The Young Turks - Ceasefire Breaks Down - May 4, 2026

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Despite a reported ceasefire, the UAE says it remains under attack from Iranian missiles and drones as fears of a wider regional conflict continue to grow. Mark Levin is now openly lobbying Donald Trump to fully restart the Iran war, while economists on CNBC warn the U.S. may be “sleepwalking into a recession” as oil prices remain artificially low and stock valuations stay dangerously inflated." Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's the young Turks, everybody. I'm almost certain. Equally certain that I am giant erula and that that right there going by that head of hair, Jordan Ewell. Jordan, how's it going? Hey, John, it's going well. Happy to be here. Honored to be here. I'm honored to have you here. We so rarely cross paths.

Generally, our political rhetorical ships pass in the night. But we're on the same hour, which is good. We get to spend a little bit of time together. Many people might not know. We're golf buds, but I'm not going to be able to play with you this weekend. So at least we can get some of our talk out here. But anyway, very glad to have you here. This is the boys hour, as you can tell, because of the boys, Jordan and myself.

Yaz and Sharon will be holding down the second hour. But as I've always said, boys rule and girls drool. And I will take that to my grave. So best hour definitely is going to be right here. But anyway, we're going to be covering the most recent developments with the war in Iran, as well as Israel, what's going on in Israel, some of the expansion of settlements. We've got insider trading and something that I guess is supposed to be justice in the area of insider trading, but I'm not necessarily so sure.

And then we're gonna be closing out the first hour with a big deep dive into what remains of the Trump 2024 coalition, which was I guess and certainly was pitched to be very miraculous at the time. And we were also told is the new normal that will last until the mountains are blown away the wind and the seas boil over, it turns out that it lasted less than a year. And we're going to be diving to that and maybe talking a little bit about some of the consequences of that coalition fracturing so decisively. But with all that said, Jordan, you're ready to jump to some news? I'm ready, John. Let's jump. Let's jump.

NATO allies appear to already be being punished by Donald Trump for the weird mixed messages that they've been putting out the Trump, I mean, on the war and how many of our long-time allies feel like what we're doing in Iran, this war of choice, really has nothing to do with NATO. I'm kind of on their side. Donald Trump sees it a different way. But let's catch up just a little bit on some of this messaging. So two weeks ago, Donald Trump put this out. And it's good to go back a couple weeks and look at Donald Trump's statements because it's easy to forget what he was saying so recently. At that point, it was a big day for world. peace. Iran wants it to happen. They've had enough. Likewise, so as everyone else. The United States

of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the state of Strait of Hormuz. That's all it was. It was a traffic buildup. It was just mismanagement, really is all it was. There will be lots of positive action. Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process. We'll be loading up with supplies of all kinds and just hanging around in order to make sure that everything goes well. I feel confident that it will. Just like we're experiencing. in the US, this could be the golden age of the Middle East. And that, I don't know, I think that was like three pieces ago. I don't know, he was very enthusiastic about it. It lasted as these things tend to like eight hours or something. And then we were back in the muck once again, which was fine,

I'm sure, for Donald Trump because it allowed him to have like his eighth total victory in this conflict or whatever. But at the time, it wasn't just him. It was also the position of, Pete Hanks, let's take a look. Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield. A capital V military victory. By any measure, Epic Fury decimated Iran's military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come. You see, in less than 40 days, one of our combatant commands, Central Command, SentCom, using less than 10% of America's total combat power

dismantled one of the world's largest militaries. The world's leading state sponsor of terrorism proved utterly incapable of defending itself, its people, or its territory. Look, I disagree with much of what he said, but he is right. They were incapable of defending their people, which is probably how we're able to rack up such a high and growing civilian death count. But anyway, it was a total victory with a little bit of asterisk. The Strait of Hormuz need not apply because despite that victory, which was again, weeks ago,

we still have no control over the Strait of Hormuz and Iran is dropping minds in it literally right now. So, okay, that's what they were saying before. Well, what are we saying now? Here is Pete Haguezith from literally earlier today. Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free riding. is over. America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal, and you understand that being an ally is not a one-way street. It's a two-way street. We are not counting on Europe,

but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and getting a boat. This is much more their fight than our. On this core mission, America's will is unshakable, our capabilities unmatched. Our blockade is only growing and going global. And as the president said, we have all the time in the world. Iran has a historic chance to make a serious deal. And the ball is in their court. That's fun. I enjoyed that.

I would like to hear more, actually. I'd like to hear more about loyalty from a serial adulter. I'd like to hear more about defending the innocent from an alleged sexual predator. I'd like to hear more about how worthless talk is from the talk show guy who, oh, I'm being unfair. He's not a talk show guy anymore. He's the secretary of defense. But of course, he's not on the front lines. He's not on an air calf carrier. All he does is give a little speeches like this, generally about wokeness and how the soldiers aren't hot enough for him. So yeah, dispense with the talk stuff. That's all you actually know.

But anyway, Jordan. So they're they want to to put pressure on our allies, we'll get to some of the moves that they're making. But I feel like there's this weird like schizophrenic thing where like one day, total victory, we didn't need you guys, you freeloaders, we're so strong. The next day, oh my God, you've abandoned us in our day of need. And then it goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, which is fine for Hegsith. He's drunk most of the time. But Donald Trump doesn't drink, so he should be able to keep a little bit of discipline on his messaging. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's gotta be rich.

for these European country leaders to hear Pete Hegseth be like, well, hey, you should really help us open the Strait of Hormuz when it wasn't too long ago. The Strait of Hormuz was open. Everything was free flowing and everything was fine until we got

involved. We went over there. We closed it because, well, out of retaliation for us being there. And now we're also like double closing it and forcing a blockade or something that's already closed. And we got all the time in the world. Why would anybody want to help you when You just made things worse.

And this idea about an alliance going two ways, yes, allies, it's a two-way street, but it doesn't mandate someone join the war that you started. An alliance is coming to your defense if you're attacked. And why would they? When you just spent the past, this administration just spent the past year attacking NATO countries, threatening to invade, threatening to overtake them, threatening to, occupy or invade or steal Greenland. Why would anybody want to do that as you now go start another war in the Middle East? They've seen.

They're not bound by your partisan line rhetoric that Fox News parroted for years that Pete Heggseth was part of perpetuating. They don't have to accept that alternate reality. They can objectively observe what happened in the Middle East and recognize we're good. No thank you. We don't want to waste our tax dollars on that. We'd rather provide health care to our citizens. 100%. It's a deal I wish we could make here. And I'm just one simple American, but I would like to thank them for not participating. Because if they were involved, if they were doing some of the heavy lifting, then maybe Donald Trump would be feeling less obvious pressure to wrap this thing up. Just come home. Get the actual straight open. Stop burning so much money. I don't want to.

wanted to continue and I feel like NATO's involvement would have ensured that it would. So I'm glad that they're free writing in this case, even though as you so brilliantly put it, NATO was a defensive thing. And like you I know that one of the eight rationales, the ever shifting rationales for this war is that they were about to nuke us. It was going to be a Holocaust. But then they forget about that and then they talk about how sweet it would be to take their oil and then they start talking about uranium and then they start talking about the people rising up And you guys can't even decide what this is about. Lock down your log line before you try to sell it to the rest of the world. Now that said, rhetoric against our NATO allies is not the only way that Donald Trump, Pete Hegesith are trying to strike back against them for what they perceive to be disloyalty when it comes to the war in Iran.

Apparently, there is action going on behind the scenes. So we're going to turn now to Phil Stewart, Chief National Security correspondent, Reuters, who reported this saying scoop. internal Pentagon email details options to punish NATO allies who the U.S. believes failed to support it in Iran war operations. We'll post a link to my story later, but U.S. official says the options include suspending Spain from NATO alliance. Sorry, I said that with like a weird casual tone. Sorry, let me do that again.

Suspending Spain from NATO alliance. What are you talking about? Literally throwing a country out because we didn't get to use their airport. Why did we need it? I keep hearing that we effed their crap up in like two days. I don't think we needed Madrid apparently. But okay, we're gonna throw them out. Reassessing U.S. diplomatic support for European imperial possessions to include Britain's claim to the Falkland Islands near Argentina. So I guess they're gonna lose the Falklands. Is that even a thing that Britain cares about anymore? I don't even know, but they're literally, they're grasping at anything they can't hurt them.

Suspending difficult countries from important and prestigious positions at NATO. They're difficult. They're now talking about our European allies like they're an uppity woman in the boardroom. Wonderful. No, bear in mind in the Trump liquor cabinet, they've suspended a couple of difficult women in the past couple of months. So they're getting comfortable with this. No option to close U.S. bases in the email, no option for withdrawing U.S. from the alliance in the email. So those are like the two good sides, I guess, although I would. I would love for us to pull out some of our incredibly costly bases that are in literally every

country around the world. So yeah, the big thing is that they're going to expel Spain. And I just love it, Jordan, that Spain, I guess, imperiled us and NATO by not allowing us to land planes there because of Iran, which is obviously an existential threat to the world. But like the EU, NATO needs to shut up about the threat posed by Vladimir Putin if he were able to conquer Ukraine and then almost certainly would be going for other countries, including NATO countries. That we were told by the right for the past few years was just bluster and like Vladimir Putin's like the coolest guy. He hates gays just like us. What are you so worried about? I just, I don't get the messaging coming out. And I find it surreal that they might consider kicking

Spain out for showing some backbone here. Yeah. Well, I mean, for for Spain, it's a pragmatic position. I mean, you've seen how the United States has justified even threats of attacking civilian infrastructure in Iran because it has dual use. And you will see Warhawks, you know, vets who are special ops, analysts, that kind of stuff on Fox News constantly be like, no, these justified Trump threats say, no, you have one military truck, go over that bridge, that's a legitimate target, I would argue, that's insane, international, but that's the U.S. position. Iran can see that. Iran can hear that. Trump is posting it on truth social constantly. So for Spain, it's, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't want to subject any of

our infrastructure to a potential retaliatory attack from Iran. It's a prudent position for them. Why would they, why would they want to do that? And the United States just like can't seem to square that circle. Well, on the one hand, we can attack whatever we want in Iran. How dare they not open up their ports, open up their airports, open up their airports, open up their civilian infrastructure for potential retaliatory attacks from Iran. The same country, again, like you say, John, we've been trying to speak some people saying they've got a nuclear weapon any day now, not true, never been true. But they still have long range missiles. You've seen that throughout that region. Why would Spain want to be part of that? I get it. Yeah, no, there's a lot that

that doesn't make sense about this. One thing that I'm kind of getting a little bit of enjoyment out, though, of this reporting is that Spain doesn't seem to be taking it super seriously just yet. Mediate reports that the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, was asked during a EU summit about the email and the possibility of being booted from NATO. He said, I am absolutely not worried. We do not work with emails. We work with official documents and positions taken in this case by the government of the US.

And it's a good point. Emails are not official policy for the United States. Truth social posts are official policy for the United States. So as soon as it gets to that, then they should probably be worried. But for now, I think they could be okay. And he added, the position of the government of Spain is clear, absolute collaboration with the allies, but always within the frame of international legality. And also just thematically tied to what NATO was actually about, which is it, which is about mutual defense. Not just freeing you up to feel like you can punch anyone you want in the face at any given moment for rationales that change multiple times per day. So I like that. And Jordan, I will have final thoughts from you.

seeing the Spain stand up to us or stand up specifically to Trump is just it's so what I need. I just need it as a representation that people are taking seriously how deeply unpopular Donald Trump is, how little support he has amongst even the American public, let alone the population of the world. And I just think each time it happens, it might inspire other people to stand up a little bit, that they might perhaps start to think about what comes after Donald Trump because that day gets, you know, it's a day closer every day. And so, you know, one day it's the PM of Spain. We've seen some, you know, of the same sort of, you know, standing up to us from Canada. But I would love to see just like a few more Republican Congresspeople, a senator or whatever we've had judges. I just want to

see more. But what are your final thoughts? But yeah, I mean, hopefully that day comes sooner than we expect. But I think what a lot of people see is a lot of this is bluster, but some of it's, there's weight behind his threats. I think what people are trying to balance is the ways that he can be vindictive and throw the weight of the government and especially the intelligence agencies or the justice system behind his threats and leverage that, which is insane that that's even on the table. Those should all be typically independent of a president. But that's what's so worrying, especially as we determine who might replace Pam Bondi as AG,

because it appears that his explicit instructions will be to indict his enemies. So I also understand why people won't do that. Like it takes a lot of courage, and you're subjecting yourself to, I mean, legitimately, potentially imprisonment, wrongful, who knows what this looks like in two years? We'll see how these indictments go. I get it, but also, yeah, I'm with you. It's kind of like, hey, you signed up for this. This is your party.

You should do something about it. But again, as we've known for years, these people are cowards and they're self-serving. Yeah, I think I often say that they have no core, and that's not true. Cowardness, just bowing down to people that they've weirdly come to think of as alpha males or whatever. That is a constant across so many of them. Okay, well, we'll have to see, you know, when next to the Young Turks has an episode, how many people will be left in NATO? I don't know. Or Spain's chances of being allowed in the Board of Peace being imperiled? Stay tuned to find out. But we're gonna take our first break.

We've got a lot more news after this. They are kissing my ass. Welcome back, everybody. It's a social break. Let's see what's going on out there. Let's see. Dandeda Dragon says in the members comments, Road to Spain is a key NATO base. We fly through there all the time. If you cut access to bases, you cut your global power. Well, I mean, I'm sure that's why that's not one of the threats that they're making. They want to hurt them or threaten to hurt them. They don't actually want to lose access in future conflicts of these sorts of things. Engineer says, I think the NATO countries will decide to throw the US out. I don't think

that that's likely either. I imagine a lot of people outside of our borders as within are just like waiting for this thing to be done, waiting for us to move on to the next. next step. Dragon slowly says Trump is older than the state of Israel. He is quite old. Ecclactic says, why don't Pete Hagseth, Cash Patel, and Brett Kavanaugh quit their respective jobs and find some deserted island where the three of them can go on a year's long bender somewhere as far away from Washington as possible. Well, because all of them do like being smashed. They like beer, they really like beer, but they're also desperately, they're just horny for power and to feel like they're cool, to varying

Brett Kavanaugh wants to be on the Supreme Court. He wants to decide things. He wants to feel like you can start do what he wants. Pete Higgseth wants to feel like he's a big guy. He wants access to women to try to prey on. And he loves the idea of killing people that really appeals to him as a disgusting monster. Cash Patel wants to party with hockey players. That dude wants to go to UFC events.

He wants to go to concerts. He just wants to feel like one of the cool kids. And without a government job, he has absolutely zero chance of that. So I don't expect him to quit. I liked beer, still like beer. You ever played quarters? Geez, those social breaks go quick these days. I was just getting warmed up.

But anyway, I do want to let you know about something before we jump into more news. And that is that there's a thing called the brain rot index I'm learning about, basically warning signs that you might be doing some damage to your brain. Did you know that the average American checks their phone over 200 times a day and has over five hours of scream time? hours of scream time, some of that isn't the damage report or the young turks, so it's just wasted time anyway. You could well be rotting your brain from the inside out. You can download the Noble Mobile Mobile Life app today to track your brain rot index and see just how much you're using

your phone and how much you can how much money that you can potentially save by using it less. And as we've made clear, Noble is one of the ways that you can get your money back if you don't use the data. Go to t.com slash switch to find out more information. Okay, let's talk about one of the things people like to do on their phones, bet on the old prediction markets. Generally, it's just illegal, but sometimes there are actually consequences for it. Let's jump into this. Yeah. And also maybe they're being placed as well on the Iran conflict too, and there have been some trafficking where people suspect that there's inside of trading happening on these prediction

markets around the war. Are you concerned? Well, you know, the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino. And you look at what's going on all over the the world and Europe and every place they're doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don't like it conceptually, but it is what it is. Picture this. It's midnight. You're lying in bed, scrolling

through ShopT, of course. Excited by that new Dragon Squad snapback you've had your eye on, but your waltz on the other side of the room, ah! Then you see the purple shop pay button, which has your payment and shipping information is saved and ready to go. That seamless checkout experience is thanks to Shopify.

They're making it so easy to buy your next piece of TYT merch. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S., including ours. Shopify gives you that leg up on the competition with hundreds of beautiful ready-to-go templates to express your brand's unique style. Tackle all those essential tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics, and expand your brand reach with built-in marketing and email tools, super helpful. And I already mentioned that awesome purple shop pay button.

It's why Shopify has the best. converting checkout on the planet. See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go with their Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash t-y-t. Go to Shopify.com slash t-y-t. That's Shopify.com slash tyt. It is what it is. These prediction markets are all over the place operating even in states or countries where it's illegal to do so. And people are putting billions of dollars on bets on real world events and those with information and access to power are definitely gaming the system with it. But as Donald Trump makes clear, it is what it is. What am I going to do? Anything about it? Now I don't care. That's how Trump is on everything,

right? When he's bothered by something, he just accepts it fatally. Like if he feels like there's too many immigrants coming in, he just shrugs his shoulders. No, weirdly in this area, he doesn't feel like action is necessary. Perhaps because he and everyone in that room are almost certainly doing the exact thing that's being talked about. But although there is no move to investigate the obvious insider trading going on these prediction markets in the White House, there are arrests being made actually. We have one. That is the DOJ arresting a soldier who made over $400,000 betting on the removal of the president formerly of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro. According to Forbes, yesterday afternoon, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment in the Southern

District of New York that named the Polly Market whale known to on-chain sleuths for months, simply as burdensome mix, that account apparently belonged to Master Sergeant Gannon, Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old special forces soldier stationed at Fort Bragg and assigned to the Army's Special Operations Command Western Hemisphere Operations. So he apparently had access to sensitive, non-public classified information about Operation Absolute Resolve, that is the operation, which he was involved in, to both plan and execute the raid that captured Maduro and his wife. And he acted on that information. Between the 27th of December of last year, and the evening of January 3rd, he placed 13 yes bets totaling roughly $33,000 across four

polymarket contracts tied to the operation that he was working on. You can see them here having to do with U.S. forces in Venezuela by January 31st, Maduro out by January 31st, will the U.S. invade Venezuela by January 31st, and Trump invokes war powers against Venezuela by January 31st. There was a lot of betting on this, something like $15 million, but his $33,000 sure paid off. You can see that overall, there was like 8.4 million in volume, but he walked away with nearly $410,000 in profit, which he perhaps suspected might have legal ramifications because he immediately moved most of it to a foreign cryptocurrency vault, routed through a VPN with an exit node in another country, and then asked Polymarket to delete his account. Aside from like unloading

a pistol into the monitor of his computer. I don't know what else he could have done to try to hide the thing. The issue is that they did track it down. And he is now charged with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years per count. He's also charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of unlawful monetary transaction. So there has been other criminal investigations for insider trading. I believe he's the first in US history involving a prediction market. He's the third alleged prediction market insider and record the past 12 months. Again, just this is the first in the U.S. So we can get into more of the specifics and in other countries what we've seen here.

But Jordan, I do find it, look, it's obvious what he did. It is illegal and bad. I guess we could have that debate. I just think it's interesting to find out that, oh, polymarket can reveal this information. Oh, the DOJ can investigate these sort of insider trading when it's a soldier who's not rich, he's not politically, connected or whatever. I mean, we know that there are people in the White House doing this, but evidently it is what it is according to Donald Trump. What do you think? I mean, I hate these things. I hate this whole industry. I, like, full disclosure, I've used one of them for sports because sports gambling is like not legal, you know, sports book in California.

But the idea of like betting on war, betting on life events that are easy to manipulate is just a guarantee that you create an insider trading industry. I need something. An older one. This isn't new. There was another one called Predict it that was just like explicitly politics. And even someone who worked their user go told me it's like, yeah, this just feels like an insider trading thing for people on the hill to just bet on what they know is going to happen. That's bad. The design invites insider trading, and all you're doing is ripping off people who don't

have inside knowledge. It's a transfer of wealth upward. I hate all of it. I hate the sponsorships. I've rejected a sponsorship from Kalshi because I don't like it. Sure, the money would be nice, but I would feel guilty taking it. I think it's morally and inherently wrong. So I'm not surprised that we now have people betting on stuff that they are actively doing.

I'd love to see the same scrutiny applied to people who are betting on oil futures that just so happens to coincide with new Trump announcements on Iran. 100%. The oil future, which I think that Donald Trump's through social activity is mainly to generate insider trading at this point. Whether it's prediction markets bets or as you say, the futures trading on oil, which we've now had multiple rounds of it. It is obvious that there is insider trading going on in the White House, possibly Donald Trump's immediate family, Baron Trump, I'm hearing is evidently like a god tier investor with his timing, weirdly enough. And that's why I'm frustrated about this. Like the guy did break the law. There's a case to be made that since he bet that it would work that inspired him to work harder on the mission, I suppose. But he shouldn't be doing it. I agree. And by the way, I have a feeling we'll get into the calls for a pardon.

I think he's going to get one. I just think it's wild that he gets investigated and not the White House. It literally is in like the top 10 things that I want the Democrats to do once they retake Congress and the midterms is to do a massive in-depth investigation to this in the White House. And I agree. I mean, look, this is just me. I only speak for myself. I don't think that these things should exist. Or at the very least, they should be regulated. Or at the very least, until they're regulated, I don't understand how they could be donating to politicians. Like, they're buying politicians when there's like no scrutiny whatsoever already. That seems wildly unfair and corrupt. But anyway, there have been other investigations like this. Israeli prosecutors indicted an Israeli Air Force Reserve Major and a civilian associate for leaking classified strike plans back in February that was on Polly Market as well. And it makes sense that military officers would be being

brought up on this because they have this information. They know the timeline. I just also think the idea that like Pete Hegsith isn't doing any of this just seems ridiculous. to me, considering what we know of their ethics. We've got 16 days later in February, on-chain analytics firm bubble maps flagged six freshly funded wallets that had collectively cleared roughly 1.2 million on yes positions for U.S. strikes on Iran, with top holders clustered in a suspiciously uniform $42,000 to $62,000 range. I don't know what that is about. But as you pointed out, like this is the prediction market part of it. I think the oil's future stuff is way bigger money generally. And you don't need to know much. You know a timeline. You know when

Donald Trump is going to tweet something. Donald Trump has a very specific ability to trigger shifts in the market that clearly some people know about, whether he is sharing the information for that purpose or whether just people around him, White House aides or whatever, are writing up the tweets for him so they know it's about to happen. It is clearly happening. Now in those cases, is there were no U.S. charges. What sets Van Dyke apart is proximity. So the IDF case involved a reserve major acting as a conduit. The Iran wallets remain suited. They're not tied to the specific person. Van Dyke was actually on the mission. He's the most direct person. But again, as we've been laying out, there's been just as close a connection between policy pronouncements or declarations

about ceasefires and those have not yet received the same sort of investigation. So that said, Todd Blanche puts out this whole statement about how it's super serious. They can't be using this classified information for personal enrichment. Representative Anna Polina Luna puts out a tweet saying it may not be a popular take, but I'm calling for this guy to be pardoned. There is no justice when guys like this get the book thrown at him yet members are illegally profiting every day. She has introduced a discharge petition to ban insider trading by members of Congress. So like on one level it's kind of in, you know, it's not a consistent position. because she's calling for him to not be prosecuted.

I guess she's saying let's have the same standard, which makes some sense. In either event, I think there needs to be way more investigation. Any other thoughts, Jordan? Yeah, I mean, there was also, I think Kalshi yesterday announced that they found three politicians betting on their own races. One of them was a Senate candidate in Virginia who bet on a market about who would enter the race and he bet on himself. Then once he was caught suspended in the top, he was trying to spit it into like, well, actually, I hate this whole industry. And I'm so glad you did this.

You fell right into my trap. I don't know if I believe him. But it's just like, we saw another one earlier this week about the hottest recorded day in France on Polly Market. And somebody went to a sensor at an airport that was unguarded and just blew a portable hair. dryer on the sensor to spike the temperature that it's detected, and he cashed out. Like, why do we need this? Why do people need to gamble on little things in life? It's symptomatic of a very bad state of affairs globally in our collective society. I think a lot of people turn to it out of despair. And I think that's something that needs to be rectified before we ever get to the bottom of this problem of insider trading.

Yeah, in terms of the arguments that have been made for why it should exist, and I think fairly good responses to that, I will point everyone to John Oliver's recent episode on prediction markets. But yeah, I feel a similar way as I do about the rapid proliferation of sports betting apps, the fact that you cannot watch TV, let alone sports without having that advertisement. I literally can't drive around my home city without seeing the advertisement. And I really do feel like this is a sort of, it's, it's preying on people's ever increasing economic anxiety. We don't feel like we can own a home. We don't feel like we can own stocks, but I have like 10 books that I guess I could bet. And then, then, you know, you combine that with the incredibly predatory algorithms in these apps, their ability to push notifications to you. I am very worried about a generation just having every spare cent sucked out of their accounts. And bear in mind, like when this guy makes $400,000, off this bet, that money didn't just like fall out of a treat. He got that from other people who

didn't have the insider trading. A lot of those are just regular people. You look at, I've seen an analysis that like some massive percentage of all of the money that has ever been won on polymarket has gone to a very tiny percentage of the accounts. And so like some people might think, well, at least I can use the information I have. No, like you don't have the information that the winners have, almost certainly. Anyway. I apologize. There's a lot that I have to say about that. And we do have other topics to get to, so why don't we jump into our next conversation. Does the U.S. support Israel's settlement program, which has sort of inexorably spread over decades, but sure seems to be moving faster recently?

Well, officially, no, but according to Israel's finance minister, yeah, actually increasingly so behind the scenes. So there was this interview with the Jerusalem Post where the finance minister, Smotrich, which has been talked about a lot in the program, a member of Israel's far right party claimed that the settlement expansion in the West Bank is actually being carried out with basically unconditional US support. So in the past, at least publicly and supposedly privately, the US has advocated for restraint in expanding these settlements, where we are like, you shouldn't do that. And if you do, there might be consequences and then inevitably they get spread and we do absolutely nothing about it. But at least we put out like a good statement or something,

That appears to not be the case anymore. Now, Trump is not publicly saying that it's okay to do this, but Smotrich is apparently optimistic and enthusiastic that there is actual alignment between the United States and Israeli government on this. So here are some things that he said in his interview. He said that all actions taken in the West Bank have been coordinated with the president, along with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. He noted that while Trump has not yet supported the application of Israeli sovereignty over all parts of the West Bank. He hoped that, quote, we will also succeed in that. And even in the previous U.S. administration, we did things, but certainly in the current one, we received great

support full backing. And yeah, I'm glad that he acknowledges that this sort of thing was also going on under Joe Biden. And again, the statements, I think, were more vigorously against it at that point, but there have never really been consequences when it happens, and it has been happening more and more with every passing year. We'll get to more of this, including some of the scale that we're talking about here. But Jordan, what do you think? Yeah, I would not be surprised if we're in lockstep with the Israeli government. Why wouldn't we be? I mean, Trump exploited the cynicism on the left and I think made some inroads just by positioning himself as not Biden. But to you, to me, to I think a lot of people, everyone knew that was

absolutely hollow and insincere. And now you're seeing it. You're seeing the reality of it. They are totally fine turning a black. It's just a continuation of the same U.S. policy toward Israel. They're totally fine with settlements. We're totally fine with Israel violating the terms of the ceasefire agreement. I mean, Trump can beat his chest over getting an agreement, but they violated it several hundred times. Several hundred people have been killed. There have been like thousands of attacks since then by Israel in Gaza. And of course, the settler violence in the West Bank continues. Everything has changed. You have on paper an agreement that Israel has. is not upholding. It's all BS. It's smoking mirrors and it's just part for the course with Trump.

Yeah. Well, we're going to give some actual numbers there, but I totally agree. Like the ceasefire means as much as our total victory means. Doesn't mean anything. It's just the thing that you say in social media or whatever. Make yourself feel a little bit better. It doesn't stop the civilians from being killed. So anyway, let's jump into a little bit of what's going on. So since the start of the current government's term in 2022, over 51,000 housing, how many thousand, how many, units have been approved for deposit and final authorization in the West Bank. That's just a massive amount of additional development there, which shouldn't be happening, literally at all. I suppose I prefer this way of stealing people's land to the way they did it

in Gaza, but neither is supposed to happen. And there's very little even international conversation about it, let alone consequences, which could potentially work to stop it, especially if a country is powerful and influential as the United States were to care at all about doing it, but we don't. And so of the little pushback rhetorically that exists, Sponger is also really mad about that. So he said there are countries mainly in Europe that have been influenced by Islamism, their leaders politically attack Israel and stand on the wrong side of history, on the side of the Shiite axis. You know how Belgium and France are on the Shiite axis. It is not new that countries sometimes due to internal political considerations,

choose to stand with evil instead of good. Oh, that clarifies it. Okay, good. So as they committed genocide in Gaza and steal all their land and then just talk about how they're going to build hotels on or whatever, and then turn to blind eye as settlers murder people in the West Bank for years and years and years. And that's fine because they want to steal that land too. They're on the side of good. And the people in France or whatever that don't want civilians to be murdered, they're just they're Shiites, I guess now or something. Smakes no. I am, my mind is boggled. It has. how public opinion is changing on our support for Israel. I don't understand it with people like him doing the messaging for the Israeli government. So he was confronted with claims of settler violence and he of course dismissed them, as the Israeli government always does. The settler public is one of the least violent populations and that those who engage in settler violence were only a small portion among those living in the West Bank. So so far just in this year,

more than 260 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli settlers during settler attacks, reflecting a threefold increase in the monthly average of Palestinians injured by settlers during settler attacks since just three years ago. A threefold increase, you can see it right here. So again, just the most peace loving people in the world, they would really prefer to steal the land without having to kill people. But you keep getting in the way. Don't claim that that's your land. You're not a real person. You don't get to have land. So I feel like this is clarifying a lot for me, Jordan, I feel a lot more comfortable about what's going on right there. Speaking, I hope, everybody understands as sarcastically as I'm physically capable of, but what do you think?

You gotta be clear about your sarcasm these days, especially on this show. You never know what's gonna be clipped out and pretend of it it's serious. Brother, tell me about it. Tell Brett about it. Anyway, I mean, it's supposed to be literally anything about it. Use literally any leverage we have over this government. That's not going to stop. And if it doesn't stop, they have our full support. And every single member of the U.S. government who hasn't taken a clear and definitive stance supports it tacitly. So if you're continuing to arm Israel, you're continuing to send aid to Israel, you don't support sanctioning them, boycott, divestment, anything like that.

You are saying, I support this. I support the settler violence that top members of the Netanyahu government are celebrating. You're supporting the continued attacks in Gaza in violation of the ceasefire, and you support the violation of international law. There's a lot of blood on people's hands in Washington, and they don't seem to care because they're totally detached from the violence. It's tragic. It is absolutely tragic.

By the way, I'm just one more quote. So he said at one point, he said, Israeli authorities were also, quote, burying the idea of a Palestinian state, which is just that's a choice to make. to use that term, first of all, to again, love that idea, but then to use that term when you've buried thousands of civilians, thousands of kids under rubble in Gaza. You know what you're doing. He's one of the most unrepentingly evil people in the world. And it is wild to me that there are still some people, far less than there used to be, who don't see it and don't see that the movement that he represents is unrepentingly evil. Anyway, oh, and by the way, like I'm criticizing them, it's our government as well.

I mean, it's kind of always been, but it is very much our government right now. So with that said, I do think that we should take our second break. When we come back, we're going to be diving into what remains of Donald Trump's coalition. What are the two groups that still at least mildly above majority level support him? Okay, everybody, let's jump into some of the other comments and acknowledge our members. CDN North Dog Dad member for 64 months says 64 months and I'll be 61 years old tomorrow. Can I get a notification for my birthday? Happy birthday. Apologies if you were hoping it would come from someone other than me, but happy birthday.

Let's see. Constantine says in a super chat brain rot, me no brain damage. Yeah, I think that we're all concerned about the use of these devices and how much we're using them and all that. A visionary says, it's the Epstein pedophile stupids. That must be a good chunk of the reason European leaders are afraid to buck, buck Trump and Yahoo. I've never heard that before. That's good. And or they're being paid off by oligarchs and have skeletons.

Boomer Dragon Cat says, I feel like we the people have suffered the consequences and paid our penance for Trump. Everything from here and out is just straight up torture. Yeah, I think that we are all due for a little bit of relief. That would be nice. E.M. says the US administration has now added schizo to their erratic decisions coming from an incoherent president. Yeah, I want to just go back to a time when the presidents would like, would lie to you,

but they'd try. It would be kind of consistent. There might be grains of truth. And it wouldn't just be a constant assault on your sanity, an insult. Anyway, Teo says, American Israel should take responsibility for their actions and have the ability to learn from the mistakes they have done. They will not learn from the mistakes they've made so long as they're not. not forced to acknowledge that they're mistakes. There's no, why, why would they stop doing what

they're doing? They're getting what they want. They're conquering territory. They're stealing resources. It's working for them. That's negative. I'm being told by Jordan that I missed an important message. Yeah, I saw in the Twitch chat that a really chill guy, it's 69 months, subscribed on Twitch, said nice and also they said that Jordan was their favorite host and I just thought that would be worth including but I would not have seen really chill guy of coming down as a big Jordan fan but you know maybe it's your recent commentary you won them over in the last minute I don't know I think that's it yeah yeah it's probably it anyway we've got a little bit more time to talk politics there will be a second hour of course at a bonus episode yes and Sharon will be taking over

which is an awesome hour that doesn't happen nearly enough but that said first you got to deal with the boys for a little bit longer let's jump into this Just 23% approve of his overall performance. That ticks up to 30 when it comes to how he's handled immigration. And then from there, it is all downhill. 21% of independence support this war on Iran. 21. You've got 79% of independents who are against.

Folks, you cannot win elections like that. Democrat or Republican, you got 80% of the independence against you. You're effed. Yes, says. Kelly points out Donald Trump is effed. His polling is bad and getting worse, which I guess should free her up to grow a little bit of a spine, disagree with him a bit. I mean, she hasn't even taken the Tucker Carlson route of, you know, implying that they apologize or whatever for what they did. Bear in mind she supported him for president. But anyway, the American people

are not a big fan of what he's doing. In fact, it's gotten so bad that there are only two demographic groups left in America who approve, majority sense approve of Donald's Donald Trump's job as president of the United States. Two demographic groups. That's according to journalist author and pollster G. Eliot Morris. Jordan, I want to go to you. I want your guess. What are the two groups, however you want to slice it,

that still have above 50% support for Donald Trump? I think I know this one. It is middle-aged white divorced dads who are super into the reformed, the family court line of activism, dad's rights activists. And then young white men ages 18 to 30 who know who clavicular is. And looks max. That's my guess.

Am I right? I don't have the data for those two groups. I do think that it is an oversight on G. Elliot Morris's behalf because they certainly would have more than 50% support. But no, here's what we have. The first is not at all a surprise. it is people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 still are at 84%. So he's lost 16% or so of those who voted for him, but still has, it still has most of the people that voted for him. So that's something. You got that Trumpy. And then males over that are 65 years or older are at 52%. So narrowly males, but not even all males, just older males. I don't know what their position is. on divorce court or whatever, but they do like him. So that's not great. So let's talk about the

other groups because you might have been thinking of some. Like wait, I thought all men liked it. Wait, what about all white people? Like certainly he has those groups. No, not so much. So first of all, those who voted for Harris are at 4% approval of Donald Trump. I don't know who those people are. If you didn't vote, you're at 30% approval. So he's not winning over like those independents who don't really engage in politics. They're not liking what they're seeing. Men are at 44%. Women are at 35%. So he does still have higher male support, but it ain't great and it ain't a majority. And then you look at the demographic groups and none of this is good for Trump. So male 65 and over, you saw, still have narrow support for him. But generally older people, 45%. He's got 44.

of the 45s to 64s. It drops down to 38% for the 30s to 44s. And those clavicular people, at least, once you include the women, he's at 27% among young people. That's really bad for a guy who spent so much time on these podcasts supposedly appealing to them. They're just, they're not buying it. We're going to jump into some other demographics, including like racial groups and things like that. But I've thrown out some stuff about age, gender, and vote in 2024, Jordan, what do you make of those groups and how they're changing on Trump? I mean, it's harder and harder. Unless you're fully in the Trump cult of personality, it is very, very hard to justify supporting him because some of the things that got people the most fired up

and voted for him and led to them voting for him in 2024, he has shown to be completely fraudulent, insincere, or hypocritical on. I mean, no new wars was a big talking point. This goes back to his first campaign in 2016. He gave a speech in Ohio where he kind of started started this trend of using this rhetoric and ending wars of intervention and ending endless, endless wars, no new wars. That was a thing that he tried to weaponize for three cycles and a contingent of the population. believed him. He was aided and abetted by people like Tucker Carlson. You know, Stephen Miller leaned into it. Kamala Harris is going to send your sons to die in a war. They explicitly said, they explicitly attacked Harris over Iran policy. So that's something you can't hang your hat on

anymore. Epstein, of course, was a big factor. And then generally, the biggest motivating factor for people in the last cycle was the economy, the cost of living, inflation, the cost of groceries. Everything has gone up. And it's not like an abstract global inflation supply crisis like it was with Biden during COVID. This is directly linked to two Trump policies, tariffs and now this war. So he can't dismiss those like Biden tried to explain away with COVID and the supply chain. I think you look at the nuance there. Yeah, that's a bit broader of an issue and it's a global issue.

This is, hey, we're actively stopping the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz because Trump declared a new war at the same time that the Epstein files were rearing their head. So it seems like he doesn't want you to pay attention to this issue that he campaigned on. So now he's going to go back on another campaign promise and ultimately make the one big issue that you cared about even worse. So this is a problem of their own making. And if you were in that camp, why would you support him? Yeah, that's the thing I've been stressing that it is wild, that he's intentionally doing a worse job than Joe Biden did through a combination of not taking strong enough action, but also political acts of God. Trump is, and Trump, like, it wasn't

just the straight to form moves. Trump said, I'm going to put tariffs on everything. I'm going to willingly tax you on most products. And what's like the one thing that kind of went down in price last year? Gas. And he's like, well, I can't tariff that. So war with Iran. What's the other stupid thing I can do to screw everyone over? It is wild. And so yeah, I keep thinking like there's there are different explanations for why he's become so wildly, like historically unpopular so fast. It could be that he's doing the things he campaigned on, but people don't like them, like mass deportation, maybe. Or terror. hypothetically. There could be him doing the things that he said specifically he wouldn't do,

like the war in Iran or leading a full scale cover up of the Epstein files. But then there's also just maybe like people aren't paying that much attention and it's just things suck. We told you we didn't want things to be more expensive and they are. I kind of don't want it to just be that last thing. I want people to be tapped in. But for a lot of them, I think it's just we didn't want prices to rise and you made them rise. But that said, why don't we jump into some of the other demographic groups. So white people in general are down to 46%. So if you see a white person, there's a lower than 50-50 chance that they still support Trump. So that's good for us. Black people are at 17%, which is so weird because I was being told that black voters love Donald

Trump and he was permanently remaking the racial blah, blah, blah. Hispanic voters at 30%, again, looking a little bit more like the historical numbers for Republican presidents rather than some sort of new governing coalition. Asian voters at 25. No college 42, some college 40, it drops down from there, but even the no colleges is low. And he doesn't have majority support amongst any population group. Porous voters, he's at 35. They're probably feeling, you know, the inflation the most. Even those who making above 150,000 are at 39%. I guess the big beautiful bill didn't give the richest people enough of a tax break because even they don't love him. How bad is it? Well, now 55% of U.S. adults support the House voting to impeach Donald Trump.

Only 37% oppose it. And they will almost certainly have the chance to do that coming up in about a year. 21% of his own 2024 voters now say that he should be impeached. One in five of the people who voted for him want him to be impeached, which is pretty wild. Any of the thoughts, Jordan? Yeah, it's interesting to see that data. We know. how midterms have gone in the past, the governing party additionally loses seats, maybe a chamber, maybe both. They know this, and the polling reinforces it, the generic ballot, just D versus R, no names,

Democrats have an advantage. You see all of these like 30 plus flips across the country, even in red states, even in Republican strongholds. There is a massive shift happening here because people are fed up. he's alienated a part of his base and especially independence. They're not going to support him going into the midterms, which is why they're going to try to cheat, which is why they did the redistricting in Texas, which is why they want to do it in Florida now as well. It was great to see California and now Virginia this week respond to

level the playing field. But who knows what tricks they might have up their sleeve to subvert our democracy? Because they can't just accept, hey, he did a bad job. We made bad decisions. paying the price, people are unhappy, it's no. We're going to hold on to power. You're going to like it. You're going to take it. You're going to suck it up. You're going to deal with it. You're going to pay higher prices. You're going to continue enriching the corporations who are getting rich off of your suffering and you can't do anything about it. We will rewrite the rules to stay in power and you're just going to shut up and take it. I cannot stress enough how much Republicans and elites hate working people in this country, unless you are born into wealth or unless you have kissed enough

ass to get to a position where you're in their inner circle, they have nothing but contempt for you. And I hope everybody who is in that cult wakes up soon. 100%. I totally agree. Really fast because we do have a few minutes. So I have tried to figure out a couple of things. So one, Donald Trump hasn't been going as hard on the, they're going to rig the election stuff as you might expect, considering how bad the polling is. Generally, in polling gets bad, he starts preparing people for the various types of coups that he likes to launch. And I was thinking a couple potential explanations for that. One, he's done a little bit of it talking about the mail and ballots and all that. The other is that he just, he just doesn't

care if other Republicans lose. Like his name isn't on the ballot. He might actually get kind of a twisted thrill if Republicans lose when he's not around, even though I don't know him being on it would actually help considering how bad his polling is. And the other thing I was thinking about was, Like, it feels like we're on the beginning of an inevitable continued decline that Donald Trump cannot recover from. And I immediately start thinking about how that might change his behavior, what, you know, possibilities that opens up for Democrats. But I guess it's not impossible that he could start polling better. Can you think of any circumstances or any actions he could take that would actually turn things around if he had the political or physical capability

to change course, which she does not appear to have anymore? I mean, maybe if they just like rush through an instituted like universal health care or something like that, which they wouldn't. Like every possible scenario, which would give him a massive popularity or be introduced, would be something that their corporate overlords don't want. It would be something that would benefit people. But he can't do that. He's never done that.

So, yeah, I could like name a million things, but he wouldn't do any of them. But also on the election subversion point, I think we still need to remain vigilant and alert, because you'll notice all of a sudden, once they got to the point where they were all like, you had people in his orbit, like Steve Bannon, a few other people saying on their shows, Jesse Waters, the guy from Benny Johnson, all were saying, yeah, well, why shouldn't ICE agents be at polling locations? all of a sudden, the conversation stopped. I don't know if you noticed that there was a week where they're all just talking about it, and all of a sudden, it stopped.

And I'm sure there was top-down messaging guidance, shut up. We're not talking about this because if they're going to do that, they're not going to tell you several months in advance to plan. We should plan, but it's going to be something at the last minute where they find or manufacture the environment, the circumstances that require things like that, a federal armed presence at polling locations in November, or some sort of attempt to discount, to disqualify, to muddy the results. All of these things are on the table, and we should not lose sight of it just because they aren't talking about it right now.

Yeah, I do think it's one thing that I want to give credit to Americans living in a number of cities for it, where I believe that there's multiple explanations or motivations for it. But I think one of the reasons Donald Trump was doing that I'm invading D.C., I'm invading New Orleans or whatever, was to normalize that sort of thing. And I think a lot of the performative mass deportation stuff was to normalize just constant federal, just crushing of these cities. And I think it didn't work. Like, I think they thought what they said they thought after the election was America's Magnau, and then, you know, we're not going to say it out loud, but America's fine with fascism now. everyone just shut up and take the boot on your neck. But thankfully, America didn't actually like it. So there were massive protests everywhere, including in LA. And when they started, you know,

like doing the deportations, people stood up to them. And then when they started gunning, gunning down the protesters, they massively dialed back the most out front big deportation pushes. And so I think that kind of hurt the strategy that was supposed to make it seem super routine that federal officers were in every city. And so that is good news. I agree with you, though. It doesn't mean that they're not going to do it. I just think that they've, realized that they need to spring it on us at the last minute rather than just, you know, gradually raising the temperature on the pot that we're all drowning in or whatever. Anyway, we have one more minute if you have any other thoughts.

I'm just, I'm worried about our democracy. I mean, this is, we've already seen he's totally fine shirking the tradition of the peaceful transition of power. Once you do that, once you incite an insurrection at the Capitol, what's quite, we, what's undermining the election to get a result you want. Yeah. I mean, nothing's off the table with this guy. He's shown he hates our democracy.

He doesn't want people to have a choice. He doesn't want people to have a say. He's already complaining about the Virginia results. He was fine. They were all fine when Texas Republicans in the state legislature just did it without the input of voters. But then when Virginia votes on it, he's crying foul. He's saying it was fraudulent.

There's no evidence of that, of course. He's lying because he's unhappy with the result. because Peter Thiel and other billionaires, right-wing oligarchs, pumped millions of dollars into that, trying to support a no vote, and they lost. So now, oh, it's all fraudulent. Now, the fraud is Peter Thiel trying to buy people's votes, trying to influence the outcome of that race. That's it. They hate democracy. They don't want you to have a choice. I love that in both California and in Virginia, we actually had votes. And in Texas and Florida, they're just going to do it. Like, damn the law, damn the people. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah, I'm worried about our job.

democracy too. I mean, it's not hypothetical to believe that he's not going to give up power willingly. He never has. He's never accepted an election he lost and he's never given up power willingly. I think that our best option is to get a couple of experts in the room with him, start talking about health care affordability. He'll immediately doze off. You just roll his chair out. I think that's the only way to get him out without a fight. Anyway, go look at that video. It's so hilarious. Anyway, that's all the time we have for the first hour, Jordan. Always a pleasure to have you here. Have fun with Brett playing golf without me this weekend. I will. I'm sure that you will.

And all the rest of you, have fun with Yass and Sharon as they jump into a whole bunch more news. We'll see you next time. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. That MDM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. What contributions to the progressive cause are you most proud of? Um, I mean, I don't, I don't have super high aspirations for a singular role that I can play in the movement or anything. I just, I try to present myself as what I think that I am, which is a progressive man who is driven by a, I think, well interrogated and well-organized system of values that I try to stay consistent on and I demonstrate that that's the sort of life that a person can lead and be successful

and be happy and all of that. And that should not need to be done, but there are so many people on the right that are trying to push men in the opposite direction that I want to be able to do that. Along the way, if I can get people to care about some topics that not that they wouldn't necessarily care about, or that for some men, they might think that's not a topic that they should be focused on, that's definitely something that I relish doing. And along the way, I mean, we've been able to introduce people to a lot of candidates. That's been a big part of what we've done. You know, not all of them necessarily got in office.

Probably most of them did not. And a lot of them, you might not even remember their names. But it was great to be able to provide people the platform where they had the chance of, you know, making a difference. Obviously, AOC and all that. But there's been a lot of great people along the way. In the bonus episode for the members, we do some inside baseball. We're going to look at John's desk.

Nice little spaceship here. Nerd. But it is kind of look cool. Who has Legos? Oh, no. He's taking apart a keyboard. Who has a mouse pad that's this big? He's got a dog with a nose that you can hang something like.

You know what this desk screams to me? Nerd. And that's how we like him. We love Johnny Five. He's got his own personality like everybody does at TYT. Come meet us all in the bonus episodes. TYT.com slash team. David Soror.

Nina Turner. It's Adam Greendrop by. Charlamine. It's been great to have you. It's great to be with you, Chuck. Your show is a great thing. You're informing people. A lot of the shows that I live on, you know, my CNN and my MSNBC and even Fox and any of the other shows, MPR.

They are so quick to decide that they know what this building means today. The one thing that I hate that politicians do, you know, they talk about the people they should be talking to. Do they have any idea that they're their establishment and that they're hated? Or do they not realize that at all? People are so deeply in their little universe. I think it's very easy to not really question what you're doing. Voters have a right to ask questions of any nominee, whether they're independent, Republican, or Democrat.

The system is lawfully that suppresses competition. How is it the year 2024? And we're still like, maybe they'll talk about paid medical. How is that like, at one level, it's like, good, what we're talking about it. And you're like, it's 2024. And that's always been the critique. that your critique of us is, well, you guys give good speeches, you put out good tweets, but you're not wielding actual power. Now we're starting to. My favorite news platform by far. It's not even close.

It's not a country and a principle, and that's what you and I both work to achieve. And I'm so glad for at least half the battle has now been one. If you want to go really hear what's going on, honestly, you should tune into the Young Turks. Thanks for doing such a great job. Please keep it up, hang tough. Yeah. That makes me so happy. Oh, I like making you know about that. This is a happy attic Sparion. You're welcome, YouTube. Join the Dragon Squad by becoming a YouTube channel member. Click the join button below or sign up on tYT.com slash join to get access to fun emojis,

a member only chat, exclusive shop TYT designs, ad free watching and so many other amazing perks. Plus you get bragging rights for being part of the coolest community on the internet and help us drive real positive change in the world. The Dragon Squad awaits. So join today. played quarters. Welcome to the second hour of the young Turks. I'm your host, Yasmin Aaliyah Khan.

And joining me tonight is not Jank. I have Sharon Reed with me. Sharon, how are you on this Friday evening? Good. I'll never be able to fill the shoes of Jank. I'll just do my best to be me. That's all we could ever ask of you. That's all we want you for.

Very excited to have you. We haven't done this show together in a very long time. It's been a minute. Yeah. It's been a minute. We have a huge show for you guys today. Lots going on. A quick update on some other things that are having going on in the world outside of the

Middle East that we haven't talked about in a little while. So let's jump right into this first story. So while the US media has shifted most of its attention towards the ongoing war with Iran, it is important to remember that Trump is still carrying out other shenanigans, other attacks, elsewhere in the world, specifically in the waters of Latin America. So despite the war, the Trump administration has not actually slowed down in their targeting of civilian boats in the Pacific that they are claiming still are drug cartels. So as of April 14th, this is according to the Intercept.

As part of Operation Southern Spear, the U.S. military has now destroyed 51 vessels and killed 171 civilians. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of 24 or more cartels and criminal gangs with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name. And according to The Guardian this week, the kill count has already grown to 178. And remember, these are most likely illegal strikes. So the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians, even suspected criminals who do not pose an immediate threat of violence. The summary executions are a significant departure from standard practice in the long running U.S. war on drugs in which law enforcement agencies detained suspected drug smugglers and brought them to trial on criminal charges. So the U.S. has released very limited evidence to justify any of these strikes, just as it was before we all stopped reporting on these things. And they haven't really proven that the targets were actually narco-terrorists.

And that is because they're not, as far as we can tell, narco-terrorists, these are innocent civilians because the survivors are starting to speak up. So one Ecuadorian fishing crew that was hauling lines of swordfish and Albuquer spoke to the Guardian after they were targeted. And they said this, the Don Macca, a 35-ton fishing vessel that worked with six smaller boats was about 200 miles northwest of the Galapagos Islands. when it disappeared on the 26th of March. About a week earlier, it had departed from Manta, a port city in southwestern Ecuador that has become a focal point in the country's escalating war on drugs. And it's 20 crewmen, all from nearby communities, including San Mateo, Santa Marianita, and Haramijo insist they were fishing when they were attacked.

And one of the fishermen, Johnny Sebastian Palacios, he stated, We were just working, waiting for the last trawler to return. Everything was perfectly fine. And from nowhere, an explosion ripped through the boat. There was a sudden crash. Boom. It came from a drone, he said. The blast tore through the vessel, shattering glass and injuring several crew members.

I ran upstairs and saw the boat destroyed. The whole ship was stripped bare. So the ship was actually hit twice by a U.S. drone. And then also the fishers claim drones. continued to circle overhead after the blast, leaving them fearing another strike. Mobile phone footage of the aftermath of the attack shows the terrified crew huddled at the stern of the ship with an alarm sounding as one of them waves a white shirt. Shortly afterwards, the crew say they were approached by a U.S. patrol boat and were ordered to board. So Palacio stated

that once the crew was boarded, their phones were confiscated and most of the photos and videos of the incident were wiped. So the crew of the patrol boat spoke English to each other and used a translator to address the Ecuadorians. From the moment we arrived on the U.S. patrol boat, they were pointing guns at us, shouting get in, get in, said Palacios. They handcuffed us, put hoods over our heads, and pushed us around. We were terrified they were going to kill us. According to the crew's account, they were held for several hours by the U.S. vessel before being transferred to a Salvadorian patrol boat and after several more days at sea, eventually to El Salvador, where they were taken to a military base and questioned. Later, they were handed over to immigration

authorities and taken to a UN shelter. So eventually the fishermen were returned to Ecuador and released without charge. And as you can imagine, some of them are left injured and traumatized. And they're afraid to continue fishing, which like, I don't know, was that the intended outcome? So Palacios rejected any suggestion that the crew were involved in drug trafficking, arguing that if they had been any evidence to support that claim, they would have been arrested and charged. If we had been carrying something illegal, we wouldn't be here. We'd be in the United States in jail. And just like in the Middle East, potentially breaking international law comes with a pretty hefty price tag. And according to a new analysis by Brown University's costs of war project, by the most cautious estimate, the U.S. military's intervention in Venezuela and attacks on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, Operation Absolute Resolve and Operation Southern Spear, respectively, have already cost taxpayers at least $4.7 billion.

And the researchers say this is almost assuredly an undercount. So $4.7 billion, 178 innocent civilians killed. All of this is going on while everybody has eyes on the Middle East, eyes on Iran, eyes on Israel, eyes on the Strait of Hormuz. All of that is incredibly important. But all of these other things are still very important. And this is why people get so overwhelmed with everything going on in the news, because how can anybody keep up?

And, you know, while everyone's distracted with this over here and also with the Epstein files and the millions of other things that we're supposed to be worried about right now, people are still being killed. They're being targeted and attacked and they're being killed just for doing their jobs, just for fishing. There is no proof that these people are trafficking any kind of drugs. If there is proof, they haven't released it. And if they had proof, I can't imagine that they would withhold that proof from the American people,

at least so we know that they are actually doing something down there besides just killing innocent people. Sharon, what are your thoughts on all of this? My thoughts are things just got even if they could get any worse, more dangerous for the next guy or woman who jumps in a boat and just wants to go fishing to support themselves. Because my read on it, when you are accused of incredibly have done international war crime-like conduct, the next person's less safe, because I'm sure they're thinking, why did we even leave them a lot? Why did we leave them alive? What abusers do is leave their victims in chaos.

They make sure you can't think straight. Every day is full of trauma. When you're trying to get this or that done, they undermine and sabotage it. You're a shell of your former self. And that's what all of us are under this regime, this administration, and others throughout the world because of what they're doing. They're not just blowing up fishing boats because it's sport, although I do think they enjoy it. They're doing it to keep all of us off kilter, off center, all of us in chaos and not knowing what comes next. You have Iran, you have whatever else Israel's doing, us supporting it.

Oh, yeah, Ukraine, Russia. Oh, the gas price. Everything is a huge chaotic bomb for us. So they can keep doing what they want to do, not even behind closed doors openly. And we just don't even have the energy or the bandwidth to fight at all. Yeah, absolutely. And I believe, I mean, obviously this is something that they count on. They're counting on as being distracted. They're counting on as being exhausted, too exhausted to fight back, too broke to fight back. That's a real thing, you know, like taking on the military and the government and even, you know, all these legal things that are happening around around the country. It takes a lot of money to fight back against those things. And, you know, we're committing war crimes potentially in the eastern Pacific Ocean. and the Caribbean and in Venezuela. We're doing all these things and there seems to be zero oversight from anyone.

There's no international body that's holding us accountable. Everybody's got their eyes on what we're doing in the Middle East. Also, are we still trying to take Greenland? I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. There's a lot going on that we're supposed to just kind of take in and deal with. But in the meantime, I always tell people, whenever you get a little overwhelmed with what's going on in the world, look smaller, or look to your local and state level elections because that is where you can actually start

enacting some change and then move upwards. Right now we have a bunch of people who are not qualified to be leading our country, who are in positions of power. And that's where that was all very intentional. That's what they want. So anyway, we're going to take our first break and we'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the social break.

I'm looking over some of your comments and like, what is the salt of the union says it's Texas time? And then there's a picture of me. Like, oh my God, I'm dressed as a cowboy and I have like the hat on and everything. Thank you so much. That was that was fun for me to see. Burtz, Burt says more like Jank never fill Sharon's shoes. Ooh, fighting words. I hope. I love our audience. Let's see. Yeah, there's a lot of Sharon and Yaz love. Thank you very much. Yes and Sharon. Sharon is describing exactly how I feel.

That was from Zay Halo, aka Crystal D. Yeah, I think a lot of people can relate to just like the general feeling of overwhelm. And it kind of feels like, like we're just like we're constantly going up, up, up, up. And there's never like a letdown.

We're never able to come down. And hopefully that's coming soon. Let's see. Mark Goggin says, Bubba the Secretary of the Navy is not a military man. He was a hedge fund guy that donated a bunch to Trump's campaign. Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about. Like, there's, there's so many people who are in positions that they have no business being in.

And one more quick one, let's see, composing Hank says, this is justice by proxy. The proxy is drones. This is where we are. It's easier to the most inhumane things. Welcome back to the show, Yaz and Sharon on the. second hour of the young Turks. We got a lot more to get to. So let's get right into this next story. I need people to understand what the injuries looked like that we were seeing before the ceasefire. Now beyond the acute injuries, we're looking at a generation left with lifelong

disabilities. I visited a young woman a few days ago in ICU, who we treated when she came through the emergency department. She'd been walking along with a friend when both her legs were blown off. She managed to survive her initial injuries. But when I visited her a couple of days ago she was hooked up to dialysis because the muscle destruction from her injury was so extensive that it had started destroying her kidneys. All right, so that was an emergency physician from Doctors Without Borders. She was describing some of the devastation that she has witnessed that the IDF has unleashed in Lebanon and the clip you just watch is from Tuesday's episode of Pod Save the World, which is hosted by Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. So there has been a quote unquote ceasefire in Lebanon for some time

right now, but take that with a grain of salt because the Israelis are still very much occupying parts of the South. The doctor who just spoke on POD Save the World is describing events that took place before the ceasefire. So let's hear a little bit more of what she had to say in her testimony. I also recently visited a migrant woman who'd been a patient out of clinic for years. She was injured in one of the very first strikes in the South and she's still in the hospital. She's bled into a brain stem and spine. She's paralysed. Her home is destroyed, and the people who would have cared for her were killed in the same strike.

We are also seeing an overwhelming number of people whose health needs were neglected during the war, either because they couldn't reach healthcare or their doctors were displaced, or hospitals had to shut their outpatient clinics to direct resources to trauma and emergency care. Yesterday, our clinic diagnosed a young pregnant woman with a baby who had died in utero. Imagine having a fully form, wanted, and loved a baby, and having its heart stopped because the healthcare system had collapsed. And, you know, keep in mind, this is in Lebanon. This isn't even in Gaza anymore. This is just in a completely different country.

And they're doing all these things or collapsing the infrastructure that exists there already. And we're having just a complete unnecessary loss of life over things that could have been prevented. These are babies that they're killing again. So you have to wonder, what is life actually like right now in Lebanon for the people who are there who are fighting for their lives? Here's some more from the podcast. A bunch of Lebanese people use the ceasefire to return to their villages and just check out their homes. They found them destroyed in many cases flat into the ground by U.S. military provided bulldozers. Last week, 40 Democrats voted to block the sale of military bulldozers to Israel because they're using for this kind of stuff.

but unfortunately that vote failed. One statistic I saw Tommy was that, you know, there was a ceasefire with Hezbollah in late 2024 that was reached. And the UN, the UN force in Lebanon, reported 10,000 Israeli violations of that ceasefire before this latest war started. And so, and we saw the same thing in Gaza. Israel's violated the ceasefire in Gaza hundreds of not thousands of times. And so what they do is what?

But Trump wants is, again, Trump doesn't really care about the people in Lebanon or Gaza. He wants it to be a low enough level of violence that it's just kind of not leading the news. A low enough level of violence that it's not getting headlines in the news. You know, it's just like what we were talking about in the last story, you know, like there's other bigger stories going on. So nobody's really going to pay attention over here, let alone report on it. So according to journalist Courtney Bono, who is reporting on the ground from Lebanon, this is from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, 2,491 people have been killed and 7,719 wounded in Israeli attacks

since March 2nd. This toll, of course, includes men, women, and children. And Anna recently interviewed Bono about her work so you can find that video on our channel. But Sharon, that is unbelievable to hear. But I don't want to say that we're like sensitized to it by now. but I don't know what to do with any of that information that we just got. Well, it's horrific. And it's something that you know, you can't unvisualize, if you will.

This is the kind of conduct that Donald Trump and other dictators. I mean, he loves a good dictator have set us up to understand that this is going to be the status quo. And when there again is so much going on in the world, you have people like Netanyahu, other dictators who are accused of heinous things who's saying nobody's looking, now we can double down on our efforts. Now we can just do the quiet part out loud. Now we can just do whatever we want and harm whomever we want. And as long as they're more brown than they are, they can get away with it.

And that's exactly what's going on here. There's a consortium of these dictators and their underlings who have taken over much of the world. while good people who aren't helpless, but are taken aback at the level of destruction and killing and harm in a way that it is hard to keep up. It's hard to give yourself a gut check and say, is this really going on again in another place too? And now how do we fight that? Yeah.

I mean, like the whole world came out in protest against what was happening in Gaza. And they were so unfazed by it that they just said, you know what? Let's just keep going. Let's just do more of that. Let's just take over Lebanon while we're at it. And, you know, they mentioned in that podcast clip that we showed you guys that they were talking about the ceasefire and the violations of the ceasefire. Israel has continually violated ceasefires in one way or another in Gaza pertaining to Iran, even though technically they weren't involved in those ceasefire talks and now in Lebanon as well. So the IDF is continuing to unleash horror in Lebanon despite these so-called ceasefire.

that exists right now. The latest disturbing incident is a murder of a journalist named Amal Khalil. Let's take a look. Lebanon's Prime Minister has accused Israel of war crimes after the killing of a journalist in an airstripe. She worked for al-Aqab, a left-leaning independent newspaper known for its pro-Hesbalah stance and was targeted alongside her colleague while reporting from Israel's occupation zone in southern Lebanon. According to her colleagues, just before 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon, A convoy, including the two journalists, was hit by an Israeli drone. Two men in the car in front of Amals were killed. Amal and Zainab sheltered in a house nearby.

And from there, she called a colleague and friend. Her colleagues alerted the authorities which set in train and established process, including UNIFO the UN's presence in Lebanon. They alert the IDF in an attempt to de-escalate so that a rescue can take place. Rescue workers try to get the location, but were prevented from doing so, their vehicle was shot at. The IDF denied trying to stop the rescue. We don't know what was happening in and around the house that afternoon.

But at 4.30, the Israelis launched an airstrike on the building the journalists were in. Seven hours after that, Amal's body was recovered. So Khalil had received a death threat prior to her being murdered. And Khalil is at least the ninth. journalist killed by Israel in Lebanon this year, according to the committee to protect journalists. The IDF said it is reviewing the incident. Of course, the IDF is reviewing the incident. Nothing's going to come from that, obviously. Courtney Bono was a friend and a coworker of Khalil, so she wrote this about her on X.

She said Amal Khalil was not just a friend and a colleague. She was a mentor to me and to other journalists. She was an inspiration. She also sought to keep us inspired to report the news in an accurate and truthful manner, far from the sensationalism and narcissism that dominates our field. I can recall so many times seeing her in the field and her kissing my cheeks, telling me I'm doing a good job. She would also send me text reminding me that what I'm doing is important, and on tough days, these messages meant the world. Rest in peace, dear Amal, you are loved and we'll see each other again. And elsewhere in Lebanon, Channel 4 News, spoke to a young man who is vowing to take vengeance on Israel after his father was killed in an airstrike.

So let's see that. Put yourself in my shoe. If someone kill your father, will you accept it just like that? Say it. Hamza Mdaihili's father, Dib, returned to the village on the 8th of April, because that was when it was announced that Lebanon would be part of a parallel ceasefire between Iran, the U.S. and Israel. It wasn't in the end.

and that mixed messaging resulted in Deeb's death. Killed when a missile hit the village supermarket he was in. Hamza says his elderly father was unwell and wasn't a fighter. He himself was working abroad at the time and says he isn't one either, at least not for now. I have to revenge is my father. They betrayed him. He came after they said there's a ceasefire.

And they have betrayed him. And in our cultures, I have to revenge. Yeah, I don't know what anyone would expect from a situation like this. Okay, violence begets violence, anger begets more anger. And we're just perpetuating these terrible, ugly cycles. And you can't blame people for wanting revenge or for wanting to feel as though they have some sort of control over what feels like a very helpless situation. How do you radicalize people? You kill their fathers for no reason in the way.

the middle of a ceasefire. You murder journalists and then you say, oh, the IDF is going to investigate what happened there. It's just, it's so ridiculous. Like I'm laughing, but it's just not fun. Like it's so, I, you're, I'm literally at a loss for words. I don't know what to say. It's so horrible. Sharon, you talk now.

Yeah, it's horrible and it's by design. Journalists are not just people in a noble profession. They are a threat to Netanyahu, to Trump, to other dictators. The people who tell the truth are actually a threat to their livelihood and their very lives. So with journalists, they have to be neutralized. And that's exactly what the IDF did here. You're either going to deny them, you know, access and like. We see that in this country.

Sue them. We see, you know, that as well. Donald Trump putting massive frivolous lawsuits on organizations that can't, bend themselves or last resort, you have to kill them. That's exactly what's going. It's, it is that important to kill journalists, to shut them up and tell the rest of us, you could be next. And that's exactly what they're doing, systematically, systemically, and nobody really, you got to remember this profession that perhaps you and I love, I know I do. I love this profession for all of the problems that it has, because it still provides.

the light. There's a glimmer there where the truth can escape. And aha, that means you can level the playing field. But you have to remember that not everybody loves a journalist. The public doesn't think that highly of journalists. We're becoming more aware. And we understand that journalism matters. Everyday people understand that. But if you poll people, remember, journalists and politicians, they pull pretty close. Okay. So it's a pretty safe bet that you can take us out and nothing's really going to come of it. Yeah, especially now. And I mean, I said this over 10 years ago when Trump first started coming out onto the scene and he started his whole fake news propaganda campaign that this was going to be a problem. Because if you discredit journalism and you

discredit the journalists, you discredit everything. You know, like there's no way that people actually have a credible source on the ground reporting things that are actually happening. And so once he sewed all this discontent with the media and with journalism and in general overall, I'm not just talking about corporate media, but just like all of it. And also considering how much the journalistic landscape has changed even over the last 10 years, it is very scary to see what's happening here. And that said, you know, I don't even necessarily think of myself as a journalist. You know, I do this work, Sharon, because I can't not do it.

You know, like you can't not say something sometimes when all this stuff is happening. And that's genuinely how I ended up doing this work because it was just like, you got to say something. But that's dangerous, right? Because that's it's a calling, right? A passion. It's something that you can't ignore. It comes from inside of you. It's not just a profession.

It's a part of who you are. And that's what makes it so dangerous because people who peddle in this kind of danger and killing and destruction and suffering of other people depend on apathy. They depend on people being able to look the other way and go on with their lives. And because you can't do that, a journalist, they're looking behind doors and under things and reading things. That's dangerous to the mission, however devious that mission is. Absolutely.

And shout out absolutely to the people who are actually on the ground, on the scene over in these very, very dangerous areas and getting killed for being there. So on that note, we're going to move on to our next story. Let's roll it. Let's take a look at Trump's not approval rating on the economy. Look at where he is today, way, way down there, minus 32 points and the not approver rating. At the beginning of term two, remember Trump got a term two because voters trusted him more on the economy. He was at plus six.

That's a nearly 40 point drop in a little bit more than a year's time. And look at where he was at turn one at this point. He was at plus two points. Remember, the economy was a strength for him in term one at this point. It was a strength for him throughout his entire term one, but in term number two, it has become absolutely an anchor that is dragging him down to a historic degree. All right, well, Trump's approval ratings are again at historic lows, but someone out there is actually happy about his war in Iran.

Guess who? It's the oil companies. Fox News reported this week that with gas prices skyrocketing in response to Trump's war in Iran, oil companies are celebrating because they just had their biggest. payday in history. So Fox News hosts are backing Trump's actions in the Strait of Hormuz as being good for the American economy, specifically for American oil and gas exports. But just like Trump's tariffs were bringing in money somewhere, the American people are the ones actually paying these higher prices. We're not reaping any of the benefits of these policies. It's not trickling down

the way that they keep saying it's going to. So case in point, Sean Hannity said this. He said, it's in America's frankly unique interest if the straight was closed, stating that it's actually a net plus for the U.S. because the world has now now to come to America for all of their energy needs as we are a net exporter. And Jesse Waters kind of echoed that sentiment. He said the U.S. oil market is open for business and it is booming. Big oil just had its biggest payday in history. And the United States just hit an all-time high all week exporting five, million barrels a day. Over 100 tankers are lining up off the Gulf of America to get their frantic little hands on our sweet, sweet crude. And it's not just crude, we're shipping everything from

gas, jet fuel, diesel at record levels. And Larry Cudlow says that he's not really worried about it. If you think this negative 32 points is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because just take a look at Independence, oh my, oh my, Johnny B, oh my, look at this, Trump's economic net approval rating among independents. Okay, so what is actually going on with everything? Why is Trump's approval rating on the economy so bad if the economy itself is actually doing well? Well, Moody's analytics chief economist, Mark Zandi, said this in a social media post.

He said the economic damage from the war with Iran is mounting. Since the surge in gasoline prices has cost Americans an estimated additional $21.3 billion since the start of the war over six weeks ago. And then Zandi said in another post, the financial pain caused by the war in its fallout on consumer spending and the economy is set to intensify. So Reuters reported that whatever perks Trump has bestowed upon the American people, no tax on tips and overtime pay, etc. The increased gas prices have just canceled them out.

So at the end of the day, we're losing. And on top of that, the war is projected to cost the US $1 trillion or more leading to a global recession. We're already facing that as a real threat along with famine and in various parts of the world due to the lack of access to fertilizer and all of that is about to come to a head very soon. And Americans tend to have very short-term thinking when it comes to things like this, like the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and inflicting global pain.

And this could have some very real long-term effects. So according to the Century Foundation, war imposes specific long-term costs on the government that far surpass the cost of military operations that are, at least in theory, tallied by the Pentagon and shared with Congress. The Brown University Cost of War project has produced the definitive estimates of the cost of the global war on terror with a special focus on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and has come up with a total bill of $8 trillion. Just over a quarter of that figure is money directly spent on military operations, but a bigger portion of the cost is the cost of long-term care for veterans. Sharon,

we are losing so hard with this presidency. He told us we were going to win so hard, and we're not seeing it. Are you surprised that his approval ratings are where they are? Yeah, I don't know why there would be anybody approving of him at this point. I don't know why. As low as they are, it stuns me that they're not, you know, zero point something. Because who could really approve of this guy? What has he gotten right? Okay.

What has he gotten right? We can't drive because the gas prices are too high. We can't afford rent. We can't take care of ourselves when we're sick. We can't feed our children. And oh, yeah, we're at war. And soldiers are dying for this. He can't articulate why.

He said it was over, but it's not over. It goes on and on and on. People serve this country because they love this country. And he once said he couldn't understand, you know, why anyone would die for this. Under him, I agree. I can't understand why anyone could take an order from him, even with the insulation of having superiors between themselves and him. The guy is disgusting.

And this whole thing is fraudulent. So yeah, I am stunned that one or two people is all that's left approving of the guy who even argues with the Pope. Yeah. And you know, I do want to add also that with Trump's low approval rating, even his own voters have been turning on him. So a recent poll found that 73% of voters blame Trump for the rising cost of living, that's 73%. And it's a good thing that they're blaming Trump for this because they're able to to see directly. It's not just like economic fluctuations. It's a direct result of Trump and his administration and their policies. That is why everything is so much more expensive now than it

used to be. That's why all of our money is going elsewhere and we don't have a say in how and where we spend our money anymore. And of that 73%, by the way, that includes 57% of Republican voters. Also for the first time since 2010, and this feels big to me, more Americans for the first time since 2010 believe that Democrats would handle the economy better than Republicans, which does not bode well for Republicans in the upcoming midterms. So we're also seeing a phenomenon across the country where people seem to be taking matters into their own hands, kind of like what we were talking about in the previous story. People feel helpless and they want a way to kind of take back some of the power that they feel

they don't have access to you anymore. So according to the US warehouse fire tracker, we are currently up to four. 47 warehouse fires across the country, which is two more than since I checked yesterday. So, you know, that's what's happening across the country. That's what we're dealing with. And they're celebrating. And on Fox News, they're trying to sell it to the American people, or at least to the Fox News audience, that this is actually a good thing. The economy is doing great. The oil and gas companies are celebrating. They're thriving. They're selling all their stuff as much as they can. And they're leaving out the fact that the, the affordability crisis is still very much a crisis and it is a worsening crisis at that. So, all right,

on that note, we're going to take another break and be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the social break. I forget how fast these things go these days. All right, so let's see. Over on Twitch, Darth Hefe says, that's terrible, referring to the story about what's going on in Lebanon right now. He said, I have to go to dialysis three times a week, but it's my own fault because I ate like crap for so long. I love the self-awareness. I love that you are doing what you can for yourself now. And I'm very sad about the fact that people are over there and they're struggling so hard.

Mick Graham says, I wouldn't have the words to describe my rage hearing that after surviving multiple murder attempts for doing nothing but being in a boat, not like this. Yeah, the world is crazy. And the source of it, unfortunately, is us right now. Galfar 71 says, hey, Donald, can you attack Iran for me so I can steal all the land? in southern Lebanon. Sure, B, B, B, B, and as long as you have the F-Seam files, I will be your B-word. I can't say that. I don't think. I don't think I can say that on there. All right, let's see what's going on on YouTube. Ooh, real quick. Okay. Bobby Work says Trump's empty brain doesn't help him

think. Yeah, you know, I go back and forth. Like, is it a good thing that he can't think for himself or is it a bad thing? Like, if he was thinking and able to execute, would it be worse somehow? I don't No, beer back. All right, Sharon, we got one more story for the second hour of the Young Turks. And then afterwards, you are going to be joining me in a bonus episode. There's no revolution tonight because Jank is not here. So we got a few more extra stories. So Sharon, if you're up for it, then we can do that.

Let's do it. Yeah, all right. So one more story for this hour. Let's get right into it. How long are you willing to wait until you get a unified response? Don't rush me, Jeff. You know, guys like you, you want to say, oh, so we're in Vietnam, like for 18 years. We were in Iraq for many, many years.

We were in the Korean War for seven years. I've been doing this for six weeks. What do you say to the American people who question how much longer this will take? Obviously, you know, that they are having. You hire such a disgrace. Did you know what I just said? Vietnam. All right.

So Trump has gone from saying that the Iran war is like very complete, pretty much, you know, in and out job. We already accomplished everything. The Navy has been decimated to saying now that this war could last maybe as long as Vietnam or Iraq. Like, like what are we talking about? A bold statement to make, seeing as the U.S. is running low on critical weapon supplies. So according to a news report from the New York Times yesterday, since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. So like half of it, the military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles,

roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year. And on top of all of that, the Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot Interceptor missiles in the war at more than $4 million a pop and more than 1,000 precision strike and 8 ATA CMS ground-based missiles leaving inventories were seemingly low, according to internal defense department estimates and congressional officials. So we're just blowing through all of our stores. What did that say? 1,200 Patriot Interceptor Missiles at $4 million a pop.

That is unbelievable. I can't even wrap my head around how much money we're spending on all of that. That is all of our tax dollars. This is from the America first president who said he was. is going to keep some of this money, at least some of it here in this country. And you know, there it all goes. And all of our military reserves, as our reserves are dwindling before our very eyes, the military is now being forced to drain more hardware from our commands in Asia and Europe,

leaving these regional commands vulnerable to attacks from Russia and China, like they were there for a reason, you know? So we'll get into the impact of this more in a second, but the Defense Department has not disclose how many munitions it used in 38 days of war before the ceasefire took effect two weeks ago. The Pentagon says it hit more than 13,000 targets. But officials say that figure masks the vast number of bombs and missiles it used because warplanes, attack planes, and artillery typically strike large targets multiple times. And, you know, like naturally, you have to wonder how much is all of this costing me right now?

You might ask, you might wonder. So White House officials have refused to estimate the cost of the conflict so far. But two independent groups say the expense is staggering, somewhere between $28 billion and $35 billion, or just under $1 billion a day. So yeah, what was it, 38 days so far, not including the ceasefire, and $35 billion is the high end of the estimate. So this feels like a problem. Is there a solution to this problem? Can any of this be fixed? Yes, possibly, but the Trump administration is going to have to make some very, very tough decisions in order to do so.

So in order to restore the U.S. global stockpile to its previous size, the United States will have to make tough choices about where to maintain its military strength in the meantime at current production rates, reconstituting what we have expended could take years. That is from Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. And he's the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. And he said that this week. And the question is, so like we spent all this money that we had $35 billion that we blew through in about a month. So how are we going to replenish that? Do we have the money for that? No, also no.

So the Defense Department is now waiting for Congress to approve additional funding before it can pay weapons manufacturers to replenish the depleted American supply. In January, the administration announced that it had secured seven-year agreements with major defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, to increase production capacity for defense systems like missile interceptors. And the agreement called for quadrubling the production of precision guided munitions and THAAD missile interceptors. Defense manufacturers, for their part, agreed to fund factory expansions in exchange for secure and long-term orders. But officials said that there had been no movement to actually begin to the expanded production because the Pentagon was scrambling to find the funding. So like in a time when they would continue to be building and, you know, like start to replenish it,

nothing is happening because there is no funding. Congress, I mean, like, isn't the government still partially shut down? Like, did I miss that? So this is why the Pentagon is now shifting our weapons and our troops from Europe and Asia to the Middle East. none of this is good and we still have not been given a reason as to why this is happening, at least not an official reason from our president. Instead, he's just putting more of our stuff there, endangering all of our other little pockets of defenses that we have everywhere else. And he's kind of just like trashing all of American military strategy that has been being built

at least for the last several decades. So over in Europe, the war has led to depletions in weapons systems critical for defending the eastern flank of NATO from Russian aggression, according to Pentagon information reviewed by the New York Times. And a problem described as serious was the loss of surveillance and attack drones. The demands of the Iran war have also curtailed exercises and training. And according to military officials, this hurts the ability to mount offensive operations in Europe, as well as deterrence of potential Russian attacks. So thousands of Marines and sophisticated air defenses from Asia have also been moved to the Middle East. So we've just taken more resources from there.

So the redirected weapons include Patriot missiles and interceptors from the Thad system in South Korea. The only Asian ally hosting the advanced missile defense system deployed by the Pentagon to counter North Korea's growing missile threat. Now for the first time, the system's interceptors are being moved away according to American officials. Okay, so of course the administration is going to deny any of this. They don't even want to estimate the cost of this war because they know that once they do, it's going to be reported everywhere like even Fox News might have to say something about it. So Caroline Leavitt, who has no problem lying to millions of people every day, said in a statement in the times, the New York, or the United States of America has the most powerful military in the world fully loaded

with more than enough weapons and munitions and stockpiles here and at home and all around the globe to effectively defend the homeland and achieve any military operation direct. Like blah, blah, blah, it doesn't matter what she says because it's all lies anyways. So if we're going to be in this war for another 18 years like Trump is suggesting, how long are they even gonna try to keep this lie up? Like it's only been six weeks and you've blown through so much. If you've gone through half of everything, we don't have another 18 years here. Like it takes time to build this stuff.

It takes time to get the money for this stuff. I guess that I mean like there's another story we're going to talk about with one of Trump's plans to get more money into this country. That comes up in the bonus episodes. So stick around for that. But Sharon, what is the end game here? Do they have an end game and like why won't they tell us what it is? Because they don't know. They don't even know what game they're playing.

There's not even a name for it. These guys are fly by the seat of their pants, make it up as they go, with a hangover in the morning like Pete Hegseth quoting Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction, fake Bible verses. I mean, this is what we're dealing with. We'll never get the truth from them. And when they're finally out of office and we have to exterminate everything, okay, who spray for fleas and lies and everything else,

they will leave it in a fireball. They'll literally leave it Bernie. I remember interviewing Fannie Willis, the district attorney here in Fulton County, who produced that mugshot of Trump. And when she first took over from a career prosecutor, her words were that you should have seen what I walked into in that office. There were allegations of improprieties and dumpsters and things missing and all kinds of things that she had to weed through, not just here's the key and go on in and there's the files. It was crazy, crazy, okay, for a reason, perhaps because someone didn't want to find where the bodies were buried, figuratively speaking. In this case, it's perhaps real. So we're never going to know about all the money, all everything.

Even if you have people working for decades to piece things together. And historians and accountants, we're never going to know. And no, we're not safe right now. Pete Higsef has fired anyone who had an ounce of credibility. I mean, some of the people were just halfway credible anyway, but they weren't all the way corrupt. He got rid of anybody who could keep us safe. And he's walking in there every day with his hangover, yelling at journalists and podcasters, the ones that are allowed in the building.

And the rest of us are just kind of left here, putting up with it, seeing when we'll be attacked and left vulnerable. Yeah. And like, you have to, like, we're just not in good hands at all right now. There's nobody looking out for the American people. and all of that is very much by design, as he pointed out. They're not telling us what's happening. I know they can't divulge all this deep military strategy.

Oh, but wait a minute. If we were betting on it, but wait, if we were betting on one of those sites and making hundreds of thousands of dollars and, oh, I guess we'd just be lucky. Sure. They're all good with leaking things out when they think, I mean, remember Signalgate, okay? They're making it up as they go along. They're fools. I mean, even J.D.

Bance, did you see when he made a suggestion, he was like, oh, something about Marco Rubio. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like, oh, he has to place his polymarket bets before you do anything. And that was caught on a mic and it was released. And I just saw it earlier today. Like, that's, that's the level of seriousness that they're approaching all of this with. Okay. They're killing, they're literally killing people, innocent people who are just trying to live their lives because they're making money off a polymarket off of all this stuff. And they're also hiring contractors and things like that. But before we go, like we did get a few good comments that I think kind of like encapsulate a lot of this.

What is this? This is from the YouTube members. This is, where was the one that I found? Let me see. Well, okay, there's a lot of good ones here. But, oh yeah, someone said, and who will, this is from No Math Dragon. This is on Twitch. No Math Dragon says, and who will pay to replace the stuff?

it won't be the rich. And that is absolutely what it is. And that goes back to the earlier story that we were talking about here, Sharon, where, you know, the middle class and the lower classes are being just sucked dry, right? People are putting groceries on credit cards because they can't, they don't have the cash for it, right? But it's like, as long as you're still fine, until you're literally starving, you will find a way to pay it. And we're just going to keep upping the prices until I guess we're all just literally starving and can't eat, you know? until we're just eating like, I don't know, ketchup and wonder bread or whatever, you know, like, that's what they want. I got to be honest with you. It's pretty expensive. Maybe not ketchup then. You know, we don't get to house. And good luck going to the food bank because there's nothing there or not because people aren't well intentioned, but because as you said, bleeding us dry. And the only good thing about bleeding us dry will be that we'll have nothing left to be quiet about. And it'll be time to it. It's like the tea, the Boston Tea Party type stuff. and worse, we'll have nothing left to do but to fight to get our dignity and our right back. And while I don't want people to hit rock bottom, you know, there's people fighting now. But you know what I mean? Where we all say, okay, now you've gone too far and I'm done. And that's the only silver lining that I see with this kind of conduct.

They really think that we have no limit. They can just beat us down into suppression. And then it's just nothing's going to happen. Yeah, I mean, and even when there was that big, the fire in Ontario, California at the Kimberly Clark toilet paper factory, whenever it was being reported on a lot of these mainstream outlets, they didn't talk about the things that the man was saying in the video, which is like all you had to do was pay us more. What they reported on was all the damage, all the money that was lost in this fire. But this is like kind of the start of the people taking back their power in whatever ways they're able to. You know, we're not getting anything back from from following the rules and from abiding by all the the things we're supposed to be doing, you know, we're not getting anything back for it. So, you know, we'll just have to fight you. But I did find sharing that comment that I was looking for earlier from a YouTube member. This is from Joyce Wilshuson Fox 5548. She says, I wonder how closely related psychopaths

are to malignant narcissists. They both get off big time hurting people, damaging to death, the ones that love them. And part of me feels like. Like, you know, malignant narcissists especially, they can never just admit that they were wrong or that they screwed something up. So they'll just keep going and they will burn it all down with them. And it seems as though that is kind of what we're witnessing right now from Donald Trump. And then from everybody who is beholden to him within his administration. And it seems like the people who are still sticking with him are the people who can't separate from him. And so they're like, this has to work.

And I'm just going to keep going until everything crashes and burns. And I have to believe, like, I'm not like an anarchist. Maybe I'm not an anarchist. I don't know. I can maybe be convinced, but like, I don't want to see that happen, but I don't see how we can just like fix all of this with incremental change. So. Yeah, and that's the danger of it, right? Because now people like you, people like me are saying,

I'm starting to get it. I'm starting to get why. And we're not saying that we want it to happen. but I can see why a factory would burn. You've gone too far. And the thing about malignant narcissist is that there has to be somebody else around them. Like it can't just be a bomb has dropped. Everything's destroyed.

The world ends. It's a slow, painful burn for all of us because there's always people there, ready to take their side, ready to do their bidding, ready to go to war for them, propped up their props in this narcissistic game. And it's really, really devastating to the rest of us. Yeah. All right, Sharon. Well, thank you for that. We have more for everybody in the bonus episode. So everybody stick around. We have a couple more stories for you there. We'll be right back.