The Young Turks - Checks & Imbalances

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks out on divisive judicial overhaul: "It's a minor correction." Donald Trump’s legal and political teams are preparing for the possibility that a federal grand jury will vote on charges against the former president as early as Thursday, according to three sources familiar with the thinking of his inner circle. Reedy Creek’s governor-appointed board to cut $8 million in law enforcement overtime on Disney properties. Hedge funds seek to cut off $1 billion meant for opioid victims. Progressives unveil OLIGARCH Act to combat "existential threat" of extreme wealth inequality. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.

And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard. and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash the iPorter to learn more. All right, welcome here we have Turks. Jake Eganic is sparing with you guys. All right, Donald Trump going down for the third time, the fourth to 18th time.

Well, we'll see how it turns out, right? Well, but we do have news on that. We do. And then progressives in Congress are doing something. We're going to debate it a little bit. Is it just theatrics or is it positive movement forward? I can't even believe that's going to be a debate, but okay. No, no, it is going to be a debate. Okay. It is. And then speaking of debates, they're having a debate in the right wing community over trad wives. If you don't know what a trad wife is, first of all, super awkwardly named. We will tell you, later and then we'll tell you what the kerfuffle's about. And I think you'll be deeply amused. Okay. We begin with serious news, though. Yes. So there is some international news I wanted to talk

about today. Let's get to it. I think Israel is a democracy, will remain a democracy. I think it'll be a stronger democracy after some of these reforms are met. People don't understand democracies. You know, they don't understand that France can have these divisions, that the U.S. can have these divisions, that Israel has these divisions. But the strength of democracy is that we voice these divisions, we protest, but ultimately we make important democratic decisions. And that'll be the case in Israel as well. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel, of course, is now trying to defend the decision to weaken Israel's judiciary system. In fact, this was a decision passed by lawmakers

in Israel this week. And it has sparked. mass protests, including protests for members of the military. We'll get to those details in just a moment. But first, a few details about what has been done to the political system in Israel, what the fallout is, and what we could expect in the future. So before we continue, it's really important to understand that unlike the United States, the Israeli government does not have a constitution. So when it comes to their judges, they do have a system of checks in back.

balances, the judges are able to decide on whether or not the actions of the lawmakers are reasonable or unreasonable. So they don't base their decisions on constitutionality because they do not have a constitution the same way the United States does. Now, the bill in question here that passed on July 24th significantly limits the Supreme Court's oversight of government actions and policies and ends the court's ability to strike down government decisions and appointments on the basis of reasonability. So again, the whole point here, what they're doing, the lawmakers under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu is they are weakening their system of checks and balances,

weakening the judiciary in the country so they can essentially go forth, go forward unchecked. Go ahead, Jake. Yeah, so it's even made worse by the fact that it's a parliamentary system. So once the ruling party has a majority in parliament, as Netanyahu's does, and they appoint the prime minister, if there is no judicial check at all, so unreasonable is the equivalent of unconstitutional in our system. So now the judiciary cannot rule anything unreasonable that the prime minister does or parliament does. So then that judiciary becomes totally irrelevant politically. So that means that whatever Netanyahu says and gets his party to agree to in parliament, it's over. That's the law of the land, so they can basically do anything they want.

The unreasonable standard was to check for minority rights and to make sure they were following the democratic principles of not just majority rule, but minority rights and protections of human rights, et cetera. And now those things do not exist anymore. So whatever Netanyahu says becomes the law of the land in Israel. That's what people are concerned about. Honestly, that little piece that you saw there, I thought Stephanopoulos did an awful interview. He did not explain that and he never asked him about that.

And it made him, it was just propaganda for Netanyahu. It was pretty gross. We're gonna have a few other examples of that in just a moment. But I do wanna also talk a little bit about the protests. The protests have been ongoing for months to the lead up of the passage of this legislation, to the passage of weakening the judicial system in Israel. And after the lawmakers passed the legislation on Monday of this week, the protests really did explode even further. So last week, by the way, there were

members of the military in Israel who said we are not going to participate in the military as a form of protest. And so last week 1,142 Air Force Reservists announced they would end their volunteer duty in protest of Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to overhaul the judiciary. Among them is Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen, His name is obviously not N, but that's what he would like to go by. Who was asked, he was asked to be only referred by his rank. And here's what he told NBC News. I came to the conclusion that this government is the biggest danger that Israel faces right now,

more than any external enemy or threat, be it Iran, Hezbollah, anyone out there. Since I don't believe in violence inside Israel, the only option that I was left with is to stop serving in reserve. I don't want to serve a dictatorship. And despite that public outcry, Netanyahu absolutely insists that these changes are not going to weaken Israel's democracy, but rather strengthen it. And here's a little piece of that propaganda in the interview that Cenk was referencing right here. I think we have to bring back Israeli democracy in line with what is common to all democracies.

The essence of democracy is the balance between the will of the majority and the rights of the minority. And that's achieved by the balance between the three branches of government. That's been taken off the rails and Israel in the last 20 years because we have the most activist judicial court on the planet. And it's arrogated for itself powers from the government, from the executive, and the legislative branches. So we're trying to correct it. But I want to bring the pendulum to the middle. I don't want to bring the pendulum to the other side. There's a middle ground there and I hope we can achieve it. But that's why we're doing it. Imagine that in the United States, the Supreme Court could tell the executive, the president, okay?

We are nullifying any one of your decisions just based on something that we think is unreasonable. You would not accept it. We don't accept it. But we have to correct it. And that's what we just did. It's a minor correction. It's described as the end of Israeli democracy. I think that's silly.

And when the dust settles, everybody will see that. Now keep in mind that Benjamin Netanyahu leads a right-wing government in Israel right now. He is a right-wing politician and is also facing some pretty serious bribery and corruption charges. So the timing here is pretty convenient for Netanyahu. But Jake, I don't know, maybe I'm being unfair. Do you believe him? Do you think that he's just trying to get the pendulum to swing to the middle? Look, Nanjahou is allowed to do any propaganda he likes for himself.

But it's Stephanopoul's job to check him. He had four outrageous things right there. First of all, he's like, imagine if in America the president or the legislative branch was overruled by the Supreme Court. Yeah, I can imagine that because it happens all the time. Like that's our system of government, and that was your system of government until you just destroyed it. He's like, look, we're just trying to look for balance. No, you're not. You had balance.

Now the judiciary is irrelevant, so you don't have any balance at all. And again, in a parliamentary system, we, like for example, in America, since we don't have a parliamentary system, we can have the Republicans hold the House, Democrats hold the Senate, Democrats hold the presidents. You've got a balance of powers, you got checks on one another. No, in a parliamentary system, the prime minister is picked from the majority. So there's no breaks left in that car. Then he says, oh, I'm for a balancing of majority rights and minority rights. No, but this eviscerated minority rights, now the minority, whichever minority in any direction in Israel,

is not can't can't be protected by the judiciary and then he said this is the moderate position no it's not the reason why Israel is exploding with anger and protests and all of these people in their military resigning is because this is nowhere near moderate this is nowhere near the middle this is extreme extreme right wing if you watch that and I did I watched a whole interview with Stephanopoulos you would not have come away with that impression at all if you didn't know anything about the current situation you would think that Netanyahu was was the centrist candidate in Israel, and he was just trying to help minorities and balance

and democracy. Because Stephanus never checked him on it. Lie after lie after lie. So, I should also note that. So I should also note that in response to a question about the protests, the ongoing protests in Israel, Netanyahu simply says, we'll get over it. They'll get over it. Not a big deal.

So just force this, knowing that the majority of people in the country are not in favor of weakening the judicial system in the country and hope that within due time, they will get over it. They'll just move on. We'll see if that's the case. But I do want to go to one last video here because he, as I mentioned earlier, is facing some charges having to do with fraud, breach of trust. and bribery. And he denies any wrongdoing and is even offended at the insinuation that he has

connected this weakening of the judicial system to his own potential criminality. Let's watch. And what do you say to your critics who say that this reform is designed in part for you to protect yourself against these corruption charges you've been facing? I think it's ridiculous. It has nothing to do with my trial because it's been proceeding for three years. It's actually unraveling. I don't know if you know that a few weeks ago, the three judges called in the prosecution and said, listen, we haven't heard yet any of the defense witnesses, but we're telling you,

drop the bribery charge. That's the main charge. You should drop it right now. So look, I have only one request for my trial that hasn't been met so far, that we have live television coverage of the trial. It's the best show in town. This has nothing to do with my trial. It's a bogus charge.

So he says it's a bogus charge. But again, the timing, super convenient for him, super convenient. So what the people on TV never tell you for understandable reasons, is that they oftentimes get these guests in a competition with other shows. And so how do they compete to get Netanyahu on ABC instead of NBC or CBS? Well, they promise him goodies, that they'll be fair to him, fair to him. So then what they do is 100% marketing. So Stephanopoulos ask a softball question disguised as a hardball question.

It looks like Stephanopoulos is challenging him on the fact that he has these criminal charges against him. But he knows that Netanyahu knows that question is coming. So Netanyahu has a BS answer ready. Oh, I am innocent. I won't have the whole world to watch. Oh, the bribery charges are going to be dropped. Odis has nothing to do with my case. I mean, it would affect it completely, but it has nothing to do with it.

If you're doing a real interview, you then challenge him after that with facts showing that he is wrong. Nope, no follow up at all. So when you ask the question, it's meant to help him do marketing to pretend that his case is not relevant when it's definitely relevant to this. So it's just a miserable interview. And at the end, you know, Stefan Obles with another hardball question of like, well, President Biden seems to disagree a little bit. He wanted you to slow down, did you? Like, first of all, that's not even the question at hand. Israel's having an internal issue here.

Who cares what Biden thinks or McConnell thinks? I get it. Your relationship with America is relevant. I understand that. But again, it's such a softball because then he gets to go, oh, yeah, no, I did slow down for three months because Biden asked me, because I'm such a great ally to America. Well, no, you slowed down because you were worried about national security and all those people that were going to quit and you use it as a way to get more support.

And I hear you, and that's normal politics inside your own country. But you didn't soften it 1%. And so it made it seem like he agreed with Biden when he doesn't. Even Biden, who's going to give him everything he wants anyway, right? But put out a strongly worded letter about Netanyahu. But if you watch that interview, again, you would probably think that Nanjana. Yahoo and Biden agree 100% at this point when that's not remotely the case. Look, at the end of the day, we here in the United States, like as ordinary citizens,

have no control over what happens in Israel. It's really important for the people of Israel to do what they've been doing, to stand up, and to be persistent in their protests, be strategic in trying to get, you know, this power-hungry, right wing prime minister out of office. I think that that's like what they should focus on. But here in the United States, we should focus on our own government and what our own government supports, right? So I'm not interested in Biden's strongly worded letter to Benjamin Netanyahu. The argument that we hear from the U.S. government in regard to Israel over and over again is this is the strongest democracy, this is the best democracy in the region. How are you going to

make that argument as you're funneling billions of dollars in U.S. tax money to Israel, right, to help them with Iron Dome, to help them with their military. How, what is the excuse going to be now, right? How are you going to argue that it's a democracy while, you know, the only pressure the U.S. government has applied to the Israeli government on this issue is a strongly worded letter? Yeah, don't get me wrong. Like, Biden definitely disagrees with him and Netanyahu, who almost made it seem like that he agreed with him. But the disagreement is irrelevant. And that's why I don't even like the question, because the question is, if Stephanopoulos knows we're not going to do anything to Israel,

he knows we're not going to take away one dollar from Israel. He's just doing this as like a way, again, seeming like he's asking him a hard question, ooh, could this endanger your relationship with America? Okay, why don't you ask Biden next time he's on? Are you going to cut a single dollar? Look, no one in mainstream media would even dare to ask such a question. And so if we're all outraged and Biden is genuinely outraged at how Netanyahu is destroying democracy in Israel. And if you love our allies in Israel, you would want democracy.

You would root for them to have a healthy government that is more democratic. Well, then you would push your allies in the right direction. But are we going to do that? No. We can't, look, people will love to throw around identity politics here to cover for their political, you know, positions, especially their right wing positions. But the reality is, of course we're not going to do anything because of the lobbyists. So I've been covering politics for 25 years.

It doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat in charge at all. Israel's funding has never been cut. It's only been added to every single year. No politician is ever allowed to question it. When Ilhan Omar questioned her a little bit, they did a resolution calling her an anti-Semite, when she made the most obvious point in the world that lobbyists matter, not just for Israel, But for Saudi Arabia, for all these countries, and for all these companies and interests, to pretend that the lobbyists don't matter when they're funneling millions of millions of dollars

into these politicians is absurd. And it's a giant lie by the American media going, I don't see it. Oh, did the money wind up in ads for us? Oh, no, golly gee. Get out of here, man. We know nothing's going to happen. It doesn't matter if Attila the Hun runs Israel. We're going to give them more money and more money and more money because it has nothing to do with our love for Israel.

It doesn't, because if it did, then we would want to actually help our ally go in the right direction. No, we don't care. Those politicians just want the money and they will do as they're told. Look, people are going to, you know, get really mad. But Nanyahu's not one percent worried because we're not the boss of him. And he knows it. And that's just the reality. Same reason, by the way, that Muhammad bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, not one percent worried.

Because we're not the boss of him. And that's how these lobbyists have completely taken over our government. When we come back from the break, we're going to move away from foreign news and focus a little bit on what's happening domestically, including what appears to be an imminent arraignment for Donald Trump, the third indictment. That more coming up. All right back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys in Ingram. Well, I think it's a recent member gifted five Young Turks memberships. We appreciate it.

You're awesome. Casper. Well, let's talk a little bit about one of the many investigations that Donald Trump is facing. Trump's lawyers were told to expect an indictment during the meeting this morning. However, Trump and a spokesman are disputing that. Trump received a letter from Smith's office last week saying he's a target of the investigation. That letter outlined three federal statutes, deprivation of rights under color of law, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and tampering with a witness.

New reporting indicates that Donald Trump's indictment in the case involving his attempts to overturn the 2020 election is imminent, although it seemed as though it was going to happen And today, so far, no word on that. However, as you heard in that video, Donald Trump's legal team did meet with Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Trump in this particular case. And here are the details. So Trump attorneys, Todd Blanche, and John Loro, were meeting in Washington with prosecutors from special counsel, Jack Smith's office Thursday morning.

And that's according to three sources with direct knowledge of the situation, members of the grand jury hearing evidence in the case were seen arriving at the federal courthouse earlier in the morning. Now, as was also mentioned in the video that you watched, Trump is denying that there's any indication that his indictment is imminent in this case. And he also wrote about this meeting that his lawyers had on truth social, claiming that, quote, my lawyers had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong. I highly doubt that's what happened, was advised by many lawyers and that an indictment of me would only further destroy our country. No indication of notice was given during the meeting. Do not trust the fake

news on anything. So, Jank, thoughts on this? Do you believe that an indictment in the 2020 election case is imminent? It certainly looks that way. You wouldn't send the target letter unless you were going to indict them. And Trump's team meeting with Smith's team ahead of time is very normal, but nothing's going to come out of it. Because normally you'd be talking about potential plea deals, but I can't imagine that they would do a plea deal here. I don't know what they would plea for. I don't know what Trump would accept. I can't think of a single thing that Trump would admit to doing wrong.

And by the way, that doesn't mean that Trump would never do it. He has admitted to doing things wrong. And main cases go away before. Remember the $25 million fine that he paid. In fact, in two different scams, he agreed that he was guilty and paid fines. That's Trump University and the Trump charity, right? But this is a criminal case. And it's a very, very important one, both for him personally but also politically.

So I don't know what the meeting was about, but it is overall fairly routine. It almost certainly is going to get indicted. The only question that remains, guys, is how quickly can these cases go? Because, you know, the Trump-friendly lawyer in the most important one, the documents one, well, you could argue that actually this one, the January 6th one, is the most important because this is the mother load. This is about the coup that they tried with the fake electors, right? But the national security one with the documents is the most clear-cut case,

and it's very severe crimes that he committed. But unfortunately, that judge pushed it out till past Super Tuesday. So it's unclear how much it's going to affect the primaries. And for the cases, they shouldn't take that into account. But for the rest of us, it is enormously relevant. So there are some updates on the other investigations that Donald Trump is facing. Remember, he is also facing charges. He was indicted on 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified documents.

he pleaded not guilty to all 37 counts. However, there's an update to that investigation because as ABC News reports, Donald Trump and two others are facing additional charges in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents. The charges have come in a superseding indictment to the original charges in the case. So this could mean that Trump could face additional charges in this particular case. Now, one of those charged is Carlos de Oliveira, who is a current Trump organization employee, who is also the head of maintenance at Mar-a-Lago.

So we'll see what the additional charges will be, but that story is developing as we speak. It literally just broke. Yeah, so some of the key things here in both cases, in the documents case, Walter Nata is his main assistant, basically, at Mar-a-Lago. If he turns on him, Trump's in a lot of trouble. If he stays with Trump, he might be okay. No, probably not. That case is super solid, right?

But Notto would be a nail in the coffin. But if he wins the election, he could just pardon himself. So that's because that's a federal one. This is also federal. And in this January 6th case, the potential giant witness could be Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff. No one's heard from Mark Meadows in a long, long time. That's a good point.

And there was a little bit of talk about him giving testimony, and it was not clear whether he got an immunity deal, whether he's going to flip on Trump or not. It's like the best kept secret in America. But if Meadows flips on him in this case, that could be problematic because Meadows knows they were going to do the fake elector scheme. Meadows knows that Trump said that it was no big deal if Mike Pence got murdered, that he deserved it. I mean, Meadows wrote about this at his book, didn't he? No, Navarro wrote about it in his book. Oh, that's right, that's right. Meadows has been a witness protection program since the Trump presidency ended.

So we'll see. Not literally, by the way, just in case you're wondering. But he has been hiding out. And it's weird how no one's talking about him. So I wonder if they already flipped them and they're trying to keep that ace in their pocket. But that's speculative. Look, honestly, the circus that has kind of developed in American politics is concerning. Right? So like you have the head of the Republican Party, still the head of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, looking ahead toward yet another indictment on another case. And that's, of course, having to do with his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. You have the other two issues, right? The hush money payments. Then you also have the issue with his handling of classified documents. Then you look at Republicans in Congress, like Marjorie Green, you know, printing out giant props of Hunter Biden.

naked right to show during a house hearing like can we just where are the adults like where are like are any competent people left well no of course not and remember look I write about this in my book justice is coming as recently as a couple of election cycles ago 95% of the time the candidate with more money wins the congressional elections okay so What that means is, and it used to be 97%, so what that means is even if you're in the three to five percent who are honest, you're, and you won, they're going to come for you over and over and over again. And eventually the ones who keep taking the money and doing the wrong things are going to dominate in this system. And they are dominating. So that's why nobody's trying to pass any laws because the laws would try to help you.

The only laws that they pass are to help corporations and the wealthy. And you see it over and over again. Republicans are brazen, they do it 24-7, they've never passed, they're not even trying to pass a single law that would help the average American. If you challenge him on it, they don't even have one. They're like, well, if we help the rich, well eventually they'll trickle all over here or something, right? That's why we did the IRS, trying to take away the IRS agents first, because they were going to audit only the rich. And we can't have that. Those are our top donors. That was their number one priority. But the Democrats, they play a game two where they give

you 10% of what you want, and then go, okay, it's all. mission accomplished 10% right and and then the media come in and go historic oh my god the Democrats are fighting for you and then they high five behind the scenes so some more developments in the investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents so he's facing two additional charges so it was charged with one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and I apologize and in addition to that two additional obstruction counts to alleged attempts to delete surveillance video footage at his Mar-a-Lago resort in the summer of 2022. See, that's important too, because that is clearly a crime and super easy to prove.

And they wouldn't charge it unless they already had the evidence. This is a very careful prosecutor, right? So look, guys, the giant question here is, if Trump gets convicted, what happens next? Is he actually going to go to prison? That seems inconceivable. So okay, so are we just going to be like, yeah, he's guilty and we all know it, but who cares? He's not going to go to prison, there's going to be no consequences, and he's going to run for president, and he might win the presidency, and then he pardons himself, and he commit any crimes he likes,

and then pardon himself, commit crimes, pardon himself. And we're all okay with that? I got to jump in. You know, what's so incredible is Hunter Biden did commit tax crimes. And so his plea deal fell apart yesterday in court. And the plea deal, at least as far as he and his legal team understood it, was that if he pleads guilty to the tax crimes, they will drop a DOJ charge against him in regard to possession of an illegal firearm. Okay. And he would serve no time behind bars if he took that plea deal.

Republicans were furious about that because they demand that he served time behind bars. Now look, he committed a crime and if I were to avoid paying my taxes, especially if I've been making millions and millions of dollars, I don't know if I'd end up in prison, right? But I certainly wouldn't get any special treatment. Ordinary people would not get special treatment. So I hear the GOP out on that. However, however, they provide cover for all of Trump's criminality, regardless of what he does.

It doesn't matter what he does. Handling of classified documents, who cares? Who cares? Let's try to find a hollow what aboutism comparing Trump to to Biden, even though Biden handed over documents as soon as he realized he was in possession of them. What aboutism goes both ways? Right.

So if, and I dare any Republican to answer this honestly. There's no way in the world they will, not one, okay? What if Biden had done the same things Trump did? Would you want him being prosecuted or not? And you know you would. So go ahead and lie to yourself if you want, okay? But we all know it and you know it. Oh, if document, if, oh, Biden, he didn't take home documents.

He didn't take home top secret documents. He didn't stuff them in the bathroom and the, et cetera. And much more importantly, when he found the documents himself, turn them over, when the FBI said, hey, Mr. President, we know you have documents to Trump. He's like, no, I don't. Why did he lie to the FBI? He lied to his own attorneys. If Biden lied to the FBI like that and hidden the most top secret documents we have,

including about our nuclear programs and about the nuclear programs of our allies, you guys would want his head on his stick and you know that and you know that imagine if Biden came up with a scheme of having fake electors that when he loses an election he just puts in the fake electors and says he won can you imagine and Kamala Harris is his vice president she goes no I'm going to recognize the fake electors and not the real electors you guys would you'd create you would have civil war you would be so mad you would commit massive violence okay and you all know it you all know it, right? But when Trump does it, oh, that's my daddy, that's my daddy's. I'm a little baby, so I'm going to let my daddy commit every crime and not do a goddamn thing

about it. Try to be an American for a change, okay? We believe in democracy. Well, I don't know what you guys believe. Why don't you guys move to Saudi Arabia? Trump loves it so much. You guys can all move there. No, I got to say the the Tete thing that you just did was amazing. Okay, let's move on. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' petty quarrel with Disney has now entered the phase of defund the police to own the libs. I'm not even kidding, that is what his appointed board is currently working to do. So the board that DeSantis appointed to oversee Disney Special District is now looking to cut millions of dollars from the very deputies who protect the park's guests. So during a Wednesday meeting, officials said the previous board spent 8 million, 8.2 million, to be exact, every year on law enforcement overtime on Disney properties.

Now the board is doing away with that spending and cutting 8 million used to pay law enforcement officers in off-duty shifts, saying the cost of fighting Disney in court has caused it to have to find money in other places. Okay? So this is so incredible. Now, there is currently a deal in place with the Orange County Sheriff's Office that will last through the fall of 2024. So any cuts that they make will will impact the deputies and impact Disney after the fall of 2024. Now, Martin Garcia, who is the chairman of the DeSantis appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, said this, there was spending on a number of fronts that was wasteful. $8 million was being used for law enforcement services exclusively on Disney properties, and that doesn't make any sense to me.

Further, Garcia noted, as we are doing more work, it appears there are a number of other naughty things that this old board did with district funds. Now, $8 million does sound like a lot of money when it comes to policing of. the Disney resorts in Florida. But I do want to give you some proper context in case you're unfamiliar with how much land they control there and just how many parks they oversee. So apparently Disney has about 25,000 acres in Florida. And so those are the 25,000 acres that the police deputies would patrol. They have four theme parks, two water parks, golf courses, dozens of hotels, shops, restaurants, and bars.

And I didn't know this, but part of the reason why Disney has control of that land is because back in the 1950s, I believe it was, when they wanted to develop that land, the state had no money. They could not help with that development. They couldn't help with roads, they couldn't help with the infrastructure necessary to support the resorts. So Disney is basically used their resources to build all the infrastructure in that town in order to accommodate the theme parks that they later.

are built. So they also do contribute taxes to the state of Florida. This is very different from some of these sweetheart deals and the subsidized projects that other states do for, let's say, Amazon warehouses. Don't think of it that way because it is different from those subsidies. But, Shank, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, look, when I first saw this, this story breaks in two different parts. One is, should DeSantis have gone after Disney in the first place? That's an easy one. Disney just said, hey, we don't approve of the Don't Say Gay Bill. They didn't even call it the Don't Say Gay Bill. They called it its real name. It didn't do anything. Like, it was just like an empty statement. And so like if you're in the LGBTQ community, there's nothing

even to be too happy about it. Okay, good. A company says something nice. But there was no consequences, no nothing. Okay, they didn't fight back 1%. But DeSantis caught feelings. And so So the reality is, of course, it isn't about feelings. He thinks, oh, if I go after Disney for being too woke, my base will be happy because this is the original bill is about discriminating against people in the LGBTQ community. And DeSantis thinks, not me, Desantis thinks his base hates the gay community. And so any controversy that gets a lot of attention where Desantis is seen as the fighter against the LGBTQ community, he thinks is going to be a political win for him.

That's the easy part. But when he turned to, hey, I'm going to take away their authority here and running this town in Florida. I was like, huh, I'm not sure they should have that authority. Why is a company running a town? And why are they deciding where the taxpayer money goes? That doesn't seem right at all. So DeSantis might be accidentally correct here. And we should see if they should have ever had them. But when you look into the details, it turns out no, shockingly, Disney's overpaying in taxes. I almost can't believe it. I know, I know. And the reason I think that that happened is because the deals were struck such a long time ago.

Totally. That it was the pre-Bucley Vileo decisions in the Supreme Court that allowed for bribery, basically, in America. It was pre-bribery decisions. So Disney actually pays money to two nearby counties, taxes, full taxes, and then pays taxes for this area as well. So they're double paying in taxes. And it's their tax money that goes to that $8 million. and cops that DeSantis' goons just defunded. Yeah.

So they take Disney's money and we're not going to give it to you in cops. But it's Disney's money in the first place. Right. So look, I want to note that they're attempting to defund the police in this area, the Disney deputies. However, that decision will not be finalized until later. September 27th is the final vote on that. So let's hold and wait and see what happens.

But the other thing I wanted to bring up and also give credit. to a mediaite writer who shed some light on this, Sarah Rumpf, is that these are the very deputies who actually ended up deterring the Pulse nightclub shooter from shooting up one of their parks. I didn't know this, but apparently the Pulse nightclub wasn't where the shooter initially wanted to carry out that disgusting violent attack that killed dozens of people. He and his wife were scoping out Disney theme parks. So I want to give you a few excerpts from Sarah Rump's piece in Mediite. According to statements, the shooter's wife, Nor Salman, made to federal authorities, the couple had scouted several Walt Disney World locations, including the shopping and entertainment complex known as Disney Springs, in the days before the shooting.

So at the 2018 trial for her obstruction and aiding her husband in the attack, federal prosecutors entered evidence that included Omar Matina. That was the shooter, buying a stroller and baby doll at a local Walmart one day before the shooting to use to smuggle his gun into Disney property and a video of him walking near the House of Blues on June 12th several hours before the shooting. In the video, you can see him like looking behind him at police officers standing by. Yeah, and look, you got to give the concerted case a little bit of credit here. So they say, hey, if we have more good guys with guns and cops surrounding every location, shooters will be less likely to go into those locations. Nine out of ten times it doesn't work that way at all. They just walk right past the guards and do their match shooting.

We've seen it in school after school, let alone other places. But in this case, they were right. The cops did deter Mateen from shooting there. Unfortunately, they didn't deter him from shooting overall. He just went down the street and killed 49 people at Pulse Nightclub and injured another 53. But taking away these officers from Disney could be disastrous. And Disney's in a very tough spot because they can't fight back, I think. And the reason I say that is because if they go to fight back publicly with the Santas,

they'll have to say now there's not as much security at Disney, and that might scare away customers. So they're kind of in a bind here. But this, look, there's so many ironies in the story because politicians trying to hold corporations accountable would be an incredible relief in this country. It would be an improvement from what we have today. It would be so welcome, right? Right. But of course, as usual, in this case, the Republican DeSantis has found a way to attack a corporation in the only nonsensical way possible.

Well, I mean, look, it really, you have to understand what motivates them and what the ideology is driven by, right? Conservative Republicans like Ron DeSantis do not have a problem with corporate greed. The populism that you see building in the country, it has been building in the country for years now, stems from the inequality and the corporate greed and all of that. And I think, I don't know for a fact that Ron DeSantis wants to ride that wave and give the illusion that he wants to hold corporations accountable. And he's doing it, you know, not through attacking corporate greed, but specifically because of culture war nonsense, right? But I do think that other Republicans have tried to give this appearance that they're trying to take the corporations to task. I mean, I remember when we had Prager on. I was debating Prager and he's like, I hate corporations.

But he wasn't saying that because he hates corporate greed. He was saying that because he doesn't like the woke culture within the corporations. Yeah, it's their way of feeding the anti big business fervor that their base has, but misdirecting it. Oh, don't worry about how they're robbing you blind by bribing all the politicians and getting billions of dollars in subsidies. That's your taxpayer money that they're robbing. No, no, no, don't be worried about it. Oh, they like gay people. Boo, that's what the real problem with companies is.

They're ruining your lives and crushing your wages and dignity and respect because they like gay people. And that's the trick that these guys all play. Look, one last thing to our Republican viewers, I challenge you guys. If you're really upset about the woke companies, why don't you ask? all the Republican politicians to stop taking their money. That's a great point. And by the way, we're honest here and we're fair and principled. We ask all the Democrats to stop taking their money.

We don't just ask, we just pound them over and over again about their corruption because they take the money of those corporations. Are you going to ask your Republican politicians to do that? Are you going to ask Ron DeSantis to do that? Are you going to ask Donald Trump to do that? Yes, Donald Trump takes that money too, okay? Are you going to ask Mitch McConnell do that? For Mitch McConnell, you might hate him because of Trump, and maybe you'll listen to

to it there. But remember, they're all corrupt. They all take that company bribes. They call campaign contributions. Go ahead, challenge him on it. You'll find out. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, more funds and games. This time we'll talk a little bit about how one of the major manufacturers of opioids is trying to skirt having to pay $1.7 billion to the victims of the opioid crisis. That and more coming up. Don't miss it. All right, back on TYT, Jankana. I was in the middle of answering a question during the social break. So I'll just finish that thought.

Hold, was that a member? Yes. Okay, perfect. We actually have videos that we didn't even get to about the, UFO hearing yesterday because John was just not buying the story and it was awkward to talk about it with someone who doesn't care. Why don't we talk about it a little bit of the bonus episode? Oh, okay, I'll definitely address it. Okay. Aliens have definitely come here. It's not even close. Okay, let's never mind. We're not going to talk about it. No, no, we're going to talk about it

and we're going to have a rational conversation. I don't understand why people can't understand simple logic. Anyways, we'll talk about t.y.com slash join to become a member or hit the Join button below on YouTube. And Bruce Salazar, thank you for gifting three memberships to the community. You're awesome. Anna. All right, this next story gives you a sense of just how much our system is slanted in the direction of corporate interests. And it's incredible. So a group of hedge funds are now conspiring a plan that would cut off about $1 billion meant to help victims of the opioid epidemic. Now, the plan would allow the hedge funds. funds to keep the cash that was meant to be allocated to these victims for themselves.

So how will this happen? Now, it's important to understand a little bit of context. Let's go back and talk a little bit about a particular opioid manufacturer. Okay, so at the center of this story is drug manufacturer Malincourt, which was the country's largest producer of opioid pills between 2006 and 2014. So they were taken to court for their role. in the opioid crisis in the country, and the results of that, you know, case led to a $1.7 billion payout to the victims. Now, court papers filed in 2019, in connection with a federal investigation into the company, showed that Malincourt sales representatives discussed how consumers of their opioids were becoming addicted, with one writing the pills were just like

Doritos keep eating will make more. And boy, did they make more, a lot more. So when I say that they were the top opioid producer in the country between 2006 and 2014, here's what I meant. Between 2006 and 2014, the manufacturer made 2.3 billion opioid pills, making it the single largest producer in the United States during that period. And that's according to the drug enforcement agency, and the DEA records later showed that 40%, nearly half, 40% of all opioid pills sold in U.S. pharmacies between 2006 and 2012, all came from this one manufacturer. So here's the outcome of the lawsuits. There were municipal and state lawsuits toward this company, and so Malancourt last year agreed to pay $1.7 billion to resolve thousands of

lawsuits brought by state and local governments and opioid addicted individuals who accuse the company of helping cause a public health crisis. And the settlement funds were supposed to be paid through 2030, okay, and they were meant to help state health departments by life-saving overdose reversal drugs like Narcan and also pay for the treatment costs, the rehabilitation cost for people who took the prescription drugs and became addicted to them. So so far about 1.3 billion of the 1.7 billion has yet to be paid, and this is where the hedge funds come in. I'm gonna stop for comment, Jank. What do you think about this so far? Yeah, this is a disastrous idea. It was also inevitable, and it is really important that the courts find a way to make sure this does not happen.

So let me tell you guys about what the idea is, because I haven't gone to those decisions. I know I'm with you but I just want to say look hedge fund guys are always going to try to stiff people on their bills and it's not like it's capitalism they're not going to just give over billions of dollars in money right they're going to fight tooth and nail and it's the job of the government to protect you as they were supposed to do with these opioids they didn't individuals and states have to sue to get you know redress of grievances and now of course the wealthy are coming in to undo it all to begin with. All these opioids are heroin to be in their first place. They just legalized it and like guys in suits sell it. Once we allowed for bribery, all of this was inevitable. Now, the worst part about all of this is there is a plan in place involving these hedge funds to essentially assist this manufacturer in avoiding having to pay out the money.

Okay, remember I told you that $1.3 billion of the $1.6. $7 billion has yet to be paid to the victims of the opioid crisis that was partly caused by this manufacturer, just pumping out pills into the market. So Mallin Court is talking to hedge funds about filing for bankruptcy and avoiding payments intended to help people addicted to opioids. As part of a prearranged deal, the manufacturer will propose to write off about $1 billion from what it still owes to addiction victims and state and local governments

while making a one time payment of roughly $250 million. So the group of hedge funds is essentially wanting the company to go through another bankruptcy, Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and through that restructuring, the hedge funds would then be the owners of the pharmaceutical company, the manufacturer here, and they would, They would write off the bulk of what remains owed to the opioid victims and only pay out

just a small fraction, $250 million. The funds under their plan would become Malincourt's new owners following an exit from Chapter 11, writing down some of their billions in debt in exchange for stakes in the restructured company, the people said. They could stand to lose out if the company's stock plummets in value after it exits from bankruptcy, but they could also be big winners if Malincourt buys back stocks, which they certainly will, or pays out dividends to its new shareholders, the people said. Yeah, so first of all, this is really important. They're not bankrupt.

The Wall Street Journal says in the article like, well, the hedge fund guys are worried that they are less profitable now and they're worried about their investment. Yeah, that's called capitalism. So what? You guys sold a drug that was highly addictive. You did it on purpose, you knew that it was going to not only get a lot of people addicted, but get a lot of people killed. And you profited off of it, you got caught, you did a settlement. And now you're saying, yeah, I know, but that's going to hurt my profits. I know, that's why you were sued, because we want to hurt your profits, because you profited off of their deaths, right? And so now they're saying, yeah, but look, if we just declare a false bankruptcy, we'll just pretend

we're bankrupt, it's going to wipe away our debts. Now, if they did this normally and the The other end of the transaction was another company or private interest, they wouldn't let him get away with it because then both sides are fighting for a billion dollars and other guys would sue them to oblivion and they'd fight this out forever and ever and one side would win. But the hedge fund guys are thinking the other side is just the government. It's much easier to be. And remember, all we got to do is grease these politicians, they do anything. They won't remember when they legalized heroin for us?

You think they do that they're gonna fight us tooth and nail? No, they're gonna let us keep, if not, Not the entire billion, a giant chunk of the billion, if we do this scam. But if they're allowed to do this scam, then anyone who is not bankrupt can declare bankruptcy to not pay their bills, especially bills to the American tax payer. This happens all the time with corporations. Just I want you guys to really absorb this, okay? Because of the bankruptcy bill that Joe Biden championed, students are unable to do.

discharge their student loan debt, even in the case of a bankruptcy. However, corporations that are doing well are actually very profitable are able to declare bankruptcy in an effort to skirt financial responsibility as a result of litigation. That is exactly what this is. And by the way, I want to provide the evidence for how profitable this company is, right? Because back in May, executives for Malincourt had a shareholder meeting, and during that shareholder meeting, here's what we found. Around the time that Silver Point and other funds approached the company over plans to back out of the settlement in the spring, it had about

$480 million of cash on its balance sheet. I wish I was that bankrupt. God, seriously, on its balance sheet and around $200 million available to be drawn under a bank line of credit. And it wasn't in deep. fault under any of its debts, and that's according to public filings and people familiar with the matter. During that shareholder meeting, the executives are like, oh, we're doing real well, man. It's just so brazen. This whole thing is so brazen. So guys, like I said, if they get away with this, then any company can say, I'm not paying any of my bills, okay? Especially

if I owe the taxpayers, oh, I'm gonna screw them. I'm gonna do a fake bankruptcy. Look at how the Wall Street Journal took those facts and how they framed it. Because Wall Street Journal has written for of and buy corporations. So they're going to spin the entire story into, oh, poor Malincorp, poor hedge fund guys. They had to do this. Now, they never clarify in the article that they're sitting on $480 million and not at all bankrupt, right?

Instead, they wrote this census about the hedge fund guys. They also argued that if Malincourt continued to make payments to the opioid trust, it would hurt the company's finances and could breach legal obligations to Investors, according to people familiar with the matter. The people familiar with the matter are the hedge fund guys that are doing the scam in the first place. They plant the story in the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal tells you, well, they're having trouble with their finances. What does that mean?

What does that mean? Are you bankrupt or are you not bankrupt? Everyone has trouble with their finances. Hey, we thought we were going to make, you know, $500 million and we only made $400 million. Oh, trouble with your finances. Such a vague term, but it gives you the appearance that they're struggling when they're not at all. struggling. Yeah, and later in the piece, they write about how much cash they have on hand and how much they have for their line of credit. But it's disconnected in the piece. Yeah, and it like for

the first, I mean, you read pages of this article and you're thinking, these poor guys, are they going bankrupt? And at the end, you find out, oh yeah, by the way, just kidding, we have some sort of obligation to tell you they're not at all bankrupt. Okay. So anyways, look, But guys, there's one other element to this. So not only is this a scam to rip off the taxpayers and to the people who got hurt in these situations. But at the end, once they go through the bankruptcy, the senior lenders get, and the senior investors have the most rights.

Exactly. Well, it's these hedge-fowing guys. Exactly. So it's a win-win for them. They're like, okay, we do this thing, that way we stiff the average American for a billion dollars and we take control the whole company and we get all the profits. And by the way, I might just take that $480 million and put it in my pocket, which hedge fund guys do all the time.

A lot of the companies that you know, Sears, Toys, etc. Went bankrupt because hedge fund guys bought them, took their cash and put it in their pockets, bought mansions and yachts with it and then go, oh, well, they ran out of money. So after news of this little scheme broke, this is how sick the system is, right? After news of the scheme broke, yesterday, according to numbers in the stock market, the stock market actually rewarded this manufacturer, okay? Shares of the company rose 53.3%. Of course, you know why?

Because the market doesn't care about morality. Yeah, it does not. The market doesn't care about American citizens or family members of the folks who died because of these drugs. The market thinks, oh, this is a good scam. Oh, bravo on the scam. You might rip off a billion dollars. Well, man, your stock price is going up because you're now going to be more valuable.

You might be up to a, well, maybe you're not going to get a whole billion back, but we're going to price in that you're going to get hundreds of millions of dollars back through this fraud. Now, look, there's a way to end this, by the way. You sign onto a settlement that involves the government and it involves state governments in this case. and then you renege on that, we should put you in prison. Totally agree. But like if hedge fund guys heard that, corporate CEOs heard that, they're like, outrageous.

So you're saying we should be put in prison for just for stealing a billion dollars? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. When we come back from the break, I guess Jenk and I are going to debate on progressives in Congress. Are they engaging in theater or are they really trying to get some legislation passed? That and more coming up. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content,

and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.