The Young Turks - Vile Attacks

Starting point is 00:00:00 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. All right, welcome to the young church, Jake U Granite with you guys. So last night on old school, we talked about happiness and how you can be happy and all fun stuff. And then now I come in super angry. Really?

Starting point is 00:01:06 So buckle up. We're kind of trading places today. I was in a bad mood yesterday. You were in a good mood. Yeah. And I'm in a great mood right now. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:16 So anyway, if you remember, go check out that old school episode, but take it with a grain of salt. TYT.com slash join to become a member. All right, I'm actually mad about this first story. So let's get to it. All right, let's do it. So Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz has done such an effective job at her journalism that she has allowed for these conservatives to have a meltdown simultaneously, and I'm here for it.

Starting point is 00:01:48 So she reported on the person behind the account known as Libs of TikTok. It's an account that wasn't really on my radar, but it turns out that it's. But this person specifically tweets out or posts about various individuals and frames them as groomers and pedophiles because they happen to be part of the LGBTQ community. Now it's one thing to repost what someone is saying in a video, it's an entirely different thing to intentionally defame them and frame them as groomers and pedophiles. And so this person was doing these posts anonymously. Taylor Lorenz figured out who it was.

Starting point is 00:02:29 Now before we get to the right wing meltdown on this story, I think it's really important to do what I think a lot of people are failing to do today, focus on the story itself and the details in the reporting, which make it abundantly clear that what she did here in her reporting and by revealing who this person is, in my opinion, she did nothing wrong. So the title of the piece is, meet the woman behind libs of TikTok secretly fueling the rights outrage machine. A popular Twitter account has morphed into a social media phenomenon, spreading anti-LGBQ plus sentiment and shaping public discourse. Now, this isn't some random account that has absolutely no power. As Lorenz reports, this account has become

Starting point is 00:03:12 incredibly influential in right-wing media, and it's been influential in force, not influential and essentially persuading right-wing lawmakers in red states to draft and passed legislation based on these posts. So lips of TikTok reposts a steady stream of TikTok videos and social media posts, primarily from LGBTQ plus people often, including incendiary framing designed to generate outrage. This is Graphic 2. Video shared from the account quickly find their way to the most influential names in right wing media. The account has emerged as a powerful force on the internet, shaping right wing media,

Starting point is 00:03:53 impacting anti-LGBQ legislation and influencing millions by posting viral videos aimed at inciting outrage among the right. Now, the account has been promoted by prominent figures, including Joe Rogan, Megan McCain, and Glenn Greenwald, who apparently wanted to take some ownership of the account at one point. The online influencer, by the way, Glenn Greenwald not happy about that label, the online influencer Glenn Greenwald has amplified it to his 1.8 million Twitter followers while calling himself the account's godfather. Look, can I, I got to interrupt for one second to talk about that. The account mainly goes after people in the LGBTQ community. And private citizens,

Starting point is 00:04:39 by the way. And the person behind the account, Chaya Richick, I want to be clear about who it is, Chaya Rijik, okay, she's a hateful person, a terrible, terrible person who calls people who are gay predators, who says anyone who's allies of the LGBTQ community is mentally ill. She says that anyone who even mentions someone even being gay, that the fact that a gay person exists in a school is grooming, et cetera, right? Any educator who accurately describes their sense. sexual orientation as anything other than straight should immediately be fired. This is a person who incites violence toward ordinary people who are doing their jobs,

Starting point is 00:05:27 but they have their own political opinions, right? What I find so fascinating about all of the right wing outrage over Taylor Lorenza's reporting here is that these are the individuals like, oh yeah, the left, the left, they can't have a conversation, they can't stand opinions that are different from their own. Oh, they're always trying to cancel people. They're always trying to fire people. This woman behind libs of TikTok went out of her way to get people fired from their jobs. Educators fired from their jobs for simply wanting to be open about what their sexual identity is while they're educators, while they're whatever, right?

Starting point is 00:06:01 They want to silence people who have sexual orientations that they don't like. That's what the right wing is all about. And to take away someone's livelihood over their identity is disgusting. And if look, she wasn't doing anything wrong, okay, if she was just simply reposting what people are saying on social media, well, then why did she want to be anonymous? Is it because she goes out of her way to defame innocent people as pedophiles and groomers? That's what that account did. That's what lives of TikTok did. I want to just give you a few more details. Hold on, hold on.

Starting point is 00:06:36 So Glenn, who is gay, is calling himself the godfather of this account. So he's signed on for this. Glenn, how much money is worth it? Jesus Christ, man. You want to go dance for them, Glenn? Are you ever going to admit that you've now become a sick right winger that attacks your own community? He doesn't need to.

Starting point is 00:06:59 I mean, everyone knows. Everyone sees it. But the thing is, of these idiots in the right wing, the dumbest people alive. So when I point that obvious fact out that you point out is, come on, Jake, it's too obvious to even mention, right? They're like, no, Glenn Greenwald's more to the left than you are. You morons! I know, Jank, but they know he's not. They know he's a useful tool for the right wing. The left knows he's a useful tool for the right wing. The right wing has an interest in presenting him as a leftist to say, see, we're right, the leftist agrees with us. They know what they're doing.

Starting point is 00:07:33 That's part of their whole strategy. That's why Glenn goes and dances for them for money. Exactly, yeah. So go ahead, Glenn, defend the fashion. The fascist coming after your own community. But oh, hey, you're safe, you're good, you're good. Don't worry. Tucker's always going to protect you. You're one of the good ones, Glenn. I bet they won't come after you at the end, right? You're sick, and you should get mental health counseling.

Starting point is 00:07:56 And now this Chaya woman claims, oh, oh, golly, gee, I'm just sending out hate all over the world, and I'm trying to get everybody fired. Cancel culture? Well, I don't know. Golly, gee, the right wing would never do cancel culture. Fire them. They support gay people. Fire them. You idiots, you are cancel culture. You are cancel culture. I can't stand how unintelligent right wingers are. Just the dumbest people on the planet. I want her fire because I don't agree with her. I don't like cancel culture. You moron, look at what you just said. Look at what you just said. You're the dumbest person. Okay, I just want to be clear. And why am I so angry? No, these fascists are here. they're targeting gay people right now. That's exactly what the Nazis did.

Starting point is 00:08:43 They're targeting gay people and saying passing laws against them, saying that they're so evil and bad, no one should even utter the fact that they exist. No, I'm not going to stand for it. I'm not going to stand for it. We fight back here. And I love that Taylor Lorenz fought back. And look, the fact of the matter is she's being attacked as aggressively

Starting point is 00:09:03 as she's being attacked because she's good at her job. And because the right wing, as sad as I am to say it, is just not used to anyone fighting back, right? You see these ineffective Democrats in Congress, one embarrassment after the next, it's just pathetic. And then for once, we see someone, A, do her job well, okay? And then B, more importantly, after she's been attacked relentlessly over and over and over again, She doesn't stop, she keeps doing her job and they hate her because she's effective. So I hope she keeps reporting on these things. And again, if Chaya doesn't think she did anything wrong, if all she's doing is reposting what other people are putting up on social

Starting point is 00:09:48 media, why did she want to be anonymous? Why is it such a big deal that her identity has been revealed? And she's not just some, you know, innocent, private citizen who's being targeted in this unfair way. This is someone who has essentially served as this, you know, defamation factory that influences both right wing media and right wing legislation. And I want to give you specific examples in just a moment. As Ari Drennan, who works over at Media Matters says, lives of TikTok is basically acting as a wire service for the broader right wing media media ecosystem. It's been shaping public policy in a real way and affecting teachers' ability to feel safe

Starting point is 00:10:33 in their classrooms. Also, a media strategist for the ACLU says, the role I've seen this account playing is finding new characters for right-wing propaganda. It's relying on the endless stream of content from TikTok and the internet to cast any individual trans person as a new villain in their story. Because, you know, targeting a group of people who have no power in America right now, who are dealing with the worst forms of harassment already, who have a high suicide rate because of how terrible it is to be a trans person living in the United States.

Starting point is 00:11:08 Yeah, let's go after those people. Let's make those people the enemy in our targets. And many of them, again, are educators. They're people who are working class, who aren't trying to cause any problems, but don't want to hide their identity because of right wing bullying and harassment. And again, lives of TikTok does that and only that. That's the only point for that account. So I want to go to more details about who Chaya is.

Starting point is 00:11:49 So Chaya has been working as a real estate salesperson in Brooklyn. When in November of 2020, she created the account that would eventually become libs of TikTok. When registering the domain lives of TikTok.us last October, she used her full name and cell phone number linked to her real estate salesperson contact information. So if you want to be anonymous, maybe think a little ahead of what you're doing, right? So this is easily accessible information. Taylor Lorenz was able to access it, and she reported on it. Under her first handle, Shaya and all those numbers, she minimized COVID, cast doubt on the election results, and promoted a dubious story about a child sex trafficking

Starting point is 00:12:36 ring. Of course she did. Of course she did. She's a liar and a conspiracy theorist, And that's why the right wing loves her. On November 23rd of 2020, Rachech changed handles this time going by Shia Ray and identifying herself publicly as a real estate investor in Brooklyn. She began doubling down on election fraud conspiracies using Q&N related language. Early that December, she joked about launching a clothing line titled voter fraud is real. So that's who she is. You get a little sense of what she likes to do.

Starting point is 00:13:08 She was there during the capital riots on January 6th. because of course she was. And of course she lied about it and how the police were using rubber bullets. God knows if she was even there. I mean, she's a notorious, obvious, pathetic liar. Now, she decided to pivot to Libs of TikTok on April 19th, 2021. And it really started to blow up after Joe Rogan drew attention to it on his show. So just four months after getting started, Lives of TikTok got a big break.

Starting point is 00:13:37 Joe Rogan started promoting the account to millions of listeners. of his hit podcast. Because he's a meathead who hates trans people. He mentioned it several times on his show in August, and then again in late September, Libs of TikTok is one of the greatest effing accounts of all time, he said, with his seal of approval, Raychick's following skyrocketed. And again, she loves to brag about getting educators fired. So here's an example, screenshot from the account.

Starting point is 00:14:05 Any teacher who utters the words, I came out to my students should be fired on the spot. And Joe Rogan and Bill Amar cancel culture enthusiasts. Boy, they love to fight against cancel culture. They're like, oh, it's my favorite account. The one that gets people fired for being gay. I mean, we hate gay people. Of course you should fire them for being gay or even talking about people that are gay or acknowledging anyone who's gay. Fire him, fire him, fire him. That's what Rogan and Bill Maher said. Oh, but no, no, it's not about them. See, that's the thing with right wingers, right? If it affects them, that it's important. Oh, I don't want to be canceled for, you know, call someone the N-word on purpose. I don't want to be canceled for

Starting point is 00:14:46 saying awful, hideous, racist things, right? But you, I want you fired immediately because I don't like that you're gay. Imagine if there was an anonymous left-wing account on Twitter that went around accusing, forget private citizens, prominent right-wingers as pedophiles, rapists, why not? How would they feel, would they want to know the identity of the person who's defaming them? Well, some of them. Some of them actually are pedophiles and stuff like that. They've been caught or have covered for pedophiles, but that's another story for another time. I'm sure they would want to know the identity of those individuals, especially if that account

Starting point is 00:15:23 was actually influencing policies that had an impact on their lives, that did away with their livelihood. Let me give you more. So again, she loved to brag about getting educators fired. Taylor Lorenz offers a specific example. Tyler Rinn, a former English teacher in Oklahoma, posted a video telling LGBTQ kids shunned by their parents that Rinn was proud of them and loved them. It was featured on lives of TikTok last week.

Starting point is 00:15:55 Since being featured on the page, he's been barraged with harassment and death threats. Well, I thought you guys were concerned about outing people. Well, okay, you amplified that video by Rinn and then promoted your lunatic fascist followers to send them death threats. What happened to free speech? What happened to not outing people? Yeah, okay, he did the original video and look at how hateful they are, look at what terrible people they are, and if you're gonna be like, oh, Jake, don't call her hateful just because

Starting point is 00:16:28 she despises gay people and thinks that if you're a gay student, you shouldn't be comforted by your teacher, we should be yelled at, derided, and the teacher should make you feel as bad as the parents do, and maybe until you commit suicide, okay? No, I don't agree. I think a person who does that is terrible. I don't want to be polite to Nazis. I mean, we're talking about people who have defended Alex Jones incessantly after he lied about the parents of children who were killed during the mass, the Newtown massacre, the Sandy Hook mass shooting. He got his followers to harass and literally sent death threats to the Posner family who lost their son in that massacre, okay?

Starting point is 00:17:18 I don't hear any of these right wingers going after what Alex Jones did because they love it. They love the harassment when they're doing it. They love the threats when they're doing it. They love the defamation when they're doing it, okay? Because for them, that's power. That's how they flex their power. And when someone dares to fight back, oh, instead of focusing on the story, what do they want to focus on?

Starting point is 00:17:41 Taylor Lorenz bad, Taylor Ren's mean, let's go after Taylor Lorenz, we don't like it. We're used to leftists not fighting us effectively. They're used to Democrats who are cowards, right? And the minute that any of these goons, this Gestapo says, boo, to an establishment Democrat, And the Democrat runs away. Okay, but when we don't run away, when Taylor Lorenz doesn't run away and we actually fight back with facts, oh man, all of a sudden, they catch feelings. But we're making a mistake. We keep thinking that they have any degree of logic.

Starting point is 00:18:12 They don't. They're just very simple people filled with hate. So they go, me do something that is good. You do same exact thing. That is bad. And we think, well, that's hypocritical, isn't it? That's irrational. But they don't even understand what logic is.

Starting point is 00:18:30 They don't understand what rational is. So they think, oh, if you want to get me fired because I hate black people and I'm a cop and I beat up black people all the time as part of my job, that's cancel culture. But if I get you fired for telling a poor kid, hey, you know, it's going to be okay, hang in there. Well, of course I should get you fired. That's not cancel culture because I hate you. They don't care. They're just so unintelligent. It's impossible to talk to them.

Starting point is 00:18:57 And we live with them. I don't know what to do with them. This Chaya Ritechick lady, now move to West Hollywood. Okay. West Hollywood. Who is, that's the epicenter. Why'd you move to West Hollywood? Yeah, I mean, it's known for a large population of LGBTQ people.

Starting point is 00:19:15 Why would you live there? Why'd you move there? If you hate them so much, why don't you get the hell out of that community? Because you're not welcome. Not welcome. Okay, you're the Gestapo that is trying to intimidate. that community. You're not welcome. Now, I want to be very clear. So there's an important part of this where they say, oh, she got doxed. No, again, I know right wingers, they don't

Starting point is 00:19:38 care about facts. But for the rest of you, I have to clarify. Doxing is when you say this is their address, okay, and you should go do something about it. Doxing is not, this is the human being saying that, okay? So we're, you know who we are, you know our names, you know our faces. That doesn't mean you have a right to come to our homes, right? Especially if you're rando that has nothing to do with anything. That doesn't mean you could publish our home address and you could threaten us, et cetera. And by the way, it doesn't matter if you're left wing or right wing. Apparently, I don't know if Tim Poole is another liar, but if he's telling the truth, then I don't know. I assume that he actually is telling the truth.

Starting point is 00:20:15 You should not assume that. Maybe I'm wrong. But he says he's getting swatted seven, eight times. That's an outrage. That's unacceptable. I don't care who's doing. it, it's unacceptable any way you look at it. But just saying who someone is is not doxing them. That's just not true. So I got an anonymous person during my campaign run who just started putting out out of context videos. And she's like, nope, I demand not to be known. Well, she's an established, democratic establishment act.

Starting point is 00:20:48 And Jake Tapper and all the other idiots in the media were like, I don't care who she is. I'm not going to do any journalism, let's just quote her. just quote her, right? No, you don't get to be anonymous if you're in the public square. So in this case, Taylor Lorenz did go to her house to do reporting. That does, if you're not a reporter, don't pretend that you are, okay? Taylor's an actual reporter and she had no idea. She, by the way, the main story that she broke is that it turns out, yes, it's definitely her. And the reason she broke it is because idiot Glenn Greenwald confirmed it accidentally. Yep. Yeah. Okay, so let's get to the right wing meltdown part of this story. Okay, in fact, why don't we take a break and then get back to it?

Starting point is 00:21:33 Because I do want to give you examples of what they're saying, and I want to debunk the nonsense arguments coming from the likes of Glad and Greenwald. Come right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna, Steve Jowankas, Findsplices, and Heather V. Guys, those are the folks who just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. If we had a million subscribers, we'd be the most powerful force in all of media. So empower us to fight back on your behalf. Everyone who joins does that.

Starting point is 00:22:22 We appreciate it. TYT.com slash join. All right, Anna. So let's get back to the Taylor Lorenz story and get to the specifics on how the right wing is melting down over it. Taylor Lorenz from the Washington Post revealed the identity of the individual behind the account, libs of TikTok. And that led to right wingers completely melting down. And I want to give you examples of people who are upset what their arguments are. And then we're going to debunk a lot of them. First, just to remind you all of what lives of TikTok is all about.

Starting point is 00:23:01 Let's go to Graphic 11 here. Her anti-trans tweets went especially viral. She called on her followers to contact schools that were allowing boys in the girls' bathrooms and pushed the false conspiracy theory that schools were installing litter boxes in bathrooms for children who identify as cats. She also purported that adults who teach children about LGBT. plus identities are abusive, that being gender non-conforming or an ally to the LGBTQ community was a mental illness and referred to schools as government-run indoctrination camps for the

Starting point is 00:23:39 LGBTQ plus community. Now, the woman behind it was basically anonymous until Taylor Lorenz reported on this story and revealed her identity. Her name is Chaya Rachick. Now, her revealing the identity of the person behind the account is what has led to right wingers like Glenn Greenwald, completely melting down about it. He writes this, Taylor Lorenz is about to expose the private citizen behind some anonymous account on Twitter. And when people criticize her for it, she and her friends will claim Taylor is the real victim. And anyone criticizing this type of journalist will be guilty of causing her trauma. So Taylor Lorenz opened up about what it's like to be a female reporter in a

Starting point is 00:24:24 an industry that is not friendly to female reporters. To whine about anyone talking about their lived experience is so pathetic and weak. But that's who Glenn Greenwald is, terminally online, pathetic little clown who went from being a pretty impressive reporter to being someone who we literally dunk on both on air and off the air, because how could you not? But I do want to also go to something interesting about Glenn Greenwald. Let's go to Graphics 16 here. That Binder made sure to emphasize a part of her reporting, Taylor Lorenza's reporting,

Starting point is 00:24:58 that's really relevant to Glenn Greenwald. All of the info in the libs of TikTok piece was already publicly available online, but Taylor had one thing that no one else had, which made the report possible. Glenn Greenwald accidentally confirming her identity. And the excerpt, let's keep that tweet up, says this, when a reporter called the phone number registered to Raychick's real estate profile and Libs of TikTok done, US, the woman who answered hung up after the reporter identified herself. And then later she writes that on Monday night, a tweet from Glenn Greenwald confirmed

Starting point is 00:25:32 the house that was visited belonged to Racheck's family. Oops. Also wanted to add this delicious tweet from Glenn from September 12th of 2020. It's amazing. It's not that long ago and it shows you how much he's changed. So Alex, I'm sorry, this tweet says the following. I don't mind admitting that I find anonymous cowards who spread lies on the internet repulsive. Why wouldn't I? It's an insecure, scared, petty, inconsequential way of living. Oops.

Starting point is 00:26:03 Interesting. Okay, now all of a sudden he says, how dare you out anyone who's anonymous online? I'm a flutter with it. Oh my God, I'm so outraged. Yeah, sure you are, Glenn. God, you've become such a pathetic liar, and it's so obvious. So this is real life consequences. So this lunatic, Chaya Rachik, right chick, let me repeat that.

Starting point is 00:26:29 Her name is Chaya Richik, okay? By the way, don't go to our house, you're not a reporter, okay? And don't do anything in the real world physical to anyone. We're on the left, we're progressives. We actually believe in decency and morality, unlike the right wing, okay? I'm telling you who she is because of what she's doing online. You don't get to hide behind your hood while you go and attack gay people left and right and try to get anyone who's decent to gay people fired.

Starting point is 00:26:56 Right. Okay. So now, so all we're doing is taking her hood off. That's it. Now, she has the crazy conspiracy theory that Anna told you. Many of them, and we talked about it earlier in the show too, some Q&N-like conspiracies. and it's, and of course, the election was stolen, of course, COVID, conspiracy theories, etc. But look at the litter box one that Anna just mentioned, okay?

Starting point is 00:27:23 So the kids are dressing up as furries and they're defecating in the middle of the school, and that's why they had to bring in litter boxes. We've done stories where several different school districts had to put out statements saying, please stop attacking us. Yeah. There are no kids actually dressed up as cats. There are no litter box in the schools. It's total insanity.

Starting point is 00:27:45 It's not at all true. Now, now Glenn Greenwald is coming around and saying, oh, no, no, no, being anonymous while you spread insane conspiracy theories like that, that's awesome. That's free speech, baby. Parents were showing up to school board meetings, and they were hysterical, okay? They were terrified that their children were being offered litter boxes to defecate in, because the school was trying to be accommodating two furries. Why did they think that?

Starting point is 00:28:13 Oh, it turns out the origin of that nonsense was libs of TikTok. And they're, sorry, Jake. And I just love the defenders of that account. Like, what, what? I mean, she's just reposting what libs are putting up on social media. A, that's not true. She's specifically framing them as dangerous, nefarious individuals who are grooming your children. Clearly, she's posting things that are lies like the litter box nonsense.

Starting point is 00:28:39 And then more importantly, listen, media matters literally just takes video clips of what right wingers are saying, they post it. And the reporters, the people who work at media matters, they're not anonymous. They're literally just taking the content, reposting it on their site. And the reason why they're not hiding their identities is because they're doing nothing wrong. They're not taking people out of context. They're not defaming individuals. They don't have to worry about lawsuits because they're not.

Starting point is 00:29:04 defaming individuals, but this individual, right, Chaya Racheck, she is defaming individual. She knows what she's doing. That's why she wanted to remain anonymous. She wanted to go out of her way to get people fired, to destroy people's lives, take away their livelihood with no repercussions, no consequences whatsoever. And now you have a reporter like Taylor Lorenz who had the courage, the balls, and also the journalistic integrity to do her job appropriately and report on this story. And the right wing is not used to anyone fighting back against them effectively. That is why they're having this simultaneous meltdown.

Starting point is 00:29:40 And that's why I'm in a great mood today. I love to see it. I love to see them cope like the little babies that they are. In fact, Jake, why don't we take a little trip to the copium den so we can view it all for ourselves and really enjoy this moment? The pullback is completely off. What was it called by? Oh my goodness. All the networks.

Starting point is 00:30:03 Dumps. They call them dumps. Big massive dumps. Another person in the copium den is Megan McCain. Taylor Lorenz is knocking on doors of relatives and trying to docks anonymous figures from Twitter, but will cry on TV about being harassed. I mean, you, Megan, no one cried on TV more than you did.

Starting point is 00:30:29 I'm the only conservative on the first. It's not there. Are you really gonna call her out for crying on air? Anyway. public hates the press. No, Megan, you're a sociopath. You think there's kids dressing up as furries in schools, there's litter boxes. You think there's child molestation and drinking of blood of children? You think all that lunatic stuff, and you think that this lives of TikTok is some sort of hero to you?

Starting point is 00:31:21 If you think that she's some sort of a journalistic hero and Taylor Lorenz is the bad guy for pointing out who she is, you're the sociopath. So look, there's other parts of this. too, the literal state legislators have gone around with that litter box theory, okay? They've done speeches like, we've got to protect the kid from the litter boxes because the right wing has lost their minds, right? And so, well, how about the school officials that got attacked based on the lies from libs of TikTok? No, but they love it. They love that. Wait, you don't seem concerned about them being outed. No, because they're not.

Starting point is 00:31:55 And they didn't even do anything wrong. You just made up, she just made up stuff about them. They love it. What happened to all the Trump administration officials who were trying to out the person who wrote that anonymous op-ed about Trump? Remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of that going on, but I didn't hear anyone on the right who's currently having a meltdown worry about that at all.

Starting point is 00:32:18 And in regard to Taylor Lorenz showing up at people's houses, listen, maybe you don't know anything about journalism, and that's fine. If that's not the industry you work in, the field of work you do, that's totally fine. It is a common practice. It is a widely used practice. It happens all the time. Now, Megan McCain would know that because she was never a journalist and only received media offers because she happened to be the daughter of a late senator.

Starting point is 00:32:47 Clearly, her on-air commentary was not compelling or interesting or unique. She didn't get those jobs based on merit. And clearly she didn't get those jobs based on journalistic knowledge or integrity. But putting that aside, okay, if people find that a little off-putting, oh, journalists showing up at people's houses to learn more about these stories. I want to go to Alex Thompson's tweet here because he's absolutely right. He's a reporter over at Politico who says, showing up at people's homes is standard journalism that more reporters should do.

Starting point is 00:33:19 Like half of all the president's men is Woodstein showing up at people's home. And let me also remind you that Fox News used to have someone dubbed the ambush guy, and that person still works at Fox News. His name is Jesse Waters. In fact, Jesse Waters bragged about ambushing people in their homes all the time. You put a compilation video together for it. Here's a little snippet from that compilation video. Do you regret verbally abusing Ivanka Trump on the plane? You harassed a woman with her baby on a flight. You proud of that? Real class act, aren't you? Now you're afraid to show your face. I'm giving you an opportunity to apologize, sir. Nothing to say. That was just a person who

Starting point is 00:34:10 said something that wasn't polite to Ivanka Trump, an incredibly powerful person on a commercial flight. He also creepily followed Huffington Post reporter Amanda Turkle around when she was on vacation with her family. But the right wing didn't care about that. That was totally fine. It's the ambush guy. It's the ambush guy. That's totally okay.

Starting point is 00:34:31 Was he going to deflate Amanda's tires? Because he's also a creepy stalker who apparently, that's his idea of getting a date. He just said that last night on his show. So he also showed where that guy lives. Yep. Okay, Taylor Lorenz didn't do that. You did that, Jesse Waters. When they do it, but again.

Starting point is 00:34:50 But it's the ambush guy. Yeah, the right wing doesn't they, guys, I've got to stop trying to make sense of it or trying to talk to them. Because they don't care about logic or reason. They just don't. When Jesse Waters does it, they love it. If they could, they'd go inside that house and show the address. They terrorize that person nonstop. In fact, a lot of the victims of Chaya Reichich have gotten death threats and been harassed.

Starting point is 00:35:16 And the right wing loves it. They love it, right? And then when you say, oh, by the way, the person doing it is this person. Oh, I can't believe you outed someone who was anonymous. Even after Glenn Greenwald, just two years ago, that tweets not from 20 years ago. That was from two years ago when he was like, oh, anonymous people should all be outed. Now he's like, oh my God, it's the biggest crime there is. You're just so pathetic, all of you.

Starting point is 00:35:41 And so I want to go back to something that just happened. state senator Mallory Macaro in in Michigan gave an impassioned speech finally fighting back. It was so good to see a Democrat fight back for like the first time ever, right? And why? Because lunatic Republican state senator Lana Theas. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, I can't. IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era.

Starting point is 00:36:21 It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. Had said that the fellow state senator had, quote, put our children in danger and that McMorro was outraged that they can't teach, they can't groom and sexualize kindergartners or that eight-year-olds are responsible for slavery. Do you guys now get it? The way that she intentionally framed people as groomers, as people who want to groom children. So it's not the same as what Media Matters does, where they just repost right-wing content to make a point about what right-wingers are saying. She specifically would frame people as these dangerous, nefarious individuals who should lose their love. livelihoods simply because of who they are as members of the LGBTQ community.

Starting point is 00:37:15 And honestly, one other thing I just want to say, and then I'll end it in terms of my commentary. The members of the left, and yes, I'm calling out media members on the left, specifically online media people, who have decided that they'd rather pander to right wingers who do not share our values and certainly don't give a damn about unions, they don't give a damn about economic justice. They don't give a damn about ensuring that workplaces are better for the ordinary American worker. They'd rather pander to those clowns by just minimizing these kinds of stories. Minimize, minimize. They're uncomfortable with the LGBTQ community. We don't want to make them uncomfortable. Yes, we want to make them uncomfortable. They're not our allies.

Starting point is 00:37:58 They're not our allies. Because guess what? A work environment that fires people for who they are because of their identities, because of the fact that they're part of the LGBTQ community, that's not a workplace. I want to support. That's not a good working condition that I would be in favor of. And these clowns, look, it's about you appealing to the right wing. It's not at all about fighting for economic justice. I just want to call that out. I don't need to name names. Everyone knows who I'm talking about. Okay, so my last thing is, now it is spread from lives of TikTok and other social media influencers in Laura Ingram and Tucker Carlson to actual Republican legislators like the ones that I, Lanathias that I just told you about.

Starting point is 00:38:41 And she's accusing other state legislators of being groomers for pedophilia with no evidence, of course, just lunatic, really dangerous stuff. And mainly because they say, yeah, it's okay to say in school that someone is gay or or that gay people exist. And now you get called a groomer for that, right? So, no, we're going to fight back against that. I love that Senator McMurro gave a speech about it and said, no, you don't get to call me that and I don't fight back.

Starting point is 00:39:18 And the reason I'm mentioning that is twofold. One is lives of TikTok, isn't just like, oh, some poor innocent babe in the woods. Oh, I was just sitting here sending out flowers and roses and rainbows. when all of a sudden I was outed by the evil Taylor Lorenz. No, she's a despicable person spreading hate throughout the country. But the second reason is, to Anna's point, Democrats, people on the left, will you for God's sake, stand up, stand up.

Starting point is 00:39:45 The fascists are already here. Okay, so, and just fight back, man, and fight back with principles, with journalism, with integrity. but don't just sit in a corner afraid that they're going to attack you next on social media. That's exactly how the fascists win. No, it's amazing. Again, this will be the final thing I say. Your posts, puffing your chest up as if you're like the next Che Guevara is pathetic

Starting point is 00:40:18 when you cower the second the right wing decides to come after the left. I'm not here for it, okay? Don't be posing as some sort of revolutionary if you're going to cower in the face of the worst individuals who want to further disenfranchise the powerless in this country. You ain't no revolutionary, you're a joke. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys and also Brian Clemmas and Matthew H. Brian and Matthew, now a member of the Young Turks and helping us do the show. We all do the show together and we love it that way.

Starting point is 00:41:10 So hit the join button below on YouTube if you want to join them or go to t.com slash join, Anna. Well, Israeli aggression against Palestinians has not gotten any better. Israel has launched a strike in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli defense forces are claiming that they did it specifically to target a weapons manufacturing site in the area. Now, luckily, no one is reported to be injured, no fatalities in this specific attack, but you can't take that story on its own as an isolated incident. this is a continuation of the ongoing violence in, you know, toward the Palestinians, especially during this time of the year where you have all these religions converging. TYT had reported earlier last week, in fact, that the Alaksa Mosque was targeted yet again by Israeli forces and the attacks continued throughout the weekend.

Starting point is 00:42:11 Now, I want to give you some more details on that. Before we do, why don't we take a look at this report first, which describes how the Alaksa mosque was attacked. Thousands of Muslims gathered at the Alaksa mosque site in Jerusalem for Friday prayers. Witnesses say a small group of them started throwing rocks at Israeli police. Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, entering the mosque grounds and making hundreds of arrests. The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service

Starting point is 00:42:46 said it treated more than 150 people for injuries. Israeli forces said three of their officers were wounded in the exchange. Neighboring Jordan and the Palestinian Authority blamed Israel for escalating the situation. This oppression and this barbarism by the occupation repressed our people and empty the Al-Aksam mosque compound

Starting point is 00:43:09 while all the world was watching. We condemn this. Now before the attacks toward the Alaksa Mosque and those who were worshipping there, Hamas had warned that any incidents at the mosque, a site revered by Muslims and Jews would be a red line after Israeli forces raided the site in occupied East Jerusalem several times in recent days, arresting hundreds of Palestinians and leaving dozens injured. And from the report that we showed you, I just want to emphasize, if we take the IDF's account of things at face value, they're claiming, well, there were some people who threw rocks at us. So we responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. And raiding their moss. It's the same thing over and over again. We cannot ignore the fact that this is an asymmetrical situation.

Starting point is 00:44:02 Okay, the military capability, the weaponry on one side is very different from what power. Palestinians are using to fight back, citing rocks as justification for using rubber bullets toward individuals who are praying at this mosque, it doesn't make any sense to me. But the Alaksa Mosque assaults left 158 people injured as Israeli police arrested over 450 Palestinians. And I do want to just emphasize that all these religious holidays have converged, including Ramadan for Muslims, of course, Passover for Jewish people. and it's also Holy Week for Christians.

Starting point is 00:44:39 And it's just a recipe for disaster. But I also want to emphasize at the end of the day, this is not just about religion. This is a point that Francesca made on the show recently. This is really about power. This is about land. That's what this is really about. And citing religion is a way of turning Palestinians into the dangerous others. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:01 All right. So first off, you notice a couple of people through rocks. they arrested 450 people. Were they all throwing rocks? No, of course not. But were they all Palestinians? Yeah. So if you're a Muslim Palestinian,

Starting point is 00:45:16 who cares if you were throwing a rock or not? We're just going to arrest you. Why? Because you're our prisoners. And we get to do anything we want to our prisoners. So look, they've had this occupation now for decades, over 50 years now. So you're never going to let them go.

Starting point is 00:45:34 Let's be honest about what it is. the Palestinians are your hostages. And every once in a while, a hostage gets restless. And then you go kick the living crap out of them, you imprison them, you bulldoze their house. No, you don't get to complain that the hostages are not cooperating with their own kidnapping. Let them go. When are you ever going to end the occupation? If you say, no, no, no, we can't end it now because Muslims are too dangerous.

Starting point is 00:46:11 You're a bigot and you just don't know it. Why can't you end the occupation? Why? Oh, no, they'll attack us for sure. You know how they are. Do I? Do I? You think 1.6 billion people are all the same way? By the way, I don't know if you know that. That's exactly what the bad guy said about you guys.

Starting point is 00:46:28 Okay? Oh, they're all that way. They're all that way. You can't trust them. You can't trust them. Let them go. Let them go. Millions of people held hostage. And then every time one of them complains,

Starting point is 00:46:42 oh yeah, they made us do it. They made us crack their skulls. They made us kill them. They made us invade their sacred places because they wouldn't just sit down and be good little hostages. So end the goddamn occupation. Now look, despite the fact that I'm livid over the occupation and how long it's lasted and how criminal it is.

Starting point is 00:47:04 It is literally criminal. Okay, I'm still going to do our jobs and do it right. I'll give credit to one thing that the IDF is doing. They have been making attempts in recent months to clamp down on illegal building of settlements, and they're trying to return the settlement moving to the days of the 2005 disengagement, according to press reports. That is good. And of course, that has riled up the settlers who are religious fanatics and who thinks,

Starting point is 00:47:32 No, no, no, no. The mythical creature gave it to me, gave that land to me thousands of years ago. How do you know? I don't know, I spoke to the mythical creature, and he says it's my land and I'm chosen. And so I'm going to ruin the lives of the people that already live there, and I'm going to commit violence against them. The fact that the IDF has gone 1% towards reeling them back in is good news. But you've got 99% of the way to go, and what Israel has done so far is not remotely good enough.

Starting point is 00:47:59 And by the way, they replaced the loathsome right-wing tyrant Benjamin Netanyahu with another right-winger. Neftali Bennett. Neftali Bennett, doing very similar things that Netanyahu did. And Neftali Bennett, of course, has always been a right-winger and has said loathsome things about Palestinians because he's also a bigot. I also wanted to just provide the reporting that you were alluding to, Jank. Deutschewella had reported that the IDF is trying to clamp. down on the illegal settlements. They write also on Tuesday, further clashes erupted when a group of Israeli settlers were allowed to march in protest through the West Bank over the destruction

Starting point is 00:48:40 of a settlement. The IDF has been making some attempts in recent months to clamp down on illegal building and return the settlement movement to the days of the 2005 disengagement. But I also want to talk about the reality on the ground, especially during the coronavirus. coronavirus pandemic, so you can understand like the severity of this occupation and the impact it's having on innocent people. Because of the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, and this has been ongoing for quite some time now, which is considered to be in violation of international law, as well as Israeli blockades and security buffer zones, people in Gaza and the West

Starting point is 00:49:21 Bank have been crowded into increasingly small pieces of land. This has resulted in major shortages of medicine, water, and up. other critical supplies, a situation exacerbated by the pandemic, which is why, again, going back to how I originally started talking about this story, you can't take one isolated incident and have a thought just on that. You have to take the entire story and all the context, all of the brutality that comes along with this type of occupation into account to understand any individual incident that takes place. Okay, and let's keep it real. So I love the Ukrainian people and I love that they're fighting back against the Russians.

Starting point is 00:50:01 And good, the West agrees with me. And they hate the occupation of eastern Ukraine by the Russians. Tell me how that's different than what Israel's doing. They're occupying Palestinian territories and saying, we're not going to give it to you, even though everyone living there is Palestinian. We're going to keep it. And we're going to keep that occupation forever. Tell me how it's different.

Starting point is 00:50:24 It's not different. Even if it's about you, it doesn't make it different. and it doesn't make it right. Okay, so look, if you love Israel, making it an international pariah, isn't helping your cause. Being morally wrong isn't helping your cause. Keeping millions of hostages for

Starting point is 00:50:46 decade after decade after decade and saying we're never going to release them because we think they are too violent by nature and we're going to be racist against them. Isn't helping your cause. It's not giving, getting a lot of love for Israel across the world. And look, there's a real deep anti-Semitism in the world and in America right now. And I'm incredibly scared of it. It's rising up, it's bubbling up,

Starting point is 00:51:12 and it's from the right wing, and they've lost their minds. In the midst of all that, it doesn't help Israel or anyone else to be like, oh yeah, yeah, let's just brutalize millions of people and say they're just, they're below, they're beneath us. They need to be occupied as prisoners because they're beneath us. It doesn't help you. For God's sake, turn around. All right, let's do one more story before we end the first hour. A second hour is going to be fantastic, so don't miss it.

Starting point is 00:51:42 But first, let's discuss Trump saying something right for a change in regard to the Russian invasion into Ukraine. Trump released a new statement through his PAC, his political action committee, and shockingly, for I think the first time, he was right on the Russian invasion into Ukraine. This is definitely not something that we're used to with Trump. Usually he goes out of his way to defend Putin regardless of what he does. But in his statement, he writes, it doesn't make sense that Russia and Ukraine aren't sitting down and working out some kind of agreement. If they don't do it soon, there will be nothing left but death. destruction and carnage. This is a war that never should have happened, but it did. The solution can never be as good as it would have been before the shooting started, but there is a solution and it should be figured out now, not later, when everyone will be dead. So look, there's nothing objectionable in that statement. That's why I caught my attention. And look, credit where credit is due. When he's right, he's right, we'll give him credit for it. I don't know what motivated him

Starting point is 00:52:49 putting out a statement like this, considering he's been so friendly to Putin. In fact, even after the invasion, he referred to Putin as a genius and he was very smart for doing this. So maybe he's thinking about how unpopular those positions are, even among the right wing. And he's considering how those positions could hurt him in 2024. I don't know. That might be one of his motivations. But there's another part to this that I thought was interesting. Because while for the first time he seems to have a take that makes sense, It doesn't matter. The majority of Americans actually think he's better suited to lead on this issue as opposed to Joe Biden, who I think has actually handled it pretty well. He's been measured. He hasn't sent troops on the ground, which would be a disaster. But nonetheless, the data from a Harris ex-pull shared exclusively with Newsweek concludes that while 42% of voters say that Trump's policies are more to blame about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 58% blame, Biden.

Starting point is 00:53:49 That makes no sense. No sense at all. The poll results largely break down along party lines. Among independents, 66% blame Biden and 34% blame Trump. Okay, so there's a lot to say there. So first of all, why is Donald Trump saying something reasonable? Well, the reason he's put out that statement is because he has to pretend that he's a tough guy that if he was in office, Russia would have never invaded because they would have been so scared

Starting point is 00:54:13 of him. Scared of him doing what? starting a terrible disastrous, probably nuclear war, right? But he also has an anti-war position that his base loves and some of the left love. So how is he going to square that? If you actually ask him about it, he'll go, be-de-de-bebe-de-le, right? So he puts out the statement to go, oh, yeah, I would have just found a way to get them to do a deal, because I'm already the deal, I would have gotten a deal, okay? Now, why would anybody believe Trump that he would have

Starting point is 00:54:45 have handled this better when he handled everything like a lunatic when he was in office. So I get the right wing. They like that stuff. They're like, oh yeah, we don't like war, but it would have been great to nuke them. What? Okay, it doesn't matter. Don't ever try to talk to them. But when it comes to the independence, that number is real. That means they actually tricked independence into thinking that Trump would handle this better than Biden. Okay, so that is very dangerous because that means in an election, they're likely to side with Trump instead of Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee is. So that's where we get to Democratic incompetence. So look, Joe Biden has been miserable on domestic policy. He's lie after lie. Oh, I'm going to

Starting point is 00:55:25 relieve student debt. Man, it's just flat out lied about it. So I'm no fan of Joe Biden. Anyone who watches the show knows I lied into Biden all the time and I just did right there. But he has handled Ukraine well. You have to be fair. He did not get us into a disastrous war, but he has hurt Russia so that the Ukrainians have a chance. And he did it with economic sanctions that actually got to the oligarchs and caused them pain. And got to Putin and caused them pain. He has handled it really well. Yet he's sitting there at a 34% approval on this issue, you know, vis-a-vis Trump with independence. Well, that's because they can't message their way out of a wet paper bag. They're just so incompetent.

Starting point is 00:56:08 Yeah, there's that, I think you're right about that because, look, Trump and the right wing repeated over and over again, and repetition works, that Trump is the tough guy, he's the strong man, he would have handled this better. It doesn't even need any evidence to back up, to back it up. Just repeat it over and over again, and then people just start believing it. It's kind of insane how easily that works. But also, Biden is the president right now, and the invasion happened under his watch. So naturally people are going to blame him for it, even though he has absolutely no way of controlling Putin and preventing him from doing this invasion, Putin was already dealing with Russian sanctions and all of that. There are now more sanctions. I wish they were a little more aggressive, especially pertaining to the fossil fuels and all of that. But European countries rely on fossil fuels coming from Russia.

Starting point is 00:57:01 But anyway, putting all of that aside, I think we have to take into account. that people think about politics in a very simplistic way oftentimes. And that's just, that's why the poll resulted with what we see. The premise of the question is absurd to begin with. So who is more responsible? I guess I would say Trump because he told Zelensky, I'm not going to help you with the Russians and missiles and defense unless you give me some made up nonsense about Hunter Biden, right?

Starting point is 00:57:32 He withheld the military. Yeah, so Trump is more. responsible than Biden. But neither one of them are responsible. Putin's responsible. So it's kind of a weird question. And look, we're, look, you can see with your own eyes, we're fair. Is it Trump's fault that the war began? No, he didn't help any, and he hurt around the edges, but it's Putin's fault. Trump didn't make him invade Ukraine. That's absurd, right? So, but the number one problem I have here is Biden is getting clobbered

Starting point is 00:58:04 in every poll whether it's economic, foreign policy, you name it. And he thinks he's winning. I mean, and the Democrats, they're just totally clueless. And they think, oh no, everything's going to be okay.

Starting point is 00:58:20 Everything is not going to be okay. If Donald Trump becomes the president again, we know for a fact he's not going to relinquish the position. You saw it with own eyes last time. He started a goddamn riot and wanted to have fake electors ready to overthrow our democracy. He's seriously considered martial law. He's not going to ever leave office. And they keep thinking, oh, no, no, it's the Titanic can't sink. America is so strong.

Starting point is 00:58:48 America can't sink. Well, no, we're on the edge of having a fascist win the presidency again. And the Democrats are whistling past the graveyard. Just couldn't care less, not fighting back totally and utterly impotent. All right, well, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including Texas governor Greg Abbott trying to flex on his immigration policies, even though the right wing is super skeptical. He's not right wing enough. It's amazing.

Starting point is 00:59:20 And later in the show, we'll lighten things up and have a little fun. But for now, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at t-y-t. I'm your host, Jan Kheuger, and I'll see you soon.

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