The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - September 25, 2020

Episode Date: September 26, 2020

What will the US military do if Trump refuses to leave the office? Ana Kasparian and Emma Vigeland 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. It's Friday. Friday. Going to get down on Friday. And Emma Vigland is with us. And so it's going to be a good day. How are you, Emma? I'm so great. And by the way, a few years ago, that song and that music video was taken off of YouTube. And I was devastated because Rebecca Black, she'd accumulated all those views.

And it seemed like all of her work, hard work was taken away from her. So RIP. Why did they take it off of YouTube? I don't know. Honestly, we should do an investigative story into that, maybe in the post game. Just a tease. I don't really know. If anyone's interested, that's what we're going to be going to be covering. I'm just, I have to jump in in fake news. I have to say fake news. It's up. No, it's not the original one, Brett. I don't think it is. Well, September 16th, 2011, Rebecca Blacks Friday repost already has 146 million views. And it's only been nine years. We'll look it up in the break and then we'll tell the audience, there's definitely a Friday show. This is important.

In fact, we're now beginning a new fundraising effort to raise enough money to invest in this story, please go to t.com slash go and contribute. I'm kidding. That's, that is our fundraising effort, but not for that story. But anyway, yeah, I love that. I love that song. I know that it was cheesy. I know that it meant nothing. But every Friday, it just reminded me of Fridays and who doesn't love Fridays. I also love Saturdays where I host a show for Jacobin called Weekends with Nando Villa. So check that out. You can subscribe to the channel by going to YouTube.com slash Jacobin Mag. And we have some programming notes for you as well. Ravi Patel will be on happy half hour tonight. That will air after the post game. So make sure you check that out at 7.30 p.m.

Eastern time, 430 p.m. Pacific. It's going to be bonkers and you're going to love it. Also, the first presidential debate is unfortunately going to take place pretty soon. I will be covering it along with Jank Yugar and Ben Mankowitz, and you can watch that live next week on Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific. Also, Michael Shore will be joining us on location. So really looking forward to that. We're able to do all of this because of you guys. You sustain us. You keep us going. So thank you to everyone who has either become a member or has contributed to tyt.com slash go or has helped by sharing this stream. Please share the stream.

It's one of the easiest ways to spread the progressive message. We really appreciate it. Okay, so let's talk about what's going on in the news. Lots of bad stuff, of course. But we're going to try to decode some of the nonsense that you're likely to hear in mainstream media. So if Donald Trump refuses to leave the White House or refuses to engage, in a peaceful transition of power after losing his reelection bid, what's the military likely to do? That's a question that I've heard many people ask. It's a question that I've had ever since

Trump made it very clear on multiple occasions that he won't accept the outcome of the election if he loses. Well, the Defense Department insists that they will do all they can to keep the armed forces out of the elections. So the military is really meant to to be apolitical. And we've found ourselves in this unprecedented situation where for the first time, there is a possibility that the president would refuse a peaceful transition of power. And so does that apolitical label still apply to the military if you have this unprecedented situation? Quite honestly, we're getting some mixed signals from members of the military. One thing that is clear is that former military generals are calling on the Joint Chiefs

of Staff Chairman General Mark Millie to do something if Trump refuses to leave the White House. But here's what Mark Millie says. I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military, in the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law, U.S. courts, and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this process. Relying on Congress to do anything is pretty terrifying. But retired military men are pushing Millie to reconsider this position. In fact, on August 11th, John Nagel and Paul

Yingling, both retired army officers and Iraq war veterans published an open letter to General Millie on the website Defense 1, here's what they wrote. In a few months' time, you may have to choose between defying a lawless president or betraying your constitutional oath, they wrote. If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order. So Emma, I want to bring you in and get your thoughts on some of this? Because this New York Times piece also makes it clear that there are discussions within the military about the possibility of Trump leaving. Like they understand and recognize that this is a problem or could be a potential problem. What are

your thoughts on this? Well, I'm deeply concerned. And I don't really understand the view from some on the left who want to say that Trump is just posturing when he said, says that he may not accept the election results. This is deeply troubling. This is the kind of thing where you should be hyperbolic about Trump. I know that people are often talking about his decorum and little things he does and his tweets and him being mean to John McCain or whatever. This is well beyond that. This is Trump exhibiting his narcissistic personality traits, right? And also capitalizing on the little landmines, he's scattered throughout the American populace where he's talked about how, you know, voter fraud, mail fraud, how can you

trust that the Democrats aren't going to print millions of fake ballots? He's going to end up capitalizing on that once the election results roll in and cast out on the results. That's 100% going to happen. And then he could not leave power. And then what do you do? I mean, I think maybe one of the more likely scenarios of what's going to play out is Trump's going to force his nominee through either now, either before the election or in the lame duck session, and he's going to have litigation on whether or not the result was fair of the election. And will the very conservative Supreme Court side with him? I think that's also a likely scenario. I'm not saying it's the number one scenario, but the fact that we're talking about this means

that the military needs to step up and say, yes, we will side with what the democratically elected result is. And we will remove Trump if necessary, because who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? We have to take him at his word here. Look, Bernie Sanders, we're going to talk about this later. He's been on the right side of history for 30 years. And the fact that he's coming out, he felt compelled to by himself, not with Chuck Schumer, not alongside Nancy Pelosi, not alongside other members of the Democratic caucus, come out and say, this is an extreme real threat. Should scare the bejesis out of everybody. This is not something we're playing around with here. You know, it is interesting to see some people on the left of all, you know,

groups, political groups in the country side with this talking point about how, oh, he's just, you know, he's just talking. He's not actually going to refuse to leave. I mean, all of his actions, it's not just about what Trump says, it's all of the actions surrounding his statements, right? He has been hinting that he won't accept the outcome of the election if it appears that he loses. He's been hinting at that for months. In 2016, when he genuinely believed he was going to lose that election, and most people

did, he was planting the same seed, right, of voter fraud and rigging and all this. nonsense to kind of start priming his base and his supporters to question the outcome of the election and who knows what would have happened if he would have lost and his voters would become, you know, activated to go out there and do something. We've seen what some of his supporters have been doing out during these protests already. And then there's also all the procedural changes that have taken place, right? So for instance, the dismantling of the post office. Oh, is that just a coincidence?

Of course it's not. In a year when we're going to rely heavily on mail-in ballots, dismantling the post office is clearly meant to suppress the vote. There were former Trump campaign officials who were caught on tape. We talked about this on the show yesterday, who clearly said suppressing the vote is incredibly important, especially in places like Wisconsin. He specifically mentioned Wisconsin. Then you have all the nonsense rhetoric from Trump regarding election rigging and voter fraud

through mail and ballots. He's trying to discourage people from voting by mail. I mean, there's a long list of things that he's done. And then the consent decree that expired, which would prevent the Republican Party from sending armed law enforcement to in-person voting places to intimidate voters. That decree expired, and guess what? The first thing the Trump campaign did was hire 50,000 individuals, so called poll watchers, to show up to these in-person polling locations to intimidate voters.

We already got a little taste of that in Virginia with Trump protesters blocking voters from being able to enter the building so they can cast their ballots. So yeah, I don't, I don't get it. I don't know if it's like some weird self-preservation thing. I don't know if some members of the left are in complete and utter denial. I don't know if it's because they were, you know, floating this ridiculous tactic and strategy of electing Donald Trump and then things would get so bad that there would be this mass revolution.

We would suddenly magically have this amazing country that obviously didn't come to fruition. I don't know, but they're not serious people and I'm not interested in having a conversation with them, especially since the evidence bears out exactly what we're worried about, someone who has dictatorial tendencies and is going to refuse to leave. And so, and by the way, it's not just the left. I also want to call out people like Nancy Pelosi who still, like she still doesn't seem to really comprehend the kind of threat that Donald Trump is, right? I mean, she was asked if she's going to do anything about it, if she would even do small procedural things to at least postpone the vote on Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick. And she's like, no, of course we're not going to do that. Yeah, and to your point, Anna, when you talk about how he still was planting seeds in 2016, and even after he won, he said three million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton so she would win the popular vote with zero evidence because his ego couldn't take the fact

that he lost the popular vote. Since that point, and since he entered politics, he has been planting seeds of misinformation about electoral outcomes throughout the country. So that 35% of the country, the people that support him, they believe it. They believe it. So what can happen on election night is most Democrats or the most of the mail and ballots are going to be Democrats, right? So it could appear on election night, like Trump has a massive victory because his supporters go to the polls. then there's like this four day period where people are doubting what the election results even are. And then that's when he gets the return on his investment of misinformation, because that's when he can make a case that everything's in doubt.

It's really, it is like an investment in misinformation and sowing discord. And we could see the fruits of it on election day and afterwards. Yeah, you're exactly right. I do want to just mention a few other things that are worthy of mentioning. Remember, Donald Trump wanted to use the Insurrection Act in order to use federal officials, members of the military specifically, to go after protesters and protests throughout the country. Luckily, the military put its foot down and said, no, we're not going to do it. The Insurrection Act, a two century old law enables a president to send in active duty military troops to quell disturbances over the objections of governors. So even if state governors

are like, no, we don't want this, the Insurrection Act makes it possible for Trump to send military to various states for disturbances, right? Now, Trump, who refers to the armed forces as my military, my generals, has lumped them with other supporters like Bikers for Trump, who could offer backup in the face of opposition, right? So Trump would have no problem utilizing the military to protect him should he refuse to leave the White House after losing the election. But what we're seeing from the military so far, at least active generals, members of the military, is just this unwillingness to engage in this process because they believe that they need

to remain a political. John Gans, who's a former Defense Department speechwriter, says this. I know that Mark Millie is trying to think his way through, but I have my doubts he can. The problem is that when the military doesn't want to do something, they don't like to think about it. The Pentagon plans for war with Canada, which seems weird, and a zombie apocalypse, but they don't want to plan for a contested election. These are huge questions that have an impact on the reputation of the institution. Now, inside the Pentagon, though, whose leaders are well known for making plans, defense department officials said there had been no preparations for sending active duty troops into

American streets to quell any civil unrest. So that's a good sign that they're not, you know, hearing from Trump and planning to use the military to go after protesters, should protests emerge as a result of Trump refusing to leave office. But it's also become very clear to me that the military is also not planning for what to do if Trump actually does refuse to leave office following the loss of the election. Re-election. Right. And the thing that I read in that article too that disturbed me was, oh, you're going to see mass resignations if this is the case. Fine, resign. And then the next guy, the first guy or woman, who decides to uphold what Trump wants here, then the buck will stop there. There needs to be a plan for this. We are facing

unprecedented times here. When you look at historians, they say they've never seen anything like this in terms of the threat of the threat against our democracy here. And I believe that the military, if they want to be looked at favorably in history, when it blows my mind that most people in politics don't think that far ahead, they need to make plans for this and contingency plans because this is not going to be pretty no matter how it shakes out, no matter if it's a Biden landslide victory, no matter if it's close. It's going to be tough sledding. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Well, as you mentioned, Bernie Sanders is on it and we should talk about what he has to say. Let's watch. This is not just an election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. This is an election between Donald Trump

and democracy. And democracy must win. If you're one of the many Americans who are concerned about Donald Trump refusing a peaceful transition of power, should he lose his reelection bit? Or if you're worried about him stealing or rigging the election, luckily you're not the only one. And luckily, there's at least one Democrat in the Senate who's fighting pretty aggressively to stop him. Now, the only problem is he can't do it alone. And so Bernie Sanders, in an important address that he gave recently, lays out a game plan of what could happen, what should happen to prevent Donald Trump from engaging in a dictatorial takeover. Now, before I get to that game plan, let me just

note that Dan Coates, Trump's former director of national intelligence, has called for establishing a nonpartisan commission to oversee the election with an eye toward assuring that it is fairly conducted. In a New York Times op-ed, Coates wrote, quote, the most urgent task American leaders face is to ensure that the election's results are accepted as legitimate. Electoral legitimacy is the essential linchpin of our entire political culture. We should see the challenge clear in advance and take immediate action to respond. Well, here's how Senator Bernie Sanders responded to Coates' call to action. We should see the challenge clearly in advance and take immediate action to respond. End of quote, that's Dan Coates, former intelligence director of Donald Trump.

I couldn't agree more. I strongly second Director Coates' call for this election commission. Last week as well, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and I sent a letter to Senator McConnell, urging him to hold hearings on the issue of election and post-election security. Senator Schumer and I stated, quote, we would like to hear from the most knowledgeable people in the country as to how we can do everything possible to make sure that the election and the period afterward is secure and peaceful. end of quote. Majority Leader McConnell, please respond to that letter. Please establish that bipartisan committee. And today I call on every elected official in America, whether they be Republican, Democrat or independent, to vigorously oppose voter suppression and voter intimidation,

to make sure that every vote is counted and that no one is the claim. declared the winner until those votes are counted. And to my Republican colleagues in the Congress, please do not continue to tell the American people how much you love America. If at this critical moment, you are not prepared to stand up to defend American democracy and our way of life. Emma, there's something cathartic, I don't know, something really nice to see some representation in Congress, to see someone actually address this very real threat. We'll go to his video explaining what we can do in just a minute,

but I wanted to get your thoughts so far. Well, Bernie, it's good to see you again, and not under these circumstances, but I'll reiterate what I said in the last segment. The fact that Bernie Sanders felt compelled enough to do a long address, just himself, not a joint Democratic coalition speaking out about this, says everything, because Bernie Sanders has been correct in almost every instance of history and has had the foresight to know when threats are coming, the Iraq war. He was speaking out against climate change in the late 80s. He has talked about the need for universal health care for quite a long time. I mean, over and over, Bernie Sanders has had the foresight to see threats when they're coming down the pike before most politicians

have been able to see them. They can only see their nose in front of their face and nothing else, basically. So that's why we need to listen to Bernie Sanders. And if it hadn't been clear already, hearing it from the horse's mouth, from Trump himself, saying that he will not commit to a peaceful transition of power. What else do you need to hear, guys? I know that there's so many instances where he's basically just a WWE type hype man, wrestler, whatever, and he speaks and says nonsense just to rile up the crowd. There wasn't a crowd there. He was talking to a reporter and all of his actions of suppression, of making sure the post office isn't functioning perfectly, of saying for years at this point that elections are rigged and people are voting by millions and

by droves illegally, this is the playbook. They've laid it out for us. And we need Congress and our institutions what's left of them to step up. Because this is going to be a massive fight, November 3rd and on. He's not going to go quietly. There's just no way. The people around him are authoritarian too. And they're going to scratch and claw as well. This like the emperor has no close. This is what's happening. Yeah, you're absolutely right. We're already getting a taste of what the scene will look like at these in-person polling locations with Trump supporters showing up, doing their best to block people from entering the building to cast their ballots. That happened in Fairfax, Virginia, just over the weekend. And the Trump campaign has hired

50,000 armed individuals who are going to be poll watchers on election day. And we all know what the intent there is. It's meant to intimidate people from casting their ballots. Now, Bernie did provide a five-step game plan. Things that we could do, we should be doing now to mitigate this threat by Donald Trump. Let's take a look at what he has to say. It is absolutely imperative that we have by far the largest voter turnout in American history and that people vote as early as possible. As someone who is strongly supporting Joe Biden, let's be clear. A landslide victory for Biden will make it virtually impossible for Trump to to deny the results and is our best means for defending democracy.

Second, with the pandemic and a massive increase in mail-in voting, state legislatures must take immediate action now, now, to allow mail-in votes to be counted before election day as they come in. In fact, 32 states allow for the counting or processing of absentee ballots, verifying signatures, example, before election day. All states should do the same. The faster all ballots are counted, the less window there is for chaos and conspiracy theories. Third, the news media needs to prepare the American people to understand there is no longer a single election day and that it is very possible that we may not know the results on November 3rd. Fourth, social media companies

must finally get their act together and stop people from using their tools to spread disinformation and to threaten and harass election officials. Fifth, in the Congress and in state legislatures, hearings must be held as soon as possible to explain to the public how the election day process and the days that follow will be handled. So look, I like that he's trying to find solutions. I worry about the first proposal he has there with voter turnout, because it's not just about encouraging people to go out and vote, it's also about firing people up enough to want to walk past those intimidating Trump supporters, so-called poll

watchers. You know, and I worry because Biden, like so far has used the same strategy that Hillary Clinton did, which is I'm going to sit back and let Trump, give Trump enough rope to hang himself, which, to be fair, Trump is really great at that, but I don't think that it's enough. So everyone likes to mention how in national polls Biden still has a lead. But having a lead in national polls isn't necessarily indicative of a win when it comes to the electoral college. If you look at swing states, battleground states, Trump has managed to close a pretty significant lead that Biden had over him. And I'm just worried about that, right? So I know that's out of Bernie Sanders' control, but it's just like a note to the Biden campaign, wakey, waky. If you want to win

by a landslide, then you need to campaign as someone who wants to win by a landslide. But Emma, why don't you jump in? What do you think about what Bernie proposed there? It sounds like a guy who wants Trump to win. I don't know what you'd think, but it seems like he wants to sabotage Biden and make sure that Trump wins, although that's what MSNBC told me, I guess. Yeah, I shared concerns. I had a very smart person say this to me, and it stuck with me so much. Has American politics gone so far away from reality that material conditions on the ground are not resonating anymore with people when they're casting their ballots? So yes, we are in an economic depression and a pandemic has killed 200,000 Americans plus. Does that

resonate with people more than cultural issues because the Democrats are unable to make their own case and show that they are a better alternative. Does that resonate anymore? Has the Democratic Party gone too far down its corporate wormhole? And I don't know the answer. This election- Oh, you know the answer. No, but I don't know if they've gone past the point of no return, Anna, is my point. Like, this election will show me that. That material conditions and the economy and health care and death and horror, still people can make that connection. The waters aren't muddied enough by misinformation on Trump's end. I just hit the desk. Misinformation on Trump's end and I dropped my phone. I mean, you're fired up, Emma. I'm fired up. I get it.

Misinformation on Trump's end and also democratic incompetence. That has made things so murky for people, right? But is it too far gone? This election will answer that. Well, we got to take a quick break. So something to think about while we leave you guys. But when we come back, we are going to discuss what Mark Meadows had to say about the FBI director, making it clear that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. We'll be right. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting 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. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Emma Vigland with you.

We do have some breaking news, so I want to get right to it. And the breaking news has to do with the Supreme Court. So Donald Trump will be announcing his Supreme Court pick on Saturday, which means that he already knows who the individual is. And according to sources close to Donald Trump, his selection will be Judge Amy Coney-Benzheny. The New York Times makes a point to mention that she would be the least experienced Supreme Court nominee. However, she is a favorite among conservative politicians and conservative voters because of her Christian background. But also more importantly, and I think this

gets left out in a lot of the analysis in the media, she also would immediately invalidate the Affordable Care Act. She's on the record saying that. Whereas, you know, the thing that people seem to be more focused on right now is Roe v. Wade, which, you know, obviously I don't want to be naive and just assume that she won't touch Roe v. Wade, but she is on the record saying that she believes in the precedent when it comes to reproductive rights, even though she, as a devout Catholic, disagrees with abortion and all of that. But Emma, I wanted to get your thoughts. We're talking about this a little bit during the break. Talk a little bit about what this means for the Affordable Care Act.

Certainly. So that's my concern too. I mean, we're both women. We obviously have concerns about our reproductive health. But I think there is a hesitance in terms of justices overturning that precedent because of the ripple effects and how massive and that it would be. I feel like it's just more of a political talking point for conservative politicians to score points than it is a judicial reality. That's the only thing saving us here. What should concern everybody is that she's 48 years old. She has a history of pro-corporate positions that side with the employer, against the employee, etc., I believe. And she's sided against, I'm reading some of it here, things and gun rights. She dissented in a decision that would disarm felons,

for example, after they came out of prison. She's pretty extreme when it comes to those issues. But for the Affordable Care Act, guys, if it's six to three, if she gets through and it's that solidly conservative, they're going to do away with the Affordable Care Act. And then that's a conservative, basically supermajority for decades at that point. Say, ideally, we get a progressive president in 2024 who wants to put Medicare for all through. That's done. That's what concerns me most about these decisions are, yes, the Supreme Court's been pro corporate for a very long time. Although Mitt Romney says we're a center-right country and the court's been leftist for a while. Talk to him about Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, whatever.

But yeah, that's what scares me the most about this is the complete nixing of any legislation that comes through that could be progressive. That's appealed. Conservatives, there's appeal, appeal, appeal, go to the Supreme Court, and they know that it's just going to be overturned. and corporations can have a field day and big pharma will be doing great. Yeah, I am definitely worried about this. You know, Representative Rokana introduced a bill that would limit the time a Supreme Court Justice could serve on the Supreme Court to 18 years. I don't know where that piece of legislation is going to go, but I do think that it's important

that you mention her age as you just did and how her influence on the court will have lasting ramifications on this country, really. And yeah, the pro-corporate angle is something that just seems to get lost in the fray, lost in the analysis. And I'm glad that we're talking about it. In a story that we'll cover later, Donald Trump signed more ridiculous, phony executive orders, alleging that he's protecting people with preexisting conditions. The truth is those executive orders, constitutionally speaking, have no teeth. But what it does, is it messages to his voters that, oh, don't worry, don't, don't be frightened of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act because I signed these executive orders, they're not going to do

anything. But, you know, it's just enough to cover his ass while also simultaneously causing great harm to, honestly, all Americans, because anything can be considered a preexisting condition. If you tested positive for COVID, that's considered a preexisting condition. So this This is going to have a damaging effect on so many people in this country. I want to read a quote from this piece in the New York Times. It's by Nan Aaron, who's a president for the Alliance for Justice. It's a liberal group. She says Amy Coney-Barrant meets Donald Trump's two main litmus tests.

She has made clear that she would invalidate the Affordable Care Act and take health care away for millions of people and undermine a woman's reproductive freedom. Again, I'm not entirely sure that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade. I know that there's a lot of fear about that. I understand that fear. A lot of my fear, again, has to do with, you know, corporate issues that make it to the Supreme Court and what is very likely to happen to the Affordable Care Act at this point. And remember, the Supreme Court did strike down the healthcare mandate that's an important part of the Affordable Care Act. That's what kept premiums low.

And, you know, when they undid that, of course, premiums immediately shot up. And so we'll see how this all plays out, but it is pretty terrifying. Definitely. Yeah, we have to take a break, unfortunately. But let's do that. When we come back, I will read your comments, do more stories, don't miss it. We'll be 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.

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ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Welcome back to TYT, Anna and Emma with you. Make sure you check out Emma's channel on Rebel Headquarters. I don't want to get the URL wrong, Emma. So is it YouTube.com slash Rebel Headquarters?

Rebel HQ, because we're short and we're cool and we shorten things. It's like we don't even care about the full spelling, man. It's like Rebel over there, right? Rock on. I love it. I love it. Okay, so let's read some member comments. I apologize for not doing so in the last segment.

We just had to get to the stories. Lord Wolf 91 from our member section says, I'm a veteran. I genuinely am scared that the military will follow Trump regardless of the election outcome. I have never been ashamed to think of myself as a veteran, but I might in the future days to come. Lord Wolf, I hear you, thank you for being a member and sharing your thoughts with us. By the way, you guys can become members if you're not already by going to t.yt.com slash join. Nodius Maximus says, damn straight, we have to be ready for this clown needing a personal escort of the White House off the White House grounds.

This is not just posturing Trump is a sociopath. Believe him when he says he isn't going willingly. I totally agree. Jim says, I'm confident Americans will stand up for democracy. I'm not confident our elected leaders will. Jim, I agree with you. I mean, we're seeing that right now on the streets, like with these protests and demands for reforms and systemic change. And what are we hearing from our elected lawmakers? What are

what are congressional lawmakers doing when it comes to the very real material needs of Americans during this pandemic? I mean, it's just shameful to say the least. Liberal Lion MMX says, no, Emma, getting rid of the Affordable Care Act will force Biden to adopt Medicare for all. I don't agree. I hope you're being sarcastic. There's no way. I wish that were true. And then new YouTube members, I just want to thank you guys.

Gert Campo, Jack Hillebrand, Pierre. Your last name is difficult, so I'm not going to even attempt it. And Javon Thompson, you guys are amazing. Thank you for becoming members. We really appreciate it. And then thermometer. Let's take a look at where we are with our fundraising efforts. We're trying to keep TYT sustainable.

Our goal is to get to $200,000 by the end of the month, and we are doing poorly. I'm just keeping it real. But we are at 80,691. Thank you so much to everyone who's donated. Thank you to everyone who's keeping us. First of all, keeping us independent and by that nature, keeping us honest because we're accountable to you and I wouldn't have it any other way. Love you guys so much.

All right, well, let's keep it going with the news because there's. There's more to share with you guys. The Louisville Metropolitan Police arrested two of the most vocal advocates for the black community. And one of them actually happens to be a state lawmaker who has attempted to pass mild reforms for the police department. So if you really look at the details of this story, it certainly appears as though these arrests are more about retaliation as opposed to keeping the public safe. So state representative Attica Scott, a Kentucky lawmaker who sponsored

who sponsored Brianna's law, was arrested with her daughter, Elias Scott, 19, and prominent local activist Shemika Parish Wright on the second night of protest following a grand jury's announcement that no police officers would face charges for killing Brianna Taylor. So part of the charge was because protesters were out past the 9 p.m. curfew, protesters actually gathered at first Unitarian Church at 9 p.m. And that's important. That's an important detail here because curfew laws don't apply to the House of Worship. But the police say there were no arrests on church property. Rather, protesters were damaging the public library. And that's the reason why they made these arrests. However, there's been a statement from a representative from the

library. And they're saying the opposite. Let me read you the exact quote. We have heard that state representatives, we have heard that state representative Attica Scott and other peaceful protesters have been accused by the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department of vandalism of the main library, among other charges. We have seen no proof that the flare thrown into the library has done any major damage, nor that Representative Scott had anything to do with it and find these accusations inconsistent with her character and the constant support we have received. from her. So Emma, it certainly looks like there's some retaliation taking place right now. And it's absolutely disgusting. This is what happens in a fascistic society.

Exactly. And they have like the cloak of, oh, yeah, vandalism, sure. They can kind of say whatever they want because they're the authorities. And that's what they've been getting away with for their entire careers. But the library is like, no, that's not the case. You guys are just basically targeting people who just go after you a little bit. I mean, I'm from New York. We saw it with Bill de Blasio, who proposed the most mild reforms imaginable body cams. And yeah, you can't just stop and frisk black and brown people on the street. And cops go after him endlessly, and he's been bootlicking and they still go after him.

So if you're a little bit critical of cops, and I'm not even saying that Adica and her other lawmakers were like incrementalist here. But just as an extreme example with de Blasio, for someone who did, he ran on police reform. He decided to just be a little bit critical of them. And forever, we're going to retaliate against you. So this seems targeted. There's no way to know for sure unless there's a paper trail, but I'm not shocked whatsoever because this is how people in this is how they behave really. I don't want to paint cops with the broadest of brushes, but it attracts people who are, I would say, kind of authoritarian in their own smaller micro sense, people who want to put on a badge and a gun and lord over other people and sometimes like high school bully

types. And that's not everyone. I get it. But oftentimes it is. And you see it play out in situations like this. Well, there have been instances. We've talked about them, specific instances on this show, where police officials will speak out. They'll see some sort of behavior or some sort of ethical behavior within their department. They'll say something about it. And they're retaliated against. You know, there are actual consequences toward police officers who want to do the right thing and reform their department. And so it doesn't surprise me that, yeah, cops would retaliate against protesters. I mean, we certainly saw that. We've seen multiple cases of local police departments coordinating with armed right wing gang members.

We shared an example of that on yesterday's show. And in this case, if you have a state lawmaker who's been trying to reform the police and she's out there protesting, she's an open target, unfortunately. And this behavior is absolutely disgusting because what the cops did here was essentially, like, not essentially, it's anti-democratic. It's just plain anti-democratic. It's meant to intimidate people. It's meant to intimidate lawmakers who are elected by their constituents to represent them and their best interests. And the question is, are we comfortable living in that kind of society? I certainly am not, right? But I think what's been proven over and over again, especially during this last year, is that the very people who claimed

that they wanted to protect our democracy the most are the people who care about democracy the least. And we saw that play out last night, certainly, when Attica Scott was arrested. Now, she has been released on bail, and we'll see how that case plays out, but it's absolutely shameful and disgusting that this is happening in this country. Well, let's move on to Larry Kudlow, because we have some updates on the economy. After Trump's abrupt exit from the White House press conference just this past week, Larry Cudlow tried to run the show and lie a little more about how the economy is doing so, so well, even as tens of millions of Americans are still unemployed. Watch.

I want to show you some more examples of the D-shaped recovery. Actually, I can jump in here. This is from the Census Bureau, report, changing the number of people living in poverty. During President Trump's first three years, pre-pandemic, 6.6 million fewer people, 6.6 million fewer people are living in poverty. What's the number of post-pendment? Well, we'll have to wait, see, on that. We'll just begin. Let me be more accurate. Under the Obama years, 787,000 people moved into poverty. So that's a problem. And we have the second chart. Isn't that a note? No, this is a brand. This stuff just came out late last week. If I may, okay? I just like accurate information.

This is the accurate information. This is from the census hero. And it just came back. Well, let me just go back into this. That reminds me, that reminds me of like in college when my, me and my stoner friends would take like stupid classes just to pad up our GPA, but wouldn't prepare and would do like presentations like, yeah, you know, I don't know, man. I got, I made these graphs on PowerPoint. What are you going to do? You know why I'm in this class. It's because it's easy, please. But also, by the way, you see Scott Atlas sitting there? What is he doing there? That's the, that's the herd immunity guy in the Trump administration. He's his influence, we just need to keep track of it because it's growing and he's not an epidemiologist or anything. But anyway, no, no, he's not.

In fact, there's a lot of chaos right now with the coronavirus task force because of Atlas's influence and Dr. Deborah Birx is even considering leaving the task force as a result of that. But getting back to Cudlow, I mean, look, even if he's just relying on stats and data from before the pandemic. We all know that the economy for the vast majority of Americans was not doing well. Americans have more than, before the pandemic, before, Americans had more than $4 trillion in consumer debt that doesn't even include mortgages. That's a lot of debt. Wages have been stagnant for decades. The economy is not just based on that one metric of how the stock market is doing. The stock market is artificially inflated by the Federal Reserve. Like,

here, here, here, here, we're printing the money. We're printing the money. Here you go. Here you go. The economy's doing so well, everybody. No, the economy's not doing well. Then you fast forward to what happened after the pandemic, tens of millions of Americans unemployed. People who had six figure salaries are now worried that they're about to lose their homes. They've taken out too much debt to make ends meet. I mean, it's a nightmare. But anyway, one more video. of Cudlow. Do you know how many Americans are living in poverty right now today? Actually, that won't be reported.

Do you know the answer to that? I can only wait until the Census Bureau. I don't know if you cover this beat or not. A number of Americans living in poverty right now, do you happen to know the answer? No. Because you're getting a, you don't know. I will wait.

You're an economic advisor and you don't know that. Right. If you'll just stop nitpicking and let me explain to you. Look, Cudlow. has got to stop drinking before he makes appearances. Like he's got to, if he's going to lie to people, then he's got to at least be on his A game, Emma. Yeah, I mean, just some of the numbers that you talked about there. The idea that the economy is doing well, again, these dinosaurs only care about the line on Wall Street, which now we basically socialize the entire stock market

because our corrupt government gave all of the money to the stock market and gave Americans won $1,200 paycheck. And there's a payment. And they're still trying to debate whether or not we should have another one. I mean, Mitch McConnell sat on the Heroes Act, which was passed in May, in May, and we still don't have relief for regular Americans. In 2019, there was a report about how 40% of Americans are one missed paycheck away from poverty. So we're going to talk about how the economy is doing well. And now we're in an economic depression. I mean, there's no ifs, ands or butts about it. And there's so many instances where people aren't going to be able to return to their jobs. There's this fiction that Republicans are trying to paint, right?

That, oh, yeah, there's going to be all of these mass layoffs. And then as soon as the pandemic is over, which it's not over anytime soon, everyone's going to go back to their jobs. It's all going to be hunky-dory. No, a lot of those jobs are gone forever. Forever. I am so sick of not just Republicans, but also Democrats, pretending like things are okay in this country. There is huge amounts of pain and angst, and it's going to manifest in ways that will affect this economy so far down the road and beyond just this political moment. But again, the short-sightedness and the obsession with short-term rewards for these politicians and just cashing in immediately, it's gonna kill this country. I mean, we talk

about Trump being a threat to our democracy. The complete threadbare economy and lack of social safety net and complete kicking in of the teeth of regular people, that's also going to kill this country. Yeah, look, I totally agree with you. And since you're speaking about jobs, I want to share a few stats with you. Weekly jobless claims rise unexpectedly as stimulus boost fades. The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial jobless claims for the week ending in September 19th came in at 870,000 adjusted for seasonal fluctuations. Without that adjustment, about 825,000 people filed last week up from the previous week, 796,000. Look, I mentioned it because it's true. This is the reality that so many Americans are facing. And Emma, you're absolutely right that both

parties make the mistake of acting as if everything is hunky dory. They did it before the pandemic when nearly half of Americans couldn't even afford a $400 emergency. And they're still doing it now. It's shameful, it's disgusting. And it just, it pains me to see how feckless and useless our congressional lawmakers really are. Postgame is next. Emma is going to be presenting. I'm going to take a load off and enjoy. You should enjoy too. TYT.com slash join. We'll see. you there. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by

subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Heuger, and I'll see you soon.