The Young Turks - Writers Block

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Episode summary: Hollywood writers to go on strike, bringing production on many television shows to a halt. US rail companies grant paid sick days after public pressure in win for unions. The group behind the conservative campaign to rewrite child labor laws. Newsmax Is reportedly planning to offer Tucker Carlson a lot more than just money. Former employees reveal Steven Crowder's abusive behavior. "Wow!" CNN this morning crew guffaws at Apple co-founder’s dragging of Elon Musk during an interview. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Woo! It's up! Thank you. All right, back on the youngs.

Well, welcome to the Young Turks, back from yesterday at least. Jake Hugo, Anna Kasparian, with you guys. As usual, plenty of striking news, literally. Literally. Literally. Got them. We're talking about a couple of potential strikes in a little bit. Labor movement, as we covered yesterday, a Mayday, Mayday special, okay?

So, and later in the program, I'm gonna I'm gonna say, unfortunately, drums, the Stephen Crowder thing is really disgusting. And I barely wanna cover it, but it's important. I gotta say, I give you a lot of credit, and I give myself a lot of credit for feeling kind of grossed out by getting into like the personal issues that people get it, you know. Yeah. Anyway, but we're gonna talk about Stephen Crowder in the context of his former employees, disclosing quite a bit about his leadership.

And guys, that story is all about like, are people on air genuine? And I'll talk about it then. But the thing is, it sucks that all these guys on air are liars because then no one knows what to trust. 100%. 100%. Yeah. Anyways.

All right, let's do it. Well, let's start off with what I'd argue is the biggest new story of the day, a big strike having to do with writers. The role of artificial intelligence is a new concern for Hollywood writers and actors. Yeah, no, I'm interested directing a movie for a robot rights. No. Speaking to his audience earlier this month, late night host, Seth Myers, shared his thoughts on the looming strike. I also feel very strongly that what the writers are asking for is not unreasonable.

And as a proud member of the guild, I'm very grateful that there's, an organization that looks out for the best interests of writers. Tens of thousands of writers and members of the Writers Guild of America have officially gone on strike after the negotiations with production studios did not really get to where they needed to get to. Now the studios and the writers union ended up experiencing a breakdown in negotiations and the board of directors for the East and West Coast divisions of the WGA Writers Guild of America voted unanimously to call a strike effective today. So today's the first day of that strike. And if you're curious what the sticking points are, what is it that they could not reach an agreement on? Well, the main issue, pertain to how streaming services have disrupted the entertainment industry and how the implementation of AI technology will further disrupt the industry. More on that in the next video. The main issue is streaming. Seventy-eight percent of households now subscribe to at least

one streaming service, but the writers say those series paid less and have fewer episodes. Ten years ago, the WGA says a third of its TV writers worked at the minimum salary. It's now half. But studio producers say their budgets are already stretched, and they can't make a profit by paying more when revenues are falling. Also playing a role in the labor talks? AI. The writers want assurances that studios won't use artificial intelligence,

like ChatGPT to generate new scripts. The role of artificial intelligence is a new concern for Hollywood writers and actors. Yeah, no, I'm interested directing a movie for a robot rights. No. I think the most clear cut part of this that I am 1,000% in favor of is the writers pushing back against the implementation of AI, wanting actual regulations and rules to be implemented when it comes to the implementation of AI. The other part of it, which is the disruption that was introduced to the entertainment industry

as a result of these streaming services is a lot more difficult because, and let me just be clear, I 100% support the workers here because they are obviously making less money and they deserve to get paid more. However, at the same time, it's difficult to figure out how it's going to work because of just how disruptive streaming services happen to be. There's also the issue of residuals. So as CNN writes, writers have traditionally gotten residuals when a show they wrote is sold to run again in syndication or on basic cable. But they're unlikely to get meaningful residuals, if any at all, when they create original content for streaming services as contracts stand today. The Guild was fighting in these negotiations for some kind of ongoing compensation for streaming services. And I do have some numbers in regard to how much these streaming services have made.

For instance, Netflix made almost $5 billion in net income in 2022 alone. And so the question is, how do you figure out a way to, I guess, redistribute that wealth in a way that makes sense? Because this is a different way of earning revenue. It is different from, you know, the advertising that comes along with the content that TV writers put out. So Jank, I'm curious what you think. Yeah. So guys, this is a super complicated issue. And so I'm a breakdown for you what the problems with handling this cleanly is. But first, I want to be clear, I support the writers. And in case you're concerned about bias, I do have a little

bit of bias, I guess in both directions. I run a digital media company, but I was also a TV writer. That's how why I came to LA in the first place. And my bias also is that the number one most important thing to make a movie or TV show work is the writers. I've always thought that was the most obvious thing in the world. Who cares what the actors and the director and the executives do if you didn't write a good script. It's all pointless if you didn't, right? So I can't, and not just because I was right, I was writer briefly, right, just for a couple of years. But not because of that, because it's logical that they're the most important part of this exercise. The second reason why the writers are right is that fact that video showed you in the middle there.

It's overwhelming. In 10 years, they went from 33% of the writers being at minimum salary to now 50% being at minimum salary. There's no question they're getting screwed in that sense, okay? So now the complexity here, so number one, yeah, Netflix made $5 billion, but we tell you on the show all the time when it's income versus profits, and that is income revenue. It is not profits. A lot, so the traditional media companies are still very, very, very profitable, but a lot of the streaming services, they make a ton of money. They've got an unbelievable amount of investment money, but they have not yet turned to profit a lot of them. So they say, well, how am I going to pay you from a profit I don't make? Well, I actually have an answer to that. Take it from the other people involved.

So I know that actors and directors aren't going to like that, but sad day, right? So it's not like you don't just have to add to the budget. You could take from other parts of the budget. So by the way, now before I get actors and directors and writers all fighting each other for a piece of the pie, there's another giant piece of the pie, and that's executives. And nobody ever, ever, ever talks about, hey, we're not profitable, so should we cut the executives pay, right? So look, so that's a huge issue.

And in terms of artificial intelligence, that's one's also complicated. They're going to go to artificial intelligence, whether we like it or not. I have a lot to say on that, but mainly that we should just put a spotlight on the ones that are made with artificial intelligence. And then if you want to watch it, you watch it. Or if you're, but if you're grossed out by it, don't watch it and support writers who write real shows. But I have more nuance on that, but Anna. Yeah, so for instance, David Zazlav,

Yeah, he's the head of Warner Brothers Discovery. Exactly. So I can't even believe this, but he was paid $250 million last year. $250 million in just one year. So when you talk about the executives, I think that you make a really good point there. So guys, Warner Brothers Discovery is now this giant amalgamation. It includes CNN. So they are incredibly profitable.

For example, CNN last year was really despondent because they only, only made $900 million in profit, in profit, okay? And so they're doing all these different cuts. And Don Lemon is actually part of those cuts that people don't talk about the financial side of it. They got rid of a lot of their, some of their expensive anchors, and certainly CNN Plus, et cetera,

because they're trying to cut costs. Where are they trying to cut costs? Well, number one, because they took on tremendous debt. Well, whose fault is that? That's the executive's fault, right? And second of all, that's because they paid their executives $250 million a year, right? And so don't tell me you don't have money.

On the other hand, there are plenty of companies that have never turned to profit, but by the way, they also pay their executives a lot of money. Yeah, they do, that's right. So I think you're right, there are places where they can, I guess, in the context of the entertainment industry, redistribute the wealth to ensure that the writers that make this content possible in the first place are compensated fairly for the work that they do. Now, CNN also reports that although many streaming services are not yet profitable, they provide the studios with a source of income from subscribers' monthly fees, making them less dependent on advertising revenue that might be lost from the need to air reruns on broadcast or cable channels. And so, you know, the streaming services also have a pretty massive stockpile of older

content that could keep their customers satisfied as this strike continues. And I'm really curious to see how that plays out. Because, you know, part of what makes strikes so effective is how it does away with either a service or a product in this case that the consumers look forward to, the consumers want. And when the executives of these studios are unable to produce that content as a result of the strike, well, that makes the strike a lot more powerful. And it gives them more urgency in coming up with a solution to make the writers happy. So I don't know how that library of content is going to come into play. It might not have an effect at all. The content that is likely to have the

biggest impact or experience the biggest impact happens to be like late night shows and things like that. So any thoughts on that, yeah. So look, guys, the writers want more on residuals, on reruns and stuff, but that's kind of an ancient model. And so I think, you know, now we're in the weeds of their strategy. And I don't know well enough to be able to criticize from the outside. I'm just telling you that we just don't live in the old world. I know like this town, L.A. that we're in built on residuals. Tons and tons of forget the writers, although some of the writers are super rich. By the way, that's why the writers can oftentimes have much longer strikes because they have the economic wherewithal to be able to,

to withstand a strike that long. Now, as you saw there, 50% of them are at the minimum, so don't make assumptions that they're all rich, right? But actors, directors, et cetera, there's 10 million, $20 million houses all over L.A. paid for by residuals. But those days are gone. That was the old days where friends and Seinfeld would come. They'd get to 100 episodes and then rerun them endlessly on all the other channels.

And every time they ran and people would get checks. And the higher up they were, the bigger the check they would get. Well, the world just doesn't work that way anymore. You've got to come up with a new model, but that's details. So in terms of the AI stuff, guys, like half the stuff we watch now is half AI already. Here's what I mean by that. Any of you watch Emily and Paris? No.

Okay, I did, I did, okay? And I kind of liked it. Thoughts and prayers. Okay, so by the creator of Sex and the City and he knows what generally speaking, what young female audiences want. And so Emily and Paris has every cliche you can imagine. Why, it's specifically designed for a certain demographic. Fine, mainly a human being did that, but they're engineering it to appeal to you.

So now we're like two inches away from artificial intelligence. So the fact that they're gonna do that is inevitable, right? And then so if eventually people will know that's an AI movie, that's a human movie, right? And my guess is the AI movies are gonna suck a little bit. Some of them will be like Emily in Paris. You're like, oh, it's kitchy, I kind of like it, it's formulaic, et cetera. And some of them will have like twist and turns, because the algorithm doesn't just spit out necessarily boring stuff.

It knows that it needs twists and turns. And maybe some of it will be good, okay? But generally speaking, I still think you need human flair to make something brilliant. No, by the way, we don't need robots to take, like what is the point of AI, right? To save cost, to save money. Okay, but that's exactly right. So that's exactly what the workers in this case, the writers see coming. They see that they are going to be replaced by AI technology.

So these studios can maximize their profits and cut labor costs. That is what they're trying to do. 100%. That's definitely what you're doing. And I love the fact that, look, but this is exactly how, this is exactly what I've been talking about, not just in the context of this story, but in any story where we talk about automation, right? If we're going to sit here and think that Congress, that the United States government is going to protect workers, and regulate the implementation of AI technology, we would be mistaken. And luckily, in this particular context, you have organized labor.

You have unionized workers who actually have a seat at the table and have a say in regard to or could potentially have a say based on how the strike turns out on how it gets implemented, on what regulations are implemented. I love to see that. I think that is exactly where union power matters and counts. I'm worried about the rest of the workers in this country who are not organized, who do not have union representation, who absolutely will be replaced by AI robots, because that's what their employers want.

Yeah, for sure. I'll add on two things. One, and as a billion percent, right, the government is definitely not here to help you. And in the old days, maybe they would have, but now both parties are completely owned by the donors. The executives are the donors, period, over. And not just in this industry, in every industry, you're not going to get any, help from corporatist Democrats or corporatist Republicans, which is about 90% of Congress. Okay. So now as to, well, okay, well, between all the different parts of the pie, why should

the writers get more? Well, look at this. They go on strike and almost all of the talk shows are canceled or on suspension, et cetera. Daytime soaps. Daytime soaps, all these different things. Why? Because it turns out, writers are kind of important. Like the folks in front of the camera 98% of the time don't know what to say unless they put it in the prompter, okay? Who put it in the prompter? The writers. By the way, we don't have prompters here. Okay, but for, but 98% of media does, right?

So look, I say it in the context of news. This is a little bit different. But in news, I, I'm sorry that it's derissa, but I call a lot of the cable news anchors, cable news actors. Because they're just literally reading a script. So the only guy who pulled it off last time was John Stewart. So in the last strike, he did the daily show by himself, and it was still good. And I was like, wow, damn, okay? Everybody else was like, my 30 writers are gone.

How could I possibly write? How could I possibly do a talk show without 30 writers, okay? That's actually such a great point. And I hadn't thought about that, right? The fact that the late night shows just can't do it without the writers. Yeah. And by the way, like even the view, today was like joking around. They're like, okay, take it easy on us because we don't have

our writers today. You need writers for the view? And the answer is apparently yes. Yeah. Because they can't come up with the ideas on their own apparently. So like understand that when you're watching almost anything in media, there was a writer who thought of that. And and it's not the person speaking the words, nine out of ten times is not the person who came up with the words. The person who came up with the words is more important. That's why I support the rights. All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including some positive developments when it comes to rail workers getting some time off. We'll also talk about the shadowy group behind the efforts to loosen child labor laws

in America. We'll tell you about them and more. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna, Louisa Cabrera, and David Balaraso. Two excellent names. Thanks for joining, guys. We appreciate it. They hit the join button below the video on YouTube. And Chris Birch, as usual, gifted five young tourist membership because he's a bit of a hero. We appreciate it, Chris.

and everybody you can join anywhere you are wherever you're watching this and we're on so many different platforms by going to t yt.com slash join and get all the benefits of membership all of our shows anytime you want like if you missed the mayday special don't worry you just watch it as a member anytime you want t yt.com slash join all right anna all right more labor news for you all today in a shocking twist four of the largest railroad companies have designed to offer pay time off to some of their employees. Now that was the sticking point that nearly led to a mass rail worker strike, which of course was prevented by Congress intervening and preventing them from doing it.

But don't get too excited. While some of the workers have been granted some time off, it's not the case for all the workers and there is a twist to this story. And we'll tell you about that twist in just a moment. But first, some details on the positive developments here. First of all, why would the railroad companies who fought giving these workers paid time off all of a sudden change their minds? Well, it actually had a lot to do with public pressure. So BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific all say that they've reached agreements for paid sick leave with somewhere between 8 to 10 of the 12 railroad unions.

The workers get around four days of paid sick leave, depending on what agreement they signed, and they'll be able to take an additional three days of sick leave from their personal days off. So these are good developments, right? Because this is what the workers wanted, but it's really important to keep in mind that this is not the case for all of the workers. I'll tell you which workers were granted paid sick leave in just a moment, but you're probably wondering, like what happened here? How did they all of a sudden change their minds? According to several sources, the answer is because of moments like this. The rail workers in the United States are not asking for one year of paid sick leave.

They're not asking for six months of paid sick leave. They are asking for 15 days, 15 days. Now, the rail industry has said, as I understand it, that the- 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.

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They provide their CEOs with huge compensation packages. And here's something else that everyone should know who's getting involved in this issue. Last year, the rail industry spent over $18 billion not to improve rail safety, not to address the supply chain crisis in America, but to buy back its own stock. Question about rail safety, because in November and December, Norfolk Southern met with federal regulators

and pushed back against this proposed rule that would have, in most cases, mandated at least two crew members on trains. Why did Norfolk Southern spend so much money? Millions upon millions of dollars lobbying against it? So those moments did not look good for the rail companies, looked really good for the rail workers who weren't asking for anything unreasonable. They just wanted some paid time off to deal with family emergencies, to deal with health conditions, to deal with medical appointments,

but they were unable to do so because the rail companies had cut back on their workforce so significantly, from 2 million workers to 700,000 workers to the point where people couldn't take time off because they didn't have anyone else to fill in for them if they took the time off. But now all of a sudden they're changing their minds to some extent. As Greg Regan, who's with the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO says, the rail companies miscalculated about how the public would see their huge profits and the stories of how hard rail workers' lives were and not having sick days and the draconian policies they were operating under. Again, that is the president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL

CIO. Yep. So I know for a fact that Bernie has been pushing super hard on Biden and his administration to push hard on the railroad companies. Okay. So now, why is Bernie pushing hard? Because he actually cares about the workers. And that's, guys, you've seen me criticize Bernie Sanders. You saw me do it yesterday pretty aggressively. But the guys, guy has excellent intent, and oftentimes on smaller issues like this, he totally delivers. Okay, so he put a world of pressure on Biden, and he got a little bit back. This isn't a lot of sick days, which leads to the second reason why the Biden administration then puts so much pressure on the railroad companies.

Because since everybody saw the giant explosion and everybody's worried about what's happening, and then there's a strike, et cetera, and it seems like, you know, when Trump's in charge, She's like, oh my God, I look out for the American workers. He doesn't really, but he says a lot about it, right? And it gives the appearance that he does. And Biden pretends to me from the Workers Party and then supports the giant companies and crushes the strike in the railroad companies. So he needs something to hang his hat on as he's going to run for president.

And remember, he doesn't need much. All he has to do is get him a tiny bit of days off. And the press will call it historic, epic, and say Biden is the greatest president for labor that the world has ever seen. So he just needs a little bit. And then what he tells the companies is, look, guys, if we have to regulate you, then you might have to do more sick days, okay? Because then we'll have more pressure.

And it'll make it seem like you guys doing things voluntarily isn't working. So why don't you guys voluntarily do half of what we would have got made you do? And then it'll seem like you were great heroes for doing it voluntarily. And that way, we don't have to do our. job and regulate you. Yeah, no, that that analysis is so on point and I think you're absolutely right about that. The other thing I want to add to it is while sometimes we might feel a little frustrated over Biden's, or Senator Sanders and how incredibly complimentary and friendly he is toward Biden, fact of the matter is, I think it's a calculation for Bernie, right? And the

calculation is, I have a relationship with this guy and I have some influence over him. And so I'm going to use that to my advantage to the extent that I can. I think that is the calculation I see from Bernie. So when he's going out there, doing these cable news interviews and offering a full-throated endorsement of Biden's reelection campaign, I think what's happening behind the scenes with these negotiations and the influence that he's using informs the commentary that we see from him on these shows. 100%. Yeah, guys, I'll leave it to you to decide if you think it's worth it or not.

But in Bernie's calculation, he's like, well, at least I'm going to get this, right? I don't love that calculation. I think you should play for bigger ball, not smaller ball. That involves a lot more risk and you might get nothing. So it doesn't mean that I'm right, it's just two different calculations. But I would push much more aggressively to get much bigger results. But don't get it twisted. Bernie's the only one trying to get any results.

That's right. So, and here he pushed super hard and he pushed his chips in for what? For like credit? No, nobody gives him credit anyway outside of us. And half the time we criticize him, right? But only when things make sense. But on this, he plays small ball, but he delivered on small ball. And by the way, to those workers, it ain't small at all.

Exactly, yeah, 100%. Now, are you ready for the twist? Because there is a twist. And the twist is, unfortunately, not a good one. So while some of the workers have been granted pay time off, the workers who happen to need that pay time off the most have not gotten it. So that is the twist. So according to Mark Wallace, the first vice president of the locomotive engineers and trainmen,

the railroads went to the non-operating crafts first and cut a deal with them. If a carman who inspects and repairs rail cars has to call in sick and doesn't come to work, the train will still run. If the engineer or conductor has to call in sick, the train is probably not going to go that day. Right? So remember the workers who actually have to be there to operate the trains, like those are the people who have been just asking for the paid time off, they're the ones who aren't afforded the paid time off if they have a family emergency, a medical emergency or

what have you. And unfortunately, it appears that the railroad specifically went to the non-operating crafts, as Mark Wallace points out, in lieu of those who needed the time off the most. Yeah, look, that shows you a couple of things. First is, well, those other folks don't even affect the train's ability to execute their mission. And so it actually means that it doesn't cost them a big amount of money. The company is it just cost them the sick days involved, which is actually tiny. The issue here is, well, if it stops the train, then it costs them a lot of money, right? By the way, not nearly as much as they got in the buybacks, like $18 billion in buybacks,

shows you they have a vat of money so much money they don't know what to do with it they're just being you know cruel as usual like this system mandates cruelty you must get every dollar but even so for the the workers that don't make the trains run on that particular day they could have given them sick days anytime they wanted exactly exactly there was even no there wasn't any necessity to not give them sick days but they did it anyway exactly because you have to save every penny and transfer it to the executives and the shareholders. Every penny. If you don't do that and you don't crush all of your workers, you will be fired. This is that's the system. So as I see that reporter asking the CEO, they're a great question about, hey, it looks like you

have money for lobbying. I think, why don't you ask that on every issue? 100%. But I loved it on that, but it got why, because there was a spotlight on it. Put spotlights on more of these issues and then ask the executives, what are you doing with all that money? Why do you say you can't do safety? You can't give your workers money. Challenge them, be journalists. Not just in this case, but in every case. Thanks to Bernie Sanders for fighting back on this and putting a spotlight on our members

are already writing him. Mainstream media is trying to give credit to Pete Buttigieg. I mean, it's, oh, oh, no, you've got to be kidding me. No. Anyway, let's move on. We've got some more news. This one is not a happy story, unfortunately, because it has to do with children engaging in labor.

So let's talk about it. Hey, champ. Hey dad's elf. Before you know it, it'll be time for you to go out there and get a job. Because I'm growing up so fast? No, it's because states across the country are rolling back child labor protections. Why? Because we're telling them to.

Who are you? A think tank based in Florida. And where they're lobbying armed. We've had a lot of success among Republicans to relax regulations that keep kids from working long hours and dangerous conditions. What exactly is going on with the several red states that have chosen to either introduce or sign into law? new rules that would loosen child labor laws.

Well, it turns out that there's actually an organization behind it that is heavily funded by conservatives, a lot of big name conservatives that we've talked about on this show quite a bit. It's called the foundation for government accountability. And this is how the right wing gets what it wants. They are well funded, well organized, they work together to get exactly what they want. And in this case, it's loosening child labor laws in states like Arkansas. So for example, this was the group that was behind the law that was recently passed in Arkansas, which of course eliminated permits and age verification for employees under the age of 16.

Okay, the bill sponsor, state representative Rebecca Burks, said in a hearing that the legislation, quote, came to me from the foundation for government accountability. Okay. I like that admission. No, I mean, it was super transparent, but let's also be clear, right? The reason why all of these super wealthy conservatives get together and create organizations with these like funny sounding names, right? The foundation for government accountability sounds awesome, doesn't it? Yeah, it's the exact opposite.

It's the exact opposite. The reason why they do it is because they want to essentially shroud their efforts in something that sounds good, but in reality is horrific. I'm just real quick aside so you know how this game is played. I explained in chapter four of justice is coming. That's a book that's coming out soon that I wrote. Lewis Powell wrote a memo in 1971. And one of the things he said in that legendary memo about how they could take over the country for corporate rule was let's create these think tanks where we will pretend that these are the experts in the field.

And we'll get the media to keep quoting them and we'll have them then go into the media and even into politics. And we'll use them as the scholars, et cetera, to pretend that the. the corporate position is correct, okay? And they do it all the time. And now it's so open and there's no journalism left in the country at all. So a politician can just openly say, oh yeah, I got that idea by the think tank. A thousand percent, yeah. And the think tank's just nothing but a corrupt gateway for corporations who want to use child labor.

But the press goes, bravo, way to get it from a think tank. A lot of thinking going on there. To be fair, in this particular story, the Washington Post did a decent job in uncover. covering this group and how they're the ones behind the efforts to loosen child labor laws. What's incredible is there's the organization, right, the foundation for government accountability. They have their own lobbying arm as well, which is known as the Opportunity Solutions Project. Again, love the euphemistic names. They're fantastic, right? I'm going to do another quick aside. I named the money to get the movement to get money out of politics,

Wolfpack. And everyone in Washington hates that name. They're like, why isn't it in nice thing like Americans for America, okay? No, but they're kind of right. No, because I wanted to be populist. I don't want it to be guys who just, oh, America's for Americans for sunny days. No, we're coming to get you sons of bitches because we're sick of the corruption. And we don't mean it physically, but we mean it in terms of politically, rhetorically, rhetorically, et cetera, let's go get them.

I'm sick and tired of this corruption, now they're coming for our kids. So as I mentioned, there's the Opportunity Solutions Project, which is the lobbying arm of this right wing group trying to loosen the child labor laws. Keep that in mind as I tell you more about what's going on here. In May of 2022, meaning last year, Opportunity Solutions Project lobbyist James Harris forwarded two draft child worker bills to Daniel Wilhelm, the chief of staff to Missouri State Senator Andrew Koenig, chair of the Chamber's Committee on Education. and workforce development according to emails obtained through open records laws. So the lobbyist sends drafts of the legislation they want to the state lawmakers. Like, yo, this is, this is, this is what you need to do now. Yeah, politicians guys are just actors.

Puppets. They're just little silly little puppets. And then the media tells you they're amazing people. Oh, the revered, honorable, gentlewoman from Maryland. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly dog. Tilly dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. No, the stupid actor who's the servant of the rich from Maryland. That's the correct way of saying. So, I like that. Now, Koneg introduced the measure as one of the first, one of the first bills filed for the Missouri legislature. legislature's 2023 session, Harris then testified in support of the legislation in a February

hearing. Really nothing to add, Harris said, referring to Koenig's opening remarks touting the bill other than you're right. And if you're wondering, okay, you keep mentioning these wealthy conservatives, like, who are they? Well, the top donor to this group, the Eulen family. So let's go to Graphics 6 here because the Foundation for Government Accountability had quite a bit of revenue in 2020. And the majority of that revenue, $3 million of the 10.6 million came from the Eulen family. Yeah. Guys, this is another part of what's wrong with our system. But despite the right wing screaming from the rooftops, nonstop, sores, George, the left actually has almost no money, okay? And almost all the money on the left goes to corporate

Democrats. So the same goddamn agenda as corporate Republicans, okay? Meanwhile, the right wing is flush with money. They don't know where to put it. They're like, let's pretend there's a think tank over there, give it to the lobbyist over here, let's buy off a bunch of pundits and have them switch from the left to the right. We'll get them a nice house in Florida, et cetera, et cetera. So look at all this money gushy out of there.

Why do you think they're doing it for their health? Because they just ideologically think, I need 13 year olds working. That'll give them the backbone they need to be better human beings. They want cheap labor. No, they want cheap labor. They want to exploit your kids. Period.

That's it. That's what this is. They don't want to, I mean, look, when you're young, you have less power, right? And they don't want to have to deal with paying people, fair wages. They don't want to have to deal with the costs associated with, you know, employing actual adults. And I do want to give you some more information on this because the lobbyists for this right-wing organization have been working in 22 different states. As of now, I'm sure they'll expand it in the future. So you have the corruption with money in politics.

You have literal lobbyists handing draft legislation to state lawmakers to pass. And to be sure, they do exactly as they're told because they're taking money from them as donors. So of course they're going to do exactly what they're told. Like the corruption is the heart, the root of pretty much every policy related issue we have in this country. You know, so we show that fake picture of the guy, the lobby is stuffing the money in the politician's pocket, right? If that happened in real life, most journalists would be like, I don't say it, he's just talking to him. He's just talking to him. He's sharing his ideology. And coincidentally, they happen

to have the same ideology was take your kids and make them work for really low wages so they can increase their profits and then take a small percentage of those profits and give it to think tanks and politicians so that they can get more kids to exploit. Oh, but I don't see it. I don't see the corruption. And honestly, I don't think, this is my speculation, right? But I don't think it's a coincidence that as the United States is upping the ante in terms of like its adversarial rhetoric toward China, all of a sudden companies based in the United States are looking for other workers to exploit. Yeah. And so they say, oh, we got to make sure that we, not just China. We have, oh, we got to end the undocumented immigrants from coming in. Of course,

they would say illegal, et cetera. It's outrageous. We can't have it. And then they're like, oh, but we have nearly full employment. So what are we going to do? Oh, I got a great idea. We could replace the immigrants with tiny little kids and pay them the same crappy salaries that we pay immigrants. Okay, you guys like that? Man, we fought for decade after decade, way back in the day to make sure that our kids would not be exploited and they would not be sent it to coal mines and assembly lines, et cetera. Now we're back to the bad old days. And nobody's doing a goddamn thing about it. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including what are we going to talk about next? Well, we got a couple of things for sure that

you want to check out. First of all, we got Tucker Carlson's leaked tapes. These ones are bad. We We got Elon Musk getting slammed by other elites. That's interesting. And then Stephen Crowder's hot mess. Come back for the next segment to see Elite on Elite Violence. Boom. All right, back on TYT, Jankanana, with you guys also at DSP's Burger. That's a fun name and SRV Dominator 1.

Thank you guys. You guys are awesome for signing out. We appreciate it. Casper. Tucker Carlson's in the news again. Let's watch. If we're going to talk about sex, I'd love to hit some of the fine points of technique. But, you know, but it's your show.

It's totally up to you. We can certainly talk about your sexual technique. Especially after your tanning test. There's a pretty big possibility that the leaked footage of Tucker Carlson you just watched was leaked by Fox News. And I'll explain why there's a belief that that's the case. But the video that was captured there happened on a day when Tucker Carlson was going to be interviewed by Pierce Morgan. Media Matters for America has been publishing these leaked tapes. And in another video obtained by Media Matters, Carlson makes a comment about someone's girlfriend.

You wouldn't? Okay, I'm not, you know what? I'm not qualified on that score, I will say. I thought his girlfriend was kind of yummy. Just kidding, just kidding, in case this is being pulled off the bird. Yeah, the bird. Hey, Media Matters for America. Go yourself. That's the first thing I want to say tonight. Second thing is totally kidding, I don't even know what his girlfriend looks like. And if I did, I would not find her yummy. So that was not when he was on air. This is probably during the break or before he went live. And so the only people that would have access to that footage are employees over at Fox News.

So it's either an employee or the company itself. Right. And more likely the company itself will get to that. And that's the only reason we're doing this story. I don't like these leaked videos that are totally taken out of context. So, oh, he was joking around during the break. So that's it, he's guilty forever. Tucker Carlson is massively guilty for the things he says on air.

100%. Okay, and I know he treats a lot of his workers like dirt, and that's why a lot of them turn on him and do the videos. In this case, I think it's the company itself. So I don't shed a tear for Tucker Carlson, but I hate these dirty tactics. Yeah, so I want to go to one more video because I think out of everything that they've leaked, this is the most interesting because it gives you a sense of what Tucker Carlson thinks about his own audience.

Well, I feel great. You know, I can never assess my appearance. I wait for my post-mental palsal fans to weigh in on that. Now, to be fair, Fox News does have an older audience. We do talk about that quite a bit. And it appears that Tucker Carlson is aware of that, but has decided. to specifically attack the female portion of that audience. Nonetheless, why do we think that this was very likely leaked by the company itself?

Well, because it turns out that there are people working at Fox News who basically put together dossiers of talent that has left or has been fired to essentially use against them or threatened to use against them to kind of make sure that they stay in line. Okay, so I'll give you details on that, but Jank, any any thoughts? First of all, look, yes, it's true. The Fox News audience is very old. And so sorry, and we have plenty of great progressives who are older in our audience, too, and some of the best progressives. But having said that, the older demographics these days generally watch corporate media

because they grew up on television. So they don't watch Fox Nation necessarily, and that's, in fact, in another leak, Ted Carlson was complaining that nobody's watching Fox Nation because Fox News's audience is so old, they can't, you know, that demographic if it can't figure out the internet, okay, or doesn't want to figure out the internet. So, so the average age of the Fox News audience is 70. That means half of them are above 70 years old, okay? And they know it and they joke around about it. Look, you want to say they shouldn't joke around about it? Fine. And we're showing you big clips here and we don't like Tucker Carlson at all. You do with that information anything you

like. But to me, the interesting part of the story is Fox is going to war against Tucker Carlson before Tucker even fired a shot. Yeah, it's really strange, right? So it's, I don't agree with the tactic of compiling a dossier of former employees to threaten to use against them. But I at least kind of understand that tactic to make sure that he doesn't like leave and then start trashing the company, whatever, right? I wouldn't do it, but it's Fox News. I'm not surprised that they would do it. But why are they attacking first? I don't really understand. So let me give you the details about what Rolling Stone reported on this issue. And then we can discuss it a little, like more fully. So eight people familiar with the situation

tell Rolling Stone that Fox News and its communications department, long led by the notoriously aggressive Irene Briganti, has assembled damaging information about Carlson. One source with knowledge calls it an opophile, two sources add that Fox is prepared to disclose some of its contents if execs suspect that Carlson is coming after the network. Now I will say, based on what's been leaked so far, if you compare it to what Tucker Carlson has candidly said on air, it's not that bad. Let's just keep it real. So I think that this was, if it is true that the company released, these videos, I think this was like the warning to Tucker, like this is a little taste. Yeah, I have a similar but a little bit different take on it. So first off, look, I think when Tucker calls immigrants dirty on air, it's disgusting. And I don't need any secret

leak tapes to make me dislike Tucker Carlson. My issue with Tucker Carlson isn't his personal opinions. If he kept him in a basement, I wouldn't care at all. That's as right as an American citizen no matter how atrocious his opinions are. My problem is that he poisoned the American culture with the toxic stuff that he would say to get people angry and fearful and hating one another, right? So he jokes around about somebody being yummy or somebody being old. Sorry, I know I'm supposed to care. I'm supposed to be outraged. That's what we do. We go to our different camps and then we all get outraged at each other on every single thing. No, that's not the issue here at all. So why do I think it's Fox? First of all,

One outlet that he's being taped there is Fox News. The other one is Fox Nation. They're slightly different with slightly different staff. I don't know the internal working. Sometimes it could be very different staff. So it would have to be someone that's really close to Tucker and works on both shows, or much, much, much more likely. It's the person who holds all the tapes, and that's the company itself.

Okay, so they've got Tucker under a $20 million contract. And what basically they're saying to him is, you want the 20 million, you know newsbacks can't give you the 20 million, you know none of these things can give you the 20 million. If you want, be a good little boy. Now, okay, the threat we talked about last week, you don't want to use the threat, you want to threaten them with it and dangled the carrot of the $20 million so he doesn't attack you. The problem since we talked about it last week is that half of the Fox News audience is already gone. So now what I think they're doing is they're smearing Tucker publicly to say, you see how he insulted you guys and he called you old women? So come back everybody, come back.

Tucker's not the good guy. We're the good guys. I think that's why Fox News is leaking this stuff. Yeah, I don't, I think that that could be true. I mean, if they think it's going to work, it's laughable. I don't think it's going to work. No, but remember, they're like the executives are totally, totally out of touch with their own audience.

In fact, they hate their own audience. We know it because we saw the text and we saw the emails. And they're like, these rubs, these idiots that we take advantage of. They're so, they're lunatics. They say things that are 10,000 times worse than what I said about right wingers, right? And so to them, they don't even understand the audience. They're like, oh, what if we smear Tucker and say that he doesn't like, he calls women yummy? Dumbasses, the right wing Fox News audience will probably like that.

They're not gonna hate him for that. God, they don't know anything about their own audience. Yeah, and remember, the reason why Fox felt the need to pander to its audience after the results of the 2020 election is because the audience is so obsessed with Trump, right? And so think about who Trump is. Think about the insanely insulting things Trump has said about women. Oh, my, come on. Like the idea, like honestly, the idea that the Fox News audience would go back to Fox after leaving as a result of Tucker's firing. Because they thought Tucker was too sexist. Come on.

I mean, these elites are so out of touch. They haven't met a regular person in forever. They have no idea who their audience is. Now, if you're wondering what that file, secret opo file of Tucker Carlson includes, Rolling Stone says that the file includes internal complaints regarding workplace conduct, disparaging comments about management and colleagues and allegations that the now former primetime host created a toxic work environment, three of the sources say. So again, it really depends on what he says on those tapes. But so far, based on the description of that opo file

and based on what we've seen so far, if your theory is true and Fox is trying to get its audience back by having right wing audience members turn on Tucker, I just, it's not, I don't think it's going to play out the way they wanted to at all. It's definitely not. And look, So Fox News is in a lot of trouble and they don't, they're beginning to realize them. That's why this is happening. But they didn't realize it when they fight Tucker Carlson because they thought it's like the good old days. Hey, we fire Bill O'Reilly, we fire Megan Kelly, Glenn Beck. It doesn't matter, everybody still stays here because we're the machine, okay?

But they don't know that between that time and this time, their audience has become far more radicalized, including by people like Tucker Carlson. So when Tucker Carlson says, oh my God, they don't want you to sunt, and your, crotch. That way you'll, you know, how take the vaccine and be under the control of Dr. Fauci. Their audience frothing at the mouth goes, yeah, right? And so when you bring in like Brian Kilmeen and he's like, now remember, we all hate Democrats and those standard, you know, right wing establishment talking points. We were like, boo, when are we lasering our crotch? Okay. So it's a different audience and they lost track of it. And I think this is going to hurt them real.

bad. And so maybe I'm wrong, we'll see, but I don't think so. I think it moved on them and they screwed up here. One thing, last thing I'll say is, I now I'm intensely curious about why they fired Tucker. Because we shared a number of theories when they fired him, but Tucker didn't expect it to come now. This was a genuine surprise. And there's some percentage chance they did it because of like a Roman Roy situation, if you're watching Succession. Some idiot, whether it's Senile Rupert Murdoch or his idiot son or whatever, was like, I don't like it. I don't like what he said about me in a text.

I'm going to fire him. I bet there won't be any consequences. Remember, the children of the really wealthy got there by being the children of the really wealthy. They're not very bright, okay? So I don't know what happened, but this was probably, and thank God, a massive mistake. by Fox News. But I don't think Tucker's done.

He's gonna make a comeback. I don't know what form that will be in, but he will make a comeback. Of course he will. He's not gonna go away. Anyone who thinks that Tucker Carlson cannot now mount a comeback does not understand today's media at all. And this is coming from the guy that when they fired Bill O'Reilly, you can go back and watch the tapes.

I said, Bill O'Reilly's done. He has no ability to come back because back then there was not enough infrastructure in digital media for a brand like Bill O'Reilly, an individual brand to rise up, okay? Now for a brand as big as Tucker Carlson, he has all the capacity in the world, especially after getting fat and rich off the Fox News money, let alone the Swanson Dinner Money. He could then form his own organization and get pretty large, pretty quickly, and be a real threat to Fox News. And the knuckleheads who run that organization don't know it at all. And like I said, thank God they don't know. Good. Keep making

more mistakes. All right. We're going to take a break when we come back for the second hour, lots of explosive stories, including an update on allegations against Stephen Crowder. content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.