The Young Turks - Burning Bridges

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Russian forces hit a bridge being used by civilians evacuating the fighting in Ukraine and four people were killed. A former Trump official said that Russian forces were “too gentle” on Ukraine. The Biden administration is seeking to ease oil sanctions on Venezuela as part of a broader U.S. strategy to temper oil prices that have skyrocketed because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Trump wrote a letter to Lester Holt that thoroughly trashed Bill Barr by calling him ‘slow, lethargic’ and ‘broken’ by the media elite. A Judge allowed a former deputy who was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl to avoid prison and sex offender status. Stephen Moore blamed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on “a radical green energy policy by the Biden administration.” 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. Thank you. All right, welcome to the young Turks. Jane Cougar Anna Consparen, with you guys on a lovely Monday evening. Nothing but fun except for war in Europe and creeping fascism in Europe and America. Those are definitely not in the fun category, but they are in the news category.

So we're gonna do that and we're gonna do also interesting stories, including people getting mad at all the wrong folks. Again, that's later in the program. All right, lucky for us, we've got a legendary broadcaster. Her name is Anna Kaspari. She's gonna do the news. All right, well, we'll start off with an update on Russia's invasion into Ukraine. And I wanted to focus primarily on what civilians in Ukraine are currently dealing with. Some of the news from the weekend is pretty terrible.

So I just want to give you all a warning. Some of the videos that we're gonna show are graphic, sensitive. Just wanna make sure you're aware of that before we move on. With that said, let's talk about it. Russian troops are either directly targeting civilians or are attempting to essentially carry out their invasion in a way that completely disregards the lives of civilians as they continue to shell major cities and towns across the country. Now what we know from the weekend is a story that got a lot of attention involved.

One family that was attempting to flee their town to Kiev in an attempt to essentially evacuate the country eventually. And what ended up happening was a specific bridge that had already been destroyed by Ukraine in order to slow the Russians down in their invasion of Kiev was targeted yet again by Russia. And this is the same bridge that civilians are still attempting to use in an effort to evacuate the country. So before we get to the details on that story, let me give you the current conservative

death toll among Ukrainian civilians. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that 1,123 civilian casualties in Ukraine have been verified, 364 killed, including 25 children, and 759 injured. And they say that, look, this is an underestimate. They are intentionally and purposely, you know, careful with the death tolls that they put out. So the number is expected to rise, not only from, you know, verification of, you know, people have already died, but this war is still going on. Russia has unfortunately intensified its attacks on Ukraine.

And so, of course, the death toll, unfortunately, is going to increase. Now, I want to show you this map. This is a satellite image of the bridge that I was talking about. So the civilians that I'm talking about were attempting to use the path of this bridge to go from Irpin to Kiev, and then after that they were supposed to try to evacuate the country. Russia had agreed to creating these safe corridors for civilians to evacuate the country, but they have reneged on that promise, and unfortunately they have continued targeting these quote unquote safe corridors and civilians are of course not feeling safe in using those

so called corridors to evacuate. Now crowds of hundreds have clustered around the damaged bridge over the urban river since Saturday. Ukrainian forces had blown up the bridge earlier to slow the Russian advance. Only a dozen or so Ukrainian soldiers were in the immediate area of the bridge on Sunday, not fighting but helping carry civilians luggage and children. And so the mortar shells fell first 100 or so yards from the bridge, then shifted in a series of thunderous blasts into a section of street of the street where the people were fleeing. Now the New York Times was on the scene as this happened and so I want to go to the first video that shows what happened okay again difficult video to watch but

it shows evidence of what transpired as these civilians were trying to evacuate the country. Let's watch. What was last night, you say? Pogany, it was. It was. The people, 200th row of the world, and the people. Manit.

Manit. Okay. Oh, f*** him. All right. All right. Stay there! All right. No, no, no, okay.

So to give you some more details about the number of people who died as a result of that attack, a shell landed in the street, sending up a cloud of concrete dust and leaving one family, a woman, her teenage son and her daughter, who appeared to be about eight years old, and a family friend sprawled on the ground. Soldiers rushed to help, but the woman and the children were dead. The man traveling with them still had a pulse but was unconscious and severely wounded. He died later. The shelling suggested either targeting of the evacuation routes from Erpin, something of which

the Ukrainian authorities have accused the Russian army after a railroad track used for evacuations was hit on Saturday or disregard for the risk of civilian casualties. And we have other examples to share with you, but Jake, why don't you jump in? Yeah, so there's a couple of things here that are important to point out. First, it doesn't matter if they were killed accidentally or they were killed on purpose. The invasion was on purpose. So you don't get to say later, oh, I invaded a country on purpose and accidentally killed hundreds and then with this rate, it'll be thousands pretty soon of their civilians, oops, no, it's the same thing.

And by the way, we hold that standard for everyone. So when America did that and hundreds of thousands of civilians died in Iraq, same thing. I mean, when the American government said, oh, we're taking great care to not have civilian casualties. Well, then you suck at your job because hundreds of thousands of them died. So you apparently did not take great care or you're not very good at your job. Besides which when you invade a country, thousands of civilians died. That's what happens. Putin knew that, the Russian government knew that.

They did it on purpose in terms of the invasion. Now second part of it is in the beginning, they were either showing extra care or pretending to show extra care about not bombing civilians. I believe the reason for that was that they were hoping to be greeted as liberators. They probably drank their own Kool-Aid. Same thing happened here in America with the invasion of Iraq. Dick Cheney said literally the same words, we would be greeted as liberators. They would throw roses at our feet and other conservatives said.

And so there was a little bit of surprise when they didn't throw roses at our feet. And so, but after that surprise is over, both America and Russia decided, no, let's do mass bombings. Risking far greater civilian casualties. And that's certainly what Russia is right now. And guys, the New York Times reporters happen to be there and capture those four people unfortunately passing away, including that eight year old, but understand the hundreds of other civilians that died in Ukraine. The cameras didn't happen to be there, but they died just the same way. And same is true of all the civilians you didn't see die in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is doing it,

Syria, where Russia is doing it, and again, Iraq, where America did it. So we have other examples, and these stories are just incredibly heartbreaking, and it shows what the cost of war is, you know, innocent people getting caught in, in this, just complete devastating situation. One Ukrainian man lost five members of his family this past weekend on Sunday. He spoke to the press about it. Let's watch. The small country road is now lined by piles of rubble, burned out cars, collapsed homes, and a deep crater where a Russian missile struck. The attack, caught on a village security camera, hit the home of Eagle. in the small village of Marjelifka, about 15 miles south of Kyiv, where he lived with his family.

Now they're gone, killed in an instant, five family members and a friend, including his 12-year-old daughter who was disabled in an accident with a drunk driver, his wife just 46 years old, and his son-in-law, the father of his grandchildren. And that's just one of many stories that are all over. over the news, the internet, because these are, again, innocent people who are either getting severely injured, losing their homes, losing members of their own families. And this is all happening with the backdrop of Putin and Russian troops claiming that they are not targeting civilians, that they're strategically targeting the Ukrainian military, and that's

it. The evidence proves otherwise, we're seeing complete and utter destruction of schools, of hospitals, journalists even getting caught in the crossfire as a result of this. And so that's what appears to be the reality on the ground. Again, it's really difficult to give a firm death toll because the numbers are changing. It's a fluid situation. But there's no question that civilians are dying in this Russian invasion. Yeah.

And so I want to explain and defeat what aboutism here? So when I mention Yemen or Iraq, that is not what aboutism. That is, for example, Yemen is going on right now. So Saudis are massacring civilians in just the way that you saw, but in Yemen, and the world largely doesn't care, and certainly America doesn't care. What aboutism is, hey, it's happening in Yemen, so don't worry about Ukraine. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. You should worry about both, not worry about neither.

And what aboutism is America did something wrong recently or 20 years ago, so Putin isn't doing something wrong. No, that's outrageous and ridiculous. So if you see anyone using legitimate facts about the things that other countries have done wrong, but in an effort to defend Putin and his aggression and his crimes against humanity and this absurd invasion, understand that they are not honest actors. 100%. They basically are doing propaganda for Putin and the Russian government, and they're some of the most disgusting people on earth. Yeah, look, I think that adults and people who think critically about these things and aren't interested in pushing propaganda can hold

two thoughts at the same time. You can be critical of US foreign policy, as we've been, because it's justified and it's evidence-based, and you can also criticize the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin and the Russian troops. Anyone who uses what aboutism, it's even worse than that. It's a way of providing cover for what Putin is doing right now when the what aboutism is used. It's a way of deflecting what's currently happening in Ukraine and immediately diverting attention to the naughty, naughty behavior of the United States, which in this particular

case has not done anything wrong. The United States, actually, first of all, is not the one invading Ukraine right now. I'm impressed with how measured the Biden administration continues to be, not at all, you know, buying the argument that we need to implement some sort of no-fly zone, which would be a complete and utter disaster. You know, I think that, again, you can hold two thoughts at the same time. But what I do see quite often, especially among leftists online, is this need to immediately minimize what Putin is doing or provide cover for what Putin is doing by immediately

distracting people with the wrongdoings of the United States government. It just doesn't make sense in this case. And if the U.S. does do something wrong, I think it makes sense to call them out. But let's just keep it real right now. Putin is the one who has done this invasion. Civilians are dying as a result of this invasion. And he's not letting up, he's only intensifying this. Another example of what aboutism is, you know, you have wonderful Russian citizens who are putting their lives on the line to protest this war in Russia. They get arrested, Putin gets like criticism for it, as he should. And then you even see people saying, well, I mean, it's not like the United States arrests protests or protesters. Yeah, yeah, we saw that

happen in the summer of 2020, we should be critical of that. But we shouldn't point to that as a way of justifying or providing cover for what Putin's doing in Russia. Yeah, so it's not at all complicated. Be fair about your critique of all countries, including the United States, and including Russia. It's not hard at all. So look, the great majority of Putin's defenders here in America are right wing. And then I would say the second largest category, is fake left, who's pretending to be on the left, but is actually totally right wing, but specifically, especially when it comes to Russia, and you will see them make every justification for Putin's actions and blame Ukraine, blame the West, etc. In this case, it's a particularly

stark example, because a lot of things in the world are not black and white. And so, especially when it's more vague, it's easier for those forces to say, oh, it was all America's fault, America's fault, none of it is Putin's fault. Poor, poor Putin misunderstood by the world, okay? And by the way, some things are America's fault. So that's why it's even more complicated. But in this case, we have a very stark example, and it's clarified things completely. Putin definitely started this war. Anyone who says otherwise is either out of their minds, for some weirdo leftover agenda from 40, 50 years ago, but that's a tiny, tiny percentage, or more likely literally propagandists for Putin. So whether they're on the right wing or

the pretend left, saying that Putin is in any way the victim here, or didn't start this war, is counterfactual. Putin definitely started the war, he's definitely responsible for those civilian deaths, he's a warmonger, imperialist of the first order, and any person, progressive would be against the imperialism of Russia under Putin. Anyone saying otherwise is not on the left. They're just either fans of Putin for some insane, bizarre reason that they should go see their therapist about, or they're paid propagandists for the current Russian government. And just going back to the safe corridors that Russia had agreed to, but then reneged on that promise.

Ukraine apparently dismissed a Kremlin proposed or proposal to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people, not to the West, but to Russia and its ally Belarus as a cynical attempt to distract from its failure to stop shelling evacuation corridors where civilians are attempting to flee. Like what a joke. What an absolute joke. Yeah, I'm sure Ukrainian civilians want to evacuate to the country that's being led by the very person who invaded their country to begin with. Just absolute joke. Anyway, all right, look, we got to take a break. We've got more news when we come back, including a retired U.S. Army colonel, Douglas McGregor, who has some advice for Ukrainians. He wants them to essentially give up. And he also has some comments in regards to Vladimir Zelensky, someone who he claims to be a puppet.

We're going to debunk his lies when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna and John with you guys. John Wiley just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. Thank you, members make this show possible. Let me read just one quick YouTube super chat here. Nicolette Herades wrote, and during the protests in Portland, I always knew I'd be released if I got arrested. The protesters in Russia do not have that, such bravery.

Yes, especially any propagandists for Putin. for Putin that you see in America, criticizing protesters in Russia or saying it's no big deal, those people that are not backing those Russian protesters are the worst people on earth. Those protesters have tremendous courage. And we applaud them. All right, Anna. All right, let's get to our next story. You think the end is in sight?

Well, the end. And the end of this phase is still a few days away. But the first five days, Russian forces, I think frankly, were too gentle. They've now corrected that. So I would say another 10 days, this should be completely over. The gentleman in severe need of a lozenge in that video is a retired U.S. Army colonel, Douglas McGregor, who actually served as a Defense Department advisor under Trump. He's making quite a name for himself as he has called for Ukraine to immediately surrender

to Russia. And that slight criticism that you heard of Russia in that video is the only criticism he has offered, that Russia has been too gentle with Ukraine. And then he lauded Putin for intensifying its attacks against the Ukrainians. Now, he later called, He calls Vladimir Zelensky a puppet, but before we get to that video, I wanted to get to another part of his interview with Stuart Varney, where he spreads all sorts of propaganda that seems to be favorable toward Russia and Vladimir Putin. Let's watch. Is he gonna fly with Ukraine?

No, absolutely not. In fact, he's worked hard to capture most of it intact. Surprisingly little damage, frankly, Stuart, much less damage than we inflicted on Iraq when we went into it either in 91 and again in 2003. Now, I think they're just surrounding the Ukrainian forces, and they are annihilating them. And this is inevitable. And Mr. Zelensky, I think, is postponing the inevitable in the hopes that we are going to rescue him, and we are not coming. The Russians have made it very clear. What they want is in neutral Ukraine. This could have ended days ago if he accepted that. And then they can

adjust the borders. But the eastern part of Ukraine is firmly in Russian hands. But again, the Russians are not seizing territory, they're destroying Ukrainian forces, that's their focus. They're just destroying Ukrainian forces, which is why more than 1,000 civilians have already died as a result of Russia's attacks in this war that's been going on for less than two weeks now. That's why millions of Ukrainians have fled the country seeking refuge in neighboring European countries as a result of this brutality. And the lies about how The target is Ukrainian troops and nothing more is infuriating, especially since there's so much evidence to the contrary.

In fact, let me give you a bit of that evidence right now. Let's watch. The house collapsed on me, she says, and then they pulled me out. There are no other patients in this hospital. All the injured treated here died in their beds, we're told, including one 53-year-old man brought in on Sunday. morning. Just here. Across town, the rockets, apparent cluster munitions that seem to fall just anywhere.

Another rocket landed up the street here. From cars to vegetable gardens. Here you're a hush. At the morgue, the toll is growing. At least 50 bodies, they told us. 20 of them incinerated in a Russian missile strike on the naval port of Acharkiv, they said. The bodies so often of the elderly who would have survived being a Soviet citizen, but not this. It's absolutely disgusting to repeat those kinds of lies on national television in regard to what Putin's really doing.

What Putin's doing is incredibly brutal and civilians are suffering the consequences. of it while that idiot goes on Fox News and pretends as though Putin's this lovely guy who's just doing the right thing, just doing the right thing. Colonel McGregor was in the United States military for decades. Then I'll tell you what happened afterwards that might have influenced the way he's thinking about things here. But one of the things you should know is he was an advisor to Donald Trump. And this is the kind of advice he gave him.

If Trump was in office, God knows if he would have listened to him. And I could see Trump easily saying, well, they should have surrendered, that he prefers Ukrainians who surrender. And that's exactly what Colonel McGregor just said on Fox News. He said the Russians are just annihilating the Ukrainians, as if it's a good thing. Then he said it's basically the Ukrainians' fault for not surrendering earlier. He's saying this all of the straight face. And then he said, if you notice, this is important.

said the Russians are not seizing territory. But a sentence earlier he'd said, well then of course afterwards we'd have to adjust the border. Right, totally. Yeah. But wait a minute, that's seizing territory, you propagandist prick. And so why is you doing propaganda for Putin? I don't know to what degree he's being directly paid, but he certainly was on RT many, many times.

There are people who were on RT and did good work and didn't talk about Russia. But the ones that did were apparently heavily heavily. influenced by the checks they were receiving. What a surprise. Well, you know, I wanted to do a little digging to learn more about Colonel McGregor, right? What kind of guy he is? And he had some strong thoughts after the annexation of Crimea.

For instance, in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, he basically called for the annexation of Donbas and said that residents of the region are in fact Russians, not Ukrainians, And at the same time, you have Ukrainians in the west and in the north who are not Russians. And I'm going to ask a legitimate question because I didn't hear the beginning of what you said. Sure. Was that Vladimir Putin or Colonel McGregor? That was McGregor.

Okay, because that was identical to what Putin said. No, in fact, why don't we talk a little more about what Putin has said, right? Because listen, I think there's legitimate criticism in regard to NATO and how it could lead to these types of provocations. However, as I've said multiple times since the invasion of Ukraine, Putin had his mindset on invading no matter what. Zelensky said joining NATO might just be a dream. He was giving up his bid to be part of NATO in order to de-escalate the situation. Days we covered that story. Check it out on our YouTube page, our Facebook page, you'll find it.

Days after that, Putin invaded anyway because it's about installing a puppet government. He doesn't even see Ukraine as a legitimate country. He thinks it should be a buffer state. Because who cares about the people of Ukraine, who cares about self-determination? He wants a puppet government, he wants a buffer state, right? Now here's what he had said in his speech prior to the invasion. Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood. That's a direct quote from Vladimir Putin.

Here's more. By the way, at the end of World War I, Ukraine declared independence from Russia, and it was put back under Soviet rule. Soviet rule by force, okay, after that. He also said, Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space. Since time immemorial, the people living in the southwest of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russian or Russians. So exact type of statement that you would hear from Colonel McGregor, right?

Now, to give you more from this guy, he then goes on to specifically attack Vladimir Zelensky. I want to hear about those attacks, and then we'll debunk that as well. Colonel, it sounds like you don't approve of Zelensky's stand. I think Zelensky is a puppet, and he is putting huge numbers of his own population at unnecessary risk. And quite frankly, most of what comes out of Ukraine is debunked as lies within 24 to 48 hours. The notions of taking and retaking airfields, all of this is nonsense. It hasn't happened. He's not a hero?

I mean, he's standing up for himself and his own people? You don't think he's a hero? No, I do not. I don't see anything heroic about the man. And I think the most heroic thing that he can do right now is to come to terms with reality. neutralize Ukraine. This is not a bad thing. A neutral Ukraine would be good for us as well as for Russia. It would create the buffer that frankly both sides want. But he's, I think, being told to hang on and try to drag this out, which is tragic for the people that have to live through

this. It would create the buffer that both sides want. I think it's pretty clear, considering the pretty harsh, you know, the fact that all these people in Ukraine are fighting back. So, so, so aggressively. I think it's pretty clear that that's not what the people of Ukraine want. They don't want to be a buffer state to appease Vladimir Putin. And the idea that Vladimir Zelensky should just neutralize, like give up immediately, neutralize the country, give Putin everything he wants. That's what the brave thing is. Like that's the brave strategy according to this clown. Yeah. Colonel McGregor really should tell us where he makes his money. Seriously. Because that's just total insanity. And, and direct.

Russian propaganda. That's not hey, around the edges, where should the natural borders of NATO be? That's an interesting, legitimate question. He said they shouldn't, we should neutralize Ukraine, and that it would be good for everybody, including the Ukrainies. I'm pretty sure the Ukrainians don't feel that getting neutralized is helping them, or as he bragged about in that same segment a little earlier, getting annihilated, that the Ukrainians did not sign up for annihilation or being neutralized. And do you think they'd be neutralized? Well, Colonel McGregor said earlier they shouldn't be.

They should adjust the borders, that it shouldn't be neutral. That Russia should just take the land and then I presumably unilaterally adjust the borders. So they have more of Ukraine. And then Colonel McGregor can collect a big paycheck and cheer on Putin from his own goddamn home, okay? Or why does he go in the middle of Ukraine and help his friend Vladimir Putin? So by the way, this is extra dangerous, Stuart Barney's an idiot. After the interview was over, he's like, oh, some interesting things there, I'm not sure

I agree with us, but all right, tell you, no, then why don't you challenge him, you fool? So of course he doesn't. The reason why it's super dangerous guys is that once Fox News realizes this is ugly and putting on an obvious propagandist for Putin is not playing well, even with our own base, him cheerleading the deaths of Ukrainian civilians, et cetera, is not playing well, even with the monstrous right wing Fox Newsbase, they're gonna take him off. And then what's gonna happen? QAnon guys, right wingers online, and even some of the fake left wing will say, oh, the deep state took him off. Censorship. Censorship. And you know, Wadde, they were worried that he

was revealing too much, and it'll help launch a thousand conspiracies that are all against the Ukrainian people. That guy was choking in the beginning, a president. presumably on his own talking points, but perhaps on something else, also sent by Putin. I also think it's important for you all to know what kind of person Colonel McGregor is outside of his terrible foreign policy commentary. And you'll get a sense of why it is that the Trump administration wanted him as an advisor for the Defense Department and all of that. So McGregor, let's go to Graphic 5 here, McGregor also said a lot of criminals were among migrants and undocumented immigrants coming into the United States, adding, they would be a burden

on our economy who carried since eradicated diseases. In other words, immigrants are criminals and disease. It's literal Nazi propaganda, so it's not overly surprising that he would be in favor of the new Nazis, the Putin-led government. And I want to go to this next video because he had some thoughts about what the Biden administration is doing when it comes to. to immigration into the United States. Let's watch.

Retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor says the Biden administration's policy is to bring in non-white immigrants to outnumber white Americans of European ancestry in the US. Listen. The idea is that they have to bring in as many non-Europeans as possible in order to outnumber the numbers of Americans of European ancestry who

live in the United States. That's what it's all about. And I don't think. I don't think there's any point in questioning it, that is the policy. So the whole white replacement theory garbage is something that he not only believes, but he spouts propaganda about it when he's on the news, when he's talking to people. He also says, I think some of you must have seen the thousands of pregnant women coming up from Latin America so they can have their children here.

And then the children immediately, the child is immediately declared an American citizen. citizen, and again, all of this is part of the grand plan. This is what Mr. Biden and his supporters want. They want another country, they don't want the United States. That's who this guy is. And where does he get invited on to share his so-called non-interventionist propaganda, which, by the way, he was a huge supporter of invading Iraq in 2003, places like, oh wow, would you look at that, the gray zone, the gray zone, which also spouts pro-Putin propaganda nonstop.

So let's go to Graphic 4, just like to show you the receipts, not just make statement. So there you have it. There's an example of an interview that they had with McGregor pretty recently. And they label him ex-Penegon advisor as if he didn't say all those horrible right-wing, lunatic, racist things before makes him seem legitimate. And who does Gray's own blame for the Russian invasion of Ukraine? America. Of course, of course, you could have a nuanced discussion about the first.

faults of American foreign policy and Russian foreign policy. And you would obviously be fair and say that Russia did the invasion here unquestionably. And it is overwhelmingly their fault. But do they say that? No, of course they don't say that because they're doing propaganda for Putin's government. If they want to cry about that, they can go cry anywhere they like. They're monsters. So this Colonel McGregor guy, right wing racist all throughout. That's why Trump loved him. That's why he wanted him to be part of his government and wanted him to be ambassador to Germany. That is an incredibly important role for this clowns. And now he's out there.

Oh, Putin said, poor Putin! Poor Ukrainians made him do this. And America made him do this. We should immediately neutralize and annihilate Ukraine. Readjust this borders, hand it over to our friend Putin. Go ahead. Cheerlead for that, you scum. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, the United States is looking to strike a deal with Venezuela for its oil in an effort to replace the loss of Russian oil. What a mess.

We've got that story and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jenkinana with you guys. Anna, take it away. The Biden administration is looking to replace. Russian oil with Venezuelan oil, and that became clear when U.S. officials traveled to Venezuela to meet with Venezuelan officials on a potential deal. Now, this is a fascinating development considering the fact that the Biden administration came into office with statements about how Juan Guaido is the real leader of Venezuela, and of course that is not true. Juan Guido was the figure

that the U.S. tried to install as a replacement to Maduro, but our coup attempts failed, right? So that conflict is very relevant to these new updates. However, Nicholas Maduro was open to having these conversations, and it looks like he's even willing to privatize some of their resources to make this deal. So let me give you the details, as it's reported by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The weekend's development in Venezuela, by Wall Street firms, I'm sure it is, and other investors who have been talking to emissaries from Venezuela about a possible restructuring of $60 billion in debt. That's debt that Venezuela has, of course.

The regime is offering infrastructure concessions, oil and gas reserves, and asset privatizations, while pressing the investors to coax the United States to consider lifting sanctions. So in return for these resources, Venezuela is hoping that the United States will lift sanctions that were implemented against it by the Trump administration. To give you more information about that, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Maduro and closed its embassy in Caracas in 2019 after accusing the leader of electoral fraud. The Trump administration then tried to topple Maduro's government by sanctioning Venezuela

in oil exports and the country's senior officials and by recognizing the opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's lawful president. No one voted for Juan Guaido. It's not like there was an election and Juan Guaido was like the rightful winner of that election and the U.S. is supporting him as a result of that. There were multiple failed coup attempts and that was disastrous and we should be critical of the United States for attempting to do that multiple times. Now, lifting the sanctions is something that Venezuela clearly wants. So lifting the sanctions would also put an estimated 23 million barrels of

Venezuela, Venezuelan oil that is in storage tanks and oil tankers onto the market. This would add 750,000 barrels a day to global supply in the first month of sanctions relief on top of any incremental production. So, you know, just to understand what's what's going on here, the Biden administration is getting a lot of heat for not implementing sanctions against Russian oil. And part of the reason why Biden is hesitant to do that is because as you guys can already notice, oil prices are already incredibly high. And he's getting battered in regard to coverage regarding gas prices at the pump. And so he's looking for a solution

here. There are other solutions that he could turn to, which we can talk about in just a second, but I want to hear what you think first, Jake. I think this is a really good solution, even though some people have questionable motives for pushing it. And I think that unfortunately the media will fall hook, line, and sinker for any Fox News talking point. So Fox News has been yelling at the administration about how, and making it appear that gas prices are all their fault, and now CBS and all the other media outlets are asking 24 seven, basically with the implication of why did you raise the gas prices?

Well, they were against Russia invading Ukraine, but Russia invaded Ukraine anyway. You don't think that affects gas prices? Well, if you don't, you just don't know economics. You don't know anything, so you should be quiet and formulate a real question and then ask it, because you apparently know nothing. So now, the deal with Venezuela would be great for a number of reasons. Number one, you're releasing 23 million barrels of oil, as Anna just explained, from the reserve. That's going to make an immediate impact. And then in the long term, you restart

the oil coming in from Venezuela. That's going to take a while to catch up. But we had about 540,000 barrels that we were importing from Russia. And that's only because the oil here is being exported to other countries. Exactly. Right? And but we can import 540,000 to replace That from Venezuela, so that would solve that kind of problem. But yeah, I know why they're doing it. Chevron is the major US oil company left in Venezuela. If we restart oil distribution from Venezuela to US, Chevron is going to make an unreal amount of money.

And those Wall Street bankers that are sitting on $60 billion in Venezuela in debt have tons of power in Washington. So they're gonna push for a resolution, but should we re-engage Venezuela? Yes, and not on behalf of those guys and the corruption, but because we shouldn't have put sanctions on Venezuela in the first place, we shouldn't have tried to do a coup on that country for no reason, it's not our business at all, and yes, we should reestablish relationships for the benefit of the Venezuelan people and the American people. So look, I, the fact that Maduro is now willing to privatize, you know, certain things that

he was unwilling to privatize previously makes me worry. With that said though, I want to go back to your point in regard to exporting oil to other countries. So the United States, as we've talked about before, is the top oil producing country, the top natural gas producing country. But that doesn't matter because we don't have nationalized natural resources in this country. Everything is privatized, which means that corporations run everything, and of course, they're going to export our natural resources if they can increase their profits by doing so. Now, the Biden administration doesn't have its hands tied behind its back.

If the Biden administration wanted to, under an emergency order, for up to one year, it could unilaterally prevent these corporations from exporting oil to other countries. But it's unwilling to do that, and I think that's telling. Yeah, and by the way, we should also add that there's some American detainees of Venezuela. They're trying to orchestrate a trade for that as well. And some of that makes sense. Some of it was probably people who did the coup or tried to do the coup. And I don't know if Venezuela is going to let those particular detainees off or if they should. But certainly America wants those folks back.

And so they're doing a very rational negotiation here. on behalf of both the citizens, and yes, some of the powerful, right? And the real answer, of course, is renewable energy. So we don't have to keep trading between Russia, Iran, and Venezuela and Iraq, who were invading and who we're supporting and who we're getting oil from. You can't turn off the sun and you can't turn off wind. If we had real renewable energy in this country, we wouldn't need any of those countries. By the way, again, to Anna's point, we don't need them now.

We produce enough oil and gas here in America, but we don't control our corporations. If they make a dollar extra exporting somewhere else, they will. And that's what our American media owned by corporations never clarifies for you. Exactly, no, 100%. And just to like really highlight that point about renewable energy, it just, it amazes me that this moment does it make it abundantly clear to people how insanely vulnerable we are because of the fact that we don't rely on renewable energy. Like the takeaway is, like we live in this topsy-turvy world where the takeaway is,

we're not drilling enough. Again, top oil producing country, top national natural gas producing country. In the world, we're number one, okay? The fact that anyone makes the argument that we're not drilling enough, we're not fracking enough, blows my mind, it's absolutely inaccurate. All right, and then they bring up the pipeline. the pipeline that Biden scrapped. Keystone pipeline. Let's save it for Stephen Moore. Okay, we'll talk about that later then.

Let's move on. Trump continues to insult his former attorney general William Barr, and this time he's doing so in the form of a letter to Lester Holt. Now, this sounds like another edition of a catfight. All right, so as we know, William Barr, who carried quite a bit of water for Trump, ended up ruining his relationship with Trump when he refused to carry out Trump's orders to essentially dismantle what's left of our democratic process. He wanted William Barr to help overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

William Barr apparently has some standards, he refused to do so, and then later criticized Trump about what he was attempting to do in his book. Now Trump didn't like that and decided to write a letter to Lester Holt about it. Before we get to the content of the letter, I just want to note, he's writing this letter, like he, this is a letter from him and he crossed out dear Mr. Holt to write Lester. Why didn't you just ensure it was typed that way to begin with? It's just a weird thing that Trump does. Or why don't you have them retype it?

You're the former president of the United States. You claim to be a billionaire. You could hire someone to retype the letter. Instead of giving away that you didn't, you dictated it at best. Well, you'll see in the contents, it was definitely Trump who dictated it. 100%. 100%. So what did Trump have to say about William Barr?

Bill Barr cares more about being accepted by the corrupt Washington media and elite. And serving the American people, he has slow lethargic, he was slow lethargic. And I realized early on that he never had what it takes to make a great attorney general. It's amazing because he kept talking about how he surrounds himself with the best people. He hires the best people, he appoints the best people. How many of those people did he sour on later? Yeah. Both of his attorney generals, okay?

Jeff Sessions and William Barr. Almost all of them. All of them. Because, and all of his chiefs of staff, why they go in there, they think they can can help what they think is an awful right winger, which they like that idea. They get in there and they realize, oh no, he's a, he's clinically sick, mentally sick. He's an auto control narcissist and you can't get him to focus, you can't get him to reason. He's only obsessed with himself, and now that's what William Barr is saying.

That's what we told you was the case, but they all go in there going, well, maybe I can control that monster because they like monsters, they just don't like one that's completely obsessed with themselves. They were hoping to be monsters together, right? And that's who William Barr is. But that letter is hilarious. It's so obviously dictated by Trump, then edited by the guy who he dictated it to, and then re-edited it with Sharpies by Trump because Trump didn't say the word lethargic. It's not in his vocabulary. He's never said that out loud. He probably doesn't know what the word means. I know the best word. Yeah, sure you do. I. I invented the word fake.

He once literally said that, okay? So you know what he called him? This is my guess, okay? He called him fat and lazy, and the person he was dictating it to said, Mr. President. Let's spice it up. Let's spice it up. Let's go with lethargic.

Yeah, no, I love it. It's hilarious. No, but it gets worse. But guys, you want to stick around because William Barr's response to all of this is the best part of this entire story. Okay, but before we get to it, a few more excerpts from this letter, when the radical left Democrats threatened to hold him in contempt and even worse, to impeach him, he became virtually worthless to law and order and election integrity.

He wanted William Barr to overturn the will of the American people. Trump and his cronies lost more than 60 court cases or hearings in regard to election fraud, Right? Every single judge, including judges that he had nominated, actually ruled against him because they had no evidence of widespread voter fraud. But Trump writes of Barr, they broke him just like a trainer breaks a horse. Barr refused to go after the fraud and irregularities that had so openly taken place in the 2020 presidential election. It was so sad to watch. When he stated there was no fraud in the election, it was a virtual joke and any, Anyone that knew what had actually gone on in particular within the swing states.

Like he's just, I can't imagine even if you're a Trump supporter, you have to be exhausted by the fact that he won't let this go. You have to be. I mean, like constant whining and crying. But Jenk, like I said, the best part was that William Barr did respond to this. He had an interview with Savannah Guthrie and he's like, well, you know, this is par for the course, this is what Trump does. And then she asked him an important question about what he would do in a theoretical situation.

Let's watch. Well, I certainly have made it clear. I don't think he should be our nominee, and I'm going to support somebody else for the nominee. But if he is the nominee and your choice is Donald Trump or whoever's running on the Democratic side, would you vote for him? Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party. it's inconceivable to me that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee. So even if he lied about the election and threatened democracy, as you write in your book, better than a Democrat.

It's hard to project what the facts are going to turn out to be three years hence. But as of now, it's hard for me to conceive that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee. Oh, poor, poor William Barr. He's been taken on a ride on the beta bus. Beda, you are beta male. I don't know, I just find it shocking how easily these people allow themselves to be like unmanned by Trump, like again and again and again. So we talked a lot about Barr when he was first coming in and how much he loves executive

authority. He doesn't really believe in our system of government to begin with. He thinks Congress should not have much power at all, and neither should the Supreme Court. Ultimate Executive Authority is a king, authoritarian leader. So William Barr has already signed up for that. He just didn't like that it was Trump. He liked that it was Trump in the beginning. That's why he went to go join him. He raised his hand, came out of retirement. He hadn't been in politics in decades. He's like, wow, this guy looks like he could really end the country. I'm here for it, right? And so he wrote op-eds in favor of it and all the way that Trump was exercising executive authority.

I think the only thing that happened at the end was he realized, oh, Trump is just in it for himself and not the right-wing authoritarian movement. And we were hoping to end democracy together, install a right-wing government led just by the executive, and then we would pretend that that was democracy. But this Trump's son bitch is just doing it for his own game. Yeah, Bill, that's what he's doing it for. You know why? Because that's what every authoritarian leader does. What did you think was going to happen? Did you think you were going to get a magnanimous authoritarian leader who was going to say,

hey, you know what? Why don't we just let Bill Barbie in charge? No, whoever it was, they were going to make you their toadie. And they were going to step all over you and you were going to have to lick their boots. Well, Billy come lately, realized at the last moment, oh, this is what an anti-democratic revolution looks like. Right. And so he, and at the end, he says, okay, I'm pulling this shoot. I'm not for Trump. But even then, when they say, okay, you just said Trump was trying to end democracy, would you vote for him? And he's like, yeah, maybe. No, no, not maybe. Yes, if he were the

Republican nominee, of course I would, because what's the other option? Progressives, they might raise my taxes. Progressives, a lot of them are brown and black. I mean, progressives. Yeah, they're not in favor of corporate rule. They're not in favor of the rich getting richer and the powerful having more power and ruling and oppressing everyone. No, they're anti-oppression. No, I'd rather have Trump and democracy than have progressives look out for the average voter. That's who this sick bill bar is. So I'm sure soon Nancy Pelosi will be hugging him on the floor of the house. But I'm not interested. Thank you for the information that you've revealed about Donald Trump. Otherwise, you can go

ahead and join that Russian warship in effing yourself. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll talk about how Marjorie Taylor Green pretends to be against war while she invests in private defense contractors. And lots of other great stories. Don't miss it. Come right 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.