The Young Turks - Cohen’s Secret Ukraine Deal, Dems Banned From DOJ Briefing, Americans On The Mueller Investigation

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from May 14, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join.  Hour 1: Cenk Uygur & Ana Kasparian. Ukrainian President arranged to pay Michael Cohen to meet with President Trump at the White House. Democrats are excluded from DOJ briefing about FBI informant.  Donald Trump admits to bashing the press on purpose. 59% of Americans believe Trump investigation has not uncovered any crimes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thanks for watching. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. Jank Yuga Anna Kisperin with you guys. I feel so powerful today, Anna, especially a combination of you and me, that I almost dropped a power panel in the middle of the week. I almost did it. I'm salty today, so it should be a fun show. Agreed.

Okay. I also feel powerful, Jank. The dynamic duo. Oh, indeed, dynamic. Okay. Oh, look what I found on my desk. It's a TYT member's hat. That's actually super nice. I know, isn't it? Are these things called snapbacks, right? Yeah, snapax, yeah. Okay, tyt.com slash notice, if you're a member to buy this, they sell out within like 13 minutes usually, okay?

So, tyt.com slash notice. I don't know how the rest of it works. You guys will figure it out. Okay. Do we start random sometimes? Yeah, we just started random. You know, all of you guys, most of you guys are used to this, right? But if you're watching us on YouTube TV and you were right next to the other cable news guys and you've never seen a cable news show like this, hey, how you doing? You know, speaking of salty, I'm quite salty about a number of things today. The gun story, of course, right? But I have facts and I will rub it in the right wing's face.

So I just want to be clear about that. And then the NFL story has got me very, very salty. Later in the program, I explained to the right wing what America stands for, because apparently they have no idea. Okay, so we just got that out there. Having said all that, a major story right off to talk. Yes. We begin with our daily dose of mob reporting, because that's what the United States

has turned into, a giant mob in politics. The BBC has reported that a senior Ukrainian official disclosed that Michael Cohen was paid as much as $600,000 to create a back channel to Trump by the Ukrainian officials. So the Ukrainian president wanted to meet with Trump. He wanted more than just a photo op. And the best way to do that was to go through Trump's fix-it lawyer, Michael Cohen. Now, the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, arranged to pay Cohen at least $400,000 to set up the meeting, which took place at the White House in June. So this is June of last year.

Now, another source corroborated what this senior official said, but said that Cohen was paid $600,000. Right now, there's no evidence that Trump knew about the payment. But we do know that Poroshenko did have a meeting with Trump, and it did. It was something more than just a photo op, which is what he was looking for. Yeah, so he, Michael Cohen, is not a registered representative of Ukraine. So this is definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely illegal. If they can prove it, right, and we'll see if they can. But my guess is they have all of his documents and his bank accounts, so it'll be relatively

easy to prove. In fact, the banks are the ones that first flagged Michael Cohen. They're like lots of shady business going on here. He set up this thing called Essential Consultants, said it was going to be just handle small checks. They had handled very large checks. He said that it was a company about real estate and it didn't do anything with real estate. So, and by the way, if you don't know, if you do have transactions over $10,000 that looks suspicious, the bank does flag it. So they had flags all over Michael Cohen's personal accounts and his business, the Essential Consultants.

That's a thing that he used to pay off Stormy Daniels for Donald Trump. So now it has led to among different revelations this one. Now, if Trump didn't know about it, so then he's not guilty of that at all. But now that's an if, we don't know yet. And so there's no evidence of it. So let's leave that aside, okay? The reason why this is so important is, again, if Michael Cohen is definitely going away, and for something like this, this is a layup, right?

Okay, then he's got a choice to make. how many years in prison would I like to serve to try to cover for Donald Trump. Now, it's possible that Michael Cohen's got nothing on Donald Trump, that Donald Trump has been operating his business legally for all this time and never broken the loss. Yeah, well, I suppose that is possible, right? But if Michael Cohen has anything, not even this, but on anything else on Donald Trump, he could trade it for leniency on an issue like this. Right. Now, there are two things left to discuss in this story. First of all, how did this whole back channel thing work? And then more importantly, what concessions were exchanged after this meeting. Okay? So let's start with the back channel. So Poroshenko, again, the Ukrainian president, decided to establish this back channel to Mr. Trump. The task was given to a former aide who used a loyal Ukrainian MP for help. He in turn used personal contacts in the Jewish charity.

in New York State, Shabbat of Port Washington. This eventually led to Michael Cohen, the president's lawyer and trusted fixer. So again, as Jenk mentioned, Cohen setting up these meetings and taking payment in order to set up those meetings is illegal because Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by U.S. law. Okay, so what happened after this meeting that took place last June between the Ukrainian president and Trump? Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country's anti-corruption agency

stopped its investigation into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Well, that is a lucky break for the Trump campaign team that includes Manafort. I mean, what an unreal coincidence, but I'm sure it's a coincidence. What else happened? The senior intelligence official in Kiev said Cohen had been helped by Felix Sater, a convicted former mobster who was once Trump's business partner. So that's an interesting little tidbit in the story. So look, it's a quick aside.

That's why I laughed when I said the idea that Trump doesn't have anything illegal in his business dealings these years is hilarious. He did deals with guys like Felix Sater all the time. Sater cut some guys face open and got in trouble with the law massively on several different occasions. And by the way, got out of that trouble. his, this is his MO, by ratting out his partners. So these are the guys that Trump's in business with and Michael Cohen is.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. So aside from the Manafort concession, there are possible favor, I should say. There were other things that came out after this meeting took place. Let's go to Graphic 9. One source in Kiev said Poroshenko had given Trump a gift, making sure that Ukraine would find no more evidence to give the U.S. inquiry into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Okay.

I wonder what that gift is. Yes. Also, a report by a member of a Western country's intelligence community says Porcchenko's team believe they have established a non-aggression pact with Trump. And just to give you a sense of some of the money involved in all this stuff, the report says that an element of the understanding between the Ukrainian president and Trump was that Ukraine agreed to import U.S. coal and signed a $1 billion contract for American-made diesel trains. Let me just be clear that Ukraine had absolutely no need for those things.

They have their own coal. They have their own resources. But it turns out that they spent a billion dollars on importing U.S. goods instead. Well, look, let me be clear. That part, I don't mind at all. So if our president, Republican or Democrat, went and struck a deal, that benefited the American people, not himself, but the American people, and we got, you know, a billion dollars deal that's coming over to the U.S., creating more jobs here, great, right? That's not my issue. And look, if the Ukrainians didn't need it, that's their problem, not my problem, okay? So they should take it up with their own president.

It's all about the reasoning behind why they struck that deal. That's the issue there, right? So my point being is that, so if Trump's just making deals for coal, Who cares, right? In fact, probably good, right? But if he's making deals for coal plus, that little gift where you make my problems of collusion with Russia go away, that's a big deal. Because that isn't about the American people, that isn't serving us as president, that's

serving himself at our expense. Exactly. And that's the heart of this problem. And finally, there's something missing in this story for me, right? what does Ukraine get out of this? And the articles, the reporting just says the deals can only be understood as Poroshenko buying American support. But what does that mean? Well, buying American support in what? Protecting Ukraine from Russia? I mean, is that likely to happen? I don't know. But apparently Poroshenko was also bragging about the fact that he was able to meet

with Trump after the election before Putin could. Yeah. So, look, it is a little bit of a twist here because, remember, the current Ukrainian government replaced the old Ukrainian government, which was pro-Russian. So we need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Bu-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom.

In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, The UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,

You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're up. 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. That's why them being able to make the Russian collusion go away or to make it less of a chance that he gets discovered doesn't quite compute. So now, if they were to say, hey, Poroshenko says to Trump, you know, the Russians came in

and took Crimea, and I know your buddies with the Russians, could you tell them to get off our ass and not take any more of our country, right? Or, by the way, seriously and more realistically, to loosen up trade between our countries because I don't think Putin has not made any advances beyond Crimea yet in Ukraine. But there's a lot of economic and trade issues, well, then that would be something that Ukraine gets back. Or, by the way, I mean, we're talking about back channels where $400,000 and apparently illegal payments are being made. Maybe Poroshenko and his allies would like something for themselves and not the Ukrainian people, right? And that might also have to do with oligarchs, et cetera.

So now, all that is fascinating, requires more evidence. So let's keep digging, right? Now, if, again, the Republicans will say, no, you seem to have found something massively illegal. This would be the time to stop digging. No, this would be the time to continue the investigation. Because we're not here telling you, oh, I knew what Poroshenko's motivations were. That's why we should investigate. What else did he give anyone else?

What could be considered a bribe, right? And why would he give that bribe? And what did Trump give in return? That wasn't necessarily his to give, right? and what did he receive? Those are very important matters, and if you cared about this country, you would certainly care to find out the answers to those questions, no matter what they are. So the final portion of the story has to do with the response to this reporting, and

apparently Poroshenko is not pleased with this story getting out. According to Kenneth Vogel, he tweeted that Poroshenko's office in statement blasts BBC News story on the $400,000 payment. to Michael Cohen as slander aimed at discrediting Ukraine U.S. relations, as well as a personal attack against the president of Ukraine and the U.S. They're demanding a retraction and hinting at a lawsuit. Yeah, good luck. So you're going to sue papers in the West for covering a meeting that seem to have happened. By the way, be careful what you wish for it. This is an old Trump move. And you know who you would have carry this threat out is Michael Cohen. He would have

Michael Cohen and call up reporters, go, we're going to sue you. We're going to sue you if you actually report things that are true about Trump. Okay, you'll see, you'll see, right? I can't wait for all that to come out. A lot of that is already public. So he's pulling at Trump go, oh yeah, at BBC, we're going to sue you. Really, the president of a different country is going to sue the BBC. And by the way, if you did, we might actually find out what's going on.

So that might be great. So be careful what you wish for. Then you drag all that evidence into court, and then we see what happens. And this is all, this is, he's not really going to do. This is all to appeal to Trump. Because in here he said, this is a fake campaign aimed at discrediting Ukraine-U.S. relations, they use the word fake on purpose. Yeah, fake is thrown around left and right now.

Yeah, I almost feel like that statement was like, Mr. Trump, we're not the ones who gave him the information. We're really against this information coming out. It wasn't us. It's all fake news. Please, Mr. Trump. So, can't wait to see what they're hiding. All right, let's move on to some other news today.

Democrats in Congress have been barred from a Department of Justice briefing about the FBI informant that supposedly infiltrated Trump's presidential campaign. Now, this is all in response to the New York Times and Washington Post reporting that the FBI and Department of Justice had decided to investigate some camps. campaign staffers in the Trump campaign because there was some evidence to indicate that they were working with Russians. Now, Trump believes that this was all done for political reasons, even though none of us knew that this informant even existed until years after the election took place. But nonetheless, John Kelly has excluded Democrats from a meeting planned for Thursday tomorrow to provide more information about the FBI informant that Trump claims infiltrated.

his 2016 campaign. Now, let me be clear about something. An informant, a Republican informant, did infiltrate the campaign and did meet with people like George Papadopoulos. But it was not done for political reasons. It was done because people like George Papadopoulos were bragging about their contact with the Russians with an Australian diplomat, for instance, while the election was taking place. So that gives you a little bit of, as an investigator, someone working in the FBI, That gives you a reason to want to investigate that further. I have two fun points to make. First is something we have to acknowledge and we haven't for a long time.

It's an elephant in the room. That Papadopoulos is a hilarious name. No, I love the name, popadopoulos, actually. I love his name, and it's unfortunate that the person who has that name is the person he is. Yes. Now, Glass House on names, nonetheless. Here you go, Papadopoulos, throwing his stone.

Anyway, now on new important things. Trump says, they infiltrated my campaign for political reasons, and then kept a secret so it wouldn't hurt my campaign. What? If they had done it for political reasons, wouldn't they have released whatever information they have before the election? Yeah. But we know for a fact that they didn't. You know who was very publicly investigated during the election by the FBI, Hillary Clinton. So, and by the way, I mean, yes, her camp definitely said it.

was done for political reasons, and it did impact her campaign to some extent, right? It's difficult to measure. But people in your campaign were being investigated during the election before the election took place, and the FBI was silent about it. They didn't want to publicize it in any way, they didn't want information to get out in any way, because they were concerned that it would be perceived as a political attack, which it wasn't anyway. Yeah, and by the way, almost all the guys conducting this were Republicans.

So, hey, Republicans decided that they were going to release information. about investigation they had about Hillary Clinton, and that wound up hurting her campaign tremendously. And they, those same Republicans decided they were not going to release information about Donald Trump being investigated, even though he was. So how did that hurt Trump politically? Look, again, you put on the red hat, I know that means that there's some magical quality of that had that stops you from thinking.

You just go, dear leader says fake news, dear leader says witch hunt. But can you explain to me how you, the FBI would put an informant as a political operative inside the Trump campaign and then not say anything during the campaign, which then how would that hurt? How would that hurt Donald Trump? That doesn't make any sense. Now, you know what you would do to hurt a campaign? A couple of days before the election, you'd announce that you're restarting an investigation,

a federal investigation by the FBI of that candidate. Oh, right, they did that of Hillary Clinton, not of Donald Trump. So please, please stop. It's embarrassing how stupid you people are with your stupid conspiracy theories. Yeah, look, so my opinion on Trump changes day to day. And I'm specifically talking about his level of intelligence, right? On any given day, I could think, oh, he's actually pretty strategic. And in this case, he is strategic because he knows that it didn't actually hurt him politically

in any way whatsoever. He knows that if he makes a big issue about this and says that it was a witcher, he was a witch It was done politically, then his base will continue dismissing anything that Mueller finds in his investigation. He wants to discredit that investigation, and he's actually doing a good job at that. By the way, look, once the media is paying attention to you, and that's a big step, if they're not paying attention to you, then all this is really hard. But if you're a person like Donald Trump and the media pays a lot of attention to you, then

politics gets really, really simple. You don't have to be that smart. In fact, being smart might hurt you a little bit. Obama was brilliant. Harvard Law, the head of the Harvard Law Review was a constitutional law professor. And you know what we would get a lot of um, um, um, um, and he would never make his case. So people never heard it and people didn't understand it, right? And instead, Trump comes out and he's not that smart.

He just keeps repeating the same thing. Which one? Today he sent out a tweet. All it said was in all caps, which hunt? Like we forget how insane the president is. If randomly Obama had tweeted in the middle of his presidency, witch hunt, people like, did he lose his mind? What does that mean?

What do you mean, which hunt? And what kind of a tweet is that? It has no context. Right. I mean, this guy is deeply unstable, but it just, politics is not complicated. Strength and repetition. Make your goddamn case. By the way, what did I tell Obama for eight years, as if he was listening, okay?

I said, well, you goddamn, make your case, right? And I was right, even a total simpleton like Trump, when he says witch hunt, which hunt, which hunt, he gets almost the entire Republican Party to go, oh, yeah, yeah, I think the FBI planted a conspiracy with the CIA and the IRS. These are literal things that they were saying. Maria Bartaromo said it on air the other day. Republican congressmen are saying him, they're having this meeting about it. This, like the whole Republican Party has gone Alex Jones, full Alex Jones, right?

And they're like, and then the frogs are gay, and then this giant conspiracy. And 85% of Republicans are like, yeah, I bet there was a giant conspiracy. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter.

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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. And somehow that proves our point, because they stopped thinking and all he did was do propaganda. And the Democrats, on the other hand, right?

So like today, so on this story, the Democrats are excluded. What do Democrats ever do in response? Okay, tweet. Cry. Cry and tweet. Yeah, you're right. And I'm going to read you some of their responses in just a minute. And then I'm going to tell you what I would do, which is always fun. Okay, and I would venture to say this is just a prediction, so take it with a grain of salt, that their protests will stop with these tweets. It'll end with these tweets. So Chuck Schumer, the only thing more outrageous than this meeting occurring at all is the fact that it's now partisan. It is crystal clear that Chairman Nunes' intent, Nunez's intent, is to interfere with the investment. and Speaker Ryan is allowing it to happen. It's a very, very strong response. I'm sure that they'll really change, you know, change their tune now.

And then Adam Schiff, Senator Adam Schiff, said the following, this is another serious abuse of power. There's a bipartisan mechanism called the Gang of Eight. They need to use it. Well, you continue wagging your finger at them because I am sure that if you wag aggressively enough, they will listen. We need bipartisan mechanisms. So what would I do?

Okay, easy to criticize, right? Let's do, let's be constructive, right? So first of all, I would say, if I was Chuck Schumer, this proves that Donald Trump is in fact coordinating with his agencies to launch a conspiracy, and it is a conspiracy against the Democratic Party, and it should be fully investigated. I believe it is a criminal conspiracy, and that is why they're excluding the Democrats. So what happens as a consequence of that statement? Well, number one, the press goes nuts.

Wait, are you accusing the president of a criminal conspiracy? God damn right I am. Oh, wait, now let's all talk about that. Why? Well, he's, oh, he's excluding the Democrats from a political meeting, and a meeting that should not be political because it's with your FBI, et cetera, right? Oh, you see that? You got them to talk about it.

Instead of talking about the gang of AIN and different mechanisms and bam-e-mam-mam-mam-ma-mam-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma- Right? Okay, and then I would say, hey, I think the FBI is problematic. I think they are all Republicans, and they actually colluded against Hillary Clinton, and I demand an investigation of that. You see that? You've flipped it. So now they're playing defense, and you're playing offense. But for Democrats, that's inconceivable.

No, like, what's our go-to move? Crying? Who's got tears? Who's got tears? Let's do it. Oh, it's unfairly excluded us, right? No, you attack them. You level charges against them.

And you know what? Okay, number two, I would say, instead of saying Devin Nunes, outrageous. Stop it with the word outrageous. Okay, so here's what you do instead. I'm calling for the impeachment of Devin Nunes. Now, can a senator call for the impeachment of a congressman? Nah, not really, okay? Which then leads the press to go, wait a minute, you can't do that. But now we're having a conversation about whether Devin Nunes should be impeached. That's the conversation you want to have, not about whether he was unfair to you, right? Yeah, yeah, I like that. Tricky Pazicki.

With these reasons, because I was tweeting about this morning, it's when you come up with these things that maybe Chuck Schumer shouldn't have done, or should have done rather than the weakness he went with. I would just show up. Look, you're not going to invite me? Fine. Was this a birthday party? So I didn't get my R&CT.

I don't care. Yes, I'll be like, press, follow me. We're going to go where the meeting is. I don't know how this all works. I'm sure there's barriers, of course, but I'm a United States Senator. That's right. I'm not some slip off the street. That's right.

You know who I am? I'm Chuck Schumer. I'm showing up and we're going to talk about this. Shut me out at the door and watch the camera shut me out at the door. You think media's not going to see that? You know what? Swip anyway. I'm an elected official.

People who vote to me in want me to be there. Okay. And so I know why they wouldn't do it. They're like, oh, but if we get turned away, that looks like we're not powerful. No, look, Schmuck, you know what, you add one prop to JR's excellent idea, handcuffs. You come with the press and you come with handcuffs. Apparently, they're doing criminal conspiracy inside. That's why they wanted to make sure that their discussion with the FBI.

I was political and only had Republicans in it. So I came here to do a citizen's arrest, okay? Okay, so look, I love all these ideas. They're getting me all fired up like I want to do it, but look, I gave up on politicians like Chuck Schumer after they gave away all the leverage they had in pushing for protections for DACA recipients, continued protections for DACA recipients. The reason why he's weak is because he wants to be weak. It's not just an accident or a coincidence.

He's not a fighter. He's not going to be a fighter. They call themselves part of their resistance. Who are they resisting? They have given Republicans in Congress everything that they've wanted so far. You know, how have they pushed back? I mean, the whole funding the government and the whole DACA thing, it was just such an easy strategy.

You guys have the leverage. Don't fund the government until we have a standalone bill to offer protections for these DACA recipients. And they gave that leverage away. they're weak because they want to be weak. Yeah, because they don't give a damn about you. So all you get is more crocodile tears from them. They're never going to fight these guys.

Resistance, my ass. Okay, all right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, this is also one of my favorite stories. So Leslie Stahl tells us what Donald Trump's actual strategy is towards the press. And I have strong feelings about it. You're going to be shocked. Strong feelings about it. Come back with handcuffs.

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 a Young Turks, Jenk, and Anna. I'm going to overshare inside baseball here, because I'm positive that a lot of people care. Anyway, in the past, other folks would pick the tweets, and then I would pick the tweets, and it got a lot.

So we're gonna try something new. JR's both picking and reading the tweets. Oh. I'm the new gatekeeper, so you have to please me before you're mentioned on this show. There's gotta be something complimentary about JR, the tweet, in order for it to catch his attention. I'm just saying. He's not saying anything.

Nothing complimentary, just cash. He's kidding. At the letter hack, Matt Shrekbing. I'm going to mess up your name just like Jake does. Papadopoulos sounds like a Disney character. True. He does. Or a Sesame Street character.

We're just like Snuffle Flufficus, too. Right. And Tim Klein, Jr. at Jet 53. Is it just me or does Devin Nunes look like a shady version of Ross from Friends? Oh, that's not bad. I've been trying to figure out who he looks like, too. Yeah. But you know what?

Nunes also looks like a Sesame Street Cracker. Like, you know what I'm saying? He has kind of like the big eyes, like, and he looks kind of goofy. And you can see like Papadopoulos coming behind him. He sweats a lot. The, basically, in his nose and mouth, he sweats all the time. That mustache sweat is pretty unfortunate, yeah. But.

On the sweat, glassout. I don't know why we've given in to what he wants by calling him Nunes. His name's Nunez. No, no, no. It's Portuguese. Oh, it is Portuguese. Yeah, we clarified that. Yeah, Michael Schur called an epic called and he's like, he's Portuguese.

I thought that it was Nunez, but he didn't like that it sounded Latino and so he thought he was flown a Tavana. Yes, I did think that. Anyways, all right, all right, let's go. Thank you. All right. Leslie Stahl has revealed something pretty explosive about Donald Trump, but it's only explosive if you haven't been paying attention to him and the way that he's been talking

about any media coverage that's negative about him. Now, he says some pretty disparaging things about media, but he does it for a specific reason. Leslie Saul explained why during the Deadline Club of New York. This is a group of journalists who get together and do journalists things, give each other awards or something. To be fair, we give a watchdog journalism awards. I know, I know, I know. We're independent journalists who are doing wonderful reporting.

Okay, yes. Okay, but with that said, I want you to hear from Leslie Stahl herself, so take a look. Before the interview, I met with him in Trump Tower. At one point, he started to attack the press. And it's just me and my boss and him. He has a huge office. And he's attacking the press. And there were no cameras.

There was nothing going on. And I said, you know, that is getting tired. Why are you doing this? You're doing it over and over and it's boring, and it's time to end that. You know, you've won the nomination. And why do you keep hammering at this? And he said, you know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and to mean you all.

So when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you. Said that. So put that in your head for a minute. Okay, I have so many things to say about this story. The first of which is, of course. Of course, that's why he's doing it. So, look, thinking about why it makes sense and how unfortunately, like, there's nothing you can do about it.

If, for his supporters, whatever he says is true, by definition. So they're not going to listen to you once he's discredited you in that way. And so, and for others, it should be really obvious that that's what he's doing. But to me, the most disturbing part of that video is the groan from the other journalists in the room. Did that not occur to you? Was that not your going assumption? Of course, like, first of all, who cares if he's doing in a genuine way or not? But it's so obviously to discredit your stories that are actually true.

Okay. In one of his tweets, I'm sorry, you know what, here, put up Graphic 21, right? So he writes, the fake news is working overtime. That's his standard stuff, right? He says, just repeated that despite the tremendous success we're having with the economy and all things else. Now listen to this part, 91% of the network news about me is negative. And then in parentheses, fake.

See, that's just him admitting that it's not actually fake, it's stuff he doesn't like. It's negative about him. That doesn't mean that it's not true. He conflates those two things. So if you are a smart person, you already know that he's doing that. If you are a dumb person, you are already voting for him and don't care. Right. So, like, how could the press not know that that's what he's doing?

To be fair to the press, I mean, we're obviously playing a guessing game as to what they're thinking and why they're groaning. But if I were in that audience of journalists, I would have the same reaction, even though I know what he's doing, I've been aware of what he's doing. It's just a reaction to show that you disapprove, right? I think that's what it's really about. Now, with that said, though, you know, my take on this story. is the fact that Trump has a base, and some portion of that base would refer to themselves

as constitutionalists, right? People who really value the Constitution. And yet they misunderstand what the whole purpose of freedom of the press is. They misunderstand what the whole purpose of the press is. The press is not meant to be the president's personal PR company, right? Or PR agents. The press is supposed to hold people in power accountable for their actions. And that includes the president, includes business people.

The whole point of journalism in the very beginning was muckraking, right? Raking the muck. These were people who would investigate shady businesses that were screwing over consumers and they would reveal everything to people so they were informed about what was going on. That's the whole purpose. It's not to be Trump's personal PR company. No, yeah, look, I think you're exactly right, but I'm going to go even further. I think that the journalism schools in this country are, I'm going to say a pretty big statement

here, are doing it all wrong. It's like the problem with the cops. We're training them wrong. Why are they shooting so quick? Because we told them to shoot so quick. That's in their training. So in the journalism schools, they're teaching this neutrality, which is maddening. It is the exact opposite of journalism.

Now, so they say, all right, now look, you got to get both signs. and implicitly, they're telling people to call it 50-50. So, well, hey, now you've got to be fair to Republicans because they keep screaming at us. No, you don't have to be fair to Republicans. You don't have to be fair to anyone. That's right. And what do we mean by that? Does that mean you should be unfair?

No, it means you have to be fair to the facts, to the facts, no matter where they lie. So if it turns out, the Democrats have donors that are giving them money to do the export-import Bank, which is basically crony capitalism, you don't have to call it crony capitalism. You don't have to say you don't like Democrats, but you should point out where they get their money and why they're agreeing to the export import bank. As an example, right? For the Republicans, you should point out that they do record-breaking obstruction, et cetera, et cetera.

But part of the problem is they go, no, even-handed, even-handed is not real journalism. It's in fact the opposite of it, is saying, I know what the truth is, but I'm gonna cover it up. I'm not going to let my audience know it. Instead, I'm going to present them this version of reality, which is 50-50, right? Republicans say this, Democrats say that. Who cares what they say? What's reality? So one more thing about that.

Look, it's not just that they don't want to offend Republicans, which is a horrible, horrible standard. You should never teach that in journalism school. Who cares who you're offending, right? But they're not teaching people, hey, don't offend anyone. They're trying to constantly drill into students' heads that you have to be objective or else it'll destroy your career, right? And people mistake objectivity with neutrality.

Being objective is a good thing. You should be objective. But in that pursuit of objectivity, you should also seek the truth. And who's telling the truth? Who's lying? Being neutral is not doing your job. It's just regurgitating what both sides are saying. No, that's 100% right, Anna.

But I feel like from everything that I have seen from the professors and the seminars and the conference, everything that I have attended, and what I see on television, when I see the so-called experts writing about talking about is, by objectivity, they're totally confusing their students. And objectivity is the facts, the facts, not, well, okay, but did you get the Republican point of view? Sure, get all points of view. But you don't have to write all of that in.

You only have to write the facts in, right? So because if you say, okay, now here are the facts, but now I'm going to spend 90% of the time telling you what the two sides think, well, then you got all of your audience to focus on what the two sides think instead of what the facts are, right? So look, last thing about this, which is really important that I, and I have never quite said it this way before. And in fact, it was part of this story that I had kind of an epiphany about it. It's not just that they're worried about offending Republicans or Trump. They're actually afraid of offending Republican viewers and readers. And they are special little snowflakes.

So if you tell Republicans that Republicans are wrong about anything, they will cry for hours and hours. And they'll start to say, oh, we should boycott and we should do this and the press. Right? But, and I get why that's a business imperative. Think about it for a second. So you're running a television station as an example. What do they tell you? Hey, look, a lot of your viewers are Republicans.

But then what is the implication of that? Make sure you don't give them the truth. Make sure you give them bland vanilla that doesn't offend them or the Democrats, liberals, or conservatives. Well, if you're delivering news that doesn't offend anyone, you're not delivering news. What you're doing is delivering a product that advertises. etc. are happy with, but you're not doing journalism. Yes, completely agree with that interpretation. Right. All right.

Okay. Well, let's talk about how the press has failed in covering another story. A recent survey by Navigator Research looked into what percentage of Americans are aware about the Mueller investigation into potential Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. And what percentage of Americans believe that Mueller has found evidence of wrongdoing? Now, to be clear, Mueller has found evidence of wrongdoing. And we'll get to those details in just a minute. But here's what Americans think. A majority of Americans, 59%, say that Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia and the 2016

campaign has not yet uncovered evidence of any crimes. Even though in reality, Mueller has already obtained five guilty pleas and 17 criminal indictments. And I will get to the specifics of those guilty pleas and indictments in just a minute. Now, let's take a look at some more data. How much have you heard about this investigation? And unsurprisingly, a huge portion of Americans have heard quite a bit about this investigation. Let's look at Graphic 23. So 49% say they've heard a lot.

32% have said they've heard some. Only 15% say that they've heard a little, and only 3% say that they've heard nothing at all. Okay. Can we pause that for a second? Yeah. Because I'm so envious of that 3%. I know. I know that I couldn't do it.

I love the news. That's why I do this show. And when I'm away from the news, I get cranky and all that stuff. But 3% of this country has never heard of the Mueller investigation. Never heard of it. They live in their cave, and they're blissfully ignorant of everything else going on on the planet. And in their little neck of the woods or they're shire or whatever, right? Probably things are not hunky-dory, but at least they're not stressed out by all of like the madness going out of the world.

And they live this like, you know, in my fantasy, they live at peaceful existence in the shire where there are no problems and there is no Trump and there is no Mueller. But anyway, in reality is probably those folks are pretty clueless and they don't live in a utopia. Right, exactly. Okay, so to the best of your knowledge, this is a survey question, to the best of your knowledge, has the investigation covered or uncovered any crimes? And if you look at this graph, you'll see that only 41% say yes, the investigation uncovered crimes, and 59% say no. Okay. So there have been, again, a lot of interesting things proven or interesting things have come out from this investigation. Now, Trump so far doesn't seem,

to be in a lot of trouble, but remember, Mueller hasn't disclosed everything that he's found in his investigation. We don't know what's going to happen to Trump, but here's what we do know. So Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, George Poppidopoulos, they have pleaded guilty to making false statements, and then also Rick Gates pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. Also, keep in mind that Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chair, is facing two separate indictments, One, in D.C., about conspiracy, money laundering, false statements, and failure to disclose foreign assets, and one in Virginia about tax, financial, and bank fraud charges. So that's something that came out of the investigation, but the majority of Americans are unaware

of that. Well, so two points here. First, to be fair to folks, I think this question is slightly unclear. I think that a lot of people might have thought, has it shown, uncovered any crimes about Trump. And there, they would be right to say don't know because it has not concluded. I certainly have strong opinions about that based on what is available publicly. But not everybody is in the news business and they don't know all those details, et cetera. So if they said, hey, it has not yet uncovered crimes about Trump, that's not a terrible answer. I get that. On the other hand,

it also does show you the power of, again, propaganda. And the uneven playing field we have between strong Republicans and weak Democrats in this country. Because if Barack Obama's campaign manager had been indicted on money laundering and all of these incredibly serious charges, and his national security advisor had already pleaded guilty and taken a plea deal, and people connected to his campaign were foreign people, 13 of them charged, and then the list goes on and on. Do you think that if you ask the American people, has there been any crimes associated with this?

The same question, that it would be 41% saying no crimes? No, it would be 81% saying crimes. Why? Because the Republicans and Fox News would have been like the criminal Obama administration, criminal, criminal, metaphor, Flynn, Flynn, metaphor, 13 Russians, Gates, Papadopoulos, Guilty, guilty, guilty, right? And people were like, oh my God, look at all those crimes, right? And he wears a tan-colored suit.

Yeah, that's right. But Democrats, patty cake, patty cake, patty cake. And there is no Fox equivalent. So, yeah, I know MSNBC won't shut up about Russia. But it's not like these, the fact that these are crimes and they are associated with Trump. And now, so one, the Democrats are terrible at making their case and the media is skewed by how strong Foxes. I'm keeping it real, right?

They push an agenda until everyone else is talking about it. And then the other part of it is that the Republicans push back, right? You see that, you think the Democrats would have pushed back? If this was a Democratic president, he would have resigned 13 months ago, right? It was the first time that there were charges, the rest of the Democrats would have gotten in a circle, not of wagons, but of a firing squad. That's right. And they would have been like, oh my God, this is going to hurt the rest of us. This is going to panic.

Panic, it's a distraction. Well, we got to step down right away, right away. Oh, my God, your national security advisor has already pled guilty. Oh, my God, you're going to quit right now. They wouldn't have circled the wagons, they'd have thrown the guy out of the bus immediately. And that kind of an uneven playing field, of course, only 41% of the country realizes the fact that there has been a ton of crimes to which people have already pled guilty. I mean, my mind just keeps going back to the criticisms that Obama dealt with when he was in office. So, I mean, he was demonized because of Reverend Wright, right?

Because of his- Who is Reverend Wright? I mean, is Reverend Wright committed any crimes? No, he didn't. But that's my point. That's my point. I mean, Obama was demonized for that purpose, for his ties to Reverend Wright. No, Anna, that's such a great point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

Remember what the Reverend Wright criticism was? Reverend Wright says something we don't like about America, and Obama happened to be in the same building as him. He was in the same building as him? He was in the same building as him, in the same building. Did Obama say yes? Did Obama applaud? Did Obama say, oh, man, Reverend Wright is right.

Did Obama make the comments? Were they crimes or were they comments? There were comments someone else made while he was in the building. Right. And they were right, right, right. Right. Here we have the National Security Advisor, your campaign chairman, some of them are already guilty, the others on their way to prison, right?

And all these 17 indictments, five guilty things, et cetera, et cetera, well, we're having a debate, we're having a civil debate, well, has any crimes been committed? Majority of the country thinks no, right? Uneven playing field. Right, and we haven't even mentioned the meetings that Donald Trump Jr. had, you know, the two meetings. First meeting was with the Russian lawyers and all that stuff. Second meeting turned out to be with other foreign nationals. So all of those things, you know, they just keep piling up, but apparently people are either dismissing them or they're unaware of them

because the media hasn't done a decent job making its case. But one last point about Obama that I think is important. Look, Obama couldn't use the same strategy that Trump and his cronies are using. Obama couldn't go on Twitter and be like, fake news. You don't know what you're talking about. Like, you know, he couldn't act like a 12 year old on Twitter and get away with it. So, you know, I think that he could have been a lot stronger in fighting back, but he couldn't use the same techniques that we're seeing with Trump and his. Nope, agree to disagree. And I'll tell you why. He couldn't go on Twitter and make.

No, I know. No, no. I get you. And he's a different guy. And I wouldn't want him to act like a clown like Trump, right? But Democrats, do you know anything about politics? You know what you do? You get someone else to do it, right? And then you go, oh, well, you know, I can't control Jim. I don't know how Jim is, right? But anyway, what are you going to do, right?

And you send Jim on TV to do all those things. Criminals, criminals, criminals, right? Et cetera, et cetera. It's not that complicated, right? But no, he chose to sit on his hands. We got to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how many children live in homes with unsecured, loaded guns. Oh, this story is heartbreaking.

Yeah. 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 can watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall. No ads at all. that's at t ytnetwork.com slash join come become a member thanks for watching either way thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen to ad free

access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank yugar and i'll see you soon