Equality and democracy are under assault.
Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represented extremism
that threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Now I wanna be very clear, not every Republican,
not even the majority Republicans are MAGA Republicans,
not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.
>> Now that speech that you're hearing from President Biden can mean different
things to you depending on who you are.
If you're a member of the mainstream media or
pretty much any right wing political commentator, what you heard right
there was indecipherable, it was just swears and slurs and that's it.
It was unacceptable.
It certainly wasn't anything that was gonna unify us.
If you're a regular person, he was acknowledging truth that we've all come
to understand four or five years ago at this point.
But anyway, he also made clear there that the comments he was making were about
the most extreme end of the MAGA move, but not regular Republicans.
I think he was honestly being too fair, too generous to them.
But that said, he did have more warning to do, take a look at this.
>> The Republican party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by
Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, they do not believe in the rule of law.
They do not recognize the will of the people and
they're working right now as I speak in state after state to give
power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies.
MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards.
Backwards to an America where there was no right to choose, no right to privacy,
no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.
They spread fear and lies.
Lies told for profit and power.
>> Now, all of that is true, especially indicating there that they do it for
profit, whether on the media side of the political side, they're doing it for
their own ends.
But what he said there about what they want to accomplish is true.
They do wanna strip away those rights, that he's not making this up.
He's not speculating, this isn't a hypothesis,
this is what they're doing out every day.
And in terms of their threat to democracy,
how many Republicans acknowledge the results of the 2020 election?
How many candidates on the Republican side this year accept the results of their
elections, even inside of just Republican primaries?
How many candidates for secretaries of state or county elections boards officers
are not being positioned there simply so that they can give Donald Trump
a better chance of overturning the results of the next election?
All of this is abundantly clear.
It's important that people understand it, but the media is going to be just so
freaked out by the fact that a president would say it, that I wonder how much of
the honest meaning there is actually going to be absorbed by most people.
But what do you think?
>> Yeah, so first of all,
it's really amazing that there are three versions of this speech.
So one version of the speech is right wing media and corporate media.
They're, again, united and going like, my God,
look at Dark Brandon lazoring those poor, poor Republicans,
what is he doing, what a monster, right?
I'm like, wait, did we see the same speech?
Okay, so they're like,
how can you say that the Republicans are a threat to democracy?
I don't know, January sixth when they raided the American capital?
But more importantly, when they had a scheme of fake electors where they would
do a coup and end our democracy?
Maybe that was a dead giveaway that they were trying to end democracy.
But why are they doing that?
Okay, right wing media you get and
we'll talk more about them cuz they're hilarious.
Their overreaction is just the funniest thing in the world later in the show,
okay?
But mainstream media, mainly CNN, they're in a cold sweat panic.
John Harwood just got fired, okay?
And his last segment on CNN was yeah, Republicans are a threat to democracy and
they're like, get him off there, get him off there.
CNN has a new Republican owner, he's taking this personally.
So I've now seen half a dozen segments on CNN,
Biden is being way too mean and offensive.
Can you believe what Biden is saying, calling them semi fascist?
I can't believe it, [LAUGH] please don't fire me, please,
[INAUDIBLE] please don't fire me.
Okay, I got it.
Brianna Keiler, almost all of them, John, all of them, all of them, all of them.
They're all begging for their jobs by kissing Republican ass on there now.
So CNN, bye, Felicia, it was nice knowing you, okay.
So now, the reality of the speeches look, I liked it and I wanna
give Biden credit because it's rare when a politician does the right thing.
The more powerful politician is,
the more rare it is that they'll do the right thing and Biden looks strong.
I'm shocked to report that, shocked the report it but he kinda does.
So is he really Dark Brandon?
Are you kidding me? Look at what he said there.
It's still, for us now, the real world, it's still soft.
He said, no, MAGA Republicans are not a majority of Republicans, absurd.
According to the polling there're 95% of Republicans.
But whoever is the genius behind the scenes that convinced
Joe Biden that MAGA is only 25% of the Republican party, thank you.
Thank you.
Otherwise he would have never criticized them,
because he loves Republicans so much.
Even in that speech, he's like, no, the majority of Republicans are awesome.
I love those Republicans.
The majority of Republicans, yeah.
And even that was, by the way, too partisan and harsh for CNN, right?
Now the reality is no, MAGA's the entire Republican party.
So he should be making this speech about the entirety of the party.
But I'll take it, I'll take it.
So it's not really Dark Brandon and joke around about that.
It's more off white Brandon.
Just a little darker than what we normally get.
>> Yeah, I love the Dark Brandon rhetoric.
I am deep in the memes on Twitter, but I wanna zoom out for a second.
If we look at the progress we made following the civil rights movement in
the 60s, we really saw a growth in civil rights being observed and
reflected in law in the United States.
And for many white supremacists, this felt like oppression, them losing their
privilege or the prospect of equality was something that they really hated.
And a lot of them took to right wing extremism,
fell into the demagoguery of Trump and they still follow him today.
And in a similar vein, I would say, they have been privileged to have Biden be so
weak, to not have him calling it what it is, when it's fascism,
when it's a threat to democracy.
When the Dems have been so weak.
Now that they are finally just telling basic truth, that's truths about what
is going on in our country, which Biden did multiple times in this speech.
Which is something that we've all been asking him to do on the Young Turks for
quite some time, we have to call that a win, but
it's not really Biden being amazing.
As John said, it's off way Brandon, not Dark Brandon,
it's him doing the bare minimum.
Which is something to celebrate at this point because for
so long we've had the Dems being so weak and
not calling the rise of fascism in the United States precisely what it is.
>> A 100%, yeah, I think so.
And actually, we're critiquing the truth of Dark Brandon.
I have one extra critique I wanna lodge, but first, I wanna turn to a part of
the speech that's really not gonna be acknowledged at all.
Everyone is, of course, focusing on him attacking the Republicans.
But much of the speech was him attempting to appeal to people's hopes for
the future, optimism for the future,
as well as sketching out what he has already accomplished.
But let's go to a little bit more of the positive part of the speech.
>> America has often made the greatest progress coming out of some of our
darkest moments, like you're hearing that bullhorn.
I believe we can and must do that again.
We're gonna create millions of new jobs in the clean energy economy.
We're gonna think big, we're gonna make the 21st century another American century,
because the world needs us to.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> That's where we need to focus our
energy, not in the past, not on divisive culture wars,
not on the politics of grievance, but on the future we can build together.
>> Okay, so that part of the speech was about unity and it's a part that every
single Republican in the country is gonna pretend that they couldn't hear it.
They could not process that as speech for some reason.
But honestly, what I would like to see is a melding of the two parts.
So you have the part where he's going hard at the Republicans is a threat to
democracy, a group that wants to strip away these rights and
then you have him saying, no, we can have a better future.
Well, what if to get to that better future we need to actually do more,
not just in criticizing the Republicans but doing something about it?
If they're trying to make it so the people can't vote or
strip away their reproductive rights or make it so they can't marry who they want,
then you, as an avatar of political power in the executive branch of the government,
need to do something about that.
And the Democrats need to back you up.
And if the Democrats aren't gonna do that as they very often, during your first
term, haven't been willing to do, then now is the time to use those laser eyes.
Not in the way that is easy, tough for Biden but easy once they're deployed,
which is to go after Trump, that's relatively easy to do.
Turn the laser eyes at those in your own party who are obstructing it.
If you want to accomplish these things and you need to get past the filibuster,
at least carve out areas then turn it on them.
He's not naming those names.
Dark Brandon is full of power and all that, but
not enough to actually go after Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.
That's what we need.
He's strong in comparison to Biden of three months ago, but
he's still not actually combative against the people who are doing the most single
headed work to hamstring his agenda going forward.
>> Yeah, John, last couple of quick points here.
First, on your point, I mean, look, let's keep it real.
Factually speaking, he's done about 15% of his agenda, which I give him credit.
That's probably about three times what Obama did.
Obama was king of 5% change.
But the establishment is making it seem like he did 115% of his agenda.
No, he didn't even do 15 [INAUDIBLE] he didn't even do voting rights.
It was bare, bare, bare minimum.
So like, hey, I like student debt relief.
I give credit where credit is due, etc, but there's a tiny percent of his agenda.
Does he really wanna do that agenda?
No, he's still the same corporate Biden, right?
I'm not gonna get enamored by a political speech and think, my God, he's so strong.
No, he's never gonna fight against the corporate Democrats that are actually
blocking his so called agenda,
which he actually likes it being blocked basically, right?
So none of those things have changed at all.
But the rhetoric has changed and when it comes to politics, especially electoral
politics, with elections coming up in two months, rhetoric matters.
It makes a big difference in how people vote.
So, I'll give you a perfect example, which is this speech and
what Biden has been saying lately.
So when he called them semi fascist, he played offense.
What happened next?
It forced the Republicans to cry about it and
then it forced the rest of the media to cover it because Republicans are crying.
So all that anybody heard for the last couple of weeks is semi fascist,
semi fascist, semi fascist.
And then now the question isn't, should I vote for Republicans or not?
The question is, are Republicans semi fascist or a quarter fascist or
fully fascist?
That's the question you want, that's why you play offense.
So, and in this case, he gives a speech and
what is everybody talking about today in mainstream news?
Is Biden too tough?
You love that conversation if you're the Democrats.
Is the head of our party too strong?
Come on.
That's why you play offense and it works, right?
So don't get seduced into thinking Biden did most of his agenda.
He most certainly did not, right?
But this is good politics.
Finally, and finally, your area, he writes in our member section,
become a member to be part of the show, TYT.com/join.
Anyway, just a thought, speechwriter for Biden,
you would see the political universe explode, and that is certainly true.
And it's not just me, you give him a strong progressive writer, and
all we'll do is play offense and all these guys will be crying all day long about how
the Democrats are too strong, they get too much done for the American people.
And all we would do is win, okay?
We'd get tired of winning.
>> Yeah, rhetoric is good,
actually executing on the agenda that you ran on is even better.
And I saw really funny post online that was like, I Bidened all throughout college
where I didn't really do much but then I crushed the midterm.
>> [LAUGH] >> And I would love to see Biden crush
the midterm and continu to pass things that he ran on.
And he spent a lot of this speech talking about threats to our democracy,
voting rights, how people are being put in positions of power in Republican states
to potentially overturn elections.
But I remember back in August 2020,
when he was on the campaign trail giving a speech to the Teamsters Union,
where he said it is just as serious when people bust unions and jeopardize union
elections as it is when they do that to democratic elections for public office.
And labor day's Monday, now would be a really good time to send a strong
message to all of the people union busting across the country.