The Young Turks - Chuck Schumer Mocks Trump And Mar-a-Lago Filled With Spies?

Episode Date: April 3, 2019

Trump is embarrassing the Republican Party. China targets Mar-a-Lago? Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. Hey guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now.

But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. All right, welcome the Young Turks. We're going to have a wild and willy show today. These ones are- He got punked. He got fucked. I can't hold back. These chokers.

All right. Well, look, if you're a young tourist member, we'll have it behind us because you shot it, right, Edwin? Yeah, we're gonna have it for our members. Okay, we'll figure it out. So these guys doing April Fool's Pranks on April 2nd. Doesn't really count, but okay, all right. Rebel headquarters, okay?

I know, you're just, you're willing to break the rules like that, huh? Yes. Okay, anyway, that all happened off camera. We'll get that to you guys if you're young Turks members. T.y.t.com's joined to become a member. So, and, by the way, more fun goodies at shopty.com. You know, the thank you bags, wrong, the young Turks, home of progressives, okay? We've got a shirt like this, now we've got a bag like this, you can pre-order shopt

ty.com, okay? I randomly threw that in there. I was feeling in a baggy mood. So Donald Trump's both stupid and a lunatic, two different things, and two different issues. Two different stories. Yes, and we will cover those. And on top of that, I believe I told you guys, speaking of the members in a post game, that after

he's feeling heady about the bar summary of the Mueller report, that Trump will make his biggest mistakes, right? And here he goes, you're gonna start to see it in the first story, you're gonna start to see it in the second story, the third story, et cetera. These are huge size mistakes. You get into the racism, et cetera. So lots to get to in this show. And so I guess let's get started, Anna.

All right. So earlier it was reported that the Justice Department, Trump's Justice Department, was making the case in the federal courts that the Affordable Care Act should be repealed in its entirety. Then the story evolved or devolved, depending on how you want to look at it, with Donald Trump arguing that Republicans will be the part of the part of it. party of healthcare and that they have a much better plan. But there wasn't a plan and that had become abundantly clear. So then he ends up tweeting about how after the 2020 election, if he gets elected, he will put forth a health care plan that will be better than the Affordable Care Act.

Hilarious. And then Mitch McConnell had a talk with him. And so here's the latest on the story which broke not too long ago. So Trump apparently came out and told reporters, quote, I wanted to put it after the election because we don't have the house. So he was arguing, well, we don't have the house now, but I was hoping that we would have the house after the 2020 election, and then I would, in his words, put it after the election. Yeah, so there's a bad idea in several different ways for the Republican Party, which is

great for the rest of us. But the fact that he thought it was a great idea to tackle healthcare right afterwards, we got a lot of details on that for you, almost everybody tried to talk out of it. But look, what did I tell you? He's too stupid and he won't listen to reason, and especially after the kind of release of the Mueller report, he thinks he's king of the world and can't make any mistakes. Hilarious, hilarious. So he walks right into a democratic bear trap.

But it's not really, he kind of built his own bear trap and then sprung it. But then the second part of it is to then make up for it by saying, oh, don't worry, we'll do it after the election. Well, you just gave everybody a reason to vote for Democrats because they think if you win, you're now going to take away health care from at least 20 million people. But as we've explained on the show, actually, a lot more than that. So Mitch McConnell and everyone else is like, no, what have you done? And remember, the Trump administration, specifically the Department of Justice under the Trump administration, is attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act right now, which means that all the various protections that Americans have when it comes to health care would be taken away, including

protections for those who have preexisting conditions. And so to say, no, we want to repeal right now. And then after 2020, I'll put forth my proposal. I mean, of course that's gonna stoke tensions, fears, and it is not looking good for him. And so here's where Mitch McConnell steps in, because Mitch McConnell completely disagreed with this strategy or non-strategy. And so according to the Associated Press, Senator McConnell said he, quote, made it clear to Trump that we are not going to be doing that in the Senate, meaning we're not going to be voting

on health care in the Senate. He also asked whether there were differences between him and Trump on the issue. McConnell replied, not any longer. Damn, you understand what that means? That means I wouldn't set him straight. I told him, hey, listen, idiot, you're gonna make us lose the Senate as well as the House if you keep insisting that we work on a healthcare plan. I don't know if you know this moron, but we don't have one, nor are we ever going to get one.

Our plan was to destroy Obamacare, put the healthcare industry in even more in charge, let them deny coverage to tens of millions of Americans, and so that they could have bigger profits. That was our plan. And American people don't like that plan, so shut up, you idiot. And Trump's like, yeah, well, I think we're gonna have a great plan. And Mitch McConnell's like, we don't have one, nor are we ever going to have one, okay? So stop saying that. He's like, oh, I got a great idea, though, I'll make the 2020 elections about this issue.

And Mitch McConnell's like, are you, are you not listening? We lost 40 seats in the House because we made the election about health care. And the Democrats kicked our ass, okay, fine, we're not going to make it about health care. So that's why Mitch McConnell comes out and goes, well, we don't have any disagreements any longer. So apparently he broke through, but others did not. Right. R&C, Ronna McDaniel apparently sat him down, but so did his own campaign manager.

For Trump's 2020 reelection, Brad Pascal, they both got on the phone with him and they're like, Donald, please, we're begging you, don't do health care, okay? He's like, oh no, I got this great idea, I'm going to tell the courts that we're going to be totally and completely opposed to Obamacare and wipe it out. His own campaign manager is like, don't, what if you do, don't, right? And he didn't listen to them, he didn't listen to anybody else, he blundered in there and created this giant mess. Mitch McConnell thinks he's got it cleaned up.

By the way, no to Mitch, no you don't. You think he's gonna go, like just stick to what you said? Two days later, he'll be back at it on Twitter. We're gonna have the best healthcare plan, the strongest, most beautiful healthcare plan you've ever seen. That was a great impression of Donald Trump, but I just want to show you video evidence of how this story has just devolved, or evolved, depending on how you look at it, because I think it's great that in this very moment, it appears that Donald Trump is not going to be

as aggressive in trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But again, you never know how things are going to end up with Trump, you never know what his mood is going to be on any given day, who was the last person he talked to. William Barr, his own attorney general, was apparently part of the team of individuals surrounding him who tried to convince him not to go through with this, and he didn't listen. But apparently Mitch McConnell had more sway than all of these other people around Trump. Now with that said, here's a video from March 27th. And it's Donald Trump talking about how Republicans are going to handle healthcare.

Let me just tell you exactly what my message is. The Republican Party will soon be known as the party of health care. What's your business? Wrong. I can just see Mitch McConnell on the background being like, okay, so the other people who try to talk him out of it were White House counsel of Pat Cipollone, Attorney General William Barr. He will not listen to reason. He is not smart, he does not do strategy.

So now he's getting clowned by Chuck Schumer. I can't believe I'm gonna compliment Schumer, but I am, he's got a great quote. And we have that quote in the form of a video, let's take a look. This reeks of desperation, and they do not have a backup plan. Last night, the president tweeted that they will come up with their plan in 2021. Translation, they have no health care plan. It's the same old song they've been singing. Therefore, repeal, they have no replace.

President Trump confirmed that he will hold American. hostage through the 2020 election when it comes to health care. So look, that was indisputable. When you say, I'll come up with my secret magic plan in 2021, that by definition means you don't currently have one. In fact, he asked four Republican senators to come up with one, including Rick Scott, which is hilarious, because Rick Scott committed the largest Medicare fraud in American history. His company was convicted of that.

He said, oh, golly, gee, I'm just a CEO. What I know about the fraud that my company's committing on a record scale? So the guys who've ripped off Medicare and Medicaid before are now in charging of coming up with a new plan, but two years from now. They have no plan, they've never had a plan. Their plan was to enrich their donors from day one. So if they actually succeed in the courts, it's going to be a giant disaster for the American people, but an even bigger disaster for the Republican Party overnight.

they go all the way through the Supreme Court and win before the 2020 election, overnight, 21 million people would lose their insurance. 52 million would be back to being able to be denied healthcare because of a pre-existing condition. Now Trump, even though he argues in court that he does not want that provision. So anyone who's reporting it saying that he does want protections for pre-existing conditions is not being honest with you. They're actually doing political correctness and fake news on behalf of Donald Trump. He says, well, I wanna protect pre-existing conditions, that's what the Republican Party's

for. No, no, I don't care what you're tweeting. What are you doing in court? Exactly. In court, you were saying, no, we do not want protections for pre-existing conditions. So that's the viciousness of the Republican Party. Look, now Nancy Pelosi's clowning him too. I mean, they're busting them up left and right, and these are not, in my opinion,

the world's greatest strategist. But they're up against- It's a layup. It's a layup. They're up against it. I'm not allowed to say the words anymore. Okay. I guess the guy with very low IQ. So what is Pelosi doing?

Pelosi, and by the way, getting Colin Alred to introduce this. He's a freshman, congressman, helping to protect his seat, etc. That's smart, good, credit where credit is due. And their proposal is, well, look, we think that there should be a resolution condemning what the White House is doing in the courts to try to and the Affordable Care Act. So, Republican House members, let's go on the record, okay? Are you voting in favor of getting rid of the Affordable Care Act? You say you always want it to, right?

Well, this is your big opportunity, signed resolution saying you want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act and make sure that tens of millions of Americans don't have healthcare. Go for it, have out it, Haas. So there's one other component of the story, because I think it's important to be as balanced as possible when it comes to covering how both parties are handling this, while Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leadership certainly is doing a good job in taking advantage of this layup by Trump. There's also how they're handling the issue of single payer health insurance behind the scenes.

So this is according to the New York Times, and they write, Democratic leadership has downplayed single payer Medicare for All and moved forward on a series of incremental measures to shore up Barack Obama's health care law and lower prescription drug prices. Now look, I would much rather have the Affordable Care Act in place right now as we clearly have grid lock in Congress, and of course we have a president who has no interest in improving the Affordable Care Act. But obviously in the future, if we do elect a president who's interested in taking care of the American people with a better health care plan, I would want a single payer system.

And it's clear here that Democratic leadership is moving away from that. Yes, well, look, so that's for the wars to come. There are three camps in this country. One is the Republican camp, not just a Trump camp, the entirety of the Republican Party has always wanted to destroy the Affordable Care Act. They voted countless times to do that. They never had a replacement, so they are the worst of the worst. Then you have the Democratic Party who says a couple of Band-Aids, Affordable Care Act, yes,

Yes, the premiums are high, but hey, the people making obscene profits off of that are largely our donors, so we don't mind. Hey, we're covering as many people as we can. We still left out tens of millions of Americans, but we did way better than the Republicans, which by the way should be the Democratic Party slogan. Hey, at least we're better than the Republicans, which is not very inspiring. Then there's a third camp, which is a progressive camp, which says, how about we fix the system? How about healthcare is a right?

So no one in America dies because they don't have enough money. And so you shouldn't die if you don't have enough money for fire insurance or for police insurance or for health insurance. You shouldn't die under any of those circumstances. Those are core government functions to protect your life. And so it doesn't mean you privatize doctors or hospitals or providers in any way. But it does mean that insurance, health insurance should be part of what the government offers. We all pay into it and we would all pay less than what we currently pay.

Now that is clearly the better path, but the Democratic Party, the leaders are going to say, no, no, no, no, let's play prevent defense. Let's play prevent defense. I don't want to do anything. My God, doing something is politically risky. No. And trying to protect the status quo is in of itself politically risky. Right now it is.

Yes, and look, we already saw this movie, we saw it in 2016. Their brilliant strategy against Donald Trump was sit in place, have an establishment candidate who promises to do nothing but protect the status quo. How did that work out for us? It is literally the only way to lose to Donald Trump. If you actually put forward proposals that would help the American people and fight for positive change, then you can beat Trump. The only way to lose to him is to just sit on your ass.

So as much as I compliment the Democratic Party, Pelosi and Schumer today in how they're rhetorically kicking Donald Trump's ass, and yes, he built his own bear trap and walked right into it. And it's a very low bar, but I credit where credit is due on the political rhetoric and actions. But if they leave that and try to play prevent defense for the rest of the two years, which they will, that'll be a terrible mistake. And we'll have to fight the Democratic Party to make sure they don't make that mistake again. We are gonna take a break, but when we come back, we're gonna talk about the ramifications

of shutting down the borders, which is a proposal coming from Donald Trump. It's gonna have a huge impact on our economy and people surrounding him are trying to convince him not to do it. Another dumbass move by Donald Trump. And we'll see if they can talk him out of it. But I doubt it. We'll be right. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Ing the Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today, and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. Good back. All right, welcome back to the Young Turks. Time to go to the member section for comments. Let's start with Karina, who has a question about the April Fool shenanigans that have happened over the last couple of days. I only have one question. Has smooth showed up?

We're in the world is smooth, okay? So I'm gonna go find him. Gabby Marita writes in, Trump's acting awfully cocky about his career prospects after the 2020 election for a president who has literally never had an approval rating above 50%. Is that amazing? That's what I keep telling you guys. The guy's actually deeply unpopular. You're getting a skewed perspective on television and the rest of the media because the

Democrats are so scared of him and so is the media in some sense. and they keep giving you 50-50. It ain't 50-50, he's never been above 50%. He is deeply unpopular. Okay, Kevin Wendell Crum says Trump will now support Medicare for all and also cuts to Medicare. Yeah, that's right, which is basically what he did during the 201816 campaign. He said, I'm gonna give everybody universal healthcare coverage and I'm gonna cut entitlements. I'm gonna cut costs.

And so he's proposed to cut Medicare and Medicaid already while saying he's gonna new universal coverage. Doesn't have to make sense. His followers are stupid. If you want to cry about that, go forward. Rusty Trump-Trump bone, right, said, oh boy. Jeez. I don't know that I could read that every day.

Okay. Well, there's another aspect to it too. Anyway, you know you've hit a lifetime low point when Chuck Schumer is able to own you. Yeah. That is funny. But I'll end on a cautionary note and one I share. Tommy Too Strong says, don't start celebrating yet. Nixon got elected in 68 saying he would get us out of Vietnam with his quote secret plan

to end the war. That's true. And I was gonna look, I'm overall very excited about this. I think healthcare is a debacle for Trump and I don't think he is gonna win the election, et cetera, et cetera. But the secret plans as maniacally stupid as It sounds irrational people, man, a lot of people eat that up because they're like, ooh, that's hope.

I don't know what the secret plan is, but Donald Trump is so brilliant. Nixon is so brilliant. They just don't want their opponents to know. People buying the secret plans all the time, okay? So let's be a little bit careful about that. So good point, Tommy. All right, what's next? We have a breaking news story from the Associated Press that I wanted to share with you

all. The Associated Press is reporting that a Chinese woman carrying malware successfully entered Mar-a-Lago, but she was shortly thereafter discovered and kicked out of the resort. Her name is Yu Jing Zang, and she approached the Secret Service agent at a checkpoint outside of Mar-a-Lago, and she said that she was a member who wanted to use the pool. Now the Secret Service agent thought that there might be some sort of language barrier, and then thought, okay, well, maybe she has a family member, a father perhaps, who's a member here, so she was allowed in.

Then she gets to the reception desk and her story changes. At that point, she tells the woman working at the desk that she was there to attend a United Nations Chinese American Association event. And of course, no such event was taking place at Mar-a-Lago. And so, of course, she became argumentative after there were more questions asked about why she was there and who she really was. Secret service agents later took her into a room, the Secret Service office for questioning. At that point they realized that she spoke perfect English and there was absolutely no language

barrier. And then they also discovered that she had four cell phones, a laptop computer, an external hard drive and a thumb drive containing computer malware. And she did not have a swimsuit to go swimming, so she did lie about that. And there was no indication that she was ever near Donald Trump. even though she was able to briefly enter Mar-a-Lago. So, I mean, I don't know that she was going to attack Trump with malware. Like, I don't think that's how malware works.

But I'm glad they caught her. The Secret Service probably initially let her run. Because they're like, oh, some new Chinese person to bribe Donald Trump, very much business as usual. Let's go forward. Because you remember Trump watching the Super Bowl with the woman who ran the massage parlors, who apparently has connected to the Chinese. etc. There was one of the massage parlors that's been implicated in that FBI investigation

into human trafficking, one of them was owned by a woman who's an avid Trump supporter. Now, she no longer owns that massage parlor, she sold it back in 2013, but now what she's selling, based on her own website, is access to Donald Trump. So she would advertise her connections to Donald Trump, and she would tell wealthy Chinese businessmen, hey, I can get you in the same room as Donald Trump, and that's what she would sell as part of her services. Look, I think this story is actually relevant because it shows how incredibly easy it is for security concerns to kind of go under the radar.

Because remember, this is Mar-a-Lago. This is a resort that has members, wealthy members, who pay a fee and they get in. And so who's to say that someone who isn't a bad actor or is a bad actor wouldn't be able to get it. Like, if you pay that $100,000 for the annual fee, you get into Mar-a-Lago and you have access to the president to some extent. Well, I wanna be fair. After Trump won the presidency, he cashed in by increasing the fee to $200,000.

Oh, I thought it was $100,000. It was $100,000, then it got to increase to $200,000. As soon as he won the election, because he knew that people would wanna buy access to him, and he would personally profit from it. And look, my point is- No, but I just, but I wanted to finish that thought. Look, this is an amateur. I don't know who's center or if anybody sent her, but whoever did is a clown, shifting stories, et cetera.

If it was the Chinese government or any other sophisticated actor, they just paid the $200,000 and become a member, who cares? That's so easy, that's nothing to a foreign government. In fact, I'd be shocked if that place wasn't littered with foreign agents. All you have to do is pay $200,000. Which to you and I is a gigantic amount of money, but to a government is no money at all. And in fact, there has been multiple news stories about how Trump will talk openly in the middle of Marilago with foreign heads of state for foreign governments.

To the Chinese about secret North Korea negotiations, et cetera, to the Japanese. So if you're a foreign government and you haven't bought your way in Mar-a-Lago, you're actually a little negligent. It is so easy to steal American secrets by just paying $200,000 to Donald Trump. Well, and I would argue that our own government is being negligent in allowing for this to happen, right? I mean, he conducts business at Mar-a-Lago on a regular basis, and we just treat it as if it's the most normal thing in the world.

It's not normal. I'm glad that there's secret service there. I might disagree with the president, but he should have that security, but secret service is not going to catch every bad actor that's in that resort, especially when it comes to, you know, members of foreign governments who might want to eavesdrop on what our elected officials are discussing. In fact, if you're a multinational corporation, you probably have a spy in there. If you, again, if you're being diligent and you care to get information about what the government

is going to do, that place is probably a nest of spies at this point. Anybody can waltz in and hear what the president is saying. He takes pictures sometimes. People take pictures. Sometimes he'll be out in the balcony talking about the big beautiful chocolate cake that he's sharing with a head of state. And people come by and take selfies. And meanwhile, they'll have like plans out for what they're doing.

I mean, these are the same people who said that they were worried that Hillary Clinton had a private server in her house. That sometimes classified information might might get tapped into through her private server, they're so concerned about national security. You had to do, say, lock her up, lock her up. Meanwhile, Trump's like, who's got $200,000, sell a national security right here morning afternoon night? Secret service is meant to protect the president, not national security.

That is completely different. So they're supposed to protect the president, they're not going to be able to tell if somebody's a spy who is listening in on conversations that the president is having at Mar-a-Lago. That's not their job. And today, Alexandria Ocaser-Cortez in a congressional hearing, it was like, well, we got 25 people got national security clearance that career officials said, don't give them national security clearance. It's a really bad idea.

So all that stuff that they ever said about Hillary Clinton, if we said it, we meant it, right? So Bernie Sanders said, I don't care about the emails. We said, look, she shouldn't have done that because there's a reason why you have to have secure emails. But was it a gigantic issue? No. These are gigantic issues of national security. And the Republicans who pretended to care about national security, they never cared at all.

It was always about politics. Well, the Republican Party might not care as much as they claim they do about the economy. And that's the next story, so let's do that. Donald Trump has been threatening to shut down the border between the United States and Mexico. This is a threat that has become all too common with the Trump administration. However, there would be significant ramifications for the U.S. economy, particularly for the auto industry. Take a look at some of the business owners in El Paso, Texas. For us, as a company, it will affect it a lot because 75% of our customers are restaurant

owners and grocery store owners. So down the line, it's just going to affect everybody. We might even have to close down, you know, for that matter. We might have to close down 50% of businesses in the United States as far as the produce is concerned. It would be devastating to El Paso, the state of Texas, and the United States. We are the 10th or 11th largest land port out of the United States. We have 101 billion annually going in imports and exports. It would be a devastating impact to the entire region, but also to the United States as a whole. So I have some more numbers to share with you guys.

Kristen Zizek is the vice president of industry, labor, and economics at the Center for Automotive research. And so she's been talking about the press and letting everyone know what kind of impact this will have on the auto industry. And the results are going to be pretty devastating. So about 16% of all auto parts used in the United States, both at assembly plants and sold at auto parts stores actually originate from Mexico. So if you shut down the border, it's going to have an impact on the imports and exports

when it comes to this industry. And she also says, you can't sell cars with missing pieces, you've got to have them all. I see the whole industry shut down within a week of a border closing. Yes. Yeah. So if you're a Republican and you never thought this through and you think, well, I mean, why don't we close the border? I don't want those people coming in.

trade. So first of all, there's legal citizens, American, Mexican going back and forth endlessly. And I get it, you never thought through the issue. But just think about it for a second. But even if you don't care about the people and the legal migration back and forth, which you pretend to care about because you said, I just don't want undocumented immigrants, right? Legal immigrants you pretend to like. But remember, Americans also go to Mexico to close the border entirely.

But the trade would be devastating, I want to give you more numbers. We import, just the US auto industry imports $59.4 billion worth of parts from Mexico. And then on top of that, it also exports $32.5 billion worth of parts from U.S. automakers and parts manufacturers and assembly plants operating in Mexico. So now that means we're gonna cost ourselves $32 billion that we would make from trading in Mexico, but even more importantly, we're not going to be able to make any cars. So a lot of the parts that we use that come from Mexico are laid down first in the cars. It's the wiring.

So you can't add it later, it just all production grinds to a halt. Almost all the wiring comes from Mexico. Oops. So now, of course, here we go again, Republican leader is going to Donald Trump saying, please, Please don't be stupid. I, like, we're begging you to consider the actual ramifications of this. Can we show it to you in pictures? Can we just show it to you in a page?

Is there any way we can get through your incredibly thick skull how much damage this would do? Right. The automakers are saying we would have no cars produced in this country within one week. It would end complete production of cars. And one other thing I want to note is, I was curious to see how. how members of the right wing were approaching Donald Trump on the subject, because most of them are panicking about the impact it's going to have on our economy.

I mean, remember, there are a lot of right wingers in the auto industry, in all these various businesses that are going to be negatively impacted by shutting down the border. And so what they do is they appeal to Trump and one of his most popular talking points, and that is the economy is doing so well under my watch. Look at how good the stock market's doing. Look at how well everything's going. The jobs numbers are great. And so they bring that up and they appeal to Trump by saying, hey, you can't brag about that

if you single-handedly destroy the economy by shutting down the border. And to your point regarding, you know, people who think, what's the big deal? Let's just shut down the border, no one will come in. Okay, it's fine, I don't think it's really fine. But if you're a private citizen who might not be knowledgeable about the impact of shutting down the border, that's one thing. But this is the president of the United States who has absolutely no knowledge and has absolutely no intellectual curiosity into what the consequences would be.

And that's the devastating part of this, that you need to have members of his own party who we usually disagree with checking him and trying to keep him under control when he tries to carry out these incredibly ignorant policy ideas. I think he might do it. So this is, it's unconscionable. I mean, there's no rational person would do this because, yeah, the markets would flip out, let alone everything else. And that's his pride and joy, and says, why are we even still having this conversation?

And because there are only two issues that Donald Trump cares about or knows anything about. Everything else, he says, well, nobody knew healthcare was as complicated. Nobody knew North Korea was as complicated because, you know, he just doesn't care, right? So the two issues he cares about are immigration, stopping immigration, and his wrongheaded thinking that if I just stop trade, it will reduce our trade deficit. And that way we'll make more money because we'll stop losing money to Mexico. Now that's not true, that doesn't make any sense. But no one can get through to him.

So that's why I'm beginning to think, oh my God, even me who thinks he's one of the dumbest people in the country, like you can't be so stupid as to close the board. But now I think, wait a minute, I think he is. I have learned to avoid making predictions about what Donald Trump is and is not going to do. Because we don't know, he's always a wild card, right? I mean, you think he's going to carry out a crazy policy idea and then he backs off because Mitch McConnell, of all people, talks some sense into him.

I don't know what he's going to do, but what I do know is that it will hurt the economy. And it would be another layup for the Democratic Party. So who knows? And that's the third reason why he might do it, because he's feeling heady. Mueller was a total incomplete. Did you read the report? It's 400 pages. Did you read it, Mr. President?

It's complete and total exoneration. It means that I make all the right decisions. It has nothing to do with your decisions, Mr. President. It has to do with the Russia investigation. No, it means I have gotten everything right. So I'm going to, I have this instinct, you close the border. You make money and you stop the Mexicans. So given his haughty nature right now and those two issues, he just might be stupid enough

to do this. In which case, about three days before the collapse is so significant in the markets that he comes back and goes, you know what? I'm gonna stop the Democrats from closing the border down. Yes, yes. I mean, that is one prediction that I can guarantee. So if he is dumb enough to shut down the border, after realizing it was a bad idea, he will blame the Democrats.

I am going to, you know what American people, I alone can protect you. I will reopen the border, okay? Because I am that good a leader. You are on a roll today with the Trump impressions. I have strong, beautiful Trump impressions, the best. All right, we're gonna take a break, but when we come back, we are going to give you the latest on what's happening with funding for disaster relief in Puerto Rico and Donald Trump's insane, ridiculous statements about what he has done, allegedly done for Puerto Rico.

Come right back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals.

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If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free. Second. All right, back on a Young Church, Jank and Anna, fun comments for you guys, Twitter first this time. Hashtag TYT Live, talk to us during the show. Woken Stivo writes in, as opposed to apparently the asleep stevo that works here. Oh, it's a different Stivo.

Yeah. Okay, now I'm interested, go ahead. Okay, says, third try, L.O.L. I've been a viewer for around 10 years. This past Christmas, my wife bought me a year membership, she's awesome. Could you shout her, shout her out her birthday? Her name is Lauren. Lauren, happy birthday! Yay!

But da-da-da. Okay, way to get membership for Woken Steve-O. And thank you for watching for 10 years, that's wonderful. So now let's go to Jack Barnett 77 in the member section saying, but I thought illegals were running across the desert with their giant calves. How does closing the border do anything about that? Okay, good question, we'll have to look into it. Eclectic Michelinia says, I think we need to shut down Mar-a-Lago until we figure out what

the hell is going on. Good point. Excellent point. Mickey C says, not sure I understand there's a secret service at Mar-a-Lago even when no Trumps are there. No, that actually does make sense because you don't want anybody planting bombs there, et cetera. That's a core secret service job to protect the president's residences as well. With Trump, that's a giant hassle on cost, but it is what it is.

Right, and actually, I don't know if Trump was there or not, right? Like that wasn't mentioned in the article. The article only mentioned that she didn't get anywhere close to Trump. Yeah, they gotta protect his houses and everywhere he goes. Okay, back to Twitter for a second, Nikki Fowlerdo says, maybe Trump should build his walled around Marlago. I bet everyone would chip in for that if he stayed in there. He probably does have a wall around Marlago. I think we showed the pictures, I didn't quite see one, it's probably something to keep folks

out. Anyways, and then last one is Pork Chop Express says, Mar-a-Lago should have NordVPN. Yeah, speaking of NordVPN. Good point. I hope they got it through NordvPN.com slash doy-T. Yeah. So if you're a European viewer, you probably know that Article 13 passed in Europe, and that indicates that any platform that has content uploaded, that's copyrighted, would have to face the consequences of copyright violation. So YouTube would face the ramifications of someone else, a content uploader, uploading content that has copyrighted material. Now I tell you this because various platforms have responded to this new policy by being incredibly

strict with what type of content gets uploaded on their platforms. So, if you use NordVPN and you're in Europe, you can mislead platforms about your location. So for instance, VPN's, if I'm in the United States, I can use a VPN to indicate that I'm in Australia, which I've done before. So anyway, get NordVPN, it's awesome. And you get a giant discount just because you watch the show, 75% off three years, not three days, not three months, three freaking years, which is amazing, and you get a month free. So go to NordvPN.com slash TYT to get that deal.

All righty, we ready to have some fun? No, let's do it. Okay. As the Trump administration continues to receive criticism over its handling of relief efforts in Puerto Rico, Donald Trump is doubling down. In fact, he has doubled down in the form of tweets last night and early this morning. He says, quote, the Democrats today killed a bill that would have provoked. He provided great relief to farmers and yet more money to Puerto Rico despite the fact that Puerto Rico has already been scheduled to receive more hurricane relief funding than any place in history.

I don't know why place is in quotation marks, it's very strange. He continues to say the people of Puerto Rico are great, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt. The irony. hilarious projection, they're incompetent, should have added and corrupt if he's talking about himself. Puerto Rico got far more money than Texas and Florida combined. By the way, there are many lies in these tweets and we're going to debunk them in just a minute. Yet their government can't do anything right. The place is a mess, nothing works.

FEMA and the military worked emergency miracles. But politicians like the crazed and incompetent mayor of San Juan have done such a poor job of bringing the island back to health, $91 billion to Puerto Rico and now the Dems want to give them more, taking dollars away from our farmers and so many others disgraceful. Okay, also crazed and incompetent, I mean, projection 101, as he's writing crazed tweets filled with incompetence because none of the facts are right. Now, in the first tweet, he alluded to something that was blocked by Democrats in the Senate. So he is right about that, but he is not right in the framing of the issue.

So it was a disaster aid bill. And the disaster aid bill specifically carved out some money for farmers who are suffering. He's right about that. However, Democrats want to add almost $700 million more to unlock further disaster aid for Puerto Rico and several states, including help to rebuild badly damaged water systems. Democrats are also trying to force the administration to release billions of dollars in rebuilding funds that have already been approved. So remember, Puerto Rico was supposed to receive resources and funding in disaster relief

that Congress passed. So Congress voted and they passed a certain amount of money that was supposed to go to Puerto Rico. The only issue is that they haven't received the money. It's being blocked from getting to Puerto Rico. So Democrats want to address that, and they want to also ensure that Puerto Rico is getting the resources it needs in the disaster relief efforts. And this legislation did not do that, which is why they voted against it.

But I wanna be clear about one thing. The Democrats are not saying that the farmers should get less. They're just saying that on top of what the farmers are getting and what Puerto Rico is getting, they should add 700 million more to Puerto Rico. Now, you might think that sounds like a lot of money, but in the context of all this aid, it is actually not that much. And a lot of these proposals are very similar to one another. So for example, the House already passed the measure in January for $14.2 billion in eight,

not $91 billion, 14.2. And that was not just for Puerto Rico that combined eight to southern farmers. California communities devastated by the wildfires, hurricane hit states like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina. All that combined was 14.2. The Senate is 13 and a half. And what the Democrats are saying is, just make it the same as the House. Add the other 700 million, make it 14.2.

Again, it's nowhere near 91 billion that Trump keeps putting out there. And it's not just for Puerto Rico. So the Democrats are not looking to take anything away from farmers. That is also a lie by Donald Trump. And one other thing I want to note is that Donald Trump still, till this day, keeps treating Puerto Rico as if it's a different country. Puerto Rico is part of America. Puerto Ricans are American citizens.

But he continuously proves that he sees them as the others, as if it's one of the three Mexican countries. Yeah, I was gonna say, Anna, I think I'm pretty sure I saw on Fox News that they actually are one of the, maybe they're the fourth Mexican country. Maybe, maybe. That's what it is. Okay. Now, I'm not gonna let this go because there's two other things that I want to talk about.

One, I want to touch back on the projection that he did in all these tweets, because it's I find it so funny. He says, the politicians are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly, I mean, are you getting this? Or corruptly, and only take from USA. He wants how much money for the border wall, which would do nothing to stop the flow of immigration, would do nothing to stop drug smuggling. I mean, there was a government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, 35 days, over $5 billion

for the border wall. But the second part of that is to the point that animate, take from USA, they're part of USA. Yeah, exactly. Could you imagine tweeting out like, Ohio keeps taking from USA? What? Right? So he never thinks, he never thought that they were Americans. He doesn't consider them as part of us.

From day one, when he started talking about the hurricane, not after all the political fighting, on day one, he started talking about how they don't know how to take care of themselves. and he kept implying that they're lazy. Let's talk about who can't take care of himself. So if your father didn't give you $413 million in your inheritance, okay, would you be able to take care of yourself? Like, what would Trump do? Like, let's imagine a world where it was Fred Trump, right?

His father's name? Yes. Fred Trump passes away and in his will it says no money should go to Donald Trump. None. Zero percent. I actually think there's an excellent chance he would have been homeless. No, I'm not kidding. No, I know you're not kidding, and I agree with you.

Yeah, he's, look, he had $413 million and he bankrupted his six businesses anyway. So imagine if he had no money like the rest of us growing up. Gone. No, I mean, where would he borrow his next $100 million? That's not a thing that the rest of us have a luxury of doing, no, there's no way and he couldn't work for anyone else, no one would hire. I'm the best, I should buy you, even though you're my boss. I should fire you because I'm more beautiful and stronger than you.

You're fired. Get out. Okay. What's my golden parachute? How much do I get for bankrupting this company? What do you mean? You get nothing, you idiot. Right?

So he'd be a total disaster. But he of course thinks the opposite. So I wanted to read you these two quotes about Puerto Rico alone, okay? So I'm going to go to Graphics 16 in a second. But before that, a couple of days ago, he had said, I have taken better care of Puerto Rico than any man Ever. I'm not kidding, that's a direct quote. I have taken better care of Puerto Rico than any man ever.

I would like to play the video as B-roll as Jank reads Trump's quotes. Okay, then I'm gonna go to the next graphic, like I said. He tweeted this out on the same string of tweets that we've been talking about. He said, the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. The best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. He said about himself, no, look, guys, if you had someone like this in your life, you'd look into psychiatric help, you'd be like, oh no, he's coming over for Thanksgiving, Jesus Christ, that crazy uncle who keeps saying he's the best at everything and how he knows this better

than anything else and how we couldn't survive without him. That guy's a lunatic, mom, dad, come on, please, please don't let him come over. And then he'll take these towels and throw it around. But there were big, beautiful towels, they were so soft. They had these beautiful soft towels, very good towels. No, he said it about that, about that, they're in plastic, they're normal papal towels. That's a direct quote from Trump. The beautiful soft towels that I went like this with, because you know why?

No man has ever done anything as good for Puerto Rico as me. The guy, I mean, it's psychosis in front of everyone. There'll be a deposition one day just like Alex Jones that we showed you yesterday, where Donald Trump will be sitting in front of a camera with a white wall behind him going. When I did all of that, I was in the middle of a psychosis. Now, Mr. Trump, is it true that you threw paper towels at the people of Puerto Rico? No, no, I didn't. Let me show you a video.

That's what happened with Alex Jones. Look, guys, this is the most embarrassing thing about a country that I love. That about 40% of the country is following an obvious psychotic. Obvious. Again, if a guy comes up to you at a bar and says, I'm the best thing that ever happened. Name the place, to the city of Tallahassee. I'm the best thing that ever happened to it. I'm the greatest.

You'd be like, well, yeah, oh sure, of course you are, of course, security, okay. No, but it is interesting how, forget about regular people, right? Like, let's talk about political candidates, politicians in general. I don't think there's any other politician, either in the Republican Party or Democratic Party, who could talk about themselves that way and not be ridiculed for it. Are you kidding me, if Elizabeth Warren said that she was the best thing that ever happened to, name the place, that she's the best thing that ever happened in Massachusetts. People would be like, on what grounds would you say that?

That's an outrageous thing to say. No, she's immediately disqualified. Imagine if Biden said, I'm the best thing that ever happened to America. I'm the best vice president we've ever had. People would be like, what you, that's crazy talk. So you're, I mean, you can go on and on listing vice presidents, etc. It'd be a scandal. He might be disqualified.

Donald Trump said that he had better polling than Abraham Lincoln. There's no polling when Abraham Lincoln was president. Abraham Lincoln was president. I mean, he says the most outlandish, literally psychotic things. And people are, no, no, no, the emperor's got clothes on. No, he doesn't. He has no clothes and he has no mind. Let's talk about domestic terror, because it exists.

An investigative report by The Daily Beast finds that the Department of Homeland Security is actually disbanding a group of intelligence analysts who folks. on domestic terrorism here in the United States. Now, if you can recall all the relatively recent instances of domestic terrorism, you would be concerned about what DHS is doing. So let me give you the details. One former intelligence official says it's especially problematic, given the growth in right-wing extremism and domestic terrorism we are seeing in the United States and abroad.

So I wanna give you some more information about this group within the Department of Homeland Security. According to the Daily Beast, the group in question was a branch of analysts in DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis. They focused on the threat of homegrown violent extremists and domestic terrorists. The analysts there shared information with state and local law enforcement to help them protect their communities from these threats. So here is a group of intelligence officials within DHS.

They're looking into domestic terrorism specifically, and then what they do is they relay this incredibly important information to local authorities, so local authorities can get involved in foiling possible terror plots. Now, according to the Daily Beast, the Trump administration's new INA chief, his name is David Glaw, began reorganizing the office. Over the course of the reorganization, the branch of the I&A. INA focused on domestic terrorism, got 86th, which means cut, obviously, and its analysts were reassigned to new positions.

So after this reorganization happened, all of a sudden, local law enforcement reported getting less information from DHS. So they would hear from DHS regularly, they would have meetings with members of DHS regularly, and then all of a sudden things really slowed down, and people were curious as to why, what's What's going on? Turns out, they essentially got rid of this portion of Department of Homeland Security. So right now, what is the thing that you're seeing all over the news? Attacks.

Attacks from who? Now, if you said in the year 2001 attacks from Muslim radicals, you'd be right, of course. Enormous attack, terrible. If you said it would happen in Sacramento or in Orlando, you'd be right, right? But right now, in 2018, 2019, almost all the attacks have been, I say almost, but in 2018 when people died, it was literally every single attack was done by a right-wing extremist from here, from home. So Trump said famously during the campaign, we have to shut down, a total shutdown of Muslims

coming into the country until we figure out what the hell is going on. On the other hand, when we have one domestic terror attack after another, after another in the country, people murdered left and right, 11 people killed in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and we can go on and on with the list of people that were murdered. They go, nah, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. In fact, shut down the groups that are trying to track it down. That's exactly right.

It's unbelievable. And to be clear, back in 2009, there was a great investigative story. I read it an alternate about how the Republican Party successfully convinced DHS to shut down a similar component of the agency that focused on right-wing terrorism in the United States. And so we've seen this growth of right-wing terrorism in the United States, and you might be wondering why is it just solely related to Trump. I think Trump has definitely emboldened some of these people. But more importantly, the government agencies that had been investigating and looking into

these threats were no longer employed by the agency or that component of the agency was disbanded. So this did happen under the Obama administration. And we were very critical of Obama for allowing that to happen. That was an important component of the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, Tommy Vitor was recently on the program, he's on Potsave America. But he was a guest host here for a day, and we talked about this issue. And he said, yeah, that was one of the mistakes of the Obama administration, which he was a part of. And he said, you know, there was a ton of pressure to shut down that part of the Department

of Homeland Security, and they should not have given into that pressure. And so I was very happy to hear him say that, very reasonable of him to say that. But we were right about that. And the reason that we care is not to be proven right, but it's because it's an actual security threat. Yes. And it puts all of our lives in danger. And so why did Obama get pressure and give into it?

Well, Rush Limbaugh on Fox News screamed from the rooftops. My God, this is an attack on right wingers, this is an attack on veterans, how dare they. Don't name the threat. Whatever you do, do not name the threat. If the threat is Muslim, you must call it Muslim. You must call it Muslim. But if the threat is right wing, you cannot call it right way. In fact, you're not even allowed to investigate it.

And it was incredibly weak of Obama to give it to that. Remember, the Obama administration did not write that report. The Bush administration did. The Bush administration said, this is a real growing threat, you must do something about it. Obama gets in office, he gets yelled at, he powers down. Trump gets into office, goes, what do you mean? That's my base, powers down even further. So now we got nobody that's manning the store.

And remember what Trump said during the convention. I alone can protect you. No, he's done the exact opposite. Now, he has no problem fearmongering about Muslims, as you pointed out. He has no problem fearmongering about migrants, migrants who are seeking asylum because they're fleeing violence in their own countries and they're seeking safety. But at the same time, while he keeps making the argument that we should shut down the borders in order to prevent these people from coming in, he's also turning a blind eye to terrorism

here in the United States, homegrown terrorism here in the United States, the consequences of which we've already seen, we've already been through. And so, look, I'm gonna give you some facts and figures about domestic terrorism in just a second, but I do wanna give you a statement from a senior DHS official. He or she did not wanna be named, but this was the argument in favor of the restructuring of DHS. We just restructured things to be more. responsive to the I and A customers within DHS and in local communities while reducing

overlap with what the FBI does. We actually believe we are far more effective now. But according to local law enforcement, that is not the case. I'll give you one example, Sergeant Mike Abdeen, who is the Los Angeles County or with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He says it doesn't seem to be as robust, as active, as important. It is important, I'm sure, but it's not a priority. It doesn't seem like engagement, outreach, and prevention are seen as a priority.

As we used to see in the past, there were roundtable meetings in the past. There was more activity, more training, more seminars. Now it seems like it's gone away. And the fact of the matter is it has gone away because that group has been, again, disbanded. And Kirsten Nielsen, who's this head of the Department of Homeland Security, recently gave a speech. This was after the tragic events that took place in New Zealand, and she said, quote, we too have seen the face of such evil with attacks in places such as Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and Charleston. I want to make one thing very clear. We will not permit such hate

in the homeland. Not true. You permit it all the time. Exactly. The whole point of this story is you make a living permitting it. Instead of doing a total and complete shutdown, You do basically total and complete permission for these groups to go nuts and terrorize us. Now, if you cared about security, you'd go after the real threats. If you care about politics, you'd go after fake threats. So hey, I want you to be scared of the others and vote against Democrats. So I'm gonna tell you they're with the Muslims and I'm gonna protect you from the scary Muslims.

Well, the people killing you aren't Muslim, they're right wingers. But my head, that's my base. So who cares about security, keeping you safe, your family safe, your kids safe? Trump administration and Secretary Nielsen don't care at all. The only thing they care about is politics. Are they with us or against us? Is this going to get me more votes or less votes? It's repulsive.

So I want to give you some data to back up what we're saying about the severity of domestic terrorism and homegrown terrorism. So we've talked about numerous studies throughout TYT's history. But I want to focus on a more recent study, and it looks at the numbers in 2018. So this was published in the New York Times. Domestic terrorism is still a greater threat than Islamic extremism, and we're talking about here in the United States, clearly. According to FBI data, 150 Americans were arrested for planning to engage in acts of domestic

terrorism in 2017, compared to 110 international suspects. In 2018, the ratio was 120 to 100, okay? Of the 263 acts of domestic terrorism that occurred between 2010 and the end of 2017, 92, around a third were committed by Americans on the far right. And as we just told you, it has gotten more, more extreme with the Anti-Defamation League, now saying every act of terror that involved someone dying in the year 2018 was done by right-wing extremists. So, and meanwhile, no one's guarding us, basically.

And look, one more thing for me. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had won, and she basically powered down the part of the Department of Homeland Security that was looking into Muslim extremists, said, you know what, no, take people off of that beat, I don't want them looking into it. And then Muslim extremists attacked the synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed a Muslim extremist. killed 11 Jews or 11 people, what do you think would happen? Hearings without end, without end. I mean, they did nine Benghazi hearings.

In all nine, they found that she did nothing wrong and that Obama did nothing wrong. Imagine if she had actually said, I don't want Muslim extremists investigated, and they killed all those people at a synagogue. And I would agree, I would say you should hold hearings on that. That's outrageous, why would you do that? Why would you power down any part that is looking into actual extremists, right? Trump has done that for right wing extremists, and they did murder all those people at a sitting on, and that's just one of the terror attacks.

No investigations, no nothing, because it's easy to demagogue against the others. But when the threat is inside the country, and it involves a branch, especially of the right wing, Which does victimology much more than anyone else, cries more than anyone else, pressures the media more than anyone else. Then all of a sudden, who cares about the thread? Who cares if your family gets murdered? Because Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Channel will cry and we can't have them crying. If we bothered it, look, I mean, if you're a right winger, you should say, of course I want

you to look at the extremists, I'm not one of them, I don't want to be associated with them. Yeah, an extremist, period, right? Right? Exactly. Regardless of what their ideology is or what stems their extremist tendencies or their desires to carry out terrorist activities, I don't care what the ideology is. What I care about is that we have a government agency that's tasked with Homeland Security actually protecting the homeland.

And that's not what they're doing right now. If you said to me, investigate random mosques in America, I would say no. If you said to me, investigate random churches where right wingers get together in America, I would say, no, if you said to me, we have a group of extremists who are Muslims who are talking about taking down the government or attacking a synagogue or attacking a church, I would say, yes, yes, investigate them. Or we have a group of right-wing extremists who are talking about taking down the government or attacking a synagogue or attacking a church.

I would say, yes, investigate them. But our government has decided that it does not care to protect us if it is politically inconvenient. When we return from the break, we are going to lighten things up with a dunk-a-thon on Jacob Wall. Not only that, and TYT Investigates broke a great story about that, so thank you to all of our members. But also, great news for progressives.

Whoa, you asked for great news yesterday, I got a little bit of great news. Do I know about it already or no? Kind of. You don't know all the deeds, though. Oh, okay, I can't wait. Oh, look at this, the surprises for everybody. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.