The Young Turks - Constitutional Crisis?

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Chief Justice John Roberts SLAMS Trump For Defying Judge. Judge Rules DOGE’s Dismantling of USAID Was Likely Unconstitutional. Jon Stewart ABSOLUTELY WRECKS Chuck Schumer In Brutal Takedown. Hosts: Ana Kasparian SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞ https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER ☞ https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm so upset. Oh, my God. Bega! Welcome to Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. And man, are there huge, huge stories with big implications in the news today. We're going to talk about Donald Trump and his White House is back and forth with a federal judge. It appears that a constitutional crisis could be emerging and emerging quickly in regard to the Trump administration, effectively ignoring orders from a federal judge. So we'll talk about. about that and what spurred this massive conflict in just a minute that's at the top of the show. Federal judge has also weighed in on the actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk, essentially saying that they must halt operations, especially when it comes to the dismantling of USAID. We'll also talk about that in the first segment.

Later in the show, we're also going to discuss how members of Congress from both sides of the political aisle are looking to profit from the privatization of our federal government. So we'll tell you exactly what's happening, which stocks they're investing in and what this could mean for the future of the federal institutions that Democrats purport to care so much about, purport to want to protect, except, you know, if they can make a little money off of dismantling these institutions, why not, why not? In the second hour, Wazni Lombre will be joining us to talk about a whole host of other stories, including some foreign policy stories. We're going to do an update on Gaza and the ceasefire that Israel has effectively broken. They've killed hundreds of people

in a short period of time in the Gaza Strip, and we'll give you the details on that and more. But as always, just want to encourage you all to like and share the stream. If you're watching us live, it's an easy free way to help support our show and what we're doing here at TYT. You can also support us by becoming a member, t.com slash join. I'm thinking about opening up, being a little vulnerable with our members during our bonus episode today. So I guess you guys can look forward to that. But we always have fun and get a little more personal in our members-only bonus. So check that out.

All right. Let's get into this back and forth between the Trump White House, the federal courts. And now you even have Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts getting involved. Let's get into it. Wow. This is a very big deal. This is a huge deal. Here you have Chief Justice John Roberts appearing to push back on statement's President Trump made earlier today. Back off, Mr. President. You should not be talking

about impeaching a district judge, a district level judge, because you don't like the ruling. We're supposed to have the power of the U.S. government. And you see that these judges are kind of act like their own DOJ. Well, as we know, federal judges are representative of one branch of government in this system of checks and balances, which the Trump administration does not appear poised to really value respect at all. And that's certainly the case in this story involving the deportation of more than 200 undocumented immigrants to El Salvador, something that a federal judge tried to stop. But the Trump administration appears to have continued the process of anyway. And that has led to,

to Chief Justice John Roberts rebuking Donald Trump after the president called for the impeachment of the federal judge who ruled against his administration. Now, the whole situation has reignited concerns of a pending constitutional crisis. So let's figure out how exactly we got here first before we hear from the chief justice and why he has decided to rebuke the Trump administration. Now, this incident basically revolves around the Trump administration's decision to deport more than 200 undocumented immigrants to El Salvador, which, by the way, is getting paid $6 million in order to take more than 260 deported immigrants. Now, of those immigrants, you have 137 people who were removed through something known as this obscure Aliens Enemies Act or Alien Enemies Act of 1798. It is an obscure law that the administration has claimed it is using to deport Venezuelans, older than 14 years old, who they say, who they allege are members of

Trenda Aragua, although no due process has been afforded to these individuals to adjudicate whether or not they're actually gang members. Another 101 of these individuals were Venezuelans who were deported under normal immigration proceedings, but who the White House also said had gang ties. Those individuals are not necessarily what's being debated about right now. It's really about the individuals who have been accused of being gang members without any due process. And then you also have Caroline Levitt who said that 23 more were members of the Salvadorian gang MS-13. But the ACLU has sued to stop these deportations from happening.

And for those who were deported through the Alien Enemies Act, the question is really, whether or not that law, that obscure law applies here. And even more important here is the possible erosion of due process, something that I think everyone should be concerned of, especially if you're worried about big government, because nothing screams big government more than essentially allowing the executive branch to unilaterally and simply accuse someone of being a criminal without granting them due process. The erosion of due process guys isn't just something that's going to impact individuals who might have been in the country illegally.

Once you allow for the erosion of due process, that affects all of us. And that really does increase the power and solidify the power within the executive branch, within the federal government. So for all of the libertarian types, all those people on the right who claim to be concerned about the government having too much power, this is a perfect example of, you know, rights being eroded in the name of deporting people who are allegedly criminals. But again, that hasn't been adjudicated. Why not go through the regular process of figuring out whether these people are here illegally, whether or not they've committed crimes outside of being

here illegally, and then deporting them, if that's the case. Due process isn't that difficult. But the fact that the Trump administration bypassed that is the real issue here. Now, Judge James Borsberg, who is the federal district judge in Washington, is the individual who gets to determine here whether the administration was correct in removing people under this obscure statute, right? Which is why he ruled that the planes carrying the migrants needed to turn back and come back to the United States. But it appears as though the Trump administration did not listen. By the way, I should just note that that statute that was cited by DOJ lawyers in providing cover for these deportations really has to do with, you know, the executive branch making the decision to do the deportations during wartime because these individuals supposedly pose a national security threat. Now, I'm not a judge. Obviously, the judge gets to adjudicate that. But this situation has devolved to the point where now the judge is weighing in not on whether the Trump administration has the right to. to do this, but whether the Trump administration defied the judge's orders. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you,

no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. So Trump's borders are, by the way, Tom Homan was pretty overt in messaging that the Trump administration is not going to respect the court's decisions on this matter. Take a look. You're going against the judges now. What's next? Another flight. Another flight every day. I wake up every morning loving my job because I work for the greatest president in the history of my life and we're going to make this country safe again. I'm proud to be a part of this administration. We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care of the left things. We're coming. He's totally fine to not care with the left things. But to say, I don't care what the judges think is a huge problem. That flies in the face of our government, the way it's set up, the state.

checks and balances that are supposed to essentially prevent one branch of government from becoming too powerful, too authoritarian. Now, things got spicy in court yesterday because a Justice Department lawyer by the name of Abyshek Kambly refused to answer questions. He was very evasive in answering questions about the deportation flights to El Salvador. So Kambly argued that the president actually has broad authority to remove immigrants. from the United States with little to no due process under that alien enemies act of 1798. Now, the DOJ has been evasive when it comes to answering the judge's questions about the timeline of deportations. And this really has to do with the judge's oral order and then the written order.

So the Trump administration is arguing something really fascinating here. But comely, repletedly refused to say anything about the flights, citing national security. He simply reiterated the government's position that it had done nothing to violate the judge's order. But the Trump administration, again, also seems to be making the case that they simply ignored the judge's verbal order. They think the verbal order doesn't mean anything, that the official written order is the important order to follow here. And that was highlighted in an exchange between CNN's Caitlin Collins and White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Let's take a look at that. You keep talking about the judge's written order, which hit the docket Saturday night at

about 7.26 p.m. But he issued a verbal order before that at about 645 and 6.48 p.m. basically the court hearing, a verbal order from the bench. Does the White House feel the need to comply with a verbal order from this judge? Again, as I said, all of the planes subject to the written order of this judge, departed U.S. soil, U.S. territory before the judge's written order. But what about the verbal order, which of course carries the same legal weight as a written order and said for the planes to turn around if they were in the air? Well, there's actually questions about whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a legal order as a written order and our lawyers are determined to ask and answer those questions in court. Okay, so there you

have it. They are alleging that the oral order is not important that they continue the deportation flight after the oral order, the White House has denied that it violated the written order, arguing that the deportation flights departed U.S. soil before the judge submitted the written order. In a court filing yesterday on Monday, lawyers for some of the deported Venezuelans noted that the White House had claimed that Judge Bozberg's order was published in written form at 7.26 p.m. on Saturday, ignoring that he had issued an oral order of the same decision around 6.5. 45 p.m., which unambiguously directed the government to turn around any planes carrying individuals being removed. Now, here's an important part and an element to this story that I'm really curious

to see, I guess, adjudicated. I want to see how it plays out. I honestly don't know because the written and verbal versions of the order contain a significant difference, writes the New York Times. The written version did not include the instruction to turn back any planes. And this is really what the Trump officials are saying. They recognize, you know, they recognize the written order. And since they recognize the written order, that does not include this, you know, judges demand that they turn the deportation flight around while they're arguing, no, we follow through with the written order. The judge didn't say anything in the written order about turning the flights back around. And we're just going to ignore

the oral order. We don't think that that's really something that we need to follow. The written order is what matters. Now, Judge Boasberg pushed back on the administration's reasoning here, arguing that's heck of a stretch. That's a heck of a stretch. And yesterday, the judge also asked the Department of Justice lawyers to provide him with answers in regard to whether anyone was deported after he had given his verbal order. And remember, the evasive nature of the Trump administration in regard to this case really, really jumps out at you because, does the Despite the fact that the judge made that demand of DOJ lawyers and said they needed to respond back to him or report back to him by noon Eastern time today, they've decided, nah, we're going to continue to Stonewall. We're not going to answer any questions. We're going to continue being evasive.

Now, not only has Trump decided that his Justice Department would ignore the judge's orders, he also went so far as to call for the impeachment of the, federal judge. Let's take a look at this post on truth social. Very wordy, but here's the relevant part. He says that this radical lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker, an agitator, who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected president. Dot, dot, dot, dot. This judge, like many of the crooked judges, I am forced to appear before, should be impeached. We don't want vicious, violent, and demented criminals. Many of them deranged murderers in our country make America great again. I agree. We don't want dangerous, violent criminals who are here illegally in the country. So how about you give them their due process, adjudicate whether or not

they're actually the criminals you say they are, and then you can legally deport them without any problem. But they don't want to do that. Okay, they want to essentially go. against due process, they want to erode the rights that individuals in this country have. And yes, that includes undocumented immigrants as well. And once you let the federal government, once you let the executive branch dismantle rights that we have, including due process, well, you're asking for a world of trouble. You know, you might like what Trump is doing with immigration, but put that aside. Okay, I think that Trump is specifically doing what he's doing right now on this case involving deportations because he knows that the majority of Americans support the idea of mass deportations.

Multiple polls have indicated as much, you know, in recent months. And so he wants to dismantle this system of checks and balances. He wants the executive branch to have more power to do as it pleases without having to worry about the judicial branch. And so this is the perfect, in his mind, I think this is the perfect case to really challenge. the power of the courts and whether or not they have the ability to check the executive branch when they do something like this. So in response, Chief Justice John Roberts actually weighed in. He's like, no, you don't get to decide unilaterally that a federal judge gets impeached. So he's not one to weigh in on political matters. He doesn't like doing that. He hates it. But clearly he saw the need to do so today. And so he issues a statement. And in that statement,

here's what he has to say. For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. Now, believe it or not, this actually is not the first time, Chief Justice Roberts has had to defend the independence of the courts against Donald Trump's attacks. So in 2018, Trump actually called a federal judge, an Obama judge, much like he did recently, after this federal judge had ruled against Trump's asylum policies. Now, the implication, of course, was that this judge was unable to pass down an unbiased ruling because the judge had been appointed or nominated, I should say, by a doubt

Democrat, a Democratic president. Okay, well then let's extend that reasoning to all federal judges. Okay, Donald Trump was able to confirm tons of federal judges. Does that mean that those judges should be ignored? Their ruling should be tossed aside by a Democratic president because a Republican president nominated them. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. Now, I'm not denying that activist judges exist. But in this particular case, we're not talking about an activist judge. Judge Bozberg specifically wanted to figure out, adjudicate whether or not the statute cited by Trump's DOJ to provide cover for these deportations really made sense in this case. And in order to do that, he needed to block the deportation flights in order to make

the decision. And then after he makes the decision, the undocumented immigrants are either going to be deported or they have to stay here and the courts have to adjudicate whether or not they are a real risk or threat to national security. Now, in response to the 2018 case where Trump went after federal judges, Chief Justice responded by saying, we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before him, that independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for. Now, the real question remains, what is Trump's DOJ going to do now? Obviously, they have not followed through on the judge's order

to provide more information about the deportation flights and the timeline of those flights. And that's a big issue because if the courts are ignored, then you really do have a constitutional crisis. And what I can see happening is a situation in which there's a little bit of hesitation to really punish or prosecute Trump for being in contempt of court. But all those DOJ lawyers, I don't think that our court system is going to have a problem prosecuting them for contempt of court, for ignoring the federal judge's orders. And so we'll see. see what happens, but this is not a good sign. And again, I want to reiterate, in my opinion, there is a very specific reason why Trump has decided to lean into this immigration case

to challenge the power of the courts. And it's because of where public opinion currently is on the issue of mass deportations. So even if you're in favor of mass deportations, understand that due process is still important. Otherwise, without due process, The federal government, the executive branch, can point to anybody, accuse them of anything, and punish them without the appropriate due process. And that erosion of that right is really dangerous in addition to the danger posed by the Trump administration and essentially ignoring the judicial branch. So we'll update you on this story as it develops. For now, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Thank you for your super chats.

Thank you for the member's comments. The stinky stalking full of lies writes in in our super chats and says, the next four years is going to be a lot of this. The Trump administration doing a bunch of illegal things and then us hoping that federal judges step in and stop him. Well, that's certainly been the case so far. And in fact, there's been yet another ruling from a federal. court in regard to some of what Trump's administration is up to. And it really represents yet another blow to the Trump administration. So without further ado, let's talk about Doge

and what a federal judge has to say about their actions. Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody's going to about a thousand. I mean, any, you know, we're going to, we will make mistakes. Well, today a federal judge has ruled that the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk has been making mistakes, some pretty big mistakes, and is really taking issue with Doge dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, also known as USAID or U.S. aid. And the claim here is that these actions by Doge are unconstitutional. So let's break this down, kind of understand what happened. So this all starts in mid-February when a group of two dozen anonymous and current former U.S.AID, I'm sorry, current and former U.S. ID employees filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. So in this suit, they allege that Musk has assumed vast authority over federal agencies that is unprecedented in U.S. history and under the Constitution could only be exercised by someone who's been nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as an officer of the United States. Now, we've been kind of updating you on this legal battle, and that's part of the reason why you'll see from the Trump administration that they keep trying to downplay Elon Musk's role

as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Now, in response to this, the Trump administration again, decided to essentially waffle on what Elon Musk's role really is. We know what it is. We know what the truth is. But the administration has an interest in downplaying that role. Members of the administration have insisted that Musk is only a senior advisor, okay, and not in fact the acting head of Doge, which is just a flat out lie, right? Now, in this particular lawsuit, the Justice Department argued that as a senior advisor, Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors, and like him, like them, has no actual or full formal authority to make government decisions himself.

He can only advise the president and communicate the president's directives. Now, the Trump Department of Justice also stated that USAID leaders were the ones who executed the shutdown of the agency. It wasn't Doge. It wasn't Elon Musk. But here's the thing, they don't have the messaging over at the Trump administration quite right. because depending on who you're hearing, they're saying different things. Let's take a look. With conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government, and Elon, because he's not very busy, has agreed to head that task force. You say you trust him. Trust Elon? Oh, he's not gaining anything. In fact, I wonder how he can

devote the time to it. He's so into it. But I told him do that. Then I'm going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go to the military. Let's check the military. People are calling up from all over the country wanting to do and wanting to help Elon. And also could you mention some of the things that your team has found? Now, obviously, two different messages. On one hand, you have the Trump administration downplaying the role of Elon Musk. And then based on that compilation video that we just showed you, you have the president himself, Donald Trump, really amplifying the role that Elon Musk

has played as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency. I mean, why else did Elon Musk appear at press conferences beside Donald Trump on multiple occasions to defend the actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency? Now, Judge Theodore Chuong, who is the federal judge overseeing this case is not buying the Trump administration's argument downplaying the role of Elon Musk. In fact, he wrote in a preliminary injunction, the evidence presently favors the conclusion that contrary to defendant's sweeping claim that Musk acted only as an advisor, Musk made the decisions to shut down USAID's headquarters and website, even though he lacked the authority to make that decision. Thus, based on the present

record, the only individuals known to be associated with decisions to initiate a shutdown of USAID by permanently closing USAID headquarters and taking down its website are Musk and Doge team members. If a president could escape appointments clause scrutiny by having advisors go beyond the traditional role of White House advisors who communicate the president's priority to agency heads and instead exercise significant authority throughout the federal government, So as to bypass duly appointed officers, the appointments clause would be reduced to nothing more than a technical formality. So for those who are unfamiliar with the appointments clause, it's basically what gives the Senate the power to confirm agency heads. Now, Congress is utterly pathetic.

They have ceded their power to the executive branch, not just during the Trump administration, but dating back. certainly during the Bush administration when they gave the Bush administration power to start wars as it pleased. But the slow and steady decision to seed power to the executive branch has really turned around and bit senators in the ass, members of Congress in the ass, because if you are supposed to be an equal branch of government as part of this system of checks and balances while ceding power to the executive branch essentially flies in the face of what our government is supposed to be, how it's supposed to operate. I just don't have enough words to describe my disdain for Congress and how pathetic they are. But nonetheless, what happens now?

Okay. So the judge is concerned because the shutdown harmed public interest and deprived Congress of using its constitutional authority as the public's elected representatives to decide what to do with an agency it created. So what happens now? Well, the judge has ordered Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to restore all U.S. AID employees' access to their email, payment, and other electronic systems in case the judge's final ruling is in favor of the U.S. AID employees. So the judge hasn't made a ruling on that yet, but the judge is essentially saying, listen, we need to restore access to the electronic communications of these USAID employees until I have the ability, the time to make a decision or ruling in regard to, you know,

who's right, who's wrong here, whether or not the Trump administration can fire these workers or dismantle this government agency. So he also ruled that Musk and Doge cannot take any more to shut down USAID, including but not limited to firing workers, closing USAID buildings, or deleting the government agency's content archives. Now, in response to this, Charlie Kirk posted what you would expect him to post, essentially attacking the federal judge here, because there's absolutely no respect for our system of checks and balances whatsoever. These are people who do not at all value our constitution, how our government is supposed to work. These are the same people who cry about government becoming too big, too authoritarian, too controlling. And at the same time,

they aid and abet that process when their favorite person is in the White House. He writes breaking Obama appointed district court judge. Theodore Chong has ordered the restoration of USAID claiming it shut down violated the United States Constitution in case it wasn't explicit enough that the only two clauses of the left's constitution were thou shall not open borders and all American money will be spent abroad. You want to talk about American money being spent abroad? We're starting a war with Iran on behalf of Israel. How many billions of dollars is that going to cost American taxpayers, Charlie Kirk? No concern about that because when it comes to Israel, American taxpayers are nothing more than an ATM. And it's disgusting. So you want to talk about

wasting money. Let's talk about the fact that we're wasting money aiding and abetting Israel's genocide on Palestinians in Gaza, which we're going to talk a little more about later on in the show. Elon Musk, quote, posted that on X, simply saying, indeed. These people don't value our system of government, our checks and balances, and they love, love big government, absolutely love, you know, solidifying more and more power in the executive branch to the point where, as I mentioned in a previous story, where the Trump administration and its DOJ essentially ignored a federal court's order, you know, don't really value the judicial branch, just want to make decisions as they please, deport individuals or punish individuals with no due process.

It's sick. And again, you know, it's easy to be supportive of what the, you know, Trump administration is doing if you side with him on these policies. But that's the trick here. Just because you agree with his policies doesn't necessarily mean you should agree with the process. And in the case of deportations with no due process, we're talking about the erosion of due process, not just for undocumented immigrants, but obviously if you allow that to happen with undocumented immigrants, that's going to eventually extend to American citizens. as well. And in this case, just deciding, yeah, we're going to lie in the courts and pretend as though Elon Musk is not the head of Doge. It's just pathetic. Okay, the president is not

the king. We have a system of government where we're supposed to prevent one branch of government becoming too powerful. But Trump doesn't respect that. His administration doesn't respect that. And unfortunately, we do not have an opposition party that is willing to fight back aggressively, certainly not in Congress. And we have no choice but to rely on the judicial branch to essentially protect the American people from having their constitutional rights eroded. So we'll see how this plays out. But there have been some pretty significant losses for the Trump administration in the federal courts. And if Trump decides, I'm just not going to listen to their orders, well, that's when you have a serious constitutional. crisis to deal with. And I'm really hoping it doesn't get to that point, but it seems like we're inching ever so closely to that situation. All right, let's get to one more story before we take a break. This is infuriating, and it shows you just how bad the corruption in Congress is, how much it impacts. Members of both political parties, take a look.

We just ran that report, Marjorie, about these congressional stock traders. We found that you did not beat the S&P 500, which I guess maybe you're proud of, but maybe not so happy about. In January of last year, Jesse Waters on Fox, of all places, decided to call out Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green on air for trading individual stock, something that we here at TYP. have been raising alarm over as well. Now, she, of course, defended herself by claiming that the trades actually were not something she herself engaged in. It was actually connected to her son's account. Very similar excuses as what we've heard from Democratic lawmakers as well.

Well, recently, Marjorie Taylor Green's son has been buying up individual stocks for Palantir. And that's deeply concerning because, well, Palantir could stand to benefit significantly from the Trump administration's attempts to privatize huge swaths of the federal government and the institutions that make up the federal government. And by the way, I just want to be clear here. This is very much a bipartisan corruption scheme. Green isn't the only one who's been buying shares of Palantir. And the corruption is very much bipartisan when you take a look at this list of lawmakers showing, you know, who bought Palantir stock and how much. So you have Representative Julie Johnson from Texas. She's a Democrat. She spent up to $30,000 recently to buy Palantir stock. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, spent up to $15,000. Democrat from California, Representative Gil Cisneros, spent up to $15,000 to buy Palantir. stock. Marjorie Taylor Green also spent $15,000 or up to $15,000, I should say. And then at the very end of the list, you have Democratic Congressman Rokana from California

spending up to $30,000 to buy Palantir stock. Now you might be wondering, okay, why don't you have any exact numbers for us, Anna? Well, it's because of how the reporting rules are written. Members of Congress do not have to give a specific amount that they spent on stocks in their disclosures, just like a ballpark figure. And I think that's a way of protecting lawmakers as they engage in something. They should be, you know, barred from engaging in, which is trading individual stocks. Now, of those five, Congressman Rokana was the only one who had actually purchased additional shares in Palantir before Trump was elected. So I want to be fair, because that's an important caveat when it comes to Representative Kana. But the reason

that the numbers are imprecise is concerning. I wish that we would actually do something about that. But let's also talk about the more concerning element to this story, which is why members of Congress suddenly are investing a significant sum of money into Palantir stock. So first, if you're not familiar, Palantir is an analytics company as well as a defense contractor. It was co-founded by Peter Thiel, who of course is a big money donor and backer of Republican figures. For instance, he mentored Vice President J.D. Vance and donated $15 million to Vance's Senate campaign back in 2022. Thiel also helped found PayPal, where Elon Musk served as CEO for some time. And in addition, Thiel is invested in many of Elon Musk's companies. And while Silicon Valley

has obviously bent the knee to the Trump administration for a second term, Thiel was an early supporter and even supported Trump during his first run in 2016, making him, again, one of the first tech titans to do so. Now, Palantir software is used by both the private and public sectors in addition to international governments. In fact, over half of the company's revenue comes from contracts with the United States government. So let's pause right there. Let's pause right there and just really take in how gross this whole system is. So you're a member of Congress. You are not barred from trading individual stocks. So you invest in Palantir. And then you get to vote on whether or not Palantir gets some new government contracts. You know, they make more money

through taxpayers, through the federal government, granting this private company public grants. Okay, that's the way this works. Could it be that members of Congress would have a conflict of interest here? If they are literally invested in the company that they get to make decisions about, especially when it comes to grants and things like that, it's just so utterly disgusting. And members of both parties do this and they do it on a regular basis with some scrutiny in the media, but not enough scrutiny to the point where we change this system and essentially bar them from trading individual stocks. So Palantir has been considered one of the top

stock picks of the Doge era as the company's artificial intelligence powered software is well position to win contracts to replace functions eliminated by Doge's slashing. So this is reflected in Palantir's rising stock value. So for instance, it's stock surged following Trump's election rising from about $55 a share on November 5th to hitting $125 a share in February. And don't make a mistake by thinking that Palantir has just kind of been innocent, you know, behind the scenes. They're not doing anything. No, no, no. They've been lobbying hard to win contracts. And they want to win these contracts for the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and the Internal Revenue Service. So fire human beings in the federal government, in these institutions,

replace them with technology that's been developed by Palantir, ensure that Palantir gets these fat government contracts paid for by the American taxpayer, that's what the whole situation is here. And we wouldn't know about it if it weren't for the fantastic reporters over at sludge. Donald Shaw is the reporter behind this story. Now getting back to Palantir, the company's CEO Alex Carp has praised Doge's efforts to gut federal government agencies. I bet he has. Let's take a look at what he said during a recent appearance on Fox business. very pro-doge. I'm pro-douge. I believe it's going to be great for America, and I'm supportive of it. And, you know, read into that what you will.

Yeah, not necessarily great for America, great for Palantir in this redistribution of wealth from American taxpayers to a government contractor, Palantir, to a private company Palantir. So let's just be very clear here. This isn't about doing what's right for the American people, or what's best for the American people. This is about redistributing our resources from American taxpayers to a private corporation that was co-founded by a man who's been very successful the Trump administration and the Republican Party. Now, several of the lawmakers who have purchased shares

of Palantir are holding positions that could influence the company's worth. Here's one example, for instance. Green and House Speaker Mike Johnson are both members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, which oversees the Department of Homeland Security that has awarded contracts worth hundreds of millions to Palantir, including with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. So again, this is such a gross, corrupt scheme. Whatever you think about Palantir, even if you're in favor of Palantir, you can see the corruption here, right? You can see

the conflict of interest here. And according to a 2024 report by the campaign legal center, 44% of the House and 54% of the Senate own individual stocks, which, look, I'm going to be honest, that's actually, those are smaller percentages than what I previously thought. So I guess glass half full to some extent, but I want this practice to be banned entirely. And according to data from the quiver quantitative, which is a fun name, These were the five biggest stock traders in Congress last year. So let's take a look at this. Oh, my bad guys. I made a mistake.

So in the previous graphic, I mentioned Mike Johnson. It's actually not Mike Johnson. It's Julie Johnson. So Marjorie Taylor Green and Julie Johnson are both members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, which oversees the Department of Homeland Security that has awarded contracts worth hundreds of millions to Palantir. So I want to make that clarification. It's Julie Johnson, not Mike Johnson. I apologize for that mistake. But let's get back to that list of members of Congress who have traded the most or the biggest stock traders in Congress last year. Topping the list, you have Representative Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey,

with 526 trades. Holy moly. Like more than $91 million in volatility. Okay. Nancy Pelosi comes in second with 17 trades and 37.7 million in volume. I mean, you see that list. It's unbelievable. The kind of money that's moving around, that's being traded on individual stocks by members of Congress who get to make the decisions about legislation that impacts the various companies that they are invested in. And Americans, by the way, are not really that polarized. it comes to a lot of important issues, including this one. Americans are actually united in their hatred of this obvious corruption. 86% of people across party lines support prohibiting members of Congress from trading individual stocks. And I happen to fall in that bucket. So we really do need to fight back and fight back hard. This is like one of the issues where we can work with our brothers and sisters across the political aisle and demand change. The question is, Are we willing to do that?

And right now, it appears that that's not the case. But in the meantime, these lawmakers aren't working for you. They're working for their stock portfolio. We've got to take a break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. And I got to say, I was.

caught off guard by the fact that Democratic voters have been engaging in a bit of an uprising against Democratic leadership. I guess I was caught off guard because far too often Democratic voters just kind of followed orders and continued supporting Democratic leadership regardless of how feckless and pathetic they are, but not this time around. And I really, really, really want to celebrate and commend Democratic voters who are demanding changes because that's the only way things will change. So with that in mind, let's get to our next story. Why? What were you thinking and why?

Okay. So look, I knew it was a difficult choice, and I knew that I'd get a lot of criticism for my choice, but I felt as a leader I had to do it. But what does a leader do? When you're a leader, if you see a real crisis a little bit down the road, your job is to stand up and say we cannot do that. And that's what I do. I wake up three in the morning sometimes, so worried about the future of the country under these oligarchs or whatever, you know, as oligarchs, I guess. No, you don't. You're not worried about the oligarchs. So that was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, attempting to defend himself from the sheer rage Democratic voters have been expressing against him over his decision to essentially help Republican.

their government funding bill, also known as the continuing resolution, which will keep the government funded through September. But there are some serious issues with that government funding bill in that it gives President Donald Trump the authority to unilaterally reallocate funding that's been appropriated by Congress to other areas as he wishes. And so you have Chuck Schumer who was talking a big game, talking about how you he's going to fight Donald Trump, fight the Republican Party, block this bill. And then all of a sudden, once he realized that House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to whip up the Republican votes necessary in the House to pass their version of the CR bill, turns out Republicans called

his bluff, and he wasn't actually willing to fight the Republican Party on the legislation. So since then, there have been calls for Schumer to step down from his leadership role in the Senate. But he argues that, no, he's actually doing the right thing here. He is protecting the federal government from being dismantled by the Trump administration. Take a look. If we ended up a shutdown three weeks from now, people would come to me and they'd say, they just cut off my Medicaid. They just got rid of my veterans benefits. Stop it.

And I said, we can't. We're in a shutdown. they'd say to me, why did you let the shutdown happen? Yeah. So a lot of people responded to the anguish. I appreciate it. I am furious. I wake up three in the morning sometimes so worried about the future of the country

under these oligarchs or whatever, you know, as, yeah, oligarchs, I guess. Oligarchs, I guess. Now, look, if Schumer is such a great leader who could foresee the pain and suffering that Americans would be faced with as a result of the government shutting down, well, then why did he, A, pretend like he was going to fight the Republicans, but more importantly, B, if he intended to pass a government funding bill, a continuing resolution, if you will, why didn't he engage in negotiations with the Republican Party, knowing that Democrats actually had some leverage in the Senate when it came to this matter?

Why didn't he negotiate to at least get some of the Democratic priorities included in that bill? In the end, Democrats got nothing, zilch, okay, zilch. And then at the same time, you know, you have the Republican Party effectively calling the Democratic Party leadership's bluff on fighting the Trump administration. You know, during the Biden administration, we heard Democrats talk about the importance of maintaining the legislative filibuster, which requires a 60 vote threshold to pass legislation. But then when push comes to shove, once a Republican is in the executive branch, once Republicans have some more power in the federal government, well, then suddenly the legislative filibuster doesn't matter that

much. And you'll have Democratic leadership, like Senator Chuck Schumer, vote in favor of cloture, which allowed the continuing resolution to pass with a simple majority. Now, by the way, In regard to the lack of negotiation with the Republican Party to see if maybe Democrats could get something in this continuing resolution, I'm not the only one who's being critical. John Stewart himself was also very critical during his monologue recently, saying Senator Schumer, no disrespect, but you are a disgrace to, he said this is a joke, obviously, we can't play the video, but disgrace to Jewish stereotypes about financial negotiations, what are you doing? And those of you who felt like this was a total capitulation, Senator Schumer just felt like this wasn't the moment for Democrats to press their case because Trump is still too strong. But apparently the grand plan is Dems keep fecklessly complaining until Trump's 48% approval

comes down to 40%, which is a plan, but it's for getting one crucial piece of information in Schumer's popularity calculation. And then at that point, you have John Stewart showing some of the recent polling, which indicates that only 27% of registered voters have a positive view of the Democratic Party. Now, why could that be? Could it be that they don't really represent anything, that they don't really fight for anything, that they've abandoned the working class in this country, to the point where working class people have pivoted over to the Republican Party? They decided to cast their ballots for Trump. I mean, it's just, it's amazing to me how time and time again you see from Democratic leadership that they're more concerned with their own power than actually fighting on behalf of their constituents. Because make no mistake about it, Chuck Schumer isn't concerned about fighting Republicans in order to protect you. He is concerned about getting reelected. He's concerned about the midterms, electoral victories for the Democratic Party,

which does nothing for you. Okay? And if you don't believe me, Schumer admitted as much during an interview with the New York Times. Take a listen. Whole Democratic Party is united on what I mentioned in the earlier broadcast, showing how bad Trump is in every way organizing. We're organizing this week and next week in Republican districts. We're having rallies to not give tax breaks to millionaires. And we're succeeding. We're succeeding, Lulu. We're bringing his numbers down.

Okay, so understand the whole play here is just let Trump, you know, unhindered, let Trump apply as much pay to American voters as possible to the point where Americans retaliate, His approval rating goes down, it dips. And then that's when Democrats just swoop in for electoral victory. Not because they represent something that is desirable to the American people, but because the other guy is so terrible and has created so much pain and suffering in their lives that they have no choice but to support the other party, right? the barely defined opposition party.

And I say barely because like what kind of opposition party is this? They don't care about you. Okay. And look, for the longest time, I was dealing with attacks for saying this. Because God forbid you say anything negative about the precious Democratic Party and their precious leadership. But the reason why I, before the election even happened, I decided to, you know, do away with my Democratic registration. and register as an independent is because I was through with Democrats before all of this happened before most Democratic voters finally woke up and realized, oh, these guys aren't

fighting for us. They're not looking out for us. They don't care about us. They just want to keep winning re-election. And in the midterms, they just want to increase their numbers in Congress. That's all this is about. That's all this is. The only area in which Democrats had some leverage was in regard to this continuing resolution. Now, I agree, it would have been bad for the federal government to shut down. I agree with that. But knowing that Democrats have this leverage in this particular case, why not negotiate for some provisions in that CR bill that give Democrats some wins? Now, Schumer brushed that off and just like, they didn't want to negotiate with us. I don't believe him. I don't believe him. I don't think they even tried.

was banking on House Speaker Mike Johnson being unable to whip enough Republican votes in favor of the CR bill. But he whipped the votes, called the Democrats bluff, and Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries realized, oh, wait, we don't actually have any kind of mechanism or any intention of fighting back to block this bill. And look, this is what the Democratic leadership has been for several election cycles, guys. several election cycles, so much so that they got cocky enough to think that Kamala Harris was a good Democratic nominee. She wasn't, she was terrible, absolutely terrible, represented nothing, was an empty shell of a woman, empty vessel who really does not represent any real values. At the same time, they don't do anything substantive for Americans to improve their material conditions. And yes,

I get it, the Biden administration passed a few bills, inflation reduction act, what have you. But But at the end of the day, those bills also promote neoliberal garbage, means testing, outsourcing via globalization. By the way, but it's okay because all they need to do is fearmonger about Trump in order to win. All they need to do is let Trump and his administration cause enough pain and suffering in the lives of ordinary Americans. So again, they have no choice but to vote for Democrats. And when they win, what do they do for you? When Trump wins, What do they do to actually effectively fight him? And what do they fight him on?

That's also important because most of the focus for them is protecting institutions, protecting democracy, even though poll after poll after poll after poll shows that Americans want some economic relief. They were screaming that from the mountaintops in the lead up to the election. Democrats ignored it. Kamala Harris barely even paid lip service to it. And they're still screaming it from the mountain tops. And Democrats are like, we want you to feel a little bit of pain because we want to win some House races, some Senate races in the midterms. It's a loser strategy by a loser leader in the Senate. And look, remember how Schumer aided and abetted Trump in his first term. Let's not forget. This isn't new, guys. Schumer is the one who struck a deal with Mitch McConnell to fast track Trump's federal judges. He did so in August of 2018. He did it again in October of 2018. And Schumer's excuse

was, well, we want to give Democratic lawmakers a few extra days on the campaign trail in the lead up to the midterms. So we're talking about lifetime appointments of federal judges, Trump's federal judges, just so Democratic members of Congress can have a few more days on the campaign trail. Loser. That's what Schumer is. Loser. Absolute loser. And finally, what does Schumer think about his own leadership? Because he was asked about that today on CBS. Get a load of this. There are people in your own party.

They're saying, look, it's time for you to go. They are no longer trust your leadership. They want somebody else in there. What do you say about that? Here's what I say. And your own party saying that's to go. Here's I'm saying, I'm the best leader for the Senate. No, you're garbage.

But sadly, he might be the best leader for the Democratic Party in the Senate. because they don't really have a great roster of leaders in the Senate. And so here we are, stuck with a loser who has no interest in actually working on behalf of his own constituents and the American people. Democratic leadership is pathetic, and I'm so happy, so happy that Democratic voters have finally caught on to that. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, Waz joins us for the second hour. I want to share a story involving the first arrests in regards. to violations of Texas' effective abortion ban. We have other stories to get to, including

what's happening in Gaza, and the fact that we're pretty much at war with Iran. But, you know, lots of distractions in the news to prevent us from paying attention to that. So we're going to talk about that and more coming up. Don't miss it.