The Young Turks - What the FBI

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

FBI director, Chris Wray, is facing new scrutiny of the bureau’s handling of its 2018 background investigation of Brett Kavanaugh. Gymnasts testifying on Capitol Hill on Wednesday repeatedly said that the FBI failed to protect them from Larry Nassar. 21% of nursing home residents have been prescribed antipsychotic drugs. A Democratic lawmaker attended an anti-LGBT event in Ukraine. A host on Newsmax exploded on a U.S. veteran after he mildly criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to get US citizens and allies out of Afghanistan. Hosts: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur 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. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake, Eugenica is sparing with you guys. All right, look, big show, as always, fun, disaster. It's all rolled up into a fun little ball here on TYT, and we'll roll it down the alley and see what happens. All right. Okay. And you don't really roll it up the alley, maybe down the lane, but anyways, okay. He's in a mood. I'm in a mood. I'm in a mood,

guys, so you never know what could happen here. At any moment, anger could break out often does. But for now, we're in an excellent mood. All right, Casper. Well, the people who should be a little worried and anger today are the FBI. Not a good day for the FBI. So, FBI director, Christopher Ray is facing scrutiny over how the agency handled its investigation into the alleged sexual misconduct of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Now of course, this investigation took place prior to Kavanaugh's confirmation. It was supposed to be a week-long investigation, but it was only four days long, and we have some new reporting indicating that there were some pretty important leads or tips that

the FBI refused to even look into. So the Guardian did some pretty good reporting on this and they write that at the heart of the new questions that Christopher Ray will face later this week when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee is a 2010 memorandum of understanding that the FBI has recently said considered the agency's ability to conduct any further investigations or allegations of misconduct limited, right? So constrained, constrained, my bad. So it constrained their ability to do what they're literally paid to do, which is investigate

these types of allegations and other threats. Now the FBI was called to investigate, again, these allegations that were brought forth by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. There was also another accusation by another woman, and then turns out that when they started doing this investigation, they started getting thousands of tips that they didn't even bother looking into. The FBI said that in its letter to two senators, said in its letter to senators, Sheldon White House and Christopher Coons, that the FBI did not have the authority under the 2010 MOU at the time to unilaterally conduct further investigative activity absent

instructions from the requesting entity. In other words, the FBI has said it would have required explicit instructions from the Trump White House to conduct further investigation under the existing 2010 guidelines on how such investigations ought to be conducted. So the guardians like, oh, okay, so you're saying that this 2010 MOU, okay, memorandum of understanding is what limited you, that you had no choice, that your hands were tied. And so there was a Freedom of Information Act request, and through that request, the The Guardian was able to obtain the details of that MOU, and here's what we know.

An examination of the 2010 MOU does not make explicitly clear that the FBI was restricted in terms of how it would conduct its investigation. The MOU also does not explicitly state that the White House had the power to set the process parameters on any investigation. So this MOU does seem to suggest that the White House had some authority to limit the FBI investigation. But not to the extent that the FBI is claiming, okay? And so just to give you an idea, again, they wrapped up their investigation in four days, right? And they didn't look into a number of tips.

About 4,500 tips came in. They didn't even bother to interview Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. They didn't bother to interview Brett Kavanaugh. Clearly, there were issues with this investigation. Yeah, no, I think it's way worse than that. that justification makes no sense at all, guys. Just think about it. Congress says, hey, go investigate Kavanaugh and see if he did this thing to Christine Blasey Ford. The FBI says, okay, we have a mandate to investigate it. But because of vague rules, we think it means that we cannot investigate the main people involved.

Well, that makes no sense at all. Then what did Congress ask you to investigate? If you're not supposed to investigate Kavanaugh, you're not supposed to talk to him, what do you think they authorize? Exactly. If you're not allowed to talk to, in your opinion, Christine Blasie Ford, and you never shared that, by the way. We found out about it later, but at the time of the investigation, they were pretending like they were doing the most thorough investigation anybody's ever seen. Oh my God, we rolled up our sleeves, we looked into it, and it turns out they got poor guy, poor guy didn't do anything wrong, right? But wait a minute, you didn't even talk to him or the victim. What did you think they authorized?

That should be asked very, very clearly. But the problem is, you know, in Washington, you're never going to get a clear answer. So my point, guys, is there's no way in the world that if you're an honest actor, you wouldn't at least go back to Congress, the White House, or the public, and say, hey, they told us to investigate, then they told us not to talk to the two main people involved. That doesn't make any sense. We need help here in figuring out what to do. What is a bare minimum you would do if you're an honest actor?

And this is not a situation where it's negligence. In the Larry Nassar case we're gonna talk about later in the show, I don't know if the FBI guy just was the laziest person on earth or actively wanted to cover up sexual harassment for some weird reason, right? In this case, sexual molestation, assault, you name it, right? But in this case, negligence doesn't make any sense. They actively chose not to do a real investigation. Yep.

So all the right wingers, by the way, they're constantly talking about a deep state. Where are you at? Where are you at? Because this is the FBI saying, I like it. I don't mind of that guy that's, by the way, they're right wingers. I know Trump gets at Christopher Ray and everybody else involved in the government if they don't, if they don't all kiss his ass at every moment of the day. But remember, they're actually right wingers.

Yeah, that's right. So Ray comes in and goes, oh, wow, a guy wound up maybe, you know, attempted of a woman. What am I gonna do? Look into that, because Congress told me to? No, I'm gonna bury it. I'm gonna help the right wing and get on the Supreme Court no matter what happens. Now somebody, a lot of people have to get fired over the fact that they absolutely positively lied and didn't do this investigation on purpose.

And including, by the way, a key star witness. Yes, yes. And eyewitness says, yeah, I saw one of the allegations, not about Ford, but about one of the other women. And they're like, we don't care. We don't, in fact, we care so much, we don't want you to tell us the story. Let me give the details on that. The details on that. She's gonna give you the details.

Yeah, just relax for a second, okay? So that's actually a really important detail to the story, because Ray is likely to face scrutiny on why information that was specific to the allegations of sexual misconduct was not fully explored, including evidence that he, that was reportedly offered to investigators by an alleged witness, a witness named Max Steyer, an attorney and former classmate of Ramirez. That was another woman who had made accusations against Kavanaugh, who reportedly notified senators that he had witnessed an event similar to the one recounted by Ramirez, right? So why was that not looked into?

By the way, Ramirez that we're talking about here is Deborah Ramirez. She was a classmate over at Yale. She claimed that Brett Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her. And so we have a witness claiming, you know, I saw him do something similar to another person and why wasn't that person interviewed? So we need to know who at the FBI made the decision that we're gonna do a sham investigation. That we're, the allegations of sexual assault, we're gonna bury them because we don't care. We're gonna make a political decision because we want this right way on the Supreme Court.

And so we're not going to do the investigation that we were talking to do the investigation that we were told that we must do. How do you not find that person? How do you not fire that person? By the way, it looks like, it's not just one person, looks like the whole organization on purpose chose not to do their job. It's indisputable.

Even if you're talking to a right winger, do you think that they did a real investigation? If they didn't talk to Blasey Ford or the witness or Kavanaugh, you know they didn't do a real investigation. In fact, you're chuckling about it right now. I know, is it a great? Did they put the alleged rapist on the court

without doing an investigation? Now, that's the deep state I used to know and love, right? That's what right-wingers are thinking. But no one is thinking that was a real investigation. It's not possible to think that. Yeah, exactly. All right, well, two negative FBI stories in a row, this one about the Larry Nasser case. So, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to both listen to the testimony of Olympic gymnasts who had been victims of the sexual misconduct of U.S.

USA gymnast Dr. Larry Nassar and also the head of the FBI, Christopher Ray. Now why is the FBI involved in this? Well, it turns out that after several Olympians had told FBI officials about what Larry Nassar had done to them, they didn't take any action. In some cases, it took 17 months for them to even investigate the claims. The first half of Wednesday's hearing featured emotional testimony by four of elite gymnast, Simone Biles, Michaela Maroni, Ali Reisman, and also Maggie Nichols, who said Nassar sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment during his time as a USA gymnastics doctor. We have a video showing you some of their testimony. Let's take a quick

look at that. Being here today is taking everything I have. Deerfully opening up on Capitol Hill about the abuse they faced by former team doctor Larry Nassar. To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse. Olympian Simone Biles was one of four athletes who painstakingly described being molested by Nassar while competing at the highest level. I was naked, completely alone with him on top of me, molesting me, for hours. Gold medalist Michaela Moroni says when she told an FBI investigator what happened, she was met with silence. After that minute of silence, he asked, is that all? Those words in itself was one of the worst moments of this entire process for me. Her case was one of the first

to be referred to the FBI in July 2015, but the Bureau failed to properly investigate, according to an internal justice department report waiting more than a year before opening a formal probe. By then, approximately 70 other young athletes had been assaulted by Nassar, who was later convicted. The FBI and others within both USAG and USOPC knew that Nassar molested children and did nothing to restrict his access. No, it's absolutely disgusting. I want to give you guys more details about what the women testified about. Moroni recalled speaking with the FBI in the summer of 2015 and providing extreme detail about Nassar's abuse

during a nearly three-hour phone interview. So she's reliving this in a three-hour long phone interview. But the Bureau failed to proceed with an investigation into his alleged misconduct until more than a year later, as revealed by a blistering inspector general's report in July. Moroni said that her interview with the Bureau was not even documented until 17 months later, and she accused the FBI of making entirely false claims about what she told them, which you can expect if they're not going to document it after that lengthy phone interview happens, right? If they're going to wait 17 months to document it, of course they're going to get what

she said to them wrong and she was livid about it. I was watching the hearing as it was happening live and it was absolutely heartbreaking because here is, you know, an intelligence agency, a law enforcement agency on a federal level that's supposed to be keeping Americans safe. And in this case, I mean, you know, Jake, you mentioned earlier, you don't know if it's negligence or if it was a cover up. I don't know how it could be anything other than a cover-up, to be honest with you. How do you hear this kind of testimony?

How do you hear these types of cases and just sit on it for 17 months? Right. So I don't know. And there's one thing I think they should further investigate, which the inspector general has asked them to do, I believe. So let me explain. So there's two possibilities. The possibility that's lower, less likely, as Anna points out, is. And it just does happen from time to time in all places of work, including the FBI.

People are of extreme laziness and they just take a report and they're like, oh, it's going to be hard to do this case. And it involves powerful people. Well, I'll just shelve it, right? And you think, how could be that callous? You'd be shocked. I mean, there's like police that don't go and help people who are being killed and we can go on and on. Doctors do terrible things.

So there's craziness and laziness in the world. world, so that's a possibility. But it does appear that a higher likelihood is this person, or two people in particular, chose not to pursue this, which then leads to the bigger question. Why? What a weird thing. You hear this harrowing testimony of molestation of young girls and sexual assault, and you think, let me help the guy cover that up. Well, that's a very curious choice. So that makes me think, is there something in your life where you, that leads you to have sympathy for that guy? So I don't, so they've been fired, but they should investigate further. And there should be criminal charges. I'm just keeping it real. I mean, obstruction of

justice in the very least, right? I mean, come on, you're part of a law enforcement agency, you get these types of allegations and you just sit on it? Why? Right? There should be criminal charge. Getting fired is not enough. By the way, there's two FBI agents in question. One of them did get fired. The other one retired. The July report by Horowitz's office harshly criticized the supervisory special agent in the FBI's Indianapolis office, now known to be Langman and Jay Abbott. So Langman got fired. Jay Abbott, the agent in charge of the FBI. FBI's Indianapolis field office for bungling the Nassar case and later lying about it, Abbott retired in 2018.

So that guy retires, he should face criminal charges. And in regard to Langman, that's Michael Langman. Christopher Ray, during his testimony, made clear that he got fired, but recently, he recently got fired. Not enough. Right before the hearings. Like that, but to be fair, the Inspector General report came out right before the hearings. I think two weeks before.

So, guys, one of the women who was assaulted was asked on CBS about this, is harrowing and all that. And so I don't mean to dismiss it as all that. The details are horrific. And so the reporter kept asking, do you trust the system, do you trust the system? I actually think that that's a really annoying question that misunderstands the situation. Well, it depends on what you mean, the system, right? So we've credited the FBI in the past for breaking up a bunch of domestic terrorist plots.

They've actually gotten pretty good at that, and they've foiled a number of big bombings, often from the right wing, but not always from the right wing. And no matter where it comes from, that saves lives, so we give them credit for that. Then you have the Kavanaugh non-investigation, which is an absolute travesty that we talked about earlier in the show. This is an even bigger travesty, and seemingly inexplicable and ridiculous. So which part of the FBI are we talking about? And then the Inspector General report comes out, and the Inspector General report was great,

And by the way, that's also part of the system and holds people accountable. And it did. It said they should be fired and they were, at least one of them was fired, as you saw the other one retired earlier. And and but they said you should pursue criminal charges against them. So that's the own department within the FBI saying our guy was a bad guy and you should charge him. Absolutely. But what I'm saying goes a little further. You should look into, the FBI should look into that guy's personal life.

And I don't mean like into some weird way and go find traffic tickets on him or unrelated issues. I mean, that is a very curious choice to not investigate such a serious charge about such a horrible situation. And now, guys, the one that is the fact that's most infuriating. Between the time the FBI knew and they investigated, it is estimated that Nassar molested, sexually 70 other girls. Yeah. And so that it's, it's not, hey, a little delay, it's not, hey, people are human, this, no, this is not anywhere near an honest mistake.

And so there should be criminal repercussions for those 70 girls and women who had to suffer under Nassar because of what these agents did. 150 women have come forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Larry Nassar, okay? And look, I guess we'll be fair. Christopher Ray, the FBI director, also testified on the same day that the women testified. So let's hear what he had to say, and we'll discuss. I want to be crystal clear. the actions and inaction of the FBI employees detailed in this report are totally unacceptable.

These individuals betrayed the core duty that they have of protecting people. They failed to protect young women and girls from abuse. And the work we do certainly is often complicated and uncertain, and we're never going to be perfect. But the kinds of fundamental errors that were made, in this case in 2015 and 16 should never have happened, period. And as long as I'm FBI director, I'm committed to doing everything in my power to make sure they never happen again.

The FBI cannot carry out its vital mission of protecting the American people without trust. And in this case, FBI agents, certain FBI agents, broke that trust repeatedly and inexcusably. And to pretend otherwise would be yet one more insult to the survivors. Listen, that was his statement, but I'm personally not buying it. Because it was under FBI director Christopher Ray's leadership that the FBI conducted a sham investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. They didn't even interview Brett Kavanaugh in that four-day sham investigation. They didn't interview Dr. Christine Blasey Ford in that sham investigation. They also didn't interview an eyewitness to a sexual misconduct allegation against Kavanaugh.

Someone who was credible and came forward and said, hey, I was a witness to Brett Kavanaugh exposing his genitals to another woman. Didn't bother to interview that person. So for Christopher Ray to sit there and say, this is unacceptable, this will not happen under my leadership, not buying it. I want to know why they did a sham investigation into Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, who now sits in the United States Supreme Court. So we say let's be fair all the time because it matters, of course, right?

And we have to state that because a lot of news organizations aren't. So when you're looking at Christopher Ray, it's a complicated situation. On the one hand, we've had the good FBI investigations of domestic terrorism, and he was a Trump appointee, but generally stood up for democracy. Not like any sort of brave soldier or anything like that, but at least he didn't let Trump Trump steamroll him on some of the issues. But on Cavanaugh, he was terrible. On the Larry Nassar issue, he was not FBI director at the time.

It happened in 2015 and 2016. On the other hand, the FBI seems to have an old boys club attitude, where if it's a, I mean, now we have a pattern of if it's sexual assault, the FBI don't go to them. They don't care. In fact, they'll help the, in these two very prominent cases, it appears they're helping the perpetrator rather than the victims. And so, and by the way, there should be also fairness in the blame of who was in charge at the time. Tattered Remnant is one of our members, and we do the show with you guys.

And they wrote in, just to point out this abuse and the failure to investigate it happened under both Obama and Trump. Yep. So it was late Obama, and it was all of Trump. But yes, it was those guys, and that culture at the FBI existed under them throughout this entire time. You know, it seems like whether it's on a federal level or a local level, Law enforcement that's supposed to protect Americans to keep them safe fails over and over and over again. It's fascinating. It's a common thread. Doesn't matter if it's on a local level or a federal level.

Anyway, we got to take a break. When we come back, an insane story involving nursing homes, drugging their, you know, residents, just because they don't want to spend the money to ensure that they have the staff necessary to give people the care that they need. We've got that story and more when we return. All right, back on the Young Turks, Jane and Anna with you guys. And all these lovely members, I'm going to read one last one. 241-pound dragon in the room rode in, and they're apparently in the room. So I'm sad today for so many reasons. Hope Jenkins Anna and my TYT family can help cheer me up. Not with the news, of course, that's a train wreck, but with their coverage of it. And if you're

watching during the social breaks on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, I think we do a pretty good job. Watch the show live. Tell everybody to watch the show live. Six to eight o'clock Eastern. We have, in between the bad news, we have tons of fun. Yeah, and look, even with the bad news, like the thing that keeps me going

is that we've got an incredible family here, people who are fighting for the right causes, we're fighting together. So just know that we got your back. It's going to be our right. 100%. I love it. Okay.

Okay, Casper. All right. So this is definitely a doozy of a story. Having a profit motive behind certain elements of life, certain areas of care has been a disaster, certainly in healthcare, and now we're finding that nursing homes that are privatized, of course, are seeking to maximize profits, cut costs, and one way that they do that is under staff, and essentially needlessly drug their residents so they don't really have to deal with them too often. This was a pretty heartbreaking investigative story from the New York Times where they found that privatized nursing homes are in fact prescribing antipsychotic drugs to their residents when they do not need them.

So here's one specific example. There's David Blakeney, 63 year old, was restless. and agitated. The home's doctor wanted him on an antipsychotic medication called Haldol, a powerful sedative. In the prescription for him, it said, add DX of schizophrenia for use of Haldol. That's what the doctor's order read, using the medical shorthand for diagnosis. But there was no evidence that the resident actually had schizophrenia. So the doctors in these nursing homes are just diagnosing them with schizophrenia in order to be able to drug them with these antipsychotic drugs. So here's an image that the New York Times shared of the prescription in question, you know, just to provide evidence and some receipts for what's going

on here. Now, Blakeney's medical records show that several people warned that he was too sedated receiving too many drugs, eight months following his admission with a long list of ailments, and after round the clock sedation, devastating weight loss, pneumonia, and severe bed sores that required one of his feet to be amputated, Blakeney was dead. It's just an incredibly heartbreaking story, and that's anecdotal evidence, right? But this investigation found that this practice is widespread, and there is a loophole that pharmaceutical companies have lobbied to make happen. In order for these nursing homes to be able to prescribe antipsychotic drugs to their residents

when they do not in fact need them. So though antipsychotics, of course, can be incredibly useful and necessary for people who need treatment for medical disorders, that is not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who do not have schizophrenia, who do not have the mental disorders that would warrant the use of these antipsychotic drugs. So I'm gonna give you more details and some broader figures in just a second. But Jake, do you want to jump in? Yeah, so of course, you question the motive, why, why are they doing this?

And there's, again, two possibilities here. And it doesn't have to be either or it could be both. One is laziness. Well, it's easier to take care of them if they're sedated and that's pretty brutal. But yes, unfortunately people do do that. And then the second is profit. Well, we can take care of more of them if we just sedate them and throw them on to different, you know, into rooms and beds where they literally don't ever get up until they get

beds stores that are so bad they, it requires amputation, and we could house more of them and make more money. I don't know which one it is or if it's both, but neither one's good. Now there are some regulations in regard to prescribing antipsychotic drugs, right? So I mentioned that loophole that pharmaceutical companies have fought for. I'm gonna get to that in a second. But first, let's go to Graphics 7 here. The risks to patients treated with antipsychotics are so high that nursing homes must report to the government how many of their residents are on these potent medications. But there is an important caveat. The government doesn't publicly divulge the use of antipsychotics given to residents with

schizophrenia or two other conditions. So that's the loophole, right? So if the resident has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, well, the nursing home doesn't have to report that. to the federal government. Okay? So there actually wasn't a public record of Blakeney, for instance, being on these antipsychotic drugs. And so through this loophole, the government and the nursing home industry are actually obscuring

the true rate of this anti-psychotic drug use within these nursing homes and among these vulnerable residents. Now, last year, the industry teamed up with drug companies companies and others to push Congress and federal regulators to even broaden the list of conditions under which antipsychotics don't need to be publicly disclosed. So they want to ensure that there's less reporting. Listen, pharmaceutical companies were front and center. They were the ones that drove the opioid epidemic that the country is still dealing with today. And if people think that it ends there, it doesn't end there. They find other ways to essentially loosen regulation

that basically end up with doctors prescribing more and more of these drugs that end up harming people, right? And in the case of these nursing home residents can end up killing people, right? And so what's the motive? Why would these nursing homes want to do it? When you have privatized nursing homes, they want to cut their costs and maximize their profits. So what they do is hire fewer staff members to take care of the residents. And when the staff members are overwhelmed because they're understaffed, well, an easy solution to that, which is incredibly harmful to the residents, is to sedate them with antipsychotic drugs.

And that's what's happening here. So our members often have specific expertise in these issues. And so that's why, among the reasons why we love doing the show with them, t.com slash join to become a member. In this case, Anaheta 13 wrote in, we don't even use Haldol as a chemical restraint in the unless it's absolutely necessary for the safety of the patient. Misuse of chemical restraints is illegal and I'm disgusted. It's disgusting.

It really is. It is. And remember that that particular person died, let alone all of the other cases that this affects. But remember, unfortunately, so many of these stories come back to money in politics. Remember, Andrew Cuomo had COVID patients go back into nursing homes and then we found out nursing homes for his donors. So they had money to make, even if they're COVID patients. we're going to come back in. It was just an unbelievably greedy thing to do. And it was facilitated

by the fact that they basically bought off the governor. And later we found out, yeah, apparently there was no, you know, not much restraint to what Cuomo would do ethically. And so, but all the things about his corruption, we already knew, but the press didn't cover that much. But on the other hand, New York Times here, with a great story and credit to them for exposing this problem. And then finally, I got to give you one more step before you say finally. Okay, yeah, of course. Just to give you a sense of how much of a problem this is, take a look at how a nursing home residents are disproportionately diagnosed with schizophrenia. So, and given these antipsychotic drugs, today, one in nine, one in nine residents

has received a schizophrenia diagnosis in these nursing homes. In the general population, the disorder, which has strong genetic roots, afflicts roughly one in 150 people. And understand that schizophrenia isn't something that ends up getting diagnosed for the first time when someone is in their older years, when someone's a senior. People typically start showing signs of schizophrenia much younger in life. And so it's just, it's so clear that the, they're abusing this intentionally to intentionally sedate the residents in these nursing homes.

There is no coincidence that large. Right. And Anna is right. It's the one thing if it's Alzheimer's, it's completely different if it's schizophrenia that doesn't have anything to do with age. So these disproportionate numbers make no sense. My last point was just going to be, guys, the power of the drug companies are gigantic. But also why?

Because of politics. Because of money in politics. They're the number one donors even more than banks and oil companies, et cetera, to politicians. And they get monopolies, we're not allowed to negotiate drug prices. But then the worst of it is they're allowed to run amok as they poison the country with oxycontin and this type of situation, as we see in this story. We have got to have a government that represents us and not these donors. Go and help Wolfpack if you can, wolf dash pack.com slash join, because they're actually

trying to get money out of politics. And without that, unfortunately, that poison infects every story, including this one. I wanted to mention one other thing, Jane, because, you know, what you're saying is absolutely true. I mean, you have corporate Democrats that are completely captured by corporate interests and the pharmaceutical companies. And yesterday we covered a story about how three corporate Democrats within the House Energy Committee voted down the provision in the budget reconciliation bill that would allow for Medicaid. to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, thus giving them the opportunity and the ability to significantly lower drug prices for those on Medicare? No, there's no excuse for it at all.

It's just brazen, brazen corruption and bribery. And we just allow it. And it's destroyed our government and destroyed our democracy. I was on a Joe Walsh's podcast yesterday to come out in a couple of weeks. He's a former Republican who used to be a terrible, very conservative. He's the guy who yelled at Obama, et cetera. And now he's turned on Trump, and he's turned on a lot of things. He's still very conservative.

But look, there's every, and now I had conservatives on the other day. You guys saw the shouting match that I had with them. But in the beginning of the interview, the one thing all conservatives agree on is, God, they hate the corruption. And so you guys hate it, we hate it. The only people who like it are the corrupt, the politicians of the media, who are in bed with all these giant corporations and who are, in the case of the media, giant corporations themselves. And it is literally killing us. That's the effects of it.

We've got to get the money out. All right, let's take a break when we come back. An explosive TYT investigates story, some original reporting from TYT involving a democratic lawmaker who went to an anti-LGB conference in Ukraine. What was he doing there, especially when he considers himself an ally to the community here in the United States? We've got that and more for you when we come back. All right, back on T.Y.T., Jake, Ure, Anna Kusparian, we do the news. So hence, there is more of it now.

Okay. Jesus. All right, so why would, why would a Democratic congressman and an alleged ally to the LGBT community? community, attend an anti-LGBT conservative conference in Ukraine. That's what I want to know. That's the question that we should ask, Representative Juan Vargas of California. In fact, TYT Investigates has a bombshell of a story involving his attendance at the prayer breakfast in Ukraine, because it's not just in the United States where evangelicals want to spread their conservative anti-reproductive rights and anti-LGBT messaging. Representative Juan Vargas, an LGBTQ ally in the United States, was a featured participant

at an anti-LGBQ event in Ukraine last week. The annual event is also a hub for opponents of reproductive rights, and this year included a side discussion on defending conservative values. In fact, let's take a look at this tweet that makes it abundantly clear what this was all about. Again, this is in Ukraine. After the national prayer breakfast, we had the opportunity to share our experiences in defending of conservative values on an international discussion panel. So there's no mistake about what this is about.

And I do also want to direct you to this photo to show you Representative Juan Vargas on this panel. He's the one who's got the headphones on, chilling, you know, having a back and forth with conservative goons in Ukraine. Vargas, by the way, is one of the few Democrats still involved with the family. That's the evangelical right-wing organization. He has been listed as a National Prayer Breakfast host for the past three years and co-chaired it in 2016 when the invitation list discriminated against Catholics, progressive religious leaders, and non-evangelicals.

Okay, so one of the things that we're doing here is exposing what the family actually is, because what they do is, and this is really important, guys, and part of the whole series of articles on t.yt.com about this, is that they use the aura of bipartisanship to push a very conservative agenda, oftentimes an anti-LGBQ agenda, and oftentimes abroad, where they'll say, look, we've got Republicans and Democrats. All the powerful people in America agree that you should do this. The guy talking to Vargas in that picture that we showed you is one of the most right-winged people in Ukraine, and he's very anti-LGBT.

And he talked about how, oh, yeah, the Americans agree. Now, he's actually part of a very small evangelical Christian community in Ukraine. It's only 2% of Ukraine. But it is growing larger and more powerful every day. Why? Because it's getting funding and attention from evangelical Americans. So they're pushing out this agenda, and part of that agenda. is gay people shouldn't have the same rights as straight people.

So if you're a Democrat that's going along with this, you're doing grave damage to people who you say you're representing. So gave Vargas an opportunity to comment. He didn't. There was another Democrat that attended that did comment and actually, you know, seemed to me at least through his quotes. And read the article and the article is going to be in the description box below. If you're watching this later on YouTube or Facebook, or you can just go to t.com.

You'll see there's another Democrat that seems like he didn't quite know, and that's okay. That's why we do the stories. That's called investigative journalism. We let you know and then see what your reaction is. Yeah, let's see what your reaction is. Right. But the guy who's the biggest Democrat in favor of the prayer breakfast is Chris Coons. Bingo.

Joe Biden's top ally in the Senate. And one of our reporters caught up with him on camera before, and he totally defended the prayer breakfast. And they always say it's nonpartisan, it ain't nonpartisan. And it's used to do terrible things across the world. Well, let's pause for a second, because in regard to attendance for the national prayer breakfast here in the United States, it certainly has been nonpartisan, and that's a problem. Because make no mistake about it, the people behind this organization are evangelical

conservatives. And the event itself has these, you know, they do the prayer breakfast, but the whole point isn't to like get together and pray. It's really a way for, you know, powerful people to meet and make deals. Like they have these breakout rooms where deals are made, right? Where lobbying takes place. And that's a huge part of it. This is also the same organization that went to Uganda and pushed for a law that would

execute members of the LGBT community in that country. So while Democrats have attended the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama had attended the National Prayer Breakfast. Make no mistake about it, ideologically speaking, there are serious issues with this organization and what it promotes, right? And look, I don't know, you're way more willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

You're like way more optimistic than I am. I'm definitely way more pessimistic. So I can't help but roll my eyes at any lawmaker who's like, oh, well, I had no idea. I had no idea that this was. idea that this was no. But okay, I guess they're clueless. They're completely clueless about organizations that they decide to get involved with. I mean, maybe do a little bit of homework. Yeah, so that's why I draw a big distinction between the folks who really genuinely didn't

know, and you could tell them their reaction, and there are people like Chris Coons who clearly know and don't mind and are greatly annoyed when you do reporting on it that exposes something they already knew. Oh, are you annoyed about reporting Chris Coon? Sorry about that. Yeah, no Democrat in their right mind should go to this group. Every LGBTQ group in the country should be outraged at any Democrat that supports this group. And so I make that distinction between the people who didn't know because there's definitely good progressives who didn't know. Once we brought this reporting to Rokana and Ted Liu, they immediately pulled out. Because you have to understand, in America, the media did propaganda in favor of this group for decades.

They would constantly show Bill Clinton and George Bush and Barack Obama and all these people, Hillary Clinton, going to the breakfast and like, this is nonpartisan, this is nonpartisan. And then they do the breakout rooms where they convince Mike Lindell to support Donald Trump and give all his money to massive right wing causes. That's another article at t.com that got a lot of attention, okay? and then they send legislators, including Democrats, abroad, to push an anti-LGB agenda. Some of them winning, some of them unwitting. But now you know you've got to pull out of this group, otherwise you're complicit in what they're doing. I want to also direct you to some of the statements that were made by a representative, a Republican representative back in 2019. So this is in Ukraine, it's the same event, but it's not 2021 or 2020.

2019. So family insider representative Tim Walberg tells Ukrainian prayer breakfast attendees that if he does what God wants, regardless of what my constituents think of me, the God who I serve will be pleased. In the same speech, Walberg praises then President Trump's support for supporting marriage between a man and a woman for life and for life from conception to natural death. So these are the kinds of speeches that they're giving at the exact same event. I just like, spare me the like, oh, I didn't know what this was about. But okay, maybe, sure, maybe some people are completely clueless about what's going on. Maybe they're on their phones, not paying attention to the insane speeches that are being given. But Anna, just to be fair, that

most of the time when the cameras are rolling, they do not give those speeches. This was on camera. No, no, I hear you, that one was, right? And so, and look, I'm telling every Democrat, you're nuts if you're going to these things. But a lot of the reasons that even some progressives went was because there's tremendous marketing in D.C. that this is a wonderful thing to go to. So, hey, if you're not Christian, but you're going to the prayer breakfast, that shows how much you care about the religious community and your constituents that are religious or Christian, especially if you're not one, right? So make sure you go. And that gives them the veneer of respectability and people think, okay, that's good.

I want to respect the Christians in my community and a lot of them are left wing, et cetera. So it's a perfect little trap to push their right wing agenda. That's why I say the distinction between knowing and not knowing is everything in this case. But how many stories can we do? And it's not like they don't know. We ask for comments every time. Exactly. We've asked their coons for a comment on camera and he gives a dismissive comment, protects the organization, and runs away.

So the people that go continue to go, now there's no question that they know and you should hold them accountable. All right, well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about one of the most unhinged moments I've seen in the news. So Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield went on one of the most unhinged rant professing his loyalty to Donald Trump. Now, he was discussing the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and in the context of that discussion, you know, he has a guest on, a man by the name of Joe Sabo. He is the founder of a group known as Team America, right? So right on brand for Newsmax. And look, what Sabo is doing is he's trying to help our Afghan allies leave Afghanistan.

So that's what his whole project is with Team America. But it's not really about him. It's about the fact that as soon as he had super mild criticism for Trump, Stinchfield, well, just watch. I can tell you this didn't happen under President Trump. And I know there's a lot of people on the left that want to try to blame President Trump. He wanted out of Afghanistan real bad, he was real frustrated not being able to get out, but he didn't pull out because he knew this would happen.

In fact, we all did, I called it on this program. With your respect, Grant, I mean, like, veterans, you know, being one, right? And our friends are over there. Right. We follow this closely for multiple administrations. And we know the Trump's administration's efforts here were fairly weak, that they were trying to limit the number of people that would get out. And so there was coordination problems.

Joe, I'm going to cut you. I'm already weak. I'm already low on time, Joe. Joe, I've cut them off, please. Cut them off now. Cut them off now. You're not going to blame this on President Trump on my show. That's not happening.

Now, I appreciate the work that you're doing. God bless you for being a veteran. God bless you for trying to get Americans out. But don't come on this program and take the talking points of the left and blame President Trump. That's not helping anybody. The Biden administration screwed this up from the very start. You know it. I know it.

The country knows it. I'm mad about that, man. I really am. All right. We're going to slow it down because we've got a real hero coming. up. That man's a real hero, too. He served. I mean, not to recycle a line from Twitter, but

Trump's not going to F you, bro. Like, relax. Like, what was that? Yeah. No, no. That was it. That was a. Cucketastrophe. Like, these guys are obsessed with Trump. They're in love. And they, he, would that guy defend his mother with that kind of rage? I doubt it.

Like, I mean, that was the mildest criticism of Trump I have ever heard in my life. That The guy just said in passing previous administrations weren't great on this issue either as he was hitting Joe Biden. Right. And this cuck over here is like, how dare you? That's my beloved. That's our dear leader.

We pray to him. We worship him, his feet, his ass. How dare you? Cut him off. Cut him off. That was the modest criticism I've ever seen. Oh my God, Donald Trump. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry, Donald. I'll do anything. Please come over. My wife's available. For me, it reinforced something that I already knew. and we've talked about on the show, which is when it comes to our troops, when it comes to our veterans, these are people who get used as props by right wing talking heads and blockheads like Stinchfield, right?

They don't actually care about, oh, we need to support our troops. They don't even care about getting the troops safely out of Afghanistan, unless they can use them as props conveniently to make their political talking points, right? That's all it is, that's all it is. I mean, that veteran was super calm and what he was saying was accurate, right? He was just trying to make a point about like, look, the Trump administration wanted to limit the number of our Afghan allies into the United States, right? It's just a fact.

It's just a fact. Trump says it all the time. He says it like brazenly. So I don't know, Stinchfield, are you in favor of bringing in our allies or not in favor of bringing in our allies? Do you agree with Trump's decision or don't you? But like, he didn't even want to deal with that cognitive dissonance. And he didn't want to deal with anyone ever criticizing the authoritarian leader he wishes

were in charge instead of our current democracy. Have you ever seen a man so triggered in your entire life? It was incredible. It really was. Yeah. I mean, they say, oh, Trump lives rent free inside your heads. No, apparently he lives rent free inside your heads and in your pants. My God.

Okay, I mean, I've never seen anyone so in love with someone in my life. That was pretty amazing. All right, there's one other example I want to give you guys. This one is not as explosive. However, it does involve Mo Brooks, so you know it's going to be fun. Now, Mo Brooks is debating his political opponent. This is, you know, part of their campaign for a Senate seat. So Katie Britt is the Republican opponent that he's debating here.

And they get into this debate, not about an issue that would actually matter to the constituents they're hoping to represent, but about who loves Trump more? Let's watch. I guess my question for you is when you said you didn't know if you'd vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump back in 2016 and refused to answer the question. I think then that you maybe weren't skating with him. I don't know, no, actually. You did a full minute. And then you also denigrated our president, President Trump. And you said all of us who voted for, which by the way,

I voted for him every single time he was on the ballot, and so did my husband. And that is certainly not something you can say. So it seems that you might have started the whole let's not stand with the party. Well, I think we've come back in here. I voted for Donald Trump in 2016. I voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

I think you're going to see a lot of misinformation like you've just seen. In 2016, I cut a check for $2,500 to help Donald Trump get elected. I don't know how much other people do. I know Linda Blanchard did quite a bit. I don't know about the other candidates, okay? But there's a reason why Donald Trump endorsed me in 2018. Donald Trump endorsed me in 2020. Donald Trump has endorsed me in 2022.

So if you want to make an issue of Donald Trump, make an issue of Donald Trump and where he stands, my guy, let's have at it, because Donald Trump knows who the real fighter is for the MAGA agenda in the state of Alabama, and he has said it as Mo Brooks. So you can take Katie's word for or you can take Donald Trump's word for. I just want to remind you all of the specific person that they're having this loyalty off about. Let's watch. The book also quotes Trump as telling his always loyal vice president Mike Pence that if he didn't refuse to certify the election results, quote, I don't want to be your friend anymore. But by the way, that's why they're doing this ass kiss and contest.

Because it's true, like for Republicans now that the recent poll, this is really interesting. 59% of Republicans said supporting Donald Trump is a core part of what it means to be a Republican. That's six out of ten Republicans saying, like, it's not just even a loyalty test, is an ass-kissing test. If you're not inside his cheeks, you're not a Republican. That's what six out of ten Republicans say. So that's why these guys are humiliating themselves. They're like, oh yeah, my husband also voted for him. Did your dog vote for him?

I bet your dog didn't vote for him. And neither did your cousins. We know it because it's Alabama. Okay. And by the way, note that this is Alabama, where Jeff Sessions was the first senator to support Donald Trump in 2016. Donald Trump makes him attorney general and then Jeff Sessions recuses himself from the Russia case

because he was involved and he obliterated Jeff Sessions. He destroyed Jeff Sessions's career. He didn't want to be his friend anymore. Yeah, he didn't, but that's right. He didn't. I don't want to be Jeff's friend anymore. And everybody looked at it.

You got to be Trump's friend. You got to be Trump's friend and your husband has to be Trump's friend and your dog. Everybody's got to be Trump's friend. Look at what he did, Jeff Sessions. They're so weak. The entire part,

party has been cucked by this guy. Oh, it's so good. Oh, it's amazing. That ass kiss off. It's so good. Where they went back and went, oh yeah, oh yeah. They're standing up too. They're like, I'm gonna stand up and really make my case for how much I love Donald Trump.

Like, it's amazing, it's just, it's amazing. They're not getting animated about anything that would materially improve the lives of their constituents. They're just getting animated over who loves Donald. Trump more. And yes, yes, I'm going to do it. We got to watch that last video one more time because it gives me just energy. It gives me life. It gives what I need. Let's watch. The book also quotes Trump as telling his always loyal vice president Mike Pence that if he didn't refuse to certify the election results, quote, I don't want to be your friend anymore. I can't get enough of that video. My favorite part is like, he says, quote, like just

I'm just a serious reporter, you know, like a, I love that this is like an old school, like seasoned vet, like has been a reporter forever, and he's like, I have been reduced to reporting on this garbage. And he's like, what voice do I give it? Do I say, I don't want to be free anymore? Or do I just read it normal? I don't know. I don't know.

In Republicans, if it seems like we're laughing at you, that's because we are. You guys are in a contest to see who could worship this leader more. And it's like really embarrassing in a way that we're greatly enjoying. Yeah. I mean, did you see those quotes in the middle of that debate over who loves Trump more? And he said, oh yeah, we want to talk about who likes Trump more. And he said, quote, let's have, or as if I was a CBS reported, he said, quote, let's have at it. I don't want to be your friend anymore.

We have to get that on the soundboard. Yeah, so good. And then when somebody else is like, okay, I'm the real, quote, real fighter for Trump. It reminded me a friend of my guy got really drunk on Halloween once. And some other guy was dressed up as the Hulk, God knew a fight. And my drunk friend starts yelling at him from across the street. Hey, Hulk, the real fight is here. The real fight is here, okay?

And that's what these folks are. Hey, Trump, okay? The real fighter for you is here. Please be my friend. Quote, I don't want to be your friend anymore. All right. That does it for our first hour. When we come back for the second hour, a woman whose toddler was essentially exploited for

PR purposes for the cops gets a fat settlement. I love this story. You don't want to miss it. 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

t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.