The Young Turks - Woke as a Joke

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

Is the U.S. heading towards a new housing bubble? Senator Ted Cruz went after “woke” CEOs and companies by telling them Republicans won’t ignore your tax dodging and corporate welfare scheme. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right. The Young Turks, J.K. Kusparian with you guys. It's going to be a hell of a show. We have a couple stories on here. That is just fantastic.

That's fantastic. Ted Cruz story, the Missouri story where they're like, democracy, not so much. Apple's getting sued. Is it a monopoly? People want to know. They got to know, right? There's slander websites.

Oh, there's such drums about them, okay? I mean, it's terrible. But then the drums are twists. in that story. What are you going to do? Not stay around for the twist? What are you going to do? Not like and share this video? Don't be ridiculous. Of course you're going to do that and we love you for it. But I'm going to tell you one last thing. Tonight,

finally, live old school's back. Oh no, wait a minute. Does that mean you guys can participate? It does. Who are you hosting with? I'm hosting with Mark Thompson tonight. Nice. Okay, okay. The legend, Mark Thompson. Nicest man in America. All right. So you guys get to interact with us tonight at 10 o'clock Eastern. So there's the episode that's available to everybody free at 10 o'clock. That's 45 minutes. There's a bonus episode. Oh, no. Of old school, another 45 minutes. That's just for the members. Did I say t-y-t.com slash join? I didn't, but the graphic did. And I just did as well. That's how we do a plug. And finally, tonight, our first ever bonus episode of the Young Turks.

Bonus. Everyone loves bonuses. Who does they love a bonus? Here's who likes bonuses, our members. Okay, because they're getting them. TYT.com slash join. And if you're watching on YouTube, we can hit the join button below. But for the bonus episode of the Young Turks, you've got to be at the essentials level. For the bonus episodes of all the other shows, you've got to be at the premium level. I'm just keeping it real. That's just the reality of it. You'd always do it through our website. All right, much love, lots of shows. I mean, lots of stories, go. All right, I'm going to start off with the story that I wish everyone was paying more attention to, and that's, of course, the housing market and the trends that we're starting to see. Yes, of course, of course. That's right. So let's do it. Let's talk about the latest. So as U.S. home prices continue to surge, many are asking, are we in the middle of a housing bubble. And depending on who you're talking to, you'll hear all sorts of answers. Yes, we are. No, we're not. But one thing that is,

is for sure is that right now what we're experiencing in the housing market is not sustainable. It's certainly not sustainable and there are incredibly wealthy people taking advantage of the situation and pricing ordinary Americans out of the market. Now new data from Redfin shows that the median home price in April rose 20% to $347,500 compared with just a year ago. And the average home spent just 20 days on the market before selling. If you're in the market to buy a home, you've probably experienced bidding wars. You've probably even offered above asking price and still got outbid. Now, when you hear the reasons for why this is happening in the housing market, much of the examples you get half to do with the coronavirus pandemic, low mortgage

rates. That's one of the other things that you'll hear, which is true. It means that the cost of borrowing is, it costs less to do so. It's easier to. to qualify for a bigger loan for a house. So some are arguing that the low mortgage rates are convincing people to take out loans and buy homes. There's a lack of homes available. So since the lack of inventory is an issue that drives up the price because of the high demand,

then there is also teleworking as a result of the pandemic. More and more people are looking to buy homes for more space so they can work from home. And then there's also a delay in new home construction as a result of the pandemic. But that is not the full, like, robust picture. And I think it's important to talk about why we're seeing what we're seeing in the housing market. And just to give you a sense of where we were at prior to the pandemic, home prices rose 12% year over year in February, the fastest rate since 1996. And that's according to the

most recent reading from the closely watched S&P CoreLogic Case Schiller Home Price Index. So, Jank, before I actually tell people what's really going on, why don't you jump in? I was mainly mumbling, although probably bumbling as well. Under my friends, go preach it, teach it. Okay, so look, good news, bad news, good news. My parents were selling their homesuit, okay? So I thought, oh, the marketing, housing bubble, where they get more? Good, okay?

So if you're selling a home, you're feeling pretty good about it, right? But as the local news guys like to do in their intonation, my parents will be selling this. their home, but they'll also be buying a home. So that means, well, that's good news, but then that's bad news. So look, all the things that Anna outlined in terms of where the market is, well, people want to buy more homes because they don't want to be packed in the cities and they haven't done a lot of construction because of coronavirus and there's a lot of demand and not a lot of supply.

That's all very normal, okay? So that's a normal demand of supply. And if that's why the market is moving up and there's nothing else, then that makes sense it's just a normal story. But there's more. Hence, we go back to teach it. So this is what frustrates me about the conversations revolving around the housing market and the lack of affordable housing. And clearly what we're talking about here is different from renting, although this has an impact on renting as well, which we'll get to in just a second. But to simply say that this is a problem due to a lack of construction doesn't give you a full picture of what's going

on because if you live in a city, chances are you've noticed quite a bit of construction. The only problem is construction for new housing typically immediately gets sold to private equity firms like Blackstone, which have no interest in flipping houses. They don't even do that, which that kind of speculative nonsense also unfortunately puts home buyers at a disadvantage. But what they do is they invest in entire neighborhoods of newly built homes, single family residential homes and then they put those homes back on the market as rentals and essentially serve as the country's largest slumlords. That's one of the issues. The other issue that you're likely to come across is a home has been sold in your neighborhood and there's no one

living in it and it's because the person who bought that home doesn't even live in the United States. We're talking about foreign investors, in some cases even foreign private equity firms who are looking for a place to store their money, and they see U.S. real estate as a safe haven. And there should be laws preventing that from happening when we keep hearing from our politicians over and over again that there's a lack of supply. Well, if there's a lack of supply for Americans, then why are we allowing forward investors who have no interest in even living here to invest in U.S. real estate? The other thing I wanted to bring up is a counter to the talking point that I hear from the naysayers, the individuals who claim that we are not currently in any type of real

estate bubble because Dodd-Frank, the legislation that passed during the Obama administration, regulated the banking industry to ensure that they would not engage in the predatory lending that led to the 2008 economic collapse. Now, when it comes to big banks, Dodd-Frank certainly applies, which is why big banks have tightened up their mortgage standards. It's much more difficult to get qualified for a mortgage, pre-qualified, and what have you. However, Dodd-Frank did not apply to what's referred to as non-bank lenders. And beginning in 2016, non-bank lenders ended up lending about 50% of the outstanding mortgages. And that's relevant because, again, non-bank lenders do not have to abide by the same regulations that the big banks do. And that's a

problem because they are over leverage themselves and they also engage in what's known as mortgage-backed securities. And those securities get traded in the stock market. And then what happens if those toxic mortgages end up defaulting? Well, then if you're invested in your 401k or your retirement account with these mortgage-backed securities and the economy collapses, well, then you're going to be heard as well. Just a few graphics, jank, just to kind of really understand what this is. Non-bank lenders are more likely to lend money to borrowers who might be rejected by traditional banks. For example, a borrower with a low credit score or someone hoping to purchase a home that will require a lot of renovation is more likely to be approved by a non-bank lender.

Non-bank lenders can't take funds from customer deposits because they're not banks, remember? So to make the mortgage loans as they don't offer checkings or savings accounts. Instead, they borrow the money on a line of credit and sell mortgages to investors. According to the Brookings Institution, the danger is that non-bank lenders depend on short-term credit to finance their loans. Markets usually tighten in times of financial crisis. Now, as we all know, coronavirus has brought forth a giant financial crisis for tens of millions of Americans.

But thanks to the federal government issuing a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, people haven't been pushed out of their homes. The question is what happens when that moratorium is lifted? And no one has really answered that question, including the federal government. Okay, so Professor Casper handled most of the material here. I'm just a TA, okay? So let me add some color to this. So first off, on the private equity part, this is left out of most of the articles written

about the housing market, they usually cover the first part of what we told you, and then leave out the parts that affect the financial industry and might be driving a big part of this movement. So I just want you to understand supply and demand. So before we talked about the normal market forces. But when the big guys on Wall Street buy a whole heap of homes, which they have, and if you remember from a previous show, we told you that after 2008 crash, they swooped in because they foreclosed on those homes, and so they knew they were getting him at really cheap rates. They knew the market would go back up. And the kicker is they knew that you wouldn't have

the money anymore for the down payment to buy those homes back. Hence, you would have to rent from them. So they would make money on the rent, and they would get the equity of the house that normally you would get. So, I mean, give them credit in a sense. That's a savvy financial move. It's done because, of course, the government financed it. They would give them giant subsidies and bailouts, et cetera, I could be savvy too if the government just handed me all that money and told me to go take your houses, right? So, but there's a second problem with that, which is happening now, which is because they bought so many homes, there is higher demand for that in the housing market, which drives up prices. Because you're now not just competing with

Bob and Sally who also want to move into the neighborhood, you're competing with Wall Street who's buying those homes, right? But it also creates lower supply. Since they're renting out the homes, well, then they're not selling them. So all those homes that are being rented out by Wall Street now taken off the market. Well, when you have lower supply and higher demand,

the prices are going to skyrocket up. And that's exactly what's happening here. And then when you combine that with the coronavirus, actual market forces, you're getting monster prices. Yes. And so that makes your chance of being able to buy a home and build that equity so that you don't have to rent the rest of your life. And you could actually have something that creates wealth for your family. Well, those chances are diminished and nearly gone now.

Exactly. And so what also ends up happening, and I can't emphasize how damaging this is, when you have these private equity firms like Blackstone, taking all of these single family homes and turning them into rentals, you have this massive corporate. serving as the landlord. And there have been many complaints on how they, you know, basically take care of these properties, how they treat their own tenants during the coronavirus pandemic, even with the federal government implementing a moratorium on evictions. They don't care. They've been evicting tenants left and right. And so it's obviously incredibly negative for renters, but it's terrible for people who are just ordinary Americans look

to live the American dream, looking to build their wealth, and to be honest, owning a home or buying a home was really the only way left for ordinary Americans to build wealth. And Wall Street has taken those opportunities away, and the federal government isn't even having a conversation about what to do to prevent this from happening. And again, it is true that there needs to be construction of new housing because there's a lack of inventory. However, we can't put the cart ahead of the horse. We need to ensure that there's regulation to to prevent private equity firms from snatching up all of the new construction and turning them into rentals.

One other thing I wanted to mention is that if you do find yourself lucky or fortunate enough to be able to outbid a private equity firm or an all cash buyer, usually those all cash buyers are part of Wall Street, well, what you've had to do in order to get that offer approved is incredibly risky, as the Hill reports, offers well above asking price are commonplace. And those unable to outbid competitors have up the ante by waiving inspection requirements and restructuring offers with better immediate incentives for sellers. So that's not a good sign. That means that people are willing to do away with contingencies, which ensure that you know, the home goes through the proper inspection. They might find that the home has major

foundational problems, and they've just paid 100,000, 200,000 over asking price in some of these bigger markets. Yeah, so I want to get the last word to our members, because we do the show together with you guys. So Spice Boy want to be explained. They're buying a house, they're selling a house, and the market is super hot. And so you guys are seeing it in your own lives. In fact, they said that before they even listed their house, already realtors had reached out to them. I don't know how they found out. and started talking about getting them good offers, right? So it is, and look, so if you're a homeowner, and this happens in gentrification, too,

there is that silver lining, which is that you're going to get a much better price if you sell now. Where are you going to move? That's a different question, because you also have to buy, in which case you're going to get screwed. But remember, there are two different problems here. One is the housing prices and getting priced out of the market. But the second price is the bubble, the second problem is the bubble, and the crash that might come with this. So anxiety dragon wrote in, strange how we keep repeating the same things that caused the crash of 08. Repetition while expecting different results is a definition of insanity.

Unfortunately, we'll live in insane times. So guys, the key there is what we're going to look out for going forward is are the banks doing the same things they did in 2008? So as I've explained a thousand times in the show, the housing bubble was the trigger, but the gun was the derivatives. Those are the bets that they make on those homes, package of homes, right? And the package of homes might be worth a ton of money, but then they would bet 10 or a hundred times that amount of money, and the bets are what triggered the domino effect for the crash. So have they started to redo those bets, the derivatives, the CDOs, and all those different packages?

And the second problem was doing things that are off book, because the banks would report, oh, no, no, we're not over leveraged. We're doing four to one, eight to one, six to one, whatever it was. Meanwhile, off the books, they were doing 100 to one leverage. So if you bet a dollar and you lose a dollar, it's not that big a deal. But if you bet a dollar, it turns into a hundred dollar loss, dominoes. And the whole world is screwed, right? And so if they rebuild that casino or have already rebuilt it, then, uh-oh.

Yes, the correct answer or the correct question to ask, and I wish we could find a way to get the answer is, are these private, equity firms over leveraged, because really all it would take is any type of financial obstacle, economic obstacle for ordinary Americans that are renting their properties for them to default on their own loans. You get what I'm saying? Yep. And we don't know the answer to that yet.

But what we do know is that what we're experiencing in the housing market is not in any way sustainable and is causing a lot of pain and suffering for ordinary Americans who have done everything right. And they just cannot outbid private equity firms who end up being all cash buyers. Yeah, and those non-bank landers could be the first dominance to go. So be careful and pay attention to what Anna said about those guys, because they're in a much more precarious spot. If the crisis begins, they're the first dominoes to fall. And then when people, when giant financial institutions cannot pay each other, that's what creates the dominoes, crashes the market, and then crashes their economy and screws us all.

When we come back from the break, we're going to switch gears a little bit and talk about conservatives who claim that they're worried about woke culture when they engage in woke culture of their own. We've got that and more for you when we come back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling

lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood 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 app today and get ready to get

informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. I don't know. I'm going to be able to be. I don't know how much. We're going to be. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. We're going to be able to be.

I'm going to be. Hey, we're back on the break here. Makeaway Spice Boy wannabe's comment. I wanted to read the whole thing. Okay, so, all right, that's a note to our whoever's doing the comments at TYT. If you can't bring back Spice Boy's comment, because the whole thing was illuminating. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging.

It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients, designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common issues such as hot flashes, poor sleep, low energy, bloating, and more.

With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24 seconds, the results speak for themselves. A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. But I want to give a shout out to all these new members that just sign up on YouTube.

Rosemary Mbroniev, Richard Gaston. I watch too many Disney movies now, Gaston. Anyway, Sing is King, indeed. Good to have you with us, King. Christian Sans Paris, Mikhail Holloway, Athena Onken. Look at these wonderfully international names, said Jank Ugar and Anna Kasparian.

So, love having you guys with us. Looking forward to all of you guys getting the bonus episodes. By the way, you could upgrade too. You might not even realize on YouTube that when you sign up, The default is the $1.99 level, and we love you for that, and you're still a member, and you get a badge, et cetera, but basically we lose money at that level. So if you go to the higher levels, you help support the show even more, let's put it that way, and you get these bonus episodes. So thank you guys. We love you.

Now, Michael Goldman asked a really good question on YouTube super chat about TYT. He said, I haven't heard anything lately about TYT's Progressive Pledge or the Media Amplify campaign. Are there any plans to renew those efforts? So Michael, you're awesome for tracking that and for asking that question. So on the Amplify program, it was mixed, but there was one super tangible result from it. I say mixed because you guys bought a lot of young tourist membership for people in the media. And we sent it to them and over and over again, we told them just open it and use it. Because we're trying to make sure that your money was well spent, et cetera.

And as you guys all know, it also helped the show, and we were clear about that. And a lot of them, you know, didn't open it, and that's frustrated us. But a lot of them did. And I believe that's how we got on Cuomo show, because we know they opened it, right? And then we wound up starting to go on Cuomo show more and more and more. And during one of these bonus episodes, I could tell you about the details of how much of a difference that makes. So you guys were awesome. So at the end of the day, I would say mission accomplished on that one.

but I get frustrated when when like I want all of your money to go to something great right and a win win so when when some didn't open it that would frustrate me so but that was a great campaign overall now secondly and it wasn't just about us getting on we got to spread the progressive message on during the campaigns so that's why you guys rock okay on the progressive pledge we were just having a conversation about like three four days ago like we had the conversation back in the day, do you take Elizabeth Warren off because she was kind of wavered on Medicare for all? Are we close? Oh yeah, I'm almost out of time. Damn it. We thought about taking Marianne Williamson all for the same reason. Now $15 million in wage, they're not really

fighting for it. I got to tell you more in the bonus episodes. Anyway, great question. We'll be back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. And you as well, I know Bill Mard, not a big fan of Twitch, but we are. Is that, is Bill's thing? Is that in the bonus episode? It's in the bonus episode. Not the post game in it. It's the bonus episode.

We'll talk about that in the bonus episode too. Anyway, so we'll get that. But on our Twitch channel, we have this awesome community watching right now. Daisy Dragon gave 500 bits and Obi-Mom gave 500 bits, quote, and they gave this quote, nice bits for the new intro, okay? So thank you for noticing that we had a new intro today. There's a lot of new things today. New intro, bonus episodes for this.

new old school, it's live. We've got a bonus episode for that. TYT.com slash join. Should you do that? I guess. Okay, hit the join button below on YouTube. Yeah. Okay, all right. Casper. Man, I feel like my housekeeping skills or whatever are like on full display today with my wrinkly shirt. I feel really bad, except I don't. But like, I'm sorry. I keep looking at myself in the monitor and I'm like, man, I'm a mess today. But not as bad as this guy. Look at him. All right. Well, let's talk about Ted Cruz. In a new opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Senator Ted Cruz pretended as though he wants to hold corporations accountable. But it's not due to their mistreatment of workers

or the fact that they tend to severely underpay the very people who make revenue for them. It's because he's worried about woke culture and how corporations are engaging in it. It's titled, Your woke money is no good here where Ted Cruz pretends as if he's not going to take corporate pack money. He argues that corporations have taken advantage of Republicans for too long. I won't take their pack dollars anymore, says Cruz. So first off, let's just acknowledge and get out of the way the fact that we don't believe him. I personally don't believe him. I think that in one way or the other, he will take money from corporations because otherwise, how is he going to do what he does? This is, this is Ted Cruz's bread and butter, and the fact that he's

pretending like he's not going to take corporate donations is ridiculous. But moving aside or moving to the other part that I wanted to bring up, you know, he angrily writes about how these corporations are speaking out against Georgia's voter suppression law. And he believes that that qualifies as engaging in woke culture. Now, to be clear, I do think that the Democratic Party has a problem with quote unquote wokeness. And I'll get to that in a minute. And I want people to understand that it's actually a very nuanced issue that is hurting the Democratic Party when it comes to local elections, when it comes to federal elections, and we'll discuss it. But Cruz argues that had these watch me woke it up CEOs actually read the bill, instead of parroting the radical left's talking

points, they'd have discovered they have no idea what they were talking about. A clutch of businesses or business leaders tried to win woke Twitter points and clown themselves instead. Now, obviously none of this is true. Corporations, after being pressure to speak out, actually did say that the voter suppression law in Georgia is a problem. And it is a problem. The voter suppression law specifically expands voting in areas that are typically voting in favor of Republican candidates. But when it comes to the more urban areas where you see a larger percentage of the African-American vote,

they've actually limited voting, including limiting the number of mail in or drop boxes for mail in voting. Now he also says this is the point in the drama when Republicans usually shrug their shoulders, call these companies job creators and start to cut their taxes, not this time. This time, he argues, we won't look the other way on Coca-Cola's $12 billion in back taxes owed. This time when Major League Baseball lobbies to preserve its multi-million dollar antitrust exception, we'll say no thank you. This time, when Boeing asks for billions in corporate welfare, we'll simply let the export-import bank expire.

So I really want to emphasize that what gets these Republican lawmakers upset is when corporations, and it's rare, actually speak out against the Republicans' bad behavior. And to be sure, in Georgia, Republicans have engaged in bad behavior because they are trying to rig their elections to their advantage after that state. flipped from red to blue and voted for Biden as president in the last general election. But they don't care about how workers are treated. They don't care about inequality in America. Those are things that they don't care about at all. They never have. They never will. And so I don't want anyone to be tricked into thinking the Republican lawmakers are looking out for you and trying to hold corporations accountable.

That's not what this is about. They're trying to, in my opinion, in a weak way, retaliate against corporations for, Honestly, doing nothing more than paying lip service to people who are outraged justifiably over Georgia's suppression law. Okay, this is actually one of the most important stories we'll do, because it has two massive parts of it, okay? One is the admission by Republicans like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio wrote a very similar op-ed in the USA today, and Mitch McConnell alluded to this in a different form a couple of weeks ago on the filibuster fight. They're admission that, yeah, we used to do whatever corporations wanted, but nothing that our voters wanted. But now we might not do that anymore. It's amazing. It's amazing. Well, we used to give you, let you off on your taxes to the tune of $12 billion because you gave us campaign donations.

But now we might not do that, huh? Well, why'd you do that in the first place if it was wrong? That's unbelievable. It's amazing. He's just admitting it. One, because he thinks there's no real journalist in the country. We've been doing this corruption for decades, and no reporter ever talks about it. They make it seem like, oh, campaign contributions, they're perfectly normal.

No, they're bribes. They're legalized bribes. And here's Rubio Cruz and the rest going, oh, yeah, we might not take your bribes anymore. And then you'll see. Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great. Thank you for the admission. So will anybody in the press change?

Of course not. I want to come back to that in a second because it's so important. The second part that is arguably as important is there Republican and Democratic parties are bringing to flip on on corporations. And that's a giant deal, okay? That's good news and bad news. The bad news is Democrats are becoming the more pro-corporate party. Yep. Now, the good news is the reason corporations are switching their allegiance more to the Democratic Party is because Democratic Party is because Democratic Party is more stable and corporations need to

They don't, they're already on top. They don't want anything to change. So when a candidate says nothing will fundamentally change, they're like, yes, that's the guy. That's Biden, okay? When you have the Republicans going, I don't know, we'll do anything, man, so what? Maybe we'll nuke a hurricane. Maybe we'll inject ourselves with bleach. Maybe we'll let the racist take over.

Maybe we'll go to fascism instead of democracy. Corporations are like, no, that is not the kind of instability we like that threatens our existence, revenue, etc. The second reason why corporations are going to Democrats is because progressives won the cultural war. So now what is the implication of that? Well, companies don't want to anger African Americans and Latinos and young people and LGBTQ folks, etc. Why? Because they're customers. And now there's a lot of us. And since we won the culture wars, in essence, now companies are saying, okay, before we couldn't make up our minds, should cops shoot black people that are innocent or shouldn't they? I don't know. Should gay people

have the same rights as straight people? I don't know. I'm neutral. And that was called brand safe. I'm brand safe because I'm not alienating Democrats or Republicans. Now there's so many customers on our side that they're going, oh, us being neutral to black people being murdered is not brand safe. Us being neutral to gay people being discriminated against and not having equal rights is not brand safe. If I want to sell more Coke and I want to sell

more jeans and burgers, I've got to go towards where the customers are and the clients are. And so we won the country. We won the Idea Wars. And the Republicans are furious about it. And that is why they constantly talk about Dr. Seuss and woke culture, et cetera, because that's slipping away from them. And hence, their corporate money is also slipping away from them. So this is Ted Cruz, as the corporations are withdrawing their money from him, go, I didn't

want it anyway. So I want to come back to that and what it means, because that's also a trick. So I have a slightly different take. I don't believe that corporate money will stop flowing to the Republican Party. I believe that corporate money will continue to flow to the Republican Party. the Democratic Party, I do want to touch on a point that you made that I think is accurate regarding the Democratic Party now turning into the party that's more protective over corporate interests. And that actually does have something to do with what I've personally noticed

with woke culture. WOT culture is a problem. And it's a problem when the Democratic Party specifically engages in that in lieu of policy that actually fundamentally improves the lives of the very people that they claim to be concerned about. So the increase incredibly superficial, shallow nonsense coming from the Democratic Party these days, where all they do is engage in the culture war by paying lip service to the. There are genuine problems, right? They'll talk about Black Lives Matter. They'll paint Black Lives Matter in front of Trump Tower in New York. But that's where it stops. That's where it ends. They don't go further than that. They don't actually champion policy that fundamentally improves the lives of the very people they're pretending to care about. And yes, I'm using the word pretend. Because much like the GOP, which dives in to the culture war in order to deflect and avoid talking about economic policies that improve people's lives, Democrats do the same thing. They've got their own flavor, and we need to be real about it. So they not only do that, they provide an opportunity for GOP lawmakers to attack them, sometimes attack them legitimately when they decide that they just want to go around, you know, doing the peace.

see finger wagging as opposed to doing things that again would fundamentally improve the lives of the people that they claim to care about, right? So that's my take on woke culture. I know that people get real uncomfortable with it because it's easy to pass it off as, oh, she just doesn't care about these disenfranchised groups of people. No, I do. I'm just sick of Democrats pretending like they care. They don't pass policies that improve people's lives. They don't fight for policies that improve people's lives. Instead, they spend all day on Twitter tweeting about what they would like to do to protect people or what they would like to do to make people's lives better. Well, they go out there and do it.

I don't want to hear your tweets about cisgender this or, you know, the right wording to use for that. Like, no, I'm not interested. Do your jobs. I'm tired of the nonsense like posturing and theater on social media. Yeah. So on that note, look, part of the, I'm not. identity politics that Democrats play, and yes, we're the most honest news show in America. We tell you exactly what's wrong with both the Republican and Democratic parties.

The identity politics they play is, hey, I have a black person, I have a LGBTQ person, I have, you name it, a Muslim person, et cetera. I've got all my identities covered. And they're all telling you that corporations are awesome. Now, that doesn't do it. Who cares? I don't care that you found seven people to use as fronts, right? Fox News does that.

That's the oldest trick in the book. If those people then fought for police reform and actually got police reform, then I love it. Then I'm all here for woke culture, right? But they don't. They never do anything about police reform. Today, right now, Biden's in charge. The Democrats have the House and the Senate. What are they doing about police reform?

Nothing, right? Show me increasing people's wages. I mean, the bare minimum is $15 million wage. Nothing. Show me something about health care. Not only is Biden not doing Medicare for all, not, he was supposed to do public option and lower the eligibility for Medicare. he dropped it. He didn't even mention in his address to Congress.

So the reason we're mad about the so-called woke culture of the Democrats is not because it's wrong to represent black people and Latinos and all these other groups. It's because we want you to actually represent them instead of pretending to represent them and putting a good face on it and then tricking everybody into voting for you and then doing nothing. The fight for a minimum wage hike to $15 an hour is actually a perfect, example, because when you look at the demographic that's overrepresented in the minimum wage jobs, it's women of color. It's women of color. So the Democratic Party will claim that they

care about equality for women. Oh, there's a wage gap. There's a wage gap. They'll claim that they care about ensuring that there's actual equality earning power for black people, for Latinos, for brown people. But then when push comes to shove, when they have the opportunity to implement the very policies that would significantly improve these people's lives, they back out. They go on Twitter and talk about how they need to do it, but then they don't do it. And so no cookies for you. You don't get cookies by talking about how you know what you need to do to improve people's lives. You only get the cookies when you actually do it, and they haven't done it. Yeah, and it's all a trick, guys. I mean, look, Reverend William Barber is just a moral giant

in this country. He's out of North Carolina. He's a wonderful preacher. And he has access to politicians, et cetera. And 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% percent. of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN.

And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. The minute Biden got into office, he did what everybody promised to do. He held him accountable. He said, you said $15 an wage. You're not doing it.

Kamala Harris, I love you. And when they talk, but you said you do $15 a minute wage and you have the power to do that. You have the power to overrule the parliamentarian, and you're not doing it. See, that's what a person who's a moral leader does, who actually cares about the community. People who don't actually care, put out other folks that look like people, the people that they care about or claim to care about. And they say, good enough, I'm not actually doing the substance. All right, but I've got to tell you the other part of it as quickly as I can. So when Ted Cruz says he's not taking the corporate PAC money, that's a good development.

Look, the number one litmus test we had of just Democrats was not taking the corporate PAC money, and it made a giant difference. Now, understand, though, that's the beginning. That's not the end. So how do they get around that rule? Democrats do this a lot too, not the just Democrats, but other corporate Democrats, they'll say, oh, I'm not taking corporate pack money anymore. And by the way, the people who did the Kamala Harris did this big time, Cory Booker did it, et cetera, right? Then they'll go and take tons of money from corporate executives. So that's a runaround. The second thing they'll do is they'll go to dark money packs.

Boom. And you can't tell if Coke or Chamber or Commerce, et cetera, put the money in. Yes. They go, I don't take the corporate pack money, but I take the dark money. No, that's the same thing, okay? And that's an even bigger problem than the corporate executives. And then finally there's the individuals, the Sheldon Allen, also, so you used to give $100 million at a time, the coax, the Mergers, et cetera. And I want to give you one quote from the Washington Post about that

because it ties it all the way back to Ted Cruz. So the Mercer's are Rebecca Mercer and Robert Mercer, and Rebecca Mercer, the dad in the Mercer family is the one that made his money on, Wall Street. So, and his daughter Rebecca also helps drive the donations. They gave over $13 million to Ted Cruz in the 2016 elections, okay, in the primaries. And now I want to tell you the rest of the story from the Washington Post. After giving $13.5 million to a super PAC that backed Cruz in the primaries, billionaire hedge fund executive Robert Mercer and his middle daughter,

Rebecca, remade the group into an anti-Hillary Clinton vehicle and urged other conservatives to rally around Trump. They even publicly castigated Cruz after he declined to endorse his former rival at the Republican convention. In recent weeks, the Mercer's played a role behind the scenes encouraging a detente. This is back in 2016.

Efforts that carried weight because the family is highly regarded by both camps according to a person familiar with the situation. So Ted Cruz says, I'm not taking corporate pack money anymore. Meanwhile, a hedge fund executive is giving him $13.5 million at a time. And so Ted Cruz, who yelled at Trump famously when Trump called his wife ugly,

said, oh, I'm not going to let him get away with it. And at the convention, he didn't endorse Trump. These same mercers slammed the door in his face, literally, at that convention when he went up after his speech. And then Ted Cruz, very famously, had that sad Ted picture where he was phone banking for Donald Trump. There it is. Now, why did he go from just a couple of months earlier saying he will not endorse Trump to begging people to vote for Trump? Because the Mercer said, no more money for you.

He said, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know if he brought his wife in so the mercers could call her ugly too. I don't know if he also let them call his dad a criminal and a murderer. But he said anything for the money, anything for the money. That's who Ted Cruz is. So Ted, don't try to pretend you're a populist now. That ship has sailed, and this promise is very empty.

And you tell me you're not going to take any more money from the mercers. You tell me, and it proved to me that you're not taking money from dark money packs. Then we got a deal. Until then, you're now and have always been a fraud. It's a good place to leave it when we come back from the break. Joe Manchin has thoughts on D.C. statehood. Spoiler alert, he likes the undemocratic route. We'll give you that story tomorrow when we come back.

All right. All right. Back during the break, let me read a bunch of your comments, including the one I wanted to read, Spice Boy, want to be. So writing in they say my husband and I were going to list our home in a couple of weeks as we are about to close on a new one. We're moving for all the reasons you said earlier. Both of us working from home and also

wanting to adopt kids makes us want a bigger place. That said, the market is so hot right now that we're already received letters from two different realtors saying they have clients who want to see our home already before we've even listed. They appear to be both families

who live here, but I can to test the things moving quickly. So that's the real world. That's why I love reading the member comments, okay? So that you can see it's happening in the real world. Okay, so Mickey C. the Silver says, we have to give the Republicans credit. At least they're honest. They're openly admitting their corruption, racism, hate, fascism, and love of violence.

Fair. Just be anti-racist says, also Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and other Republicans attempting to brand themselves to the working class party is a joke. And Jess, I hope I just explained the reasoning behind your comments, so I couldn't agree more. Jay Hufford, this is all from our member section, t.y.t.com slash join, writes in the CIA's woke now. Their new ad is like an old guy at an ad agency used a woke buzzword generator. Screenshot. This is from the actual site, a CIA website apparently. We'll do that story tomorrow.

Okay. So Anna says we're going to do it tomorrow. Actual quotes from this new CIA recruitment ad. I am a woman of color. I am a cisgender millennial. I've been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional. I think it's safe. And then Jay Hufford says, I think it's safe to say the contemporary American left has failed.

So, yeah, when the CIA is using a woke cover that they've covered copied from the politicians, we've both won and lost at the same time. So it's a really interesting story. Mazza writes, and Jake, from your expertise, when do you predict the bubble will burst about the housing bubble? Well, am I an expert on this issue? Well, look, did I go to Wharton Business School? I guess. Anyway, no, seriously, Anna's more of an expert on this than I am, and it's really nearly impossible to tell, unless you can look at the off-the-book transactions and get a sense of the size of the derivative market.

But Nomi Prince is great on this, and we have her on the show every once in a while, and she gives great details on it. And then Lauren wrote in, super excited to now be an official member of TYT, a former co-worker and now dear friend Julia, gifted me a sub and introduced me to this amazing community and now sent an outstanding news source. Now I'm a proud TYT member. Thank you for all the hard work you guys do. Well, first of all, Lauren, welcome. And thank you for saying it's a wonderful community. We like to think so. And I love that your friend gifted you a subscription and that that worked.

And that was one of the projects we had. We wanted to introduce you guys to what we're doing. And I love that you stayed. And by the way, Corey Matt, Anthea Napper, Cesar Pena, all just joined by hitting the join button below. You guys are awesome. Back on CYT, Chankana with you, go. All right, well, why don't we talk a little bit about D.C. Statehood and what Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat, has to say about it.

Senator Joe Manchin is willing to show Democratic voters just how low he's willing to go in parroting right wing talking points. This time it's in the context of D.C. statehood, a state that has, or I should say an area of the country that has nearly 700,000 residents, but they don't get the Democratic representation they deserve. So there has been an effort in order to make D.C. a state to ensure that they're properly represented. represented in this representative democracy. But Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat, isn't having it, and he gives you a weak sauce reason for why in this interview. Take a listen. Do you support or oppose congressional action to make Washington, D.C. a state?

Hopi, I did a deep dive on that, and I had my staff go through it. It's not a new one. The D.C. state is not a new. President Reagan's Justice Department carefully. He really carefully reviewed it with legal scholars in 1987. President Carter's Justice Department did the same thing 10 years before that. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy looked into it. They all came to the same conclusion.

If Congress wants to make DC a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment. It should propose a constitutional amendment and let the people of America vote. There are a lot of things that make this different than any state and territory. But the most important it comes to the statehood is the 23rd Amendment of the Constitution. So just it, so do it, if it's going to be a statehood question, it should be done by constitutional amendment, it should not be done by, you would oppose a unilateral action by Congress to make DC a state, correct? And I would tell all my, and I, yes, I would. And I would tell all of my friends, say, hop, I would tell them this. It's going to go, if you roll down that path, because you want to be politically poplar or whatever you're speaking out of this, you know it's going to go to the Supreme Court. Every legal scholar has told us that. So why not do it the right way and let the people vote and see if they want to. It's interesting that he claims to have done a deep dive because any individual who did a deep dive on this matter would want to understand how all these other states became part of this union, right? How did other parts of this country become states?

Was it done by a constitutional amendment? No, that's actually not how it happened. So the reasoning that he's giving you is ridiculous. And he's also lying to you when he claims that he's done a deep dive. He's done no such thing. In fact, delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, also a Democrat, said that those who make such an assertion are conflating a policy choice and a constitutional requirement.

All 37 new states were omitted by Congress, And there has never been a successful constitutional challenge to the admission of a state. The Constitution commits admission decision solely to Congress. Looks like she did a deep dive. Looks like she did a deep dive. Maybe with Jordan Yule, who hosts a show called Deepdive on our Twitch channel, twitch.tv slash TYT. But Senator Manchin did not do a deep dive.

Yeah. And nor is he allowed on Deep Dive to show. He's allowed, but he'll get crushed. Yeah. Oh, we allowed him here. I did an interview with him on TYT. I thought it went fairly well for me as jenks. All right, anyways, Tom Zawaki is one of our members, and he wrote in Anna, you should have ended the joke at Joe Manchin has thoughts.

Okay. So now, let's get to the reality. So now you know that every state was admitted without an amendment. Alaska was in 1959, simple majority of Congress, Eisenhower signs it. It's done. It's that simple, okay? The very thin excuse they have is, oh, the 23rd Amendment talks about the District of Columbia where that holds the seat of power, and it gives them the ability to vote for president.

Okay, it sets up a system to do that. Okay, great. Where does it say in the 23rd Amendment that it cannot be a state? No, it gave them some representation. Now, it left out their representation in Congress, so they don't have senators and they don't have a congressperson. Now, the fact that they let them vote in the presidential elections does not mean that they were not allowed to have a congressional member or be in a state. I read that amendment three times today because he said it's so confidently. I was like, wait,

did I miss it? Or does it say so hard that it's not allowed to be a state? No, it doesn't say that at all. Does it say that they're not allowed to have any other representation? It does not say that at all. And if Joe Manchin is so confident that he's right about the Supreme Court, well, then that's easy. And he's got a 63 advantage that you've packed with conservatives, right? So why don't we vote to make DC a state and then let it go to the Supreme Court? And if you're right and you've done your deep dive, then the Supreme Court, which is very conservative, we'll read the amendment and go, oh yeah, it prevents D.C. from being a state and you'll win. That's it, problem solved. So you have no excuse not to vote for it. Okay. Now, guys, let's go to the

hard of the issue. There's over 700,000 people in D.C. And they don't get to have representation. We did the American revolution because of taxation without representation. Yep. That is exactly what happens ironically in our nation's capital. And so it's unconscionable. And there is no logical argument against it. That's why Senator Tom Cotton had to go to deeply racist arguments. Yes, in fact, we have that deeply racist argument for you. Just as you watch this, keep in mind that D.C.'s population is 46% black or African American. So it's an important stat to keep in mind as you hear the ridiculous argument that Senator Cotton makes in this video.

Washington doesn't have the size or diversity of interest of even the smallest of the 50 states. Washington also doesn't have the diversity of interests and financial independence that Madison explained were necessary for a well-functioning state. Yes, Wyoming is smaller than Washington by population, but it has three times as many workers in mining, logging, and construction, and ten times as many workers in manufacturing. In other words, Wyoming is a well-rounded, working-class state. A new state of Washington would not be. So he's claiming, first of all, who cares what type of jobs the people living in any particular area hold? Democracy is supposed to be democracy, and people living in D.C. deserve representation. Also, he's just lying to you. He's pretending as if he cares about workers, when in reality, what he's actually concerned about in terms of, you know, D.C. not being well-rounded enough is the fact that nearly half of the people living there are black.

That's what this is about. Yeah, 100%. I mean, look at the code words you use. They were not very well disguised. There's not enough diversity of interest there. In other words, there's not enough white people there. When you talk about diversity when it comes to black people, say, ah, diversity's terrible. We don't need diversity.

Tucker Carlson every day talking about how diversity has hurt this country, not help this country. When there's not enough white people, all of a sudden, wait, we need diversity. We need diversity, otherwise you can't be a state, right? And then there's not enough financial interest there. Are you saying there's not enough bankers to bribe you? What hell does that mean? Okay, that's, there's not enough logging and mining. I check the Constitution, I'm pretty sure you don't need to have logging or mining to be a state.

That's an absurd claim. But my favorite of the racist, they weren't really dog whistles. They were human whistles, we could all hear it, was when he said, it's not a well-rounded working-class state. You racist, piece of crap. What the hell does that mean? Well, there's no people working in the District of Columbia. They're not well-rounded. How, Tom?

How are they not well-rounded? How are they not working for a living, Tom? Okay, so now we all know Tom Cotton's racist. He just declared it. But I'm here to tell you that anybody who votes against D.C. statehood, they're voting against it for two reasons. One, they don't want the Democrats to have another state where they would have two senators. That's obvious.

Let's acknowledge that, right? So that's, I get why the Republican Party doesn't want it. But Mention, he's a Democrat. So theoretically, he would want two more Democratic senators. Number one, he doesn't because he would lose some leverage. Yes. He loves being kingmaker, right? But number two, more importantly, the only other reason to oppose D.C. as a state is,

I don't want those hundreds of thousands of black people voting. I don't want them represented in Congress because they're not well-rounded. They're not diverse enough. They're not working class enough. So if Joe Manchin doesn't mind the Democrats picking up two seats, there's only one other reason he'd be against D.C. statehood, because he's a vicious racist. So I don't care if he cries about that. It's, oh, no, no, I just want to take away voting rights from hundreds of thousands of

African Americans, but I will get hurt, my feelings will get hurt, not from taking their votes away, but if you call me a racist for taking their votes away. Well, I got bad news for you, Senator Manchin, no deal, you're a goddamn racist. Anyone who votes against D.C. statehood is definitely racist, saying those black people should not have representation. If by the principles of our founding fathers, they should actually do a revolution. I don't want them to do that. I want us to do this in the constitutional and political way. But when the people in power say, no, I don't want these black people to be represented, you're going to have massive problems. Yep.

And the least of which is us explaining to the audience how racist joe. mansions. Well, let's move on to other politicians in the context of state legislatures who go against the will of their own constituents. The latest example is in Missouri. Lawmakers in Missouri have decided to brazenly go against the will of their own constituents who voted overwhelmingly to expand the state's Medicaid program. Now, while this is happening in Missouri, it's important to keep in mind that GOP-led state legislatures throughout the country, have been following a very similar trend. Let's take a look at what's happening in Missouri though, where back in August, 53% of voters

in Missouri approved the expansion to Medicaid, allowing an additional 275,000 Missourians to become eligible for Medicaid later this year. So this was done through a ballot initiative, and that is a majority of voters, 53%. They want this expansion to happen. Now, in voting against funding Missouri's Medicaid expansion, the state's top budgeter, Republican Dan Hedgeman said, quote, if the voters had all the information we do, I think they would have made a different decision. Okay, so I got to, before we even get to the other states, et cetera, all right, number one,

that's the most arrogant, elitist thing I have ever heard. 100%. I do declare if the voters weren't so ignorant, they would have obviously voted. with the Republicans and made sure that they don't get their own health care. They would have of course voted with corporate interests and make sure that they were slaves to the insurance companies and didn't try to liberate themselves by expanding Medicaid. The voters are so stupid, the Republican leader explained. Okay, second of all, you're either going to have ballot initiatives or you aren't.

You don't get to have ballot initiatives and if they vote for in favor of corporations go, great, fine, we We tricked you with all the millions of dollars we spent on ads. Now you get to serve corporations even more, and they get to crush you more. But if you vote against corporate interests, how dare you? Nope, you didn't mean it. You didn't mean it. We're just going to wipe it away. I mean, look, man, if you're in Missouri, how do you not get it?

You just voted for this. And the Republicans are saying, screw democracy, by the way, for the 28th time in a row, right? They just said it in the 2020 election too. And in this case, they're saying, no, I saw you. It's clear you voted for this and I don't want you to have it. I'm just going to rob you. I'm going to rob you of this particular initiative and of your democracy. So let's talk about the dirty tricks that GOP led state legislatures are playing because you just mentioned,

are we going to have ballot initiatives or aren't we? And when the ballot measures pass, certainly the ballot measures that the GOP lawmakers are not in favor of, What they try to do is make it very difficult for certain ballot initiatives to make it onto the ballot in the future. So they'll make it more expensive in order to engage in that effort. They'll make sure that they'll raise the threshold for the number of signatures they need on petitions to get a ballot initiative on the ballot. So they try to restrict it in an effort to do away with this direct democracy process that happens in many states. Now this is happening in Missouri, I also want to just quickly touch on the lie that they tell their constituents in regard to expanding the Medicaid program, which of course is the state's health care program for honestly poor people, needy people, people who don't have the funds or the income necessary to provide health insurance for themselves. What they'll argue is that, well, we just don't have the money appropriated in our state budget. We just don't have the money. We don't have the funds. But when they expand it, They do so under a provision in the Affordable Care Act, which brings in federal money to the state for the sole purpose of expanding the Medicaid program.

That was actually a really good part of the Affordable Care Act that many red states decided to deny their own constituents. So in this case, we're not even talking about state funding. We're talking about federal funding, free money to help poor people access health care in their state. And it doesn't matter, the GOP in that state has decided, no, we're not interested. We're going to go ahead and deny what our constituents voted for. Now, again, this is a trend that we're seeing across the country. In fact, voters in South Dakota legalized marijuana. They raised the minimum wage, and they also expanded casino gambling.

And what did Republican lawmakers in the state do? They moved to make it more difficult to get ballot initiatives onto the ballot. In Montana, voters last year approved a recreational marijuana program that sends a significant portion of tax revenues to conservation purposes, but a Republican-backed legislative plan seeks to instead put up $6 million toward an addiction treatment program before redirecting a third of what's left to wildlife habitat parks, wildlife habitat parks and recreational facilities. The list goes on and on, Jank. They did the same thing in Utah, where voters passed Medicaid expansion back in 2000.

2018, conservative lawmakers delayed its full implementation before adding work requirements. In Arizona, Republicans are looking to eliminate about a third of the revenue from a voter approved tax increase on the wealthy to fund education. They just don't care. They're not into you. They don't want to represent you. And if you tell them through a ballot initiative that you want certain programs, you want certain policies implemented, they'll just give you the middle finger and say, no, we don't represent you.

We represent corporate interests, we represent our own interests, and you can go ahead and F off. That's what they're essentially doing here. So there are two issues here. One is, it's all Republicans, Republican legislators that are saying, no, we hate democracy. If you vote against our corporate donors, we will kill whatever you said you wanted to do. You want to increase minimum wage. I don't like it. My corporate donors don't like it at all.

You want to tax the wealthy. My corporate donors and my wealthy donors, they don't like it at all. So no, we're not going to give you your democracy. So that is the one thing, on that alone, you should always vote against Republicans. I'm dead serious. I don't care what any stupid person in the mainstream media says, oh no, no, you never know. Maybe all of these Republicans will turn in mass. Maybe there's one secret good Republican.

No, in Missouri, they're screwing you over and over and over again. Every time you vote for something, they go, I don't care, I hate you, I love my donors, so screw you. But let's say in Missouri, because it's also a nonpartisan issue. Okay, because the Democratic Party sucks too. So don't get me wrong, we're super honest about that. The Republicans, I'm against because they're robbing you of democracy. But look at what the, the games that they play. So in Missouri, when Josh Hawley's running against Claire McCaskill, they have as a ballot initiative, raising the minimum wage.

It crushes. It wins with over 60% of the vote, 62% of the vote. McCaskill is a Democrat. She's theoretically in favor of that initiative. She doesn't run on it at all. Why doesn't she run on something that was deeply, deeply popular that could have helped her beat Holly? Well, her corporate donors don't want it. So she was against it.

And she lost. Why? Because Democrats don't mean it. They say they want to increase the minimum wage. But the minute they have an opportunity to fight for it, they don't. And that just happened again at the national level. So voters say, screw you, that I'm not going to vote for you. Holly pretends to be a populist.

He's supposed to be the biggest populist in the Republican Party right now. And he's like, oh, I'm for the little guy, average guy, yeah, right, okay. Gets into the Senate, he knows how his state voted, overwhelmingly to increase the minimum wage. The minute the minimum wage comes up, he's like, no, I vote, no, no way, no way. That hurts my poor corporate friends. You're all lying corrupt political hacks. Don't believe the mainstream media. They tell you these are honest people, principled people having real debates.

No, they're all doing exactly what their donors tell them to do. So I've got to give you the last example, South Dakota. They passed this awesome ballot initiative. Deeply red state, 60% voter for Trump, okay? Now, a couple of years back, they passed a ballot initiative that says, we're going to lower the limit on campaign contributions to legislators. Great. We're going to provide for public financing so that people can raise small amounts from real people in South Dakota.

And we're going to ban you from being a lobbyist for two years. and ban you from taking gifts over $100 from lobbyists, okay? It passes overwhelmingly. Because even in a red state, in a deeply Republican state, it's not the voters' problem. It's the politicians' problem. The Republican voters say, good, I don't want corruption. And that's what I give credit to Republican voters for all the time. I hit them on everything else, but they hate corruption.

And I love that, okay? The legislature comes back in and goes, nope, not going to do it. I want to take gifts from lobbyists. And I don't want my spending to be limited. I want to take as much as I can from lobbyists. So we're going to overrule democracy.

No, you're either going to have ballot initiatives or you're not. You're either going to have democracy or you're not. So every time a Republican kills democracy and they've done it in all of these states, we need the press to be crystal clear.

That one is not even. The Republicans say, we will serve our corporate masters at all costs, including killing democracy and voting against our own voters, even if they're Trump voters, even if it's in the red estate, we don't care, we hate you, we love our donors, we're deeply corrupt. Yet, here we are. Where else do you hear that? You hear that on NBC, on CBS, you hear it nowhere. They're the corporate media, and they're with these same scummy corporate politicians. playing a shell game on all of us. If you're in Missouri right now, you should be enraged.

And one of the things you should do is vote out every Republican. And by the way, every corporate Democrat in a primary. That does it for our first hour. But when we come back for our second hour, Senator Mitt Romney gets humiliated and booed. I can't wait to share that story with you all. And the Biden administration's weak answer on the possibility of closing Guantanamo Bay. We'll give you those stories and more when we return.

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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.