The Young Turks - U.S. Bombs Yemen
Episode Date: January 13, 2024You’re vital to our work. Support as a member: https://go.tyt.com/signup. Israel rejects genocide allegations at international court. Houthis warn "all force" will be used to respond to the United S...tates bombing Yemen. Exclusive: Tape of Roger Stone discussing the assassination of Democrats. BREAKING: Trump ordered to pay the New York Times hundreds of thousands over "frivolous" lawsuit. George Carlin AI comedy special slammed by his daughter. HOSTS: Trae Crowder (@Traecrowder), John Iadarola (@johniadarola) and Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show.
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Woo!
Hey, guys, Friday!
Three-by-T, T-Y, T-Y, T-Y, T-Y, T-Y, T-Y, T-R-A-T, T-Y, T-LK, T-A-T, T-Y, T-A-T, B-AKK, I bet like the chances of the United States will not be pulled into a wider war in the Middle East.
That was a long one.
I'm John Adorola today on the Young Turks Power Panel.
We are joined by two awesome people who have been specifically chosen for their views on politics
and also their ability to speak to the rise of AI in comedy, which we'll be getting to later on in the show.
First of all, Trey, great to have you on. We recently talked on TDR. Great to have it here as well. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Me and my mustache. Glad to be here today.
Thank you. You brought along a plus one. I did. Yeah, my plus one. That's right. Great to have you here. And Francesca, Varianzini as well. Francesca, thank you for being here.
Yeah, so good to be here. Happy Friday, although we're going to get into serious. I feel like we're getting into serious stuff.
Kind of. It's unlike that side of the line of Sirius. Your invocation of Happy Friday is the last happiness that we will have for some time. That's not entirely true. There's a little bit of good news. Donald Trump owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to journalists, which is just a great sentence. I wish I could say it all the time. And I do think that our talk about the future, perhaps, of comedy and AI should be interesting. But that said, there's chaos going on in the world, everyone. And so with no else, no other prey
We do need to get into it, take stock of the state of the world, so why don't we do that, starting with this?
Israel's efforts both to mitigate harm when conducting operations, as well as its efforts to alleviate suffering through humanitarian activities,
have gone relatively unnoticed and dispel, or at the very least, mitigate against any allegation of genocidal intent.
You saw there just part of hours of the defense that Israel provided against charges of genocidal
intent before the International Court of Justice. Yesterday we had South Africa pleading its case.
Today, the response from Israel, and we're going to dive into it. Understand that there are,
you could watch the entire thing if you want, it is available. It's hours long, so buckle up.
But the main tactic largely that Israel sought to defend itself was very similar to the way
that Israeli government and military officials have been talking about the conflict since
October 7th, basically focusing less on what the IDF has done or the deaths of civilians,
the destruction of infrastructure, and more on what was done by Hamas on October 7th.
You're going to see an example of that in this clip.
Johnny Simantov, a wheat farmer and his wife Tamar, an activist for women's rights,
lived in Kibbutz near Oz.
When the rocket fire started, they hid in the safe room with their four-year-old son Omer
and their six-year-old twins, Arbel and Shacher.
During their rampage, Hamas militants set fire to their house.
Johnny texted his sister, Renee.
They're here.
They're burning us.
We're suffocating.
The whole family was burned alive to ashes,
making DNA identification especially difficult.
A survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre testified to police to witnessing a Hamas militant,
brutally raping a young woman, as another militant cut off her breast and toyed with it.
So stories like that are absolutely horrific.
I cannot imagine that happening.
And of course, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stories exactly like that.
But they have been presented. This is of course not new evidence. We've known of these horrors for some months. And of course, if one is going to make the case that the horrors that were inflicted on Israelis on October 7th is a defense against the charges of genocide in the month since, then one would have to do that. And that has not been presented. It is simply a presentation of other horrors that were inflicted that do not provide a moral justification if what is being claimed is that Israel is present.
pursuing genocide, which is the case that South Africa is making.
Now that was not the only defense bringing up what Hamas has done that the Israeli defense provided here.
You also have a sort of counter-accusation against both Hamas and South Africa that they are
the ones with genocidal intent against Israel.
The attack on Israel on the 7th of October was qualitatively different from all that went before.
The truth is that if there has been any genocidal activity in this situation, it was the events
of 7th of October.
As South Africa has pointed out, complicity in genocide is in play.
States that supported, condoned, praised or glorified the events of the 7th of October, both
at the time and later stand guilty of a violation of Article 3E of the Convention.
as being complicit in genocide
and indeed of the duty
to prevent genocide under Article 1.
And as the agent has pointed out,
South Africa has given succour and support to Hamas
at the least.
It is a matter of public record
that South Africa enjoys close relations with Hamas
despite its formal recognition
as a terrorist organisation
by numerous states across the world.
These relations have continued
unabated even after the October 7th atrocities.
South Africa has long hosted and celebrated its ties with Hamas figures,
including a senior Hamas delegation that incredibly visited the country
for a quote solidarity gathering just weeks after the massacre.
So they made reference there to a longstanding history between South Africa and Hamas.
Hamas, in particular focusing on the fact that there was a delegation of senior Hamas figures
who participated in the fifth global convention of solidarity with Palestine, which was held
in South Africa, which certainly doesn't look good if you were having members of this group
who just, you know, less than a couple of months ago engaged in these absolutely barbaric acts
that doesn't look good for your state. Now South Africa has defended themselves against
those claims. Obed Bapela, the deputy chairperson of the ANC National Executive Committee's
Subcommittee on International Relations told reporters that it was important to share South Africa's
struggle and engage with all parties and said we haven't declared Hamas a terrorist organization
in South Africa, so we're free to engage with everybody and every organization in Palestine,
which that doesn't seem like a coach of a defense to me. I mean, the counterargument would
be you should label them a terrorist organization, if not before October 7, certainly after
October 7th. They do say that South Africa has not condoned the acts of October 7th and official
statements from the state. They have condemned them and said while the ANC didn't condone violence,
any person's oppressed anywhere in the world. They've got the right to take any means available
for them to liberate themselves. If it means violence met it against those oppressing others,
let it be, we've been through it ourselves, but always leave space for negotiations.
Again, I don't think that that's going to help public perceptions of the relationship between
South Africa and Hamas, considering what was done on October 7th.
But again, all you are perhaps pointing out here is that South Africa is morally in the wrong
as well.
It doesn't just cancel out the claims that are being made about the way that the IDF and the
Israeli government is prosecuting this war.
So this seems at worst to be merely distraction.
At best, it makes other people and organizations look bad, but it isn't actually a defense against
the claims that are being made. And we'll get more into those claims and the evidence for them.
But Francesca, I want to start with you. What do you think about Israel's defense of itself before the ICJ?
I mean, I think it's exactly what you said. It's a massive distraction. It's a what aboutism?
It's like, but what about Hamas? Have you condemned Hamas? It has no actual bearing on the evidence that was provided by the South African lawyers on whether there's,
was mass killing, whether there is mass killing, whether there is a destruction of healthcare
systems, I'm going through their points, forced displacement, food blockades, bodily and mental
harm, and preventing Palestinian births, all of which support genocidal intent and actual crimes
of genocide that South Africa brought. It's basically, oh, you engage with the political wing
of Hamas. Let's remember, Hamas, whether you like them or think that, yeah, they have
terroristic elements. There are two elements. There is a militant wing. There is a political
wing, right? That's just how it works. I'm not condoning it at all, but that is, that's how
it works. The other thing is South Africa has a longstanding relationship, not with Hamas,
with the Palestinian people. Nelson Mandela, in the struggle for freedom against apartheid in
South Africa, said that our freedom is linked to the freedom of the Palestinian people. Why?
Because they understood then, as we understand now, that the Palestinians in the West Bank and in
Gaza live under occupation.
They live without their full freedoms.
They live without ability to access land, water, sea,
control their own electricity, control their own healthcare systems.
Final point here, if what Israel is doing,
which is basically saying, I'm not the genocider, you are.
I know you are, but what am I?
Which is literally their entire defense,
then they should bring Palestine to the ICJ.
Oh, wait a minute, Palestine doesn't
exist. In fact, instead, it's occupied territories that you control, that you are now
reigning terror and murder upon. So that's what's actually happening. So in effect, this is all
kind of a show that ultimately reveals that we need a Palestinian state and Palestinians
need actual representation. Right. Yeah, well, you know, I kind of alluded to this before
we started. Like, I feel a little absurd talking about a topic this serious with this ridiculous
thing on my face. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, as a comedian, I don't know exactly
relish the subject of genocide, comedic goldmines that it is. But so, yeah, I don't know how to,
you know, I don't know what to do here. I get weird about these things that are truly horrific
because that's kind of all there is to say about it. I agree with everything Francesca said about the
massive what aboutism that is this defense. I agree with that. It's like, but what about
what they did. It was real bad, too, and that's not a defense like both of you said. I thought,
not to give myself any credit here, but as soon as October 7th happened, you know, and the details
came out and whatnot, I was like, well, this is horrible. That warrants a response. There's going to be
a response. But I'm also kind of worried that that response is going to be maybe a little over the
top and might turn a little genocide at some point, just because of, you know, history and things
about it, right? And then now, and I mean, here we are. That's what's happened. I'm not down
with Hamas or what they did remotely, but I mean, at a certain point, it feels like you should
probably rein it in if you're Israel. And they just won't, you know, they immediately start
with the what aboutism and the claims of anti-Semitism and all that. And they just won't give any
ground at all on what they're doing over there. And that's, you know, disappointing is not a strong
enough word for it. But yeah. Yeah. You know, you saw the, the British lawyer for Israel there,
Malcolm Shaw, saying that the Hamas attack on October 7th was qualitatively different than any prior
attack, which it was. It was shocking. It shocked the international conscience. But has the
bombing of Gaza not been qualitatively different than any prior attacks from the IDF on Gaza as well?
or qualitatively different than October 7th.
I mean, look, the case that is being made without, I would say, the courage to say it,
you're making it, but you don't want to say it, is that because so many people died on October 7th,
and because they died in such objectively horrific ways, ways that the mind cannot focus on them for
too long because they're simply too terrible, that that justifies some number of civilian deaths.
And the question that will not be answered is how many?
It obviously justified killing as many innocent Palestinians as innocent Israelis died,
according to the people who are making the case again without actually stating it.
Justified 5,000 deaths.
It justified 10,000 civilian deaths.
And deaths that are just as horrific, an eight-year-old being blown to pieces.
You know, we may not have the editorials breaking down these individual stories.
But they can't be DNA tested either when a building is, you know, blown apart with a 2,000 pound bomb and your entire family has been crushed and cannot be recovered.
Like, that is horror too. How many? Does it justify 50,000 civilians dying? Does it justify 250,000 civilians dying?
Where is the line drawn where the horror calculus that is being done behind the scenes no longer makes sense?
And that you simply cannot get an answer to that, just more.
We know it justifies more.
A thousand this week, a thousand the week after, you know, maybe things will improve a little bit.
Maybe they'll get a little bit worse.
But tons and tons and tons more people.
And it just, it seems ridiculous that you can make that case without even having the courage to say,
I don't care how many.
It really doesn't matter because of what happened.
That's what fundamentally bothers me.
Any quick response before we move on to other parts of what's happening at the ICJ?
I mean the stories that they're recount on an international stage,
South Africa would recount and go, and we could just have a contest and we could name,
you know, oh here is a mentally disabled child mourning his mother who's just been gunned
down and just died under the rubble. Oh, here is a baby who has his face intact,
but his brain has been completely hollowed out. Like let's keep going,
let's go and see who ends last. Like is that the game that Israel wants to play?
Because my guess is Palestinians are going to win that game just this week, right?
Four Red Crescent workers, hospital workers, were in an ambulance with two patients trying to
escape, trying to leave, trying to flee. They were aerially struck by Israel.
So we can play this game and Israel clearly wants to play it and they're going to be losing.
Last thing I'm going to say on this is they're scared. Israel is absolutely scared of South Africa
bringing this case against them. That's why they showed up. They don't bother to show up to
to a lot of these international hearings.
They don't care when it comes to flaunting international law.
They've done it time and time again.
Their occupation is illegal.
They're scared because economically, they don't want powerhouses like South Africa,
like Brazil, to blockade them.
They're scared of boycott, they're scared of divestment, they're scared of sanctions.
And that is hopefully what is to come.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I'll just keep it simple.
You know, I don't personally, I don't like it when civilians are wantonly murdered
like this. And I think that, like you said, there should be an end to it. And right now it doesn't
see what there's any end in sight. And that makes it untenable to me. So, you know,
got to figure something out at some point.
Well, why don't we jump into a little bit more of what was presented by the Israeli
defense. Lawyers for Israel at ICJ took particular issue with the fact that South Africa
in their presentation focused on statements that Israeli officials had made that
hinted at what they considered to be genocidal intent. Here is the lawyer for Israel talking
about that. To produce random quotes that are not in conformity with government policy
produced as describing is misleading our best, such as the statement by the Minister of Heritage,
for example, who is completely outside the policy and decision-making process in the war.
Okay, so the issue there is being presented as these statements are not admissible or can't be said to get to the frame of mind of the Israeli government
because they are being made by people who are no longer in power except that they are not all being made by people who are no longer in power.
Some of the quotes that South Africa used are people who are still very close to power.
So we're going to go to a few of those.
So first of all, here is an example from Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
It's an entire nation out there that is responsible.
It's not true. This rhetoric about civilians, not we're not aware, not aware, not aware,
involved, it's absolutely not true. They could have risen up, they could have fought against
that evil regime, which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat. But we're at war. We are at war.
We're at war. We're defending our homes. We're protecting our homes. That's the truth.
And then when a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we'll break
their backbone.
All of them for what was done and for the fact that they did not cast the shackles of Hamas off of them.
So to, you know, maybe the parents of an eight-year-old who was blown apart by an Israeli bomb, your eight-year-old should have done something about Hamas.
They really should have overthrown that organization.
That is what the Israeli president said, not someone who served as secretary of agriculture back in the 90s, Israeli president.
Here is Israel's defense minister, Yuav Galin. This is on October 9th.
We're matilim, maceor, muclat, al-Ara.
Ain't chasmal, and mazone,
ain't water, and delek.
All is, we're nothram in
lives, Adam, and we're going to aging in them.
For those who are listening to the podcast, the translation of that is,
we are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza.
There will be no electricity.
No food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.
Several days later, there's on October 13th, he said, Gaza won't return to what it was before.
We will eliminate everything. That is the defense minister for Israel, not in the 70s, right now.
So again, look, in addition to all of the facts of the ground of what has been done, and much of it was presented by South Africa.
over 23,000 dead.
Two thirds of them, women and children.
4% of Gaza's population has died.
A measurable percentage of the entire population has already died.
A far, far, far higher percentage has been driven from their homes, homes that are now destroyed.
And there's nothing to be to return to.
70% of the infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed.
More journalists have been killed in Gaza than any other war over the last century.
There isn't a hospital in Gaza that has not been struck by a.
attacks. This is not an accidental bombing of one thing that the international community is focusing on.
Every single hospital has been struck. And as you were pointing out, Francesca, not only journalists
are being killed, but international aid workers and medical professionals are being killed in large
numbers as well. And the moral and rhetorical defense for that is being made, not just by people
who are on the extreme fringe of Israeli government or past governments, but by people who hold
power right now. People involved explicitly with the defense of Israel saying this. Francesca?
No, 100%. And I think one of the most memorable and chilling moments from what South Africa
presented was that those comments that are made by the president, by Benjamin Netanyahu,
Prime Minister, saying things like the Amalek, you know, invoking this biblical reference
to a people that must be destroyed that hurt you, so you must root out their seed and whatnot,
that that was then echoed in chants by IDF soldiers on the ground as they are relishing in.
There are no innocent civilians, we will destroy the seed of Amalek.
In other words, and one of the points that South Africa makes is also when you're trying to kill
future generations, you're engaging in genocide and leaving newborn babies to die, depriving them
of their incubators and the electricity they need to survive.
I mean, these are genocidal war crimes, right? That is what they set out to prove and they did it.
So it doesn't matter all the PR, it doesn't matter, oh but Hamas, oh but this, oh but and by the
way, a lot of the atrocities that yes, there were atrocities on October 7th, a lot of the
atrocities have now been proven to have not some of them didn't happen. There weren't
babies slaughtered and beheaded that just didn't happen there was a pregnant woman taken
hostage there wasn't a baby slaughter that just didn't happen so again like this this game of
smoke and mirrors continues and yet south africa is staying the course and saying here is our
evidence your own soldiers your own leaders are showing it to say nothing of your actual actions
Yeah, I mean, you know, other talk about like, we're going to continue until their backs are broken.
It's like, well, when are you going to be satisfied that that has happened?
You know what I mean?
And then right after that talk about like, oh, we've gotten rid of everything.
No water, no fuel, no electricity, none of that.
And in just this rhetoric, you call them animals and talking about eliminating everything.
Like, it doesn't not sound genocity.
You know what I mean?
And like they, it's like they're like, well, we got to keep going to.
We root out all this extremism.
But like, of course, this is going to just create more extremism.
I mean, it's a never-ending feedback loop, right?
So, like, what is the end goal then?
I mean, isn't it just, when is it ever going to stop when they're all gone?
Because there's a word for that.
You know what I mean?
Because if that's not what the end goal is, then what is it?
I don't know if this, maybe this is a reach, but it kind of reminds me about, as an
American, when I have arguments with conservatives about, like, they say that no taxpayer
dollars should be used to pay for, like, poor people's health care or food stamps or
that type of thing. And then you ask him like, so you think we should just allow poor people to
die then? That's what should happen. And I'll be like, no, no, of course not. I'm not saying
that. It's like, well, what are you saying then? Because there's only, that's the only way that
can go, right? They should die, but I don't want to hear about it, Trey. It's like, I don't want
to say it. Right. This feels like a similar scenario to me. You know what I mean? It's like
there's really only one like tenable result for Israel here.
And it seems like genocide, but they're not going to, but they're never going to acknowledge
or admit to that. You know what I'm saying?
And in addition to the quotes that we've provided about, you know, the willingness to just
have all of the buildings to be destroyed, the people wiped out.
There's also, and TYT and other shows in network, including TDR, have talked recently about
the increasing talk about just forced movement, voluntary immigration or voluntary insofar as
there is nothing there anymore. So hey, you've been bombed to the border with Egypt.
Maybe you just keep heading in that direction. That's what it's feeling like.
And we will see. Look, there's obviously a lot more that can be said about this.
I'm going to end with, if we could go ahead to our last video and get to one of,
I think, the more ludicrous arguments that was made was that many of the buildings
that are falling apart aren't falling apart as a result of bombing. It's actually something else.
Take a look at this.
Damage to civilian structures is another fact claimed by South Africa as evidence of genocide.
But South Africa does not consider the sheer extent to which Hamas uses ostensibly
civilian structures for military purposes. Houses, schools, mosques, U.N. facilities, and
Shelters are all abused for military purposes by Hamas, including as rocket launching sites,
hundreds of kilometers of tunnels dug by Hamas under populated areas in Gaza, often cause
structures above to collapse.
And that last, much of that we've heard a million times over.
You can strike literally anywhere you want because Hamas has used it, which I'm sure in many
cases is true, but isn't that an amazing get out of jail free card to commit a horrific act?
that now every schools, hospitals, they're all fair targets. But they went, that lawyer went beyond
that to say, the ground is dug out behind the building, but be under the buildings. That causes
them to collapse. The fact that a bomb was dropped in the building is a coincidence. It's neither
here nor there. No, it's just that the ground was unstable because there were so many tunnels
underneath it. Like, we know the state of infrastructure in Gaza. We know what it looks like there.
The idea that the chief problem is not one of the most concentrated bombing campaigns that
the earth has seen since World War II, it's that the ground is riddled with tunnels,
seems insulting. Quick final thoughts before we go to break, Francesca.
Yeah, 2,000 pound bombs, guys, 2,000 pound bombs. Oh, I'm sorry that their infrastructure
can't withstand that. No, this is what you're trying, you are trying to wipe
Gazans off the map and Gaza off the map.
And it is going to be, it's very fun.
It's a fun exercise to see how Israel tries to defend itself.
But I just want to say hats off once again to South Africa, the place that successfully
defeated apartheid and is now leading a charge to stop and defeat apartheid and genocide
elsewhere.
Thank you.
Yeah, I actually, I thought about trying to make a joke about that earlier, about
it being appropriate to South Africa, because if anybody knows apartheid, but then I thought,
But, you know, that's unironically true, and they do seem qualified to talk about this.
So, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I don't know. I hope it gets better over there soon. I don't know what else to say. I'm sure that's not going to happen. Go ahead, John.
Fingers crossed, because every day, you know, that goes by more and more people die, regrettably. And that should be the international goal is to end that.
We don't want to see any more civilians die. I don't want to see Palestinian civilians die. I don't want to see Israeli civilians die.
and the path that the region is on is one of just almost mind-boggling suffering and destruction.
We're going to take a short break, come back with somewhat lighter material.
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Welcome back. One and all. More big news to get to. Let's jump right into it.
Overnight, a stunning barrage by U.S. and British forces. A wave of Tomahawk cruise missiles
launched from a U.S. submarine and navy ships backed by fighter jets. The target, the Iran-backed
Houthi rebels in Yemen, that have been attacking commercial ships in the critical Red Sea for months now.
Yes, yesterday, United States and U.K. forces with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands launched air strikes at 16 different locations inside of Yemen. They say in response to the militant attacks on commercial shipping and other ships moving through the Red Sea, there's been a lot of condemnation of this action, condemnation, particularly of President Biden getting the United States involved in this without going for,
congressional authorization. That said, Joe Biden is not backing down. He says he won't hesitate to,
quote, direct further military action in Yemen if the attacks continue. And on those attacks,
there have been at least 27 different Houthi attacks since November. This Tuesday, the US Navy,
says that they shot down 21 missiles and drones that had been fired. Many of the targets
that were struck in the attacks of the last day were said to be missile launching sites
and both places where drones were stored and also manufactured.
60 different locations were struck with, they say, 100 precision guided munitions.
According to the rebel's military spokesperson, five people died and six others were wounded,
which actually seems fairly amazing since 60 different targets were struck.
But that's the numbers that are being provided as of right now by the militants.
And I understand that the day before the attacks, the United Nations Security Council,
had adopted a resolution demanding that the attacks on the ship's end.
Now the Houthis had said that the attacks were in retaliation for Israel's ongoing attacks on Gaza.
They said that they were targeting vessels that were either owned by Israeli companies or that were traveling to Israel.
Some of the ships that were targeted apparently have no affiliation with Israel.
And I want to conclude with just a little bit more from what President Biden has said about this,
especially considering that there are many who are worried that this could result in long-term involvement of the United States.
States in this conflict, which has been raging in Yemen for years at this point and possibly
drawing in other nations in the region. He said, today at my direction, U.S. military forces
successfully conducted strikes against a number of targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels
to endanger freedom of navigation of one of the world's most vital waterways. Their attacks
have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners jeopardized trade,
and threatened freedom of navigation. I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect
our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.
He put protecting our people before the free flow of commerce.
I'm going to opine that that was the thing that was being focused on because a significant
chunk of all world global shipping does travel through the Red Sea and theoretically could
be targeted by the militants in the future. That said, I go to you, Trey. What do you think about
this? I mean, you know, world police, gun to world police.
This is sort of what we do. You know, and it's kind of like the American overly
militarized police that we have. They got all these shiny toys. They're going to look for any
excuse to use them. You know what I mean? You guys need to sympathize with that a little bit. It's like
you get a new power tool or something. You kind of start wanting to break something just so you have an
excuse to use it, you know, and I feel like the the DODs generally like that. And also just as a
father of tween boys, I've been wondering how long it would take us to start our next 20-year
quagmire in the Middle East. So that, you know, that won't keep me up at night at all.
I mean, no, I'm not looking forward to any, you know, another war,
especially of the third world variety or anything like the Third World War.
That didn't work.
That's not like I meant Third War.
You guys know what I mean.
World War III.
I don't want to be pulled into World War III, I get it.
World War III, whether or not it takes place also in the third world.
I got mixed up there.
But anyway, yeah, I'm not, I don't, I'm not feeling overly good about any of this or the direction of it.
But also, correct me if I'm wrong, these types of like,
at military operations in the Middle East and stuff.
Speaking of our last quagmire,
we've been doing things of this nature for like quite a while now, right?
I mean, we're all, you know,
we always got seal teams over there doing something.
We're always getting up in somebody else's business inserting ourselves.
I mean, it's like I said, world police going to world police.
So maybe fingers crossed, it won't necessarily escalate to the end times.
I guess we'll find out, Francesca.
Yes, I'll take it away.
Until the end times. No, I think as you said, world police going to world police, and we all know that cops get way more incensed when a store window is broken or a Louis Vuitton is raided than, you know, when black people are gunned down by their own forces. So again, this is in defense of money. This is shipping. This is commerce. Meanwhile, 23,000 Palestinians can be murdered by Israel and the United States will keep on funding it.
more and more weapons. Let's go. Because those bodies, those babies, come on now. Those babies
aren't transferring, I don't know, iPhones through the Red Sea and other crap like that.
So it is so clear what matters to the United States and when we'll get involved.
The other thing I'm going to say is way to go Saudi Arabia, man.
I mean, Saudi Arabia has been fighting a war in the Houthis for many, many years.
The United States has been fully funding it leading to starvation in Yemen.
And so now they've successfully brought us into a full blown war, no proxy necessary.
Iran is obviously is like, Iran is the ultimate goal.
And Israel and Saudi have been so excited to get the United States on the Houthi's tail.
And also trying to go after Iran.
Israel has been trying to get the United States in a hot war with Iran for so long.
And man, oh man, we are closer to it than we have been in a long time.
Now, I hear both of your fears, and I know what you're worried about us getting pulled into
another like Iraq or Afghanistan or something like that.
But look, that was obviously a thing of politicians and media that time around.
This time around, far more measured response by the media, I tuned in to CNN and MSNBC.
And they had multiple former military leaders saying that this is a good start.
But something's going to need to be done about Iran.
I swear to God, immediately they're rushing to, this isn't enough, go for Iran.
I cannot believe it.
Right. Well, you know, Warhawks are going to Warhawk, too. You know, I mean, that's the corollary.
Yep, 100%. As I said, there are critics of President Biden's action, Congressman Roe Kana, who I have had on the damage report many times over the past few years to talk about the Saudi war on Yemen.
It says that these strikes are unconstitutional. For over a month, he consulted an international coalition to plan them, but never came to Congress to seek authorization as required by Article 1 of the Constitution.
That is true, but it's just the Constitution.
Come, it's not like Biden has ever pitched himself as a defender of the Constitution.
Come on, Rokana.
But anyway, Mike Lee agreed with him.
So they have often worked together, Rokana and Mike Lee, to try to get the War Powers Act to have some actual teeth.
He says that the Constitution matters regardless of party affiliation.
Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said it's an unacceptable violation of the Constitution.
But that said, not everyone's mad.
Lindsay Graham, Mike Johnson, and Mitch McConnell are all speaking Biden's praises.
Oh.
So he's got that going for him as he launches this general election campaign.
So that's cool.
Anyway, why don't we turn to, no, it's not going to be lighter, but we're going to turn to
other news. Whenever you're ready, let's launch into this horror.
But here is Roger Stone speaking to his associate, Sal Greco at Cafe Europa in Fort Lauderdale
weeks before the 2020 election.
the rest of them.
Do you follow off people?
Strongwell or Naduil has to die before the election.
We need to get the message.
Yeah, just not putting up with this.
So we had learned earlier this week that Mediite had gotten these tapes of Roger Stone plotting the assassination of multiple Democrats before the 2020 election.
He had responded to that news saying, oh yeah, where's the tapes?
You don't got any tapes.
I don't hear any tapes.
Well, the tapes are out.
And so what does he say to that?
He's just, he's claiming that it's AI generated and that's fake, obviously, every time he's on
audio or videotape calling for the murder of his political opponents. And I'm starting to forget
some of those instances now. He has claimed that it's AI in every case. And I'm glad that we have
the tape. I'm glad that media got it and that they released it. I particularly like it because
you've got him talking about how after they've assassinated a few people, we'll see how brave the
others are. He's in a cafe plotting for other men to kill people he doesn't like. And he's talking
about bravery as if other people are weaklings and cowards. But anyway, I don't know if anything is
going to come of this. Trey, I go to you for your commentary. This is obviously a longtime ally
of Donald Trump, who could well be involved in his administration next time around.
I just love that picture that you guys had with that with that quote, which is the picture I've
seen on the articles and stuff of him too with those like round sunglasses. I just, I like
his dedication to being like comically villainous looking. Yeah, like that. Like he always looks
like that. He looks like he should be like dipping tunes in acid in the Roger Rabbit movie
or something like he looks like he looks like he haunts the nightmares of all 90s kids everywhere.
So it makes sense that he acts the way he does. There's also, we've had those tapes for forever
of him at the morning of January 6th walking around, being like, I don't even care about the vote,
like the vote to certify or whatever. He's like, forget the vote. Let's just get straight to the
violence. That's what I want. When you start cracking heads and smashing pumpkins,
whatever, this stuff. And then he, like, ran away with his tail between his legs when, you know,
when stuff really kicked up after that. So it's just like, it's just who he is. Also, I don't
know if you mentioned or not, but in this tape where he's saying all this, he was saying it to a guy
who was an NYPD cop also who was like a buddy. So that's also very much checks out and tracks.
I guess that guy's since been kicked off the force, but still it's all, it's all very 20,
24 ain't that America sort of thing.
But what I'm trying to tell myself is that Roger Stone is just who he is.
He says this type of thing all the time.
It doesn't mean he won't do it.
But you know, again, it's just your classic, classic over the top villain character and this is what they do.
Yeah, I mean, dude is a thug.
Like he's been a thug.
Like his whole MO has been like, oh, I'll get the ground troops, I'll get the brown shirts to support your.
non-democratic fascist takeover.
Like he helped with the Brooks Brothers riot in 2000, right?
It's all about, which supported George W. Bush in Florida, like to stop the recount or
whatever.
He's like, I will lead the, I mean, I'm not going to lead them.
I'm going to be in a pin striped suit smoking a cigar, yes, looking like a Batman villain
in the background.
But that's what he wants to do.
And he's like tossling with the proud boys and whatnot.
This is wild.
This is truly wild, and yet he is advisor to the frontrunner for 2024 and we're just like, yep, uh-huh, well, let's keep going. Iowa caucus is on Monday.
Yeah. It still blows my mind. It will never not blow my mind, John. That blows my mind. And I would love for a journalist, you know, I would say maybe one of the journalists who did the town hall with Trump theoretically could have done this,
But of course, this whole town hall that they did with him was just them bowing down to Trump.
There were no tough questions.
Ask Trump the question, you always have to ask him.
Do you denounce Roger Stone for calling for the assassination of multiple Democrats?
It's pointless.
He's not going to, he's just going to evade and slip and slide.
And America will descend just a little bit farther into the bottom of the barrel.
But I think it is, I think it should be a requirement for journalists to at least go through the motions in that regard.
Anyway, also I love, and I'm glad Trey that you were focusing on the fact that it was Sal Greco as a NYPD officer.
Like, you know how little you had to do in New York to be considered suspicious from the point of view of the NYPD?
Right.
You've got a guy across the table from you saying he wants to assassinate politicians.
Nothing, no obligation to do anything about it.
Maybe get involved, honestly.
And by the way, while Roger Stone is lying and saying that this is AI, Greco is not denying that this conversation happened.
And they have multiple other sources. So it 100% happen, take it to the bank.
Anyway, with that said, we do need to take our second break of the hour.
But when we come back, what will the future of comedy be?
And will there be a place for humans in it?
We'll have that more after this.
On July 18th, get exciting.
This is big!
For the summer's biggest adventure.
I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs, only
the date is July 18th. Welcome back everyone to what remains of the Young Turks power panel.
We are going to finally lighten things up for the most part. Buckle up as we launch into this.
There's one line of work that is most threatened by AI-1 job that is most likely to be completely erased because of artificial intelligence.
Stand-up comedy.
I know what all the stand-up comics across the globe are saying right now.
I'm an artist and my art form is too creative, too nuanced, too subtle to be replicated by a machine.
No computer program can tell a fart joke as good as me.
Now, that might have sounded like George Carlin, but it is not actually George Carlin.
It's an excerpt from a one hour special called I'm Glad I'm Dead, which is the work of Doodzy.
Doozy is both an AI program, which produced that George Carlin-esque thing.
And also the name of a podcast hosted by Will Saso of Mad TV and novelist Chad, Coltgen.
We want to give you a little bit more of the special.
Take a look at this.
There you have it.
Stand-up comedy is dead.
Literally.
I might be the first stand-up comic to be brought back from the dead by AI,
but I certainly won't be the last.
Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers, Bill Hicks, Robin Williams, Dick Gregory, Andy Kaufman,
Moms Mabley, Sam Kinnison, everybody's coming back.
And we're all going to have our own 24-hour-a-day-day-a-year,
streams commenting on everything that's happening in the world.
as it happens. AI resurrected stand-up comedians are going to be the news anchors of the next decade,
which now that I think of it, means news anchors are probably out of a job too.
I wanted to leave that section in so that I'm not the only person or the panel who's not terrified of the future.
I'm going to go directly to you, Francesca. What do you think about this special and about the potential
of AI to replace human comedians? Yeah, it's just like George Carlin, except it doesn't sound
really anything like him and it's painfully unfunny and says something completely counter to what
George Carlin would actually say, oh, I'm relishing in the fact that I'm going to displace a bunch
of comedians and news anchors because it's all going to be dead comics. Of course, George
Carlin would not be on the side of the robots should he be alive today. I think this thing
is incredibly sick and super twisted and guess what? And this is news for Trey myself and
other comics out there. Anyone wants to do this? AI can't do jokes. They just can't, actually.
Like, first of all, number one, AI is all what we feed it. And number two, I've spoken with a Google,
like, a Google AI developer. And he was like, you know what the one thing we haven't cracked
is? Jokes. We can't teach these bots to have senses of humor. Yes, because they're robots.
Oh my God. But then again, Trey, probably better than some comics we've seen, you know.
Trey, I'll go to you in just one sec.
What you just laid out is why AI couldn't be a good comedian.
You have not yet proven a case for why it couldn't be a right-wing comedian.
I think you probably handle most of that.
And Trey, what do you think?
I mean, you know, seeing as how I've only been on the scene for whatever, seven or so years,
relatively just got here, I do expect to be forced out and annihilated by robots in their future
just because that's how my personality is.
But objectively, or really, I agree with Francesca because, I mean, you know, I've gotten, I've gotten on there, I bet a lot of us have.
I've gotten on there and toyed with it, you know, I asked chat, GPT.
You know, Trey Crowder is and it gets it right.
He's a comedian who's, you know, stupid hillbilly, but he uses big words, whatever, he was correct.
And then I was like, and then I said, you know, tell me a joke in the style of Trey Crowder.
And it came back with, it was, it was like, why did the, why did the liberal chicken cross the road to,
get to the protest, y'all, right? And that was it. Maybe I want to kill myself.
Solid. You should have written with that. Sounds just like me. I know. But anyway, so like the other
part, so I agree with what Francesca said. I don't think it's there yet. I'm not discounting the
possibility that it could get there because of how exponentially technology advances and whatnot.
That part freaks me out. I do not think it's there yet. I think this special is kind of proof
of that because I agree with what she said about it too.
The only other thing that I'll say about it is the one thing that gives me some siloists is I think that any comedian would tell you,
it's great to listen to specials on the radio or whatever or watch them on your TV and all that.
But at the end of the day, like stand up, everybody knows who likes it or does it.
Stand up is best physically in the room with other people and the comedian at the club or at the theater or whatever with everybody in the same room together.
And I don't know, I guess, with holograms or something we could get there eventually.
But I think that is the main thing to me that'll keep this from, you know, happening in the near future.
Because I don't see that.
Matt Rife is probably AI, right, Trey?
Yeah, I suppose it could be.
Yeah, I don't know if AI would have done that domestic abuse joke or not.
So, but either way.
They usually have bigger predictions on there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I want to give statements from Kelly Carlin, a daughter of George Carlin, who said,
my statement regarding the AI generated special.
My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his very human life, brain, and imagination.
No machine will ever replace his genius.
These AI-generated products are clever attempts at trying to recreate a mind that will never exist again.
Let's let the artist's work speak for itself.
Humans are so afraid of the void that we can't let what has fallen into it stay there.
She clarified that there was no permission granted by the Carlin family for this to be done.
And then concludes with, here's an idea, how about we get some actual living human comedians to listen to?
But if you want to listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has 14 specials that you can find anywhere.
She went on to tag Zelda Williams and Melissa Rivers, daughters of Robin Williams and Joan Rivers and said,
we should talk. They're coming for you next, which they 100% are. I don't even mean dudesie or whatever.
But yeah, like they're coming for every area.
Valve, which controls Steam, which is the largest digital distribution platform for games, is now allowing AI-powered games on their platform.
There's a very popular hit video game that uses AI generated voices.
Sagafra is penning a deal with a voice generation studio that uses AI.
Journalist Jeff Chars of Chavez testified before the US Senate about the need to protect the rights of AI journalists.
I mean, look, will they be good?
Will they be funny?
Maybe not.
But there's a lot of corporations that are much more interested in replacing humans than producing good stuff.
And so I remain concerned.
Hopefully, even if there's a flood of terrible comedians on digital platforms, Francesca,
we will always have artisanal comedy from people like you and Trey in physical form.
Yeah, there already is a flood of bad comedians on streaming platforms.
You can see them all the time.
John, the one thing I want to say, because we talk about AI a lot.
But I was learning from my podcast, Obituation Room, where I had Paris Marks on,
that AI also is incredibly resource intensive when it comes to fresh water, electricity,
things to cool down these mass processing centers. We think that there, it's like there's no
footprint. No, no, it's exactly like crypto. To mine crypto is incredibly intensive. Same thing with
these AI generated BS. That again, guys, it's just someone getting high in their room writing down
ideas. Trey, you know, it's a dude with a mustache just riffing. Like we don't need a lot,
Also, you can really, I mean, you probably have to pay AI more than you pay an average stand-up comic to do comedy. Let's be honest.
Generally speaking, yeah, the other thing that I wonder, this Carlin special, we're talking about it.
Kelly addressed it. It got shared around and whatever, but probably just because of what the thing that it is, right?
It's a AI-generate George Carlin special. Everybody says, this is wild, right?
Like, meaning I don't think people were watching this as a comedy special and like loving it in that context, the way that they act like George Carlin's actual specials.
And I do think that that distinction matters too. You know what I mean? Because at a certain point, just the novelty aspect of it will wear off. And also, I'm too computer dumb to speak intelligently about this. But as I understand it, chat GPT has somehow like gotten worse progressively. And, you know, it's deteriorating actually. So that's another part of it.
of it too. Like, there are things you can tell yourself if you're threatened by these things that
can make you feel better and, you know, land on, okay, we're not quite there yet. We've still
got some time left, at least. Maybe in that way, ChachyPT actually could make for a good
comedian, because I've noticed that a lot of comedians were really good in the 90s and the
odds, and now they're, like, super focused on what you can and can't say, and they're kind of
falling apart. Well, he blew, chat Chitbytee blew up and then fell off, and that does seem to be
the trajectory, so. That is unfortunately all the time. We have.
have, Trey, where can people follow you?
On any of your socials, it's just Trey Crowder.
My name, T-R-A-E, Crowder.
And then you can go to Trey Crowder.com and check out my tour dates.
I'll be in Charlottesville, Orlando, Tampa, D.C., Virginia, a bunch of places coming up.
So come see me, Trey Crowder.com, and thanks for having me.
Appreciate it.
Awesome. And Francesco?
Yeah, yeah, come see me in San Francisco.
I'll be with Emma Vigland of the Majority Report, formerly T-Y-T-Y-T, and Miles Gray,
of the daily zeitgeist on Sunday, January 28th at the Gateway Theater. It's part of SF
Sketch Fest. Tickets are selling really, really fast. Also, I'll do stand-up, I'll do stand-up.
I'm doing stand-up Saturday. So come see me Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is a much smaller
venue, Lost Church in San Francisco, get tickets at SF Sketchfest, and I hope to see you guys there.
Everyone, go check both of them out while human comedy is still legal. That is all the time
we have for the first hour of the show. But David Schuster, Wazni Lombray will be here for the second
hour, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.