The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - September 30, 2020

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

Armenia and Azerbaijan inching toward war. 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. What's up, what's up, everyone, and a lot of it, and John Iderola with you. on this stupendous Wednesday. Is it really stupendous? I don't know, I just said it. But this show will be stupendous, I promise. We're going to cover a number of important topics. Yes, we're going to talk a little more about the aftermath of last night's presidential debate.

But our wonderful team over at TYT did put together an awesome rundown today that is diverse in its topics. So we're going to do a little international news at the top, give you guys some historical context to the Nagorno-Karipar conflict that's taking place right now between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We'll do that at the top. Later in the show, we'll also discuss the state of the economy and what the likelihood is of all these layoffs turning into permanent job losses. And then what has the right-wing response been to Chris Wallace's performance during the debate last night? Of course, we're going to get into that as well. But before we do, I wanted to just read a note to Dave, one of our viewers, one of our committed viewers who were so

grateful for something's pretty terrible happened to him recently. They had to say goodbye to his dog cookie, who had to be put down after a long battle with cancer. So I just wanted to give a shout out to Dave. I know how hard that must be, and TYT Army is behind you. Much love. With that said, let's move on to a story that needs to be covered. So all right, let's do it. There has been an escalation of violence and we're closer and closer to a full blown war between Armenia and Azerbaijan when it comes to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Now, that territory has been disputed for decades now, and there has been sporadic instances

of violence. There has been increased aggression from the Azerbaijani government in response to the large Armenian population that lives in that area. And before I go into the details of what is happening today, I do want to note that that land was part of ancient Armenia, dating back to 150 BC. and was essentially taken away from Armenians and considered territory for Azerbaijan during Stalin's rule during the Russian Revolution where, of course, it was considered Soviet territory. But following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the territory was then transferred

over to Azerbaijan, even though the area is basically governed by Armenia, subsidized by the government of Armenia and in 1988 there was an overwhelming vote where the overwhelming majority of individuals who participated in that vote wanted to succeed from Azerbaijan and join Armenia as part of its country. Now unfortunately there has been an escalation of violence and both parties are closer to a full blown war after Azerbaijan decided to launch an attack against individuals living in that area over the weekend. But to get into those details, I think it's really important to understand the history of the area, the history of Armenia and Azerbaijan. So you can decide for yourselves who's right and who's wrong in this instance.

So the present day conflict has its roots in the decisions made by Joseph Stalin when he was the acting comasar of nationalities for the Soviet Union during the early 1920s. In April 1920, Azerbaijan was taken over by the Bolsheviks, Armenia and Georgia were taken over in 1921. To garner public support, the Bolsheviks promised Karabakh to Armenia. At the same time, in order to placate Turkey, the Soviet Union agreed to a division under which Karabakh would be under the control of Azerbaijan. With the Soviet Union firmly in control of the region, the conflict over the region died down for several decades. Then the fall of the Soviet Union, Union happens and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan starts to flare up.

And since then, we've been seeing more and more of these sporadic instances of violence, sporadic instances where it appears they're going to move closer and closer to a full-blown war. I will say in 2016, things started to get pretty serious. And then luckily, tensions were calmed down a little bit through negotiations with Russia playing a role in the negotiation process. But now the situation seems to be getting worse. Dozens of Armenians have been killed in this conflict already. There have been some casualties on the Azeri side as well. But I do also want to just note that in 1918, following the Russian revolutions in February and October of that year, the Muslim nationalist organization

saw an opportunity to basically create an independent country for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan was not an independent country at that point in 1918. The way that they were able to take over Baku, which is now the current capital of Azerbaijan, was through the help of Turkey. So Turkey certainly plays a role in this. This is something to be concerned about when you consider the Armenian genocide that took place with the hands of the Turkish government back in 1915. So right now, understandably, Armenians living in the region are very much concerned about

Turkey's current involvement in this conflict and the fact that they are supplying the Azerbaijan side with some pretty serious military weaponry. And so at that point in 1918, with the help of Turkey, Baku was taken over by the individuals who wanted to create this independent Azerbaijan country, right? And at that time, it was actually dominated by Armenians, by Jewish people, and by Russians. Those were the main people living in Baku and essentially influencing Baku at the time. All right, now fast forward to what happened after the SSSR, I'm sorry, USSR collapsed. The conflict inevitably flared tensions between Russians and I'm sorry, sorry, with Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

And so Armenians started to petition to create this, you know, they wanted to separate from Azerbaijan. They wanted to be part of Armenia. Again, there was a vote overwhelmingly Armenians or people living in that region wanted to separate and be part of Armenia as opposed to Azerbaijan. By May of 1994, the Armenians were in control of 14% of the territory of Azerbaijan. At that stage, for the first time during the conflict, the Azerbaijani government recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as a third party in the war and started direct negotiations with the Karabakh authorities.

As a result, a ceasefire was reached on May 12th, 1994 through Russian negotiations. One other thing I should note is back in 1918, when the Azerbaijanis, with the help of Turkey, decided to take over Baku, 30,000 Armenians were slaughtered in that process, okay? So these are all elements to the story that get completely ignored by Western commentators. And I think it's important to put all of this in context, at least in our show, so people understand what led up to the tensions that we're experiencing right now. John, I have so much more to share. And I know that I'm kind of going on and on, but this is a complex story. And I want to make sure everyone knows all the details. But I want you to jump in, you know, if you have any

thoughts so far? As far as I know, you did a great job of catching us up in terms of the historical context, some of the really important context, especially from the 90s. And it's important in this case because I would wager to say that maybe 1% of America knows almost any of the facts that you just said. And that 99% who doesn't also largely includes me. I mean, I learned a little bit about the region and some of its conflicts back when I was doing polysci and everything. But I don't know how far back I would have to go in my time on the show to find another story that I feel less qualified to opine on in a sort of definitive fashion. I hope that somehow miraculously that the conflict can be diffused without further loss of life, which is escalating in

exactly the wrong direction very fast. But beyond that and hoping that somehow as many lives can be saved as possible, I don't know really what I can add to it. Well, so I'll I'll give you more details on what's going on. And John, I don't blame you. I mean, this is a story that's been covered a little bit by independent media sources. And if you see any coverage of it with legacy media sources here in the United States, you get a very superficial take on what's really happening there. So going back to the history, and then I'll catch you guys up on what's happening today, tensions heated up again in April of 2016 when Azerbaijan claimed to have killed and wounded more than 100 Armenian soldiers. So there were surprise attacks.

by the Azerbaijani government toward Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. And so I think that's relevant information, considering what we're hearing from Azerbaijan today. So in the very beginning of the more recent conflict that broke out over the weekend, there was this narrative coming from Azerbaijan that the aggressors here were really the Armenians. I find that incredibly hard to believe, especially considering the fact that right now, Azerbaijan is dealing with an economic crisis fueled by the fact that oil prices have collapsed prior to oil prices collapsing. And this was even before the pandemic took place. They were already struggling because oil prices had already collapsed. And they had signed on to all sorts of social programs to keep people in the country

happy. Now there's this, you know, nationalistic effort to appease the people of Azerbaijan. by, in their words, in their mind, taking back the land that they believe belongs to them. So they've kind of shifted their focus away from the economy and more toward nationalistic messaging and essentially taking back what they consider to be their land, even though this was land that was occupied by Armenians dating back to 150 BC. It was Armenian land until the Russian Revolution took place and Stalin made decisions that essentially took this land away from Armenians and handed it over to Azerbaijan. But I want to be clear that it's essentially an autonomous zone in that the area is not governed

by Azerbaijan at all. When the war broke out in 1994, Armenians essentially won with the help of Russia backing them. And so that's why that area is governed and funded by Armenians. And so now we have the situation where Azerbaijan is fighting to get that land. And a lot of innocent people are likely to die if these violent actions continue. So with the conflict today, the Azeris are now striking Armenians in the region to gain control. I don't want you guys to only rely on what I'm saying. There are historians who have studied this deeply.

And I want to go to this first video that features Jean Bajlan, who was interviewed by the wonderful people over at the Michael Brooks show. Please become patrons of that show. They did a good job with this interview. And what you're about to hear is what the current situation looks like. Take a look. What we've seen in the last couple of days, you know, just a few days ago, two days ago, we've seen a sudden outbreak of violence. So it looks, and what it looks like is that the, you know, the Azeris have. are now striking the Armenians.

There are some theorizations. The Aliev regime, you know, this family regime has been criticized for, you know, making a big song and dance of 10% of that country being occupied but not doing anything. So being getting nationalist criticism. So, you know, some people are theorizing perhaps, you know, these attacks to shore up domestic support. But of course, this has led to Armenian mobilization

and then Azari counter-mobilization, and we're seeing growing clashes. And what is particularly, you know, becoming particularly dangerous as well is that it's drawing in foreign actors, in particular Turkey. So, you know, foreign actors have always been involved in this conflict. You know, Russia has been involved. Iran has been involved. United States has been kind of involved as well. And Turkey has been involved.

Turkey has sided with the Azeris. They shut the border in the early 90s to Armenia, which, which, you know, Ironically, the Islamic Republic, rather than supporting their fellow Shia Muslims in Azerbaijan, has had a policy that has tilted slightly towards the Armenians for a number of reasons, including the fact that Azeri nationalists lay claim to parts of Iran's territory, which is a sort of a whole separate issue. So if you're paying close attention, I'm sure you can notice that there are some similarities between this conflict and what happened in Syria, right?

You have all of these foreign actors playing a role. This could quickly turn into a proxy war with Russia involved, Turkey involved, Iran involved. And honestly, when I take a really hard look at what's happening in terms of what type of protection Armenia has, I'm a little worried because traditionally speaking, Russia has backed Armenia. But Russia has been basically a little more friendly toward Turkey lately. And they're selling, Russia is selling weapons to both parties in this conflict, right? So they're selling weapons to Armenia at a discount. Russia's also selling weapons to Azerbaijan at a much higher price, but they're still selling weapons to Azerbaijan. That is concerning, to say the least. You have Donald Trump, who is clearly a very good

ally to President Erdogan of Turkey. And Turkey is very much playing a role in this aggression toward Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. He's released some statements of support toward Azerbaijan. And so as the Washington Post reported, the new round of fighting that began over the weekend marks the bloodiest moment since the 1990s when the two fledgling former Soviet States ward over disputed regions until Russia brokered a deal, a ceasefire in 1994. Many Armenians link Turkey support for Azerbaijan to the 1915 genocide of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. One more video from Jean Boslan, again, he's a historian, and he kind of talks about what the role of Turkey will look like and what that means in terms of weaponry. Take a look.

We have this situation where Turkey, which has been increasingly over the last five years, pursuing an extremely aggressive foreign policy without any check on it, or is now, looks like it's intervening on the side of Azerbaijan, sending Syrian mercenaries, which they've deployed already not only in Syria, but in Libya as well, sending drones. One of the big stories of the last 10 years has been the drone industry in Turkey has become sort of modernized. You know, when I used to live in Turkey, the Turks were relying on Israeli drones, the heron drone.

And actually, the Turks bought the drones, but not the cameras. And they had these crappy cameras that they stuck to the Israeli drones. So the drone wouldn't take off properly. But now the Turks have got their own defense industry. So it looks like the Turks are supplying the Azores with drones. They're supplying there's accusations that there's Turkish fighter planes involved. So it very much looks like we're in a situation where, you know, like conflict is escalating and who knows where it's going to lead because, you know, Russia doesn't want to see

this conflict escalate, but, you know, sometimes things get out of hand. So this is not a good situation. John, did you want to jump in? Yeah, you know, so the thing that I was dreading is considering Like, I don't think other than maybe the conflict in Syria, you could come up with a situation where you have as many potential and current international players, all of which I worry the second Trump takes an interest in it, let alone gets actively involved, that the U.S. military might get involved. He's saying that they're going to do what they can to stop the fighting or whatever. You rightfully pointed out the history that he has with Erdogan.

But basically every other one of those parties, this is just another one of the conflicts that I just like I get a like this feeling in my gut thinking about what effect the U.S. could end up having on it, what negative impact we could end up having? Well, the U.S. has already had an impact because Donald Trump, the United States is part of what's known as, you know, the Minsk group. And this is a group of world leaders who are essentially helping to negotiate some sort of agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Now, the United States, historically speaking, has been much more involved in trying to keep the peace in that region. But Donald Trump has been hands off, very hands off.

And so that has created an opening for Turkey to essentially do what it wants to do. And so Turkey and Azerbaijan are both arguing that, oh, the Minsk Group isn't getting us anywhere and we're tired of it. Azerbaijan needs to take control of its own land, even though I would argue. argue that it really, you know, if you look at the history and how it ended up being considered Azerbaijan's land, it's not really Azerbaijan's land. It's stolen land. And that's an issue, right? But anyway, Trump is very friendly with Erdogan. Remember, he had a phone call with Erdogan, I believe it was last year, where we don't know how that conversation went down. But immediately afterwards, Donald Trump agreed to pull U.S. troops out of northeastern Syria. And then,

And that paved the way for Erdogan to send Turkish troops to the region to slaughter Kurds, our allies, right? So I bring that historical context up, that recent historical context up, because this is not looking good for Armenians. Donald Trump, who is, I think, overwhelmingly supported by Armenian voters in America, has been disastrous for Armenian. So if you do happen to be an Armenian who supports Donald Trump, please take a look at his record with Erdogan, please take a look at his financial interest, Ivanka Trump's financial interest

in Azerbaijan. That's also incredibly relevant to this story. So it's not looking very good for Armenians living in that region. And to be quite honest with you guys, I'm terrified about what's going to happen to civilians living there, who have been living there for a long time and are now dealing with what appears to be a growing war in that area. And finally, I do want to go to one other video. This is Donald Trump being asked specifically about the situation. This is the kind of ingrate buffoon we're dealing with. And there has been, can you have a little bit of time? Yeah, good.

Thank you. And there has been going on the military action in the Karabha, Azerbaijan. In where? The Azerbaijan, the civilians are killed. And according to the officials from the Azerbaijan, they say the first shoot came from the Armenian. What's your common on that? So we're looking at it very strongly. It just happened and I know about it.

I learned about it today. yesterday and we're looking at it very strongly. We have a lot of good relationships in that area. We'll see if we can stop it. The good relationships that Donald Trump is referring to is the Turkish government. Make no mistake about it. And the framing of that question also assumed that the first strike was done by the Armenians. There's absolutely no evidence to that. And when you look at what happened in 2016 with the Azerbaijan government launching a surprise attack against Armenians living in the region. You could understand why I don't believe that framing, and I think that Azerbaijan struck first. Finally, last part of this story, what are NATO allies

saying? Well, Reuters is reporting that some of Turkey's NATO allies are increasingly alarmed by Ankara's stance on Nagorno-Karabakh. Echoing remarks from Erdogan, the foreign minister of Turkey said on Wednesday that Turkey would do what is necessary when asked whether Ankara would offer military support if Azerbaijan requested it. Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, later thanked Turkey for its support and said his country did not need military assistance. I'm not buying that for a second. Fighting would cease if Armenian forces immediately leave our lands, he said. But Macron of France, whose country is home to many Armenians, who are of course part of the Armenian Genocide Diaspora, hit back during a visit to Latvia.

He said France was extremely concerned by warlike messages from Turkey, which essentially remove any of Azerbaijan's inhibitions in reconquering Nekornokarabakh, and that we won't accept it. So he's essentially saying, we're not going to accept this. I don't know what that means. I don't know what kind of assistance France would, you know, provide. But I do know that for any of you who are as concerned as I am about, you know, the fate of Armenian civilians living in that region, there is some action you can take. There's a fundraising effort with Armenia Fund. They're trying to centralize the donation so they can help with this effort as much as possible.

You can donate if you're interested by going to armeniafund.org. All right. So I know that was long, guys. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to share that story with you. We got to take a quick break. When we come back, we have an update on the economy and more. We need to talk about a relatively new show called the Unnerner, 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 and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it. You must have learned 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. Don't miss it. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna and John with you. I'm going to do a few live reads, a few comments, and then we'll move on to the rest of our news. As you know, Aspiration is one of our wonderful trusty partners. It's a financial institution that will not invest your money in any of these shady fossil fuel companies. So move your money over to Aspiration. Go to t.com slash aspiration to learn more. No, go to aspiration.com slash t-y-t to learn more.

Also, if you watched out, I know, I know, quick save there, if you watched our presidential debate coverage last night and you're just like aching for more, have no fear, next Wednesday, we will be covering the vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. John Ida Rola, Jank Yugar, and Benjamin Dixon will be on the panel for that. Tune at 8.30 p.m. Eastern time, 5.30 p.m. Pacific. Go to t.yt.com slash live to watch live. You can also watch on YouTube, YouTube, TV, Roku, Zumo, Pluto, TV, Comcast, Xfinity X1, and Flex, and Samsung TV Plus, because we're international, Mr. 305. Okay. I don't know what that was. Just wanted to jazz it up a little bit. And then a few member comments. It was pit bull. It was pit bull. Mr. 305. Mando Libre from our members section writes it and says,

thank you for doing an international story. Thank you for enjoying it. That took a long time to research and present today. So I hope you guys did enjoy it. Gabby Marita says the mainstream media doesn't know how to cover the incipient conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There's no Trump tweet associated with it so it won't get clicks. I think you're absolutely right. And let's show are Twitch people some love. Thank you for all of your support on Twitch. I'm scrolling down to find where the Twitch stuff is. There it is. Okay, Kermit Walt says resubbed for the fourth month and we will need TYT. We will need TYT this month. Thank you. I will need sedatives this month, so I totally hear you. Code Omega Zero resubbed with Prime for four months. And the comment is,

Where's our TDR shirt? I'll buy one as soon as they're available. I don't know. Where is it? Or is it? Erie Man donated 420 bits. And I see you with that number. I see you with that number. All right, look, we have a lot more serious news to get to, but I thought I would break up the serious content with something fun that happened during the presidential debate last night. And yes, something fun did happen. It was a show of affection on one side, and a show of what you would expect on the other. So let's do it. Let's talk about it.

Following the first presidential debate last night, the wives of the two candidates approached the stage to greet their husbands, but there was a noticeable difference between the two couples. Let's watch. What a dark event we have just witnessed. The tip of the hat to Cormac McCarthy when we say, if that wasn't a mess, it'll do till the mess gets here. As difficult as that was to watch as the spouses now join both men on stage, as bracing as it is to realize this behavior is taking place in pursuit of the job we used to refer to as leader of the free world.

Great commentary there. I know, I know. The commentary is nothing. I probably should just be able to be your wall. I can see the void. There's a great serpent. All is darkness and pain. You know, I was thinking maybe I should have just used that video as B-roll as opposed to using the sound on it, but now I'm kind of happy I use the sound. Yeah, the commentary was nonsense, but you know, the heart of what we're trying to talk about is imagine hating your partner so much that you can't even fake it for the world,

right? Like you can't even fake your admiration or your love for your partner just to like save face and to pretend like things are okay, like Joe Biden and his wife are clearly in love. Like you can tell, like they're affectionate, they hugged each other immediately. Melania Trump can't stand Trump, and I don't blame her. Like, I don't blame her. I mean, imagine being Melania Trump. I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah. All right, there you go. Jank, always interrupting me as I'm trying to share my thoughts. Thanks, Jank. Go ahead, John.

Yeah, so I don't know if we can play that again because maybe, maybe it's fine, but he's like pulling on Malani's hand really oddly if we could play that same loop that was just playing not the Jank commercial. We've heard enough from him. But that'd be girl, I don't know if it's possible. Like you can see when it comes out of here, he's going to like jerk her hand a couple times. Okay, maybe it's not the same. Thanks. Anyway, I saw it. Okay, it's there. I'm not crazy just because I think the serpent and the serpent glimpsed me. It was totally there. Anyway, Anyway, somebody on Twitter referred to Melani as having strong renegotiating your pre-up vibes, I think it was. So yeah, it's just, that's what it is, which is fine, it doesn't really matter. Trump gets to brutalize the country regardless of whether he's in a loveless marriage and has probably never experienced true love in his entire life, either coming or going. But it's funny, it's a little bit funny considering how bad he is and how bad she is. We can't forget that.

They're both really bad. Yeah, yeah, they are. And I think maybe the hand-jurking motion had more to do with the fact that every time Trump has tried to publicly hold her hand, she kind of like shoes him away. So maybe he was just trying to ensure that she didn't have the ability to do that, which is why you also have that weird swinging motion, like that swinging motion that takes place. Like, oh, disastrous. All right.

Also, one comment from our live viewer, Frankie, who is upset that we had four minutes of ads and came back and did more ads, I hear you. We're working on that. So we're working on that, thanks to Brett. So give him some love. But we're going to move on to economic update because that is a story that I think should not be ignored because a lot of Americans are struggling and they're not getting the help that they need from Congress.

So the economic free fall amid the pandemic is nowhere near over with major companies now reporting tens of thousands of layoffs. Now you're probably going to notice a giant surge in layoffs because of the fact that PPP, which was the stimulus program specifically targeted towards small businesses, is set to expire when it comes to some of its rules. One of the rules to get those loans forgiven was to ensure that these companies who take that money keep their workers on staff. They don't fire people, they don't lay people off. However, that part of the law is set to expire today. And so in the coming weeks, we might hear about

more and more Americans losing their jobs as a result. So let me give you specific examples of companies that have already announced some pretty massive layoffs. Disney, for instance, for instance, said it will lay off 28,000 employees across its parks, experiences and consumer products divisions amid prolonged closures at its California-based theme parks, as well as limited attendance. According to a statement, 67% of the laid-off workers were part-time. Also, Materials science company Dow said it plans to reduce its global workforce costs by approximately 6%, but did not indicate the number of jobs that will be eliminated. Finally, there's Royal Dutch Shell, fossil fuel company, said that it plans to cut between 7,000 and 9,000 jobs by the end of

2022. The company said that about 1,500 people have agreed to take voluntary cuts this year. Meanwhile, U.S. Refiner Marathon Petroleum reportedly began another round of job cuts. We're uncertain as to the number of the jobs in that case. And barring additional federal aid, U.S. airlines are also on the verge of shedding more than 30,000 jobs. And so this is a disaster. We keep hearing these ridiculous news reports on CNBC and other mainstream media outlets arguing that the economy is doing so well, it's recovering quicker than we expected. We still have an 8.4% unemployment rate.

And that number could actually go up now that the money from the CARES Act and the rules tied to that money from the CARES Act are expiring today, meaning that these companies who took that money are free to lay off their workers beginning tomorrow without suffering any consequences. Yeah, and at the same time, we also have, I know one of the things we've been sort of anticipating for some time is what seems to be the inevitable outcome of more and more people, being laid off is more and more people eventually losing their homes. Florida just today allowed the eviction moratorium to lapse.

So so far, it's not to say that more people haven't been being evicted, but it hasn't exploded as was predicted months ago, but some states are still just on the cusp of eliminating those moratoriums. And when you combine that with the sort of economic numbers that you're talking about, it doesn't be an economic one at least to know where that's going. Yeah, yeah. It's really frustrating to see this utter breakdown of governance during a time of crisis. And it's a time of crisis for so many different issues when it comes to civil unrest, when it comes to unemployment, when it comes to the economic anguish that people are feeling right now, they can't really rely on our congressional lawmakers to do what they need to do. I mean, don't get me wrong. Republican lawmakers will get right back to work. when it comes to confirming a Supreme Court nominee. But when it comes to ensuring that Americans are able to put a roof over their heads or put food on the table for their children, they're

nowhere to be found. We keep hearing about how they've restarted negotiations. Nancy Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin are talking again. And by the way, Nancy Pelosi, it's been months, it's been months. And we keep hearing in all of these updates that Pelosi keeps agreeing to cutting the amount of money the next stimulus bill would include or would cost. But we're not really seeing much movement when it comes to Republican lawmakers. Real quick, I also wanted to give you some specific details in regard to the CARES Act and how that program really worked for these companies and why it is that they're now able to lay off so many people. The terms of the $25 billion in federal payroll support that bars job cuts through September 30th, expires,

Wednesday night. That means tonight, meaning furloughs could start Thursday. Airlines are clamoring for additional aid from lawmakers to preserve jobs through March 31st, a proposal that has won bipartisan supporting Congress from the Trump administration. But there isn't yet a deal on national coronavirus relief package on a national coronavirus relief package that could include the assistance. So we're hearing that there are bipartisan efforts, but we're not really seeing the results of that. And I also want to just address manufacturing jobs because one of the other narratives that I've heard over and over again in media is that manufacturing jobs are coming back, at least the jobs that were lost during the pandemic. But as Richard Wolf points

out with evidence on Twitter, desperate cheerleaders for US capitalism keep saying the US manufacturing is growing in recovery and even booming. The data prove otherwise declining capitalism pretends a lot. So if you look at the data here, it shows that there is a bumpy road when it comes to manufacturing. You see a little bit of a rebound toward the end of this graph, but then that rebound is followed by manufacturing jobs declining further. Manufacturing activity has been volatile amid pandemic-linked factory shutdowns. A recovery is underway, but seemingly slowing. So that's the point, the so-called quick recovery that we hear about from the Trump administration has slowed, continues to slow, and that means more economic anguish for many

Americans. And remember that this is, this is because the Trump administration followed a strategy of, okay, so sure, we're not going to do what's necessary, necessarily to save lives, but we're just going to reopen the economy because the economy has been hurting too much. And we said at the time, well, what's going to happen? The virus isn't going to go away. People aren't going to stop dying. It's going to spike. How do you expect that people are actually in the long run going to be able to go back to normal operations. And you can't. That is why we had the big second spike of cases in a number of states that's going up once again. 739 people were reported dead in the last COVID tracking project report. We just let this continue month after

month after month at effectively the same level. And they really do think that if they just stick their head in the sand, everything will go back to normal. And for the richest Americans, I guess in terms of their stock portfolio, it's generally doing okay. But you can't make the virus go away just by ignoring it. You certainly can't make its effect on the economy go away. Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. We could have had a much better outcome if the Trump administration took the pandemic seriously, encouraged people to wear masks and social distance, but we didn't get that from Trump. Instead, we had this hasty reopening process, which led to the spikes that you're referring to, John. And one other thing I want to note is that many of these

job losses aren't temporary. They're not temporary job losses. They're likely to be permanent. So as noted in MarketWatch, in April 2020, 79% of closed businesses said they were closing temporarily, while 21% announced permanent closings. But over the months that followed, the number of permanently closed businesses have steadily grown, while the inverse has been happening for temporary closings. So by July, we saw the number of permanently closed businesses, rise to more than 50% of the total number announced closings. So we're in such a terrible situation, and the media is just lying to people about this economic recovery.

They're just parroting the nonsense and talking points from the Trump administration, and at the same time, we have a lack of leadership when it comes to the so-called opposition party. So it is terrifying, and this is really the reality of what we're dealing with. We gotta take a quick break when we come back. While Americans are struggling and demanding economic relief, the Department of Health and Human Services wanted to spend $300 million on ads that would help Donald Trump with his reelection campaign and they would be using taxpayer money to do it. I'll give you the details on that failed project and more.

At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install.

A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Back to TYT, we have so much to get to. So I want to get started right away. But I am going to read one super chat comment from Abi because it hits close to home. He writes in and says, my Turkish

great-grandfather hit Armenians in his home from the military. He was caught and faced the death penalty. He said that if he had to die to do the right thing, so be it. And luckily he was let go. Abi, thank you for sharing that story because I had ancestors who were saved as a result of Turkish people who were hiding them from, you know, the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. And so I don't ever co-sign into any type of generalization about Turkish people. I have a lot of love and respect for a lot of Turkish people who have been kind to me, who have spoken out against the genocide. All of my criticism and all of the, I guess, vitriol that you might come across online is geared toward the Turkish government that refuses to acknowledge

the Armenian Genocide and also the American government who also refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. So even though every single presidential candidate in recent history has claimed that once they're elected, they will acknowledge the genocide. Even Trump said that. And of course, once they're elected, they do not do that. In fact, Trump prevented Congress from passing a resolution that would essentially recognize the Armenian Genocide and this country for the first time. Trump blocked that. Something to keep in mind. All right, well, let's move on to some more news. Health and Human Services is experiencing their 300 million dollar taxpayer-funded coronavirus ad campaign fall apart as celebrities, and I'm talking about like

sea list celebrities, back out of participating in the project. Now, part of the reason why they've decided to back out of the project is because it turns out the taxpayer money was being used toward an ad campaign that was really more about getting Donald Trump reelected. It was about spreading disinformation about how Trump has really handled the coronavirus pandemic well. And we have a lot to look forward to. And so the project was meant to inspire hope in Trump's handling of the pandemic. So again, you could probably guess why people pulled out. So celebrities are refusing to participate and staff are arraying against it. Some complain of the unstated aim of helping Trump's reelection, others point to an ill-prepared video team,

and a 22-year-old political appointee who has repeatedly asserted control despite having no public health expertise. Interviews with participants and others in the Health and Human Services Department paint a picture of a chaotic effort, scrambling to meet an unofficial election day deadline, floundering in the wake of the medical leave of its architect, Michael Caputo. Udo and running up against increasing resistance among career staff. John, before I get to the details, I want to get your thoughts so far. Yeah, I mean, if like you could at least pretend that it's not clearly just a stunt for the election. Like you, you're you're, it's not even just one way that they're assuring us that that's clearly what it is.

It's like every possible way you can be like, no, this is totally just a, you know, a cynical ploy. I mean, another way that you could inspire confidence in Trump's handling of the pandemic is for Trump to literally do anything to stop the virus from killing as many people as possible, maybe once, one day out of the entire thing, that would have been great to not, even at this late date when we're past 200,000 dead, still be saying, I think masks are fine to not be doing that. That would be one way to do it. You could save money too, because you kind of have to do it anyway. So it's probably not that expensive in comparison to the ad campaign. What a farce. And he has access to it. This is like we said, he was sort of a risk running for president from the outside, but we gave him the presidency. And now he gets to use all of the different elements and levers of government, including our tax money, to try to make it happen. Now, this may be a big failure, but there's lots of other things he can do to use the resources, including our tax money, to increase the chance that he's going to win re-election. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, this story is the latest example of ongoing trends

within the Trump administration, where the administration uses Donald Trump's position of power to funnel taxpayer money toward his reelection effort. I mean, that's essentially what's happening here, what was supposed to happen with this campaign. But again, it's falling apart. And then, And on the other hand, you have the funneling of taxpayer money toward third parties who happen to be business partners of all of these goons, including Michael Caputo. We'll get to that in just a second. But remember, Michael Caputo accused the government and its scientists of seeking to undermine Trump's reelection campaign and warmed of an armed insurrection.

He's currently on medical leave. He's not all there, I'll just put it that way. Now, one HHS official, yeah, yeah, I mean, it usually is with these people. Now, one HHS official who spoke to Politico said the following, this is a boondoggle. We're in the middle of a pandemic. We could use that quarter of a billion dollars on buying personal protective equipment, not promoting PSA's with C-List celebrities. Now, just three celebrities have recorded public service ads so far. Dennis Quaid, C.C. Wyans, and Hasidic singer, Schullim Lemmer with Quaid and other potential participants reconsidering their involvement

or dropping out altogether. Dr. Oz was considering doing this until some of these details were disclosed and then he pulled out. And then of course it looks like some of this money, this taxpayer money is being funneled to Caputo's friends. So the video firm confirmed to, I'm sorry, the video firm confirmed by HHS to execute the campaign has struggled to meet deadlines, retained staff, and even find the contact information of celebrities to participate in the videos. The firm, DD&T, is led by a filmmaker who had no prior experience making U.S. public health campaigns and is also the business partner of Caputo, the Trump loyalist who served as the health department spokesperson before taking leave this month.

And by the way, DD&T is currently a subcontractor to Atlas Research, a firm hired by HHS in August for $15 million to begin executing the ad campaign. I will say that when we were talking about this story during the break, and I thought it was Randy Quaid, I thought it was a lot funnier. I feel, I guess, a little bit bad for Dennis Quaid. He's like, I was just seeing what he's been saying about this in the last day. And he's like saying it's canceled culture because people are mad at him and he didn't actually do it or or whatever. Look, if you're a celebrity, like hypothetically, if you weren't that tapped into what's going on and the government wanted you to do a PSA about the pandemic, I get that you might

think that's a good cause to use your celebrity status for. I get that, but you also have to understand who it's for and what their approach to, you know, communicating with the American people has been about over the past few years. Yeah, and I'm also very curious whether the whether HHS was honest about the real intentions of this campaign, this ad campaign, when they reached out to people. I mean, they could have totally misrepresented what they're doing. So, look, I don't, I probably shouldn't admit this. I don't even know who Dennis Quaid is. So I don't really have a dog in this fight.

Don't hate on me. Don't hate on me. He's in stuff. So I'm sure, whatever. I'm not really good at that world. But anyway, the point that I'm trying to make is I don't. I don't think that there was any ill intent on his part. So it is what it is. The Trump administration lies about what their intentions are all the time. So just give him the benefit

of the doubt, I guess. Now shortly after Caputo helped transfer, huh? I was just going to say, I was trying to remember the iconic role. He was in inner space. That's a classic. I don't care. It's worth a watch. So shortly after Caputo helped transfer $300 million. By the way, this money is coming out of the CDC. Took the money out of the CDC to fund this new nationwide campaign to defeat despair. Planning efforts ramped up early in the summer. The health department awarded $15 million to Atlas Research on August 26th, and then $250 million to the market research firm of Fores March on September 1st. Fores Marsh has said that it won the contract by stressing its evidence-based approach to communications, and that is it is cooperating with Democrats

in probe. So Democrats are looking into this. But I just, I really want to drive this point at home, right? We still don't have another round of stimulus. And you have Republicans nickel and diming the American people at a time when tens of millions of people are still unemployed, More people are likely to be unemployed because layoffs are starting to increase now that the PPP program under the CARES Act is expiring and companies are free to lay people off. This is a dire economic situation for so many people. And to hear that $300 million was sucked out of the CDC and funneled to this ridiculous stunt to help Donald Trump get reelected while also helping Michael Caputo's friends make a buck is just. just sickening. That's the kind of corruption and disgusting behavior we're dealing with with the Trump administration. It's all about enriching themselves. It's all about ripping off the American people and leaving them to suffer on their own as we deal with this, you know,

pandemic and this crisis. Yeah. All right. Oh, I guess we're at a time. Go ahead, John. No, just to say, you know, you. John, go ahead. No, I'm not going to. Okay. That was awkward. It's okay. We have the post game next. You don't want to miss it. TYT.com slash join to become a member. We have a lot more news to get to. So please become a member. Support TYT. We'll see you there. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad free. Access members, only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple podcast at apple.com slash tYT. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.