The Young Turks - Behind Them Bars

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

 Long-time Trump executive Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty to a tax scheme. Donald Trump threatens to release the video of the FBI raid at Mar-A Lago. NYC assault suspect was arrested 41 times prior. Judges from Pennsylvania were ordered to pay $200M for their kids for a cash scheme. A greedy pastor rips into his congregation for not buying him a watch. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 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, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you'll open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business.

Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. Thank you. Welcome to the young Turks, Jake Eugger, Anna Kasparian, with you guys more dramatic announcements today. But we're keeping the show tight, so go, what's the news? What is it? We're gonna begin with Weisselberg. I know how to keep it tight. You need to learn how to keep it tight.

Look, all I gotta tell you is Weisselberg, straight ahead. Okay, go ahead. Yes, so we begin. Trump's longtime financial officer, Alan Weisselberg, has pleaded guilty to more than a dozen counts related to criminal fraud, financial fraud. Financial fraud, something that Trump is also accused of, but we'll see if he ever suffers real criminal consequences for it because it appears that the district attorney in New York might be dropping that case. But we'll get to that in a moment. First, let's get to Weisselberg. What's up with him? Well, Weisselberg was charged last year with grand larceny and criminal tax fraud, among other alleged crimes.

He and the Trump organization were accused of carrying out a scheme to defraud government authorities by failing to report their rights. real compensation. I believe the cool kids referred to it as getting paid under the table to essentially avoid having to pay taxes. And what I thought was fascinating about this story is how the investigation started. It really began with Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen, spilling the beans under oath. Let's watch. I want to ask a little bit about your conversation with my colleague from Missouri about asset inflation. To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company? Yes. Who else knows that the president did this? Alan Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman, and Matthew Kalimari. And where would the

committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them? Yes, and you'd find it at the Trump org. Now no word on what happened with Mr. Kalimari. However, we do know that Weisselberg will spend some time in Rikers Island. So the indictment alleges that the Trump organization paid the rent and utilities for a Manhattan apartment where he lived. And finance the leases for the Mercedes Ben's cars for Weisselberg and his wife, but failed to report this as income and pay the necessary taxes. The indictment also said he intentionally omitted his compensation from his tax returns. So, you know, if you're getting paid through a company, through the Trump organization,

in the form of cars and other goodies, you are supposed to report that as income. You're supposed to get taxed. There are varying reports on how much he skirted in federal taxes with the higher estimates all the way up to $2 million. And he will have to pay that money back, I'm sure, with interest, as well. Weisselberg obscured about 1.7 million in his compensation from tax authorities over a period from 2005 to 2017, dodging hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal, state, and local taxes. He also acknowledged guilt on every charge and agreed to testify, if called,

at a pending trial for the Trump company. As part of the plea agreement, Weisselberg would spend five months behind bars. Again, this would be at Rikers Island, followed by five years of probation. And there are some, if you're excited that this might mean that he's going to turn on Trump, don't get too excited. I'll explain why in a moment. But first, Jank, why don't you jump in? Yeah, so there's three different types of crimes that they could have gotten Weisselberg and Trump on. And distinguishing between them is very important.

So we're going to do that. But first, let me note that the way that Michael Cohen says, Matthew Kalimari is awesome. Okay. Yeah, you can find it with a Weisselberg or the Kalimari, okay? All right, so now onto the serious stuff. So there's the thing that they got Weisselberg on. We gave your apartment, we gave you a car, you didn't report it onto the table. Okay, that's illegal, it's bad.

But it's the least bad of the three. The second one is what Michael Cohen was actually referring to, which is, hey, you say for tax purposes, golly, gee, you know, I barely made any money. I don't have many taxes to pay. And then when you're trying to get a loan for your properties, you say, oh, my assets are incredible, you know, and I've got all this money. I have the biggest assets. The biggest assets, surrounded by other big assets. Kim Kardashian would be jealous of my assets. Okay, and I got no problems there.

I'll tell you that right now. Okay, so anyways, so that's a bigger crime. I don't know why that's not being discussed in any of the plea deals and it's driving me crazy because Cohen said it on national. So you just saw it, right? And then there's a third layer, which is all of the other underlying criminality at the Trump organization. I've always assumed, based on the fact pattern that Trump did money laundering for the Russians. Now, that was a while back. I don't know if the statute of limitations have run out.

I don't know if they were able to get any evidence. But what I was hoping for is that Weisselberg would flip on Trump and not admit things they didn't do. That doesn't help anybody. That would be awful, right? We're not looking for injustice. We're looking for justice, okay? But if they had done these things together, that Weisselberg flips and then Trump's in a lot of trouble for major crimes.

But as it looks right now, he's not flipping it on Trump. He's going to give evidence on Trump organization. That's Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA saying, I swear to God, I'm never going to prosecute Donald Trump. Never, ever going to do it. And focusing on the most minor crimes as opposed to the major crimes also shows you. Bragg is either the biggest loser in terms of a prosecutor in the whole country, weakest, saddest man in America, or has some sort of weird or corruption involved here. There's something going on.

No, it's not normal. I think it's insane that, like, you have enough evidence to criminally prosecute Weisselberg, and yet you're not actively and aggressively pursuing the criminal investigation into Donald Trump and his possible financial crimes. So I want to talk about that a little bit because Weisselberg, and here's the thing about Alvin Bragg, right? There was a plea agreement here, which is why he's only going to serve five months in prison as opposed to a lengthier sentence, right?

But as part of the plea agreement, it could have been negotiated to ensure that Weisselberg would testify in regard to Donald Trump's potential criminal financial fraud in the criminal case, but they didn't include that as part of the plea agreement. Why? I'm very curious about that. It's very strange. Yeah, I'll add two more things about Alvin Bragg. First of all, by the time you figure in time served and reduction of sentence, he's only going to serve, Weisselberg's only going to serve 100 days. So that's a slap on the wrist for 50 years of criminality. So I don't know what Alvin Bragg is up to, but I wouldn't elect him dog catcher. And in fact, I'd look into his background because I don't know why he's being weirdly unbelievably soft on

Trump, which leads to the fourth crime that's never discussed in any of this. Michael Cohen already went to prison for giving hush money in violation of campaign finance laws to Donald Trump's mistresses, the porn stars. Well, both in the, why didn't Alvin Brague prosecute that? You've got a guy who did turn evidence on him and said, I'm his co-conspirator, and yet you send him to jail, but you don't ever touch Donald Trump. Why this insane Donald Trump protection racket from Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, which is supposed to be a progressive place? But in both cases, Weisselberg and Cohen, guys, is a very simple question that needs to be asked. Who gave the order? Alan Weisselberg is not the head of the organization, he's the chief financial officer.

He takes his orders from who? Donald Trump. Michael Cohen didn't decide, oh, you know what? Hey, look, there's Donald Trump's mistresses. I'll randomly give them money. No, who gave him the order? In both cases, it's obvious that Donald Trump gave him the order, but yet Alvin Bragg says,

I swear to God I'm going to protect Donald Trump, even if it means I'm going to ignore every law there is as the prosecutor in Manhattan to make sure that I protect him. And if you're excited that Weisselberg, you know, doing a plea deal is going to get Trump, You just don't understand the facts. And a lot of people put out that headline to entice people to read it, thinking, oh, my God, they're going to get Donald Trump.

They're not going to get Donald Trump, at least not in Manhattan. As long as Alvin Bragg is either crooked or stupid and incompetent prosecutor in Manhattan. And look, you know, there's possible corruption. We don't know for sure. I hope that there's a decent reporter out there who's willing to investigate that. But the other thing is, Alvin Bragg just might be a coward. Because think about the type of harassment and death threats that FBI officials are getting right now after doing a raid of Trump's Mar-Lago residence because he had possession of

extremely classified top secret documents, right? Like, he might be afraid of having to deal with that. So who knows? We don't know what is motivating him here. But what I do know is that two of the prosecutors working on that criminal case, which has now stalled, quit because they wanted to move forward with the criminal prosecution. And Alvin Bragg put a stop to it. And they were furious. I'd be furious too. No, it's possible. And that's the best case scenario for Alvin Bragg did. He's an extraordinary

coward. And for his sake, I hope that's true instead of him being corrupt. We don't have any evidence to that effect. So we have a lot more evidence that Donald Trump is corrupt. it's his co-conspirators having said it all over national television. But Bragg's like, what evidence? I don't see any evidence. Okay, so he's, Trump can still get prosecuted for Mar-a-Lago, for Georgia, for January 6th. A lot of things are possible. But this Weisselberg news is not good news.

It's generally bad news. Oh, the only positive side of it is that once he testifies against Trump organization, they might officially shut down Trump organization. Never made any money anyway. I mean, he's an idiot. He used it as a way of blowing $400 million twice, once when his daddy left it to him and once when Jeff Zucker gave it to him at their apprentice. So he'll shut down the business, but the business has always sucked, and all it ever did was create companies that went bankrupt. So that won't hurt Donald Trump much either. Well, in other Trump news, let's get to this.

It'll be several hours worth of surveillance footage that the former president has in his hands, because as we know, when FBI agents arrived on the scene, they asked to turn the cameras off. We're told that it's pretty standard, not that unusual of an ask by sources. inside the Justice Department, but they did make that request, and that is not something that was granted by the officials on the ground at Mara Lago. And so now it is in the hands of the foreign president and his attorneys, this surveillance footage of what happened at Mara Lago that day. Mere days after Trump said that he would want to, you know, turn down the heat toward federal officials, especially considering all of the death threats and acts of violence toward them.

He's now threatening to release surveillance footage of FBI officials rating his Mar-Lago residents. Now, of course, they were rating his residence because he had taken home with him top secret and classified documents that are only supposed to be reviewed in secure government facilities. Some of those documents pertain to nuclear weapons and information about them so you can understand the sensitivity of those documents. But nonetheless, the FBI officials asked him to turn off surveillance cameras. Of course he didn't do it. At least that's what he's alleging. And now he is threatening to release the surveillance. Why is this a big deal?

Well, just consider the threats that are already being targeted toward FBI officials, toward members of the DOJ, toward the federal judge who signed the warrant necessary to do the rate in the first place. The video would presumably show the faces of agents. After the names of two of them already leaked and Trump's temper tantrum unfortunately doesn't stop there. He also shared an article on his truth social page that basically refers to the FBI as the fascist Bureau of Investigation. And he links to a piece that was written at spectator.org by former CNN contributor Jeffrey Lord, who eventually got fired because he He's a terrible person, but nonetheless, he's, again, directing more hatred and, you know,

violence toward the FBI through his threats, through his posts on truth social. This is who he is, and he might have just gotten a massive gift from another federal judge who is apparently willing to unseal portions of the affidavit that would maybe reveal who the FBI informant close to him is, and maybe we'll find out that it is. Melania Trump, as I had suspected, but we don't know. The worry here is that if he does that, then the person who is revealed to have been the FBI informant will suffer some serious risks. Yeah, all right, so let me tell you the potentially surprising upside of this news.

Okay, so I'm actually a little bit excited about. First of all, I think I don't think they should do it. I think revealing the video in the face of the FBI agents puts them in grave risk. why? Because the right wing in this country is totally unhinged. Is it possible that they would then do a terrorist attack against our own FBI? It's not like that's happened. Of course they will. Of course they will. And Trump knows that. Everybody in the right wing knows that. They don't think every right winger is going to go try to kill those FBI agents. They just think somebody's going to try to kill them. We don't need 300 million people to try to kill them. We just need

three guys to try to kill them. So that's called stochastic terrorism where they ask basically through their actions implicitly for random acts of terrorism. And when it's Donald Trump, he almost always receives it. So that's a terrible downside on why I'm not in favor of it overall. But the potential upside is, number one, they said the FBI, their original excuse was the FBI planted the files. Oops, you videotaped them. And on the videotape, you will see that they did not plant the files.

Now, Trump is in possession of the tape. The FBI is not in possession of the tape. And so Trump might try to edit the tape. But if he does, then the FBI is going to say, well, now it's evidence and you have to give us the whole tape. Knowing Trump, he'll probably destroy the tape, which is another significant to massive crime if any other person did it. Okay, or, of course, Trump can get away with it probably and the CIA can get away

with it. And that's about it. Okay, so that sets them up for potentially either turning over the videotape, which can be very helpful or destroying evidence, which could also be helpful. If we had any prosecutors who had any courage at all in the entire country, that leads to the second reason why this might be an upside. Well, if they release the faces, everybody at the FBI is going to be livid. And they work with the Department of Justice all the time. And they can turn to the Department of Justice to say, if you're not going to prosecute this son of bitch, after our

lives are in danger for doing our job, we're gonna have massive goddamn problems. What are they gonna do? Okay, look, it might be nothing, but I know the internal bureaucracies and how Washington thinks, when you have group think, and when you have a cultural shift, and when people are buzzing about something, it affects them tremendously. So if inside the Department of Justice, there's a feeling that Garland, not outside pressure, internal pressure, that Garland is a coward if he doesn't prosecute, it's going to create pressure for him to prosecute. So that's another piece of good. His last one, prosecutors have been so afraid to go after Donald Trump because of this kind of pressure.

But if Trump is getting them to release parts of the affidavit, and it reveals their case, he might be accidentally forcing their hand. They can't keep it hidden anymore because the number one go-to-move prosecutors do is. We have evidence, but it's not enough to prosecute, wink, like Manhattan DA has been doing for years now. They have them dead to rights on campaign finance violations for the hush money to the porn stars. And Alvin Braggin, every other DA goes, oh, golly gee, you can't see the evidence, but trust me, it's not enough, which is nonsense. Of course it's enough, right? We've seen it. We know what it is publicly.

In this case, once the affidavit is revealed, and we know what you were going for, it makes it way harder. to backpedal and say, oh, we had secret evidence that we couldn't prosecute. No, now it'll be public. Okay, okay, I see you. That's actually a really great point. All right, I went one out of three there. Yeah, and like, no, no, you made lots of good points, but that one is extremely good. Yeah, I think Trump is screwing up by forcing their hand.

I mean, Trump screwed up by forcing their hand and like unsealing the warrant, right? Yeah, and also Trump screwed up. up by not giving the documents back. Dude, you already tried to sell them to wherever you tried to sell them to? Or they already know, so now you can't go out and be like, hello, Saudi Arabia, I have some documents, they're gonna catch you. So why did you just give it back once they knew that you had it? He's too stupid, that's the answer.

He was subpoenaed two months prior to the raid to return the documents. I mean, they did everything they could, they were incredibly patient. Let me just say, if you were facing any type of investigation involving treason, you would not be given two months to comply on anything. If you had nuclear, our nuclear secrets in your basement, you'd be given about two goddamn seconds to comply. And if you didn't, you would be in, not just massive trouble, your life would be in significant danger. Trump's like, la, la, la, la, la, oh, you guys know I have them. You guys know I'm an idiot and a crook who's trying to sell them. I'm not gonna give it back.

I mean, look guys, forget the evil and immoral and illegal part of it. You idiot, if you gave it back, there's no way they could have prosecuted you. They already know you have them, you can't sell them anymore, you moron. He's like, nope, I'm gonna keep it. I think I'm smarter than them. An excuse you can secretly sell it, world's dumbest criminal. You know, will someone finally put him away for God's sake? I just think it would be really helpful for him to surround himself with lawyers who just

say yes to everything that he wants to do. You know, legal counsel that just nods their head and said, yes, yes, daddy Trump, yes, please do that. That's a great idea. Like anyone else would not surround themselves with lawyers who give them poor advice. But Donald Trump has done just that because he loves to be surrounded by yes men. And there is reporting to indicate that his lawyer lied to the DOJ about Trump's possession of these documents in the first place.

I guarantee you Trump told him to lie. I can't, that's what he does every time. And like a good little boy or girl, the lawyer did it. And of course the idiot Trump's like, no, tell him I don't have it, they'll never find it in the basement. Yeah, okay, good luck with that. Anyway, all right, well let's take a break. When we come back, we have some more confirmation that we, me in particular, we're right about the Inflation Reduction Act because climate activists are fighting back against some provisions within that legislation.

We'll tell you what it is when we come right back. All right back on TYT, Jankan, I'm with you guys. And Elder Mind Pulse, gifted 20 tier one subs on Twitch. Elder Mind Pulse, you're kind of awes. Awesome. All right, Casper. All right. Well, we've got some updates on the reaction to the Inflation Reduction Act and the side deals. Climate activists are planning to fight back against a pipeline side deal that Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin made in order to get Joe Mansion to sign on to the so-called inflation reduction act. Now, this side deal comes in the

form of a separate piece of legislation. But again, in order, order to get Manchin to sign on, the actual bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, had to include all sorts of fossil fuel handouts. But there was also an agreement that there would be a side deal, another piece of legislation that would be voted on that would approve a pipeline known as the Mountain Valley pipeline that would, of course, run through West Virginia. So that's why Joe Manchin loves it so much. Now, Manchin backed the IRA only after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to this side deal in which Democratic leaders would support a follow-up bill expected to come next month, that would ease the permitting process for natural gas pipelines and the Mountain Valley

pipeline in particular. But guess what? Climate activists ain't having it, and they have already begun lobbying in private, but they're also taking some action publicly. So environmental activists say they're working to line up enough progressive support to kill the mansion side deal, which by the way, if you've been paying close attention to what happened to the build back better agenda, all of a sudden, tables are turned. As political reported yesterday, some groups are privately lobbying members of Congress. Now they've told TYT that they're going to take the fight to the public. And Candace Cole from TYT investigates is the new reporter who is breaking this story. And one of the public events they're going to have is on September

8th, they are going to meet in Washington, D.C. It is meant to, of course, protest this pipeline, the Mountain Valley pipeline. So if you're in the area on Thursday, September 8th, you should definitely be there and make your voice heard. Now, one of the people who spoke to TYT investigates about this, along with other media, is Juan Zhang Chung, who is with the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition. And he says, It says exactly what any climate activist should say in response to both the side deal and also certain provisions within the Inflation Reduction Act. What we saw in the leaked documents basically was this so-called permitting reform that was

trying to expedite and fast track fossil fuel projects. It was also fast tracking pipelines for carbon capture. So carbon dioxide pipelines as well as hydrogen pipelines. And let me just note before we continue, lobbying Progressive members of Congress to block the side deal is really important because that side deal to approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline can't go through reconciliation, meaning a simple majority in the Senate. It would need at least 10 Republicans in order to pass.

And so if you can convince some of the more left-leaning Democrats in the Senate to vote no on the deal, that would be fantastic. There's a little less power in the house when it comes to this issue. But luckily we do have some progressives who are, who have already come out to say, I don't owe Joe Manchin a damn thing. And hell no, I'm not gonna vote in favor of this side legislation. And Rashida Taleb happens to be one of the progressive lawmakers who said that on the record while speaking to the American prospect.

Yeah, so we'll get to her quote in a second because I love it. But guys, first of all, as Anna said, tables are turned. Turned. Second of all, payback. I hear it's a bitch. That is what the kids are saying these things. Yeah, so let's now recollect that Joe Manchin killed 95% of Joe Biden's agenda. So I know if you watch mainstream media, you'll think what they just passed was historic.

It was historically weak is what it was. So there's some good provisions in regards to climate. There's also awful provisions in regards to climate. The drug reduction, price reduction is a joke. It's a total trick. It's terrible. So don't believe the hype on that. And we can go on and on.

So we didn't get paid family leave, child tax credit, $50 minimum wage, voting rights. We can get any of that. And then the list goes on and on and on of all the things we didn't get that they said we were to get because of Joe Manchin. And why? Because they decoupled the bill and the conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin said, oh, we'll give you all of that as long as you give us the corporate pork in the infrastructure. Oh, did you already? pass infrastructure after we put monumental pressure on you? Well, I guess you were suckers and

idiots. Well, and now we're going to kill build back better. Okay, well, I guess you were a sucker, Joe Manchin. We want to kill the side deal. So there's no, here's my prediction as to what's going to happen, and you'll see it with your own eyes, because you're almost never wrong about these things. And then I'll tell you what the reaction should be. Now, the press will, if the progressives make a real effort to kill the side deal, the press will act shocked and chagrined and they will be like, this is a violation of bipartisanship and a deal that was already made. These progressives are scoundrels, scoundrels, I tell you. I will say though, it's gonna be a little more difficult for the press to make that argument.

No, they're gonna do with a straight face. No, you're probably right, but just hear me out for a second, right? Because, I mean, progressives and like overall Democrats, even if they're not being 100% genuine about it, are on the record saying that they want to curb, you know, carbon emissions and they want to roll back drilling for oil and natural gas. And so if this is truly a standalone bill that only has this issue involved, meaning the, you know, Mountain Valley pipeline, well then like what case can you make as a reporter that progressives absolutely need to vote in favor of it. It's just a big approval to something that progressives and Democrats overall have

been on the record on over and over again saying that they're against, right? So I don't know if they're going to try to put something else in there. No, no, no, no, they don't need that. So look, the reporters are going to say, well, we would never say the progressives are scoundrels and we would never defend this bill. We're objective. So instead, what they're going to do is they're going to say, there was a deal that was already made. Now, progressives are going back, And everybody's wondering if it's going to cause the Democrats in the midterms because they'll look too radical and too left. Oh, look, we have a pollster saying that. Oh, he works for all the Democratic establishment, but we didn't mention that.

Oh, we have a consultant saying it. We have a lobbyist saying it. They're all saying the progressives are really, really hurting Democrats in the midterms. Because why? Americans love the idea of a random pipeline in West Virginia that's going to destroy the planet and etc. No, they're just going to make it up and they're going to fill it with fake quotes from Washington Insiders. That's what they always do. Now, so what should be our reaction?

It should be what Rashida said times 10. Oh, you think that we owe Joe Manchin. Well, why don't you go ahead and kiss my progressive ass? Okay. Who cares if they yell at you. Get it through your head. They're not your friends. They're literally your opponents, your political opponents, including almost all of the media.

So let me give you the Talib quote because it was great. So this last one here, she said to the American prospect, handshake deals made by others in closed rooms do not dictate how I vote. And we sure as hell don't owe Joe Manchin anything now. They don't. There you go. Congresswoman Talib, that's how you roll. Now, we all cross their fingers and hope that enough progressives in Congress follow her and they don't go scurrying for the hills when Primalah Jayapal convinces them that they should kiss more establishment ads. Now, Primal says she hasn't made up her mind yet.

So Nancy Pelosi will pretend that she's going to help her again to run for Speaker of the House. Then Jayapal will try to hurt all of them in the wrong direction, is my guess as to how it's going to go. But by the way, yes, they need votes in the Senate. Yes, Anna's 100% right. If you just peel away Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren or Ed Markey, man, that got made their job way harder. Now they've got to get 12 or 13 Republican senators.

But don't forget in the House, there's plenty of progressives, plenty enough progressives that they can easily block this on their own. Okay, so are they going to? No, that's up to them. Yeah, I mean, and keep in mind, there are plenty of progressives in name only. I think it's important to note that the progressive caucus, which has dozens and dozens of Democratic lawmakers in it, doesn't actually have dozens and dozens of progressive Democratic lawmakers within it.

So let's just be clear about that. Yeah, I'll do a call out right now. So, and it's of a person we really like. But there's the real progressives, and they often get scared. But look, Talib isn't in this case. The real progressives are the just Democrats, et cetera, right? The squad, right? And then there are the fake progressives in the Progressive Caucus, Akeem Jeffries, et cetera.

They're useless. They're counterproductive. I can't believe Akeem Jeffries is in the Progressive Caucus. I know, it's such a joke. He's like the most corporate guy in the whole planet. He's like, I shall also join the progressive caucus. Right. Okay, what a fraud.

Anyway, but there are the folks in the middle that could be the votes we need to block this, but almost never oppose House leadership. Here, I'll throw out a name, Katie Porter. What? Katie Porter never, ever opposes Nancy Pelosi. So she does a great whiteboard. Have you ever seen her vote against Nancy Pelosi? God, I'm already a cynical bitch, and you're just making it worse.

Yeah. So you're right, you're right. I mean, if that's true, and I'm sure it is, it's. Remember the six that voted against the coupling. They were all Justice Democrats. Katie Porter wasn't on that list. Name any other Democrat you like. They were not on that list. Because they said, no, we have to trust Biden and mansion. Absurd. So does Katie Porter and the other good Congress people, actual progressives in Congress, object to this? Or are they going to go along to get along? And that's not on me. They'll get mad for me pointing out the news. That's a fact. So it's on them to figure out, hey, do you ever want to fight back?

Or are you going to let Manchin have this freebie for no reason? In fact, one last thing on it. I think that they put it in as part of the deal so that Schumer and Manchin did. So that it can be killed and they could say now we're all even. I mean, Manchin killed 95% of the agenda. But you guys killed this tiny little pipeline. and we didn't really actually expect you to pass anyway, and we'll call it even. And they probably thought, but maybe the suckers will even give it to us.

But it's a win either way. And that would be smart. Either it gets killed and it's not that big a deal to them, or we got this too. Man, they're never going to fight. So it's smart on Schumer and Manchin's side. Let's see if progressives have any fighting them. All right, let's take a break and we'll get off the topic of how much I hate Congress and talk a little bit about a man who's been arrested 41 times for assault and then was released and decided to assault another person sending him to the hospital. We've got that story and more coming right up.

All right, back on T.O.8 Jank and Anna with you guys. We got more news. Let's move over to New York, where a pretty devastating story has broken regarding a worker for the subway system. So, a man who has been arrested 41 times for assault has just sent a New York City subway worker to the hospital with a broken collarbone and a dislocated nose. Now, the suspect, Alexander Wright, again, has been arrested for assault 41 separate times, but apparently that's not enough to keep him out of the public to ensure that people are safe. And Anthony Nelson, who does cleaning work for the subway system, is the latest victim here.

So the sister of the victim here, Natasha Nelson says, I've never in 33 years seen my brother like that. Broken nose, his right side collarbone is broken. Okay. And this all happened on August 11th at the Pelham Bay Station in the city's Bronx. The vice president for the Transport Workers Union Local 100 spoke about rights insane criminal record and is wondering why do our workers have to deal with this? How is it that are, you know, law enforcement is unable to keep people safe. It's insane. He says, his name's Robert Kelly, if you look at his history, you'll throw up. The system has let society down more than 40 times. So what happened exactly? Well, according to reports, the New York City Police Department said subway cleaner Anthony Nelson was first approached by an MTA customer that there was a mail outside of the station

harassing members of the public. The cleaner exited the station to ascertain a description of the suspected mail to police. While the cleaner was observing the mail, the male approached the cleaner and punched him about the head. As the victim attempted to remove the mail off of him and flee to safety, the individual threw the cleaner to the ground, causing pain to his right shoulder. Now, Alexander Wright, the perpetrator here, whom police say, you know, is, he has $5,000 bail. So if he can post bail, he'll, he's out there in the public again.

His family, Nelson's family is furious about this. Again, they're wondering why he was out on the street. Lisa Nelson, the victim's mother, says, this man, Alexander Wright, should not be walking the streets. I hope these politicians and these judges give him the max that he deserves and do not let him walk free. And by the way, one of Alexander's past victims was involved in a hate crime as well toward an Asian woman. So Wright, 49 was charged with assault as a hate crime, misdemeanor assault and criminal possession of a controlled substance, a synthetic form of marijuana called K2, after being accused of attacking an Asian American woman in broad daylight in New York City's Chinatown. Now, we're going to show you the video of what

he did, it's difficult to watch, so I want to give you that warning. But without further ado, this is a man who's been arrested 41 times and was just released back onto the streets to assault other people. Yeah, this is unacceptable. This is 100% unacceptable. I just, I'm done with this. Whatever this is is not criminal justice reform, allowing people who are clearly a threat to public safety, allowing people who are assaulting and hurting workers as they're just

trying to do their jobs and get through the day, unacceptable, how are we allowing this to happen? Yeah. This is it, this is criminal justice reform? That ain't it. Okay, so let's break this down. First of all, this is not an isolated story. This is happening in major cities across the country, dozens of stories nonstop.

And there's something seriously wrong here. Yes. So we can't have someone being arrested 41 times, and they're back on the streets. So has there been massive injustice in the past in the criminal justice? Definitely. Is there still injustice today? Yes. Our next story is about an injustice of the government doing over prosecuting.

over prosecuting, right? And so, but you have to be balanced and you have to actually seek justice because that's what progressives are. We're not like the right wing paints a caricature of progressives. Oh, you guys want to make everything racial, et cetera. This isn't a racial issue. So we care about that Asian woman just as much as we care about anybody else. Anthony Nelson, who was attacked in the subway, the first story in Anna told you is black.

This has nothing new with race, this has nothing do with injustice. In fact, letting a guy keep assaulting people over and over again is injustice. Yeah. So if you're a progressive, you should be looking to have this man imprisoned for a long time. If you're not, you're not getting it. That what he did to that woman there that he's done now dozens of times is not within miles of justice. It's the exact opposite of it.

And by the way, there's a second component to this story and the other ones that Anna's going to tell you about. They constantly target the working man. Yes. Because if they target rich people, then they're actually going to get arrested. They're actually going to be in a lot of trouble. They're actually going to get put away for a long time. But when they keep going after the working class, nobody's there to help them. And nobody's there to fight back and no one's there to fight for justice. As progressives, we're supposed to be fighting for justice no matter what. So let's stick up for each other and make sure we get justice for those victims too. Yeah. And I mean, look, you're right about this happening in most major cities. It

happens in Los Angeles as well. And, you know, just to give you a Los Angeles angle to a very similar story, metro workers at Union Station were begging, begging the authorities for some protection. There was one metro worker, a female who was dragged into the bathroom and assaulted. I mean, there was case after case. Luckily, they're represented by a union that, you know, had some power in persuading the government, the local government to provide extra security. for these workers, okay? But what we're also noticing in Los Angeles is, depending on where you live, if you're lucky enough to afford a wealthier area in Los Angeles, you're protected by private security at this point. That's where we're at. So it is an overall problem with our

justice system. I believe that local law enforcement is on an unofficial strike because they're having a little temper tantrum because people dare to want to hold them accountable for shooting and killing unarmed individuals who do not pose an imminent threat to them because they're freaking cowards and they don't want to do their jobs. So that's number one. And then on the other hand, you have people who live in like La La Land, Utopia where they think, no, no, no, we need to abolish all prisons, abolish all police and just let these maniacs go around assaulting and killing innocent people, including workers.

Unacceptable, I ain't about that. So a perfect example of that happened the other day where we had this guy who did a shot a cop, killed him, right? And in the middle of a robbery, it's as bad as it gets. Turns out, he was out of jail when he had committed a terrible crime. He had hit his girlfriend, dragged her around by her hair, et cetera. And so why was he out? Well, it's the two things that Anna mentioned. One, prosecutors gave him a comically low sentence, 180 days. He'd already served 54. He's only going to serve 130 days for a terrible crime to his girlfriend, who should have gotten justice, right? Instead, he's out in the street and kills a cop. But wait a minute,

did he actually even serve the 130 days? No. It was 180 and no, he didn't. No, but he had served 54 already, okay, for being in prison. So did he serve the rest? No, because the sheriff's office let him go after one day. And when he asked the sheriff's office, what hell did he do? Did you do that? They're like, oh, well, the prosecutors aren't going to give them real sentences. No, I don't know, you should ask them. No, I'm asking you, why did you let him out in one day? Okay, so I'm asking both of you, what is wrong with you guys, protect actual citizens? Yeah, this system is just so incredibly broken and after all of the protests and all of the calls to do common sense things, okay? And qualified immunity, so cops maybe think twice before they just decide to open fire and kill people that are running away from them and clearly do not pose an imminent threat.

Reform our prisons. Nothing done about that. Prisons are still a place where people go to become hardened criminals as opposed to people who get rehabilitation so they can go back into society as normal productive people, right? None of that is happening. No reform when it comes to our prisons. No reform when it comes to policing. I don't see any real programs that help people who, you know, go back into society after they're released from prison. No support whatsoever. This country is a joke when it comes to its criminal justice system, and the fact that all we got out of all of those protests is now like this total hands off approach where people can go around assaulting people and robbing people all they want with absolutely no real consequences, drives me crazy.

And anyone who defends that is wrong, okay? You cannot pretend to be in favor of workers and ensuring that they're safe, that their working conditions are great, when at the same time you provide cover for criminals who are victimizing them like this. Well, one last thing for me, there's also a fentanyl epidemic going on. And so people who used to be hooked on drugs before are now hooked on a super dangerous form of a drug that causes much more violence. And it honestly deterioration of the brain so that you can't make rational decisions.

So there's a story out of Denver, this poor bus driver that had this great route. She would drop people off at their work, at school, they knew each other. It was like a story right out of America. That was before the epidemic. Now, because of fentanyl, it's a nightmare, it's a house of horrors on the bus stop. People constantly yelling or are people getting killed on the bus? Literally getting killed on the bus. There was a man who beat a woman to death and tossed her body on the side of the road.

Imagine being a bus driver, how terrifying that is to witness that and feel no protection. Yeah, and when I say yelling, That's not normal yelling, racial stuff, of course, the worst sexual stuff you've ever heard. In fact, yesterday I was, everything's out of control. Yesterday I was at lunch here in L.A. Homeless guy comes and starts yelling at the waitress outside. Immediately goes racial, calls her ghetto this, that, the other thing. Immediately goes sexual, et cetera.

So the working class, they should not get, if she calls the cops, they're not going to come in time. They're not going to do anything, okay? And then they'll blame the prosecutors, and the prosecutors will blame the cops. No, this is not reform. Criminal justice reform was, hey, reform policing, so they don't unfairly target black people. Minorities, like stop and frisca in New York. And we, like, black people get arrested for marijuana at four times the rate of white people when they smoke the same amount.

There's a real incredibly important criminal justice reform to do. Instead, we're like, oh, okay, if you steal under $1,000, which you're going to, going to let you go. Oh, Jesus Christ, right? What are we doing? What are we doing? That's not reform? Nobody even asked for that. Who the hell asked for that? Okay, oh, and now if it's not a felony, we're going to let you out of jail right away. There's like 12 crimes that are a felony in most jurisdictions. There's tons of massively violent things that are misdemeanors. Punching your girlfriend in the face, smearing feces on a person's face. These are all misdemeanors. And like, you're free to go, you're free to go. Who asked for this? I didn't ask.

for it. I don't know any progressives that asked for it. So, and if you're a progressive that thinks that that's a great idea of justice, I think you've lost bearings on what justice is. All right. Well, now we turn to another crime-related story, but this is an example of the disgusting virus within our justice system that leads to prosecutions that shouldn't happen, and there's some money behind it too. Two former Pennsylvania judges who devised a scheme to send literal children to for profit prisons for juveniles in exchange for kickbacks are finally facing some financial consequences. They have faced criminal investigations and are serving prison sentences as a result, but now there's money involved too.

They've been ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of victims. So U.S. District Judge Christopher Connor awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are the tragic, human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions. So this is a story that we actually covered eight years ago when it broke. And it was just mind numbing how callous these judges were and how profit driven they were. They just wanted to pad their own pockets with these kickbacks.

Now the US district judge Connor ruled after hearing often emotional testimony last year from 282 people who appeared in Luzerne County Juvenile Court between 2000. Between 2003 and 2008, 79 of whom were under 13 when Judge Mark Schiorella sent them to juvenile detention and 32 parents. Now, what exactly did these judges do? Well, let's take a little step back in time and watch this report that details it. Do you remember me? Do you remember me?

Do you remember my son? An all-star wrestler, he's gone. He's gone. This mother's rage and fury greeted former Judge Mark Schiverer. as he exited court Friday. Shivorella sent Sandy Fonzo's son to juvenile detention for possession of drug paraphernalia. Years later, he killed himself. Prosecutors say Chivorella was involved in a Kids for Cash scandal.

He's accused of taking a million dollars in exchange for putting juvenile defendants into private detention centers. In one reported case, he sentenced a child to two years for joyriding in his mom's car. Some of the kids he ordered locked up were as young as 10. In 2009, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed 4,000 cases Chivorella handled, saying they had no confidence in his rulings. So luckily that prosecution, that criminal investigation led to prison sentences for Chivorella. So it's Mark Chivorella and the other judge is Michael Conahan. And they, you know, we're getting a deal.

Like, hey, send more of these kids to our for-profit juvenile facilities and we'll give you some money. And they collected $2.8 million in illegal payments to do just that. Shivorella ordered children as young as eight, by the way, to detention. Many of them first time offenders deemed delinquent for petty theft, jaywalking truancy, smoking on school grounds and other minor infractions. The judge often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed, and taken away. without giving them a chance to put up a defense or even say goodbye to their families. We'll hear from one of the victims in just a moment.

But, Jank, I want to give you a chance to jump in. Okay, these judges are the worst people alive. Absolutely. So as cancerous as they are, though, they're not the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that we allow for-profit prisons. So you know what the judges did first? They helped to shut down a county-run juvenile detention center. That's the way we used to do things in America.

Hey, when we were taking away somebody's freedom, the state needs to do that. Because if we allow private companies to do that, they're going to have a profit incentive to take away freedom. And we lost track of that. So now that for-profit prisons exist, poor-profit prison bribes the judges. The judges shut down the county-run one. they then say to every kid that comes in because they're going to make they make money per kid they're like they don't care about the law or justice or anything you come in for anything boom you're gone guilty guilty guilty because they're getting paid for it why because a for

profit prison is getting paid more and doing a kickback to them are we insane are we insane that we allow for profit prisons yes i guarantee you this is happening all across the country you know Why? Because there's evil people in the world. And the minute you give a profit motive for them, they're going to do it. And by the way, of course, the four private prisons afterwards, and this is a case from a long time ago, got way smarter. They realized, oh, you don't bribe the judges one by one. You bribe the politicians. They shut down the public prisons for you. They start the private prisons. And then they make the laws tougher, tougher. And they shovel all these kids and take away their freedom so we can make a buck off of them.

And and then when we complain about it and everybody agrees, the right wing agrees, left wing agrees, it doesn't matter, they already bought the politicians. And it's already over. So they're doing this to your kids all across the country. And it ruins their lives. In fact, at the time the story broke eight years ago, democracy now had talked to one of the victims and she talked about what she experienced and how she didn't even realize she was being prosecuted by this justice. until she was being booked, so let's take a look at that. I was about 14 years old, and I got into an argument with one of my friends, and all that happened

was just a basic fight. She slapped me in the face, and I did the same thing back. There was no mark, no witnesses, nothing. It was just her word against my word. My only charges were simple assault and harassment, and I didn't even. know that charters were pressed against me until I had to go down to the intake and probation and fill out a whole bunch of paperwork. This makes me really question other authority figures and people that were supposed to look up to

and trust. I mean, Shiborell has been a judge for a long time from what I know, and a well-respected one is what I thought, and I obviously not. It just really makes me question and not trust other people. I mean, if someone like Judge Chavarello can do this, then it makes me believe that anyone can betray the line. And I mean, think about how these are formative years for a person's life. And what she said there was heartbreaking because that'll change you.

That'll do away with your innocence and your trust in humanity, right? Your trust in adults. An adult sent her to a for-profit juvenile facility just so he could collect kickbacks from the for-profit juvenile facility. And I'm happy that he's serving a prison sentence, 28 year prison sentence, Chivorella. I should note the other judge, Conahan, was sentenced to 17 years in prison, but was released to home confinement in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Yeah, he shouldn't have been released. I agree. You don't have any poor middle class folks were released during COVID?

My guess is zero across the entire country. Do you know that they just cleaned out all the rich people from the jails during COVID? they would just go to the judges with their legal teams and go, oh my God, he could get COVID in prison. I mean, all he did was destroy the lives of all these kids. But he's, you know, he was a judge. He's among the elites. Oh, you're free to go home confinement in my ass.

I bet he's at Red Lobster right now. Okay, so anyways, look, one other thing that's super important here. So this is $200 million settlement, not a settlement, but a fine, right? But the judges don't have that kind of money. so they're not really going to collect. Who does have that kind of money? The for-profit prisons. Okay, now the depressing part is they already settled.

And they settled for $25 million. Apparently, that was a good decision by the for-profit prisons because they probably would have gotten a lot more than $200 million if that's what they put on the judges. Okay. So, but wait a minute, why are we even having a conversation about finding the for-profit prisons? Why isn't their CEO in jail?

Why does it still exist? this criminal enterprise, in prison's kids for cash, you should shut it down immediately and arrest all the executives. Nope, corporations are untouchable. So the real villains here are not just the four private prisons, but the politicians who allow them in the sick system that we have where you can't bribe the judges that can get your jail time. But you could bribe politicians all day long. And that's what they figured out. And so now your kids are still suffering the same exact thing. It's just not been made legal. Well, when we come back, we'll show you a greedy pastor who got caught being real greedy. And now he's apologizing. We've got the greedy moment,

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