 As many of you know, Jank Guger of TYT is running to represent California's 25th Congressional District. In fact, we just had him on the program a little more than a week ago, and he's running a great campaign, and he's picking up a lot of momentum, which is why the Democratic Party establishment is pulling out every single trick they possibly can to defeat him, because he poses a real threat to them. So you've had establishment figures like Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein, even I believe, and Kamala Harris come out to endorse his opponent currently. But nonetheless, he has persisted, and he secured major endorsements like Ro Khanna, Nina Turner, and even Bernie Sanders. Now in addition to endorsements from establishment figures, they're also trying to defeat Jank by trudging up these old articles that he wrote about 19 years ago that were misogynistic and they were half serious from what I understand, but nonetheless they were problematic. Now the good news is that I believe in forgiveness if someone actually changes and apologizes, and of course Jank has apologized, because these are the same articles that were used when he was forced out of the Justice Democrats. But basically they're trying to link individuals like Bernie Sanders to those smears. So instead of Bernie Sanders endorsing Jank Guger, well now the narrative is Bernie Sanders endorses misogynistic candidate Jank Guger. So anticipating that these smear articles, this narrative could potentially hurt Bernie Sanders, what Jank Guger decided to do is reject all endorsements from Nina Turner, Ro Khanna, and yes, Bernie Sanders as well, which led to Bernie Sanders officially unendorsing Jank, tweeting, Jank Guger has been a long time fighter against corruption, however our movement is bigger than any one person. I hear my supporters who were frustrated and I understand their concerns. Jank today said he is rejecting all endorsements for his campaign and I retract my endorsement. Now there's so much to say about this, first of all, I don't know if really was Jank who on his own accord decided to reject all of these endorsements. Maybe Bernie Sanders was already going to unendorse Jank. I'm not sure what the situation is, although I will link to a video by Kyle Kalinsky who speculates about this situation using the experience that you know dealing with Justice Democrats and that dilemma, having their staff basically forcing Jank Guger out after the alt-right digged up the same old articles that corporate media is now using to smear Jank. But I mean either way, this situation is incredibly frustrating because Bernie Sanders campaign absolutely mishandled this. Either you shouldn't have endorsed Jank Guger all together or you should have just stuck to your guns after endorsing him because this makes you look weak and all around it's not a good look. So I mean I find this frustrating because I think that Bernie Sanders endorsing Jank is the right move. And I think that overall Bernie should not have unendorsed Jank Guger, that's kind of where I lean because regardless they're still going to paint you in a negative light, right? They're still going to smear you for endorsing him to begin with. So you'd be stronger just defending your position and making it clear that this individual should be endorsed and should be in Congress because he is against corruption and he's for the people in spite of what he said 20 years ago. Even predictably, you know, they're still attacking Bernie because he endorsed Jank Guger and on top of that what's really disgusting is they're doubling down on the smears against Jank Guger. Now there are a plethora of examples of this but I want to highlight just one example because I think it's the most egregious example of them all. So this is from the New York Times where writer Jennifer Medina wrote an article titled Bernie Sanders retracts endorsement of Jank Guger after criticism and she argues Mr. Sanders has said Mr. Juger was a voice we desperately need in Congress but many Democrats condemned the endorsement citing Mr. Juger's history of offensive comments. And as I stated this is the most egregious example which is why I want to kind of focus on this but it also demonstrates that you will never appease your critics. They will never, you know, give you credit for doing the right thing if they believe that you did in fact do the right thing. They're still portraying Bernie Sanders in a negative way and on top of that they're smearing Jank Guger so all around this situation is demoralizing and depressing. And the reason why this example is as egregious as I say it was because it really demonstrates how the media disingenuously frames things in order to create a particular narrative or misrepresent the situation for their political agenda and here's how that happened in this article. Quote in 2017 Mr. Juger was forced out of the group Justice Democrats a group he co-founded that backs progressive congressional candidates around the country after his old blog posts objectifying women came to life. Mr. Juger's long history of comments about women included ranking them on a scale of one to 10 based on how likely men would be to have them perform oral sex. He also defended a similar ranking by Harvard's men's soccer team which was widely condemned at the time. Mr. Juger a long time supporter of Mr. Sanders has also disparaged former president Barack Obama on his show argued that bestiality should be legal and hosted white supremacist figures including David Duke. Now on top of that they also quote Mark Gonzalez who is the chair of the Los Angeles Democratic Party and he says this about Jank. This man has spent decades including up until recently attacking women the LGBTQ community Jews Muslims Asians American Asian Americans and African Americans. His vulgarity his hate speech and divisive rhetoric have no place in our party. Now I've watched TYT since about 2008 I want to say and that is not the Jank Juger that I've come to know and respect these blanket accusations of bigotry and racism. They are incredibly unfounded. Now if you read this article as she goes through all of these controversies she only links to two of the specific things that Jank said. So the way that she's describing these scenarios of misogyny and whatnot I mean maybe they're problematic maybe they're not but we just have to take her word for it. Okay well when she says disparaging Barack Obama what does that mean because Jank is critical of Barack Obama because he's a corporate Democrat and guess what he's correct but disparaging Barack Obama in this context since they're talking about how he says horrible things about African Americans and vulgarity and hate speech well you'd assume that he's saying racist things about Obama when obviously that's not the case but again you know she just describes it that way so you have to take her word for it. He also on top of that he ranked women on a scale from 1 to 10 based on how likely men would be able to would have them perform oral sex I don't know what the context is maybe that's bad maybe it's not as bad as they say maybe she's misrepresenting the situation the point is if you don't link to what he's saying specific quotes then how are we supposed to trust you and I'll tell you why we probably shouldn't trust her in a second here. Now in one of the two instances where she actually links you to the comments that Jank made the specific comments one of them is pretty controversial to be fair and this doesn't actually have anything to do with the old blog posts that everyone has been talking about this centers on comments that he made about bestiality which are pretty cringe worthy to be honest you know this is a very yikes take about legalizing bestiality and I absolutely don't agree with this but is it disqualifying no it's a stupid thing to say but if you're going to fight for policies like Medicare for all I can give you a pass on a yikes take here and there especially if you're not really that person today like we all are constantly changing and evolving as human beings like I could probably go back and look to some videos that I did previously from a couple of years ago I've only been doing this for four and a half years and say well you know maybe I don't agree with that I'm in fact I know I've had positions on this program that I don't really agree with anymore and perhaps I can hash that out but the point is we're always evolving as human beings and so long as we're on that right trajectory of growth and improvement and we've apologized for the past things that we've done then of course we should welcome that but we'll get to that later you know we'll get to whether or not they believe that someone can truly evolve because what I want to talk about is how we should interpret these controversies from Cenk Ugra because I don't trust what this author is saying based on one example that she describes here that we actually have the context for so going to the David Duke example they kind of do a tacit you know disapproval of the fact that he platformed David Duke but on top of that here's what she says about that in one clip that circulated on Twitter Mr. Duke ends an interview by saying I am not what you call a racist to which Mr. Ugra replies no of course not now again she was just hoping that you take her word for it however Kyle Kalinsky found the interview and provided a clip that gives you some additional context Hagan is on the Supreme Court but so is Sotomayor and she's definitely not Jewish she's Latina I mean Hagan made it out of the Supreme Court but so is Sotomayor those are two pigs by Obama Sotomayor clearly not Jewish in fact what is it what I think seven out of the nine justices are Catholic oh my god the Catholics have taken over the Supreme Court watch out David watch out it's the Catholics that are the problem but then you've got the Koch brothers who buy all these politicians they're not Jewish how does that fit into your conspiracy theory that's not me I mean you keep saying Goldman Sachs but before blank find the head of Goldman Sachs was Hank Paul said Christian extraordinaire the biggest political contributor in the country is not Sheldon Adelson it is David and Charles Koch they are enormously Christian now after seeing that ask yourself this did it seem like Cenk was giving David Duke a softball interview as the New York Times implied did it seem like he was arguing that David Duke wasn't actually racist obviously not now I actually found that particular portion of the interview and I added some additional clips beforehand so that way you can kind of see Jenks overall demeanor he was basically clowning on David Duke he was being sarcastic so that way once you kind of grasp what his overall demeanor was the way that he said no of course not when David Duke said he's not racist well you kind of get what he's getting at he's he's laughing at that notion are two-thirds of the country Catholic well approximately two-thirds of the Supreme Court is Catholic David you got the wrong boogeyman remember the KKK was also against Catholics I know you're more inclusive Catholics okay now you're more inclusive that was one of your that was one of your innovations you know what I'm for opportunity in this country and I'm against real racism and the ultimate racist apparatus that's going on in this country is Jewish racism and that's why I give an example this way you always hear about white privilege another chart I give you you know I want to make this clear too I am not what you call a racist no I'm not because I believe that every people have the right to seek the things that they love and things that they appreciate their values their people their interests and I believe that every nation has a right to be free and independent so obviously he was being sarcastic I'm just surprised actually that they didn't take that other quote you know out of context where he said oh I know you're more inclusive I'm surprised they didn't include that as well to smear him it's just it's unbelievable it's unbelievable and after seeing the way that this author mischaracterized that interview with David Duke how am I supposed to actually trust that her interpretation of these controversies is actually valid we can't you see the young Turks has hundreds of thousands of hours of content on their website on YouTube so they know that you're not going to take the time to dig through and find that specific clip where they were rating women maybe it was controversial maybe it was problematic and misogynistic maybe she's misrepresenting it as she did the David Duke situation the point is we don't know and what makes this exponentially worse is that this author actually wasn't ignorant because she knew that Cenk was being sarcastic she knew she was misrepresenting Cenk because he tweeted when she contacted me for her story I thought we had a shared understanding the Duke clip was obviously out of context she was immediately sent the full combative debate as proof that she completely ignored it and still publish this lie is absolutely unconscionable in other words she knew what she was doing this was a hit job and her intent was in fact malicious but what she probably didn't expect were people to call her out on her bullshit because we noticed the way she grossly mis represented at least that one interview from Cenk that one controversy from Cenk and people called her out so for example Kyle Kalinsky asked his audience to contact her and politely ask her to issue a correction and to also apologize now as far as I know she hasn't apologized yet which she should but she did thankfully issue a correction saying an earlier version of this article referred in precisely to a remark by Cenk Ugar a radio host who is running for a California congressional seat when David Duke the white supremacist appeared on the show and denied being a racist Mr. Ugar was replying sarcastically when he said no of course not so I mean it's great that you issued this correction but the damage has already been done nobody's going to revisit that article and see oh okay he was being sarcastic the people who don't really know about Cenk who don't watch the Young Turks read that article and now they think that he agrees with David Duke you did that that's what the author of this article did which is why Kyle demanded an apology as well I've made mistakes on the show I apologize and correct it when that happens apologizing doesn't mean that you're weak it just means that we're all human and we make mistakes although in this instance and she already knew that Cenk Ugar was being sarcastic since he deliberately said I was being sarcastic we know that this was just an attempt to smear her so I don't trust whatever else they say about Cenk whatever they deem controversial because they're not allowing us to decide if you're actually going to say that Cenk is misogynistic and he hates the LGBTQ community you've got to bring the receipts not just the one receipt but bring multiple receipts so we can actually judge for ourselves because if we can evaluate the comments that Cenk made then you actually have more credibility as a journalist because you believe the things that you're saying and you're not hiding them away from the public knowing that most people probably won't shuffle through all the Young Turks thousands of hours of content to find out what you're referring to now here's what's more important all the people who are coming out to endorse Cenk's opponent because he's this huge misogynistic ass well guess what they also don't actually really care about controversies and misogyny and homophobia because Nancy Pelosi who endorsed his opponent she also endorsed Dan Lipinski over a progressive Democrat named Marie Newman now Dan Lipinski is an anti-gay Democrat who is also against choice and some of the people individuals who are speaking out against Cenk Yuger's misogyny here people like Jill Filipovic she condemned Cenk but she gave Joy Rita Pass for homophobic statements that she has previously made ironically on a blog post as well now she deleted that tweet but I'll tell you what she said she called criticism of Joy Reid's past disgusting and disingenuous saying that she made a judgment error years ago and sincerely apologized but you see even though Cenk also made a judgment error and apologized well he doesn't get a pass unlike Joy Reid who definitely receives a pass from Jill it's almost like the controversies don't matter and they will excuse people that they like but not give a pass to people who they don't like who is against their own political agenda interesting how that works right this is a double standard that is only applied to progressives now here's the thing I actually do give Joy Rita Pass I am a member of the LGBTQ community and I welcome people who who evolve because if I didn't we'd have zero allies because at one point in time everyone was against LGBTQ people so the thing is they don't actually care about all of these controversies it's fake outrage because they want to defeat Cenk because he's a threat to capital and the establishment they know that he would not give democratic leadership a pass he confront Nancy Pelosi to her face when she is brazenly corporate and gives away policy concessions to Donald Trump for no reason whatsoever they don't want that they don't want someone like Cenk having a large congressional platform and power to challenge them so they're going to bring up whatever they possibly can to smear him and smear anyone who dares to help him get elected like Bernie Sanders it's disgusting but understand that this is what they're going to do it's a tactic it's not principle they don't care about misogyny or homophobia they don't care about any of that they will bring up anything they can possibly use against you if it means that will help them politically and even if they have to lie or misrepresent what you said they're going to do that if it means defeating you because these people don't want power to fully be challenged that's a simple as a way I can describe it I mean there's no other way to frame this this is about power protecting power capital you know making sure that it defends itself no matter what so this is disgusting and morally reprehensible and as a direct result of this I contributed another 10 bucks to Cenk you're gonna I would encourage you to do the same whenever they do this and they try to smear one of our own that's when we have to help our own because even though there's all of these smears I do believe that Cenk can still win it's gonna be an uphill battle but nonetheless he can still win in spite of these smears because when you actually have people power behind you you can get elected and win and make a difference in spite of the behemoths that want to take you down now as a result of this Cenk Yuga raised more than $150,000 over the weekend because people who support him were outraged at this brazen smear by the New York Times so I mean it's a disgusting story nonetheless it's not surprising at all and I'm glad they issued the correction but the problem with this correction it's you know it's a day late in the dollar short right not gonna help us anymore you know people are going to think that Cenk is misogynistic and this horrible person and they're taking quotes from people who aren't providing evidence that he's anti-muslim when his family is Muslim it's just morally reprehensible but it's not surprising this is why I do not trust the mainstream media and whatever they say I feel the need to verify myself as much as I can independently because they have an agenda and this should demonstrate that