The Young Turks - Borderlines, Personalities, and Disorder

Episode Date: March 23, 2021

Rep. Dan Crenshaw apparently didn’t do too well in his border crisis appearance against MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan – plus other news from the border. 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. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake, Eugenics is spared with you guys. Oh, she's back. All right, everybody, take a deep breath. Everything's going to be all right. The captain is back on board. and the ship will be studied. So Casper, good to have you back. It's good to be back, although I will admit, I did catch a few episodes of the live show while I was on vacation.

And they were really good, they were really good. I was sweating a little bit. I'm like, man, we need to find some bad fill-in hosts. That way I look even better. I don't have to worry about anything. But no, I mean, you guys hit it out of the park, so good work all around. Yeah, you know what? I'll immediately tease the posseum for you guys. We'll do a fun, tiny thing in the post here where I'll tell you, MSNBC hosts, who minded having good fill-in hosts and ones who did not mind having good fill-in host, Joe Robs, hit the join button below if you're listening on YouTube, t.t.com slash join for everyone else.

All right, let's get started with today's news, yeah. All right, well, this is a monster of a story, but we do need to give you some detailed info on what's happening. with Biden's immigration policy. So the GOP is on the war path against Biden, even as he takes a pretty hardline approach on immigrants at the border. Now Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Myerkis defended the Biden administration by touting his unwillingness to allow asylum seekers into the country during the coronavirus. Let's take a look at what he had to say over the weekend. We heard the sheriff say it, the governor say it, and the migrants I spoke to say They are coming across because they believe they will be welcomed under the Biden administration.

You said yourself three weeks ago. We're not saying don't come. We're saying don't come now. President Biden had a stronger message later. But the messages are mixed at best, Mr. Secretary. The message is quite clear. Do not come. The border is closed.

The border is secure. We are expelling families. We are expelling single adults. We are encouraging children not to come. Now is not the time to come. Do not come. The journey is dangerous. We are building safe, orderly, and humane ways to address the needs of vulnerable children.

Do not come. So what he's referring to there is families coming to the border, adult migrants coming to the border. However, in regard to unaccompanied minors, while he's clear. discouraging them from coming to the border. The Biden administration has been clear in stating that they will not immediately deport them or send them back. And that's because they want to take a more compassionate approach. And the problem is that in doing these half measures, right, in trying to appeal to the scaremongering that's being put out there by the right wing, what the Biden administration is doing is losing on both sides. You have the left,

that's furious with the fact that there are 15,000 migrant children in U.S. custody right now. You know, they're being placed in many of the facilities that obviously we had problems with under the Trump administration. And for me personally, I have a problem with under the Biden administration as well. At the same time, you know, the argument that Biden has opened the borders and has allowed migrants to flow into the country, you know, unmitigated, that is a lie coming from the Republican Party, and just to summarize this, and I'll give you more details to kind of prove what I'm trying to say here, let's be clear, both sides are not being completely honest with what's really going on at the border right now. Before I give you more details,

Jank, why don't you jump in? Yeah, so I'll jump in with a detail. So there is something called Title 42 that was an emergency declaration that was done around March of last year by Trump administration saying because of the COVID virus, we're, we're going to be. going to expel everyone that comes to border. Normally they would be brought in, detained, and they would go through a certain process, right? And here he ended the process altogether. Now, before he left office, a judge ruled that you can't do that for kids, unaccompanied kids that are at the border. And so he stopped doing it. And so Biden took over, and basically On that note has followed Trump completely. So he didn't want to expel unaccompanied minors in the first

place. Biden didn't, but still nothing actually changed as he took over. So we do have the kids brought in now. They were just unaccompanied. If they're with a family, everybody gets expelled. So if you're on the left and you want the immigrants to go through a certain process and not just be automatically expelled? Well, right now, Biden has the same exact policy as Trump. So I guess you should be furious about that. And if you're on the right, other than trying to make giant political hay out of this, which you've succeeded at, on this note, I don't know what you're complaining about. It is identical to Trump's policy when Trump left office. Right, exactly. And I'm happy that you mentioned what the federal courts had indicated

regarding unaccompanied minors, because whether Trump wanted to immediately deport them or not, that was struck down. And again, that happened prior to Biden taking office. So it's not Biden's policy to keep the unaccompanied minors in these facilities rather than immediately deport them. That was the policy that was obviously the result of the federal courts chiming in on it. The other thing to kind of bear in mind is that Biden did, in fact, a campaign on a more compassionate strategy, right, when it comes to immigration. And one of the things that he wanted to implement but wasn't able to do was a 100-day ban on all deportations. But a Trump-appointed judge struck that down. They appealed, and it was struck down again. So he wasn't actually

able to implement the 100 day ban on deportations. But there are other issues with how the Biden administration is tackling this as well, including not being completely honest with the American people. The video that you're about to watch, again featuring Majorcas, gives you yet another example of that. Let's take a look. Did you change the policy too quickly without having the infrastructure in place to take care of these children? We are executing on our plan. It does take time. It is difficult, but it is taking time and it is difficult because the entire system was dismantled by the prior administration. There was a system in place in both Republican and Democratic administrations that was torn down during the Trump administration, and that is why the challenge is more acute than it ever has been before. We are rebuilding the orderly systems that the Trump administration tore down to avoid the need for these children to actually take.

take the perilous journey. But the truth is that the Trump administration didn't dismantle the immigration system. What they did do was make it incredibly difficult for asylum seekers to actually get asylum. In fact, they effectively banned asylum seeking. So if anyone tried to go through the legal means in order to get into the country, through a port of entry, for instance, border patrol severely limited. the migrants' ability to do that, right? So if you want to consider that dismantling it, well, just reverse that. That's not a difficult thing to undo, right? But the problem is,

on one hand, you have Mayorkas saying, no, no, we're turning everyone back unless they're unaccompanied minors. Okay, well, that's the decision that the Biden administration is making. On the other hand, they're blaming Trump for dismantling a well-oiled machine that dealt with asylum Seekers, and that's just not true. Don't get me wrong, Trump was awful when it came to asylum seekers. In fact, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended nearly 100,000 migrants at the U.S. border in February, the 10th consecutive month of increased apprehensions and a turn to levels last seen in mid-2019. There is an increase in the flow of migrants coming to the border. There's no question about that. But the Biden administration, the problem is they haven't really

reversed the Trump administration's policies. The only thing that it might seem like they reversed is, you know, the issue with the unaccompanied minors. But again, that was something that was already implemented based on a court ruling, on a federal judge's ruling before Biden was elected. It's just, this is a difficult, complicated situation. And I think the Biden administration is having a difficult time really committing to one strategy. Either they're going to be compassionate and deal with this completely differently than Trump, or they're going to do these half measures where they're trying to pander to voters in this country who have been terrified by migrants, thanks to the rhetoric coming from conservatives in the country. Or, you know,

they're not going to win with Republicans. There's no way. They're going to try to pander just like Obama did, and it's not going to work. And I know I just mentioned Obama, but one more thing, Jank, Biden made it clear that he wanted his immigration strategy to be much more. more compassionate than Obama's. He felt that the Obama administration made many mistakes in taking a hardline approach against migrants, right? But at the same time, when you look at what's being done in practice, it actually is very similar to how the Obama administration handled it. In fact, they've opened some of the facilities that the Obama administration was using to detain these minors. The problem is you do have a flow of unaccompanied minors coming into the

country looking for safety. The Biden administration wants to be compassionate and not turn them away. And at the same time, they are deporting everyone else, including families who come to the border. So in terms of the structural and legal system, I'm sure that Trump did some damage. You remember the quotes he used to have with about judges. So why do we need judges? I don't even want judges, right? And so when you have a moron like that in charge, obviously he's going to corrode the system we have in place. On the other hand, you know, I agree with Anna because of facts. So most of that is still in place and they're going to need some time to ramp up.

But the Biden's chief of staff also said, oh my God, they handed us a record low number of beds for unaccompanied minor children. Well, that's not true either. Under Obama at one point, there was only 2,000 beds. And Trump left, there was 13,000 bets. So yes, it was dipping from the height of a year before that under Trump, which was a 16,000, but that's not a record low number of beds. So that's basically making excuses.

And I get it, you got to ramp up real quick and change these policies and then move them to detention centers that are not cruel. And these are hard logistical challenges. So let's be fair about that. At the same time, we've got to hold them accountable for reality. And Anna, I actually think now going to political analysis, I'm back to this up with numbers in a sec, but the Biden administration might actually be annoyed at the left for not attacking them enough on this issue.

Because my guess is that they did a classic Biden strategy of trying to appear reasonable by straddling the middle. We'll mainly follow Trump's policies, but we'll talk about kids in cages, but we won't let the media see that we're housing and kids in similar places. And then so we'll have the right wing attack us just because they hate immigrants and they were going to attack us no matter what, even if we did everything that Trump did. And we'll have the left attack us for really not changing much. And then we'll seem so reasonable.

And in the entirety of the press will back us on that. Oh, poor Joe Biden, he's the reasonable center. But in this case, the left hasn't spoken out much. So it's just right wing attacks. So that's the whole conversation now nationally, there's almost no progressive critique that I'm seeing. It's all, has Biden been brutal enough to the immigrants? And plus, we're really mad that he's not letting us take pictures and video.

So just a couple of quick facts about that. Look, when you say, well, Biden's letting unaccompanied children in, yeah, for a long time Trump was trying to stop that, that's definitely true. And he had expelled 3,200 kids in October alone that had come unaccompanied. So just go back. We're not allowing you in. But by because of court orders, by December that had fallen to just three. And in January, it was just 18 kids who were expelled by Trump. So there's not that much of a difference between 3, 18, and zero, which is what Biden's at and they're following court orders. So it's not like Biden's doing something heroic by following

what the judge's orders that Trump followed, right? And then finally on the expulsions, Remember, everyone but the unaccompanied kids gets expelled under the Title 42 that Biden's doing. So in February, when Biden was in charge, of the 100,000, more than 100,000 encounters of the border, 72,000 of those, in other words, the overwhelming majority were immediately expelled with no hearings, no process, or anything. So let's keep it real. The Republicans are obviously exaggerating at a minimum about the height of the process. and it was all Biden's fault, et cetera. No, he's following largely Trump's policies.

On the other hand, Biden doesn't get to brag about how great he's been to immigrants when you've barely changed anything. And, Jake, let me be clear about one other thing. I don't know if you're referring to progressives in Congress, not holding Biden's feet to the fire. If you are talking about that, then you're right. I haven't particularly seen any progressive lawmakers go after Biden on his immigration policies, at least aggressively. But in terms of progressive media, I have seen quite a bit of critique. I have seen a lot of criticism. I mean, Jordan Yule is a great example. Jordan Yule, I go to his Twitter account when I want to stay up to date on what the latest is

regarding Biden's latest foibles in dealing with the immigration issue at the border. However, the media, I feel, has chosen to really amplify the criticisms coming from disingenuous right-wing actors, and that's an issue. Because what it does is really pressure the Biden administration to continue pandering to people who have no interest in giving Biden credit for anything. If Biden decided to take unaccompanied minors and tell them to turn around, right? In fact, started shooting at them as they're turning around and going back. It still wouldn't make the right wing happy in this country. My point is, Biden, you're not supposed to be pandering to the right wing.

You campaigned on a compassionate approach on migration, then deal with it in a compassionate way. Stop with the half measures. It's not helping the situation. Yeah, look, I love what you said, but I actually think the main culprit there is not at all Biden. It's the mainstream media. And so why? Biden's a bellwether. You're not going to change Biden. Biden floats with the wind. That's what he's done his entire career. So, but the mainstream media thinks a right wing line of attack on Biden on immigration is perfectly credible and reasonable and they will talk about it nonstop. They think a progressive critique of Biden on almost anything is illegitimate and not credible. So it sends an uneven playing field. So Washington, Post, New York Times, et cetera, all they'll talk about is right-wing critique on most issues and definitely this one. So then Biden thinks, oh, I guess there's no pressure from the left.

I read the Washington Post in New York Times this morning, and I listen to NPR on the way in, if he's still, I think he lives there, but at the White House. And, you know, I didn't hear a peep out of the left. Well, yeah, because they filtered our voice out. And Jordan, look, we think Jordan Newell's so great. We gave him a show on Twitch, deep dive, you should check it out. The rest of the media honestly just thinks we're all invisible. And without their coverage, we cannot be a balancing act in Joe Biden's bellwether. And that makes him lean right wing almost every time. Yeah, and I'm gonna say one final thing, and this will be the final thing in the video, Jank. Media, instead of just regurgitating what both sides are saying,

can you do a little bit of fact checking? Like this story was a disaster to research because no one, No one, no one actually does the fact checking, right? You might find some standalone pieces that are like buried in, you know, the 28th page of whichever paper you're reading. But it's so impossible to try to decipher which side is lying and which side is telling the truth. And I want to be clear, both sides in this particular story right now are not being honest. Speaking of not being honest, we got to talk about Dan Crenshaw, who's not really known for being an honest person. But we have the the latest example, which is a doozy. So Medi Hassan was recently interviewing Representative Dan Crenshaw, someone who can't stand immigration and felt the need to lie to the American

people in multiple conservative news interviews about what the Biden administration is doing in response to the uptick in migration at the southern border. Now, Medi Hassan starts this clip by sharing a very important piece of information to Dan Crenshaw. and just get a load of how he doesn't really want to acknowledge it. You made these claims on Fox News last week. Have a listen. This happened overnight, okay, when President Biden rescinded the Remain in Mexico policy, when they rescinded the asylum cooperation agreements with the Northern Triangle countries, when they said, hey, we're not going to deport you when you come.

So Biden has the nerve to say, quietly, hey, don't come, wink, don't come, don't come here, don't come here. If you come here, we're going to give you a bus ticket. wherever you want, and we're not going to deport you. I'll come back to your remain in Mexico and asylum cooperation agreement points in a moment. But the rest of that, Congressman, is just not true. How can you say the Biden administration isn't deporting people? Last month, nearly three out of four people encountered at the border

were expelled straight away under Title 42. 72% of people encountered at the border last month apprehended. We're instantly expelled. So how is what you said on Fox? True, it isn't. Look, over the course of 2020, 1,000 people came illegally into the U.S. And then were released in the interior of the U.S. And just the year 2021, it's 20,000.

All right, this comes straight out of border patrol. It was just down there a couple weeks ago. So, again, there are very specific instances of policy reversals that have caused a massive spike in illegal immigration and people incentivized to come across our border. I'm not sure why we're debating that point. I think we should debate what to do about it. I'm wondering why you're going on Fox. and say people are not being deported when 72% of the people apprehended the border last month

were deported under Joe Biden. Can you deal with that point? You just played what I said. I never said nobody was getting deported. And so, our system works fairly well. You just played what I said, and I know I didn't say that. All right, we have a continuation of that dumpster fire in just a minute. But I want to be clear in that. what Crenshaw and the right wing are putting out there is this notion that there's been an uptick in migrants coming to the border under the Biden administration specifically, because he's the one giving them a wink and a nod, essentially indicating that he has the border open and ready for them, when that is not the case. In fact, in that same interview, Medi Hassan

read some statistics coming from Customs and Border Patrol, indicating that there's been an increase in migrants coming to the border for the last nine months, meaning that this trend was happening under the Trump administration. So to say that Biden has created a situation in which he is done away with deterrence and is encouraging people to come at the border is just flat out false. So let me bring it down in two different categories. So there's the families that they're coming, they are treated exactly the same way under Biden and Trump. They're both using Title 42. They expel them immediately because of COVID concerns. They do not go through the regular process they used to, okay? That's been in place for over a year now, and Biden is doing

the same exact thing with Trump. With grown adults, same exact policy, Title 42, Biden and Trump absolutely equal. That is why Medellin's numbers are correct. 72,000 people have been expelled without any process at all. The left should arguably be furious about that, but there hasn't been much of a peep from progressive legislators on that. From what I've seen, maybe I'm being unfair there. If they're saying it, they're certainly not being picked up by the press. Now the thing that appears to be different, but it's not exactly different, is unaccompanied minors. Now, it was Trump's policy that he wanted to expel them as well. He didn't want to let them in the country. It was Biden's agenda that they would be letting the country and go through regular

process because they didn't want to send kids by themselves back through that treacherous path back to their homes where they could die and be in danger. But the reality is that the courts ruled that the kids must be let in. So Trump started letting them in before his term was over. So he was expelling more than 3,000 kids in October, but then it became nearly nothing by December in January. So only three in December, for example. So now in Biden, case, he's as similar numbers to Trump. He's just following the same court order that Trump was. So when Crenshaw says, oh my God, I can't believe what Biden decided to do. No, the courts decided it. Trump followed that order, which is good. And Biden is also following the same order.

So let's be clear about who made the decision and how that played out. Now, because the court ordered it, at this point, in February, for example, there was 9,400 times that unaccompanied children were met at the border. So that is a higher number than it used to be over the last year. Now you can say, hey, I actually think the right wing has a slight point here that it's because the coyotes will then go back and tell everybody, oh my God, right or wrong, Biden is letting everybody in or whatever it is because they want to get more business. They'll bring kids. But remember, they would have said that about the court order anyway, because Trump had to do the same exact thing and did do the same exact thing in the last several months of his administration.

So, and even then, so 9,400 sounds like a lot more than it used to be, and yes, over the last years it is, but the last time it was that number was in May of 2019. So about two years ago when it was under Trump. So is there some like, oh my god, damn old, you're unaccompanied minors like no one's ever seen? Well, if you have a short-term memory loss, I guess that's true. Otherwise, you just look back to May of 2019, and it's the same number. All right. Well, we got to take a break. Let's do that. And when we come back, we have more news for you guys, including Tom Cotton getting caught in a lie on live television, some GOP on GOP violence. Also, something that's never happening, but the media keeps teasing it as if it might. So we have that more for you when we come back.

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-B-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 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. I'm going to be able to be. Hi. Will you be our Shorty? We're in the Shorty Awards, and we need your help as usual, okay? This crowd voting, that's why we usually win. You guys are the best of the best. Let's do it again.

And here, for once, we can't actually stuff the ballots because you can vote every day. So what you're going to do is go to t-y-t.com slash shorties. It's a 13th annual awards. You can vote every day up until March 31st and get an extra vote when you share it on Facebook and Twitter. So we're a finalist for live event coverage for our 2020 election coverage. I would love to win that just so we could send it to the right wing. Oh, is this a meltdown? Sorry. Did we win an award for our election coverage?

I guess if that happens. Okay, and you guys can make that happen. TYT.com slash shorties, Facebook, Twitter, every day. Too easy, too easy. But we can just do it now. Don't worry about tomorrow. All right, let's go to our members. Make you see the silver says the silver dragon, what do you think about Biden issuing a gag order to ice regarding the border?

Trump is gone, right? Yeah, lots of gag orders, lots of not showing people. You know why? Because you're going to see very similar pictures that you saw under Trump. That's why Biden doesn't want the media there. Keep it real. Someone who likes Bernie Sanders wrote in, we're not saying don't come. We're saying don't come right now, quoting the administration. That's all well and good on our side of the border. But it's not like these families are just chilling at home waiting for us to say to come in. Asylum seekers are fleeing. They don't have time for us to get our mess together. So that's why I say the smartest audience in the world, because that's exactly right. Is that amazing that no one on television ever, ever, ever makes that point? It's just, it's stunning. Anyway, J.M. Fraser writes in, this is all on our member section, t.t.com slash join to be a member on the Young Turks website. And you get all of our content, obviously.

Anyway, Jam writes in Biden 2020, take a narrow stance in the middle and upset voters on all sides of these shoes. Doesn't seem like a winning strategy, but that's what he seems to be going with. For now, by the way, to be fair, it is working. His popularity is pretty high. We do the news, so we need to report the news, whether it suits us or not, whether it suits Democrats or not as well. Anyway, so now I want to thank the folks who just joined on YouTube. Sarin Anabas Ra, Asha and Natali Blue Ridge Mountain, Art and Provisions. Oh, that's fun.

And Andy, just Andy. Hey, he's just Andy being Andy. They all joined, are they American heroes? I guess you could be likewise, hit the join button below the video if you're watching on YouTube. That Bernie Bro writes in on YouTube super chat. I took a break from the news because it was making me extremely anxious, but I'm back. Missed you guys. Hope you've all been well. We've been great. Dade Murphy says you guys only speak on big facts. Corporate media could learn a lesson or two on how to report the news. Hashtack DUIT for life.

All right, all right, back on the Young Turks, Jank and Anna with you guys, Casper, go. All right, well, story that caught my attention today. Michael Sherwin is the federal prosecutor who's been overseeing the Justice Department's investigation into the riots that took place in the Capitol on January 6th. Now, recently he sat down to talk about some of the evidence that he's seen and what's likely to happen in regard to charges. He also teased something regarding Donald Trump that I found infuriating because the media ran with it. But before we get to that, what are some of the charges that the rioters might face? He talks about that in this clip. Take a look.

Two days after Michael Sherwin stepped down from supervising the investigation into the riots, he said in an interview aired Sunday night on 60 minutes that prosecutors are getting closer to filing just such a charge. I personally believe the evidence is trending towards that and probably meets those elements. The former interim U.S. attorney in Washington, Sherwin says he was in the crowd, on January 6th. You could see it was getting more riled up. Where it was initially pro-Trump, it digressed to anti-government, anti-congress, anti-institutional. When I saw people climbing up the scaffolding hanging from it hanging flags, I was like, this is going bad fast.

Now what he's saying there is that it's likely, based on the evidence that they've already accumulated that some of these anti-government rioters would be facing sedition charges. That doesn't surprise me. I think that that's likely to happen. Keep in mind that 400 people have now been charged for their involvement in the riots that day. But then he moves on to the issue of Donald Trump possibly facing some criminal charges. And I want to read what he says slowly and carefully so you guys can really understand what he's saying here. Okay. And why the way the media has covered it has been ridiculous. He says, it's unequivocal that Trump was the magnet that brought the people to D.C. on the 6th. Remember, he did that rally prior to the riot

breaking out. But then he says this. We have plenty of people. We have soccer moms from Ohio that were arrested saying, quote, well, I did this because my president said I had to take back our house. That moves the needle towards that direction. Maybe the president is culpable for those actions. And then the media pretends like the rest of the statement was never made, but it was. He also says, but also you see in the public record too, militia members saying, quote, you know what, we did this because Trump just talks a big game. He's just all talk. We did what he wouldn't do. Look, my point is, it doesn't matter what CNN has to say, doesn't matter what the New York Times has to say, it doesn't matter what anyone has to say. Let's just be clear right now so we don't

continue having this ridiculous conversation. Trump will not ever face criminal charges for what happened in the Capitol, okay? That's it. End of story, end of discussion. I know that the media is looking to like, let's milk the Trump story as much as we can. Milk, milk, milk. The DOJ will do nothing. Donald Trump will not face any criminal charges. The idiots who follow Donald Trump's demands, they will face criminal charges, some of whom are going to be charged with sedition. But Trump himself, free to go. Doesn't matter what he said, doesn't matter what the public record indicates. Free to go, period.

Anyway, Jank. Well, I'll go a little further. I actually think Trump should not be charged with sedition. So, okay, we've got a poll up that on YouTube on that. You go to our channel and then you hit community and you'll be able to vote on that poll. But let me make my case. So first off, I want to clarify the different charges. that people could face. As Anna told you, over 400 people have been charged already. The lowest

charge is trespassing. It's not that big a deal, a slap on the wrist in effect. A serious charge is conspiracy, and people could get up to five years for that. And a little over 10% of the rioters have been charged with conspiracy already. And they have good evidence from the three percenters, the Oathkeepers, and some of the proud boys, that they actually did plan to do this. And so that's a significant charge. But even so, max of five years, when they're chanting, hang the vice president as they walk in and they're looking to find Nancy Pelosi, God knows what they would have done to her or AOC, etc. It still seems low. Sedition, no one's been charged yet. Will some of the riders who are charged with conspiracy also

be charged with sedition, probably, should the president? Well, let's read you what Pelly read Sherwin. And there's a statute on sedition. Sedition is interpreted in a lot of different ways, but here's a quote, sedition occurs when anyone opposes by force the authority of the United States or by force hinders or delays the execution of any law of the United States. First of all, on the second half of that, I don't think anyone should ever be charged with that. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE S-SVPN.com. TYT. Check it out today. You say it hinders or delays the execution of a law. Oh boy, cops could use that to cast a very wide net on a lot of political activity. Well, I mean, we had a law and caused us a five minute delay in executing it. Through your protest, you're seditious. I don't

want any piece of that. That's garbage. And I don't think anybody should be charged with that no matter where they are on the political spectrum. In terms of using force against the United United States government, that's the core of sedition. Well, certainly a lot of those rioters appear to have met that threshold as you're breaking down the door of the Capitol, chanting about executing political opponents and walking into the building looking to find those political opponents. In terms of Trump, he did not break into the Capitol. Did he encourage them? Of course, of course he did. But if you, like, so I'm not having a silly conversation about oh, Trump, oh, golly, gee, what would he know about any of this?

No, he lied to them over and over and over again about how the election was stolen. And he got them to believe ridiculous things. Did he spearhead that? Oh, yes, of course he did. But he just spoke. And you could break the law by speaking, but it has to be a much higher standard. Go break into that building and go hang Mike Pence. Yes, then you got to charge a sedition based on speech. But him saying fight like hell and walk down and walk down Pennsylvania Avenue? No, because if that's your standard on sedition, then, oh boy, I hate to see who they would apply that to next, again, anywhere in the political spectrum. So that's the community tab we're showing you there. It's really easy. Go to click on the

Young Turks anywhere on YouTube, then go to the community tab and vote there. I'm curious what you guys think, because I imagine like a lot of you, or like us, a lot of you hate Trump and think he caused this, but I'm curious where you think he should actually legally be charged with a position. Super Last thing, Anna, is that he did commit a political crime, which is to encourage people to rebel against the actual laws of the United States of America. That's why I would have impeached them, but I would not have charged them legally with a crime. And there's a huge and important difference then. Yeah, so I want to give you credit for actually thinking ahead and thinking about what the negative consequences could be in charging him and prosecuting him

with sedition. I didn't even get that far in my thought process. And the reason why is because even if what he did was easy to prove as seditious, it doesn't even matter. I know I'm speculating here, but what we've seen over and over again in this country is power protects power. He was the former president of the United States. We've had many former presidents, of the United States who have broken actual laws, committed war crimes, and didn't have to deal with any prosecution, didn't have to deal with the consequences of their actions. At least based on historical trends, no sitting president ever has to worry about suffering the consequences of the crimes he commits as soon as he's out of office. It's never going to happen.

And I get incredibly frustrated with the media pretending as though there's a possibility when we know without a shadow of a doubt that it's never going to happen. That's just how our system is set up. The powerful, protect the powerful. The only person who's kind of broken that trend is Trump himself, who shows no loyalty to anyone. He doesn't care. Yeah. But he's not the one who gets to make the prosecutorial decisions here. Yeah, Anna, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't do a poll on whether Trump's going to be charged. He ain't got to be charged. Even if you think he's going to be charged, you'd be wrong. There's no way that Democrats or current DOJ would have the guts to charge Trump, even if they should. And as we're telling you in the poll, we think it's a borderline case to

begin with. So there ain't no way in the world they're going to do that. I would fall out of my chair if they did. But I am still curious whether you guys think that what he did it was actually seditious or not. All right. Well, we got to take a break. But when we come back, we have more news for you, including Senator Cotton, getting a little trouble when he was interviewed with Chris Wallace recently. And then later in the show, this isn't the second hour, but I can't wait to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about Kylie Jenner. Okay, but it's the intersection of wealth inequality and celebrity. Okay, don't miss it. Come right back. We'll see you in a few. I don't know what I'm going to be able to be, I'm going to be.

All right. All right, back on a young Turks, you know, Alex in our member section, she made an interesting point. And that might get me to reverse my position. The only way I see Trump facing sedition charges is if evidence comes out that he was responsible for specifically delaying the National Guard from responding. No, even if there's evidence of that, he will not be charged. I'm sorry. No, Anna, don't get me wrong.

It wouldn't change my mind on whether he's going to get charged. It doesn't mean. They could have a telegram of him, like in the old days where I'm a fax, I have a fax. I have a fax. They could have a fax of Donald Trump saying, please break into the Capitol and try to murder as many politicians as possible. And they still wouldn't charge him with sedition. Okay, but whether he should be charged or not, well, if he delayed the National Guard, damn, that's the exact definition of sedition. So I don't, that's, you know, that makes it a harder question, right?

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Fox News is Chris Wallace is continuing his trend of actually asking some tough questions of Republican lawmakers. This was something that was pretty pronounced during the Trump administration. And now during an interview with Senator Tom Cotton, Wallace decided to call him out on a pretty clear lie. Let's hear how it went down. Here is one of your other complaints about the COVID relief bill. Take a look, sir.

Look how crazy some of the Democratic ideas are. I mean, they had a chance on Saturday morning to stop checks from going to prisoners, from going to the Boston bomber, for instance. And on that vote, they declined. Every single Democrat wanted to continue the practice of sending checks to prisoners. But, Senator, under two previous COVID-relief bills that you supported and voted for and that President Trump signed, prisoners also got checks in those bills. Well, Chris, that was obviously never Congress's intent. The Trump administration, IRS, and Treasury Department did not send checks to prisoners.

Liberal advocacy groups sued to try to force that, a liberal judge that they had to. Last month was the, this month was the first time we ever had a simple up or down vote on whether those checks should go to prisoners. And the simple fact is that every Democrat voted to keep sending checks to prisoners. I don't think that's a smart idea. I suspect most Americans don't either. One of the next big pieces of legislation that So we included that last part because Chris Wallace did not fact check Senator Cotton, although I'm giving him credit for, you know, at least trying to ask a difficult question. He didn't ask a follow-up that would have been important in this context.

But to be absolutely clear, both relief bills that passed under the Trump administration indicated that prisoners could in fact qualify for those coronavirus relief checks. And in both cases, you had Republicans, like Senator Cotton, voting in favor of it. I have a little more detail into how that all went down in just a minute. But Jank, what do you make of this? Like, what do you make of Chris Wallace continuing this trend? Because it's not what Chris Wallace was known for prior to the Trump administration. Yeah, I'm sure he'd dispute that. But I think overall you're right. I think, I don't think it's just Chris Walls. I think it's some portion of mainstream media. And I hope they don't forget that instinct of challenging people in power. That's a muscle that they

developed under Trump. Because Trump is part of the elite, but he's not part of the establishment. The establishment is a machine built to help everyone in the elites, whereas Trump just wanted to help himself. So the establishment hated him for it. And so they told the media, hey, this is a rare situation where you should actually do your job and challenge the powerful. So they did it. And they've forgotten that they weren't supposed to do it. They will eventually remember. And they're beginning to remember. But we're in this pocket here where they actually are challenging Biden a little bit more and Republican senators more. So I'll take it. And I hope that that bubble expands rather than shrink.

So although I'm afraid that it's going to shrink. And in this particular case, Cotton, as usual, was lying. Now earlier in the program, we told you guys about how the Biden administration was also lying about immigration. So we're here to do the news. We're going to tell you what's true or not true, and we're going to back it up with numbers and facts. So in this particular case, Tom Cotton says, well, Congress did not intend to vote to give the prisoner's checks. Well, Senator Cotton, you had a funny way showing that because you voted to give the prisoners checks twice under Trump. And you never objected. You never went on foster. Snooks like, can you believe Trump is sending checks to the Boston bomber?

What a monster Trump is. No, he's like, bravo, bravo, absolutely. I voted 100% with Trump. Let's go if there's a prisoner's checks, right? Then Biden gets into office. You're like, I am shocked and chagrined to find out that prisoners are getting checks, just like I voted for. Okay, so please spare us your totally 100% phony outrage.

And this is not an issue where there's nuance. Tom Cotton is a systematic liar. He lies in the same exact way that Trump does, except he doesn't have as many insults, he doesn't have as much flair, he's a boring liar. So in other appearances, he also lied about how Joe Biden's now giving free health care to illegal immigrants, and he's promised it to everyone who's going to come. Just an outrageous lie, not remotely true, right? So that's who Tom Cotton is.

So I want to give you guys specifics. So you know exactly how the legislation went down under the Trump administration and how it's ridiculous for cotton to make a big deal about this under the Biden administration. So again, neither the bill Trump signed with cotton support in March of last year, obviously, nor the bill Trump signed with cotton support in December of 2020 contained any language prohibiting prisoners from getting relief funding. But after the first stimulus bill passed last March, Republicans were like, oh, But we forgot to include the provision that would ban prisoners from getting any of this relief. And so they tried to get the IRS to belatedly prevent prisoners from qualifying for those checks. But then a federal judge comes in. So the Trump era initial, I'm sorry, the Trump era IRS did try belatedly to prevent prisoners from getting the money in the first bill. But tax law experts across the political spectrum said the IRS had no authority to do this. given the text of the law and how it did not exclude prisoners. After prisoners filed a class action lawsuit, a federal judge ruled in October that the government

had to let prisoners access the cash. So when it came to the second relief bill that passed in December of 2020, the IRS didn't even try it. The Trump administration didn't even try to include that provision. And then you have the third relief bill under the Biden administration has the same provisions in it in regard to prisoners, and all of a sudden, Republicans are making a big deal about it. But it's all lies. It's all in the way that they're framing it. They were very supportive of Trump's legislation. They're just being political about what's happening now. And then one final thing I want to mention, Jank, because it's important. After the 2008 economic collapse, you can recall that the Obama administration passed a relief bill. Obviously, it wasn't

enough. It only furthered inequality in America. However, that legislation ensured that prisoners would not get that relief money at all, right? And the reason why I'm bringing that up is, did Republicans ever give Obama credit for that? I'm not saying, I'm not saying that I would give credit to Obama for that. I'm just saying that Democrats pandering to disingenuous right wingers never works out well. So don't do it. Don't do it. Don't ever do it. Don't do it in immigration policy. Don't do it in relief policy. These people are not your friends. They're never going to give you credit. In fact, even if you give them exactly what they want, they'll turn around and literally lie about it on national television. Yeah, I want to add one more thing too. Conservatives

argue in court all the time as their legal principle, plain reading, plain reading of the statute. We don't want activist judges, the Congress wrote it and they intended what they wrote. That's it, right? That is a bedrock of conservative judicial theory. Now they're going, yeah, I mean, we wrote it and we all voted on it, but some of us kind of didn't mean it. And now we'd like to blame Biden, and even earlier, like, well, our bad, basically that's going into court and saying, sorry, we're incompetent and lazy.

So we didn't really do our job right. And some of us would like to change our opinion after we voted yes on the bill. And the courts basically told them, that's not how it works. You guys read the bill, then you vote on the bill, and then the bill is the law. You don't get to say some of us didn't mean it later, okay? And is there a right way to object to a provision in a bill or to the whole bill while still voting for it? Yes.

And the person who did the best job of that, in my opinion, is Bernie Sanders in the 94 crime Bill where he said, look, I have to vote for this bill because it's got the Violence Against Women Act. And I want that so much. And it's so important that I'm going to vote yes. But I'm going to give a stem winder of a speech here where I explain to you how awful the rest of this bill is. And that we should not do any of the other garbage parts of this bill, right? And so that's where you go, okay, well, that guy was clear on what he wanted to vote yes on and what he didn't, right? Tom Cotton going on TV after Biden gets into office going, oh, well, yeah, remember, we were lazy and stupid before. And we didn't read the bill. And that's

why I voted for it. But, you know, now I want to blame Biden for the thing I voted on. So can I get credit for that? And so we're now left in a media so in disrepair in this country that we're giving Chris Wallace credit for saying, no, you don't get credit for that, which is super Exactly. Exactly. All right, well, let's move on to what's currently going down with possible challengers to Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York. There was one GOP candidate, potential candidate, who's now backed out. So a GOP congressman who was planning to challenge New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is now apologizing after a lobbyist came forward with some pretty terrible allegations against him. So lobbyist, or former lobbyists, I should say, Nicolette Davis said that in

2017, New York Representative Tom Reed rubbed her back at a bar and unhooked her bra without consent. Davis, who was 25 years old at the time and a lobbyist for Insure Affleck, when she said Reed seated next to her at a Minneapolis bar unhooked her bra from outside her blouse and moved his hand to her thigh. Now, she had evidence that this happened because at the time she had texted a co-worker and she said this, a drunk congressman is rubbing my back. She texted a coworker at Affleck that evening, adding later, help, help, in all caps. And at first, Reed was pretty much denying her version of events.

He said that what she was saying was not accurate. But he actually immediately took that back and apologized and said in a statement that the incident involving then lobbyist, Nicolette Davis, occurred at a time in my life in which I was struggling. He said he entered treatment that year and realized he was powerless over alcohol. He also apologized to his wife and children and to Davis, the former lobbyist, and said that he planned to, quote, dedicate my time and attention to making amends for my past actions. He was elected into Congress in 2010, but he will not seek reelection in 2022. And obviously he is not planning on challenging New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, but someone reputable and progressive absolutely should. Okay, so this story has a couple of lessons in here. Number one, Andrew Cuomo is in a world of trouble because of sexual harassment charges. This guy, knowing what he's done in the past, throws his hat in the ring to oppose him anyway.

To me, that's an indictment of the press, because that's this guy saying the press has never held me accountable in my entire life. I've never known the press to hold anyone accountable in my entire life. And obviously they're doing it to Cuomo now, but that's because he's in the middle of a national maelstrom and kind of thrust himself into that spotlight. But I guess Reed's assumption was, oh yeah, yeah, all the sexual harassment I did, that'll never come to light. It's never come to light before. Why would it start now? So when the first story broke, he's like, oh, that's totally unexpected. Okay, so he at first tries to fight it,

and then he realizes, nah, this ain't going to work. And he gets the hell out. Now, second conclusion that you get out of this is he's quitting politics altogether. That means that story as horrific as it is. Unbuckling her bra, you don't know her in the middle of every a bar in public? I can't imagine how much more of a lunatic you can be. But apparently he was, because you don't nuke your entire career unless there's a lot of those stories. And you're trying to get the hell out of dodge before the rest of the stories break. Let me explain that that's exactly what happened here. So if you think a Republican who had that kind of ambition, you know, retires from politics based on one story that you don't know anything about politics in this country.

No, for a Republican nukes his career, that means what they were about to uncover is the most toxic sludge you've ever seen in your life. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I have the same speculation because there are really two potential paths to take once the first allegation comes out. And look, to be fair to the media, I guess in this case, Nicolette Davis didn't come forward until now, right? So it'd be weird if the media went on some sort of fishing expedition to see if like rando congressmen have done inappropriate things. I'm sure many of them have, but you can't really do that fishing expedition. You need a woman to actually come forward. And in this case, I'm really proud of her for doing this because we've seen how women

have been treated in the press, not just by the perpetrators, but also by their supporters. And so, you know, she came out. She made these allegations. She had evidence in the form of a text that she sent to a colleague at the time. And if Reed continued to deny it and took the Andrew Cuomo approach, well, then there's a pretty significant likelihood that more and more women are going to come out. And it's going to put his family through a lot. It's probably going to put him through a lot, although I don't feel sorry for him at all. So yeah, I think that there are probably, and I'm speculating, some other skeletons in his closet, he doesn't want to deal with it. And so to stop the pain, he's just kind of decided to not just bounce from

the possibility of challenging Andrew Cuomo, but just leave politics altogether. It's like, you know, I don't think that her perspective of the events are accurate. And then within like a day, no, no, I'm sorry. Actually, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What I have to say about her version of events is irrelevant. I apologize to everyone, including David. And I will not be seeking reelection. I'm done. I'm over. Bye. That does seem to indicate that there's more going on that we know about. But look, alcoholism, drug addiction, those kinds of things are serious. And I hope he is getting the help that he needs, not just for himself, but for, you know, potential victims who have to deal with his disgusting behavior. And I'm glad

that he won't be in politics anymore. I'm really proud of Nicolette Davis for coming forward. Yeah, and remember guys, he's not even a local politician. He's a United States congressman from New York. He was thinking of having higher ambitions to go to governor of New York and then God knows what. And for him to turn around instantly from I'd like to run for governor to I'd like to end my career completely, man, I wish somebody would uncover whatever other skeletons he has in his closet because my God, what did he do that he doesn't want you to know. All right. We should probably take a break. That concludes hour one. But when we come back for hour two, we're going to give you some updates on the tragic shootings that took place

in Atlanta. Some of the victims were unfortunately further victimized by the police. We'll give you the details on that story and more. We'll see you in just a few minutes. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen to ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.