The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - May 6th, 2020

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

These scumbags deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison and then some. 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. Welcome to the Young Turks, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rolla with you right off the heels of Giving Tuesday. And for those of you who are wondering, what can I do to give? even if giving Tuesdays over. What can I do to contribute to TYT? One way you can help is by doing your banking with aspiration.

It's a financial institution where you don't have to worry about your deposits, going toward the fossil fuel industry. You can plant your change by banking with them. They will actually plant trees for every new account that's open. And they'll do 10 trees, not just one, okay? big trees, 10 big, beautiful trees. They're going to go ahead and plant. So go to Aspiration.com slash TYT to learn more. John, how are you? Oh, I'm doing great. We are fresh off of Giving Tuesday. I would in fact say that I feel like we just finished giving Tuesday.

No, it's a good day. It's kind of hot here in L.A., but there have been worse days. Definitely, yeah. Well, actually, no, not definitely. I mean, on a personal level, sure, I guess things are okay, but the news cycle, it's just, oh, yeah, no, the news is a disaster. It just gets more and more terrible every single day. And I have found ways to provide some comedic relief to the audience today, but I just want to warn all of you that some of the stories today are just like heavy. And John, you've already talked about some of them in your show, and I apologize, we're going to have to discuss probably the most difficult story to cover at the top of the show.

But later, especially in the postgame show, we're going to go back to a very important discussion about the murder hornets. You don't want to miss that. And also, Donald Trump has changed his decision about disbanding the coronavirus task force. We'll tell you why. There's some reasoning behind it. And we'll give you that reasoning later in the show. But as always, use the hashtag TYT live to tweet to us during the show.

And, of course, we will read our member comments when we come back from our breaks. Without further ado, let's get to the story. And I do want to warn everyone, this is not only a disturbing story, but it also includes graphic video. A 25-year-old black man who was jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, was brutally gunned down by a former cop and his son. There was a third individual who was filming the incident. And the video was recently posted.

online. Now, unfortunately, the 25-year-old man has died as a result of this what's now being referred to as a modern-day lynching. Amad Aubrey is his name. And to give you more detail and context before we show you this video, which is graphic and difficult to watch, I want to give fair warning, Ahmad 25 years old, was jogging in a neighborhood outside of Brunswick on February 23rd when a former police officer and his son chased him down. According to a Glen County police report, Gregory McMichael, that's the former cop, later told officers that he thought that Arbery looked like a robbery suspect in a series of break-ins in the area. And even though this shooting took place months ago, it took place in February,

No one was charged. It seems like the authorities just kind of let this slide until the video was released by a local radio show host. And finally, there was enough outrage that now officials are finally doing something about it. But I'll get to those details in just a moment. Before I do so, I'm going to go to the video. Again, this is graphic.

It's difficult to watch. So if you have difficulty with these types of videos, just be warned. Now let's look. I'm going to be. So he bled out and died on the scene. And what we know is that there are some conflicts from what the shooter reported in the police report and what actually happened, what we saw in that video. So there's also an issue with the fact that Gregory McMichael, who was there at the scene, Travis

McMichael is his son. He's the one who, you know, is also seen in the video struggling with Ahmad. But it seems like there were a lot of friendly relationships with Gregory McMichael because he actually worked with the prosecutors who should have been prosecuting this case from the very beginning. Now, those individuals have actually now recused themselves, which is exactly what they should have done. And an outside prosecutor has been brought in to investigate this case. His name is Tom Durden. And Durden, the district attorney for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, wrote that he expects to present the case to the next available grand jury in Glen County to consider whether charges are merited for those involved in the death.

Now, I also want to just note that because of coronavirus, these grand jury proceedings are not taking place. They're prohibited. And they will not continue until around June. So, John, I have more details for you, but I want to just kind of get your thoughts. Yeah. I mean, it's everything that everyone is thinking as they're watching this video right now. It is absolutely, it's an utter tragedy what this person and now his family had to undergo. It is almost incomprehensible that in 2020, as a pandemic is bearing down on our country, some individuals, this is how they're spending their time, is trying to go out and murder

someone. That it still happens, and then the response as well. You would think if there was anything that could unify everyone in saying this is not acceptable, something like this would be, but no. I mean, for the most part, some people are going to cover this on other sort of people are not going to talk about this at all because they know how bad it looks. And if they're forced to, they'll cover it in the same way that they covered, you know, Trayvon Martin and all of that. They made George Zimmerman into a hero eventually, like that, the guy with the shotgun, the guy with the pistol. You don't think that eventually they won't be considered like folk heroes on the right? It seems crazy now, but it's certainly not impossible. If there's any offense that

they're taking, it's that we are accurately saying that that was a modern day lynching. And the only difference between it and the traditional sort of lynching that generally people think of is happening a very, very long time ago, but actually continued much closer in modern day than a lot of people think, was that someone had a cell phone. That's the difference. That's the only difference. Extrajudicial action that a group took advancing racial terrorism. And they shot him to that. That's what they did. They went out there to kill a person and they did it. They didn't bring two guns because they wanted to spot the guy for law enforcement. They didn't run up on him holding a shotgun, like thinking that nothing was going to happen. They wanted, they got what they

wanted. Yeah, look, these stories by themselves are hard, hard to talk about, hard to watch, you know, especially with the videos that are available. And then what makes it even harder is the reaction after the fact, right? Not only from the general public, but also from the very prosecutors and law enforcement who are supposed to be carrying out justice. But as we've seen over and over again, that's certainly not always the case. What happened here is it's a crime. I mean, it is inhumane. They robbed someone, an innocent person of his life as he was doing something incredibly

innocent, something that we can all relate to, going out. out for a jog. His family says that he was an avid runner. He would run every single day, including in that neighborhood. And, you know, the reaction from authorities in the area, the initial reaction is just absolutely disgusting. So I'll give you some of that. So in a letter to police, George Barnhill, who has now recused himself, one of the district attorneys who had recused himself from the case and who saw the autopsy report, wrote that Arbery sustained three wounds during the struggle for a gun. So already, you know, you have this individual trying to paint a picture that, oh, well, you know, he reached

for the gun. You know, like, that's usually the messaging you'll get when people want to justify this type of shooting. Now, usually it's in the context of someone who's an active. cop. In this case, we're dealing with people who are not police, okay? Gregory McMichael used to be a cop. And the fact that he used to be a cop is exactly the reason why prosecutors didn't want to touch this case to begin with, right? Because we don't want to go after our friend, you know? So they started saying that, oh, well, you know, he said that it was a suspected burglar and that this

was a citizen's arrest. And apparently they have some sort of law in the books. in Georgia that allows for citizens arrest. That wasn't a citizen's arrest. That was a murder. That was a murder. And I'm going to give you what the lawyer for the family has to say about that in just a second. But again, like, by the way, the same guy, Barnhill, started bringing up stuff that the victim here allegedly did in high school. Why are you bringing that up?

Of course. Why are you bringing up his past? He was gunned down while he was jogging. It's disgusting. So luckily he did recuse himself in a letter, by the way, initially Barnhill said that there was no probable cause for charges because the McMichaels were legally carrying their firearms under Georgia's open carry law. Oh, okay.

So I didn't know that the open carry law extended to people being allowed to just gun down whoever they want. Is that what the open carry law in Georgia is? I mean, I would say that if it allowed. for white individuals to murder black individuals, that is exactly what it was designed to accomplish. They won't admit it, but that is exactly 100% what it was designed to accomplish. You grab a shotgun and a pistol. You drive up on a person who's just going about their business. You get in their face and threaten them. And if they run, you got to shoot them. I mean, they're getting

away. That's what they always say. If they do the only natural thing is when someone points a gun at you, you either try to run away or you try to get it pointed away from you. And so if you reach for it, no, then they're completely justified. in shooting you. That's why they brought the gun. If he was afraid for his life, like, oh my God, this guy is grabbing for my gun. I know a great way to never have to worry about a person taking your gun and using it on you. Don't buy one or don't bring it. That would be a great way to do it. But like I said on TDR this morning, this individual and George Zimmerman, they carry a gun with them to provide not just the tool to murder someone, but also the excuse

to murder someone. Because as soon as you start a fight when you're carrying a gun, if their hand goes within five feet of you, you get to say they were reaching for your gun. It is both the tool and the excuse for murder. Yeah, I love going running and I just think about, you know, where your mind's at when you're jogging, running, exercising, whatever, you know? That's like me time. That's when I can just meditate in my own way and I'm listening to music. And I just, how can you not think about what his last moments on earth were like, right? To be pursued like that. For doing nothing, for doing nothing. He wasn't armed. He wasn't the aggressor in any way. He's on a jog. He's on a

jog. And the fact that there, nothing would have been done unless that video came out, unless it was posted online, is just devastating. And Barnhill isn't the only person who recused himself. So, uh, Brunswick judicial circuit district attorney. Jackie Johnson also recused herself from the case and said it was given to the White Cross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill. So that's where it first started. Then it went to Barnhill and then Barnhill had to recuse himself. Now Johnson says she, I'm sorry, he, Johnson recused himself because his son works in the

Brunswick Prosecutor's Office. Tom Durgan, Durden is the prosecutor for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit. He's now the independent individual. who will be prosecuting this case. But the fact that we're going to have to now wait until June to see if a grand jury decide, a grand jury in Georgia decides whether that's enough evidence to bring charges is also terrifying because we've seen how these types of cases has played out in the past, these grand jury cases, where somehow miraculously, despite the abundance of evidence of

wrongdoing, nothing ends up happening. And I don't mean to be too pessimistic, but like at what point are we finally going to accept the fact that this is America, right? Like this isn't an isolated case. This isn't just part of Trump's America, although I think it's been exacerbated thanks to his disgusting bitriol and rhetoric. But we need to accept the fact that these types of stories were popping up all over the place during the Obama administration, constantly, constantly.

You know, you can have endless videos of black men running away from cops. And the cop guns that person down, kills them, shoots them in the back. Grand jury says nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong here. Yep. And, you know, you might have hoped, well, if there was video, it would be different. But no, it almost never matters. Even when you're going to see exactly what happened, the cop was in no danger whatsoever.

It almost never matters. And think about how differently this innocent 25-year-old man was treated compared to all of these armed protesters storming into the Michigan State Capitol, okay, yelling at lawmakers as they try to decide whether it's in the public's interest to extend the stay-at-home orders in response to the pandemic. They're not, I mean, you have the cops protecting them

as they are attempting to intimidate lawmakers as they're trying to make a decision that matters, right? That has a huge impact on public safety and public health. No problem with that. you'll have endless, endless conservative shows defending that. I guarantee you those same shows will then turn around and make excuses for what we just saw in that disgusting video. There's like at least a 25% chance that Tucker Carlson does 30 minutes on why it's insane

that these actually racist libs are talking about this as a lynching. Like there's a very real chance that he's going to do that tonight. And they're going to attempt to say like, yeah, when these two guys grabbed guns and drove up on him and shoved the guns as his face, started yelling at him, he should have just complied with whatever they did. Because again, if you're black, you're supposed to comply with whatever anybody tells you to do. And anything that you do other than fully complying, or even if you do, is justification for your murder. They will say that him running was naturally more suspicious and threatening than the two individuals that pulled a car

up on someone, jumped out and pointed guns at them. And like, they would never admit it. But like, imagine if it, imagine if it was reversed. Imagine if the guy jogging was a southern, white, middle-aged guy with a beer gut, and he's running down the street. And two amods pull up the car right next to him, jump out with shotguns. If he responds in any way other than doing everything that they say, will the conservatives say, oh, no, no, he totally should have just complied with their citizens arresting, that they had a, they had a suspicion that he was a thief.

He should have just done whatever they said. Of course not. Of course not. It is every, every molecule of this is soaked in racism and racial assumptions and white privilege and all of that. And not only will they not admit in this case, obviously this guy was a complete victim, totally innocent, but they'll deny that there's any racial component to it because, of course, racism doesn't exist in America.

And finally, just because I promised you all to give you a statement from the, family attorney here. Lee Merritt says the following, and you know, it's important to know what the law actually is in Georgia. According to the law, the citizens arrest law, you actually have to be observing the crime or be in the immediate knowledge of the crime. The only thing they have ever said is that Ahmad stopped by a house that was under construction and looked through the window.

We don't know if that happened or not, but even if it did happen, that is not a felony that would invoke the citizen's arrest statute, that is not a felony that would invoke the citizen's arrest statute that would make this allowable. That there's no, there's no question, you know, what the lawyer is saying here is a hundred percent correct. And can you imagine that, you know, you looking into a building that's being constructed as justification for getting gun down? I've done that a billion times. Like, because I'm interested in architecture. I'm interested in whatever.

How is that justification for gutting someone down? No, it's not even justification for going up to the guy and hassling him. It is obviously not justification for murder. And the only way that they will get that justification is that we know that these laws are designed to allow them to kill who they want whenever they want. The person with the gun is always right. The person with the gun combined with them saying that they are the most, terrified creature that's ever existed. They have this gun, and they're always terrified that instantly everyone around them could kill them. Anything they do is now justified. Anybody they

kill is now justified. And they almost always get off. It seems like 99% of the time they get off. We have to take a break. When we come back, we'll switch gears. And I apologize that we started this show on such a negative note. But this is a huge story. It deserves a lot more attention. and despite all odds, I hope his family receives the justice that they deserve. We'll be right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Inging 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.

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all at the same time. Hey, guys, welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rola with you. I never plug anything I do, but I got to be a little bit better about it. I'm doing a show with Michael Brooks. It's for Jacobin. It airs every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1 p.m. Eastern. Definitely check that out. Subscribe to Jacobin's YouTube channel.

That's where it airs live. And it's not just our show. There's all sorts of great content on there that you can also check out. All right, member comments. The mathematician writes in and says, Anna, hang in there at these dark times. We need you. And this horrific story should be kept in mind whenever you have coppologist telling us to lay off of them.

I just, I can't get over. And at this point, I should have gotten over it, but like human cruelty. like how deep it goes and how unapologetic people are for literally murdering other people like this in broad daylight. I just can't get over it. I can't get over the people who make excuses for it, who defend it. It's just years and years and years of these disgusting, horrible videos in our faces with no justice to follow. Anyway. And I can't imagine what his family's going through. Go ahead, John. Just really like, and so racially, like, what have we improved 1% every 80 years or something like that? I was watching Miss America and like the

the arguments used against like women's rights is exact same thing as 50 years ago. It's like the same exact terms in half a century. We've gotten 5% better maybe. It's so depressing. Tino writes in in the member section and says, this is just another day in the United States. if you're an African American, as one, I know. And Trevor Watson in the super chat comments says, in New Zealand, we have leadership. Yep. I know. Kara Curley says, how is this still happening from the TYT live section?

Tom Turner says, almost threw up when I saw that video the first time. Same. I just watched someone die. And Sean of the Dead says, the only thing Ahmad is guilty of is jogging while black. Yep. All right. our members and everyone who's supporting the show, you guys allow us to cover these incredibly important stories. Now we're going to move on to an absolute disgrace to the country,

in addition to being a giant goofball, and that's Donald Trump. So just yesterday, Donald Trump teased the idea of disbanding the coronavirus task force. Now, keep in mind that he would do this at a time when we're seeing a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, and in various parts of the country. There have been several states that have decided to prematurely open their local economies back up. And as a result, we're seeing an increase in the number of people who have contracted COVID-19. And keep in mind that it's been well over, well over a month since we've had less than a thousand people in this country die every day from this virus. So he thought, you know what, the only people who have any expertise to deal with this,

and the only people who aren't interested in robbing U.S. taxpayers of their, you know, hard-earned money to distribute it to my buddies, are these a health professionals? So let me go ahead and disband the group that they're part of. But luckily, there was some backlash. And today he's singing a little bit of a different tune. Let's take a look. We're keeping the task force for a period of time. I look forward to when we can close the task force because then the job will be essentially, hopefully, over, Mike, right? And you've done a fantastic job. Mr. President, can you explain the change between what you said yesterday about winding down the task force and now saying you're different from what you said yesterday?

Well, I guess if you think we're always winding it down, but, you know, it's a question of what the end point it is. is, but I think it is a change a little bit. I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday. When I started talking about winding it down, I'd get calls from very respected people saying, I think it would be better to keep it going. It's done such a good job. Let me just decode that for one second.

He got calls from very important people, meaning, members of his campaign, his campaign advisors, who probably told him, this is a really bad idea. It's not playing well. It's an unpopular position to have. And that was when he changed course. Donald Trump does not care about you. Whoever you are watching this right now thinking, oh, we might have some leadership in the country. No, there's no leadership. Donald Trump looks out for Donald Trump. He doesn't care about making sure the right experts and professionals are in place to carry out the right policies to keep people alive. He doesn't care about that.

What he cares about is getting reelected. What he cares about is using the office of the presidency in order to enrich himself and his disgusting friends. That's all he cares about. That's Donald Trump in a nutshell. And the only friends he looks out for, by the way, are those who do favors for him. So it always goes back to that disgusting orange buffoon. John.

I mean, I have a feeling he did get calls. Some probably are campaign officials, like you said, probably saying, like, what are you doing? Are you out of your mind? Some were probably medical professionals. I just have a feeling that what they call to tell him was not keep it going, you've done such a great job. It might have been keep it going because thousands of Americans are still dying every day. How could you possibly think that your work was done?

You've done almost nothing, and people are still dying. we expect that the number per day are going to, that are dying are going to go up, actually. You don't seem to care about that. It's really, really weird that you don't care about that. Maybe let's have some people in the room who do kind of, who do have a little bit of an attachment to the idea of not killing, you know, a 9-11 of Americans every single day for the next few months. And like, honestly, like the people watching, if you're watching this video right now, what has the task force done in the past two weeks? Three weeks.

I don't know. At Chopper Talk this morning, he said we're doing. too much testing already. A nurse said that her access to PPE is sporadic and he corrected her and said, no, hospitals have all the PPE that they need. So like I- It was right out of Kim Jong-un's playbook, 100%. You have medical professionals surrounding you so they can basically spout your propaganda. And if they have the audacity to go against your propaganda for even a second, right? Off message for even a second, you scold them in front of the press. Yeah, that video was gross and I have no interest in, you know, perpetuating the lies that he wanted

to spread through that propaganda. But I'm sorry, John, I interrupted you. Keep going on. No, no, it's okay. Understandably so. And justifiably so. Yeah, I have this like knee-jerk reaction that says we should still have the task force because it's an absolute disaster, the likes of which we haven't had domestically in our entire life, and, you know, like, God helping never will again. But it doesn't, they don't seem to care and they don't seem to be doing anything. Like, he only ever cared to the extent that he sort of had fun doing the press conferences and he thought that it was getting him good ratings or whatever. He wasn't actually there to make sure that everyone is doing everything they can to save as many lives as possible.

No, as long as he's here, it is only going to get worse. And so just I'll say it again, get him out, get him out, get him out, get him out, get him out. People are dying. While I was just talking, five more people died because of a pandemic that is far worse than it ever needed to be because of the presence of Donald Trump in the White House. So he told reporters today that the coronavirus task force will remain in place indefinitely. But I never put much weight behind anything he says because he changes his opinion day to day. He shoots from the hip and doesn't make decisions based on logic or the best interests of the people

he's supposed to be representing. He values nothing but himself. That's it. All right. Well, we know what kind of job he's done. We know that Donald Trump has been disastrous. But what does Donald Trump think? How does he self-assess when it comes to his response to COVID-19?

Let's see. I think in a certain way, and I hope I can say this to you in a couple of months. I think in a certain way, maybe our best work has been on what we've done with COVID-19. That was Donald Trump just yesterday talking to David Muir. And during the conversation, his self-assessment in response to coronavirus is excellent. He thinks he's done a wonderful job, even as hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to die from this virus, even though there's evidence indicating that Trump was warned about the severity of the virus in January and did absolutely nothing, even though more than a million

Americans have already contracted the virus. He thinks he's done a stellar job. Let's play that video in more context and see if, you know, there's any accuracy to what he has to say. A certain way, maybe our best work has been on what we've done with COVID-19, but we haven't gotten, We haven't been treated properly, not me, the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the medical people, the police, the nurses, everybody, even the doctors, they haven't been treated properly. The job they've done is a miracle. We're low in morbidity. We're number one on testing. We're number one again on ventilators and everything. Not number one. We're number one. There's no number two through ten. We're way ahead of every other country in the world. And very important, so important, I think we're doing very well in vaccines and we're doing very well therapeutically. Again, let me give you some facts to counter all the lies that he told in that video. The administration, according to Politico, struggle to ramp up widespread coronavirus testing.

I mean, everyone with a brain knows this at this point, but I just want to provide this point again, especially in the outbreak's early days and the president himself has repeatedly promoted dangerous and untested remedies, including suggesting that Americans ingest or inject themselves with disinfectants. And as we all know, prior to that, he was promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus, even though there was very little scientific data backing up the impact of that drug or the effectiveness of that drug. In fact, have stopped using it in tests for coronavirus patients because so many people developed permanent heart conditions or died from using it.

So he's been a complete, utter disaster. But John, he thinks he's done a great job. It's actually just everyone being mean to him. That's the problem here. I know. I'm glad that he does at least care a little bit about the victims of this crisis. Unfortunately, he thinks that he's the victim of this crisis. Like, does, uh, does anyone think that if it was still Barack Obama and 73,000 people had died of Ebola, let's say, it was his pandemic, 73,000 people died that like, Sean Hannity would be like, you know what, gotta give it to the president. He really nailed this one. I think it's his finest work, actually. No, nobody, nobody thinks that. It is, it is that old thing about one death being a tragedy and, you know, a million deaths being a statistic that we,

We just, we do not have, we have the Simeon monkey brains that can't actually imagine what's going on. I mean, so today, so far today, today's not over, 1,850 new deaths have been reported from the coronavirus just today. Like, think about the crises that we remember presidencies for. Like, you know, Katrina. Yeah, we're going to get that every two days for months now. We're going to have another Katrina worth of deaths.

Like, Hurricane Maria doesn't get talked about nearly enough, but that was absolutely devastating. Every two days, we're going to pass a Hurricane Maria. 9-11, what, like every, like, 34 hours we're going to pass the 9-11 of dead Americans. And as I've said a million times from the beginning, there were always going to be people who died of coronavirus. But it could have been far, far better if he cared at all. And I don't just mean looking back. Hindsight is enough, especially because we were right on this from the very beginning.

But we know it is only going to get worse from here on out for at least the next month, maybe two, maybe three, and he doesn't care. He is not only not doing anything. He is actively disarming us from protecting ourselves. He's encouraging people to do things that will result in far more people dying. We should be unified against him, that this is, we've never faced a domestic threat like this in terms of the body count every day. And he's got his defenders, of course, we expect that.

These are corrupt people in right wing media. They don't care. They honestly don't care. But we should all, the rest of us should be unified in opposition of this. If not this, then what? Honestly. Right. It's 1850 today.

It's going to be 2000 tomorrow. 2,000 dead in one day. I know, I know. And you know, it's incredible because this has really provided like the ultimate evidence for the hypocrisy of these. anti-abortion conservatives, the ones who claim that they just want to save lives because they think that fetuses are lives, like living, breathing human beings, they equate that with a fetus. Okay, but then they turn around and make justifications for Donald Trump's behavior, his lack

of leadership, his incompetence. And that is leading to, again, tens of thousands of Americans dying already, but the number is expected to be in the hundreds of thousands. And it's because of the trajectory we're seeing with this incompetent president who only seems to care about himself and how he can use a crisis to enrich himself and his friends. And that is what's happening. That's happening right now. In fact, you know, the Trump administration pushed out a federal scientist who was trying to do the right thing in, you know, protesting the promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment. And finally, they tried to demote him. And he was eventually just pushed out. And his name's Rick Bright. He published, not published, but he reported some of the other

wrongdoings of the Trump administration in an 89-page whistleblower report. I just want to give you a few pieces of that, because it is important. So Dr. Rick Bright, a federal scientist who had been leading the administration's search for a virus vaccine made headlines last month when he said he had been demoted after resisting pressure to root resources toward the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. Now, Bright also alleged in the complaint that he was told to direct millions, millions of dollars in contracts to drug company clients who have ties to Jared Kushner. Bright also said that Alex Azar, who's the head of HHS, the human health and the health and human services secretary and other officials in his agency had resisted requests for resources

to develop drugs and vaccines against the pandemic as early as January. Trump recently ousted, excuse me, Trump recently ousted several inspectors general responsible for overseeing elements of the administration's virus response. There's just so many missteps that we can list in this story. These are some of the big ones. When Trump says that he's done an excellent job, he's gaslighting the entire country. His defenders and his supporters are gaslighting the entire country. People are dying as we speak. He has not taken it seriously. And we cannot allow people to rewrite what's currently happening. We have to be honest about what's happening. And he doesn't want November to be a referendum on his handling of coronavirus. It absolutely must be.

Because if that's not, I don't know what would be. We got to take a break. We have more for you 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 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 T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to T-Y-T.

Anna Casparian and John Ida Rola with you. I want to get right to our next two stories before we've run out of time. And one of them's a doozy because it's a story we broke, not a big deal. TYT investigates. So let's get right to it. A top executive over at Morgan Stanley, Wall Street's biggest investment bank when it comes to the fossil fuel industry, has suggested opening the economy prematurely during the pandemic in order to help increase oil prices.

Now, as we know, there's been, it's been a tough time for the fossil fuel industry. There's low demand for oil because people are rightly staying home and safe during the pandemic. And even before that, there was an issue with overproduction of oil. Now, there was a meeting that oil industry lobbyists had in late April, April 22nd, with Morgan Stanley. And they were just kind of talking about what they can do to help the oil industry out. You know, what can we do to influence Congress to maybe bail out the oil industry? What can we do to maybe change the way we're responding to coronavirus?

And what you're about to hear is a sound from one of the oil industry lobbyists who went to this meeting or was on the phone during this meeting. He's a former congressman. His name's Lamar Smith. And of course, a longtime Republican who received long. Lots of donations from the oil industry when he was a lawmaker, turned around and serves as a lobbyist for the oil industry now. And check out what he suggested in his portion of the call. We have the crisis we have isn't just one of overproduction.

It's also one of under demand. And we're never going to really solve the crisis, any form of the crisis, I don't think, until we both reduce the importance. the impact that it's going to have on health care and the economy both. We have to increase the demand, and that means to get the economy back on its feet. And we have to look out for the energy industry, which is so essential to our national security and so essential to our economic well-being. So there's Lamar Smith. I'm not surprised that he would want the country to open back up as someone who's representing

the oil industry. But then you hear from a Morgan Stanley. right after Lamar Smith speaks. And here's what the analyst had to say. I agree with your last point there. And the underlying issue here with what's going on in oil markets is really a demand issue. And the demand's not there to consume the fuel that we're producing. And to really fix that sustainably, you need to begin to reopen the economy and increase consumption. The shorter term band-aids are fixes that we've seen so far, such as the OPEC supply. And ultimately are positive on the margin, but don't fix the underlying

issue. So I want to thank our audience because this type of reporting, which the story broke by TYT investigates, wouldn't be possible without you guys supporting TYT and helping us fundraise for our investigative reporting team. And now we know. I mean, we always suspected that lobbyists, especially for the oil industry and massive corporations, would want the country to prematurely open in the middle of a pandemic because, hey, money's more important than saving human lives. But to hear it in these terms, right? They're not discussing human lives. They don't seem to care too much about it. It's all about, hey, what can we do to increase the price of oil? What needs to be done? That's the priority here. Yeah, and they'll make the argument. And, you know,

Fox Business will make the argument that, like, we have to save the fossil fuel companies. Like, it's just, it's doing too much damage to our economy, you know, if we don't bail them out. And so when the banks were falling apart, you know, we identified that they were apparently too big to fail or whatever and put in some protections to try to stop them from having that sort of potentially crippling effect in a future financial crisis. We didn't do nearly enough. But at least we acknowledge that we probably should do something. Okay, so we already know that fossil fuel companies are doing as much as they can to kill

as many Americans as many people around the world as possible wrecking our environment and all of that, the countless millions of deaths every single year from cardiovascular disease and things like that. Now they're admitting that as long as they remain a significant part of our economy, that they are a potential disaster waiting to happen. So they're going to bail them out. There's not going to be anything attached to it, no strings. They're just going to hand them billions of our dollars. But what there should be is, okay, we're going to temporarily make you solvent, and now you are going to follow this particular model that is going to wind you down and take you out of the economy in the next five years or 10 years or 15 years or whatever, you are simply

too dangerous to the economy to allow to continue to exist, especially if we need to be continually propping you up. I mean, they're dangerous to mankind. I mean, their actions for decades have pushed us closer and closer to complete world destruction because of climate change, right? And when I say world destruction, the planet will continue. But it'll be, we won't be able to live on it, right? They have no problem with that.

They have no problem with the increasing number of people around the world dying because of this pandemic. They don't even care about Americans, right? Like the way people used to think was, oh, well, I mean, American executives at least kind to care about like American lives, right? No, they don't. They don't care at all. It's very clear from what we heard in that conversation.

And I just want to note that there have been states that opened prematurely. And what are we experience in those states? Well, TYT investigates also notes that three states that reopened, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida have reported spikes in coronavirus cases. A fourth, Mississippi, luckily, paused its reopening after a spike in cases there. And it should also be noted that Lamar Smith was a bad guy. even when he was in Congress, that was clear. So he was one of the participants on that call.

You heard him in the first clip. And he has a long record as a climate change skeptic and currently lobbies on behalf of a group with its own history of climate change denial that is packed by the fossil fuel industry. You guys should definitely check out the full story. We'll put a link in the description box below. Excellent work by TYT investigates. Yeah. All right, all right, we're on time.

This is good because I wanted to talk about this story, and it just shows you how unbelievably petty and gross Trump is. So investors tied to Donald Trump Jr. And also the RNC chair, Tommy Hicks, Jr., have acquired a major stake in own. That's the conservative media outlet that, you know, unfortunately has sent some of their reporters, if you want to call it that, to some of these coronavirus briefings. And the reason why they'd want to do this is because Trump is pretty clear in being unhappy, dissatisfied with the propaganda coming from Fox News. Apparently, they're not doing enough propaganda for

Trump. And his bitterness has played a role in the decision to purchase a majority, I don't know if it's a majority stake, but a significant stake in Ome. Now, Gabriel Sherman reported on this in Vanity Fair, and he writes, in private, Trump reminds friends that Fox tried to derail his campaign during the 2016 Republican primary, and he vents that Fox owes its record ratings to him. At the end of the day, Trump thinks he owns Fox. He thinks he made them, said a Republican who discussed Fox with Trump. Now, Trump's view that Fox is insufficiently loyal has motivated him to look for a more reliable media partner. And on April 26th, he tweeted, the people who are watching Fox News in record numbers, thank

you, President Trump, are angry. They want an alternative now. So do I. And it looks like he's attempting to make own the alternative. And own would also air some of the Trump TV nonsense that maybe some of you have come across. Yeah, I guess this is the next step. We've been talking for about a year about his every like three months, Fox criticizes him in the lightest way imaginable and he loses his mind on Twitter for like two days.

And it just seemed to, it seemed to be stuck at that level. This is definitely an escalation. I wonder overall if this is, let's say they're successful and they build up O-N, will that be better or worse? I honestly don't know because on the one hand, they make Fox look responsible and ethical in their coverage of certain issues. Like, it is, it is arguably much closer to like an Alex Jones type program than a Fox News. I mean, it's just outright conspiracy theories.

And I know, yes, Lauren Grum and Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, they use conspiracy theories quite frequently and freely. But it's even more sort of laughably disconnected from reality. Maybe that's a good thing, though. Maybe it'll be so obviously fake that it can't truly go mainstream. But I don't know, honestly, like the standards of, you know, 30% of the American public, they seem pretty low in sinking. They want someone to tell them, you know, that their beliefs about the world and racial

groups that they don't like are right. And, you know, Fox has been doing their best at that for a long time. But now OANN is coming up from behind and they want to take that audience. So it seems crazy. that it could actually succeed, but, I mean, look at the media that we've got, right, like Diamond and Silk had a show on Fox Nation up until like a week ago. Yeah, no, but Fox, believe it or not, eventually realized like, this is a little too much for us, and they let them go.

They sever ties with Diamond and Silk, and that's one of the things that Trump was bitter about. And so just to like buttress your point, because it's a great point about how O-A-N is somehow miraculously worse than Fox, this piece of reporting from Gabriel Sherman really like stood out to me. He writes, an investor group aligned with his son, Don Jr., and the Dallas-based Hicks family, has acquired a, oh, a major stake. I don't know if it's majority stake, but it's reported as major stake in One America News Network, the fledgling conservative cable news channel that features hosts like Jack Posabeeke. I don't know if that's how you say this guy's

name, but he's insane. He's the chief promoter of the Pizzagate conspiracy. Yeah, I also don't care, like to know how to pronounce this lunatic's name. It's like, it's Siri, it's QAnon people. It's like, it's Hillary Clinton is ripping the faces off of babies and drinking their hormones. That's what this network is. And they're in the White House, by the way. They're in the press briefings because the standards don't exist anymore. It, like, it's so, it's, it's like if Glenn Glenn Beck, he would, Glenn Beck would be the most responsible person on OANN, the guy that used to like, just write names of like wealthy Jewish Americans on a blackboard. He would be the most reasonable journalist in the room at OANN. So Brett might kill me, but we got to give you one

quick example of what these reporters seem like. Do you consider the term Chinese food racist? No. No, I don't think it's racist. I don't think it's racist at all. On that note, major left-wing news media, even in this room, have teamed up with Chinese Communist Party narratives, and they're claiming you are racist for making these claims about Chinese virus. Is it alarming that major media players just to oppose you are consistently... Nonsense. Just nonsense.

A nonsense person doing nonsense things, posing as a journalist, she's a disgrace. And the nonsense organization she works for just got some funding, some investment from dishonest people who want to utilize it for their own propaganda purposes. It's disgusting. It's just, this is what we're dealing with. All right, we are running out of time. John, thank you for doing the show with me, but you're going to stick around for the post game. And we're going to do some more stories.

So definitely check that out, everyone. TYT.com slash join to become a member. special thanks to everyone who contributed to our Giving Tuesday fundraiser yesterday. Have a great night. We'll see you soon. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.