The Young Turks - Criminal Conspiracies

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Donald Trump indicted in Georgia: Ex-president accused of leading push to overturn 2020 election votes. Resurfaced clip exposed Ben Shapiro's Fox executives are pouring cash into Manchin’s campaign. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Ugaranica Spare with the Doggote. Well, not quite yet, not quite yet, but ladies and gentlemen, we did get him for the fourth time in five

months, at least in terms of indictments, we have some stunning facts about the number of times this brother's been indicted on the number of counts, the number of years. He faces, and all of that is true except for the part where I called him brother. Okay, so lots to get to on a momentous day. So without further ado, Casper. Well, why don't we start with the big news about Trump's now fourth indictment? Let's get right to it. In a sweeping nearly 100-page indictment, former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination, was indicted today for trying to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in Georgia in the last election. A state Trump lost to Joe Biden by just under 12,000 votes. Former President Donald Trump, along with 18 of his allies, you know, the lawyers and all the cronies surrounding him, have been indicted in the state of.

of Georgia over their efforts to overturn Trump's loss in that very state. Now, as expected, Fulton County District Attorney Fonie Willis is using racketeering charges, also known as RICO charges, of course, which is normally associated with mobsters, which is why RICO makes a lot of sense in this context. No, but seriously, it's to accuse Trump and his cronies of being part of a criminal enterprise to keep him in power. So let's go through the details of this indictment, now the fourth indictment against Donald Trump. The defendants include, of course, Donald Trump, but also White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who we haven't really heard much from in recent months.

Trump attorney and former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is also one of the individuals named in the indictment. You have Trump administration justice department official Jeffrey Clark, who, of course, advanced the then-presidents' efforts. to undo his election loss in Georgia. You have lawyers, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Cheesbrough, and you also have Ellis. She's also named in this indictment. Now the charging document accuses the former president, his former chief of staff, that's Mark Meadows, Trump's attorneys, and the ex-New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, of being members of a criminal organization, an enterprise that operated in Georgia and other states. The nearly 100 page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump or his allies to undo his defeat,

including beseeching Georgia's Republican Secretary of State to find enough votes for him to win the battleground state, harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud, and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump. So we'll go through all of those accusations one by one in just a moment. But first, why don't we go to the video of prosecutor Fannie Willis, giving a press conference to elaborate on this indictment just last night. As you examine the indictment, you will see acts that are identified as overt acts

and those that are identified as predicate acts, sometimes called acts of racketeering activity. Overt acts are not necessarily crimes under Georgia law in isolation, but are alleged to be acts taken in furtherance of the conspiracy. Many occurred in Georgia and some occurred in other jurisdictions and are included because the grand jury believes they were part of the illegal effort to overturn the results of Georgia's 2020 presidential election. The acts identified as predicate acts or acts of racketeering activity are crimes that are alleged to have been committed in furtherance of the criminal enterprise. So these were charges that we were expecting her to announce in the beginning of September. Obviously, we aren't there yet, but she apparently feels that she has strong enough a case to announce these charges. present the indictment a little earlier. And this is important, Jank, because as we've talked about before, when it comes to federal

charges, should Trump get elected, there is some chance that he'd be able to pardon himself? That's not the case when it comes to the state level indictment. So that includes the fraud in financial records. That's the case in New York that Alvin Bragg is presenting. And then here we have the Georgia case involving his meddling in the 2020 presidential election. Yeah, so I want to explain, you're probably hearing RICO statute a lot, and obviously this is part of what they're charging here. So what does that mean? Well, all it means is, look, if you're in working together with a number of people, two or more, towards a certain objective, and you're committing different crimes in service of that objective, then you're triggering the RICO statute.

So there are parts of this indictment that the right wingers have reacted to do in hilarious ways where they explain like here's what Trump did next and here's what the other person did, et cetera, et cetera. And they're like, oh, do you think it's criminal now to watch cable news or something? No, guys, they're just explaining the case what happened, right? Not every part of the 98 pages is criminal. And people have made a good analogy here saying like if you go to buy a scheme ass, that's not illegal. But if you do it in service of a crime that you're going to commit with other people to rob a bank, okay, then they explain in the indictment that you got the ski mask in furtherance of that. The ski, buying the ski mask is not the illegal part.

The bank robbery is the illegal part. And if you had a number of people working together and they did several different acts to get to the bank robbery, then that, and some of those were illegal. They went and purchased an illegal gun. They stole a car, etc. that becomes then a good place to use a RICO statute to bring all those defendants through all those different crimes to the same objective. And in this case, the objective is stealing the election.

And so she's doing something really interesting here. The opposite of what Jack Smith did, she's charging all 19 co-conspirators at the same time and trying them at the same time, whereas Jack Smith had six unindicted co-conspirators with Donald Trump, but he is trying Trump only then moving on to. to the other guys, and it'll be really interesting to see which strategy is better from a legal perspective of how it comes out in the courtroom, right? Is the 19 co-defendants going to bog down that trial in Georgia? Is it going to take longer because of it, is it going to be a mess because of the 19

co-defendants, right? Is Jack Smith going to move faster? Or does the 19 co-defendants help because then Rudy, Mark Meadows and all these other guys? And you know, look, Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows are interesting national characters. But there's in that 19, there's a whole bunch of rando little fish, okay? And none of them have morals. And like Sidney Powell, for example, has admitted, yeah, I was making this stuff up, right? And in other court cases.

So is she going to sit there and go, oh, I'll take the fall for the big guy? Or is she at some point going to pull to shoot? And remember, prosecutors always give the better deal to the guys who go first, right? You might know the answer to this question. I'm not entirely sure. So would it be a defense for Donald Trump to essentially throw all these people around him under a bus and allege that he genuinely believed that the election was stolen from him as a result of the lies that were being told by the Sidney Powell's, the John Eastman's, the, you know, all of these people. Would that be a defense? Yeah, so that's a great question. And that's why Fannie Willis, charging all 19 at the same time, becomes even more interesting. Because it forces Trump to say it wasn't me, it was them, okay? And then, well, what is Rudy and Johnny Smith and all those guys going to do? The nationalists needs to go, no, it was him, right? And then we've got a really interesting scenario. Whereas in the Jack Smith case,

they might want to avoid prosecution later, et cetera. But here we're going to have a completely completely different dynamic. Now, as to whether it's a defense to say, well, my lawyer said it was okay, first of all, definitely not a defense. Not just that, but that, see, because I'm curious if there's going to be an effort by Donald Trump and his lawyers to allege that Trump genuinely thought that there was widespread voter fraud. Now, obviously you and I think that's ridiculous, considering the fact that there were multiple recounts in the state of Georgia alone. There were dozens of court cases, more than 60 in which Trump lost, failed to prove that there was any, even a little shred of voter fraud. You know, you have Trump appointed judges who ruled

against him in those dozens of cases. So like, it's ridiculous to us. But I am curious, right? Like, because as I read the details, yes, Trump engaged in some behavior here, which we're going to go through. But an argument could be made. that he engaged in this behavior because you genuinely thought that the election was stolen from him. And would that defense work? No, absolutely not. So let me explain two different parts of it. First of all, that's why Jack Smith in the federal case about the same situation about stealing the election has presented all this evidence or has all this evidence that we now have seen some of, which shows that no, Trump definitely knew, okay? So that's why they want to

knock out that possibility altogether, that it confuses the jury, so they have witnesses, documents, et cetera, showing that Trump knew that he had lost the election. Now, let's get beyond that and say that somehow they can't prove that, and Trump proves, oh, I really thought that I had won the election. Does that allow him to break into a voting machine in Georgia? No. Does that allow him to get fake electors to sign fake documents? saying he won, even if he thought he won.

No, you slick can't get fake electors to commit fraud, et cetera. It doesn't matter how justified you think you are. Those are significant crimes. Let's go through the accusations here, what Trump's part in all of this was in the various actions that were taken following the 2020 presidential election. And then we can discuss how strong the case is, okay? So I want to start off with something that we've shown you and had you listen to many, many times, and that is the phone call that Donald Trump made.

He called Brad Raffensberger, the Secretary of State of Georgia, and asked, for something very specific. This is definitely part of the investigation and the case. Let's listen. So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. Which is one more than we have. Like that last part I think is super relevant because he's like, listen.

I just need you to find me enough votes to just beat Biden by one vote. Yeah, look, guys, I got to say this. So Maga muddies the waters with nonsense. Think about it if it happened to you, right? So if I thought I won the election, would I go and call the Georgia Secretary of State? A, in the beginning, or I would. I wouldn't personally call him, but I would ask for a recount, no question. Nothing wrong with that.

I'd ask for a hand recount. Nothing wrong with that. Now, let's say that you got on the phone with him. It's already a bad idea, but okay, you're on the phone with him. What I would say to him is, look, brother, I think I won the election, but it's your job to determine that, right? So all I'm asking you to do is put in maximum effort to find all the correct votes. I would never say, find me enough votes to win.

I need to win by one. That's saying I don't care who won, and I don't want you to do your job of finding all the correct votes. See, if I was him, I would have emphasized to know, to no end, don't worry about who won, just find out if there was fraud, if there was no fraud, the election stolen or not stolen, and who got more votes. But do not be shy about it and fight as hard as you can to find all the correct votes. If he had said that, there's no case at all.

That's him just fighting to get the guy to count correctly. But he didn't say that. He said, find me 11,700, after he checked his nose, 780 votes. more, one more than I need. I mean, you're, you're, that's what I'm telling you guys. The most underrated thing about him is how unintelligent he is. He just handed a prosecutor a perfect piece of evidence for this case. So there's more tied to that phone call and his interactions with Brad Raffensberger.

The indictment also charges Trump with making false statements and writings for a series of claims he made to Raffensberger and other state election officials, including that up to 300,000 ballots, were dropped mysteriously into the roles in the 2020 election and that more than 4,500 people voted who weren't on the registration list and that a Fulton County election worker, we've talked about this before, her name is Ruby Freeman, was a professional vote scammer. One man by the name of Stephen Cliffguard, Stephen Cliffguard Lee, was charged for allegedly traveling to Freeman's home with intent to influence her testimony. Freeman and her daughter, Shea Moss, testified to Congress last year about how Trump and his allies latched on to surveillance footage from November of 2020 to accuse both women of committing voter fraud, allegations that were quickly debunked, yet spread widely across conservative media.

Of course. So that part of, you know, the false statements to Brad Raffensberger, how much of that was Trump just hatching. up nonsense, how much of it was the result of Trump's allies feeding him garbage and him buying into it because he didn't want to accept defeat. All of that will be worked out through this trial, right? But we already know so much of the evidence is public. Yeah. And there are, there's evidence that Trump absolutely knew. And he wasn't like this innocent, gullible guy who's like, oh, golly, gee, I wonder who won. I can't tell it all. And then this evil Rudy Giuliani and Cindy Powell coming and go, oh, I'm your lawyer and I say you won. Donald,

I'm going to trick you into, come on, guys. You know how Donald Trump works. He's like, find me the votes. I don't care who won. Okay, I'm going to win. And then he would get rid of every lawyer who told him, no, you didn't win. And when Pence said, you didn't win and I'm not going to cheat on your behalf, according to his chief of staff, he didn't mind if Pence got murdered. Mark Meadows, chief of staff. By the way, Mark Meadows is trying to move the Fulton County case, the indictment that we're talking about right now, to federal court. That just broke. There are no other details about it. Yeah, well, remember what I said yesterday. I think Mark Meadows is going to testify against Donald Trump. I think he's working with the federal

government. That's why he's trying to move it to federal court. And so he's, he's the one guy that Jack Smith did not indict, when in obviously he was the chief of staff and very much involved in all these machinations. So if he didn't get indicted, likely he's a cooperating witness. So that's why Meadows is basically saying to Willis in Georgia, no, no, no, you're not getting it. It's nay on the indictment A. I'm working with Smith A. Okay. All right. So let's get to some of- That's my speculation, by the way. That is not news yet. Right, exactly. Literally the story just broke. So we don't have any additional details on it at the moment. But I want to move on to some of the other accusations because the phone call to Rafensberger is just

one part of it. The other part of it that I think is worth doing a deeper dive into is the Coffee County voting machines. So Coffee County, a heavily Republican rural part of Georgia, overwhelmingly supportive of Donald Trump, which is why it's strange that Trump's allies decided to essentially breach the voting machines and illegally obtain voters' information. So I want to give you the details on that real quick. So the indictment also accuses Sidney Powell and several co-defendants of tampering with voting machines in Coffee County, Georgia and stealing data belonging to Dominion voting systems. According to evidence made public by the Congressional Committee investigating the January

6th riot, Trump allies targeted Coffee County in search of evidence to back their theories of widespread voter fraud, allegedly copying data and software. And we do have video showing you what that scene look like. Let's take a quick look at that. The newly obtained surveillance video shows a Republican county official and a team of operatives working for Trump attorney Sidney Powell inside a restricted area of the local elections office in Coffey County, Georgia. Among those seen, Kathy Latham, a former GOP chairwoman of Coffey County, who is under criminal investigation for posing as a fake elector in 2020. Latham previously claimed she was not personally involved in the breach, but the video appears to undercut that claim, showing her inside as a team of Republican operatives, work on computers near election equipment, and proceed to access voting data. Scott Hall, an Atlanta bail bondsman and Fulton County Republican poll watcher, is one of the people who spent hours inside the restricted area, and in audio obtained by CNN, Hall later described what he did.

chartered the jet to go down to Coffey County to have them inspect all of those computers. And I've heard zero. Okay. I went down there, we scanned every freaking ballot. So my question to you, first of all, the breach itself is illegal. So those individuals need to face charges for it, and they are facing charges for it. The other thing is, As far as I see at the moment, it's kind of unclear whether Trump specifically engaged in that, like if he was part of that plan to breach those machines. So that needs to be proven through this trial if they're going to implicate Trump in this element of the indictment.

The other thing is, look, just playing devil's advocate, would you breach the voting machines if you genuinely did not believe that there was voter fraud taking place? Yeah, so, okay, there's two interesting points there. Number one, Anna's totally right, Trump's connection to breaking into the voting machines has not been established publicly yet. So we'll see if she's got the goods on that. And I genuinely don't know, okay? And partly because of what Anna is saying, which is the logic of it is, why would Trump

bother to breach machines when he knows he didn't freaking win? And maybe he thought we breached the machines and we generally rigged to make it seem like it was rigged, right? And so that's entirely possible. So let's see if they've got evidence of that. And then why did they choose coffee county? It's already a heavily Trump area. I mean, that's a very unlikely place for Biden to do cheating.

It's because they had access to them, right? They can't go down in the middle of Atlanta and go, let me breach the voting systems here and give me one of your machines. It's not going to work. They go down to Coffee County and that clown-ass lady goes, oh yeah, yeah, come on in. And she goes in with them and says, I wasn't there. Look, I know that in the political world for MAGA, there is no reality. But in the real world, there is a reality. So when you show up on a tape, we all can see you, right?

Right. Also, but let's keep it real. So Coffey County uses the Dominion voting machines, right? Yeah. And the area overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump. So I might have believed that the voting machines worked perfectly fine in Coffey County, but in the areas of Georgia where Biden won over Trump, they somehow malfunctioned and gave Biden an edge?

Yeah, that's part of why. they would go into Coffey County to check the machines because if you were going to actually cheat, you wouldn't just cheat in the areas that are, you know, more likely to vote for you. You'd cheat more broadly. You'd take a couple of votes from each place, et cetera, presumably. I don't know, I'm not in the cheating business like the Republicans are. Anyways, okay, but by the way, let's also note, they tried it in a small town and found out. Okay, so, and Coffey County is very small.

But look, if for the MAGA guys, if you're like, oh, they're just inspecting the machine. Oh, so you don't mind? Do you mind if Democrats then breach all these secure areas in the voting booths in the next election? Can you guys imagine? They're just inspecting the machine, so I'm sure you don't mind Biden and his team doing it, right? By the way, if Democrats did that, we'd be the first to cover it and condemn them for doing it. 100%. Because guess what matters more than gross partisan politics are democracy and saving and protecting our electoral process?

That's way more important to me than any Democrat, you know, anything else that's happening right now in the world of partisan politics. But I got to give you one more detail, Jank, because there is one slim piece of evidence that we know about so far, tying Donald Trump to the Coffey County incident. So CNN reported that last year a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6th Select Committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18th of 2020, that included Trump.

I wonder if he'll do the defense of, yeah, but that document was longer than two pages and didn't have my name on it or pictures. So obviously I didn't read it. That's usually, no. So we'll see, we'll see what kind of evidence they have about that meeting and whether Trump participated. It's in the Oval Office, presumably. And how much did he participate?

Did he order them to break into the machine? Did he not know? Or is this, they answer somewhere in the middle. Guys, another reason why this trial is so important is that it is, you're going to have Republican, not Democrats, Republican after Republican after Republican, testifying against Donald Trump. And they're going to say, hey, I've been a lifelong Republican. I did this, this and this.

Here's how much I despise the Democrats, here's, et cetera. But I believe in the United States Constitution and they wanted me to cheat and I wouldn't cheat. I look my spidey sense says that we've reached a tipping point and I know that again mainstream media said that from day one they thought the walls were closing in when there were no walls to begin with but now four indictments in and this is a stunning fact he now faces I think 93 counts over the four cases combined 912 years. behind bars. I mean, come on. Okay, so look, he's likely not going to spend one day behind bars. Best case scenario is house arrested Maralago. But this is a stunning number of crimes to commit. And I know they all think, oh, no, no, it's because he's being targeted and persecuted. And it's a brilliant trick on his part to say like, oh, of course, everything I do wrong doesn't count because the bad guys are coming to get me, right? But in reality, Maggot, you picked a clown who loaded all

of these different guns and handed it to your enemies, not just his enemies, but your enemies. And he's like, okay, I'm gonna break this crime. I'm gonna break take home top secret nuclear documents for no goddamn reason. Here's a loaded gun, take it. More importantly, he just refused to give them back when he had ample opportunities to do so. Why not give it back, you moron of morons? You would have gotten away with it completely if you just gave it back. If I was MAGA, I would be livid with how stupid he is.

Because he's your leader, and he set you guys up to fail. Now, even if he wins the primary, and he's still in great shape to win the primary, man, this is devastating stuff. You just lost a giant chunk of independence. This isn't around the edges now. This is a tsunami. And you could deny reality all you want like that lady in the voting area, okay? But at the end of the day, numbers are numbers, and these are real.

And when independence, you could beat Joe Biden so easy if you asked me. And I know that the right wingers agree, right? But the one guy who's going to blow it for you is Donald Trump. True. And it's all his fault. All right. Well, when we come back, we're going to check in with Ben Shapiro, who doesn't seem very happy about this latest indictment or any of the other indictments.

But he had different thoughts about using RICO statutes to go after the executive branch when Obama was in charge. So we've got that and more coming out. Yeah, and Trump has a new unique defense. We'll talk about that too. So stay right here. I did everything right and they indicted me. All right.

with you guys, but also Kim Mattis, Ivan Manchin, and Kathy Balkan Bush. They all became American heroes in supporting honest reporting by joining young Turks. They did it by hitting the join button below on YouTube. We appreciate you guys. Croker 47, as always legend, gifted five Young Turks membership. We appreciate you. Okay, so should I do the next story? Yes, you should.

Okay, let's do it. So Donald Trump has taken my bait. Fine, it's not just me. It's partly the prosecutors and I'm sure a number of other folks. But what I kept saying to Donald Trump and MAGA is, hey, look, don't worry about getting indicted in Georgia and in the federal case. In fact, that should be great news to you guys, because you finally get to go to court and prove that you won the election. Because if Donald Trump won the election, the case in Georgia and the federal indictment related to January 6th, both go away. Those cases are predicated on the fact that Donald Trump did not win the election and he was trying to steal it.

Okay? So Trump has finally accepted the offer. In court, not quite, but he says in a press conference on Monday, he is going to present the overwhelming evidence. Can't wait. Hashtag can't wait, okay? So he's going to ride in on the mules. Here we go. So I'll give you his statement. Of course, all caps. These days, every message is all caps. That's what you do when you're in panic about going to a prison. Okay. So he says, I didn't temper with the election. Those who rigged and stole the election were the ones doing the tampering. They are the, and they are the slime that should be prosecuted. I made a perfect phone call of protest. Would someone please tell the Fulton County grand jury that I did not tamper with the election? Good news, Donald, you get to do that when you're on trial.

The people that tampered with it were the ones that rigged it. Okay, all right, fine. So that's the beginning of Donald Trump saying. I didn't do it. It was the other guys. Okay, but Donald, are you going to prove it? And this whole thing of like, can someone tell the jury? Donald, that's your job. By the way, he is right in that he made a perfect phone call to Brad Raffensberger, the secretary of state of Georgia, a perfect phone call for the prosecution. 100%. He just, it's just come on. He, it's tailor made to prosecute him. Where he doesn't say

get the correct votes, he says, get me one more vote that I need. Exactly. Okay. All right, so then now, here comes the killer part. He says that he put this statement out today, but talking about Monday, next Monday. A large complex detailed, but this is Trump, large complex detailed but irrefutable report on the presidential election fraud, which took place in Georgia, is almost complete and will be presented by me at a major news conference at 11 a.m. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey. based on the results of this conclusive report, all the charges should be dropped against me and others. There will be a complete exoneration.

They never went after those that rigged the election. They only went after those that fought to find the rigors. Okay, great news. Maga, you got it, man. He's going to write in on those mules. He's going to present his overwhelming evidence. I don't know why he's presenting it now. You should wait until the trial and present it in court.

But sure, have had it, hoss. Or he could have presented it, I don't know, a few years ago. Yeah, he could have presented in court when they went to trial over 60 times to overturn the election. And each time the court asked, including Trump appointed judges, can you please show me evidence? I actually love to see evidence of Trump winning. And people like Rudy Giuliani answered, no, there is no evidence. They said it in court, right? So he had this chance.

But let's say that, you know what, maybe he just didn't have it during the time when it was most relevant. and he could have overturned the election. But just now, the Cracken arose. And on top of the Cracken was 2,000 mules on the Cracken's back. And they're going to come in, and they're all coming in on Monday. And they're going to prove it. Look, it doesn't matter. On Monday, he could say.

It's just going to be a fundraiser. Let's keep it right. Yeah. And on Monday, he'll say, do you have a roofed about it? The run to Sanctamese is a bad guy. I'm the good guy. You're like, wait, what are we talking about? No, it's just going to be like a campaign.

Like a campaign rally speech, he's going to fundraise. He's going to love it too. He's going to revel in it. Yeah. He can't get enough. He loves this kind of stuff. But it doesn't matter how tangential, how absurd, how false, how outrageous. Maga after the press conference is going to look, we do it.

He's innocent, right? That's okay, guys. Good. Try it in court. Try it in a small court in Georgia. See how it turns out for you. Okay. So as you can see here, the devil's going down to Georgia.

And I think he's going to find out. Can't wait. Bedminster. Well, he's going to go to Bedminster first, then go down to Georgia for the actual trial. Where he's going to need actual evidence and not just a bunch of made-up mules. Okay. All right, let's move on. Related story, but a little bit of a twist involving different actors.

Let's talk about Ben Shapiro's double standard when it comes to prosecuting members of the executive branch. We've become so comfortable with the executive branch of the government abusing its citizens and violating our rights and violating what they're structured to do under the law that we've just become, to it. And if we start treating them as criminals, maybe they'll think twice before they act so criminally in the future. True. Now, that isn't Ben Shapiro reacting to the latest Trump indictment coming out of Fulton County. Of course, that indictment has to do with Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. That was Ben Shapiro back in 2014 when he was promoting a book he wrote, essentially urging for the prosecution of members of the executive branch, particularly members of the Obama administration.

So that book was what he was on Larry King's show to talk about. And I want to go to some of the videos or excerpts from that interview in just a moment. But before we do, I just want you to get a sense of where Ben Shapiro stands in regard to the Trump indictments. Whether you think of the Trump indictments, whatever you think of the Trump indictments, One thing is for certain, the glass has now been broken over and over again. Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail on all sides. So he is worried about the political ramifications of pursuing the prosecution of a former

president of the United States. But when it came to a sitting president of the United States, Ben Shapiro appeared to have absolutely no problem pursuing the RICO statute. in order to go after Obama and members of his administration. Here he is promoting his book, The People v. Obama, the criminal case against the Obama administration. This was an interview that took place on June 23rd of 2014. Let's watch. He's two years into his second term. You're not going to impeach him. Are you proposing criminal charges against the administration or who?

Well, I mean, there are certain specific players within the administration, Lois Lerner at the IRS. the Attorney General, for one, who would be subject to criminal charges. The problem is, of course, that the Department of Justice is the only body that is capable of bringing criminal charges at this point under federal law. What I actually make the case for in the People v. Barack Obama is I make the case that the RICO Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act from 1970, which allows for civil charges to be brought. People can file civil suits. That that be broadened to allow people to sue members of the executive branch. So the people themselves, essentially, would become the guardians of the criminal law because sorry, but I just don't trust any executive branch to prosecute its own guys.

Okay, so right off the bat, I just want to note some distinctions here. He's talking about bringing or using the RICO statute in order to pursue charges. Well, it's not even, I mean, it would be civil charges, right? Not criminal charges against members of the Obama administration and Obama himself. We'll get into the details over what criminality Shapiro believes that the Obama administration had engaged in. But what are your thoughts on this, Jank? Well, I mean, it's right-wing hypocrisy. It's the most normal thing in the world.

It's if he didn't say one thing when it applied to Obama and another when it applied to Trump, I would be shocked. And so Shapiro happened to have made the RICO statue argument, but is he any different than any of the other right-wingers who do nonstop hypocrisy about everything? And we just yesterday, we covered the story of them saying, we demand that Weiss be announced a special counsel. And then they announced Weiss's special counsel. They're like, we demand that Weiss not be special counsel. That's what all right wingers do. In this case, Shapiro's argument in regards to a sitting president makes no sense. Not because he's a sitting president, sitting president also can't commit crimes, right?

But because he didn't really allege any crimes by Obama. He alleged my feelings got hurt and I didn't like what he did and I disagree with him. So why don't we imprison him or civil or what? Sybil Rico, I'm not sure it makes sense. I don't even know what he's talking about. Anyway, but now when you've got all these indictments of actual criminal activity by Donald Trump, he's like, oh, Rico, no, you should never use that against the president. No, okay, hold on, hold on.

Let's be fair, okay, because I actually did the work and I sat through the entirety of that interview to understand what the accusations against Obama happened to be. And look, let me just be clear about something. The Obama administration did things, including, you know, assassinate an American citizen abroad who was suspected of terrorism without due process. Look, I know that. We, you know, you're talking about it. You think Ben Shapiro's going to complain about it?

He's going to love that. That guy was Muslim. Hold on, hold on. I mentioned that to say that I'm engaging in this conversation in good faith. because I do believe that the Obama administration engaged in some criminal activity and did not have to deal with any of the consequences. I say, I'll get to that. Now, of course, Shapiro does not mention that. Shapiro mentions Benghazi, right? So there's nothing criminal in Benghazi. Hold on, hold on. So what he's referring to is the basically sending weapons to Libya. And I looked

into the- Oh, you mean what every single president has ever done, all right? We should have been Arended Ronald Reagan, please. By the way, Larry King, to his credit, asked that question, and Shapiro, to his credit, said, yeah. Oh, no, not to his credit, because he's a liar. If Ronald Reagan was around now, he'd be halfway up his ass. But he, there's no way he would have said that about Reagan. You're probably right. But at least in the context and in regard to optics, he responded to that question the right way.

That's all I'm saying. You don't have to believe him. And to be honest with you, I don't because of this double standard that we're experiencing right now with Donald Trump and how he doesn't like the fact that Donald Trump has been indicted now four times. And the fourth time, of course, has to do with the RICO statute being implemented in order to criminally charge him. But nonetheless, the specific thing that Shapiro was talking about was, yes, the sale of weapons specifically to the Qataris and how that ended up in the hands of the jihadists in Libya.

Now, the Obama administration didn't knowingly do that. They didn't know that the weapons they were giving to the Qataris was going to end up in the hands of the jihadists, but that's typically how things work out when it comes to us funneling weapons abroad. Are you kidding? It happens all the time. Tons of weapons in the Middle East that wound up being used against us, and especially sent in by our so-called allies, Saudi Arabia, okay?

So look, guys, look, there's a difference between unconstitutional and criminal. So, and then there are tough lines in between. So for example, presidents ordering bombings without getting congressional approval for war is technically unconstitutional, but nobody ever does anything about it. That's right. And both Republican and Democratic presidents have done that ad nauseum, right? So that is unconstitutional, but it is not criminal. Whereas a president saying break into the Watergate office where the Democratic Party has its headquarters and get me their information so I can cheat in this election. is criminal because it's breaking and entering along with many other crimes, right?

And so did Democratic presidents in the past go past unconstitutional into criminal? Almost certainly, okay? And so now look, whenever it gets into national security, the line of unconstitutional versus criminal gets very hazy. But I could make a case that Obama broke the law and did something criminal when he authorized the killing of American citizen without a warrant, without a court-approved order, without anything. It was an extrajudicial killing. Now, since the Republicans also love that, and the entire, all of Washington loves it,

oh, you killed a Muslim guy, and by the way, his 16-year-old son, and by the way, later, his tiny daughter in three different bombings. Yep. Oh, golly, gee, Obama made a mistake. So did the national security apparatus. I don't believe you guys, I think you murdered those people, okay? So maybe one of them was an accident, but you're telling me all three and three different bombings? No, no, no, they murdered those people.

So you think we're like light on Obama or light on Democrats? No, we actually care about principles. Thousand percent. And that's the reason why I bring all of this up. It's to say that when it comes to illegality, right? And this is what's so frustrating about every discussion having to do with Trump's behavior and Trump's potential criminal acts, it immediately turns into a partisan issue when in reality it shouldn't turn into a partisan issue. Love for the country and love for our democratic

process should not be a partisan issue depending on who the president doing the crime is. You get what I'm saying? I do. And look, Shapiro is not uniquely guilty of it and the right wing is not uniquely guilty of it. Go find one honest person on MSNBC. Well, you can't actually, it's Mandy Hassan. But other than many, find one honest person on MSC, one of their prime time anchors who's going to tell you, oh yeah, Biden did this wrong. Hunter Biden very likely broke the law and is a criminal. Obama should not have done that extrajudicial killing. Are you kidding me? Even the lightest little criticism of Obama on MSNBC, and they'll rip you to shreds.

I mean, they tried to rip you to shreds. And literally did it to me, that's right. So look, unfortunately, media used, had this that we were going to do news, but what, we, us naive folks here at TYT, we're still trying to do the news, right? Yeah. But everyone else is like, no, no, no, no. The news is just for propaganda for your own side. Yeah, well, I'm not interested in that.

Yeah, and brazenly with guys like Shapiro on the right wing, where they're like, I said this on Monday, who cares? My audience isn't going to figure it out anyway. I have no respect for them. I'll say the exact opposite on Tuesday. Who cares, right? And I'll only support one side. I'll never ever support the other side, never give them any credit.

And again, MSNBC, very similar to that. And by the way, you can find tons of online leftist shows, very similar to that. We don't want to have a honest conversation. Our side is 100% right on every single issue, and they're 100% wrong. I want to get there right or wrong, okay? And we don't agree with that. We think you should call them all out. George Bush did warrantless wiretapping and torture, both deeply illegal.

So he was guilty, Dick Cheney was guilty. But so was Obama, because he got into office and it was like, and he did, this insane talking point that I can't believe people who were claimed to be educated and like upstanding citizens in the Democratic Party support when it's unconscionable. He said, we don't look backwards, we look forwards. But if you don't look backwards to prosecute crimes, you'll never prosecute a single crime. They were all in the past. And refusing to prosecute sends a very clear message.

The same message that we opened this segment with, with Ben Shapiro saying, well, we're all used to them breaking the law and doing whatever they want, and maybe we should hold them accountable so they stop doing that, right? So I want to go to one final clip from that interview with Larry King. Let's take a look. What did he do, hands-on that's criminal? Well, see, this is the problem. This is why you have to use the RICO Act. So no president is ever going to have to do things, unless you're Richard Nixon, presumably, no president, and there are tapes, is going to have to do things that are particularly hands-on. The government

has run much more like a mafia-esque organization in which you have somebody at the top who makes, you know, a basic demand that certain things be done, and then somebody at the low level says, okay, well, you know, I want to up my career. Why don't I do this, right? This is Henry II with Thomas Beckett, right? Well, no one riddle me of this meddlesome priest. And then somebody goes and ridds him of the meddlesome priests. It is odd that all of the scandals, all of the criminal activity in the Obama administration has all redounded to the benefit of President Obama. Under American law, Barack Obama could literally strangle somebody on camera today. And he would have to be in beat. impeached and then he would have to be tried in the Senate and convicted. And only then could you actually bring a criminal indictment against a president because you can't bring a criminal indictment against sitting president. No, I thought that was just a fascinating portion of that conversation because right now as we speak, one of the defenses I see from the right wing in regard to Donald Trump and his attempts to overturn the presidential election was that, well, I mean, all these people surrounding him, all these lawyers, all these cronies engaged in the bad behavior, right? They persuaded Trump that the election was stolen from him. But Trump himself didn't engage

in the criminality. It was the people around him who did. And Trump, poor poor Trump, he's the victim here. He genuinely bought what they were selling. He genuinely believed that the election was stolen from him. Yeah. Right? And by the way, I mean, Shapiro accidentally laid out the good reason why you would use a RICO statue. Exactly. Because if you tell other people to rid me of the meddlesome priest, you're just as guilty as the guy who actually did it. Now I'm gonna note a couple of other ironies here.

He said now nobody's gonna say it on tape. Oops, Trump's on tape saying get me 11,780 votes, one more than I need. It couldn't be more criminal if you tried, right? And then he says, I mean like no president's gonna be hands on, because he thinks the presidents are smart because Obama was smart, et cetera, right? So he's like, of course a Republican president would be so smart. He would never do it hands on.

And then here comes Donald Trump. He's got his hands all over at his McDonald's laden, greasy hands. And he's like, get me the box, right? So now look, here's, and then I note that line about Ritmi of the Meddlesome priest. So obviously from the literature that he quoted. And it's in a good intellectual point. But then it was kind of haunting to look at it from a clip from about a decade ago. Because what does right wing media do?

I'm not saying Shapiro does this. But Tucker Carlson certainly does, Alex Jones does, and others do. Where they go, well, this guy's a real problem. And Trump does it all the time. These Democrats are a real problem. Will no one rid me of these meddlesome Democrats? I mean, that is now right wing media 101. one, okay. Finally, guys, to prove our consistency, what do we say about Trump all the time in regards to all this?

Show us, go into a courtroom and show us that you won the election. We're right, we're here for it, okay? So give us the evidence, you tried over 60 times and you had zero evidence, and now you're going to get more opportunities in these cases in the federal case on the Atlantic case. Show us, right? By the way, that is the same exact thing we told Obama when he did the extrajudicial killings. They said, oh, no, Locky, he's a terrorist. We said, well, wait a minute. He's a preacher and he preaches hate and we hate him, right? I can't stand him. But he's an American citizen and he deserves his day in court, just like any other American

citizen. And if he's a terrorist, what did we say on the Young Turks? We said, prove it. Yeah. If he's a terrorist, bring him to trial, prove it. And you don't have to bring him in to do it, by the way. You could do it in absentia. And they've done that with other terrorists.

At least show us that he was a terrorist before you kill him, right? And Obama administration was like, no, we don't want to show you the evidence. Did they ever have the evidence? My guess is no. My guess is a lot of you probably worked with the CIA and then turned on them and they wanted to get rid of them. They never had the evidence. That's my guess. But my guess is fact now because Obama didn't bring us to evidence.

He didn't go to trial. And that's why I think he was guilty on that count. And Trump is guilty today. We care about evidence. We care about being principled and actually applying the facts, no matter if they're Democrats or Republicans. Do you see anybody else in media doing that? No, I don't. For now, we're going to take a break.

When we come back, Cash for Clunkers is back, and Senator Joe Manchin is involved. You don't want to miss the story. We've got that and more coming right up. I am scary. I am threatening. I'm Darth Vader. All right, back on TOT, Jane Canana, with you guys, more news. Well, we've got some updates on one of our least favorite United States senators.

Fox News, or I should say Fox Corporation, has been stuffing a Democratic senator's campaign coffers with cold hard cash. And that Democratic senator is unsurprisingly, conservative Democrat Joe Manchin. Now, why are they doing this? We can only speculate at this point. But let's get into the details in regard to how much money has been sent to Joe Manchin from individuals at Fox. And more importantly, Fox's own political action committee, which does in fact exist. So from April to June of this year, Manchin received a total of $43,150 from Fox executives and attorneys, as well as the company's pack. Some of the executives who gave to Mansion include Jack Abernethy, who is the CEO of Fox television stations. He donated $3,300 to Mansion. Then you

have Michael Mulvahill, who is a Fox sports president and of Insighton. and analytics. He donated about $1,500 to Joe Manchin. You also have Fernando Sue, who is the CEO of Fox Entertainment Global. He donated $1,000 to Manchin. And Manchin received a grand total at this point of $8,500 from the Fox Corp Pack. Now, what makes these donations notable is that before last April, Manchin had not received any donations from a Fox employee since 2018. So Jank, let me just stop here and ask you for your speculation. Like, why do you think it is that they're trying to prop up Joe Manchin, a Democrat in the Senate? Yeah, I don't think it's that complicated. So at this point, Rupert Murdoch has turned on Donald Trump. And so they're

not trying to get Donald Trump elected. So if you hear that, I think that's mistaken. And the reason why we even talk about that is because Joe Manchin is thinking you're running for president, he keeps threatening that. And that's why these donations are important. But there's two possibilities. One is at the presidential level, right? But if Donald Trump doesn't run, then Joe Manchin running and taking votes away from Joe Biden would almost guarantee a victory for any Republican not named Donald Trump. And Murdoch is very Republican, very right wing. That's the whole point of Fox News. So if he's telling his executives go for, by the way, this is a thing that happens all the time. So companies, there's all these little rules and

there's a thousand ways to get around the rules. But one of the ways to get around rules on maximum limits, specifically to a candidate as opposed to a PAC, which you can give unlimited money to, is have all of your executives give money. Okay, so we report on this like hundreds of times now. So the Fox is not the only people doing it. Manchin is not the only person receiving it. But so they're using that strategy here. And it nearly assures a Republican win if it's Donald Trump, the presidency. But also he's got, if he doesn't run for president, then he'd be running again in West Virginia for that seat. And they love a Republican pretending to be a Democrat that kills the entire Democratic agenda and validates every talking point on Fox News.

Who is that? I mean, Joe Manchin is exactly that. He's like, if Rupert Murdoch tried to draw up a Democrat to betray his own party and make it seem like the Republicans are right. He couldn't have done a better job than Joe Manchin. Right. I mean, Joe Manchin is 1,000% in cahoots with the Republican Party in regard to either privatizing social security or increasing the retirement age for social security. I mean, the list goes on and on. He, I wouldn't say single-handedly defeated Biden's full agenda with buildback better. He definitely got some help from other corporate Democrats like Kirsten Cinema, who has since decided to leave the party and instead identify as an

independent. And look, Manchin has been flirting with the notion that he could run for president of the United States. In fact, here's a clip of Manchin last month touching on just that issue. Let's see what happens. It's too early. Everyone thinks we need to do something like question on this because if you do get in the race and you spoil the elections, would you, would that factor in truth? I've never been in race I've ever spoiled. I've been in races to win and if I get to race, I'm going to win. So with that, I haven't made a decision and I'm not going to me, I've never made a decision.

He says he hasn't made a decision but he keeps flirting with it and of course, no labels has kind of flirted with the idea of propping mansion up. as like a third party candidate to essentially duke it out with whoever the Republican candidate is and Biden, assuming that Biden runs for reelection. Okay, so I have a prediction for you guys. It'll be a little bit fun, but it requires a lot of ifs. It's a hypothetical. So if Donald Trump somehow drops out of the race and is not the candidate for the Republicans, okay?

And they get a standard corporate Republican like Chris Christie, then Joe Manchin is infinitely more likely to run. If it's Joe Biden, Chris Christie, Fox and all the other conservatives are going to send in Manchin to grab a bunch of Biden votes so that the Republican can win. So if it's Trump, then they'll pull Manchin and he will not run because Murdoch and even the other giant Republican donors, not all of them, but the majority of them don't want Trump. So that's why they've got Manchin warming up in the bullpen, depending on whether Trump's the candidate or not.

And if he isn't, they'll almost certainly send him in. And why would Manchin go in? Well, for two reasons. Number one, he's not at all assured of re-election in West Virginia. No. He might run as an independent, in which case the Republican might win or very likely would win, right? So he's thinking, well, I don't want to get embarrassed in my home state. I pretended the whole time that I was popular there, right? And so second of all, if I've sold out to these guys my whole career, they owe me, right? So he's making money off his own call mine, et cetera. But he would get a multi-million dollar contract from, by the way, potentially Fox news, if not lobbyists and law firms and defense contractors.

And look, while corporations certainly love Joe Manchin, the people of this country, and particularly those in West Virginia, who he is supposed to be a political representative for not really loving him very much. So a May poll shows Mansion trailing his likely Republican challenger for Senate, Governor Jim Justice, by 22 percentage points. Meanwhile, national polling consistently ranks Manchin as the second most unpopular senator, one rung below Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Dude, if you're below the turtle, it's frozen. I mean, he's in his shell and can't get up.

You saw him at the press conference. The Republicans hate Mitch McConnell. Republican voters generally hate Mitch McConnell. Democratic voters despise Mitch McConnell. He is roundly reviled. and Manchin is below him. So guys, he killed 85% of Biden's agenda. And while he was doing that, mainstream media all pretended he was super popular in West Virginia. And that's why he had to kill Biden's agenda because West Virginia is so moderate.

And Manchin is so moderate. And that's why West Virginia loves Joe Manchin. Remember that? He had to do it for West Virginia. And now, as we told you, no, he's not even popular in West. West Virginia. You know why he kills things like a higher minimum wage? You know who could use a higher minimum wage? A lot of people in West Virginia. Child tax credit, I mean paid family leave. The list goes- Oh, they love child tax credit in West Virginia. Manchin would

have you believe that the people, the fine people of West Virginia do not want paid family leave. They want to have babies and immediately report to work the next day. Yeah, Mansion is a corporatist and West Virginia is populist. Those are polar opposite. Did West Virginia, did Manchin win a bunch of elections in West Virginia? Yes, how did he win them in the past? Because back then the spotlight wasn't on him. People didn't know what the hell he was actually voting on. And he could buy those elections with money from Republican donors and corporate donors. So he runs millions of dollars in ads pretending to be a populist from West Virginia. By the way, He had a West Virginia haircut a minute ago.

And if you notice in that common sense video, all of a sudden he's thinking of running for president, maybe working on Wall Street, and he's got his hair slick back, Gordon Gecko style. Okay, so, yeah, no, this guy ain't going to run in West Virginia. He's either going to run for president, or he's very likely going to be a Fox News analyst and get paid very handsomely for it. When we come back for the second hour of the show, do not miss it. Because Trump's White House doctor got tackled and handcuffed by police in Amarillo, Texas. We'll tell you why and show you body cam footage when we return.

He got body cammed. He did. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at Apple. slash t yt i'm your host shank huger and i'll see you soon