The Young Turks - Alex Acosta RESIGNS

Episode Date: July 16, 2019

Trump's embattled Labor Secretary has resigned. Why is Trump constantly saying how much he doesn't like Jeffrey Epstein? 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Welcome, everybody as we close out this week on The Young Turks, I'm John Aderola. My co-host for earlier this week on The Damage Port.

Brooke is here. And Aaron is back as well. We've been on panels before. You're the host of Hysteria, the podcast, on Crooked Media. Yes, I am. Thank you so much for having me. And I think you were recently a guest. I was, and it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, it was just not this past week, but the week before. Yeah, it was so much fun. So for people who might not be familiar with the podcast, what's it about? It is a group of women talking about politics and their lives and the way those two things intersect, and it sort of refuses to be stupid, and it's a lot of fun. We swear, we tell stories. We have a segment called The Hills Will Die on, and Brooke talked about dogs eating out of human dishes for the Hill that she will die on. I think it should be a criminal offense.

There will never be a time when that's not what Brooke is talking about. Exactly, he knows me well, you guys, yeah, I don't know. It's a big issue, although I did a poll in the audience and they thought it was perfectly fine. They, because not everybody votes. That's true. Some people got so grossed out by the tweet that they kept scrolling. Well, look, aside from just dog bowls, we also have a lot of politics that we're gonna get to today, including the latest on Acosta, the political development's there. We got a feud, Donald Trump going after a former Speaker of the House, very entertaining stuff.

Ken Klippenstein has delivered again with some exclusive video showing CBP's attempt to ingratiate themselves to local communities in a way that's fairly disgusting. So we'll show you that. Another plan from Elizabeth Warren and the latest on our Kelly. A lot that we're gonna get to today. As we go through these stories, of course, you can be both sending you in messages if you're a member already or sending in tweets at hashtag TYTLive and we'll be reading them during the breaks. But with that, why don't we jump into the news of the day?

Shouldn't they go to TYT.com slash John? Well, that's if they're not members, but how would they have gotten this far and not been members? You know, you're right. But that's true. If you have not, either t.yt.com slash trial to get a free one week membership at TYT. Sometimes I'm nice.

Thank you. That's very nice. Something something dog bowls. Okay, let's proceed with the news then. There's been a lot of pressure mounting over the past week or so for Secretary Acosta to step down owing to his involvement in the about a decade ago, sweetheart deal that billionaire financier Epstein got, he of course is facing new charges, and Acosta actually has some developments as well. We had been wondering, was he going to bow to pressure?

Well, as of this morning, he and the president went before the cameras, and here's some of what Donald Trump said in that case. I got a call this morning early from Alex, and I think he did a very good job yesterday. Under a lot of pressure, he did a fantastic job, and he explained it. And he made a deal that people were happy with and then 12 years later they're not happy with it. You'll have to figure all of that out. And Alex called me this morning and he wanted to see me. And I actually said, well, we have the press right out here.

So perhaps you just want to say it to the press. But I just want to let you know this was him, not me, because I'm with him. He was a, he's a tremendous talent. He's a Hispanic man. He went to Harvard, a great student. And in so many ways, I just hate what he's saying now. So one of my favorite things about the news today was for a while trending on Twitter, there was he's a Hispanic, and when you click on it, it was basically just people saying, I knew

what this was going to be about before I clicked on it. Also, it seems so weird to describe a man that old as a great student. It just seems. Yeah. Yeah, I think the richer you are, the longer you get to be a boy. Okay, is that how it works? Yeah. Got it.

He's gonna be a boy till he's 80. Okay, got it. That just seems like he's a great student. Oh, that was a long time. But you're right. So then this is progress that he is going to step down. He'll be replaced by some other troglodyte, but he doesn't get to continue as Secretary of Labor.

So victory? Yeah. I guess. Yeah, I think it's a victory because yesterday when he did that really defensive presser, it was pretty clear that he didn't want to step down. He honestly believed that the real hero was him. himself, and he didn't really think that he'd done anything wrong. He was trying to save his job.

And I guess people didn't let up on him, and that's why he decided to step down. And so I do think it's a victory in a certain way until we find out who the next person is. I agree. I just think that this administration has been so just refusing to have anything to do with what the public says, what a big portion of the public wants and says and is screaming. And the public won, the normal people who believe that child rapists are bad. they won.

Yeah. And he stepped down after an embarrassing deal that he was a part of, and I'm surprised. It wasn't only embarrassing, it was full on illegal and predatory and evil in ways that are sort of unfathomable. As this story has unfolded, I keep thinking, how does it keep getting worse? How does it keep involving more and more people that absolutely should have nothing to do with child sex trafficking? How are this many people able to be involved in something that was a secret for so long?

It's crazy to me. Actually, and related to that, I do want to say one more thing about that last video. Before that, just in case you have not been following the developments for Epstein over the past week, Epstein was charged on Monday with sex trafficking and conspiracy. And prosecutors alleged that he molested dozens of girls as young as 14 in a sex trafficking operation that ran from at least 2002 to 2005. But by the way, since this story has reentered the public consciousness, at least a dozen new victims have come forward to claim they were sexually abused by Jeffrey.

Even as the multi-millionaire money manager tries to convince a federal judge to allow him to await a sex trafficking trial from the comfort of the same $77 million mansion in Manhattan where he's accused of luring teenage girls and unwanted sex acts. So there are a lot of new victims, but we already knew about a lot of victims for some time. And that's why, although we are going to have Acosta's video in just a second, what Trump said there is horrible. And Donald Trump seems to have some sort of biological inability to ever. not be an a whole.

Because what he said there was, you know, it was a dozen years ago, it was a deal people were happy with, no, they're not happy. Who was happy? Literally the only people where it matters if they were happy with that deal are the victims, the children who were raped. They weren't happy, and they weren't even told about it until it was already done. All of that, we've known for a long time, Donald Trump knew that before he spoke this morning, and yet even though Acosta is stepping down, he still felt the need to imply that this guy,

Epstein, who he says he's not a fan of, he says he doesn't respect, there was a fine deal. You know, he spent a couple hours and night in jail for a year. That seems fine and commensurate after you've raped dozens of women. He does, oh no, I was just gonna, I was just gonna say, another thing is that Donald Trump does this in the context of men that he likes being accused of crimes specifically against women. He cannot resist the urge to support a man who has been accused of victimizing women. From the White House staffer who was accused of Rob Portman.

Rob Portman, beating two of his wives and, you know, Brett Kavanaugh. And the list just goes on and on and on. And actually, I believe one of his early cabinet nominees had to step down because they were engaged in a high profile domestic violence case as well. And Trump still supported him. He's never met a man who abuses women and is white that he won't side with. That is just, that's his brand at this point. And I'm not surprised, but I'm always a little disappointed by it.

Yeah. Well, why don't we move to Acosta who's going to give a little bit more about the decision that he made to step down? Over the last week, I've seen a lot of coverage of the Department of Labor. And what I have not seen is incredible job creation that we've seen in this economy, more than 5 million jobs. I have seen coverage of this case that is over 12 years old that had input and betting at multiple levels of Department of Justice. And as I look forward, I do not think it is right and fair

for this administration's labor department to have Epstein as the focus rather than the incredible economy that we have today. And so I called the president this morning. I told him that I thought the right thing was to step aside. You know, cabinet positions are temporary trust. It would be selfish for me to stay in this position. and continue talking about a case that's 12 years old rather than about the amazing economy we have right now. And so I submitted my resignation to the president. Okay, so again, we're sort of getting a victory here, but on the way out, Donald

Trump and Acosta want to make sure that you know that they're not doing this because they get that people are frustrated with Acosta holding a position of power after he went out of his way to help a billionaire avoid consequences for his crimes, they're only doing it because you fools are obsessed with old stuff and you can't move on from a 12 year old thing and people were happy then, why are you complaining now? He likes to appear in control. He likes to appear, excuse me, in control of a situation, even if it's a bad situation. Because if Facosta ends up saying something about how Trump is ridiculous and it pops up

in some book, in some interview, someone says he said it, we'll get all the nasty tweets about how he was horrible, he was dumb, that's why he had to be fired. That's why it happens every time when somebody comes out. In the next block it's going to happen to another person, but it happens, yeah, it happens every time. So you never even know. I don't even know if he believes what he's saying. Nothing is the truth. Here's what I wonder, where's Mike Pence and why aren't we giving him a lot more crap about this?

Because he's still, he's stood by a person who is morally irreparable for his entire career as vice president. But now he's actually kind of quietly trying to blend in with. with a wallpaper when this is going on, when his boss is yet again, defending someone who is actually involved in helping someone get off for trafficking children. So it's like, you know, we need, in the midst of all of this, I think it's easy to pay attention to the loudest voice, to pay attention to Donald Trump, braying and tweeting, but let's also pay attention to the people trying to just be quiet and hope this all passes them by.

The respectable Republicans who are conservatives, who, you know, wear crosses on their lapels, and yet they're fine with all of this. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess sort of related to that. I mean, certainly you have the, his aides and all the people in the White House that were, I mean, some of them have been there since the Rob Portman thing and they stood by there. They watched, as you pointed out with Brett Kavanaugh when Donald Trump not only spoke out in defense of Kavanaugh, but in front of cheering crowds of 10,000 of tens of thousands of people with red hats, slut shamed Christine Blasey Ford, as if it was some sort of fun joke to pretend that she's been making this up for literally decades.

And there are a lot of people standing by and allowing that to continue, many of them Republicans, but some Democrats who don't necessarily want a lot of scrutiny on Donald Trump right now. I would put Nancy Pelosi at the top of that list. She too, I think, is hoping to sort of just, you know, back up into a bush, and then in a year and a half, hey, we won the White House, suddenly I can supposedly do my job. Right. Yeah, you know, that's an interesting thing about Epstein.

Epstein was an avowed Democrat for a lot of his life. He gave a lot of money to Democratic causes. And he just seemed to like rich people. He wasn't really one thing or the other, but anyway, he hung up with Bill Clinton a lot. I'm sure there are a lot of people in both parties who are very established who don't want this Epstein thing to drag out anymore because they will be implicated someone they know will be implicated and they will be or they'll be implicated in knowing more and not doing anything about it.

Yeah. Well, why don't we turn to one more video from that? Donald Trump wants to make sure that, you know, he doesn't get the blame, I guess, for Acosta being pushed out. He's making clear that it's Acosta's decision. but he also does not want any connection whatsoever to Epstein himself. And considering some of the things that he's said about him in the past, there have been lingering questions, including this morning, as you'll see.

I was not a fan of Jeffrey Epstein, and you watched people yesterday saying that I threw him out of a club, I didn't want anything to do with him. That was many, many years ago. It shows you one thing that I have good taste, okay? Now, other people, they went all over with him, they went to his island, they went all over the place. He was very well known in Palm Beach. His island, whatever his island was wherever it is, I was never there. Find out the people that went to the island. But Jeffrey Epstein was not somebody that I respected. I threw him out. Okay, so he has been sticking with this.

I haven't talked to him for 15 years. I don't know that there's evidence that he has spoken with him or had a relationship with him since then. So it's possible that that's true. But he's, I I think he's trying to have too much with this defense. I mean, it's one thing to say, I didn't talk to him after 2003 or 2005 whenever it is. But to pretend that I was never a fan of him, I mean, you talked about being friends with them for 15 years. You praised him, not in general, but specifically for the things he did that turned out to be highly criminal.

That was the area of his life that Donald Trump always praised him on and said that he seems to have a great taste for these beautiful women. He likes him really young. According to Roger Stone, he commented on seeing a swimming pool full of what looked like the neighborhood kids at his house, and he liked, he praised his social life in his words. Yeah, not only were you friends, and it was, of course, at some point, maybe you didn't respect him, but you hung out with him, so you didn't respect yourself enough to hang out with someone that you didn't respect, and hang out with him so tough that at one point, reportedly, you two

were the only guest at a party. I mean, with 28 women brought in to entertain them. It's entertainment, which is horrible, disgusting. Let's not forget that Trump himself ran a modeling agency at one point as well, that had some kind of, we're not really exactly sure how that immigration thing worked and what the models were actually doing and how successful they actually became. But I also think Trump told on himself a little bit here when he said that, you know, he was in, he was well known in West Palm Beach. People were going to this island. So did Trump also know that this stuff was going on and didn't say anything? Because that's what it sounds like he's admitting, is that, oh, yeah, everybody knew about this.

Everybody knew this guy, he was famous, but I didn't like him because I have good taste. Well, then why didn't you tell anybody? Good taste is telling the police if you know that there's somebody trafficking children through your neighborhood, even if he, we buy his explanation that he wasn't friends with EPSC, which I don't buy. And it's, of course, nonsense. I mean, there is no one that I'm going to go to a party with where me and that other person are the only people, and I'm not a fan of them. Then why are you going to the party with them? Why are you bringing in dozens of models to dance for you and this guy who you don't respect and you're not a fan of?

I mean, that's a very difficult, I guess, facade to try to maintain. It was like a sexy gladiator fight to the death situation where the models all encircle you and you both fight until one of you dies. I'd buy tickets. Okay. That sounds pretty good. And the thing is, again, like I feel the need to say all this, it shouldn't, it should be a needless caveat, but we don't know that Donald Trump necessarily did anything wrong, except

Apparently, he knew that things were going on and he just let it continue, which is bad enough by itself, if you know that someone is breaking the law, especially exploiting children, especially sexually, the onus should be on you as a human, let alone to millions of Americans, I guess, the avatar of God himself, the onus should be on you to do something about it. Not only should you be a person who should do something about it, you should also be a person who wouldn't want to hire the man who orchestrated this person essentially getting night jail. Exactly. For a few months. Yeah. And then on top of it though, none of this is proof of anything, but now this just put out a video I think yesterday, a great video of all the things that Donald Trump has said about young girls over the past few decades.

And he talks about the first time he saw Paris Hilton at 12 and he commented on who the hell was that, like that she was 12 and he already thought she was a great beauty, a world-class beauty. And it just time after time after time, a lot of the times he was so confident that he was saying it on camera in front of other people. He was bragging about it with Howard Stern about how he'd see a 14 year old and thinking a few years I'll be dating them or a couple years sometimes he'd say. He talked about some 17 and 18 year old who was trying to be a flight attendant or something.

And he asked, well, does she have any experience? And he's told known, he's like, well, hire her. She's 17. It's just a really weird pattern of behaviors that make it a little bit more difficult for you to spin a continuing story that you've never been involved in any of this stuff. viscerally opposed to anyone who was, well, then why have you been bragging about how hot you think kids are this whole time? Right.

Again, not proof of anything, and we'll have to wait to find out. Okay, we do have to move on though, we're gonna take a short break, we come back, feud between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan, where no one comes out the winner. Welcome back to the first hour of the Young Turks, I'm John, joined by Aaron and Brooke, and we wanna read some of your comments before we return to the news, Gabby Marita said, why is it that this administration is just a... 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 UNF-F-E-NFRA, or UNF. 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 unlearn what you 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. Swarm with predators, domestic abusers, and outright criminals. The fish rots from the head. Yeah, we found a lot of them. And occasionally they've been pushed out, but not really much else. But beyond that has happened for them. Collecting miscellaneous says, Acosta listened to widespread public calls criticizing him and is now resigned. Donald Trump, it's time to follow his lead. I would not wait for that, especially with no pressure coming from Democratic leadership.

Did he at the president, though? Because if you at the president, you tweet at him, then maybe he'll see it and be like, I resign. Yeah. Good point. Right. Let's see. Eddie O'Donnell says once again Trump paints himself as pure as the driven snow, which is just

that's a tough, that's a tough task if that's your job and that's what he's trying to go with. Let's see, Anam Leath says, because 12 years after none of those women could possibly still have nightmares, PTSD, find themselves losing jobs over what was posted on the internet. Nah, none of them are suffering. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I didn't watch every minute of that press conference, but I didn't get from either of them any lingering concern for the women who were exploited. Yes.

The concern is always the men whose lives have been ruined by this. It's because they can't empathize with women. They are more, they can only, they don't see women as human and they don't see women who in any way accepted money for sex as human. I didn't watch the press there all the way either because I have a hard time looking at Alex Acosta's face, because it's a bad face. That's not the best. No, it's not a good face.

But you're right, there's absolutely no contrition whatsoever. Yeah, you're right, what you said was right. They feel like, they can't have sympathy for a woman because that is your role. Being abused, being treated like that, that's your role. But oh my goodness, this man lost his job. Oh no. I have a job. Right, exactly.

Right. Yeah. I mean, Donald Trump used to host these sorts of shows, and he'd had a modeling agency, and he'd use them for his own personal pleasure, like walking in on them when they're changing, seeing underage girls and things like that. Like, the idea that that guy is going to have a lot of empathy for women who are suffering is hard to believe. But with that, why don't we jump back into the news?

Paul Ryan was just the worst. He's moved on, but the memory of how bad he was as Speaker of the House continues, and it's being dredged up because he was interviewed for a recent book talking about the Trump administration, and the comments that he made about Donald Trump have drawn the ire of Donald Trump. Here are a few of the things Paul Ryan said. This is for Tim Alberta's American Carnage. He said, we've gotten so numbed by it all, not in government, but where we live our lives.

We have a responsibility to try and rebuild. Don't call a woman a horse face. Don't cheat on your wife. Don't cheat on anything. Be a good person. Set a good example. So that, I mean, that should, I would count that as like criticism of the president. Like, yeah, you should not call women hoarse face.

I mean, he's not gonna like the pointing out that he's cheated on his wife and all that. There's gonna be more comments, but that one right there probably by itself would have been enough to get Donald Trump to do a tweet storm. I would guess. Yeah, you know. Against Paul Ryan, a guy that already near the end of his time in Congress, he was not a fan of. It's what happened, I guess. Paul Ryan does not deserve to have people be fans of him because he's the worst. He's the worst, he's the limp noodle of democracy.

I wanna know how many trees had to die in order to print this book that proves that Paul Ryan was born without a spine. How many trees? I feel bad for the trees. I knew- Oh my goodness. I knew that he was just, yeah, this- Oh, no, no. That was one of my Halloween costumes actually. Oh, that's a good one.

This is a Brett Ehrlich doing, I'm sure. That's cool. So wait, so you pointed out that he was the worst. So to you, looking back on the time when Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House, who was he? What did he accomplish? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He successfully convinced some of the Washington Press Corps that,

that he was a brainiac wonk without having any receipts, any accomplishments, any good ideas, aside from these sort of anecdotal stories of standing around a keg and talking about taking Medicare away from people. It's just a big loser, bro, who found himself in way over his head, and when he finally got a chance to prove that he was capable or not capable, he proved that he was inept. And then he kind of tried to fade away, and now he's going to make a lot of money on speaking fees, because the world isn't fair. He didn't pass the tax cuts.

This is also like the Spider-Man meme. It is two men telling the truth about each other after they've somewhat supported each other. Well, we're gonna get to both sides so that you'll see. We'll judge if Trump is being honest with him. If you are interested in wasting some more trees, I actually, I don't know anything about the book. But America's Carnage by Politico's Tim Alberta depicts a Republican Party that at first struggled with Trump's rise during the campaign before gradually coming to terms of

them as president. It's totally joking there. I actually have no idea where the book comes out on Donald Trump. But I do want to give you a little bit more from Paul Ryan. I told myself, I got to have a relationship with this guy talking about Trump to help him get his mind right because I'm telling you, he didn't know anything about government. I wanted to scold him all the time. So, I mean, first of all, who doesn't know that Donald Trump didn't know anything about government?

And if this is the criticism that you've been sort of holding in your back pocket until you're out of office, the spotlight's off of you, I would rate this as light criticism. Yeah, why is he, why is Paul Ryan sounding like me dating really bad guys in my 20s? Like, I can change him. He's terrible, but I can be the one to fix him. Nobody's fixed Donald Trump. He's an 80-year-old man. He is who he is, and that's who he's always going to be.

That comparison actually sort of continues in this next comment. Paul said, those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad decisions all the time. We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was, now I think he's making some of these knee-jerk reactions. This is, so it's- He understands Trump better than other people, and he stopped him from chugging paint, I don't know, he made him a better guy. It's also so unfair, like I didn't do anything when it matters, but now that I don't have that option anymore, I want you all to like me, so now I'm going to pretend like I didn't

turn a blind eye and help this awful man get there and fully support him and not really care about any of you, but listen, I want you all, I want to make money, I want you to watch me, I want you to see me, I want you to read me, whatever else he has planned, it's just unfair because this is the same thing over and over and over again. Yeah. I knew it was bad all along. I just didn't do anything about it, didn't say anything about it. Yeah, I believe in forgiveness, generally speaking, but I think all of these people who work

alongside Trump, who enable him and then kind of want to come back and have a career as a pundit, have a book, be somebody that gives speeches to colleges and isn't protested. They should all have to go to an island for like the amount of time that they worked under Trump before they're able to reenter society. Like you can reenter, but you gotta go to Trump Island for like two years, and then maybe we'll talk. Yeah, they seem to think that it's enough to- After, I think they should have to stay. You think they have to stay?

Yeah, there are babies in cages. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. He thinks he's spent six months or whatever in the darkness. I haven't seen much from him and now he comes out with this. And look, maybe he was just interviewed, and he's being honest, but it could be that he's trying to make his reentry.

I don't know, maybe he wants to be on Chuck Todd's show, maybe he sees an interview on Bill Marr in his future or something. But there is a risk as well for Paul Ryan, and that is that if you say anything negative about Donald Trump, it doesn't matter what he said about you in the past, he's going to come after you. And look, this is really light criticism. But he did use the term knee jerk, and there's a chance that Trump thinks that's an insult. So here's what he said on Twitter, Paul Ryan, the failed VP candidate and former Speaker

of the House, whose record of achievement was atrocious, except during my first two years as president, because he has to imply that those years were good. He has to. Ultimately became a long-running lame duck failure, leaving his party in the lurch, both as a fundraiser and leader. When Mitt chose Paul, I told people that's the end of the presidential run. He quit Congress because he didn't know how to win, capitalized. They gave me standing O's in the great state of Wisconsin and booed him off the stage.

He promised me the wall and failed, happening anyway. Because again, all these failures are really bad, but don't mean anything because Trump's still gonna win. He had the majority and blew it away with his poor leadership and bad timing, never knew how to go after the Dems like they go after us, couldn't get him out of Congress fast. I mean, the funny thing there is that Paul Ryan, by the time they lost the majority, Paul Ryan had already announced his retirement months and months before. The leader of the party, even the self-identified leader, was Donald Trump.

And the Democrats ran against Donald Trump. They weren't going around the country talking about Paul Ryan. So if anything, dude, look in the mirror if you want to know how they lost the majority. Well, right, and let's talk about Wisconsin. That's my home state. Let's talk about what happened in Wisconsin in 2018, because Trump was doing these rallies all over the place. And Wisconsin very decisively turned to Democrats.

We elected a Democratic governor, despite the gerrymandering, we made some gains in the statehouse. We reelected Tammy Baldwin. Like, Wisconsin is on the up and up. And part of it is because people are mad about Donald Trump. They don't really like him. They don't like him as much as they did in 2016. And that's just continuing to go down like this. Because for reasons that I cannot ascertain people in Wisconsin do still kind of like Paul

Ryan. Really? A little bit. And that was one of the important states the last go around. And it's one that Donald Trump is going to need to hold on to. Yeah, and I doubt his chances because he cannot, he cannot resist being a bull in a China shop no matter where he goes. Yeah, well, considering how much financial damage Paul Ryan did to the country in passing

those tax cuts, even though he said that they were always going to be revenue neutral, and then he caved to that almost instantly, and it represented trillions of dollars going to wealthy people who didn't need the money. Just because of that, I want to read just one or two more of the attacks against him. The criticism went on into the press conference with Trump saying, Paul Ryan was not a talent, he was no leader, he wouldn't get subpoenas, when Nancy Pelosi hands them out like their cookies, he was unable to raise money, he lost control of the house, The only success Paul Ryan had was the time he was with me.

And the thing is, I just wanna like to like close off the loop. It never really means anything if Donald Trump criticizes someone or compliments them, because the criticisms and compliments are so contingent on how does he feel right then. Nothing ever matters. I mean, he said he has a record of failure except the two years with me. But previously, back in April of 2018, Donald Trump tweeted, Speaker Paul Ryan is a truly good man, and while he will not be seeking re-election, he will leave a legacy of achievement that nobody can question.

We are with you, Paul. Well, a year later, nobody questioned it, and that nobody was Donald Trump. He's not with him anymore, though. Honestly, like this lover's quarrel or whatever, I'm trying to imagine if female politicians talked to and about each other like this, the ridiculous, sexist words that would be slung back and forth in the media about how they're acting. First of all, to be clear, nobody should be acting like this. Right.

Super unprofessional. Nobody should be talking about their former colleagues like this. Maybe Donald Trump, I mean, but it's, this is totally unprofessional, unbecoming behavior. It's unnecessary. And it's so, and it's sort of making me think that maybe men are too emotional to lead. Is that what he is? Yeah.

Are we ready for a male president? I don't know. Can their emotions handle it? I expect a Ben Shapiro monologue about what you just said coming up tomorrow. Okay, with that said, why don't we turn to? Ken Clippenstein had a great find that I want to show people. Right now it's not a great time for ICE, the Border Patrol. Those sorts of agencies are developing a bit of a bad reputation.

And so to some extent, they kind of need to ingratiate themselves to local communities. And they do that sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad ways. Ken Clippenstein of TYT Investigates was sent an exclusive video showing an event where the CBP was doing some work to try to get along better with the local community, including with kids. So take a look at what was revealed. So if it's not clear what the CBP teaching a kid, hey, wouldn't it be fun if you knew how to break down doors with a battering ram the way we do. And so the kid learns and has fun pretending to bust down a door. That's cute.

No, it was horrifying. It's like, what do you want this little kid to be? Lil fascists. It's like, because Boy Scouts are too liberal now, so they're going to start a little fascist club. I'm truly upset and confused at the cruelty displayed by Customs and Border Patrol. They're, the between the seal, the collective coin that was passed around making fun of migrants. Over the last, and then the Facebook groups that were super misogynist, that that that Thousands of members were a part of, it seems like just a purely poisonous culture, and

it seems like this is just another mark against them. It is always going to be wild to me at what the links that people are willing to go to, I guess, get back at who they feel are their enemies by using children. Like we saw all of those kids at Trump rallies, we still see it, all those kids with horrible t-shirts on saying horrible things, we see, you know, that the little kid that they have dressed in mocking AOC, the child who doesn't seem old enough to even understand what she's doing. And now this child who may not be old enough to participate in, you know, an actual ICE raid,

but we'll go back to school and be able to molt any kid, not saying this kid specifically, but this type of behavior and this rhetoric that does make its way into schools where there are little brown kids, where there are other kids whose parents fight against this who who learn these things, who say these things. And I don't know, I just think about the racism and nastiness that's already running rampant through elementary schools, because that's how old that kid looked. And it's an adult, because I can't think of what possibly could have been with her. I didn't hear, you know, audio, I didn't hear the speech given before this, why this kid

needed to know this, why this was something cool for a kid, what their actual excuse was. But it's gross to me. I can't think of anything good. I think the context that the, they're maybe trying to, okay. Okay, there are two different possible contexts, right? So maybe, oh, we're breaking down a door and we're getting out undocumented people who are just kind of peacefully in a home. That's a messed up thing to teach a kid to do.

But it's also messed up to be like, hey, we're breaking into this place full of crimes where you could get shot at. Like every scenario where a kid would be pretending to use a battering ram is something that a kid should not be thinking about or embodying in any way. Yeah, and of course, I mean, what, what, if you're thinking about doors being busted down by a battering ram, right now in our political context, what are you thinking about? Probably the massive raids that Donald Trump says are gonna deport literally millions of people. I mean, especially when a border patrol employee is teaching you.

No, it's likely that, I mean, that's absurd and it would be far too expensive and far too complicated. They're not actually going to do it, but the goal is there. And so right now, like, that's the context of this exists. And I'm sure that there are some people in these agencies that care about law. order or whatever and are not driven by misogy or racism, I guess, but like you've got to know who you're working for right now. And while these agencies do have a job and hypothetically can do good, is that what Donald

Trump and Stephen Miller are using them for right now? Is that the goal? The goal isn't just order, and then there's some suffering, unfortunately, it's we want suffering, we want cruelty, we want to scare people away from coming here. And to do that, like Stephen Miller isn't going to be mistreating these kids. kids, unless he's got some sort of personal relationship set up with one of these facilities I don't know about, they're going to do it. And so whether you sign up for ICE or the Border Patrol, because you just care about

securing this country, you are a tool of oppression and suffering right now just by the very nature of the administration that controls you. And you mentioned the coins. Obviously that video was terrible, thank you to whoever it was sent it into Ken and Ken with a great write-up about it on TYt.com. But there are other issues. If we could skip ahead, you're going to see this coin, which somebody made and has been sending around, and you can keep that up.

On the front, you're seeing keep the caravans coming under an image of a massive parade of people carrying a Honduran flag. Coins reverse side features the Border Patrol logo in three illustrations, one of a Border Patrol agent bottle feeding an infant, an agent fingerprinting a teen boy wearing a backwards baseball cap, and a U.S. Border Patrol van with text saying feeding, processing, hospital, transport. Government officials told ProPublica, the coin was not approved or paid for by the government. One custom and border patrol official who was not authorized to give his name, characterized the coin as something that somebody's doing on their free time, comparing it to

woodworking. And in fact, these coins have been found at places in California and in Texas. So all over the place. And they were promoted by that great Facebook group that made news a couple of weeks ago. Right. Somebody having this in their pocket is not simply doing their job. They're not simply just, you know, they have to be there, they have a job. That's not someone who just cares about bond order and who cares about people. Why would you have that in your pocket?

Why don't you want that? Because you're very, very lame. You're extremely lame. I can think of nothing lamer than making a custom coin designed to victimize and make fun of migrants who are suffering. So lame, you want to make pogs and trade pogs? What are these people doing? What kind of person?

Like I said before, what kind of person wants to work in a place like that? Yeah, exactly. And, I mean, the issue really, I think, is the culture. I mean, in that ProPublica report where they talked about that Facebook group, they also talked about, like, you see not only the worst kinds of racism in the messages that were posted there, but also crazy, violent and sexual misogyny as well. And they've said that some of these agencies have had a hard time getting women to join up for a lot. long time because of how baked in the misogyny is in those groups. And so even if you're even if you're one of these people that like just wants security or whatever, you get in there and you're going to be surrounded by a lot of people who are going to be telling racist jokes,

saying horrific things about women, migrants and all that. And we also can't forget about the effect of the leadership because we just found out a new detail about the leadership of this organization. Carla Provost, who's the Border Patrol chief, she had released a statement expressing outrage after it was reported that current and former agents made xenophobic, misogynistic, and racist comments in that Facebook group, turns out she was a member of the group, which did not make it into her statement condemning it just a couple of weeks ago. She somehow forgot to mention that she had not only been a part of the group, but had posted in it previously.

I want to make a glass ceiling joke about how no women can be as big of jerks as men, but I'm too tired. I'm so tired. It'll wear you out. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take our second break. When we come back, we've got a new immigration plan from Elizabeth Warren. We're going to break that down as well as the most recent updates, the legal struggle for R. Kelly.

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 segment. Welcome back to the first hour of the young turkey. 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.

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months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXP-R-E-S-V-P-N. com slash t-y-t. Check it out today. Everybody, before we jump back into it, I do want to read some comments. First, from the members, Tootless Bus Boy says, why didn't Paul Ryan have that energy when he was a speaker or congressman? Yeah, that's true. Although, like, obviously, I wish that this entire time more of the Republicans in power had stood up to Donald Trump. And if they had done it early on, it might have worked.

But I mean, after he's president, I sort of get it. That is a rabid, crazy group of people. And literally everyone on the Republican side who has even just been like, by the way, this seems kind of wrong, they're thrown out of the party instantly, set on fire. So great, because- So I sort of get it. You're not- I get it. Like a victim of like the ice raids. Like you should still do it.

You should want to be kicked out of the party that does what they're doing at the border right You should want that. You should not want to be a part of the party that sends their Justice Department to argue that kids don't deserve soap and toothpaste. Right. Like, yes, you should want that. This is a funding issue. It's a terrible situation to just, look, they're doing all of this just for their jobs.

On the other hand, you've got people fighting for their actual lives, and it's just so you can keep your job, your cool job. I'm not saying it's cool, I'm saying that's what it is. Like, no, it's absurd. I don't understand it at all. You've got to be a better person. Super fast question because Dennis says Paul Ryan wants to be president, that's why he walked. And I kind of agree, I think he wants to run again. And he thinks, okay, I'm gonna keep my head down.

Trump will eventually succumb to, you know, all the Big Macs and everything. And then I can come back and be president. You shouldn't want to be, I agree. Right. But if you're Paul Ryan, what do you do? Paul Ryan. The people who vote for your party are crazy. Yeah.

Paul Ryan is not that exciting. And I think that in the post-Trump era for better or for worse, people will not settle for candidates that aren't in some way exciting. It's why Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are mounting such a challenge to the party establishment in the polls. I think both of them are much more exciting to watch, to listen to than, you know, like a Joe Biden. And I think that Paul Ryan wants to go back to a time that doesn't exist. Never will exist again. We're never going to have another boring president, for better or for worse. Yeah.

I want us to have a boring president. You don't? I do. You do. Like when we talk about like, oh, this is their job, they want to stay there. It's not really about, sure, part of this is about like wanting to keep his job in Congress at that moment, wanting to maybe be president in the future. But there is still a part of this that he supported this.

He sat back and did nothing because this is of this. I don't believe that you go this far and that you sit back and do nothing and that you support it and that you let it slide until it's time for you to, you can use it. that you speaking out against it is only for your advantage. If you don't go along with any of this unless you don't vote for it, you don't support it, you don't work for it, you don't go along with any of this unless it is a little bit a part of you. So that's really, I think that's the main reason why he went along with all of this, because

this is him. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree and bear in mind, I mean, who, in terms of thinkers, philosophers, who does he like? He likes Anne Rand, who might be one of the only people crazier than Trump, actually. Who would have hated Paul Ryan? Let's just reflect on how much Ayn Rand would have hated Paul Ryan. She was very, very pro, she was pro-abortion. She was beyond pro-choice.

She was like pro-abortion. So she would have hated him. One thing I think that is a problem for the spineless members of the Republican Party is I think people over a certain age don't mentally know how to process social media. And so they think that Twitter is real life. It's why like half of Brett Stevens columns exist. Like they think that Twitter is real. They don't understand that there's a disconnect between blowback on social media.

an actual real-life blowback. Most real Americans in most parts of the country are not constantly glued to Twitter. They're not, it's, and so when people get mad at you on social media, if you critique the president and the president tweets at you, so turn off your computer and walk away. Yeah. It's, it'll be, you might have a few days where your mentions are a mess, but it's okay. Just, it's not real life. And I think that there's a whole demographic of people mostly over 50 who don't understand

that Twitter isn't real. And so they're afraid to confront somebody who might inspire Twitter blowback. Yeah. I don't think you find anybody in this building who knows that Twitter isn't real. I'm wondering if there's a certain doctor you went to that helped you come to this, help you understand this because I'd like to go. Well, Brooke, you know when like something happens and like there's a, you say something that's maybe a little bit wrong and a bunch of people come for you, you can just kind of,

you know that you can step away and shut it off. It doesn't traumatize it. Can you show me how after this? Okay, yes, I will. And then I'll tweet it out. I'll read it there. Yeah, just bear in mind 96% of Americans don't tweet about politics. Yes.

that read tweets about politics, but only about 4% actually post tweets about politics. We love the guys that do, everybody who knew messages us, but it is a very self-selected group. It's one of the most self-selected groups that engages in this sort of way in a public way. But with that, why don't we jump into one more story. We don't have much time, but I do want to talk about this. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had the first debates, and I've actually noticed it since then. I feel like the candidates have sort of been keeping a low profile. There was the flare up between Biden and Harris, but there haven't been a lot of really like

bold new ideas that I've seen, considering how many candidates there are that have come out in the time since then. But we do have one that we wanna talk about that, and that is Elizabeth Warren finally releasing her ideas of what she would do on immigration. She did it in the way that she's released a lot of these on a detailed post on Medium. That's available if you wanna read and get a lot more details about it. But there are some highlights from the plan that we wanna talk about. Some are the sorts of ideas that a lot of people are talking about.

I'm sure she's gonna get hard debate questions about. So let's talk about a few of these. First, as president, she says, I will immediately issue guidance to end criminal prosecutions for simple administrative immigration violations and operations streamline, which subjects migrants to mass prosecutions, and refocus our limited resources on actual criminals and real threats to the United States. So there's a few things there, but the biggest and probably the ones that didn't get the most headlines out of this to the extent that headlines will ever be generated by

policy discussions, is that they will, she does plan to decriminalize border crossings. She's a great idea. Shouldn't be treating people like murderers because they want to save their lives. They want, nobody wants to leave their homes. Nobody wants to leave their homes. And it's just such, the way it's set up right now, it's awful. There are people who are trying to do it, they leave away and get stopped. They get blocked, they're not able to.

And I just don't think crossing the border illegally should put you in what amounts to a prison. And you find yourself drinking water out of a toilet. Right. No, it should be a civil offense. Like, yes, nobody should be thrown in handcuffs or shackled and taken away from their breastfeeding baby. No. Yes.

I mean, that seems logical. Well, she also, in the plan, she also wanted to make it so that violating the law by crossing the border wasn't going to be something that was a strike against you when you tried to become a citizen, which is a novel idea. It's already very hard to become a citizen, and that seems like a kind of garbage reason to not allow somebody to go through the process. Yeah, let's get me to some more details. I'll issue guidance ensuring that detention is only used where it's actually necessary

because an individual poses a flight or safety risk. I will put additional layers of protection in place for certain groups, including asylum seekers, families, and pregnant women, and LGBTQ plus people who are more vulnerable in a general detention facility. And I'll enforce strict standards from remaining detention facilities, including for medical care and to end the use of solitary confinement. I'll end the contracts ICE has with private detention providers and push for legislation to permanently ban for profit detention.

So I don't know for sure built into that if she would also oppose for profit prisons. I have a feeling that she's already on the record about that. But I like that she's tied together this sort of holistic view to how we reformed detention facilities now, actually making them relatively safe, especially for groups that are being the most victimized right now, trying to make sure that people who are only in it for the money are not getting contracts, increasing contracts under Donald Trump from ICE, and eventually pushing to ban them all together seems like good changes. That was one of my favorite parts of the plan, which I read in its entirety.

It was, I think that there is also a part of the plan shortly after that, which he talks about holding people accountable for cruelties committed during the Trump years, which I I thought was a very bold and kind of appealed to my angry side about what's going on. Because Brooke, you seem like you're not very happy about what's going on either. There's a part of me that wants to see these people who are taking babies away from their moms punished. And Warren suggests that we maybe should consider doing that. Yeah.

I think that's a great idea. Yeah. And you really, I mean, we, there's never any consequences for anything. But that woman provost who was, you know, chief of Border Patrol, like what else was she posting in that group? And what else does she know? I'm just willing to lie about her presence in that group. What else might she know about what's going on in Border Patrol?

Kirsten Nielsen, who she put up sort of token resistance to some of these policies. How involved was she this entire time? I fear that the best we ever hope for is to get these people out of their positions. And then once they move on, we just forget about them. But they were in a position to do something and some might have. Stephen Miller, at some point, we're gonna look into what he's actually said about these policies in government communications. Yeah, we talk about that. I think we talk about this all the time, like when we talk about, like, yesterday we were talking

about the story about the kids who spray painted all of the racist and homophobic stuff on the school property, right? And how when those kids like that don't get caught, they become lawyers, they become people who approve leases and people who approve mortgages. And sometimes some of these people become people who force women to drink water out of a toilet, who put those coins in their pockets, who do horrible things. to kids who don't push back against the system that everybody sees is wrong. And they're doing it out loud in the open, proud, yeah, these people should be punished

because if not, they will continue to have power that harms people. And obviously, these people are not right. There's something is wrong. Yeah. They should not, at the very least. Right. And I feel like the first step in getting to that point is disrupting the structure that allows that to happen, and that's what Warren's plan pretty, it tries to do, it seems.

Yeah. So it goes a little bit broader, let's read just a little bit more about this. She says, I'll reverse Trump's bigoted Muslim ban on my first day in office, I'll withdraw the Trump policy that forces immigrant families to choose between staying together and ensuring their children have access to critical services, and I'll reinstate temporary protected status designations and deferred enforced departure to protect individuals at home in their, at risk in their home countries, including migrants from the Caribbean and Africa, who have built lives and businesses in our country.

I feel like pretty much every one to two months, we find out that some temporary extension of protections for a particular group is going to lapse, and we have a minor crisis where we try to figure out, are 20,000 people going to be deported because Donald Trump isn't in the mood to extend it, so hopefully we can avoid some of that. She also, by the way, wants to massively increase a number of refugees will take each year, starting at 125,000 and moving that up to 175,000 from the current 30,000 per year that Trump is allowing. I'm surprised he has the numbers high as that. So these are, I think, are all perfectly reasonable components of the plan. And there is far more there. You can go to Medium

to see her post. One thing that I think is important, though, is not just that that, you know, one candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has this plan. But I have noticed that even within the span of just the first few months of this primary, the candidates do seem to be learning from each other. they do seem to be incorporating elements of each other's proposals. And to the extent that only a few of the candidates are really putting out detailed proposals, that might make it a little bit more likely that some of these ideas will become more commonplace throughout that long list of candidates. Yeah, I think that that's definitely the case.

And I've found it very refreshing how clean the primary has been so far. There's been only a couple moments where it seems like people have been swiping at each other, but otherwise it's all been policy and people trying to get their names out there and representing themselves rather than tearing other people down, and that's nice. Yeah, and also, like, there are a few candidates to have immigration plans that are relatively detailed that you can see. I think it's probably like less than a quarter of those out there. But while this one looks pretty good, now that it's on the books, other candidates that want to differentiate themselves, who might be willing to take a bolder stance on these

issues, now they have a target that they can shoot for. And there are candidates like Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke. They more than some of the others have tried to make immigration a sort of centerpiece of their candidacy, now they have something to compete against and maybe it'll drive them to move that next step forward. In the same way that we've seen in some, in the case of mainly health care policy and environmental policy so far in the primary. It looks like we're right at a time though, thank you for joining us. I know that Anna's going to be coming up and Ida's here.

Is there a third person on that? Francesca, I think. Oh, and Francesca is here too, awesome. It's going to be an awesome second hour. They've got some great stories. As we said earlier, people can see you or listen to you on hysteria. And recently the episode where you had Brooke on, so that should be a lot of fun. Where can they find that?

You can just find that on any place that you listen to your podcast. And Brooke's name is right in the title of her episode. So yeah. Awesome. Lots of fun. And if you want to see more of Brooke, she'll be on the damage report on Monday. Yeah. Way to plug your own show there.

I just did a little bit. Well, that's what you're going to be on. It's a plug your own show. Okay, so go watch the damage report on Tuesday. No, don't. me. And it should be a great episode. A lot, it'll be productive. You know, it won't be derailed all the time. Anyway, thank you for joining us at the first hour. We're going to take a short break. We come back. Anna, Ida, and Francesca are going to be here. We'll see you then.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.