The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - September 11, 2020

Episode Date: September 12, 2020

The Trump administration secretly withheld millions from the FDNY 9/11 health program. Ana Kasparian and Wosny Lambre 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. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.

And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterC. and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash the iPorter to learn more. Welcome to the Young Turks, I'm Anna Kasparian. Joining us today is Wozni-Lombre culture and NBA writer for The Athletic, second time making an appearance here at TY Waz, how you doing?

Thank you. Thank you. I'm good for having me back. The first time I came on, I'm not going to lie. The response from the TYT community was a bit overwhelming. I was like, wow, this is amazing. These people have actual fans and I don't know what that's like. No, I mean, look, our audience is incredibly honest.

And if they reach out in any way and say that they want you back on, they love you. you. So I'm really happy that you took the time to come back on, especially because we had to like abruptly end the show the first time you were on because I was dealing with a hacker. And it was really frustrating and annoying. But I'm glad that that's kind of been sorted out. And now we can, I don't want to say have fun because the stories are pretty terrible, but at least enjoy doing the show together without having that on my mind on top of it. So yeah, it's going to be great. We're going to talk about the NFL later in the show. There was some booing with the kickoff game. And you know, you as a sports writer, commentator, analyst, I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts on that. And how about the heat? That's about all I know about the NBA. That's it. I don't watch any sports. Yes, the Miami heat pulled off an incredible upset. They're a very great story in sports right now. They're kind of a little underdog story. And most people love the underdog. I happen to not.

be one of those people. I've never been one of those people. I watched Hoosiers and rolled my eyes the entire time. But you know, the Miami Heat are a bit of a Hoosiers story right now. Nice. All right. Well, we'll talk about sports a little later in the rundown because there is a political component to it. But first, a few programming notes. For one, there will not be a common room this weekend. So we have a show called Common Room on our Twitch channel, which by the way, You should check out overall because it's a great channel, but we won't have common room. It will be back next Friday. And on Happy Half Hour, we have Judah Freelander.

He's going to be joining Brett for Happy Half Hour tonight at 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time, 4.30 p.m. Pacific. You can become a member at t.y.t.com slash join to watch that. It's really a great show and a nice break from all the destruction that we typically talk about on this network. So speaking of that destruction, why don't we get to our first story? And it's certainly topical considering that it is the anniversary of 9-11. So it has been 19 years since 9-11. And despite what the Trump administration might say today, despite the platitudes and their faux concern about the safety of Americans, the truth is behind the scenes.

And this is according to an exclusive report by the New York Daily News, the Trump administration has been going out of its way to siphon money away from a fund that's meant to pay for the healthcare and medical services of first responders, including firefighters, police officers, or anyone else who showed up to the scene of 9-11 to help rescue people and to clean the rubble. Now, the Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments nearly four years ago, meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and paramedics treated by FDNY World Trade Center Health Program. The payments were authorized and made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety

and Health, which oversees the program. But instead of sending the funds to the city, the Treasury Department under Steve Mnuchin started keeping some of the money. And they did it without any notice. They have not explained why. They are essentially taking money away from the people who put their lives on the line in order to help rescue others and to help clean up the destruction on 9-11. So the program director has come out and he shares his thoughts. He says that he was docked about half a million dollars each year in 2016 and 2017. Then it crept up to about $630,000 in 2018 and 2019.

This year, Treasury has nearly tripled its extractions, diverting $1.447 million through late August. So was, you know, last year, I think it was last year, there was just this huge story about how congressional lawmakers, Republicans, were unwilling to fund the program necessary to help first responders pay for their medical expenses. And many of them have had these rare forms of cancer, all sorts of ailments as a result of their courage and the fact that they were willing to go out there and help as much as they could. But because of John Stewart of all people, congressional lawmakers were pressured into passing the funding necessary. Now we're learning about funding being taken away by the Trump administration. We don't know why, and they certainly haven't announced this.

You know, and the most annoying part about this, Ann, is that these people, particularly in the Republican Party, nobody pays more lip service to the idea of honoring the troops. And then we don't fund our veterans, we don't fund the VA. Or, you know, 9-11, never forget. And then, we treat the first responders and firefighters and the people who put their lives on the line for, you know, during that terrible tragedy like crap. It just, that's the most frustrating part about it because nobody pays more lip service to this while doing absolutely nothing in the form of policy and funding for all these people who are in need. It's hilarious, man. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. And again, we're talking about health.

insurance benefits, like people have had all kinds of cancers and adverse effects from being first responders to this. And health insurance doesn't cover it. And of course, we're not talking about the horrible health insurance situation that we find ourselves here in America. But your health insurance doesn't cover a lot of the stuff that these people need. Their lives were literally ruined by these heroic acts. And you just see this level of avarice, which again, sadly, is part for the course when it comes to the Trump regime, up and down. It's just a regime full of grifters from the very top on. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And you know, I'm embarrassed to say that I came to this realization

so late in the game because I really genuinely did think that in politics, better ideas win, cruelty, if it's exposed, if it's exposed aggressively enough, then people will come to the right conclusions. But I'm also realizing now, again, very late in my career, that the vast majority of politics relies on theater. And so the Republican Party is much better at theater. They're just better at messaging. And so they have taken this label of patriotism as their own. claim to support the troops more than Democrats do or more than the left does, which is absolutely ridiculous when you consider the fact that our troops are so underpaid compared to how many hundreds of billions of dollars are appropriated to the military budget every year, you know?

Blackwater's never underpaid. Right, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And you know, the Trump administration has floated the idea of cutting two billion dollars from the defense's defense budget, not for weapons, not for all of the nonsense that we've been spending, this military federal planes that don't work. Right, right. They want to cut $2 billion in health care funding for troops and veterans, okay? And this is after Congress increased the budget yet again for the military.

So I think I think you make such a good point. And the worst part about all of this is we don't really have an opposition party that, that understands messaging, understands the importance of political theater. They just kind of let, you know, the Trump administration and the Republican Party run with whatever narrative they want. And I'll give you a statement from Chuck Schumer on this very issue that we're talking about today. You know, he just released a statement. The Trump Treasury Department siphoning congressionally appropriated funds meant to pay for 9-11 workers healthcare is an outrageous finger in the eye of the firefighters, cops and other first responders

who risked their lives for us, Schumer said. This needs to stop forthwith and payments to the workers' health program must be made whole. And now, what is wrong with you, Chuck Schumer? He's not saying anything wrong. It's just, that's it. That's it. He released a statement and he'll drop it now. That's it's over. This is one of probably the three of four most, powerful people in the Democratic Party, and that's his response to basically something that's unconscionable, an unconscionable act. And again, the Republicans are great at, they love flyovers, they love saluting, they love all of the fake, showy sort of, we love the troops, support the troops. I can't believe Colin Kaepernick would kneel. They're great at the symbolic sort of gestures.

That's all they do. They never put their money where their mouth is. But the Dems, like, you know, this is not something Chuck Schumer is committed to. Let's face it, if Donald Trump's administration were doing something that say Chuck Schumer found abhorrent in reference to Israel, oh boy. Trust me, his response would not have been this tepid because that's something that he really cares about and is passionate about. And it just shows when they're not passionate about a subject, this is what you see. Yeah, yeah, that's such a great point. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, I mean, tepid response after tepid response when it comes to something

horrendous that Trump is doing. But you get some progressives demanding passage of the Green New Deal. Oh, she'll fight. The hammer's coming down, for sure. Definitely, definitely. And you know what? Speaking of which, that does serve as a really good transition to our next story because we should talk about the wildfires that are ravaging the West Coast and Pelosi's comments

about them because she's full of it. So climate change fueled wildfires are ravaging West Coast states, California, Oregon, and Washington. The fires have led to a state of emergency in Oregon. In fact, the highest number of fatalities have occurred in that state. At least 15 people have died in the fires overall. With more expected as teams search through burned homes, the fires have consumed more than three million acres in California, almost a million acres in Oregon, and destroyed entire towns in Washington. In fact, there were two wildfires in Oregon that have now merged. It's just, we're dealing with historic fires, certainly in California, and firefighters are having an incredibly difficult time containing any of them. Now, we deal with

fire season in California every single year. And every year, we keep hearing about how they've certainly been worse. It's accelerated due to climate change. And we, we can, we keep hearing about how they've certainly been worse. It's accelerated due to climate change. And we hear the same lip service from our Democratic lawmakers. And this is a thing that frustrates me the most because when people criticize leadership in blue states, they actually do have a point. And it's not because they're too progressive. It's because they're fueled by the same corrupt political system that Republicans are. That's why you get people like Nancy Pelosi, who will take an opportunity to pretend like she cares about climate change today, but is always unwilling to do what it takes to fight climate change, because she's got her corporate interests in mind. But before we get to that, here are her recent comments about the fires in California.

Now we're again breaking records. Mother Earth is angry. She's telling us, whether she's telling us with hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the West. whatever it is, that the climate crisis is real and has an impact. Oh, is Mother Earth upset with us? Okay, that's great. Yeah, where's the part where Nancy Pelosi talks about some policy that she wants to implement to curb some of the effects of climate change, right? To reverse some of this, to get us out of this rut. Of course, that's not even to talk about some of the. the fires that was started by some of the energy industries over here in California. Nobody, you don't bring the hammer down on them, because of course not.

Why would you ever bring the hammer down on some corporate interest? There's no policy proposals. Of course, whenever people in her own caucus stump for and basically make a lot of noise for climate policy, Green New Deal policy, it's Pelosi who's being like, no, no, no, you need to temper those expectations, no, no, no, we need to be. incremental about this? No, no, no, this isn't that big pressing an issue. They feel much more comfortable talking about Donald Trump's tact, his sort of language, his terrible bedside manner than any policy solutions that would actually materially help, you know, the lives

of everyday citizens, particularly here in California, where like you mentioned, Anna, we live here. And the fire situation is, it gets scary and scarier by the year. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's been pretty brutal outside. You know, at least where I'm at, the sky is an orange yet. Yeah, but you can definitely smell it. You see it in the air. The air quality is a hazard. It's dangerous. You can't really go outside. And yeah, you look at these images and you feel like you're living through the apocalypse. It's really terrifying, especially when you consider all of the other things that are going wrong right now, like the never-ending pandemic, which we, of course, have no real leadership to get us through. And I want to remind you all that early, in early 2019,

Nancy Pelosi was just engaging in this annoying, passive aggressive fight with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And in an interview with Politico, she really belittled the Green New Deal, which is actual legislation that would do what it takes to combat climate change. She was quoted as saying, it will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive, the Green Dream or whatever they call it. Nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right? No, maybe you don't know what it is because you're obviously clearly incompetent, but anyone who wants to read that legislation, that proposed legislation, can do it. But she doesn't have an incentive to because her corporate donors give her all the financial

incentive she needs to pretend as if this isn't a real problem. And then when you have these fires, oh yeah, let's let's have Nancy Pelosi on to pretend like she's genuinely concerned about climate change. I'm just not buying it. Yeah, the dismissiveness of the green dream comment. It's funny because this is not a dream. This is not a fantasy what's going on here on the West Coast. Like this is real. It's about as real as it gets. And so for, you know, the speaker, of the House of Representatives in the United States of America to be talking about climate changes in such dismissive terms and what is ostensibly supposed to be the progressive left party of this country.

It's horrifying, quite frankly, and you know, it's hard to justify Pelosi's speakership. It's harder and harder by the day to justify her in that position and in that job. She's just proven herself ever since she re-won the position. position to be completely incompetent and, you know, overmatched by the job. Yeah, but you know what, Waz, to be fair, she does perform a mean sarcastic clap. And have you seen her rip up the speech? Like, I mean, it really speaks to me. And, hey, man, she looks good in Kente cloth.

I got to give it to her. She looks damn good in Kentee cloth. She's just so embarrassing. Tia LaMala from our member section writes in and you can become a member at TYT by going to tYT.com slash join. I live in Seattle and the smoke is so bad it can barely breathe. It was hard enough to leave the house because of COVID, but now I can't even go check the mail or for a walk on the trail. Yeah, I totally agree with you and stay safe out there. The thing that's really been keeping me sane during COVID is being able to like go out for a super long walk after work,

go on a hike. And now that we're just all kind of stuck at home, it is really, really hard. But we need to, we really need to organize and hold people like Pelosi accountable. And she's not the only one. I thought it was really interesting when Obama tweeted about the wildfires as well. He tweeted the following with pictures and everything. The fires across the West Coast are just the latest examples of the very real ways our changing climate is changing our communities. Protecting our planet is on the ballot. Vote like your life depends on it because it does. Just a quick reminder that Obama was in office for eight years. And you know, at least we could say Obama tried to, you know, he did his best as far as the climate treaty.

He tried, you know, he tried to do at least something. At least we could say Barack Obama tried. And again, this is not the show for it, but the Dems whole vote, the condescension of that messaging is just killing me and my spirit worse and worse by the day. Because it's like, vote for what? Vote for people like Nancy Pelosi? Like, what are we voting for? You know, I understand you want us to vote for Democrats just blindly do it. But what are we voting for? Like when they just say, go out and vote. Go, like, that's it. That's all you need to do, because that's all that matters. It's like, what are people supposed to be voting for? What are we moving people to vote for when people can just look outside of their windows, particularly here in Los Angeles, you just see like, wow, man, like climate change is actually affecting my life materially. Who's talking about this in a meaningful way that I can go out and vote for? The vote messaging is just so condescending and just annoying at this point. It's ridiculous. Right. And also, I mean, the underlying message there is go out there and vote for the candidate who promised his donors that nothing will fundamentally change. Right. So it's, you know, okay, so just a quick tangent. Right now there's all this focus on the revelations from Bob Woodward's book because Democrats just want negative stuff about Trump to latch. on to because they don't want to offer any type of policy that actually speaks to voters. It's like, no, we can't, we don't want to, we don't want to change things. But we want to get elected. And so we're just going to latch on to all of the negative news that we can find on

Donald Trump. Look, the negative news on Trump is valid. It certainly is. There's no question. But you've got to think about what motivates people to take time out of their day to cast a ballot, Right? And some people might think that's an easy process, but you need to inspire people. You need to give them something to vote for. And I'm really scared that Democrats and particularly the Biden campaign are just repeating the same mistakes over and over again because they think that the last four years have been horrible enough to convince people to vote for Biden, even if he's not really offering much. I don't know. They might be right. But I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely confident. And I just wish that we had a real candidate who actually does want change to vote for. Final person to touch on is Gavin Newsom. He's the governor of California. And so he had some strong words for climate deniers recently. Let's hear from him. I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers. It simply follows completely inconsistent, that point of view with the reality on the ground, the facts,

we are experiencing. You may not believe it intellectually, but your own eyes, your own experiences, tell a different story. So there's nothing wrong with what Gavin Newsom said in that video. But the tough talk needs to be backed up with robust policy. And so I was curious. I'm like, all right, well, what has Gavin Newsom done when it comes to climate change? And to be fair, I mean, the records mixed. Greenpeace did a report on him and here's what they found. In October, of 2019, Newsom signed a bill to limit oil and gas development on state lands. On November 19th, 2019, Newsom's administration announced three actions to safeguard public health and the environment, advance California's goal to become carbon neutral by 2045, and manage the decline

of oil production and consumption in the state. The move marks California as the first major fossil fuel producing region in the United States to seriously begin a process to manage the decline of fossil fuel production, and here's the important part, although it remains to be seen how far these reforms will go and reducing oil and gas production. The ultimate impact of these proposed reforms is unknown, and on their own, they do not meet the level of ambition necessary to match the scale of the climate and public health crisis. And so, you know, I want to give him credit for the moves that he has made. But the point here is that half measures incremental change is simply not enough. We are experiencing the ramifications of climate change right now.

We're seeing it with our own eyes every day. And we need someone who's honestly going to have the courage to stand up to corporate interests and say, yeah, no, you can keep your money. We're going to go ahead and pass policy that is necessary to save humanity on Earth. Like there is no way that we're going to be able to survive on this planet if we keep making incremental changes. Yeah, and I think the problem with people like Pelosi and to a lesser extent, obviously Gavin Newsom is, you know, and again, I'm no Karl Rove, but it seems to me that of course you should be tying certain things around the other sides next when it comes to the atrocities,

committed during coronavirus when it comes to climate denial. And then you can see, you know, the direct result of this climate denial. But, you know, part of the problem is, and again, I think it's ideological. Why wouldn't they be selling stuff like the Green New Deal as a jobs bill? Straight up. We're going to put Americans to work in great jobs with great benefits. We're going to give y'all pensions. We're going to put money into, not only is this going to save the planet, it's going to put American people in dignified work. But again, to me, it just seems like ideologically, they just don't want that. They don't believe in that.

They believe in the corporate structures. And if, hey, man, if you can get on a corporate board, if you can get in the C-suite, if you can get, you know, if you can get basically become part of the bourgeoisie of American society, more power to you. But, you know, normal people, normal Americans, we got nothing to sell to you, except for the fact that, you know, our president once said he wants to grab women by the pee. Yeah, no, you're so right. Absolutely. And Gerald from our member section says, yes, Was, you nailed it. So, audience has already given you love. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,

we have more news for you guys, including an update on Michael Reinel that was the protester in Portland, who was eventually gunned down by cops who claimed that he posed a risk to their lives. Well, one witness says that's not the case, so we'll detail that story and more. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-Bing 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-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

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

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today. and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian, and Wozni Lombre on the show with you today. I'm just going to read some member comments and some new member names. First off, John Campbell Reese brings up the fact that Chuck Schumer used the word forthwith in his response to the Trump administration stealing money from a fund that's meant to pay for the health care of 9-11 first responders. He says,

forthwith, nobody this side of 1890 uses that word. Chuck Schumer, you are a buffoon. Absolutely. A bucket of pearl clutching squirrels from our member section writes in and says the majority report had Pelosi's opponent Shahid Bhuttar on today. He and Sam, litter up. She's a terrible corrupt politician and totally beholden to corporations. Please check out Shahid Bhuthar's campaign. Please support him. There's been an effort to smear him. I'm personally not buying any of it, but I recommend if you'd like to look into the details of that and judge for yourselves. I think that there's certainly a lack of evidence. But nonetheless, he's a real progressive candidate who's trying to beat Nancy Pelosi. And I want her out.

I think that she is an awful, awful member of democratic leadership. There's no two ways about it. She's worked against us. Yeah, absolutely. And Nancy's matching face mask writes it and says, didn't Newsom sign a fracking contract for the state of California? Yes, he did. He did.

So that's why his record is awful. In some ways, in other ways, you know, he's done some good things. But my point in bringing Gavin Newsome up is to say that he is so really, you know, he's done some good things. He is so representative of that incremental change that Democrats try to sell us. But oh, that hair, Anna, that hair. Come on, it's to die for. He's not for me. He's brother. And new YouTube members, we have Carissa Newfeld. Thank you so much. And Matt Bartlett, Matthew Bartlett. Thank you so much for joining guys. We really appreciate it. All right, update on the Michael Rinell story.

Michael Rinell was gunned down by cops who claimed that he produced a weapon when they were attempting to apprehend him for shooting a right-wing radical member of the Patriot Prayer. This happened in Portland and, you know, he was wanted for second-degree murder. So the cops claimed that they found where he was, tried to apprehend him, and saw that he was a threat because he had a weapon. But now a witness is arguing that Rinell didn't produce a weapon at all and that cops didn't even announce their presence. And so let me give you the details on what we know. According to Nate Dingus, Rinell was clutching a cell phone and eating a gummy worm as he walked to his car outside a complex, an apartment complex in Lacey, Washington. That's when

officers opened fire without first announcing themselves or trying to arrest him. Dingus, a 30 year old who lives in the apartment complex shared this information with the press. So the officers, according to him, never audibly identified themselves and didn't try to arrest him. Dingus watched police unleash rapid fire rounds at Rinell, once pausing to shout stop, this is after the first round of shots, before resuming their fire. Now, his account is certainly different from what we've heard, both from the cops and also from other witnesses. For instance, two other witnesses told the Olympian that they had seen Reinel fire a weapon at police. But here's the issue with those witness testimonies. The cops themselves didn't say that that happened. In fact, the cops are

being incredibly vague in their statements about the so-called weapon. For instance, this is the wording. Police have said Rinell was found with a handgun, but have not said if he fired any shots at officers, Thurston County Sheriff's Lieutenant Ray Brady said he didn't have any information regarding whether he fired any shots or produced his handgun during the encounter that night. So he might have had a weapon on him, but it's unclear whether he actually used that weapon or even, you know, presented it in any way when the cops show up. And again, according to this witness who went on the record with his full name, the cops didn't even, you know, identify themselves or announced themselves as they were supposedly trying to apprehend him. And there's

no video of this. So we don't really know what happened. But these are the details that we're hearing now. Yeah, I just think fundamentally there needs to be a reimagining about how we choose to view the statements of police, right? This benefit of the doubt that the cops get in their reporting of incidents that cops are involved in, they just don't deserve a benefit of the doubt. They haven't demonstrated that they deserve this because one thing that we do know about cops and their method of self-reporting is that cops will not voluntarily say damning things about cops.

That's just not going to happen. And so the burden of proof needs to be shifted, one from we assume the cops did the right thing when they used lethal force to, bro, you better have absolute great proof to convince us as far as the public because ostensibly these people are working on our behalf and in our names that lethal force was necessary because there's just no evidence that cops, when presented with the opportunity, are going to damn other cops. less themselves. Like, no cop is going to write his own police report and indicate that he messed things up, that, you know, things went completely haywire. In fact, the opposite is always true. Whenever we see video of a police incident, and then we see the report, it's always the opposite of what actually happened. Like, it's never been where, you know, we see video of police misconduct, and then we go back to the report and be like, oh, wow, look, they told them. the entire truth here, man. Oh, nothing to see. They, you know, they, everything's above

board here. It's always the opposite. The cops don't deserve any level of a benefit of the doubt. When they use lethal force, everybody should look at look at that usage of lethal force with a level of skepticism because, again, the cops cannot be trusted to do the right thing, quite frankly. I know that sounds, you know, jarring for certain people to hear because it's like, no, I know good cops and blah, blah, blah, blah. They're incentivized to lie all the time. The culture of policing, the blue wall of silence, all these other things. The culture incentivizes quite frankly a criminal, corrupt, and toxic culture. And that's just the reality of things. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. You know, when people want to use that a few bad apples

argument, I mean, it's so easy to dismantle that talking point because, I mean, if you want to make the argument that in the entire population of cops, only a small percentage of them carry out fatal shootings. But that honestly doesn't matter when you have this whole system in place that protects the bad apples, right? Where cops are honestly intimidated in a lot of cases from speaking out. And I know that. I know that based on cops, I personally know, people who I've talk to who wanted to kneel in support and solidarity of Black Lives Matter protests, but we're told by the higher ups in their department that they need to cut that out, right? Don't do that. We don't like that. Don't speak out against your colleagues. And it's just

so, I often think about the culture of policing versus the culture of people in the media, right? People in the media are like, boom, boom, like we can't, like, everyone's jabbing each other at all times. Like, it's nonstop, right? We critique and criticize each other all the time. Yeah, but cops is a, it's a totally different story, 100%. Yeah, and you know what's so funny about that stupid metaphor about, you know, too few bad apples spoiling the bunch? Like the reason why that metaphor is stupid is because literally when a vegetable or fruit is rotting, it admits like a chemical. that literally ruins everything.

So that analogy, that analogy fails on its face because like what you're describing is exactly the problem. Cops are incentivized to behave recklessly because there are no repercussions, period. You might say, oh, these are good people. They don't want to live with the, you know, with the death of some guy, death of some dude that they see as subhuman anyway, as a scourge in society anyway, as a problem anyway? Like, I don't find that to be the case. If anything, again, the culture of policing encourages bad behavior by police because there are no consequences. Nobody's going to scold you.

Nobody's going to put you out. You get to behave poorly with impunity. And I'm sorry, the culture incentivizes that. I can't say that enough. Well, we gotta take our last break in the hour. When we come back, we're not done with policing yet because while there are calls to defund the police, the governors of Texas has decided to overfund police by taking money away from COVID relief. Anyway, we'll give you the details on that and more when we come. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Hey, everyone, welcome back to T-YT, Anna Kasparian, and Wazni Lombre with you. You can find his work at the athletic where he is a culture and NBA writer. So we are going to talk about sports in a little bit. But before we do, Waz,

you're getting more love in our members section. You're getting more love everywhere in every section of our comments. Uno says glad Waz is back. Glad Waz is back. Glad to see another bro on the show. Shout out to TYT sports. The Ethernet says love the comment about poison And apples, absolutely. I thought that was really smart. And it's so true, like, no one ever finishes that saying. Like, phrase. Yeah. But a couple of bad apples literally spoiled a bunch. They do. They do. Yeah, it's science. We're doing science here. Right. Facts, not feeling. Vicious C in our super chat section says Schumer literally conjuring an image of the three Stooges while calling out Republicans on something so heinous. Wow, strong words. Yeah,

this is, this is what we're dealing. We don't really have an opposition party. It's so frustrating. And here's the thing, and I say this all the time, like I had my issues with Harry Reid, but that dude knew how to lead. He knew how to get stuff done. He understood politics. He was a freaking master at his job. And like to go from Harry Reid to Chuck Schumer is like, I can't even describe it, man. I know. And then from our Twitch section, null unit 40 donated 1,000 bits. We press on.

And Jay Cisneros 24, yes, it's me. Saludos to everyone from South Texas. This, thanks for making my night, Jank, and Jaime? Is it really Jessica Cisneros? I don't know, that's pretty cool. Anyway, all right. Well, let's move on. We have more news to get to, and an unfortunate update in Tennessee.

So while an average of 1,000 Americans are dying, while an average of 1,000 Americans are dying every single day due to coronavirus, The state of Tennessee has decided to take some of their coronavirus funding and redirect it to police departments. I'm not kidding. So Tennessee will funnel $300,000 of federal coronavirus relief money to help cover the cost of 90 additional police cadet scholarships as part of Governor Bill Lee's initiative to strengthen policing. So I don't think I need to say it, but I guess I just want. will, this is amid calls to defund the police because of the excessive force and the police brutality and the broken policing system we've all been experiencing and seeing in video after video after

video. But it turns out the governor, Bill Lee of Tennessee isn't persuaded by any of that. In fact, he calls the effort to defund the police meaningless. And he's quoted as saying, Our state has created one of the most comprehensive and collaborative law enforcement advancements in recent Tennessee history, while also working to recruit top tier talent to our force. I have more details for you, Was, but I wanted to get your initial thoughts. It's, it's, you know, it's republicanism 101. They're preaching sort of chaos and the rioters. You know, the rioters and the looters, that's a big part of their messaging going into November. that these Negroes are out of hand, they're ruining our malls, and nobody's going to keep us safe except for the police, right? Like, it's, it's, it's easy to spot what they're trying to market here. And again, and another part of that is rioters and looters coming to kill you and your kids in your nice suburban home, that's real, and coronavirus is fake. Therefore, we can take

something that's meaningless to them, i.e. coronavirus, we can take funding from that and funneling into something real, which is these crazy Antifa vampires are coming to kill you, literally. And the only thing between you and those sickos in Antifa are the police. And so we're going to put money in the police, hire more police. We're going to keep you and your little fee fee safe at night. I love the word Fifi. Yeah, you're absolutely right. What frustrates me so much is that their propaganda is working. It's working nationwide.

And yeah, and it's because, I mean, think about, okay, let's look at it on a more narrow scale. Let's just focus on the way Donald Trump successfully frames the conversation. And then you have Joe Biden constantly playing defense, right? You never have Joe Biden playing offense. No. It's always Trump who fearmongers and says, look at this rioting and this looting. Joe Biden loves it. He wants to defund the police. And what does Joe Biden do? He'll put out a statement where he's like, I do not want to defund the police. I do not support these looters. It's so frustrating. We have no opposition party. We just don't. Again, it's the smart thing would be to frame the conditions on the streets as being able to thrive only under a Trump presidency. Like, it's just like, yo, there's rioting on the streets because of this guy's lack of leadership. When I get in there, you'll see everybody's going to love it. Like that's, that's what the Republicans do all the time.

Blame it on it. Whatever the issue is, if it's ailing America, blame it on the. the Dems. But instead of doing that, which would be actually, you know, logical and would make sense that you would blame the conditions of our country on the leadership of the country. Instead, Joe Biden says, no, I don't like rioters either. It's like, no, no, no, there's a reason why people are on the streets. There's a reason why the coronavirus sort of response was tepid and horrible. We don't have leadership. All the things you see there are bad, bad, bad, Trump, that's it. You need to tie everything that voters sees bad as being the fault of our leadership.

Like this isn't complicated. Instead, you know, it's the fake cowtowing. Like, of course they should denounce crimes. Like that goes without saying, of course we don't believe in people riding and looting and messing up property. But how do people get that way? We need to address that and we need somebody to blame for that. But, you know, typical Dems. No, I mean, I would put out ads. I would use the word extrajudicial murder, killings, executions, extrajudicial executions. I would say that over and over again in ad after ad. The problem with Democrats is that they're still campaigning as if it's like the 1990s and it's bad to put out negative ads. No, no, we're dealing with someone who thrives off fear, panic, negativity, division, I would put out ad after ad where

I'm just like, Trump thinks it's okay for the government to carry out your execution without your day in court. Because that's what's happening on the streets right now. 100%, Anna, and I think this is another thing that the Dems don't understand. And I think that people just generally don't understand is that most of the people who get killed by police are white just by the fact of demographics, right? Like the country is still 62% or something like that white. And so therefore most police killings happen to poor white people. Like if you wanted to, if you really wanted to get the message across, it's like, look,

the police is coming to kill you too. Instead, you know, they can't, they can never divert from their woke posturing. And so they would never do that because they love to posture in such a way that it's like, No, we're really racially progressive and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, you need to be anti-police in how they handle this particular issue and how they police poor people. You know, quite frankly, here in Encino where I live, I have nothing but positive interactions with the cops. I'm blessed in that way. I'm, dare I say it, privileged in that way, right?

Like, that's my interaction with the police is like they chuck me to deucees. They say, hello, they're very polite with. Let's face it, I live in Encino. No, that's not the interaction that people in Watts have with the police, right? And so instead, the Dems would never frame it as this is an issue of poor people all across America. Because the Dems are basically bourgeoisie in their self-identification, they just don't want to talk about that kind of thing. That's why they're losing on this issue.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, I don't wanna run out of time before we talk about the NFL, so let's get to that story. All right, well, we have some unfortunate news when it comes to the sports world, particularly the NFL kickoff game that just happened between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans. Apparently there was a little bit of protesting going on before the game and the crowd booed. So the Guardian reports that fans jeered what the league described as a moment of silence dedicated to the ongoing fight for equality in our country. Earlier, the Texans, Texans had stayed in the locker room for performances of lift every voice and sing, widely

considered the black national anthem and the star spangled banner. Texans, executive vice president of football operations, Jack Easterby told NBC the players did not want any misinterpretation of celebration or celebrating one song and throwing shade on the other. And the Miami Dolphins, I'm very curious how the Cuban community feels about this, but the Miami Dolphins said they will stay inside the locker room during the national anthem for the entire 2020 season. But really the heart of this story is the pretty gross reaction from the crowd, you know, the fact that they felt comfortable booing a message of equality and unity. Yeah, I think the viewers, if you don't know anything about Kansas City, that's a place that's deeply conservative, that part of the country. And also, they just have a history of racial, as we'll say, issues. For example, they used to have an NBA team. And then the

people who ran the NBA, you know, they moved a team out of Kansas City for a variety of racial issues. And as you guys all know, the NBA is widely considered to be the Black League, which I don't think we have time to really get into here today. But whatever, the NBA decided long ago, we can't put a team in Kansas City. It's too racist. So, you know, part of me watching that yesterday, I'm not going to lie, the cynical New Yorker and me kind of smiled because I was like, at least they're keeping it real to themselves. This is who they are. This is Kansas City, you know, I think that the response might have been a bit different in a place like, say, Seattle, right? Or even San Francisco, you might have got a bit of a different

reaction if people were in the stance there. But in Kansas City, Missouri, I think you got, those people were being true to themselves there. And again, this is a reaction to some of the most tepid forms of protest, like guys locking arms, lift every voice and sing was a is a song about Jesus ostensibly. Like, what are we even talking about here as far as the NFL's demonstration and it still gets booed? No, it is amazing. But, you know, when you talk about other locations and how Americans might react differently

to that form of protest, you do have a point because there has been some polling in this or on this topic. A recent poll from the Washington Post, for instance, found that 56% of Americans believe kneeling during the anthem is an appropriate form of protest with 42% finding it unacceptable. Look, I'm trying to put a positive spin on this. It's kind of hard because even though it's still the majority of Americans, 56% is like unacceptably low. Yeah, laughably low. You have to just remember, and I know we don't have a lot of time. It's the conversation has been framed and muddied in such a way where it's called protesting the anthem. Not that they're protesting police violence and

brutality against black and brown Americans. They frame it as they're protesting the anthem and we love the troops and blah, blah, blah. And now we've come full circle where we know nobody gives a damn about the troops. Nobody's protesting the flag. People are just upset about how the cops act in America. Right. And also, the hypocrisy with the right wing is never ending because they'll cry endlessly about Ben Shapiro getting protested on a Berkeley campus when he wants to give a speech. And they'll say that it's a violation of his First Amendment rights. But when it comes to athletes performing the most respectful form of protest, because they just want black people to stop getting shot and killed by cops on the streets. No, that's unacceptable.

Okay? It is unacceptable, inappropriate forms of protest. They're full of it. Yeah. In the postgame today, we have lots of great stories, including Mike Pence and his plans to speak before a Q and on audience. You don't want to miss that. TYT.com slash join. to become a member see you there 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