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Digital Social Hour
Exposing Political Corruption: Lies, Money & Power | Cenk Uygur DSH #861
00:46:36
Unveil the shocking truths of political corruption in this eye-opening episode of Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 Join the conversation as we dive deep into the murky waters of Lies, Money & Power with our special guest, Cenk Uygur, founder of T
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- [00:00]
A
Security clearance. Now, why do you think they do that? We don't know for sure. I stick to the facts. But the fact that they did that after he did the Saudi visit and the Saudis arrested a bunch of people, it makes you think, did he give away some of our assets in Saudi Arabia?
- [00:14]
B
Wow.
- [00:15]
A
And then, and then he comes right after the election. The Saudis are like, oh, forget our investment experts. Here's two. Two not million, $2 billion.
- [00:26]
B
All right, guys, Jank Uygur here today. Coming off a one on eight debate last night, right?
- [00:31]
A
Yeah, one on seven. Internet.
- [00:32]
B
Yep, one on seven. And they were all conservatives.
- [00:35]
A
All conservatives, all Trump supporters. Back to back to back to back.
- [00:39]
B
Wow. What were some takeaways from that? You find out anything new?
- [00:42]
A
Yeah, no, I always find that something when I talk to folks, especially on the other side. And so we're a rare show that does that because on the left there's this super weird and wrong idea that you're not supposed to platform people. It's just in a way of avoiding conversation. And I think it's a really bad look. And so what we do is we talk to everybody. We'll talk to the left, the right, the middle, et cetera. So, and I did Dan Bongino's show this morning and Scott Adams is gonna come on Monday on the Young Turks. So Young Turks is 6 to 8pm Every day on YouTube, about a dozen other platforms too, but that's where the most of the audience is. And at 8 o'clock we're sometimes doing some of these discussions and debates. And so in terms of what I learned from those folks, look, we're in a situation where we're in two different worlds, right?
- [01:41]
B
Yeah.
- [01:42]
A
So the establishment world and the populist world and the two sides don't understand each other at all. They speak a completely different language. But because we talk to everybody, I'm bilingual, so I, I can talk populace, I can talk establishment. If they went on a normal like MSNBC show, they wouldn't understand each other at all. Right. It's. They're speaking completely different languages. Yeah. So like those guys, half of them at a minimum, maybe even more actually have good intent. And so a lot of part of the left will, their heads will blow up if I say that some guys that are supporting Trump have good intent. Right. And what it is is they think the politicians are corrupt and so do I. They hate the establishment of the machine. So do I. Right. So we connect on all of that. But then I think they're, they just Got the wrong guy. I mean, the guy is pathological liar. He's corrupt. I could prove it, and I did. And, and honestly, like, once you people realize that I'm coming at it with good intent and I'm not just trying to rah rah for any stupid politician. Yeah. They begin to, to agree and they're like, yeah, I mean, it sucks that Trump is taking huge amounts of money from Mary Mson, from Elon Musk, from Jeff Yass, from the oil companies. And he brazenly just says it. He's like, yeah, I'll do whatever they asked me to because they gave me a strong endorsement. Yeah. That's called the swamp. So. And I think he's a fake populist. All he's going to do is give away more to his rich friends, the corporations, just like he did last time. So if he was what the populist. Right. Thinks he is, then I would actually support him. Right. In a lot of ways. Not on the social issues, but on, you know, drink, like the things that they want. Right. But he isn't any of that. He's just a legendary con man.
- [03:35]
B
I feel. I didn't know he took money from Elon.
- [03:38]
A
Oh, yeah, the campaign contributions are through the roof.
- [03:41]
B
Really? Well, I did see the million dollar thing. Are you talking about that?
- [03:44]
A
No, they. He's giving money to PACs that are helping Trump. You know, the numbers are so hard to pin down. It originally was 45 million, and then they started talking about how it might be more. And he's giving money through dark money packs so that you can't trace it as well. And so. And you could tell if someone's given money or, or even a lot of money based on what Trump says. If they're not giving money, he's like, well, we don't like Elon. You know, we thought we liked Elon, but Elon's not giving, you know, he's not giving a strong endorsement. The minute he gives money, he's like, we like Elon. I, I used to be against electric vehicles. Now I'm for electric vehicles because he gave me a strong endorsement. So what that means is, A, I'm massively corrupt and I'll do anything for money. Right. And B, he, like, gave me a lot of money. That's what he means by strong endorsement.
- [04:33]
B
Yeah, well, that's just the nature of politics these days. Right. Because Kamala's raised over a billion dollars, too.
- [04:36]
A
That's right. So, see, that's where the Democrats lose everybody when they go, hey, when Mitch McConnell takes a billion dollars, he's corrupt. But when Nancy Pelosi takes $1 billion, she's an angel. Okay, Can I curse on you? Yeah. Bullshit. They're both corrupt, right? Biden and Mitch McConnell made every dirty deal in this country for the last 30, 40 years. Okay? Almost every so called bipartisan compromise, which Washington loved, corporate media loved, has been horse crap, all giving to their donors. And they all agree. Why? Because they both took a billion dollars from the donors. It's super obvious what Trump adds is he's got the same systemic corruption, but he adds on top of it, personal corruption, where he'd be like, well, I'm not supposed to like the Saudis. The Saudis give me a lot of money. And so that, and it's true. They move all the golf tournaments to Trump's golf courses. They give his son in law 2 billion dol. When he's a legendarily terrible investor, let alone Trump being an awful businessman. Etc. So which son was that son in law? Jared Kushner.
- [05:40]
B
Oh, wow, they gave him 2 billion?
- [05:42]
A
Yeah, private equity, invest 2 billion for us. They're the guys who run the pri, the fund for the Saudis. And this is extraordinary because no one gets to disagree with Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince in Saudi Arabia. But they said publicly this makes no sense. He's a very poor investor. He did 666 Park Avenue or 5th Avenue, I forget which one. And it was one of the worst real estate investments in American history and nearly bankrupted the entire Kushner family. And, and if you don't know, he went, he was in charge of our Middle east foreign policy. I mean, imagine if Biden put Hunter Biden in charge of the Middle east policy. That's insanity, right? So he goes over there and, and magically, after Jared talks to Mohammed bin Salman, a bunch of people in Saudi Arabia are arrested and he shakes down the rest of the princes for money, holds them hostage. Some people got executed. And then after that, the intelligence agencies tried to pull Kushner's security clearance. Now why do you think they did that? We don't know for sure. I stick to the facts. But the fact that they did that after he did the Saudi visit and the Saudis arrested a bunch of people, it makes you think, did he give away some of our assets in Saudi Arabia?
- [06:57]
B
Wow.
- [06:57]
A
And then, and then he comes right after the election, the Saudis are like, oh, forget our investment experts, here's two. Two not million. Two billion dollars. So look again, Democrats lose credibility when they say Hunter Biden is not a con man. Of course he is. He doesn't know anything about Ukrainian gas. Was he getting $5 million Ukrainian gas, and then he's now all of a sudden a modern artist, and he's getting $500,000 a painting. Okay, come on. Come on. Right, but the same guys who call bullshit on that then turn around and go, oh, yeah, Jared Kushner, total loser. You know, his dad was. Built the business. His brother's actually pretty good, but he's been awful in investments. Magically gets a gigantic $2 billion. You worried about Hunter's 5 million, but. But you're not worried about Jared's 2 billion? So, look, I'm just asking everybody, and I know it's super hard because everybody's partisan. Everybody's in their own camps and their own tribes, and they don't want to hear it. Right. So we're doing something super risky at the Young Turks.
- [07:59]
B
Yeah.
- [08:00]
A
We're actually calling balls and strikes. So what that does is it pisses off the Democrats, who are like, no, tell us. Hunter Biden is super innocent. And then Joe Biden doesn't make any crooked deals. And then when he takes a billion dollars from corporations, he's just doing it for his health. And he and those corporations just want to help the American people. But when the same guys give to Mitch McConnell, they're evil, right? And then on the right wing, when I criticize Trump, oh, the tears flow and flow and flow. Like, Trump can attack everyone as viciously as he wants, and they love it. The minute you touch him, they're like, oh, no, that's our beloved Trump. Okay. But I'll tell you what, the right wing's getting better on it, because in the past, you do one critique of Donald Trump, and they would take your head off and hold grudges and get emotional and weep and all that stuff, right?
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B
Yeah.
- [08:45]
A
Nowadays, though, I am seeing a little bit of a trend line right away. I honestly am super surprised and. And. And excited about it. A lot of folks are going, no, I get it. He's a liar.
- [08:55]
B
Well, I think part of that is conversations. Having these conversations of opposing views, debates. And people are seeing both sides now, right. They're not just seeing one side.
- [09:02]
A
Yeah. They're like, yeah, I get it. He's a liar. I get it. He says crazy shit. I get it. You know, him taking the money and then bragging about it and bragging about how he changes positions. It's uncomfortable. Right. Like, TikTok was such a great example when he's President, he's trying to ban TikTok right then. Now, Jeff Yass, who owns 15% of TikTok, gave him a couple of million dollars in campaign contributions. Trump comes out, he's got a strong endorsement from Jeff Yass. Now I'm in favor of TikTok.
- [09:31]
B
Wow. Just a couple of million.
- [09:32]
A
Yeah.
- [09:33]
B
That's not even, like, that much for him. He's a billionaire.
- [09:35]
A
You. Look, brother, you don't know how cheap these politicians are. A regular politician, you buy for $5,000.
- [09:41]
B
Really?
- [09:41]
A
Like, these guys are doing an open auction, so. Yeah, of course they're so cheap to buy. People have been buying them for decades. The only reason people don't know it is because of mainstream media. Mainstream media pretends there's no corruption at all and that those are. Hey, look, people are contributing because they just care.
- [10:00]
B
Yeah.
- [10:00]
A
Oh, they care for the general welfare. Not for Exxon Mobil or Pfizer or JPMorgan Chase. Who the hell are you kidding? I mean, how did the young Turks get wind up getting 27 million subscribers, 29 billion views? Because we are an alternative. And when people come to us, they go, oh, okay, that sounds true. Like, I have so many people we've converted not just from the right wing, but from the establishment Democrats. Actually more folks from that side. Okay. They're like, now that I see what you guys are saying about MSNBC and cnn, let alone Fox News, like, oh, I can't unsee it. Right. You're right. Like, when we're talking about legislation, they never talk about the donors, but the donors are driving everything. When you're talking about the bills. Right. They do massive lobbying right before a bill, and the mainstream press barely ever mentions it. Like, it's not a factor. Yeah, it's not a 5% factor. It's a 95% factor. So truth matters. And. But when we have real conversations with people, then it begins to, like, disarm folks for sure and go, okay, I see what both sides are doing wrong.
- [11:06]
B
Did Trump help you when he started exposing the fake news, the mainstream media?
- [11:10]
A
Not really. No.
- [11:11]
B
It didn't help your views at all?
- [11:12]
A
No. Really? No. I mean, because. Okay, remember how this all started? So in the beginning, Trump is accused of doing fake news. His team is. Because they were putting out literal fake articles on Facebook. So they were promulgating, like, dozens, hundreds of fake articles about Donald Trump. And that's where the term fake news came from. Then Donald Trump sits down for an interview, and this is one of my favorites. He goes, okay, fake news. It's terrible. I'm not the one doing it. They're the ones doing it. Okay, Classic. He's always a child, right? So whatever you accuse him of, he just throws it right back. So he keeps calling Kamala Harris a fascist. Like how? Doesn't explain. Doesn't care. The right wing who hates it when he's called a fascist, they love it when he calls her a fascist. Right. So, and then he says in the interview, you know, I invented the word fake. Come on, brother. Come on, brother. Okay, no, you didn't. It's been in the English language for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Are you insane? Why do you say crazy stuff like that? So anyways, then he starts talking about the fake news. But remember, he's not talking about the actual fake news because a lot of mainstream media is fake. Right. They don't make up facts. They're actually way more sophisticated than that. I think Fox News and right wing media makes up facts. And they. Fox News had to pay over $800 million in court because they make up facts. Yeah. When Dominion sued them, they're like, oh, yeah, we totally lied that Trump won the election. We totally lied that Dominion rigged the votes. Now, they didn't do it completely. They actually had the right election call on election night, but afterwards, they had every Trump goon on there pretending he won the election. When they went to court, yeah, they had no evidence. And Trump went to court 61 times, had no evidence because the election wasn't rigged. So he's just, he's a lying machine. He just throws out one lie after another after another. But both things can be true at the same time. Mainstream media can be lying and Trump can be lying. It's. They're not, it's not mutually exclusive. Right. They're just lying about different things.
- [13:16]
B
Yeah, that makes sense. Did you see Kamala on Fox News, that interview?
- [13:21]
A
I saw parts of it, yeah.
- [13:22]
B
What did you think of that?
- [13:24]
A
Look, Kamala Harris is a very standard Democrat, very standard politician. So she had a bunch of positions before that I never believed. You know, when she was pretending to be progressive, I was like, God, she's not progressive. She's going to. She said like, for example, one that. And no one talks about. She said that she wasn't going to take corporate PAC money. And I was like, my ass. She's not going to take corporate PAC money. All those guys were pretending at the time. Cory, Booker K. Brand, all these standard establishment Democrats were like, oh, we're clean now. Oh, and we care about Medicare for all. And we care about this, and we care what happened. The minute it became inconvenient, they dumped it. Right. Besides which, it doesn't matter. They never believed it in the first place. They were never going to do it. It was just a way of trying to get votes. So you're not gonna get me to say a lot of kind things about Kamala Harris. She's very, very standard. So why am I supporting Kamala Harris over Donald Trump? Because Donald Trump keeps saying, I'm gonna arrest my political opponents. I'm gonna attack the enemy within. Hey, maybe the military should shoot protesters. What kind of. I'm for freedom and freedom of speech, and it's the number one issue. But if you protest me, I'll shoot you. I'll have the military shoot you in the leg. Are you insane? Are you. Look, I. Look, guys, I think that at this point, Trump is more likely to win. And I don't know if the right wing is going to have a rude awakening or if they're just going to fall into zombieland and they're going to be like, no, no. And Trump takes money. It is great. I love when he does not serve us. He serves the donors. That is great. I love the oil companies. Other oil companies have no interest in you. And so. But it is possible, because of a slight awakening in the right wing, that they might go during the Trump term if he wins. Oh, my God. It turns out Cenk was right. This guy's totally full of shit. Like, 100% full of shit.
- [15:18]
B
Yeah.
- [15:19]
A
So he's just. Look, you know, the difference between him and Kamala in terms of politics and optics and strategy is that Trump has the air of authenticity. Now. He's not actually authentic because he's a billionaire, spoiled little kid, never earned anything. Six bankruptcies, et cetera, et cetera. Legendary comic, fake university, fake charity. Everything about him is fake. Right. But he sounds like a real guy. He's like, I don't know. I was talking about Arnold Palmer. He's got a big dick. And then, you know, the Democrats are horrified, and they're like, oh, my God, this is so uncivil. And they're clutching the pearls so tight, and they're like, this is terrible. No, it's not terrible, guys. He's talking like a real person, and people like real people instead of corporate robots that you guys send. So when Kamala Harris does talking point after talking point. So did she do that in the Fox News interview? Yes. Did she do that in the CNN town hall? Yes. All she has is talking points. And so I know that that's very normal for, like, 98% of politicians, but when you're going up against a guy who seems authentic. Again, I don't think he is, but seems authentic, you got to match that with authenticity. Good news. They had the most authentic guy and the one that pulls the best out of the four candidates, Tim Walsh. Okay. And they buried him in a basement. I mean, you barely see Tim Walls. When she picked Tim Walls. And she came out with an economically populist message. Let's go after price gouging, let's go after housing prices, make sure we bring them down, etc. She surges. And by the way, look, this is something we do. We're kind of famous for on young tours. We do predictions. Okay? And the reason we do predictions is not because, oh, yeah, we're so good. We got it right. No, because I want people to understand that politics is predictable. People think, oh, it's totally unpredictable. You don't know what's going to happen. No, it depends on the situation. Like, in a tight race, you might not know which way it's going to go based on the polling, but in legislation, we're almost never wrong. I never. Yeah, I'm not sure we've gotten a single prediction wrong on a bill ever. Okay. Because it's the easiest thing in the world. Whoever has more money wins every fricking time.
- [17:31]
B
Wow.
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A
So, for example, you say, well, yeah, but the conservatives and the Republicans and the. I have the big business interests and they have more money. Yeah, on most issues, but not on all issues. So what's the one that we went on. We won on during the Obama years that was, you know, legendary and gave people hope, like, oh, my God, progressives might win. Democrats might do the things that they say they're going to do. We went on gay rights, we went on gay marriage, et cetera. Why? Because we have more money on that. There's tons of people in the LGBTQ community who are donating if they donated so much that they replaced Obama. Obama's top donors, which were the banks in 2008. Wow. And then LGBTQ community became his number one donors in 2012.
- [18:14]
B
And that's why he pushed it so much.
- [18:16]
A
That's why he pushed it so much. People think like, oh, Obama's such a saint. You know what he did with. With gay marriage, Brother, he did it in 2013. We were for gay marriage decades before that. And so was Obama. He was bullshitting the whole time, like, oh, you thought that gay marriage was going to Destroy traditional marriage. No, you didn't. Barack Obama never thought that. And then he had an awakening, but an awakening after he got a couple hundred million dollars. Right? Come on, come on. Politics is so easy. But if you say this is Democrats heads exploding, how dare you? That is the benighted Barack Obama. You can't ever criticize him. You can't ever criticize any Democratic leader. Nina Turner is a progressive, populist progressive, ran in Ohio. And she once said in 2020, voting for Biden's like eating a half bowl of shit. Okay? And she said voting for Trump is eating the full bowl. Okay? Democrats took that and said, oh, my God. She said voting for Biden is half a bullshit. She's a worse. She's a Republican. She's a Trump supporter. No, wait, she said voting for Trump is eating a full bowl of shit. Okay, no, don't say that. And mainstream media lied, lied, lied, lied, lied. They never gave the full quote the entire time. They made it seem like Nina Turner was a Republican Trump supporting MAGA person when she's the exact opposite. And then she's running as 11 people. This is just instructive. It's a little race in Cleveland, but it gives you a sense of how politics actually works. So they're running in a Democratic primary. Nina's got like over 50% because she was the campaign co chair for Bernie Sanders. She's really well known. She was a state senator in Ohio before. The other Lilliputians have nothing. No name recognition, no nothing. They're in the 1, 2, 3%. Right. And one of them just puts out on our website, I support Israel completely, no matter what they do. All of a sudden she starts getting millions of dollars.
- [20:15]
B
Wow.
- [20:16]
A
Okay. And then you look into her and it turns out she gave corrupt contracts to her boyfriend when she was in the Democratic Party in some role. See, the corruption isn't the bug, it's the feature.
- [20:28]
B
Wow.
- [20:29]
A
So if someone raises their hand and says, I'll be corrupt, I'll be your huckleberry. That's when all the money pours in towards them. Okay? And guys, I don't want you the wrong impression. It wasn't just, you know, Democratic majority for Israel and other PACs that came in on that. No, that's her raising her hand and saying, I'll be corrupt for anyone. And so then I got to keep it real. I mean, I don't know how many people are into crypto here, but the crypto guys then came in and were like, oh, great, we found someone corrupt. And they started giving her money.
- [20:55]
B
Was that the RTX stuff?
- [20:58]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Sam Bankman, Frieda, etc. Was part of that. And so she wound up raising a tremendous amount of money and went from like 2% to overcoming this giant deficit and winning.
- [21:13]
B
Wow.
- [21:14]
A
And because the mainstream media buried Nina Turner, that's corporate media. And the corporate politicians came in and buried her, too. If you're a populist on the left or the right, corporate media and corporate politicians will come for you.
- [21:27]
B
They've come for you, right?
- [21:28]
A
Oh, over and over and over. I mean, I'm probably the most canceled man in America.
- [21:34]
B
More than Alex Jones?
- [21:36]
A
Well, no, but Alex deserves it. So that's a different situation. Because, look, Alex is out of control. So our thing is we don't veer from the truth, Right? So there's two things that are totally unacceptable on tyt, the entire network. You cannot shade the truth. Okay? If a poll comes out or whatever it is, any fact that comes out, and it's against our ideology. Your ideology, you stick with the facts, never shade it. Right. And never anything close to physicality or violence, etc. I love protests. I love mass protests, but don't touch anyone, okay? Yeah. And I actually. I don't like it when people go to people's homes, so I think that's out of bounds. And I don't like it when people don't allow others to speak. Right. So there is a right way to do it. There's a way to stomp your feet. There's a way to get attention, is a way to show. And because we need protests because the politicians never listen to us. Right. That's why shooting protesters is a bad idea. Right. Arresting protesters if they're against Israel is a bad idea. Those are very, very un American principles that, by the way. And so again, back to Democrats and Republicans. They all magically agree if you protest Israel on a college campus, you should be arrested, denied your diploma, even after you paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to that institution.
- [22:57]
B
Wow.
- [22:58]
A
And now Trump is, as always, Trump always finds a way to make it worse. He's like, yeah, I would arrest them. I would get rid of their diplomas, and I deport them. They're American citizens. Where are we deporting them to? And some of them are from Kansas. Where are we going to deport them to Nebraska? What are we doing? So look, in Alex's case, unfortunately, he's the exact opposite. There's almost nothing true in the show. Right. He's Just making up weird smear after weird smear, right?
- [23:23]
B
Yeah.
- [23:23]
A
And again, you go to court, we have to show evidence. Oops, he's got no evidence. No. Sandy Hook wasn't a weirdo conspiracy. They weren't actors, they weren't any of this stuff. And his fans hounded and hounded those poor families. I mean, the restraint those families showed is legendary. If, I mean, look, I don't even want to talk about it. But. But look, guys, there has to be. There has to be a line, right? So if someone says outrageous things that hurt other people, that are false and, and has malice and bad intent, it is actionable in the law for a reason. Okay? But if you're not in that category of trying to do harm on purpose with malice and lying with malice, right? If you're not in that category, then you should be allowed to say whatever the hell you want. Right? Right. You want to be. And so, like, look, my background is Muslim, right? I'm atheist now, but my family and everybody I grew up with in Turkey, etcetera, Are Muslim. Right? Trump says, I want to ban Muslims from the country when he's running in 2016. So then he eventually does a seven country ban. That's the courts made him change so that it included like one or two non Muslim countries. So I'm not talking about what wound up after the courts checked him, right? I'm talking about in 2016, he's running for president. He says, I want a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the country. First of all, the right wing. Let me ask something. Am I supposed to say yes to that? Like, it's such an unreasonable request. I mean, like I asked Mike Lindell yesterday as we were doing that debate marathon. I'm like, brother, you're, you know, solid Christian. He's super proud of being a Christian, right? Imagine if Trump said, I want a total and complete shutdown of Christians entering the country. I mean, and then they. Somebody said, oh, you should vote for Trump. Would you? Of course you wouldn't. Right? Nobody would.
- [25:13]
B
Yeah.
- [25:13]
A
So. But the right wing goes, well, I want you to vote for him anyway, even though he hates you. No, no, no deal. Right. At the same time, would I say, Trump is not allowed to say that? No, he is allowed to say it. Okay? So look, you get to say that and I get to counter it. You can't shut me down, I can't shut you down. And another giant problem of the left and Democrats overall is, I mean, I remember the days when we love debating, we love taking on the right wing. And that was our expertise. That was our specialty. Right. But so many people have now run to the hills, like, oh, no. Platforming. Platforming. Now that means you just don't want to have a conversation. Right, Right. So I don't want to shut down any speech. We're in the speech business.
- [25:53]
B
So you would have on anyone on the show.
- [25:56]
A
Well, there's lines, you know, but the line is extreme. Like, so Alex Jones, the line. Right. Because if he comes on, all he's going to do is yell and scream and lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.
- [26:04]
B
Yeah.
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A
Et cetera. Right. But if you're not on the super extreme end of it. Yeah, look, I had David Duke on the show.
- [26:11]
B
Oh, wow.
- [26:11]
A
I'm a former grand wizard of the kkk.
- [26:14]
B
Damn.
- [26:14]
A
And so. So, so that's actually a really interesting case because let me tell you what happened. And then what the New York Times said happened.
- [26:22]
B
Okay.
- [26:23]
A
Okay. And what the LA Times said. So I brought him on in 2015 to figure out why is. Why do these, like, regular people like Trump, but also racist like Trump. Right. Two different categories. If you think that there were no racists who love Trump, you're living la la land. Right. The people who were racist loved Trump. Right. And David Duke was a great example of that. So I brought him on to figure out why. Why does he love Trump so much? And so I thought he was going to go off on Latino immigrants, I thought he was going to go off on Black people, Muslims, etc. No, he was exclusively focused on the Jews.
- [26:57]
B
Really?
- [26:58]
A
Yeah. And I was kind of shocked by that. And no matter what I said, he said Jews. Okay. He would name Jewish bankers. I'd name Irish bankers. Okay. I'm like, brother, you're just making stuff like, yeah, I can name you two random Jewish people in media, in banking, etc. That's bullshit. Right. I can name you just as many Irish people, but there's no Irish conspiracies.
- [27:16]
B
Yeah.
- [27:17]
A
So anyways, but I brought him on because I learned from that. I didn't know that the main thing driving that was anti Semitism. That's not true for everybody, but it's true for that niche of people. Right? So. And at the. And I do super tough interviews. Right. I match the tenor of the guest. Right. And I do that when I'm on somebody else's show too. So sometimes people will see me screaming and yelling on. On show. Yeah. Piers Morgan. Other things. Why? Because someone is. So this is a right wing trick. What they'll do is they'll Talk for about two minutes. The minute you get into your answer, about 15 seconds in, they'll start talking over you like this. And. And I'm like, okay, so normally what Democrats would go, okay, I'll get 15 minutes and you get two minutes, and another two minutes and I'll get. I mean, 15 seconds, and then I'll get another 10 seconds. I'm sorry, sir. Thank you, sir. No, I don't play it like that. If you're going to try to talk over me, I'm going to talk over you. You're not going to bully me. I'm going to bully you. Okay, but if people are having a good conversation and they're giving each other space to talk, then I never raise my voice. Right. We went two and a half hours with seven conservatives last night. Never raised my voice.
- [28:21]
B
Well done.
- [28:21]
A
Yeah. Bongino and I went for an hour today. Never raised our voice. Civil conversation, back and forth, give each other time to talk. That's what I believe in. Right.
- [28:30]
B
Yeah.
- [28:31]
A
So the left has to get back to that instead of this platforming issues. So anyways, New York Times then takes the David D. Interview where I was super harsh because he's filibustering, he's saying crazy shit. So I called him a racist, an anti Semite, a bigot, I call a liar. I called him every name in the book because I don't do regular interviews. Right. Louisiana Times, I think, said that I brought him on to share his anti Semitic views. What? No, I called him an anti Semite, and they made it seem like I wanted to promote his anti Semitic views. Then the New York Times said, and then Cenk agreed. Uygur agreed with David Duke that he's not racist. I called him a racist. How much clearer could I be? So it turns out what they did was they took the very end of the interview where David Duke says, I'm not a racist, right after I accused him of being one. And I go, sure, you're not David. Ah, okay.
- [29:30]
B
I looked at the transcript.
- [29:31]
A
No, he's not even looking at the transcript. They just wanted to bury me. I'll give you more examples of that, okay? And I'll tell you why. So other journalists were like, guys, this is beyond the pale. I mean, did you watch a minute of the interview? There's the most contentious interview that anybody's ever seen. Right. You're saying that he was on David Duke's side. This is like borderline lying. New York Times. And that was other journalists saying, wow, Right. So they did a retraction of that one. So which they never. All for progressives, all doing corrections or retractions. So they're like, Uyghur, who's a small radio talk show host, might have been right about this one. Whatever. Okay. I'm like, radio. I haven't been on the radio in decades. Okay. Anyways, so they said that I had a long history of being anti Muslim. A Muslim? Yeah. They never cl. They didn't say that, hey, this guy's got a Muslim background, etc. They just said he's anti Muslim, also anti Semitic, also anti everything, and. And bestiality is what he wants to legalize.
- [30:32]
B
Whoa.
- [30:33]
A
New York Times said that they just flat out lied about me in 800 ways and didn't give a shit. So, you know, oh, was esteemed journalists at the New York Times. So where does that come from? It comes from a joke I made on air. And this is what the mainstream media loves to do. They love to take jokes and pretend it was serious. Right. So I was joking around like, hey, if the horse gets the oral, well, he's not complaining. And if you ask. And then they cut the clip. Right. So originally the right wing did this. It was the alt, right. They did this trick and then when. So why is mainstream media attacking me? Well, at the time, I'm running for Congress. I ran for Congress as a progressive and they wanted the establishment Democrat to win. And they were furious at me for getting into the race. They're like, oh, you're gonna split the vote and it's in open primary. You're going to let the Republicans win and we want the corporate Democrat. You're terrible. So they went to go bury me. Started at the L. A Times, spread the CNN, New York Times, etc. And so. So they took the same clip and pretended that it was part of my legislative agenda. Okay. If you continue the clip, I go, do you think the horse would mind? No, the horse would say nay. Like, that doesn't even make sense. It's more of a sheep sound. But it's obviously a joke, right? Obviously a joke. New York Times, like, who cares? Pretend it's real. Pretend it's serious and pretend it's part of his legislative agenda. And then they go, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean fake news? What do you mean? Mainstream media is nothing but pure facts. Bullshit.
- [32:12]
B
I wish.
- [32:13]
A
Yeah.
- [32:13]
B
I mean, they have to do it for views, right. For sponsors. They have to spin up these negative headlines.
- [32:18]
A
Yeah. There's the clickbait stuff and there's all that, but also they have such a deep seated bias that they can't see it. So some of it is bad intent, but most of it is not. So the people who write those articles and the editors who tell them go, smear this guy goes. And oh, by the way, so there's a reason why Louisiana Times cared because I was running in la, right? So why does CNN and New York Times care? Because Bernie Sanders had endorsed me. And it was in the heat of the 2020 primary, right before Super Tuesday. So they all wanted to run headlines saying, Bernie Sanders endorses sexist, racist, anti Muslim, anti semitic, pro horse guy. Cuz they wanted to smear Bernie Sanders because he's a populist progressive. And that's the thing that they hate the most. You gotta understand something. And this is true of the right wing too. You gotta, guys, you gotta understand when the right wing does a challenge to mainstream media, they don't mind it that much because they go, oh, look at this Trump guy, right? He's saying wild, crazy things like shoot protesters. And you know, maybe, you know, I can give you a thousand examples of lunatic things that Trump has said. Look, he said to terminate the Constitution when he lost. He said it on Truth Social. I showed it to one of the conservative guests last night. He's like, wow, I hadn't seen that.
- [33:36]
B
Yeah, I didn't know that.
- [33:37]
A
That's really bad. And he said, oh, when there's massive fraud like this, you get to terminate the Constitution. No you don't. That's not a thing. When you declare massive fraud as the President with no evidence at all, where's the part in the Constitution that says you can terminate this? If Donald Trump thinks that there was fraud against him, or any candidate thinks there was fraud against him, there's no provision in the Constitution to terminate it. It's not a thing. And when you say, let's get rid of the Constitution if I lose, you're a piece of shit and you're un American. That's why I'm voting against Donald Trump, right? But a lot of people don't know that. There's so many things that Democrats don't focus on, they should focus on. But a guy like that is easy for the mainstream media to go and for establishment politicians, both Republican and Democrat, to say, you see, our opponents are crazy. Look at Donald Trump, he's our main opponent and he's totally nuts. He wants to terminate the Constitution, shoot protesters, use the military on Americans, et cetera. But when Bernie Sanders or me or a populist progressive comes out or Nina Turner or any of those folks. And we go, we want higher wages, we want universal health care, we want to stop the wars, we want paid family leave. All these things poll at two thirds or higher. Paid family leave polls at 84%. That's giving. That's giving moms 12 weeks off after they have a baby. The right wing loves it, the left wing loves it. The only people who don't love it are corporations. And the corporations go send their hatchet men in corporate media and Democrats and Republicans to go kill a bill that is unbelievably popular. So populists left on economic issues, not on social issues. On economic issues is nearly impossible to defeat if you get them in an actual fair contest. That is why the media never lets us on. You'll see right wingers all over cnn. Right. I'm banned on all three cable news outlets. Really? I can go on almost any online show and I've been on almost every online show. Why? Look, we get good clicks, right? Because people know we're honest and we're passionate, aggressive, etc. Would I get good ratings? I was a host on MSNBC. I got the best ratings they ever got at 6:00.
- [35:43]
B
Wow.
- [35:43]
A
So there's no question about the. My ability to deliver ratings, etc. No. Under no circumstances. Under no circumstances. So I ran against Biden in the primary to try to push him out because he's too old. And I was positive he's going to lose. Right. And we try to hire the top PR guy to get you on cable news. Super expensive. And he did something really wonderful and decent. He said, I went and talked to the three of them, to the, the bookers, the main bookers at those three cable networks. He's like, don't pay me. My job is to get you on them. And I can't. You're banned.
- [36:16]
B
Whoa.
- [36:17]
A
Yeah. So isn't it interesting that Fox News and MSNBC have me banned?
- [36:21]
B
Yeah. Because those are two polar opposites, right?
- [36:23]
A
Theoretically. But I actually don't think so.
- [36:25]
B
Really?
- [36:26]
A
I think the culture wars are meant to divide us. So, you know, on Fox News, they say, oh, my God, can you believe the M and Ms. Aren't hot enough and they need to be sexier dressed or whatever crazy shit Tucker used to say, right? And hate transgender people and hate this and hate that. And the MSNBC says, no, don't do that. And by the way, because of affirmative action and other things, but maybe we should get more of an advantage than white people. And white people have been in power too long, blah, blah, blah. And they fight over all these social issues and culture wars. Meanwhile, the minute you say, hey, let's get rid of student debt, both msnbc, in fact, all three. And we did this segment on the Young Turks, MSNBC and now Fox News. Oh, well, no, no, no, no, no. Don't get rid of student debt. No, that's, that has to go to corporate tax cuts. It can't go to real America's. No way, no way paid family leave. No, no, no. Everybody, it's 12. The entire world has paid family leave. We live under corporate rule. We're almost, we're one of like a handful of countries that don't have paid family leave. We say to moms, after you deliver, go back to work the next day. Wow, that's insane. That's insane. Only 15% of women in this country, because they're, and almost all of them are high paid executives get paid family leave. And that's just the corporations choosing to give it to them. It is not in every other country. It's mandated in this country. It is not mandated. And it. Average working person in this country gets screwed over. It. The rich executives never feel the pain because they already have 12 week off at their, at their banks and the Goldman Sachs and the places that they work at. But the great majority of the average American does not have that time off. So what they have to do is they have to use their sick leave, they have to use their vacation days to barely get a week or two in with their kids before they got to go back on the assembly line.
- [38:12]
B
Yeah, right.
- [38:13]
A
So that's why those policy positions are so popular. They can't be beaten. That's why the media goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't put them on right wing media, don't put them on left wing media. Don't put them on any media because we can't beat those guys.
- [38:26]
B
That's madness. Do you think these companies have too much power these days?
- [38:30]
A
No. And so that might be surprising.
- [38:32]
B
That is surprising to me.
- [38:33]
A
Yeah. In the old days, mainstream media had total monopoly power on and, and it was the worst of all worlds. So sometimes people go, oh, social media, there's a lot of things that go wrong and I don't like this and blah, blah, blah. Oh, then kids are watching it too much. Some of that is real, you know, people concerned about their kids. Instagram, you know, you've got people getting envious and trying to compete with like the hottest people in the world, the richest people. In the world. I get it, right? But 75% of it is bullshit because those TikTok and Instagram and YouTube X, they're competitors to CNN, MSNBC, ABC, et cetera. So those guys have been writing articles and doing segments about how awful social media is. Now remember, everybody, go back to mainstream media. Do not go to social media. In fact, CNN once did an article about how terrible social media was and they went and talked to advertisers under the guise of reporters and they would fish out one or two bad videos out of Facebook and bring it to the advertisers. You shouldn't advertise with them, should you? I mean, look at this, look at what Facebook did. Isn't this terrible? That's not reporting. You're just doing a hatchet job on your competitor, right? So now why are they not as powerful today? Because it didn't work. Social media swarming them. And look, here's another phenomenon, because I also run the Young turks, right? I'm the founder, I'm the CEO. So I see the business end of it too. And on the business end of it, the cable news guys are in a world of trouble because they had huge revenue. They had 100 million subscribers on cable news. On cable overall. And Fox is getting $4 a subscriber. That's $400 million a year, right? No, I'm sorry, $400 million a month. Whoa. Yes. CNN was getting $1. I think it's points they might have got. CNN, SMBC might have gotten up to around 2, 2 dollars. But these guys are making bank 100, 200 million, 400 million a month. Okay, so now you go from 100 million to down to 70, getting close to 60 million. Well, you just lost a giant chunk of cash, right? And advertisers are leaving because the average age @ MSNBC is 68. The average age at Fox News is around 70.
- [40:57]
B
Damn.
- [40:58]
A
So they're doing these shows out of a senior citizen center. If they didn't constantly circle jerk each other, they'd have no relevance at all. Like if we all stopped paying attention to cable news, they just have a bunch of 70 year olds listening to them and it would be totally, utterly irrelevant. Okay, but the rest of the news is obsessed with those three cable news companies. So they're constantly just giving them more and more hype by talking about them. But right now they're on their last legs. Why? Because, okay, your money goes down, but it's still a giant amount of money. But remember, whenever you run a business, the costs almost Always go up to near what your revenue is. So their costs went up, but when their revenue was up here, they're still making shit ton of money. Yeah, but now when their revenue's down here. Oh, you're capsizing.
- [41:45]
B
They gotta lay people off.
- [41:46]
A
Yeah. And that's why, for example, you saw on espn, a whole bunch of their top hosts got laid off.
- [41:52]
B
Saw that.
- [41:52]
A
Yeah. And so now what's happening is they're renegotiating all the cable news guys. So the guy, I mean, Sean Hannity, makes 40 million a year.
- [42:01]
B
Holy crap. Okay, what network is he on?
- [42:04]
A
Fox.
- [42:04]
B
Fox, Damn.
- [42:06]
A
Okay, so a lot of these guys get silly money, ridiculous money. So they're saying, oh, you used to make 20, now you're going to make six. And they're like, that's a. How could I live on 6 million a year? I mean, I thought we got paid well to lie around here. So it's going to go from six to two. I mean, look here, I'll give you a sense of it from another end of television. Weathermen in the top markets used to make half a million to a million dollars.
- [42:35]
B
Damn.
- [42:35]
A
Okay. Because the people used to sit around waiting for the weather in the local news back when there was no Internet. They're like, oh, I don't know, do I need, you know, my umbrella tomorrow? Well, I guess I gotta stay till 11:27 to find out, because the weather's last. Or it was either weather or sports right now. People can just get the weather online. So local news, because of the erosion of television, is also falling off a cliff. Now, I've heard stories of people working in la, the number two market in the world, on air in one of the major stations for 25 bucks an hour. Whoa, that's close to McDonald's wages.
- [43:11]
B
Yeah, that's low.
- [43:12]
A
So that's why they're losing their power. I think by. There's some chance by. It's been a long time coming. So I, you know, sometimes I'm off on the timing here, but I think by 2028 they'll probably be in. In such bad shape that they are no longer driving the national conversation.
- [43:31]
B
You took that leap of faith early. 22 years ago is when you started the Young Turks. I feel like you were way ahead of your time for alternative media.
- [43:37]
A
Thank you, brother. Yeah, so I wrote an email to my friends back in 1998 saying digital videos are going to beat television. And I don't blame them, but they were like, yeah, that's the craziest thing I heard at that time there was like AOL dialogues. You remember that fax noise?
- [43:56]
B
I was 1 years old in 1998.
- [43:59]
A
So you don't remember, but they're like, so why? Why do you think the online video is going to win? And I said, look, logically, think about it. First of all, TV gatekeepers run the place, and gatekeepers don't know what they're doing. They would order like 10 episodes, 10 different sitcoms, 10 different dramas. They'd only pick one because everybody was making crazy money. This entire town, La, is all built on TV money, okay? So I'm like, and nine out of 10 would suck. Why? Because it's some corporate executive picking the show. And corporate executives are notoriously shitty at picking shows. And I remember being in a TV pitch meeting and they said, all right, first question is, what will Walmart think of this? I was like, okay, we're fine. Okay. Because if you're programming towards Walmart, here's what Walmart wants. Boring. Oh, we want it to be brand safe and we want it to fluff Walmart. Right? And we want it to do this and that. Well, nobody's interested in that. That's why Netflix killed them. Because Netflix is not based on advertising money. So they had to produce shows that people loved so that they would subscribe. Once you've lined up your incentive with the actual viewers instead of with the advertisers and with corporate executives, the ones who have the right incentives over the long run will win. It's inevitable. And that's exactly what happened.
- [45:22]
B
Love it, man. What's next for you guys? And where can people keep up with you?
- [45:26]
A
So, you know, Young Turks is our flagship show. TYT is the network. So we've got shows like Indisputable with Rashad Richie, Damage Report with John Idarola. We got Rebel Headquarters, which is even larger than the flagship channel, okay? Rebel headquarters has like 20 populist, progressive hosts on it. And so we find great people online and we build them up, right? Sometimes we build them up and then they turn on us. Those are interesting stories for another day, right? But we build them up and. And it makes us larger. Makes them larger. It's a win win. I'm always looking for win wins. So we're on about a dozen platforms. YouTube is the main place. 6:00 every weekday, 6:00 Eastern. So come watch the show there. But since we're on almost all the platforms, all you got to do is either type in Young Turks or Tyt on any platform and you'll get us. We also have 24 hour channels now like cable news on Samsung, Roku, YouTube TV etc so anywhere you go, TYT or Young Turks and come check us out.
- [46:29]
B
Perfect. We'll link below. Thanks for coming on.
- [46:30]
A
Thank you brother. Yeah.