The Young Turks - Arrested & Arraigned

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Trump arrested & appears for arraignment in Miami Court. Judge Aileen Cannon will not preside over Trump arraignment. Kevin McCarthy argues that Trump hoarding documents next to the toilet was sufficiently secure because "a bathroom door locks." "We will vote on a bill to make it easier to kill people": McGovern blasts Republican legislation headed to the House floor. HOSTS: Michael Shure (@michaelshure), Max Burns (@themaxburns), Wosny Lambre 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. And welcome to the Young Turks, here in Los Angeles. Let me tell you if I had a nickel for every single time. I've hosted or anchored a broadcast where a president, a U.S. president, was indicted on federal charges. I would have five cents. And I would share that five cents today with Max Burns, who is a contributor to Revel HQ here. He's also, Max is the, not only, he's the founder of third-degree

strategies, which is a communications firm, a progressive communications firm. And joining us, I think from New York, am I right? Wasis is Wase-Lambrae writer at... the ringer and host of the woke brothers podcast glad to have you guys with me today as we go through what is truly a historic day in in u.s history never before has a u.s president former or sitting been federally indicted maybe some should have been it's never happened today in miami all that changed as Donald trump went into a courtroom there to hear the indictment we knew it was coming from last week we knew that today tuesday he would be going into the the court in Miami. Jack Smith, the prosecutor who was assigned to this case by Merrick Garland

back in November. The Attorney General said that we are going to investigate the case of the documents at Mara Lago, and it happened today. Let's take a look at this. Moments ago, through his attorney Todd Blanche, former President Trump pleaded not guilty to these 37 federal charges. Todd Blanche, in fact, said the former president is, quote, most certainly pleading not guilty. Todd Blanche, his lawyer, and what's interesting about Todd Blanche is that while he is a lawyer working with Trump, working on the New York case with him, Donald Trump didn't have a Florida lawyer.

He couldn't find one in time. The two lawyers that were on this case originally, Trustee and Rowley, left the defense of Donald Trump just days ago, and they looked and interviewed yesterday for an attorney in Miami. It's important to note that lawyers all say that you do need local representation. It's very important. You can bring your legal team in, but it both helps the legal team. It helps the case as well because you'll have lawyers locally who know the judge,

who knows what the judge likes, doesn't like, the kind of case you can put forward. Donald Trump wasn't able to find that. And today he walked into court. There were no cameras in the court, but we did through Shane Goldmocker's Twitter account. We see Donald Trump walking into court today. He's flanked. I think that's his son, Eric, if we can show this graphic, his son Eric walking beside him. And then Walt Nata, who is, I don't know if it's up there, you know, Walt Nata, who is his co-defendant in this case, a Trump confidant, who he sort of brought down with him.

You know, he was also a part of this case. And the only order of restriction that came out of this case, Donald Trump can travel. They didn't take his passport. They didn't make him do a mugshot. They did electronic fingerprints for the former president. However, he is not allowed to speak to Walt Nata. There is no contact allowed to discuss this case going forward. So, guys, I'll throw it first to you, Was.

Tell me what this means in the sort of in the pantheon of American history and also for Donald Trump. I mean, as unprecedented as it is for president to be getting a former president to be getting a former president to be getting a arrested and indicted. This is his second one since leaving office, right? That's sort of the unprecedented nature of this guy's life as a president and afterwards. And I thought it was interesting when you said, well, we've never had this before. Even before he became president, I don't think we ever had a president who ran a fake college, right? I don't think we ever had a president who had like seven to eight bankruptcies before coming into office. Never had a president. president admit that, you know, when you, when you have contractors and people will work for you,

the first thing you should try to do is stiff them on their money and have them take you to court. This is a guy who's been openly engaging in criminal and fraudulent activities for a while now, for decades even. And so as unprecedented as today has been, I think Donald Trump has telegraphed this kind of stuff showed you his sort of, I guess, moral scruples, if you will, if he even has any. throughout his presidency, his campaign, and since losing. Yeah, you know, Thomas Jefferson ran what is a real college. I went to it, University of Virginia. So, I mean, maybe it's not real.

They gave me a diploma. But before we get to you, Max, let's take a look at what some of the indictments said and what was really going on in court. It's important to remember what brought Donald Trump to court. And we could go to graphic two here. Trump faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, a crime delineated in the Espionage Act that carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Each count represents a different, highly sensitive document that Trump allegedly kept at Mara Lago, his Florida residence, and private club. More to this, 21 of those documents, including some involving nuclear secrets, were found by FBI agents who searched the estate in August,

yielding a total of 102 classified documents, according to the indictment. The other 10 willful retention charges stem from a batch of 38 classified documents turned over to the FBI last June in response to a grand jury subpoena. So, Max, again, we're in uncharted waters, as Was said, and we all know where does it go from here? And what does it mean for Donald Trump? And, you know, I'm going to ask you another question here. there's a lot of pushback on the Republican side. Yeah.

Yeah, the main thing we've seen Republicans exemplify here is that there is no low, too low for them not to defend Donald Trump. We've had people out like Marjorie Taylor Green calling to defund the Department of Justice to defund the FBI to jail Jack Smith. And meanwhile, former President Trump can't seem to find a defense lawyer in Florida, which should send red flags blaring everywhere. I mean, what's shocked me so much in this is how clear the evidence is, the overwhelming documentary primary evidence. And this is just what Jack Smith has chosen to reveal as his baseline in these documents. So now we go forward in this. And the concerning thing I see is that once again, in small ways, we're bending the justice system for deference to a powerful man. He's been allowed to not follow the process that every other person who's arrested follows.

And it creates worries that in the interest of looking fair, we're going to make this an unfair trial. Yeah, and the fairness of the trial also in question because of the random selection of Aileen Cannon as a presiding judge there. We'll get into that in a little bit, but let's talk about what he's doing. And part of why he can't find a lawyer is because nobody wants to represent Donald Trump. He is a loose canon. He's somebody who doesn't have a consistent way of doing things. As a matter of fact, even in this case, the lawyers reports right now, and this is reported the Miami Herald and the Washington Post, is they don't even know how to go after this case. They don't need, they don't know if whether or not they should let this thing unravel and Donald Trump should go at them saying that this is a miscarriage of justice and these are the worst people in the world.

Or just go put this before a jury, try and convince one juror that, hey, you know, the president was not guilty of this. and that's all you need is that one juror. So it is a legal mess, but not just because it's a legal mess, because on the lawyer side, it's a mess as well. And this is, you know, it was just alluded to. But let's talk about what he said today. This is number four. Donald Trump went on truth social,

called this one of the saddest days in the history of our country. We are a nation in decline. He earlier called Jack Smith, a thug, a rabbi. and a lunatic. This doesn't seem, to me, like a good legal strategy. No, no, it certainly does not. And also, there were times in public where he essentially admitted to hoarding these documents, because if you remember right afterwards, they found some documents on Joe Biden's person, and Donald Trump was like, look, see, even Joe Biden had some documents in his possession that he wasn't supposed to. I think the difference.

difference. And it's a difference in kind, honestly, between what happened with Trump and what happened with Biden is that Biden, they came asking for stuff, looking for stuff. He's like, go ahead, go find it. Trump, he intentionally obfuscated what was going on. He obstructed justice. He lied. He cajoled. He just behaved in a different manner. And the craziest thing, it feels like he did this so that he could do like party tricks with his buddies like Kid Rock and show him American secrets. Like this seems like the reason why he did it. I know some other people might think that there might be something deeper and more nefarious going on

that he was stealing him to send to foreign governments and maybe possibly American enemies abroad. I have a hard time believing he went that crazy and that far. But yeah, I do believe that he was stupid enough to think that. that it'd be a cool idea to maybe show his buddies who killed Kennedy. Right. And Max, I mean, the politicization of this is blatant. The former president went to Little Havana after he was, you know, after he left the courtroom, obviously not held, went to Little Havana,

spoke to Cubans at Cafe Versailles there, people who would be natural supporters of Republicans, although Barack Obama won the Cuban vote in Florida in 2012. And so I think that you go to where you're comfortable. Before he even got there, his partisans were there. There were threats of violence, as we all saw from Carrie Lake, even, you know, indirectly from the president himself, from Trump himself. I keep calling the president, the former president. And that didn't happen. At least it hasn't happened yet.

But it's certainly something to look at. Let's, Max, let's listen to what his supporter, Alina Haba, who was a lawyer and a spokesperson for Trump, said before the proceedings today in front of a gathering of Trump people neatly placed behind her. In recent years, we have seen the rise of politically motivated prosecutors who don't care for impartiality, who don't care for due process or equal protection of laws. They have been quietly, but aggressively, cultivating a two-tiered system of justice where selective treatment is the norm, from the Russia hoax, to the Attorney Generals, to the corrupt DAs in Georgia, New York. And now this. The people in charge of this country do not love America. They hate

Donald Trump. The targeting prosecution of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela? Matt's, couldn't it be argued that dictatorships are the places where they bring home the classified documents and they show them to their friends? Couldn't it be argued that these people who are saying it's unpatriotic and un-American are talking about someone who is doing absolutely the most unpatriotic thing you could do, that this is treason, bringing these things home and waving them around and keeping them from the people who are looking for them? for them? Yeah, I mean, these are the arguments you make when you have no legal defense. These are the arguments that Republicans are in effect left with. And it needs to be in their worldview that this is a political prosecution. You know, forget for a minute that Donald Trump isn't being prosecuted for his politics. He's being prosecuted because he stole U.S. battle plans and nobody knows

quite what he did with him. But for this to be true, and we've seen this not just from Trump's lawyers, but from MAGA fundamentalist Christians who have called for religious warfare on behalf of Trump, for Trump himself who's called for war for the law. And one of the main reasons we didn't see a bigger crowd out there today is because several hundred of the people most likely to commit violence are already in prison because of what they did on January 6th. Right, yeah. Well, they've thinned the herd a little bit.

Are these then the dying gasps of a group of people who really have nowhere to turn right I mean, look, there are partisans. He does have this, what we think is a solid 30% waz of people who support him within the Republican Party. His numbers have gone up each time something like this has happened within the Republican Party. What has to happen here to start chipping away at that? Or is it already chipped away at enough that these people don't matter? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Max.

No, go ahead, Max. I'm going to say, for now Donald Trump is firmly in control of the GOP. I mean, 63% of voters support him. It's his show. At this point, the Republican Party is a brand attached to Donald Trump, not the other way around. So I don't think he's in any fear. And judging by what we've seen from the 2020 candidates, they are terrified to even attack Donald Trump for this. So how they plan to beat him is anyone's guess.

And was? Yeah, and I think that the reason why Trump continues to have a whole. on these people is because I think a lot of his appeal was the unorthodox nature of his candidacy, that he was not some cookie cutter, country club, GOP, FACC, like, he was not a Mitt Romney. He was not a Mike Pence, quite frankly. He was not a Jed Bush, low energy. He felt like somebody that was from a different planet than the normal Republican candidates. And I don't know.

Have you seen Ron did Santa speak in public recently? Like, that guy is about his robotic and calculated. And it's kind of the same old crap, honestly, when it comes to Republican cookie-cutter politicians, Trump still as battered and bruised as he's been in the public. I think he still cuts a pretty distinct figure amongst his cohort in the Republican Party. Yeah. I mean, it's clear. Those numbers, if we're to believe polls, and sometimes we do, that those numbers are convincing of the fact that he is still the strongest horse in that race, maybe being chipped away at a little because there's so many people running. But the more people that run, the better it is likely for Donald Trump, as we've seen. So here's before we get out of court for a second, here's what he's doing next. And this is what happens to the president next, to Donald, the former president. This is number five. Now that Trump has entered his plea of not guilty his case will, barring the unforeseen. And that's a big clause in that sentence because there's always something unforeseen with Trump follow a familiar path. The government will begin to reveal its evidence through the

discovery process. Pre-trial motions will be filed and argued all of that is likely to take months. And most likely Donald Trump is going to try and push this as far out after the 2024 election as possible. But again, the legal troubles continue. We are still waiting on Georgia. We're still waiting on January 6th. There are still legal stories to come down the road for Donald Trump, which may in fact be why so many people are running for president against him because they think that he won't be there when it's time to go to vote next November and in the primaries earlier in the year. We're going to take a break now. We're going to come back, discuss a little bit more about the ramifications of this, what Republicans are saying about it.

Please remember if you like what you see here, go to join, join TYT, become a member. That's tYT.com slash join. I'll be back with Max and Wasp after this. Back on the Young Turks, Michael Schur, here in Los Angeles. Max Burns and Wassene Lebray, joining me today. Today is a big day, man. We are happy to be able to report that just the wheels of justice are turning in South Florida. And, you know, the most telling part of this is what is doing to the former president,

how he is just reeling, even though he's putting up the kind of front that any defendant would. and you have to expect that he would do that. This morning, he was on Howie Carr's radio show. He redirected every single question about his indictment back to the 2020 election and his 2024 campaign. What do you tell your 75 million voters tonight on the eve of this arraignment? Just stay strong, stay very, very strong, and we're going to bring it back, and we're going to win in a landslide. I believe it'll be one of the greatest wins ever. much bigger than the other way because they've been done so poorly.

You know, they've done so poorly in these four years. I say to everybody, just stay strong because we're going to win it and we're going to make America great. We're going to make America greater than ever before because these guys have shot their watch. They've shown how bad they are. As I alluded to earlier, he also went after Jack Smith, the special counsel in this case. He said had no evidence in this. case, which we know is not true. He said it's vanity run amok. He said that in North Carolina the other day. But this is what he said on truth social. This is the thug overturned consistently and

unanimously in big cases that Biden and his corrupt injustice department stuck on me. He's a radical right lunatic and Trump hater. And as are all his friends and family who probably planted information in the boxes given to them. That's what he's saying. information. They taint everything they touch, including our country, which is rapidly going to hell. Again, we talked a little bit about patriotism, right, and what defines patriotism and how Donald Trump and Republicans have been appealing to patriotism and what it means to be American. Max, is there anything less American? Is there anything less patriotic? Is Donald Trump a traitor because of what he did? Well, he's certainly someone who's put the United States in incredible

national security risk. I mean, you have a room full of people who are going to testify under oath that a former president was waving around some of America's most sensitive battle plans and showing them off to them because he thought bombs were cool. I mean, the same guy who sat all day in a fire truck playing pretend is now distributing some of America's most guarded military secrets to anyone who gives him validation. I mean, that's not just unpatriotic. It's a level of self-involved nihilism that it goes beyond anything I think we've seen in modern politics. And that self-involved nihilism really well put. I like that turn of phrase. That is exactly what is preventing lawyers from wanting to get on his team.

The guy cannot get an attorney. Can you imagine a president or former president of the United States that wouldn't have people lining up outside his door to represent him in a case like this? It would be the honor of many lawyers' lives, I would imagine, but that's not the case here. Part of the problem, they say, of recruiting lawyers, which Trump has not been able to do, has been Trump's reputation for being a notoriously difficult client who has a record of declining legal advice and seeking to have his lawyers act as attack dogs or political aides rather than attorneys bound by ethics. The new BMO, V.I. Porter, MasterCard, is your ticket to more.

More perks. More points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard, and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash ViPorter to learn more. People close to the process have said, this is according to Hugo Lowell and the Guardian. And the other concern for the top lawyers in Florida being contacted by Trump's advisors has been the perceived reputational damage that could come from defending the former president.

The people said not just because of his politics, but also because of the strength of the indictment. So, was, I mean, can you imagine that? Lawyers not wanting to defend a former United States president because of the damage it could do to them? I am actually having a hard time imagining that. I don't think lawyers have a lot of shame when it comes to defending anybody. Quite frankly, it's everybody's right to have a lawyer, right? Everybody's right to defend themselves in the courts. I don't know that I'm buying that part of the whispers.

I can absolutely bother the part where this doesn't seem like a slam dunk for the defense, right? It feels like the government has all their ducks in a row, which is kind of the case usually when we see a federal level indictment. We see all the time when the FBI brings a case against somebody. They always tell the people that they're coming after. We have like a 95% conviction rate. Like we read that all the time. I think these lawyers understand that they're probably going to lose in court.

Although, guys, it's still very early in the process. You know, the indictment was only handed down today. some lawyer in Florida is going to convince themselves that it is a good idea for their career to represent the former president of the United States. Even in a loss, I think somebody's going to convince themselves to take this case and be damn happy that they did. Yeah, there's no question.

He is going to get a lawyer. He'll be represented by, at least on his team, a Florida attorney and litigator. One of the problems is, though, that he is a difficult client. Today, E. Jean Carroll, you remember, who won the civil case against Trump, awarded damages for sexual harassment.

She was allowed now to ask for more damages because of what Trump did after that case in bad-mouthing E. Jean Carroll and the whole process. So he is a loose canon. He costs himself, which is why you can understand that the legal community does not want to get behind him, especially in something like this, where 37-count indictment that seems,

Rock Solid, of course they all do at the beginning, seems rock solid has been handed down. One of the sort of aces in the hole that the defense may have is a lean cannon. She is the judge who did not preside over today's arraignment, but the judge who is going to be presiding over this case because of the random assignment. She was one who wanted to put a stay on the original documents case back in November, I think it was. And then she was found out to have been acting irresponsibly there. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned what she did. They told her that she cannot put a stay on.

The case can go forward. They cannot have a special master, all the things she wanted. But she's clearly a Trump sympathizer. She was appointed by Trump. That may be something that helps the former president. Does that ring true with you, Max? Yeah, I mean, nothing would surprise me in this sort of fallen era we're in. that in any sane democracy, Eileen Cannon would recuse herself immediately.

I mean, the biases are clear and even the presumption. And remember, so much of recusal is about avoiding even the presumption of impropriety. You don't have to have done anything wrong. It's just best practice to even remove the doubt. There's no sign Eileen Cannon is going to do that. And she certainly has seen through these cases in the past. I honestly have never seen something like her case on a piece. receiving some of the harshest criticism I've ever seen a federal judge received for her basic

knowledge of the law. I mean, it is simply not safe to entrust a case like this to someone who doesn't know how to read law. Yeah, and that's, you know, again, one of the things that the Republicans are hanging their hat on is that there is some protection for their guy down there because of this judge. And recusal can't be forced. It has to be taken by the judge. why it could be that you see Cannon presiding over this case, but she's going to be watched very closely, and I would imagine we'll try and do, you know, she acted almost as a loose cannon herself last time, and I imagine with all the eyes on her in this case that it may be a little bit different, but again, those are my rose-colored glasses about this. But let's talk

about the way this is being received by Republicans, because, you know, both of you guys have talked about it a little bit, astonished by how the Republican community writ large has looked at this indictment, has looked at Trump, has not come after, you know, with the exception of a couple of presidential candidates who were going to run against him, has not come after Trump in any way, in fact, has defended him. You know, Republicans, you know, the biggest, most important Republicans, certainly in politics right now, is the speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who actually talked about false equivalency. Listen to McCarthy here. Was that a good look for the former president to have boxes in a bathroom?

I don't know. Is it a good picture to have boxes in a garage? opens up all the time a bathroom door locks i mean that's what they're going to now right i mean McCarthy is talking about the fact that these were in a bathroom where they weren't was the national archives where they weren't was the white house and he's talking about joe biden having had documents himself that he announced that he said come get come look at look everywhere in my house and get them similarly former vice president mike pence did the same thing that's the way these things should be handled when they happen. They shouldn't happen, obviously, and I think there's

going to be a review of that. But it's, you know, that is where he kept them. You can see the picture here. It's a, it's a, it's a Mara Lago bathroom, a ballroom, a storage room on the ground floor of the place. And, you know, you had people saying that it's hard to get in there. I don't know if we have Byron Donald's sound. Do we have that video? Because here's Congressman Byron Donald's from Florida talking about that. You guys are throwing up the pictures about they were in a bathroom where they were on the stage. If somebody who's been to Mar-a-Lago, you just can't walk through Mar-a-Lago of your own accord

because Secret Service is all over the place. So if the documents are in a place, they're in a room. Depending on the time of year, you can't even get into said Rome. There are 33 bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago. So don't act like it's just in some random bathroom that the guests can go into. That's not true. But the guests can go where Donald Trump can wave around a nuclear secret of nuclear document, can't they, Max Burns?

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's good in Donald's mind that you only have a one in 33 chance of jeopardizing national security and stealing the nukes. I mean, it involves looking past the point, which all these Republicans are doing, that it's not about how secure where he put them was, it's that he shouldn't have had them at all, and that he made active efforts to hide them. I mean, the fact that the bathroom has a lock, well, the giant human-sized window next to it doesn't. And it's so much talking past this point and hoping you just won't notice. Right. And it's also where they're not, right?

I mean, Wausen. Exactly. They're in the bathroom. They're in the ballroom. Where are they not, right? They're not where they're supposed to be. They're not safely secure in the archive. That's the point.

It's not about how safe it theoretically is. at Donald Trump's place of living, that's besides the point. This stuff is supposed to be under lock and key, absolutely unable to be viewed or seen or interpreted by people who don't have the highest levels of security clearance in the government. That's the point there. I'm not really sure what that brother was trying to get at with that one. Yeah, it is unclear. And not to mention, they weren't only in one of the 30.

bathrooms, they were in a storage room, a room that could be reached through multiple entrances, including a door leading from the pool patio that was often kept open, according to the indictment. More than 80 boxes were kept there, according to prosecutors. But, again, it's all about what did Biden do, and the childish back and forth that the Speaker of the House had with some reporters yesterday, he went on to talk about those false equivalencies. Here is the esteemed speaker. I don't want people to take these documents away, the vice president, Pence, but as a senator, you'd have to steal the doctor. You know what concerns me is you have, you have these, a lot of these documents behind a corvette in a garage with the door twice open.

And you've got a, you've got a son of Hunter Biden who knows who he has there in and out. I mean, there's a lot of concerns on both. The son of Hunter Biden, I don't know, all they have, they have to find. in any way they can to say Hunter Biden to make things, you know, equal. Oh, yeah, yeah, but Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden. I don't even know what he was talking about. You have the son of Hunter Biden there.

But here's the difference, right? He's talking about Joe Biden's garage. He's talking about the people that could have come to President Biden's home. Joe Biden, when he found out about it and when his administration found out about it, contacted the FBI and the National Archives and said, we have these, come and get them. Don't know how they got here. there was no intent, right? There wasn't intent on the part of Mike Pence. Same thing. Wasn't intent on the part of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. These documents ended up there.

They were reported by those people and their staffs said, come and get them. They went and got them without incident. When they went to get the documents from Donald Trump, there was pushback. There was blocking. There was, you know, obfuscation constantly. And that's part of this indictment. Mike Levine of ABC News saying by contrast, contrast to what happened with the others, the indictment against Donald Trump not only says that nearly all of the 31 documents he's charged with willfully retaining it as Mara Lago estate were marked as classified, but it also details alleged conversations and actions showing that he allegedly knew he took and held on to classified documents from the White House. That's the difference, not just the fact that the others didn't resist,

not just the fact that those documents were there, but he allegedly knew and he took and held on to classified documents from the White House. When Biden's personal attorneys first found classified documents in private offices associated with Biden, they said they notified the National Archives and Records Administration, and they helped the government retrieve them. Trump, on the other hand, is saying that he tried to obstruct justice. The Justice Department is saying he tried to obstruct justice. This is the Washington Post. Those allegations include moving boxes out of a storage room, telling an attorney to search that room for classified material

without saying that dozens of boxes were being kept elsewhere, suggesting an attorney hide or destroy documents that had been subpoenaed and causing another person to make false statements about whether all the classified documents had been produced. I mean, this is a crime. I mean, this is Blake. This is, if proven, this is really

ugly stuff. Yeah, it feels like they got this guy dead to rights, honestly. We'll see whether or not, you know, because let's face it, presidents just don't get locked up. That's just not something that we do to them. Even when they

had been found to have committed crimes, you know, you think of Richard Nixon, for instance. Not only did he not get locked up, he got pardoned later on. And everybody was like, no, it's, you know, we're getting over it. You know, we still like Dick Nixon. It's like this sort of fraternal order where they don't turn on their own. But usually we're talking about crimes that were done in office, right?

This guy had the misfortune of committing major crimes while out of office. But I think what you see there with McCarthy is the general. strategy of the GOP as it pertains to the stuff that Trump is getting indicted for. It's this idea that these aren't big deals, right? This guy had, you know, he might have had some documents on his person. No big deal. Nobody got hurt. There was no intent.

Yes, there are rules against this, but he's the president. You might understand why we're able to bend some rules for him. The situation in New York involving Stormy Daniels. I think their strategy is going to be the same and appeal to normal people and say, should a guy really go to jail for paying a prostitute not to put his business out on the streets, right? Hush money, essentially. I think they're going to appeal to people's sensibility that this isn't something that you lock a guy up and throw away the key for. And, you know, to be honest, guys, just to put this in a little bit of different perspective,

I think about all of the people from the Trump regime and all the Iraqis that got killed, all the trillions of dollars we wasted, knowing that these guys lied to us intentionally on purpose to send us there. Some people, they never saw even a courtroom, even the threat of one. And I think that's what the GOP is going to appeal to, just the idea that people have gotten away with way worse and not had to go to jail for it. I like it for a second I got scared. You said, and to be honest, guys, I thought you were going to tell us.

that you paid off for prostitute. I'm glad you think about it. Max, pick up, pick up. Who among us has? Jerry, by the way, Jerry Springer, who we recently lost, paid a prostitute with a check, one of the most unbelievable stories in American political history.

He was mayor of Cincinnati. Max, let's get back to this, though, the real stuff here. Pickup on Wass was saying, I'm sure you have a lot to say on this as well. Yeah, I'm genuinely curious who Kevin McCarthy's arguing with because there's not a single Democrat in America who says that Joe Biden had a right to have

those documents. There's not Joe Biden, not anybody. They worked immediately to turn them over. And I think where this really hurts the Republican Party is now the American people are going to try to understand this issue, and they're going to look for clear messaging. On the Democratic side, that's easy. Donald Trump's a crook. He stole battle plans.

The guy's dangerous. But on the right, you don't see any clear messaging. Nikki Haley, I think, put it best. She said what Jack Smith did to Donald Trump is wrong, but Donald Trump is also wrong for stealing documents. It disqualifies him from being president, and he shouldn't be in her power, but she'll pardon him if she wins. What does that mean? She's at every position. You bring up Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and the United Nations, served in the United Nations under Trump.

This is what other Republicans is starting to say. Let's listen to Nikki Haley speaking over the weekend. If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually. the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. More than that, I'm a military spouse. My husband's about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger if you are going to talk about what our military is capable of or how we would go about invading or doing something with one of our enemies. And if that's the case, it's reckless, it's frustrating, and it causes problems.

I like that the anchor, the FOTS anchor there, doesn't quite know what to do with that. I'm not going to name them because I don't know who they are. Also, Chris Christie last night was on, I think it was last night talking about the former president. You knew he was going to come. He got into the race because you knew he would be a pugilist on issues like this. And he came in pretty strong. I mean, not Chris Christie strong, but let's listen. He's saying, I'm more important than the country.

These are my papers. He saw it in the indictment. His employees were scared. They was called his boxes. His boxes. He wants his boxes near him. He flew the boxes up to New Jersey for summer vacation. What is this like?

They're a family member? I mean, seriously, I got out. My boxes would be. And let me ask you a question. What exactly was he doing with them? Did someone remind him he's not the president anymore? You don't need these things anymore. This is vanity run amok, Anderson.

Run amok. ego run amok, and we're in a situation where there are people in my own party who are blaming DOJ. How about blame him? He did it. Yeah, and that's, you know, I actually attributed the vanity run amok to Trump talking about Jack Smith, because in my notes, it was a little sloppy, but that was Chris Christie saying it last night about Donald Trump. I don't know that the MAGA crowd really knows how to cope with something, you know, vanity run amok. That's not really what they're looking for.

But, but, you know, and I'll get to you guys in one second. Senator Tim Scott, also running against Trump, the senator from Republican Senator from South Carolina, said he called the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump a serious case with serious allegations. And then he followed that up, of course, because you've got to be careful. What we see today across the administration of President Joe Biden

is a double standard. That double standard is both un-American and unacceptable. You can't protect Democrats while targeting and hunting Republicans. When, Max, when are these people, these Republicans going to say what's un-American is keeping American secrets and showing them and keeping them vulnerable to the rest of the world? I mean, it is amazing that these Republicans are still absolutely terrified of crossing Donald Trump and probably still will be when he's put in jail. But, you know, the reality, I look at Chris Christie, and he says, did no one tell him that he wasn't the president anymore? No, your entire party, in fact, told him he still was the president and then defended an attack on the country. So all of this, like, I respect Chris Christie for calling out corruption and crime, but he's taking a little bit of a blind eye to exactly who enabled that.

I mean, he needs a mirror instead of a microphone here. Yeah, that's true. And he's got to admit it. His whole candidacy has to be about being refreshing and being open and being critical and, you know, even self-deprecating about the stuff that he has said in the past. Otherwise, he can't succeed. Somebody has to go after this president. So, Wass, before we move on from Donald Trump today, one last question about the tenor of things.

Like, where do you think this goes from here in terms of how Republicans. receive this? Are there going to be more Haley's and Scots? And let's not give them crazy credit here. They still tiptoed around criticizing this guy. They didn't say, they said, if then, if then. I mean, that was how careful Haley was. And Scott, of course, couching it. Haley couched it as well. Is this going to start getting a little more contagious, do you think? I think the closer we get to stuff like primaries and things of that nature, these guys, And guys and gals will try to differentiate themselves as much as possible. But, of course, you know, the problems that are going to arise for these folks,

you think about a guy like Chris Christie where he had, you know, his own corruption issues while being the governor of New Jersey. I don't know if that's going to be a good way for him to go, guys. Yeah, I don't. I feel like I'm just so exhausted by these Republicans who, many of them are really smart people. And I mean that who just don't look at what can be gained by going against this guy. He's not going to be around forever, right? I mean, he's not going to be the flavor of this party forever. And they won't see that. And they won't stand up. I mean, I keep going back to it.

They talk about patriotism. The Republicans want to own the American flag. We are the patriotic ones. We know what patriotism and freedom in this country is all about. 1776, you hear them chanting. The most un-American thing we've heard of from a U.S. president is what Donald Trump had to listen to in a list of 37 indictments today in a courtroom in Miami. That, to me, is not patriotic. That's un-American. That makes him a traitor if you're looking at this way. I don't know why the people who care about patriotism so much, allegedly, don't see that. Young Turks, we'll be back in a minute.

Back on the on Turks, Michael Shore here with Wasney Lambre and Max Burns, we're talking everything, Donald Trump. He had a big day. It's going to be a lot of days like this. I have a feeling for Donald Trump. And we will be here on TYT. covering it. That's why we want you to become members. Please go to www.t.com slash join and join us. So support what we're doing here and bringing this to you and you get lots of cool stuff just for joining, I believe. Okay. So now let's talk about other sort of

wackiness coming out of Republicans who are not defending Donald Trump for stealing state secrets and flaunting them in front of rock stars and the like. Real stuff is happening in why. There are bills up there that are going through the Rules Committee. And the Rules Committee is where everything happens in Washington. And let's listen to Jim McGovern, who's the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee in Washington. They're fine with adding another $500 million to the deficit. You know, but then they go after food aid for poor people. I mean, it's like, what the hell is going on here?

is going on here. You know, where are their priorities? So McGovern from Massachusetts is talking about a bill that is to loosen pistol braces, which are, you know, for guns. And it's introduced by Andrew Clyde, and we'll get to that. But the measure, as it is, introduced by Representative Andrew Clyde, would put a halt to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. explosives rule announced in January that places further regulations on stabilizing braces for

pistols. These arm braces are mounted to the rear of a pistol to make it easier to shoot with one hand. Continuing, the ATF rule categorizes pistols with braces as short-barreled rifles which require a federal license to own. The White House has argued this reclassification is necessary because the gun industry uses braces to work around regulations on short-barreled rifles, shoot more accurately. Let's talk about Andrew Clyde for a second. You may know him because he is famous for having said that the January 6th crowd were tourists walking through the Capitol. That's the guy. He is a former gun shop. He's a gun shop owner. He actually still owns a gun store in Georgia. All his campaign paraphernalia was emblazoned with with semi-automatic and automatic

rifles. He wears a lapel pin and gives them out to other members of the Republican caucus that has an AR-15. This is a gun guy. The Biden administration has already said they will veto the bill, noting the devices used in mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, in Boulder, Colorado. And here is Jim McGovern, again, talking about this, talking about what Clyde is trying to put through. I get it. The bill's author owns a gun shop and makes millions from selling guns and gun accessories, including stabilizing braces. Sure sounds like a conflict of interest to me, but we are considering it because Speaker McCarthy is trying to put down a far right rebellion. So we will vote on a bill to make it easier to kill people.

He has given away everything to a small group of radical Republicans who will continue to demand more and more from him, apparently now including letting them dictate exactly what bills come to the war. Max, I'm putting a lot on you with this question. Talk a little bit about the quid pro quo that McGoverns talking about, this small group of radical Republicans that have Speaker McCarthy by the, you know, neck, let's say. Yeah, all his Trump talk really does distract from the fact that there's a whole government Republicans are failing to run. And Speaker McCarthy is a prime example of that. He wasn't even able to do business at all last week. because the Freedom Caucus, this band of far-right MAGA Republicans, effectively stopped him from

opening business in the House for several days. So he just gave up and said, we'll come back next week and maybe the government will work then. And it seems now in return for being allowed to actually do his job, Kevin McCarthy has just agreed to let the Freedom Caucus decide what goes to the floor, what doesn't, what gets a vote. And it's clear now that Kevin may be the speaker, but it is the Freedom Caucus's voice we're hearing loud and clear here. And they're saying, Max, that they were the ones that gave him the speakership, so they're entitled to this, right? I mean, that's the quid pro quo here, right?

That we didn't want to support your speakership. We wanted to actually have someone else put in there, and we wanted to make it you squirm all night, which we did do, and now you went ahead with this debt ceiling increase, so we're going to get back at you. Is that what's going on here, too? Exactly. I mean, the debt ceiling was the red line.

Freedom Caucus Republicans said, you know, we supported you for Speaker on the explicit agreement you wouldn't negotiate with Democrats on things like this. And in return, don't expect anything else you want to happen for the rest of your term. Whatever's going to go up is going to be what the Freedom Caucus wants. And so we're seeing this parade of extremist legislation and this gun braces is just the start. And so, you know, Matt's talked about being distracted by Trump. And what's going on in Washington is obviously terribly important in real time. But, you know, these are still the people, the people that are fighting for these braces and the Andrew Clydes and the Freedom Caucus, these are Trump's people, right? So are they

appealing to Trump as well at the same time and saying we're still here for you and we're fighting the battles you want us to fight on the Hill against McCarthy? I think when you mentioned that the Freedom Caucus and the sort of right-word fringe of the party, had McCarthy by the short hears, you had it exactly right. Once they made him grovel to get this speakership that he so desperately wanted that he was able, that he was willing to debase himself both publicly and privately to achieve that end, this was always going to be the outcome of his speakership. They were going to bully him and dictate terms to him at every single turn because he initially negotiated with these people. And I guess they demonstrated

that they were willing to sort of blow up the government and blow up his bid for speakership and never even have a speaker if this guy did not deal with them. And now he's sort of reaping the benefits of that negotiation. And this is just what it's going to be. And so far as these people are Trump people, I don't know that they're Trump people more so than they are just what the fringe of the right has been for 30 years. back in the days, the GOP used to only play footsie with these folks, right? And they could sort of, you know, pat them on the head and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll play

lip service to your crazy, cranky ideas. And then we're going to, you know, nominate our George Bushes and Mitt Romneys and John McCain's and so on and so forth. However, as time has passed on, they've legitimized many of those ideas. And those people who we called part of the lunatic fringe, they amassed power and even got themselves elected. And now they're actually have their hands on the wheels of power. And we're seeing the consequences of that. This is what the Republicans have sort of reaped, guys. Yeah. And McCarthy could be the last line of defense to a lot of this. And he's tried to be

in pushing them back as much as they can. But their power and the fact that just one person can basically have a vote on whether or not he should remain, can call a vote on whether or not is called a motion to vacate, whether or not he can even be speaker. They have a lot more power disproportionate to what they should have and that any sort of faction of Congress has ever had, certainly in recent times. Max, is there anything, does McCarthy have anywhere to go? I mean, you see him fumbling on Donald Trump. You see him unable to open Congress, as you reminded us.

He, as was just said, he is the most self-debasing person that we've seen in Congress and it's a sufficient role in Congress. What are his options? Yeah, I mean, things are dwindling for Kevin McCarthy. He has no real base within his party anymore. The problem is even people who maybe don't dislike Kevin McCarthy also acknowledge that he is a terrible political strategist, that he has guided the Republican Party from one avoidable defeat to the other, including this death ceiling bill, which essentially split the GOP and two

just in time for primaries. So even if they like him, they're not willing to stake their political reputation on Kevin McCarthy's ability to do his job. And after this last two weeks, I mean, that's a pretty safe bet. We know, we know, like, a year and a half is a lifetime in politics. So we don't have an election until November of 2024. I mean, it's such a long time away, even though it seems like it's tomorrow, it's not. And a lot can happen, a lot will happen. The Republicans seem like they are in total disarray, both the way they're governing,

the way they have a presidential candidate getting indicted on 37 counts. But we all know that you can blink and forget that pretty quickly in the way the world works today. Is there a picture in which they recover from this was? it's hard to see a way out in the immediate future i think in order to see some progress they'd have to burn this whole thing down as it existed and be willing to lose a few election cycles in a row meaning they'd have no they'll never be willing that's that's what i'm saying they would have to be

willing to relinquish power in the short term to sort of regather steam um and get these people out of the paint, so to speak. But no, the power is too enticing and quite frankly, it's too lucrative. These people, a lot of these people, frankly, before they even get elected, they're already millionaires. And the way that, you know, the sort of revolving door of government and private enterprise interact with each other these days, they know the kind of payouts. Like, when McCarthy gets ousted, the day he no longer wants to be part of the Republican Party, he will have a multi-million dollar job on some nonsense board waiting for him. And they know that. And they know that they can only achieve those riches by staying in power. So it's hard for me to see them breaking

this wheel. They'll still have to go home to Bakersfield, though. So there's that. Max, very quickly, because we've got to get out of here. There's more TYT coming your way. But I want to give you a shot at that. Is there a way out for this guy? The only way out is through the door. But, you know, the sad thing is, as Was said, you don't have to be good to make a lot of money in politics. You just need to cling to power long enough. And really, that seems to be all Kevin's looking for at this point. Max Burns, a contributor here on Rebel headquarters. He's also the founder of Third Degree Strategies, which is a progressive communications firm.

Wassey Lambray is a writer at the ringer host of the woke bros podcast. Guys, thanks for coming through this with me. We were here for a big, really historic day in American, sad day, I guess, but a historic day in American history, the first time a president, a former president, indicted on federal charges, indicted on other charges. He's also the first to do that, but this was federal, and there's a lot to look forward to and how that's going to play out. Thanks for watching the Young Turks. Again, don't forget to join TYT.com slash join Young Turks. 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.