MORE Documents Implicate Joe Biden in Ukraine Scandal, It's About To Get A WHOLE LOT Worse
MORE Documents Implicate Joe Biden in Ukraine Scandal, Politician Says Joe Was Paid $900K By Burisma.A Ukrainian MP has issued a statement and released documents alleging that Joe Biden himself was paid $900,000 in exchange for consulting services by Burisma. The story, reported by Interfax, directly implicates Joe Biden and if true would present a scenario in which Joe Biden got a prosecutor fired to protect himself from investigation.The issue in the end for all of us is who to trust. Do we trust this Ukrainian politician? Well the media reported that Hunter Biden and Joe did nothing wrong, but their source? A Ukrainian political figure.In the end it seems like we have no way to know who is telling the truth unless the US launches an investigation into Joe Biden. At the very least, even if the latest allegations are true Joe has been accused for a while of enriching himself and his family with the office.It is common "soft corruption" and we all know it happens.Regardless of the latest claims against Trump, Democrats, Or Biden we need to stop pretending the nepotism and corruption doesn't exist.Even many leftists have come out slamming the Bidens for their misuse of public office and at the very least we can all agree on that.If these new allegations are true then Trump would be right to want it investigated and it makes an absurd reason for impeachment. Regardless though, the call with Ukraine by Trump pushed it regardless if it warrants the calls to impeach.In the end the best we can hope for is that this matter is investigated properly and fairly.
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A statement and new documents released by a Ukrainian politician directly implicate Joe Biden in the Burisma holding scandal.
The story from Interfax reads, Burisma paid Joe Biden $900,000 for lobbying.
For those that haven't been following the story, when it comes to impeachment, the Democrats want Trump impeached mostly because of a conversation where he talked with the president of Ukraine and mentioned Joe Biden getting a prosecutor fired.
Now, the right will say that Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, who was on the board of Ukraine, was facing an investigation from a Ukrainian prosecutor.
Joe Biden leveraged American aid to force the Ukrainian government to fire that prosecutor, and that's corrupt.
However, on the left, they argue Joe Biden had no conflict of interest, his son had nothing to do with him, and they found no evidence of wrongdoing.
I can't tell you what to believe, but these are just the accusations.
According to this story from Interfax now, and the documents released by this politician, Joe Biden may not have been trying to get this prosecutor fired because of a fear for his son, but for himself.
In fact, according to a sworn affidavit from the prosecutor who was fired, he said he was going to be investigating Burisma Holdings.
If Joe Biden received money from this company, it may not have been about his son, but him personally.
Now here's the sad reality.
Partisan media in the U.S.
is tearing this story apart and is extremely difficult to even talk about.
This is like the 80th time I've tried breaking this story down.
For instance, Interfax Ukraine.
Interfax is actually a Russian agency.
They say Ukraine News Agency, but my understanding is that Interfax is actually owned and operated out of Russia.
Should you trust them?
I honestly don't know.
Russian interests are clearly at odds with American interests.
But in the U.S., they'll tell you there was no investigation.
According to a sworn affidavit, there was.
Should you trust this Ukrainian politician when he tells us that Joe Biden was receiving this money?
Well, why should we trust a Ukrainian politician?
They're not Americans.
We should defer to American sources and American investigation and... right?
Well, the problem is, when it comes to this story, U.S.
mainstream media has actually cited Ukrainian political figures.
In this story from NBC News, refuting the allegations from the right, they say, Hunter Biden, quote, did not violate anything former Ukrainian prosecutor says.
If you're going to believe that Hunter Biden did nothing wrong, they're citing a Ukrainian political figure.
In which case, I don't know how you decide to ignore a Ukrainian politician saying, no, Joe Biden was receiving money from this company.
I can't tell you what to believe.
I can only do my best to try and break this down and show you what's going on.
And we have conflicting statements from Ukrainians.
We have, you know, media in the West is not actually reporting.
This is coming from a politician.
They're saying Giuliani has evidence that Joe Biden received this money.
Well, it's not Giuliani who, quote, has evidence.
It's a Ukrainian politician who made a statement, and it's being reported by Interfax.
Choose not to trust it.
Fine.
I'm going to read through these stories and we're going to try and figure out what's going on.
But here's what I can tell you.
No matter how you cut it, putting these scandals aside, Joe Biden's crooked.
His family is crooked.
And don't take my word for it.
Let's go over to the intercept.
The intercept is very left.
Joe Biden's family has been cashing in on his career for decades.
Democrats need to acknowledge that.
I want to go through some statements from left-wing individuals who are calling out the Bidens and pointing out the corruption.
And I want to talk about the latest allegations, of which I can't tell you who to trust.
But I can say that at least some on the left are saying, at bare minimum, what Joe Biden did is soft corruption.
If the Democrats don't call him out for this, they acknowledge this corruption exists, and these politicians enrich themselves and their families, and I'm gonna have to say, come on, man.
We all know that's true.
At the very least, we can see soft corruption.
Why was Hunter Biden getting $50,000 per month on the board of a Ukrainian company where he doesn't speak the language?
The whole thing is fishy.
You want to throw out the accusations that Trump has and the conservatives have?
By all means.
I don't know who to trust and I don't know what's, you know, which source is being honest.
But I do know that Hunter Biden had this job and it makes no sense.
I also know that a former CIA director was appointed to the board of Burisma Holdings as well.
Well, the whole thing seems fishy.
But let's get started and we'll read the story from Interfax, which again, it's a Russian agency, I'm not saying to trust it, but we're going to read what they're reporting.
Now before we get started, make sure you head over to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
There's a PayPal option, a crypto option, a physical address, but of course the best thing you can do, share this story.
Again, I'm not going to tell you what is true and what isn't.
I'm going to read you these stories and try and figure it out.
But what I can say is that I'm competing against a mainstream media that will only take one side, that won't even tell you that it was Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian MP, Member of Parliament, who's releasing these documents.
They'll tell you it was Rudy Giuliani on Hannity.
Well, look, I'm trying to do my best, but I'm competing with Fox News, I'm competing with CNN and MSNBC, so if you think I'm doing a good job, I really, really ask you to share this video and explain why you think it was good.
But let's read from Interfax.
They say, Kiev, October 9th.
Former U.S.
Vice President Joe Biden received $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Group, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada member.
Now, I'm pronouncing it wrong probably, but Verkhovna Rada is Ukrainian parliament, or I believe it means Supreme Council.
Derkacz publicized documents which, as he said, described the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.
at a press conference at Interfax Ukraine's press center in Kiev on Wednesday.
Quote, This was the transfer of Burisma Group's funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe personally, to Joe Biden through a lobbying company.
Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners.
Which, according to open sources, in particular the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden.
Mostly Hunter Biden.
The payment reference was payment for consultative services.
Now, let's walk this back a little bit.
Some reporting in the U.S.
is not referring to this as a payment to Joe Biden, but that it was an extensive payment of $166,000 per month to Hunter Biden.
In this particular instance, this politician is saying, no, it was for Joe.
But let's read on.
He also publicized sums that were transferred to Burisma Group's representatives, in particular Hunter Biden, a son of the former U.S.
Vice President.
Quote, According to the documents, Burisma paid no less than $16.5 million to former Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, who became an independent director at Burisma Holdings in 2014.
Chairman of the Burisma Board of Independent Directors, Alan Apter, Devin Archer, and Hunter Biden.
And Devin Archer and Hunter Biden are the individuals depicted in that photograph, now that's gone viral, of Joe Biden with the two.
Now Joe has claimed he hasn't discussed this company with his son, but here he is in a photo with two of its board members.
Many people feel that Biden is not being truthful.
Quote, Using political and economic levelers of influencing Ukrainian authorities and manipulating the issue of providing financial aid to Ukraine, Joe Biden actively assisted closing criminal cases into the activity of former Ukrainian Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky,
Who is the founder and owner of Burisma Group, he said.
Biden's fifth visit to Kiev on December 7-8, 2015, was devoted to making a decision on the resignation of then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin over the case of Zlochevsky and Burisma.
Loan guarantees worth $1 billion the United States was to give to Ukraine was the point of pressure.
Biden himself admitted exerting pressure in his speech at the Council of Foreign Relations in January 2018, calling Shokin, son of a bee, who was fired.
The timeline of events proves that the U.S.
linked the Zlochevsky case to loan guarantees, he said.
After the decree dismissing Shokin was published on April 3rd, 2016, the governments of the United States and Ukraine signed a loan guarantee agreement worth $1 billion several months later on June 3rd, he said.
Is so insanely complicated.
Because right now you have Democrats and Republicans accusing each other of the exact same thing, that Trump was withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for political favors, while Trump accused the Democrats, namely Biden, of withholding U.S.
aid to Ukraine in exchange for political favors.
Now, the issue here with Trump is they're arguing Trump is trying to negatively impact Joe Biden going into 2020.
In my personal opinion, I don't think Trump cares about Biden going into 2020 because he has the incumbent advantage, his approval rating is up from where it was two years ago, and the economy is doing really, really well.
It's the biggest driving factor in an election.
Why would Trump need dirt on Biden?
It doesn't seem to make sense.
But the left would argue that's the case.
Now, in reference to Biden, Biden, according to the accusers, would have risked, well, getting himself in trouble if this money was for him.
But more importantly, his son could end up being prosecuted or called out.
Could be very, very damaging for the Democrats in the long run.
So both seem to have something to lose in both investigations.
So let's read a little bit more.
I don't want to spend too much on this story.
They say, quote, in this case, there are facts In this case, there are facts should be subject to investigation.
There's an agency that has powers to investigate them, the U.S.
Department of Justice.
If the Ukrainian Prosecutor General signs documents and send them to U.S.
Department of Justice without any requests, he will accomplish his mission.
He said, adding, that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General has such powers.
Considering international corruption in public is a way out for President Zelensky, I am certain that he is not involved in international corruption.
Well, let's stop right here.
Let's jump over to the next story.
Rudy Giuliani has evidence that Joe Biden received $900,000 in lobbying fees from his son's Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, and claims father-son duo sold influence in China and Romania.
You've got stories in NBC and the New York Post saying Ukrainian prosecutors say there's no wrongdoing and nothing going on.
You've got stories from Ukrainian politicians saying, no, there was something here.
Okay, I think we can solve this very simply.
An investigation.
We had three years of Russiagate.
Wouldn't it make sense to investigate this?
And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Take a look at this story.
I want to highlight these quotes from The Intercept.
Now, The Intercept is very anti-Trump.
And in the beginning of the story, they spare no words condemning Trump for his behavior, calling it, you know, a violation, et cetera, et cetera.
They think he was trying to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.
But it is true that Joe Biden's son was a board member of Burisma.
And here's what they write.
But that doesn't mean that Biden's behavior isn't a legitimate problem for Democrats.
Indeed, Biden has been taking political hits over of the intersection of his family.
This is a really poorly written thing. They say Biden has been taking political hits over the
intersection of his family's financial dealings and his own political career for some four decades.
Yet he has done nothing publicly to inoculate himself from the charge
that his career is corruptly enriching his family. And now that is a serious liability.
By contrast, one of his opponents in the presidential primary, Senator Bernie Sanders, went so far as to refuse to endorse his son, Levi Sanders, when he ran for Congress, saying that he does not believe in political dynasties.
In defending the Bidens' nepotistic relationship, Democrats would be forced to argue that, to be fair.
Such soft corruption is common among the families of senior-level politicians.
That's a risky general election argument in a political moment, when voters are no longer willing to accept business as usual, for now.
Biden's opponents in the presidential campaign appear to all hope that somebody else will make
the argument, while congressional Democrats don't want to do anything to undermine their
impeachment probe. And so Biden skates. Yep.
Joe Biden skates.
See, this story about Rosemount Seneca goes back to April 1st.
John Solomon from The Hill reporting, U.S.
banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemount Seneca Partners, received regular transfers into one of its accounts, usually more than $166,000 per month.
From Burisma, from Spring 2014 through Fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S.
official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia, the general prosecutor's official file for the Burisma probe, shared with me by senior Ukrainian officials, shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devin Archer, and their firm, Rosemount Seneca, as potential recipients of the money.
I believe this warrants an investigation.
I'm not saying it's true.
I don't care if you like Trump or hate Trump.
We should be digging into this.
And I think we should point out that there are even principled people on the left who detest Trump in no uncertain terms, saying this is soft corruption that needs to be called out.
But let's get to the point.
I'm sorry, let's make this point here.
This photograph, subject of the meme that went viral when Trump posted a video with the Nickelback song.
You can see Devin Archer, far left, golfing in the Hamptons with former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, far right, in 2014.
Around the same time, Rosemont Seneca Partners was receiving $166,000 per month, at least according to The Hill.
They were seen together, Devin Archer and Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, but Joe Biden claims he didn't discuss this stuff with his son.
Joe Biden is directly connected to this.
At the very least, we could say something is fishy with Joe Biden's son, right?
Well, unfortunately, this is what happens when you enrich your family through political dynasty.
If Joe Biden really did get his son this job through political connections, and Joe himself did nothing wrong and there was no conflict of interest, fine.
But don't be surprised when people say, you're the father of this individual receiving all this money and we'd like to know why.
Now I'm going to stress this point here.
Hunter Biden did not violate anything, former Ukrainian prosecutor says.
By all means, you're free to believe that's true.
But you cannot, at the same time, choose to trust a Ukrainian prosecutor and not the Ukrainian MP, or vice versa.
The point is, we don't know what happened.
We don't know that Joe Biden or Hunter Biden did anything.
We know the accusations exist, and they're conflicting statements from Ukrainian political figures.
In which case, I believe the same thing to do, investigate.
But isn't that what Trump asked for in the first place?
Well, now they're trying to impeach him for it.
Again, when it comes to this issue on impeachment, you have two trains of thought.
That Trump was trying to dig up dirt on Biden, which I think is naive and short-sighted and ignorant.
Or that he was trying to dig into the origins of the 2016 Mueller probe and, potentially, corruption by Joe Biden.
Which do you pick?
Listen.
When you read the news all day every day like I do, I do not see Donald Trump as a man who is scared of Joe Biden.
The aggregate polls for Biden are less than Warren's at this point.
Trump has the incumbent advantage.
His base is bigger today than it was before.
He's got record low unemployment.
He's got a record economy.
I do not believe Trump needs to dig up dirt on anybody.
Maybe, though.
Maybe Trump's just a bad strategist, I guess.
In my opinion, if you had to force me and I had to make a bet, I'd bet Trump is trying to go after those who he feels wronged him.
It's that simple.
We dealt with three years of Russiagate, Trump took it personally, and I think he wants to not dig up dirt to win an election.
I think he's looking to dig up dirt on the people, or I shouldn't even say dig up dirt, I think he's trying to find that wrongdoing and prove it.
I think that's what it's all about.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend I know, though.
That's just where I fall based on opinion.
But check this out.
You want to talk about skeezy behavior?
You want to talk about just corruption?
Well, first, yeah, obviously, Joe Biden getting his family rich.
And it's not even The Interceptor's point to this at first.
Politico magazine ran a story I've highlighted before about how the Bidens have enriched themselves over the years.
Take a look at this from Oliver Darcy.
The Biden campaign has sent a letter to NYT exec editor Dean Beckett, excorciating the paper.
The Biden campaign says the New York Times has, quote, had an outsized hand in the spread of the baseless conspiracy theory that Biden abused his office for his son.
Here is the letter Biden deputy campaign manager sent New York Times editor Dean Beckett.
Quote, Are you truly blind to what you got wrong in 2016, or are you deliberately continuing policies that distort reality for the sake of controversy and the clicks?
The New York Times stood by their reporting, saying, Our reporting has been fair and accurate.
Well, I'll tell you what.
Welcome to the club, Joe.
I am no fan of the New York Times.
I think they get a ton of things wrong.
They mutilated this paper.
I'm sorry, this story on the front page of the paper where they talk about the YouTube rabbit hole.
I'm not gonna sit here and pretend the New York Times has done anything right or wrong, but I will say...
When you have Trump calling out the press, when you then have Bernie Sanders supporters calling out the press, and they are, and now Joe Biden himself calling out the press, we got a serious problem.
I don't know what to tell you, man.
I really, really don't.
The main reason why I've avoided this story for the past several days is because if I chose to read the New York Times, why, I'd be telling you about the scandal.
If I read the New York Times, The Hill, and Politico, well, boy, does it sure look like Joe Biden is corrupt.
And that's what I'm gonna do.
I'm going to trust, for the most part, those big stories.
It's also true, according to the New York Times, that Ukraine was unaware Trump had held up aid.
There was no quid pro quo.
And now we have another story from Fox News that I don't believe I have it pulled up, that the investigation into Burisma had already been reopened earlier this year before Trump even mentioned it.
So what could Trump have possibly gained, other than maybe he thought he was going to gain something fine?
In the end, the Biden campaign is outraged.
They have sent out letters saying, don't book Giuliani.
He's lying.
New York Times, you're spreading fake news.
Sorry.
You can't accuse Trump of attacking the press and then go out and attack the press.
And now I'm going to say something I never thought I would say.
I agree with Jacobin Magazine, the leading socialist voice in America.
I don't agree on everything.
In fact, I agree on mostly nothing.
But I must stress, a broken clock is right twice a day.
And I'm going to have to give some respect to Jacob in for this.
It's a big club.
And you're not in it.
Take a look at this photo.
Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with George W. Bush.
And we're going to get into the, you know, I want to point this out before we move forward.
Here's Giuliani, Bill Clinton shaking hands.
I'm not sure this guy on the right is with Donald Trump.
They're all smiling and laughing.
You got this one with George W. Bush and Michelle Obama.
And you've got Ivanka Trump and Chelsea Clinton.
Now look, I get it.
It is a big club.
And you aren't in it.
I don't think I'm going to go as far as Jacobin does for the most part with what they're trying to imply.
I think sometimes people try to be polite to each other because they have to be.
But in reality, at the highest level, these people all know each other.
They know the game they're playing.
And what I think we're really seeing right now, and this is not coming from me, I did not make this up, this was something that was written about a couple years ago.
The wealthy elites can't figure out what, you know, where to go moving forward, and they've begun fighting with each other.
That fight we're seeing with the media companies pushing one narrative or another, and now Trump versus Biden, it's because, yeah, they do all know each other, but hey, guess what?
Even the wealthy in their fantastic cliques have falling out, can have a falling out.
Check this out.
Secular talk.
Kyle Kalinsky.
I think he does a great job.
I disagree with a lot of his opinions, but I think we agree on probably most things.
He said, It would be awesome if the media didn't suck and they made everyone answer the two real important questions.
Is it acceptable to take dirt from foreign governments on political opponents?
Is it acceptable to enrich yourself off public service with corrupt ideals?
The answer to both of these questions.
It is not acceptable to take dirt from foreign governments, and Trump has even talked about doing that.
I disagree.
Is it acceptable to enrich yourself off public service with corrupt deals?
Absolutely not, but I'll tell you what, one's clearly worse than the other.
In terms of taking dirt from foreign governments, well, let me tell you something.
The Democrats did that too, right?
The Democrats took dirt in order to hurt Trump's campaign.
That's from Politico reporting in 2017.
They apparently released information that got Manafort in trouble.
Donald Trump talked about how he would take dirt if it was offered to him.
He talked with Ukraine saying investigate Joe Biden.
Doesn't mean he really wanted dirt.
We can talk about the interpretation, but let's just say this.
In one circumstance, you know for a fact that everybody's playing this game.
Fine.
Who are you going to blame?
I'll blame them all.
I don't care.
Is it acceptable to enrich yourself off public service?
Well, Trump was wealthy before he got into public service, and Joe Biden and Pelosi and these other politicians, I don't care if they're on the left or the right, they seem to enter politics and then become extremely wealthy.
I don't care for anybody's tribe.
I want to know what's true, and none of it is acceptable.
So I'll tell you what.
Trump has released the transcript.
I saw no quid pro quo.
I saw Trump ask for a favor, fine, and I think it was inappropriate.
That's about it.
That's just my opinion.
Maybe my opinion's wrong.
But now they're pushing this impeachment stuff, and it's just, in my opinion, completely just a waste of time and wrong.
It's self-defeating.
And the Democrats are sacrificing everything, and they know it.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
Beat Trump on the merits.
Stop playing this game.
But in the end, I think we can all point out that politicians forever have enriched themselves and their families.
And I find it disgusting.
Now, in response to this, someone responded to Kyle Klinsky saying, So here's the story.
Remind me, was Hillary Clinton the president of the US at the time?
Is she the president now?
No, that's what I thought.
Even if she did do that, it's not, you know, the same.
Really.
He said, so here's the story, right?
Ron Johnson was talking to Chuck Todd, and he presented a story from Politico
proving that Hillary Clinton got dirt from the Ukrainians.
And this guy's defending that because she wasn't in office.
Kyle Kulinski's response, taking dirt from foreign governments is bad unless it's my side that does it, is definitely an argument that will hold up.
Congrats, guys.
Bravo, Kyle Kulinski.
I completely agree.
Trump should not have made that phone call asking them to look into these things.
I understand he may be angry.
I understand he may not like what the Russia probe did.
You better believe neither do I. It was like someone drilling into my head for three years and now we're doing it all over again so I can sympathize.
I get it.
But I believe it was inappropriate.
We do have some other news.
So let me make this up.
In the end, I can make the same point I made in the beginning.
Who do you trust?
I honestly don't know what to tell you.
But I think the Bidens are corrupt, period, and I don't care.
I don't care.
I think Trump, to an extent, is corrupt.
To an extent.
Like, the issue here is, Trump is an outsider.
He's playing this game.
He's had some shady business dealings in the past.
I am not somebody who trusts the guy.
But I gotta say, right now, the Bidens look like establishment crony politicians, and that's what I see.
I've never liked Trump.
I'm not a fan of him.
We can talk about his individual policies and the successes he's had with the economy.
That's all fine.
But when I look at these stories, what do I see?
Two people I don't really like.
But in the transcript, I don't see quid pro quo.
I see Trump acting inappropriately.
Yeah, what else is new?
But I see from Joe Biden, getting his son a job, getting paid $50,000 a month.
I see stories about his company, Rosemount Seneca Partners, bringing in $166,000 per month.
I see Joe Biden saying that we never talked about it, but then a photo popping up of him hanging out with two of their board members.
Who am I supposed to trust?
Listen.
I saw the transcript.
Trump released it.
He takes this one.
End of story.
I don't gotta like the guy to see that.
That he published that transcript, that portion of the conversation.
Now maybe he's lying.
Maybe it's not the full transcript.
Fine.
But you know what?
How about this?
Investigation.
Into Biden, into the phone call with Trump, whatever.
Now Trump, listen.
You might not trust Trump and the transcript.
You don't have to.
But in the end, Trump has taken more of a good faith approach, or at least an attempt to mitigate this.
What has Joe Biden done?
Sent letters insulting the press and demanding they don't book people?
Yeah, I don't know about that one.
If you're gonna try and defend yourself and Trump says, we will publish the transcript.
Okay.
And I've heard from reporters, individuals with experience in intelligence saying it's as close to a verbatim transcript as you will get.
What am I supposed to believe here?
Okay, I don't care.
Joe Biden is crooked.
But let's move on a little bit.
For his efforts, as I've mentioned before, John Solomon, the guy who has published a lot of these stories and a lot of these documents, he gets smeared left and right.
I'm not going to read this because it's not specifically about This is about James Comey, but they're going after John Solomon.
They've called him a conspiracy theorist.
They've said he's pushed ridiculous conspiracies.
I'll tell you what, man.
If you believe the Ukrainian prosecutor said Hunter Biden did nothing wrong, conspiracy theory.
If you believe that a Ukrainian politician has said Joe Biden did wrong, conspiracy theory, right?
You see how it works?
If you want to accuse a sworn affidavit from a prosecutor, if you want to say it's a conspiracy theory, then it's all a conspiracy theory, and then therefore none of it is, right?
If they're all conspiracy theories, why are we bothering with it?
But let's move on.
I'm not going to end this without highlighting that there is some heat coming in the way of Donald Trump.
Giuliani associates who worked on Biden-Ukraine probe have been arrested.
It's a complicated story, and I don't know all of the details because it's beyond just this.
But basically, let me just read it.
They say the charges involve so-called straw payments of $325,000 that Parness and Fruman made to a political committee's two political committees in 2018.
The committee is not identified in the indictment, but it has been previously reported that the pair gave that
amount to a pro-Trump super PAC.
The indictment also points to $3 million in contributions from the PAC to a U.S. congressman
who appears to be former Republican Rep Pete Sessions.
These guys worked with Giuliani on this Biden-Ukraine thing, and now they're being charged.
It's not a It's not.
Look, I just don't think people aren't innocent, okay?
It's not a perfect world.
Trump is not a superhero who's come to save you.
Trump is just another actor with his interests who thinks he's right.
Now, I think Joe Biden's crooked.
I think Barack Obama did something wrong.
Let me ask a simple question, though.
There's a reason why I don't care to support politicians.
I do not think Trump is going to save the world.
I think he's done some good things.
I think getting out of Syria makes sense.
I think he's done well with the economy.
I think he's a bit duplicitous when he goes and talks about Saudi Arabia and supporting them with military might while then talking about how he doesn't support war.
But I've never been a fan of the guy.
That's fine, right?
I'm not a fan of any of them.
The problem I have is the media double standard.
It's the left I'll ask you this question, though.
Barack Obama, but then trying to eviscerate Trump and everyone who works with him.
It's the obstruction and the support for Obama, the obstruction of Trump.
You see how this game is played?
It's just manipulation.
They're all the same to me, but the media and the establishment are crooked.
So in a sense, I can understand why Trump supporters vote him in.
Things are better in a lot of ways.
I'll ask you this question, though.
Do you believe Donald Trump should be impeached over his phone call with the president of
My personal opinion.
Inappropriate, but not to the level of impeachment.
Do you think Trump should be impeached if he ordered a military excursion that executed an American citizen?
I think most people would say, yeah, right?
An extrajudicial assassination of an American citizen.
It was Obama who did that.
Where were the calls for impeachment?
Because that, to me, is epically more egregious than Trump having an inappropriate phone call and acting crudely.
Barack Obama did these things, and this is what really, really bothers me, right?
As it stands right now with Trump and foreign policy, I'm kind of like, not so good.
But some things not so bad, okay?
Mostly, I would lean slightly towards bad escalation with Iran, though he did pull back.
Saudi Arabia saying we're going to send in our troops.
Really, really bad missile strike on Syria.
There's been commando raids in Yemen.
I don't like any of that.
But he did cross the DMZ, which was symbolic and good.
It's not the best thing in the world, but it is very, very important.
I can respect that.
And pulling troops out of Syria makes a lot of sense.
Barack Obama did so many awful things, and so did Hillary Clinton.
And the media never got this worked up over it.
I feel like I'm being manipulated.
I feel like I'm being taken advantage of.
It doesn't make sense why you would allow this person to get away with all of this And now you just don't do the same for Trump?
Well, good, in my opinion, listen, I believe the executive branch is worthy of all the scrutiny it can acquire, because I do not like the encroachment of power.
But what's concerning to me is the cultural power exerted by the establishment and the press, which does have allies in media, especially CNN.
You know, CNN has, there are these photos of Bernie Sanders looking just decrepit and horrible, and that's what you get when you turn on CNN.
There's an image of Trump, and they saturated it red so Trump looks really bright and orange, and the actual White House feet looks normal.
I don't like the media.
I believe the media controls, for the most part, most things.
And I think that's what I'm really concerned with calling out.
But you're not going to see me get behind politicians.
The point is, let me wrap it up here because this is a long one.
Joe Biden's dirty, okay?
Giuliani is associates.
Well, Giuliani himself hasn't been implicated necessarily, so I don't know what to tell you.
I don't trust any of these people, okay?
At all.
Fine.
But in the end, it really does seem like everything coming out against Trump is an effort to just get rid of him so he loses and they can pull him out of office because they're mad they lost.
In the meantime, I think it's about time.
I think we have more than enough.
To demand an investigation into Joe Biden and all of these companies.
I don't care for any corruption.
So, last thought.
Either we have direct corruption from Joe Biden, who is enriching himself, himself personally, or we have soft corruption, in which he enriches his family through his job.
One of those is true, and they're both terrifying.
Whatever, man.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCastNews, and I will see you all there.
The Blizzard boycott movement is picking up steam, and boy, are things getting spicy!
People are now using a character from the video game Overwatch, Mei, as a symbol of Hong Kong freedom and resisting China, and it is one of the most hilarious and brilliant uses of appropriation of a symbol that I've ever seen.
So for those that aren't familiar, Many companies have been bending the knee to China because they want that sweet, sweet wine.
You know, that sweet Chinese moula.
Van's Shoes, for instance, pulled a graphic from their shoe over Hong Kong.
The NBA actually removed these.
Check this out.
So, we'll talk about Blizzard and these boycotts, but I gotta show you this tweet.
Let me open this next one.
These two guys, I believe it's two guys, show up to, like, four guys.
They show up to an NBA game.
I believe they're an NBA game.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wearing shirts that say Free Hong Kong.
Google Uyghurs.
And these people come up to him.
This guy comes up to him.
And he says, you can't do this.
You can't have the sign.
And the guy says, why not?
He says, it's a political sign.
You can't have that.
The dude says it's not political.
He's just telling people to learn about what's going on.
And then he explains the Uyghurs are Muslims who are being forced into concentration camps.
And a guy goes, that's a political statement.
It's got to go.
And when I heard that, I was like, whoa, wait a minute.
First of all, let's get technical.
Telling people what something is, is not a political statement.
If I said Google Trump, I'm not making a political statement one way or the other.
I'm just telling you to Google him.
If I said Google, you know, Trump is great because he is or something, sure.
If I said Google Trump because he's awful, fine.
If he said, well actually I will stress, they were wearing free Hong Kong shirts.
But the sign itself, when he asked them about Uyghurs, let me tell you something.
If at any point you explain to someone there are concentration camps, I mean literal ones, like in China, they're actually taking Muslims and putting them in camps.
It's not like what the left says about here where people are coming to the United States and then being held in detention centers.
No, I'm saying when a government goes and rounds up its own citizens and puts them in re-education centers, aka concentration camps, it is not a political statement to say no.
And these guys didn't even say, didn't even say anything about the Uyghurs.
They just said, Google it.
I'm amazed, because I imagine what would have been said in the early 1900s if someone said, you know, like, Google Auschwitz or something.
I know Google didn't exist.
I'm making a point, right?
Like, research this.
And someone said, I don't want to hear about this political statement got here.
It's like, dude, hold on.
What's going on in China with the Uyghurs is going to go down in history as one of the most atrocious things that has ever occurred, akin to what China has done in the past with their sordid history, and also what other horrifying regimes have done.
It is horrifying.
People are allowed to express themselves.
They should be allowed to believe what they want.
But China has called them very, very disturbing slurs.
Well anyway, let's move on from this, okay?
And let's talk about what's going on with Blizzard.
I guess for those that aren't familiar, Blizzard is a video game company.
They make very popular games like Warcraft and Hearthstone.
And if you haven't been following, this dude popped up on a broadcast, and he put on the goggles and the mask, and he said, Free Hong Kong, revolution of our age, or something to that effect, a rallying cry.
The two broadcasters duck.
Now what happens is this guy gets suspended, he gets his prize money rescinded, and Blizzard says something to the effect of, you know, oh, you know, it's not appropriate, people shouldn't be doing things like this.
And I saw a statement from somebody, I can't remember who it was, because I honestly don't care who this person is, but they said something to the effect of, it's a relatively prominent person, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but they said, I understand why Blizzard is upset.
This is a video game, not a political platform.
And if you don't take action against this person, then you're going to see more and more people holding up signs and saying things.
Hearthstone should not be a platform for espousing your political messages.
Imagine if somebody was playing Hearthstone and then started yelling about, you know, impeach Drumpf.
People would also be upset.
However, I must say, Blizzard did not take this action because of that.
That is an excuse.
And it's a plausible one, okay?
Like, because I can kind of agree with that.
I don't watch Hearthstone to hear about news and politics, so if someone jumps up and starts yelling about something, yeah.
But, you wouldn't remove them, you wouldn't take away their prize money, and you wouldn't fire the hosts!
That's proof they're bending the knee to China.
All this is, is Blizzard saying, we are terrified of China, but we want their money.
If it really was about someone just pushing a political message and them saying, we do not want this, they would get, they would rep, it would be a verbal reprimand.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, yo, stop.
Don't do this.
You do this again, you're out.
You got that?
When someone gets rowdy, you don't immediately just take away everything and ban them.
But let's be real.
Let's say Blizzard did overreact and was like, no, no, no political messages.
You're out.
You're gone.
It doesn't explain why they fired the two guys who had nothing to do with it.
I kid you not.
Check this out.
On Tuesday, Blizzard announced that Chung's prize money had been rescinded, and that he was suspended from competitive play for a year.
The two casters interviewing him were also fired.
Why?
Seriously, why?
And that's proof that Blizzard, spineless cowards, NBA spineless cowards, And there is now a sweeping boycott movement.
But you know what one of the best things is?
Check this out.
There's a character named Mei.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with Overwatch.
It's a very popular game, so many of you probably are.
But she is now being used as a symbol, because think about how hilarious this is going to be.
If people start putting up images of Mei, Will China ban the Overwatch game?
Think about it.
What can you do?
You can use any character Blizzard owns to represent the Hong Kong protests and force Blizzard out of China.
Isn't that hilarious?
China, you want to... Look, you want to suspend a dude for yelling a political statement?
I can agree with that, but I disagree with how heavy-handed it was.
You want to fire the two hosts?
Now you're just bending the knee and saying, my liege, To China.
And so is the NBA.
And so is Vans.
And they're not the only ones.
They're just the ones that have gotten in the press as of late.
South Park's certainly told them to go screw off.
And now South Park's banned.
Apparently, I don't know if all of South Park or this one episode, but I think all of South Park is just out in China.
So check this out, this is funny.
There's a video where Mei, she has this line where she says, our world is worth fighting for.
They made this meme where you've got Thor like, is it?
Is it though?
So here's a great image.
Let's turn Mei into a symbol for the Hong Kong protests.
Yes.
But I wonder, I wonder.
You know, one of the most notorious circumstances of appropriation was the OK symbol.
And it caused serious repercussions.
That people on the internet can just choose to use a meme for something, and everyone will bend over and just agree, no matter who claims it was, you know, true.
What is China gonna do now with people posting May everywhere?
I get it.
Blizzard might say, dude, there's nothing in our video game that's anti-China.
But, you can't, you know, we'll see what happens.
They say, over at Blizzard's campus in Irvine, California, there are also signs that employees are not happy with Chung's punishment.
There's a statue on the grounds with the phrase, Every Voice Matters, that has been covered with paper.
This is amazing.
Check this out.
Look at this.
Not everyone at Blizzard agrees with what happened.
Both the Think Globally and Every Voice Matters values have been covered up by incensed employees this morning.
Wow.
That's actually a really cool protest, if you ask me.
They didn't vandalize it.
They didn't destroy it.
They just taped some paper over it.
And that expresses their discontent.
On Tuesday, a small group of Blizzard employees walked out in protest.
Bravo, man.
Bravo.
China is... I can't say that word.
I can't.
You gotta watch YouTube video.
A-hole.
China is a-hole.
I can't swear.
According to the Daily Beast, an employee told the website that between a dozen and thirty people gathered at various times at the statue, which depicts an orc warrior.
A photo posted on Imgur and verified by the Daily Beast showed twenty employees... Let's pop this one open.
Tell Communist China where they can put their... Earthstone.
They say it was verified by employees expressing the symbol of Hong Kong.
Among the people boycotting Blizzard are people who've worked on their games.
Mark Kern, a developer, who worked as a team lead for World of Warcraft, tweeted screenshots of himself canceling a subscription.
But not just a team lead for World of Warcraft.
You know, The original World of Warcraft.
It's called Classic today, or Vanilla.
It's one of the best games I've ever played.
And Mark Kern was a team lead on that.
Today, World of Warcraft is a shell of its former self.
It is just silly and, I gotta admit, boring.
But they brought back World of Warcraft Classic.
This is a game that's like 15 years old and all of a sudden people are playing again because the game is great.
And Mark Kern is responsible to an extent for that.
I don't know who worked there.
I don't want to say he's the only one.
But he's boycotting it.
He announced he's going to be boycotting Blizzard, and he posted this image.
Please tell us more about why you are cancelling your World of Warcraft subscription.
I made this game with the team.
Wow, what a thing to say!
Like, I made the game, and I'm quitting because you're bending over for China.
I am opposed to Blizzard's fear of China and the silencing of Blitzchung.
I am calling on Blizzard to stand up for what is right.
Politicians are now weighing in with Marco Rubio.
I'd had to cover Marco Rubio before.
We got Ron Wyden now saying, I agree.
I think we gotta talk about the seriousness that is the emergence of China.
You know, we have all this bickering.
Chinese Communist Party.
No American company should censor calls for freedom to make a quick buck.
I agree.
I think we've got to talk about the seriousness that is the emergence of China.
You know, we have all this bickering.
I'll admit, if there's anything that ends the tensions between the left and the right
in this country, it's the looming threat of China, it's Hong Kong, and stories like this.
There are a lot of people on the left and the right who like playing games.
It's a fact.
You know, I've been to card shops that were very left.
I've been to hacker spaces that were very left.
I've been to spaces that were very right.
And at the end, there's a bickering, a fight in the culture war over the injection of social justice and all that.
But everyone kind of stopped talking when this goes down with China.
I mean, I'm looking at a lot of these sites and all of a sudden everyone's saying, China, China, China.
And it's funny because now I'm seeing like the social justice left, and I'm seeing the anti-social justice, you know, YouTube people, both talking about China.
And I'm like, have you found common ground and a much worse enemy?
It's like, they put down their, you know, they stop fighting turn and see, actually, you know what?
It's really funny.
I don't know if you guys have played World of Warcraft, but for those who have, you will get the reference.
Warcraft released an expansion called Mists of Pandaria, and I believe it was the worst thing they've ever done.
Basically introduced Kung Fu Pandas into World of Warcraft, and that's basically when I was like, wow, World of Warcraft is dead, it's completely gone.
Not only did I find it hilariously racist to make a race of Asian pandas who do kung fu.
Sure, fine, whatever.
I'm not saying I'm offended by it, but I thought it was like, wow, that's a bold thing to do.
You know, also in World of Warcraft, the trolls are all Jamaican.
Like, you made a bold statement there, Warcraft, whatever you're trying to say.
Anyway, the point is, in this trailer, you have an orc and a human fighting, and those are like the two original factions.
But then all of a sudden, a mysterious stranger emerges, and this is hilarious.
Because it's an Asian panda.
So, like, the analogy couldn't be more perfect.
Google this Mists of Pandaria, like, opening intro scene or whatever, because you literally have the orcs and the humans fighting each other, and then they stop, and then the human hands the orc a weapon, and they both start fighting the panda.
Could that not be a better symbol for what I'm talking about?
The two factions warring, and then all of a sudden the racist Asian stereotype emerges, doing kung fu, and they both fight against him.
Guess what though?
I'm pretty sure they both lose.
That should be, that video, that video, the Mists of Pandaria video, should be the symbol.
Like, you know what?
Get them all banned.
I'd love to see what China's gonna do.
If people start using their symbols this way, what can they do about it?
You know?
If people, actually, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotta mention this one more thing.
Apparently, in another game, in, I believe this was America, check this out.
These dudes are awesome.
In this, they say, in tonight's College at Hearthstone Championship, American University held up a Free Hong Kong Boycott Blizzard during the broadcast, which was quickly cut away.
Check this out.
American University.
And there it is.
You can't really see it.
It's small.
It's in the bottom left.
Free Hong Kong Boycott Blizzard.
And then all of a sudden, they just cut right away.
They're in the middle of a game.
Like, they're playing right now, OK?
You can see the cards and everything.
And then all of a sudden, it just cuts to a straight shot of the other team.
This is not gonna end well, Blizzard.
It's not gonna end well.
You're gonna have to choose a culture, and this is amazing.
It really is a profound moment.
This is gonna go down in the history of books.
Not this one moment, but I mean, like, all of these things happening, where companies are gonna have to make a choice.
Pro-censorship communist China, pro-freedom of speech America.
Now, we'll see how the anti-free speech left responds to this, but I gotta say, it's gonna be really, really interesting.
Now, I'm gonna wrap it up here.
But go check out that Mists of Pandaria intro, and you'll understand why Warcraft went from being this really great worldly exploration to a toddler's Kung Fu Panda experience.
I have no idea what they were thinking with Mists of Pandaria.
It was one of the worst ideas imaginable.
But that trailer, that intro, I gotta admit, is hilarious when they both team up to fight the racists.
I'm not, I'm not seriously, like, calling it racist.
I'm actually really surprised they haven't tried to cancel Warcraft as it is.
Because, look, in the video game, like I mentioned, there's a race of trolls.
They're literally called trolls.
And they all talk like Jamaicans.
And people, since I've been playing Warcraft, have called it racist.
So I don't know whose idea that was or why, or maybe it predates World of Warcraft, whatever.
I don't know.
I like the game.
I don't think too much about it.
But I do think it's kind of funny when you have these two fighting factions turn to go and fight what is a perfect symbol of China.
Asian Kung Fu Panda.
Alright, alright, alright, I'm done.
Stick around, next segment's coming up at 1pm, and I will see you all then.
The far-left media website known as Splinter News is finally shutting down, and several staff members are reportedly being laid off.
Now, apparently they're saying, you know, internally there's not gonna be layoffs, they're gonna reallocate people, but other people have publicly come out and said they have been laid off.
This is...
Bad news for far-left media.
Now admittedly, Splinter never got a lot of traction.
But let's back up a second.
I have a question.
Why are so many leftist digital outlets laying people off Firing people, you know, collapsing.
This is not the first, it won't be the last.
But my next question is, why are so many conservative sites thriving and even being launched?
Around the same time we hear about the demise of Splinter, we're also hearing about the launch of the Dispatch.
Now let's be real, the Dispatch is not pro-Trump.
It won't be reflexively anti-Trump, they say, but it is guided by principles over party.
There are a lot of websites that are conservative and not pro-Trump.
Not overly pro-Trump.
And I see the pro-Trump personalities rag on them from time to time, but they do take a more conservative stance, particularly on social justice and policy issues.
While this may not be good news for the Trump crowd, I mean, actually, hold on.
It is entirely good news for Trump supporters.
It is better to have a conservative anti-Trump site than a far-left anti-Trump site.
So in the end, what I'm trying to say is we're replacing the far-left splinter, who doesn't like Trump, with a conservative, the Dispatch, which doesn't like Trump, who cares if they like Trump or not.
We're going to end up seeing more content talking about, you know, the culture war from the side of the right.
So let me tell you something.
I used to work for a company called Fusion.
Fusion was an ABC News Univision joint venture.
They created a website.
It was Fusion.net.
Eventually, they changed the name to Splinter News.
Eventually, they sold that off.
And then, eventually, it collapsed.
It's weird, right?
People apparently don't want to read another blog that says, Orange Man Bad, or talks about leftist identitarianism.
In fact, that's the big point, the cultural issue here, is that conservative websites are thriving, they're hiring people, they're expanding.
Moderates and conservatives on YouTube, for instance, doing better than ever.
There are a few progressive individuals who are doing really well on YouTube, but why is this happening?
Now, if you ask someone on the left, you know, the response I typically get is that the far right is emerging and the media is erupting.
You know, whatever, man.
Perhaps it's simple.
Perhaps you're disingenuous.
You're not genuine, perhaps.
Perhaps no one likes your ideas.
Perhaps people are tired of reading the same tired offense outrage.
Perhaps people are tired of feeling bad and want to laugh and you tell people they can't.
Perhaps people are tired of being told what movies they can and can't see.
Let's read the news from the Daily Beast.
The website's parent company praised the outlet, but said it failed to bring in sufficient traffic.
How odd.
I bring in around 42 million views per month, just on YouTube.
Imagine if I worked for a digital outlet.
Yeah, those views would be, like, they couldn't pull in anything with a company.
I'm just a person.
It's also technology and methodology, and let's admit it, they don't know what they're doing.
And perhaps there's something tied together in this idea that the left can't meme, but they also can't seem to figure out how to run a successful business either.
Splinter is shutting down.
In an internal memo sent Tuesday to staff, Paul Maidment, the editorial director of Splinter's parent company, GeoMedia, praised the site's journalism, but said the publication struggled to gain large numbers of readers.
Despite the hard work of everyone on the staff, which has produced much outstanding journalism and great scoops, establishing a steady and sustainable audience for a relatively young site proved challenging in a fiercely competitive sector.
If it's fiercely competitive, I mean, I think that's fair to say, But look at the layoffs.
You know, Vice, BuzzFeed, Vox.
Well, I don't know about Vox, but I know Vox's evaluation is presumed down.
But you get the point.
Mic.com's collapse.
All of these sites are hurting.
Meanwhile, look at the Daily Wire, and they're expanding, expanding, expanding.
They're making a ton of money over there.
I've heard rumors.
Lots of money.
Given that reality, the leadership team made the difficult decision to cease operation of Splinter and redistribute the headcount to other sites to increase the impact the editorial department can have overall.
There would be no reduction of GeoMedia's editorial workforce as a result of this decision, and Splinter's headcount would be reallocated across other sites at Geo, the network of former Gizmodo Media group sites including Deadspin, Jezebel, Gizmodo, and Jalopnik, among others.
Our goal, wherever possible, will be to retain current Splinter staff members in open positions at other GeoMedia sites.
Some Splinter staffers, however, said they've been laid off.
Deputy Editor Jack Merkinson tweeted, And staff writer Sam Grasso wrote, I'm gonna have to say, when it comes to the message of you're getting laid off, I'll trust the individuals who are the ones in the firing line, not the company trying to save face and keep morale up.
If you've got one person, what was it, the deputy editor saying, we're all being laid off, and someone else saying I'm getting laid off, it kind of sounds like you're getting laid off.
And it seems to me, it's my opinion, that of course the company wants to make sure morale doesn't go down.
I'm sure all of the other people at these sites are worried they're going to lose their jobs too.
I remember when Univision bought them and I laughed because they paid an exorbitant amount of money for it.
And I guess they thought by buying these properties that had Paul, it would work.
But you know what, man?
Let me tell you something.
Traffic is not an audience, okay?
And so these sites mastered the art of producing content that would shock people into clicking it rage bait, right?
So let me give you an example.
If you go to my main channel, you can see that I did a video about China the other day.
Like, not yesterday, the day before.
And it has like 120,000 views.
It's actually, it's pretty good.
I'm not gonna pretend like it's bad, but relative to the other videos, it has much less.
But you can also take a look at the engagement.
You can take a look at the thumbs up.
You can take a look at the comments.
This is a really good way to determine audience versus traffic.
When I make a video that's like a big breaking story or something more bombastic, right?
So the video I did yesterday was impeachment is backfiring on moderate Democrats.
Protests are erupting.
People yell coup.
A lot of people who don't like me are going to be interested in that story and click it and not subscribe.
When I talk about issues that are less, you know, are more important, but less, you know, I guess, eye-grabby, less partisan, less tribal, less rage-baiting.
For instance, talking about Chinese censorship.
The video before that, Chinese censorship creeping into America.
It's got a lot less views, But similar engagement.
And that's how you can see there is a difference between traffic and an audience.
What these companies excel in is getting traffic but not building an audience.
They write a story that says Orange Man bad, people click it, but people don't care to come back.
This is the big problem with these digital sites and why I think a new strategy needs to emerge for social media for news websites.
Do you have, you know, CNN tab, like an open tab where you, like, refresh it?
And that's how people are driven to websites these days.
They don't go to Google and type in news and then find CNN.
Some people do.
I get it.
But for the most part, it's a fleeting image.
You see that link, you click it, you never come back.
Now on YouTube, it's different.
YouTube is a centralized hub full of many different creators, and the YouTube algorithm recommends things.
Some people, it's actually a very small amount, watch my videos based on notification.
Some people, it's also a very small amount, watch my video by manually going to the subscription feed and coming in.
Alarmingly, the majority of the traffic I get is browse features, meaning people who are likely subscribed, but YouTube shows that image, like when you log on YouTube.com.
So there's a difference between traffic and an audience.
And because of this, the more bombastic, rage-baity content generates more traffic.
To an investor, they're going to see those numbers and they're going to say, wow, look how many views you get, not realizing those views are contingent upon their ability to produce shock-sensational garbage.
And if at any point they start writing calm think pieces, their viewership would drop dramatically.
So what happens then when there's nothing left to say?
How many times can you say Orange Man Bed?
Until finally people are like, I've read that article 50 times.
And it's one of the things I've been really frustrated about in the past couple weeks, is that I'm seeing the same articles over and over and over again.
It's like, dude, you told me that.
This is not news.
Even the video I did yesterday about moderates.
Facing a backlash?
Yeah, I've talked about that 80 times.
It's like the news is drying up.
So now what we're seeing is these far-left Orange Man Bad, you know, networks, they're struggling and they're shutting down.
And conservative sites, which are still playing up to Orange Man Bad, are launching.
What that says to me is, it's not about Trump.
Trump is a symptom.
It's about this cultural issue.
It's about people wanting to laugh, watch movies, and tell jokes.
And sites like Splinter telling you you're wrong and you're bad for doing it.
Now, I have this tweet here.
Alexander Chan said, as of today, Splinter will cease publication.
It has been my greatest honor to have been the editor of this site, and I love the staff to my dying breath.
Thank you to all of our readers, fans, and haters.
It's been a thrill.
Further details, TK, Splinter forever.
And this individual from, I believe, The Nation, researcher of The Atlantic, I hate this so much.
You guys did outstanding work, and this is such a loss for leftist media.
Solidarity with you and the team, and wishing you all the very best.
Now, I...
I guess I'll say, you know, to those who lose their jobs, I sympathize.
It's not an easy thing to learn and a lot of these companies don't tell people you're about to lose their jobs.
But I have to stress a very important point.
When I was at Fusion, they produced a video called Open Mic Massacre, in which a comedian tries telling a joke, but every time he does, people boo him and tell him he's a bigot or a racist or transphobic or something like that.
And that was the point of the joke.
It was coming after, I believe, Jerry Seinfeld said college campuses have become too hostile.
And so they made this joke where, while the guy's on stage, protesters come up and call him a bigot and a mansplainer.
That video got hundreds of thousands of views overnight, relative to the other content they produced, which was getting hundreds to thousands of views.
And I talked to some people there and I said, do you know why that is?
Because people don't like this stuff.
You make fun of it and people laugh and click and cheer you on, but you dance around in this insane cancel culture of wokeness and people leave.
And it was funny.
That video doubled the subscriber count for that YouTube channel.
It's not very a lot.
It's not a lot of subscribers.
But they made a lot of stuff that didn't really fly.
They started doing some, like, celebrity stuff and started doing really well.
And I said to them, listen, get away from the woke insanity.
This is a fringe of the fringe.
But they were convinced, absolutely convinced, that if they went full far left, they would succeed.
And then, you know, everything came tumbling down.
Mass layoffs happened shortly after I left.
They renamed, they rebranded, trying to do something with what they had.
They sold it off.
I think it got sold, uh, Splinter Tech, I think, I believe Splinter was sold once.
And now it's over.
Let that be a lesson to everybody, man.
You can't... I don't know what these people were thinking.
But you know what happens?
Let me just say, liberals and conservatives, the average liberal and conservative, spineless.
Yep, you may be offended by that statement, but you know what?
When it comes to moderate liberals, people like me, how many of them are speaking up and speaking out and saying, enough, stop?
Very few.
You get someone like Dave Chappelle finally stands up and says something, bravo.
You get people like Ricky Gervais, bravo.
They're not conservatives.
But then I look at what's going on with, you know, the conservative side.
And you have these non-profits that are supposed to be non-partisan, under IRS rules, that are of course partisan.
And where are any conservatives standing up and fighting them?
They don't.
When Steve King says deplorable things, the conservatives have no problem throwing it out and being like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna play ball.
The left doesn't do that.
What I'm saying is, not to be overly mean to the moderates of this country, But the fringes of the fringe have no problem breaking the rules and saying insane crap to get what they want.
And you end up with websites like this.
Look at what happened to Vice.
Vice used to be edgy and offensive and then over a couple years turned into a woke outrage machine.
It's incredible how that happened.
The name of the company is Vice, which means wicked or immoral behavior.
And they're a shell of their former self.
It's sad, really.
The point I'm trying to make with being offensive to the moderates is that When you don't stand up, and when you don't stand up and defend what you believe in, then the fringes seep in, change everything, kick you out, and you say, well, I'll just mind my own business, and I'm gonna leave, and then there you go.
There you go.
So, there are a lot of people I understand who do fight back, and fine.
Like, obviously there are moderate individuals who speak up, me being one of them.
And there are many conservatives who absolutely are engaged in fighting back in the culture war.
The point I'm trying to say is, it's the average person.
I'm not singling out liberals or conservatives.
I'm saying the average person says, please leave me alone.
I don't want to fight.
And when you do that, the crazies take over and try and burn it all down.
So whatever.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 4 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCast, and I will see you all there.
Following up on my main video, where in the segment I said, it's a big club and you ain't in it, that was actually Jacobin Magazine, the socialists who posted that image, where they included this image of Ellen DeGeneres sitting with George W. Bush.
It is a big club.
You ain't in it.
And guess what?
Neither are you, Trump.
Ellen DeGeneres is a hypocrite.
At least according to Insider.com.
Well, I happen to agree.
For those that missed the controversy, an image went viral of Ellen DeGeneres sitting next to George W. Bush.
I was surprised to see so many people in the, you know, like, anti-SJW, politically homeless side, defending Ellen and saying, good on her, because here's what happened.
This photo goes viral.
All of these leftists are like, how dare you sit with this man?
Ellen comes out and goes, you know, I happen to have friends who disagree politically.
And then I see a bunch of people saying, good for you, Ellen.
And I was like, eh, like kind of good for you.
Here's the thing.
First.
In this controversy, Ellen was not going to the game with George W. Bush.
She was invited by a rich guy, and she happened to have been sitting next to George W. Bush.
She doesn't have to be friends with him to be polite.
So for everybody saying, you know, she's friends with him and all that stuff, like it's a good thing, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hold on.
I will not be friends with someone like George W. Bush, but I'm also going to be able to sit next to him and live like a normal human being.
Okay, that's fine.
But here's the real kicker.
After this heartfelt statement that went viral, where she said, you have to respect people who disagree with you and still be friends.
Remember when she refused to have Trump on her show because he's for everything I'm against?
And what is that, your establishment crony buddies like George W. Bush?
Insider says, People are calling Ellen DeGeneres a hypocrite after comments she made about Trump two years ago resurfaced amid backlash about her friendship with George W. Bush.
That's right.
You see, she refused to have him on her show, and she said, what's the quote?
Is it here?
She said something like, we'll read through these tweets, said Trump stands for everything I'm against.
Bush is worse!
Come on, man.
Even Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks mentioned this.
That if Trump keeps us out of war with Iran, he'll have been a better president than George Bush was.
It's a fact!
It's not even hard to argue.
Let's read, though.
They say...
Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is facing new criticism that her political stance is inconsistent after her past statement about refusing to let President Donald Trump on her show resurfaced on Tuesday.
Do they actually have that quote?
Oh, they do.
Yeah, let's do this.
I think they have the actual quote here.
This is from May 5th, 2017.
He's against everything I stand for.
Elena Jenneris won't have Donald Trump as a guest on her hit daytime show.
I'm not going to change his mind, she told Matt Lauer during a pre-taped interview on Friday's Today Show, of her reasoning for not having Trump on her talk show.
He's against everything I stand for.
Now, I will admit, I can be fair here and say there's a big difference between sitting next to someone at a ball game and inviting them onto your show.
However, Everyone's trying to play this up like Ellen is friends with Bush, and it's great that she's entertaining, like, we can disagree on things.
If she really felt that way, she would have him on her show.
I have had many people I disagree with on my YouTube channel.
Channels.
Okay?
And there are many people on YouTube who have been smeared relentlessly for arguing and debating with people they don't like.
So, Ellen, why aren't you going to have him on your show, but you're gonna have no problem highlighting on your show that you and George Bush are friends?
Because that's the important point.
Okay, fine.
You don't want Trump on your show espousing his views?
Great.
You went on your show and defended George W. Bush as someone you can get along with despite disagreeing, okay?
And George Bush is many times worse than Trump.
DeGeneres acknowledges that she does not know the president.
In the past, he had appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, also known as Ellen, to promote his NBC reality show The Apprentice in its early seasons, but things have become icy between the two since the election.
I knew him then.
I have not spoken to him since he's run for president or become president, a big supporter of LGBTQ rights, and an out lesbian for more than two decades, DeGeneres likely disagrees with Trump's recent executive order that revokes federal guidelines giving bathroom rights to transgender Americans.
Wait, I'm confused.
Is she talking about Trump or is she talking about not Trump?
to look at someone else who looks different than us and believes in something that we
don't believe in and still accept them and still let them have rights, she said.
Wait, I'm confused.
Is she talking about Trump or is she talking about not Trump?
I don't know.
But let's read this, the story from today.
DeGeneres was recently criticized for having a friendship with George W. Bush, and Twitter
users were quick to accuse the host of hypocrisy.
Wasn't at the Ellen show the one who wouldn't let Donald Trump on her show because she doesn't
agree with his political views, one user said.
And that's Kathy Zhu, who is a Trump supporter.
Others shared similar sentiments, calling out DeGeneres for her past statement and even referring to her as a hypocrite.
Hey, The Ellen Show!
Loved your comments this week re-sitting with former President George Bush at a football game.
Can you help reconcile your statement re-President Trump, shown here versus what you said about George W. Bush?
Is this the same Ellen DeGeneres who gratuitously announced that President Trump would never be on her show?
Is this the same W. Bush who for eight years had routinely had the, I don't know, censored, oh, okay, okay, yeah, S-word kicked out of him by showbiz types?
Perfect match from this angle.
Spare me.
Okay, we get the point.
She refused Trump on the air.
different views, understanding starts with an open heart.
Wait, you mean the same Ellen DeGeneres who refused Trump on the air?
You know, I was actually surprised to see so many people take such a strong stance in
support of Ellen.
Because if it wasn't clear… I made a video about this the day after it happened or
whatever.
And if it wasn't clear, my stance is basically, no, you don't have to be friends with George W. Bush, okay?
Everybody was saying, like, oh, so heartwarming that she's saying that we can all come together, and I'm like, dude, I really don't like George W. Bush.
Like, you know, Middle East war for 20 years?
The point is, we don't have to pretend to like each other.
We don't have to be friends.
We can be friends.
But I see no problem with saying, Ellen, don't defend Trump and act like he's a good dude.
Just simply point out, first of all, y'all can't come at me because I sat next to a guy.
How about that?
How about that being the basic standard?
If you see me sitting next to someone, stop assuming I'm friends with them, okay?
Why couldn't she have said that?
That's what I'd say.
Oh, you saw me sitting next to George W. Bush?
Yeah.
I was at a football game.
We were in the expensive seats.
He was also at a football game.
We sat next to each other.
But you know it is true, because there's this viral video of Michelle Obama giving him candy, and there's polls, and I find it absolutely detestable and disgusting.
I do not like him.
I am no fan of his, okay?
He's, in my opinion, one of the worst presidents of my lifetime.
I don't want to play a game where it's one or the other.
I don't want to play a game where you have to either hate somebody or love somebody.
and know too much about George, I'm sorry, Bill Clinton or Bush Senior.
The point is, the Middle Eastern wars were a disaster with a massive loss of civilian
life and the point, you know, look man, I don't want to play a game where it's one or
the other.
I don't want to play a game where you have to either hate somebody or love somebody.
It can be as simple as, listen, I don't like him, but in America, we don't like a lot of
She goes on to say she's friends with him, and people cheered her for it.
Her show isn't political.
This message is actually a rare moment of honest reflection.
Why invite divisiveness on a show that is known to bring everyone together?
Um, no, I disagree.
So, we have more responses apparently in defense.
No.
It's Ellen DeGeneres in the club.
Trump's not in the club.
to leave this one be. I think Ellen made some very good points and just maybe people are
doing some reflecting as to how they treat others who are different. It's a start. We
don't have to engage in every conflict out there. No. It's Ellen DeGeneres in the club.
Trump's not in the club. We know he's not in the club. It doesn't mean you have to like
the guy or support him, but come on, we know he's not in the club.
That's why people voted for him.
He's an outsider.
He was anti-establishment.
He's a right-wing populist.
And even the Republicans, many of them don't like him.
He became Never Trumpers and went and voted for Hillary Clinton.
There's a club.
Ellen's in it.
Bush is in it.
Michelle Obama's in it.
And that's all that really matters.
They'll pretend to oppose each other and then hang out and have a good laugh.
Donald Trump is not one of those people.
He's the outsider.
They're the popular clique.
They're gonna be like, hey, as long as you play ball, I'm gonna support you.
They say many people took issue with the fact that DeGeneres, a gay woman, was friendly with Bush, whose controversial decisions around the Iraq war have led many to refer to him as a war criminal.
I think it was actually the International Criminal Court.
I don't want to get into all that stuff, man.
Okay.
And who was notoriously conservative when it came to LGBTQ rights during his presidency.
Yes, much more conservative than Trump.
The host addressed the controversy during a taping of her show.
We get it.
You know what, man?
First of all, everything is blown out of proportion.
Everything is drama.
Everything is just an attempt for someone to get clicks.
It's possible to be critical of Ellen and still be like, everybody needs to chill out.
We don't gotta act like she's some good person.
It's always one or the other.
This person, Roxanne Gay, says, I am very perturbed by Ellen's explanation video.
She made it way worse by making it all a joke and minimizing the criticism and not acknowledging the real issue.
It's not that GWB is conservative at all.
What a shame.
I actually agree.
And the thing is, she doesn't have to be rude to the guy or whatever.
Most of us would just sit there awkwardly and not start a revolution.
But to call him her friend and say we all have friends with different views?
Yes, girl, but my conservative friends didn't start a war.
I agree!
That's how I feel.
Okay, look.
There are a lot of people on the left that I'm very polite with that I don't like.
There are a lot of conservatives I'm polite with I don't like.
And there are a lot of people on the left and the right who I do like and I actually am friends with.
It's fair to say that Ellen doesn't have to be friends with the guy.
George W. Bush is not somebody we should be celebrating.
You know, whatever, man.
Aaron Ruppar says, I don't care how nice of a guy George W. Bush is.
He was one of our worst presidents and left our country and world in bad shape.
You know, it's really funny because I find myself more in agreement with many on the left here.
Okay, seeing all these people in the, like, intellectual dark web space and whatever being like, good for you, Ellen.
It's like, oh, please, dude.
When it came to having Trump on our show, her opinion was inverted.
No, he stands for what I disagree with.
Whatever, man.
I'm done.
You get the point.
I got a couple more segments coming up.
Stick around.
I'll see you shortly.
Either Trump derangement syndrome is so intense that Democrats are willing to sacrifice everything just to take down Donald Trump, or they're so principled that they're willing to forego their own needs and desires if it means putting an end to Donald Trump.
Naturally, if you're on the left, you'll agree with the latter, and if you're on the right, you'll agree with the former, but I'm gonna have to go ahead and give you my personal opinion as more of a moderate.
I think it's a little bit of both.
I think there are some people who will tell you straight up, listen, I understand, we may lose 2020, but Trump needs to go.
That still, in my opinion, is Trump derangement syndrome.
You see, it's not the extreme.
It's kind of just in the middle.
In my opinion, anybody who thinks it is better to lose the election just to impeach Trump really has a skewed view of what the president is doing and who he is.
I don't think anything Trump has done rises the level of impeachment, maybe voting out of office.
If you want to talk about emoluments, if you want to talk about the Ukrainian phone call, we vote him out, man.
It's not like he threw a puppy off a bridge, right?
So anybody who's willing to sacrifice their political position and their actual gain is not taking a principled position.
They're taking a deranged position.
But not, not that, like, okay, listen.
The point I'm trying to say is, I lean a little bit towards, come on, dude.
Let's not sacrifice our potential simply because you don't like Trump.
I understand he may have done something wrong.
I may, I may understand he acts inappropriately.
All of that stuff, fine.
But to the level of impeachment without vote?
Come on, man.
Let's read this story from Reuters.
Think about the strategy of that for a minute.
Trump served a term.
Let's say they impeach him.
Pence becomes president.
weakening their party's chances of winning back the White House in the 2020 election,
according to a Reuters-Ipsos opinion poll.
Think about the strategy of that for a minute.
Trump served a term.
Let's say they impeach him.
Pence becomes president.
Okay.
Now a new Republican can run, and if you think it's likely that a Republican will win, you're
going to give Republicans eight more years instead of four.
Have you thought about that?
That's what I'm talking about.
Listen.
Stop and think.
You've got a Chinese finger trap, and you're pulling as hard as you can, and it's making things worse.
That's the problem.
Do you want 4 more years of a Republican president, or 8?
Because if you impeach Trump, and it costs you 2020, you're going to look at a new Republican who's likely going to get re-elected, because of the incumbent advantage.
The poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday found that 55% of Democrats said that their party leaders should press ahead with impeachment even if it means a lengthy and expensive process that could weaken their chance of winning the presidency in 2020.
Thank you, 45% of Democrats who said, please no, just no more of this.
I don't know how we made it through three years of Russiagate and Rachel Maddow's lunatic raving about the Russians shutting off our electricity.
But now we've actually got a majority of Democrats saying we need another lengthy impeachment process?
Are you nuts?
I just wanna, I wanna just sit back, have like a nice pepperoni pizza, and you know, like put on a movie, and just, just, no.
Take, take your, they're holding this little, this little impeachment, just, no, no, put it down.
Put it, put it down.
Drop it.
Drop.
There you go.
Just leave it.
Just stop.
Just go over there.
Please.
Americans can't deal with this anymore, alright?
We've had enough.
They've cried wolf.
And it is, regardless of whether or not anything is gonna happen, it's gonna... I'll tell you what, man.
Trump's not gonna be impeached.
Okay, okay, now hold on.
He might be impeached.
He will not be convicted in the Senate.
He will not be removed.
So what's the point?
To make a political statement and then lose 2020?
An even higher number, 66% of Democrats, agree that Congress should pursue impeachment.
Even if that means they will need to postpone efforts to pass laws that could benefit me.
That's insane!
It's just insane.
They hate Trump so much, they're not even concerned with passing laws to help the American people?
Overall, the poll found that support for impeachment remains unchanged overall among all Americans, holding at 45% since last week.
But opposition to impeachment dropped by two percentage points from last week to 39.
Now, I want to point something out, too.
There was a Fox News poll.
I don't have it pulled up.
But a Fox News poll said 51% of Americans support impeaching Donald Trump.
Apparently, when you go into their methodology, Republicans were underrepresented, Democrats were overrepresented, and Independents were not even represented, which is really weird.
We know, like, 90% of Democrats want to impeach Trump, fine.
But to then do a poll where you have the largest group being Democrats, well, of course you're going to see 51%.
What are you trying to say, right?
They say among those who identify as Democrats, 79% said Trump should be impeached, up 5 percentage points from a similar poll that ran September 26th to 30th.
Only 12% of Republicans and about 1 in 3 independents supported impeachment, which is mostly unchanged from last week.
So let me stop and do this.
There are so many polls.
They all claim different things.
I don't even know what's going on at this point, okay?
But let's just stop here.
Ignore the- I've talked about other polls.
Let's look at these polls.
Among those who are independents, they only have around 33% of independents supporting impeachment.
This poll shows us that they're sacrificing whatever gains they could have made because the orange man is bad.
You know, I've talked to people and they say, Tim, you don't understand, even if Trump didn't violate his oath of office or, you know, the Constitution, if there's any inclination that he did, we need to investigate.
I get it, man, I agree, okay?
But to what end?
If we have three years of Russiagate, Do we just create a precedent where from now on, in our country, the opposition political party can just throw accusation after accusation, and then everyone gets an investigation?
Man, I don't know what to tell you, dude.
I humored, okay, the Russiagate thing.
I said, yes, let's go for it.
But you want to keep doing it well into a second term?
Nah, man, I just can't.
You made your stance.
You cried wolf.
Maybe the wolf's here.
Well, too bad!
It's your own fault.
They say support for impeaching Trump has been rising since late September after an unidentified U.S.
intelligence official filed a whistleblower complaint accusing the president of pressuring Ukraine to ensnare Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son in a corruption investigation.
Biden, the former vice president, is an early favorite to win, not anymore.
Well, I mean, kind of.
I guess he's a favorite, but Elizabeth Warren's taking over.
Opinion polls show that he fares better than other Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, in a hypothetical general election matchup against Trump, which in my opinion matters very little.
In the poll aggregates, don't take any one poll for, you know, in the aggregates, we can see that Elizabeth Warren has recently just surpassed Joe Biden.
I think they're going a little back and forth right now, but come on.
Biden is old.
I think it's time for somebody else.
Warren's also old, so I don't know what to tell you, man.
The whistleblower complaint denounced by Trump as a witch hunt carried out by his political enemies has since been backed up by a second unidentified whistleblower who has more direct knowledge than the first of some of the allegations in the complaint, according to a person's lawyer.
Are we just gonna keep going on like Trump didn't release the transcript?
You see the problem here?
It's like, The Democrats had this plan.
We're going to put up this whistleblower.
It's going to make Trump look bad.
And then Trump preempted it by saying, here's a transcript.
And they're just still following the script.
At a certain point, I think we can all say, I don't care what you think happened.
We know what Trump said in the transcript.
And according to intelligence officials, that transcript is as close to verbatim as you're going to get.
But they're going to keep going because it was their plan.
It was their only strategy.
Trump, who says he was acting out of his duty to root out corruption, said last week that China should also investigate Biden.
Overall, the Reuters-Ipsos poll showed that 51% of all Americans agreed that Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, while 27% disagreed.
I probably fall slightly in the middle but closer towards disagree.
I understand that when, you know, here's the problem.
It's an opinion whether or not he did because there's no quid pro quo.
There's no in the thing in the document Trump doesn't say do this or else.
So in the end, it's your opinion.
And the opinion tends to be that because America has wealth, of course Ukraine would do the favor, regardless if anything was on the line.
None of this matters, okay?
None of this matters, because according to documents... I hate the Ukraine stuff, man.
According to documents, they were already planning on an opening... They had already reopened the investigation.
So why are we here?
Why are Democrats willing to flush everything down the toilet for this insanity?
You know, I don't know if you can see it in my eyes or hear it in my voice, but I did a video today on my main channel about Ukraine, and I said I wasn't gonna do it.
But new documents came out, so I did it.
And now here I am, just looking at this story from Reuters, and I'm like, look, Democrats are vowing to impeach Trump as fast as possible, but at what cost?
Even Vice!
When even Vice comes out and says, at what cost?
You need to stop and reconsider your position.
Look in the mirror and ask yourself, is it all really worth it?
I'll tell you what, man.
My friends, my family, the people I talk to have totally tuned it out.
They have flicked the off switch.
They're not paying attention anymore.
They're over it.
I don't know how long we can go on with the Democrats screeching about this stuff and scandals, but the reality is, I don't know what they're offering us.
I don't know what their plans are.
I know, like, the general main push, most of them have.
Elizabeth Warren doesn't really have anything strong.
She has a bunch of, you know, proposals she's put out.
And nothing really—I mean, this is a problem, actually.
She has no core, you know, core policy.
I know what Yang and Tulsi want.
I kind of agree with them, sort of.
I think UBI is eh.
But in the end, They don't really have any strong policies, and so, I think it might be this.
Let me just give you one final thought.
I'm willing to bet there are some Democrats who know they got nothing.
They know they have nothing, and so they're like, impeach, I guess?
And then when they're asked, but what if that means you'll lose?
Yes.
We must act on principle, even if we lose.
No, it's more like, you know you're gonna lose, so you're throwing a Hail Mary pass, and it's not gonna work, and you're gonna lose.
I'm so- I'm gonna talk about something else in a second.
We'll just- I'm so tired of this.
I- See- I'll see you in a few minutes.
So it turns out that these women in the women's soccer team who are demanding more money actually get paid more than men.
Or I should say the top earners make more than the top male earners.
What's up with that gender wage gap, man?
I thought men were earning more than women.
But in court filings submitted, it turns out that's not true.
The top women earned more than the top men.
And now for the kicker, the most frustrating and annoying kicker.
Guess what their response was.
Their response was, but we should make more and we would if we had the same collective bargaining agreement as them.
What?
They claim they played more games and won more, therefore they should make more money.
Well, you negotiate that, dude.
But hold on.
Every single time the gender pay gap comes up, we all collectively sigh and say that the gender wage gap does not take into account job for job.
It compares the aggregate earnings of all men to the aggregate earnings of all women.
So you're comparing male petroleum engineers to female schoolteachers, right?
Should female schoolteachers now go, well, we'd make more money if we were petroleum engineers, so we deserve a raise.
No, that makes no sense.
Guess what?
Men tend to work more hours than women.
So men make more money.
That's just obvious.
You work more, you get paid more.
Well, they're arguing it shouldn't be that way.
They should get paid even more.
But you already do work more and get paid more.
It's absolutely insane.
It's just people who want money who are already rich.
Let me show you just how rich they really are.
Okay, they're upper class.
Fine.
They're not the 1%.
They say the U.S.
Soccer Federation, defending itself against a gender discrimination suit from the U.S.
women's soccer team last week, submitted court filings asserting that four U.S.
women's national team players were paid more than the highest-earning player on the U.S.
men's team over a period of about six years.
On Monday, the women's team responded in a filing that there's a reason for that.
The women played more games, just like the men worked more hours.
I don't care about that argument.
If you're not going to address the argument in good faith every time we talk about it, I don't care about your argument today.
They say including prevailing in two World Cups.
Though comparisons are difficult because the men's and women's teams play under different collective bargaining agreements.
It's your contract, dude.
They just want money.
People just want power.
They're pretending this is about gender.
It's not.
It's about people who just want more power.
They say the filings provide the most detailed assertions yet of how top women's players' pay lines up with their male counterparts.
Turns out they make more.
Excuse me.
They say four U.S.
women's players, Carly Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Becky Sauerbrunn, each earned a total of $1.1 million to $1.2 million for their national team play between March 30, 2014 and September 30, 2019, according to U.S.
soccer filings.
So that's a period of around, what, five and a half years?
Just about nearly six years.
And so I could be wrong, but doing the basic math from a million, you break that down over six years, you've got, you know, 72 months.
So they're getting, what, like $10,000 to $15,000 per month.
Am I wrong on that?
I'm doing it quick.
Forgive me.
I'm not a math, you know, super genius.
I'm pretty good.
I'm not bad.
By comparison, the income of the single men's national team player who earned the most in the aggregate during the 2014-19 period was $993,967.
And there it is.
Four women earned more than the top man.
Argument done.
And there it is.
Four women earned more than the top man.
Argument done.
Can we go home now?
The women's file encountered that each of the four women's players named in U.S.
soccer's filings would have earned at least $225 million more over nearly six years if they'd achieved their team's same results under the U.S.
men's team compensation policy.
Oh, I'm sorry, $200,000 a year isn't enough.
I understand that men don't make that much, but if we had the same collective bargaining agreement, which by the way is our own fault, we would be making $400,000 a year.
What's the sympathy?
Like, what am I supposed to sympathize with here?
You're rich, okay?
I get it.
You're not super filthy rich.
You're upper class.
But dude, you're making several hundred thousand dollars a year, okay?
You know what the average, like, median income is?
It was like $37,000.
And you're making more than the guys.
It's just so annoying.
It's all fake.
It's all fake.
That's what it is.
In a declaration for the court, Becca Ruh, Executive Director of the U.S.
Women's Players Association, summarized the U.S.
women's greater tallies of games and victories and how they translated to pay.
From January 1st, 2017 to October 7th, 2019, the U.S.
women won 83% of their games while the men won 48% of their games.
So what?
If you pay me to make a burger and I make the burger bad, you can't pay me more or less.
Here's a lesson for you in the real world.
When you're working a job and you make the world's best burger, your salary doesn't go up.
You can ask for a raise later.
You negotiated this contract.
Ask for a raise.
You're suing.
They say the women played 58 matches while the men played 44.
The declaration says, oh heavens, so when men work more hours and the feminists come out and complain that men are making more money, why is that?
Why are you?
You see how the game works.
For matches played between March 30, 2014 to October 7, 2019, Morgan's pay under the Men's Collective Bargaining Agreements, for instance, was $1,201,449.64, according to Rue's calculation.
If Morgan had posted the same results under the Men's Team's Collective Bargaining Agreements, she would have been paid $4,000,000, the declaration said.
That includes prize money for winning two World Cups.
How is that a gender disparity that you negotiated a contract and now you're upset on the terms?
I believe this should be thrown out immediately.
They're trying to use gender disparity to negate the...
They're trying to use social justice because they have a bad contract.
I'm sorry, you can't do that.
It's not how it works in business.
You hire lawyers, you negotiate pay, you get paid what you negotiate.
And the same is true for individuals.
If I get hired at a job and I get paid $100,000 a year, and a woman gets hired and she gets paid $60,000, it's not the fault of the company.
You didn't ask for the money.
So maybe there's a societal problem where women don't negotiate.
Here we can see it in big, bold numbers.
For whatever reason, they negotiated poorly.
Are we done?
Can we go home?
No, apparently not.
Apparently, even though it's their collective bargaining agreement, even though they still get paid more than men, we're still here facing a lawsuit where they're alleging gender pay inequity or whatever.
They say, Mollie Levinson, a spokeswoman for the U.S.
Women's Players, called the results of the comparison the very definition of gender discrimination.
Yeah, against men.
Why?
Because the women are getting paid more?
Yuu Asakura said that the women agreed to their current collective bargaining agreements, which runs 2017 to 2021, and that any pay differences between the men's and women's teams are due not to gender, but to the team's separate agreements.
End of story.
That's just it.
There's no sexism.
It's quite literally, you're getting what you asked for.
You negotiated, you're done.
A round of mediation talks failed in August.
If the case isn't resolved out of court, it's scheduled to go to trial May 5th, 2020.
And I hope.
I absolutely hope they lose.
I hope they lose.
I hope they have to pay extra fees.
It's so frustrating.
You guys know Shuan Head?
The, you know, YouTuber?
She has that video where she has a button and she presses it and it says that, you know, basically the gender wage gap is the aggregate earnings of all men and women.
It does not take into account job type or hours worked.
And then she throws it.
Throwing it was completely warranted.
And that's exactly how I feel. I want to just flip the monitor up and be like, I'm done.
No, I'm kidding. I don't want to destroy my monitor. My monitor is really nice. It's 4K. It's beautiful.
No, but the reality is, whenever we hear these stories, I want you to remember
that they will twist the logic to benefit themselves.
In this instance, the women are getting paid more.
Well, yeah, they work more.
They played more games.
They played 14 more games.
So, okay, so they're getting paid comparably, I mean, I guess.
If they got 1.2 million and the top guy got 993, it sounds comparable, 14 games.
Maybe they would have got paid a little bit more.
But why should they deserve more money?
And at the same time, the argument is levied against everyone else that it doesn't matter what the job type is.
Here's the point I made a while ago about a Vox video.
Vox ran a story that actually pointed out the gender wage gap was due to men and women working different jobs for different hours, and they still argued it needed to be closed.
And that said to me that this particular argument wasn't about ending sexism.
It was about implementing socialism, but it was using social justice as a shield.
And that's one thing they often do.
You look at the climate protests, and they hold up signs for communism.
I cannot stand communists.
Because they weasel their slimy little hands into all of these important causes and then just rub communism all over it.
No!
Communism is not the solution to everything.
Just stop and go away.
But if it's true that these women know, okay, men work more hours on average and get paid more, but they still demand having their pay equalized, it means they want to work less for more money.
If it's true that they know this, it means that this lawsuit presented is bad faith.
And they know, they negotiated their contract.
Could you imagine if I got a contract, if you got a contract, and then you found out someone else with a different contract in a different field?
Or, let's say there's two people, and they both negotiate a job, and then one person finds out the other person makes more money and they get angry about it.
We're not a communist country here, man.
You come to my company.
I say, what do you want?
You say you want X. I give you X. You can't then get mad later that you didn't get Y when you didn't ask for it.
You want to negotiate?
I'll say fine, but you agreed to this contract.
The contract is due in 2021.
We'll talk about it.
They know this.
They're manipulative.
They're playing a game.
They just want more money.
I'm sorry $200,000 a year wasn't enough for you.
I'm sorry you make seven times or so what the median income in this country is.
I'm sorry that wasn't enough for you, okay?
I don't care about your arguments or your social justice when it comes down to you already being well off and manipulating the argument.
I'm gonna stop.
I'll wrap it up.
I'll see you guys tomorrow on this channel at 10 a.m.
All this news has been frustrating, so here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna order a pizza and I'm gonna chill out, and I'll come back refreshed tomorrow.
