The Young Turks - Agents of Chaos

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

House Republicans select a new nominee for House Speaker. Trump attacks bombshell Jan. 6 witness outside his own fraud trial and says Mark Meadows "always believed" stolen election lies. The TV War Machine: Cable news networks are relying on defense industry consultants to explain Israel’s war in Gaza. George Santos is apparently still telling tall tales, Chinese Communist kidnapping edition. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) and Rayyvana (@RayyvanaTTV) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Woo! It's up! All right, welcome the Young Turks on a special Wednesday episode here. Look at this, everything's a little bit different.

Jank Yuga, Rayvano with you guys, and we've got a ton of news. We've got news about the crazy Republicans and who they picked. They picked the Johnson. Mike Johnson, sounds fake, but it's true. He does believe in a lot of fake things, so don't worry about that. That's covered. And then Donald Trump gets in more legal trouble. He just cannot stop.

All right, that and a lot more to come. So, right, take it away. Yeah, so as you mentioned, the Republicans have finally somebody, let's find out who. I'm covering life and death issues, serious tragedies, serious momentous occurrences here in Israel and of course in Gaza. And of course, we have to interrupt this for one moment to cover the complete and utter clown car that is the House Republican Speaker's race back in Washington, D.C. Well, good news, Jake. All the clowns have finally exited the car and we can stop talking about it because this morning the House Republicans decidedly voted Representative Mike Johnson. Yes, that is his real name, not a fake name he gave to trick a substitute teacher into saying Mike Johnson. They decided that he will be the new speaker of the House following weeks of chaos. Take a look.

As we were listening to the President of the United States, the House of Representatives made it official. There is a new Speaker of the House of Representative, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, 51 years old. He will become the next Speaker of the House. The Republicans finally, after all these weeks, managed to get their act together and do this. None of the Republicans who were earlier opposed a Republican nominee for Speaker. None voted against Mike Johnson this time. I'm the next Speaker of the House. All right, let's get into some details about this absolute circus that the Republicans have been somewhat entertaining us with over the past few weeks.

So officially last night, Representative Mike Johnson became the fourth and as we now know, final Republican nominee for House Speaker and a late night secret ballot after a nominee House Majority Whip Tom Emmer dropped out. Now this was a result of holdouts from Trump allies and backlash from Donald Trump himself. So a large fraction of the House conference took issue with Emmer because he was one of the two GOP speaker candidates who voted to certify the results of the election. Yes, it disqualifies you to be the Speaker of the House within the Republican Party if you didn't try to destroy democracy in our country as we know it. Also because he rebuked the January 6th Capitol riots. So if you didn't support that, again, something that disqualifies you in the eyes of Republicans. And he's also been vocal about his criticism of Donald Trump, which we all know is a no go within the Republican Party as well. Probably the worst defense you could ever commit as a Republican.

Now back to Mike Johnson, if you are not a, if you don't have a degenerate relationship with C-SPAN, like I do or if you don't cover politics for a living, he's someone who might have flown under your radar. But Brett Ehrlich pointed this out today on Twitter. So I want to talk about this for a second. He said if you watch the press conferences being led by the Matt Gaetz's, by Marjorie Taylor Green, by the Lauren Boberts. Mike Johnson is always in the background with a with a sly smirk. If you go back and watch all of their press conferences, he's always there. And that's because they share a political ideology. Now newly elected speaker, Mike Johnson, and every time I say his name, I want to laugh a little bit, is one of the staunchest

religious conservatives in the House of Representatives. Now his views align more with Trump and other MAGA Republicans politically and religiously. And let's get into some reporting from the New York Times on Mr. Johnson. An evangelical Christian, he has voted for a national abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20 week abortion ban, earning him an A plus rating from the the anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony, pro-life America. It continues on. Last year, Mr. Johnson introduced a bill that prohibited the use of federal funds for providing sex education to children under 10 that included any LGBTQ topics, a proposal that critics

called a national version of Florida's don't say gay law. Mr. Johnson called the legislation common sense. Now, his version of common sense is equating the existence of gay and trans people with hardcore pornography. That is something that he actually believes and has tried to legislate, just to completely erase the existence of gay people in any form from education. As I mentioned, literally equating it with hardcore pornography, a book where a character has two gay parents, the same as pornography in the eyes of Mr. Mike Johnson. Now, he's also opposed legislation to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages, a bill that passed with strong bipartisan

support in both the House and the Senate. Now, he's also opposed to sending aid to Ukraine, and of course, he wants to end Social Security and Medicare, take a look. I think you and I would agree that individual freedom and limited government are opposite size of the same coin. It's difficult as somebody dedicated to principles of, of limited government to see the ballooning out of the deficit and a complete abandonment of entitlement reform. Your thoughts? We'll start with Mike and we'll go to Mark. We have to get back to it as a number one priority. The CBO says that entitlement spending, which they define as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security interest on the debt, right? Those four obligations we eclipse GDP in what

a dozen years or something. I mean, this is not, this can no longer be kicked down the road. You can't wait eight years to address this. It has to happen yesterday. So we have to have our hand at the wheel and do this. We are completely derelict in our duty. We're rearranging furniture on the Titanic if we don't get this problem under control. Statements like that and holding that position should disqualify you from holding public office in this country, let alone being able to hold those views and ascend to Speaker of the House. Now, of course, those aren't his only problematic views. He was also a key player in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. So a little more on that from NBC News.

Johnson, who currently serves as the GOP caucus vice chair and is an ally of Trump, led the amicus brief signed by more than 100 House Republicans in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate the 2020 election results and four swing states won by Biden, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, one of the most corrupt attorney generals in this country, called on the Supreme Court to delay the electoral vote in the four states in order for investigations on voting issues to continue amid Trump's refusal to concede his loss. Now, it alleged the four states changed their voting rules without their legislators

express approval before the 2020 election, and Johnson acted as a messenger for Trump, sending an email to his GOP colleagues to file an amicus brief. So a little more from that Same report, the lawsuit swiftly drew backlash from battleground state attorney's general who decried it as a publicity stunt full of false and irresponsible allegations. Legal experts also pointed to a series of hurdles the lawsuit had faced, saying that Texas lacked the authority to claim that officials and other states failed to follow the rules set by their legislators. Now, despite his views, Johnson didn't really have much to offer as the nominee. And that's exactly why they picked him.

The criteria for becoming speaker, it was multiple issues, and one was experience. Another was raising money for your colleagues so that they felt that they could give something back in return, namely a vote for speaker. and the ability to lead, to be a proven leader. And Meg Johnson has none of those things, has none of those qualities and none of those characteristics. He's relatively new, and in this particular environment, well, that was the biggest plus for him. That was it. It's that he doesn't have a lot of personal baggage and that he doesn't. doesn't have the connections because in this environment, the connections that leaders

have made have only made enemies out of a lot of the people in their own conference. And that really speaks volumes, Wolf, about where the House Republican conference is and frankly where the Republican Party is. We've got a little bit more on the absolute ridiculous press conference that was held last night and which I think demonstrates the state of the modern Republican Party. Yeah, that's exactly right. This gives you an excellent sense of where the modern Republican party is, which is off a cliff. And so the press is beginning to get it. But I think there's a huge portion of the country doesn't understand that these guys are backwards, un-democratic,

un-American, and just mentally unbalanced. Okay, so let me give you more on Mike Johnson and what kind of a radical he is. He has said that homosexuality is inherently unnatural, that it is a dangerous lifestyle and that he could topple, quote, the entire Democratic system. I don't know if he knows this, but there's been homosexuality in this country from the very first day that it was formed, yet here we stand. No, Mike, it's not gay folks who are going to topple the democratic system. It's you. You literally tried to topple the democratic system in 2020. And by the way, he's just full-blown lunatic. He was one of the guys like Sidney Powell who was making the case that Hugo Chavez was the one that fixed the election in favor of Biden.

Hugo Chavez at that point had been dead for seven years. So there is, there are no moderate Republican politicians left. The last one, I guess, was Mitt Romney and he retired in a blaze of glory, you know, and there's nothing left. There's no, there's no like, oh, the Republicans will come back to their senses and all this crap and the marketing that Joe Biden does for them. Nancy Pelosi does for them and all the Democrats do for them. Oh, the fever is going to break and my reasonable friends are going to come back and we're going

to do wonderful corporate deals and all of our donors. I mean, our voters are going to be happy. No, no, no, no. There's nothing left. These guys are crazy. They're lunatics. So you're going to see in a second they catch feelings whenever you ask them about the 2020 election.

Why do they catch them? They don't want to answer that under any circumstance. Because if they tell their voters, of course Biden won. of course we're lying, of course we're lying, then they'll lose all their base voters and they'll lose their primaries. But if they go around acting like the lunatics that they actually are, and they're like, oh, yeah, I think, like drooling and Hugo Chavez, man, and the crackers and the mules, man, they stole the election.

I don't have any evidence, but, you know, I just think that the election was stolen. Well, then they're going to, a lot of them are going to lose in general elections because, you know, about a big enough percentage of the country thinks that that's nuts. At least 60% of the country thinks that's nuts. So they can't admit that they're nuts. They can't admit that they're not nuts. So they're stuck picking guys like Mike Johnson who said, well, if you legalize gay marriage, obviously pedophilia will be legalized next and bestiality and all of those things.

And Yahweh says that we should hate gay people. we should hate social security and Medicare. Oh, no, right. That's what my corporate donors say. So he's literally the worst of all worlds. He's the worst of the corporate Republicans in that he wants to take away your social security and Medicare. He's the worst of the MAGA world and that he led the charge.

He's the one that helped to file a suit with that insane fake elector scheme. He's a traitor to this country. And I don't say that in a Republican way where he'd call for violence or not. No, these guys should have all been tried. They shall all be prosecutor for trying to do a coup against this country. So instead, he's going to be rewarded with Speaker of the House and is now third in line for the presidency. And to the point that we're both making, one of our members said it in a succinct way, Dragon with a Girl tattooed wrote an election denier that wants to end Medicare and Social Security

and take away reproductive rights. Perfect fit. But he is. So don't be like, oh my God, I can't believe the Republicans, what a fluke of luck. They picked the most radical guy in every direction. No, he's perfectly representative of how deeply radical and insane the current Republican Party is. It's funny because if he actually believed that homosexuality was going to crumble democracy, then he would have been at the front of the pride parade waving the rainbow.

flag considering he did everything he possibly could to undermine democracy in this country. I mean, if all he had to do is have gay sex, it would have been a lot easier than filing all those amicus briefs. But let's get into how this press conference went for him and what it shows about the Republican Party, because after his nomination last night, they held this press conference. And it raises some concerns for how they're going to continue to handle the press and questioning moving forward because ABC news correspondent Rachel Scott decided to ask Johnson about his involvement in Trump's attempts to overturn the election and was met with a lot of hostility. Let's watch.

Mr. Johnson, you helped me the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Next question. Republicans booed and Johnson tried to move on. The House has been at a stand still for three weeks without a speaker. As war rages in the Middle East, the president asking Congress to provide $100 billion in aid to Israel and Ukraine. I tried asking Johnson, who would be second in line to the presidency, about that too. He didn't want to talk about it. Do you support additional aid to you? You've asked your question. You're asked your question. Go away. We're not doing policy tonight. Any other questions? Boo, boo, and shut up, repeatedly yelling, shut up from the Republicans there.

And at the end, he says, we're not going to talk policy tonight, which is funny because I don't think they're going to talk policy ever, considering how long this speakership debacle has gone on. And none of it was ideological. None of the battles happening within the Republican Party have been ideological. It's just been an attempt at a shameless power grab by, you know, the people who are able to more align themselves with Donald Trump because they represent our plus 6,000 districts that they're gonna win with ease every time around like Matt Gates, like Marjorie Taylor Green. And so for me, this whole thing has been such a joke because they had in the speakership Kevin McCarthy, who we routinely incorrectly called spineless,

and they just had to find an absolute jellyfish to replace it because even the most spineless member of their party was not spineless enough for them. They needed to find someone more shameless to replace him. Yeah, so first of all, look at these thug dictator wannabe guys. A member of the press asked him the most perfectly reasonable question. You filed a brief saying that Joe Biden didn't win the election. That seems like a massively important issue now that you're third in line for the presidency, other things. So what do you think? And their answers, boo, shut up, right? Because they don't

want to take real questions from reporters. And they're not hiding it. Look at them. They're like, how dare you ask me a legitimate question? We hate the press. We hate democracy. We're going to do any of it, okay? And so the press should not take that lying down. Every question to every Republican should be, look, let's make it clear. Did Joe Biden win the election or didn't he? I put them on a spot because they're all trying to squirm out of it like the little weasels that they are. And Democrats stop treating them. They're like they're a legitimate party, party of people who just escaped in an asylum. Come on.

Okay, so now, if you're Mike Johnson and you filed that brief and you were worried that Hugo Travis and his ghost and the holy ghost, we're all going to steal it on behalf of the pedophiles or whatever insane. thing that goes in your mind, well, then aren't you proud that you filed it and you were going to defend Donald Trump and you were going to defend democracy? Why wouldn't you be proud of it? Why is that a hard question? So are you proud of it or aren't you proud of it? And if you're a MAGA guy and you think the election was stolen, why isn't Mike Johnson answering this question? Why is he being a coward? Why? Is he embarrassed to be on your side? These are very normal questions. And the The press should not tolerate these politicians booing them and telling them to shut up.

They should double down, quadruple down, and not let him get away with it. But okay, so now they're back. They have a leader, Mike Johnson. He's just as bit radical as every member of that caucus, which has totally lost its mind. People are like, oh, Matt Gates is the radical. The rest of them are the moderates. Are you insane? Look at the guy that they just picked.

They're all radical. If you're a Republican at the national level and you're a politician, you're in the House or even in the Senate. No, you're that radicals, lunatics, obvious. I mean, are we supposed to debate whether homosexuals are going to destroy democracy? Are we supposed to debate whether Donald Trump won the election without a single piece of evidence to that effect? Are we supposed to debate the mules and the crackens? What do we do with a party that has completely lost its mind and is thinking, their only goals are what?

Okay, now they're in charge. What are they going to do? We're going to cut social security in Medicare and we're, oh, and the poor rich, the IRS agents are looking into their fraud. How will they keep their bentley's and their Ferraris? Protect the rich, attack the average American, and be a lunatic. The current Republican Party slogan. If I can just end by saying that you're exactly right, that every single Republican is a radical. All of the Republicans of the House are radicals. But there are. radical Republicans in purple districts who have difficult re-elections coming up, and by allowing the circus to continue on as long as it did, by giving Matt Gates the amount of power, him

and just seven other members of Congress who have safe seats, who don't have to worry about their reelection campaigns, by giving them a lot of power. And then by putting, it is the most visible Republican in the house, by giving Mike Johnson the speakership, they have absolutely screwed themselves when it comes to those Republicans running in those purple districts. So I think it'll be really interesting to watch how those races play out. Yep. All right, we're gonna take a quick break here. When we come back, we got a lot more news for you guys. Donald Trump gets fined again. That is going to be a common occurrence because he cannot shut his dumb mouth. We'll be back. This episode is brought to you by Square. You're not just

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We appreciate you guys and Sean. Thanks for being a premium member. That allows us to keep prices low at $4.99 for everyone else. For those who can barely afford that, we understand that. coffee per month, but obviously everybody's got different issues. And we love it when you guys gift membership to one another or joined up at the higher level so that we can keep prices low. All right, Ray, what's next? Donald Trump is riding the struggle bus. Take a look. I don't get a jury. This was a drought should have never been brought, but if we had a jury,

it would have been fair, at least, even if it was somewhat negative jury because no negative of years we're going against me. But this judge will, but this judge is very partisan judge with a person who's very partisan sitting alongside of them, perhaps even much more partisan than he is. Donald Trump isn't just riding the struggle bus, he's driving it and he's driving it straight off a cliff because he cannot stop attacking the various people involved in his many legal cases, even when he's been specifically instructed to shut up. Probably the hardest instruction he's ever had to take in his entire life.

So now the judge overseeing his civil trial in New York has fined him $10,000 for violating a gag order that banned him from making comments about the court staff. And last week, he was fined $5,000 for a truth social post about the judge's law clerk that accused her of being Chuck Schumer's girlfriend. He spent $5,000 to make that post. Just keep that in mind. And as you saw in that clip, he made a thinly veiled reference to the clerk as being even more partisan than the judge. He just can't help himself. He can't shut the hell up. Now, because of these comments, Judge Arthur and Goren announced a surprise hearing today. Trump and his lawyers denied that he violated the gag order, even though he did so extremely publicly. But they claim that he was talking about witness Michael. Cohen, which brings in its own issues. But they're saying that's what he was doing when he said the person sitting next to him. A little bit from that, from CNN. And Goran asked Trump who he was referring to when he talked about the partisan person next to him. Trump said, you and Cohen.

Are you sure you didn't mean the person on the other side? And Goran asked. Yes, I'm sure Trump responded, but that did not convince Engoren whatsoever, who responded by saying, as the trier of fact, I find that the witness is not credible, Judge Arthur and Gorin said after hearing from the former president under oath, I hereby fine you $10,000, which is on the liberal side to be paid within 30 days. The judge ruled. Now, after complaints from Trump's attorneys and Gorin had to give them this warning, said, I've reconsidered the ruling stands, don't do it again, or it'll be worse. Now, Jank, one thing that has been boggling my mind throughout this entire ridiculous antics of Donald Trump throughout the civil trial is that he and his attorneys requested a bench trial. And then Trump said that it's severely unfair that there is no jury, despite the fact that he explicitly requested there be no jury. And then immediately it started attacking the judge, who as Gorman himself pointed out, is the sole trier of fact in this case. It is, and I would expect this type of nonsense from Donald Trump, but you think

that his law school educated bar certified attorneys might have tried to play things a little differently, knowing who their client is? Yeah, no, but remember, he's hiring clowns off the street because legitimate attorneys won't work for him. He hired this lady who apparently did a terrible job of cross-examining Michael Cohen and both Trump's critics and Al. thought she did a miserable joke. You know why he hired her? He saw her on Fox News. And I'll finish the thought, okay, let's keep it real. He mainly hired her, one, because she was willing to do it, and two, because she was attractive. That's how this idiot makes decisions. So I don't know if it was him or his lawyers who forgot to check the box to ask for a jury trial. Like the very bare

minimum. You can't get any easier than that as legal counsel. It's just checking a box. Like, you don't have to be a lawyer to do it. Anybody can do it. It's not legalese. Would you like a jury? Yes or no, right? And okay, this fool, how high is a bunch of foolish lawyers? They don't do the bare minimum.

But okay, fine, you screwed it up. And you didn't ask for a jury trial. At least have the decency to not come out and be like, oh, it's so unfair. I don't get a jury. Come on, man. I know, I know. It works with 40% of the country because they're never going to hear the truth.

And they're going to hear here on Fox News and News Mac and all those garbage stations that he was unjustly denied a jury trial, right? But for the rest of us, I mean, everything he says further confirms what a lunatic he is. How about you ask for a jury trial? Moron, okay? And if you didn't ask for one, shut up, shutting up. And please, are there reporters, are there Democrats in the world? I mean if so okay how about somebody in Congress go on TV any Democrats step up and go hey guys look at what an idiot Trump is hey it asked for a jury trial then he cries like a little baby that he doesn't have a jury trial dumb dumb dumb okay until you drill it

into people's heads that he's the one that didn't ask for the jury trial and then he looks ridiculous do you know how many MAGA guys know that I bet you the number is almost literally zero, okay? Because Fox News isn't going to tell them that. And when the Democrats don't make a big deal out of it, nobody ever hears it except our side, which is useless. The other thing he keeps doing is he keeps saying that he can't go and rally because he's stuck at this trial. And of course, Fox News is not going to tell you, he doesn't have to be there. He doesn't have to go. He can just send his attorneys and that's fine. He doesn't have to attend physically, but they keep parroting this idea that it's interfering with democracy because

he has to take time out of his campaigning schedule to go to New York for the civil trial. Again, it doesn't have to be there, but they're not gonna learn that by listening to the right wing news that they listen to. No one on Newsmax is gonna tell them that. Yeah, Ray, that's also true. And then of course he said after one of the hearings, do I can't, this is interfering with democracy. I gotta be on the game intro. And tomorrow, don't forget, I'm on my golf course, and then he promotes his golf course. So wait, is it a matter of democracy or is it a matter of golf? Okay, this guy doesn't give a damn about democracy.

He's the one that trying to undermine democracy. But look, this guy's a thug who is trying to intimidate every single witness and the people that work in the court system. He said about Michael Cohen, who's testifying against him, that it's, quote, not going to end up very good for him, not going to end up very good for him. I mean, how much more of a direct threat could it be? That sounds like exactly what a mob boss would say. Yeah, I suppose Michael could testify, but it's not going to end up good for him,

if you know what I mean. Yeah, I know what you mean. And that's intimidating a witness. The guy's totally out of control, doesn't believe the law applies to him. And for God's sake, I hope to God one of these judges and these juries, make him aware of the American justice system that no one is above the law, and it most definitely applies to him. Yeah, and just a little more on the,

the Michael Cohen side of things. Let's just go to this first video about what Trump said after Cohen testified. I don't feel to see Michael Cohen here as well. He never seen him in the years. And we know his record, his record is a horrible one. All you have to do is the Southern District of the he's got a horrible record. But they just don't do. What about the testimony?

I'm not going to end up very good. What about the testimony? We're not worried at all about his testimony. He also repeatedly called him a disgrace and a felon, which is ironic if you consider why Michael Bowen had to go to jail in the first place, who he was doing the bidding of that caused him to go to jail. But I think it's really interesting that he's more hesitant to call out former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who I feel that he believes holds a little power over him because he was asked about the immunity deal that Meadows has allegedly taken, excuse me, from special counsel, Jack Smith. And Trump just said, he doesn't believe it. Well, Joe, I don't believe that because I've spoken to Mark Bennett's many, many times over the years.

And he strongly believed the election was rigged. Now, of course, you know, deranged Jack Smith and the prosecutors, they go after somebody for years. And they say, look, here's the story, we'll give you nothing, we'll erect a statute to you, or you're going to go to jail for 10 years. but having done nothing wrong. So, you know, a lot of people have to make that decision. Some people would never make that decision. Other people would. But Mark Meadows always felt it was rigged.

Hopefully it was rigged and it was stolen. And because it was rigged and stolen, our country's gone to hell. Then he doubled down on that point on Truth Social when he posted this. It says, I don't think Mark Meadows would lie about the rigged and stolen spelled with two L's, 2020 presidential election merely forgetting immunity against prosecution, in quotes, in parentheses persecution by deranged prosecutor Jack Smith. But I think what we might be seeing here, Jank, is of course Trump has always gone after those that he feels are attacking him. But I think that he's genuinely scared because he knows that these people do hold some power over him. And that

if they all flip on him, that things are going to be awful for him personally. And some of these people might be able to avoid the jail time that they've been facing down or lessen their sentences. And that's appealing to them as Donald Trump is not necessarily someone who would have their back. It has very publicly attacked a lot of these people. So I think that by attacking Michael Cohen, he's one, you know, trying to just blatantly disregard the gag orders have been placed on him. But he's also, you know, trying to show these other witnesses, this is what's going to happen to you if you turn on me. Things are going to get ugly. So he's buttering up Mark Meadows while also trying to scare those witnesses in those other trials.

Sometimes I even I don't get Donald Trump. What's the play when Mark Meadows has already testified in front of a grand jury? It's over, brother. He flipped on you. He can't take the grand jury testimony back. So he's like, I don't believe it. Okay, you're going to believe it when he comes in a court and testifies against you. He already took a plea deal. What's there not to believe? He's so weird. I think he's just a child who's in denial. Like, no, I like Mark. Mark wouldn't turn on me. And then so, and then later, here's a guarantee, write it down in stone. When he finds out, Oh, when you do an immunity deal, they already gave the evidence of the prosecutors. Oh, you already testified in front of a grand jury.

Then he's going to turn around and be like, Mark Meadows, deranged radical. I hate him. He's nuts. I'm totally mentally stable genius. But Mark Meadows, very bad guy. We don't like him anymore. And then, of course, his supporters are like, oh, yeah, that's so manly. Is it?

Is it? Because he seems like a little baby 24-7. I wonder if he's going to use his supporters donations to pay that $10,000 fine. Almost certainly, right? Almost certainly. Yeah, he's not paying. Yeah, he's not paying. That's a great point.

He's not paying the fines. He thinks his supporters are suckers and losers, and he makes them pay for everything. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, the war machine revs up. But what's behind the scenes is very, very interesting. So we'll be right back. And then they say, there's Donald Trump, an intellectual. Trust me, I'm like a smart person.

You moron. All right, back on T.Y.A.A.A. the cat lady. That's a fun handle, and she just signed up. We appreciate you. Kelly Kay gifted a young tourist membership, appreciate you. And then Nicole upgraded to premium. We appreciate you, Nicole. That's awesome.

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So we appreciate you guys. Ray, what's next? Yeah, so an age old story of corruption. and mainstream media, who would have thought? Take a look. Joining me now is Jeremy Bash. She's former chief of staff at the CIA and the Department of Defense and an NBC News. National security analyst, Jeremy, good to have you with us. Israel's military objectives, Kate, I think it's important to note, is to try to isolate Gaza City and not to bulldoze the entirety of the Gaza civilian areas.

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He was previously a staffer for the group and MCD portions of its annual policy conference in 2019. So this isn't some tangential relationship. This is a direct relationship. He worked for A-PAC, and Bash isn't the only person with conflicts of interest that's been popping up on cable news to give their supposed expert opinion. On October 12, Fox interviewed Michael Allen, who's a managing director and partner of Beacon Global Strategies. That's the same consulting firm that Bash leads.

And here's a clip from that interview. I heard all of these suggestions that the Israelis are going to commit war crimes because they need to go after terrorists in Gaza. So I thought it was outrageous and just sort of. speaks to this latent anti-Semitism, which I believe is in all sorts of quarters across the globe. Now that same day, CNN interviewed a different official at Beacon. Now, neither Fox nor CNN disclose their guest's affiliations with the consulting firm. MSNBC and NBC have also interviewed officials at West Exec Advisors, which is a consulting firm that has advised Boeing,

who provides GPS guidance bomb kits to Israel. Now, according to the American prospect, West Exec has also represented Winward, which is an Israeli AI company that creates surveillance software to track ships in real time. And in one interview, John Brennan, who is a principal at WestExec, spoke to none other than Jen Saki, who previously worked as a senior advisor at WestExxec. Here's a clip of Brennan reacting to Biden's trip to Israel. which was just announced at the time of this interview. Well, I think first of all,

it reflects the depth of President Biden's support for Israel and his support for Israel to be able to defend itself against these horrific terrorist attacks. Clearly, he also is going to emphasize to the greatest extent possible the importance of trying to protect civilian life in Gaza and to ensure that there's going to be some type of humanitarian leave for all of these thousands, millions of citizens in Gaza who have not had anything to do with these attacks. Ian, let me just sort of try to make an example for everybody. If one of these cable news hosts brought

on a supposed expert on the Middle East to talk about the war between Israel and Hamas, and that person had connections to selling weapons to Hamas, that individual show would be canceled right then and there. They would be fired, so fired, and everyone involved in bringing them on would be fired. But it's fine to bring on all these experts and allow them to give the pro-Israel argument without any disclosure of their direct relationships with the selling of weapons to Israel, these corporations and these organizations that directly benefit financially from selling weapons to Israel is so patently corrupt. And again, shout out to the the lever for this excellent reporting, but it's so patently corrupt. And it seems like no one cares.

And I'm sure that they're going to do it more throughout the coming weeks. And as this war continues, they're going to continue to bring these people on as experts and allow them to deliver this argument that is, again, going to benefit these organizations, these corporations that they have direct connections to. It's infuriating to watch. And it's so frustrating to know that it's going to continue to happen. Yeah. So I think that the people in Washington, And if they read the lever story, they watch this story that we're doing here. They genuinely won't get it. And they're like, I don't understand what these radicals are saying.

Like, do they not us want us to have high paying lobbying jobs? How would we pay for our kids' private school? Do they want us to identify every time somebody's a defense contractor on our on air? That would spend, we spend half the time explaining all the different connections that people we bring on, we call strategists are actually all lobbyists for defense contractors or pharmaceutical companies, what do you want us to do, expose the whole gang to that actual viewers? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what we want. Yeah. And there's no way they're going to do it. And so it's fundamentally dishonest. Let's take the most benign example, right?

So look, of course, as Ray said, you would never have a Hamas spokesperson and not say that on air, let alone the fact that you'd instantly be fired, but you should be, right? Now, I don't think you should be fired for having a person from APEC on. Those are not the same things. A-PAC is deeply problematic in America. I don't agree with their policies, and they fund campaigns against progressives in particular. But obviously, they're not a terrorist group, but they are lobbyists. They're very powerful and influential lobbyists. It is fundamentally deceptive to not explain that they're lobbyists, even if it's not the same thing.

It's certainly relevant. But that's also, I said that that's the relatively benign part of it, right? The real problem of it is the money, right? So why are they talking about an axis of evil now? And by the way, they don't even, they're not even coordinating their talking points anyway. They're like, it doesn't matter. Nobody's guarding the headhouse.

Just go on and just, just bomb it out war propaganda. No one on TV will challenge you. It's okay. Just let's start another world, just like we did in Iraq. So that's why Mitch McConnell says, oh, we got an axis of evil. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, not really an axis, and you just made up a bunch of countries. But then Netanyahu doesn't even bother to coordinate. He says the same axis of evil because there's a talking point.

But he says Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. So who are we attacking? I'll tell you who they're trying to attack. There's one thing that's one country there that is in common with McConnell and Netanyahu's access of evil. Iran. Why are they targeting Iran? So now, a lot of people might think, well, I mean, there's a lot of Jewish Americans. They care deeply about Israel, and they're worried that Iran's going to attack them. Iran has shown zero indication of attacking Israel. You could say, hey, they act through their proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, and that's fair, and that's an interesting

conversation to have about how do you put pressure on them to get them to stop doing that. But the idea that Iran itself is going to attack Israel, there's no way Iran would do that. Because they'd get obliterated and they know that. Not only would Israel counterattack, but America would. There's no indication of that. And the American government says there's no indication of that. In fact, the American government says there's no indication they helped Hamas. Would they attack on Israel this time around?

No indication, right? So why are they picking on Iran? Because it's not about American Jews that are concerned about Israel. That's not the Iran issue. Evangelicals care about Israel and put a lot more pressure on American politicians than than Jewish Americans, the Jewish Americans are generally democratic, very progressive, generally in favor of the two-state solution. Evangelicals are not in favor of that.

The crazy evangelical Christians in this country are like, no, we need there to be as many, as much conflict as possible so that everybody kills each other, and then Armageddon happens, and there's a giant bloodbath where almost everyone on the planet dies. Yes, and then Lord Jesus comes back. Okay, all right, that's the insanity that they believe in, and that influences our politicians, and that's a huge factor in terms of their base. But that's not the largest factor either. The largest factor is the money, Lebowski.

So defense contractors want to war with Iran because they're not a nuclear country. And we know it because we were in a peace deal with them and took all the uranium out of their country. And we have intelligence showing that they have not developed nuclear capabilities. So if you start a war with Russia or China, it might cause World War III and end us all. and defense contractors are like, I want to make money, but, you know, my family lives in L.A. or New York or D.C., I don't want them to die. So let's not go pick on Russia or China. We can do proxy wars and stuff, still make a lot of cash through Ukraine. But Iran, oh, that's a perfect target. Four times as large as Iraq, they make four times as much profit. And it'll

spread the Lebanon and Syria and Israel and Palestine. And oh my God, millions of people will die will make so much money. So they send all their lobbyists all over cable news. And cable news never tells you that the actual hidden agenda here is to make billions and maybe trillions of dollars for defense contractors. And by the way, also oil companies, because instability in the Middle East causes oil prices to spike. And it's an absolute epic disaster for the rest of us.

Our kids are going to go die there, let alone them hundreds of thousands of civilians on all sides that are going to die there. Oil prices are going to spike gas prices, inflation. Everything is going to be a nightmare, but cable news will not tell you that the people causing that nightmare are their beloved, honored guests that they have brought on and not told you that they're secretly trying to start a war so they can get richer because they work for defense contractors. So that is horrendous deception and service of war.

But I think we should talk about deception and service of seemingly nothing. Everyone's favorite agent of chaos, representative George Santos, who by the way, I think should be the president of the United States with this conversation for a different day, is at it again, doing the one thing he does best, lying for seemingly no reason. Quick reminder, George Sandos was recently indicted by the DOJ on 23 charges, including falsifying records submitted to the FEC, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, amongst many other things. Now with that in context, Let's look at this tweet he posed yesterday. Picture of yourself that says they're not after me, they're after you.

I'm just in the way in true Trumpian fashion. And it's so excellent because George Santos, I never did wire fraud. I never did aggravated identity theft. They're not after me. I am 100% certain. I haven't falsified records to the FCC. They're not coming for me. You're not in the way.

not in the way, you're just the way. They're headed directly to you in the way of 23 indictments. Now I also want to remind everybody that George Santos is facing a potential expulsion being led by members of his own party because of the indictments against him and he represents a very vulnerable district. So on the political side of things, you know, the delegation of Republicans from New York is worried that they're going to lose this seat because of his antics now. on to the good part. George Santos' antics themselves. Because his most recent lie is potentially his most absurd.

But a couple of the favorites, he lied for some reason that his grandparents were Holocaust survivors. He said his mom died in 9-11. She died in 2018. He lied about his education and pretty much all of his background. But his newest lie is that his niece was kidnapped by Chinese communists. Come on, no, I'm not making this up. He certainly is, okay, Vanity Fair reported on this.

Let's get into some of that. Santos speaking to the New York Times claimed he had a story that nobody talks about. I'm sorry, pause, no one's talking about it because it's not true because it never happened. How could they be talking about it? It's made up. Okay, I'm sorry, I'll continue. that his niece was kidnapped, likely in retaliation for his public comments about the Chinese Communist Party. He said, you think it was China?

Reporter, uh, or sorry, reporter Grace Ashford trying to nail him down asked. Look, I don't want to go into like conspiracy theory, he said, but you know if the shoe fits, right? Now after Santa's made that egregious slave, Grace Ashford did what any good journalists would do. And she looked into it. So she contacted three high ranking law enforcement officials who who told her this, the matter had been looked into and that there was no evidence of any kidnapping period or really any connection to the Chinese Communist Party. Quote, we found nothing at all to suggest it's true, the official told Ashford. I'd lead into he made it up. He made, that's coming from the high ranking law enforcement official. But I just can't figure out why. Why did he make it up?

And that is why I love George Santos. He is the chaotic, lying gay, and I love that for him. And honestly, Slay Queen, you continue to spread those lies in service of nothing. Inexplicable, I can't even fathom what the motivation is other than no one was paying attention to him for two seconds. So he had to say something crazy. I don't know, Jane, too many theories. Yeah, I do. That one actually, like, even though it sounds super funny, my niece was kidnapped by Chinese communists. I mean, after you already have a history of like outrageous lies, brother, you don't think we're going to figure out if your niece was kidnapped or not?

And we find her entirely unkidnapped, then what happens? You didn't think that one through? And so since it's like so over the top, it kind of like this is where the story in my mind took a turn. No, this dude's mentally unbalanced. Like, this is not a guy who is attached to reality because if you were just a normal liar and you're doing it for your own benefit, yeah, maybe you do, and you have no shame at all and you have no morality, no consciousness, no conscious. And maybe you do some of the things he did in the past ripping off veterans for your own benefit,

saying that you're going to make sure that you take care of other people's pets and then then you don't and they die or whatever, all the crazy, crazy stuff he did. But okay, it just means he's deeply immoral and he'll do anything for his own benefit. And he thought he wasn't going to get caught on those lines. But this one, of course he's going to get caught. And of course it's like literally insane. And then that made me think, oh, oh, I get it. He's literally insane.

He's mentally unbalanced. And some people just are. And they're detached from reality. And that's this brother right here. And so I don't think the issue is George Santos. I think the issue is the Republican Party. They keep following literal lunatics like Sidney Powell, totally lost their mind, right? They follow, Roseanne Bard, Ted Nugent, Glenn Beck, and of course, the top psycho, Donald Trump, they say outrageous things, not just lies, not just things that are immoral and terrible, but they'll say things that can't possibly make sense.

I'm stuck on this one because I think if you're a Republican and you've heard this, how does it not bother you? Donald Trump said he invented the word fake. Like what? He's an Austin Powers character. He's not even a James Bond villain. He's an Austin Powers villain. And so they're following this group of, I think, and I'm not exaggerating here, I think they're

literal lunatics. They're totally detached from reality. In George Santos's mind, his niece, was kidnapped by Chinese communists. And he's like, oh my God, is she in Shanghai or Sing Sang? He's trying to figure it out now. He's trying to, he's got a room probably in his house, and he's got like some things up on a board. And he's trying to figure out, could it be Beijing or do they mean Hong Kong?

I wonder where they kidnapped my niece. Because kuku for cocoa puffs. So I'll just- That excuse, Ray, I mean, you nailed it with, they're not coming for me. They're coming for you. Really? Why? Did you rip off veterans? Was your niece kidnapped by the Chinese communist?

Why would they come for you in that way? But it works really well. The minute Trump says that everybody's like, oh, take my money. I'm making $15,000 a year. Just take my money and spend it in your defense because you're so innocent. And so that's why they do stuff like this. I'll say there's also some blame to put on the mainstream media who did

investigations into all of the egregious lies that Santos told throughout his campaign after he won. Not until after he won the election and there was nothing we could do about it when they should have been fact checking his campaign while it was happening because it was almost immediate after the election. This huge write up came out about all of these lies and it's it feels wrong that the public didn't get this information until after they voted for him. Now they're stuck with him unless they're able to expel him from Congress, which is a hard thing to do. And there's some political ramifications to both doing it and not doing it for the Republicans that they're going to have to weigh. So who knows?

But I mean, they're stuck with this guy. And apparently these journalists knew he was lying for some time before they put out those reports. Yeah. Or they didn't bother checking because they thought, oh, a standard corporate Republican. Lovely. No problem at all, right? So when progressives like Nina Turner run or when I ran for Congress, the mainstream media goes out of their way to invent facts about us,

invent stuff and to try to smear us. But you have a bona fide lunatic running as a Republican, and they're like, ah, yeah, he's good. No, don't bother checking, don't bother checking. Shish, corporate Republicans and Democrats are awesome, okay? Now finally they're onto them and they're having fun with it. But like this guys, this isn't about Santos. This is about a party that constantly elects and follows people like George Santos.

And last thing, like we all make fun of George Santos. He's not popular among Republican voters either. We're the fairest, most honest show in America. So I'm not trying to put all of it on the Republican voters in this case. They didn't know that before they voted for Santos. And I saw a poll out Republicans in that district don't want him either, okay? But having said that, is there a significant chunk of the Republican base that'll believe anything? Well, we've seen the polling, it's about 37% of Republicans who there isn't any lie that Trump could say that they wouldn't believe.

And they sometimes will literally say that out loud, like not lie, but they'll say there's nothing you could say that would get me to believe that Donald Trump isn't telling the truth every single time. So there's a portion of the base that thinks JFK Jr. is going to come? back and never died and then he's the Q and none or whatever the hell they think, right? And my God, they got to be going nuts over RFK Jr. But is there some percentage that'll believe that George Santos's niece was actually kidnapped by Chinese communists? Yeah, probably. I'm afraid to ask what the percentage is.

So the problem is the party. Okay, we got to take a break here, guys. We're going to do something funky here. Francesca is on in the second hour but Ray and Francesca are going to do a segment and then I'm going to come back with Francesca after that so stay tuned here for all the funk

thanks for thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple podcast at apple.com slash t yt I'm your host jank yugar and I'll see you soon

Thank you.