The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - May 28th, 2020

Episode Date: May 29, 2020

People are sick and tired of this corrupt system of government. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, welcome the Young Turks. Jay Hugh Granite Experian. Obviously a very full show. There is protests about George Floyd's murder throughout the country. We're going to tell you about it.

And then Donald Trump starts a war with Twitter. and we're going to give you the repercussions of that, the reality of that, and the list goes on. Before we get started every day, we're checking in on our thermometer here because we are still in the middle of this coronavirus situation, and we've got to keep progressive media healthy and strong. We're trying to get to 200,000 a month to make this show possible at t-y-t.com slash go. We appreciate every single person who's contributed. Let's take a look at the thermometer here today, 164,211. That's wonderful, guys, but this is the first month we might not make our goal.

Our goal is 200. There's not a lot of days left. If you can chip in, it would make a giant difference. T.YT.com slash go. Thank you guys. All right. We'll check back in with that as soon as we can. Anna, let's get started.

All right, Jank. Well, the United States has experienced another night of mass protest in major cities, including in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who still has not faced any criminal charges for what he did. That was now the infamous video that showed Officer Chauvin basically kneeling on George Floyd's neck, and that led to his death. Now, the protesters are demanding murder charges, criminal charges. charges against the police officer, which has not happened yet. And unfortunately, the media

has chosen to focus on one element of the protests rather than what these protests are really about. They're talking about some of the looting that's taking place, or what they're describing as looting. There were videos of a structure fire in Minneapolis that got a lot of attention as well. But I really want to emphasize that these acts of violence, do not in any way speak for all of the protesters who took to the streets last night. In fact, I think CNN actually did a really good job in interviewing a community activist. He's actually a black man who's a good friend of the victim in the story of Floyd's. And what he did, along with his friends, is create a barrier or a barricade between the

protesters and the third precinct police department in Minneapolis to ensure that there wouldn't be any breakout of violence. I saw that video today. But I will say that in Minneapolis, they are now declaring a state of emergency and they're utilizing the National Guard in order to prevent any of the occurrences that happened last night, including the structure fires and the break-ins into some local businesses. Yeah. So violence is politics of last resort. So we've said a thousand times on this show, don't go down that route. What's happening is there is no politics left for these folks. And several of the protesters said the same exact thing.

And I'll paraphrase here, and the local papers have all the exact quotes. And obviously, they're different people, so they're saying in a slightly different ways. But basically, they said, what option do we have left? And that's because the system never, ever, ever changes. Republicans don't want it to change. They generally like that police can abuse poor people, African Americans, et cetera. And the Democrats are feckless, useless, never fight the people in power. They are the people in power.

And they never bring change. So what is the result of that? So we've been asking for retraining of police so that they don't use excessive force for about a decade now. Now, their problem goes way longer than that. I'm just saying in terms of the young Turks, and as long as we've been able to show you guys videos, and now because of the smartphones, we're getting all this stuff. And every African American that says, hey, you're just seeing it for the first time.

It's been around forever. It's absolutely right. And all those hundreds of years, they never got any change in terms of how the police police treat them. And there's no retraining. There's not going to be any retraining. Nancy Pelosi today says, oh, my God, this is murder and it's terrible. We saw it in front of our own eyes. Great, okay. Finally, a Democratic leader said something. It's not like they ever take any action, though. So is Pelosi then saying, I can't take it anymore with the police. We need to retrain them because they obviously, obviously are taught to use

excessive force. No, she says nothing of the sort. You'll do nothing of the sort. We need federal prosecutors in each one of these cases, because the local prosecutors work with the cops, do real solutions. There are solutions. But both Republicans and Democrats refuse to actually do those solutions. And then when protests turn into riots or looting in any way, even a small percentage of it, everybody that turns around goes, tut, tut, tut, can you believe these people? This is counterproductive. And I've been guilty of that in the past. It is counterproductive. I have pointed that out. But having said that, they keep screaming, what avenue do we have?

And their representatives will not, under penalty of law, represent them. So this is inevitable. So, Jake, I think that's such a great point, especially for the Democrats who are now commenting on this story and signaling that they find it absolutely abhorrent that this community is treated this way, that unarmed people are being murdered by cops in this country. As you know, yes, it's been going on for a long time. But many of them have also been complicit in the messaging that's been used in media to describe protesters like this. Instead of focusing on what their demands are and what it is that led to them to take part in these protests, they start talking

about the morality behind the lack of morality behind the looting that you see, the alleged looting that you see in those videos. But look, I actually think that David Serota did a great job. If you're not subscribed to his newsletter, please do. He has a newsletter called TMI. And in it, he really broke down what the true meaning of looting is and how the real looting that's been taking place during this pandemic has been enabled by the very lawmakers right now who are commenting on the protesters and some of the actions that were taken place.

place last night. So first, he shares, it's funny that you even have to do this, but he shares the definition of looting. This is the Marion Webster Dictionary definition. So looting, to plunder or sack in war, or to rob, especially on a large scale and usually by violence or corruption. Well, the working people of America have been robbed by a large scale through the redistribution of wealth to the very top. And just during this pandemic, we've experienced that. But there's no discussion about that type of looting. For instance, as Sorota writes, in the modern vernacular, the word looting is loaded. It comes with all sorts of race and class connotations. And we have to understand that terms like looting are an example of the way our media often imperceptibly trains us to

think about economics, crime and punishment in specific and skewed, in skewed ways. And then he writes this, working class people, pilfering convenience store goods is deemed looting. By contrast, rich folk and corporations stealing billions of dollars during their class wars considered good and necessary public policy aided and abetted by arsonist politicians in Washington lighting the crime scene on fire to try to cover up everything. And he gives so many examples, many of which we don't, unfortunately don't have the time to share with you right now. But I did highlight some statistics that he shared with us that I think everyone should know about. First off, we taxpayers bailed out Boeing and the cruise industry, and they don't even

have to keep their employees employed. They can fire as many people as they want. So why did we bail them out? What's the point? I mean, previously, the whole idea of a bailout was to ensure that these companies don't end up firing Americans, which would lead to an increase in the unemployment. employment rate. But this is a no strings attached bailout to two major industries. Millionaires and billionaires are also set to reap more than 80% of the benefits from a change to the tax law Republicans put in the coronavirus economic relief package. The change, which alters what certain businesses or business owners are allowed to deduct from their taxes, will allow some of the nation's wealthiest to avoid nearly $82 billion of tax liability in 2020 alone.

Overall, 95% of individuals who benefit from the change make $200,000 a year or more. This was something that was put into and passed in the stimulus bill. And we're talking about looting, right, when it comes to these protesters who are justifiably enraged at members of their community getting gunned down and murdered by police force when they're completely unarmed. I mean, how many videos have come out now showing that George Floyd did not resist arrest in any way, in any way. And all the cops needed to do in that case was just say, no, no, resisted arrest, right?

They didn't have to provide any evidence of that. They can usually just claim that. And the public overwhelmingly, in most cases, just takes that at face value and it's so frustrating. And by the way, just to give you some more information on that tax cut for the wealthy that a lot of people were actually pretty unaware of, myself included, basically it's the change that allows business owners known as pass-through entities to lower their taxes by deducting as much as they want against income unrelated to the business, unrelated to the business. That is looting. It's redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top, to the people who don't

need it at all. And then final stat for you, Jank, and then have at it, because this is infuriating. According to a report published by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, the total net worth of all U.S. billionaires just got $434 billion boost since March 19th. The report indicates that just those top five billionaires saw their wealth increased by a total of $75.5 billion or 19%. The rich keep getting richer. They keep looting our economy for their own personal gain.

And we're sitting here and having a conversation about a structure fire in Minneapolis. That's what's happening right now. Yeah. So lots of layers to this. First of all, Donald Trump owns a company that does pass through income. So it directly benefits the president and his family. It's not an accident that they passed laws like that. So yes, the $434 billion is because the market had bought.

bottom and now it is on its way up, but it's also because of laws that were passed. And so I talked to Jesse Isinger from ProPublica, another great reporter on the conversation, which now you can see at 5.30 p.m. Eastern every day at t.wit.com slash live. And he explained that a lot of the folks that actually own these large businesses are private equity companies. So it's actually not a bailout of the brands you recognize. It's a bailout of their owners, which are private equity companies, that oftentimes made risky investments. And so they take advantage of a crisis like this as an opportunity to bail out bad investments.

And they're bought off corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle, aid and abet that, while tutting, looting of something that's five bucks. 100 bucks, 200 bucks out of a store. Meanwhile, they let people walk away with trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars. And that is why David Serota is despised in Washington and by other reporters, because he actually does report it. And he points out the problems with the powerful. He completely fact-based, nobody ever argues with his facts.

Never, never. They just go, oh, that's inconvenient. He's such a gadfly. You know, I can't believe he's blaming Democrats. Well, who's letting the Republicans get away with it? Who's co-signing on to every one of those things? Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and the entire Democratic Party. So yes, yes, they're part of the looters.

And did they ever fix the retraining of police? No. No, they never fixed it. All they did was help the looters, but Democrats are savvy enough to say, Oh, it's a shame that George Floyd died, whereas Republicans are like, ah, well, you're going to give the cops some leeway. Oh, please. And now, finally, I've said this many times on the show, millions of African Americans

are not all lying in unison when they say the cops have been beating them up for decades and for centuries in this country. So unnecessarily shooting them, unarmed, et cetera. Now we have some body cams, now we have some cell phones. So now we believe George Floyd's defenders that the cop in question Chauvin killed him because we saw it with our own eyes. Now think about the thousands upon thousands of times that African Americans were killed by cops in this country, but there was no video footage.

And the cops said, oh, it was self-defense. He was about to kill me. And every single person in power, including the media, including the Democratic Party, all believe them. And if you didn't believe them, they said, oh, these African Americans and progressives and radicals saying that they don't believe our beloved cherished police officers. Oh, the cops. Oh, I love the cops.

They thought that was a good way to win election. Hey, Amy Klobuchar, where are you at? Amy Klobuchar had a chance to prosecute Chauvin. Did she do it? Nope. When she was a prosecutor in Minnesota, she chose not to do it. She chose not to do it. Why? Because the Democrats are complicit.

Jane, can I give you a little more context into that? Because we're now learning more and more about Chauvin's record. And he had 18 complaints of excessive force filed against him. And in two of those cases, only two of those cases, he was disciplined for using excessive force. So we're learning more about who this officer was. But I can tell you this, an ordinary American in any other job who gets, let's say, 18 write-ups would not be able to keep their job. They just wouldn't. And in this case, you know, and it's not just about Chauvin.

This is what we're seeing in police departments throughout the country. Yeah, I just, Anna, you're so right. Anyone you see out there saying that it's about Chauvin and he didn't follow training, either accidentally or on purpose, or trying to distract you. It isn't about Chauvin. It isn't about one bad apple or a few bad apples. The whole damn barrel is filled with rotten apples. And so the reason isn't because they're uniquely bad people, of course not.

It's because we train them to be terrible people. We train them to use excessive force. And when they do, we say, oh, it's okay. We bravo chauvin accused 18 times, bravo, not discipline, not fired, still on the job, still abusing people, and now killing people. And so it's not now killing people. He's been accused of a lot of horrible things throughout his career, but did this system actually self-correct? If he really was a bad apple,

and my God, it's only Chauvin. We found the one bad apple. The system would have already kicked him out. No, the system celebrates cops like Chauvin. The reason he still had his job is because the system thought he was doing it right. The system's job is to crush African Americans in this country, is to crush the poor in this country. And so don't tell me it's not, it's just one guy. No, it's the whole system that's rotten to its core. And when you say that, the Democrats say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is our beloved system.

We never, ever want to change it. And there's Biden saying nothing will fundamentally change. So they're never going to fix it. And then every time that there any kind of violence breaks out, they shame the protesters. They shame those people. and then say, oh, no, I share your outrage, but you're doing it the wrong way. Then why don't you do it the right way? But they never will, because they're part of this corrupt system.

We're going to take a break. But when we come back, since there are people in this country who are concerned about violence connected to those protesters, let's talk a little bit about how the president of the United States, on a regular basis, incites violence against those who oppose him politically. We'll be right back. All right, back on the Young Turks. So tonight, we've got our second edition of my new show on Twitch. It's called Between Me and Uyghur, just informally talking to folks that are friends of the show

about what they're doing during quarantine and how they're spending their time. Actor Lance Redik is up today. So he's in Bosch, John Wickman. movies and The Wire, of course, and Oz. He's a wonderful progressive. We're going to check in on him. So that's tonight at 8 o'clock Eastern on Twitch.com slash, I'm sorry, Twitch. Dot TV slash TYT.

Check that out. And please subscribe if you're on Twitch. It's free if you have Amazon Prime, but it helps the show. So it's wonderful to do that. All right. Let's go to our members now on our web. website, we read your comments first, t.yt.com slash join to become a member. Foxwater says the news media did the same thing in the 60s by focusing on a small minority of violent protesters and not

on the peaceful protesters or their message. Anthony said, here's the only politics that matters, Jen, taken from Dr. Martin Luther King. Riots are the language of the unheard. That is unfortunately 100% true. Focused on infinity, writes in, thank you, Jank. I must admit I was worried you were go the other way, but your analysis was super empathetic and thoughtful to those of us who have been trying to prevent this kind of reaction for years. When your votes don't count, the cops kill you, all the jobs are gone, and the people are dying all around you every day. What else can you do? And people don't get it. I mean, focus on infinity is exactly right. We progresses have been trying to prevent this by getting you the reforms in the right way,

but they fought us tooth and nail, and they call us radicals, and they call us every name in the book. Well, now you have this instead. So don't complain. Anyway, Anna's Margarita Salt on YouTube Super Chat says Colin Kaepernick tried to shed light on this, which has been going on since our nation's birth years ago. But for too many people, we're focused on how he was protesting instead of what he was protesting. First of all, every NFL owner that's participating in that obvious ban of Colin Kaepernick is a racist. And I can't believe they're continuing it.

Column Kaepernick was a million percent, right? But most importantly, the media that goes along with that, without giving the proper context, as usual, is despicable and the source of the problem. Finally, on Twitter, eclecting miscellaneous, says, I just chipped in $27 that I would have given to Bernie to the young Turks made fundraising. Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste.

It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush, and a refreshing anti-bacterial mouthwash all designed to work together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar.

Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. What the mainstream media did to Bernie during the primary shows that we need to support independent media more than ever.

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And right now we're at 165-363. We're trying to get to 200 by the end of the month. And we need that help so we can stay strong. and sustainable and can at least try really hard to not only get you a progressive message. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom.

In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNF-F-E-N-F-E-Rubbleau. 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. But ultimately change. All right, Anna. There's a lot of talk about violence related to the protests that have broken out

following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota. But I do want to talk about the president of the United States inciting violence, which is exactly what he did, in tweeting out of the United States. video featuring a group of his right-wing supporters who refer to themselves as Cowboys for Trump. This was a tweet in response to a Daily Beast article about how the founder of this group had basically said that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat. And Trump decided to basically quote tweet that and say, thank you, cowboys. See you in New Mexico. Now, their response to the Daily Beast piece was that it was fake news. But oddly enough, they included

the video of him saying verbatim, the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat. Why would the president of the United States promote that? Why would he put that up on Twitter? And if you don't believe me, here's the video. And I added additional context because that's where the Cowboys for Trump argue that there's a miscommunication about what their intentions are. You watch it and Judge yourselves. I've come to a place where I've come to the conclusion that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat. I don't say that in the physical sense and I can already see the videos getting added in

where it's that my ought to go murder Democrats. No. I say that in the political sense because the Democrat agenda and policy is anti-American right now. It's where our country's not coming to a place if you love or hate Donald Trump. Our country is both coming to a place if you love or hate America. So Trump tweeted that, okay, and thanked him for his support. And I just want to say that listen to the crowd cheering before he says, I don't mean that in a physical sense.

And of course, he continues on to fearmonger about what Democrats represent. They hate America, right? I can't imagine ever saying to any group of people that the only good Republican is a dead one. That is disgusting. That is, I mean, it's inherently anti-American, isn't it? I mean, we're supposed to live in a country where we support freedom of thought, freedom of ideas, freedom of speech. But if you have the audacity to disagree with Donald Trump and these right-wingers who are promoting violence on a regular basis during their anti-state home protests. Well, then the only thing you're good for, the only time you're good, is when you're

dead. What kind of messaging is that? I mean, Donald Trump thrives off chaos. He thrives off of dividing us. And I'd love to know what Trump's administration has done to actually better the life for the individuals who are cheering for dead Democrats. Because I guarantee you, with the record redistribution of wealth that we've seen to the very top, he has not made the situation better for the vast majority of blue-collar Americans throughout this country who thought that Trump would actually look out for them. All he's done is cut deals for his friends and provide massive tax cuts for the wealthy. And that's honestly to our detriment.

All of these public programs, these social safety net programs are getting cut. Donald Trump does not care at all about any of the people who were cheering in that video. He doesn't care about the cowboys for Trump. He uses people as political tools. And it's amazing to me that this game, this effort to divide the country further has worked. It continues to work. And I don't know if the situation is ever going to get any better, to be honest with you. All right.

First of all, I was surprised to find that Cowboys for Trump is not an LGBTQ group. But okay, it turns out that they're earnest with that title. Okay, so secondly, Anna, you're absolutely right. Before he said not in the physical sense, all he said was only good Democrats is a dead Democrat, the entire crowd cheered. No, no reservations at that point. He had not done anything to mitigate it. And the crowd's like, yes, dead Democrats, yes, okay?

That's why I'm telling you, the media are cowards. The real problem is the Republican voters. They still love Trump. And when they hear about dead Democrats, they go out of their minds. I don't know if it was a standing ovation. We couldn't see the crowd, but you heard it. They were thrilled with that kind of talk. Thrill!

So the Republican voters love that kind of violence. And then they'll turn around and go, oh, can you believe black people are rioting because a cop happened to murder an innocent black man. Let's kill the Democrats, yeah, right? Come on, get out of here. The right wing is massively violent. They love violence. They live and breathe it. So, and then, look, you want to use rhetoric that is aggressive, talking about attacking politically, even punching in the face politically, as long as you make it clear that it's political, et cetera, and not physical. I'm going to give you a wide leeway. I do that from time to time. It does not extend to dead.

people, dead Democrats. No, that's not an analogy that makes sense. We're going to, like, if he said it in the common vernacular, oh, we're going to kill him in the elections. No, nobody's nitpicking over that. He doesn't mean physically kill them. In this case, he definitely meant dead Democrats. And then after the crowd goes nuts, he's saying, I mean, like, they're not physically dead. Come on. It's the most obvious thing. Okay, fine. He does it. He's some random cowboy for Trump. Okay. The president retweets it. Look, what I can't stand is both the right wing and the media being disingenuous. So I got no love for corporate Democrats. Anybody who watches the hunters knows that through and through. I got no love for Joe Biden, et cetera. But Biden goes in and says, you ain't black if you're going to vote for Trump. This stupid gaffe, et cetera. Oh, my God, big news cycle. Oh, can you believe Biden said? Can you believe Biden said? Trump retweets, the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat. It's a tiny story today.

It's a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny story. Okay. If Biden had retweeted, let's say me saying the only good Republican is a dead Republican, and then- Oh, good night, Irene. Yeah. And then I say, oh, no, no, no, I'm in a political way down a physical way. One, I would be de-platform from everywhere, okay? Two, it would be the biggest outrage.

And every Republican would be like, can you believe mine said that? Can you believe I said that? Now, Trump says, though, yeah, sure. It's just a metaphor, no big deal. And then the bea-goes along with it. No, no, no. So if this is, if Trump's allowed to get away with that,

then I don't give a goddamn what Biden says. I don't care at all what he says, because it's never 1% of what Trump says. So let's be fair, let's be honest, and let's be genuine. But the media will play the stupid games that Republicans play and let them call it 50-50. I'm so sick of it. Well, let me give you a story before we go to break. You're not the only one who's sick of what's going on in this country. A local lawmaker in Pennsylvania is beyond frustrated, actually he's enraged over the fact

that his Republican colleagues hid the fact that one of them had tested positive for coronavirus. Now keep in mind that the Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are urging committees to reconvene even if the pandemic is ongoing. In a lot of cases, according to what Democratic lawmakers are saying, they refuse to wear masks when these committees meet with one another. And so on Facebook, Pennsylvania State Representative Brian Sims puts out this video to express his absolute rage, which I can totally understand. We have two snippets for you.

Let's take a look at the first. Republican leadership knew that at least one of their members had tested positive for COVID-19 that other members who had been exposed to him would eventually go on quarantine, but they didn't go on quarantine until they were done serving alongside us, especially those of us that serve on the state government committee. So for those of you that know, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives under our gerrymandered Republican leadership has been perhaps the most active state legislature in the entire country.

And during that time period, during the entire COVID-19 crisis, the state government committee has been the place where all of these up bills to pretend that it is safe to go back to work have been going. And every single day of this crisis, the state government committee in Pennsylvania has met so that their members could line up one after one after one and explain that it was safe to go back to work. It was safe to go back to race car driving or dog grooming or getting your hair cut. Meanwhile, what we're learning is that during that time period, they were testing positive.

They were notifying one another and they didn't notify us. So that's the first part of the video where he just explains what went down and how it went down. And guys, you've got to understand someone withholding that information from you and all also refusing to wear a mask or practice the social distancing guidelines, not only puts this lawmaker at risk, it puts his family members at risk as well. And you know, the answer, the response that we've gotten from the Republican lawmaker in question has been, well, you know, I, yeah, I tested positive, but it wasn't a big deal.

I got over it quickly. That doesn't matter. You can still spread it. And just because it didn't affect you as badly as it could affect other people doesn't mean that you should be careless about it and just take up meetings, committee meetings, and potentially expose that virus to other people. Let's go to the second part of the video real quick. And then, Jank, I want your comments. Diamond, apparently, many of you know as the person that has led the charge to open up

the legislature, screaming every single day in committee about how we were safe and how there wasn't a risk, has apparently been quarantining himself for weeks. Of course, he didn't explain that to any of us when he was in committee talking with us or walking up and down the aisles or bumping into us, or letting us hold the door open for him. So here's what needs to happen. Here's what I think needs to happen. First of all, Mike Terzai, the Speaker of the House, needs to resign. And any member of leadership that has known what was going on, any member of Republican leadership that knew that members were testing positive that other members were being quarantined and did not tell those of us who were exposed to those members, needs to be

investigated by the Attorney General. And I think that there needs to be prosecutions. I'm in a building right now surrounded by members that can't go see their kids that are having to call their husbands, having to call their wives, and saying, honey, I might have exposed you in everybody I love in this world because one of my colleagues tested positive, but he was protecting his family, but not protecting mine. By the way, real quick before we get to your comments, Jenks, so Russ Diamond, who was referenced in the beginning of that clip, did respond. And this is the kind of nonsense you can expect from Republican lawmakers. On Twitter, he says, lefties wine because I self-quarantined,

but I didn't get tested after positive COVID contact, confirmed by my doc, no reason for testing, even if I could get tested without symptoms. I feel like a million bucks. Well, $500,000 after lefties tax me. You can carry the virus and feel nothing, nothing, nothing. And then you can spread it to someone who has a completely different immune system and they can die. They just do not value lives.

I never want to hear a Republican lawmaker talk about. how they're pro-life ever again, they're full of crap, 100% full of crap. That's the worst part, how dumb they are. And they think they're so smart. It's like this unearned confidence. You guys are literally the dumbest people in the country. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, well, that's what I was going to get at. I don't know if Russ Diamond is more guilty of being selfish and a terrible person or of just being incredibly dumb. So, He's like, ah, I feel like a million bucks. What's the problem?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. You moron, have you not read a single article about coronavirus? First of all, you could be asymptomatic and have it. Hence, you would feel like a million bucks, but you still have it. And then you get sick later. But second of all, a lot of, in fact, a great majority of the people who get coronavirus actually do not get affected that badly by it. A lot of them don't get affected at all by it.

And so that doesn't mean they can't pass it on. They definitely pass it on. And so if you are lucky enough that you were asymptomatic, okay, great. That's wonderful. It's good news. But if you go and hug your mom and she has a different immune system, or if you're even in the same room as her without a mascot, you could give her a coronavirus.

And then she, even though you felt like, a million bucks, there's an excellent chance she will die. And then you go, oh, God, gee, I don't know how that happened. I felt like a million bucks. I don't get it. You know why you don't get it? Because you're an imbecile. And people vote for these Republicans. So look, if you're dumb and you want a dumb leader, then you vote for a Republican. I get it. But then, hey, when you get sick or your family member gets sick, hey, you better hope that you got lucky. Because if you didn't get lucky, and your immune system does not respond, you know, in a good way to coronavirus, you'll be dead because you voted for dumb, dumb, uncaring, unempathetic, sociopathic leaders like Russ Diamond.

So then don't come crying. It was anybody who votes for a Republican against guys like Russ Diamond. And if at this point you're still surprised by that, come on, you're not paying any attention to the news. And if you're the media and you're still pretending, wow, I can't tell the difference between Democrats or Republicans. I can't tell. Well, then you suck at being a reporter.

There's a giant, giant difference. And by the way, if you also can't tell what's wrong with corporate Democrats and you can't tell a difference between a corporate Democrat and a progressive, you also suck as a reporter. But the reality is they can tell the difference. They just choose not to. And so that aids and abets people like Russ Diamond who go around and are careless with other people's lives for their own selfish reasons. And then because they're so stupid, they go brag in public about, well, I don't get it.

Man, I felt good. Not having read one article, doesn't know one thing. And he's a legislator making laws and rules that apply to your life. When we come back from the break, we'll tell you the details of the executive order that Donald Trump has signed in order to politically punish social media platforms because Twitter had the audacity to fact check him. We'll be right back. All right, back on a Young Turks.

Jake and Anna with you guys. Let's go to the members, as always. t-y-t.com slash join to become a member. Gabby Marita says the Republican Party believes in loving America while hating Americans. Good description. Captain Cornball says about the Cowboys for Trump. It was designed to stir up the crowd and bring some attention to his group. It was deliberately provocative and he already had the, I'm triggering the lives excuse ready.

The whole point of it was to go viral and get more publicity. By the way, how come that never applies to progressives? Why can't we just say, oh, yeah, whatever we said, we're just triggering the cons. Just triggering the cons. Okay, somehow that excuse. No, and by the way, look, that might be his intentions, right? But let's not downplay the seriousness of what he's doing, because we live in a country, swimming in guns, and with people who have serious mental health issues that are undiagnosed

and untreated. This is a disaster. We're already seeing a record cases of violence in this country because of political division. And just downplaying someone feeding into that for their own little PR stunt is unacceptable. Yeah. And it leads to literally triggering the lips, if you will. James says that guy's from my county. Also in my county, they have burned books and did a horrible exhibit for kids for Halloween trick-or-treating where they showed pictures of infanticide as quote-unquote aborted feces.

There's a sickness in this country, and it's the conservative culture. And so many great comments in YouTube super chat. Thank you for using that. I'll just read one. Minerva says, Jen and Anna, I'm in Minnesota right now, and there are riots happening right down the way from my house. Hashtag justice for George Floyd.

Hashtag I can't breathe. And then finally, two from Twitter. Marai Hayashi says, Anna Kasparian is in great form today. I'm loving it. You go, girl. I use hashtag TYT live to talk to us when we're on the air on Twitter. And the progressive linguist says,

I understand now how families were torn apart by the U.S. Civil War before I never truly understood. But half of my family is MAGA and would love to see Democrats die. Dave told me so. So that's the state of this country, guys. We're trying to be a light in the darkness. Just last update here real quick on t.yt.com slash go for today. This is our audience fundraising drive to make sure that independent media like us is healthy

and sustainable. Let's take a look at where we are. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you about Aspiration. So aspiration.com slash TYT. We plant 10 trees anytime anybody signs up and more trees as you use the debit card at Aspiration. It's a progressive institution to keep your money in, Aspiration.com slash TYT. All right, let's take a look at the thermometer real quick, Brett. Because, all right, 165, 363.

Nope, wrong, 166, 798. Thank you guys, really appreciate it. Please, let's keep it going. Let's see if we can get to 167 by the end of the show. All right, Anna, go ahead. All right. Donald Trump has officially signed an executive order in an effort to punish politically Twitter for its decision to fact check his misinformation in regard to mail-in voting.

Now, he had threatened that there would be consequences for Twitter because of what they did, and now it appears that he has signed this executive order. Now, we don't have the exact wording of the executive order yet, but we do have some details from a leaked draft, which we'll get to in just a minute. But first, I want to go to some video of his signing of the executive order. Let's start with the first one. Had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences.

There's no precedent in American history for so small a number of corporations to control so large a sphere of human interaction, and that includes individual people controlling vast amounts of territory, and we can't allow that to happen, especially when they go about doing what they're doing because they're doing things incorrectly. They have points of view. And if we go by that, it's actually amazing that there was a success in 2016, but we can't let this continue to happen. It's very, very unfair. So I think it's important to mention something that we already know, but it's relevant to a federal case that was recently dropped. Twitter is not a public company. It is a private company. It is not funded by the government or taxpayers.

And so they are able to run their business the way they see fit, as long as it doesn't break federal laws, right? And so when it comes to free speech, it does not apply to private companies. That's the reason why you can have, let's say, prayer. 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 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 prime data from the private

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 cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available. ExpressVPN. And if you go to expressvpn.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXP-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today.

In a private school because it's not taxpayer funded, right? And what he's doing here is just incredible because he's arguing that there's this conservative, anti-conservative bias with all of these social media platforms, including Twitter, except Twitter is where he has the largest platform and has a great deal of influence. I mean, he has 10 million, I'm not telling him, tens of millions of followers, and he's able to usually say anything and everything he wants. The vast majority of times on Twitter, he has put out all sorts of deceptions, all sorts of misinformation, all sorts of propaganda. And Twitter has not touched it. He put out conspiracy theories regarding an intern who died in Joe Scarborough's office when he was a lawmaker. And Twitter didn't

touch that. They didn't take him down. And he keeps pretending as if he's the real victim here. Now, in a federal case involving that clown, Laura Lumer, she claimed that the social media accounts or platforms were having this like anti-conservative bias and that they were censoring conservatives. And the U.S. appeals court in Washington, D.C., actually dismissed the lawsuit accusing top tech companies of silencing conservative voices. Filed in 2018 by nonprofit Freedom Watch and right-wing gadfly, Laura Lumer, the suit accused Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Google of stifling First Amendment rights. But in the ruling, District Judge Trevor McFadden notes that Freedom Watch and Lumer failed to back up a claim that the companies were, quote, state actors

involved in the regulation of free speech, meaning that these are private companies and free speech does not apply to how private businesses conduct their business. Okay, more points. First of all, people have studied this, and all the studies show, no, there is no conservative bias on these platforms. In fact, look, We've talked about this a lot. Facebook seems to lean in to Republicans. And so everybody just, but what conservatives do is they just cry. They cry nonstop.

So even if they get their way, even if everything is even or to their advantage, they'll cry anyway because it's a political strategy because they know if they just keep crying like little babies that they are, the press will go, oh, my God, I guess Twitter is liberal and Facebook is liberal, and they're all liberal, liberal, liberal, and poor conservatives. But the question is, can anything be done about it? No, that's not the question. The whole thing's made up. There is no bias against conservatives.

They've studied it a thousand times. All right. Second of all, you know, for all the things that MAGA guys say about progressives, it's all projection. You're a bunch of snowflakes. There's snowflake. Trump is a master snowflake. All they do is victim mentality.

Oh, I'm the victim, because I just lied all over Twitter, and they corrected me once. Okay, that's the little bitches that Republicans are. And then finally, let's talk about First Amendment. Now, Donald Trump says something. Twitter does not block him from saying it. Twitter then also speaks by saying, that is not true. Here are the actual facts. So they did not censor him.

They also spoke. That is totally one of the First Amendment, no matter what this situation is. But then Donald Trump says, let's use the government to ban Twitter from speaking. That actually is a First Amendment violation. That actually is unconstitutional. It's the heart of a First Amendment violation, the government restricting the speech of private actors. If you are conservative and you don't understand that simple concept, number one, you're a moron,

and number two, you hate our Constitution and our way of life. That's just the reality. So if you can't read the Constitution and understand that simple concept, you are stupid and please stop talking. Let's quickly go to the second video featuring Trump signing his exact. executive order. And I want to show you this because yet again, Donald Trump, we cut it out, but he names names to basically target specific people who fact-checked him. And you know what his bases like. So we edited out the name because I don't want to help Trump in his propaganda

campaigns and his attempts to target specific people. But this is who's leading the country right now. This is the person who's tearing the country apart and leading to the type of violence we're seeing right now throughout the country. Take a look. The arbiter, this guy, is the arbiter of what's supposed to go on Twitter. He's the one he thought that he thought, and if you use CNN as a guide, CNN, which is fake news, he used CNN as a guide. And he's the one that said that mail-in balloting, you look mail-in, no fraud, no fraud, really? Why don't you take a look all over the country? There's cases all over the country.

So I want to talk about mail-in voting really quick, Jank. First of all, I find what he did disgusting, especially considering how violent Americans have become in the Trump era. But I do want to talk about mail-in voting because study after study by both Democrats and Republicans have indicated that we do not have a widespread voter fraud problem connected to mail-in ballots. We just don't. And our system is actually so effective in finding instances of attempted voter fraud that the individuals attempting to do it get caught real quick. There was an example in West Virginia recently that I want to share with you. So there was a post carrier, his name is Thomas Cooper, and he was delivering ballot forms

to the Pendleton County Clerk from eight voters, okay? An investigation by the Secretary of State's office found that five out of those eight ballots were actually changed from Democrat to Republican. Now, he got caught quickly, and now he's facing criminal charges for attempted voter fraud. But I bring that up because, A, our system is not flawed. People are able to vote by mail, and we don't have to worry about fraud throwing the election in one way or the other. Secondly, in almost every instance where I've read about attempted voter fraud, it's someone who changes things from Democrats to Republican. It's weird. The fraud always

seems to attempt to benefit the Republican Party. So it's another case, a classic case of projection. The FEC has released, a member of the FEC has released details about what the reality is regarding mail and voting and how Donald Trump is lying to the American people, because that's what he wants. He wants chaos. He thrives off of it. And he wants to prevent people from feeling comfortable voting, right? I mean, you know that Republicans are getting a giant group of people together, so-called poll watchers, to show up to the polls in November and intimidate people who want to cast their ballots. And at the same time, for people who would feel much more comfortable during a pandemic to vote by mail, they're doing anything and

everything possible to prevent states from being able to do that. Because they want to rig the election in their favor. Whenever there's voter fraud in this country or attempted voter fraud, just know that it's usually Republican, American citizens who are doing the fraud, period. All right. We got much more in the postgame, including Donald Trump's hypocrisy on this same issue. He actually is trying to get people banned for criticizing him. We'll do that for the members at t yt.com slash join thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen ad-free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon