The Young Turks - Cohen’s Secret Trump Tapes Revealed, And Is This Trump’s Worst Week Ever?

Episode Date: July 20, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from July 20, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, Ben Mankiewicz & Joe Sanberg. Michael Cohen secretly taped Trump discussing Karen McDougal payment. This may have been Trump’s worst week in office. Maxine Waters warns supporters of possible armed protests against her. 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. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks, and the realities is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join.

Drop it. Not only that, everybody, welcome, first of all, how you guys doing? Good, good, good. All right. Joe, you know in a couple of different roles here at the Young Turks. He's founder of Aspiration.com, which you should check out. But he's in the role here as one of the biggest progressive activists in California, help to increase their earned income tax credit, which if you don't know, you should read up about it.

And if you do, you probably run into Joe's work. So, but we have more power, power, power later in this two-hour show. We have special surprise guests. We're efforting it, we're gonna try to make it work. There's some technical stuff we gotta do, okay. But we are later in the show hoping to say surprise, okay. So hang around for that. That should be excellent and fun.

Shane, scale of 1 to 10, how big is the surprise guest? Three. Oh, yeah, hey, Zeus is gonna come into the studio. So he's awesome. Like, surprise, it's Ricky Strong. Yeah, that's right. The technical stuff is fixing his lower half. His foot, his foot.

He has a broken leg and stuff. Yes, that could be misinterpreted by the alt-right. Okay, which might be a story later in the program. All right, so lots of wild and woolly stuff, including the first story, which John's going to get to in a second, which has twist and turns. Lots of twists and turns in today's show. So without further ado, let's get started. Okay, let's do it. Michael Cohen is the former longtime personal lawyer to Donald Trump, and apparently he didn't

just do law. He also did secret recordings, including in the months leading up to the 2016 election, in which he recorded a conversation with Donald Trump about payments they plan to make to a former Playboy model who alleges she had an affair with Donald Trump, and they wanted to pay her off so that she would not talk about it in the run up to the election. The former model, Karen McDougal, says she began a nearly year. year-long affair with Trump in 2006, shortly after Trump's wife, Melania, gave birth to their son Barron. Miss McDougal sold her story eventually for $150,000 to the National Enquirer,

which was supportive of Trump during the final months of the presidential campaign. But the tabloid sat on the story, which kept it from becoming public. I guess they couldn't fit it. There's too much other news. And so they never ended up actually covering the story, which is too bad. It happens here sometimes, too. So the boy who was trapped in a refrigerator ate his own foot. And that story, needed to be covered. Yeah, it's timely. Plus, aliens happen to land just that week. That's right.

Exactly. And the week after, and the week after. There's a definitive proof that they buried it a little bit later in this story. Exactly. Now, we got access. Well, we didn't get access, but access was granted to these recordings when the FBI raided Michael Cohen's office earlier this year. The lawyers in favor of, or the ones defending Michael Cohen, apparently shared it with

Donald Trump's lawyers. Obviously, they did not cop to the presence of these until it was eventually released earlier today, but they have had access to it. We have been alerted to the fact that there are probably other tapes as well. Now, that doesn't mean that Donald Trump is willing to admit that anything bad happened. His other lawyers, the replacements from Michael Cohen, have come forward to talk about it. Rudy Giuliani, who is still technically his lawyer and not just the guy who goes on TV to get him in trouble every day, confirmed in a telephone conversation on Friday.

that Trump had discussed payments to Mrs. McDougal with Cohen in person on the recording. He said it was less than two minutes long, said Trump did not know he was being recorded and claimed that the president had done nothing wrong. And Rudy Giuliani specifically said nothing in that conversation suggests he had any knowledge of it in advance. He said the tapes were exculpatory, in fact. Yeah, exactly. I love the idea he didn't know about it in advance and the conversation was less than two minutes

long, which means that they can really wrap these things up fast. Like, you alert me to the possibility that this woman is lying about an affair, and I authorize a gigantic payment like that. Right. No big deal. It's like, it's a great point, John. It's a fair, because it's like when in every movie, every movie that doesn't work narratively, where the cops get on the plane to fly from New York to Vegas to pick up the key suspect in the murder. They land, we see them get on the plane, then later we see them landing, getting off the plane, and one cop says to the other, So where do you think he is? And you're like, what did you people talk about for five hours on the plane?

So, yeah, let's break this down. First off, don't believe anything Rudy Giuliani says. He says, oh, it's exculpatory. No, it's not. Why do you think they're trying to get ahead of the story? It's explosive. That's why. Technically, he didn't say he knew about it ahead of time.

Now, it might be that what Cohen says on the tapes, and we obviously don't have the content of the tapes here, but we have a lot of stories about people who did listen to them and then give these stories. So, it's possible that in the tapes, Cohen calls Trump and says the payment by the owners of the National Enquirer has been made, right? So, and Trump goes good, okay, and it gets wrapped up in two minutes. Now Giuliani goes, see, he told him about it afterwards. To John and Ben's point, if you heard somebody called you randomly and said, hey, this, you This woman you've never heard of that you might or might not have had an affair with,

somebody else paid $150,000 to shut her up. Would you be like, oh, okay, that's interesting. I'll see you later. Right? No, that means that's a thing you normally do. Good, I'm glad it was taking care of, right? This is so obvious. And I'm done trying to convince Trump people that, you know, like, oh, no, yeah, that's totally normal.

You know, if somebody called me out, you say $150,000 for an affair, I might or might not have had. I could wrap that up in two minutes, right? Okay, all right, fine, you're a lunatic, I don't care to discuss that with you. Okay, for everybody else, it's super obvious what happened, okay? But there's two other parts of this that are monumentally important. One, Giuliani admitting it takes away the possibility of one other defense Trump could have done in court, which is attorney-client privilege. So it is either a failing of his, which is the first analysis that a lot of people did,

or he's actually trying to hide the other stuff. story. So let me do the first one, okay? So a lot of people, as soon as Julianne, I said that, a lot of lawyers and former prosecutors came out and said, why in the God's green earth would your own lawyer do that? That takes away your ability in case you could of saying attorney-client privilege. You want to reserve all your rights before going into court. This is negligence. Democrats of tallest, you hold your powder. But in the case of the law, you actually should, right? And so And one theory was Cohen actually tricked them, that the courts had not already passed it onto the prosecutors, and that it was privileged.

And Cohen leaked it, thereby getting Giuliani and Trump to believe that the prosecutors had it. And so then Giuliani's like, oh, yeah? It was fine. There's nothing wrong with that call. And it's like, boom, got you. So if that's the case, that's interesting and well played by Michael Cohen, who had to be advised by someone to do that.

He's been advised by, he's being advised by Lanny Davis. By the way, that's in a quick aside. Another thing of like, has Michael Cohen flipped on Donald Trump? That's over. Lanny Davis is the most pro-Hillary lawyer and maybe person in a country. He's been with the Clintons his whole life. You do not hire Lanny Davis if you haven't flipped on Donald Trump. It's not a question.

Anyone who thinks is a question doesn't follow politics in the last couple of decades in America. Lanny Davis is, in essence, not only a lawyer, but a Democratic operative. He, I mean, a Democratic operative loathed in many ways, even by establishment mainstream Democrats. He's such a conservative Democrat. Yeah, but in the Clinton camp, clearly in the Clinton camp, okay? I'm keeping it real, and you could hold out against them, but that's overwhelming evidence that Cohen is not with Trump anymore. Davis said that this is the new Michael Cohen. Yeah, it's over, it's over.

He flipped, in essence, right? So, okay, now the explosive part. All that is fun, that was actually an appetizer. So I had this theory when I read it, I was like, no, there's something wrong with this story. You don't get out ahead of a story like this unless you're trying to cover up something else. And then Ron Blitzer wrote about it as well on, and I think, yeah, on law and crime. And I was like, okay, good, I'm not the only one. And so it doesn't mean we're right, but they talk about the tapes.

Everybody acknowledges the tapes. Okay, there's a tape of him talking about. McDougall, the playboy model. I think I know what you're going to say. There's another playboy model, Sarah Breshard, who they claim had an affair with Broody, the Republican financier of Donald Trump, and had an abortion. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling

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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. And they paid her not $150,000, $1.6 million. That's a whole other level, like perhaps if you had an abortion. She did have an abortion. They came out and just like in this story, Brody raised his hand immediately. It was, it was me. It was me. And you caught me, no, we didn't catch you. Why did you raise your hand?

That was really weird, right? And it was not for the abortion. It definitely wasn't. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Well, she did. But the 1.6 million was not for the abortion. So there has been an ongoing theory written by the New York Magazine and many others that. Broydie is fronting for Trump.

Yes, that Bichard did not have the affair with Broidy. She had it with Trump. And in fact, it was a way of paying for Trump's abortion. And if Broidy did that. Did he receive anything for that? And if he did, that is a massive crime. Yeah. Okay. And but we know that the contracts, the defense contracts that his company got went from huge.

Like, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but on this scale, $80 in contracts to $627 million in contracts that he's gotten since Donald Trump came up. Yeah, so he, that's a long story. And I've talked about on the show before he gets contracts for the United Arab Emirates for over $600 million. Donald Trump does favors for the United Arab Emirates and as opposed to Qatar, which is what they wanted. Huge switching American policy without explanation. Yes. And then finally, that's why when Giuliana comes out and goes, yeah, the McDougal tapes, yeah, that McDougal. So, yeah, man, we did that one?

Oh, did I say that out loud? McDougal, though. Remember everybody, McDougal, not for sure. And also the sources saying that they, and in regard to those other tapes, that the other tapes are with Cohen and people. of significance and consequence. That was the quote. People of significance and consequence. You made an interesting part earlier about nothing can divorce Trump supporters from Trump.

And in a sense, this is just going to make them feel more enthusiastic because there's a religious component to it. And I'm not talking about the missionary position. The religious component is this idea held by Trump supporters that God works through the most unlikely characters, right? So the worse Trump is, the more immoral he is. To this group of supporters, the more it affirms the magic of God's power working through this incredibly unlikely character.

How do you reason with people who don't use reason? So because if you said that, okay, well then Clinton's immorality, which you said was the worst thing in the world, should be God working in mysterious worries and showing his magic. No, that's immoral. Trump doing something way worse, God's magic. Well, Obama, they said was literally the Antichrist. Wouldn't that be the ultimate way for God to work? Through the Antichrist.

By setting the stage for Trump. Maybe. Who sets the stage for Bernie Sanders? What? Okay, so I have a question for the panel, but first, like two little wrinkles. Just in terms of what they've claimed before, the campaign was reached out to by the Wall Street Journal right before the election back in 2016 and asked about those payments because the Wall Street Journal had found out that something had happened.

Whole Pick said, we have no knowledge of any of this and said that Ms. McDougal's claim of an affair was totally untrue. Well, we don't have proof of the affair just yet, but they clearly did know about it. And so they have been lying about that. That was ongoing for a couple of years at this point. And I just think this is funny. In reaction to the story today, apparently the president said, I can't believe Michael would do this to me. Yeah, I can't believe Michael. Or with me, technically. That's a weird way to say that. So my question, though, is there are ways that theoretically this, that crimes could have been committed. So there's the legal and the ethical aspect.

which are sort of separate. This is explosive, but how likely is this in either of those two areas to actually matter more than a week into the future? So to Joe's earlier point, people are just set in their ways. We're done with it, right? So the Republican, 80% of Republicans will not move no matter what. And even if it turns out the Bashar's story is true, if, right, and Trump paid for an abortion, they're like, oh, God works in mysterious ways.

And of course, the guy who's the most immoral person on the planet, according to our own ideology, is the one that he would choose to be our leader. Right, but they'll believe it. They'll believe it. So, but in the, and, and progressives already hate Trump. But hold on, just real quick, just 10 seconds. But the, the second component to that story, if that story is true, that then, Broidy, is that we say his name? That then he was given favors and defense contracts for stepping up and taking that payment. And he's been the middleman in these deals before. That's a, that's a crime that everyone understands. That will make it, that one would make it tricky for Lanny Dave, for, not for Lainty Davis, for Lindsey Graham.

Yeah. And so, but that's a great point by bet. Look, the Republican voters will not move. Look, I give you an example we talked about on the show before. Scott Dijarlay, he's in Tennessee. Dejard Leigh is a congressman. Turns out he paid for three abortions, not one, not two, three. Two with his wife, I believe, and one with his mistress.

Or two with his mistress, one with his wife. It's hard to keep up with all the abortions that he has paid for. And the voters are like, God works in mysterious ways. Who cares? We don't care about abortion. We're just lying. We're just kidding. I just hate immigrants.

I don't care. I don't care. So will they care about Donald Trump's abortion? No, the voters will not care at all. They never cared. It was always a lie, right? The politicians, well, okay, maybe they have to make some uncomfortable sentences. Like, I'm very opposed to abortion, but love Donald Trump.

They could walk that tight line. They've been doing it for two years now. But, okay, here it is. Here's a $1.6 million payoff. If, okay, $1.6 million payoff, are the Republicans going to go? Yeah, I don't care. I don't care. It's obviously illegal.

This guy's an obvious criminal, but I'll lose my primary. I vote with Donald Trump. I don't know. My gut is, yeah. If something like that turns out to be true, Jeff Flake is going to take to Twitter, he's going to be pretty angry. For an account. Yeah, I think they'll be perfectly fine with that.

I mean, they got past Monday. Well, that's a real, I'm just saying, I'm just saying that there's, there, we are entering into an area where the potential, no more than a potential, where there are serious, unambiguous crimes, right? I mean, a big part, as you know, Jank, your lawyer, like a lot of, you know, you kill somebody that's a crime, right? But a lot of these crimes are, no, that's not a crime, my intent was this, and then you argue it, and that's why we have a, that's why, there's no, we may end up, you

enter into unambiguous territory, and that will put a different kind of pressure on Republicans. And as always, as we get closer to Election Day, you know, if they feel like there's an advantage to separate themselves from him, then they will separate themselves from him. And by the way, don't get me wrong, I think they will. I think that Trump is a disaster, but also from a management perspective. And I would be really surprised if the markets didn't tumble at some point because of the tariffs or just the overinflated stock market because of the insane tax cuts, et cetera. And the minute the markets suffer, the donors will flip, which will make the Republican

politicians flip. But that's your only hope, not like that they develop a conscience or that the Republican voters care. And it's a hope that would be absolutely devastating for the vast majority of America. But there is some percentage of that 80%, make up a number. That's persuadable. Give me a number. Three.

Okay, 3%. I was going to go with 8, but we'll take 6. Okay, all right. Six percent. Deal. And there is a whole giant swath of Democratic operatives who will run an entire campaign on the off chance that they can get that four and a half percent. Instead of running on.

Instead of just being like, you know, there's 60 percent of the other people, let's just get them. Yeah. Instead of running on corruption, which is another story in the news today, it turns out we were right about that all along, number one campaign issue. I've been telling you that for seven straight years. Anyway, and number two is, I love this phrasing that Ocasio-Cortez used, economic dignity. You run on that and you'll crush these guys. So Trump is a monster of a different sort and there are legal proceedings and investigators. Let them do their job, okay?

That's a, to me, that's a separate issue, okay? But when you're running a campaign, run to actually help Americans. Yeah. Why don't we take our first break when we come back? I think it's time for a reappearance of the TYT Supreme Court. Oh, interesting. Okay, Supreme Court on its way. All right, back on a young Turks.

We did not plant this. I want you to know this. Shelby tweets, Jenk, I have a checking account and two investment accounts with aspiration. It's been great. Thank you. Thank you. That is not the point, but thank you, though.

You just made my day. Thank you. All right. Now let's go to YouTube Superchat. Brendan Weincoop says, National Prison Strike 2018, prisoners have called for a nationwide strike and protests from August 21st to September 9th of 2018. It's going to be lit, hashtag prison strike.

I wouldn't, it shouldn't be literally lit, though. Just let's be careful. But having said that, look, the way we treat our prisoners in this country is barbaric and unconstitutional. Solitary confinement for as long as we use it is insane and it's definitely cruel and unusual punishment. I talked to a woman on rebel headquarters that had gone to Yale, got arrested for reasons she's still disputing, et cetera. And they just throw people in solitary confinement left and right for three weeks at a time, which used to be absolute torture. They don't even

think twice about it. You looked at me kind of weird, three weeks of solitary confinement where you can go ahead and lose your mind. When those kids got caught in that cave, part of the reason so many people focus on it was that they were mostly alone for a while. And we just throw people in, cut them totally off. That's right. And they had each other, with solitaire, obviously you have no one. Okay, last one. Robert Erickson, first of all, sends in a hundred Swedish croner.

So we're back. We're back to the croners, thank you, Robert. He says, as a Swede, it's interesting to note that Ben is more upset about the lack of presence of Merrill Streep in the Abba musical Mamma Mia, here we go again, than about Trump paying former Playboy models. 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.

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available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. I thought she wasn't. It's, I can't say. I don't want to spoil it for people. But there's a giant lie in the movie. I don't know that he has gauged my sentiments

correctly. Okay. Was there a what-the-flick review or something? We reviewed it, and a lot of people liked this movie, And she's Meryl Streep and it's the sequel and she's in the thing and she's at the top of the cast. Okay, I got you. I got you. Everybody check out all those what to flip reviews online.

I'm thinking about seeing eighth grade or the- Oh, that's so good. I know. So I'm gonna check the review out first. All right, John, what's next? Okay, let's have a little fun. Most people seem to agree that the Trump Putin summit did not go particularly well politically for Donald Trump. And in a lot of ways, the days since then have been worse with him. reversing on what he had said at the summit and then undercutting it and then going back and

forth and back and forth and then offering to hand over some of our ex-diplomats to Russia and then deciding he's not going to do that and then saying well maybe we'll have Putin here and then God only knows where we're at with that. It's been sort of a mess and it was perhaps capped off earlier this morning when we found out that tapes of him discussing you know payments to this Playboy model who claims that she had an affair with him have actually been released that the FBI has it. So it has been a rough, rough week. But I want to ask a specific question with the return of the T.Y.T. Supreme Court. Drop it. Yeah, there's no way.

Certain that he did actually have it ready in time. He just wanted me to look awkward. No, he's a professional. He had it ready to go. Anyway, so the question for the Supreme Court is, has this been the worst week politically for Donald Trump in his presidency? A good one. Now I want to lay out a little bit more information. So I gave you some of the reasons why many people are saying that this has perhaps heard him in a way that most other weeks haven't, no matter how bad the news has been. Obviously he's done terrible things, but his base generally doesn't care.

A lot of people have tuned out. But I want to read just a couple of numbers that could play into your reaction to this. So in terms of the summit performance, 55% of the people surveyed recently were unhappy with his performance, while 32% approves. you might say overall, I mean, that's not good. You certainly don't want that coming out of a big international event that he had been hyping. However, 68% of Republicans did approve of it, with only 21% saying that they disapproved. And this isn't really specifically attached to it, but in terms of the willingness of some people to never, ever shift on a position, this is one of the most amazing

stats that I've seen recently. 31% of Republicans strongly disagree that Russia got involved in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump, with another 19% somewhat disagreeing. One third of Republicans, after all of this, in a recent poll, still say, nope, it didn't happen. Two percent of Democrats felt the same way. You know, we saw this at the run up to the Iraq War, and Rob Reiner's movie, Shaganaugh, touches on a little bit. But, you know, we talked up and I don't know how the dates off the top of my head, but, I mean, it might still be that 40% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11.

I mean, the power of sort of an endlessly well-weaved piece of propaganda, a lie, can be very effective. Also, it made sense that why else would we be going into Iraq if he didn't have something to do with 9-11? So we're, you know, look, we've said this before, and we're not that bright. Overall, we're not. We're easily swayed by hard propaganda and by soft propaganda, and that's because it works. It's worked over time. It's worked, it works, that it's effective. Yeah, so two things about that.

In terms of the number, only 31% of Republicans are sure that it, there was, the Russian did not interfere. I'm surprised that number's that low, right? Really? Mind you. Every. Well, another 19% say they're somewhat sure. Yeah, so about 50%. So about half, right?

Even that is low. So, like, don't get me wrong, every Republican politician in the country minus Trump says, yes, the Russians definitely interfered. Every intelligence official says. Except for Roerbacher. Okay. And, no, you're right. There's like three or four left a congressman who are still left going, no, no, Trump, Russia,

no, Russia's great. I don't know what you're talking about. Russia's the best friend we have. They would never do that to us besides Putin said so, right? And even Trump has admitted after saying a thousand times they had nothing to do with it. Yeah, okay, so look, they did. And I've always said that they meddled, right? He even put out a videotape of a couple of times where he said it.

So how could it be the nearly half of Republicans? Because Ben's right, propaganda works. Because Trump says they did it three times, says they didn't do it a thousand times. And we're in our camps and we just, it's amazing how well lies work. You just have to have one camp's leader, repeat the lie a thousand times. But it's an uneven playing field because one side lies and lies on purpose. The other side doesn't even make its own case, let alone lying. Yeah, and for those who think that those of that we and other people on this panel have been hoodwinked by propaganda, by anti-Russia propaganda and Trump derangement syndrome, you know, for the Iraq war lies, those lies and the lies to the extent that many in the intelligence community were behind it, many in the intelligence community, we now were screaming no, no, no, and they were overruled by their bosses.

One, there are no leaks here, right? There's nobody inside. There's no, F, CIA agent, it goes, no, they're not lying. You know, they're not telling the truth. John Brennan is lying on this. He lied on the other thing, right? You know, and it serves the people in power. That lie served the people in power in the Bush administration, right?

That piece of propaganda. This lie is literally challenging the people in power. That is enough reason all by itself to understand that we're, that on Russia, this is not a piece of propaganda. Again. So really, really fast, so I definitely think this conversation is interesting, but I am also in terms of the Supreme Court. Can I rule first? You certainly can.

Has this week been worse politically? Judge Sandberg rules as follows. Please, Justice Sandberg. Justice Sandberg. Thank you. Thanks, the Supreme Court. No mere judge. Tell I didn't go to law school.

It was not President Trump's worst week politically. His worst week politically was around health care. This might have been his worst week legally, ultimately, because it could be public evidence of treason. But for better or for worse, what voters respond to, and I think that's what informs the question of whether it's the worst week politically, is this question of whether President Trump is on your side. And I think that in his presidency, the moment when it was clearest that President Trump

is absolutely not on anyone's side, but big business and pharmaceutical companies was during the health care situation. Yeah, so I'll give my cute answer first and then kind of my real answer. The cutesy answer is his worst week was the week that he passed the tax cuts. And like that's what they think was his best week. That's conventional wisdom. But the reality is catching up with them in terms of the voters. It's now down to only one third popularity because the people are still, where is it?

Where is it? I thought it was going to come to me. And they're beginning to realize, no, it just went to the rich, just like we told you. and they're starting to get more and more angry. But worse than that is that it has created a bubble in the stock market, period. No question about it. And bubbles burst. And when he burst, that's when Trump gets kicked out by his fellow Republicans.

Now, having said that, and that is substantively probably the correct answer. But in terms of Republicans beginning to turn, the maelstrom, and it has been one maelstrom after another after another. But the tariffs were last week, and it was already, like, the Republicans, none of the Republican donors agree with Trump on the tariffs. So they, all the Republicans who had always been like, yes, sir, absolutely, sir, on Donald Trump. The one set of people they care about more than Trump is their donors. So when the donors were like, tell them to shut up about the tariffs, all of a sudden,

even Orrin Hatch, and everybody was like, screw Trump. He doesn't know what he's talking about, right? And then this week, this thing lines like a bombshell when he goes. and kisses Putin's ass. And the Lindsay Grams of the world are like, no, no, no, every Republican that's actually has like just 1% of a conscience about, what have we been saying our whole lives? Our whole lives, I cannot turn around in one week and now tell you that Vladimir Putin's a really good guy and a saint and he's got America's best interest and we should believe

him above our own intelligence community. No, no, I can. So that's two strikes in a row, and then these tapes are coming out, and these tapes are going to be disastrous. So, and in a sense, every week is the worst week. Like, it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. So in the end, okay, fine, I'll vote this week. Interesting. Are you done?

He's the Chief Justice. Yeah, we have to finish this this week, actually. Yeah, Jesus. Is there any time left for Justice Bank? You know, you read that poll, and I'm never wearing my contact lenses again, by the way. Your poll was 32% approved, 55% disapproved. That sounds right. Another poll had it 40 and 56, but a HuffPost UGov survey had it 40% approving and 36 disapproving.

If the question were worded in a way to allow for more people to say, no, I don't really know, I wasn't following the news, then Trump does betters. And of course, his people are gonna hang their hat on that poll, right? I get that later. So that said, I think it was his worst week because of the last. point that Jank made, sort of the, this was the first time, even though Lindsey Graham the next day when Trump apologized, we're like, I take the president of his word that he misspoke. A lot of people talk that way.

It's kind of language people use all the time. They say would when they meant would not. They're always using triple, triple, triple, quadruple, quintuple, sex double negatives. That's a regular way of speaking. It's not a big deal. And so, but there was a fissure in Republicans. And the fact that only 68% are buying, you know, 68% of Republicans. Republicans approved of his handling of the summit, that's not a good number for him.

He likes those numbers in the 80s. So I will say politically it's his worst week. It wasn't his worst week as a person. It was like one of his best weeks as a person. But politically it was bad. Yeah, I think, I agree with you. Every week is just so terrible. Like we do on the damage report at the end of each week, we look back and just say,

what's all the crazy stuff that happened? And even that, like, it's too much. You can't remember it even if you try to. You remember he had people around him that supposedly were reining in his worst instincts and stopping him from being really crazy. And then those people steadily left that we said at the time, like, what if like he actually goes insane? I think this week might have been a demonstration of that.

Let me ask you guys one quick question. So with my closest friend, I don't want to mention his name, Dan Hamilton, right? And so, and he and I made a bet at the beginning of the Trump presidency, $20 per person, like per people he names as his closest advisors in his captain. He said there will be as many standard awful, but establishment Republicans who will turn him back to a course that doesn't go off the tracks. And I said, no, he's going to surround himself with incompetence and crazies. And what, how much money, just Rowley, do you think I am owed at this point? $480.

I mean, it's overwhelming. Like he gets General Mattis. Yeah. And then I'm kind of, I'm kind of stuck after that. Yeah, yeah. So, look, I wonder, does he recover from this? I don't know. I mean, look, the Republican opposition to him was somewhat vocal.

Like, I don't think we've really reached this much vocal opposition since the Hollywood reporter tapes. But how much action has there actually been? I mean, they were going to block the- When those Hollywood reporter tapes come out, when people hear them, that will sink him. That will totally sink him. So, but I do wonder if he'll be able to sort of get it back together. I mean, he looked pretty ridiculous.

But that said, I don't know, I want to say that politically in the short term, I mean, the Democratic congressional advantage had been really big. And then it started to dip a few months ago. That's right. And it did go back up. And when it went back up was when the family separation policy was unveiled. That, in terms of political weakness going into the midterms, was a huge turning. point. I'm not sure that's right. I'm not sure I agree with you. No? I'm not sure that we could chart

that dip to that turnaround. That outraged dust. It should outrage all, I outrage all people with a son. A protest around the country, like 700. Yes, but also a message to his voters. I mean, that was deliberate. That was, hey man, immigration. Get motivated. This is, this is our stand. This is our line in the ground. So I think that they liked that. And I just don't know. I'd love to see proof that that's when it- Two-thirds of the country apparently was against that policy. But that said, I do think that this was pretty chaotic. I think that it might have slightly emboldened some of his critics to think we can criticize him.

And as long as we don't have a primary right now, it won't actually sink our careers. And also I kind of want to be a little bit hopeful and assume that we're on the upswing. So I think that politically this has been very damaging him. And I would say that at this point, it's probably worse politically for him out of his presidency. Let me get one point in in support of my dissenting opinion. Strong dissent. Strong dissent from Justice Sandberg that I'd oppose to the the panel, if you had one issue, one only issue, to run against Trump in the midterms,

would it be what happened this week with Russia? No, of course not. So if that's not the one issue you'd pick, then doesn't that weaken the case that it was his worst political week? It's a great, great point, but I'm going to say no, and I'll tell you why. Although John almost got me to vote against them and it changed my vote. Because, no, but seriously, because you made a good point, too, John, about the child separation, which was really damaging, right? That's certainly up there for one of his worst

weeks. But Joe, the reason why I disagree is not because you're not right about what do you run on. You run on policy. You're 100% right on that. And so then they were not going to run on this. But the way to undermine Trump is not to keep calling him a monster. We all, or the whole country knows it. What Democrats are missing because they live in their own bubble is some people don't mind. They want a monster, right? So they keep reinforcing a thing. that's a positive for them. Like, no, you don't understand. He really hates immigrants.

They're like, yeah, so do I. Right, right. But for the first time, and this is what put me over the time. Chang is going to say something that I'm 100% going to agree with. I know you're going to say. Fascinating. Let's see if it's true. Okay, for the first time, he started to seem weak.

Was that it? He looked stupid. He looked, he looked bad. His body language was. He was a goofball. He was an undeniable goofball, even to people who are in, instinctively sort of like. He was George W. Bushian.

And he was standing next to a guy who actually is strong. That's right. I don't like his strengths. I think it's monstrous, but he is strong. And juxtaposed to Putin, even if they deny it, that seed got planted in Republican and independent heads. Maybe he's not strong. Maybe he's a weakling.

You know, and all you need to do is, you know, once he has a real alpha male in the room or whatever, he cower. Maybe he's a joke. Right. Maybe he's a joke. Exactly. That's why I did a hundred loser Donald segments, before the election, because that's how you have to attack him, not hey, he's a bad guy.

We all already know that. Hillary had the 100% wrong strategy. If you can miss him that Donald Trump is weak, he's done for, he's got nothing left. That's why this was the worst week. That's 3 to 1. All right, well, we have a ruling, but it was strong nonetheless, Joe. Thanks. It'll be noted historically.

All right, we gotta take a quick break. We still have the big surprise coming up for you guys in today's show. And then liberals doing wrong things, in my opinion. So we'll debate that as well when we come back. Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free.

These are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. And you'll get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. All right, back on the Young Turks. Real quick here, two comments.

One is from Twitter, eclectic miscellaneous, says, I think the correct answer to which week has been the worst week for Donald Trump's presidency is yes. That's funny. Victor Tentukfoui writes in on YouTube super chat, and I swear to God we're not planting these. Love the show. Love my aspiration account. Thank you. And this is a double way.

I mean, can we get true north on TYT site or on. YouTube since Go 90 is now shutting down. That would be awesome. So look, look, just still you can find True North out there, go and watch it, et cetera, and all the places that it is, including, obviously, Verizon Go 90, and they were a wonderful partner to us. We'll work on the rest later, but don't, like that's later, later, later, okay, so just go find it now.

It's a wonderful series. The important thing is to- Yeah, that's what I'm getting to. So look, there's streamies nominations going on right now. now, and you guys can nominate, and if that makes a huge difference, and there's a lot more of you, and if you guys do that, it might be up for a streamie, which would be super cool. So we've got a bunch of things that are up for streamies. You can go to streamies.org slash fans to vote, but what you do is you type in the name of the show, and then you select the category.

So let me quickly tell you what they are, Young Turks for News, and there's the t-y-t.com links to it, too, if you want to do it that way instead of the bottom one, which is. streamies.org slash fans. But you type in Young Turks and then you select the news category. You type in True North. That's John's excellent series about the North Pole. And you choose the documentary category. You type in the breakdown and you choose pop culture category and then murder with friends and choose nonfiction series. If we get nominated for all four of these, it would be amazing. And then we have an excellent chance of winning. Again, thanks to you guys. So let's go make that happen.

Thank you guys. All right, next topic. Okay, let's do it. Yesterday we thought we were on the brink of a showdown between two different groups outside of Congresswoman Maxine Waters' office. Now, what we expected were that the right wing Oathkeeper's organization was going to be there attempting to intimidate the Congresswoman, bringing guns and all of that. And it was likely that counter protesters would come out to protest against them.

And we know how that has gone in a number of different instances in the US a little bit worrisome. Didn't actually happen, though, but the protests, which was announced earlier this week, was, this is their language, by the way, the oathkeepers. It was against Maxine Waters' incitement of terrorism. Lies. And a stand for ICE and the Border Patrol, as they enforced the perfectly constitutional immigration and naturalization laws of this nation, which Trump is ignoring a number of cases. That's what they put on their website, by the way.

That's the SPLC. Authorities have been in contact with the group, apparently, though, and it was decided that they would not. come in order to ensure peace. That said, just in case it still happened, counter-protesters did still show up. They gathered by the dozens and remained long after the oathkeepers had apparently bailed on their original promise to appear at the office. Now, at one point, someone did take a flag off of a pickup truck, doused it in oil, and set it on fire, chanting America was never great. So that part of it is unfortunate, of course. But at least the potential fight between these two groups did not happen.

And Maxine Waters herself had been worried that that was a possible outcome. She had warned people not to counter protest, actually. She said that oathkeepers would like nothing more than to inflame racial tensions and create an explosive conflict in our community. Can I say three things real quick? First of all, hashtag abolish ice. Second thing is hashtag abolish ice. And the third thing I'd like to say is hashtag abolish ice.

At least that does not lack clarity. Okay, so I have a number of different opinions on this. So first of all, oathkeepers are disastrous. They carry weapons around with them and come in camouflage. And so when they start saying Maxine Waters is enabling terrorism, and I'm going to come with my weapon, that's a recipe for disaster. So thank God they didn't show up. And I agree with Maxine Waters that I would not want counter-protesters there.

So now as it turns out, Oathkeepers didn't show up anyway, but thank God for that, because if they had with clearly some of the counter protesters had, you know, were in a frenzied state, okay, in my opinion, if they had met the oathkeepers in a frenzied state and one side has gasoline with them and the other side has weapons with them, it's only a matter of time before something like this explodes. So don't do it, don't do it. And if some lunatic right wingers are going, whether they're They've got guns or don't take them. Look, outside of Charlottesville, and yes, Charlottesville was shocking that there was, it appeared to be a couple hundred of them there. But almost every other right wing protest is 17 people. Just let them be goofballs by themselves, march around like jackasses and go home, okay? So now the third thing is really important. This, I don't know who did this.

We, in fact, called some of the unions that were present. They're like, we did not participate in that part, right? because I'm trying to figure out who the hell did it, because ripping the American flag, first of all, from somebody's truck, private property, terrible, and could lead to violence if that person then wants their property back, and it's wrong, and it's illegal, et cetera. Saying, after government, America was never great, okay, I don't agree with that. And I know that at this point, there's a lot of rage on the left as well because of all the suppression, oppression, et cetera, for this long.

And you want to have legitimate conversations about the things that America has done wrong throughout history? Are you kidding me? That laundry list is enormous. On the other hand, America has also done wonderful things throughout history. And I would hope to smart people have a conversation about both of those things, right? But the part that really I object to is burning the flag and then this quote, one of them said, this is not the American flag, this is their flag. No, exact opposite. No, the American flag is our flag. It's our flag. It stands for all the things that we believe in, equality for all, the things that are in the Constitution, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, human rights, civil rights, it stands for all those

things. Now, did we always live up to that? No, but that's why we fight so that we can live up to those principles. So those are our principles. The right wing doesn't own those principles, the right wing hates those principles. Look at what they're doing now. They have an authoritarian leader going around the world kissing up to other authoritarian leaders. They never believed in our democracy. They never believed in freedom of the press or speech. They never believed in any other constitution. That's our constitution, our flag. You should fight for it instead of against it. And it's so important that we maintain nonviolent and civil disobedience. Yes. There's just overwhelming evidence over the history of our country and movements for justice throughout

the world that civil disobedience and resistance works specifically when it's nonviolent and passive because in those ways we maintain the more high ground. Yeah. And you're not gonna out violent the right wing, okay? And right now they have the government in their control. You're not gonna out violent state violence. It's a terrible idea, both on morality and on effectiveness. I'm dubious about the story. I'm curious, there are gonna be some more details about the story.

The details are incredibly sketchy right now. Yeah. The Supreme Court has thankfully upheld it. You have the right to burn an American flag. You should unquestionably have that right to burn an American flag, but everyone who burns an American flag in America looks like an idiot. And we talked earlier in this hour about propaganda, and already this story will be utilized by the right, repeated again and again and again, and those images will show up, and no question.

In the march, in the resistance to fight Trump burning the American flag today, if that story holds up, and it is true, as reported, did significant damage. It was a terrible, terrible, incredibly stupid, selfish thing to do. Yeah. I agree with you that the story is too new, and we don't know. And sometimes there are infiltrators. I'm not saying that's what happened. I just don't know.

We tried to find out who did it, and there was no details at all. All right, guys, we've got to take a break. When we come back, a very special surprise, making the power panel a little bit more powerful. You're going to love it. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of The Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do because that's free. We want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall.

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