The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - September 23, 2020

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

Breonna Taylor still has not received justice. 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. Hey everyone, welcome to TYT, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rola with you. Just a few housekeeping notes so we can move on to what we love to do, which is share the news with you guys. ShopTYT is trying to encourage you guys to go out there and vote. And so with this year's election, obviously democracy is on the line, especially with Donald Trump attempting to rig this election in his favor in a number

of different ways. So you can get some timely items that encourage people to vote by going to shopty.com. So make sure you check that out. Also on the conversation on Thursday, We're going to have Gina Torres on. She's the actress who you might know about through Westworld and I believe Firefly you mentioned, John. One other show she's on in suits. So Adrian Lawrence will be interviewing her on the conversation. Tune in Thursday at 5.30 p.m. Eastern time, 2.30 p.m. Pacific at t.com slash live. You could also watch on YouTube and Facebook.

All right. Well, we have an update on the Brianna Taylor story, so let's get right to it. A grand jury has indicted one police officer from Louisville, Kentucky in connection to the death of Breonna Taylor. Sergeant Brett Hankinson is the only one who will face any charges. In fact, three counts of first degree wanton endangerment, but it's not because of Breonna Taylor dying, it's because he just fired his weapon indiscriminately. and could have killed others. As you guys can recall, after cops opened fire, some of those bullets actually went into the apartment next door. And so those are the charges that one of the cops is facing. So wanton endangerment is an act or an instance of putting someone or something in danger or exposure to peril or harm. Louisville police previously fired Hankison, who was found to have fired 10 shots, blinding.

into Taylor's apartment, the police department said Hankison had displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life. The charges that were filed accused him of firing blindly into several apartments and recklessly endangering Taylor's neighbors, but do not charge him with firing at or killing Taylor. Taylor's family had called for nothing less than manslaughter charges, and clearly those charges never came to fruition. Bond for Heckison set at $15,000 full cash. And as you guys can probably imagine, there's a lot of rage throughout the country over this additional case of injustice. You know, you were talking about an innocent person who was killed in her own apartment by cops who had obtained a no-knock

warrant by lying to the judge about the post office saying that there were suspicious packages is going to Breonna Taylor's home. Of course, the post office inspector later said that no one from the post office had told the police department that at all. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that they lied about that. Doesn't matter that they lied about not wearing body cams. Later through some investigative reporting, we found out that they were wearing cameras. They just didn't turn it on. There was some evidence of tampering with the scene based on photos that were taken shortly after the shooting and then what the scene looked like later. So I mean, there are all sorts of issues here and we're supposed to just believe what

the cops in this case said, which is, hey, you know, we announced ourselves as cops. And that's when Brianna Taylor's husband decided to open fire, which is why we returned fire. But it would be weird, right, to obtain a no-knock warrant and then proceed to knock and announce yourself as you're undergoing a raid. I just I don't believe them. I don't think that there's justice in this case. I can understand the anger because I feel it myself. John, why don't you jump in? Yeah. So this was announced while we were filming the damage report this morning, and we just got like sort of a one sentence summary of it. And I stupidly thought that this is sort of a light sentence for one cop having to do with her death. And I thought, you know,

I'm actually kind of shocked by this. I mean, obviously this doesn't go nearly far enough, but at least it's something. And then with every detail that's come out since then, it's become more and more of a farce, almost like I guess it's not, but it feels almost like having the charge at all is more of an insult than not having anything because it sort of implies, oh no, we considered the possibility that killing this woman would be a bad thing, that it's in some way wrong or should have consequences. We're not interested in that. We're going to deal with the possibility that someone else could have been hurt. Although I have to wonder if they had hit another person, would the cops not have gotten

away with that in some way? We have to have access to the actual evidence that was presented, more information about the procedure that led to this being the one charge, because it really does seem like it was manipulated and biased in a number of different ways to make sure that there was effectively nothing that came out of it. Yeah, it's beyond insulting because essentially what these charges indicate is, yeah, yeah, an innocent black woman is dead. But that is not what we're going to hold anyone accountable for. It's just the recklessness of opening fire in a way that could have harmed others. It's just, so let's hear from the attorney general, you know, the

top prosecutor who brought the evidence before the grand jury. Let's hear what he has to say. His name is Daniel Cameron. My job is to present the facts to the grand jury, and the grand jury then applies those facts to the law. If we simply act on emotion or outrage, there is no justice. Mob justice is not justice. Justice sought by violence is not justice. It just becomes revenge. And in our system, criminal justice isn't the quest for revenge.

It's the quest for truth, evidence, and facts, and the use of that truth as we fairly apply our laws. So I really don't understand how any of this is justice, how anyone can look at what the outcome of this case is and say, no, no, we did it right. This is how justice is carried out. Again, we're talking about a woman who was killed. in her own apartment, there was absolutely no evidence that she was engaged in any type of illicit behavior, any type of illegal behavior. There were no drugs found in the home, no money found in the home. This no-knock warrant was carried out past midnight. You have plain closed cops using a battering ram to enter someone's apartment in the middle of the night. We're in a country that's supposed to value the second amendment so people can protect themselves in case they're intruders in their homes. And so Kenneth Walker, Brianna Taylor's boyfriend, sees these people,

plain closed individuals come into his home. He fires a warning shot. And that's all he needed to do, right? Just fire that warning shot, didn't kill anyone, injured one of the cops. And then they can just go ahead and rain terror, shoot as many bullets as they want into that apartment. And just as long as they don't do it in a way that might harm other people in other units in that apartment building, right? That's the only thing that anyone might be held accountable for. And remember, this doesn't mean that he's been convicted. This just means that there will be charges filed against one cop. He still needs to stand trial. So there could even conceivably be a situation in which he's not even found guilty or convicted of this. Exactly. And, you know, I can't help,

but I know we're going to talk about one of these two stories later on. So I won't go to in detail into that. Fox is trying to use the past charges of murder victims as a justification for them being killed. But police officers with a long documented record of incredibly irresponsible, violent criminal acts, we're not allowed to have that influence our decisions about, or our evaluations about their decision to use force. When it's, you know, the nth time they've brutalized someone, it doesn't matter what they've done in the past. But if you're the victim of violence, then anything you've done wrong can and will be used against you. I understand it's not involved in the judicial proceedings here, but this is our country. It seems increasingly to be an accurate reflection of what we think is just.

Man, it's been six months, and this is it, six months. Yeah, I know. You know, when the news first broke, I have to be honest. I mean, like, I've become, I expect to be let down, right? So, you know, I saw the rage and everything on Twitter. And I'm not trying to say I don't feel rage. It's just that the rage is so, it's a mainstay in our lives at this point, that when it happens, you just, you don't really feel anything, right?

You become kind of numb to it. So I want to read from our members. We read our, we read your comments during the show. We want to hear what you have to say. And you guys can become a member if you're not already. by going to t.yt.com slash join. Max's mama says, in light of this travesty of justice, where none of the police officers liable for Brianna Taylor's death are being charged, no-knock warrants need to be banned.

This tragedy would not have happened if the police had not entered the residence on a no-knock warrant. I mean, I agree with you on that. There's no question about it. And thank you for writing in. But, I mean, it doesn't go far enough. the cop who gunned down 12-year-old Tamir Rice didn't need a no-knock warrant to do it. I mean, this is a virus that is infected every single police department throughout the country

and simply, you know, doing some reform on the edges, albeit it's an important reform, but it just doesn't go far enough, right? I just think that what we're seeing right now is case after case of armed militia members, right wingers, gunning down protesters, and the country rallies in their defense. Oh, they're defending themselves from these unhinged lunatic protesters who have the audacity to demand justice and actual reform in police departments. But when it comes to someone like Breonna Taylor, what did she do wrong? What did she do to deserve it? And how would anyone feel if they saw a family member lose their life like that, get gunned down like that, and there are no criminal charges?

for that aspect of what happened that night. No one's being charged criminally for gunning her down. It's crazy. All right, and I do also want to read from the attorney Benjamin Crump, who on Twitter said the grand jury's decision in killing, in the killing of Brianna Taylor is outrageous and offensive to her memory. It's yet another example of no accountability for the genocide of persons of color by white police officers. With all we know about Brianna Taylor's killing, how could a fair and just system result in today's decision. Yeah, I totally, I mean, I totally agree with that. Okay, we got to move on. Let's move on to some other news today.

Pennsylvania is by far the likeliest state to be the tipping point state, the state that will provide either Joe Biden or Donald Trump with the decisive vote in the electoral college. Now, Joe Biden has been consistently in the lead in that state. He's up by four and a half points in the latest 538 polling average, but that's still fairly close. And we also had out in 2016, right? And a recent ruling by the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court could really imperil Biden's chances. Yeah, Chris Hayes is absolutely right in assessing a recent Supreme Court, state Supreme Court ruling in Pennsylvania and how it could negatively impact Joe Biden in this tight race. So the state's Supreme Court just last week ordered,

officials to throw out what's referred to as naked ballots, mail ballots that arrive without inner secrecy envelopes. So Pennsylvania uses a two envelope mail ballot system. A completed ballot goes into a secrecy envelope that has no identifying information and then into a larger mailing envelope that the voter signs. And so basically what the state Supreme Court has said is that if voters failed to put their ballot in a secrecy envelope, then there are privacy issues there, and based on state law, those ballots need to be thrown out. Now, obviously, that's already a huge problem. Just to add insult to injury, we're honestly having a difficult time even measuring how many ballots this is going to impact. And we're talking about

a battleground state where you have two candidates running a tight race. Now, Chris Hayes did a really good job explaining more about how this two envelope system works in Pennsylvania, complete with visuals. So let's take a quick look at that video. And then I'll tell you what the potential damage based on estimates could be. In Pennsylvania and other states as well, you receive two envelopes with your ballot. You have to seal your ballot in the plain ballot envelope first. Then you put that envelope inside the other one, which is the return envelope, and you send it off.

Now, the reason this is done is to ensure that your vote stays anonymous. Election officials will check the outer envelope to make sure the information is correct. The vote is valid. And then they open it, and they've got that inner envelope, right? That's still protecting your privacy, containing the ballot, but no identifying information. And they put that in a stack to be counted. And so, John, I mean, look, we obviously can't stand. the Trump administration, the Trump campaign, but you gotta hand it to them. They find any and

every way to get an upper hand in this election. He is fighting as aggressively as possible, in some ways to do things that are anti-democratic, like dismantling the post office. In other instances, he went through the courts and succeeded in getting the state Supreme Court to rule in his favor. So the Trump campaign and other Republicans sued Pennsylvania and federal court over several election rules, including arguing that naked ballots should not be counted. They got their way with that. The state Democratic Party filed a countersuit in state court. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled they should be thrown out under state law.

So Trump is looking for any way to get an edge and he's succeeding. And when you look at the polling in a lot of these battleground states, Trump has not only closed in on Biden, in some instances, like in Arizona, for instance, he now has a slight lead over Biden. So things aren't looking good for the general election. And I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on it. Do I have to give you a thought? Can it just be an emotion? Could it just be utter exhaustion and depression with the entire thing? Yeah, no, that this one story, this one action that you're describing the story is the Republican Party for literally decades now. It is finding every little Hiddly specific way to make it as difficult as possible for a person's

vote to actually matter. And maybe each one is small. I mean, maybe this one is just a couple of percentage points. Maybe the gerrymandering reduces it by a point, maybe, but then eventually you add up all of these things. And it's this huge obstacle just to have political preferences and have them actually count in the system. And in a democracy, the best democracy, we keep being told, That should not be the case. But they get to keep doing it because it benefits them. And even if we talk about it, it doesn't hurt them because Republican voters don't care because when the Republicans do this, they think it benefits their side because it does. So if one party is actively waging war on democracy, there is apparently no cost whatsoever to doing that at

all. And I don't see long term how you can have a functioning democracy after decades and decades of the corrosive effect of those sorts of moves in a hundred different areas. We focus on one today, maybe we'll do another tomorrow, but they just stack up. It's a massive pile of obstacles and little parasites on our democracy, a new one every day. It's this or it's, you know, some people, they wanted to do absentee ballots, so they requested to get the thing that you are supposed to fill out and then send in to get your actual ballot.

And they get it and it's covered in Trump stuff. So it looks like it's a campaign mailer from Trump. How is that legal? Well, all it takes is having Republicans control the state government. And some people have probably thrown them those away, thinking that that clearly can't be official election mail, but it in fact is, because that's how sick our democracy is. Yeah, 100%. I mean, if you're a Democratic voter and you get your mail-in ballot with Trump's face all over

it, you're gonna throw it away. I mean, I would throw it away because I wouldn't realize that it's a mail-in ballot. You're absolutely right. So there are all sorts of tricks being implemented. to make it increasingly difficult for Democratic voters to have their vote count. You know, my hope is with a story like this, with our coverage of it, that, you know, if you're watching, can you please share it to ensure that people who are voting by mail in Pennsylvania do it the right way so their vote counts.

We want to get this messaging out there. We want to make sure that everyone's vote counts. But, John, you're not wrong when you mention that this is going to negatively impact Biden. based on, you know, what appears to be the case so far. So throwing out naked ballots, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, could be costly for Biden. In a state, President Donald Trump won by a narrow margin, only 44,000 votes in 2016 or less than 1%. So this is a battleground state. This is an incredibly important state. And it is terrifying to see what is likely to happen if people continue submitting these

naked ballots. And again, we have no way of really measuring how many people have already submitted these naked ballots. But Lisa Dealey, who's the chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, wrote in a letter to state legislative leaders urging them to change the law, change the law to allow the ballots to be counted. Dealey warned there will likely be tens of thousands thrown out, maybe more than 100,000, which could be a disaster. So Dealey is saying, look, the state Supreme Court ruled this way based on the way laws are written in the state of Pennsylvania. We can change the law so these ballots count. But of course, Republicans in the state legislature are resistant toward doing anything that would help to make those ballots

count. And mail-in voting's never really been huge in Pennsylvania until now because of the pandemic. So it is difficult to figure out how many ballots will be impacted by this ruling. But we do have evidence of how widespread the naked ballot issue could be based on elections last November. So let me give you those numbers. In last November's municipal election under the old absentee system, 197 out of 386 absentee ballots in Philadelphia lacked secrecy envelopes. That's 6.4%.

And Dealey said that number will be even higher this year because obviously more people are going to vote by mail as a result of the coronavirus. Yeah, 100%. And not every single one of the people affected will be Biden voters, but if Biden voters are far more likely than Republicans to do a mail-in ballot, and if in these areas like in Philadelphia, they're more likely to be Democrats, than it is going to disproportionately affect the Democrats. The Republicans, of course, don't mind that potentially thousands and thousands of Republican voters will also be disenfranchised. They don't actually care about those, they care about the end result. That's what they've always cared about. And it just infuriates me so much that, like, this is a story about an election being manipulated.

But it's obviously tied to so many other stories. I mean, when we don't give a damn about what happens in the Supreme Court, what you get is a Supreme Court that is going to help these sorts of changes to election and voting laws continue. So if hypothetically, Joe Biden comes in, And let's say they get the, the Dems get the Senate. And this, let's say this time around, not like back under Obama, they actually do something to protect democracy, to, you know, make, make a voting day a holiday, to pass some sort of law trying to put back into effect some parts of the voting rights, you know, act or something like that. Well, it'll be relatively easy for them to just overturn it in the Supreme Court.

Like think about how overwhelming having that that majority is when it comes to just making sure that you can just continue to gerrymander and disenfranchise people and you know, purge the votes and take away polling places. You can do all of those things. And then that produces the sort of legislation you want across all other issue areas. It is just so important that we actually get access to the vote in fact, not just hypothetically. And right now we don't. And even if Biden comes in, it might be too late, honestly, for that. I don't know. It's just, it's so depressing to see war being waged so openly and have it not even matter if people understand that it's going on. The only thing we can say right now is if you're watching this and you're in Pennsylvania,

put it in the secrecy envelope. That's the best that we can really hope for right now. And please, you know, communicate with your community and spread the word and ensure that people are submitting their mail-in ballots accurately so their vote counts. Yeah, you're right. I mean, sometimes you feel pretty helpless in situations like this, but all we can do is spread the word and just hope that people submit their ballots correctly. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we have some updates on how Biden is performing in some of these battleground states. And later in the show, Anthony Fauci gets super, super sassy, and I'm here for it. I love it. I love a sassy Fauci, okay? So you don't want to miss

that. We have that and more. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or 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 not learn 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. We return. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT. I want to let you guys know that we are still partnered up with Aspiration, a financial institution that actually cares about the environment. And if you open a new spend and save account, they're going to plant 10 new trees. So check that out.

Go to aspiration.com slash TYT. I wanted to read some member comments and other feedback from our audience. So Peter Giel says, shooting into the dark, killing an innocent person is not justice. Completely agree. Too strong for Democrats. I love that handle. Says so simple advice for people in Pennsylvania.

If they toss your ballot, they toss out your ballot for being naked, you will find out while tracking it. Then you either vote in person or get a new ballot and don't submit naked. Simple. Have media educating people. Republicans then have to find other ways to throw ballots out. Yeah, you're right.

And I should have mentioned that in the context of the story. So you can track your ballot. And if you see that your vote or your ballot got thrown out for whatever reason, you are able to still vote in person. Okay. So if you're in Pennsylvania, please, please, please do what you can to make sure you go out there, vote or vote from home. do it accurately and make sure your vote counts. New YouTube members, we have mature-ish out, 1950 boomer, Aris-oh, an Armenian, that's awesome, Eris Agassian, and also LaShawn Hill and Ted Banad.

So thank you so much, guys, for being new members through YouTube. You can become a member by going to t.y.t.com slash join, or you can become a member through YouTube and we're super appreciative of it. All righty, so let's move on to the rest of our news today, including some pretty terrible updates in regard to the general election. So new Washington Post and ABC News polls indicate that Trump is now leading in two important states, Florida and Arizona. Trump enjoys support from 51% of likely voters in Florida compared to 47% who support Democratic

presidential nominee, Joe Biden. Trump leads Biden 49 to 48% in Arizona. So it's not looking good when it comes to Latino voters either. So Biden's still leading with Latino voters in Florida, but when you compare his lead to Hillary Clinton's lead in 2016 doesn't look so good. So in Florida, the Latino vote splits 52% for Biden and 39% for Trump among registered voters in advance that doesn't reach statistical significance because of a small sample size, Biden has struggled among some Latino voters and his campaign has put renewed emphasis on reaching them. So in 2016, for instance, Hillary Clinton carried Florida's Latino vote 62% to 35%. Yeah.

So Biden's strategy of just kind of staying on the down low is not working. He needs to get out there. That's fair now in hindsight, but who could have predicted that? Who could have predicted that virtually every aspect of his campaign is like the 17th the best idea that could have been developed? Yeah, that's an insane. How much work has Trump done to tell this community he despises them? And Biden has a little lead, kind of. It's amazing. I know, but Florida's, look, Florida is different. Okay, so. I know, I know. That's true. You know, Cuban voters are typically right wing. Okay, so. Yeah, yeah, there's many different groups I totally understand. Yeah, yeah. So like Latinos, it's not like a monolithic group and Florida is a special case. But, but I still agree with you. I mean, there are plenty of Cuban right wingers who were absolutely disgusted with Trump's rhetoric on immigration.

Many of them are immigrants themselves. I mean, of course, they were able to immigrate to the United States under much better and easier circumstances because, you know, they were basically given a free pass because of the Cuban Revolution. But nonetheless, what we're seeing with Biden's slide among Latino voters is pretty terrifying. It really is. And it's not just Florida, as I mentioned. It's also Arizona where earlier Biden had a pretty significant lead.

Yeah, yeah. On Cuba, you know, you sort of get how maybe in that particular case, Trump has tried to show his devotion like in 2008 when he tried to register his trademark in Cuba to build hotels there. Oh, wait, that doesn't seem like that's what they would want. But anyway, he did it because he's a businessman. He doesn't care about anybody. He cares about making money. That's it. But I'm sure this news will really sway a lot of people. Anyway, look, I'm going to respond to a poll of Trump up by four in Florida. basically the same way I had previously seen a poll of Biden up by around four in Florida. If we expect that the way Biden wins is by winning Florida, it is going to be a very bad election day. We cannot need Florida. It would be great if he could get it, although it's looking pretty bad now. But that cannot be the strategy going forward. It certainly doesn't seem like it's Biden strategy based on his actions. Now, Arizona, that might be a different case.

And it is closer and Biden has certainly been up in other polls, but he should be doing significantly better. Now, I see in the document that Brett is asking us whether we think the Cindy McCain endorsement of Biden will have an effect in Arizona. I replied in that. Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean, come on, everyone's been waiting to see what Cindy McCain thinks. And now that Republican Cindy McCain has endorsed Joe Biden, well, first of all, it's really going to fire up Democratic voters. Like Democratic voters and would be like, yes, yes, John McCain's wife has endorsed Biden. You know what? Stay home, Biden. You don't need to do anything else. You're totally right. That's all we care. And by the way, no one cares. I don't care.

Like no one, no one cares. Anyway, go ahead. But you say that, but I was just informed because I didn't know that John McCain was Arizona Senator Brett tells me. Yes, I know Brett. Thank you. I understand there's a bit of any symmetry and you having to type to me and I get this is the weirdest experience of my life. It really, it really is. I know. I know John McCain was the senator and I'm not saying that it won't. It didn't sound like it, John. It didn't sound like it. Okay, maybe, maybe it's worth a point and maybe a point is enough. I'm not going to say that it's nothing. I'm not surprised that she endorsed him. I wonder if if John McCain was still alive whether he would endorse Joe Biden. There's at least a chance. But I don't know. I just, these are sorts of

things that if in the background, they want to continue to operate and possibly have a small effect, that's fine. But this is the sort of thing that's not under Joe Biden's control. Maybe he can make an ad, I guess. There's other things he can be doing with his time, his money, his attention, what passes for passion, and all of that. Meat and potatoes, okay? Meat and potatoes. Americans want meat and potatoes. Like, talk about the issues that matter. You have this, like, giant blob of a target rich environment. Okay, that's Donald Trump. This polling indicates that people are supportive of how he's handled the economy. Not because he's actually handled the economy well, because he keeps bragging about how well he's handled the economy.

You don't even have to provide evidence. You don't even have to do the work. All you have to do is incessantly repeat how great you are on the economy, and apparently voters just buy it, even as they're experiencing an insane amount of poverty in the richest country in the world, okay? Joe Biden can't even go out there and talk about the damn meat and potatoes that voters want to hear about, want to know about. I don't know what he's doing. Laying low is not working. I mean, it's been weeks, weeks since you can see the trend of Trump closing in on Joe Biden And where has he been? Why is he not talking about the issues that matter?

Look, and please spare me. If you're one of the many who come at us because we're being critical of Biden because he's losing against a moron like Donald Trump, understand that he needs to take this advice. This is advice. This isn't just going after Biden for the sake of going after Biden. He just for some reason refuses to do the work that's necessary to connect with voters and the issues that matter to them. It drives me nuts. So let me go to the economy part of this,

John, because this is really the only angle that convinced me that I should cover this story. Because again, most of these people think that Trump has done a great job with the economy. The survey suggests voters especially approve of Trump's handling of the economy. 54% of Floridians approve of his handling in that area compared to 43% who disapprove. Arizonaans said they approved of his handling of the economy by an even greater margin, 57 to 42%. Okay, so here's what the reality is. Because we all have friends and family, we all know lots of people who are really struggling

right now. This economy is a disaster. The unemployment rate, official unemployment rate, is still at 8.4%. That number doesn't even account for individuals who have given up, they've been searching for jobs, They can't find anything. So they've given up. They're out of the job market completely. They're not even counted in that statistic. Let me give you more though. 30 million Americans are still receiving unemployment benefits. That doesn't sound like such a great economy to me. Many people who have jobs are struggling with pay cuts. As of August, 17 million workers were getting

paid less due to the pandemic. That's according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's analytics. Some 9.5 million took pay cuts. The remaining 7.5 million million are working fewer hours, he said. If you look at specific industries like the restaurant industry, disaster, and it didn't have to be this bad. If Donald Trump actually encouraged people to follow social distancing guidelines, and if we had a decent, robust shutdown where we took the virus seriously, you know, these industries could have been back to work. Things could have been much better than they are now. But the overall restaurant industry is on track to lose $240 billion in sales this year with nearly one in six, having already closed permanently

or long term, according to the National Restaurant Association. And then finally, according to a new report commissioned by the Food Research and Action Center, as of July, the number of people who said they sometimes or often did not have enough to eat has skyrocketed to 29 million or 11% of adults in the United States. By comparison, 8 million adults, or around 4% did not have enough to eat in 2018. So the situation was already dire prior to the pandemic. In 38 states and Washington, D.C., more than 1 in 10 adults with children had inadequate amounts of food with the highest rates of hunger in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The economy for the vast majority of Americans is a complete and utter disaster. The chair of the Federal Reserve just

announced that if Congress doesn't pass another round of stimulus, the economy is going to crash in ways that we have not seen before. And it doesn't matter, Congress isn't doing anything about it. Trump isn't doing anything about it. They don't care. But my point here is, the economy is a disaster. And just by repeatedly telling voters that he's done a great job, people are buying it. They're buying it. All Biden has to do is counter that. But he won't. And I don't, I don't know why. Well, I mean, he has to counter it. That's true. He has to point out that it's bad. But he also has to give them reason to believe that the future would be better under him. That that's where it gets a little bit harder. Maybe we'll see that at the debates. I don't know.

I'm going to be pretty drunk. I probably be able to follow it. But yeah, in the past, hypothetically, the state of the economy was supposed to be one of the most predictable effects on the likelihood that an incumbent president gets reelected. And look, I guess Trump is down nationally. So it's not to say that there's not some sort of correlation there, but the idea that he's only trailing by a little bit, not just because of the horrible economy of the last few years and especially the last six months or so, clearly, and the fact that it's looking bad for the future, and that's reflected in people's evaluation of what they think the future is going to be like. But that also while failing on the pandemic,

there seems to be a growing disconnect between actual performance and office and having any impact whatsoever on his chances. Not to say that there aren't some people being affected, but his base seems to be getting more and more inoculated against having any actual policy expectations that can then, that he then can fail on. They don't seem to care what it is that he does. And so no matter how bad he fails, no matter how many people die or lose their jobs, it's like we're still 60, 40 on the odds in the election right now. And again, like we were talking about before with the naked ballots and all of that, like how is a democracy supposed to function with these issues? The regulations are set up for it to not function. And many, and it seems like a growing number of our fellow citizens, don't seem to actually care about what the government does. They really do seem to sustain themselves on triggering the libs and, you know, like those sorts of things. Like he's entertaining, I guess. Who cares what happens to the economy? And that again is another reason to really fear for the future, especially if Donald Trump gets another four

years in office. It's just so many mistakes from 2016 are being repeated and I don't get it. All right, we got to take a break. And so when we come back, we will share that wonderful moment where Fauci fights back against Rand Paul. And I'm not sensationalizing it. It was a great moment. And we'll share some reality in regard to Sweden, which right-wingers love to bring up as if it handled coronavirus effectively. It did not. And yeah, so we'll do that and more when we return. Come right 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 our data. But that doesn't

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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. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Kasparian and John. to Rolla with you. We have some pretty terrifying breaking news that we're going to get to in just a second, but real quick, I'm going to read one super chat because it has some good advice, although Andrew, you did misspell my name. Anna, please don't forget to mention TYT Go. I will now mention TYT go. That's our fundraising effort. We're trying to raise enough money to keep TYT sustainable throughout the next year. And in order to do that, we want to raise 200 grand each month until the end of this year. And for now, we are not anywhere close to our goal

for the month of September. But you can always contribute to TYT by going to tYT.com slash go. Any little bit helps. It all adds up. All right. So there it is, 72,000, a little over 72,000. So we want to get to 200 grand. And like I said, if you guys can contribute, every little bit It helps and we're so appreciative of it. So now let's move on to the terrifying news that John told me about during the break. Donald Trump is currently holding a press conference as we speak. And during the press conference, he was asked whether he intends on engaging in a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election to Joe Biden.

And he made it clear that he doesn't intend to unless the ballots are thrown. out. And as you guys know, Trump has been pushing this false, completely fake narrative about how ballots lead to widespread voter fraud. There's absolutely no evidence of that. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary, but it doesn't matter. Trump knows that he's lying. He's intentionally doing it. And this is just yet another piece of evidence indicating that regardless of what happens in this upcoming general election, he is not in any way interested in it in just stepping down if he loses. Yeah, he specifically said, unless you get rid of the fake ballots, there won't be a transfer, there will be a continuation. There will be a continuation.

And I'm sure somewhere, Kaylee McEnany is like scrambling to find her trapper keeper to write notes about what he actually meant by saying that. But we know exactly what he meant by saying that. And we already know what he and the White House and the Republicans are doing behind the scenes. They're obviously, in terms of their interviews of potential Supreme Court nominees, they're going to 100% have a litmus test on will you rule that the election is in my favor, whatever it takes. They're working to flip Republican state legislatures to nullify the effect of the outcome of elections if they need to. That's been reported today. He's just saying it openly. In Chopper Talk at these press conferences, he's saying there will be a continuation of power

because I've been complaining very strongly, he said, about mail-in ballots. And we can stick our head in the sand and pretend that it's not happening. We can pretend that this happening in any other country wouldn't terrify us. Some people have been doing that for years. They'll continue to. But I myself am horrified. And I really hope that the Democratic Party is taking this seriously. I hope that the media is taking it seriously and is ready for what's going to come.

Because it's not hard to predict what the next few steps of this are. He's telegraphing it, as someone pointed out, like a bond villain. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And so Biden, the Biden campaign has this giant hill to climb because I think that he's falling short when it comes to messaging and campaigning. But even if he does everything perfectly, right, which he's not. But even if he were, the election is real, like the whole electoral process is on the line. What Donald Trump is doing puts our entire. democratic process on the line. And so I haven't really seen enough of a fight or much of a fight to be honest with you from the Democratic Party, from the Biden camp. What are they doing to ensure that the Trump campaign doesn't just rig this election in various ways, right? What the post office was doing was just one aspect of it. I mean, we have armed people showing up to in-person polling places. We have Trump protesters showing up at in-person.

in-person voting places, blocking people from being able to enter the building so they can vote. We reported on that earlier this week in Fairfax, Virginia, where Trump protesters were blocking people from being able to go into the polling location to vote. I mean, there's so many different examples of how they're trying to throw this election in their favor. What is Biden and the Democratic Party doing to stop this, right? To stop what Trump is doing? And I haven't seen anything. It's just, and then at the same time, John, I don't get this weird overconfidence. I hear it from people all the time. Oh, we just got to get to the election. We just got to get to the election. Oh, yeah. All sorts of people who think like we can just get through the next

40-something days, everything's going to be fine. What makes you think that Biden, A, is going to win, or B, if he does legitimately win, that Trump is just going to engage in a peaceful transition of power, he's already made it clear in a number of instances that he doesn't plan on doing that. Yeah, and whatever dirty tricks he is going to pull, because it's not really a hypothetical at this point, he's definitely going to do it. Our champions, our Avengers are Biden and Schumer and Pelosi. They're the ones that are, and maybe Feinstein, I'll get invited, I'll get invited to it. They're the ones that are going to fight back against this and save of American democracy. Jesus, what a dark place we've come to. Yeah. Well, let's move on to a story

that made me smile, Anthony Fauci. So Anthony Fauci found himself facing off against Rand Paul's idiotic attempts to spread disinformation related to coronavirus. So let's watch what happened. Do you have any second thoughts about your mitigation recommendations considering the evidence that despite all of the things we've done the U.S., our death rate is essentially worse than Sweden, equivalent to the less developed world that is unable to do any of the things that you've been promoting. You know, Senator, I'd be happy at a different time to sit down and go over detail. You've said a lot of different things. You've compared us to Sweden, and there are a lot of differences. And you said, well, you know, there are a lot of differences between Sweden.

but compare Sweden's death rate to other comparable Scandinavian countries. It's worse. So the situation in Sweden is pretty bad. And oftentimes you're likely to hear right-wingers who are against any type of shutdown or against social distancing guidelines cite Sweden as if it were some sort of success story. It is not. So our death rate is pretty high. So the number of deaths per capita in the United States is pretty high. So per 100,000 individuals in the United States, 61.37 die. Okay? And when it comes

to Sweden, the number is also high, 57.64. So it's lower than the United States, but you should compare Sweden to other Scandinavian countries, which Fauci encourages people to do as well. And herd immunity, which Rand Paul is trying to endorse here, would lead to as many as two million Americans dying from the pandemic. So herd immunity among a population usually achieved through vaccination is reached when around 60% of citizens are deemed immune. In July, the World Health Organization officials warned that patients who recover from the virus may be able to get it again, saying that some studies suggest immunity may wane after a few months. I'm going to give you some more incredibly important statistics in just a

minute. But let's hear more from this exchange. How can we possibly be jumping up and down and saying, oh, Governor Cuomo did a great job. Hit the worst death right in the world. No, you misconstrued that, Senator, and you've done that repetitively in the past. They got hit very badly. they've made some mistakes. Right now, if you look at what's going on right now, the things that are going on in New York to get their test positivity, 1% or less, is because they are looking at the guidelines that we have put together from the task force of the four or five things of masks, social distancing, outdoors, more than indoors, avoiding crowds, and washing hands. Or they've developed enough community, immunity that they're no longer having the pandemic because they

have enough immunity in New York City to actually stop? I challenge that, Senator, because I want to, please, sir, I would like to be able to do this because this happens with Senator Rand all the time. You were not listening to what the director of the CDC said, that in New York, it's about 22%. If you believe 22% is hurt immunity, I believe you're alone in that. There's also the pre-existing immunity of those who have cross-reactivity, which is about a third of the public. And many estimates from studies, which would actually get you to about privateers.

I'd like to talk to you about that also, because there was a study that recently came out that pre-existing immunity to coronaviruses that are common cold do not cross-react with the COVID-19. So Fauci is right. And of course, Rand Paul is wrong. And look, for anyone who even feels any temptation to take anything Republicans have to say about coronavirus seriously, we're doing so poorly, right, under Republican leadership. And look, it's up to you. At this point, I don't care anymore. People don't want to wear masks. Don't wear masks.

You want to go ahead and harm yourself and harm your family members, harm your loved ones. You want to put people's lives at risk around you, people who you supposedly love and care about. Have at it. I'm tired, right? There are too many things going on in this country right now that are awful. And we can't be babysitting morons anymore, okay? I just can't take it. Look at Sweden.

Okay, let's take a look at Sweden. Let's look at this graph. It shows you how Sweden is doing when it comes to the number of confirmed coronavirus cases, you know, compared to all these other Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland. Look at how horrible the situation is in Sweden. And then let's look at deaths per capita. Sweden, as I mentioned earlier, 57.64 deaths per capita. Denmark comes in second at 11.06 deaths per capita. Yeah, Sweden, not an example that we want to live up to. Far from it.

I don't understand how they can continue saying that. Month after month after month, as it's done worse than every other country in the region, they just keep holding it up as an example that we should somehow. I don't understand it. He's a doctor sort of, like he's supposed to know some of this. But thankfully, Dr. I understand, Dr. Fauci thankfully had the information. The fact that he even knew about that, you know, the cross-reaction that he talked about at the end, that he knew about that study was great.

Yeah. Look, we have a lot more to talk about in our postgame today. Donald Trump tried to go after Ilhan Omar, but she's not having it. I love her response. Become a member. Go to t.yt.com slash join to get that story. and more of our exclusive members-only content. And if you haven't already,

please contribute to our fundraising effort, t-y-t.com slash go. We'll see you soon. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.