The Young Turks - Venmo Problems

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

Rep. Matt Gaetz paid a known sex trafficker via Venmo, who would then pay women the same amount according to new reports. Senator Joe Manchin now claims that the Capitol Riots somehow “changed him�� into this bipartisan monster that’s holding things up. The Amazon unionization effort appears to be headed for a loss in Alabama, plus new details on Amazon’s anti-union efforts. The NRCC has a pretty divisive message to its donors while the Republican Party cries for unity. Fox News airs explicit still images of alleged Hunter Biden sex tape. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Yeah, drop it. Yeah, drop it. All right, power panel on the young Turks, Jane Hugar, Johnny Pye. Helen Hong, crowd favorite, Helen Hong. Hello. Yeah, as opposed to crowd, eh, John.

I know. I'm not even excited. Okay, so John, we decided to go back to Johnny Pie because Anna threw you on the bus in the last post game, but something related to food trucks. She says she didn't, she did nothing but tell us, say how wonderful you are and how great you are to talk to, but I don't know, I'm not buying it, okay? So- Look into that. Yeah, well, hey, look, if people out there want to look into it, it's called t-y-t.com slash join for a reason.

Nice like by. Yeah, good plug. Mm-hmm, love it. All right. So Helen, great to have you. By the way, everybody, let's just real quick go over this. You guys know it, but you know, she's a comedian actress on Silicon Valley. We talked about it before.

I love it. I can't get enough of it. Every time she's on there, I'm like, Helen, that's Helen, that's Helen. I tell my kids, I know her, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal, but I know. NBD, NBD. Yeah, she's on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. She's host of the podcast of Go Fact Yourself and Fact Yourself and Job Solite.

And this week you guys are discussing obsolete job of MTV Vijay, is that right? Can you believe it? It's like, that's how freaking, like, we did one on the Blockbuster Video Clerk. And we're doing one on MTV VJs. Like, there are jobs that are going obsolete in our lifetime so quickly. Thanks, automation. There's a universe in the multiverse where you and Brett Erlick are the best friends forever. And it might actually be this universe.

And because there's no way Brett isn't going to watch that or listen to that, right? And so, and last thing on that, speaking of which I could be on the iPod. not because of an obsolete job, although I had, I had one. I was a public access host. Oh, yeah. A what, grandpa? I know, I know. But I knew an MTV Vijay. I knew Matt Pinfield. Oh, you did. Yeah, his dad was my physics teacher in high school. Wow, weird small world. We had Martha Quinn on that episode of Jobsolite. Jobsolidpod.com, everybody. There you go, throw it out there, Helen.

People don't know if you don't tell them. All right, John, speaking of which, let's do the news. Okay, because if we don't, we might become obsolete. Okay, a couple of bad updates on Matt Gates. But let's start off with this one. Yesterday, late in the night, the Daily Beast revealed some suspicious information about Matt Gates. So I'm going to start reading these graphics and Jenkin, Helen, feel free. Let me know when you think that this has become a bit shady. So we know that Matt Gates was involved with

this individual, Joel Greenberg, who is in a ton of his own legal trouble, that they had worked together on things from fake IDs to possibly trafficking. So in two late night Venmo transactions back in May of 2018, Representative Matt Gates sent his friend, the accused sex trafficker Joel Greenberg, $900. The next morning, over the course of eight minutes, Greenberg used the same app to send three young women varying sums of money. In total, the transactions amount to $900. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Shady, shady. You've got a loser. Yeah, that would be bad if there were no more details. But unfortunately for the congressman, there are more details. The memo field for the first of these transactions to Greenberg was titled

test. In the second, the Florida GOP congressman wrote hit up blank. But instead of a blank, Gates wrote a nickname for one of the recipients, as if it wasn't going to be clear enough. When Greenberg then made his Venmo payments to these three young women, he described the money as being for tuition, school, and school. Oh, so gross. If you're paying underage girls for sex, don't write school in the note. Yeah, I mean, would it have been worse if he was like, if he was like ring pops and Hot Topic, like that's the only way it could have been skisier than it was. Yeah, or come get a lollipop. I don't know, like it's just so.

Hey little girl, hey little girl get in the van. Yeah, it's yeah, van might have been the only thing worse for the note in that Venmo transaction. So look, just to be clear that one of the girls was 17 years old and in the original allegations against Matt Gates and Greenberg. And according to federal statutes, if you're interacting and transacting and traveling with someone under the age of 18, then you're in a lot of federal trouble here. And of course, if you have Yeah. So if he paid Greenberg and Greenberg paid them, I'm not a lawyer. That doesn't seem as if that would be enough to distance yourself. It seems like sex trafficking with a side dish of money laundering, kind of. But would that provide any shield whatsoever? The fact that

let's say that one of these women was underage, or let's say that it was for sex, which it appears it probably was. Since he didn't do it, this guy, Greenberg technically did it, would that protect No, not at all, so look, the defense will try to make things as obscure as possible and as vague and obtuse as possible so that people, the jury gets confused so they could use it in trial to try to confuse people, but legally, no, it makes no difference at all. People pay the madam all the time. They can't say, oh, I pay the madam and she paid the girl. Yeah, I mean, if I hire you as a hitman to knock off Jenk and then you kill him because I paid you.

I'm not getting off Scott free because I didn't pull the trigger, you know? Yeah, 100%. Well, pay a little extra and I'll definitely protect you. Yeah, but in this case, it's not just, hey, it's transitive property and it's obvious. It is very standard practice to pay someone first, to pay a PIM, to pay a madam, to pay the host at the spa. So to say that no, I paid someone else first is absurd. And so legally it has no weight at all, no, he's in a world of trouble. Look, the fact that it's someone, at least one person potentially underage is what makes

the story so explosive. And the Greenberg, it looks like I mean, it was running up to state credit card on this stuff. I mean, that guys, they're both insane, right? $100,000. Yeah. That's what we're seeing here. That's a lot of ring pops.

Yeah, and that's why they got caught by the way, because an auditor was like, Wait, why is this random state employee constantly charging up really expensive hotels on the weekends? And then like there's like school and tuition, whatever, like all these insane things. This school tuition is on his Venmo, to be fair. But in the credit card transactions, he barely tried to conceal it. So they wound up doing a forensic audit. And in the audit, they discovered, uh-oh, this ain't good. Okay, so they catch Greenberg. Then they find out Greenberg's getting money from Gates, and then they're writing cutesy notes to each other about these are incredibly young girls they're apparently paying for sex with. And look, it looks like

the, and Gates seem to have tried to conceal it by saying, well, look, I'm just paying for hotels and dinners. Anybody could pay for hotel and dinner on a date. That's certainly true. And again, they would try to confuse the jury with that at trial if it goes to trial. But first of all, it appears they're paying the girls on top. That's just flat out prostitution, right? And second of all, even if they didn't pay the girls, but they paid for their dinners and their hotel rooms and they're under age, it still trips up a federal law. And so he would still be culpable. And so he can get 10 years that, I mean, I know rich people and powerful people in this country never go to jail. But if there was any kind of equality in the law, he'd be facing a very serious

prison time here, prison sentence. I just can't believe how much, like, how much there is for these prosecutors. It's like, you know, that's saying where there's smoke, there's fire. If there's Venmo receipts for sex trafficking, they're sex trafficking, right? Can we just? Yeah. I mean, they wrote it in the receipts. They wrote her, apparently they wrote her name or the name she goes by.

I mean, how much clear could it be? $300 for Susie, and then you have sex with Susie, that's not, like, that's not complicated. I just, let this be a PSA to our listeners. Always go private on your Venmo transactions, kids, because, you know, when I pay for shady stuff, I'm always like, it's the first thing. I click private. Yeah. I don't know if this is going to be controversial, but if this is weren't underaged or near underage. And Matt, you're 30, what is this Gates guy doing? You're 38. And what are you doing with 17 and 18 year olds and paying forward, etc.? And the answer is he can't help himself. And there's more answers. He's probably inclined in the young direction, which is gross. And he's doing drugs with them. And he probably says he's a conservative, he probably thinks, No, no, for any woman I date, she has to be virginal and pure and stuff.

But if I want to have fun, then I'm going to have to pay for a prostitute, et cetera. So all this stuff. But all of it wouldn't be an issue if they weren't this young. Because, you know, if he was doing this with other 38-year-olds, 28-year-olds, yeah. And the guy who used a state credit card should get arrested. But I'd say, hey, man, that's not our business. But when you go to 17-year-olds, you're in a lot of trouble and you should. be. Yeah. Well, look, I want to give them a chance to respond. I will also throw out there

that we're gonna turn to how someone might be cooperating with the investigation. But also, I mean, I would have to assume that if they have the Venmo transactions from Matt Gates to Greenberg and Greenberg to the women, then they know who the women are, and I assume that they're talking to the women. So none of this is looking good for Matt Gates at this point. In any event, Gates' congressional office declined to comment directly to the Daily Beast story. Instead, a representative from an outside public relations firm, the Logan Circle group responded with this statement from Gates, quote, the rumors, gossip, and self-serving misstatements of others will be addressed in due course by my legal team, which is a very mid-high vocabulary,

non-response to the bombshell that was just revealed. That has nothing to do with the Venmo. So in any event, Logan Circle's Aaron Elmore, a pro-Trump pundit and former contestant on The Apprentice added, because of course she's been on the apprentice, added that a lawyer would be, quote, closely monitoring your coverage. Also c-seed on the email was another Logan Circle Group employee, Harlan Hill, who was banned from Fox News after calling now Vice President Kamala Harris an insufferable lying bitch. Wow, and this is your PR team? This is your PR team? Of course it is. Of course it is. Hilarious. Yeah. So again, one more point here that's important to the essence of the story. He, Gates is claiming two main defenses because he doesn't deny being with the women and having relations with the women. He says one of them that was 17, he says, I didn't sleep with a 17 year old.

Now, I don't know what that means. And it's given Matt Gates is his history. history with truth. I'm looking forward to the trial to see who's right and wrong about that, right? But the second defense was I never paid for sex. But when you have Venmo receipts saying, I am paying for this particular woman, that's pretty bad. Now, he didn't say I'm paying for, John Ray knew the exact quote, but he wrote her name in the receipt. It's instead so monumentally stupid. You should go to jail for being that dumb, let alone what he did. I should go to jail for like is he expecting us to believe like I didn't I you know I took them out to dinner because I I enjoyed their company because that's what 17 year olds that you know it's just it's they it they just offer such great compelling discourse because that's what you do with 17 year olds when you're 40 is like oh we were just chatting we were having a melding of the mind it's like no dude I don't think so yeah I got married at 38 it I would have been looking over my shoulder if I was just having dinner with a 17 year old

family friend. Like, like, this looks weird, right? I, somebody else sit here with me, right? This is crazy, right? He's having dinner with them, he's going to hotels. Yeah, if it's just you and a 17 year old, that looks weird, right? What if it's you a 17 year old and Tucker Carlson? Is that better or worse? Which is of course what he said in his first interview where Tucker Carlson was a lot of What are you doing? What are you doing? Why are you bringing? You know, when I was 24, I was dating a guy who was 12 years older than me. And even that looked a little shady. You know, we looked. I mean, granted, I'm Asian. So I looked 17 at the time, even though I was 24. But like, you know, like even that is shady. But 17 and 38, come on. That's just, it's gross. It's skin gross. And look, last thing I'll say on it is that it's to me, the age difference. isn't that pertinent. The only thing is she's 17, that's gigantic. You can't, it's

illegal, it's obvious, it's gross, it's all of that stuff, right? So I don't know what you guys think. I'll just ask real quick, Helen, if it was like, pick another guy we don't like, Louis Gomer, and he's with a 28 year old, and he's doing ecstasy and paying her through VEMO, I don't think I care, do you care? I don't care except for the fact that These guys are always the freaking hollier than thou. It's always the preachiest ones, right? That are so freaky. And like I read something recently that said more GOP lawmakers have been arrested for bathroom

misconduct than trans people have. That's so true. And it's so true. It's always like these guys who are like, come on. They're so preachy. They're so holier than thou. They're coming across like we're the, we're the party of the family values. And it's like, get the GTFO.

Like, I mean, shut up, shut up. They're so hypocritical. They're out there doing disgusting things. And it's like, that's fine if you want to do disgusting things. But don't pretend like you're like some holy Christian or anything. Sure. Yeah. And I think like we've said multiple.

First of all, we give a million caveat. out so we don't know what he did if he did anything. But also, I mean, we've personally said, like there are people on this network that believe that sex work should be legalized and, you know, like the women should be protected and everything. But if people want to do that, they should be able to do that. That would be one thing. That is not what is legal. That isn't anything that I've seen him advocate for. And on top of that, they might have been underage and not able to consent in the first place. Now that said, we do have a bit of breaking news. The House Ethics Committee has announced they will be launching an investigation into

Matt Gates following all of what we've been talking about throughout this week. So now two investigations facing him. I don't know if we would necessarily assume that this one is likely to move more quickly than the current DOJ investigation or if they'd have access to any information that the DOJ would not. But it's just another development on top of many this week that that have not been probably from the point of view of Matt Gates in his best interests. Yeah, look, Katie Hill, who I'm not a giant fan of, resign because the Democratic Party said you can't do this type of thing. And now she was not with anyone who was underage, she was with staffers, etc. The idea that the Republicans would ask him to resign seems hilarious, right? Like, forget him actually resigning.

I don't know that a single, actually one Republican Kissinger, I think, said he should step down. The idea that Republican leadership would come in and go, oh my God, sex with underage girls, that's what all of our voters are accusing the Democratic leadership of doing with no evidence in a basement of a pizza shop. That's so embarrassing that one of our own, and in fact someone who's very prominent, the Republican Party is doing that, especially after our former president used to hang out with hug and kiss the worst child molester in American history, Jeffrey Epstein. And especially after his girlfriend was arrested and he wished her well on two different occasions, we all look like child molesters. My God, maybe we should have Matt Gates step down. Now that you would think in the rational political world is the

direction they would go. But the GOP has basically said, no, no, we're like we're all in on monster. So we don't ask other monsters to step down because that's who we are. Jen, I think it's time to take the first break? Yeah, I think so. Why don't we do it? But then on the other hand, what we're going to do when we come back is kick some ass, including of Joe Mansions and his nonsense, nonsense excuse on the filibuster. Come on, come on, media. Let's do our jobs here, guys, an unreal liar. We'll give you that when we return. I'm going to be able to be. All right, time for your comments there.

As usual, awesome. Let's go to YouTube super chat first. Chris Rickard writes in, good news Q&N, Peeps. We found your underground sex trafficking ring. You must feel so vindicated. You just had the wrong party, that's all. Peter Hamby writes in, birds of a feather flocked together. Matt Gates has problem finding pedophiles.

And this Venmo story will have this congressman, quote, pay his piper. So specific gravity writes in, my mom is watching TYT with me for the first time. Say hi to Mary. Hi, Mary. Hi, Mary. All right, look at that. Asking you shall receive as long as it's on YouTube super chat or you're a member. Keep it real. Okay, uh, the new BMO, V-I Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first

13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash VI Porter to learn more. Tricia Briggs, who we often read from on YouTube super chat, says, I know this means I'm terrible, But I'm actually getting excited about it because Gates's buddy is so going to flip on him. Good riddins disappear forever. Please. Well, Trish is, you know, you probably saw on the show yesterday. We don't know exactly what his buddy said to the prosecutors yet. But he most definitely did flip on him. And so we had that hilarious clip from his lawyer going, Matt Gates, Matt Gates. He is not going to be feeling comfortable soon. C-333-9409, obviously, writes in. R. Kelly is still the king.

Okay, I hear you on that. Okay, I don't think that's the king you want to be, but yes. I'm going to Twitch. Moonlit production said, if you want accurate information, TYT is the place to get your news. Plus, you get to laugh at the Republican Party with all the stupid stuff they say. We replaced word to put stuff in there. But yes, you are correct about all of that, and thank you for being with us through Amazon Prime for two months.

Kuzzi Kaddash has been with us for five months and says, ooh, Bezos Bucks for the Dragon Daddy. And the Dragon Daddy is in the house right now. So Bezos Bucks, of course, if you have Amazon Prime, it's free for you. No matter where you are for whether you're a member for us on our site, YouTube, anywhere else. You could also double up and go on Twitch. And it's so easy. It takes about 15 seconds. If you have Amazon Prime, it's free.

but we get the revenue. That's Bezos Bucks. And court for Jester writes in and been with us for eight months, happy to be with the TYT family going on eight months. We appreciate it. Skittlebutt Dragon gifted five subs and gave 500 bits, as my grandma used to say, L.S. Tuwa gifted tier three subs, which makes sense given the name. And the real blue tech gifted five subs. So the Twitch community is super hot. And Patty Denny just signed up as a member on YouTube. I hit the join button below, a bit of an American hero. And so is Bella Francis. We're packed to the brim with American heroes today, and we're feeling great about it. And English teacher in our member section says, next he'll claim he is a sex addiction, and we should feel sorry for him.

All right, back on the Eric Turks, Jen, John, and Helen. John made such a great point during the break. Matt Gates is this close to finding Jesus. right before they were about to get convicted, all of a sudden, they're like, well, you know, on my way to prison, I was going through the mall, and who do I run into? Wait a minute, aren't you from Nazareth? Jesus was coming out of the hot topic that I was trying to get into. Yeah, and then he'll write in the Venmo note for Jesus. I'm just glad that the Venmo notes were words and not emojis, because that could have gotten

bad. Oh, it'll be like a little kid and a peach. No, don't do it. Oh, God, no. Don't do it out. Oh, God, now we have to talk about the news. Okay, um, all right, uh, John for this. Earlier this week, Joe Manchin proved himself to be Joe Manchin by writing in an op-ed that,

no, he's not going to be eliminating the filibuster, or even weakening it as he had implied earlier about a month ago that he might do. But then on top of that, he had an interview where he talked about why he is now so committed to, to bipartisanship. And it had to do with something that happened earlier this year. Watch this. January 6th changed me and I was very clear with everybody. I never thought in my life.

I never read in history books to where our form of government had been attacked at our seat of government, which is Washington, D.C., our capital by our own people. Now, the British did it, but not Americans. So something told me, wait a minute, pause, hit the pause button, something's wrong. You can't have this many people split to where they want to go to war with each other. Okay, so he changed on the sixth as a result of that, which is why he now has the exact same positions he's had for as long as I've been familiar with him as a politician, Shank. It must have been a profound experience to change so notly. Yeah, well, the second part of that is let me get this logic, as it were, right.

So a bunch of Republicans break into the Capitol to try to murder the legislators. And then you take out of that, I really got to work with Republicans. It is time to compromise with these guys who were trying to murder me a couple of months ago. I'm not positive you learned the right lesson. And third of all, all of this is horse crap. None of it is true. Joe Manchin is doing this, of course, to protect his corporate donors. And that is the entirety of it.

The fact that our mainstream press cannot even bring up that question, let alone stating in it as an obvious reason for why he's doing what he's doing, it's just pathetic. You know, I have always said that Joe Manchin is as much a real Democrat as Elizabeth Warren is a Native American, which is hardly at all. But this is the one thing that doesn't. does make him a Democrat, which is that he's a turn the other cheeker. Like the Democratic Party is their professional turn the other cheekers to the point where it's like not even turning the other cheek. It's like, no, no, no, take my other arm. And you know, in fact, take my balls while you're at it. It's like what how many cheeks can we freaking turn at this point?

They literally busted down the doors of the Capitol to try to kill y'all. And there's But you know what, some of them are fine people, I'm sure. And by the, yeah, yeah, sorry John, just real quick. The Republican voters don't respect that anyway. Were they gonna vote for a mansion because they're like, oh, some, like if you go to West Virginia and say somebody pushed you and then you said, oh, well, then I want to work with them and I want to give them more, would you respect that guy? Everybody in West Virginia would say, no, I lose respect for that guy, right?

let alone try to bust down your door of your house and try to kill you, right? Yeah, and look, I think there's a lot of nonsense in what he said if you take him at face value that he actually wants to compromise or whatever. Another way to look at it is that a bunch of people stormed into the place where he works and terrorize the politicians and those politicians are now giving the people who terrorize what they want. That's basically what he's doing. They don't want any bills to pass and he's he's going to give it to them.

I don't. And also, like, he says, let's take him at what he says. And he says, you know, oh, God, how have we gotten this position where people would be willing to do that? Well, don't just ask rhetorical questions. Answer it. How have we gotten to that position? Why did the people in that crowd believe what they believe? The very specific actionable things that they believed. We don't have to speculate. We don't have to sift through desert sands. We know exactly why they believe all of those insane things because they were told those things by Republican politicians and people on Fox News, Newsmax and O.N. And your solution has nothing whatsoever with changing their behavior. If you don't reform the filibuster, does that mean that Newsmax is going to become a responsible member of the journalistic community or that Trump will find a new respect for democracy? or that all of the senators that voted to overthrow the election will suddenly greatly regret what they did. No, he doesn't even claim that. And he certainly doesn't believe it. No rational person could. Instead, it's just let's not do anything. So it can't solve the problem he says he's trying to solve,

which is why we then are forced to try to come up with an idea of what it is that he's trying to solve. And I think the Jank is right. It's that he doesn't want these bills to pass. He doesn't want the corporate tax to go up. He doesn't want any of this stuff to actually happen. Yeah, so look, I got to clarify the magnitude of this. I don't want anybody walking away thinking, oh, Philibuster, I don't know, it's technical rule. I don't know what that means. No, that means that we cannot pass any bills going forward, done.

Joe Biden's administration is done. So I'll give you the example of HR1. So that's for the people like that's voting rights is their number one priority, right? It has nothing to do with budget, so it's not reconciliation. And so it is a fact that every single Republican in the Senate opposes it. vehemently, including any so-called moderates. The idea that you can get 10 Republicans to vote for the Four the People Act is a joke. I mean, if Manchin says that, the reporter's next question be, Senator, why are you choosing

to lie when there's not a single person on the planet who thinks you can get 10 Republicans to vote for an act that they deeply despise? So what, like this is an obvious lie. So they can't even get their number one priority pass. They can't get anything passed if Manchin won't move on the filibuster. So there is nothing more important than this because it just creates a, it ends the Biden administration within the first 75 days. So, and that's Manchin saying Joe Biden's not president, I'm president, okay?

And I'm not a Democrat, you idiots. And by the way, he's not a Republican either. He's a corporatist. He works for the corporations who bribe him daily. And I can't, so I get frustrated with the. media, you guys know you watch the show, but I look, people always like, oh, well, there's nothing we can do. Oh, Joe, but there's nobody in West Virginia that could win as a Democrat and the people of West Virginia are so conservative. It's just nonsense, nonsense.

So is West Virginia more conservative? Of course it is. Like that part is true. But the simpletons in Washington stop right there. No, go further. But they're populists as well. How about the issues he's talking about? He said this particular example that started all of this was Joe I just said, no way, man, I do not want higher corporate taxes, okay? And could it be? Because almost all of your donors are giant corporations and they gave you legalized bribes? Or isn't that the people of West Virginia are so conservative that they really, really want lower taxes on corporations? No, that's absurd. We know the polling already. If you're a reporter And you don't know that the people of West Virginia don't want, you know, to protect corporations

at all cause, then you suck at your job because you've never read a poll. You don't know a thing about West Virginia. And you let a guy like this lie to your audience on the regular, and you get paid to propagate his lies. Now, I'm gonna one last thing, I'm turning to the progressives in Congress. I ran for office and the press hated me. And they said I was, I was not civil enough. Well, they're right that I'm not civil enough because if I had one, and this is why I ran, as apparently a futile effort as that was, but I gave it everything I had. The reason I ran is because if I was in Congress, today I'd be on the floor of the House giving a speech about Joe Manchin's top 10 donors, about how they're all giant corporations who want lower taxes,

and then I would have a giant pull up from West Virginia right next to me showing the overwhelming majority of people of West Virginia want higher taxes on corporations, higher taxes. You liar, I would say, about Joe Manchin. But do, is there a single progressive in Congress that's willing to do that? No, is the answer. Definitively, no. Oh my God, that's your beloved, cherished colleagues. You would be so rude. Well, I wouldn't want to break etiquette, would we? How do you really feel, Jenk? How do you really feel that? Because, look, Helen, You're right, and it's funny, but at the same time, the reason is not to get angry. The reason is not to just insult Joe Manchin for no reason.

They're so simple-minded in Washington, they're like, oh, you're just venting. No, you shm-how do you think you're going to move his position by beseeching him? If you think that just retire right now, retire, you don't know anything about politics. No, you have to cause political damage. The way you cause political damage is you put a spotlight on his way. weakness that he takes bribes from corporations. Now they're legalized bribes, but they're millions of dollars. And every real person, including every real person in West Virginia, knows in effect, those are bribes. And no one, no one, no one points it out because oh my God, I wouldn't want

to ruffle feathers, right? And so when you don't point it out, his poll numbers don't go down. The only way you're gonna get him to change his position is if his poll numbers go down. Either they don't, everybody in the Democratic Party, literally, literally everyone in the Democratic party that is to center and to the left doesn't know one thing about politics, or they're just saying, yeah, but it would hurt my personal relationships and my personal friendships and relationships are more important than my voters. That's what's happening right now in Washington, and they hate me for pointing out things that are obviously true.

And the last final point is that we got to move on is like what is supposed to be rule number one for politicians is that they will do stuff for whatever ideology, blah, blah, blah, blah, but mainly it's to increase their own power and to maintain their position. That's what they want to do above all else. And yet we know exactly where the strategy leads. It leads with him no longer being in the Senate majority. And it's not even going to take a long time. It's going to be like a year and a half and they will lose the majority.

He knows that if they don't do anything, that's what's going to happen. And yet he is following his path anyway. He is willing to sacrifice a significant amount of his political power for whatever it is that's actually motivating him. So you know it's got to be something significant. I don't know what you guys are talking about. And I mean, anyone who's been to West Virginia knows that everybody in West Virginia is just rolling and dough.

Exactly. Yeah, there's so rich in West Virginia. The average person is just so rich in West Virginia that they're like, Yeah, lower, lower, lower everybody, lower corporate taxes. I can afford it, no problem, increase my taxes, no. Yeah, no, Joe Manchin said that they're not for a higher minimum wage in West Virginia. And first of all, the polling showed exactly the opposite, they're massively in favor of it. But look at how comical it is and look at how much our press sucks.

He says that the people of West Virginia living in their hollers are for lower wages, that they're in favor of lower wages for themselves. And the reporters go, oh, okay, I will write it down. People of West Virginia want lower wages. Joe Manchin is an honorable and respectful and wonderful moderate Democrat. And he has to do all of this because the people of West Virginia demand lower wages, and they love corporations in the hollers. I have said before that if you, if you brought up the $15 minimum wage,

if the $15 minimum wage took effect in West Virginia, you would bring back to the bring back the middle class in the entire state of West Virginia. Yeah, 100%. Okay, I'm a little bit worried about how much we're to have to say about this topic and fitting him for the next break, but I'm being told to move ahead, so why don't we press into sort of the big worker related story of the day? It's been a few days waiting for the final count, but it appears

based on what we have now that Amazon has defeated activists hoping to establish the company's first unionized warehouse in the year. warehouse in the US. Workers at the Bessemer Alabama warehouse voted 1798 to 738 against the effort, labor officials said. And the union has already announced that it would challenge the results of this election. It accused Amazon of interfering with the right of employees to vote in a free and fair election, including by lying to staff about the implications of the vote in mandatory meetings and pushing the postal service to install a mailbox on company grounds in an effort to monitor the vote, of which there is now quite a bit of an email,

paper train of the pressure they were putting on them to do so. So that's done for now. There will potentially be other votes there. It will be appealed to the NLRB and you could have similar sorts of votes in other Amazon facilities. But as of right now, it looks like Amazon has successfully warded off unionization in Alabama. Yeah, it's bad news. So really bad. The votes decisive, now people are going to be discouraged from trying to unionize in other Amazon areas and factories and warehouses. So this is not good news for the labor movement. So the complaints that they have about the mailbox, it's legitimate, right?

So the Amazon asked the United States post office to put a mailbox like right on their campus basically. And it was an effort to intimidate because it, people couldn't tell if Amazon, it didn't even say U.S. post office on it. whether Amazon executives are going to look at their vote when they mailed it in. So they have a good case on that, but it's still gonna be tough to win. And even if they won, that really doesn't get the job done because the whole point is to have a union to protect these workers.

And we've showed you the conditions under which they work and how they needed that protection from this giant company. But now no matter what happens, it doesn't look like they're gonna get it. I cannot believe that the pee bottles was not the end of this issue. Like we all know, we have seen the bottles of pee that Amazon workers have to use to get through their shift to get everything done that Amazon wants them to get done. They can't take a bathroom break. They have to piss in bottles. And yet, they're claiming that these people don't need a union.

What? Yeah, it's incredibly frustrating. But we do have responses, both from one of the politicians that had spent some time boosting this effort. Bernie Sanders tweeted, at a time of massive income and wealth and equality, and when workers have little power on the job, I applaud the pro-union Amazon workers in Alabama for their courage and willingness to stand up for their rights. They've inspired workers everywhere, and I think he's right, and he did about as much as anyone

to try to put the national focus on what was happening there. Amazon said on Friday that it was not true that it had intimidated staff. It said the firm worked hard to listen to concerns and improve casting the outcome as a choice by staff rather than a company victory, quote, we're not perfect, but we're proud of our team and what we offer and we will keep working to get better every day. I think look, we've done a lot of different stories on what happened there. If you'd like to see more evidence of it, there was a great segment on last week tonight, week about the different forms that the pressure came in in Amazon, all the different places.

You couldn't walk around these warehouse without seeing signs saying not to unionize. So again, like the union leaders said or the prospective union leader said, it's not over, but it's a pretty decisive win. And that is going to, that is going to buttress Amazon's case going forward trying to stop it from happening other places. Look, by the way, if the voters, if the employees voted against a union and they didn't really, And they genuinely didn't want one. That is what it is. That's totally okay. The reason why they're focusing on the intimidation is because they're worried that Amazon intimidated them by putting them up a post box there and other forms that they did. Okay. But guys, the overall

big picture thing here is that the coercion is on a macro scale. They've got us fighting one another, wages are so low. The federal minimum wage is $7.25. So workers in Alabama, because of Bernie Sanders and Rokana, Amazon got so much pressure, they moved their minimum wage up to $15, right? So now the workers in Amazon are scared to death that they're going to have to go and work for $7.25. So they're like, well, I mean, as bad as my situation is, I'd rather pee, and sometimes, by the way, defecate in bottles and bags, because I can't, I'll be punished if I take too long in a bathroom break, I'd rather do that than go to $7.25. So it is a vicious hunger games that they have put us in. And understand

that overall context as you see this story. I just can't stop thinking about how close this story is to the bill that passed in California. I forget the context of the bill, but it was Lyft and Uber workers were, you know, they voted against their own interest to be considered like freelancers as opposed to like actual staff. And then like literally the second the bill passed, all of these huge grocery store chains like fired all of their drivers. And then we're hiring, you know, we're hiring like outside like door dash and stuff to replace them. And it's like People get so easily brainwashed against their own interests. I can't believe it.

It's like, I, I, I, I'm speechless. I literally, I'm so mad, like I can't believe it. I can't believe someone would be willing to poop. I almost said a poop in a bag and that be like, no, this is cool because I'm making $15 whole dollars an hour. No, $15 whole dollars an hour is not worth pooping in a bag. Get some humanity. Exactly. Okay, Jink, why don't we take our second break? And when we come back, we've got probably time for two more stories, including how the National Republican Party is learning lessons

from Trump about how to best con their supporters. We'll have that after this. We're going to be able to be. You know, I'm going to be able to be. You know, I'm going to be the I'm Oh,

Oh, Oh. Oh. And Oh. I'm going to be able to be. All right, back during the break here. First of all, comment rooms tonight, don't miss it. It's at 9 o'clock Eastern.

It's got bread and a number of our producers are going to love him, Meshwarya, Nick and Piero. And Piero, check that out. It's a super fun show, Twitch.tv slash TYT, 9 o'clock tonight, okay? No more trigonometry writes in on our member section. It's t.com slash join, by the way, to become a member. Got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine today. My 5G tracking ship should be activated at any moment. I'm also looking forward to that altered DNA, hoping I finally get the ability to fly. I love that. That's hilarious. I got my vaccine. vaccine eight days ago. Oh really?

Yeah. I didn't know that. I haven't, I've been so far like reticent to get the vaccine because I don't want to turn into an I am legend zombie. But at this point, I would rather be a zombie than have to survive with only anti-vaxxers. That's such a great point. All right, speaking of great things, Wilson Family, Media, and Entertainment just became a young tourist member on YouTube by hitting that join button below.

So welcome Family Media and Entertainment, Wilson Family Media and Entertainment. All right, more from these folks that are great on YouTube Super Chat. TRT Wolf Pack Justice Dem writes in, that's a title. Jake, I'm giving $30 a month to Rebellion Pack. Can you shed light on what you're going to do to hit Joe Mansion? We already have an ad and the more that folks chip in for that, the more we could run it in West Virginia. And we call them every name in the book. You'll love that ad and you can see it under videos when you go to RebellionPact.com.

Okay, so we're already on it and we started running it a month ago. And in fact, Tori Wisdom then says, have carrots ever worked in politics? Time for sticks metaphorically. Carrots do work, but sticks work better and it is time for that. We'll be back. All right, back on Eric Turks, Jank, John, and Helen with you guys today. Let me read one more from YouTube super chat here because we really appreciate you guys participating in this show. Jonathan Leiter wrote, so why do you think the squad doesn't call Manchin out?

Good question, I don't speak for them, but you should ask them, ask them on Twitter. Are you ever going to do anything about Joe Manchin or are you just going to let him stop every one of our priorities? If so, by the way, you don't have to yell at him, don't yell at him. I like almost all of them. So just ask them politely and ask them if they have a plan. Cross your fingers. Sure. Okay, all right. I think just for total accuracy, obviously more of them should and more often,

but AOC has feuded even recently with Joe Manchin very publicly multiple times. So just never mentioning his donors just like cutesy back and forth, including Manchin, like sniping that the media likes but has honestly, honestly almost no substance. I'm just keeping it real. I believe she's talked about his donors, but I can't check that live right now. So we'll return to that at some point. But in any event, why don't we go to talking about other donors, actually, donors to the Republican Party nationally. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump in the months leading up to the general election was so trailing Joe Biden in fundraising that his team started to do

some increasingly shady things to get more money out of his supporters, including setting up weekly recurring donations where hundreds or thousands of dollars would be drained out of bank accounts without the people necessarily knowing that it was about to happen. They ended up having to refund over $120 million that they effectively stole. Now Trump hasn't had to say much about that, but in the days since that report came out, we found out that the National Republican Campaign Committee is apparently using similar tactics. So they have a pre-checked box on the the NRCC's donation page. Donors are opted into making monthly donations. And I want to show you an example of what they look like. So here's one of the yellow boxes. I believe they use the exact

same yellow boxes that Trump did, as if just like to do challenge mode for conning their fans. Hey, you know that story about subversive yellow boxes? We got them too. Anyway, the box says, we need to know we haven't lost you to the radical left. If you uncheck this box, we will have to tell Trump you're a defector and sided with the Dems. That's insane. Wow. Wow. So they like they get the update.

Oh my God, Billy unchecked the box. They run down the hallway and bust over the door. Trump, Billy's a defector. And then Trump says, you know what? I was going to invite him to play golf of me, but not now. Billy screwed. That's what they want their followers to believe. And there's like millions of billies that are like,

don't tell him, please, don't tell him. That's what it is, yeah. It is, yeah. Anything but that. Yeah, well, so first of all, guys, I think you're being unfair. They had to tell Trump that they're defectors. They said it in the email. They didn't have a choice, we have to tell Trump that you're a defector.

And the funny thing is if they actually told Trump, again, side note, if you're a right winger and hence dense, no one's going to tell Trump anything, it's a total lie, okay? And they're not going to be like, oh my God, it turns out Jim Jablowski, yeah, yep, that's a 112th person in a row that did not check the box. Tell them about Jim Jablowski, tell him about it. Nobody's going to tell him a damn thing. But the funny thing is if they did, Trump would actually get Matt. Trump would be like, what's going on with Jablowski?

I'm going to go on Twitter, I was going to yell at Jablowski. And but remember, there's a great twist of the story. Trump doesn't want them sending these emails because he's trying to scam the same people. So he's like, stop using my name to scam them. That's my job. Yeah, imagine like this money isn't going to him. It would be bad enough if he did that. But but there's both the I guess the stick would be we'll put you on the naughty list if you don't give money. But they also try to use a carrot kind of. They have one box that says the Dems have already reached their mid month fundraising goal. If you like first of all, they haven't even

reported it. It's the middle of the month. You have no idea what they've raised. Stop lying. But anyway, if you want Trump to run for president, this is your last chance to flip the house. So like, if you don't give, that's why Trump won't run again, even though Trump's running has literally nothing to do with anyone other than Trump. It's, and they, they, they, they, that's a regular thing. Like if you uncheck it, you do not stand with Trump, even though we don't technically stand with Trump. He sent a cease and desist, but we really want your cash. The whole thing is so manipulative. It's like a Stockholm syndrome for your wallet, right? It's like, it's like we've got you, we've kidnapped your wallet and we've got you by the balls.

Oh, um, okay, I guess it's fine. Keep the wallet. It's fine. I'm cool. I don't need to eat. That's cool. Yeah. Well, the other thing is, is, guys, they know how unsophisticated, I'm being polite, their Republican donors are, the small donors. The large donors are very sophisticated. They think, oh, good, use the rubs as well. Have them paid for our tax cuts. The large Republican donors are having a blast over this. They think it's the funniest thing they've ever seen. But the small Republican donors, being the unsophisticated rubs that they actually are, will believe it. That's why they're Why do you think they're sending it because it's working?

Billy then thinks, oh my God, they're gonna tell. Honey, they're gonna tell Trump about me, they're gonna call me a defector. I gotta do it, I gotta send him the money. I mean, it's the easiest mark in the world. That's why Trump is telling him not to do it. He's like, no, those are my marks. I'm running that con. Don't get in on my game, right?

Game recognizes game, to be fair. Anyway, but if you've ever seen the Democrats, okay, two more things, sorry. The, some of the tactics also have the box pre-checked for monthly. No, you can't trick people into giving monthly. You have to let them know. There's nothing wrong with giving them options. Pete, a lot of people gave to Bernie Sanders. A lot of people give to great candidates. In fact, you should go to Nina turn.com slash hello and give to her, okay, and make it monthly, okay? But you got to tell people. And if you don't, we will tell her. We will tell Nina, you betrayed her.

You put the obsidian dagger right in your kidney. That's right. And you know, Inna Turner, Franklin, Tennessee, we got, we see you. Yeah, yeah. And Nina Turner is kind of the queen. So, I mean, if the queen finds out, it's out of our hands. Okay, but seriously, guys, you can't pre-check the box for monthly if they didn't see grade a monthly. That's crazy. So there's so unscrupulous on the right wing side. It's unbelievable. By the way, it's so telling of the two different parties. So these are the unscrupulous, let's rip off our own voters and lie to them in every way, shape, and form. That's the Republican Party. On the Democratic Party, when they go to do donations,

and if you ever gave a dollar to anything related with a D-Triple C or a corporate Democrat over the last four or five years, you know this better than anybody. They'll send you a thousand emails with, oh my God, if you don't give in the next half an hour, we're all going to be decapitated. We're all gonna lose forever and ever and ever, okay? Like, look, I get it, there's push emails. We've probably been guilty of doing some push emails. And there are, there is real urgency. At the end of a quarter, there's urgency.

When you get it from a progressive, that's probably almost certainly true. When Republicans do it at the end of a quarter, that there is urgency. At the end of an election, there is urgency. Some of that is true. But the Democrats get so carried away, man. It's really, they're like, we will lose forever and ever if you don't give us money now. Like, the Republicans are like, we're gonna hurt you unless you give us money. And the Democrats are like, please, I'm begging you, I'm begging you, we're already losers,

we're all gonna lose. Like, it's so unfortunately indicative of their psychology. I love that they use the word defector, like, which is a word that is only heard with North Korea. Like, defection, you're gonna be a defector like a North Korean. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, calm down. Defector is a very strong word here. like because I don't want to give monthly. Yeah, could I just be a traitor, honestly? Anyway, here, why don't we go quickly to our last story? It's a spicy one.

Tucker Carlson wants to keep his audience entertained. He'd love to have, for instance, a, I don't know, sex scandal involving a politician, but there's just not one out there. Nothing spicy and salation involving human trafficking or underage women or anything like that. So he's got to find something to talk about. out. So he ended up doing this. And it becomes very clear when you see those text exchanges that he's he's dealing with with crack cocaine dealers. There's even a photo of him pulling another prostitute's hair,

grinning at the same time. It's kind of quite disturbing stuff on there. But there's also some some really intimate conversations and quite eyebrow raising conversations between him and his father, Joe Biden. I really agree with you as well. He's he's a doting father. He clearly loves his son a lot. But you get to a point where Joe knows about his son's, you know, severe, severe drug addiction. And he is still funding him. Hard drive from hell is the Daily Mail and their blockbuster report today, reporting on new contents exposing Hunter's struggles, his debauchery. There's that one picture right there. This was in the Daily Mail today. That's one of two of a sexual nature that are there. That is another one. They both,

show, as you can see, we'll go back and forth and show you. Look at that. You see those teeth? Yeah, a well-known side effect for huge amounts of drug abuse, especially with crack cocaine. Yeah, the honest thing there was we'll go back and forth and show you. And I'm sure they will over and over and over again, even though both of those programs, John Hannity and Tucker Carlson, haven't had anything to say about Matt Gates for a solid week plus at this point. Not even a facade of like a serious obligation to ethically cover what's going on in Congress. Instead, it's Hunter Biden, who look, if he broke the law, he broke the law. Like we were saying earlier, whether we want sex work to be legal to be legal or not, it's not. But he's also notably not a congressman,

not even remotely an elected official like the guy they refused to talk about. Yeah, I don't know what the hell this is about. I mean, I know what it is. It's a, they They tell their audience not to watch porn, so they need something for release, right? And so this is the old trick that Bill O'Reilly used to do, and Sean Hannity does it every year, too. Spring break is getting out of control. We are moralizing over it by showing you pictures of barely clothed women. Look at it over and over again, however long it takes you, right? Meanwhile, tut, tut, tut, tut, can you believe that? They did it less during the Trump era because some of the girls might have been Trump's girlfriends. or mistresses. So it became a little harder to moralize. And so I'm gonna, especially given

the president's wife, who I'm gonna get to in a second, okay? So this has zero political relevance. Oh, Hunter Biden did drugs and that's technically illegal. So did George W. Bush. Let's go. If we're gonna arrest both of them, let's go arrest both of them. So did Obama. Yeah, and so did Kamala Harris. And she laughed about it. So we're bipartisan. Okay, I think that they should legalize marijuana today. I think that's an actual issue. And the Democrats suck on that issue. And Joe Biden said he'd do it on the first day and he didn't. So he lied about that. That's a real issue. Okay. So we're criticizing Democrats on that way more than Fox News ever did. Okay. So but Hunter Biden, what did he put Biden put him in charge of Middle East policy?

Oh no, that was Trump putting his son in law in charge of Middle East policy. and about half of the other issues. So Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are much, a thousand times more politically relevant. Trump's kids made $640 million while he was in office. Don Jr., Eric, they're all politically relevant. Hunter Biden is not anywhere near as politically relevant as those. So I assume with this new standard that Fox News has now created,

that if you have any salacious pictures of kids of political figures that are grown up, that you're allowed to put them. Okay, great. So if anybody's got naked pictures of Ivanka Trump or Don Jr. or Eric, I hate to do it to the country, but apparently they're newsworthy. So we'll show them over and over and over and over and over again. Naked, naked, naked, ha ha ha ha, look at them having sex as if they're humans. Ha ha ha ha ha, I am moralizing. Oh my god, that guy had addiction problem, so he was slightly weak. I know what hypocrites Republicans are. Because Mike Lindell, their favorite idiot that my Pillow CEO conspiracy theorist is a, it was a crack addict, okay? So crackhead, whatever you want to call him. And I

forgot what I called him, I think a crack head, whatever, right? And they're like, how could you say that about his past drug use? Dude, you think it's past. You really think it's past. Okay, and so, and and if, and they pretended to be to be outraged by that. Now they're like, look at Hunter Biden's teeth. Look at Hunter Biden's teeth. It's even worse than mine. Okay, yeah, I got you, all right? So you guys are liars, you're hypocrites, you're moralizing judgmental pricks. So let's just be clear. And I don't know what you did to those pictures and I don't want to know, okay? But the bottom line is, I now know the new standard, which then leads us to the first lady. So we're not going

to do it today, but she took naked pictures for a living. Melania Trump took naked pictures for a living. It looks like, and even Tucker Carlson admitted, it didn't look like he left that laptop anywhere. So I don't know if that laptop was stolen by some Republican operative, which would be, that would actually be a crime I care about, okay? And you want to steal people's naked pictures and then put them up all over national news? What's to stop us, Melania Trump, a far more politically relevant figure from showing her naked pictures every single day. And if you're going to moralize, all moralize. Why was the,

you know, the first lady, the former first lady, what, you know, what was she? And, and what, how did she make money? And I don't know, why don't I put up the pictures and ask that question every day? As long as, you know, we're doing things for just salacious material and to smear people. I just, I love that you brought up Mike Lindell, the my pillow guy and his crack addiction and I just now I can't stop thinking about the cross that he wears is actually like a cocaine spoon. It's like he's just got it in proximity like I'm fine, buy my pillow. It's really great. I can't stop thinking about that. I'm sorry. Yeah, and by the way, I don't know that Mike and Lindell is still doing crack. He certainly acts like it in terms of his conspiracy theories,

his insanity. Now he says he's gonna uncover that Fox's two left wing. The guys we're talking about. Michael Nell said they're two left wing. They're two left wing. And I'm gonna go get them and I'm gonna find the rapid hole and I'm gonna go down it. And I tell you, man, we're gonna release the crack in any day. Didn't he say the other day that Trump's gonna come back and be president next month or something? So yeah, you want to talk about crackheads. You got a lot of them on the right wing side. Tons and tons and tons. of right wingers doing tons of hard drugs, including, by the way, Matt Gates, and that's why he's actually in trouble, along with the underage prostitution. So if we want to talk about people's

personal habits all day long, right wingers, because you know what you do. And don't tell me that you're moral, because ain't none of you moral. And it's so true what you said about Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden is a private citizen. He's not in government. He's not appointed to anything, you know, like actually affecting legislation. And so if you want to open it up to private citizens, then let's, you know, let's look at all your kids. Like all these, you know, geo peers like they think their kids are squeakly clean. I don't think so. You know there's stuff out there on their kids, their wives, their exes, their husbands, like there is trash, trash to be dug up. Yeah, and I want to be clear again, this is all about adult kids. And so luckily,

Even Fox News hasn't done it to anybody's underage kids or talked about them, et cetera, right? But last thing, guys, you want to know what the real prostitution is? When family members of these politicians go work as lobbyists, Warren Hatch's son did that for decades. And Rob the taxpayer is blind. God, he did rob us blind with that stuff. And then they turn around and go, oh, that guy had the wrong kind of sex and that guy did the wrong kind of drugs as if that's the real issue. No, the real issue is corruption. And if you want to talk about corruption, Trump's kids were the most corrupt we have ever, ever seen in our lifetimes. Well, I think that's all the time we've gotten. All right. I got worked up there. That happened.

Okay, so I want to thank John. Check him out on the damage report. Obviously great show. And Helen, check her out on Go Fact Yourself and Jobs Elite. Those are excellent podcasts and you will check see her from time time on wait wait don't tell me or you at least hear her and and we've got a whole great second hour coming up for you guys ben dixon jr jackson so we'll be right back thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcast at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank you and I'll see you soon.