The Young Turks - Buttigieg May Face Subpoena

Episode Date: October 24, 2019

An attorney has told TYT that he may be sending Buttigieg a subpoena soon. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

A big day ahead, tic, tick, tick, tick, lots of presidential news. A lot. And I'm going to be on CNN tonight debating about the impeachment. Oh, I love that, love that. So please check that out. I'll be on Cuomo prime time. Yes, at 9 o'clock Eastern, 6 o'clock Pacific. Okay, love those debates, love banana torches folks.

And it's about impeachment, so that's fantastic. Okay, look, we got a major story that TYT broke that I'm going to get to in a second. It's just a fun little update for you guys. I was going to say another one by this, but I feel bad about us. I'm not going to say it that way. I'll just put it this way. Another Democratic presidential candidate has dropped out. Tim Ryan out, God.

Okay, so we're down to 17. I think at its height, it was at 27, so depending on how you killed. Didn't Tim Ryan already drop out? No, I know it felt that way. No, and last I talked to him at Iowa steak fryer a couple of weeks ago. He said he was staying all the way to the end, apparently this is the end. So Tim Ryan was of course one of the more conservative folks in the race. A lot of those folks haven't done well, fascinating.

Well, we're gonna start with one of those folks, but unrelated to anything in national politics. So let's do it. All right. TYT Investigates has been breaking story after story about Pete Buttigieg's decision to demote the town's very first African American police chief, a man by the name of Daryl Boykins. Now at first he tried to pressure Boykins to resign, but he refused to do so and he was later demoted. Now that has led to an investigation by our very own Jonathan Larson into the secret police recordings where various members of the police department in South Bend, Indiana were saying racist things

about black people in general, but also about the police chief, Daryl Boykins. Now, there is an investigation possibly happening within the town as a result of Jonathan Larson's reporting. The attorney for the South Bend Common Council will subpoena witnesses in the case, possibly including Buttigieg himself. So let me give you the details on what's going on. And I also want to note that initially there was the idea of simply verifying TYT's reporting on the matter, but it looks like the plan to do that is less likely.

they are likely to do a full-blown lawsuit to figure out what's going on. So let me step in to make a couple of things clear, because I know that since it's about a local story in South Bend, a lot of you are unfamiliar with it and you get a little confusing. So first of all, how racist were the tapes? Well, we have confirmed that one of the quotes in the conversations was, it's going to be a fun time when all white people are in charge. And so in the tapes, in earlier story that Jonathan Larson broke for TYT investigates, the racist police and yes, from the conversations, they are very clearly racist. That's not the only racist reference in the tapes.

They talk about how they have access to Pete Buttigieg's donors. This is before his election. They see if he wins, and they call him an effin' pips squeak. So you can say, hey, Buttigieg can say, look, I'm not sure they were big fans of mine. But the police believed that they had some members of the police believe that they had access to Pete Buttigieg's donors and they were talking to one another not knowing that they were recorded saying don't worry, Buttigieg's donors will tell him to fire Boykins. And now what we do know is after those conversations, Buttigieg wins and he does in fact go after Boykins. Yes. And he goes after also anyone who listened to the tapes, including Karen DePape, who was another officer involved, Buttigieg,

fires her for even listening to the tapes and talking to anybody about it. So, she was specifically the communications director for the department. And the reason why she was listening in on the tapes is because they were having technical issues with the recording devices that they had in the department. And as she was listening to it trying to troubleshoot and figure out what was going on, that was when she came across the racist statements made by police in the South Bend Police Department. I want to give you one more important detail on that before we give you the updates on why now the common council of South Bend, which is like the legislature of South Bend, they've been involved in a lawsuit with the mayor for a long time. Now Buttigieg has now dropped out of that lawsuit and it's the racist cops that, oh, I'm sorry, some of the cops that happened to care about it having nothing to do with race continue the suit to make sure nobody ever finds out what was said on those tapes. But as we told you, we've already found out. And that's why the common council is acting, quoting our reporting on it.

Anyway, when the pap was a civilian police staffer, she listened to the tapes and Buttigieg said, well, I had to fire her because of the Federal Wiretapping Act and that she was, I was afraid that federal prosecutors were going to say that was illegal and wrong. Well, good news, federal prosecutors did look into it all the way back in 2012 and decided that it did not violate the Federal Wiretapping Act, and they took no action whatsoever. So that justification was shot down seven years ago, but to this day all the people involved, including Buttigieg says, oh my God, federal wiretapping act. That's why I had to get rid of everyone who listened to the tapes.

So that is a very, very poor excuse for getting rid of people who listen to those racist tapes that they desperately didn't want going out. Now you see the situation has gotten really heated because now seven years later, they still have not released the tapes. The Common Council, that is the legislature of South Bend still wants the table. tapes and now they're thinking about even subpoenaing their own mayor to say, for God's sake, what's on the tapes? By the way, his lawyers already know what's on the tapes.

He says, oh, my tapes, I don't want to listen to them. I mean, Federal Wiretapping Act. Well, you guys have asked for the material in it, and you talked about it in the context of the Karen DePape lawsuit. She, of course, sued because she was totally wrongly fired for, and she's such a good Staff her in that case to have done her job exactly right. They settle for apparently a decent sum. And when they settled, right before Buttigieg was supposed to go on for a deposition.

Like yeah, I mean, maybe it was a wrong firing, sure, let's settle. And then they give her a number to try to quiet her down. So now today what the Common Council is doing in order to try to finally get that information. Yeah, so look, the attorney for the council, Bob Palmer, you know, said in its suit, I'm sorry, who represents the council in its suit, said on Tuesday that he planned to present the subpoena option to the council during a closed door meeting, right? So the council still needs to make a decision about how they want to move forward. And right now, it's not entirely clear, but just based on my read of the story, it does

appear that they're leaning toward doing a full-blown lawsuit. Here are the full options, okay? dropping the suit and instead subpoenaing witnesses to verify TYT's reporting, putting the litigation on hold for a short period while seeing what can be verified, and authorizing subpoenas to go beyond the scope of TYT's reporting, which to be quite honest with you, I think the third option is the right option if you're really looking for justice in this case. Now, city council member John Bord told the Tribune last week that he thought no one in an earlier executive session objected to dropping the suit of TYT's reporting could be corroborated by asking

DePape to verify TYT's reporting. Now, Jonathan Larson spoke to The Hills Rising about this. In a little more detail, let's go to the clip. The subpoena is essentially to determine whether or not independent witnesses, beginning with DePap, would verify the authenticity of the documents that we've reported on. And the way this works is there's an attorney, a guy named Bob Palmer, who's working for the city council in South Bend, and he has, the council has been discussing our reporting since it came out. And one of the options they're looking at is potentially dropping the suit entirely and just relying on TYT's our reporting in terms of deciding how to move forward. Some people are against that.

Some people favor that, but the reason, ironically, the reason for doing that would be that they could save themselves legal costs by just subpoenaing people, having them come into court and not asking them, so what's on the tapes, but asking them, is this report accurate? Are these documents, legitimate, real authentic documents? So the idea behind just confirming TYT's reporting is, hey, you know, at least we get to save some money rather than doing a lawsuit here. Now, two of the city's nine common council members told TYT, they would not oppose subpoenaing Buttigieg and others in this case.

Council President Tim Scott released a statement the same day saying the council is, quote, concerned with the decisions and processes by which Buttigieg demoted boikins and fired to Pape. Scott's statement, responding to a South Bend Tribune editorial opposed to dropping the suit, also suggested that, suggested that nothing is to be gained by pursuing the suit for another three years if the final result is nothing more than verification of the accuracy of the Young Turks stories. I want to give you the significance of that.

He's saying basically, look, the Young Turks already uncovered what was in the tapes, and it is terribly damaging. Now, I want to give you the national picture here. So it's not about the national politics of as it relates to Pete Buttigieg. So we'll get to that in a second. But African Americans throughout the country have been told for decades, in reality, centuries in this country, you're lying when you say the police abuse you. You're lying when you say the police are racist.

You're making it up, you're hallucinating. It's not true, it's not true, it's not true, they're told over and over again. It's the oppression Olympics, which I've heard people say. Yeah, oh, you just, you want to be victims, they say. Now, the reality is, as we discovered in the tapes, it is true. It is true. Those cops were racist. They couldn't wait for white people to get back in charge.

Jonathan's reporting is this passionate. You see all the detailed, quotes, documents, and all the different sources that he has. I am passionate about it because I can't stand it. that for all this time, almost every African American in the country say the cops appear to be against us. And everyone in authority, mayors, oftentimes journalists in the media, the cops certainly go, no, no, no, no, no, you're making it up. And then when you say, all right, well, then let's see what's in the tapes, they go, no, no way,

we're not going to let you know what's in those tapes. Gee, I wonder why. So it was excellent reporting by Larson that broke this story. Look, in fact, I'll quote the president of the common council, Tim Scott Huanna referred to here a little bit more at length. He mentions the Young Turks reporting seven times in his letter talking about this issue that he just put out. He said the latest journalist investigation by the media group, the Young Turks, has

dealt deeper with more information and insight than any journalist or media group has done in the past seven years. I have to interrupt you. You guys did that. You guys did that. You guys funded that. So I just want to say thank you because these are the types of stories that your work So thank you.

Go ahead. He said the young Turks have brought to this common council information. It has had no legal way to see before. I'm gonna double down on what Anna said. So Jonathan Larson did wonderful, amazing reporting here to get sources, to get documents, to get all the different things he did in more than half a dozen reports. You should go to TYT, Tom, tyt.com to check it out. But guys, it was also you if we hadn't raised money from the audience.

And so look, I know that other folks don't care about that. I care about it. You guys made this great reporting possible. And it isn't about Larson, it isn't about Buttigieg, it isn't about South Bend. It's what it uncovers about the whole country. You were right, you were right. They constantly abuse you and then hide all the evidence of their abuse. More from Tim Scott.

He said, the tribune asked what has changed, and he continues, it should be obviously anyone that the Young Turks has for the first time revealed documents that could independently establish What is on the recordings without the need to actually listen to the recordings. This common council owes the city of South Bend and its residents the duty to investigate and to attempt to verify what the young Turks has brought to light. You brought that to light. So I love that we do this show together and that you guys funded our investigative reporting. So now back to the common council.

So that's the president of the common council saying we've got to figure out what was going on. But thank God we know more because of the tapes. I want to read you another councilman's comments. Here's Jake Texha, he is a sole Republican there, but he says, look, I don't want to get involved in presidential politics. And remember, Buttigieg is fairly conservative. So I don't know to what degree the Republicans like him, or they'll probably get a much more progressive mayor if in South Bend, because it's a Democratic city if it wasn't

for Buttigieg. So I don't know his political motivations. He says he doesn't want to get him involved in that politics, but he said this, quote, The bigger picture is, why would the Buttigieg administration spend millions of dollars to protect a couple of rogue cops using the N-word if that's all it was, right? And so I think that's where the suspicions of a lot of folks in South Bend have been raised. If I'm the mayor of South Bend, you're the mayor of South Bend, and somebody says, hey, look, man, there's awfully racist things in these tapes.

Would you fire the black police chief and then turn it into a demotion? Would you fire the people who listen to the tapes? Or would you find the people in the tapes? Or would you at least do an investigation of the people in the tapes? No, no investigation and the whole thing has been buried under litigation. Tim Scott in his letter, the president of the common council says, what do you blame us for the litigation for? The mayor's the one that keeps fighting it.

Now finally he's dropped out of the lawsuit, but 83% of the costs were because of the mayor's office just released the tapes. There is no federal wiretapping act issue at all that was dismissed seven years ago. It's a flimsy excuse, release the tapes and you don't have any problems. So if it was just the cops, why does Buttigieg care unless one theory is, it was his donors. And he did listen to them. I don't know, but Buttigieg has to answer those questions. The reporting is clear about what's in the tapes.

And I want to just close this by mentioning Bob Palmer again. Again, he is the attorney for the Common Council in South Bend. He was quoted in the TYT Investigates report as saying, the council has decided to try to find out what happened in the police department that caused the demotion and the firing. And if I can find the answer to that, and it makes Mayor Pete look like the genius that some people think he is, more power to them. Palmer continued, citing an epithet, one officer on the tapes used about Buttigieg, saying, quote, if my doing my job leads people to believe that he's an effing pipsqueak, like somebody

said, that's fine too. This is not aimed at him. So guys, understand what he's saying. So first of all, the Pips Street comment is made by the cops against Buttigieg. So that would, in a sense, be exculpatory of Buttigieg. And what the attorney there is saying for the common councilist, look, let's find out what's in the tapes. And maybe it clears Buttigieg. Maybe he was right all along. Maybe there is a wiretapping act to show, although I can't possibly see it. And no one can make any case for it. Maybe in the tapes, they continue to say, oh, Buttigieg is not in on it. Okay, then let's go after the cops. What do you got? Right now, what are we having a conversation about Buttigieg if he didn't do it? If he wasn't involved in any way. Well, we know

he was involved because he actually did Des Mojporkins and he did fire DePape, but maybe he has a good reason for that. But right now, his campaign does not deny any of what we reported that was set in the tapes. But overall, they remain fairly silent about it. Why? Because the New York Times didn't ask them. So, you know, the rest of the journalists, I don't know what they're doing. I don't know what they're doing. It was one guy. We had no idea what we were going to get. He had no idea what he was going to get. He went to South Bend and uncovered all of this. Imagine if the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, all the other media organizations actually cared to investigate all of the presidential candidates instead of only one of them.

Okay, so, or a couple of them to be fair. And a lot of this is the obsession, not with politics and who's progressive and who's moderate or conservative. It's who's winning right now, who's leading? The horse race. The horse race, what's going on? Oh my God. For God's sake, it turns out, I mean, look, I want to give credit Larson, did a wonderful

job. But if one guy can do it, maybe it wasn't that hard, maybe the rest of you guys should also do some journalism. I know, that sounds harsh, right? Seven years, these tapes have been sitting there uncovered until Larson found out what was in him. Seven years. Yes, African American community in South Bend, you were right, you were right all along.

When we come back from the break, we're gonna give you a quick update on Syria, including a disgusting comment made by John Cornyn, Texas Senator. And then later in the show, we're gonna give you all these various examples of Donald Trump panicking over the impeachment investing. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies

that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew

about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the history. historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training

or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on the Young Turks. Let me read some member comments first. Archibald Meat Pants, that's a funny handle.

Right, Sin, I love TYT and Vesquets. Well, I love you guys for funding it. So thank you for doing that. Johnny Lars and Kenny Clips? Like, come on. Johnny Lars. It's a new one. All right.

Lefty saw boss, right, said. In honor of the late, and this is our sarcastician, Okay, in honor of the late and great Congressman Elijah Cummings, Mayor Pete unveiled his new civil rights for those who wanted plan. Unfortunately, it will not apply to the former South Bend police chiefs. So that is their take on it, and that is stinging. Brent to corn says, here's something to point out the establishment is still desperately clinging to Buttigieg. If TYT and Vescius was able to find this so easily, do they really think that the Republican APA researchers won't? Yeah.

That's a great point. See, this is part of why I love primaries. Now, in this case, it happened to be us, but it could have been, I hope it could have been anybody else. But instead, the Democrats go, don't do any primaries, wait till the Republicans find it in the general election and then spring it on you at the last second. Okay, you've just been Klobuchar, writes in, I like the idea that a local government in America will straight up, just be like, quote, the young curse just got this, okay?

Now, why do they do that, by the way? This is my guess, I don't know them from Adam, okay? My guess is that it's because they're not brainwashed like everybody in Washington is. Don't ever give progressives any credit, you know, right wing is legitimate, the establishment is super, super legitimate, the left wing illegitimate, never give them credit. In fact, the South Bend Tribune, later they had to start quoting us because we got the story right. But in the beginning they're like, pro Bernie Sanders outlet, and then hidden between the lines

scooped us because we hadn't gotten this in seven long years. Sorry. Right? But all like derisive, et cetera, didn't want to give credit. Now, oops, it turns out we were right. Okay, anyway. And then last one's from Twitter, Little Sebastian says, as a gay American, I dreamt that I would one day see an openly gay man run for president.

And we get Pete Buttigieg. Well played God. So now look, don't worry about that brother. There will definitely be an outwardly game. an outwardly gay American president. It's only a matter of time. No question about it, let's get a progressive one. And by the way, I say outwardly gay, because God knows, right?

Yeah, so two announcements, first off, things are popping with the conversation. Naomi Klein was on yesterday, it was bananas and awesome. If you're a member, you can check that out anytime you want, which is great. Become a member at t.y.t.com slash join. But we have Bill McKibbon coming up soon. Bill McKibbon will be on the conversation with Jank on Friday, October 25th. You can tune it at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific at t.t.com slash live. And as we've been- That's tomorrow, by the way.

Yeah. Okay, and Naomi Klein, sometimes I get credited with Naomi Klein's line because I say it's so often, but she has one of the greatest lines about how, there's two great lines that I often quote her for. If we go back to the days before President Trump, we get to a point that was so bad, it created President Trump, okay? And then the other line is about socializing, privatizing the gains and socializing the losses. I quote her all the time on it. Those are Naomi Klein. She is brilliant, and I really appreciate she came back on the Young Turks.

And then finally, I will be at Politicon this weekend, Saturday only. I will be having a conversation with Tommy Laren. So please check that out, looking forward to it. And today in the post game, we will be having a conversation about Tommy Laren. So don't miss that. That's for just the members, t-y-t.com slash join. By the way, if you're watching on YouTube, that little join button underneath the video, the blue one, you click on it.

There's three different layers to it. For two bucks a month, you help support the show. And you get to, I can see your badges when you're making comments, not only in the live chat, but in the comment section, afterwards when we put up the videos. And I have to be honest with you, I pay attention to more to those. comments because that means you're a real follower of the show and and so I value those comments more okay I'm keeping it real with you guys and then there's

a five-buck layer that lets you get the post game there's a 999 layer that lets you get all of our videos and shows so you could either go and do it on our website at t.t.com slash join or click that little blue button if you're watching on you two all right let's move on in a phone call with reporters Republican Senator John Corned admitted that he thinks ethnic cleansing of our Kurdish allies, or I should say our former Kurdish allies in northern Syria, is taking place and he seems to be fine with it. Now, before I go to his quotes, I just want to remind you that in a speech this week, Donald Trump claimed that his abrupt decision to pull troops out of northern Syria and

abandon our Kurdish allies was something that the Kurds were really happy with. very happy with the decisions that Donald Trump has made, and he's got a very strong relationship with the Kurds. But I would argue that if you're facing ethnic cleansing, you wouldn't be happy with the decision that Donald Trump made. So without further ado, what did Senator John Cornyn say to reporters in this phone call? Quote, if Turkey was planning on coming into northern Syria and trying to ethnically cleanse the Kurds, the U.S. troops were caught in the middle. I am completely convinced that it was- I am not. I am not completely convinced that it was a bad idea to get them out of harm's way. So hold on for a second. You're telling me that with all the taxpayer

money that gets pumped into the defense department and with all the fancy weaponry that we have, with all the military capability we have, we can't stop our own NATO ally from coming in and conducting ethnic cleansing against our allies in northern Syria. Is that what he's saying? Besides which, I mean, that's one of the most brazen, inhumane quotes I've ever seen in my life in covering politics for 25 years in this country. Say like, well, if they're going to ethnically cleanse them anyway, why are we bothering to help? Wow. Okay, look, you know, I see stories like this and I think we do the kids in the schools at this service by teaching them propaganda. Oh, never again.

Remember, never again, all that stuff. No, it doesn't. No, they should tell them, teach them real history. They should say, well, you know, Holocaust, genocides, massacres, et cetera, they happen and will happen again depending on the political situation at hand, depending on where the oil is, depending on who has money to make, depending on who the president is. If it's inconvenient, yeah, we'll definitely allow ethnic cleansing. And they should put John Corners quote in the textbooks saying, look, here's a United States Senate, the number two, the Republican in the Senate who controlled the Senate. So he's one of the most important politicians in America right now, saying, I don't care about ethnic cleansing. And so if our troops are in the way of ethnic cleansing, God forbid, we wouldn't want to be in the way of ethnic cleansing.

And it's not like Turks haven't done ethnic cleansing in the area before. Right, exactly. And what are we teaching our history books? Oh, it's terrible what the Turks did to the Armenians when they cleared them out of that same exact area, right? Terrible. And that's true, it is terrible. And now it's happening right now to the Kurds and they're like, well, I mean, we wouldn't want to stand in the way.

That's exactly what he said. And what he did with that statement is he ripped off the veneer of America or at least the American government caring about human rights or humanitarianism or protecting people from ethnic cleansing or genocide or anything like that. Just to give you another update on Syria today, the Trump administration announced that they are going to actually put more U.S. troops in Syria, not northern Syria to protect our Kurdish allies who are obviously no longer our Kurdish allies because we abandoned them, but to place them in eastern Syria where the oil is. That's what the Trump administration announced today. So they don't care about people. I mean, look, we already knew this.

And in a way, what Cornyn said, it's terrible, but this is good news because now the government can't pretend as though they invade countries to spread democracy or because they want to protect people from a dictator or from authoritarianism. They've never cared about any of that. Their goals here are very clear, their incentives are very clear. As long as we protect the oil, who cares? Let's just use the Kurds, and once we get what we want from them, just throw them away and And throw him to the wolves to, you know, fend for themselves.

By the way, Cornyn made his initial comments during a call Wednesday with Texas reporters who, and this is two hours after Trump announced that he was lifting sanctions against Turkey. So that, so first of all, Trump incredibly brazen, we've shown you to the clips before where he says, the oil, do oil, I got to protect the oil, I want the oil, I want the oil. So the people, who cares, there's 160,000 Kurds in that area, 160,000, who cares about them, but the oil, we gotta protect the oil. And then he also said this, let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand. He keeps referring it to a sand because he's a racist.

It's not a desert, it's actually the fertile crescent. It is historically known as the fertile crescent, because that's where agriculture began in the first place. It is not remotely a desert, but to him, a bunch of Arabs, none of them are Arabs, by the Kurds and Turks and Turks are not Arabs. A bunch of Arabs fighting over sand, what do I care? The money, money, I care about the money. The only silver lining to Donald Trump's monstrous administration is that he's just brazenly

telling you all of the corruption, all of like the gross things that governments do, because he doesn't, he's not smart enough to hide it. So I want to give you one more piece of truth that he said. He said an agreement with Turkey and the Kurds that could never have been made without this short term outburst. So he calls the ethnic cleansing a short term outburst. And they move them out after a while, and then they own the land, and then we're done with it. Anyway, he said this agreement couldn't have been done without me.

Well, that's partly true, because probably other American presidents, like Republican or Democrat, Bush, Obama, would have said, no, we're not going to remove our troops so that you could then walk in and wipe out what the Kurds did over the last seven years fighting ISIS. they lost 11,000 men fighting ISIS. David Petraeus, the top, formerly the top general in America, went on TV. Republican, worked in the Bush administration, came out and said, you know, it took seven years to secure this land away from ISIS and with the work of our Kurdish allies. In a couple of days, we wiped it all away, and now two different countries are in charge. Turkey is, and then other portions of it, Russia rolled in, and now Russia controls portions of it. Seven years of blood, sweat, and tears by the Kurds and us wiped away in a couple of days,

what Donald Trump calls a short-term outburst. You're right, Donald Trump, probably no other president would have been so monstrous and craven and uncaring to have wiped away that work in just about a week. Congratulations. Well, let's move on to Ukraine. And as you know, there's the impeachment investigation happening. But there's one little tidbit of information everyone should know about when Trump claims that he's looking to root out corruption.

So when it comes to defending his phone call with Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky where there was a quid pro quo to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in order for Trump to release military aid, Trump claims, no, no, no, I wasn't doing anything wrong. I'm just trying to root out corruption. There was corruption involved with the Bidens. That's all I care about. It's the corruption. It's the corruption.

But some recent reporting from the Washington Post indicates that the actions by his administration indicate that he doesn't really care about corruption in Ukraine at all. The administration sought to cut a program called international narcotics control and law enforcement. Among the goals of the program, as described in White House budget documents, is helping U.S. partners address threats to U.S. interests by building resilience and promoting reform in the justice and law enforcement sectors through support to new institutions and specialized offices, such as Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.

Okay, I want to give context and be super clear here. You don't get thrown by the word narcotics in the overall title. It's narcotics and law enforcement. So portions of this funding is to make sure that you support law enforcement in other countries. And what Anna just read to you is from the White House budget documents. The specific example they gave out of all of the examples was corruption in Ukraine. And they said, we'd like to cut that effort. We want to cut money towards helping anti-corruption in Ukraine.

So when Donald Trump says, oh, I have to care about corruption, that's what they're going. It's my constitutional duty. First of all, I mean, he doesn't know anything as usual. Okay, just quick aside, it is not your constitutional duty to root out corruption in Ukraine. That's not in the United States Constitution. But if you actually meant it, I would like it. I would be like, oh, okay, great, wonderful. But no, all he cared about was Biden.

That's the only corruption he mentioned in his call with him. That's the only corruption Giuliani talked about. They never talked about actual Ukrainian corruption. And here in the budget, they're like, you're creating corruption. We don't care about that at all. I'm cutting most of the funding for that, done with it. And I'm going to give you the exact numbers. But I think, look, Jank, as progressive, sometimes maybe it could be perceived that we're being

unfair to Trump. Maybe we're putting words in his mouth and it's really unfair to him. So why don't we hear from Trump defending himself in that call with Vladimir Zelensky? Everything to me is about corruption, but I do care about corruption. We are looking for corruption, probably a duty to do it, corruption. And I gave an answer, but always in the form of corruption. And I believe there was tremendous corruption. I mean, beyond corruption, we are looking at corruption.

This doesn't pertain to anything but corruption. And what I always will ask for is anything having to do with corruption with respect to corruption. There was tremendous corruption. And corruption probes, if we tell there's corruption. I'm only interested in corruption. This whole thing is about corruption. But I do care about corruption. This is about corruption, this is about corruption.

This whole thing is about corrupting. Anything having to do with corruption. Anything having to do with corruption, I actually feel I have an obligation. I don't care about anything, but I do care about corruption. I have an obligation to look at corruption. So let's show you how much Donald Trump, a little. allegedly cares about corruption. In 2019, 30 million dollars was directed to Ukraine after Congress rejected an administration

request to cut the sum to $13 million. In its 2020 budget request released in March, the administration again sought to cut the program spending on Ukraine to $13 million. They told Congress, we do not care about corruption. We would like to cut the majority of the funding that goes towards. rooting out corruption in Ukraine, Congress wouldn't let him do it. Congress is like, no, no, no, you got, look, corruption matters in Ukraine. So he's like, no, I don't give it goddamn about it.

And he's so dumb, just name one Ukrainian, you idiot, name one Ukrainian who's corrupt. So it'll seem like, oh, well, you know, the reality is, if you were going to do it in a sophisticated way, you'd name seven Ukrainians and then throw in Hunter Biden. You'd be like, look, man, I'm deeply worried about all the corruption in Ukraine. I mean, there's a case of this guy and that guy, and I mean, Hunter Biden, too. I guess they should look at all of it, right? Instead, he doesn't name a single Ukrainian, not one Ukrainian. And he's like, I'm so worried about corruption in Ukraine.

That's why I'm having Joe Biden and Hunter Biden investigated. Now, look, guys, it doesn't matter, man. We know what the truth is. I mean, if you're a maga guy, you could pretend that you don't know it. Would you really, you're that much of a sucker? You really think this is about unnamed Ukrainians that Donald Trump is worried about having to do with their internal politics, but not having to do with the Biden's in his campaign? You don't believe that, nobody believes that.

I don't think they do believe it, but I also just understand something. Like, you're doing it again, you're projecting your fairness, because if this was a Democratic president, we would be criticizing him just as much as we're criticizing Donald Trump. I mean, look at the way we covered Obama when he was in charge, right? But the MAGA guys know what the truth is, the evidence is right in front of them. But think about this, Donald Trump did this specifically to benefit himself for his reelection campaign. He wants to get reelected.

What do the MAGA guys want? They want him to get reelected. They don't care how many crimes that Trump commits. They don't care how unconstitutional, unethical, or criminal his behavior is. He's doing this for himself. And it's strange that people think this way, but by extension of that, he's doing it for the MAGA guys. That's the way their mind works.

MAGA is like, oh, if you're breaking loss and holding up their funding, even though Congress already appropriate, I don't give a damn about Congress, man, you guys don't care about rule of law. By law and order, what they mean is, yeah, I don't mind you shooting on armed black men. Okay, keep doing that, because then I feel better about myself. Actual rule of law where Donald Trump has to follow the laws as every other citizen. No, we don't want that. No, don't want no stinking laws. So just admit it, own it. Say, yeah, I like criminality, as long as it's done on my behalf. And I have to give you another example because that one program that I cited isn't the

only example of Trump cutting funding that would help to root out corruption in Ukraine. In another example, the administration sought to streamline a number of overseas democracy assistance and foreign aid accounts under one large umbrella called the Economic Support and Development Fund. The White House believed that consolidation would cut those programs by more than $2 billion. This fund too is aimed at fighting corruption in countries around the world, among other goals, according to White House budget documents. Spending in Ukraine for other accounts in question was $250 million in 2018.

The White House has asked for $145 million in 2020 under the new iteration of the program. So that would cut $105 million from fighting corruption all across the world, including in Ukraine. They never cared about it. Guys, we already know what the facts are, and we already know that what Donald Trump did is illegal on two different counts. The only question that remains is whether we're gonna do something about it. Exactly. Do we have rule of law in this country or don't we?

That's the only question that remains. We gotta take a break, but when we come back, we have some more evidence to debunk claims that you're hearing from the Trump administration and the lackeys who defend him on cable media, and then later in the show, this will be in the second hour, Hillary Clinton found a curious way to backtrack what she said about Tulsi Gabbard. Oh my God, don't miss that story. It's amazing. No, no, to me, that story isn't about Hillary Clinton's mendacity, as much as it is about

the mainstream media's compliance. They're unbelievable, obsequious compliance to establishment politicians. We'll talk about that when we return. 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. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

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exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE S-SVPN.com. t yt check it out today we hope you're enjoying this free clip from the young turks if you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media become a member at t yt com slash join today in the meantime enjoy this free second all right hey guys back on a young church great comment from twitter that i want to save to the end uh this is why i love the interactions with you guys. Okay, hashtag TYT live to talk to us during the show, during any of our live shows on

Twitter. But first, our members, as always. Progressive Britt says, just became a member after stumbling across you guys on YouTube earlier in the year. Keep up to great work. I live in Manchester in the United Kingdom and your relentless fight against the establishment is very much appreciated, even though sometimes it's tough going. There's not a lot I can do from here, so I figured I'd help out however small, hoping Bernie

can do it in 2020. With a bit of luck, it'll result in us selecting progressives over here too. So thank you. We appreciate you doing that. We appreciate it. I know it comes from all over the world. And I'm gonna say something weird connected to that. I wanna talk about the movie Joker in the post game.

I watched it and I have super strong opinions about it and I've got to get it out of my system. Good or bad? Well, that's what I want to tell you guys in the post game. Did I love it or did I hate it, okay? So we'll talk about that later, but it relates to the anti-establishment, et cetera. So Kerr Scott says, I'm sick, but you guys make me feel better. Thank you, Jen and Anna, we'll get better and thank you for saying that. We appreciate it.

I love T.Y.T. 3,000 writes in. Democrats will slow walk impeachment until the primary, so Warren and Sanders are forced off the campaign trail to take part in a Senate trial. A little too conspirator. That requires the Democrats actually having sophisticated strategy. Now, when they do stuff against progressives, it's usually a blunt instrument. They're not, they're not, they never think two steps ahead, let alone three steps ahead. So I don't think that's it, but thank you for trying.

By the way, we're gonna dunk on some of these corporate Democrats later in the show. Oh my god, you should see my rage on that and you will. Okay, last one is from the one I promised from Twitter, Anna Mliath with this comment. Was it Syria where Trump cried crocodile tears over the beautiful babies? Exactly right. I'm so mad at myself for forgetting that in the context of those stories earlier. You're right, I'll probably mention it going forward. Yeah, the guy who says, oh, the beautiful babies, I had to do something in Syria because I care

so much about the people. Now it turns around and goes, who cares about the people? I want the oil, so I put the troops near the oil, I don't care. But the Kurds, I had to, hey, look, the Turks had to clean out the area. That's what he said. All right, I have something positive to mention. Oh, okay. Got a notification indicating that it is the one year anniversary of me and Kenny Clips being

friends on Facebook. All right, I'm a meet buddy. Happy anniversary. Ken Clippinsline, also part of TYT Investigates, please check out all their stories. They keep breaking one amazing story after another. They're all on TYT.com. All right, so let's move on to the rest of the news, and this is just another example of debunking lies told by Republicans defending Trump.

Republicans in their failed attempt to defend Donald Trump in this impeachment investigation argued that there cannot be a quid pro quo between Trump and the Ukrainians because the Ukrainians didn't know that Trump put a freeze on that military aid while he waited for them to do an investigation on his political opponent, Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Now, first of all, let me just say, the notion of there can't be a quid pro quo if the Ukrainians didn't know about it is, I think, a weird defense, because it admits that Donald Trump attempted to do a quid pro quo, attempted to, you know, basically freeze that military

aid in order to get political dirt on his political rivals. Can I just say, sorry, Anna, they interrupt, but there's a Republican who just made the case on TV the other day saying, yeah, no, no, of course. Donald Trump is too inept to have committed a quid pro quo. That was their defense, like, well, obviously the president's an idiot, he can't carry it out. The simplest quid pro quo there is, which is I withhold the aid until you investigate my political opponent. But he's like, he's not even really competent enough to do that.

I mean, I agree with 50% of that statement, okay, and it's not the part that he's hoping I agree with. All right, but let me give you the latest. There is evidence to show that the Ukrainians absolutely did know that Trump was putting a freeze on that military aid in order to get a favor fulfilled. So let's quickly go to what Donald Trump is putting out there. He quoted Representative John Ratcliffe, a Republican who made this case, neither he, meaning Bill Taylor, who gave damning testimony against Donald Trump or any other witness has provided

testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can't have a quid pro quo with no quo. All right, well, looks like there was quo. In fact, word of the aid freeze had gotten to high level Ukrainian officials by the first week in August. Oops. This is reported by the New York Times. The Ukrainian government was aware of the freeze during most of the period in August when

Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani and two American diplomats were pressing President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine to make a public commitment to the investigations. Remember, they wanted the Ukrainians to publicly announce the launch of an investigation against the Bidens. The problem was not bureaucratic, the Ukrainians were told. To address it, they were advised. They would reach out to Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to interviews and records, meaning, hey, why don't you have a little conversation with Mick Mulvaney

about this military aid and what you need to do to get it, essentially. Now, the disclosure that the Ukrainians knew of the freeze by early August corroborates and provides additional details about a claim made by a CIA officer in the whistleblower complaint. And let me read you the relevant portion of the whistleblower complaint. The whistleblower writes, quote, as of early August, I heard from U.S. officials that some Ukrainian officials were aware that U.S. aid might be in jeopardy, but I do not know how or when they learned of it.

So this is what the White House says, I'll just hear say, you can't confirm that. In other words, we don't think you could find the evidence that we actually did do that. Oops, we just did. Exactly. So two other important details to this story. Now this is based on what members of the House heard during Bill Taylor's testimony. He actually testified that he was told it was only on the sidelines of a September 1st meeting between Zelensky and Pence in Warsaw that the Ukrainians were directly informed by Gordon

Sondland, the ambassador to the EU, that the aid would be dependent on Zelensky giving Trump something he wanted, an investigation into Burisma. Zelensky, though, also said that he knew about the holdup of the military aid before his meeting in Poland on September 1st with Mr. Pence, but has been vague about exactly when he learned about it. And here's the exact quote from Zelensky himself. When I did find out, I raised it with Pence at a meeting in Warsaw. This is what he said last month, or this month.

That's not the only time he raised it. On September 5th, a bipartisan delegation goes there, Republican Ron Johnson, Senator from Wisconsin, and Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut goes to meet with Zelensky. His very first question then was, what's going on with the aid? Like, do I have to say certain things about the politics in America? in order to get the aid. And apparently both senators to their credit, including Ron Johnson, the Republican, were like, no, don't get involved in American politics or elections.

And the aid should not be held up because of that. But it was being held up because of that. Later, the aid gets released because then the senators found out. And they're like, what the hell? We appropriated a 391 million. Why aren't you giving it to the guy? So the Ukrainian prime minister, I mean, a leader definitely knew. And that's why he asked the senator, U.S. senators, what's going on here, guys?

And so all of this is crystal clear. You don't need a quit pro quo. You can't ask for assistance from a foreign government in your election anyway. Any other politician that isn't the president would be in a world of trouble and might literally go to prison for it. By the way, I don't, you know, again, this goes to democratic weakness. We're talking about impeachment, good. Finally, this is this fourth felony that is crystal clear. Finally, they spring into action.

But we should also be talking about him going to prison, because anybody else would. So, and maybe you get a deal if Trump thinks, uh-oh, I'm gonna go to prison, why don't I just get the hell out of here and make a deal. Oh, it's such a good point, that's good strategy. That's strong. But one other thing I want to note, I mean, just based on what Ratcliffe, Representative Ratcliffe said publicly already, he admitted, based on his statement on Fox, Fox and Fox and friends, that Donald Trump attempted to dig up dirt on his political rival.

He admitted it, let me read you his statement. His statement specifically says, neither he, Taylor, or any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can't have a quid pro quo with no quo. So are you saying that there was a, you know, there was the first part of it, the quid pro? Yeah, that's what you're saying. So why aren't Democrats making a big stink about it? Republicans would.

Look, if you watch the young first regularly, you've now heard me say this over a dozen times. Two different crimes, you cannot ask for assistance from a foreign country in your political campaign. People have gone to prison for it already, okay, in other instances. Then the quid pro quo is extortion or blackmail and misuse of your office because you're holding up American money for your personal benefit. That's a separate crime, okay? So that's the quid pro quo crime.

But every Republicans all over television admitting the first crime, Democrats, why won't you say there are two different crimes? What is wrong with you? Why can't you explain to people? Just what I said in that last, what, 15, 30 seconds, it's not that hard. They should be all over television going, ladies and gentlemen, we didn't get him. The Republicans all admitted he did the first crime, let alone the fact that we have overwhelming evidence now of the second crime.

Yeah, including his own chief of staff, admitting that there was quid pro quo. All right, well, let's move on to one other failed effort to defend Donald Trump. We're going to go and see if we can get inside. Let's see if we can get in. Those were the political theatrics that took place yesterday as dozens of Republican lawmakers barged into a closed door deposition of a Pentagon official, Laura Cooper, and that unfortunately postponed her deposition, but that deposition was eventually done. And the theatrics would have been even more theatrical if those Republicans got their

way. They actually wanted to be taken out in handcuffs for optics. That was what their plan was. So, Jank, I know that you weren't here when this story broke. We covered it yesterday. But I just wanted to quickly get your thoughts on what the Republicans did yesterday. And I want to note, again, reiterate that there were Democrats in the room as Cooper was supposed to do her deposition. I'm sorry, there were Republicans in the room. It's just that the relevant committees were in the room. That's the way this process is supposed to go down.

So I would have given them their wish. I would have let them out in handcuffs because it's really important. Why? Look, guys, this is how they break down the rule of law. This is exactly how fascism takes hold, where they slowly break one rule after another and then one law after another, after another, daring their opposition to do something about it. And if their opposition doesn't do anything about it, they're like, great, now we have free reign.

In this, the Republicans have done this in the past, and they stole an election doing it. So it's called the Brooks Brothers riot, meaning guys in fancy suits pretending to be real Americans. It was down in Miami when they were doing a recount of the Gore Bush election in 2000. And a bunch of Republican lobbyists and consultants pretending to be regular Americans who were outraged that we were actually counting the votes in a Democratic election, and they banged on the doors in the windows until the people inside counting got so scared they stopped counting. And the delay led the Supreme Court to eventually say, oh, this is taking too long.

So you know what, we're never going to count those votes in Florida. And by the way, they later, the news organizations did count those votes. It turns out Al Gore had not just won the popular vote. He had won the electoral college. He had won the state of Florida under every recount of the state of Florida. So these thugs have done it before. This time, they use their own congressmen as thugs. They break into a secret proceeding.

And so think about a couple of messages they said that way. One, if you're secretly testifying in front of Congress, we're gonna expose you. We're gonna out you and we're gonna show you to all the cameras. We don't give a damn about any rules protecting whistleblowers, protecting secret testimony. We don't care, we'll put you in danger. I gotta clarify one thing though, because I know what you mean, but just in case people don't understand the wording you used. Her testimony wasn't secret, everyone knew that she was gonna testify.

It's just that it was a closed door session. And it's meant to be a closed door session. And so not only is it problematic for them to just barge in like that, they barged in with their cell phones, with electronic devices that are not permitted in that room. But think about the message that it sends, that's exactly right. And in that case, look, and there's so many leaks that most of the time that you find out the identities of these people anyway. But if you're a whistleblower and you don't want your identity found.

out. And you know the Republicans can burst in at any second with cell phones. They show people this is the scum. That's what Trump is now calling them. Anyone who oppose them in the Republican party, he's calling scum. So they can burst in and go, I don't care about your identity. This is the scum. Everybody go get them. Okay, second thing message they send is, we don't care about laws and rules. So Democrats and Republicans, again, there's Republicans in the room from three different committees. We don't care about your rules. We don't care about norms. Now on, the only law and rule that matters is our ability to act physically in this world. And so if you let them get away with it, they'll do it again and again, and they'll break

another rule and another law. So the next time they violate a law, if it really is something that would cause them to get arrested, I would arrest them immediately. So Fox News and the actual news part of the company did break a story indicating that they wanted to be taken out in handcuffs. There was never any threat of arrest, but a source said some members asked to be arrested, citing the optics of being marched out of the SCIF in handcuffs in front of throngs of reporters and news cameras.

That would have surely supported a running GOP narrative that Democrats have run amok with the impeachment process. No one of you idiots, it would have supported the narrative that you guys are breaking the law. That's why you're in handcuffs. Like, look, if, from time to time, progressives do civil disobedience, and then you get led away in handcuffs. Why, because you're saying, hey, this is so important, we're trying to draw attention

to this thing. Okay, you want to do it that way? Fine. But you are breaking a law, that is why you are in handcuffs. So then they're like, oh my God, you see this, we break every law we want, even though we're a United States congressman, and we dare you to enforce the law. And the Democrats, like suckers, don't enforce the law. How many other meanings are they going to break into?

Look, if we had strong Democrats, they'd be like, oh, you would. To wish to be locked up, no problem, can do. All 35 of you are gonna stay in whatever prison they send you to for, I don't know, however long it takes, let's take mug shots. And so let's see if next time you're gonna bust in here again. My guess is you're gonna think twice about it. All right. And every one of those guys from then on, if I was the leader of the Democrats, I would

say the criminal Matt Gates, the criminal Matt Gates, because then he would be a criminal. Okay, you wanna break the law, you wanna be a tough guy, all right, suffer the consequences. Matt Gates, I told you before, is the leader of the brown shirts. I told you that when fascism comes, Matt Gates would be the head of the brigade. And there it is, exactly. They say, okay, look guys, I'm telling you, man, read the history of the Weimar Republic and what happened in Germany in the 1930s. This is exactly what they did in the beginning.

They dared their opponents to enforce the law. And their opponents were too weak to enforce the law, and then there was no law. So I want to go to one final part of this, and it's Judge Napolitano on Fox News talking about this very story, and he talks about this particular law and where it came from. I read the House rules, and as frustrating as it may be to have these hearings going on behind closed doors, the hearings over which Congressman Schiff is presiding, they are consistent with the rules. They can make any rules they want.

Well, they can't change the rules, they follow the rules, and when were the rules written? Last in January of 2015, and who signed them, John Boehner, and who enacted them, a Republican majority. Hmm. Oops. All right, just a little history of that law. We got to take a break when we come back. Donald Trump refers to certain individuals as human scum. Who is he talking about?

We'll tell you when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.