that all they know is that the virus came from China and that it is not man-made or genetically modified. The intelligence community will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence, the statement said, to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in wool.

So this conspiracy theory, like this attempt to make Chinese scientists the bad guys in this whole case. Like they developed some crazy virus and they released it into the world. That's not what happened. That's exactly what the intelligence community said. They're trying to figure out whether this was based on some accident that occurred within the lab or if it was really something that happened from someone maybe, you know, being exposed to the virus outside of the lab, maybe at one of these wet markets, that's come up.

So they're still investigating this. But what I find problematic, John, is that CNN's also reporting that a number of top officials in the Trump administration have pushed U.S. intelligence agencies looking into the origin of the novel coronavirus to hunt for evidence linking the virus to a Chinese laboratory. That's not what the intelligence community is supposed to do. They're not supposed to have a theory and then look for evidence to back their theory. Well, look, I mean, even if they do that, I just want to make sure that what they find out is actually accurate. If they're being told to suppress information that goes counter to that narrative or falsify information, as we know they have in past international incidents, that's the worst case scenario.

I'd be curious to find out which professionals are putting pressure on the intelligence community. Is it the science people that Trump speaks of? Honestly, I don't know. I do know, yeah, exactly. I do know, though, that at least right now, if you hear the word China, it is just part of an excuse to distract you from the failings of the Trump administration. That is the only reason he has turned to talking about China. Fox News has inspired him to do that.

He spent the first like six weeks of the U.S. version of this pandemic being incredibly congratulatory towards China and, you know, complimenting them in a variety of different ways about their response to it. And only once the death toll started to rise here and he got pressure to change his fall of falling poll numbers, did he suddenly start to be more critical of China? He doesn't actually care. And the thing is, we can't stop if it was intentional or if it was an accident. We don't have control over that. What we do have control over is who our government is and how capable and competent they are when a disaster hits our country. I mean, 95% of what Trump does is look for a scapego to cover up for his failures.

I think you're absolutely right. And Fox News certainly helps him with that propaganda. In fact, JR put together one of his legendary compilation videos showing you just that. U.S. government sources confirm that they believe this virus escaped from either the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the other lab in Wuhan. Do you think that's plausible? Yeah, it's not only plausible, it's probable. You heard the chairman of the Joint Chiefs asked about it, that the intelligence was inconclusive, but there is a growing belief that the COVID-19 virus originated in the Wuhan lab, not as a bioweapon,

but as China's effort to find and deal with viruses to show the world China was as good as or better than the U.S. on that front. And when you look at Wuhan, obviously that Wuhan Institute of Herology is at the the top of the list of suspects. I've been sent so many of these things. Look at them. I just said, it can't be true. It's likely a conspiracy theory. I looked into it. I never saw any evidence. You have evidence tonight. They are saying that it is increasingly likely. There is increasing confidence that the virus, COVID-19, started in that Wuhan lab, not as a bioweapon. Let's just be clear about that. There's no one who's saying that this was a buyer. How would we know that? China reopened wet markets about a week ago. And that's a real indication that Beijing thought that,

or Beijing knew that the wet markets were not the source of the coronavirus epidemic. We need to get the CDC into China. There's really a huge burden on China to tell us where this came from. Did it come from a lab? Did it come from a wet market? Neither of those are good answers. And this was a botched effort to contain this, and it got out to the population. So there's increasing confidence that that's how it starts. Apparently was accidental, not intentional. We don't know, but that seems likely. Again, you can do natural, but still have a botched handling of a virus in one of these labs. It's just shocking. I mean, do you think our own health authority?

First of all, do you think it would be worthwhile for everyone who dismissed this out of hand as crazy? and attack the people who raise the possibility, maybe it would be time for them to apologize. It's just so ridiculous. And look, if Trump really did have some sort of evidence indicating that this virus were created in a Chinese lab, right? It was some genetically modified virus created by humans.

You think that he wouldn't share that classified information with the public? He is the ultimate decision maker or when it comes to declassifying anything, right? And he has certainly shared classified information with the public before. So like this ridiculous childish game where he's like, I've seen some evidence, but I can't show you. We know what you're doing.

Okay. We're not stupid. And we know what Fox is doing. I mean, they got to fill their hours some way. And, you know, Tucker doesn't want to provide critical coverage of the lack of help that Trump has provided to the states or to work in class Americans. So he's got to talk about something. And the thing is, look, does it matter where exactly this came from?

Sure, I care about the truth. And so I would like to know. But one thing I do know is that finding out if it came from a market or a lab intentionally or by accident, it's not going to bring back one life. It's not going to clear up one case of coronavirus that an American has right now. It's here right now. That's what matters. That's what we should be focused on.

Absolutely. Well, Trump is focused on some other things. So let's talk about that. in the state. Now, luckily, they decided to extend the state-at-home order because it's too early. It's premature to open the state back up and have people go back to business. That means that the virus, the coronavirus will continue to spread and more people will die. However, Donald Trump, after seeing that video of armed protesters, they showed up to the Capitol building with military-grade weaponry in military gear and yelled at line by house as they were. were debating this. Trump thinks that, hey, Governor Gretchen Whitmer needs to negotiate with them. They're very fine people. Here's what his tweet said. The governor of Michigan should give a little

and put out the fire. There are very good people. These are very good people. But they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely. See them, talk to them, make a deal. He is the most inconsistent attention-seeking, tension-escalating person on the planet. I mean, he goes against his own guidelines, the federal guidelines. He encourages violence on a regular basis. I mean, think about how terrifying it is to be a lawmaker who has to make a decision, right? You're not supposed to be influenced by anything other than doing the right thing by your constituents. Imagine how terrifying it is making that decision while armed.

Protesters are in the room yelling at you. Yeah. Yeah. And you're watching them. I saw photos taken from the floor where state legislators were just showing photos of people with masks and assault rifles. And the only thing stopping them from shooting you, from them pulling the trigger is that the craziest best armed people in our country haven't yet been given the obvious go ahead

from the president. That when he said to liberate the city, that was shocking. God only knows what's going to come next, but they could at any time. They've, the clear threat of violence is there. That's the whole point of the protest. And what's so amazing is, as I mentioned earlier, there's actual concerns about rights being taken away that these protesters are completely ignoring. It's all the BS stuff.

And they've somehow managed to convince themselves that in states where the governor is a Democrat, this is an unacceptable violation of the Constitution in every way possible and every patriotic American should be in the streets to overturn it. And they're getting, you know, told by the president to continue that. But in Republican states with the same policies, it's totally cool. It's fine. And Trump is secretly telling those governors that they're doing the right thing by continuing it.

It's amazing to me that they're capable of holding those two thoughts at the same time. No, it's also incredible that, you know, Brian Kemp was told one night that what he was doing in lifting the state-at-home orders was great, right? Pence and Trump called him, literally the next day, Trump's like, yeah, you know, I strongly disagree with Brian Kemp's decision to open businesses back up in Georgia. Like he plays these juvenile political games, but it's not just playing games, it's playing with people's lives. And this is insanity.

Impurging this type of behavior is insanity. And I'd want to share one tweet with you all from the Michigan State Senator who tweeted about this. Her name is Dana Polhanky, and she shared this image of what the scene looked like with the following message, directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bulletproof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our sergeant at arms more than today. But I mean, if you have multiple people showing up with those weapons, you know, one person

is not going to protect you if things go wrong. And that's what I'd be worried about. Obviously, the lawmakers are worried about that too because they're showing up with bulletproof vests. By the way, we're talking about this on the same day that Justin Trudeau banned assault weapons in Canada following the largest mass shooting in their country. 22 people were killed. The swiftness in action in other countries is incredible, whereas here in the United States, we either do nothing when it comes to mass shootings or we encourage more of this type of behavior

in an effort to intimidate lawmakers. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, one more story for you. And it has to do with Texas, one of the states that's lifting the stay-at-home orders. So many businesses in Texas are opening today following Greg Abbott's decision to restart the local economy and basically look out for profits over human lives.

Now, this is a problem because the metrics that he's using to make this decision are not valid. valid, given that widespread testing is still not available in the state of Texas. So the Associated Press reported that for the first time since early April, every restaurant and retailer across the state of nearly 30 million people is allowed to open doors to customers, although more widely in some cities than others and still under social distancing requirements. Hair salons, gyms, and bars remain closed. Another 50 Texans had died, though, from the virus. the most in a day yet, and an additional 1,033 had tested positive, the third most in a day yet. So that was reported the day before these orders were lifted, these businesses were allowed

to open. So why is he making this decision? What is he basing it on? Well, he says, Greg Abbott says, that he's focusing on the ratio of positive cases to test conducted, right? So you conduct these tests, and if a certain portion of those tests come back negative, he believes it's safe to reopen these businesses. But the problem is they don't have widespread testing. So there are probably a ton of people in the state of Texas who have the virus, but they just don't know. And as we know, you can be completely asymptomatic,

have the virus, and spread it like wildfire. Yeah. He's also focusing on the number of people who are being hospitalized. But who's to say that people have coronavirus but haven't been hospitalized because they're asymptomatic? It's just, it's nonsense. It is. But wait, Anna, do you know the thing that is fundamentally different between now and when this started that makes us far safer during the pandemic? No, what is it? I was hoping that you would because I don't. I have no idea, nothing. I have another question for you. Do you know the day with the most new coronavirus infections in California? I mean, after all, we've had weeks and weeks of social distancing and all of that. So clearly we've got a handle on it. The highest number was the most

recent day that I have reporting for, April 29th, had the most cases in one day. It is still out there. It's still spreading. We're still losing thousands of people every single day. The only thing that has fundamentally changed is that people have gotten bored. They've gotten normalized to thousands of people dying every day, they just don't care anymore. Right. I think about this almost every day now. And I don't know if it's unfair to make this comment. But I think about World War II.

And I think about what Americans had to do during that time of war. I mean, rationing things, sending their men, their husbands, their sons to war. Like, they had to sacrifice quite a bit for World War. War II. And then you like fast forward to 2020 and Americans are like, I want to get my hair done. I want to go to the gym. No, you don't. No one wants to go to the gym. Literally nobody wants to go to the gym. You're lying. No, I really would. That's like the one thing that I would willingly leave my house for. But yeah, you're totally right. People always wonder, I tweeted about this a couple weeks ago. People always wonder if a zombie apocalypse hit, what would I do? And what you would do

apparently is wait three weeks and then start whining and then let the zombies in because you can't deal with the fences anymore. That's what most Americans would do, unfortunately. Okay, not most Americans, but that's what three out of ten Americans would do. I know, it's devastating. And you know, just going back to Texas real quick, keep in mind that Texas is not the most transparent state when it comes to the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in certain portions of their state. So, for instance, there's been a huge problem with the nursing home and assistant living home deaths. So there have been elderly people dying and their own family members don't know about it. They're not alerted to it until their family member ends up in the hospital.

And it's because Texas has literally passed laws to make it very difficult for families who have elderly family members in these centers to get information, health information about their family members. And so I don't trust Greg Abbott. I certainly don't trust Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. These people care about opening up the economy more than saving human lives. And that's something that we should keep in mind. Anyway, we are out of time. Postgame is later. make sure you check that out go to t yt.com slash join happy half hours tonight check that out as well and we'll see you soon thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to

apple podcast at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon