The Young Turks - Closing The Gaetz

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Trump Attorney General pick Matt Gaetz announced he is withdrawing from consideration. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a senior Hamas commander. President Biden has approved the use of antipersonnel mines in Ukraine. A police report alleges sexual assault by Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense. Trump has expressed frustration as Senate Republicans fail to appear for key votes, enabling the confirmation of Biden’s judicial nominees. HOSTS: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞ https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER ☞ https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jane Cougar, Anna Casparian with you guys. On a lovely Thursday evening in America, okay, are we in the Polymark studio in L.A.? I suppose we are. Okay, so do we have amazing, interesting news for you guys? Yeah, I'm at you.

Okay. No, we do, we do. We have, no, we have international news, it's very important and weighty. He's Mr. Worldwide. Yeah, huh. Okay. And then do we have dramatic news about Trump's appointments? We do, dramatic.

Dramatic. So why don't we do a news show and see how it turns out? Casper. We start with the drama, and it has to do with Matt Gates. So, following a firestorm of controversy around his allegations, allegations of sexual misconduct with an underage girl. Former Representative Matt Gates has now withdrawn from his consideration for Trump's Attorney General. So he made the announcement via post on X writing, I had excellent meetings with senators yesterday.

I appreciate their thoughtful feedback and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming. a distraction to the critical work of the Trump Vance transition, there is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle. Thus, I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump's DOJ must be in place and ready on day one. I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful president in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice, and I'm certain he will save America.

And Trump accepted this. He had his own statement, and here's what he wrote. Let's take a look. I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gateson seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well, but at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the administration. So look, long story short, Trump has accepted it, which is a good sign, right? He didn't try to bully his way into getting Matt. Gates into that position. And according to the New York Times, Gates's decision to drop out

was based on four other Republican senators who made clear that they were not interested in confirming him. That includes Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell and John Curtis. But I also want to make a point that Ken Klippenstein wrote about in his substack. And I think he's absolutely right. Don't give the Republican senators all the credit because the people also had spoken. And based on polling, including polling for morning consult, Donald Trump's nomination or appointment of Matt Gates as Attorney General is the only person that Trump has picked that the people do not favor, okay? So let me just give you the results on that.

A morning console poll released Tuesday showed that 41% disapprove of Matt Gates as AG pick, compared to 34% who approve. But when it comes to other individuals who Donald Trump has, has tapped for various roles in his administration. Voters approve of Trump's preferred cabinet selections by a margin of 54% to 38%. So Gates really stood out as someone that some of the senators didn't want, but more importantly, the people didn't want either. Cenk.

Yeah, as I've said from day one, I think Matt Gates is a complicated character. And so I'm gonna pour my 40 to him in a second. And I'm gonna tell you where he might go next, which might be a bit disastrous. So I'll buckle up for that one. But there's two potential main reasons why he might have stepped down here. Because it's pretty unlike Matt Gates to shy away from a fight, right? So he was ready for this fight. He knew that it was going to come.

He knew about the 17-year-old. He knew about the report that was done in the house, et cetera. So why balk now rather than earlier and go, oh, no, no, I don't want it because that's going to be too much of a mess, right? So number one, he got the hell out of Dodge in terms of the House, and this way that report doesn't get released, at least technically, legally, officially, right? And he's not going back to the House, he already dropped out of the House, right? So, but there's two things that happened recently that I think might have made a difference.

One, as Anna pointed out, some of the Republican senators, apparently there was four already that were a hard no on Matt Gates, meaning that he could not be. confirmed even if the Republicans had 53 senators in the Senate. Now, having said that, they went a little bit further than that, and this was more from the House than the Senate. So apparently a lot of the members of the House on the Republican side said, we will not agree to recess appointments for the rest of Donald Trump's picks if Matt Gates is included in that bunch.

So the reason why that's so important is because Trump has a lot of controversial nominees, And one of the things that he's planning to do is that if some of them don't get confirmed or look like they're not going to get confirmed, he's going to ask the House to go into recess and the Senate to go into recess, and he's just going to put him in anyway as a recess appointment. But in order to do that, he needs the approval of the House to do it. And enough Republicans apparently rebelled against Matt Gates in the House for them to block the recess appointment idea and strategy that Trump had. So it's his combined colleagues in the Senate and the House, not Democrats, Republicans that were so adamant that it cannot be Matt Gates, that it forced Donald Trump's hand. There was no way around that theoretically. Now, he could have made a giant spectacular deal out of it and try to beat up all the Republican senators and House members that were a rebellion over this. But that would have been an all-out brawl right from the get-go and not against the Democrats, but against the Republicans.

So apparently they chose to not do that fight. But there was one other thing that might or might not be relevant. So we all know about the sex that was that he paid for apparently. That's at least the allegations. And everybody can call me a bad guy. I don't, that's his personal life. I don't care at all. I didn't care when Elliott Spitzer did it.

And he was a Democrat sheriff of Wall Street. I don't care when Matt Gates does it. I'm going to come back to the 17 year old because that's the most relevant part of the second. Yes, I agree with you. I just want to reinforce what you're saying. Look, I mean, you can't pick and choose, if you're on the left especially, you can't pick and choose when sex work is okay. I mean, the left has been wanting to legalize and regulate sex work.

So I don't have a problem with him paying for sex with adults. The issue here is the 17 year old that he has been accused of having sexual relations with. And that's certainly front and center when it comes to the reason why some of his Republican colleagues do not want to confirm him. So the woman who says she had sex when she was a minor with then Representative Matt Gates told the House Ethics Committee that she had two sexual encounters with him at one party in 2017. So that is at the heart of why there is so much disagreement about him getting confirmed for such an important role. Well, that's what they say. And there's other reasons too. I don't believe them at all, just to be clear. But there's one part

of that that might have also spurred Matt Gates to drop out today as opposed to any other day. So CNN says that they had extra details about the second encounter with the 17-year-old, apparently on the same day, and that after they called Matt Gates for a comment, 45 minutes after they called him, he dropped out. Now, is it because of that? We don't know, right? But CNN implied that it was. But of course, it's their story, so that's why they implied it. So but why does the second encounter matter? Why on God's green earth would it matter when we already know the essence of it, you know, a sexual relationship with a minor is already devastating. It doesn't matter that much of his once or twice in the same day. Well, they report that it was a three-way

and that it was with another adult woman. Now, if Matt Gates doesn't want the name of that other adult woman out in public, he might be doing it to protect her partly. Okay, so now that's a little A little bit of speculation on my part, but the part I told you about CNN is clear. So the part Anna, where I say, look, that's a, the 17 year old is a massive concern for real people, right? Yeah. But for his colleagues in the Senate in the House, I don't think it's a real concern at all. I think half of them have done equally horrible things.

I think they're using it as an excuse. Yeah, I agree. And I think that they're real heart of the problem and why I'm conflicted about it. When you think like, why, you don't agree with 10,000 things that Matt Gates. has said and he's done these terrible obnoxious things in in terms of the 17 year old and so why bother even is ending now he's gone so why even do a conflicted halfway defense of him Because I want you guys to understand politics. It's not about Matt Gates, it's about the process and how things work.

So anytime that somebody challenges power, they will always have some sort of sexual allegation against them, always, okay? If they're in the establishment, they have the same sex crimes behind the scenes. And that's why the one thing Marjorie Taylor Green said the other day was true. She's like, oh, do we want to release all the files? Because I got all sorts of files on other republicans. Right, yes, she did make that threat. Yeah, she said that if the House Ethics Committee releases the report that they did on Matt Gates,

then she's going to air the dirty laundry of all of her Republican colleagues. So apparently that exists, and they all know that it exists. That's crazy. But they never bring it out unless they challenge the establishment, right? And in the case of Madison Cawthorne and Matt Gates, it was not just the establishment. And Democrats are fairly impotent to begin with. But it's Republicans that were bothered by Madison Cawthorne and Matt Gates. And they're the ones who said, okay, use the secret files against them, right?

And then we'll all pretend to be outraged by the secret files when we all know that we got secret files on so many of us. And none of us are actually outraged by it. I mean, Donald Trump said that he knew that Jeffrey Epstein liked the girls young and partied with him for 15 years. Are they outraged by that? No, they're not outraged by it at all, right? So I want you to understand that hypocrisy because what are the three decent things about me? Matt Gates. And yes, you could say that someone is terrible and still say that they have three redeeming qualities. He genuinely proposed anti-corruption bills that progressive Democrats

signed on to. They were good bills, both in terms of the conflict of interest on the stock trading, but also in getting money out of politics to some degree, or at least limiting it. It was shocking that Matt Gates signed on to that. He was genuinely anti-war. He challenged Trump, which almost no Republican did when Trump was in his first term, not to bomb Iran, that was shocking, right? And so the establishment hates both of those things. His Republican colleagues hate both of those things. And what's the last thing he did? He challenged, sometimes comically and ridiculously and absurdly, but sometimes courageously, he challenged his own Republican colleagues. Now, what have I been asking just Democrats to do all this time? Challenge

your colleagues. But there's a price to pay when you challenge your colleagues. And this is don't do it. That's why people don't do it, right? Because they're afraid. They're not afraid necessarily of sex scandals, right? But they're afraid that it's going to have consequences. And this is the consequences. So understand that Matt Gates did not lose this position because of the sex with the 17 year old or because the American people were upset with him or because of his truly outrageous positions. No, he lost a position because his fellow dirty Republican colleagues were so corrupt that they were bothered that he was slightly not corrupt on some of these issues and challenge them on it. So that's what actually happened

here. Yeah, I mean, he was absolutely loathed in D.C. There's no question about that. Asked about Gates withdrawal. Senator Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi, gave a prolonged and silent smile. So now the question is, what's in store for Matt Gates? What's in store for his future? What is he planning on doing next? Well, apparently Fox News is already coming up with some ideas. Let's take a look. So he resigned from the 118th Congress. And when he gave his speech on the House floor announcing that resignation, he said, I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress. I caught it. So you have to ask, does he now take that back and try to be a congressman or does he go away? He said, but you caught what he said, the same office.

Yeah. DeSantis has to a point, if Michael Walsh, congressman, moves on in his nominated post, If Marco Rubio, Senator moves on in his nominated post, he's got some positions to work with there in that state. Could it be Matthew Gates, who then becomes a U.S. senator for an interim in the state of Florida? That's an interesting thought. I don't, I mean, I guess it's a possibility, but do you think that DeSantis would fill that empty Senate seat left behind by Marco Rubio with Matt Gates? Well, that would be rubbing it in their face. That would be amazing, actually. Like, I mean, look, I'm not really a fan of Matt Gates.

I want to be clear about that. I think your analysis is accurate, Jank. I think that there were some good things that he did that definitely upset the Republican establishment. And I would love to see the Republican establishment suffer that blow. But I don't know if it would make sense to have Matt Gates serve as a United States senator. Yeah, look, so that's a super tough one because we genuinely disagree with him on so many things. He's been so outrageous on some of those things. But on the other hand, it's not like we're going to get a Republican senator that agrees with us.

Yeah, totally. Right. And it's not like we're not getting a Republican senator appointed by Ron DeSantis, who isn't a crook, right? So if you're looking at it strictly from a policy point of view, and here, by the way, by being honest, I'm exposing myself to super unfair attacks from my own side. Later, they'll say, oh, didn't you defend Matt Gay? No, but wait, I gave an explanation of how politics works, but they won't do any of that. And not just our side, but New York Times, et cetera, will later smear me for this analysis.

So I'm giving you that as a, you know, preface to this. But honestly, almost any other Republican senator would be 100% corrupt and 100% wrong policies. So the fact that Matt Gates is against corruption to some degree and against war to some degree and against his other Republican colleagues makes me say, yeah, he'd probably be a better senator, better Republican senator from Florida than probably anyone else that DeSantis could appoint or would appoint. I guess we're going to have to wait and see. But for now, let's move on to some other news, including big news on the international

stage having to do with arrest warrants for people who should have been arrested a long time ago. But nonetheless, let's get to it. The arrest warrants are for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least October 8th, 2023, until the request for the arrest warrants was issued by the prosecutor six months ago on May the 20th. Big news today coming out of the international criminal court. In fact, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Galant, as well as Hamas military commander, Mohamed Dief. Now, for Dief, the court essentially found reasonable grounds to believe that he was responsible for the crimes against human.

of murder, extermination, torture, and rape, and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture, taking hostages, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other form of sexual violence. Of course, this is tied to the atrocities that were committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7th. Now, Israel believes that DEEF is already dead, but the ICC says that it has, it is not in a position to determine if that is true. And as for the Israeli side of this, as for Netanyahu and Joav Galant, who, by the way, has been replaced as defense minister earlier this month, the chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that they each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpeture. traitors for committing the acts jointly with others, the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, as we know that they hadn't been allowing humanitarian aid into the Gaza

Strip, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. It also found reasonable grounds to believe that each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population in Gaza. In fact, just today it was reported that Israeli air strikes in northern and central Gaza killed at least 87 people. The death toll is expected to rise, but here's what we know so far. At least 65 people were killed in northern Gaza overnight. The death toll again is expected to rise because there were about 200 people at the site of these airstrikes, which was Bet Lahia, civilians were being dug out of the rubble with bare hands because there's nothing

left in Gaza. There's no ambulances, there are no relief workers, there's no one to rescue people. So you have, you know, doctors, anyone who's around, literally trying to get human bodies out of the rubble using their bare hands. So there was a separate air strike, Israeli air strike in central Gaza that killed an additional 22 people, 10 of them were children, and the U.S., by the way, just vetoed yet another security council vote in the U.N. in favor of a ceasefire. All it takes is the United States to veto that vote, and that's what they did again. And while Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction

of the international criminal court, it's 124 member countries do. So should any of these three individuals travel to an ICC member country, well, that country has an obligation to arrest these individuals. That is their obligation as a member state to the ICC. Now I'm going to get to all of the statements and denials in just a minute. But before I do, what are your thoughts, Jank? Yeah, so it's a great development because at least it's a tiny bit of justice and at least it hounds them a little bit throughout their lives. And so you think, well, really, I mean, they're going to escape justice, of course. Nobody's going to actually arrest them.

Not exactly. So Italy and the Netherlands have already said they step foot on this soil and they will be arrested. That is a legitimate warrant from a legitimate court that we recognize. We signed a treaty to abide by the international criminal court. you come to anywhere in Italy or Netherlands, and in Benjamin Netanyahu, you're going to find yourself behind bars. Basically, he's a fugitive from justice for the great number of countries. In fact, the great majority of countries in the world, even the UK, they asked them,

well, would you arrest Netanyahu if he came to the UK? And they punted. They, like, I would expect them to go, no, this is an outrageous decision. It's anti-Semitic, blah, blah, blah. right, like the America does, like the sad puppets in America who are like, oh, okay, yeah, it's all anti-semitism, I don't see the 44,000 dead people lying right there. So anyway, but the UK didn't clearly answer, so they're not sure that they could even go to the UK, let alone any other country.

So they're, in a sense, you know how the Palestinian people are, in a sense, prisoners because they don't control their borders. They're in open-air camps, and they're at the mercy of Israel in West Bank and Gund. Gaza, well now Netanyahu and Galant are prisoners within Israel, because if they go to most of the other countries in the world, they will be arrested as war criminals, which they obviously are. So I want to give a tip of the hat again here to Bernie Sanders, because I want to talk about this because this is important and related, and point out how awful a person Joe Biden is. Yes.

So Joe Biden said about 30 days ago, before the election, if Israel is not allow more, humanitarian aid into northern Gaza, we will start to cut off the weapons. Now, we told you here on the Young Turks that he was lying. Now, for a news show, that's a pretty bold thing to say, right? We're telling you ahead of time that the president of the United States is a liar and we'll definitely not do what he's saying. And of course, we were right. He's a liar.

And he, after the 30 days were over, after the election is over and they lost the election. It was obviously a political gimmick by a longtime liar. And so he came out and was like, oh, yeah, no. Of course we're not gonna do that. We're gonna keep that weapons going. He hasn't killed enough Palestinians yet. So, and hey, congratulations, Joe. He killed another 87.

You must be celebrating you and Jill Biden must be just beside yourself. Yes, more Palestinians murdered and we lied all along on behalf of Israel. Give me the money, give me the money. At least $11 million from AIPAC and other sources to Biden throughout his campaign. So now Bernie then proposed the resolution in the Senate and said, okay, well, let's cut the funding. You said we were going to cut the funding. He was specific though, no more offensive weapons to Israel. He didn't say anything about defensive weaponry, supplies for the Iron Dome or David's

sling or anything like that. Defensive support will remain offensive weaponry, like the 2,000 pound bombs that they're dropping on residential buildings, we got to stop sending those over. Continue, Jank. Yeah, that's a bare minute we can do. But again, guys, this is always, this is a great example of what is this is not about religion. Bernie at this point is the best fighter for the Palestinians and he's Jewish, right? This is about governments and what they do.

So the Israeli government is totally utterly out of control. One more quick thing to back at what Anna was saying, not only are there, is there not a single ambulance left in northern Gaza and and there's nothing to excavate these the rubble once the buildings are bombed civilian buildings are bombed in one of the bombs 25 people were killed in the second one that Anna mentioned 10 of them were children and all they can do is try to dig the like move the giant slabs of concrete to see if it crushed the children's heads or if any of them are alive and then they bring them to the hospital but there's nothing they could do at what hospital in fact 84% of the health care center is

in Gaza have been destroyed. So don't tell me it's not a genocide and that you accidentally destroyed 84% of the health centers in Gaza. And so what Bernie did as he was speaking in the Senate was they had rotating pictures of starving children in northern Gaza because they won't allow to aid it, right? And he said, is this what we're doing? We're sending money and bombs to this government to starve these children and to kill them.

So no, that should weigh very heavy on your conscience. So his beloved friend Joe Biden, of course, called out on this. But hey, and then one more piece of credit to Bernie, he got 19 senators to vote with him. Of course, all Democrats, all the Republicans were like, no, we're still number one donor A-PAC. We love A-PAC, kill them all. That's all those sick, disgusting Republican senators. All those wonderful pro-life senators, you know. And by the way, also the sick, sick Democratic senators that voted with them like Chuck Schumer,

Jackie Rosen, et cetera, who were like, no, Israel hasn't killed it off. more bombs, more weapons, kill the Palestinians. So congratulations, you got what you wished for, and you'll get a bigger genocide. And Chuck Schumer and all those guys and Joe Biden better shut his mouth and never say the phrase, never again, okay? Yep. Because they mean never again for me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. But for you, I got slaughter, genocide, and ethnic cleansing that I'm going to force the American

taxpayers to pay for. But to those 19 Democratic senators, thank you for having a conscious and some morale. and some courage to defy one of the most powerful forces in American politics, A-PAC, which bribed the other 81 senators and bought them completely. Now, the Israeli prime minister's office released a statement following notice of these arrest warrants by the international criminal court. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not give into pressure. He will continue to pursue all the objectives that Israel set out to achieve in its

just war against Hamas and the Iranian access of evil. Terror. Access of terror, yes. Access of terror, yes. Access of evil is a- They've changed the words slightly. I know. From the Iraq war to the Iran war, which Netanyahu also pushed us into.

Did David Frum write that? I don't know, but he's probably on MSNBC right now. Probably. White House National Security spokesperson also said this. We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor's rush to seek arrest warrants. Rush, rush to seek arrest warrants. This has been going on for over a year. Rush to seek arrest warrants, okay.

I mean, our government's a joke, guys. It's a joke, okay? The Biden administration is a complete and utter joke. But let me continue. Rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision, no clarity on what those so-called process errors are. The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter. In coordination with partners, including Israel, we are discussing next step.

Except the ICC actually does have jurisdiction. It has jurisdiction over Gaza, it has jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, and it's because the Palestinians requested it. And so as a result of the atrocities that they have faced at the hands of the Israeli government, the ICC has the ability to issue the arrest warrants that they have now issued. And again, if these individuals travel to any of the member states, 124 of them, and by the way, Every country in the EU is a member state of the ICC, they have an obligation to arrest Netanyahu or Yoav Galaan.

And so, or, you know, if he's alive, the Mohammed Diff, the Hamas combatant. So we'll see what happens. But, I mean, look, you and I talk about the frustrations we feel when it comes to gaslighting. I think this story is the epitome of our government gaslighting and pretending as though the atrocities that are being committed by the IDF aren't actually happening. While simultaneously pointing to Russia and the atrocities that Russia is committing in Ukraine, Russia has killed a little over 11,000 civilians. Israel has killed 44,000 people in a tiny strip of land called the Gaza Strip.

How are you going to point to one country and say atrocities and then point to another country where far more civilians have been slaughtered and say, no, no, there's nothing wrong, nothing to see here, let's move on. But wait a minute, did China and Iran legally bribe all of our politicians? No, they didn't. Maybe they should consider it. Oh, that's why. And Bernie Sanders in his speech said, how are we going to have any credibility when we call out the human rights abuses in China, Iran, Russia, and all these other places? and we say we're outraged by the invasion that Russia did on Ukraine and how many civilians they killed, and then say yes, but we'd like to fund worse when Israel does it, our so-called ally.

So thank you again to him for being honest. And last thing is, just last week I did a debate at UCLA about this exact issue, whether the ICC should issue these warrants, and we had a legal debate about it. And one of the ICC judges joined us in that debate, and he explained at the end that he explained at the end, that he was the one that said that the ICC earlier did not have jurisdiction over Israel. But when the Palestinians were allowed to join as a member to the General Assembly, it changed the laws and allowed them to have jurisdiction over the West Bank Gaza Strip in East Jerusalem.

And because of that change, he would now say that they were able to rule on this matter as a matter of jurisdiction, they do have it because those war crimes happen in those areas. And that's why the ICC had every right to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Galant. And guys, if you care about Israel, it should break your heart that one of the two of the worst war criminals we've ever had in our lifetime are Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Galant, the prime minister and the defense minister of Israel. That should be heartbreaking if you love Israel. And it's not because, as they said, of course, they released the statement saying, it's because

the entire world is anti-Semitic. And if you guys love Jews, you would know that we had to kill all of those children and other people made us do it. Hey, don't bring Jews into this. Jews all across the world didn't sign on to your genocide. Okay, you chose to do that. They're not the war criminals. You are, right?

But if you love Israel, you got to get rid of this guy because he is absolutely getting the world to hate you and see your country as. As a terrorist state, is a rogue terrorist nation that says we should get to be war criminals and get away with it. And that is a terrible place to be. When we come back from the break, we'll give you an update on further escalations in the war between Ukraine and Russia. And later we'll talk about some of the issues arising from other Donald Trump appointments for his upcoming administration. Come right back. All right back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys.

Also, Caitlin Schilling, thank you for joining, Caitlin, I appreciate it. She had to join bottom below box gifts at her membership as usual. And Michelle Moody, thank you for gifting five, appreciate it, Michelle. All right, Anna. Well, let's stay on the topic of foreign policy and what's happening on the international stage because, unfortunately, the other war that's going on between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate. CNN's and Tasha Bertrand is standing by at the Pentagon with more now on the U.S. plan to give anti-personnel minds to Ukraine for the first time.

The Biden administration is basically reversing its own policy here. The Trump administration before the Biden folks, they had loosened the restrictions on anti-personnel. Mines. Biden, when he came into office, he reimposed those restrictions saying that these actually need to be completely eliminated from U.S. stockpiles and the use of them worldwide really needs to end. The Biden administration is now saying that they're accounting for that by sending this version, which the battery can run out and they won't last as long as, for example, a traditional landmine would. Well, as you just heard in that clip, the Biden administration has decided to reverse its own policy in order to provide Ukraine with anti-personnel mines.

And this is leading to further escalation in the war between Ukraine and Russia. Now, the Biden administration explains that these minds are known as non-persistent. And if you want some more information on that, have no fear. You're about to hear more details in this next clip. These are different from the anti-tank minds that the Biden administration, has been sending to Ukraine since the earliest days of the war. These are designed to essentially blunt the advances of personnel, of Russian troops. And the reason they are giving these minds to the Ukrainians now,

according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who just confirmed this news earlier today, is because the Russians have changed their tactics in recent weeks and months to lead with those personnel, with those troops, instead of those mechanized forces, tanks, for example, that they had been leading with before. The U.S. says that these anti-personnel mines, they are different from the kinds of mines that the Russians are using, for example, in that they are battery powered and they can

become inert, basically, from a preset period. So basically, they can only last anywhere from two hours to two weeks, according to U.S. officials. And that in turn, of course, would blunt the impact that they might have to civilians once the war ends. So this is the type of weaponry that other countries, including our allies, are very much against. More than 160 countries have signed an international treaty banning the use of anti-personnel mines, noting that the indiscriminate weapons can cause enduring harm to civilians. But Ukraine argues that these anti-personnel mines will help them in their battle against Russia,

hinder Russia's ability to acquire or take control of more land. Currently, Russia has been able to occupy about 20% of Ukrainian territory. In a report released in October, the United Nations said that since 2022, 407 Ukrainian civilians have died and 944 were wounded by mines and unexploded ordinance. And an anonymous official told the Washington Post that the mines could only be used. used on Ukrainian land, so this isn't something that they're going to use in Russia. But as we shared with you all earlier this week, the Biden administration also started sending Ukraine so-called attackums. So these are missiles that are going to be used and have

been used, in fact, against Russia on Russian territory by Ukraine, which has led to an escalation and threats of nuclear war coming from Vladimir Putin. Now, Mary Warham, who's a deputy director of the crisis conflict and arms division at Human Rights Watch stated that even non-persistent minds can still be dangerous for civilians and require complicated cleanup efforts. And if you have a problem with the U.S. funding this war in order to help Ukraine defend itself. And if you have a problem with these minds, well, you're certainly going to have a problem with the fact that the Biden administration has committed to cleaning up the mines after the war is over.

And so of course there will be some costs associated with that. But you know, now Russia has in fact escalated, Jank, because now they're responding with even more intense weaponry, intense ballistic missiles. Today Russia attacked the Ukrainian town of Denebro with what Ukraine has described as an intercontinental ballistic missile. That kind of missile is actually capable. of carrying nuclear warheads, although I want to be clear, this missile was not carrying a nuclear warhead in this specific case. Zelensky stated that all characteristics, speed,

altitude of an intercontinental ballistic missile, examinations are now underway. It is obvious that Russian President Vladimir Putin is using Ukraine as a training ground. Now, the United States refrained from using that term, instead referring to the weapon as an experimental medium range ballistic missile. And Tom Carraco, who's a director of the missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cut through all the terminology and plainly stated as follows. I think it's important not to get hung up on whether it is a quote, unquote, ICBM, but rather that it is a big rocket with a big payload. And that is a particular kind of rocket that comes with some nuclear sable rattling as baggage.

And honestly, this is what we should have expected considering Biden's willingness to send Ukraine the attack them's in order to have Ukraine attack Russia on Russian territory. So, Jank, what are your thoughts? Yeah, so just so you guys are perfectly clear out, the intercontinental ballistic missiles have a much longer range. And so they are often used. to carry nukes. And so with those short range missiles they've been firing back and forth can't carry nukes. And so, so that's why it was a bigger deal when they got the missiles that attack them's that go 190 miles. In this case, these intercontinental ballistic missiles

went 600 miles to hit Ukraine. But basically that the point isn't how long they went in this particular case. The point is Russia is saying, remember, we have these missiles. And we can put nukes in them. Exactly. Okay, so that is significant saber rattling. Now, what do I think about the mines? Well, I'm a tiny bit conflicted on it. And so let me break it down for you, why I am and then which side I come out on.

So on the one hand, the Russians are using landmines. So we're asking the Ukrainians don't use a weapon that the other side is already using against you. And second thing is the Russians are their aggressors. So they invade your country. They put a whole bunch of landmines in there, and that has significantly, and this is the third thing, that it has significantly thwarted Ukraine's countermoves against Russia, the landmines have. So it is pretty effective. So now we're asking the Ukrainians to not use an effective method here that the Russians have used against them.

So that's a pretty tough thing to say no to under those circumstances. Now, having said that, I think the countervailing forces overwhelm it. And if I was the president, I would have said no. So number one, you set a bad precedent. I mean, you look at all those civilians killed in Ukraine because of the mines that the Russians planted, right? And remember, one of the big problems with mines is that they persist after the war. And so then, you know, kids blow up in the, you know, three years later. Now, they say that these landmines are going to go away in time.

That they become inactive. That they become inactive. Except some of them won't, right? And of course, we'll then have to pay for the mines. them pay for them to be removed, like, so, so then there's the, the fact that the Russians are going to escalate, right? Yeah, and they've been escalating. And so now they're going to go to a different level of escalation.

And when they do, then we're going to use that as an excuse for us to escalate. And then they're going to ask, so this is a terrible idea. So I don't want to see more escalation. I understand what they're doing, guys. And I want you to understand it. They're worried that when Trump gets into office, he's going to freeze. the action where it is, right? And if the Russians are pushing forward now in Donsk, I'm terrible of pronouncing the names.

Densk, right? Densk, sorry, I'm so bad at it. And so they're gaining more territory there. And so when Trump comes in, they're going to go red light, right? Green light, green light, red light. And so now we get to keep all of this, right? So the Ukrainians, I understand where they're coming from. They want to push back as much as they can and hold their front.

fronts before Trump gives away some of their land and some of their country, right, which he most certainly is going to do. He's going to force them to do it. Having said that, escalating with two months left, with a very dangerous and kind of radical adversary, is not the best of ideas. And especially because it appears that Trump's going to cut the funding for Ukraine, and so this war is going to be over. I don't want some sort of madness to happen in the last two months before the war is going to end. So yes, the Ukrainian people are the victims of unbelievable injustice here. And so nobody should forget that. Nobody should forget that Russia is the one that did the invasion in the first place. But having said that escalating now is a bad idea.

I would have said no. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll get right back into Donald Trump's appointment because there are some big updates in regard to who he wants for defense secretary Pete Hegesith. Stick around. Well, I did what I had to do. But anyway, Alan, pick yourself back up. All right, drippy, sloppy media. Thank you for joining and thank you for having a hilarious username. All right, Anna.

Well, why don't we get into this? Overnight, a police report was released detailing a 2017 sexual assault allegation against Fox host Pete Hegsef. It comes down as Hegset arrives here today to meet with the Republican senators. will decide whether or not to confirm him. A lot of controversy surrounding some of Donald Trump's appointments for his upcoming administration, and Pete Higgseth happens to be at the center of some of that controversy. Hegzeth is Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary, and he's facing more public scrutiny today after a police report detailing his alleged sexual assault was released.

So the incident occurred several years ago back in October of 2017 at a Republican women's conference in Monterey, California. The accuser is referred only as Jane Doe in this 22-page police report, and here is her account of what happened. She said she encountered Hegsef at this conference. He was giving off a creeper vibe. She says she ends up in a strange hotel room, and when she's there, Hegseth, took her phone from her hands, and he blocked the door with his body.

She went on to say, she remembered saying no a lot. Now, there was a lot she couldn't recall, and she said she believed something may have been slipped into her drink, although there were other witnesses who said when they saw her, she did not seem to be overly intoxicated. There were also conflicting accounts from witnesses at this conference about an interaction that this woman had with Hegsith at a bar at the hotel. One person said that Hegseth was hitting on another woman, and Jane Doe arrived to be a, quote, crotch blocker to stop him from hitting on this other lady. A different conference attendee said it appeared that Jane Doe and another woman were flirting with Hegson. So obviously, as you heard there, conflicting reports, but there's also a big lie or misconception

that's being spread by Hegsith and his supporters about how the police report cleared him of any wrong doing. That is not true. The truth is we don't know what happened, okay? And the prosecutor decided against filing any charges or pursuing any charges against Heggsith. Now Jane Doe says that her first memory of being in the hotel room was when she was on a bed or a couch and Hegsith was on top of her. She said that his dog tags were hovering over her face and that he was bare chested. She told police he ejaculated onto her stomach. before throwing her a towel and asking, are you okay? The woman said she does not remember how she got back to her room.

Now Doe's husband, who was at the conference with her, told police that he was worried about her, because she didn't come back to the hotel room that night and only returned after about like 4 a.m. Four days later, she went to the hospital in order to get an exam to see, you know, basically a rape kit. And so she said that she wasn't sure if there was, you know, any penetration, but that she believes that she was sexually assaulted. And that's when an emergency room nurse at the hospital decided to report this to the authorities. So last week, CNN reached out to the woman. They say that as soon as they reached out to her, she like broke into tears when asked about

the incident and declined to comment about it. And according to the police report, police also spoke to two other women at the conference who told them that Hegsith put his hand on their thighs and invited them to his hotel room. Hegsith, meanwhile, tells a very different story. Let's watch. He describes an evening of consensual sexual intercourse. He says that this woman, Jane Doe, ends up in his hotel room. He found it kind of odd that she stuck around, but they became intimate. And he tells authorities, there was always conversation and always consensual conduct. He said that, He and Jane Doe discussed that she was married and she said she would tell her husband she had fallen asleep on the couch in someone else's room.

He also told authorities she showed early signs of regret, although he didn't describe what that means. Now, Hegg's attorney, and this is the thing that bothers me, basically told CNN on Wednesday night, this police report confirms what I've said all along, that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed. To be clear, while it is true that police did not end up charging him, the prosecutors did not pursue this case, they did not find the allegations to be false, they just did, the prosecutor might have decided there isn't enough evidence to pursue this case. This happens literally all the time. It doesn't necessarily mean that sexual misconduct did not happen. But what this does mean is we don't know.

This hasn't been fully investigated. There wasn't any type of trial or any real, like, robust investigation into these allegations. Yeah, I hate this story. And I'll tell you why. So first, we have no idea what happened. But the two different camps are absolutely positive. We get the same evidence or no evidence. Every Republican is absolutely convinced he didn't do it. Every Democrat seems to be convinced that he did do it. Really? Like, we all conveniently fall, like you, we all analyze the evidence fairly and partially, and it just so happened that all the Democrats believe that he did do it and all the Republicans happen to believe that he didn't. Come on. So everyone is biased and it drives me crazy. So when you look at the evidence, it's impossible to tell. So on the one hand, she says he might have slipped me a drug. If he did, oh my God, that I hate him. And it's awful. So, you know, and then that's not, that's rape, right? If you, if you, you You slip a drug in, she doesn't know what's happening. You take her back to your room, et cetera.

You get it. And he said that it's odd that she stayed. And why is that odd that she stayed in your room when presumably you guys went back to do something in your room? So I don't understand that part of his story, right? On the other hand, the witnesses largely back him up. They say that he was actually very drunk, but that she appeared to be coherent. A couple of witnesses said that. Didn't seem too drunk.

Had one glass of champagne and a little bit of vodka. What they saw, but on the other hand, they might not have seen if he slipped something in her drink, right? But they say that she was, she appeared to be coherent. They, so one witness says that she was flirting with him rather than the other way around. He says that she's got a husband and so she wanted to, you know, she felt bad. So she had to tell her husband a story and she told this story. How the hell are we supposed to know? We, none of us were there.

I have no idea what happened there. Is it possible that she, you know, felt guilty about it and then said this? It's possible, and he's famous, and that's another thing that's a factor. Is it possible that he's a giant jerk and did this? Also very possible. But if he did do it and he gets away with it, it's disgusting and heartbreaking. If he didn't do it and it really was consensual, then as much as I deeply dislike Pete Heggsiff, then he got then he's it's super unfair yeah no I told I agree I agree I also hate

these stories because we we are not equipped with enough information to adjudicate what really happened and so part of me feels gross even talking about the story on the chance that it might not be true right that the allegations that might not be true but then part of me feels gross for not talking about the story not covering the story if the allegations might actually be true, but we have no way of knowing. Yeah, and guys, sometimes it's pretty obvious from the public evidence. Like, on the one hand, Harvey Weinstein was super obvious. I mean, there was overwhelming witness testimony, et cetera.

And I would argue that Aziz Ansari was pretty obvious. It was, yeah. That he didn't do anything wrong, although at the time, a lot of people were furious at things I still don't understand why they what they were furious at, right? So there's some cases where you go, that's pretty clear, right? And this case is not at all clear. So I have no idea what happened. And if anybody's telling you that they know for sure, they're wrong. They definitely don't know for sure. So now we're left with, I don't know, I don't know, what do you make of that? I mean, look, I don't want him to be defense secretary because he's got no business in that

role. And his only qualification is that he's going to do whatever Donald Trump demands of him, including maybe using the military inside the United States against not only undocumented immigrants, but potentially what he considers domestic enemies. And that's a term that he's used. So I have massive problems with Hegsif on other grounds, and I don't think he should be the defense secretary. But not based on this, because this is inconclusive. Today, while visiting Capitol Hill, Hegsith was asked point blank about the accusations, and this was his response. If she's sexually assault woman in Monterey, California.

As far as the media's concerned, I'll keep this very simple. The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that's what I'm going to leave. Thank you very much. Okay, so again, the police report doesn't necessarily clear him of anything, but it does detail what the allegation. are what the witnesses said and the prosecutor did not pursue charges against him. But I also want to note one other thing. So he entered a settlement with the woman, right? And so he's getting some heat for that. His attorney has acknowledged that Hegseth later entered into a settlement agreement with his accuser that included an undisclosed monetary payment and a confidentiality

clause. Though Hegseth insisted the encounter was consensual, the lawyer said he was fearful that the woman was poised to make an allegation against him during the Me Too movement that might have cost him his job at Fox as a host. And so it's actually very common during these monetary settlements to have the individual accepting the settlement to sign a non-disclosure or confidentiality clause. So it's really not that out of the ordinary, but I'm curious what you think about that. Yeah, there's no way of knowing. You actually, there is a way of knowing, but you'd have to know the sum. So if the sum is, let's say, a couple of million bucks, that means he definitely did it. Because that means they had so much evidence they were going to get him and he had to pay

it. If the sum is like 50,000, that means he didn't do it. And they had almost no evidence. And he's making, he's doing that payment to make the case go away so he doesn't lose his job. So that's usually how you can tell. And the lawyers argue over the leverage before they reach a settlement. So if the number is really low, that means almost certainly the person didn't do it. And it's a nuisance lawsuit, but there's no way to get rid of a nuisance lawsuit unless it becomes like a giant public spectacle or you pay a small amount to get rid of it. But we don't know. We have no idea if it was a million dollars or $25,000. Yeah, and look, the confirmation hearing for Heg-Ziff is gonna, I mean, it's gonna focus on this. It's gonna be like Brett

Kavanaugh 2.0 in a way. So I don't know what will be adjudicated through that, but. What I would want it to focus on is who do you think are quote-unquote domestic enemies and would you use the military against them? Would you use the military in American streets? So that's the most, that please, can anyone in D.C. focus on things that are relevant, right? And so I'm not saying that if he actually did the sexual assault that it isn't relevant, it would definitely be relevant. But we don't know. And there's almost no way of knowing. Okay, so they say settlement. On the other head, the cops did look into it. It's in Monterey, California. So, and it's not like it's in deep red Alabama.

On the other hand, Monterey, California has a lot of rich people, and maybe they wanted to brush it under the rug. I don't know, but the cops did say did not press charges. So that's also very, very relevant, right? So can you, there's a thousand excellent reasons to oppose Hexon. Let's not, and here's the main thing that I ask of Democratic senators. You want to ask questions about this? No problem. You want to ask how much was the settlement?

That could be, you know, that could tell us something. No problem, right? But can you please also ask them real questions? about the defense department and what he would do in the defense department? I mean, they made, they talked about Trump using the military against American citizens prior to the election. They made a big deal about that. That's right. So they should ask about it. That should be, you know, one of their top priorities in the confirmation hearing.

So we'll see what happens. But by the way, I mean, Trump himself has confirmed that that's what he intends to do. So, all right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we have some breaking news in regard to who Trump is now choosing to serve as his attorney general, don't miss it.