The Young Turks - Devin Nunes Is A Political Punch Line And Maxine Waters Throws Down With Steve Mnuchin

Episode Date: April 11, 2019

Devin Nunes has both sides of the aisle laughing at him. Don’t mess with Maxine Waters. Ana Kasparian, Adrienne Lawrence, and Jayar Jackson, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thank you. Hi, dear, welcome to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian. Jank is out, but thankfully we have an awesome panel. J.R. Jackson is in, and so is Adrian Lawrence. What's up, guys? Hello. Jenk will be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, we're gonna have this awesome panel in hour one, and in an hour two, we're gonna switch things up. In fact, our senior producer, Brett Ehrlich, will be joining in on the panel in hour two. So it's gonna be a great show. There's no doubt about it. And we're going to get into some policy today. We're going to talk about the tax filings of certain democratic candidates for the 2020 election.

And later we're going to get to my absolute favorite story that no one's paying attention to how the Justice Department is trying to change the interpretation of the emoluments clause in order to protect Trump from foreign financial contributions. I'll give you the details into that and more later. But we're gonna start off with some fun at the top of the hour, okay? But before we do so, I'm gonna plug something that I'm doing. So Michael Brooks is awesome. I love his show, we're good friends, and he's gonna be in Los Angeles to do a live show.

And I'm really lucky in being part of it. He asked me to be part of it, and if you are a member, you're actually gonna get an opportunity to win a free ticket. So again, this is the Michael Brooks show. He does a lot of really great in-depth analysis on international news. I think better than anyone I've seen in progressive media, to be quite honest with you. And again, this is going to be in Los Angeles. It's the Michael Brooks Show live in LA. It's going to be a bootleg theater.

And again, if you are a member, an activist member specifically, check your inbox because it'll give you instructions on how you can sign up to try to get a free ticket to this event. All right. Wow. It's gonna be fun. April 20th. Yeah, I know. I didn't say anything.

I'm gonna have to wait until after the live show to partake in 420 festivities. But anyway, all right, with that said, let's move on to some fun stuff. Yesterday, reports indicated that Devin Nunes was planning on suing McClatchee Group, which is a news umbrella under which a number of news outlets fall under, including the Sacramento B. Now, Nunes believes that the Sacramento B has defamed him, even though there's really no evidence of him being defamed. And so he's going after McClatchie Group, and he's going after Liz Mayor, who is a GOP operative, who he believes has somehow colluded with journalists over at McClatchie Group to put

out defamatory content about him. Now we talked about that in great detail yesterday, please check out that video if you missed it. But I'm happy to report today that a right winger actually agrees with us in saying that this entire lawsuit is laughable. So this is an op-ed written in the Washington Times. This is a right-wing outlet, okay? And the writer here is Quinn Hillier.

And Quinn writes, the defamation lawsuit filed last month by Representative Devin Nunes was sketchy at best, but the one he filed yesterday is nonsense on a pogo stick. That's it. Nice. That's all I wanted to say about that. I just love it. Yes, I actually, maybe the unpopular opinion, but I'm pretty excited about this lawsuit to a certain extent, because this is how a lot of our laws get shaped.

You have someone who's angry and who has the money and the time to go do this and push this through the court system. And you know, the old standard kind of set for public figures and defamation cases, it's what about 50 years old or something, Sullivan, New York Times. So if this guy is going to go the distance and he can get that changed in some way that takes account into modern day, you know, actual media, hey, let him do it, it's his money. Yeah, I mean, definitely. And I actually love this story.

I mean, I love the fact that he's filing these lawsuits because it's drawing attention to the very content that he doesn't want people paying attention to. It's usually referred to as the Streisand effect, but I, and some of the producers here have argued that maybe we need to rebrand it as the Nunez effect, because now everyone knows about the Devin Nunes cow Twitter account, and now everybody also knows about this article that was published in the Sacramento Bee, which really didn't have much to do with Devin Nunes. The article was about a company that Nunes had invested in. And apparently they had some sort of charitable event.

And at the event, there was allegedly some criminal activity, including, you know, sex workers and cocaine and all that. And the only thing that, you know, only part of the article that mentioned Nunez was that he was an investor in this company, but didn't say that he was part of this charitable event, didn't say that he did anything wrong. And by the way, you have a legal background. So I know the defamation lawsuits filed by a public figure are among the most difficult lawsuits to win, correct?

That's absolutely correct. And it takes a lot to go, kind of go the distance and to show that the entity acted with malice and intentionally was trying to smear your name or knew that it was false. And so he has an uphill battle, but also, again, if they can change the standard out there to essentially make the media a little bit more accountable. As Anna pointed out, this story actually really had nothing much to do with Nunez at all. So they were kind of using his name as a buzzword. So even if we really don't care too much about Nunes, if he can run this up the courts

and get the courts to say, you know what, just don't do this for anybody, then it could actually be pretty beneficial. By the way, quick correction, I'm sorry, J.R. It was not the Sacramento Bee, it was the Fresno B that published the article in question. I apologize for that. I mixed them up. Northern California. Hey, I'm from Sacramento watching.

I mean, you don't want your paper to be defamed like this. So, no, so because also, in coupled with his previous losses, where he's going after particular people, you mentioned Devin Nunes is Kyle the Twitter count. So this one would be going after media organizations. So in the other case, because when he brought up the Twitter accounts and you were one of the first people who said it, Anna, oh my God, you mean someone on Twitter said something bad about you, incorrect, mean, put your face on a meme or on a GIF. So those types of things happen, can that one also change too, is all right? of the question, because really, that's the one I would see as a harder one to go after because it's just random entities that say random things about you on multiple platforms. True, but if you end up finding out that maybe this is a concerted effort where you have

people using fake accounts or going against people to generate this negativity, these lies, these harsh things that might be considered harassment or whatnot, then you can pierce that veil and hold them accountable as long as the court allows you to do so. Because essentially, it would be wrong for me to be able to create fake accounts. accounts and spread lies about you and not be held accountable just because I'm using social media. And we actually see that a lot in situations where people are harassed or threatened or whatnot. And so if this man is going to go all the way and spend all of his money and get the courts

to actually issue some case law that can be precedent on this, yay. Get it done, bro. So the rest of us. And if that's going to help people who actually have some legitimate issues, the problem is he's got a connection to this. He has a connection to this company that was tied to the- yacht and cocaine. There was no defamation.

Right. So the problem is if he's doing it could possibly help other people, he's going about it with the wrong examines. Oh, but I'm sure he's not doing it for other people. No, of course not. No, no, no, no. All right, so let's move on to some other news. Later in the hour, we are going to get into the actual important component of Steve Mnuchin

testifying before Congressional Democrats. But first, we're going to have some fun with this story. So congressional Democrats are looking to get their hands on six years worth of Donald Trump's personal taxes along with some of his business taxes. And this is something that the administration is fighting back against pretty aggressively. Now Steve Mnuchin, of course, is the head of the Treasury Department, and he is part of the fight against giving Democrats in Congress what they want. But on two different days, two days in a row, Mnuchin has testes.

testified before Democrats. And what I find interesting is how he's changed his story. So before we get to what he could have potentially done wrong, let's get to his back and forth with Maxine Waters. So Maxine Waters is very aggressive with Mnuchin. And before I give you any more details, I just want you to watch this video and then I'll fill in the blanks. I've sat here for over three hour and 15 minutes.

I've told you I'll come back. I just don't believe we're sitting here negotiating when I come back. We'll follow up with your office. I appreciate your reminding us of the length of time. Other secretaries have been here. This is a new way, and it's a new day. And it's a new chair. And I have the gavel at this point.

If you wish to leave, you may. Can you clarify that for me? Yes, clarify. If you wish to leave, you may. Okay, so we're, we're dismissed. Is that correct? If you wish to leave, you may leave. I don't understand what you're saying.

You waste in your time. Don't remember you have a foreign dignitary in your office. Oh, he clearly didn't have a black mama because you don't know what that meant. You get no every look. You listen to the words and you read the looks as you're talking about the black mother, anti, any of that. You're going to get it so you know what you're trying to. And I think he's sensitive.

He goes, wait a second, I'm being set up here. Yeah. I'm missing something. I don't think I should get up. He was like, okay. It felt like, what does that mean? It felt like watching a little kid who just got in trouble and he doesn't know how to proceed, right?

So if you think that was the end of the interaction, you'd be wrong because there was more. I would just say that the previous, when the Republicans, they did not treat the secretary of the Treasury this way. So if this is the way you want to treat me, then I'll rethink whether I voluntarily come back here to testify, which I've offered to do. And as I have said, if you wish to leave, you may. If you'd wish to keep me here so that I don't have my important meeting and continue to grill me, then we can do that. I will cancel my meeting and I will not be back here. I will be very clear if that's the way you'd like to have this relationship.

Thank you. The gentleman, the secretary has agreed to stay to hear all of the rest of the members. Please cancel your meeting and respect our time. That important, when you bring up the important meeting again? That important meeting was with a turkey sandwich in his office that was left over. He's like, two more hours is going to be bad, it's starting to turn already. She said test me, buddy. It's amazing how quickly members, male members of Trump's administration, you know, get,

I don't know what the right word is, but they get tripped up. They get tripped up once they come face to face with a strong woman specifically. And it's certainly true of Trump, and it's now abundantly clear with Steve Mnuchin. And also, Steve Mnuchin just doesn't really seem like a very sophisticated person, right? The way that he handled that is kind of amazing. So look, the whole point of this hearing is to try to figure out whether or not the White House has had communications with Steve Mnuchin to encourage him to avoid giving congressional Democrats what they want.

And in this case, congressional Democrats, by law, have the right to get their hands on Donald Trump's taxes. But of course, he's fighting this, and the real question is why, why is he fighting it? So that's one of the reasons why Steve Mnuchin is here. But wait, if you think that was the end of their interaction, there's more. You're instructing me to stay here and I should- No, you just made me an offer. No, I didn't make you an offer.

You made me an offer that I accepted. I did not make you an offer, just let's be clear. You're instructing me, you are ordering me to stay here. No, I'm not ordering you, I'm responding. I said you may leave anytime you want. And you said, okay, if that's what you want to do, I'll cancel my appointment and I'll stay here. So I'm responding to your request.

If that's what you want to do? That's not what I want to do. I told you. What would you like to do? What I've told you is I thought it was respectful that you'd let me leave at 5.15. You are pre-to leave any time you want. You may go. Any time you want. Please dismiss everybody.

I believe you're supposed to take the gravel and bang it. Please do not instruct me as to how I'm to conduct this committee. My favorite part, I have to say, The back and forth is fascinating to watch, but my favorite part is, like, the wide-eyed gentleman right behind Steve Mnuchin, who, let's go to J.R.'s one shot, okay? Who's doing this the entire time? He's like, what's he going to do? Oh, my God.

Like, he looks like a lost puppy. That was amazing. Who's, like, terrified about the whole thing. Because staff members and anyone who's testifying, congressmen, senators, they prepare when they come into hearings, right? And a lot of times their staff helps them prepare, little known facts. But so whoever this guy was, they're like, we didn't prepare for this. Oh, I actually think it might have been his security guard, Secret Service, who was like, oh, my God, he's about to get his ass beat. Like, do we need to get the gun?

Because she's about to step down and just snatch his soul out. So the preparation was to stall in the void for long enough. They do it when they go on, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, it doesn't matter. When politicians go on to speak, they try to stall for long enough, so eventually go, okay, we're out of time, I guess you get to go. He's like, I've been in for three hours and I've been stalling for this long. I've run out of things to BS you about. Can I go now?

Because I'm going to have to start telling the truth pretty soon. And so now she kept him there. She goes, well, you can do what you'd like. It's like, okay, in middle school if you want to go to the bathroom, there's a certain amount of times at least in my school when I was a kid, you could go. Eventually, she teaches like, I'm tired of you going to the bathroom. Do you really have to go? And then a kid will ask, can I go?

He goes, you can leave, but it may not be excused. You can get up and go out in the hall all you want. And he's like, hmm. Might find yourself in detention. Yes. So then, so he's like, he saw the rules happening there, and he's like, how do I get out of this? And he got mad. And again, as you mentioned, it goes with the thought that we're smarter than this woman.

She's beneath me. Yes, that's right. I'm going to go and just keep talking, tell her how much smarter I am than her. And then when he found himself in that hole, he didn't know what to do because he didn't prepare for an intelligent person to speak back to him. That's such a great point. I think, and this is true of a lot of males, regardless of political ideology, especially in like a power crazed field like politics, right, where they usually underestimate people

who historically have been silenced or censored or haven't been given a seat at the table. In this case, it happens to be a very strong woman. And so if you show up underprepared and you think, oh, I got this, this isn't going to be a big deal. Well, you're probably going to be surprised. And I think that is what happened with Mnuchin, and he got tripped up and he didn't know how to proceed. And also, he did switch his story from day one to day two. So this is the second day that he has testified before the House Appropriations Committee, committee, and at first he said something about how he had been in communications with

the White House in regard to whether or not he should hand over Trump's taxes. And then today he kind of changed his story a little bit and made it seem like, oh, no, no, no, I wasn't asking for permission or anything like that. So he's not supposed to do that. The Treasury Secretary is not supposed to be Donald Trump's personal lawyer. He is supposed to be a person who listens to the law, or at least pay. attention to and has regard for the law. And it appears based on his changing story that he got tripped up in more ways than one.

And so we will give you guys the details on that when we come back from the break. But this was just the fun part of the testimony today that I thought, I just thought you guys would find entertaining and hilarious. I did. Yeah. So let's do that. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we will give you more details on what this hearing was all about.

you know, some more insight into this whole debate regarding Donald Trump's taxes. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, The host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity,

the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Welcome back to TYT. I want to read a few member comments for you guys. Terry writes in and says, it's been a wonderful birthday. Now I get to watch TYT while eating my favorite cake. Terry, you need to let us know what kind of cake you're eating. Like what is your favorite cake? We all want to know.

And we'll judge you accordingly. Yeah. I mean, I don't think there's a cake that I don't like, but I'm just curious. Is it chocolate cake? Is it chocolate peanut butter cake? Anyway, happy birthday, Terry. What is that? Have you had chocolate?

You do love you some cake. I never would have gone there. Reese's cake, basically. I respect that. Sweet tooth is probably my biggest flaw, I guess, because you shouldn't eat so much sugar. Anyway, especially when you have really bad insomnia that keeps you up. Maybe sugar is not a good idea. We have a YouTube super chat, and it's from Greedy, and he or she writes in, I've

been wondering how the not stupid people around Trump are going to protect from the emoluments clause. I'm tired of the elite skirting laws. Yeah, man. I know. I'm gonna give you guys that story in hour two. It's a fantastic story. I think the Guardian broke it, but it's not getting much attention.

So I'm glad you guys are interested in it, and we will talk about it later. Back to the member comments, pork chop express says, according to Fox News, Mnuchin owned Maxine Water. Oh. That is, I mean. It doesn't matter. These people are so special. These people are so special. It doesn't matter what it's said, what happens, what's in front of you.

American politics is the wider gold or blue and black dress, like debate, right? We're all looking at the same thing, but see something completely different. It's kind of incredible. All right. Some other stuff to tell you guys about, Bernie is having a town hall, Bernie Sanders, and we're actually gonna cover it. So he's gonna have a town hall, unfortunately, on Fox. But we will do coverage of the town hall and we're gonna do some analysis for our viewers. So what we're gonna do is we're going to pull important moments from the town hall and

give you guys post town hall analysis. So it'll be in-depth analysis and commentary. Me, John, and Ida will be on the panel. The first half of our analysis will be available to everyone. The members will be able to access the full special coverage and you'll be able to watch it uninterrupted. Just go to t-y-t.com slash join to become a member if you are interested. All right, let's move on.

Steve Mnuchin has been testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee. And one of the things that the members of the subcommittee want to look into is whether or not the White House has directed Mnuchin to avoid handing over. Donald Trump's taxes. Now, there is a congressional investigation going on. Donald Trump has not released his taxes, and he claims that he hasn't released them because he's undergoing some sort of audit. Now, this is the longest audit of all time.

He hasn't produced any type of evidence to indicate that he's actually undergoing an audit. But the Democrats in Congress specifically want to look into how the president's taxes are being audited by the IRS. That is the main reasoning that they cite in their letter. to the IRS. But more importantly, they also want to look into potential conflicts of interest, potential fraud when it comes to deflating his assets and what he's worth when he files his taxes. There's a number of different reasons why they want to look into this.

Now with that said, the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, is supposed to follow the law, follow the guidelines, and give Congress access to the tax returns. But he is aggressively fighting this. And there's some reason to believe that maybe the White House has directed him not to give the taxes to the House members looking for this. So Democrats, to be specific, are asking for six years of Trump's returns using a federal law that says the Treasury Secretary shall furnish the records upon the request of House or Senate chairman.

The process is designed to be walled off from White House interference. So that's really the heart of the issue here. This is what congressional Democrats want to figure out. Is Steve Mnuchin being told by Donald Trump and the rest of his lackeys to avoid complying with this law? Now let's hear from Steve Mnuchin over the Trump taxes today. Has anybody in the administration communicated with anybody in your office about this decision? Our legal department has had conversations prior to receiving the letter.

with the White House General Counsel. I believe that the communication between our legal department and the White House General Counsel was informational that we obviously had read in the press that we were expecting this. So they communicated just to say expect this, or did they talk about their views in any way, shape, or form as to how you should respond?

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to be clear. I personally wasn't involved in those conversations. Again, I want to be very clear. and not be misleading. I acknowledge that there were conversations. I am not briefed on the full extent of those conversations. So his story is a little different today based on what he had said yesterday. Yesterday, he seemed to make it somewhat clear that there was some direction coming from

the White House, and today he's denying that. Perhaps he realized what the law was. But what do you guys make of this? It really seemed like he should have come prepared, saying, you know, hey, I was informed or privy to those conversations. It's like you knew you were coming before this committee to be able to answer these questions, so you should have sat down and gotten the information you needed. But now they're going to have to take a break or maybe go get that information at a later date.

And it just seems like he's just continuing to be evasive, even though I did like how he showed the man respect this time, as opposed to Maxine Waters. That was fun. The operative words of the man. So remember when Trump visited the border and he talked to the border agents and he Somehow, I walked in front of cameras and said, yeah, I just told them to ignore the law and then to turn away asylum seekers. And if a judge comes for you, say, I'm sorry, we're full, we just can't do it.

And people around those border agents, their superior said, as soon as Trump turned his back, they said, if you guys follow his illegal orders, it's going to be on you. This is the same thing. And we've heard about these reports. It's why, you know, since the beginning, since he was running for president and since he first got in, there's always these reports that say, this is the temperament this president has. This is the way he approaches people that surround him.

This is the way he approaches people he tells what to do. And people thought it's just willy-nilly talking trash about him. It says what type of person is going to be when it comes to the law. So in this case, the law says you can't come over and talk to your Treasury Secretary about what you're going to do with the tax does because that's where the law is set up. Instead, he goes and does it takes the people that are beneath you and puts them on the spot. Now Steve Neuchin's sitting in front of a subcommittee talking about things that Donald Trump potentially, told his department to do with the tax returns illegally, and he's got to take

the heat for it. But they continue to put themselves through this grinder when one guy who has a total disregard for the law tells everyone else to break it for him. And everyone around him gets in trouble. And part of it's like, when will people pick up on this that, hey, why don't I not put my livelihood and my life in jeopardy, especially since I've seen what goes down when everyone else goes down and it's never drunk? Yeah, I mean, people are obsessed with power.

And when you're obsessed with power, when that is one of the most important things in your life, you are blind to the ramifications of, you know, associating yourself with this type of administration. So what Mnuchin says during these hearings is one thing, but what are the facts, what do we know? Well, according to the Washington Post, on April 5th, lawyers for Trump say, you know. sent the Treasury Department General Counsel a letter telling him not to release the records until the Justice Department has issued a new legal opinion.

Oh my God. So we oftentimes talk about how there is a two-tier justice system in America, how people in positions of power are able to skirt the law. Donald Trump has been able to do that his entire life. And in this case, it appears that his lackeys are doing what they can to fight congressional Democrats on the release of his taxes. And again, the question for me at least is, what is he hiding? What is in those taxes?

Now it could be something as small as embarrassment. Maybe he's embarrassed that he's really not worth as much as he's been touting publicly. But I'm also more concerned about whether or not there is some foreign influence, you know, financial influence, and whether or not he is making decisions based on his own profit motive as opposed to the best interest of the American people. That's another issue. I want to know whether or not he's been committing fraud and deflating his assets for the purposes of filing his taxes and making it appear that he's not really worth that much and he shouldn't

be taxed that much. I don't know. I don't know what's in them. But rather than speculating or having people speculate about what he's possibly involved in, he should release his taxes. And maybe I missed this. But in terms of, you know, because we file state and federal, have any of the states he's filed with been willing to release the taxes?

Especially New York, since I're already going after him in so many regards, I would like to think that they could find a legally valid reason to essentially release or go after him for his taxes, and then we get to see how that money is computed, and then we could kind of speculate as to how the federal taxes would be treated. That's a really great question. It is, I don't know. There hasn't really been much reporting on that. There was, some of, some of the lawmakers in New York were trying to set up a safeguard

in case the federal level, their attempts fail to get taxes. They're trying to accept, but they need to put an amendment to their, to some of their laws to find a way to get those tax terms in that state. And that's just the beginning of it. I'm not sure if the degree to wish they needed to change it, but New York, as you said, you probably mentioned New York's probably the first one, they would make some moves on that. And it's probably multiple states, of course, and probably depends on their own laws, I guess.

I want to take just a quick step back and look at the broader picture of what's happening with the Republican Party specifically. Yesterday we reported on a story involving an investigation that's been launched by Representative Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, into pharmaceutical drug pricing. He and other congressional Democrats want to figure out why it is that Americans are paying so much more for pharmaceutical drugs, especially when you compare what we pay to other countries and what they pay. And congressional Republicans have contacted these pharmaceutical companies and urged them to avoid

complying with this investigation. So this is a form of obstruction. We're seeing it when it comes to a specific policy issue like the pricing of pharmaceutical drugs, and we're now seeing it when it comes to protecting Donald Trump, who could potentially be compromised by his financial dealings with other countries. Again, we don't know, we don't know. We can only speculate because we don't have the taxes in front of us. But there's something in there that he does not want people to know about.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have all his lackeys trying to find ways to help him skirt the law. Moving on to some other news. Mitch McConnell. I actually kind of love the story. Recently Donald Trump announced, but recently it was reported that Donald Trump is considering naming former presidential candidate Herman Kane as a member of the Federal Reserve. And turns out that members of the GOP are not too happy about it. So in a recent update to this story, it appears that Senator Mitch McConnell is encouraging members

of the GOP to approach Trump and air their goals. grievances in regard to Herman Kane before he makes a formal announcement. Let me give you the details. McConnell advised senators concerned about Trump's selection of former presidential candidate and pizza executive Herman Kane and conservative economic commentator Stephen Moore to share their views with the White House now before Trump officially moves forward with the nominations. Kane has faced some controversy in the past, for instance, sexual harassment allegations that effectively ended his 2012 presidential campaign.

Members of the GOP are also concerned that Trump's nominees could weaken the independence of the Fed. The Fed is not supposed to be in cahoots with the executive branch. It is supposed to be completely independent. But Donald Trump has made it clear that he does not want the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates. In fact, he threatened to fire the head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, over incremental increases to the interest rates.

And so now you have the GOP who's concerned about Herman Cain because Herman Cain created a political action committee with the sole purpose of supporting Donald Trump. And so the independence of the Federal Reserve is being called into question if he is in fact named the nominee. And the GOP also doesn't want to deal with another confirmation fight, especially considering the sexual harassment allegations against Kane in the past. Now, they might also be a little concerned about the nomination leading to a lack of independence for the Federal Reserve because of comments that Trump has made in the past, including

this. Herman is a wonderful man, he's been a supportive of mine for a long time. That's great. Yeah. So I mean, it's clear that he wants to put people who are loyal to him, who like him, who support him in these incredibly important roles. Herman Kane, like, where did that come from? Out of nowhere, Herman Kane's back, and it's because he's been supporting Trump financially

with this political action committee. Yeah, and I love how everyone's kind of like, oh, you know what, go tell Trump that this isn't a good idea. It's just, it's very not adults like or political in any way. And you know, I really do want to know what do they really know about Kane that could be so threatening. I do realize we're very different from where we were in 2012 when the sexual harassment allegations kind of really came out for his presidential campaign.

So there could be a lot more that come out. And, you know, I guess Republicans don't want to all be labeled as, you know, harassers and whatnot. But still, it feels like there's more based on the level of intensity. It probably depends on the level of the person, right? Okay, so there's the normal process where if you've known the guy long enough or if he's powerful enough, you're going to protect him all the way to the top, whether it's sexual harassment allegations or anything that they may have done, something illegal.

But when you're following someone like Trump and he's the president and everything, he's based in, his appointees are based in, he's a nice guy to me, and who cares how he is to anyone else or any kind of experience he may have for this field, he's a nice guy to me. You have to follow that lead. We're getting a case study in how bad leadership destroys everything else. Now, they have to act like children, because if you act like an adult to a child who's in charge, that doesn't make any sense. So now he's like, okay, we got to send this click, let's send that click, and then send that click at lunchtime to go talk to Donnie and see if we can get him to change his mind before he goes to try and beat up somebody after school.

It's childlike because that's who's running the place. Right, it is childlike, but it has, I think, real consequences that could even outlast the Trump administration. Because remember, the Justice Department, and specifically the Attorney General, is not supposed to serve as the president's personal lawyer. And with William Barr and the way that he's been handling this whole Mueller investigation, situation, it's been clear that he is doing Donald Trump's bidding, right? So regardless of what you think about the Mueller investigation, just separate that for a second

and think about how Trump has successfully transformed the role of the attorney general as a person who is not independent, but as a person who looks out for the best interests of the president as opposed to the rule of law or the best interests of the American people. So this is a tried and true tactic of Trump. He's been successful at it already, and it appears that he's trying to do the same thing with the Federal Reserve, and that is something that should scare everyone, because the Federal Reserve shouldn't be making decisions based on the desires of someone who's gone bankrupt six times.

Now, if you think about the approach that Republicans have with stopping Trump from doing things, it seems that they can do something this time. They're sending people to go talk to Trump to take him out of this decision. When he does anything else, people go, man, they're really silent. It's not that they're stupid, it's not that they don't read, it's not they don't pay attention. They don't feel they need to do anything. This is serious enough for them to do something about, which means they can always do something. They just choose not to.

Real quick, of the senators who appear to be against the nomination of Herman Kane, we have Mitt Romney who said this. I don't think Herman Kane would be confirmed by the Senate. And I think the president would be wise to nominate someone who is less partisan and more experienced in the world of economics. I would anticipate voting no if he were nominated. Also you have Senator Pat Roberts, who had some strong words. He says, when you first meet Herman Cain, he's very impressive, but whether he's qualified

to be on the Fed, I just don't know. I take that back. Those aren't strong words, but it's unlike- For them. It's unlike Republican lawmakers to come out with statements like that. Usually they're very tribal and very supportive of anyone who identifies with their party. And also Senators Lisa Murkowski and Corey Gardner of Colorado also said that they would vote against a Cain nomination. Corey Gardner was asked by a reporter and his answer was just no.

I love how much effort they're putting in to someone not messing up their money. They're just like no, we can't do that. Of course. We can't do this. This is when we got to draw the line. That's a great point. Yeah, that's just going to mess up with my money. Uh-uh.

Yep. We got to take a break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including Gary Cohn, Trump's former economic advisor, arguing in favor of keeping Social Security intact. What? I'll give you the details on that and more. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us, and socials.

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T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at tyt.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free say. Welcome back to TYT, Anna, J.R and Adrian with you. Shop TYT is looking to put out some new shirts, and we're doing it using fan designs.

And the great news is you can vote on which design is your favorite, and the winner will will be featured in the shop, TYT store. So just to give you some examples, there's the new party who dis featuring AOC on the shirt. And that's my- I actually love all of them, I just, those are my two favorites, got to keep it real. And I think the two strong one featuring Ilhan Omar is Jenks' favorite. But who cares what our favorite is? We want to know what your favorite is.

So all you need to do is go to our website. t-y-t.com slash notice, and then you'll be able to vote and tell us which one is your favorite. Thanks, guys. I'm going to move on to the next story because I want to fit in as much as we possibly can. Gary Cohn was Donald Trump's economic advisor, and he was also one of his lackeys who pushed for Trump's proposal on cutting taxes for the wealthy. That giant tax cut is going to cost the U.S. economy. almost $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

But now all of a sudden, Gary Cohn, who is out of Trump's administration, is arguing that Trump's proposal to cut Social Security is disastrous. In fact, he's referred to it as political suicide. So to give you details on what Trump proposed, in March he proposed a $26 billion cut to Social Security, including a $10 billion cut to its Social Security Disability Insurance program. Now, Gary Cohn, in response to this, has said the following. Democrats won't allow that to happen, and I don't even know if the Republicans will allow that to happen. And so he didn't say this, but I can say it for him. The reason why Democrats and Republicans do not want to touch

Social Security or cut Social Security is because they know that it's an insanely popular program. And it would be political suicide to cut taxes on the rich and then go turn a around and cut Social Security. Now, he also says the following, moving money out of the Social Security Trust Fund would be pretty difficult when you look at the demographics, even in a bunch of red states today. It would be political suicide, just like what Republicans saw happen with repealing preexisting conditions. So he sees how much of a consequence this would lead to, and he's keeping it real.

I appreciate it, but Gary Cohn is also full of crap. And I'll explain why in just a minute, but before I do, I just want everyone to remember what Donald Trump campaigned on and what Trump continued to say during his first 100 days in office in regard to Social Security. Take a look. Dave, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security without cuts. Have to do it. People have been paying in for years, and now many of these candidates want to cut it.

save it. So you've been paying into Social Security and Medicare, by the way, let's put them into Zinc. Because Medicare does work. With both, you have tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse. We're going to take care of that, okay? But we're not going to cut your Social Security. Yeah, again, I just want to emphasize that in March, just recently, Trump proposed cutting Social Security to the tune of $26 billion. So Cohen has the ability to say things like this because it's out of the administration now. I mean, when he was leaving, Trump was like, oh, and he's going to leave, and maybe after he makes a few million dollars, he'll come back and hang out again.

So, Cohn has the ability to now actually talk about policy or politics. When you're dancing with the president, you have to only talk politics. So if he's under his administration, he can't say this to him because who cares, we all want to screw over everyone else just for the sake of other rich folks and people who've paid us to do so. So now that he's there, he's from the outside, he can kind of say and hope he's that it penetrates. Like, this is going to be political suicide, not policy wise.

He didn't say anything about the people that would be affected and the devastation that would happen to them and how they then paid for it. But then what are they going to get in return? They're going to vote you out. We learned this when we talked about health care and how we screwed that up too. They still don't give a damn about the people that are being affected by this. He goes, you don't want to do this. Not because it's a bad idea, you don't want to do this because you're going to get voted

out. Yes, that is such a good point. It's not out of concern for the very people who paid into the system and would get screwed under what someone like Donald Trump wants to do. Yeah, it is amazing because on one hand, think about this. The way our entire tax system is set up is so incredibly regressive. And we're expected to pay a higher percentage of our income in taxes. We, you know, dutifully pay for Social Security tax and Medicare, and all of them.

All of that. And in the end, you have lawmakers constantly threatening to cut these programs to the point where we might not even benefit from those programs ever in our lives. So it's called an entitlement because it is an entitlement. We're entitled to something that we've paid into. And again, we all knew it. We all knew that when the Republicans were passing for these tax cuts, the number one thing they were going to do is try to cut certain government programs.

we've all paid into. Now, they haven't succeeded in it yet, but I have no doubt that they're going to continue trying. And the thing is, they are so focused on themselves and how to increase their own wealth that they don't realize how much we sustain that, that we are the underpinning of our, you know, our entire structure. And so if they continue to put us in positions where we can't afford insulin, our basic medical care, or all of these, all of these just kind of fundamental things, then we're not going to be able to support them. They're essentially sweeping the leg and they don't even realize it or they don't care. Now, one of the biggest issues is that we haven't balanced the budget.

We have, in fact, made things worse under the Trump administration because he has cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. And then remember, the effective corporate tax rate is actually much lower than that. There was really never any tax reform. He didn't close any of the loopholes that these corporations did. take advantage of, which is why the effective corporate tax rate is much lower. Under the 35% tax policy that we had before, corporations were paying on average 17%. So imagine how much lower it is today, considering the corporate tax is down to 21%.

And we saw it with Amazon paying no tax whatsoever? Exactly. So you have these massive, you know, multi-billion dollar corporations not paying anything in federal taxes, and in some cases, actually getting a refund, which is insane. So I bring all of this up because who was one of the main cheerleaders for Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich, which puts all of these other programs in jeopardy? Gary Cohn. We think our tax plan will have enormous amount of growth in it.

And I think you all understand that, and you guess on your show understand when we drive economic growth by bringing businesses back to America, by making our business tax system very competitive with the rest of the world. We think we can drive a lot of business back to America. We can drive jobs back to America. We can make ourselves very competitive. That growth is not factored into those numbers. So, Gary, what's internally, what's your estimate?

What's the number in terms of the productivity growth that this will create? We think we can pay for the entire tax cut through growth over the cycle. I understand that, but in terms of the growth rate that you think this will create in terms of paying for it. So look, Andrew, as you know, last quarter we were about a 3% GDP, we're 3% GDP growth. This quarter, you know, we're gonna have some strange data because of the hurricanes and the way the hurricanes affect. Oh yeah, because of the hurricanes. Yeah, it did not lead.

The growth is not, in fact, helping to pay for these giant tax cuts. We all know that. The only thing that we did see following the tax cuts for the wealthy is record corporate stock buybacks. So that has artificially inflated the value of stocks. But overall, no, no, this has actually increased the deficit. We as millennials are going to have to deal with record debt. It's a terrible, terrible policy. He knows it, but he doesn't care because he gets the benefit for it.

They're able to say this for that, however long that 30, 40 second clip was, back in 2017, 3% GDP growth, and we're gonna think in the future, we're gonna pay for this because of economic growth, and we're going to do this, that, then the stock market goes up, then you can build jobs and small business. People that are sitting there making $50,000 as a household don't know what any of that means because they have nothing to do with that GDP growth coming back to them in any kind of real tangible way, they just hear it and go, oh, he's saying it's all going to be great. Who else moves to their life?

When I got out of college, I was broke, and I was wondering, how am I going to pay these loans, and I had no good job to do so I was working BS jobs. I didn't go and say, you know what, I'm just going to charge up all these cards because Eventually, I went to USC, I'm going to make some money. No, it took a long time. So you don't approach your life that way, why would the government approach their money making that way? And you know, we're gonna do all these tax cuts, spend all this money, give it to people

who don't need it, and in the future, we think, he literally said in that clip, we think it's gonna pay for itself once everything changes. That's not how you operate with your money. And he knew, and he knew, he knew that it wasn't gonna pay for itself. We're not idiots, and it's insulting to have such a weak-sauce argument to begin with, right? He didn't believe it, we didn't believe it. And by the way, when GDP is calculated, they look at consumer spending. If you look at consumer spending, how is consumer spending done in America right now, considering

stagnant wages that do not keep up with inflation? They do it through credit cards, they do it through loans. That's the kind of consumer spending that's happening right now, which is the reason why Americans have record debt today, even when you compare the debt today to 2008 levels. We have more debt today than we did in 2008, okay? That's calculated into GDP as a good thing because, hey, consumers are spending, yeah, but they're taking out loans to do it. We do not have a good economy.

If you really do a deep dive, we do not. And they keep telling people that and people buy it because they don't know any different. Again, now he warned against the Social Security and Medicare cuts, because people do know know that. That's established. Enough people know about that. You can't pull the wool over their eyes on that, but we can't about all this growth that doesn't ever affect you personally.

Thank you to Adrian and J.R. for doing the show with me. We are going to get into the taxes for some of these Democratic candidates when we come back from the break. Brett Ehrlich and Nando Villa, Via will join us as well. And leave us some comments, I promise, I'll read your tweets next time, we'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.