The Young Turks - 9/11 Anniversary, Trump Discovers Water is Wet and Ford vs Trump

Episode Date: September 12, 2018

The 9/11 anniversary, Trump discovers water is wet and Ford is not moving from China to U.S., despite Trump’s claims. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake, Egan, and Casparian, with you guys. So, big show ahead, but I want to tell you about a big week. I should have told you about this yesterday, but we got elections all this week. And then, odd day, as my daughter used to say when she was two, that means we're done,

until the general election. So these are the last of the primaries, the last of the Mohicans tonight, New Hampshire tonight, Rhode Island tomorrow night, and New York on Thursday night. So Cynthia Nixon's up in New York, Matt Brown's up in Rhode Island. So there's some huge elections coming up. They're all right after the show. So you know the show 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern Live, T.y.com slash live. And then at 805, election night starts tonight, New Hampshire, we'll do all that for you guys.

We have a lot of 9-11 stories for you guys today, as of course, today is the 17th anniversary of that tragic day, including Donald Trump's self-indulgence, et cetera. Then Donald Trump realizes water is wet. I am not joking, that's a little bit later in the program. It turns out water is actually very wet, okay, and before Trump, we did not know that. Okay, but before we do all that, let's do our quick check-in as we are doing every day in the membership drive on the thermometer. So we started at 27,761 last week, exactly a week ago. Yesterday we ended up 30,460.

We ended the show on that. I wanted to see if we get the 500. By the end of the day, let's see if we got there. And the current numbers are 539. It's okay. It's okay, God bless. Okay, tyt.com slash join to support the show and get all the content. Now I get complaints, and this is a good complaint to get.

You guys have too many progressive shows, and it's hard to keep it with all of them. Well, God bless. Thank you. We appreciate that. We'll have more updates on our programming, et cetera, as we go along, especially tomorrow, I think we'll probably do a big conversation around some of that. But meanwhile, I want to tell you about one other thing that we're offering you guys. we're going to do a town hall for the members.

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Let's go forward. All right. Today marks the 17th anniversary of 9-11, and while it's important to talk about all the various White House officials and politicians who have released statements to mention this day, I think it's important to also talk about how much us, how much we as U.S. taxpayers have spent on wars that have been justified by those very politicians after the events of 9-11. So just to give you an idea of something that we have spent trillions of dollars on, while simultaneously arguing that we can't provide health care or education for our citizens, the U.S.

has spent $1.5 trillion on various wars after 9-11, okay? So wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than 1.5 trillion, and that's again since September 11th, 2001. So I'm gonna give you a breakdown of that spending in just a minute. Okay, so let's just note our priorities as a country. First of all, we got attacked on 9-11, and I still remember that day, and we lost nearly 3,000 people. It was incredibly traumatic, and it was as direct an attack as on our soil as we have ever had.

So did we want to chase down the guys who did it, absolutely. If you don't know the story, New York Times had an excellent report a couple of years later about how we actually had been London cornered in Afghanistan, and that was before our invasion of Iraq, but Rumsfeld would not send a general to go get him. And that is maddening. And the trillions of dollars we have lost since then. But were we right to go after Osama bin Laden? Yes, I think we were. So would we have spent some money doing that? Yes, we would have. Okay, but one and a half trillion dollars. We've been in Afghanistan. 17 years, we went to Iraq, made a mess of it. We're like, oh, we're going to go get al-Qaeda. Okay, now we have ISIS.

That's even worse. And they just did several attacks inside Afghanistan. as we speak 17 years later. So, what did we get in return? Finally, Ed bin Laden many, many, many years later, having almost nothing to do with the wars that we executed. We got a giant mess in the Middle East that cost hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian lives, cost more than 5,000 of our American service members' lives, 50,000 that were maimed and injured.

What could we have done instead with the one and a half trillion dollars? So there's a thousand things we could have done, but let me just talk about two real quick. One is healthcare. Can you imagine if we spent the one and a half trillion in healthcare, how many more lives we would have saved, let alone the lives that were cost by these wars. So that is just when you think, look, I haven't seen a calculation of it, but my guess is you spent a one and a half trillion dollars in healthcare, you would have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.

Instead people, this really struck me, I was doing an interview with a guest, a progressive guest from New York recently at Rebel Headquarters, and he's pushing for single-payer in the state of New York. And he made a great point. I don't know why I never thought about it this way. He said, some of my constituents, if their kids get cancer and they didn't have insurance and remember, about 15% of the country doesn't have insurance, the kid's dead. That's it.

You don't have any money. You can't afford cancer treatment. You can't take them to the emergency room. Your kid dies. We could have saved their lives if we hadn't spent this $1.5 trillion on these wars. And then finally, you know, we can get rid of every student loan in the country, not college for all. That's much easier and way less expensive.

I'm talking about all the student debt that exists in the country, all wiped out in a second. And student loan debt is at $1.4 trillion. So, and by the way, we're going to take that $100 billion that easily killed bin Laden and taken out al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. And no one in the country would have student debt. How amazing, miraculous would that be? Instead, we cost all those lives and made the Middle East so much more unstable. I mean, doesn't it make the American people angry that our taxpayer money can't be used to

help benefit our lives, enrich our lives, improve our lives? You know, that money is easily spent. The one piece of legislation that easily gets approved, okay, by both Congress and the White House is the, you know, the Defense, the National Defense Authorization Act, okay? There's never any debate about it. You just increase the amount of money you want to spend on our military, on the defense budget. There's never any debate.

So remember, after 9-11 happened, one of the wars that we started in 2003 was the preemptive war in Iraq. And the Bush administration purposely made it seem as though Iraq was behind 9-11 when it was not. So we have spent a lot of money there, and I want to break it down based on military operations. So a lot of that money, the $1.5 trillion, did go toward military operations, but not all of it. Okay, so as I mentioned, $1.5 trillion, but about $185.5 billion of that went toward military operations.

When you break it down, $134.3 billion went to Operation Freedom's Sentinel in Afghanistan, inherent resolve in Syria and Iraq was 23.5 billion. Operation Noble Eagle for Homeland Security in the United States and Canada was 27.7 billion. So that's not, the last bullet point there is about national security, preserving national security. It's not about war. But we spend a ton of money in interventionist wars as well. How much have we spent on aiding Saudi Arabia in Yemen? That's not included on this list. We're involved in all sorts of nonsense throughout the world. And is it to keep up? us safe? Or is it to keep weapons manufacturers and private military contractors wealthy?

So one more thing about this. 1.5 trillion is very likely an understatement because most of these calculations do not include the cost of health care for veterans going forward. Well, we wouldn't have, so would they need health care overall? Of course they would. But did they need extra health care because of PTSD, traumatic injuries, the disabled veterans? Yes, when you add that on top of it, then it gets closer to two trillion dollars. And what did we saw with it? There was just a bombing on last Wednesday in Afghanistan, killed 20 people. One of our soldiers just got killed and another one wounded this Monday.

So as in yesterday, we're still losing soldiers in Afghanistan. For what? Al-Qaeda hasn't been there. Bin Laden hasn't been there in 17 years. They left immediately. They ran. And in fact, if we were competent, we would have, we had him, quote. cornered in Torobora.

And they, did you know this again? Go back and read that story from the New York Times. It's an amazing story that they wrote. The al-Qaeda led by bin Laden did their last prayers because they thought, well, they've got us cornered. And we let them go. Oh my God, it's maddening. And meanwhile, Rumsfeld said inside the administration back then, well, Afghanistan is not

a target-rich environment. is a target-rich environment. Look at that verbiage. In other words, our defense contractors can make a lot more money if we bomb Iraq. There's not enough things to bomb in Afghanistan. And now, ISIS is the one that did that attack last week. ISIS is in Afghanistan. It didn't even exist before we invaded Iraq.

It's even worse than al-Qaeda. And now we say, no, we're gonna spend more money to make sure we can now defeat ISIS. Oh, for God's sake, you know we have 14,000 troops left in Afghanistan or 14,000 Americans overall? What are we doing? Is it going to take 18 years, 19 years to accomplish what? I bet if you asked Trump or anyone else in the administration, what are you trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?

They couldn't possibly answer you. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis gave a short speech today to commemorate 9-11, and he did touch on, you know, our actions abroad. And I thought that this portion of his speech was really interesting, especially considering the verbiage. So take a listen. Maniacs disguised in false religious garb thought by herdiness they could scare us that day. But we Americans are not made of cotton candy. We are not seaweed drifting in the current. We are not intimidated by our enemies and Mr. President, your military. does not scare.

Our nation's troops today are worthy successors of our revolutionary army at Valley Forge, worthy successors of our valiant sailors at Midway and our Marines at Bloody Iwojima and of our Air Force pilots patrolling Migva Ali. Men and women of your Armed Forces America, having signed a blank check to the protection of the American people

and to the defense of our Constitution, a check payable with their very lives, your military stands ready and confident to defend this country, this experiment in democracy. So Mattis uses the phrase blank check in reference to our soldiers who risk their lives. The blank check meeting their lives when they go to these wars and, you know, based on what you hear in propaganda, you know, to protect democracy around the world. That's not what it's really about. We all know that.

But Americans have also signed a blank check because there's no end in sight. Mattis claims, no, no, don't worry. When it comes to Afghanistan, we're now opening up talks with the Taliban and we're going to have some negotiations there and hopefully there will be an end. Let me give you his exact quote. He says, we have more indications that reconciliation is no longer just a shimmer out there, no longer just a mirage. It now has some framework, there's some open lines of communication.

Now, you must be so proud 17 years later. So, look, Jim Mad Dog Mattis gets credit within the Trump administration because he is one of the few people who is sane in the administration, even though his nickname is literally Mad Dog, it gives you a sense of how bad the rest of the administration is. So I guess within that context, I give him credit for being cooler head. For example, when Trump wanted to make this Syrian war far worse by trying to assassinate Assad, Mattis apparently, according to Woodward's book, ignored him, and that was the correct decision.

But don't get any idea in your head that Mattis is some sort of good guy or progressive. No, like many of our generals, unfortunately, they use the troops as a punchline and as a gimmick. So they say, support the troops. Do you really support the troops? You've been wasting their lives for 17 years in Afghanistan. You know what, and they're all, we give, but we're giving money. Wait, wait, no, no, no, you're not giving money to the troops. You're giving it to Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Raytheon.

You know what the average service member comes in at, their starting salary? About $19,000. What? Support the troops for what? With what? You're not supporting troops. Remember when our troops are getting blown up in Iraq, and Rumsfeld went to Iraq and said, and they had not prepared the one thing they needed, which was armored vehicles.

because they were planting roadside bombs. They're like Raytheon made a gorgeous nuclear sub that's sitting there in a dock somewhere that has no relevance to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They got paid trillions of dollars for it, in that case, billions. But overall, yes, we spent trillions on defense contractors. But our guys getting paid $19,000 a year are getting blown up because they didn't actually protect the troops. Because why? Armored vehicles don't cost that much.

I'm not talking about tanks. In that case, I'm talking about the cars that they use. to put metal plates underneath him, Rathia can't make as much money from that. So who cares? And you know what Rumsfeld said? He said, well, you go to the war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had. Jesus. After they wasted $1.5 trillion on their buddies who are also their donors, and by the way,

so why do I go after the generals in this case? The great majority of them retire and immediately work for defense contractors and get absolutely wealthy off those wars they sent you and your kids to die for. So that's what these generals in the military industrial complex is about. And that's how they wasted our money, wasted the lives of our troops, and used 9-11 for their own political purposes, and it's grotesque. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to travel back in time and see what Donald Trump had

to say about 9-11 as it had just happened. All right, back on a young Turks, Jen and Anna with you guys. I got some tweets for you guys. Beppa writes in, technically water isn't wet. All right, wise guy. All right, cool it, okay? That's about the hurricane where Trump found out that, in his words, water is very wet. So we'll get to that in a little bit.

Jay Thomas Cordy says the amount of money spent on wars since 9-11 is exactly why we need to get money out of politics. By the way, join Wolfpack today. Thank you, Jay Thomas Gordy. Appreciate that. Wolf dash pack.com. We have got to get it out. Otherwise, we're going to keep wasting trillions of dollars. They're robbing us every single day.

Texas for Bay 2 writes in, my hashtag TYT membership is the best $10 I spend all month. It's an investment that doesn't depreciate. And in days of alternative facts and fake news, the knowledge I get from TYT in return is priceless. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood. or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were. taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must have learned and that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for

UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Thank you, brother. Super, super appreciated. And of course, t-y-t.com slash join to become a member and to get all of our shows and build the home of progressives with us. I, look, the reason we're trying to get to 100,000 is so that we are unshakable. And no matter what anybody does, they can't knock us down. So I hope that we get there together. Okay, now let's talk a little bit more about 9-11. So this morning, Donald Trump, of course, wants to be respectful of 9-11, so he sends a tweet complaining about collusion. All right, so usual rants. We found nothing

to show collusion between President Trump and Russia, absolutely zero. Same kind of mental tweets you see on any other day. Now, this is the one day where you really hope that the president can pull it together and tell us about how he cares about the people we lost. on 9-11 and the troops that went to go avenge them and et cetera. The typical stuff that presidents do is sometimes they go over the top, et cetera. But Trump doesn't have any of those issues. He just doesn't- He's a sociopath. Yeah, he doesn't know, he doesn't care.

He doesn't care. Now, to the point about a sociopath, okay, so he starts the day with me, me, me, me, me, I'm not guilty, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not guilty, right? All right, that's the usual. Then the second tweet is about 9-11, he retweeted a post by White House A Dance Gragging about how Trump had signed a proclamation designating today as Patriot Day. So it's about 9-11, but it's about him bragging, well, I made it Patriot Day.

I made it Patriot Day. I made it Patriot. Okay, all right, we go to tweet number three. Okay, it's about 9-11, but wait until you see what it is. Rudy Giuliana did a great job as mayor of New York City during the period of September 11th. His leadership, bravery, and skill must never be forgotten. Rudy is a true warrior. Rudy Giuliani, of course, is his personal lawyer now, defending him on the issue of collusion. So without yet mentioning the lives that were lost, talking about how Rudy was this incredible hero and not that the attacks must not be forgotten, not that the people we lost, our citizens must not be forgotten, but how awesome Rudy Giuliani my personal lawyer was must not be forgotten.

Unbearable, unbearable. And by the way, okay, and some people get mad, so prepare, conservatives find your safe space because you're about to get triggered. Rudy Giuliani gets ridiculous credit for 9-11 when he didn't do anything. He showed up at the scene of a crime. Congratulations. So you know, the only actual tangible thing he did was he put the communication center in case of emergencies inside the World Trade Center, which blew up.

Now the World Trade Center had already been attacked. Why would you put the communication center for emergencies in the one place in New York that had already been attacked? That's because if you're stupid, that's what you do. And then he shows up in front of all the cameras and he's like, I'm in charge, I'm in charge. Well, meanwhile, firefighters and cops died in those buildings because they come. But I'm supposed to now turn around and give Rudy Giuliani credit because he's Trump's

lawyer. And all he ever does, he's so gross. You remember that line from Biden in the elections where Rudy Giuliani was running for president? Got humiliated, of course, run out of town, came in fifth in Florida, was the only place he can be. He was the worst, right? But every debate in Giuliani would go out there, and as Biden said, say, 9-verb 9-11. Why?

Because oh, me, me, me, me, 9-11, I happen to be in New York. when 9-11 happened. You're gross, Giuliani. You two deserve each other. So that's what Trump did today. Oh, I'm not even known. One last thing. He goes to Pennsylvania to remember the heroes of United 93, and those guys who were unbelievable,

they didn't risk their lives. They knew they were going to lose their lives, to make sure that the plane did not get to its target. So Trump gets there, and he lands, and he sees that there are some people, I think, that we're applauding him, so he's like, oh, yes, forgets that, hey, I'm here for a solemn occasion and starts doing this, like, it's not a goddamn campaign rally, but he's a sociopath, he can't help himself. Now, if you thought all that was bad, wait until you get a load of what he said on the day

of 9-11. So he's on New York radio, and Anna, did he talk about the lives lost? No, of course not. Did he say, it's that day, man, do you remember how, I know. I remember that day, any of you who are old enough, you remember that day and how we were all shaken. I had friends who lived in New York. One of my co-founders here was covered in the debris from the building, and I'm like, Jesus

Christ, is he alive? Is he okay? And all the people that I know, I got family and friends. There's one guy on 9-11 who wasn't thinking that. He was thinking something else. Yeah, so he called into WWOR in New York, and this is on the evening of 9-11. and he thought that it was a perfect opportunity to brag about how one of his buildings was now the tallest building in New York. I'm going to read you his exact quote.

He said, well, it was an amazing phone call. I mean, 40 Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan. And it was actually before the World Trade Center was the tallest. And then when they built the World Trade Center, it became the second tallest. And now it's the tallest. That was what he said on the evening of 9-11, 2001. Not on the anniversary of 2001, on the actual day of September 11th, 2001, he called into a radio station to brag that he now had the tallest building in New York.

He said, well, it used to be second tallest because of World Trade Center, but now that got knocked down. So now my building's the tallest. What sociopath thinks that way, thinks, hey, this is a moment for me to brag, hey, those big buildings got knocked down with nearly 3,000 people dead, but hey, on the upside, my building's the tallest now. This is the guy that you revere if you're a Republican? Oh, God, that's so sad.

And, okay, then we go to 2002. By then, he's taken a whole year. Has he found out, hey, maybe people were upset about this. I should treat this with a little bit more respect. Of course not. Right. So he goes on Howard Stern's show and talks about a... a 9-11 memorial, what should be built there.

And here's what he had to say. What Rudy said was there should be a huge memorial and it should contribute to the skyline of the New York in the same way that the world trade. See, I'm starting to agree with that. I don't know. Maybe we should build a television tower there. Maybe we should do something that would be, you know,

I don't know if you saw last week the television tower, which is substantially taller than the World Trade Center, but you don't have to occupy it. Believe me, a statue of your girlfriend would be perfect right there. Well, that would be an idea. Well, nobody's going to fly into that, right? No one would. No one would even mess with that.

That would be a lesson for future generations. Oh, that's so funny. Could you imagine if a Democratic politician went on the, and talked about September 11th, a year afterwards, it was joking around about, hey, I got a hot girlfriend, it was girlfriend at the time, now wife, I got a hot girlfriend, maybe we built a statue of it. I mean, look, Howard brought up the joke, we all heard it right there, right? But he's going along with it, like, oh yeah, maybe we should, man, nobody would fly into that. Ah, ha, ha, 9-11's so funny.

They would have been ridden out of town. This guy's a joke, man. It's a joke on the whole country. And he's the biggest joke on his own supporters who think that here's a guy who respects our armed forces or wants to make America great again. I mean, think about why he allegedly goes after NFL players who kneel during the national Anthem because he thinks that it disrespects our flag, it disrespects the country, disrespects our troops.

Trump does that on a regular basis. But for some reason, there seems to be a double standard for Trump. He gets to do and say whatever he wants. Doesn't matter how disrespectful he is, he still earns that support for his base or toward his base. It's insane. I don't understand it. But I'm, I don't know, I'm just, what else are we going to expect from this?

I'm bored. I'm tired of this. Yeah, we get desensitized, so what a monster he is. Yeah, I'm super desensitized at this point. This is who he is. I mean, I don't need any more evidence of it, I already know. And what drives me crazy is not only has this been normalized, but his base doesn't care. They don't care.

Rudy Giuliani, he used 9-11, he exploited it for his own advantage, for his own purposes. Our federal government at the time did the exact same thing to justify, you know, starting wars in the Middle East, they never really cared about the lives that were lost during 9-11. They just didn't. They used it for a political advantage and nothing more. And a couple of punchlines. That's what they actually think of 9-11. Okay, now going from that to crass commercialism, other people taking advantage of 9-11.

Yeah. A number of brands throughout the United States wanted to commemorate 9-11 by promoting their products, and they got backlash for it. And I want to give you a few examples. In New Jersey, there's a restaurant known as Asaiya later, and they sell Asai bowls, which sounds like a California thing, and it's super annoying. But nonetheless, they decided to take an Instagram photo showing the skyline of New York with an Asai bowl in the photo as well.

They got so much backlash that they later took that down and then reposted the photo without the bowl. But all the other hashtags, et cetera. So great way to celebrate 9-11. I hope you're not doing that. Commemorate 9-11 is with an asai bowl from the view we have at our restaurant. But you know, it's America. It's capitalism, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean. So whatever you got to do, it was originally supposed to be a commemoration, it was supposed to be solemn. On the other hand, we could sell some fruit bowls that we're calling asai bowls, and we could put it in it with a nice few and make some money off of it. Welcome to America. But isn't this, I mean, look, I'm actually amazed that they got enough backlash that they took the original photo down because this kind of shameless self-promotion is celebrated in the country. It's celebrated in every facet of life, regardless of what you do for a living, okay? You know how it is for us.

like, oh, you work in news? What's your Twitter following? What's your Instagram following? Are you posting enough? Are you active on social media? Are you promoting yourself enough? Non-stop promotion. Promote, promote, promote, promote. It's a symptom of capitalism. It is. And look, I am not against a capitalistic system, but this is a symptom of it. Yeah, I thought Christianity was not about materialism. That was what Jesus Christ preach was the opposite of materialism. Give away all your worldly goods, the poor, the needy, and help your fellow man. But we have somehow twisted it in this country so that, I mean, there's literally a thing called prosperity gospel, that if you don't live in America, you have to be confounded by. Like, really, that's the thing? They took

Jesus's literal words of saying, give away all your worldly goods, and you have no chance of getting into heaven if you're rich. It said it's harder to get it for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. And they took that and said, oh, you see that? Jesus wants you to be absurdly rich. First, he wants your pastor to be incredibly rich. And he wants him to have private jets and limos.

Then he wants you to be rich. And he wants all of you guys to focus on nothing but materialism. In fact, we'll take his birthday. We'll get him out of there because he's in, he looks homeless. Get him out. Put in a fat Santa in a red suit that gives away stuff that you actually have to pay for, okay, and we'll drive towards that. And then, no matter how saw on the occasion, his birth of Jesus or 9-11, just sell, sell, sell, baby.

And then whatever the original message of America was or the Bible was or anything else was, everybody's forgotten. On a day, especially when the theme is never forget. Right. And the AsiBol, by the way, is just one of many examples. Let's just run through the others. I feel bad that we've only talked about that because there have been a number of other companies who have done something similar. Back in 2013, for instance, AT&T wanted to show off their inventory of new iPhones.

And so they posted a photo holding an iPhone with the New York Skyline in the background. So very similar to the Asai Bowl. And then I actually want to skip ahead to Graphic 40 because this is the one that was like insane. So that was from last year and it is promoting, what is that, Chewbacca? Yeah, that's Chewbacca, I don't know, is it promoting Star Wars? I don't know, just, okay, leave it B, leave it be, but we can't because it's America and we gotta make a buck.

But look, final thing on it is, what did George W. Bush, the president, at the time, say, right after the attacks. So at other great moments, our presidents have stood up and given inspiring speeches that wound up making a difference. FDR talked about this is a day that will live in infamy referring to Pearl Harbor. He said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. And JFK was amazing during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And he had great lines in other instances where he said, don't ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Inspire people.

What did George W. Boyce say after 9-11, go shopping. Literally, he gave a speech in response, and the main theme was, just go back to normal life. And he literally said, just continue shopping. Can you imagine if a woman said that? Oh. Can you just imagine for one second, if a female politician. said that. Just, let's just go back to shopping, okay?

Because the shopping must not be interrupted by tragedy. And so this is, as Anna points out, a symptom of that initial problem to begin with. And by the way, I believe in balance. I think that we could, we could actually have capitalism that doesn't run amok, that doesn't take over all of our lives and turn us into all materialistic pigs that are obsessed with things we must have because our neighbor has it. We could actually be decent to one another and still have private enterprise. That's what I believe, but apparently I'm in the minority.

They have a lot of that in Scandinavian countries, don't they? Yeah. They have private enterprise there. And they make good furniture and good meatballs. They sure do, actually. They do. Okay. All right, let's take a break.

When we come back, some international news for you, including possible sanctions against China for its treatment of Muslims. No, that's a trippy story. Very trippy. I have theories on why this is happening. Trump, at least the Trump administration, is going out of its way to defend Uyghurs. Not kidding, we'll explain when we come back. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks.

If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on TYT. Champagne Bernie writes in. That's a oxymoron. Yeah. I don't even like it.

Champagne. I don't drink champagne. I drink iced tea. And by the way, the Twitter handle is at Drizzy Sanders. But it does make me want to rosé all day. day with Champagne Bernie. In fact, now that I've read it, it makes me want to do it even more. Wright said proud activist level member here, weird requests.

Please incorporate your tagline, the home of progressives in your logos, merch items. And, Jank, your haircut looks dope. It does look dope. That's what I'm talking about, Champagne and Bernie. Okay? Let's drink to that. Whoa! All right.

Thank you, brother. We were trying to put home progressives everywhere. And we look, we're not quite... We share more with you guys than any other company, like maybe the rest of the companies combined, probably, okay? So at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your activate.

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Imran Shake did an awesome one, the vote one, the Blue Dami one. That says shop t-y-t.com. I want you guys to do more of those, et cetera. But we got to do things one thing at a time, okay? And we got limited staff here. We're trying to do the best we can. By the way, if you're wondering why I'm not reading member comments, because we moved a couple of other staffers to answer customer service requests from the members, because

there's a lot of new people joining and we switch websites, right? So we're on it, brothers and sisters, and we're trying everything, and we're working around the clock to make sure that we can answer all your calls and all your requests, okay? So stay with us, t.com slash join. We appreciate all your support. All right, what's next, Anna? All right. The federal government is considering sanctions against China.

Now, these sanctions allegedly have nothing to do with the trade war that we're currently engaged in with China. In fact, US lawmakers are arguing that we need to sanction China over its treatment of Muslims in the country. In fact, they have been detaining Muslims, Uyghur Muslims specifically, and making them change their ideology, rid themselves of their Muslim religion. And these are essentially camps, detainment camps that they're putting these individuals into. So Chinese Muslims in the camps are forced to attend daily classes, denounce aspects of Islam,

study mainstream Chinese culture, and pledge loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. Some detainees who have been released have described torture by security officers. Now, this has been a story that's been going on over the last year. More and more reporters are becoming aware of what's happening in China with this Muslim minority in the country. In fact, PBS NewsHour did a story on it, and they give more detail into what's going on. So take a look. Radio Free Asia journalist Gulchera Hoja told Congress last month her family is in camps where

Uyghurs are reportedly subject to torture and indoctrination. And I learned in February that my aunt's cousins their children. More than 20 people had been swept up by authorities in the same day. That hearing was called by Senator Marco Rubio. Yesterday, he and 16 other Senate and House members sent the state and treasury departments a letter, accusing China of arbitrary detention, torture, and egregious restrictions on religious practice and culture, and calling for sanctions on senior Chinese officials. Today, China's foreign ministry spokeswoman said Chinese minorities have freedom of religion, and the U.S. had no right to criticize.

China's ethnic minority policies and the rights and equality ethnic minorities enjoy are even stronger than in the United States. China says it's responding to what it calls Uighur terrorism and a Uighur separatist movement. In Xinjiang, many Uyghurs seek an independent homeland and clash with police. China says it's trying to maintain stability and does not detain anyone arbitrarily. So what's fascinating about this story is who we're hearing from in terms of U.S. politicians. Marco Rubio is one of the politicians who's actually speaking out against this. He says the scale of it, it's massive.

It involves not only intimidating people on political speech, but also a desire to strip people of their identity, ethnic identity, religious identity on a scale I'm not sure we've seen in the modern era. So while some U.S. politicians are speaking out against this. and calling for sanctions, Trump has been resistant to it. And it appears that he's softening on the idea of implementing some of these sanctions. And this is my thoughts on it. But my suspicion is that Trump is salty toward China because of the trade war that we're

involved in. I don't think that these two things are separate. When it comes to Trump's decision making, Trump keeps ramping up the tariffs on China. retaliates in a similar fashion, it just keeps getting worse. And I think that's one of the reasons why Trump has softened his ideas on implementing some sanctions. So mixed news here for Republicans. I'm about to give some of them credit in a second.

But notice what the Chinese are doing in these camps. And by the way, the scope of the camps is unreal. Hundreds of thousands, maybe up to a million people in what could be considered, I mean, internment camps, detention camps, I don't want to use the other word, but apparently there's torture there. Now, they're forced into patriotism, pledging loyalty to their country, forced integration into the culture. You must assimilate into Chinese culture, and you must denounce Islam. Who does that sound like? I mean, you turn on Fox News any day of the week and they'll tell you, why won't these ethnic

minorities assimilate into American culture? Why won't they do it? We should make them do it. Otherwise, they should get kicked out of the country. No, but that's the reason why this story was shocking to me that our current government is considering sanctioning China over their treatment of Muslims. I mean, look, we're not imprisoning Muslims here, but we are certainly contributing to to what's happening in Yemen right now, all those civilians getting murdered in Yemen right now,

we've teamed up with Saudi Arabia. And I mean, look, to one, there was a point made in that PBS News Hour video by a Chinese official who said, you know, said something about the US human rights abuses. We are guilty of human rights abuses, not maybe not in the United States, but certainly in other countries. I mean, if you want to talk about, you know, our actions leading to the deaths of innocent individuals abroad. And we're guilty of stuff here as well. I mean, look at how unarmed black men get treated in this country, and the list goes on.

But, and we're separating families at the border now. And then they have their own detention camps, et cetera. That doesn't make what China's doing right. And by the way, it also doesn't mean that it's on the same scale. There's 11 million Uyghurs in China. Now these reports say up to one million of them, 10% percent. of them are put into these detention camps with brainwashing, potentially torture, et cetera, et cetera.

So, and you wanna, I mean, you wanna talk about denouncing Islam. Trump is famous for doing the campaign saying we have to have a total ban on Muslims until we figure out what the hell is going on. That is why you'll excuse us if we're a little skeptical that Trump is doing this because of his newfound respect for the Muslim religion, right? That would be borderline shocking. And by the way, take Muslims out of it for a second. And by the way, let me just correct myself because you're right.

We are guilty of human rights abuses here as well. I mean, the zero tolerance policy was the latest example of that. But, you know, Trump has an affinity for dictators throughout the world who carry out human rights abuses. I mean, he bragged about how Kim Jong-un, how the people of North Korea, you know, salute Kim Jong-un because they're forced to, right? I mean, he loves that kind of stuff. So that's why I think when it comes to Trump, there's an ulterior motive. I don't think it's really about human rights abuses. So by the way, another pronunciation of Uyghur is Uyghur, like my last name.

It is the same thing. Now, I am not an ethnic Uyghur, but our family was named after them. I could, I've told that story before on a post game. I can tell to you again today in another post game. That's for the members, t.yt.com, join, become a member. That way we get to have more time to discuss these things. But it's not about me. So this story about the however you pronounce it, the Uyghurs, now let me turn around and give

Republicans credit. Now, look, if you tell me Trump actually cares about human rights abuses, wants to go after dictators and protect Muslims, you're not ever going to get me to believe that, okay? So it's, but what is, but the Trump administration so far is doing this, even if they're doing for a bad purpose where they want to punish China about trade and not really about human rights abuses, I'll take it. Even if Trump didn't want to do it, but he was forced him to do it by the rest of his administration, but they actually carry this out and fight for human rights causes, I'll take it.

And I'll give Trump credit. If he actually does this and fights for those people, I don't care why he did it. I don't care who forced him to do it. At the end of the day, he's the president, and I will give him credit. And obviously, there are people inside the administration that want to do this, and it's the right thing to do. Give them credit. And of all people, Marco Rubia, who I cannot stand.

why I think he's a fake politician and all that stuff. He is fighting for this, that that's clear. And I really don't care about his motivations in this regard. So he's fighting for a million people that are sitting in detention camps right now trying to be, while the Chinese government tries to destroy their ethnicity and their identity. Okay, and the fact that Rubio is fighting for them, he deserves a lot of credit. And so did the senators that all sign on to that letter, Democrat and Republican. So, man, look, if Republicans do the right thing, why wouldn't we give them credit?

Bless their hearts, that's fantastic, that's what we want. Just doesn't happen that often, but in this case it is. So Rubio does deserve the credit and people inside the Trump administration do as well. Now finally, you know, there's a propaganda, whether it's from the Chinese government, and by the way, they do, like let me say this as I do with every country. The Chinese government does not represent all the Chinese people. And so just because they have a right-wing government in there, they can call themselves communists, but they are uber-capitalists, all obsessed with their own wealth, right?

And run basically a dictatorial government. And so they do not represent all the Chinese people in China or across the world. As I tell you all the time, the Israeli right-wing government does not represent all the people in Israel. And the American government under Trump, Bush, et cetera, did not represent us under Cheney, did not represent us. They represent, yes, a section of the people in China. It's even a smaller section.

Well, here in America, they basically are politicians, represent our donors. In China, they represent the Politburo, okay, basically. So, but look at what's happening in the world. As the Chinese government says the Muslims are bad and they're separatists, et cetera, and we have to go and crush the Muslims, Fox News tells you every day, and Donald Trump tells you, well, the Muslims are the problem. We've got to go get the Muslims. The Muslims are the problem.

Meanwhile, it's the Muslims that are in detention camps by the hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million in China. It's the Muslims who were displaced in Myanmar, mass murders, rapes, 700,000 people live in squalid conditions right now in Bangladesh because they were driven out by massacres in Myanmar. But yet, the talking points never change. Muslims are the bad guys. It's in their nature. it's in their religion, and a lot of people make the argument.

No, no, no, no, Islam is worse than all the other religions. It is irredeemable. Now, when other religions do it or non-religions do it, no, no, no, that was just a one-off. That was just coincidence. When Muslims get crushed, whether it's in Myanmar, China, or, by the way, Yemen from other Muslims, Iraq, Syria, from other Muslims, aided and embedded by the United States of America, the Russians in the case of Syria, et cetera. No, no, look away, look away. No, Muslims are always the guilty one, not the victims.

The reality is, no, the world is not black and white. Chinese people are not all bad. They don't all hate Muslims. That's insane. All Muslims are not bad. They're not just victims and they're not just the aggressors. It depends. Do they have power?

Do they not have power? What is the politics of the situation? What's the economic situation? So, please, what we're asking to do is to take a look at the world as it is. And yes, it is complex and it has many different factors, don't go to, honestly, the same way of thinking as this Chinese government saying, Muslims bad, put them into camps, make them non-Muslims, right? And unfortunately, some of our right wing think along similar lines.

But for those that don't, they deserve credit. Yeah, and by the way, I just really want to emphasize that they're not just putting adults in these camps, they're putting children in these camps as well, doesn't matter what their age is, if they're categorized as Uyghur Muslims, they're being forced into these camps and in some cases tortured. All right, we have my favorite stories coming up. Updates on the economy, also tax cuts 2.0, which Republicans are pushing for. So I want to take a break, kind of like gather ourselves a little bit and do those stories

when we come back. ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon