The Young Turks - Did Trump Finally Get Caught Committing A Crime And Why Is He Not Denying It?

Episode Date: January 19, 2019

Buzzfeed released a bombshell report detailing criminal behavior by Trump. After the report went public, Trump and his team refused to actually deny the accusations. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS 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. Hungry now. Now. What about now? Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, grab an O. Henry bar to satisfy your hunger. With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peat.

Peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh, hungry, oh, Henry. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five-star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Okay, go ahead and drop it. Welcome to the Friday edition of the Young Turks, the power panel.

I'm John Irola. We have Brooke Thomas, Mark Thompson. The various tombs that are employed here. That's right. Great to have you here. Try not to get us confused. Thompson. Thomas, we look a lot of like.

I will try. Try not to. I will try. Different voices. We'll go by going to be a big day. We've not only got, you guys are in the first hour with me, we're going to be covering huge stories. There was some story broke last night, I don't know, we'll talk about it a little bit.

Then rugs have been found on the border and green has been found on the background monitors. Did you know that? There was green back there until that moment. Yeah, no, now there's going to be a theory that that's not actually a wall, it's just a green screen. Everyone will be freaked out. Let's see, we've got a new bill having to do with minimum wage. being put forward in the Senate. Really interesting study on opioids. And we know that these

companies do a lot of marketing directly to doctors. What does that actually lead to? Fascinating results at the end of the first hour. Exactly what you think. I'm sorry. We have the evidence. We have the evidence. And then in the second hour, Brenner-Ehrlich is going to be taking over. So that should be a lot of fun as well. Yeah, that's always fun. Yeah, he's got a good track. No, so are you. Thank you. This is starting off well. You What? That's good, we'll see on Monday.

Anyway, why don't we jump- John's marginal enthusiasm about everything is always wild on a Friday. I am already looking to the weekend. I'm just gotta get past this hour, and there's a lot to report on. There's a big story, yeah. There is, so why don't we jump right into that? Last night, BuzzFeed News reported that, according to multiple sources, Donald Trump told his personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about the project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. This, if it turns out to be true, is a felony.

And so it is a very significant thing. Before we get into all the reactions and what might end up happening, let's just give you a little bit of what was included in that reporting. It is available still in BuzzFeed News. There's a good chance that you have already read it, but here is what you need to know. They say that the president personally instructed him to lie by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did in order to obscure Trump's involvement. By the way, at a time when he was specifically claiming multiple times to have no attachments

of this sort. Trump also supported a plan set up by Cohen to visit Russia during the presidential campaign in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jumpstart the tower negotiations. The sources to BuzzFeed News say that Trump told Cohen, make it happen. The two law enforcement sources said he had at least 10 face-to-face meetings with Cohen about the deal during the campaign. So just briefly, this is the same sort of thing that we heard about two weeks ago, a month ago, where we found out that Cohen had lied to Congress about the extent and the

length of this negotiations around this project. We just had not known up until now why it is that he lied or who ordered him to do that. And now these sources are claiming that there is evidence that it was Donald Trump that did that. Now, of course, suborning perjury or telling a person to lie under oath to Congress is a felony and obviously obstruction of justice, which we'll get into more. Trump lies sort of as a knee-jerk, reflexive reaction, and his crew around him, most of all, perhaps Michael Cohen, also pretty much defaults to the lie position as well. So the idea that

he had to be directed to lie is interesting to me, although clearly Trump cared very deeply about this specific testimony, and this was a key moment. So it's not surprising in a way that Trump was making sure that the message is clear. And when I say this, I understand we have, you know, there are attempts to corroborate this story, but let's face it, this doesn't strain credulity, this story, right? It's not like you're going, well, that doesn't sound like them. I mean, it sounds very much like them. This story, in a sense, reinforces everything we already knew about the Trump team.

This story, everything surrounding this situation has been, the story has changed over and over and over again, which actually just means they've lied over and over and over again. What bothers me most about this is I, what is, what are we waiting on? You know, I get that, you know, BuzzFeed has this report, but it seems like when you get to a point to where, if you're investigating this entire situation, if you get to a point to where something like this comes up and something like this is clear, that the country needs to know about it, officially. Yeah, well, I'm sure that they wanted to make sure of everything.

And actually, while we're on that point, it shouldn't need to be. said about literally any story that we report on, obviously we report on what is available to us. And I don't mean BuzzFeed. I'm talking about a special, like the, I'm talking about Mueller. Oh, then I think you're expressing the feelings of many people. Yeah. What are you doing to Mueller? But yeah, obviously we're reporting on a story as presented. If a story turns out not to be true, then that obviously changes things. That is, I guess, a caveat that needs to be added to any story, but is not added to most stories. It's just that when it's a story that is critical of the president, people become very particular

about the presentation of evidence. So why don't we launch into that briefly? So according to BuzzFeed News, the special counsel's office learned about Trump's directive for Cohen to light of Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office. So initially, they found out about this order, not from Michael Cohen, but from other people working in the Trump organization that are not identified yet.

But we do know that some of the highest up individuals in the Trump organization have been granted immunity by the special counsel's office hypothetically to talk about these sorts of things. They also then found documents showing this happening. They presented that to Cohen, who then confirmed it. So you will see as we show some of the responses of this story, many people are going to claim this This is a stupid story because Michael Cohen is a liar. I'm with you on the lion, he's a big liar. That's why Donald Trump paid him for so long.

But this story is not either primarily or uniformly given to us as a result of what Michael Cohen has said or done. He simply confirmed a documented paper trail. He also hasn't been as helpful to the feds as Donald Trump would like you to believe, which is fascinating. Yeah, and they've complained about that. He's right, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Now why don't we go to a video of Jason Leopold, one of the reporters. for BuzzFeed News being asked about the extent to which they had access to the actual primary documents that the reporting was eventually based on in this clip. Now your colleague who you wrote the story with says that neither of you when you talk about those documents that you guys haven't actually seen them. You haven't seen the documents, the text, the emails, etc. So how confident are you that they actually exist, that this is true? I don't think that we've said that we haven't seen them.

Your colleague said on CNN this morning that you were briefed on these documents by those law enforcement sources that you referenced. Can you clarify for me, sort of what the status is of that? Sure. Over the course of a year, we've reported pretty extensively on the Trump Moscow project. And we have been, I'll just say that we've seen documents, we've been briefed on documents, we're very confident in our reporting. Okay, so there he is saying that they have seen documents as well. It is possible, I don't know Jason Leopold, I I have no dog in a fight with Jason Leopold. It is possible that he is simply lying about the president committing a felony.

I find that a little bit hard to believe, but it's not impossible. And if that comes out, that is going to be big news, you will see that. No, but the corroborative evidence comes in a lot of different ways. They didn't, it doesn't seem, based on these interviews and what we've learned and what John was just saying even in mentioning it, we're not seeing just an individual corroborating something, we're seeing a ring of corroboration around this story. This is a huge story, they're aware of how huge a story it is, and they're not going to press with it unless it's sufficiently corroborated, would be my suggestion.

Yeah, and I'm giving all these caveats because it's the responsible thing to do. But I also understand that, like, if I'm trying to sway Sean Hannity or, you know, it's not going to work, obviously, they have already, you've seen it, if you've been watching the news, they are saying, Michael Cohen's a liar, Michael Cohen lied about this, there's no evidence. They've already been convinced of that, they're not going to be convinced otherwise. That's only the responsible thing to do though because we are in this space where we pretend as if reporters are malicious liars and like just the history of journalism is just lies and lies and lies. Reporters get things wrong all of the time. But in this situation, I don't even think it's logical that Jason Leopold would be lying, but it would have to be the 60 people that, you know, helped him put this together.

Maybe one of them was lying or maybe, do you know what it's just, you know, the idea that you, it's not. That's not what responsible is. You don't have to, you know, give that caveat. It's nice that you are, but like, you don't have to. I mean, because come on. What they do is the true believers and the Sean Hannity's who I don't think believe, but they are so married to the narrative and so embedded in the Trump presidency, what they do is they run down the credibility of the journalists.

That's what you're going to see happen here. You're going to see the credibility of everyone involved with sources. You saw it with the FBI when they started saying, well, you know, look at the actual FBI agents who are involved in this story, you know, and then they started to look at their text messages and their loyalties and allegiances. So I think you're going to see that. So in that sense, Brooke, I think that's how they go after them, you know? If the facts don't support them, then they go after the people themselves.

Exactly, yeah, and especially in this case, we have seen quite a bit of that. Okay, why don't we move on to why this might be significant? Because many people might say, well, I mean, I listen to Rashida Talib, I read her op-ed, I already know all the different crimes he's committed. What does it matter if he's committed one more? That's a sad state for us to live in, but I get what you're saying. This is a very significant offense though for a couple of different ways. One hypothetical and one historical, let's go through both of them.

First, the hypothetical effect that this could have, we don't have to go back very far to get an idea of how significant this sort of crime might have been. Because during William Barr's nomination hearing just earlier this week, he was asked about exactly this sort of situation. You wrote on page one that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction. Is that right? That, yes. You also said that a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction.

Is that right? Yes. Okay. And on page two, you said that a president deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence would be an instruction. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And so what if a president told a witness not to cooperate with an investigation or hinted at a pardon?

You know, I'd have to know the specific facts. Okay. And you wrote on page one that if a president knowingly destroys or alters evidence, that would be obstruction. Yes. Okay. He seems very reluctant to admit some of those things. It was odd. It was odd. It's this situation.

It is, you know, encouraging someone to. commit perjury for the specific purpose of making it so that an investigation cannot come to the truth. So William Barr, who, if the Republican Senate votes on it, it's likely he will be the Attorney General, has already said that this act, if it turns out to be true, we'll give the caveats again, is obstruction of justice. That is a felony. So that seems significant. Yeah, look, first of all, the reason he's reluctant is he's no fool. He understands that the world is watching his responses, and he's trying to be as circumspect as he can be. He answered, pretty much the only way he could answer.

I mean, you sort of have to answer, it depends on the specifics. I don't know you need to answer in as halting away as he did, but that, again, I think speaks to where he is in that moment. He understands the significance of it. Yeah, I don't know, John. I think that it's hard for him to swim away from this one. He is on the record, and I think it reflects his actual feelings about the law on this. Isn't it so sad, though, that we're even breaking just that down?

Like, of course, someone who is a career, you know, attorney would say, it's like we're saying, you know, the mathematician said two plus two is four, so what do you think about that? You know, it's a strong statement that he made there. It's- Oh, isn't Rudy Giuliani kind of like a career attorney? I don't think we should take anything for granted at this point. I think that's my point, though, is that it's sad. Yeah, yes, a lot of this is. So, as I said, you have the hypothetical, you also have the historical.

So how significant has this sort of activity been? in prior impeachments in U.S. history, well, we've gone to the documents, and you might remember a guy by the name of Bill, Clinton in this case. This is from his articles of impeachment. On or about December 17, 1997, William Jefferson Clinton corruptly encouraged a witness in a federal civil rights action brought against him to give perjurious, false, and misleading testimony if and when called to testify personally in that proceeding. You change a few of the proper nouns there, maybe the date, and you have the same sort of situation, which is alleged to have happened. He'd go back a few decades before that with Richard Nixon. This is from his

articles of impeachment. One of the things in a long list of crimes that he'd committed was approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counseling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in a duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings. And by the way, historically, there's a lot that eventually took down Nixon. But it was this action actually, which was one of the first. ones that eventually started that chain of dominoes. The language is clear, the difference is Clinton had a popularity rating in the 60s, I think,

when all of this was going down. Trump's rating is low. I mean, it's solid, although it's showing signs, and that's an ongoing story of erosion. But that had a lot to do, I think, with the outcome with Clinton. I mean, you know, and we are going to get into this because, of course, as there's a legal side of this and there's a political side of this, and it's the political side that it will ultimately end up if there's an impeachment proceeding with bringing Trump to answer in some kind of official way and potentially remove him from office.

Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. And you also, I mean, one other change is the media landscape is different. Nixon didn't benefit from having Fox News 24 hours just attacking the credibility of these reporters of, you know, saying, BuzzFeed's hysterical or, you know, it's a witch hunt. Like it's been constant 24 hours a day. negative reporting on the president is, by its very definition, illegitimate and should be attacked.

If it's reported at all. If it's reported at all. And generally, we know that for the most part this morning, they simply didn't talk about the story because it was inconvenient. This morning on Breitbart, it was a little tiny thing on the side of the screen, on Fox News. It was a little tiny thing that wasn't here is what BuzzFeed alleged happened. It's just Dems capitalizing on it. And then that was gone inside of a couple of hours.

Now, again, as we've said many times, it could turn out that this is untrue. But if it is true, it is the president committing a felony. The idea that that would not make the bottom half of the front page seems kind of weird the morning after a story breaks. But he has that working for him. Yes, that's the propaganda machine that he has working for him. And that's not going to change. But the other part of that is that social media has created an altitude to places like

BuzzFeed, and that story gets out in other ways. During the Nixon administration, there were three networks. And if it wasn't on ABC, CBS, or NBC, it was done. I mean, it just didn't get reported. And of course, you had a couple of big papers, the Washington Post, you had, you know, actually you had a lot of big city papers in this country back then, which was great and there was great journalism being done. But my point is, there weren't as many outlets with wide distribution the way there is today,

given the fact that you have social media in the state that it's in. I mean, in a positive way, social media serves this story. Yeah. Completely. And just what you said just about outlets, because a lot of major news outlets, things that don't get reported. It's not always because they're not provable. It's not always because it's not important. Sometimes it comes down to, this is going to offend too many people, this is going to hurt our business, this is going to hurt our brand. Sometimes a lot of important stories

don't get pushed forward because of the optics. And there are so many different outlets right now who don't care. So they'll talk about it. And I'd also say this, and we can move on, but just on the media point, I think it's important because that's how the information gets out. And that's one of the great tragedies of what's happened in the modern age is the consolidation of media. So a lot of people get their news through television or their local news on television, and those consolidations that have given Sinclair Broadcasting and others, these right-wing Coke Brothers connected places, total control of the television box. A lot of those older voters, and that is that Trump demographic in a big way, they get all their information through

that medium. I think it's a, it's a sad fact that that consolidation and monopolization of television by these right wing and right wing dominated outfits really hurts this process. Well, why don't we move on to how various parties have responded to this? Because while I'm personally interested in our opinions, at the end of the day, unfortunately, we have to rely on the leadership in Washington. So we'll see what ends up happening. Here is how people responded to BuzzFeed's report that the president allegedly instructed

his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a project he engaged in outside of the U.S. Initially, last night we had one response that I'm familiar with, and that was from Rudy Giuliani, lawyer extraordinaire. He said in response to it, if you believe Cohen, I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge. And again, I get the idea that you would want to focus on the fact that Cohen is a known liar and it was employed by Trump because he was a liar. But again, this reporting does not rely on Cohen's testimony or anything like that. So by the way, also let's take note that that tweet does not contain a denial that the information the reporting is true or not. So look, we wait until the morning. And then as you do,

you see what Trump tweeted and he tweeted this, just writing down what he saw in Fox News. Kevin Corka, Fox News. Don't forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and a fraud. And as recently as this week, the Wall Street journalist suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars, lying to reduce his jail time. Watch father-in-law. So again, not actually denial. Also probably obstruction of justice there because he's threatening a witness in this investigation that if he does not shut up, Trump will go after his father with the full might and fury of the federal government. So last night, the big news was obstruction of justice this morning. eh, more obstruction of justice. And intimidation of a witness. Exactly.

It's really, it's gross. It really is grotesque. Yeah, and it got, it went to comical proportions. Now, I have to assume that during all this time, the White House was huddled together, and they were trying to figure out what they were going to do. In the meantime, they dispatched their, you know, surrogates to the media, and it got really weird. So let's go to this first video. This is Hogan Gidley, and the reporters you're going to see in this video, they do their best to try to get him to just say,

Is it true or is it false? Really easy to answer that, one would think. How's the president responding to that report this morning? This is absolutely, absolutely ludicrous that we are giving any type of credence or credibility to a news outlet like BuzzFeed. You're saying the president did not tell Michael Cohen to do that. I'm telling you right now, this is exactly why the president refuses to give any credence or credibility to news outlets because they have no ability to corroborate anything they're putting out there.

They're just using innuendo and shady sources. That was not a denial of my question. No, but the premise is ridiculous. We're also talking about a person in Michael Cohen. That's from the White House of this president. But the headline from that report, Hogan, is that the president personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations involving that Trump Tower.

Is that true or false? Right. But the president's attorneys also address this. I'm not going to give any credence or credibility to Michael Cohen. I mean, there's multiple attempts to just, you obviously don't think it's true, just say that it's not true. Say that you've talked to the president, you're the communications director and all that, and say that's not true and he refuses actually do that. They say the lawyers have addressed it. There had been an informal statement from the lawyers, I believe at some point

during the night, that again, did not contain a denial of the reporting. But I mean, like essentially they got dressed up and miced up to sit down for a national television. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. answer. And it's like, why are, why are you there? And those it doesn't work that you can't, that's, you can't just like that, that's just exactly what you're doing. You showed up for an

interviews, you know, specifically about this. And I wonder, I'm just fascinated just behind the scenes of what went down. Are they, is this too far? Are they not willing to, you know, for themselves to be on camera saying that did not happen? You know, was there a conversation where all of these spokespeople pushed back and said, well, I'm not saying that. Do you know what happened? I think Brooke brings up a terrific point because I was having the same thought, hey, why did you put a tie on and go out there and stand on the White House lawn if you weren't going to lie?

I mean, you know, again, in your heart, you know it's true, and yet if you're going to be the spokesperson, you've got a lie. Look, it's not like the first lie you tell the media, and this just in, you're not under oath. So from a tactical standpoint, I really didn't understand why these presidential apologists and explain ologists and, you know, all the ologists who go and try to make, let me tell you what Mr. President, the president meant, I don't know why they weren't more comfortable lying, because they've been lying through his entire administration. Well, I'm not going to dignify that with an answer.

That only works if somebody runs up on you, like, you know, in your house and you're like, no, no, I'm not dignity. Exactly. You dignified it with a response when you showed up for a nationally televised interview. That's a big deal. Yeah. To play devil's advocate, let's say everything that has been. alleged is untrue, which is possible.

I'm not asking him to go on air and lie. You supposedly believe that this is not true, then just say that. Make clear that that's not true. It is bizarre to dispatch someone from comms to not actually respond to direct questions like this, especially when it's followed up by people like Kellyanne Conway. Again, let's see if we can get a yes or no on whether it's true. O'Connor was personally instructed by President Trump to lie to Congress about that Trump Tower in Moscow. What's your response to that?

Well, the president weighed in on this in Twitter this morning, so I would refer you to that. And also, I'm very, very dismayed. All I will tell you is, A, the president has waited on this in Twitter, and B, I'm very concerned that you've got law enforcement official briefing. For those who didn't see to tweet, Kellyanne, what did he say? Well, he actually quoted a colleague of yours at Fox, Kevin Cork. And Kevin Cork was characterizing Michael Cohen's past testimony and also talking about some problems that he's had testifying under oath.

So I'm gonna leave it at that. Okay, you're gonna leave it at you quoting, Trump quoting a Fox person who doesn't know anything about this, rather than just saying it's not true. This idea that the president committed a felony isn't true. That's what you went on the air to say, and you couldn't make yourself say it. But I'm curious as to, why are we immediately jumping to the fact that they don't believe it? There are multiple people are refusing to say that they don't.

believe it. They're saying, you know, we don't think BuzzFeed is credible. And I think, you know, there are a lot of people who think, you know, BuzzFeed is just goofy videos and quizzes. So, okay, I respect that. That has not, that's not the answer to this. And they're not answering that. And so I'm watching both of those, I have no idea what Kellyanne Conway believes.

Yeah, I guess I really do. The reason that she wouldn't say no, it's very possible because she doesn't believe it's untrue. Yeah, now to your theory, so your theory was maybe it's just that. they kind of do believe that it's true and they don't want to go on the record as having lied about that. So eventually we go far enough into the day and one of the reps will actually say that it's not true. And take note of the fact that it's Rudy Giuliani. Right, he's a right or die. Exactly at this point. Now he again, to be fair, he hadn't done the same thing

the night before. He refused to deny it the night before. Today he says any suggestion from any source that the president counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false. Michael Cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar. To quote the prosecutors, he has traded quote on a pattern of lies in dishonesty over an extended period of time. And for that, he is going to pay a very, very serious price. Today's claims are just more made-up lies, born of Michael Cohen's malice in desperation in an effort to reduce his sentence. So there, there's more of the, it's just Cohen being a liar, but they do say that it's false. Again, the reporting does not rely on Michael Cohen, but they do say that it's not true. Rudy Giuliani is now on the record. I don't doubt

that in a couple of months, he'll go on Chris Cuomo and say that he never said that, but right now he's on the record. Well, his high ground is going to be my client, Donald Trump, told me that he didn't do it, and all I have is to rely on is the word of my client, Donald Trump. That's what he's going to say in a few months. Or as you say, he's going to do what he always does, which is like make up some notion that he never said it, right? Yeah, because after all, I mean, he lied horribly lied yesterday, and everybody pointed out

and has it mattered? No. He's still present lawyer. What's the difference? Prove himself wrong with the video. I think, and I know you've mentioned it a few times because it's such an important point. This is, especially as he disparages Michael Cohen in one way or another, and Michael Cohen is disparaged by the whole presidential team.

It's not dependent, again, as you've said, John, multiple times. This fact, this reporting wasn't made dependent on Michael Cohen's narrative, but rather the narrative that emerged based on other reporting around it. Yeah, exactly. Now, outside of the Trump legal team or comms team or whatever gaggle of weirdos he's got around him, you also have Democrats who now have the power hypothetically to look into quite a bit of this. So if you have concerns, and I totally understand it, that BuzzFeed might have gotten it wrong

or they might have been lied to by their multiple sources, entirely possible, Congress is going to be looking into it. So you have, this spans a pretty broad range of Democrats, by the way. But Adam Schiff says, and by the way, he's the Intel House chair, the allegation that the President of the United States may have suborn perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the more serious to date. We will do what's necessary to find out if it's true. Let's just pause and note how sad is it that this, the president potentially committing a felony is just among the saddest things

to date. There are worse things to date. But we go on to Bernie Sanders, who says, if this report is true, Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice, a felony, and a potentially impeachable offense. I'm glad that the House will be investigating this serious issue. And that has been matched by many others who seemingly just since last night are a little bit more willing to talk about impeachment. Now, I would give credit to people like Rashida Talib who were talking about it in matters totally unrelated to any of this, mostly having to do with the family separation policy and a number of other things. But whatever it takes to get some people to consider the possibility, we know that the Democrats are perpetually scared of their shadows. So now they're

talking about it a little bit more openly. Yeah, why the Democrats have been slow to the holster on this one? I just don't know. They just, I mean, they've been presented with the majority now, and yet they seem very deliberate, would be a nice way to put it. Scared would be another way to put it. I'm trying to give them some credit for some political arithmetic that maybe I don't see, and I understand that the Senate's going to shoot down whatever impeachment resolutions

they come up with, but still, why not turn up the heat? I don't understand why they're not meeting him toe to toe, make his life as difficult as possible. And it's more than about the wall. Because there's a lot of damage that's done in the meantime. So I feel as though sitting here and waiting, waiting for the Mueller report, waiting to watch things unfold. I think there gets to be a point where you've waited too long. I mean, the 2020 election is there for you. I mean, and it's tick, tick on that as well.

I agree. Well, we do have to take a... 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.

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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. First break, when we come back, though, a little update on Donald Trump's strategy having to do with messaging around the wall. He's got a new thing, sure, to scare the hell out of you after next. Welcome back to the first hour, everybody. I want to read a couple of your comments. I also want to recognize two of our members, member Scott Lloyd and Emily Acore. Thank you for being members of TYT.

We appreciate it. We've got some good members' comments. Pezosaurus says he commits the best felonies, tremendous bigly felonies. I like that. Well done, well done. That's good. Chet's mom says, got to say, I'm so happy to see Brooke. Me?

Ever since hostmates, I love when she's on a panel. Oh my gosh, thank you. We're all happy to see Brooke when she's here. Bombed hostmates. But you know what? I'm thank you for rubbernecking. We got a negative. It was like celebrity jeopardy for us on that negative scores.

Yeah, you know, but when something crazy is going on on the freeway, you turn, you look. People like to see crazy things. We are a car wreck. It's working for us, you know. High five. We're going to get it down, though, for next year. Don't worry. Let's see, I.M. Sox says communications director cannot communicate a single yes or no answer.

That is true, also still a better communicator than the president. And let's see. Cabbage says McConnell should be charged with obstruction of justice for refusing to be the check on executive branch, dereliction of duty, moronism. I like that. I don't think that's actually a charge. My frustration with McConnell right now is much more that he refuses to have. Excuse me.

Bless you. Oh, my God, I don't know. I'm sorry. There is no way that's an actual sneeze. There was three of them. Oh, my gosh. And I was kind of sneezing, people. I was trying to hold it in.

Oh, my goodness. But finish your McConnell point. I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, that was a weird fake sneeze. But anyway, no, I'm kidding. I hope you feel better. Anyway, I don't remember what to say. Oh, yeah, McConnell.

So the House has passed a bill to reopen the government. The Senate has previously passed bills to reopen the government. If they were to vote on the same exact one that they'd passed before, it would almost certainly pass. And I know that, and you know that, and Mitch McConnell knows that, which is why he is literally ducking and weaving to hide from AOC in the Capitol and not call a vote on this. That is insane. damage that's being done to close to a million people, and he won't hold a vote either because

it might make Trump look bad or because Trump will hate him for it? I don't know. No explanation is legitimate. I completely agree. He is absolutely the evil at the center of this right now, because as you say, Trump, you can completely wall off from this wall issue. He has, now he's not even irrelevant because this government could get going again if Mitch McConnell would just put it to a vote. He could stop this whole thing. I saw the Washington Post video of the woman, the security guard, crying in his office about how she doesn't pay her rent.

She's going to be immediately evicted, and he could end it. And look, I know we have other stories to get to, but just on, we have to, I hope, in the future, and I know we will get back to Mitch McConnell, because the damage done politically and to the political discourse in this country, ever since he dug in on. on the Obama Supreme Court pick. He's one of the reasons that we're so tribal and that things are so intense now. I agree. Mitch McConnell is an evil guy.

And in the future, we have to really rotisserie him in the way that he deserves to be rotisserie. Yeah, he doesn't, he's really secretive, he's really quiet, doesn't talk much, but he is one of the most extreme members of the Senate. Like, by far in terms of his singular ability to damage American democracy, I totally agree. Make sure that I don't forget about that. With that, why don't we jump back in the news? We're now in day 28, I think, of this shutdown. And polling is not looking good for Donald Trump, so he needs a new tactic. He was really hoping that the caravan 2.0 would get people scared enough to put some pressure

on the Democrats, but that didn't really pan out. So this morning, he came out with a new way to scare you. Prayer rugs. He says, quote, to a border rancher, quote, we found prayer rugs out here. It's unreal from the Washington Examiner. And then he says, people coming across the southern border from many countries, some of which would be a big surprise. So there's some amazing just lingering Islamophobia there.

Like he doesn't want to say where, but he just wants to scare you. They're coming from many countries. You'd be shocked to find out which. He's like bad clickbait on the internet. So that's crazy. Oh my God, they found prayer blankets on the border. Washington Examiner, that name sounds legitimate. It's not, but they did have a reporter about this.

And they had a reporter go and talk to this rancher. and this anonymous one rancher said there's a lot of people coming in, not just for Mexico, people, the general public, just don't get the terrorist threats of that. That's what's right. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too.

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improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Really scary. You don't know what's coming across. We've found prayer rugs out here. It's unreal. It's not just Mexican nationals that are coming across. This renter is going to lose their land to imminent domain for this wall and they're going to end up a year from now in the New York Times crying. We've just seen this over and over and over again. But, I hate the fact that, before we even get to that fact, this is probably not even true,

I have to point out that it's so, it's nasty and offensive because, like, put it in perspective, if somebody found a bunch of Bibles in someone's backyard, we wouldn't demonize that. Like, oh, my gosh, look, a bunch of Terry McVeys, who was a proud Christian and a monster. You're right. And I'm a Christian, so I can say that, okay? So, no, it's just. If you found the origin of species out there, uh, I can say it, I can say it anyway. No, but it's just, it's just disgusting.

Let alone, like, again, the fact that this is probably not even true, but just that we've, we, like, are okay just demonizing a group of religious people. Yeah. Prayer cloths would mean that they were taking time to pray. Well, it's, as you say, A, it's not true, and B, he's just throwing everything up against the wall. part in the expression in this case to see what sticks. I mean, this is his, you know, the trope that's worked along the way is the bashing Muslims, so let's, you know, let's parade it out one more time and see if we can, you know, see if we can get any political currency on it.

He's taking on water on this issue, and so he's just desperate for anything, and so he throws the Muslim prayer rugs in the mix to see if that'll work. That shouldn't scare you. It's disgusting. No, it shouldn't, but I don't know if America's ever going to get past it. They've been told that this is a scary group. Every single one of them wants to kill you and many people still, they still believe that. So it's entirely possible that that rancher found a prayer rug.

They did not show it to the Washington Examiner. There's no other ranchers that are saying this case, it is an anonymous rancher. So take it for what it's worth. I will say though that if this story sounds sort of familiar, that's because we've already been through this before. Breitbart had a front page story, prayer rugs found at the border, but it turned out it was not actually a prayer rug, as Gawker pointed out at the time, bring this up. It was an Adidas shirt, it was like a soccer jersey or something.

They were really sure that it was a rug. And just consider what they want you to believe is the case. That someone from Syria or whatever says, I really want to blow up the America. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna travel over to South America or Latin America. I'm then going to walk hundreds of thousands of miles across the border. I can't have many possessions, but I definitely want my prayer rug, which I'm going to take with me that entire way. I will stop while crossing the border once I cross over to American land, and then as soon

as I've gotten there, screw the rug, I'll leave it behind. Do they love their rugs or do they not love their rugs? You're right, that would be odd to leave it behind at that point. It would be very odd. It's made it all that way. Exactly. And okay, so let's talk about the truth of what's actually going on. So in 2017, six Syrians, 10 Jordanians, and 14 Saudis were apprehended.

trying to cross the border, compared to 16,000 Guatemalans. But apparently Guatemalans aren't scary enough these days, so we need to upgrade to the Saudis. A 2017 State Department report found that there is, quote, no credible evidence terrorist groups sent operatives via Mexico into the United States. A recent Cato Institute study found that there were zero cases of people being injured or killed on U.S. soil by people who entered the country illegally from 1975 through the end of 2017. So this idea that people coming in from the Middle East in a plot to destroy or destabilize American society is simply not the case. It's just, it's, it's because, you know, too many

people are telling too much truth. Too many people have said like about all these Latin American countries like, hey America, remember you caused the chaos these people are trying to flee. Do you remember? Do you remember? And so it's like, oh, we got to change strategy. People keep bringing that up, you know. Yeah, perhaps. So now I have to pretend that thousands of people are flying to Latin American countries and then they weren't out of money and so then they start walking.

Exactly. And then... Yeah, you can't make sense of the narrative. It's there just as a political play. It's absurd, but it's his last gasp. And it's not just him. I mean, it's their last gasp

those who support this administration. What's happening at the border is a crime. It's an obscenity that this country is associated with separating families and even warehousing these kids and families, it's disgusting. And the fact that this becomes the focus for even one news cycle is just beyond me.

Just as demonizing human beings in general who deserve just as much basic humanity and help as people who happen to be lucky enough to be born here. It's gross. Yeah, and one potential explanation for why he might be getting increasingly flailing in what he's saying about what's happening at the border. Nate Silver tweeted this out yesterday. talking about Trump's underwater poll rating. So his approval rating is obviously negative because more people disapprove him than approve of him,

which means the more negative it gets, the worst for him. Well, on day zero of the shutdown, he was at negative 10.5. On day 9, he was negative 11.7, day 16, negative 12.7, day 27 yesterday, negative 15.3. Maybe that'll stabilize, I don't know. But it does seem to be getting worse for him the longer this goes. And yet, here we are on day 28. But as you suggest, also, sorry, Brooke, I just make the point that Mitch McConnell, as you've mentioned before. He's really at the center of this now.

I mean, obviously Trump's got to stink on him, but McConnell should have a lot of stink on him as well. Also, just once again, like 28 days in what was supposed to be the best country in the world, we haven't funded this large part of our federal government. Well, and just to that point, the economic ripples from this are going to be substantial. It doesn't just affect the almost one million federal workers. It affects all of the areas of life around this shutdown. And you've seen what it's done with the National Parks and with the checking from the FDA on, is it the FDA or USDA on food? Yes. And scientific research has shut down.

And the economy, and this will be my last point, I know we have to move on, but the economy depends on people having faith in the American economy, which is, I think, kind of what you're saying. I mean, look, the longer the government is shut down, the less faith people have in America moving forward. And as they look for investment opportunities, business opportunities worldwide, all of a sudden America becomes a less stable place. This is really the way economies around the world operate. And that's one of the reasons America gets so much investment from around the world

because we have one of the more stable societies politically on the, yeah, exactly. Now it's almost laughable. And that will begin to affect economic investment and the economy overall. And then it's just one more, I wanted to touch on because I saw a conversation about this. There was someone who, there was an article, someone said that, you know, they're going to have to put their house on the market because they can't afford it. And you have all of these people saying, well, it's only been a month. That people, you forget that even working for the federal government, you can still potentially not make enough money to really live and take care of all of your bills. There are so many jobs that we just refuse to pay people enough for.

And so it's possible that these people, you know, we get evicted because they've been behind, they've been paying their rent late for six months because they don't make enough money. Oh, of course, many federal employees live check to check. Absolutely, right. So it's not fair to just judge it on, you know, what's happening right now. Not getting a check is just the latest problem. This is, it compounds the problem.

They already weren't making enough, so they're already behind, you know, and so they're not having anything. You can't even tell your landlord, can I just give you a couple hundred. You can't even say that because you have nothing coming in. And you have no idea. Like, you can't tell them, oh, by the way, the shutdown will be done in a week. Right. It might not be. Yeah, I wish that everyone could be so detached from the experience of real working Americans that they could think that not being paid for one to two months is, eh, no big deal. That's the only problem, right. Yeah, but all of these politicians on Capitol Hill, almost to a person soaked in lobby money and so detached from what's really going on in America,

Those are the people who are making these decisions and allowing this mess to go on. Mitch McConnell, you're heading that parade. Yeah, and personally wealthy themselves. Right. And if they weren't wealthy when they started in public office, they're certainly wealthy now. Yeah, and I believe they're still getting paid. So even if they weren't millionaires predominantly, they would be okay during this. Okay, with that, why don't we move on to other news?

Tulsi Gabbard has now responded to concerns that have been expressed about comments she has made in the past about the LGBT community with a new video. Here is a portion of what she said. Aloha. In my past, I said and believe things that were wrong. And worse, they were very hurtful to people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones. Many years ago, I apologized for my words and more importantly for the negative impact that they had. I sincerely repeat my apology today.

I'm deeply sorry for having said them. My views have changed significantly since then and my record in Congress over the last six years reflects what is in my heart. A strong and ongoing commitment to fighting for LGBTQ rights. Now I know that LGBTQ people still struggle. Still facing discrimination.

Still facing abuse. And still fear that hard-won rights are going to be taken away by people who hold views like I used to. That cannot happen because every American deserves to be treated equally by their fellow Americans and under the law. So obviously there was more to the video than just that. It's available on her social media. It's about four minutes long where she expands on some of what she talked about there. But that was most of what you needed to know.

I will say she referenced her record there. I do want to give you a little bit of information about her record in this area. This is from out.com saying, since her election of the House of Representatives in 2012, Gabbert has opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, spoke out against the president's proposed trans-military ban and supported the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The representative is also a member of the House LGBT equality caucus, and her voting record on LGBTQ plus rights has a score of 100 out of 100 from the human rights campaign. But people are still concerned about those quotes, and so that is why she put out the video.

What did you guys think? You have strong feelings, so I'll let you speak first. I just think the good thing about all of this, and it's great that she's apologists, but the great thing about all this, and I think a lot of people are like, oh, paying attention and maybe it's, forget about president, maybe they're realizing she shouldn't be an elected official at all. And I, you know, that stuff was scary to me. And I'm, I don't deal with that type of abuse, you know, as a straight woman in America.

Like that's the one of the, you know, few privileges that I was born with. I don't, like, in this country, like I don't have to deal with the horrific anti-LGBQ abuse that goes on in this country. And so, yeah, I think that it's good that she apologes. She should apologize. But do you accept her apology then? And I thought when we were chatting about this. I don't say what I said.

But. No, but I mean, I don't. I think some version of it. No, I think it was too far. I think. So you can't forgive her is what you're saying. No, I think that, yeah, she should be forgiven. Should someone who's done something like that and said something like that and kind of

supported a cause like that, should they run the country? Well, look, do those people matter? Yeah. Like, you know, would you take someone who did something horrible, like evil levels and apologized? Or someone who never, who always felt like LGBTQ Americans were just as human as straight people? Like, I don't know, for me, it's an easy answer. She, in the extended video, does say that she was raised in an extremely religiously

conservative household. So is that not conservative, but religious. Yeah, so she says that her support for things like conversion therapy in the past was something that was trained into her as a kid that as she grew up, she realized should not be done. And I would say, I've known a lot of people that have grown up in really conservative households that have had to go through sometimes a difficult process in high school or college or after where they learn that the things that they were taught is totally normal

or things that are abnormal, that those are just the prejudices of a family and not necessarily reflective of reality. Sure, there's an indoctrination process with this religious crap that goes on and you end up after all that indoctrination factory gets done with you, spewing out the same stuff that has been fed to you all that time. I give her credit for coming forward, I give her credit for letting her legislative record stand as evidence of her transformation. I think of George Wallace, who was a staunch segregationist.

I mean, an awful guy, you know, in the deep south. And he came all the way over and became a civil rights. He became evangelical about civil rights. So it does happen. Politicians who are on the wrong side of issues. George Wallace is the first one to come to mind, but there are many more. Do make true transformations. And I'll give her credit for perhaps being one of them.

Yeah. Yeah, good for, you know, I'm completely against celebrating people for, like, throwing a party for people who do the bare minimum of just what's right and what's okay for other humans. And I think it's perfectly fun. You should, that's the point. We want people to grow and change. That doesn't mean that they deserve privileges of helping lead a part of the country, helping, it just that I think it's okay to care more about those people that those prior

views harmed than about giving her, you know, more privilege. I think that obviously that's going to come down to individuals. In terms of the apology, I will say, first of all, in a very real sense, my view of the apology is irrelevant. I'm not a member of the community, so I will leave it to them to decide, you know, how they rate what she previously said, what she has done as an elected official, and not just recently, but over years, and what she's saying now, I will say that, well, with all those caveats that my view is irrelevant, I have covered a lot of apologies, I've covered

a lot of bad apologies. That did not strike me as one of the really insincere bad apologies. That wasn't a, I'm sorry that you were offended, it wasn't a, I guess if you're making me, I will apologize. It didn't come off like one of those things. It came off like, obviously she's a politician, it was a prepared statement and everything, but it seemed genuine. And she didn't just talk about a record, she also talked, and she didn't just say, I wish I

hadn't said it, she said my views have changed, which is what we want to see. I mean, people have some concerns about- Exactly, people have concerns about this and some other areas of things she's talked about torture and drone strikes and things like that. And we said at the time, I just want to know what she thinks now. And she seems fairly willing to come forward and be very transparent about it. That's what I would hope. Now that, I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I wish more politicians would

do that. Yeah, no, and that's the thing, it was a good apology. And it's a good thing that she apologized. We also can't pretend like that wasn't 100% what she was supposed to do. And so- Because it's backed up by her legislative record to agree, I think it adds some credibility to it, though. It's not just verbiage. It's not, she didn't just stand up and read a prepared statement, as John says. I mean, she does, she can stand there and say, and look at my record, you know, since I've had this transformation.

But the bar is so low when we're like celebrating someone for. saying sorry for bad behavior. I don't think, I don't know anyone is celebrating right now. It's not, there's no stream that's coming out in the ceiling. Sorry is generally, it's always a good thing. I don't know what we're doing here. No, it's a big story because she's declared, you know. She's running for the president.

Yeah, she's declared her presidential aspirations and so, yeah, we're looking at everything. And so it's a big story. You're right, I think you can't, you know, I don't think you can break out the cake and champagne that she's now, but I do, I do think you have to evaluate these things because you're having to evaluate her in a different light now. Yeah. Yeah, and look, I think we've got months until the first debates. There's going to be a lot of people running.

Many already are. Many more will be. I look forward to these sorts of statements from a lot of different candidates about a lot of different types of issues. And I've seen the first rumblings of that. Like, a couple days ago we were talking about Kersen Gillibrand and some of what she said previously about Wall Street. And I see that she's already attempting to be very proactive to try to define her current

position on that. And again, as with this, everyone's going to have to make their own determination about how sincere anything is, but at least this primary is going to lead to a lot of attempts to court us. It's nice to be in that position. Right, and we've fallen so far down on so many of these issues from Wall Street to civil rights that I almost begin to not care how people have gotten to their new positions and their revised positions and their transformations.

As long as they really are new, revised, and transformed, and as long as they're going to follow through legislatively with an agenda that really does. make some changes, I'm okay with it. Yeah. And I will say, I have heard that she is going to be on Jake Tapper's show on Sunday, State of the Union, I think it's called. Has that been canceled? I don't know.

I'm kidding. It's just the show. They can still do the show. But anyway, she's going to be interviewed there. No, that was good. Anyway, she's going to be interviewed there. I would imagine this is probably going to come up some of the other areas that people have concerns with.

And so I assume she is going to have an opportunity there to make clear what she presently believes. And I think she'll probably use that opportunity. With that said, we do have to take a break. We're going to come back very briefly to do one more story. I want to give credit to some Senate Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, for a bill they're putting forward. And we'll have that at TYT. We frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address,

making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available. ExpressVPN. And if you go to expressvpn.com slash 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 t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Welcome back, everyone. I know that we are already over the first hours. You hate to do that too, huh?

It's probably frustrated over there. I do, makes me really uncomfortable. But we have one more story that I want to get to. I also just want to briefly mention Berkinik said on TRIT Live, it's also entirely possible that those weren't even prayer rugs, but rather sleeping mats were immigrants on the run sleep. I live in South Texas along the border. When we do community cleanups, we find them.

sometimes. Birkenicks, no way. I mean, the rancher was definitely being open-minded and not crazy biased against these people. They would know a mat from a rug. I'm glad he said that though, because I thought of the sleeping mat thing and in the cross talk, I forgot about it. Because yeah, I mean, there's, even if they were, if it's real, and again, I don't think it is real, it's, there's another more innocent explanation.

Yeah, exactly. And even if it is real, even if it is a Muslim. No, no, no, that's, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's what I was just going to say. I mean, it doesn't justify that narrative is what I meant. I want to make a bold statement, Muslims aren't evil. Right. I guess you've got to say that in America in 2019 still.

But anyway, let's move on to other news. Bernie Sanders and other Democrats have put forward a new bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25, where it has been for some time, many years, to $15 an hour by 2024. The Raise the Wage Act would also index future increases in the minimum wage to median wage growth and abolish the sub-minimum tipped wage. So it is both getting us to 15, but also ensuring that ideally that will stay the situation. It is no coincidence that in the past when it's been raised, it's raised and then it's fine,

but let's not worry about it ever in the future. I like this much better as a solution, as well as dealing with the sub-minimum tipped wage, which has been an issue in many parts of the country for some time. And in terms of how much this would affect different people, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute, increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would translate into a raise for nearly 40 million Americans or roughly 30% of the workforce.

And we've talked about it before, about the fact that that would help the economy overall. I mean, the distribution of wealth in this country to those who are not as wealthy is something that's good for the economy overall. So in addition to helping people's standard of living, helping them make a, you know, get closer to a subsistence wage, in addition to that, it helps all of us. It helps this country if more people are spreading around money because they have it. And it's not a lot of money, eat that.

No, right. And these companies will be okay. McDonald's will be fine. Walmart will be fine. You know, like so fine, real fine. Target will be fine. These employers will be fine. The argument you hear, though, from small business owners, and I've heard it, that's what, you know, when I've been.

made this argument before, they say, you don't understand, it could put us under, we don't, you know, that's a huge amount of money that we're now going to have to be out of pocket for, and we don't know that we can sustain it. So that's, you know, it's in that tug of war that this debate exists. But the argument against that is not that, like, I mean, unfortunate, and I hate to say that, but it's like, it's not, it's still not, you know, the fact that, like, then you're, I don't, I don't feel comfortable saying that. Well, no, I, well, what I would say is, I get it.

Your business is going to have to pay out more money. Right. The economic framework that these small businesses operate in is going to change. All businesses are going to change. But your employees are going to be happier, more productive, and it's going to help the overall economy. Yeah, and if they won't show up to work hungry. Like, these are just, we're not talking about they're going to get to go to the movies more. They're going to get to, like, buy designer clothes.

Like, maybe they'll get to pay their co-payments for their medicine. Maybe they'll get to pay their rent on time. Like, this is, that's, you know. And also, there had been. Before we had these experiments, there were the people saying, this will kill employment, jobs will be lost. The unfortunate thing for them is that we have tried this now in a number of different cities across the country.

And there have been follow-up studies showing, for instance, in Seattle, like you can, I'm not going to summarize all of it, but you can go through these and show that those fears are wildly overstated, and that's why more and more states and cities are raising their minimum wage. As we get more data, the fears that are generally being pushed by the wealthiest people in our society to begin with show to not actually have much underlying them. So, while I think this is a good bill, unfortunately, as I said in that last graphic, this would provide a raise to 30% of the workforce, so you will not be surprised to find out that it's expected to have a very hard time getting through the Senate.

It only benefits 40 million Americans, why would it ever work? But before that, we get to that point, Senator Bernie Sanders, who was leading the charge on this, said, just a few short years ago, we were told that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour was radical, but a grassroots movement of millions of workers throughout this country refuse to take no for an answer. The current $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage is a starvation wage. Representative Bobby Scott, Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, says no person working full-time in America should be living in poverty.

Raising the minimum wage is not only good for workers, but it is also good for businesses and good for the economy. When we put money in the pockets of American workers, they will spend that money in their communities. This bill is a stimulus for mainstream America. And look to what Bertie said in terms of just a couple of years ago, that was like, oh, God, I guess there's some activists that are working for that, but isn't that crazy or whatever, that's what you would hear. That this is an indication of, again, on so many issues, we have moved so far, so fast.

And the calculus is rapidly changing as we reshape Congress and the Senate to be more representative of the values that Americans actually hold. Exactly. Very well put. That last 90 seconds really told the story. Thank you. Americans deserve a living wage and your vote to put people in Congress who believe that will change America.

Yeah, yeah, and thank you. We have more and more people that are actually working towards this. So I look forward to the Senate considering this, hopefully passing it. I hope that Bernie and others are able to get more people on their side. With that said, thank you so much for joining me in the first hour. Great to have you here. Bye, John. Bye, well, you're still going to be on, right?

No, I'm leaving that too. So you're leaving, okay. But don't worry, Mark's still going to be here, and Brett's going to be taking over on the other side of this break. 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.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.