The Young Turks - Cops Dump Trump

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Key GOP Senators Rebuke Trump Over His Jan. 6 Pardons. Trump CONFESSES To Choosing Foreign Workers Over Americans. How Trump is THREATING Putin to End Ukraine War. Mike Johnson Has EVEN MORE Conditions For CA Fire Aid. 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

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. I'm so upset. Oh my God. Let's see how Earth responds to that. Begha! Welcome to TYT, I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have a fantastic show ahead for you all today. In fact, we're gonna talk about what the fate of H1B visas will be under.

Donald Trump, we'll even explore whether Donald Trump is fully aware of what H-1B visas are. I'm not even kidding. Later in the show, we'll also talk a little bit about the fallout following Donald Trump's decision to do sweeping pardons of January 6 rioters, while some might have been victims of heavy-handed, a heavy-handed justice system, others were caught on tape, literally assaulting police officers, and there are some on the right who are upset by the pardons applying to those individuals, so we'll tell you who those people are and what the fallout is. In the second hour, John Idaula will be joining us to cover a whole host of other topics,

including Donald Trump's announcements in regard to building AI infrastructure here in the United States. And we'll also talk a little bit about what Trump has in store for the war in Ukraine, what plan he has in trying to make that war come to an end. Lots to get to in the show today, as always, just want to encourage you all to like and share the stream if you haven't done so already. And if you're watching us live, we're going to have poll questions associated with every story we cover.

I'll check in with how the polls are doing and we'll engage. We really wanna hear what you think about the stories that we're covering as well. So without further ado, let's get into it. Any regrets? No, I don't because we did the right thing. We were there to protect Trump supporters from Antifa.

We were there to protect and secure two permitted events on capital grounds. We remember the Congress were gonna speak, The guys that went inside, they're not committing the crimes. They help the police and the helpful people out. He says he has no regrets. What do you say, Michael? Yeah, I mean, this is what I would say to Stuart Rhodes.

Go f*** yourself. Wow. Well, incredibly strong words from former Capitol police officer Michael Phenone, following President Donald Trump's decision to offer sweeping pardons to nearly every January 6th rioter who had been charged with crimes related to that day or even convicted. of crimes related to that day. Now of course, the big controversy here is the fact that the sweeping pardons also applied to individuals who had carried out assaults on police officers on January 6th, and Phenone

was among those police officers. He was assaulted on that day, but he isn't the only one who's furious about this. So yesterday, the largest police union in the United States took some time to condemn Donald Trump's decision to pardon all January 6 defendants. despite endorsing him in the presidential campaign. And I want to be clear, Donald Trump does have the backing of law enforcement agencies and of the police unions. This is definitely one of the police unions that we're talking about here that backed Donald Trump. But they felt the need to speak out against his decision to pardon the violent offenders on January 6th.

And I commend them for doing so because I also agree that pardoning individuals who carried out acts of violence sends a bad message. And if we're against criminal coddlers on the left, and certainly the right wing loves to speak out against that, they should be against criminal coddling on the right as well. So let's get to the statement offered by the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. They say that the IACP and FOP are deeply discouraged by the recent pardons and commutations granted by both the Biden and Trump administrations to individuals convicted of killing or so. assaulting law enforcement officers, the IACP and FOP firmly believe that those convicted of such crimes should serve their full sentences. I'm not really understanding what they're referring to in regard to Biden pardoning people who assaulted police officers because Biden didn't do that. Biden did pardon members of his own family preemptively. We spoke out against

that. We think that that sets a horrible precedent. He pardoned his son Hunter Biden when he had been on the record multiple times promising that he would not do so. So if they want to condemn him for that, that's totally fine. And I agree. But in regard to pardoning individuals who assaulted police officers, Donald Trump did that. More on that, though, they say in the rest of their statement, when perpetrators of crimes, especially serious crimes, are not held fully accountable, it sends a dangerous message that the consequences of attacking law enforcement are not severe, potentially emboldening others to commit similar acts of violence. The IACP and FOP call on policymakers, judicial authorities, and community leaders to ensure

that justice is upheld by enforcing full sentences, especially in cases involving violence against law enforcement. Now, on a local level, what conservatives point to in regard to soft on crime treatment toward individuals who assault police officers, they're usually talking about, you know, what happened during some of the riots that broke out during the BLM protests. But if there was soft on crime treatment toward those individuals, that was on a local and state level, not on a federal level. So maybe that's what they were referring to when they referenced Joe Biden.

But again, what really spurred this statement and this reaction from the largest police union in the United States was the fact that Donald Trump decided to do these sweeping pardons rather than offer pardons on a case by case basis. That was what Trump had promised to do leading up to the election, and he didn't follow through on that. He just did the sweeping pardons. Now about 140 officers, police officers from the US Capitol Police and DC Metropolitan Police were injured on January 6th, and the attack has been linked to people dying as a result. Now we're also learning some pretty damning new details about why it is that Donald Trump decided to carry out sweeping pardons as a to pardons on a case-by-case basis. So President Trump's sweeping

pardons for 1,500 January 6 criminals and defendants were a last minute ripped the bandage off decision to try to move past the issue quickly. White House advisors familiar with the Trump team's discussions tell Axios. So apparently eight days before inauguration day, J.D. Vance went on Fox News and said that January 6th, people who have been convicted of crimes on January 6th, who assaulted police officers, obviously should not be pardoned. Originally, Trump's team actually did set out to do pardons on a case-by-case basis, just review each case and decide whether or not an individual deserves a pardon. But according to Axios, that process was considered onerous and time

was running out heading into inauguration day. Trump wanted to pardon as many people as possible and get it over with. So he landed on clemency for everyone. Trump just said, F it, release them all, an advisor familiar with the discussion said. So because he wanted to be seen making a bold statement on day one of his presidency, day one in office, he decided to skip over individual cases and just issue a blanket pardon. And naturally, many of Donald Trump's, you know, hard allies and supporters are absolutely thrilled about this. Some Republican lawmakers are also defending Donald Trump's decision without quite endorsing it. Take a look.

The president has the pardon and commutation authority. It's his decision. And I think what was made clear all along is that peaceful protests and people who engage in that should never be punished. The president's made his decision. I don't second guess those. And yes, you know, it's kind of my ethos, my worldview. We believe in redemption. We believe in second chances. If you would argue that those people didn't pay a heavy penalty, having been incarcerated and all of that, that's up to you.

But the president's made a decision. We move forward. There are better days ahead of us. That's what we're excited about. We're not looking backwards. You're looking forward. Well, I've said what I just said before, and that is we're not looking backwards. Leaders, do you have any concerns with Trump pardoning the January 6th prisoners, including the ones who attacked police? You know, look, he talked about that during the campaign. Joe Biden said he wouldn't pardon a lot of the people that he did pardon yesterday. You know, President Trump's a man of his word.

He's going to follow through on his commitments. You have concerns about it at all? Well, if you look at what we're focused on, obviously today, our meeting was focused on getting our economy back on track. Do you agree with President Trump's decision to pardon these violent people and releasing them from jail? If they were, no, but do I know that they were? I don't know that. What do you mean you don't know that? We're showing the footage on the air right now. Bro, they're on camera.

The B-roll is on air as you are denying that. That was amazing. That last clip in the compilation was amazing. But I want to just quickly go back to speaker Mike Johnson saying, you know, we're looking forward. We're looking forward. We just want to move on. That's an interesting case to make, especially since Mike Johnson just announced that he's forming a new congressional committee to investigate January 6th and debunk any false narratives. Can we just move on?

I get that our politicians are hyper focused on performative, politics, theater, rather than actually legislating, you know, passing laws that need to be passed, dealing with reforms that need to happen. But the idea that they're moving forward when in reality they're creating a brand new congressional committee to investigate January 6th, just this time on the right wing side, is insane to me. One clarification I want to make, there is a possibility that the police union in referencing Biden was specifically referencing the fact that he commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier, who was imprisoned for killing two FBI agents back in the, 1970s. He had been in prison since then. He's in his 80s now, and Biden decided to commute his sentence. I'm guessing maybe that's who they were referring to, but I wanted to quickly make that clarification in case that is what they were saying. But let's move on to other Republicans who are actually condemning Donald Trump's move in pardoning the violent offenders associated with January 6th. Let's take a look. I do not support the parties if they were

given if they were given to people who committed violent crimes. I've got concerns with any pardons for people who did harm to a police officer, full stop. And I've also got serious concerns with all of the pardons by President Biden. I'm comfortable with all of it. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana, who told me, I am a big black, back the blue guy. I think people who assault police officers. If they do the crime, they should do the time. I mean, I agree with those lawmakers.

And by the way, I would agree with any lawmakers who release statements like that in regard to a Democratic president who has pardoned or commuted the sentences of individuals on the left who assaulted police officers. We have to draw a clear distinction between violent criminals and those who might have broken the law but didn't engage in violent acts. I think there is a distinction there that's really important to focus on. And it seems the majority of Americans actually agree with the dissenting Republicans, because a Reuters Ipsos poll that closed on Tuesday found that 58% of respondents felt that Trump should not have pardoned those convicted of crimes for January 6th. Another poll from before Donald Trump took office yielded very similar results. Let's take a look at this.

This is a graph put together by NPR, and this poll conducted earlier this month found that 62% of Americans disapproved of Trump pardoning people involved in the January 6th insurrection, 89% of Democrats, and 62% of independence, and even 30% of Republicans disapproved of the pardons. Nonetheless, Trump continued to defend his decision when pressed about it last night. Take a look. You would agree that it's never acceptable to assault a police officer, right? So then if I can, among those you pardon, DJ Rodriguez, he drove a stun gun into the neck of a D.C. police officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video

to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon? Well, I don't know. Was it a pardon? Because we're looking at commutes and we're looking at pardons. Okay, well, we'll take a look at everything. But I can say this. Murderers today are not even charged. You have murderers that aren't charged all over. You take a look at what's gone on in Philadelphia, you take a look at what's gone off in LA where people murder people and they don't get charged. These people have already served years in prison and they've served them viciously. It's a disgusting prison. It's been horrible. It's inhumane. It's been a terrible, terrible thing. I want them all to be in prison. I don't want to, like, it's ridiculous to look at pardons or soft on crime treatment.

from members of the right in order to justify soft on crime treatment by members of the left. How about it's all bad? How about people who pose a threat, a public safety threat to society should probably be locked up, should probably face the full consequences of the acts that they engaged in? So I just, look, for me, that's the clear distinction. I'm not one of these people who wants to like in prison nonviolent offenders for the rest of their lives for nonviolent offenses. And that includes people who might have walked into the Capitol building following, you know, those rushing into it and breaking in. I just, if someone has carried out acts of violence, there needs to be a clear message sent to them and to society at large that it's

unacceptable. And so pointing to soft on crime treatment in some of the liberal run cities across the country doesn't justify, in my opinion, what Donald Trump did in issuing these sweeping pardons of individuals who carried out acts of violence against police officers on January 6th. That's my view on it. Obviously the majority of Americans based on the polling also agree with me. And I'm really happy to see that because I don't think it's healthy to have the type of culture that justifies violence as long as it's carried out by your preferred political group. Anyway, let's move on to one more story before we take a break,

because I wanted to talk about the latest in regard to H-1B visas. As you guys can recall, that led to a pretty fierce debate among MAGA. And I want to talk about what Trump has to say about it now. We want competent people coming into our country. And HB1, I know the program very well. I use the program, matri-Ds, wine, you know, experts, even waiters, high-quality waiters. You've got to get the best people. I mean, what would America do when we need high-quality waiters and we don't have something?

like the H-1B visa program. Okay, look, President Donald Trump has come out yet again to declare his support, his love for the H-1B visa program, which he claims to know a lot about. But that clip you just watched proves otherwise. And that's a problem when he's the guy who just won the presidential election in large part due to his stance on immigration. Lately, H-1B visas or the skilled foreign worker program has sparked a massive debate between Trump's billionaire tech bro donors and the populist wing of the MAGA movement.

The America First MAGA crowd rightly wants to protect American jobs for American workers, and they've noticed that these visa programs are being abused to their detriment. On the other hand, tech bros like Elon Musk not only rely on H-1B visas, there will to go to war with MAGA to maintain or even expand the program. Now originally H-1B visas were designed to alleviate labor shortages in scientific and technological fields by, you know, bringing over foreigners of distinguished merit and ability. The skilled worker program that offers H-1B visas currently has a cap of 65,000 per year, a number that technology companies have pushed to increase.

Elon Musk is known to use the program at his companies. In fact, Tesla has obtained 724 H1B visas in 2024. Now Trump on the other hand, mostly uses H2B and H2A visas for his businesses, not H1B visas. H2B visas are for non-agricultural, unskilled labor, you know, all the jobs that he kind of lists there with the exception of sommoniers. and H2A visas pertain to agricultural workers. Now, according to Labor Department data, from 2003 to 2017, Trump's companies were approved for more than 1,000 H2B visas for jobs like cooks, housekeepers and waiters at his properties,

including Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida. In each instance, his companies had to attest that there were no American citizens who could perform those jobs. Let's pause for laughter because that's ridiculous. Now the president also benefits from foreign labor that legally enters the country and works in the country with H2B visas. Currently Trump's winery in Charlottesville, Virginia is seeking 31 foreign vineyard workers, workers specifically under the H2A program, offering them $15.81 per hour.

So look, Trump probably should have a better grasp of the different foreign worker programs before offering his defense of H-1Bs. But Trump seems to keep making the same mistake. In fact, not too long ago, when this whole H-1B visa debate began, he took Elon Musk's side in touting the visas, telling reporters that I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B, I have used it many times, it's a great program. But is it, is it a great program? Like we've already determined that he's mixing up the H-1, you know, the visa programs. He's not using H-1B, we know that.

But is the H-1B program a great program? Look, I think it could be if reformed to close certain loopholes that actually do harm American workers because even though H-1Bs have some safeguards allegedly to protect American workers, corporate executives have found the loopholes, and they are using them to their advantage. Research from the Economic Policy Institute found that major employers, especially those in Silicon Valley, are using H-1B and similar visa programs to depress wages. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and META use the scheme in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill.

Just how much are we talking about here? How much are they depressing wages? Well, there have been some studies in that as well. An economist from the University of Michigan and the University of California, San Diego found that tech worker wages would have been as much as 5.1% higher in the absence of H-1B visa workers in the same field. Reporter Lee Fong detailed specific companies and how they abused the system in a piece that he wrote for unheard, writing that meta, for instance, is classified H-1B dependent over its unusually high foreign visa workforce. The government found that meta discriminated against American workers refusing to recruit, consider, or hire qualified Americans for more than 2,600 jobs. The Department of Justice, however, ended the issue with a slap on the wrist penalty of $14.25 million or a mere 0.016% of company revenue.

Meta is far from the only company caught doing this, by the way. In October, a jury found that cognizant engaged in systemic discrimination against American workers in favor of thousands of South Asian workers on H-1B visas. The trial unearthed damaging facts about the system, namely that Cognizant gave the visa lottery process with fake applications and sought to depress wages with visa dependent foreign talent. A former director of that very firm said that the entire business model is built on the back of cheap Indian labor. The people who are on visas are the people Cognizant wants. While these problems absolutely do need to be addressed, I also believe that it would be a misguided overcorrection to entirely get rid of the H-1B visa program, because it turns out that America currently is suffering from shortages of labor in several professions. So let's talk a little bit about that. First, let's watch this. Entire fields like nursing, teaching, and construction can't find enough workers. Let's break it down by field.

The American Health Association reports 600,000 nurses plan to leave the field by 2027. Data from the National Center for Educational Statistics says the average public school has two vacant teaching positions, and that 4% of all public school teaching positions across the country were empty. Even the construction industry will need another 540,000 workers on top of the normal pace of hiring to meet the demand for labor, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors. More and more, these professions are turning to apprenticeship programs, to help fill the gaps created by labor shortfalls. And with what experts are calling a manufacturing super cycle on the horizon,

the U.S. economy is quickly approaching a make-or-break moment. Not very many high school students think about a career in the trades. Labor shortages in the healthcare industry are particularly concerning. There's already a shortage of registered nurses, and it's about to get worse due to the fact that many nurses are, set for retirement soon. According to the health resources and services administration, nationally, there is a projected shortage of 78,610 full-time equivalent RNs, registered nurses in 2025. The 10 states with the largest projected shortage in 2035 are Washington at 26%, Georgia

at 21%, California, 18%, Oregon, 16%, Michigan and Idaho, both at 15%, Louisiana and North Carolina, both at 13%, followed by New Jersey at 12%, and South Carolina at 11%. So while the H-1B visa program is definitely being abused and is in desperate need of reforms, Any changes made by Trump might be misguided, especially if he has no idea of who the visas apply to, what they do, or which programs he himself benefits from for his own businesses. So something to keep an eye on, I think that this debate within, you know, the right wing of our, you know, political spectrum is a really interesting debate to focus on because it does show that tension, that conflict between the donor class, and the actual voters. The voters see the problems that come along with this system that has loopholes that are being abused by, you know, these tech billionaires.

But at the same time, these tech billionaires are the very individuals who are heavily funding Donald Trump's campaign. They heavily funded his inauguration. They were very much present on inauguration day, having the best seats at the house. And so I'm very curious to see what the reaction will be. from the MAGA base that is very much against the abuses of these H-1B visa programs, right? So we'll see how this all plays out, but I'm getting a sense that they're getting a taste of what Democratic voters have been dealing with for multiple election cycles in a row now. You know, the donors want things that conflict with what Democratic voters want.

And so once these Democrats get elected, they break their promises to their voters in order to serve their donors. And that has really hurt Democrats electorally. I think that the same thing could happen with Republicans if they continue allowing the corruption to guide their policy. Donald Trump went from being pretty hard on immigration, wanting to not just rein in illegal immigration, but rein in forms of legal immigration as well. And now all of a sudden you're hearing him celebrate H-1B visas. Because even going so far as to claiming that he himself has benefited from it when he hasn't.

He uses a different set of visa programs for his own businesses. So we'll see how it plays out. I think it's an interesting debate. I think that those who are concerned about the abuses are making good points. But I don't want to get rid of the program altogether, especially when you consider the fact that we do have labor shortages here in the US. All right, well, tell me what you think in the comment section. I love to hear from you all.

For now though, we're gonna take a quick break when we come back. Lots more to get to, including how Donald Trump intends to end the war in Ukraine by really pressuring Vladimir Putin. We'll talk about what that pressure is and more when we come back. Welcome back to TYT. As some of you might have noticed, we have poll questions related to every story that we cover because we want to know where your hearts and minds are at. So when it comes to the first story we cover today in regard to Donald Trump pardoning the January 6 rioters, including those who committed acts of violence against police officers, we wanted to know, do you think that Trump will actually

lose support from voters in law enforcement specifically over his January 6 pardons? Let's look at Twitch where 37% of our viewers said yes, and 63% said no, I would agree with those who say no, I don't think that Trump is going to lose support over his decision here. In our YouTube audience, we have very similar results, 38% say yes, he will lose some support among law enforcement for his decision to pardon January 6 rioters, 62% say no. And when it comes to the second story, H1B visas, what should the fate of H1B visa, as B, A, get rid of them, B, leave them alone, or C, reform the program, well, 16% of our audience

want to get rid of them, 20% say leave them alone. And I think I made a really good argument here because a whopping 65% of our audience say keep the program, but it needs reforms. So I love hearing from you guys. Thank you for participating in our polls. Please continue doing so. I really like knowing what you guys think about these stories as well. Now, with that in mind, let's get to some foreign policy and how Donald Trump intends to end the war in Ukraine. This morning, President Donald Trump sent out a true social post to Vladimir Putin demanding that he make a deal to end the war in Ukraine, or else. Now, the or else, according to Donald Trump, would be taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on Russia. So it's worth reading exactly what Trump wrote on Truth Social to kind of get a better

understanding of how he is approaching this issue. Because remember, one of his big promises was that he was going to end the war in Ukraine on day one. Now, obviously that didn't happen on day one. Obviously, after he made that statement, he just kind of backtracked a little bit to lower expectations, which I think was the right. thing to do. There's no way you're going to end a big war like this on day one. But nonetheless, this is what he posted on truth social, saying that I'm not looking to hurt Russia. I love the

Russian people and always had a very good relationship with President Putin. And this, despite the radical lefts, Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, we must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War losing almost 60 million lives in the process. Okay, Soviet era Russia absolutely did help beat the Nazis. I mean, they played a pivotal role in beating the Nazis, so he's right about that. But we'll take a moment to note that we're not sure where we got that 60 million figure from, because according to the National World War II Museum, the Soviet Union lost 24 million soldiers and civilians in World War II.

Whatever, that's just a side note, but let's get to the rest of his statement. He says, all that being said, I'm going to do Russia, whose economy is failing, and President Putin a very big favor, settle now and stop this ridiculous war, it's only going to get worse. If we don't make a deal, and soon I have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and various other participating countries. Let's get this war, which never would have started if I were president over with. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. And the easy way is always better. It's time to make a deal. No more lives should be lost. So obviously, the Biden administration

has already implemented economic sanctions against Russia for their role in invading Ukraine. We're going to revisit that and kind of compare that to what Trump is suggesting here. But this messaging is interesting because obviously the media's coverage of Donald Trump and his relationship with Vladimir Putin has been pretty critical. He's been very friendly to Putin. And so obviously that led to allegations that Russia might have colluded with Donald Trump to help him win the 2016 presidential election. There hasn't been any, you know, evidence of that. But lately, Trump's tone has changed a little bit. For instance, yesterday, he stated that Putin should make a deal.

I think he's destroying Russia by not making a deal. And he also said he can't be, he can't be thrilled, he's not doing so well. I mean, he's grinding it out. It's not making him look very good. I think he would be well off to end that war. So look, the good news is Trump is very clearly motivated to end this war. And he is issuing threats against Vladimir Putin. And I think that's the right person to issue threats against.

Yesterday, Trump also said that he believes Vladimir Zelensky is more open to making a deal, but he doesn't think or doesn't know whether Vladimir Putin is. When Trump was inaugurated, Putin stated that he was open to dialogue with the United States about the war, saying that I want to emphasize that its goal should not be a brief truce, but a lasting peace based on respect for the legitimate interests of all people, which is rich coming from the guy who invaded Ukraine. But Trump has infamously claimed that he could end the Ukraine Ukraine-Russia war in 24 hours. He has already missed that deadline, but he has admitted that a deal will take a little bit of time.

Let's take a look at that. You know, the real conversations will start on the 20th. But we had a really good conversation. And I think we're going to be in a good place in the Middle East. I think the Middle East will be in a good place. I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation. I see that is more difficult. I don't think they should have allowed missiles to be shot 200 miles into Russia.

that was a bad thing. And that brought the Koreans in North Korea. It does seem that Trump wants to get a deal, you know, get a deal through as quickly as possible. So that's good news. But it's worth noting that Trump is pushing for peace because he's responding to the will of his base, his voters. His voters no longer want to fund the war in Ukraine. They no longer want to have any U.S. involvement in that conflict and they wanted to end. And so he made that promise to his voters. And it's clear that he intends on keeping that promise.

Now whether or not his strategy here is going to work remains to be seen. But I do want to just show you this clip from last year because I think it's still relevant today. Take a look at this. The young men that I have been talking to in particular, they don't hate Kamala Harris. They actually like her in certain ways. They just say they think the world was better and safer under Donald Trump, the economy was healthier. One other thing that keeps coming up too that you don't hear a lot about in the national

media, Dana, is a lot of young men are worried about global conflict because they are of draft age. That comes up over and over and over again in conversations that I've been having over the last few weeks. I thought that insight from Peter Hamby was so valuable. That conversation took place during the election cycle. And I really wish Democrats listened, but they didn't. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been listening to his supporters.

And when he says he's gonna carry out a promise, sometimes he doesn't follow through. But in this case, to me, it's clear that he does wanna follow through. Biden had not spoken to Vladimir Putin, I mean, in almost three years when he left office. And you need to have those difficult conversations and find a way to forge peace negotiations peace deals in order to end that war. Meanwhile, as Ryan Grimm very effectively argued last year, Democrats suffered in the election because they had the optics of caring more about foreign wars than Americans here at home. We'll see America first. They read it as xenophobic and anti-immigrant, but Trump supporters scanned it as a promise not to waste money on wars and nation building

while our own country crumbles. But the critique in that slogan, and expressed by that Charlemagne collar makes an emotional link between issues that are treated as disparate and distinct by political operatives. The jarring price swings at the grocery store and at the pump, combined with the out-of-control wars and the surge of migrants at the border, combined to produce a visceral sense that our leaders in Washington were sacrificing the needs of regular people here in the United States. People sense that the economy was being handled poorly by Biden was colored by the chaos overseas, and his rapt attention to Ukraine and Israel left little room for confidence that he cared what was going on back here. By pretending that the U.S. could do it all, but then only delivering on the foreign wars, Democrats set up ordinary people to view it as a zero-sum competition.

I think that that statement from Ryan Grimm is so on point, and I do think that this hurt Democrats in this past election cycle. Look, say what you will about Donald Trump, and obviously we've been critical of him. Obviously, I have my problems with him, but he tends to understand where the hearts and minds of his voters are far better than the Democrats do when it comes to their own voters. And they need to wake up to that fact, because if they don't, they're going to keep losing elections. But nonetheless, just checking in on this devastating war in Ukraine, I mean, thousands of people have been killed as a result of this war. It needs to end. I don't care if it's the Democrats who succeed in ending it or the Republicans who succeed in ending it,

it needs to end. Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky in December said that 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action and an additional 370,000 have been wounded. Zelensky also said Ukraine estimated that 198,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and more than 550,000 have been wounded. Now, circling back to Donald Trump's threat to to Vladimir Putin, which came in the form of additional tariffs and sanctions. As I mentioned earlier, yes, it is true that Biden has implemented sanctions against Russia, and they haven't worked. Russia has continued on with this war in Ukraine with no end in sight.

However, there is one area in which Trump seems to be threatening Putin, where Biden was kind of unwilling to do so. So this might make the difference, I don't know for sure. But here's what it's about. So the Trump administration seems more willing to go after Russia's energy sector, which the Biden administration also did to some extent, but in a very limited manner. During the confirmation hearing, I'm sorry, during the confirmation hearing to be Trump's Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant last week told Congress that he would be 100% on board

for taking sanctions up, especially on the Russian oil majors, to levels that. that would bring the Russian Federation to the table. Now, while Russia has thus far been able to basically circumvent Western sanctions, Business Insider reports that Russia's economy is in fact starting to slow with inflation rising rapidly in the country, only time will tell whether Trump will both make good on these threats and if these economic threats move the needle in regard to where Vladimir Putin stands on the continuation of this war in Ukraine. So we'll see if this is a tactic that works, but I'm glad that Trump at least realizes

that ending a war doesn't happen in 24 hours, it's a complicated situation, and you do need both parties to agree to it. And I'm also happy that he's realized that Putin is a lot more difficult to work with than Zelensky is on this matter. So we'll see how it plays out, we'll definitely follow the story. This war absolutely needs to end, and I hope it does. For now, let's take a break. We'll be back with more news, including congressional Republicans threatening to have all sorts of strings attached to relief aid for Californians who just lost

everything in devastating wildfires. Come right back. Welcome back to the show, everyone. We have limited time, so I want to get right into our next story. You're saying that California, if they continue to aid and abet law breaking and harbore illegal immigrants, money from D.C. gets cut off. Yeah, we're at, we're talking about conditions to this disaster. Congressional Republicans are looking to punish Americans who lost everything in the recent wildfires in Southern California by withholding disaster relief aid unless the state

governed exactly the way that they want them to govern, which puts me in a really difficult situation because as everyone knows, there is no love lost between me and Gavin Newsom. I have been very critical of the Democratic leadership in the state. They have in fact mismanaged, they have in fact failed to prepare the same. state for the winds that were coming, the fire weather that we were all warned about a week prior to the devastating wildfires breaking out. But now the congressional Republicans are going beyond the mismanagement issues. Now all of a sudden, I'm hearing them bring up all these other strings that they want to attach to the relief aid. And I just want to remind everyone that our

taxes, everyone who works and pays taxes, they are contributing to the federal resources that are supposed to be available if they are, if they lose everything as a result of a natural disaster, if they lose everything as a result of fires, like the ones that broke out a week and a half ago in Los Angeles. So like the idea that we keep paying our taxes and we can't rely on any federal relief if a natural disaster strikes, just purely based on politics is infuriating. So look, let's listen to the conversation between Sean Hannity and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. So you get a sense of what I'm talking about here. We're talking about conditions to this disaster rate. Look, there are natural disasters,

but there are man-made disasters as well. And they made terrible decisions. They knew exactly what they were doing. That reservoir outside Pacific Palisades, 117 million gallons, it was empty for a year. Why? They were trying to save a smelt fish or something. I mean, their policies are upside down. They made decisions that made that disaster exponentially worse, and this is what the American taxpayer is demanding of us everywhere else in the country. Okay, there are things he said there that are true, but there's one major thing he said that is not true. He's totally misinformed about and it's been kind of driving me crazy. The whole issue of, you know, preserving smelt, right? The tiny little fish that they keep referring to. That had no

impact on the water supply in Southern California. That is, in my opinion, an issue that needs to be addressed because we have not built water infrastructure to preserve water when it does rain and it's ridiculous that that's the case when we live in a drought prone state. So that does impact parts of California, right? The effort to save the smelt fish does impact the water supply in parts of California, but not Southern California. He is correct in noting that the Santa Inez Reservoir in the Pacific Palisades was empty and had been empty for a year, but it wasn't because of the smelt, okay? It was empty because because there was a tear on the floating cover of that reservoir.

And it takes forever to fix a damn thing in this state because of environmental regulations, because of other regulations that are intentionally set to prevent the construction of new homes. Because let's keep it real, people want to maintain the value of their homes. And if you build more supply, then that might lower, just for a brief period of time, the value of their home. That really is the center of a lot of the dysfunction that we see in California when it comes to regulations and red tape, preventing us from building things or fixing things. So that is a problem, okay? Bringing up the reservoir, that's fine.

Bringing up the mismanagement leading up to the fire, that's fine, I've spoken out against that. So if there's concern that the federal aid is going to be misspent, okay, or mismanaged by our politicians here in California, you could write the legislation or provide that aid ensuring that the money ends up in the hands of the very people who lost everything as a result of these fires. But that's not the conversation we're having here. In fact, Mike Johnson wants to go further. And so Politico, before I get to Politico, let's take a look at the next video. Because here he talks about fire mismanagement, but then he brings up other issues. Let's take a look.

Would conditions be tied to defund dismantle nobelos? I think, look, I think all those issues have to be addressed. When you're talking about disaster raid, you don't want to leave the people, you know, who are really hurting without something because of the terrible political choices of their leaders. But we got to, we got to thread that needle the right way. But I think that what we're talking about here is restoring common sense, even in the state of California. Right. The mandate we have, the responsibility we have, we're going to do that very thing. Okay, so to be fair to Mike Johnson, he's not the one who brought up policies like defund

the police or bail reform in California, Sean Hannity did. But to take that credit away from Mike Johnson, he agreed that those are the types of policies that they need to review in order to determine whether or not Californians who have paid into their federal taxes are deserving of disaster relief money. And I think that's unacceptable. I want to be clear that a lot of those policies I'm against. I wasn't against in the beginning, but once you saw the impact of some of those policies and how devastating they've been to cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, I am against

those policies. It doesn't matter, that's a completely separate issue from disaster relief aid. The idea that Democrats would look at a state like North Carolina that suffered from hurricanes and severe weather conditions, people who lost. everything in that state. The idea that Democrats would say, hmm, we don't like how Republicans are governing that state. And so we are going to hold federal relief money hostage. And we're going to use that as leverage to get local lawmakers in that state to change their policies on a whole litany of issues that aren't even related to hurricanes or natural disasters.

That is insane to me. I would be furious if Democrats did that, and I'm furious right now that Republicans are attempting to do this. And look, Mike Johnson argues, well, what, what? In other cases, like, you know, with Hurricane Katrina is a good example. There were strings attached to that disaster relief money. No, there weren't. What is he talking about?

Okay, let's get into the details about that. Because as far as conditioning relief following Hurricane Katrina goes, The hurricane made landfall on August 29th, 2005. The Senate quickly approved $10.5 billion in aid for the victims on September 1st, 2005. So almost immediately, which was a good thing, that's what you're supposed to do. The House approved the measure the next day without any debate. And then President Bush requested an additional $51.8 billion on September 7th. Congress approved that funding package the next day.

When people in America have been devastated by a natural disaster, you need to provide relief, not play politics. These people have lost, in some cases, everything. They've lost their homes, all of their possessions. They're desperately looking for a place to live in a state that has a housing shortage and we're going to talk about bail reform. What the hell does bail reform have to do with this? Political wrote on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, federal officials estimated

the taxpayers had eventually laid out some $120 billion to deal with the after effects of the disaster. About 76 billion of that sum went to Louisiana projects nearly three times the size of the state's annual budget. When Congress wasn't entirely broken, when Congress realized, oh, the whole point of the federal government is to protect the people of the United States. Otherwise, what the hell is the point? Why the hell are we paying our taxes? I'm asking a genuine question here. Why the hell are we paying our taxes? If that money doesn't go toward the people of this country,

not only to make their lives better, but to rescue them when disaster strikes. Are we just paying our taxes to fund the Pentagon? Are we just paying our taxes to fund wars abroad? I'm being serious. What the hell am I paying my taxes for if I can't rely on the federal government to help the people of California after they've been victimized by devastating wildfires? And again, I want to reiterate, it is true that our Democratic leaders in this state have let us down. They have failed us. So I'm okay with the criticism toward Gavin Newsom or Karen

Bass. And if anybody has a problem with attacking them or critiquing them because of their failed leadership, because they happen to be Democrats, kick rocks because they did mismanage the lead up to these fires. But to punish the people of California, the people of Los Angeles, who have lost everything because you don't like the Democratic politicians who lead the state, I think that's ridiculous. If you want to provide that aid in a way that ensures the money gets into the hands of the actual victims, I'm fine with that. Because I don't really trust Gavin Newsome or Karen Bass either. But to bring up all these other issues like bail reform and how you don't like that and how you might bring that up and use that as something you want

changed in order to release some of the funds for disaster relief? I think that's unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable. There was a brief moment when Republican House Speaker Dennis Hassert, by the way, was questioning whether it was a good idea for American taxpayers to bankroll rebuilding, the rebuilding of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. And what happened was really interesting. So that record-breaking federal response wasn't assured when failed, built levees, left 80% of New Orleans underwater.

Hassert, the Republican House Speaker at the time, told reporters that it looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed. When asked whether the federal government should spend billions of dollars to rebuild the city, he said, I don't know, that doesn't make sense to me. But he rightly received a lot of backlash from Americans across the country. Because guess what? wanted to ensure their fellow Americans in New Orleans were made whole after that devastating hurricane hit after the devastating floods happened. And so as a result, Hazard soon apologized

for his remarks. He ultimately joined a bipartisan group of congressional leaders along with President George W. Bush in agreeing to support the aid package. Now look, again, California lawmakers dropped the ball, I totally agree. But we cannot condition the aid based on other non-natural disaster issues. And that's exactly what's happening here. While appearing on Meet the Press last weekend, Speaker Johnson was asked about whether Republicans will use the relief funds to leverage Democrats to get on board with other policies. And here, you hear them bring up one other issue. Take a look at that. Yeah, I want to tell you something that California Governor Gavin Newsom wrote recently. He said, quote, there must be no conditions, no strings

attached to disaster aid. And yet we know that there's a big conversation happening right now on Capitol Hill about linking disaster aid for California to an increase in the debt limit, which has been a traditionally really thorny issue. Are you and can you commit that California disaster relief won't have strings attached? No, I won't commit that because we have a serious problem in California. I don't think Mike Johnson is really concerned about the poor governance in California. I think Mike Johnson sees an opportunity, as do other Republicans in the party, to hold this money hostage, punish, potentially punish Angelinos in order to get some policy wins, including an increase in the debt ceiling. So now we've heard about an increase in the debt

ceiling, tying the disaster relief funds to that, tying the disaster relief funds to changes in bail reform policy in California. I mean, come on. And I would caution Republicans who are signing on to this. Because if we're going to set this precedent, I have no doubt in my mind that Democrats will turn around and do the same thing in Congress. And I don't want to live in that world.

I want to live in a world where we actually take care of one another, understand the importance of backing our fellow Americans in their time of tragedy and when they need us the most. That's what real leaders and real lawmakers who want to be public servants would do. And again, you want to trash Newsome and Bass? I don't care, have at it. But do not add insult to injury and further punish the people of Los Angeles because you don't like the politicians in this state.

I think that's unfair and I think that's the wrong thing to do, especially when we're talking about people who have paid into their taxes and expect the federal government to be there for them when they need the federal government the most. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, John Iderola joins us for the second hour of the show. Don't miss it.