The Young Turks - Biden Forgets Obama’s Name

Episode Date: August 30, 2019

Joe Biden can’t seem to remember Obama’s name. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. Hell of a show.

All right, so two days ago I told you the theme was snowflakes, I think we delivered on that. Yesterday the theme was anger, today the theme is fire. Yeah. Okay. So I'm sure we'll add some brimstone too, but like definitely fire, both proverbially and literally. So lots of that to come, trumpet has a fight with Fox News, that's awesome. But here's the story you're not hearing anywhere else about that. Well, we're gonna save that for the second hour.

When we're doing that story, I have a theory on that, that I predict Anna will go, she'll forget it by then, and then when I say it, she'll go, oh. I also have a theory. Uh-oh. Lots of theories on today's show. Okay, we had a theory that you guys might want to debate about climate crisis. It turns out we were right about that, even more than we suspected. So t-y-t dot com slash town hall, how's that going?

Boom. 141,000, 5,040 individual donors, and that's bananas. So I looked at an initial budget today. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it turns out we need the 200,000. Yeah, if we'd only gotten the 100,000. So, because you know, when we go do things, we do them super cheap, right? Like in Iowa, it looked really good, but it's only one camera.

Right. When you have multiple cameras? Yeah, I was actually thinking about that. So when you started with the 100,000, I'm like, oh boy. Yeah. You're not that great with numbers. I gotta be honest. I just came it at 100, okay?

All of a sudden, under a bus. Okay. So, but anyway, I'm glad that you came to that conclusion. early enough in this case. Yeah, look, one last thing, guys, is before we get started, change is coming. I started to tell you this yesterday, and we're gonna involve you guys more and more in the show as we go along. And so some of the stuff we're working on behind the scenes is super exciting to make you

a bigger part of the show. So, and a bigger part of change. I'm just telling you, it's, I'm jazz, I'm super jazzed. What we're trying to do is set up win-win. win wins, okay? When we win, you win, vice versa, et cetera. So anyways, that fun stuff coming up a little bit later. So with that being said, let's get started with poor old Joe Biden. All right. Okay. I've been in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq 28 times. I've been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan over 29 times. I've been in out of Afghanistan and Iraq over 30 times.

That is former Vice President Joe Biden, who the Washington Post is reporting, has been telling a story on, you know, during stump speeches, where he seems to be mixing things up, combining three different stories into one story that's completely fictional. And I don't think that there's ill intent here, but it does appear that Joe Biden's having a difficult time remembering things. There have been other cases as of late, where Joe Biden demonstrates that his memory isn't quite there. And it's actually kind of depressing to see it because, you know, I'll show you the examples in just a minute, but I want to give you a few details before I provide the video evidence that the Washington Post is writing about. Cenk, did you want to jump there? Yeah, so the numbers that he mentioned there, oh, I was there 28 times 2930, it turns out his campaign today said, okay, fine, it was 21, the real number is 21.

Now, by the way, if you said 21, that's a lot. There's nothing wrong with 21. That's, you know, you went there to see how combat was going when you were vice president, when you were a senator, et cetera. You don't have to make up that it's 29 or 30, right? I don't think he did. Yeah, so that's what I want to get to next. The story, you know, you said totally fabricated.

As Anna will explain the details, you'll see it's actually not totally fabricated. It became fabricated as an amalgamation of a number of different stories. So I think that if you hear the whole story out, you'll see that he does not, I agree with Anna, he does not have bad intent, and then the question is, is he starting to lose it a little bit or then Joe Biden always funge stuff? Was he always a little careless in telling these stories as a politician? So now let's give you the details, you make up your own mic. So he's been giving this account of a heroic military action since 2016.

He's given a similar speech since 2016 on various occasions, and one of the occasions was recently. And each time the story changes considerably. And again, it appears as though he has taken bits and pieces from other stories and has combined them into one story. So in the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of metal, the military branch, and the rank of the recipient. wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony. Almost every detail in the story appears to be incorrect.

Based on interviews with more than a dozen U.S. troops, their commanders, and Biden campaign officials, it appears as though the former vice president has jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion, and regret that never happened. And I got to be honest with you, even in reading the Washington Post reporting on this, It was kind of hard to keep track of what actually happened the day of the event that he's trying to share information about. So it has to do with a member of the military who's attempting to save one of his peers. And in the real story, the peer unfortunately did not make it. He was trapped in a vehicle and the heroic soldier wasn't even able to retrieve the body because of the fact that his body was already on fire,

as was, you know, recounted by the soldier. Now, I'm gonna show you a few video examples of the different times that Biden tried to tell this story and how it's changed. Take a look. I found myself in Iraq being asked by General Oriano, a four star, to pin a silver medal on a young captain. I have been asked in a forward operating base in the middle of a godforsaken nowhere in the upper Konar Valley in Afghanistan to pin a silver star on a young, coincidentally, Navy captain in what they call a fob, a forward operating base. I pin medals on silver stars on soldiers up in the upper Konar Valley in the middle of a firestorm.

the poor guys have gone through, young Navy captain, Navy, Navy, Navy, up in the mountains in the Konaar Valley, Afghanistan. So he talks about this as a vice president. He experienced this as a vice president. However, as the Washington Post reports, Biden visited that province in 2008 as a U.S. Senator, not as a vice president. The service member who performed and celebrated rescue that Biden described was a 20-year-old Army Specialist, not a much older Navy captain.

So those are, look, he should get the story right, you know, all the little details, those are little details. But again, the way that he tells the story indicates that that event never happened. Bits and pieces of other events were kind of grouped together into this one fictional story. Yeah, so, and he's told a lot of different versions. In one version, a guy's, Humvee's burning, he pulls them up. In another version, the guy careens down a 200 foot cliff to get a soldier that's died

and brings him up anyway, et cetera. Now the real story is, at first, the Washington Post didn't get to the Humvee story until the very end. And I thought if he made up the Humvee story, it's too much, right? As I'm reading the story, I'm like, come on, man, you can't make up a story about a burning car if it doesn't exist. It turns out that story does exist. So he went in 2011 as vice president, he went in 2008 as a senator.

And he took a whole bunch of these stories. The only story that doesn't exist is the guy careening down the mountain, okay? But the heroic soldier who pulled his fellow soldier down after he'd been shot through the jaw on the neck and saved his life is true. The guy who didn't want the metal was in the burning, the guy who tried to pull the guy out of the burning car but couldn't. That's why he didn't want the medal. He's like, I didn't get to him, I didn't get to him.

And he was really broken up about it. And so the essence of the story that Biden is telling about a, a service member who was broken up about not wanting a medal, even though it was a bronze star, not a silver star, et cetera, is true. It's just two stories that are real and one that is and it smushed it into one story and got all the details wrong. Now look, if you don't know, Bind's run for president many times. And in the past, he got knocked out of one race because of plagiarism charges. Now, what's interesting is that Al Gore, who was in the race with him, running against him,

right, heavily defended him on the plagiarism charges and said it wasn't true. He gave credit to the author in every other speech that we were on the stump together that one time he didn't. And so it was, so it's a really mixed record of Joe Biden telling stories. And it, you know, look, and then you get to the question of what standard do we apply? If it was the old days, Brian Williams got canned for this. Then he got rehired, you know, late 9 on MSNBC, et cetera. but he lost a massive job in news because of this.

On the other hand, Trump has literally told 12,000 lies. He's told more than that, but the Washington Post finally started keeping track of how often he lied. And I want to give you the details on that. So let's go to Graphics 6. For the beginning of his presidency, until the middle of last month, Trump has uttered more than 12,000 false or misleading statements. He has continued to add to that total since then.

So the number is higher. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, when I don't know that Trump's weighed in on this, I mean, TikTok, right? It depends on whether Fox and Friends covers it. But if he does, he'll probably go over the top and be like, oh, Joe Biden can't remember anything. He's a liar, are you kidding me?

The one person that cannot comment on this at all is Donald Trump. Now, having gotten past that, look, I don't support Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, right? He's too moderate or conservative for my politics, I want to progress it. But is this something we should be concerned about? I don't know, I got it at 50-50, you know, I'm more worried about his mental state than I am about, does he have bad intent, is he like a liar who likes to grandstand? Nah, he went to Iraq and Afghanistan 21 times.

He did pin a medal, he got the details very wrong on a number of occasions, but the essence of it is true, so I wouldn't use that against him. Yeah, look, I think intent matters. In this case, I do not think it's the same situation as Brian Williams. I think that Brian Williams had the intent of lying, and it was a way of making it. No, I embellished the story. He embellished, but like embellishing it is being misleading. It's lying to the audience about what you actually experienced and what your role was, right?

In this case, I don't think that Biden's trying to embellish. I don't think that his intent is to lie. I genuinely think that he's having a difficult time with his memory. And this isn't an isolated incident, right? I mean, he has one, there's one video after the next. I mean, we talked earlier this week about how he was campaigning in New Hampshire and he thought he was in Vermont. How do you not know you're in New Hampshire while you're campaigning?

And also, this video went viral just yesterday. And it features Joe Biden giving a speech. And he forgets something pretty huge because he's made it a central part of his campaign. Look. They invaded another country and annexed a significant portion of a called Crimea. He's saying that it was president, my boss, it's his fault. So he forgot President Obama's name. Look, I think this is actually super heartbreaking.

So this is not a political discussion, right? This is more about where he is, you know, health-wise. And it's really painful to watch this. Yeah, look, I've said, I don't know, dozens of times that I like Joe Biden too, even though he's conservative, even though that crime bill was terrible and I don't agree with his philosophy on reaching out to Republicans, I don't think he should be the candidate. But his story of grief around his family and him recovering from it, it's just too heartbreaking to not like the guy.

And he's handled it like a champ, et cetera. And remember, Obama convinced Biden not to run in 2016. And there was a recent report out saying that he didn't think he should run this time. And Obama knows them. They had lunch, you know, all the time. I think it was every day. But so I don't know if Obama knows he's not up to it for whatever reason. But if he makes it past the primary and this stuff gets exposed in the general,

We're in trouble. No, no, no, we can't have that. But I do feel bad for Biden. I mean, right now, we still have a long way to go. If Biden wins the nomination, then I'm gonna feel bad for all of us. But right now, we can't have it, man. If you're in New Hampshire and you're running for president, it's New Hampshire. I mean, how could you confuse it with Vermont?

If it was a random thing, hey, I want on a fishing trip, I forget if we were in New Hampshire of Vermont. That's totally normal. Right, if you're running for president, it's like, oh, the first state, Iowa or Kansas? No, it's Iowa, it's Iowa. You can't confuse it with any other state. Iowa, New Hampshire are the two best known things in politics. And so there's an issue here, guys, there's a real issue.

I feel bad about it. I'm not, we're not trying to be like underhanded, like, oh, we're feigning concern because we like the other candidates. No, we're actually concerned, and I do feel bad for it. He's not a Republican, right? At the end of the day, I disagree with him strategically and substantively, but he's not a bad guy. And so it's tough to watch, and it's tough to see that right now he's leading, and that's bad news for everybody. I'm gonna go ahead and take a break, but when we come back, we are going to get into some excerpts from Jim Mattis's book.

He doesn't name Trump, but he's talking about Trump, and it is pretty incredible. So come right back, we'll give you that. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or.

purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. for as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,

you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. All right, back on a young Turks.

Let me read some comments and then give you some updates. Francesco the Greek says, a fun one here, shout out to Jagannana for making me crave Popeyes for lunch today. Bogart Head says, Dear Joe, I'm really tired of this, yours truly, your brain. Oh, come on, I feel bad. I feel like a mainstream guy when I go, oh, come on. Anyway, we're all going to get old one day. I know.

I don't want to do that. I just don't want to go there. I want to get old. I'd rather, better than the alternative. Okay, Andy says, cut bind some slack 21 times to a war zone. And I'd mix up some details too. I think that's just the style of speaking and telling stories. Still want a progressive, though.

Okay, so that's Andy from Twitter. and sassy cetacean from the member section says Biden is dropping in the polls. He's clearly not up to the task of being president. He'll drop out eventually. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. So I did say in my Washington Post op-ed yesterday that he might not make it to Iowa. And look, the fate has begun. We're in August.

So to be fair to Biden, six new polls came out yesterday. So this polling is nonstop. And in those, he still had a more significantly more comfortable lead, obviously than the poll where he came in second, right? So but it's not as big a league. His lead is still cut in half from when he started. But the polling is all over the place and I want to give you full context, okay. And so the things I want to remind you about are Houston.

We're doing a revolution rally there, but with a twist. So this time around, we're not gonna do the rally outside. with speakers, et cetera. But Allison and I, and maybe one or two other speakers, are going to talk to the folks that show up there, kind of like a meetup, but we're also doing an organizing event there like we did in Detroit. The one in Detroit worked fantastic. So now the TYT Army in Michigan is so strong and in neighboring states.

So we're gonna try to do that again in Houston. So we'd love to see you there. It's gonna be on September 12th, time and date to be announced later. But that's why we want you to sign up at t-y-t.com slash rally so that we can get you that information as soon as we have it. And then finally, just a quick update on t-y-t.com slash town hall. We were at 140 in the beginning of the show. Let's see where we are right now. Let's take a quick look if we have that.

141. All right, God bless. Excellent. Thank you guys. Let's keep it going. All right, Anna, what's next? All right. So, I did as well as I could for as long as I could. Mattis writes in excerpts from his new book, Call Sign Chaos.

That is Jim Mattis' upcoming book. And there has been an excerpt of that book published in the Wall Street Journal. And in it, we get a clear idea of how Mattis really felt working for the Trump administration, something he didn't plan on doing, something he was surprised by. He was called on Trump and nominated by him. And what's fascinating is how even after everything went down, Mattis is still avoiding attacking Trump specifically by naming him. So I'm gonna read you some of the excerpts that stood out to me the most.

But before I do so, I do think it's important to give you a sense of how the Atlantic covered this story because they have a little more insight into the way Mattis really felt about Trump. Mattis often seemed burdened in his role. His aides and friends say he found the president to be of limited cognitive ability and of generally dubious character. So they interviewed Mattis, that's why they have more insight into it. Right.

And they also obviously talk to his friends and allies. And so Mattis, I'm actually frustrated by it. He writes a whole book and says, well, I'm not going to really tell you what I think. He says he still has quote a duty of silence and he said, there is a period in which I own my silence. It's not eternal. It's not going to be forever. Dude, what difference does it make after Trump's out of office? Your duty is to the country. Right. And it's to tell the truth right now. If you know the president is of dubious character and limited cognitive ability, we should know that before we decide whether to give him another four years as president of the United States.

So- I mean, we've decided. Yeah, no, but we, look, we have, but the country hasn't. And so So his former defense secretary telling us what he actually knows would be incredibly relevant. If you think, well, that would make it political. The whole world is political. So keeping the information from the American public is also a political decision. You know it, you should share it before we in a democracy make up our mind about who to lead us. But all that notwithstanding, it's fairly clear from what he says. So let's take a look at it.

And then I wish he would give more details, though. Sure, sure. So first, a few more mentions from the Atlantic that I think are important. Madison Tillerson had together smothered some of Trump's more extreme and imprudent ideas. But now Mattis was operating without cover. Trump was turning on him publicly. Two months earlier, he had speculated that Mattis might be a Democrat, he's not, trust me, and said in reference to NATO, I think I know more about it than he does.

So this is kind of setting the stage for the, you know, deterioration of the relationship between Trump and Mattis. Also, Mattis made his case for keeping troops in Syria. Trump rejected his arguments. 30 minutes into the conversation, Mattis told the president, quote, you're going to have to get the next secretary of defense to lose to ISIS, I'm not going to do it. He handed Trump his resignation letter, a letter that would soon become one of the most famous documents of the Trump presidency thus far. We covered that story when it broke. Also,

nations with allies thrive, Jim Mattis writes in the excerpt of his book. Nations with allies rise and those without them whither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering. A polemicist's role is not sufficient for a leader. leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for those nations that have stood with us when trouble loomed. I mean, he's calling him a polemicist. Obviously, he's saying that he doesn't have acumen, that means he's not smart. Now luckily, Trump is dumb enough that he won't understand that paragraph.

So he won't read it, and he won't understand it, so it'll be fine. So look, Mattis being a Democrat, hilarious. First of all, one of the reasons he left is because he wanted to stay in Syria longer. Progressives don't want to stay in Syria longer, and his idea is a perpetual war. So I don't agree with Mattis substantively or strategically. And let's also note for the record as he's being lionized now by the anti-Trump forces, which is significant in the media, that Mattis also only turned on Trump when Trump turned on him.

100%. Yes. And so, I mean, he was a good soldier, if you will, before Trump started publicly insulting him. So, and then he left, and now he writes this, you know, half measure book. Yes. Look, having read some of the book, the excerpts that have been released so far, I get it that Mattis is a fairly principled guy, strategic, and he's not a person of low character

like Donald Trump. And he is clearly smart. So he has upsides. But I want, like no one else will talk about his downsides. And we've got to give you a fuller picture. Now, having said that, who's right and wrong between Madison Trump? Only blinded MAGA guys would dispute that Mattis is correct. Right.

Look, I think the thing that's frustrating about all of this is the reasons that you mentioned earlier. I mean, the fact that he's being lionized now, the fact that he's being applauded for doing this half measure in calling Trump out a little bit. But at the same time, I mean, Trump is the lowest bar, right? Yeah. So anyone who's having a debate and they're saying, well, Mattis is better than Trump, well, yeah, most people are better than Trump, right? Most people that we've disagreed with politically for years are better than Trump. But in a way, when it comes to people like Mattis, when it comes to members of Trump's administration right now, they're worse in that they have absolutely no courage and don't understand the importance of their role,

right? And how this country is supposed to be governed, how there are supposed to be certain protections against an authoritarian character like Donald Trump. I mean, he was supposed to challenge Trump from within the administration. Yes, Trump wants to surround himself with yes men and he will turn on you the second you don't give him anything and everything he wants. But at the same time, you're right in that he didn't turn on Trump until Trump publicly turned on him, you know? And it's interesting because Trump turned on him over the issue of Syria, which is what we actually agreed with Trump on.

Yeah. And so he says in the book, Manist says, our own commons seems to be breaking apart. And he talks about our internal divisiveness and then says this, all Americans need to recognize that our democracy is an experiment and one that can be reversed. We all know that we're better than our current politics. Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment. Yeah, okay, well then say it, man. He's clearly saying that Trump is dividing us and ripping us apart and that our democracy is in danger.

He's clearly saying that to people who are smart enough to understand that. But remember, most MAGA guys and low information voters are not going to read all of Mattis's book, they're not even going to read an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal and get to the 28th paragraph. And they're not going to take a sentence like that that any smart person knows what he intends and understand it. You have to actually say the words. Trump is breaking us apart. Trump is dividing this country, and I'm worried Trump might end democracy.

If Mattis said that, instead of this sophisticated sentence, it would be national news everywhere. It would be headlines all across the world, and people will go, whoa, his former defense secretary is saying that Trump might end democracy. So just, God damn it, be clear. You owe a duty to the Constitution, to the country. If you think that our democracy is in peril, which is what you wrote, then you owe a duty to this country to say it more clearly. I couldn't agree more.

And just remember, there are people still serving for Trump who will do these leaks. They'll go talk to the press and talk about how concerned and worried they are. You'll have someone publish an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times talking about how there are adults in the room who are keeping an eye on Trump. But no one is really coming out publicly and calling it what it is. And Mattis talks about tribalism, but that tribalism is perpetuated by people like him, who protect the president and refuse to really call him out and do what's necessary, maybe even work with Democrats to get him out of office, to impeach him.

Or work with Republicans in a primary, I don't care. Right. And so, look, last thing on this is that the reason I now totally get why fascism wins. Like when I was younger and I used to visit museums and I saw the Holocaust Museum, et cetera, or Museum of Tolerance here in L.A., I couldn't believe it. How could they not see it? How could they not see it? Because it creeps up on you.

And then there's the bureaucrats. And the bureaucrats just go along and go, oh, you know, I'm going to say with our democracies in peril when we have tribalism, and then the bully comes in, and he scheme rules everybody. And Mueller comes in and goes, well, you know, my remit and my, you know, Purview was the election, even though the giant Russian business times were staring me in the face. Since I was not within the letter of my mandate, I did not look into it. And I'm just going to repeat what my report says in very carefully worded language.

These bureaucrats are getting steamrolled because they're not used to dealing with a fascist. So Mattis, you talk about in your book how a Marine is supposed to adjust. You don't just go into the battlefield with the plan you have. Once you hit the battlefield, you're supposed to adjust. And he says it in even more eloquent terms, right? Well, you've got to adjust right now. So, yeah, you like the Republicans, you like perpetual war. I get it.

We disagree on that, right? And you say, well, if I like the Republicans and I served a president, the old code is, I don't say anything about the president. But we're at a time where you think the president might end democracy. So you've got to adjust, and you've got to be clearer. And so right now, it's a small little story. That intellectuals go, hey, look at that, can you believe that? And everyone else ignores.

If you want the message to be heard, you've got to be loud and clear, and a Marine should know that. Well, speaking about individuals who need to be loud and clear, let's talk about Senate Republicans freaking out about the economy, but not being loud and clear about it. Republicans in the Senate are worried about the economy and what will result from Donald Trump's trade war with China. Now, they're not only worried about the economy, they're worried about how the impact on the economy will impact their elections or their reelection campaigns. So a few of them are starting to push back against Donald Trump. They're doing so in a very meek way, if you ask me, but you can judge for yourselves because I'm about to give you the details.

Now, according to Politico, which broke the story, Trump's tariff regime on Chinese, European, and North American imports have reduced economic growth and increased house. costs. That's according to the Congressional Budget Office. So look, there's already that negative impact related to the tariffs and the trade war. There's also the Trump tax cuts, which did not result in wage increases for the average American. You have these giant bubbles, especially when it comes to corporate stock buybacks and how

shares are artificially inflated. You have corporations taking out debt in order to do corporate stock buybacks. So, you know, there's all sorts of stuff going on right now. But for the sake of this story, the senators, the Republican senators, are worried about the trade war. So here's Pat Toomey, here's what he has to say. There's no question that trade uncertainty is contributing to the slowdown. We're in a very good place. The danger is, where are we going to be a year from now if concerns about trade continue

to be an irritant to growth? Then you have Senator Ron Johnson, who said, the biggest risk to the economy. economy is the whole trade situation. I think the president did a great job. We stopped doing the regulatory burden. We have a fairer tax system, and the whole trade war has injected a huge dose of uncertainty and instability. Also, Senator Rob Portman is urging the White House officials to develop an international coalition

to isolate China, while Senator Steve Danes is traveling to China next week to discuss trade with the country's leaders. So they're, again, panicking, but on the surface, they're agreeable with Trump, toward Trump. They're just telling him like, oh, you've done a great job with the economy, things are great, but this uncertainty could really destroy your reelection. In reality, they're really concerned about their political careers as well. Yeah, well, there's two things they're concerned about. One is, hey, Trump, nice job on the tax cuts for our donors.

We love that part. But now our donors are getting upset because the trade war. is dampening their business. So they told me to come out and tweak you. Now, I can't yell at you because then you'll get a primary opponent against me and I'll lose. So I'm just tweaking you because my donors told me to. But the second part is also true, what Anna mentioned. Now they're looking around going, well, I've got an election coming up.

And I thought it was safe, but maybe they're not so safe. And for guys like Tumi in Pennsylvania, it's not at all safe. And there's one other component to it. If the economy goes south, Trump's polling is right now between 36 and 40%. That's already miserable. And it's dragging down the Republican senators polling as well. Now if the economy crashes, oops, then Trump is totally screwed. So the two means and the justice of the world want to get out ahead of that and go, well, remember

when I tweaked them earlier, I don't always agree with Trump. I mean, he's down at 25%. Did I say I was with Trump? No, no, no, as you'll notice, I said we shouldn't do the tariffs. Yeah, I mean, look, this is the beginning phases of their rehabilitation campaign, right? They want to rehabilitate their image. I honestly think we're seeing it with former members of Trump's administration right now. Today, we did the story of Jim Mattis and his book and how he's calling out Trump, but not quite,

because he's not calling him out by name. This is a way of them saying, like, no, no, no, we push back when it was necessary. We disagreed when it was necessary, but really they didn't. And then even Marco Rubio, I mean, I think he's a prime example. Marco Rubio was humiliated by Donald Trump, but he has become one of Trump's yesmen. So I want to go to graphic. It's so wonderfully sad. And here's what he had to say, and I want to push back against the statement that he gave Politico.

Do I like tariffs as a matter of policy on any given day? No. What other alternatives do you have to rebalance? What has now been 30 years of cheating, lying, stealing, and unfairness on behalf of the Chinese. So I want to stop there for a second, because there is this narrative that goes completely unchallenged in the mainstream media. The narrative that China steals from us, they have stolen our intellectual property, which is why we need to hold them accountable. And to be fair, I made that mistake. I bought into that narrative.

But there are people who know damn well how trade with China began, how these relationships were negotiated. And one of those concessions on the U.S. side was, as long as you give us the cheap labor, we're going to give you our intellectual property. And Richard Wolfe does a really good job explaining this. I want to just go to this clip where he breaks it down. So people know why it is that China has this access to our intellectual property. Take a look.

The American companies, for example, came in, and they asked for two things. A cheap labor force and access. And the Chinese said, fine, we'll give you the cheap labor and we'll give you the access. You've got to give us your technology. And you've got to give us help in getting access to your market so we can sell this stuff, which is in your interest because you're producing in China stuff you want to sell in the United States too. So we'll do that together. That's when the marriage, because that's really what it is, between China and Walmart develops. The two of them need each other, have for 35

years. There would be no Walmart of the sort we take for granted without the Chinese and vice versa. Because what Walmart did is give the Chinese an instant distribution network. Anything the Chinese could produce, Walmart would bring into every village in town, every suburban mall everywhere. Fantastic deal. But that's why when you hear today, the Chinese are stealing our technology. That is nonsense. That pure ideological bashing of China. A deal was struck. They got the technology, which they demanded, in exchange for the cheap labor and the access. Yep. So a really interesting point by Richard Wolfe. I want to say two last things here. A tariff is is a tax, literally, it's just another word for tax.

And so I read a story that at least $600 for every family in America in extra taxes because of the tariffs. And so they eventually get passed down to their consumers. There's theories that it's actually up to $1,200. But even if you take the lower number, what it is is a regressive tax. So Trump gave a tax cut that 83% of it went to the top 1%. The tax increase went to you guys, went to the people who could least afford it. And that is Republican Politics 101.

And speaking of which, I thought all the Republicans on TV were saying Democrats are cheering for a recession and they want a recession. We wouldn't have one if it wasn't for that. No one else is really concerned about it. Well, here's many Republican senators saying they're really, really concerned about it. Dude, Mick Mulvady told Republican donors that it's likely there's gonna be a recession. A moderate recession. That is what he said.

So look, it's an intimidation tactic, right? Republicans don't want you to publicly tell the truth about what's going on with the economy, and they try to intimidate truth tellers by saying that they want a recession. Trust me, no one wants a recession, but I think the American public should know about what's really going on while Trump gallivants around town bragging about how strong his economy supposedly is. Yep. Anyways, we got to take a break. All right, still fire coming up. And I'm on fire. So there's going to be a lot of that going forward. We'll be right. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly

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All right, back on a young Turks, lots of people with significant criticism of Mattis. Megan says, if you work for Trump, I don't care how much you hated it or whatever. You sold your soul. You live with that with the rest of your life. You don't get to fix your brand after. And Gabby Murray and Dr. K.S.M.D. largely agree, saying in a slightly different ways. And I actually liked one comment a lot from Twitter that was along the same lines. Gillotine Wolf said pretty weak sauce for someone nicknamed Mad Dog.

Yeah. And that's true. And look, what we have to point out that one of the reasons that guys like Jim Mattis don't tell you exactly what happened is because they're gonna get pilloried by the Trump people. He puts it in an intellectual way because he knows the Maggot guys are too stupid to understand it, so he's not gonna take a lot of heat. If he said it in a clear way, then the Maggot guys would be like, oh, he against Trump. Oh, who, who, who, all right?

And so, and then they'll all go after him and he'll be made uncomfortable. And Jim Mattis loves his country, but not enough to make himself uncomfortable. So let's keep it real, that's part of what's happening. And we'll end on a fun one. Bill Kirko says, Anna, your smile was priceless when telling Jenk, you're not all that great with numbers when explaining that $100,000 probably wasn't enough to hold a climate debate. Yeah, and by the way, just a quick note on that. Like, some people are like, why do you even need any?

Like, you guys have all the technology. You guys, like, this is a whole new ballgame. And also, you can't expect people to work for free, right? Like, people, you need to hire people, like, to, like, special people who can operate these cameras. You've got to make sure you have the cameras, which are super expensive. Can I just look, I just want to cut to the chase. I don't want to pull a Mattis here, okay?

Guys, you don't get it, man. We are barely sustainable, okay? So for like, the CNNs of the world are propped up by cable subscriber money. So when you get the cable package, like a dollar or $2 to $4 goes to Fox for every single one of you that has a cable package, okay? Collectively, that's per month, collectively, that's billions of dollars. So they could spend millions on all of these events. without blinking an eye, we've got, you see the number of members we have, right?

And so it's not that many, and it's only five bucks. So there's no secret hidden money. There was an investment once, and that's to build out our engineering team and some other teams here and all the other things that we did, building out much better apps, websites, et cetera, et cetera. There's no billions of dollars stashed away anywhere. That's why we can't do this stuff unless we go through. through something like fundraising like we're doing in this town hall case.

That's why we're so genuine in thanking you guys over and over for anybody who contributes to those programs, because otherwise we couldn't do it, right? And so for the naysayers who don't understand any of that, they can kiss my ass. All right, so let me also tell you a few announcements before we move on to the rest of the news. We are going to be closed on Labor Day. So we will be observing Labor Day, however, it'll give you some time to catch up on episodes you might have missed, especially if you're a member and you have access to the archives.

We will be back on September 3rd. That's the Tuesday after Labor Day. Also, our power panel will be a little different this week. Our power panel on Friday is available to TYPT members, and it's also going to be on Zumo TV, Pluto TV, the Roku channel, and YouTube TV. Also, we've got Matthew Sheffield and Ida Rodriguez on the power panel this Friday, so make sure you tune in. And if you'd like to become a member so you can watch whenever you want, go to t-y-t.com slash join.

The conversation is going to be great tonight. We're going to have Joe Sestak on. So if you want to take a look at that episode, it will be live at 8 p.m. Eastern Time immediately after the second hour of this show, check that out. And it's Thursday, meaning that Brett is doing happy half hour. Please check out that show as well. It's awesome, it's fun. It airs at 7 p.m.

And you can also check it out on all those different platforms, Pluto TV, YouTube TV, Zumo, and Roku. Real quick, two things about that. So Joe Sestak is running for president. Of course, he was Admiral Sestak. He's also a former congressman. And he's not getting a lot of media attention, even though he has all those good titles, et cetera. And so, of course, as always, the Young Turks are going to hear people out. So we're going to talk to Admiral Sestak later today.

And I just got a Roku set. And I tooled around a little bit this morning, and I went to the Roku channel, and I saw news politics, no, news sports and entertainment. And I was like, I better be able to find us, right? And so I did basically a little bit of channel surfing. And I was like, there we are. There we are. And then I turned it on. And it was John and Brett on damage report making fun of me.

Oh, no. So you are so busted. I even took a picture of it, okay? They're talking about my predictions. I got a new prediction for you, John Idaola. You guys, the chances of Jenk ever watching anything we do is like almost zero percent. Like the fact that you caught that, it's amazing. Anyway, we got to move on to the rest of the news, so let's do it.

All right. The Department of Justice Inspector General has released the report on James Comey to figure out whether or not he broke any laws in sharing his memos on Donald Trump with a friend. Now, Michael E. Horowitz, the Inspector General, examined whether Comey had acted inappropriately when he gave one of the memos to a confidant who later provided its contents to the New York Times. Now, what they found was, yes, Comey did do some violations here. Comey violated FBI policy and the requirements of his FBI employment agreement when he chose this path. So the inspector general is arguing, look, he shouldn't have given this memo to a confidant.

He shouldn't have been speaking to a lawyer about his conversations with Trump. The proper protocol would be to go to the FBI and report this to the FBI. He should have done that and he didn't. So there is wrongdoing here. There is a violation. Comey said he helped make the information public in part to bring about the appointment of a special counsel. Now, that part, I believe, is true because remember, the memos indicated that Trump wanted Comey to wrap the Russia investigation up. Also, Comey is using this inspector general's report, oddly kind of like Trump would, to do a victory lap because there's no indication that he's going to face any criminal charges.

There's no indication that he did anything criminal. Comey says DOJ IG found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media. I don't need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a sorry we lied about you would be nice. I don't know which world Comey is living in, but we don't live in that world anymore or ever. Yeah. Yeah.

Meanwhile, of course, Trump turns around and says, aha, and he said this is one of the worst things that has ever happened at the, by a leader of the FBI, conveniently forgetting J. Edgar Hoover, it is definitely not one of the worst things that's happened, nor any, or one of the worst things the inspector general has ever pointed out. In fact, let me do a quick summer for you guys, like the bottom line of what happened here. What they decided was he did not release any classified information. So that's why Comey's saying the Victory Lab. He's saying, I told you I didn't know anything bad, right? Now, there was a violation of internal policy, but also no, nothing illegal. So he didn't bring any law, so, and prosecutors looked into it and decided not to pursue charges. There is a little bit of a poetic justice here of the Inspector General coming out and saying,

what he did was really bad, but we're not gonna charge him, because that's exactly what James Comey did to Hillary Clinton during the election. What she did was terrible, but I'm not going to charge her. So neither one had to really point out how quote unquote terrible it was if they weren't going to charge them. But overall though, the Inspector General was more on point. And that's their job and they did their job perfectly fine. They look into it, it is a violation of policy, but it's a small violation and it is not,

and he did not break the law. There's an important difference there. Of course, Trump, unable to understand that distinction at all. And he will take a molehill and turn it into a mountain any time, especially when it's against one of his opponents. And the final thing is the media, unfortunately. So it makes it seem like, well, Trump is going around saying Comey is guilty and the inspector general did say that he did something wrong, right?

And now all of a sudden we have a false equivalency. So Comey had a small violation of policy which the inspector general should and did call him out for. On the other hand, the reason Comey released that memo he shouldn't have released was because he was worried that the president was obstructing justice and that nobody was going to find out. And he had been fired. So he's like, look, he fired the guy who could have done the investigation. And only I know that he tried to block an investigation of himself and his administration.

So it's my duty to let people know about that. So what Trump did is a million times worse than what Comey did. And of course, he has not been publicly or officially admonished by anyone thanks to Nancy Pelosi. Let's do some environmental news before we go to our next break. So, as we know, Donald Trump wants to roll back anything and everything that Obama did during his administration, even if it makes absolutely no sense. Now, the latest example is Donald Trump wanting to roll back some of the methane regulations that were implemented under the Obama. Obama administration.

Now, these regulations were implemented back in 2016, which means at the very tail end of the Obama administration. But according to some anonymous sources who spoke to the press, Trump isn't having it. He wants to roll them back. A senior administration official speaking on the condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made public said Trump officials were confident the oil and gas industry had an economic incentive to limit methane because capture. it allows companies to sell more gas.

So the argument here is, well, they'll just regulate themselves because it's in their best interests. Now there is a little twist here, which we'll get to in just a second. The agency estimates that the proposed changes, which will be set to public comment or subject to public comment for 60 days after it is published, would save the oil and natural gas industry between 17 million and 19 million a year. Now just keep in mind that it's Trump's EPA that's arguing this. Methane, by the way, is 80 times, 80 times more powerful than CO2 and often leaked as companies

drill for gas and transport it across the country. And what's fascinating is that there are some of the biggest fossil fuel companies who are saying, like, we're okay with these regulations, like, why are you rolling these regulations back? However, I mean, if it's gonna save some of these companies money to not follow through with these regulations, they're probably going to cut corners and there will be more release of methane. Several of the world's biggest fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, Shell, and BP have opposed the rollback and urged the Trump administration to keep the current standards in place.

Collectively, though, these firms account for 11% of America's natural gas output. So I have a theory as to why those big companies are opposing the changes that would let them skirt regulations, because under the Obama administration, since they put those regulations in place, those big companies already adjusted. And they already went through the expenses, since they're bigger, they can absorb the expense easier than they're smaller and mid-sized competitors. So when Trump says, ah, don't worry about it, just leak methane all over the place, the bigger companies likely go, we already spent the money.

Now the little guys, and by the way, there's no good guys here. They're all in the fossil fuel industry, which is burning the planet. But the little guys, the middle guys, et cetera, now they don't have to spend as much as we did in abiding by the regulations we thought were coming, right? So that's probably for competitive reasons why they're opposed to the Trump administration on this, not necessarily because they're good guys, and they're like, oh my God, we wouldn't want to put methane in the air because that would create climate change. Their core product creates climate change.

So that's not their issue at all. So there's no good guys, unfortunately, in this story. But my last point on this, I mean, think about it, guys. I mean, there's actually, sorry, two points. One is that they're actually changing two different rules. They're changing that they could leak more, but they're also changing the standards. And when they change the standards, it makes it harder for the next administration. It'll take longer for them to reverse it.

Because they've got to go through a whole process. Trump's going through that process now to reverse Obama's rules, and it's taken a while. he standardizes them, I'm oversimplifying here to get to the point, the next administration, even if it's a great administration, will have to take several years to undo Trump's damage. And then the final point I was going to make is there's no bounds with this guy, right? What's the upside of allowing more methane to leak? So a couple of the companies, probably his donors, wind up making a little bit more money, but the big guys don't even want it.

It's just spiteful. Like, yeah, here, take this Obama, but also take this climate. Let's see if we can start a couple more fires in the Amazon. Ha ha. Okay, I don't know, man. Your kids live on this planet too. Your grandkids live on this planet. But Donald Trump has no ability to empathize with anyone.

All he has is spite and anger that's built up in him. And it's built up through, you know, decades of insecurity. And that's the kind of mean, cruel person he is. but he's taking out on all of us by doing rules like this. Well, since you mentioned the Amazon, when we come back from the break, we're actually going to talk about the Trump administration's role in the fires that are ravaging the Amazon. And then later on, we're going to talk about other environmentally disastrous fires that are happening throughout the world.

And again, all of this is linked to climate change. We have that for you and more when we come back. 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.