The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - September 9, 2020

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Here’s more proof that establishment politicians look down on the average American citizen. Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila 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

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What's up, everyone? Welcome to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian and joining us today. Filling in for Jank Yugar. Filling in for John Iderola is Nando Villa.

You guys all know who Nando is. My trustee, pretty good, you know, hanging in there, all things considered. That's something that I never used to say, all things considered. But now that I've heard multiple people in my life, that, it's like caught on. So it's my go to statement. Yeah. By the way, Nando's also my, I know, what else are you going to say? Like, you know, Nando's also my co-host on weekends for Jacobin. You can follow our show by going to YouTube.com slash Jacobin Mag, a show that I do every weekend and do a really bad job plugging on this show. So definitely check it out.

We air every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern, and it's a pretty good show. Very different from what we do here. Long-form segments, you guys get the picture. Yeah. So a few other notes before we get to the rest of our insane rundown today. News was breaking throughout the day. But I do want to encourage you all to like and share the stream. In fact, we want to get to 2,500 likes and shares. If we can get to that number, there will be a reward. will follow through on it. And the reward, since we have the pleasure of having Nando on, who is an expert on 90s grunge music, will be Nando Villa singing a 90s grunge song.

So if you're a member, send in your requests in case we do get to that point. But remember, we want to get 2,500 likes and shares. Nando, just off the top of your head, your favorite 90s grunge song. Well, probably Pearl Jam Black, I would say. It's definitely a Pearl Jam I have songs, Pearl James is my favorite band overall, so I have to take one of them. So good. Yeah. So good. All right.

And then one other announcement, we'll get to our news today. Our partner aspiration is doing a sweepstakes for an e-scooter. And if you have any interest for your chance to win, all you need to do is go to t-y-t.com slash green summer. That's t-y-t.com slash green summer for your chance to win an e-scooter. They cost around $2,000. So I love that it's an electric scooter. I love that it's not like one of those Sherpa scooters that annoy the crap out of me.

It's an actual scooter you can use on the road. So definitely check that out, t.yt.com slash green summer. All right, without further ado, let's get to the news. A staffer for a GOP North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis effectively told one of their constituents to kick rocks after she called to share her concerns. about losing health insurance as a result of her husband being furloughed. Now, Bev Veils is the name of the constituent who called. She's from Carolina Beach, a three-time cancer survivor.

She called her senator out of fear that her health insurance was at risk. She had previously faced medical bankruptcy and difficulty accessing care, and her husband was furloughed because of the pandemic. She wanted assurance that she'd have coverage if she lost her health insurance. Okay? Very common thing that Americans are concerned about right now makes a lot of sense that you would hit up a representative, hit up a member of Congress, hit up your senator, and see if there is any solution to prevent the loss of your health care coverage. Well, here's the kind of response she received from Tom Tillis's staffer. saying that if you can't afford it, you can't afford it, you don't get to have it. And that includes health care. Yeah, just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt, if I can't afford that dress shirt, I don't get it.

But health care is something that people need, especially if they have cancer. Well, you've got to find a way to get it. Well, you just got to find a way to get it. The staffer compared health care, something that you need to stay alive, to, buying a dresser, buying something that you don't necessarily need to stay alive. But this is like a common ideology among members of Congress. Nando, I want to hear your thoughts on this. My immediate reaction is obviously this is a horrifying thing to say to someone.

But what this Stafford did is that he committed the biggest sin you can in American politics, which is tell your constituents the truth. because that's what this, that's what this person did. I mean, this idea that you can only get proper health care if you can afford it is the ideology that pervades the U.S. Congress on both sides of the aisle. You know, that this is, this is, this was evidenced by the fact that, you know, the Democrats blocked any attempt to put Medicare for all, even in the platform. So if you have any employer-tight insurance system, you're going to have people who are uninsured. at some point, those people will not be able to get health care because they won't be able to afford it. So this is just the truth of American politics and the truth of the system is that if you can't

afford care, you won't get quality care. That's just the reality of it. So yeah, usually politicians have better sense than to tell the rubs the truth. They usually lie to them. They usually say all kinds of weird things about like, no, if you just do the proper thing, you'll get like access to healthcare or something like that. But the reality is that tens of thousands of people die every year because they don't get health care cover, health care they need because they can't afford it. And millions of, tens of millions of people in the United States are uninsured. So yeah, this staffer is punished for speaking the truth.

Yeah, I think that you make a great point because the top issue that ends up making headlines and getting staffers or members of Congress in trouble is when they demonstrate just how callous they really are, when they expose the real thoughts and ideology behind the policy decisions that they make. And you're right in pointing out that this is a problem on both sides of the aisle. I mean, right now, during this pandemic, now more than ever, it's so clear that the American people were lied to whenever we heard the same argument over and over again against a single-payer healthcare system against Medicare for all. This notion of, well, if you have single payer health care, you don't have choices. Okay, but right now Americans don't have choices. In fact, before

the pandemic, Americans had no choice. In most cases, unless you were unbelievably independently wealthy, you had to rely on your employer to provide health care, right? And do you get to decide, do you have any say in what type of health care provider your employer signs on to? Of course you don't. Do you have any say on whether or not the board decides to cut some of the money that goes toward the employee health care programs? No, you have no say over that. And you also have no say over what happens to you in your health care after you get laid off during a pandemic. I mean, we already knew that people didn't actually have choices. But I think that this pandemic certainly amplifies what progressives, what people on the left have been trying

to scream from the rooftops. What flows my mind is that there hasn't been any progress in pressuring the Democratic Party to move in a direction that makes a lot more sense. In fact, if you look at the general election, you look at Biden and Trump, Trump is effectively pushing Biden further to the right on a number of issues. I just watched an interview with Biden. where he started attacking Trump over how soft he is on China. And I was like, what? It was just strange. Yeah, no, I remember the line that, you know, single payer health care didn't save Italy

from having problems during the pandemic, like just the most cynical argument you can ever imagine. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like I wonder what, I wonder what this guy tillers, what he would want his staffer to tell a constituent that is telling them that, You know, like, what is the company line when someone says, like, I have cancer, I don't have health care, what do I do? Like, what should be, like, what should have the staffer said? I really don't understand what, because the Republicans, like, obviously don't have, you know, they don't even, they don't even know how to lie about these things.

I know, I know what the answer is. It's easy. Obama did this. It's Obama's fault. Yeah, I mean, it would be about Obama. Somehow, somehow, they were twisted into an Obama issue. But speaking of which, there was. There was a response from Tillis's office.

They released an official statement, kind of apologizing. And so let me read you what it said. The way Mrs. Veels was talked to by a staff assistant in our Washington office was completely inappropriate and violates the code of conduct, Senator Tillis has for his staff, which is why immediate disciplinary action has been taken. We don't know what that disciplinary action is. My read of this is that the staffer is still employed and maybe there was some sort of, you know, talking down to, I have no idea.

But the problem here isn't necessarily the rhetoric or the tone used by the staffer. That callous nature of the call was more about what the ideology behind it is, right? Like the ideology of like, no, healthcare is a commodity. What are you talking about? If you can't afford it, then I don't know, figure it out. That's the issue here. Yeah, I buy my books for the shirts, you know, like everybody else. You've got to pony up the cash, baby.

Jeez. And in terms of the Affordable Care Act and where Republicans stand on health care, sure, they're definitely worse than Democrats are. For instance, the Trump administration, as some of you might already know, is currently arguing that the Supreme Court should overturn all of Obamacare, throwing millions of people off their insurance and invalidating protections for pre-existing conditions along with other provisions that protect patients. And as you guys know, I mean, the Affordable Care Act certainly has its issues, but there were important protections baked into that legislation that I would hate

to see gone because people with pre-existing conditions would find themselves in the same situation as they did pre-2008. They'd get rejected by health care providers and it would be even more of a nightmare than what we're experiencing now. And let me also remind you that North Carolina is one of the 12 states in the United States that has not adopted Medicaid expansion, a policy that would help cover people like veils if they lost their insurance. Tillis opposes Medicaid expansion. And under the Affordable Care Act, basically the federal government give states money. Like, hey, here's some money to expand your Medicaid program so more people can qualify if they don't have health insurance. And so yeah, a bunch of red states, 12 of them

have denied that federal funding. Yeah, and the Medicaid expansion was the best part about Obamacare, right? It was the one that helped, that actually provided relief for millions of people. The fact that so many states have rejected the Medicaid expansion is just, that is just pure ideology, because usually states would love to accept federal funding with no strings. attached, which is what the Medicaid expansion was. But that is just pure, pure ideology in its purest form. Definitely. Well, let's move on to the Justice Department and what it's spending our taxpayer money on. In an unprecedented move, the Justice Department has decided to step in

in a civil suit, a civil defamation suit that was filed against Donald Trump by one of the many women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. This particular case revolves around writer E. Jean Carroll, who had accused Donald Trump of raping her in a department store in the 1990s. Now, this means, by the way, that since the Department of Justice has decided to represent Trump's defense in the civil suit, we the U.S. taxpayers will foot the bill for this defense. So citing a law called the Federal Tort Claims Act, the department lawyers asserted the right to take the case from Trump's private lawyers and move the matter from the state court to federal court. The Justice Department said the court papers that Trump was said in the court papers that Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he denied ever-knowing Carroll and thus could be defended by government lawyers, in effect, underwritten by tax. pay or money, something I already mentioned. And the motion also effectively protects Trump

from any embarrassing disclosures in the middle of his campaign for reelection. I mean, I feel like we get embarrassing disclosures on Trump literally every day. We get embarrassing disclosures on Trump following our production meeting. And we have to like reshuffle things around because it's like, I don't know, which embarrassing stories do we cover from the last 24 hours. But let me continue. A state judge issued a ruling last month that potentially opened the door to Trump being deposed in the case before the election in November. And Nana, before we go to you, I do want to remind everyone of what E. Jean Carroll was already expecting to happen after she had made her accusations against Trump. This is a sit-down interview

that she had with Brian Stelter on CNN. But I do want to ask you about a couple of the developments that have happened since the New York Magazine cover. This Donald Trump Jr. saying, hey, as long as the media keeps giving these nut jobs, unfettered airtime, they will keep coming. But of course, we know that, and so does the media. So they're happy to use a truly sick person for their political gains. Oh, this is really good. He's talking about you. I know. It's nauseating. It's absolutely nauseating. There is a reason why women hesitate to come forward and tell the a really strong reason. A, they will be dragged through the mud. B, they will be dumped

on the muck heap of you know this back and forth C, they'll be threatened and D, they'll put their reputations, their very reputations on the line, they'll put their lives on the line, and they'll put their livelihoods on the line. There's no

reason for me to come forward and put everything on the line unless I thought it would help other women and that's exactly what I'm doing. So following the accusations, Donald Trump said, quote, I'll say it with great respect.

Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, okay, effectively calling her a liar, which is why he is being sued for defamation. So, Nando, what do you think about this unprecedented move by the DOJ? Well, I mean, it's just, I mean, the brazenness of it all is just so breathtaking, breathtaking, right? I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's Trump has, one of the highlighting things about the Trump era has been. in that he's exposed just how weak our system is and how impossible it is to hold the president

especially accountable. When he said, I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen, you know, he said it kind of ingest, but like it opened up kind of a serious question as to like, is the president above the law? And the reality is that he kind of is. What are they gonna do? Arrest the president? Who's gonna do that? Like they, like, it just, it shows that the system relied so much on these norms of decorum that people just kind of adhere to out of a sense of yeah, just decorum. And as soon as like someone got in there that has literally no sense of decorum, he blew it all wide open and just realized that he, that he sincerely found the game genie cheat code that you just can do whatever you want when you're president and who's gonna stop you. Like literally,

stop you. Yeah, that's such a good point. And it's what I've been thinking about a lot, not just about the fact that the president can do anything he wants, and really our system is so weak that it can't hold him accountable, but also that democracy itself, at least in the way that it was, the way that it functions in this country is incredibly weak, right? Because the whole idea of checks and balances, I mean, it has not worked under this administration. Donald Trump has committed so many crimes, both before he was elected and after he was elected, right? So pay illegal campaign contributions for the hush money payments. It's just one example, using his charitable foundation to enrich himself. That's another example. He's broken so many

laws. And in this rundown alone, there are two giant stories that broke today, one of which indicates that Donald Trump absolutely did know the seriousness of coronavirus early on in February. There are audio recordings of it. And he still purposely downplayed it in the public. And are there going to be consequences for that? No. Is his base going to hold him accountable for it? At this point, I'm not naive enough to think that they will. But it's still important to know all these details. And by the way, in regard to E. Jean Carroll and what our accusations are, you know, Carol wrote in a book excerpt published in the New York Magazine in June of 2019 that Trump had thrown her up against a wall of a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in late 1990 or

early 1996, I'm sorry, 1995 or 1996. Then she claimed Trump pulled down her tights, opened her pants, and forced himself on her. And she apparently has some evidence of this, Right? So she's asking for an actual full investigation into it. Trump said that he had never met Carol, for instance, but the two were photographed together at a party in 1987 with her former husband. Carol insisted that security cameras captured both of them moving together before the alleged assault inside the store. And also Carol's lawyers have requested that he provide a DNA sample to determine whether his genetic material is on address. that Carol said she was wearing at the time of the encounter. I mean, I'm glad that she saved that dress. I'm wondering if there's any way to actually test that. Yeah. Yeah.

That's some law and order stuff right there. But yeah, I mean, it's a big question. I mean, it's a question that, I mean, if I frankly were a white or a reporter covering the campaign, I might ask Joe Biden is like, if you become president, would you prosecute Trump and the Trump administration for crimes? Right? Because ever since Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, and then George H.W. Bush pardoned all the people involved in Iran-Contra. And ever since George W. Bush pardoned Scooter Libby. And then Barack Obama refused to prosecute any of the war criminals in the Bush administration. Like, that's the reason why presidents can do whatever they want is because the only real authority is or the only real fear that they might have is that the next president might prosecute. them, which is why none of these presidents ever prosecute their predecessor. So will, yeah, will Joe Biden prosecute Trump if he becomes president, like for any number

of millions of, millions of crimes he's done, he's done, doing crimes all the time, wide out in the open. Will he prosecute Trump? Because if not, it's just going to continue this trend where we have this figure in America called the president who can literally do whatever he wants. Yeah, I'm sure Biden will serve as the paradigm shift, you know, the guy who told Wall Street backers that nothing will fundamentally change. Anyway, we'll leave that story right there. We do have to take a break. Again, I want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream. If we get to a minimum of 2,500 people that do that, Nando Villa will sing a 90s grunge song as a reward. All right. We got to take a break. We'll be right back.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about

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and entertained all at the same time. Hey everybody, welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparing and Nando Vila with you. Just a quick reminder, Nando and I host a show together for Jacobin, and we do it every Saturday, so you can check it out by going to YouTube.com slash Jacobin Mag. Please watch the show, and if you like it, you should subscribe. Quick TYT poll that we're going to do today, and it has to do with climate change We really want to know what your opinion is. Our wonderful investigative reporter, Tiwa Chang, uncovered evidence that the GOP is quietly working to override a Supreme Court ruling that gives tribes.

Native tribes control of half the state of Oklahoma. So they're trying to do away with that, you know, the consequences of that Supreme Court ruling, which by the way, we're incredibly important to native people living in Oklahoma. We want to know what you think about that story. So just tell us by going to t.y.t.com slash polls slash tribal rights. TY.t.com slash polls slash tribal rights. All right. Also, I'm going to read some member comments. By the way, I look to the side because my computer is there and my camera's here.

So that's why you guys get this profile action happening. Tuffy says. So you get you a camera. That's why you look so good. Yeah. stupid little computer camera, that's why it's your webcam. Yeah, yeah. I thought about doing it because it's just an easier setup, but yeah, I don't know. I like to do things the hard way. All right, Tuffy writes in in the member's comments. Hopefully Nando will accompany his singing

with his guitar. So if we get to 2,500 likes and shares of the stream, Nando will sing a grunge song from the 90s. The things I do for you people. Right? I love it. Grilled hot dog says, Republicans support a feudal economy. Yep. English teacher 1984 says the JD has requested to represent, oh, the Justice Department has requested to represent Donald Trump. It is my understanding that the judge of the case has to approve the change of lawyers and venue. I don't see anything in the news that this happened yet. Did I miss something? So you're right. I also haven't seen anything in the news indicating that it'll happen. We'll take a look at that. I want to see if there are any updates, but as soon as we have them,

I will let you know. 100 decibels booing from our member section says, my vote for Nando's grunge song is Spoon Man. I don't think I'm familiar with that. Yeah, Soundgarden. Oh yeah, God, my husband loves Soundgarden. Okay, great. So I'll read some super chats and Twitch updates when we come back from our next break. For now, let's talk about some of the explosive stories that broke today. A new whistleblower complaint is alleging that top Department of Homeland Security officials, appointees repeatedly instructed officials to modify intelligence assessments pertaining to national security risks.

Now, as we've been talking about on this show quite a bit, is the prevalence of right-wing extremism, right wing radical attacks against individuals. We've been seeing this play out in parts of the country, including Portland, Oregon, where Black Lives Matter demonstrators have been attacked by right wingers. And so this whistleblower report is essentially saying that Trump appointees have pressured the Department of Homeland Security, or I'm sorry, have pressured the intelligence community to completely change the narrative, the evidence of what's really going down in this country and what groups, which groups of people pose the biggest security risks. So the DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and acting director of U.S.

citizenship and immigration, Ken Cuccinelli, both Trump appointees directed officials to change intelligence assessments based on Trump's political rhetoric and order the whistleblower, an order the whistleblower says amounted to an abuse of authority. So both Wolf and Cuchinelli also also tried to alter a report to downplay the threat posed by white supremacists and instead emphasize the role of leftist groups due to concerns about how the initial language would reflect on the president. So we all see what's been going on in this country with our own eyes. We've seen multiple viral videos of armed militia members. Kyle Rittenhouse was one of those teenage armed militia members who gunned down to protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for instance.

And so while we see that imagery, we also deal with a president who tells us that we're facing a risk by anarchists and Antifa, right? So it just doesn't make sense. As a result, Trump's appointees are like, oh, we know what we're going to do. We're just going to pressure and force the intelligence community to lie about what the real national security threat is in this country. And apparently it upset Brian Murphy. Brian Murphy is the whistleblower here. You may recall from earlier stories that he's a former DHS inspector general who stepped down when he realized just how authoritarian this administration is and just how damaging Donald Trump has been to our democratic process. So the allegations were raised in this complaint filed by Murphy to the

DHS Inspector General. According to the source, Murphy previously oversaw the intelligence division at the department, but was assigned this summer, I'm sorry, reassigned this summer. After it was revealed, his office had gathered intelligence reports on two journalists. Murphy says that he refused to modify the intelligence assessments so that they more closely aligned with Trump's anti-Antifa rhetoric. So basically he said, no, I'm not going to do this. Murphy also said that he refused to alter draft versions of the report, warning of the national security threat posed by white supremacist. So I'm going to show you some of the changes that were proposed. And, you know, I don't know what kind of fallout there's likely to be in a story like

this. I think that people who have been concerned about right-wing extremists will continue to be concerned. But I think that Trump supporters consist of these people and will continue to support Trump because he empowers them. He supports them. He defends them. I mean, just today, Donald Trump Jr. gave an interview where he just totally defended Kyle Rittenhouse and said, yeah, you know, we all do stupid things when we're going on. Boys will be boys. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what the solution is, Nando, because the people in positions of power are going to continue empowering dangerous groups of people who pose a risk, a threat to people's lives, especially when it comes to these demonstrators across the country.

What do people do? I don't know. Yeah, it's one of those things. I mean, you know, we've always suspected that, and we've always kind of laughed. There's like that ongoing joke about like, oh, I'm the president of Antifa. No, I'm the president of Antifa, you know, like where it's like, it's not like a meaning, like it's not like a real big kind of meaningful thing, but it just gets played up in these right wing fantasies of like this kind of, I don't know, I don't know, this kind of like violent, organized institution that's going to overthrow all of society or something like that. But this just shows that even our own intelligence communities, which don't need a whole lot of encouragement to play up left-wing threats, you know, like even them, they don't see them as a credible threat. You know, like this is the same people that used to, the intelligence communities that used to be obsessed with like the Black Panthers and things like that.

Like it's not, there's a long history of the intelligence communities in the United States being obsessed with left-wing groups. And even, but even them, they're not kind of that fuss about Antifa, and it's only because of political pressure that they have to play up these intelligence gather. I mean, this reminds me of, like, in Dick Cheney, when he used to, like, tell the intelligence agencies, like, no, but look, Iraq, the nuclear weapons, they got them, you know, and like, would totally pressure the intelligence agencies to filter out information that it disproved that theory and only highlighted. information that that strengthened that theory. And so yeah, I mean, I don't know what to do. So lately, as we've been seeing more and more of these armed militias, brain terror on demonstrators, I've been looking at the statistics because the FBI, and we're not talking about the FBI here, we're talking about the intelligence division within the Department of Homeland Security. So that is separate from the FBI. But the FBI had been putting out reports warning people about,

about the serious threat and a growing threat of right-wing extremism in this country. And as I was researching for a recent story, I noticed that I was having difficulty finding those reports. They were previously super easy to find. So I don't know if there's anything going on with the FBI. I mean, I have to do more digging into that. But I certainly do agree with you when it comes to how DHS has been operating under the Trump administration, right? And by the way, DHS had a specific unit dedicated to combating right wing terrorism in this country, right wing radicals and armed militias. And conservatives made such a big deal about it that in 2009, under the Obama administration, he agreed to finally disband that particular unit.

I really wish he hadn't given into that pressure. I don't know why he did. But there are consequences to it. And I think we're seeing some of those consequences right now. So Murphy, by the way, first argued that Cuccinelli, then Wolf, pushed back against changes to the draft version of the report that would have watered down language pertaining to white supremacists and added additional information about leftist groups like those the Trump administration has portrayed as a top threat to the U.S. ahead of the November presidential election. When Murphy refused to implement the changes as directed, Cuccinelli and Wolf stopped the report from being finished. So they're like, okay, well, who cares about this intelligence report if we can't just use it for our own propaganda purposes?

The earliest, now, there were some proposed changes. So I'm going to show you what some of those changes were. The earliest available version of the State of the Homeland Threat Assessment 2020 draft re- until I 18. Get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smart my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only date is July 18. It's, we judge that ideologically motivated loan offenders and small groups will pose the greatest terrorist threat to the homeland through 2021 with white supremacist extremists presenting the most lethal threat. That was the original version. Here's what the proposal was. The lead section on terror threats to the homeland is changed in the last. two drafts to replace white supremacist extremists with domestic violent extremists presenting

the most persistent and lethal threat. So they just got rid of the white supremacist part of it, which I would argue is incredibly relevant. I mean, think about it. People who are like, why don't you say radical Islamic terrorism, why won't you say it? You have to say it. In our own reports, they're like, let's erase white supremacy. We don't want that in there. It's just sick, but this is what you can expect from the Trump administration. Well, it's also just like, it's so transparent, right? What's going on is that Trump has probably made the correct calculus that anything that doesn't, that distract from the pandemic and kind of whips people into a frenzy about a perceived threat

coming from the Democrats, right? Because that's the other hilarious thing. It's like where he ties like Antifa to the Democratic Party, which is like could it be, you know, They could have be farther apart. But anything that can, from an electoral standpoint, that can get in people's minds thinking, like, oh, like if the Democrats come, we're just going to have these, you know, hoodie wearing Molotov cocktail throwing guys on the street, raining chaos. That's their only hope for the election.

Because if the election is about the coronavirus and the economic collapse that came as a result of that, they will lose. You know, can they play up threats? Can they play up China? Can they play up Antifa enough in people's minds to get them to be scared of disorder and of some vague foreign threat? Then they maybe have a chance. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Well, look, since we're talking about coronavirus, I think we should take a break and come back with a pretty giant story involving COVID-19. And it has to do with some tapes that have been uncovered where Donald Trump apparently knew just how serious coronavirus. was as early as February, but downplayed it publicly. We'll give you the details on that and more when we ever... 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

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extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX. P-R-E-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-Y-T. Check it out today. What's up, guys? All right, look, we are shockingly close to hitting our goal of 2,500 likes and shares of this stream. We have $21,000. 100. Yeah.

No, 100. Geez. I'm like, wait, that doesn't make sense. Yes, we have 2,100. We're trying to get to 2,500. So please do it because we all want to hear Nando sing a song. And by the way, there's already been a suggestion from our members section on what you'd sing. This is from Brett's tummy fluff, who writes in and says, Anna and Nando are great.

My grunge song request is Love Story by T. Swift. That's not a grunge song. I can do it, right? I can do it. Yeah, it's a great suggestion. All right. Banjo Phillips from our member section says, I'm of Muskogee Creek descent, the main tribe involved in the Oklahoma land ruling.

And of course, they're trying to overturn the decision. They didn't honor any of the treaties made with the First Nations while the ink was still wet. So why start now? And for those of you who are just tuning in now, it's in response to a new story that was published by our investigative reporter, Tiwa Cheng. We uncovered evidence that the GOP leaders are quietly working to override a Supreme Court ruling that gives native tribes control of half the state of Oklahoma. So we want to hear your thoughts on that, and you can participate by going to t.t.com

slash polls slash tribal rights. I also want to read some new member names. You guys are incredible, and you can become a member by going to t.y.t.com slash join. Mike Miller, thank you so much, Harry Lugge and Lord Fasel is also a new member of ours. So please become a member if you can. It's one of the best ways to support this show. We really do appreciate you guys and love reading your comments. From our super chat question, Ryan says, I was thinking Pearl Jam and then he said it,

though I think I like dissent more. That's a good one. That's a deep cut. It's, it is, I love Pearl Jam. I think it's so good. And the, oh, Hiroshi loves you says vote.org. Tomasana says, I'm so sick of people saying Trump 2020 and this monster contributed to dying of, to the dying of people in the United States. I totally agree. And real quick, I don't want to ignore our Twitch supporters. Individualism killed the cat, resubbed for their second month bananas. Socrates bartender says, so is this combo of

announcers called Nana. Oh, I get it. Okay. I mean, we should all pay attention to what. Yes. Holly Parrot subbed with Prime, a new sub. Thank you so much. Osborne resubbed for five months. Okay, not one, not two. Yes, I know how to count. Five months. That's amazing. Wolfsense resubbed with Prime for their third month and trashy plays. Congrats to Florida. We broke 12,000 COVID deaths. I am going to reserve the fury I have for Florida. I'm not going to get into it. But Nando is very familiar with that.

I'm familiar. I get a private show on that one all the time and I love it. It's one of my favorites. By the way, if we get to our goal of likes and shares of the stream, Brett will let me know and Nando will sing. So with that said, let's move on to our next story. Bob Woodward's new book, Rage, proves that Trump knew about the severity of coronavirus weeks before the first confirmed cases occurred in the U.S.

And clearly, well before he took any action, as small as his actions have been, you know, he knew how serious it was, but didn't really act at all. And we know this because Woodward not only writes about it in his upcoming book, Rage, but because he actually recorded his conversations with Donald Trump. Woodward claims that Trump gave him permission to do so, which is kind of insane, considering what Trump was saying on the tapes. But before I get to the details of what Trump did say as early as February, I do want to know that it is pretty shameful that Woodward held on to this audio until he was.

wanted to start promoting his upcoming book. Just keeping it real. All right, well, here's what we know. No, it's just, it's ridiculous, right? Because if he had audio of Trump talking about how serious coronavirus is in February, why wouldn't he release it? He wouldn't release it because, oh, this is good material for my book, and I'm not ready to release my book yet.

Anyway, we'll get to that part of the discussion later. Here's what we learned through reporting on this. The startling revelations in rage, which CNN obtained ahead of its September 15th release, were made during 18, he had 18 wide-ranging interviews with Trump from December 5th, 2019 to July 21st, 2020. The interviews were recorded by Woodward with Trump's permission, and CNN has obtained copies of some of the audio tapes. In fact, CNN has actually played some of those audio tapes. So he can be heard saying, Trump can be heard saying, this is deadly stuff. Trump said that in February. February 7th, that's how early on he knew how bad this virus is.

And by the way, note that February 7th was only two days after the Senate acquitted him of impeachment charges. So Woodward was under the impression that Trump would want to talk about that. But he says in his book that Trump really wanted to focus on COVID, which, you know, says something about how serious he knew coronavirus was. He also said, it goes to It goes through the air. That's always tougher than the touch. You don't have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air, and that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. Remember, Donald Trump publicly downplayed the coronavirus by arguing that it's just like the common flu. And we all know that that's not true. And no one can now argue that Trump was just ignorant of the facts.

He knew what the truth was. He had been briefed about it in January. And he chose not to take it seriously when addressing the public. Nando, I have more, but I want to hear what you think. Well, I mean, you know, it's important to remember the context that, like you said, that this was February 7th. I mean, the lockdowns really didn't start until early March. I mean, in early February, even I was like, is this a real thing?

Or is this like SARS or one of these other ones that we've had in the past? I remember the Ebola panic of 2014 and all the stuff. But they ended up kind of not really amounting to much here in the United States. And I was like, okay, this new coronavirus thing. Like, is that like going to be a big deal or not? I wasn't sure. You know, clearly the people who are supposed to know these things, like the intelligence agencies and things like that, knew very well and briefed the president.

And he's freaked out. I mean, Trump is a germaphobe. They always talk about how they can't get him to pay attention to like any meeting or anything like that. I'm sure as soon as they were like virus, he was like, wait, what, what, what, what, you know, because Trump is an absolute germaphobe. So it's just confirmation of what we all suspected for a long time was that the administration was kind of downplaying this. But had we had that tape in early February, I mean, things might have been different. I mean, it's hard to say. You mean, things these days like, you know, it's very easy to get black pill.

and be like, well, it wouldn't have mattered the same, they would have reacted in the same exact way. Well, maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. And maybe more people that are like would have taken it more seriously. Maybe some governors would have taken it more seriously. You know, you can imagine like some governors hearing that tape and be like, oh, maybe, maybe this thing is more serious than the news is reporting. So, so yeah, I think that there's, I mean, obviously like there's the one hand, like the massive Trump scandal, which in any sort of sane society. would cause the dismantling of a presidency, you know, like that he should resign in shame

because, you know, 200,000 people have died as a result of the mismanagement of the coronavirus and the constant downplaying of it. But there's also, like you mentioned briefly, this idea that Woodward held this information for six months. Yeah. While the president kept lying, he knew that the president was lying. He knew that he could counteract this narrative about the administration's response to coronavirus by literally playing the tape. I mean, the fact that he had tape, it's so much different than like just having it, the president

say it to you in a meeting and then you're writing it in your book, even if it was on the record. Like someone can always be like, well, but did he really say that? Like, you know what I mean? Like having a tape is just crazy to me. It is crazy. And I totally agree with you. I like to think of Trump supporters as two different groups. And maybe I'm even being naive saying this or thinking this, but let me know what you think. So I think that there's a portion of Trump's base that is immovable.

Their support defies logic. They don't care what he does. I mean, evidence does not phase them at all. Like they are going to support Trump no matter what. But then there are people who lean to the right might still be considered like considering voting for him, but they're still receptive to evidence. And hearing Trump on tape say these things, you know, acknowledging how serious coronavirus is, would at least, in the very least, convince them that they need to take it seriously, right? And so people's lives could have been saved if this audio was released earlier. Dude, so this interview happened February 7th, right? Late February, I went on a family cruise. I was on a family cruise. I'm so lucky that, you know, I didn't get sick. If I had gotten

sick, I see my mom every weekend. My mom certainly would have, you know, gotten COVID. I would have been an asymptomatic spreader, and she probably would have died because she has all sorts of health concerns. And that's terrifying. I remember before going on that trip, asking a a pharmacist. Hey, can you just be honest with me? What's up with this whole coronavirus thing? Is it serious? And he said no. People even in like the healthcare industry, medical professionals, they all the while February 7th, this audio exists of Trump talking about how serious it is. Let me give you some more revelations. Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. Pretty amazing, Trump told Woodward,

adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times more deadly than the flu. So he knew. He got it. In March, he admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public. I wanted to always play it down, Trump told Woodward on March 19th, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic. At an April 3rd, coronavirus task briefing, Trump was still downplaying the virus and stating that it would go away. Quote, I said it was, it's going away and it is going away, he said. Yet two days earlier on April 5th, Trump again told Woodward, it's a horrible thing, it's unbelievable. And on April 13th, he said, it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't

even believe it. No, no, we believe it. We believe it. It just would have been nice if you acknowledged it publicly. Well, yeah, obviously like, but I still like, just hearing the more revelations that come out, like, just over in these various conversations with Woodward, like this is like one of the biggest scandals in modern American journalism to me. Like I'm like, I'm honestly like aghast that Woodward would hold this information just to sell more books. It really is just really grotesque. I mean, because it's, it's just shocking to hear the president just unfiltered in that way telling the truth, right? I mean, it's just Yeah. To have the evidence of it is just, it's, and yeah, I think that there are, there are no

winners in this story. Trump is obviously terrible, but Woodward holding on to this audio in an effort to save it to promote his book is, it's just, it's deplorable. It really is. All right, look, we have very limited time, less than a minute, and we hit, we hit our goal, I believe 2,900 likes on this stream. All right, you got to sing a 90s grunge song. Give us a little taste. Give me one. Give me one, Anna. Give me one.

Say a title. I don't know. I like too many of them. The Pearl Jam song you love. Okay, okay. Sheets of empty canvas untouched. Sunclean. All right, that's enough.

You people. That's good. That's good. I love 90s grunge because I never know what the lyrics are until I look them up. But it's so good. It's so good. Anyway, postgame is next. Kids.

Yeah, I know. The internet. It's true. Postgame is next. Become a member at t.yt.com slash join. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen, ad free.

Access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple. com slash tYT. I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.