The Young Turks - Which 2020 Candidates Signed The Progressive Pledge?

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

The 2020 candidates need to make their policies clear. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. 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. If you like the Young Turks podcast, I think you'll love a lot of the podcasts on the TYT network. Old school, it's one of my favorites, one of the favorites for a lot of the listeners. Please check that out, subscribe, share it, that makes a big difference, and give it a five-star rating. Thank you.

Welcome to the young judge, Jake, Ukrainica's very with you. I'm back. Okay. He gets back. He gets back. I had, man, I had a hell of a trip to New York and to Iowa. And obviously we're gonna talk about the Iowa part in just a little bit. But we got a huge show ahead for you guys, huge.

Bernie Sanders, you're gonna be shocked, attacked by CNN. Totally unfairly. Of course, of course. So that's a little bit later in the program. A lot of the mainstream media, because they're very credible, a user reported that does not exist and it was made up for propaganda reasons. There's a twist, a little bit of a twist, I'll explain a little bit later in the program, fascinating stuff.

And then New York Times is a huge story on YouTube radicals, radical right wing on YouTube. And they say, well, unfortunately, there's no one on the left on YouTube to fight them. That is not what they're saying. They actually think that YouTube radicalizes people on the left as well. So we're gonna get to the details of that story in a second. Because look, here's the thing. The New York Times with that piece did a little bit of an Alex Jones, right? Where there's like little kernels, not little, pretty big kernels of truth.

And then they, of course, put in some like anti- just, look, the point is the mainstream media doesn't like the fact that online platforms get rid of the gatekeepers. Yeah, they hate it. They hate it. Even though there are valuable kernels of truth in that piece, there's also some criticism that I think New York Times deserves for the way that they wrote it. No, every day I grow fewer, more furious than New York Times. I think, man, they hate progressives.

And then ironically, in one of the stories we're going to do today, probably that same one, an offshoot of it, they are considered like liberal New York Times. That's a good one, that's a good one, okay, they have a funny way of showing it by either ignoring or basically lambasting completely unfairly every progressive they've ever met. Anyway, we'll get to that later in the program, so stick around for that. But let's start, and oh, one more thing for you guys, that's coming up later, not today, but later this week. week, justice is coming, okay? So-

Which one? I'm gonna say, Erkinsburg. So no, I don't mean Ryan Graham, who's coming out with a new book I'm gonna talk to today. No, I don't mean Andrew Yang, who I'm gonna talk to tomorrow. He's gonna be part of the studios. You're gonna see Andrew Yang a little bit. I'm not saying anything. Plus, I really haven't said that much.

Anyway, but no, new Justice Democratic candidates. Democratic candidates against incumbents, we're gonna have open warfare. And I mean, politically. Yes, if you thought the mainstream didn't like us before, wait till you get a load of us after this week. Okay, so lots of fun, let's get started. So over the weekend, we went to Iowa, had some fun, we went to Des Moines first, gave a speech there.

First of all, Allison Hartson spoke, then J.D. Shulton, who ran against the Steve King, nearly toppled him last time, we'll get him next time. And then Richard Ojeda gave a very fiery speech, and then I spoke for way too long. I did go for an hour and a half about, but if you thought I couldn't out fiery Richard Ojeda, I think I might have done it. That is a good competition. So anyway, the point was to announce a pledge and have you guys participate. And it's a progressive economic pledge, it's got five pillars to it, higher wages.

$15 minimum wage collective bargaining in that, and obviously not taking corporate pack money so you can actually represent that average American worker, not the corporations. The second plank is Medicare for all, third plank is Green New Deal, fourth is college for all so that everybody can live the American dream. And then fifth is to end the corruption by getting rid of private financing of elections. Now you can check it out at t.com slash pledge, and we have asked you guys sign it and a whole heap of you have, which is fantastic, but we've also asked politicians to sign it. Now, as luck would have it, 19 of the top presidential candidates were in Cedar Rapids the

very next day. So that's a two hour drive from Des Moines. So for the folks that he came to the rally, just about 600 people were like, look, we didn't tell you ahead of time and didn't give you much warning, but could you guys come and find a way to drive to Cedar Rapids with us? And about half, 250 to 300 of them decided, yeah, yeah, we can do that. I love you guys, okay, so we brought that crowd over to the Hall of Fame dinner where those 19 presidential candidates were.

And we were, and all other candidates or a lot of the candidates had their crowds to, Kamala Harris supporters who you were seeing in yellow there, you had Elizabeth Warren supporters, et cetera, great, that's awesome, that's America, this democracy, I love it, right? We had the largest and definitely the loudest, which was noted by the press. No big do. They noted it in like one line usually and then they were like, oh, I guess no point in asking them what it's about. We were only there the whole day.

Anyway, that's okay, we're gonna get to that. Most important part is, did it work? So we went and asked the presidential candidates that were there to sign the pledge. Are you a progressive or not? Well, it partly worked as you're about to see, but first I want to give you a sense of how the crowd was and how we were interacting with it. Who's gonna fix it? Who's gonna fix it?

Me? Who's gonna fix it? Me! All right, I love you guys, thank you. Yeah! TYT! TYT! TYT!

TYT! TYT! TYT! DYT! All right, so they were in all these different groups. Once I went to go speak to Amy Colomachar, and so half the group came across street with me. So it was this giant group crossing the street.

Uh-huh. So we were right next to the Klobuchar people and they're like, no, no, we're like, no, no. No, no, we're like, no, no, we come in peace. All we want to do is ask if you're going to sign the Pledge of it. It's totally okay not to sign it, as you'll see in a second. But I did go to talk to Senator Klobuchar, and she said, I said, hi, I'm Jake from the young tour.

She said, oh, I know who you are. Oh, Klobuchar. No, so that was fun. But look, guys, Senator Klobuchar, of course should talk to us, as you'll see here. People we disagree with talk to us and had a very productive conversation. So, but first, we ran into our first candidate right away in the morning. Mary Ann Williamson, we asked her about the pledge. Let's see how it went.

Marianne, you've heard about our progressive economic pledge. Yes, I signed your pledge. There we have it. First presidential candidates to sign the pledge. For some, it's not so easy to do because Medicare for All is on their Green New Deal. And a lot of the candidates have said they don't want to do that. Even constitutional amendments, some have had hesitation. You have no hesitation?

Absolutely. It's the only way, those are the only two ways now that we can override citizens united. And it must be done. You and I agree with that. That is the cancer underlying all the other cancers. Bam, one for one, right out of the gate. Okay, so we're feeling pretty good. And 18 to go, at least on that day.

And I got to speak to almost all the candidates on that day. At least we tried, we did get stiff armed by a couple, okay. But then we got to see one of the major candidates. Bernie Sanders. That's a bit of a moment of truth. The Democratic Pledge yesterday, progressive economic pledge. Are you going to sign Senator Sanders? I believe that's a signature.

I thought that's an invisible guess. The answer is yes. Good job on that. Thank you. So we now have two of the candidates signing. I talked to Klobuchar a second ago, and obviously this is to, and she's not ready to sign it. And this is to delineate who the real progressives are, because it seems like there's confusion. What you have put down there is.

you have put down there is kind of common sense. It ain't radical stuff. It talks about the need for health care through all through Medicare for all singles pay a system. It talks about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and not a very radical idea. It talks about making sure that we save this planet, right? For our kids and our grandchildren, I don't think that's a radical idea. You're talking about getting money out of politics, ending the corruption that currently exist. We're with you. And I'm proud to sign it. So I just want to say Anna real quick. Look, I didn't know that he was going to sign that quickly. I think it makes sense, I think he's right, it's kind of the minimum.

That's why it's not that hard. And it's okay if you're not a progressive candidate, as we're gonna see a couple in a second, for you to say, hey, no, but these are my ideas. But if you are a progressive candidate, it's not that hard. It pretty much is the bare minimum. Yeah, and I like the way that it just clearly outlines which policies a candidate needs to support in order to be considered a progressive because right now the label of progressive is a popular label and I see it being exploited.

I mean, you guys talked about it during the rally and I think that the whole purpose of this pledge makes a lot of sense. The comment I was gonna make is less substantive in regard to the interview you had with Bernie Sanders. It's just, I can't stop looking at your face while you're interviewing him. Because you look so excited to be talking to him. No, I gotta tell you something, no, no, no, no, I was super excited the whole day to to talk to everybody, as you're gonna see in the other interviews too.

Because I love this stuff. You look like a kid whose parents just gave him a Nintendo 64. So later in today's program we'll show you my interview with Michael Bennett too. And there we didn't agree, but still fun, man, tons of fun if you ask me. I love politics and what I care most about is policy. So now let's go to a candidate who didn't agree with us. Now we're not surprised by this because John Daly came in here, sat down and had a longer interview which went great.

He was very happy with it. I was too, because it helped delineate the issues. That's all we're trying to do. And so we had a similar conversation at the time. Let's see how that went. So there's five pillars, higher wages, $15 minimum wage. I'm for that. Collective bargaining.

I'm for that. And representing the American worker and not taking corporate pack money. And I'm not taking corporate back money. Okay, great. We're good on all those. Green New Deal, and just two points to that. Not everything else, just getting off of fossil fuels in 10 years and rebuilding. the energy infrastructure in the country and trying to create millions of jobs?

I'm forgetting to net zero by 2050, and I have a plan to do that, and I think it's the best plan, and so I'm fully committed to getting the United States of America by net zero by 2050, and also effectively building a whole new industry in the United States of America that can not only save us, but save the world. Okay, and Medicare for all? I am for universal health care, as you and I talked about, where every single American gets basic health care as a right for free. But I'm also for giving them options. And that's where you and I respectfully disagree.

Right. So that's super clear. So you won't be signing the pledge because you don't agree to a couple of the planks. But I really appreciate you outlining your positions on all those issues. Really appreciate how clearly you ask the questions. It makes it easy for people like us to answer them. See, not so hard, right? I mean, we're going to go to Andrew Yang in a second.

But I think John Delaney is fair to call him an establishment Democrat. And I'm not sure that he would argue much with that label. But he gave clear answers, and that's lovely, that's what you want. And we did a longer version of that in the studio, did a shorter version right there. And so now you know what John Delaney's positions are. And by the way, some of you might like those positions. You might think, hey, I don't think we can get there in 10 years to get off fossil fuels. I think maybe by 2050 we could do it.

And others might say, hey, I don't like, that sounds like a middle ground approach. And I'm not in favor of that. At least it's clear. So I really appreciate that Delaney did that. And so for the politicians that were not engaging, just calm down and have a conversation and then make your case to the American people based on where you actually stand. So now let's go to a non-establishing politician and an outsider, Andrew Yang. So he didn't sign the pledge either, but listen to how he handled it instead.

Watch. I am so aligned, as you know, with everything on that list. I have like a slight difference in approach on a couple of them. For example, I want to give every American worker $1,000 a month, which would be a $6 an hour raise for everyone. It would also include caregivers and parents, people like my wife, who's at home with our two kids. So it's a different way of getting money into the hands of workers. I completely agree that no one should be working full-time and be poor in this country. But I have a slightly different approach.

And so when you look at the language, and it's like, oh, do I sign on? Because I'm just trying to give people cash and not have a go-through-the-employer. So I'm spiritually 100% aligned with everything on that list, getting money out of politics, health care for all, getting the cost of education down and making sure that people aren't like, you know, swallowed up by this mountain of debt. But some of the mechanics, I have like a slightly different approach. And I'm not sure if I'm meant to sign based on the spirit or if the mechanics are actually like the... You want to say hi to our guys?

I would love that. Andrew Yeang, everybody. See, look at that. It turns out you can disagree on some things, agree on a lot of other things, and then still have a moment to see. say, hey, you know what, we appreciate your honesty. And so great job by Andrew Yang there, please watch the Fuller interviews. They're pretty short to begin with, they're about five minutes apiece.

We'll put them up on our YouTube channel, also on t.com. So watch for John Delaney and so many others, Eric Swalwell, many others that were also up there and had conversations. And so at the end of the day, how many people did we have that signed it? So out of the 24 candidates overall, three Democrats have already signed it. So Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson, and then Mike Gravelle's team heard about it online and they reached out to us even though they weren't there in Cedar Rapids. And they're like, we're gonna check with Mike and they just checked with Senator Gravelle

and he's like, oh yeah, yeah, and he went online and signed it immediately. Nice, nice. So three, actually five down because three said yes, two definitely no, but for good and interesting reasons, check it out for yourself. And then finally the rest are, and very fair, because we just did it the day before, announced it the day before, said, let me read it and get back to you. And how do you do that? This is a great way of doing it. Here's Mayor de Blasio. Love for you to take a look at it. It's got five planks, higher wages, green new deal, Medicare

for all, college for all, and amendment to get money out of politics and private financing of elections. So can we send it to you and have you take a look? You have to send it to me. I want to tell you, first, I just want to thank you for everything you do to help build the progressive movement, to help educate the people this country. everyone, you were one of the first people in the media to predict that I would become mayor in New York City because you saw the progressive movement building. And you've been way ahead to occur before. I love what I'm hearing about the pledge. I got to read it first, but I am looking forward to it. And I have a feeling we're going to be on the same page.

He knows how to appeal to you. You were so right in your predictions, Jank. You're so right. You were the first one to predict it. No, no, no. It's true. No, seriously, guys, he saw a video that I did when he was in third or fourth place and no one expected him to win the Merrill race. And I said, no, this guy's running the right kind of race and he's going to win. You know how much I love those predictions. But it was about him. So he saw it and he's like, well, that was kind of awesome.

If only you were right in your predictions when it comes to taking bets with me. Oh, damn, shots fired. Okay, so bottom line is we're looking forward to the other presidential candidates weighing in. But remember, guys, it's not just about them. There's also progressive groups and congressional people. If you didn't see my speech on Saturday, I'm going to tell you some great names that have signed in a second too.

But most of all, we need you guys to sign it. Because the more people that sign it, the stronger it is and the more power that it has. So I know this is a huge outlandish number, but if a million people had signed the pledge, then And people are like, wait, that's a million Democratic voters in a primary. I'm gonna take a second look at that pledge, okay. So t-y-t.com slash pledge. And finally, the other folks who have signed great progressive organizations like P-T-C, so go to bold progressives.org if you want to check out more about them.

Justice Democrats have signed and Rokana, congressional representative Rokana, obviously, the first Just Democrat ever, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She's also signed the pledge, and many others, including the legendary Anna Kasparian and other folks in the network, John Iderolo, Kyle Kalinsky, et cetera. But you could be part of that list as well. So it's just to clarify where everybody is, I think that's going to help the process, because as Anna most accurately pointed out earlier, a lot of people are hijacking the word. And even Joe Biden is going around saying that he's a huge progressive.

But if you don't agree to almost any of the planks in the progress. I think it's fair to say that you should probably use a different word. It doesn't mean that your point of view is illegitimate. Go make your case. That is your actions. Those are your positions. You should defend them. But let's be clear about what the labels are.

So let me just play devil's advocate for one second. What would you say to those who would argue, well, who the hell is Jank Yugar to be the arbiter of what is and isn't progressive policy? Okay, first thing I would say is, how dare you? Like Richard Oedgeda, how dare you? Okay, no, of course, the point of having the other group sign is so that you know, we didn't just make it up, right? There are other progressive groups and other progressive leaders who said, yes, that is the core

of what it means to be a progressive. So, and we're looking forward to more groups signing up. By the way, a lot of you are in those groups. And I explained to the guys in Des Moines and in Cedar Rapids, look, we're loud and insistent And then the reporters pointed that out, they certainly noticed that, but we're also polite. We're very, very polite when we go up to these candidates or to your own groups or to anyone, we just simply ask, do you want to sign or don't you, and please take time to think about it because we don't want it to be an empty signature, that doesn't mean anything.

And once you thought about it and deliberated on it, please give us a clear answer. It's definitely not too much to ask for it. So my guess is a lot of you guys will ask more progressive groups to sign them, and a lot of them will. And the more groups that sign, the more legislators that sign, more candidates that sign. And again, most importantly, more of you that sign, the bigger and stronger that pledge gets so that the media can't ignore it. And look, honestly, that's one of the biggest problems because the media generally doesn't clarify.

They say Sanders progressive, Biden progressive, we're moving on. They have vastly different policies, and that should be clarified. So let's go ahead and take a break. When we come back, we have a little bit more news for you from the rally, I believe. Yeah, so I interviewed Senator Michael Bennett. It was actually part of a scrum of reporters like you see in the movies. Scrum is a weird word. Agreed.

They also call it a gaggle, which is also slightly weird. I like that a little better. Okay, so, but I want you to check that on because I think that it is interesting commentary on the state of reporting in America as well as his answers. And then we're gonna do CNN asking Bernie Sanders. and interesting, and it seems purposely unfair question. So we'll get to that when we return. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Inging the Republic, or UNFTR.

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or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's

most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it, the New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast, today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. I've ever had. Guys, it really is. It's a ton of fun and a lot of people talking about hope. I want to talk more about that in the post game. If you're a member, we got so many behind the scenes clips. I think you're gonna love them, us driving up to Cedar Rapids, how nervous I was before

the speech, yes, that actually happens, okay, so we're putting all those up as quickly as we can on tyt.com, and obviously you can join at tyt.com slash trial and try it out. And I'm going to talk more about the media and more about the folks that were there during today's post game. That's also just for members. Ecclectic, Mr. Lania says, thank you so much, Jank and TYT for creating the Progressive Pledge. These are clear common sense progressive policies. It makes narrowing down the field a whole lot easier.

If a candidate can't sign the pledge, that's a deal breaker for me. And it is interesting. There's a couple of progressive candidates out there that have not yet signed. It's only 48 hours, so give them a little bit of time. And we said, we told all the candidates, take a week if you need, but don't take six months because that means you're not signing it, right? So give him a chance, but it is interesting, it'll be interesting to see who does and doesn't. Speaking of which, DM Thomas on Twitter says, I think Bernie Sanders signed the Progressive

Pledge faster than you did, Jank, and you helped come up with it. That's true but not quite fair, okay, because I had to check with a lot of other people. So like, are we getting this right? Should we include something else, et cetera, right? And so big citizen special interest writes, and hey, Jenk, my wife and I made it to both rallies. We're already planning to visit our local DSA and young Democrats organization to bring the pledge to New Jersey's second district's third way congressman Jeff Bandrew to put him on the record.

By the way, Iowa was worth it. It's all caps, that's why I yelled it. Thank you guys, I loved it. By the way, we're gonna do it again, we're gonna do it in Miami. So more details about that coming up later this week. Can I come this time? Oh, by the way, people wanted you to come so bad. See, we gotta give people what they want, Jank.

I hear you. Are you gonna sign the pledge to have Anna Casimir and go to Miami with you? Are you gonna sign it? The second pledge. Well, I don't know, who came up with that one. So Emma Viglin will definitely be there. We'll talk more about it because we're gonna do the planning throughout the week. Cool.

But if you can, it's around the debates. June 26 and 27th, so you already know the dates. Okay, we're gonna go down there and show up in force again so that the reporters keep going, who are these guys and what do they want? Which is exactly the kind of the point. By the way, tomorrow, right after the Young Turks, don't miss Cuomo primetime, because I'm gonna go back on CNN again with Chris Cuomo. That's tomorrow night, and we're rocking and rolling.

Okay, now, speaking of all this, one more story from yesterday for you. So yesterday we're in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where 19 presidential candidates were, and one of them was Michael Bennett, he's senator from Colorado. And he was in a gaggle of reporters and they were asking questions. I jumped in to ask a couple myself. Obviously we're just including the ones here that I asked, but many of the reporters asked other questions as well. So first one is about campaign finance reform, let's watch.

Senator Bennett, would you be in favor of ending private financing of elections? Would I be in favor of ending, if we could figure out some other system, I think the system we have now is about the worst of the possible being. Yeah. I think what I'm really focused on is what we're going to do to overturn Citizen United, what we're going to do to create more disclosure of our campaign system, which I think are important first steps. As long as Mitch McConnell is in the role that he's in, he will do absolutely everything he can

to kill campaign finance reform. So I think this is 90% of the American people think there's too much money in our politics. I completely agree with them. And so the alternative obviously would be public financing. Would you be in favor of that? I would be, but I don't think that it's realistic that we're going to see that anytime soon. So would you be in favor of an amendment? Would you vote for an amendment?

The amendment that I'm working on right now is an amendment to overturn Citizens United. I was the second person in the Senate to sign up to Tom Udall's amendment. I think that's what we should be doing. So look, on the one hand, he gets that Mitch McConnell is the worst and campaign finance reform is in disastrous shape and the system is in terrible shape. But on the other hand, as this classic of a lot of Democrats in the Senate, he's like, but don't get me wrong, I'm really not going to do much about it. That's my analysis and you can judge for yourself.

But, you know, he said public financing is not realistic. I said, okay, that's fine, but would you vote for it? And his answer was, as you saw there, basically, no. I'm going to vote for this other proposal. So if you're wondering what that other proposal is, what does it mean to overturn Citizens United? It would allow Congress to set some limits on campaign finance, that amendment. Okay, but that does not mandate public financing.

You can still have private financing of elections. It just gives Congress more power. I think that's politically less popular and not anywhere near as good policy-wise. Yeah, you want to know why it's politically less popular? Because why would the very people who exploit the system for their own advantage want to change the system? Yeah. And so what they're saying is, look, I want to do some reforms because now anyone can buy a seat and they can just buy my seat by spending like $100 million against me.

I don't want that. So where do I want power to reside instead in me? Well, that's pretty convenient. Look, I don't want to talk it down too much because the Udall Amendment is way better than the current system that we have now. But again, real change would be to end all the private financing, whether it's the Koch brothers or Soros or Bloomberg or. or Adelson or ExxonMobil, it doesn't matter. And all the private financing so they could serve public interest rather than private interest. So then I asked them about the minimum wage bill because it's stuck in the House.

They said they'd get it done in a hundred hours. They haven't. It's been obviously nearly half a year and Nancy Pelosi's still not been able to move it. So I asked him about that. Has $15 minimum wage stalled? Do you think that Nancy Pelosi needs to push forward on that even if not all the Democrats in the House agree? I am not, that is not a decision for me to make.

Would you vote for it in the Senate? I'd have, I haven't, I actually haven't looked at the version there. What I've supported is a increase from $7.25 to $12 and 15 in some places in this country. Yeah, and politicians can't figure out why the American people don't love them. So I know it's a political answer when he says, oh, that's not my decision, that's up to Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, but you're a United States senator, you're allowed to have an opinion. on it. He doesn't want to upset Nancy Pelosi because they haven't moved it forward.

It's okay, upset each other every once in a while if you care about it. If you want to fight for it, say maybe even forget going public. You privately go to Speaker Pelosi and go, are we gonna move that thing? Because I wanna go vote on it. And then okay, but you don't wanna do that fine, put that aside. Then at least tell me, would you vote for it? And to be fair to Senator Bennett, he was clear. He said, no, he said, I don't want it to be 15 everywhere.

I wanted to be 12 in some places. Lame, that's all I have to say about that. Incredibly weak, incredibly lame. Okay, that's clear too. So now I talked to Michael Bennett running for president, senator from Colorado, about Medicare for All. Now he is not in favor of it, as you're gonna see in this clip. But he did say something very interesting about how good it is.

I'm not sure he meant to. He was very clear on the language though, because he opposes Medicare for all, he says, because it would take away private insurance. So I wanted to press on that a little bit and see if we can get an interesting answer. I think we did. Let's watch. And on the Medicare for All issue, Senator Bennett, you just said if people want to keep their private insurance, you want to be, let them do that. Under Medicare for All, they would have more expanded coverage. So it's not that they would lose their insurance.

It's actually, that's what the authors of the bill now say. That is not what the bill says. And if you hear Bernie say, listen to what he says. He says, you can buy insurance for cosmetic insurance, what he calls cosmetic insurance, which is for plastic surgery, I guess. Right. So I guess, yeah, you can buy it if you want plastic surgery, but otherwise it makes illegal all forms of private insurance

that contain the same elements that Bernie's Cadillac Plan, and it is a Cadillac Plan, which is awesome, contains. So, you know, there's legislation. You can go read it and see if you think I'm telling you. No, no, no, I agree. I think I might have, we have a miscommunication there. Well, then you and I gave, we've had one and you had one. So, no, when you just referred to it as the Cadillac package, that's awesome,

my point is that that would replace private insurance, what you just described as awesome insurance, Medicare for All. Right, right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's Cadillac insurance, man. It is. Okay. So they would lose their private insurance in favor.

of awesome Cadillac insurance. That's right. Okay, yeah. Well, that was clear. And I double checked. I asked the other reporters that were there. He just said what I thought he said, right? Yeah, he kind of got caught there, right?

Because he's not in favor of it. He's not going to vote to support it. But the way that you asked your questions kind of got him cornered, right? Because the point wasn't the, I think that's true. And you didn't even intend to do it. intend to do it. No, no, all that. So look, guys, you know, we have this reputation of being progressive because we are.

But that's different than the questions that we're asking. And it never messes with the facts, okay? If you do, then you've lost credibility. And we didn't spend 17 years building this program and get all this audience because we don't have credibility, no, we care deeply about the facts. And in fact, in this situation, what I'm trying to do is clarify the facts, because people like Senator Bennett keeps saying, if you do Medicare for All, you will lose your private insurance.

And I said, that's fine. And so what I'd like to know is, do you agree that it's replaced by better insurance? So it's not like people don't have insurance, they have better insurance. And you just saw there with your own eyes, Senator Bennett said, yeah, that's true. They would have quote, awesome insurance under Medicare for All. So, and look, I don't mean to pick on the other reporters too much. But why isn't everybody asking every senator opposed to Medicare for all that same question? It's not that complicated.

When you say, hey, they're going to lose their private insurance, isn't it a natural follow-up to say, do you mean they're going to have no insurance? Or is Medicare going to replace the insurance they have? And would it be better or worse? And it turns out if you ask that question, even to the opponents of Medicare for all, they think that it would be way better. So why are they against it? He went on to explain.

And look, we try to give the full context also in individual clips that you can see on YouTube and on t-y-t.com. He said, look, I don't want people to not have a choice. So you could pay more for crappy private insurance or you could pay nothing for the Cadillac package and awesome insurance. Okay, I don't know why you would want that choice. And so, and part of the problem, of course, if you dive into the issue is that it's, you If you have private and public, why does Medicare for us not allow private insurance on

the core of the coverage other than cosmetic surgery, et cetera? Because then private insurance sets the rates even lower, but they do that by providing almost no coverage. And they do it for only healthy people. And so they get all the healthiest people into that pool, and they unload all their costs onto the public that is paying for Medicare for all. So it's not really a choice they're creating, it's a Hobson's choice, and it creates a situation where they pass on all, they socialize all the costs onto us, and then pretend

that private insurance is better. But as Senator Bennett just explained there, in the Medicare for all system, you would only have the awesome insurance. Now it's not to say that it's free, 5% of the country as one of the top experts and advocates for Medicare for all came on the Young Turks and explained, no, it 5%, the top 5% would pay more, the bottom 95% would not pay more. So if you're in the top 5%, you say, look, I don't really want to pay for other people's insurance, et cetera, I just want to keep mine.

And if your kids got cancer and you don't have insurance, that's your problem, not my problem. Okay, that's an opinion to have. I feel like you just answered your previous question about why the media doesn't ask the questions that need to be asked in terms of like, why is it that you don't support this policy? Remember, most people in media aren't like us. They're not like, you know, making the money that we're making. not, you know, in some cases struggling. They're not dealing with instability. They're usually

getting giant contracts making millions of dollars. I'm talking about on-air news people who get the opportunity to ask these questions. Yeah, no, I hear you. To be, look, to be fair and accurate, the guys on TV make a gigunda amount of money. A lot of people in that room, the reporters, et cetera, don't necessarily make anywhere near that money. But there is group think. And there's acceptable questions and sometimes not acceptable questions, and it does come from above, it's not to say that it's a conspiracy or that they hand down memos saying you are not allowed to ask that question. There's just this pervasive, unbreakable group think. And so everyone, it reads other pieces going, oh, well, they would lose their private insurance

and they're done with it. We really are asking them to go a little deeper and it's not too much to ask to say, okay, then what would replace it and is it better or not? And if it turns out, if you go one step further, you get really interesting answers that illuminate the issue way better than the current national conversation. We're gonna take a break, but when we come back, we're gonna switch gears and discuss the line of questioning that Bernie Sanders received on CNN over the weekend. And then later on, we will discuss a lengthy New York Times piece that talks about right

wingers radicalizing young white men mostly on YouTube. We'll be right back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals.

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That's EXPRE SVPN.com slash TYT. t yt check it out today we hope you're enjoying this free clip from the young turks if you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media become a member at t yt com slash join today in the meantime enjoy this free saying all right back on a young turks jose lean from the member section writes in first time catching guys live jank glad you're back i tell everyone i know about t yt and super proud to be a supporter Anna, you are my goals. Oh, thank you.

Wow, isn't it? Aim higher, though. Aim higher, that's funny. All right, and thank you for being a member. Tell everybody, t-y-t.com slash trial. You can try it for a week free and see if they like it. Jordan Rucks says, I have to say being a TYT member and watching the shows is helping me finish writing my book.

So thank you. I didn't know we were that good. Okay. I don't know how that helps you, but that's great. I love to hear that. Thank you, Jordan. Nick on Twitter says, of course I sign. The pledge, big changes can start with small gestures, 100%.

T.wit.com slash pledge, every single signature makes a difference. And then if you want to volunteer afterwards, great. I talked a lot about that in the speech. We'll keep talking about it as we go along and I'll explain that more later. Mathem activist writes in, we definitely want Anna at the rallies. Are you kidding, Jenk? She's your firepower, to be honest, introduce her for the main speech at any rally she's at. God bless.

And then last one, The Kitchen Witch says, viewer suggestion, the ultimate TYT swag, a t-shirt that says, wait for it, where's Anna? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right, got to take care of a little bit of business, so let's do that. First off, as I've said a million times, you've got to protect yourself and your online activity,

and there's no better way to do that than to use a VPN. We have partnered up with NordVPN, which offers awesome encryption to protect you, and you get a 75% off three-year deal. And you get your first month free. Just go to NordVPN.com slash TYT. And then I just want to show off this new mug that I have. It says Aspiration. I was wondering if you guys got it today or last week when I wasn't here. It's kind of cool.

It is. It's badass. I love it. Yeah. And Aspiration is actually helping us put together an awesome special for you guys, which will take place on Friday, the 21st. So we're gonna have all sorts of fun festivities. We're referring to it as fantastic Friday.

So please, please, please check out Aspiration. It's a great financial institution. Go to aspiration.com slash TYT and open a free checking. Yes, I think that's they're bringing like some sort of dunking tank on Friday. I am not going to do that. No, me either. No. Okay, but I will dunk other people though.

Is Dave Rubin around? Oh, but don't dunk too aggressively. aggressively, Rogan might come after you. Oh, okay, wouldn't want that. All right, all right. Let's go forward. Cool. Over the weekend, Bernie Sanders was in the CNN hot seat over the topic of the Hyde Amendment

and reproductive rights. Here's Dana Bash asking him some fascinating questions. Joe Biden changed his position this week, opposes the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using taxpayer dollars for abortion services. You oppose it to, and you said this week that you have, quote, always voted against the Hyde Amendment. But you have actually voted in the past to support large spending bills that include the Hyde Amendment. Is it misleading, Senator, to say that you've never voted for it? Well, look, sometimes in a large bill, you have to vote for things you don't like.

But I think my record as being literally 100% pro-choice is absolutely correct. Look, if you believe, as I do, that a woman's right to control her own body is a constitutional right, then that must apply to all women, including low income women. That is what I have always believed, and that is what I believe right now. So he's telling the truth there, it is what he's always believed. In fact, back in 1972, this is prior to the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, Bernie Sanders said the following in the Bennington banner, which was a local paper, okay, this is a direct quote from 1972.

Abortion is an issue with which brings out deep feelings in people, and I respect the feelings of those who are opposed to abortion on moral grounds. I feel, however, that these people should not be allowed to impose their sense of morality or religious feelings on people who hold a different opinion. He continues to tell the paper, it strikes me as incredible that Paul, Politicians think that they have the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body. This is especially true in Vermont, where we have a legislature which is almost completely dominated by men, 1972, the Bennington Banner.

Okay, so there's point number one. So before we get to more videos from Bernie Sanders and whether he's being consistent, look, this is why people like Bernie Sanders. It's probably his number one attribute. He's a rock. You can't move him off those positions. So what is problematic about Danabash asking this question? Now technically, he did vote for the Hyde Amendment, which was part of thousands of things

in these gigantic appropriations bills. So, well, the reason is it's a bit of a gotcha question. Now I almost never call anything a gotcha question because it's super fair to ask politicians about their voting record, anything else that's in their past. And oftentimes the Republicans will take a fair question about policy and go, ha, now you want me to have a position on Libya. That's a got your question. No, those are not got you questions. The reason this one is, is because everyone in the Senate voted for those appropriations

bills, including Elizabeth Warren and every other Democrat that had a chance to vote on it that's running for president. So now no one's questioning Elizabeth Warren and other candidates that have come out super strong against the Hyde Amendment, but they voted for those same appropriations bills. And they shouldn't be questioned on it. It would be wildly unfair to Elizabeth Warren, who's an excellent candidate and very progressive. for people to turn around and say, oh, well, but you voted for the High Amendment inside an appropriations bill, right?

Ha, ha, ha. But if you do that with Bernie Sanders and you don't do it with any of the other candidates, that is unbelievably unfair. And even if you do it to the other candidates, no matter who you're doing it to, you should explain within that context, because other people might not see your interview with Warren or Kirsten Gillibrand or any of the other people. You should explain that all of the senators voted for those appropriations bills. Otherwise, you're misleading your audience.

It makes it seem like that whoever you're talking to, and in this case, Sanders, is a hypocrite and was not telling the truth because he did vote for it within the context of an appropriations bill. Right. That is terribly misleading, and you've got to see that. I think she knows, right? But one other thing that I want to note is this is very similar to what we saw with the crime bill, because Bernie Sanders has been a very vocal critic from the very beginning in regard

to the crime bill. But the crime bill contained a provision that's incredibly important to him, incredibly important to women here in this country, which is the Violence Against Women Act. So he was kind of pushed or backed up into a corner and he had to decide, all right, well, do I help to pass these protections for women who have been, you know, either brutalized by their partners, victims of domestic violence. So he goes out on the floor and he basically says, this crime bill has a lot of issues. I am not in favor of this crime bill, but we need to protect women. I'm obviously paraphrasing, but he ended up voting for it not because he agreed

with everything in the crime bill, but because in Congress, you know, lawmakers do this tricky, posicky thing where they put a bunch of different, you know, policies together into one bill. And then you're kind of, again, backed up into a corner. What do you do? Do you pass those protections for women, or do you refuse to do so because you disagree with the crime bill? And by the way, it is a political trick that's done on purpose. So for example, if Bernie Sanders voted against appropriations bill or Elizabeth Warren or anybody did, they'd say, look at this obstinate person, like everybody's voting for it, we

have a compromise, it's bipartisan, and then here comes Bernie Sanders, and he just won't vote for anything. Now, instead he does vote for it, they go, aha, you voted for everything in that bill, including the hide amendment got you, there's no winning on them. The reason they put the Violence Against Women Act inside the terrible crime bill is because if people like Bernie Sanders voted against the crime bill, they would then run ads against them saying, you're for violence against women. But wait a minute, I don't, why don't you separate them so I could vote on the Violence Against

Women Act, which I'm very much in favor of, and vote against the rest of the crime bill, which is terrible. And the reason, and the guy who authored that bill and did that political trick, by the way, Biden. So that's a fact. I think one of the most effective ways in researching candidates is to, of course, look at their voting record. That's incredibly important.

But at the same time, take a look at the types of speeches they've given, either on the House floor or the Senate floor. What have they stood for? Have they been consistent or have they flip-flop depending on where the country was on particular issues? Remember, you want a leader who's willing to lead, not someone who just follows the crowd and does what's politically popular at that moment. So with that said, I just want to be clear, Bernie Sanders has been consistent when it comes

to reproductive rights. I gave you those quotes from 1972, and I want to also show you this video from 1993. 12 years of relentless assault by the Reagan and Bush administrations on the rights of women to control their own bodies has engendered a climate of intimidation, intolerance, and violence. And yesterday we saw the awful manifestation of that. hatred. When a doctor who performs abortions is gunned down in broad daylight, it is time for Congress to act, it is time for Congress to pass the Freedom of Choice Act,

and to make it clear from one end of this country to the other that women and women alone must have the right to make the difficult choice regarding abortion. So he's been consistent, it's abundantly clear in the various examples that I've showed you. Yeah, so last thing about the media in this regard, look, Look, I think CNN actually has been getting better. So they now have Alexandra Rojas as a contributor, she's the director of executive director of Justice Democrats. So they're at least trying to get progressive voices on there.

I read all the articles about the Hall of Fame dinner that happened yesterday in Iowa. CNN actually had the best and fairest coverage of the progressive candidates, established candidates, and even us, okay? So it's not a binary situation. And I've seen Dan Abesh do very good interviews. In this case, I think it was a misstep. And I think that it unfortunately misled their audience about Bernie Sanders' record. They could have done what we just did, give you the full context.

But let's keep it open mind, let's keep pressuring people to do the right thing. And by the way, the guy who pointed this out, their hypocrisy on this is Tommy Christopher at Mediite, who's written a ton of articles against Bernie Sanders, but was fair on this one and pointed out the context. So let's give people a chance to do better because we're not the right wing. We don't want to tear down the media, we want to make it better. And so we hope we're helping with it, and that's your full context. One more story before we go to break.

Over the weekend, there were various celebrations in all major cities to celebrate gay pride. There were parades everywhere, and unfortunately in a few cases, Nazis decided to exploit the festivities for their own purposes. One example would be what happened in Georgia, where police apparently escorted a Nazi group very close to where the festivities were taking place. And there was a lot of backlash on social media as a result of that. So we have a video kind of giving you an example of what the scene looked like. Luckily, from what I've seen in the reports, nothing broke into violence, no one got hurt.

But with that said, you see the cops very clearly protecting the Nazis that are trying to provoke the crowd. crowd and it's a little unfortunate. Take a look. You're all trash. You're not. We're not. We're going to protect it but we're not. Our police that should be protecting us.

So my mistake. My mistake, that was actually in Detroit, but something similar happened in Georgia as well where Nazi protesters showed up to protest gay pride. So here's my thoughts on that. Look, in this country, you get to be a Nazi, and that's not the case in a lot of other countries in Europe. They, you know, for understandable reasons, for example, in Germany, they've banned Nazis and they're not allowed to parade anywhere and they don't get police protection.

But we believe in very strict freedom of speech. And so many well-documented cases of Nazi marches, parades, et cetera, allowed in America. But that doesn't mean you get to have them march anywhere they want, anytime they want. So can they march through the Holocaust Museum every single day? No, there are reasonable time and place restrictions. So it's a terrible mistake by Detroit to say, oh yeah, you could march on the same day is Pride Day and will march you straight up to their entrance. No, that makes no sense at all.

You could march the next day, you could march the day before, maybe you could even march in a different part of town. But you aren't, remember the Nazis didn't just kill Jews, they killed gay people, they killed Poles, they killed Roma, and the list goes on, but LGBT community was an enormous victim of the Holocaust. And so to allow Nazis, protected by the cops, to come straight up into their face. and try to intimidate them in the middle of a pride event, that is totally unacceptable. Right, and look, in past years, and I know this because I used to live in West Hollywood

and go to the gay pride parade each year, the Westboro Baptist Church used to have a presence and they would try to provoke or intimidate people. And the reaction that I saw from the parade goers and the people who were celebrating gay pride, they would mock them and make fun of them and they would be on their way. In this case, with Nazis, it's a little different. I mean, especially after the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville and some of the violence that we've seen, understandably, people are fearful for their safety. And so I think it was a misstep by police to bring these Nazi protesters right to the entrance

of this parade. Yeah, and it encourages an interaction and a conflict that is not going to be productive in any way, shape, or form. It's terrible judgment on that part. On top of that, the neo-Nazis were armed. That's a disaster waiting to happen. I don't know who in their right mind made that decision in Detroit. No, they don't have a, they have a right to freedom of speech here that is much more expansive

than almost any other country, but they don't have, no one ever has an absolute right to freedom of speech in the sense that you can't go into the classic example, you can't go into a crowd theater and yell fire because people get trampled. There are reasonable restrictions you can do for people's safety. including having two protests, two marches that don't agree with each other are historically violently opposed, have one of them be armed and protected by the cops and marched right into the pride event of the other. I almost can't think of a worse example of decision making for the government involved

there. By the way, the neo-Nazis weren't just against gay people. One of them took out an Israeli flag and urinated on it. And lastly, to Anna's point, these are not normal times. When the Nazis marches Skokie, people were very upset and understandably so, everybody's always upset when they march. But back then, they were still a curiosity, a small trashy part of society, okay? You didn't see a lot of executives in the Nazi marches, okay?

It's guys who are down and out and kind of leading disastrous lives who are looking for meeting in all the wrong places. Unfortunately, that's not today. Today, they're empowered and they're allowed to march through the streets and run people over. I mean, that person got prosecuted, but that happened, we know that there's a lot of talk from Republican politicians and Donald Trump that seems to encourage these folks. And so when they are rising up as a real force, political force in America, rather than a small side note, you've got to be even more careful.

That doesn't mean you take their rights away, but you should be more careful about what is reasonable in time and place restrictions, especially in a context like this. I mean, what's the next thing? So are they going to go up to a Jewish march? And are we gonna march them right through the middle of the Jewish march? Yeah, right? In today's climate, yeah, based on what we've seen so far. And really, by the way, there isn't that much difference between those two.

Both the LGBT community and the Jewish community were massacred, murdered in the middle of the Holocaust by the Nazis. So just an absolutely disastrous decision. We got to take a break. When we come back, we're going to discuss that radicalization story that I promised you earlier. And Ryan Grimm will be joining us on the main show. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.