The Young Turks - War Drums

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation on Monday, giving a lengthy speech in which he aired national grievances and laid out the historical claims he believes Russia has to Ukraine. Tulsi Gabbard’s newly-announced speaking appearance at CPAC draws ridicule. Trump's new social media app has 'technical problems.' Michigan coach Juwan Howard punched a Wisconsin Coach. A proposed Tennessee bill would designate some gun owners as law enforcement. Progressive Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman is shaking up the Democratic Establishment. Hosts: Cenk Uygur, David Shuster 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. All right, well, all right, well, the young Turks, Jake, or David Schuster with you guys today. Has Russia invaded Ukraine? Kind of, maybe, I guess, but I'm not sure. We're going to find out in this second. David's going to tell us all about that.

And of course, David's Star Rebel Headquarters on TYT Network. You should check that out. And later in the program, AOC versus Tucker Carlson, that's a heavyweight fight. David, how are you doing, brother? Jack, I'm doing great. Other than the story we're going to talk about a little bit later, about a little trouble for one of my favorite basketball coaches, the head coach of the University of Michigan, Joanne Howard.

That's a tough one. And you know what, I also grew up in Bloomington, Indiana was there for the Bobby Knight chair throwing. So I can't wait to talk Big Ten basketball with you. Okay, but it's gonna be a great chill. That sounds good. Unfortunately, that has a racial component to it too. All right, so David, are we at war? Take it away.

Let's start with some international news. The crisis over Ukraine has again intensified, thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He gave a lengthy speech today in which he aired out Russian grievances, made historical claims to Ukraine. and then announced that Russia will recognize the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. I deem it necessary to make a decision that should have been made a long time ago, to immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic. In case anybody missed the translation there, Putin then held a signing ceremony with documents recognizing the independence of the two regions, and here is the English play-by-play, as reported by R.T.

Vladimir Putin is signing the executive decree on recognition of the Donets People's Republic. President of the Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin, signing the executive decree on recognition the Lugansk People's Republic. And he analysts believe that the move could be a pretext to a Russian invasion and occupation of those two regions in Ukraine. Meanwhile, as the Washington Post reports, troops continue to gather near the Ukraine border, suggesting at the window for a diplomatic resolution of the crisis is closing and striking a discordant note from Sunday's news that President Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had agreed in principle to meet. The summit was proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron during separate calls with Biden and Putin on Sunday.

Officials in Paris and Washington said the talks would go ahead only if Moscow doesn't attack. Russian officials were ambiguous about whether the summit would go ahead. had Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said money that they're not concrete plans for Russia U.S. summit. Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan struck a pessimistic court in comments to ABC News on Monday morning. We never give up hope on diplomacy until the missiles fire the tank's roll, he said, but the likelihood there's a diplomatic solution given the troop movements of the Russians is diminishing hour by hour. In time, the head of NATO is now condemning Russia's latest actions. I condemn Russia's decision to extend recognition to the self-proclaimed Donets people

Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, said Danae Secretary General John Steltenberg. This further undermines Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, erodes efforts towards a resolution of the conflict and violates the Minsk agreements to which Russia's a party. His statement went on to again accuse Russia of seeking a pretext to invade Ukraine. But at least as of the moment, Jack, there's been no invasion, just perhaps even more pressure on Ukraine to see how they might respond. Okay, this is very mixed news. So I'm gonna break down both sides in a second.

But first, the usual needless comical notes. So in that video of him standing the papers, I wasn't sure that there was enough space between the deaths. Maybe a little further apart so they can't see each other at all. What is, have two deaths ever been further apart? Anyway, in the same room. And secondly, I don't see his fest of his poll even though he aired an hour of grievances. Now, having said all that, let's get to the meat of the matter, which is significant. So on the one hand, David, good news in that Russia did not cross the border, yet at least.

And America's been saying now for weeks, any minute now, any second now, they're gonna invade, they're gonna invade. They've been saying the next couple of days for at least two weeks, maybe three. And the last couple of days, they've been saying literally any hour now Russia was going to invade. Now, they didn't. So that is good news number one. On the other hand, saying that those two regions are, should be independent states is not a good sign. And so Russia had to mass about 190,000 troops on the border. They have not retreated.

They're still there as far as the latest updates are concerned. And this was a very bad speech by Russia. So we thought that there was some chance that America was largely bluffing for a great number of reasons that we explained over the last several weeks and that we were provoking Russia more than anything else. We were hopeful that if we just said that Ukraine would not be in NATO, that it would largely resolve the matter. And that's the main thing that Putin was longing for.

But David, it appears, no, that was not the main thing that he was looking for. That's certainly among the things he was looking for, but declaring these two regions independent republics is a very dangerous sign of more territorial ambitions and perhaps imminent war. And it raises the specter that rather than a full scale invasion that goes all the way to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, maybe it's just a Russian incursion into these particular regions where there is already strong Russian support, but the Ukrainian central government would argue, so what? You could go to any part of any country and find a majority population that might support or have some affinity for its neighbors that doesn't necessarily mean it should be part of a different country. There was one troubling development that I saw over the weekend, Jank, and that is never mind the ambiguity from the Russians about whether or not they would attend this summit. But they were actually supposed to pull back tens of thousands of troops that were stationed at one particular area along the Ukraine border that Russians that said participated in an exercise that was now over. And then the Russians said, well, because we have a lot of tensions there, we're keeping those troops. And those troops are the ones that would have the easiest route to get to the capital of Kiev.

So it's alarming on all sorts of levels. Yeah, so one of our members just wrote in, and we love doing the show with you guys, t.yt.com slash join to become a member and be part of the show. Trigger incarnate wrote in. Jack, Russia is sending in peacekeepers into the two. And I would add quote marks around republics, right? But that part's not clear, guys. Yes, he's saying that.

But America is saying that they have that Russia has not crossed the border and they are sanctioning those two republics, but curiously not sanctioning Russia itself. And so I know why they're not sanctioning Russia because they want to reserve that for an actual border crossing. And if that happens, then they're gonna hit him with every sanction imagine. Although now Democrats and Republicans are pushing Biden. So we just had representative John Germendi, who is a Democrat from California, was on television on CNN's newsroom, saying that Biden should do more.

Of course, chief warmonger Lindsey Graham, saying that Russia, that Biden needs to do more to attack Russia, whether it's through sanctions or other measures. So there are people chomping at the bit for war on our side, and that is not a good sign. But as far as we know, I don't know what it means for him to have sent in peacekeepers. The one thing I do know is they're not peacekeepers. You don't keep the peace by putting your troops into somebody else's territory. That's true of Russia, by the way, also true of the United States. We often send ground troops to countries pretending that they're peacekeepers.

But the thing, my most important takeaway from this, David, is overall, this is pretty bad news. Yeah, they didn't send the troops yet, but declaring them independent regions as clearly territorial implications, obviously already, and territorial potential ambitions. And does it look like Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union? Well, that was a lot of his speech was about how Russia used to be bigger, badder, and that they need to go back to having more of that territory. And that is a terrible sign for the world. Well, Jake, I got to ask you one thing. I mean, a lot of people are confused about, well, what is it that, you know, what is it the Russians really want in Ukraine?

And the answer is it's not so much what they want in Ukraine. It's just that, I mean, Putin presumably is afraid that because Ukraine, since it got its independence from Russia from the Soviet Union, has become more Western oriented and looking, There's this fear that Putin has that Russia, the Russians might show more discontent. And if they see Ukraine being more successful as an independent autonomous state from Russia as it has been, than that somehow emboldens Putin's enemies from within. I sort of wonder if that is really sort of how that changes now. And what do you think in terms of how Ukraine should respond? Should Ukraine go ahead and recognize, okay, Russian has made these claims, we need some time to think about it, or do they just flat out reject it and take their chances?

No, they have to reject it. It's absurdity to consider this. And this was exactly the problem with this slippery slope when they took Crimea. And a lot of people were like, well, it's ethnically Russian, let's let it go. Well, you let it go and then this happens. And it's creeping imperialism from the Russian side. So look, what America, Europe, and the rest of the world does if the Russian troops cross the border is a different question. And I think sanctions are, especially for the oligarchs and for Putin himself are very merited,

perhaps cutting off the pipeline in Germany, et cetera. I would hope that no military action happens because those are two biggest nuclear powers in the world, obviously, and that is nothing but disaster for all of us. But I've got to clarify a couple of things here, to the point of David's question. The legitimate concerns of Putin, in my opinion, are, hey, NATO's now all over our border, and Ukraine is as closer country to Russia as there is, and then making them part of your military alliance is unacceptable, and putting missiles in there pointed at us is unacceptable. Now, the reality is I've always found the missile argument to be absurd because all of our

missiles can reach Russia and all of their missiles can reach us. They don't, we don't need to be on anybody's border to reach those countries. But yes, countries historically have cared a lot about that, including the United States. We've told you many times we nearly started World War III because the Russians put missiles in Cuba. So that was us reacting in a almost literally thermonuclear way when Russia did something similar in expanding their military alliance near our borders. So those are legitimate concerns of Putin. The illegitimate concerns are, well, Russia used to have a lot of territory, and now we don't,

and now I'd like some of it back. No, that is not remotely legitimate. It is, that's how you start World War III. It is imperialism. And for the weirdo biased people who, historically America has had a news industry that's completely biased towards America. In fact, CNN cut off Putin's speech today. It's not just historic, it's today, he's doing Russian propaganda.

Yeah, he's the leader of Russia, cutting him off and not erring his side of the question as we might enter a gigantic war is deeply irresponsible. It's not news, it's you being biased, saying America's always right, and we don't even want you to hear the other side. So that is clearly true, but there is now contingent in America who are say no, Russia is right about everything. And if they want territory, of course, there's a couple of Russians in there. Of course they should take it, right? That's absurd and equally ridiculous, more ridiculous. So here I can give you easy examples. Okay, what if Mexico said, we should have New Mexico.

That's historically ours. It even has the word Mexico in it. Well, those things would be very true. Then what if they turned down and said, well, ethnically it's an enormous percentage of the people living there are Latino and very specifically originally ethnically Mexican. Well, that's also true. Okay, so under that logic, should we give New Mexico back?

And I know some of you right now will be saying, uh huh, right? But no, no, we should not give New Mexico back because it's, well, for a thousand reasons, but also because this is how the world destabilizes. In case you need one more example, I'll give one for my own ethnic background. Well, the Ottoman Turks controlled a giant percentage of the world. stretching into North Africa, almost all of Eastern Europe, almost all of the Middle East and into Russia. What if the Turks then went, okay, I'd like Israel back, and I'd like Egypt back, and I'd like parts of Russia back. Well, and by the way, there's tons of ethnic Turks in the former Soviet Union.

The Turkic people dominate the Central Asian Republicans that used to be part of the Soviet Union. What if Turkey goes, I'll take Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, it's got the word Turk in it in the title of the of the country, Turkmenistan. So you can see easily how this would devolve. China gets in and everybody will make claims and will be at endless wars. So what I think Putin announced today is a very, very dangerous for world peace. It also means that the next big political gathering in the United States suddenly has a foreign policy contingent to it. So let's talk about that.

The conservative political action conference, or CPAC is getting underway later this week in Florida. The speakers will include Republicans Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Lauren Bobert, and others. There's also a Democrat now on the speaking list. CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp just tweeted this, confirmed Tulsi Gabbard. Schlapp's announcement describes her as a 2020 presidential candidate and former congresswoman. At least back then, she was a Democrat, as media I put it. Gabbard's record of Congress included voting with former President Donald Trump, 20.1% of the time, according to 538. However, she has been critical of the Democratic Party, has made numerous appearances on Tucker Carlson tonight and other Fox News programs like Trump. Gabbert is doveish on military intervention.

Gabbert hasn't exactly been a favorite to the American conservative union, as Noah Rothman wrote on Twitter, quote, sure, she's weak on taxes, the budget spending, energy, the environment, labor issues, government, integrity, transparency, and human dignity, part of the ACU. But she slags on Biden on TV, and that's what's really important. Through the years, there have been a handful of Democrats who have appeared at CPAC. This has included former Bill Clinton advisor, Paul Begala at the event in 2013. Former Dennis, former Representative Dennis Kucinich appeared in 2015. Former Obama advisor and current CNN commentator Van Jones was there in 2019. Still, the Gabbard appearance seems a bit different, particularly when it comes to the neocons and their position in Ukraine. Tulsi Gabbard wrote on Twitter, what are we trying to achieve in Ukraine?

How will it benefit the American people and at what cost? The Biden administration has never answered these questions. inflation and cost of living will drastically increase, Russia will retaliate, and no one knows where it will all end. Jack, has it ended for Tulsi Gabbard as far as the Democratic Party is concerned? Oh, yeah, of course. So, but honestly, it had ended for her back when she was pretending to be a progressive. They already hated her for being a progressive. So that ship had sailed a long time ago. The question is, can people stop calling her a progressive? And they answer now is obvious. Of course, she's no longer anywhere near progressive. Apparently she was

pretending the whole time. That voting record is greatly misleading because that was while she was pretending to be a progressive and doing that particular racket, as it turns out in her case. Now, we had caught onto this early on, David, that her positions were actually far more conservative than people realized. And Anna was leading the charge in pointing this out. And we looked back at the table. I thought it was two years ago. It turns out it was nearly three years ago that Anna started pointing this out. And I want to show you this clip so you can see who's right, who's wrong. You know, back then when Anna said this, she took a ton of critique. How dare you?

Tulsi is a progressive and is a better progressive than Bernie Sanders. All these hilarious things is now you see Tulsi Gabbard running fully into the arms of Tucker Carlson, CPAC, and every loathsome right wing group. Remember these words from Anna back then. But it would be misleading and unfair to my audience if I pretended there weren't some concerns for progressives. Most of the worries I personally have center on Tulsi's foreign policy. views. While she's clear in her disdain for military intervention in the name of regime change,

she is supportive of the war against terror. Think about how many interventions the U.S. has found itself in since the Bush administration, all in the name of fighting terrorism, right? So I'm not just talking about Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm talking about major military operations in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, right? These were all done in the name of fighting terror. There have also been U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Mali, Syria, Libya, and West African airstrikes in Nigeria. Have those military actions ended global terrorism? Of course not.

Tulsi's hawkishness toward terror has led her to support military actions I, along with many other progressives, disagree with. Torture tactics like waterboarding, which were given the euphemism of enhanced interrogations, was something that Tulsi was supportive of. So Anna did an 18 minute segment there filled with receipts of Tulsi's actual quotes, etc. So David in a sense her right-way inclinations had been hiding underneath her progressive marketing efforts all throughout and there was a unifying theme to it. When it comes to Russia, she says we should not intervene. Now when it comes to Russia

intervening in Ukraine, she seems to mind that less. But Whenever she talks about how we should bomb countries, almost every time they're Muslim countries. When she talks about how we should torture detainees and call it enhanced interrogation, it's almost always Muslim detainees. And so now she's gone further right wing against more immigration, against more of the progressive priorities. And I have not seen her push any progressive ideas in basically over a year. She, by the way, one of the, her turns towards conservatism was when she endorsed Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders after she left Democratic primaries in 2020.

Well, Joe Biden is far more conservative Bernie Sanders. That doesn't make any sense if you're pretending to be a progressive. And so we just now have the culmination of this trek that we told you about three years ago, and we were right because we weren't speculating, we had already seen the facts that others couldn't quite discern. They were there in hiding in plain sight the whole time, and she got more and more conservative because she was looking for a new racket. Also seems like she got more and more intoxicated with the attention that she was getting

by being on Tucker Carlson's show and the rest. I mean, she's not exactly known as an intellectual influencer, she was never that way necessarily the Democratic Party, but here she is suddenly Republicans get to hold her up. Conservatives hold her up as, oh, somebody has come back to the conservative way of thinking. And even if she really has in some issues, I wonder if it also goes to show just how shallow things have become in the conservative movement that just because somebody is famous for being on Tucker Carlson's show, now they get a speaking slot at CPAP. Yeah, but look, remember, there's a litmus test going on Tucker Carlson's show.

You have to agree to agree with them on everything. I know because they tried to get me on the show several times. And I told them that I would not agree to the things I don't agree to. A very, very simple test, right? And so they said, no, that's it. We don't want you on. So the Jimmy Doors, the Glenn Greenwalds, and the Tulsi Gabbards, they're on Tucker Carlson's show repeatedly.

You will notice that they never disagree with him. They're not allowed to disagree with him. They're basically sold their soul and are saying, yes, if I go on here, I know I'll get more followers, more paid subscribers. They'll almost all be right wing. And that's the deal that they've made. And in return, what Tulsi and the other's offer is, oh my God, Tucker and Donald Trump and CPAC and all of you,

loathsome conservatives, you are right about everything. I am from the left. And I will tell you that from the left, the right is right about everything. So that's the scam. It's an obvious scam. And by the way, they use up these people until it's obvious that it's a scam. they throw him away. Look at Dave Rubin. He was the first to do that scam. I am a classical liberal. And I will tell you as a classical liberal that the right wing is right about everything,

right? And, and you know, the idiots like Bill Maher and the others are like, oh, well, this is a real sign. This is a real sign that the left is going towards the right, that the right was right all along. And so they get catfish like that. Some of them wittingly, some of them unwittingly. But Rubens now used up. So then they first they did the liberal thing with them. Then they had to betray every identity he had. Then they had him attack gay Americans saying that they're starting fires. What it's insanity. Now he's, you know, making references to his Jewish culture. It's disgusting. So same thing for Glenn Greenwald, who's a former shell of his former self. This is one of the saddest things I've ever seen. Because in that group, he's the only one that had a real career, right? And so now they'll use Tulsi for his long.

as it makes sense and they'll give her some crumbs off their table and she'll eat those up. And I guess she'll be satisfied with the fame and the money that she's gotten. But understand, even back when she was pretending to be a progressive, she was just trying to find an angle, okay? She never meant any of that. And she doesn't mean what she's saying now. She doesn't care. The only thing I've ever seen her mean is how much she hates Muslims. how much she likes herself. I mean, we should all marry somebody who loves himself as much as Tulsi Galbert loves herself.

I mean, it just feels like Tulsi's always been about Tulsi. When it was time to, when it was cool to be a progressive, there she was. Then it was, when it was time to look for a job in the Biden administration, there she was supporting Joe Biden. Now in order to keep her flame going, it's, well, okay, sure, I'll go to CPAC, it's sad. Yeah, and in case you're wondering why the random hatred of Muslims from someone who was pretending to be on the left, and she couldn't even contain her Even when she was pretending to be on the left, she's like,

but we really should torture the Muslims. Okay, let's just be clear. And we should drone strike the hell out of them. Because I'm against war. It's because she's in a fundamentalist Hindu cult. It does not speak for all Hindus, not by a long shot, literally not by stretch of billions of people, okay? But she's in a particular fundamentalist cult.

And it appears that's where it's coming from. That's where it's coming from, but I don't really care. I don't know if it's because of that or she, you know, just whatever her personal proclivities are. The thing that matters is what she actually advocates for and what she has advocated for consistently is anti-Muslim hatred. And now she's gone full right wing and will be celebrated at CPAC. I can, I'll tell you ahead of time what she's going to say the left wing, I'm in the left wing, and I can guarantee you they're wrong about everything. And the right way is right about everything. And she'll get a standing ovation from a bunch of schmucks who believe that stuff for a couple of years until they throw her in the garbage can.

I'm with you. Okay. See, Pat's gonna be fun. Oh boy, yes. All right, now, speaking of fun, when we come back, Donald Trump's social media outlet is out, but is it? How much of a debacle is that? And it looks like we got some updates on Russia. Let me read up on it and I'll give that to you when we come back.

All right, back on CYT, Jank and David, with you guys. So an update has just gotten in while we're doing the show live. Putin has ordered peacekeeping troops into the two so-called breakaway regions. until Russia declared them breakaway regions. They really weren't. They were part of Ukraine. Everybody considered them part of Ukraine, the entire international community. And now it looks like Putin is trying to take more territory back for Russia.

And so as we speak now, we're live on the air, it is unclear if those ground troops have moved in. But the latest update is that Russia has ordered so-called peacekeeping troops. And you do not cross a border to keep the peace. You cross a border to start a war. So that's the latest from Russia. All right, David, let's do the next story. Jank, truth social. It is Donald Trump's version of Twitter.

It officially went live on the app store, marking Donald Trump's return to social media. But it wasn't quite the triumphant return that Donald Trump had been hoping for. The app has faced issues since it's launched. Some users simply cannot access the app as of today. Today, what happened? What went wrong? Well, for some context, last night, starting in around 11 p.m. Eastern time in the U.S. East Coast, users who tried to sign up for truth, social, were met with an error message reading, something went wrong, please try again. Some users have been added to waitlists. Tens of thousands of people in length. A reporter for the Daily Beast was sitting at 94,427th place in the waitlist as of this morning. Others are stuck in the verification screen. Of course, it was Donald Trump who refused to shut up about the Obamacare website problems, remember that? Donald Trump wrote back and then in 2013.

Well, the Obamacare website, which President Obama said would be working today is a total mess with many functions not even thought about. I know a great deal about websites, etc., but I am unable to understand how our government could spend $635 million on the Obamacare site and disaster. The U.S. rocket that blew up and crashed yesterday is emblematic of the United States under Obama. Nothing works, be it a rocket or a website. Well, CEO and former Congressman Devin Nunes told Fox News on Sunday that Truth Social hopes to make the app fully operational in the United States by the end of March. Today this update was posted to the truth social website due to the overwhelming demand. At launch, we are currently rate limited on onboarding new users to the platform.

We are working to increase sign of capacity for onboarding and will continue to update the status as capacity increases. Sadly, this update does seem to be accurate. As of this morning, Truth Social is the number one free app on the app store. Some of the right wing grifters who have already joined include Margie Taylor Green, Madison Cother, Stephen Crowder, and Dinesh, DeNesh D'Souza. The question is, will this massive following last. As one person wrote on Twitter, True Social will fail for the same reasons all the other MAGA Twitter clones, get her parlor failed. There's no one there to bully. Once they realize no one's getting mad at their intentional provocations, they'll come back to Twitter.

Not enough attention for their hate there. The purpose of the app does seem to be more of a mouthpiece for Donald Trump than a some sort of platform for genuine interaction. Trump is building a community that will fight for something or whatever he stands for that day. This is not social media for friends and family to share pictures, writes John Mays of the New York Times. It is also a complete ripoff of Twitter. The posts all lookalike like tweets complete with similar looking reply, retweet, share and like buttons. The profile page looks like you're viewing a user's account on Twitter. Perhaps the biggest difference is the dystopian renaming of tweets as truths, truth social has raised a lot of investor money, but legal problems prevent the company from accessing that money.

According to the New York Times, in September, Trump media agreed to merge with digital world acquisition, a blank check or a special purpose acquisition company that raised $300 million. The two entities have raised $1 billion from 36 investors in a private placement, but none of that money can be tapped until regulators wrap up their inquiry into whether digital world. clouded securities regulations and planning its merger with Trump media. In the meantime, Trump media currently valued at more than $10 billion based on digital world stock price, is trying to hire people to build its platform. It certainly needs a little more building done in terms of the technical side of this act. Jack. Okay, so that $10 billion number, believe it or not, is real.

So if all they have to do is show bare minimum competence. It's super low bar. And Trump is going to stumble into finally his dream, his whole life, billions of dollars. He's never had it. He's lied about it his whole life. On two separate occasions, he had over $400 million. One was literally handed to him by his dad. Another one was close to handed to him by NBC for The Apprentice.

But he actually did work for the apprentice such as it is, tiny amount of work that it is. But he blew both of those $400 million and he's gone bankrupt six times. But now finally he was going to get to be a billionaire. But he just can't help himself. He's a serial bungler. Why would you hire Devin Nunes? All you got to do is hire, you know how many right wingers there are in Silicon Valley now? Since they're all rich, half those guys are dirtbag right wingers now.

Just pick one of them. They're at least most of them, believe it or not, are not morons. And they can halfway, quarter away, run a company. Devin Nunes is a weirdo political hack who's one of the dumbest people alive. Maybe that's why him and Trump got along so well. They're like, oh, me copy Twitter, me copy Twitter. Me copy Twitter together. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And you schmucks, you can't have a waiting list. What the hell is a waiting list on an app? Guys, if you don't look, I'm in digital media. What you want to do is you want to do it to reduce friction. That's what it's called. So when somebody goes to sign up for something, you want it to be as easy as possible. Hey, you could already use your Google account.

your Facebook account that reduces friction and you get on as quickly as possible. You know what as friction? I'm not going to let you on. Try to remember to come back here later. Oh my god, that's a disaster. In the digital media world, if you were in any other organization, you'd be fired instantly for that kind of a disaster. At last I saw they had over 120,000 people on their waiting list, that means they're trying to get your app and you won't let them because you're so deeply incompetent. We will now launch this, but later we will launch it at the end of March. Then look, David, there's some, there are things called a soft launch. We do them all the time. We just put it out there and you're, but you're supposed to be experimenting

with it, et cetera. You're not doing publicity. You're just trying to figure out how things are going, right? We got a newsletter that called the progress report that we're doing that on now. But we don't go to the world and go, the progress report, it's the greatest thing ever. Okay, then everybody comes and you go, you can't sign up. What? Okay, I mean, this is Donald Trump 101. I will say that I think the newsletter that we have now from Jonathan Larson is the greatest thing ever. I mean, it is a great read. But yeah, you're right. I mean, you know, you need. You set expectations that it's the greatest thing ever, and then there's no way you could possibly mean expectations.

And that is sort of politics 101. And that's what just sort of puzzles me in their eagerness to say, oh, we're going to do something different than Twitter. We're going to have something, the truth, social media, whatever they want to call it. I mean, they made it out to be something so spectacular and so wonderful. And sure, they got a lot of the Trumpsters, the misguided people in our country who decided, yeah, that's a great way to talk to one another. But they have, I mean, have these sort of issues when they knew what they were sort of getting into and they knew the failures that they'd had with parlor and the other ones. Look, Devin Nunes has never run anything but his mouth and his career. He's never been in charge of any business that I know of, and he's never been successful at it. So why would

Devin Nunes suddenly be in charge of this new social media app when he's got absolutely no background in that sort of thing? Well, because it's not about social media. It's not about technology. It's about Devin Nunes lining in his own pockets by being somehow close to Trump. And so I suppose, Jen, you could have, you could have predicted that there was going to be some major problem like this. Oh, well, not only could we have, I did. But that's, I don't even give myself credit for that because that's the world's easiest prediction. And everybody knew that that was going to happen. So, but look, to your point, why does Donald Trump pick Devin Nunes? Okay, I get why Devin Nunes wants to go. He was redistricted. That's now more of a Democratic district than a Republican one. He was likely going to lose. And he's making millions over here. get his motivation, but Trump picking this clown who's never run a business, and I'll tell you why, it's because Trump is basically like a mob boss. And he picks his subordinates based on loyalty and corruptness. Will you be corrupt with me? And will you be loyal to me as opposed to competence?

Because like I said, I mean, he can go to Silicon Valley and pick any random dude who's, and by the way, They don't even have to be a right winger. You know how much they are obsessed with money in Cineco's Silicon Valley? He could probably find a moderate or even, well, I hope no progressives will do it, but he can easily find a moderate Democrat because they're all going to make billions if they just do it 10% competently. But he's bungling it all over himself because he can't help but pick corrupt people. By the way, tweet you read David is a great point.

All these things are going to flame out in the long run, no matter what happens, no matter who makes billions in the meanwhile in the short run, because the number one thing that right wingers love to do is own the libs. Their whole reason for existing these days is fear and hatred. And so when they're just in a room with each other, well, who are they going to fight with? Who are they going to bully? Who are they going to make fun of? Who are they going to try to own?

No, it's deathly dull. That's why they come back to real social media and go, okay, there's the guys we wanted to hate. So without anyone to hate, these things are destined for long-term failure. And I'll throw it out there since we mentioned it. You could kind of sign up for the progress report at t.com slash newsletter. We'll put the link below. It's a soft launch.

Great stuff. Great stuff. And then it is, you know, for people who are looking for a little bit of snark, it's there. So anyway. Yeah. Jonathan won't probably snark about Trump's outlet. But it's mainly for progressive news that the mainstream media doesn't cover enough. All right, what's next?

Okay, next. Let's talk basketball. Now, let's go to a break, let's do that. We're going to talk basketball after this. Michigan head coach, John Howard, got into something of an altercation with the Wisconsin head coach Greg Card. And then assistant coach by the name of Joe Krebenhoft. What happened? We'll talk about that after this. All right, back on TYT,

Jay and David, with you guys. David, take it away. Jank, as a lot of people know, I'm a graduate of the University of Michigan. Now that guy, Michigan basketball coach Joanne Howard is one of my favorite coaches. All of us at the University of Michigan like to believe that our university is one of the greatest in the world, on the court and off, that we stand for excellence, integrity, and accountability. But today, we're having some questions because of a fight that Joanne Howard had last night with the head coach at Wisconsin. The game was in Wisconsin at Madison. I was watching the game and I thought,

oh, Wisconsin's playing kind of chippy. A couple cheap shots here and there, a couple elbows to a Michigan center that were not called that weren't called for. And so a lot of tensions in the game. And then the game ends. Towards the end, Wisconsin calls a timeout with 15 seconds. Then they call another timeout with four seconds, even though they were up by 15 points. That seemed a little bit rude. Well, there they are in the handshake line, Michigan's players, the Wisconsin players, and the coach is starting to shake hands. And then there were some heated words. And then you can see that is Michigan head coach John Howard tall there,

sort of towards the right, the man with the black sweaters, the Wisconsin head coach Greg Guard. Howard's walking off the court, but Guard grabs onto him. And then Howard looks like he's trying to get past Guard, guard won't move. And so Howard grabs guards shirt. The conversation gets really heated. People don't get, people get between Howard and Guard. However, Howard appears to be saying, don't blanking touch.

me, don't blanking, touch me. Guard leaves the fray. As an assistant coach, Crabbenhoff enters. It looks like Crabbenhoff used to play for Wisconsin was something of an attacker, is yelling at Howard, but there's no audio of what he's saying. Howard hits Cravenhoff with his open right hand, more of a slap than a punch, and then all hell breaks loose as players from both teams enter the fray, punches are thrown, but the brawl's broken up before too long. Hmm. Well, here's how the coaches respond to this incident. First, Joanne Howard, the head coach of Michigan, he wrote on Twitter that was very uncalled for him to touch me as we were verbalizing and communicating with one another. So that's what ended up happening. And that's what escalated it. Greg Gard, the Wisconsin coach said, well, apparently he, Howard didn't like that I called a time out to reset the 10 second call. He did not like that when he came through the handshake line.

So I'll leave it at that and the tape will show the rest. Of course, Howard has received much of the blame for what seemed to do. be something of a fight or a melee. Travis Wilson writes, Joanne Howard played a long time in the NBA. He knew exactly what it was doing, starting an NBA fight by slapping at a guy with four people in between them, then running away while everyone else got into it. But others are pointing out that Greg Garde got physical with Joanne Howard first. This is Bundrich on Twitter. Y'all not going to get on here and pretend not to see the white man grab Joanne Howard like he was a child be scolded.

He didn't want to shake dude's hand and he grabbed Juan's arm, do whatever you want, accept, put your hands on me. So here's the question. Yes, I'm going to agree right off the bat. Joan Howard should not have punched the guy, slap the guy. He was just some jackass of a Wisconsin assistant coach who's a troublemaker, John Howard should not have put his own career in jeopardy to fight with a Wisconsin assistant coach. But having said that, I guess the question is now what about accountability? Because there have been some other incidents in the past where people have gotten in some trouble. And by the way, let's go back to one more tweet. Read your Juan Howard's lips. He said, don't touch me, don't flip and touch me. I counted six times and he got touched. Sorry, but that's a fair warning in my book. Case closed. So again, should Joad Howard face any consequences? And as I said, it's not the first time a coached, 1985 up on the court. I remember a time back in 1984, 1985 basketball season when IU head coach in Bloomington, Bobby, well, he threw a chair in the middle of the game against Purdue. Knight was mad at the officiating. Knight later claimed that he heard an old lady in the far side of the court saying, Bobby, I can't

find a place to sit. And he just threw the chair. Well, no, he wasn't doing that. He was doing it because he was angry. Well, in 2016, Jack, you interviewed Meta World Peace about a number of topics, including his role in the infamous malice at the palace brawl of 2004. Here's what Meta World Peace had to say. I was very unbalanced at a point of my career. When I got into the NBA, I got defensive player the year, 2003. I average 18 points. Next year, I wanted to get MVP. I was still the best defender in the league. I was averaging 25 points. And a year before that, I think I finished six for MVP. So I said, okay, you know, I'm going to get MVP this year and I was on my way. But as my career was going up and my skills, mentally and emotionally, I was going opposite directions. I'm even without the brawl, which wasn't all my fault, somebody initiated. No, I know, I know. Somebody initiated the action with me and I just finished it.

But most people think I started it, which I did. And somebody hit me first and I went to hit that person back. But even without that brawl, I was still going downwards. Like my life was sparkling out of control, you know, no balance. And then as you get older, it's like, okay, do I stay this person? Do I continue to feel like everybody hates me? Or do I just find myself? And that's what I did to parenting class counseling, marriage counseling, anger

manager counseling. And I continue to say, okay, I'm getting to be that person that I always wanted to be. counseling. Well, that's a good step. But Jenk, I mean, there's some suggestion that Joanne Howard, the head coach of Michigan, should now undergo some sort of anger management counseling. It's likely that he'll be suspended for a game, maybe the rest of the season by the Michigan administration or the Big Ten. What do you think should happen to him? Yeah, so this is a tough one. And obviously there's also some racial components to how people are perceiving this and to perhaps what happened.

And I want to say that it's possible that the answer is both. So what do I mean by both? That there could be a racial component in how people are viewing it and Joanne Howard could be wrong at the same time. So I watched that tape about four times. We can't show to you because of copyright reasons, the fight basically between Howard and Guard and Michigan and Wisconsin. And so there's no question that Guard touches them first.

So, and he shouldn't have done that. Are people focusing on that? No. A lot of African Americans are focusing on that. General mainstream media is not focusing on that. I look through many articles. Do people mention it? Yes, they now mention it.

But there's almost no talk of should Greg Garde be in a lot of trouble. In fact, I haven't seen any of that. Maybe there's some in sports talk, but I haven't seen it. It's rare. So, and part of the reason we played you that, Ron our test clip, he changed his name to Meadow World Peace, is because these situations are complicated. As Meta explained there, he's like, look, I was going through some issues when I needed some anger management. But at the same time, it was somebody else that started

the malice in the palace and he got all of the blame. So do people, was that partly because he went in the stance? Of course it was, right? In this case, was it because Joan Howard slapped the assistant coach? Of course it was. But is it also how you perceive things? Yes. Because David, when I remembered the Bobby Knight incident in Indiana, I remember, yeah, of course, people were criticizing him and it was a bridge too far to throw the chair. But generally speaking, he was perceived as one of those, you know, it almost like the old Dukes of Hazard song and just a good old boy, right? And I never mean and no harm. And so, and there's a character in a sitcom that my family watches young Sheldon. And he's an irascible old white coach too.

It's just a little league baseball coach. But it's kind of part of his charm that he's irascible and quick to anger, right? And that's a, it's a typecast in American culture. And when you put it as a white person, it seems like, ah, I just never meaning no harm, right? When you have a black man who does that, it's almost never perceived that way. It's perceived as, oh, there's a black man being violent and aggressive, and there should be severe consequences. So that's my take on it.

Go ahead. And I love that take, Jen, because again, there is for people like Bobby Knight or the people who are defenders of John Howard, John Howard, Howard would say, there was Bobby Knight standing up for the integrity of the game. He wanted clean officiating. There was Joanne Howard standing up for the protection of his own players. He didn't want his players attacked by an assistant coach. Joanne, if he didn't want to shake somebody's hand, doesn't want another coach grabbing him. And so Joanne Howard is protecting himself and protecting his players.

And I agree, but I also agree that John Howard and the Michigan players are better than this. And there's got to be some, I suppose, accountability for, okay, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have hit somebody. You just can't slap somebody as much as look, when I first saw this, last night, the first thing I tweeted and I later deleted it was, you know what, given the game that I had just seen and how horrible Wisconsin had been towards Michigan, I wish that John, I wrote my tweet, I wish that John Howard had used a close fist instead of a slap, also knowing that that assistant coach and what a jackass he is. And I deleted because I realized, well, that's stupid. You can't be advocating violence under any circumstances. But you get how passionate

we all are about some of these situations. So yeah. And look, as you clarified in the beginning, you're a little bit biased because you're a Michigan fan and you're Joanne Howard fan. But I'm not biased and I can tell you, look, Joanne Howard also got an altercation last year and again with Minnesota. So this is a couple times this happened. And for his own benefit, he should look into some form of anger management. And as a guy who often gets angry on air, at least, I can tell you that it's real, right? And look, I don't have that problem in real life, although some right wingers might disagree. But earlier in my life I did, right?

And it's most counterproductive to yourself, right? But in terms of what should happen, there's gotta be some sort of consequences for Joanne Howard because then the players started fighting. And that's why you can't have the coach doing that because it's gonna devolve and it did. And now you got the players in trouble and that could affect their careers,

that could affect their lives. It's just a terrible idea overall. But I also think there should be consequences, and I think less so because it was a less violent action. But for Greg Gard, for starting the touching in the first place, which he shouldn't have done. I don't know what the assistant coach said. If he said something innocuous, then no, there should be no consequences to him. If he says something outrageous, that maybe that's a different situation. Yes, then CAA has to get this under control.

But at the same time, it should not be disproportionate based on old. biases and stereotypes with you. Let's talk about while stereotypes when it comes to politics. And in this election year, in this election year, the Democratic primary battles are underway between progressives and the Democratic Party establishment. And in the race for U.S. Senate and Pennsylvania, progressives are already putting the establishment back on its heels. We're an oath to protect the Constitution as a Marine, as a prosecutor, and as a member of Congress, and I will keep that oath. In Pennsylvania, that is Democratic Senate candidate Connor Lamb.

He's a centrist with a pedigree the party establishment dreams of, and he won a congressional seat in 2018 in a district Donald Trump carried by 20 points. Congress needs to ban members, their spouses, and their senior staffers from holding individual stocks. This is just basic common sense. That is Pennsylvania Senate Democratic candidate John Federman speaking out against congressional stock trading. The lieutenant governor looks like he belongs in the Adams family. And his staunch progressive positions frighten some establishment Democrats who think he is too extreme to be a Republican in Pennsylvania's November general election.

If you don't support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, you should live and work for $7.25 an hour so you can demonstrate how you survive, let alone feed a family. on that. For now, though, the conventional wisdom argument about electability is going nowhere. Just months before the May primary, the latest poll show Federman ahead by 30 points. That's right. The progressive Federman is up 46% to Lamb's 16%. And in fundraising, Federman has raised $12 million, according to last disclosure report, compared to Lamb's $4 million. As political rights, the party establishment hasn't swooped in to help Lamb, despite the fact that Democratic leaders have aggressively recruited candidates with a profile like his to run for Senate in the past.

Lamb's predicament offers a window in how much the Democratic Party has changed in recent years. Progresses have gained a major foothold. Small dollar fundraising has appended election dynamics, and moderate white men like Lamb are no longer shoe ins. Another thing that may be helping Fetterman in this case is his authenticity. He is a Pennsylvania native who began his career in public service as a teacher of at-risk youth in AmeriCorps. He then served as mayor of Braddock Pennsylvania for 12 years, he redeveloped the town's abandoned buildings, initiated youth and art programs and turned around the local economy. Five years ago, he was elected Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor. Now, as far as those tattoos are concerned, well, on his one arm, he's got a zip code. On his left arm, he's got the zip code of Braddock, Pennsylvania, so he doesn't forget that. And then on the right arm, he's got tattoos listing the date of every homicide in Braddock while he was mayor. Then you add into the fact that he has six foot eight over three. 300 pounds and he certainly may look scary looking, but right now it's the Democratic establishment gent that seems frightened.

Love it, okay. So first of all, that part of that clip that we showed you is from David's show on Rebel Headquarters, just check that out. And we'll put the link down below to the full Fetterman clip because it's got some great information in there. David does a brilliant job as usual. My favorite part of that, David, was, is he too extreme? His positions are like $15 minimum wage, which the Democratic Party is pretending that they all agree with. How could a position that Biden and Pelosi are pretending they have be too extreme? They betray themselves in their language. It's so obvious. Democratic establishment works for corporate donors and corporate donors only.

They don't mean any of the policy problems they say. So when someone like John Fetterman actually says it, they know he means it. And then they go, wait, oh, that's extreme. wages for real Americans. I don't know if that'll work well in the in in an election. Are you serious? I mean, other than the absurdity of thinking that people might not want higher wages, there is overwhelming empirical proof whenever a higher minimum wages put on them as a ballot measure. It wins overwhelmingly in every state blue, purple, and red, including Florida, Arkansas, and Missouri in by wide margins and by by by

by much wider margins than the corporate Democrats running in that same election cycle on that same ballot. I think the most interesting part of this story is, holy cow, he's up by 30. That's the progressive up by 30. And so now the establishment is really. The one thing they're getting kind of Google-eyed over, David, is the money that he's raising. And so I know with absolute certainty. that establishment Democrats literally the only thing they care about is money.

And if you show them a pile of cash, they'll be, yes, right? So part of the reason why they didn't pass the laws that they promised is because of donor cash. The donors didn't want them to, so they didn't. That's the number one reason. But David, the second ironic reason is they now see the power of small donors. They saw it in Bernie Sanders campaign. They saw it in Nina Turner's campaign, honestly my campaign, and now in Federman's campaign. And so what they do is they go, oh, we really want to pass.

Give us money to pass $15 minimum wage. Oh, golly, gee, there was nothing we could do. We couldn't pass it. But God, the Republicans are so bad for not passing again. Give us more money. It gives us more money to put more people in office like Federman so we can actually pass the $15 minimum wage, except don't make it Federman. make it that guy Connor Lamb who takes all the corporate donor money.

Yeah, the guy who looks like a boy scout, but I almost wonder, Jank, if we've reached this for a time. I mean, we're all sick of the Lauren Bolberts and Marjorie Taylor Greens and just how ridiculous the Republicans in Congress have become that why not have a guy who doesn't seem to smile who looks like he could literally break any one of them physically in half if they look at him the wrong way. And oh, by the way, he's been fighting for LGBTQ rights, he's been fighting for legalization of marijuana before it became fashionable. The only thing where he's not as progressive has to do a little bit with fracking and coal, but that's a whole other issue. But yeah, by all accounts, he's as progressive as you can

get. Yeah, and one of his so-called extreme policies is being anti-corruption. That pulls it over 90% in the country. Like the mainstream media and establishment Democrats have no idea how clueless they are. They will say outrageous things like that and think that everybody agrees, anti-corruption is outrageous, right? Totally. extreme like no no one agrees to that you schmucks that's why he's winning by 30 points and by the way guys why is it progressive winning by 30 points well two reasons number one um he's already lieutenant governor so he already had a lot of name recognition and when he got into the press they can't say oh i'm not covering the lieutenant governor he's not a credible candidate once the

progressive has credibility okay then we're in business then people find out about him and the minute you find out about people, then you wind up doing great, right? Bernie closed a 50 point lead. And by the way, so that gets to the reason number two. Nina Turner had a huge lead in her first race in Ohio 11. She's running again, Nina Turner.com slash hello to help her. And by the way, go to Federman's website and help him. But she has a similar size lead and then millions of dollars poured in from lobbyists, and they chipped away, chipped away, and eventually erased that lead. So that hasn't happened yet to Fetterman. And maybe he's got a big enough lead that it'll discourage the establishment Democrats. And maybe they'll get greedy and think,

it's a small dollar donors. I wonder if there's a way that we could trick our way into getting someone that money. And so they might not fight Fetterman as hard. I don't know. But if they do and the lobbyists come in, especially if they realize he means it, then you're going to have to help him even more. But that's part of the reason why he probably has such a giant lead because of the credibility that the lieutenant governorship gave him, which then led to more free press. And he hasn't been attacked by the lobbyists yet. And David, he's in a sense proving what I've said for the last 20 years here, which is if you actually put, put progressives on an even battlefield where the press covers them equally and fairly, we'd rock their worlds.

The Democratic primary voters agree with us overwhelmingly on the issues, let alone general elections, general election, the voters agree with progressives a lot more than they agree with corporate Democrats. They want higher wages, they want universal health care, they want anti-corruption. Corporate Democrats don't have that. Progressives have have that. Yeah, and what Federman has is something that a lot of strategists would say is normally

a drag. And the strategy would say, oh, you'd be in this television age, you need somebody who looks clean cut, who smiles and seems to be having a good time. Federman literally looks like he's angry, like he's really upset about something. And so that's somewhat of a drag and it might frighten some people until they find out well, he's a family guy, he's actually a nice guy. But again, given the drag that Federman starts with by looking sort of like an odd character. And then you add to that the progressive issues, well, of course.

It must be the progressive issues that are helping to propel him because if he had the sort of positions that Connor Lamb had, there wouldn't be the enthusiasm, there wouldn't be the excitement over him in the way that there is now. Well actually, the last two things here, slight to scream in there. I think that the fact that he looks like a real person helps him, doesn't hurt him. It's way past time for a progressive populist to rise. So I think it's Fetterman, I think it's Nina Turner. There's a couple other candidates, but there aren't that many because there's progressive

but there are also a lot of them are well too well mannered right you need somebody like Nina Turner or John Federman to go in there and proverbially not literally like the right wing but proverbially and politically break a couple of ankles and it looks like is a matter of personality Fetterman and Turner don't mind doing that and I think people love that they want real people they're so tired of the fake politicians the only reason why the fake politicians went on the Democratic side is because corporate media literally gives them billions of dollars in free media and positive media. By the way, last point is we've got t yt.com slash canvas 22 up.

In fact, that's a shirt that I have on here, Canvas 22. You can get this to shop t.com. But but the reason we have that up is we're featuring our interviews with progressive candidates. I interviewed Federman last cycle. I'll do it again this cycle. But so many of those progressive candidates are on that site. We'll put the link down below, t.com slash canvas 22. Check out those candidates because they're awesome.

And your small dollar donations is making a giant difference and it's driving the establishment crazy. And it's allowing us to win these races. This is what the takeover of the Democratic Party by progressives looks like. Okay. Great Howard, Jegg. Great stuff as always. Thank you. Thank you.

Everybody check out Davis-Schustadt Rebel headquarters where he's absolutely killing in. You've got to see all those videos. Great information, great passion there. Now, when we come back, Tucker Carlson gets perverted in regards to AOC. We will fight back. 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 Podcasts at Apple.com slash TYT. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.