Cenk Uygur vs Tucker Carlson at Politicon 2018

you're about to watch my debate with Tucker Carlson at Politico 2018 if you want to support the home of progressives TYT become a member today by clicking the link in the description box below I think what we need in America today is a productive exchange of ideas in such a polarized time and that's why we're convening this discussion tonight so let's bring them out first make some noise for the founder and host of The Young Turks jancuga [Applause] all right all right thank you I love poletik on all right and please also welcome the host of tucker carlson tonight on fox news tucker carlson [Applause] I told our panelists backstage I think politican is wrapped up how about you what do you think about that okay so just a quick note about format here what we want to do is have an open dialogue to focus on the substance to talk about some of the major issues facing our country right now and and my role is going to be to help them get from topic to topic but I really want you guys to go back and forth I think that will be most interesting for the audience and my one request on behalf of the audience is that we don't talk over each other we listen to each other so that way the audience can hear what you're saying so let's start with an issue that's in the news right now that I think gets to some of the core challenges in our country and that is on the topic of immigration and the group of migrants who are coming to the US border about 5,000 migrants are on their way and we've heard President Trump makes statements saying that they will not be allowed in obviously it's a major humanitarian crisis and so on to start with Tucker you know how do we address this situation of people who are definitely suffering a lot but also don't have visas to come in how do we start to approach this situation well I mean you have to create a hierarchy of imperatives first of all thanks so much for having me I'm really glad to be here and in a room full of people who don't live in Washington with someone smart to talk to and I'm gonna really try to be as sort of civil and polite as I can and maybe my mind will be changed because in this world things are changing so fast why wouldn't your mind change so maybe you can change my mind I would say on the question of this group of migrants coming north the one that came three months ago coming north the 22 million who are currently living here illegally it's all sort of species of the same question which is the first class I mean there many questions and one of them is what do you know how do you help other people and a lot of smart people run NGOs or thinking about that and wash and some are doing a good job others are not but the main question the US government has to answer is how do we enforce our laws voted on democratically by our Congress and how do we protect our people the people to whom we have really the only duty that we have right I mean the purpose of the government is to protect you and to help you and again you know I'm a Christian and I think I'm a person if not particularly good food with decent faith okay so I'm always sort of for helping people but that but the government's job is to represent the voters and enforce the laws that they sent their representatives to Washington to pass and that's kind of our job is actually so our law says that you need permission to come into this country and that is the law of every country that is a country and without that you're sort of not a country so I mean that you could ask the obvious question which is you know there are awful lot of poor people around the world does everyone have a right to come here and go on Medicaid I don't know I mean if you think so let's speak slowly so I can understand and let's talk it through and tell me why where does that obligation come from exactly is it written in the Constitution is it in the Bible what you know what exactly are you saying but you're not hearing that and said you're hearing an awful lot of the kind of moral bullying that has come to characterize all of our political conversations where the person you're debating in this case I'm debating begins with the presumption of I'm a better person than you I care more deeply for these people than you do and if you were a good person you would agree with me well I mean that's a theological debate and I you know I reserve a huge part of Sunday's for those but that's not really a public policy debate there isn't much of a public policy debate here our laws are as they are and if you want to change them and maybe we're about to see that happen but there's a massive cost to any government saying because of political pressure temporary political pressure we're gonna ignore our own laws then why can't I go to the law I'd be way more taxes than I feel like paying are there all kinds of things that I would like to ignore the debate is to billing to be totally blunt with you other than the virtue debate which is not interesting let's go to jank here yeah all right so let's break it down and backstage we had far too much agreement so let's break that up so first of all on the caravan I feel like Fox News from time to time touches on it but overall misleads and I'll tell you why Tucker it makes it sound like the caravan is gonna come in and bust through a gate of some sort and then go ravaging in the country well the reality is the reason they're in a caravan is because they're seeking asylum so if they wanted to sneak into the country they wouldn't do it in a giant Caravan so and so when you're talking about the laws there are also laws in place on how to seek asylum and that is exactly what they're following so that Caravan actually in a way should be celebrated because they are not going to cross the border illegally they are going to go to a port we ask for asylum now now Donald Trump is suggesting that we should reject asylum out of hand without talking to people now that is not the law and that is not the American Way and so and interpret I don't way to take this the wrong way it's I'm not trying to compare you or Fox News or anybody to this I'm just giving an extreme example of what happens when you don't listen to people so we've done that in the past in the 1930s and 40s Jews came here on boats asking for asylum and we sent them back and one particular ship that came to Florida that was sent back 25 percent of those people were murdered in a concentration camp and God knows would have know there 75% there's sometimes a good reason to hear them out and we're asking for something very simple and that is within the law hear them out it's not too much to ask for so I would and now I'll let the whole Nazi reference go on remarks upon but I would say look if I have one criticism of Americans is they haven't traveled enough and what I know you have traveled a lot and one thing you learn when you travel is there are a lot of really hurting parts of the world so nothing that is happening in Guatemala right now or on Duras or Salvador is unique to those countries or even to Central America or Latin America even this hemisphere that kind of thing is happening all over the world well for a bunch of different reasons most of them political millions upon millions billions in fact two people are suffering and desperate and of course my heart goes out to all of them the question is what duty does the US government have to them and I would argue it doesn't have a duty to them okay it has a duty to its own people now that's not again I think people of goodwill have a lot they can do to help those people okay I do think that but the government is something very different and I would also argue that there is a cost to this a cost that the left used to recognize it was once obvious so I grew up in this state in Southern California and Cesar Chavez was a hero I mean we have a day in California dedicated to his memory and Cesar Chavez among many other things he was a serious leftist in economic life he was a socialist but among many other things he was passionately in fact violently anti-immigration why because he was anti Mexican he was a Mexican descent of course not because he led a labor union and he understood that supply and demand is a real thing and if you have an overabundance of anything its value Falls that's why sand is cheap so if you let people in from poor countries willing to work for less your wages fall particularly at the bottom end among your most vulnerable this was axiomatic on the left for a hundred years all of our anti-immigration laws were the result of lobbying from organized labor from Democrats because they had a responsibility to their people and Republicans management the people who owned the fruit companies who hired the pickers were totally for unrestrained immigration legal and illegal because it made their labor costs lower so I would only say and it's a more complicated question just this but this is a huge part of it it's one of the reasons that wages have stalled and for some categories of people high school educated people they've gone down over the last 30 years like this is a real thing and last thing I'll see you if you bring this up everyone wants to make a race question out of it you like them because they're different please some of you that it is everything to deal with what kind of country we want to live in do you want to live in a country or a people with very little economic power have even less then open the doors and that's what you'll get all right so a lot to respond to there so let's lay down one by one first of all this is a country and this is not a cliched truths a country made of immigrants I'm an immigrant and I came in in a legal way so and and I and I want to support that and I want and I think that that's not a matter of doing me a favor it's not a matter of doing someone from Honduras a favor it's a matter of what is best for the country and I think immigrants have built this country whether they were Italian Irish Chinese Jewish and Mexican yes they had built this country and so I think it is a great value to the country in fact is demagoguery about how immigrants keep taking from us but the reality is and every study shows us since a lot of the undocumented immigrants paying with Social Security and Medicare as part of the payroll taxes but never get it out they actually put more taxes into the system than they take out of the system [Applause] [Music] and and so if we're talking about what is the correct policy to have so there is a discussion about reflow and in Congress has gone nowhere but the idea there was to take indentured servitude and double it and that if you work here for fourteen years if you're undocumented you could have a pathway to citizenship now the right wing said that's too lenient I don't know if they won three times indentured servitude I don't know but my answer is look can we at least go back to indentured servitude so for seven years they work and they pay their dues have they not done enough as short enough to become US citizens that means they're adding to our country they are not taking away from our country so that is a proposal that I believe in and that I will fight for and and immigrants are our net positive in almost every way imaginable and also demagoguery on the issue of criminality the reality is native-born Americans unfortunately commit crime at over twice the rate of undocumented immigrants so if we're going to kick anyone out it would be us now about me because I wasn't born here but but of course we're not going to do that either because we all work together and we can win together now in terms of wages Tucker's absolutely right that wages have been stagnant and they have been stagnant since about 1978 productivity has not the American worker has been wonderfully productive it has gone up over 200 percent since that time but if you're looking to see who took your wages they'll look down look up the guy just last out here the guy who walked in and crossed the border without a penny to his name did not somehow rig the rules no the person who rigged the rules are the ones that are paying the politicians campaign contributions and that is what's keeping your wages stagnant I say I kind of agree with some of that unexpectedly but I think you're right I mean I don't blame really immigrants for anything as people the policies are not formulated by them the question is who benefits from our current system which is clearly totally dysfunction 20 million or 22 million north of 20 million people without papers in your country it's clearly not working so the question is who's benefiting from that and there's an entire political party that hopes to sort of have a new voter base on the basis of those people and you have that's true as you know and I don't think anyone's hiding it by the way and if you're for that party I mean I guess you're for that and then there are also and I think you alluded to this a lot of employers who are benefiting from that but and by the way also right that a lot of immigrants are in fact exploited I mean we've created an entire surf class to serve the day-to-day needs of the rich like that's just true and by the way if you want to see the most intense opponents of changing or fixing our immigration system talk to like some of your rich people in my neighborhood and it's like who's going to walk the dogs on its soul cycle like that I'm serious and they have I mean we're doing that and most people are not benefiting only a small number is benefiting so look I would agree with a lot of what you said it's really the tenor of what you said it's not their fault but it does get you a core question which is do you as a US citizen have the right to have any voice at all in who comes in because demographics is like one of the key questions who lives here again not a racial question it's a substantive factual question and I don't think you'll find many people and country who opposed to immigration we have more immigrants aggregate you know total immigrants in any countries ever had in peacetime ever okay and you don't have riots in the streets you don't have lunatics lots of other countries do South Africa right now killing Zimbabweans because they're mad about unchecked immigration I get it we don't have that we like immigrants the question is are we allowed to make the decision it's our country and in that hour I would include lots of naturalized immigrants including you we all have a right to decide it so to say look I'm for dinner parties I have lots of dinner parties I love inviting twelve people over to my house and having dinner if you decided who they were or said you're not allowed to decide who the twelve people are there wouldn't be a dinner party would it it would be an invasion or something it'll be something I'm very much against so the question is where is the economic debate I mean and what I appreciate about your response was you and I disagree with your numbers but at least you marshaled them like what is the economic effectiveness I grew up in this state when I grew up here it was the richest out of fifteen at the best schools out of 50 it had the most vibrant middle class out of 50 it now has its 48th four schools it is more poor people than any state its infrastructure is crumbling in the middle classes living in Boise so how did that happen there are lots of reasons it happened but the truth is economics is not magic importing millions of poor people every one of them a good person I'm willing to assume does it make you richer so the rest of us have a right to have that conversation that's all I'm saying don't shut it down with razors to please but okay let me follow up on that so [Applause] so I think I know right California schools are disastrous because of the propositions that that did not allow us to invest in the schools and and now the private schools have created a rate which people bring their kids to once school and then make sure they don't pay for the other your masters etc and and so when the Irish were first coming in they were well no because this is a this is a this is a situational before you applaud you vigorously I can win you listen it's a situation it's a situational decision so when we had the largest wave up until recently of immigration into this country at the beginning of the last century that was the industrialization period in this country who manned the factories who made the shoes who wove the textiles immigrants did there was a massive need for labor and we responded by importing huge amounts of labour we did until 1924 in which case Americans including recent naturalized immigrants which I was like you know what we've had a lot of change change creates volatility in your society we had a lot of drama the progressive movement the Wobblies with a lot going on in this country like you know we're shutting it down and we shut it down from 1924 to 1965 backers were racist but because we made the decision now what we're looking at and this is what drives me maybe craziest is a landscape totally transformed by technology by automation this is not secret knowledge look it up one of the reasons that people are so powerless they felt they had to vote for Donald Trump is because the value of labor is in steep decline immigrations part of it technology I would argue probably even a bigger part of it huge sectors of the entire economy are about to be replaced by machines this will mean massive internal displacement of workers who have even less power than they do now into that you're throwing huge number of new people and my only question is okay what are they going to do in a world where a lot of the jobs now occupied by people will be occupied by machines and the answer I get is shut up racist okay fine that's not actually an answer and we have an obligation I think if those in my business so like you know try to like convince people or whatever to raise the question and I can't get anybody on either side to take it seriously at all and that's when I begin to conclude that they're totally reckless they don't know what they're doing almost any of them they're lying about it and the recce in the country because that is a very obvious chain of events that's going to take place and nobody says it so when they fall out there at least psychos so look in terms of do we need the immigrants now and what cycle are we in history and in America well a couple of southern states took a did some raids took away some undocumented immigrants and then they panicked because nobody came and took the jobs whether it was farming or warehouses and factories etc and so then they had to change the law and say ok nevermind they can come back in so that happened a couple of years ago and you've seen that so obviously the end is actually a great number of examples of that in the country obviously there is some need for those workers so when I see those Latin American workers that have come in I see the same faces as the Irish and the Italians and the Jews and all the others that came in very poor but that made this country much much richer in the end and so interpret when you see the word demographics I think that is what makes people go hmm what does that mean and so I genuinely want to ask you about that so you did a story about hazus in Pennsylvania and you were worried if a demographic so that town was changing why why are you worried about it because change is really hard rest the first part I think more interesting part of what you just said in just a second but so the demographic question let me just say out front I don't ever speak in dog whistles because I can say whatever I want and I always do so I so I appreciate the question because I'm often attacked on the basis of you know maybe something and it's been my fault for not explaining whatever it was fully but let me just say nothing is in code okay it's all right out there and my core concern is change in the pace of change because I don't think that people are hardwired for it and so you have a group Homo sapiens that have lived a certain way if only like ten thousand years not a big deal hand-to-mouth agrarian society booming Machine Age happens with the invention of the steam engine something totally different causes massive displacement revolutions around the world the world is enslaved by communism for 70 years in reaction to it and you kind of catch your breath and then you have the single the digital revolution or story changes everything again and so one of my main maybe my overriding concern after the wage question is how much change can people handle actually before they go crazy and there's a lot of study on this Robert Putnam at Harvard who's hardly alright where has the Bowling Alone guy has done a lot of really interesting study on this again he's a liberal but an honest one and he's like people when they feel threatened when things have changed too much they get really angry and tribal no trust other people and civic institutions collapse and we're seeing this across the country so there's a huge cost to changing everything up for the benefit of the few and let me tie that to the first part of your question which was you said in the south there were raids on chicken plants Tyson chicken plants and the iin a sir I said well we're calling it now comes in and says you know these people are here illegally without documentation we're enforcing the law for once and they couldn't find labor well who is they will-they as the chicken plants they is the employer okay and they couldn't find labor because they didn't want to pay market rates to Americans so basically what they're saying is even though we're in the United States were company in the United States about we could say of Amazon and Walmart for sure and McDonald's and lots of other big corporations that the right has defended for many years unfortunately and now the Left defends bizarrely they benefit from all the institutions that make business possible the rule of law patents like all the things that we have that other people don't have okay and yet they feel like paying the wages of Tegucigalpa because why wouldn't they there and then player what bothers me is that no one ever calls them out on it so if you off any people say well he's gonna pick the lettuce or whatever and I'm not slagging lettuce pickers I respect anybody who works with his hands in the Sun of course but it's not about the picker it's about his employer so lettuce might cost you know four bucks a head okay when iPhone cost a thousand because like actually things have cost because they have value because labor has valued ah so I guess my question is when did liberals all become libertarian economists who are lecturing me about the market and how one thing we can't do is get in the way of employers finding the cheapest possible labor what when did you start defending this and the answer of course is the big companies figured out the game and they're like for a very small price we can buy the allegiance of the Democratic Party all we have to do is fund their nonprofits which they do but more importantly make a series of totally hollow symbolic gestures like here are some new bathrooms I'm for blacklivesmatter leave me alone and they have totally convinced your average college student that they're the cutting edge of the progressive movement and so you see this really weird thing that always blows my mine you go into an Apple store and shamefully I own Apple products and you'll walk in and they'll be like some highly educated you know kid with two degrees four impressive schools with a nose ring standing in this kind of sad spare retail space wearing a matching uniform thinking who's part of the revolution and I'm like dude you're working for the richest man in the world like used a cog in a machine you're a total actually and he's like no I'm not but I always think like the level of delusion that they've pulled off convincing the left foot don't criticise suicides at Foxconn factories because hey you know we got you on the dumb social issues that don't mean anything and they fall for it it's hilarious [Applause] so ticket might be referring to some corporate Democrats who set out but anybody that watches The Young Turks knows we criticize big business plenty and so so I'm going to use the same Apple example Apple makes a nice phone I have one but that doesn't mean they should pay zero percent in taxes and and they exactly they just yes and so they evade taxes all the time and if you want to get together and enforce the law against big businesses I'm right there with you okay so that would be wonderful that would be a nice change from that we have in the Republican and Democratic Party today that will one more thing on immigration Stoppers so you say demographic change is scary and and can be disconcerting and I think that a lot of people don't see that I don't see it a lot of people in our audience don't see it and so they wonder why folks are so scared and so they literally don't know the answer to that if you're saying crime it's not crime because we talked about before I give you more stats 110 percent increase in immigration since 1980 crime in the country has gone down 36 percent okay and in the cities where you have the most undocumented immigrants you have the least amount of crime and and and in fact studies have taken out other factors including poverty and they still see that undocumented immigrants lead to less crime not higher chronic okay so this is a fact that's a fact so then I don't know what you're scared about and interpret look you're against as far as I can tell and correct me if I'm wrong well you call chain migration with others called family migration and so that is as you acknowledge the majority of legal migration you also get the lottery and you do the math on that and you have eliminated eighty-five percent of legal immigrants but the country is massively as you just stated in favor of immigration so if you're against undocumented immigrants and your guest legal immigrants and you cite fear and demography can you see why people then would be concerned that it's racial and not based on crime or any other legitimate factor I mean in in my case I mean I don't want to be defensive or anything I don't think I really am very defensive but I don't actually think that there's a real look I appreciate I sincerely appreciate this because I like an actual adult debate with a smart person about this but I see that so really instead I see people coming to the conversation convinced of their own virtue and you don't actually so it's a very simple way to write people off I'm grateful for a chance to say in public what I really think about the effects of change I think it's really disconcerting and let me just make a point that is too rarely made and that is that if you have a big diverse country like this 320 million people no majority of anything right in the country and you're running it or you sort of try seeking to influence people who run it like you and I are then you really have to think about like one of the most important questions to countries hanging together just through inertia is cuz they do not I don't actually countries tend to sort of break apart they spin out into component parts it's you know it's the story of history and so what do you need in a country where nobody no overlong majority has really anything in common what you need is a unifying culture actually a set of ideas this is very obvious this is not like you know the name this is this is not applied physics okay it's super simple it's true in your life if you have like nothing in common with your spouse does it make your marriage stronger because same language we let me tell you more for it oh please it sucks your businesses from military because it's not true so it's not an insurmountable problem and we've had that this is not the first time we've thought about this in the history the country thought about a lot during the Progressive Era what do we all have in common at the time we decided what we have our founding documents the Bill of Rights we have patriotism we have English and so those are the sort of perfectly great set maybe you've got other ideas okay the point is not what are those things the question is you must have those things and if you don't you're gonna break apart then maybe not now but at some point you will because why wouldn't you so I would argue that the very idea of multiculturalism is insane as an organizing principle of a country not because I'm against Onan not not because I'm against other cultures I favorite thing is to travel and go to different cultures I think they're super interesting and a lot of them are great maybe some better than ours that's not the point I'm making I'm saying as an organizing principle of your country you need to have a common culture another word another word for a collective set of beliefs and I sincerely think just based on being a lot of places around the world that language is a key part of that and that used to be you keep referring to our earlier wave of big wave the industrial way of immigration that we had the key thing that we demanded was fluency in English key not because we were English chauvinist English is not a racial category it's a language shared by people of all kinds of different cultures it's the language of Nigeria okay it's just a language but language is the thing that holds more than anything else and ask anybody who grew up in a multilingual country how about a Canadian not that far away what happens when you have competing languages you have inherently division this is not slowed down this is not a Republican or Democrat or right-wing or left-wing issue it's a total common-sense issue that has been obscured reasons I honestly don't understand maybe by demagogues and bushes but doesn't matter it's true so if you're gonna have huge country changing levels of immigration , and we do , you need to make absolutely certain that everybody of every color and every religion is united in at least something beginning with language duh yeah so I think this goes to the core the issue and I think this is a really interesting conversation and and so look on here on English I might not be as doctrine Aryan as you think I came here with not knowing any words I knew three English words but I was hallelujah I was eight years old and I knew yes no and girl that's it and and they mean from the deep water and and and I did not do English as a second language and you pick it up quickly and so I get that we have to have a unifying language India has a unifying language it's also English and so I think that there's a reasonable way to do that I don't think that you have to throw everybody into the deep end especially if they didn't come at the age of eight and everybody has a different perspective and there's a way of easing into that but when we talk about culture well America's culture is not unique cultural it is by definition multicultural that is our culture so I mean look at all the things that we consider really American pizza Italian right age as African American and and I can go on and on especially in the food category so and you famously talk about they said that tacos are American and not Mexican American culture now that's the point but Tucker that's my point multicultural culture perhaps you know what we're having a debate over word definitions or perhaps why verbosity is obscured what I'm really trying to say but what I'm trying to say is if you have a country any country particularly a huge and complex country like ours where now there is no other there's no unifying fact okay most countries have settled down for a second I'll I'll be right there most contain like that's what that is a potentially a vulnerability for us I don't think it needs to be but we need to address it thoughtfully you have to have of course I'm totally opposed stamping out anybody's culture telling anyone what to believe I'm just saying the very most obvious thing which you must have something in common with everyone else in your country or why would you be a country and if you don't think that you haven't thought about it very much that's all I'm saying this is a great conversation and what I love about it is we didn't mention Trump at all during that and so I think that's a good indicator that we're getting deeper into the issues here good I want to just transition to the other big topic I wanted to touch on and in that last conversation we talked about the role of big business and Tucker you've made the point before that you know when we're over so overly fixated on Trump we miss out on some of the key underlying forces and policies that made a country you know so angry and in Jenk this is a topic you've talked a lot about in terms of the systemic corruption that's been in government that people on the left and the right have been extremely angry about Trump talked about drained the swamp people on the Left say unrig the system how how would you say we're doing on that right now and what do you think we would need to get to to actually drain the swamp and then I want to get your thoughts on that - Tucker yeah I want to get taco sauce - I'm very curious about that and I mean that very very genuinely so because he's more populous than I think that a lot of the left given credit for so in terms of how we're doing miserably it's about as bad as it can get the corruption is rampant it has taken over the system entirely it's an absolute joke that corporations are human beings that they have speech rights and that somehow giving billions of dollars to politicians whether it's Hillary Clinton or the Republican Party is speaking to them no it's bribing them that's what it is and so Donald Trump boasts and this is a very of centas for me to say we're smart to say drain the swamp you know why because both Republican and Democratic and most importantly independent voters can't stand the corruption and they can't stand the swamp and they're absolutely right about that now of course the problem is Donald Trump is a pathological liar [Music] and Ida and I don't know if Tucker can say that or can or will or will not but he knows it everybody knows it and he lies every day seven times a day often times 2 twice in a sentence so when he said he's gonna drain the swamp what did he do he came in here a great example he said all right I'm going to negotiate Medicare drug prices on their Medicare this is an outrage well it's a very popular position on every sensible person agrees to that and what did he do he immediately came and said just kidding it turns out they're bribing me no I'm not going to negotiate prices I'm going to do just the same thing as all other presidents I've done and now mind you Obama did the same thing now Obama would have the excuse so while I was negotiating a complicated deal at cetera yeah yeah yeah um an ad saying that what Bush had done was an outrage in not allowing us to negotiate drug prices and then you start the same exact deal as soda Trump Trump's a liar he knows the corruption he bathes in the corruption such as bad as it could possibly be and so my question to you Tucker is do you believe do you believe in the 20th amendment to get money out of politics [Applause] but I do want to get your thoughts on money in politics but maybe the way I'll frame it is you just wrote a book called ship of fools and you talk about this self-indulgent culture of elites and the ruling class so I wanted to say more about specifically you know who are those folks what are they doing and then what types of reforms maybe money in politics and or other things do we need to start looking at well let me just say to the to the Trump question I would just say a couple things very fast one you know of all the criticisms leveled to trump the he's a compulsive liar thing to me it's the least sort of interesting I mean actually think that the truth about Trump is he is what he seems to be I've known a lot of politicians and they really are two different people the person on stage is you know children or a future in an offstage as hookers you know they're totally different chomp is kind of what we said we wanted I mean he really is I've known him for 20 years he's come in the media he's pretty much exactly the same in person I don't think I mean maybe you say well he's one-dimensional and okay whatever okay but sort of have you watched one of his speeches that's literally what he's like there's no other agenda so you either like that are you donating mixed feelings about it or whatever I personally think it's maybe the least it's the least interesting part of the moment we're going through and I your question was it's like we're missing a lot used to drink too much like way too much and every Sunday morning I'd wake up for a certain trait of my life and I like we have no memory of what happened the night before and so I'd have to go through through friends and with my wife like I saw you at the restaurant what happened then and then like how do we get home and that's how all of America's gonna feel when this is over did you mean the whole society is being transforming this sort of easy thing to do and all the dumb cable chin Tucker's do it it's like it's like part of me is like really how outraged can you can you sustain this outrage like indefinitely before you die of a stroke baby we'll see what also kind of not covering the things that are really happening which is American society is inverting and the middle class is dying and like nobody cares Trump is a cover for everything on both sides is very and I'm not trust me I'm not an intellectual but even I am like this is too dumb even for me as for the money in politics thing yeah I mean look it's very frustrating to confront the truth which is people who have more money in power have more influence in a system in which influences must to be spread equally among everyone so it's inherently anti-democratic I just have been in DC for so long and I've seen all these different schemes to get money out of politics I'm sort of template only for all of them I guess but you bump up right away against this thing called speech so can you really tell someone he's not allowed or she's not allowed to express political views during a certain period it's like actually you can't so it's even more complicated but I would say it's even more complicated because the real threat to the democracy of a campaign finance system is stupid I mean I probably nothing you say I disagree with but I don't think it's the real threat the real threat is the massive concentrations of power outside government so I grew up a conservative you know pretty pretty doctrine I guess for a doctrinaire conservative and I was taught my whole life it the real threat to Liberty was the federal government cuz it was powerful entity right that's not at all the case I mean the beauty of the federal government is it's so inefficient that it takes a long time to hurt you because they could get their act together I mean the people are in the post office are not in the end an existential threat to you because they're too lame okay Google is not weighing Google's technology so for Google right now for just give you one of the thousand examples has 20,000 engineers working just on its search feature okay these are people with advanced degrees make between two and five hundred grand a year just on Google search for 20 thousand of them there has never been a technological entity or entity of any kind as powerful as Google now I'm not saying Google is evil though I think increasingly I do think that they are but even if they want that is too much power in the hands of too few with no transparency whatsoever at the heart of Google is the algorithm and nobody knows what it is you don't need to be way bradbury to think through what might happen if they decided to subvert democracy or two rear ank search results what effect would that have on voting patterns you reach the conclusion very quickly if you think about it they'd be in control of your country that is a huge threat to all of us and it's not just Google of course it's many other tech platforms that basically control speech in effect and so in the face of this you have Republicans Republicans are so easy to control all you say is markets and like oh I'm so I'm so sorry did I criticize the free market I you know what monsignor forgive me and then Democrats are very easy to control - you're just like look we'll help you keep power and they're like oh cool all right so what about everybody else we stand on the brink of having a democracy that doesn't mean anything because in the end our collective powers expressed in government has been totally outclassed by private power in the technology sector and no one is saying anything [Applause] Wow so who thought trust Buster Tucker passage from the Progressive Era so Teddy Roosevelt would be proud and I appreciate that I do I'm being completely genuine I think that this is a really interesting conversation and a lot of ways far more interesting than the ones I've had in the past of conservatives at protic on we're having real exchange of ideas here okay and and so if you say there's too much power in in corporate America you are a hundred percent right and in terms of and that is why I was opposed to TPP and that's one of the few things that Trump has done that is good maybe for the wrong reasons but it's okay I'll take it we allowed corporations to write that back that's insane and for a long time we didn't even let our representatives see it they're like don't know the corporation's are writing it piss off are you crazy are you insane that's not how democracy is supposed to work so I like that but but I'm curious I want to delve into the issue of money out of politics a little bit more so you seem concerned about corporate power you said limiting people's right to speak would be problematic I don't think so I'll explain why because I don't think it's really an unfair burden on the right to speak but how about corporations do you think corporations should have the right to spend unlimited money in politics I don't know I mean I'm not that yep no I guess yes no I don't know I mean to be totally honest with you you're winning me over keep going you know I know that this spins up the left more than anything and like corporations are people or whatever yeah okay yeah I guess I agree but I would just work backward and say I don't think the problem this it's the straightforward stuff that never scares me and that's why Trump doesn't really rattle my cage I'm against actually I'm not a populist to be honest with you I think populism is a symptom with the people in charge have really screwed up and and it's a warning sign that it's gonna get crazier unless we fix the underlying problems so I'm not actually a populist I acknowledge that every society is hierarchical hierarchical and always will be so I'm not that afraid of some because I think he's so straightforward a knight and I'm not that afraid actually of like conventional political advertising because I'm not afraid of people talking about what they think or disseminating a message or whatever what I'm really afraid of is things happening beneath accountability and beneath the sight of the public things happening in secret both because I think that's inherently subversive but also because it shakes people's faith that the system is on the level and and our system is basically faith-based the other reason it's a stable country is because of our democracy so people get super frustrated right but in the end this well taught us children growing up here don't burn the Bastille or storming the police that you know don't go crazy actually you just vote and that has been a that has been the pressure relief valve that has kept the country stable if all of a sudden people come to believe the system is rigged then you're toast and the reason I'm kind of not giving you a straight answer on the corporate stuff is because I am deeply more than anything my my concern my main concern right now is speech and I think a lot of the reforms and you've seen this with the social media platforms a lot of the reforms in response to the 2016 election have in fact been attempts to scrub speech and so I'm worried about campaign finance reform I'm not worried about that I guess but I just I'm hyper vigilant about the people writing the laws writing them in such a way that any ken won't have the right to express his or her political views that we have to walk backward from that okay so like whenever you're trying to figure out like what's the wise course you need to keep in your mind's eye in the process what is the goal like what is the one thing that we can never sacrifice okay we're not throwing out a lifeboat and it has to be speech because that's the foundation of everything you have no power if they can control what you say because controlling what you say is tantamount to controlling what you think and so we need to be totally paranoid about that in fact more paranoid than ever because it turned out the people we relied upon to fight that fight for us folks like the ACLU have completely gone over to the other side and all of a sudden they're like well actually some speech some speech is so horrendous that like decent people won't allow it and my forces will hear the decent people exactly and when the criterias are using to determine what's acceptable not like this whole road is not a word we ever even want to venture on you don't get to decide but I think period there's no circumstance under which you can say what I'm allowed to think period and all of a sudden you have people but what if it's really heinous okay you don't get to define hey mrs. Powell only I can define it and you can't stop me and that's what makes this a unique country rules I'm a market economy it's our justice system it's our interstate highway system its speech we're the only country that has it and run the cusp of getting rid of it [Music] so I actually feel just as fervently about speech and I want to pose a question back to you in a second but when you ask about what is the goal for me the number one goal right now so reclaim our democracy yeah and so right now what we have is an oligarchy of the few that have bought almost all of our politicians and so can we limit can we have some reasonable limitations on speech well of course you can't yell fire in a crowded theater and every other developed nation does not allow the rampant legalized bribery that we allow so when you say well I mean I don't mind political ads so it depends doesn't it because it is a giant giant megaphone and it could drown out all other speech so that's why I am vigilant about it so I'll give you an example that I think most lyrium can relate to Washington posted a good story about how the Clintons had gotten raised three billion dollars over their careers okay they race it through their foundation through campaign donations and actually right into their pockets okay now people did not give the Clintons three billion dollars for their health they just didn't they did it to bribe them okay and and and and corporations don't give you money out of the goodness of their heart for or for charity they do it for return on investment and so and the first time that you do a politician it's an experiment the second time they give to a politician it was a good investment and that unfortunately describes most of our politicians so what did the Clintons buy with that three billion dollars they bought a giant megaphone and yes it Donald Trump overcame it because he got five billion dollars in free media in the election cycle five billion okay that megaphone every other Democratic contender they were crushed by that microphone and the reality is the Clintons shut out the speech of all other people with the bribes that they received and I cannot abide by it I cannot abide by it we need our democracy back so and I and I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I just speaking on Democrats obviously the Republican Party isn't on the national level is about 99.9% corrupt they take the money they do their bidding they're the most corrupt party and in in American history so but on the issue speech so there can be reasonable regulations every other developed country does it but I prefer a guy who's just visual and about protecting speech I am curious and again this is genuine why you don't support the free speech rights of Colin Kaepernick [Applause] I was just wearing if like Nike pitchman had enough power in our society um I think he's okay I've never challenged his speech rights I mean ever I've never challenged anybody's speech rights I mean you there's not a wacko I wouldn't defend on speech grounds and I have defended a lot of crazy people and speech grounds including Colin Kaepernick I think is a buffoon whatever I don't think it's that my problem my problem with Kaepernick relates back to what I was saying earlier about what unites us and our I mean it's just it's inherently to borrow a term from the academic left problematic to have a ruling class that hates the country it rules and so you can't actually you you really have to sort of buy into all the hokey patriotic stuff if you're in charge almost by definition you really have to you can't put your hand over your heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the star think of a new set of of whatever of symbols to honor if you like those make up new ones but you have to have those things or else you can't lead because you can't lead people you don't care about actually empathy is a prerequisite for leadership if you don't love your children they may wind up in rehab if you don't if you're an officer and don't care about the safety of your men they will die if you're an employer and you really don't care about your employees like your company will fail I'm not making a touchy-feely point I'm making a practical one we the people who run the country who derived the greatest benefit not simply talking about a political class talk about a finance class to name one among a couple examples the the tech oligarchs these are people who have deep contempt for the population in the country and we're not even making a mold judgement about that like lots of people have ideas and attitudes I hate I'm saying it doesn't work you may run the country into the ground unless you really care and they really don't and the Kapernick thing is just like super it is so cynical if you want have a conversation about police brutality I used to be a police reporter I think it's a super interesting topic I think anyone with power including cops can misuse it that's the worst case scenario totally opposed to it okay let's be honest this is like it's a sideshow okay that makes a certain kind of person feel virtuous for supporting said about speech again I would never I would never challenge his speech rights in a million freaking years let's eat echo and I'm giving the perspective of other folks here which is that for a year it seems like a sign show but for African Americans who are being jailed and killed disproportionately it is not it's not a it's not a curiosity so for example 67 show and I'm not I just wanna be totally clear cuz I can sometimes talk too fast too expensive I'm not saying it so I said I was a police reporter I think that people abused her power cops included I don't think the issue is a sideshow I'm just saying like this rich guy pretending to speak for African Americans like spare me you know what I mean no you're saying but but who is going to speak for them is is the media gonna is the media going to pay attention to a guy who a middle class guy to a poor line date they paid no attention whatsoever and so people objected the rate of Colin Kaepernick did it well oh my god he did in the middle of the national anthem why did he do in the know the national anthem to get your attention and the reality is that's the only thing that works when a rich guy who's a famous athlete there's something in the middle of something that you're paying attention to and so now we should have that conversation about police brutality Americans perfectly done by cohn Japanese I mean that's sort of a fair point in that there's symbolic figures you call attention to an important issue who haven't mastered the tales and I get I get that I mean they don't you know I don't I don't think that Rosa Parks was it can expert in the Civil Rights Act but that doesn't make her less a powerful a symbol or less important to figure in American history so I think that's a fair point I guess what I'm saying is we haven't had that conversation about police brutality and race at all because I'm so freakin terrified to say anything that no one can talk about anything you have to sort of just nod and be like yeah whatever the piety of the day is I don't disagree in any way I'm not gonna ask any questions because I'd be disobedient you punish me it's like we don't have real conversations because people are terrified they're going to be punished if they enter conversation - the first question I would ask is it database question which shouldn't scare any of us the facts should never scare us and because we live in a large industrialized society that's most sophisticated in human history we have a ton of data on everything how many kids heard on seesaws last year it's knowable how many people you know do you die younger from smoking menthol cigarettes the unfiltered we know that there's nothing we don't know okay so numbers don't tell the whole story obviously but there's a starting point for real conversation so how common is this our white officers more likely to fatally shoot black suspects than black officers are I don't know those if you even say that it's like I don't want to know stop with that spooky science stuff I've my mind the only way that you solve a problem is by honestly talking about it with the sum total of what you know about it and that's exactly what we cannot do because the purpose is not to fix the problem it's for some people to feel like good people as opposed to all of them and others to maintain their control over the population so if we were having like a vigorous debate like oh my gosh you John Jay College of Criminal Justice tell you this a lot and here's what they found and here's the three things we should do to fix it dude I'm for that that's the opposite of what we're having we've got Nike ads that won't fix it amazingly have run out of time that hour just flew by really time total yeah we're already over time I'm just going I know we're just getting started I mean first of all that wasn't fun I mean let me ask you all a question where else you get to see this kind of conversation seriously and I again want to thank politican for convening this type of discussion and the last thing I'll just mention before you all head out we've talked a lot about corruption the most important thing we can do to get rid of that corruption is to vote in this midterm election and to tell your elected leaders that you care about this issue so in a thank our panelists Tucker Carlson Genki ogor for a great discussion Thank You Politico and thank you all of you make sure you go home safely and go vote this November thank you very much

Channel: The Young Turks

Views: 1,588,733

Rating: 4.2610698 out of 5

Keywords: 181021__PC07CenkTuckerCarlson, News, Politics, TYT, TYT Network, Young Turks, cenk uygur tucker carlson, cenk uygur, tucker carlson cenk uygur politicon, tucker carlson, tucker carlson politicon, politicon, politicon 2018, politicon 2018 live, politicon cenk uygur

Id: 7ZxhLli-7CY

Length: 59min 25sec (3565 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 21 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Danbamboo]

Yeah, this was really great to witness.

[u/Hole_In_Shoe_Man]

Cenk did an amazing job. I hope this ended up reaching a lot of viewers... especially those that might lean to the right