The Young Turks - Documental Delusions

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

In audio recording, Trump is heard discussing a sensitive Iran document. Sean Hannity roasted for "straw-grasping" spin on Trump tape. Supreme Court rejects controversial Trump-backed election law theory. Rick Scott posts a video warning “communists and socialists” that they’re not welcome in Florida. Woman sues anti-abortion "pregnancy center" after her ectopic pregnancy ruptured. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur), Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18th. You know, I don't know I don't know I don't know All right, well, the young Turks, Jank Uger, Anna Kusparan with you guys.

So we do have Death Star bills advancing throughout the country. We have them. We have them. They're the Republican bills that are going to obliterate parts of our democracy. On the other hand, we had a great victory for democracy today. That's the most important story. And I'm not even talking about the squish mellows we're going to talk about later in the program. Squish mallows, please get it together.

Okay, well, it depends. You know, you say mallow, I say mallow or tomato tomato. Anyway, and abortion, interesting news, interesting news. Okay, so that's later in the program. But first, another major piece of news brought to you by America's News anchors. Listen, you guys knew we were going to talk about this, so let's do it. This totally wins my case, you know, except it is highly controversial secret. This is a secret in front.

See, this president, I could update less now I can't. You just heard what appears to be a pretty damning piece of evidence against Donald Trump in the classified documents case against him. Now, the recording you just heard, or a portion of the recording you just heard, dates back to July of 2021 when he was at a meeting in his Bedminster, Bedminster, New Jersey Club. He was talking in a room with an individual who was working on his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows' book, his memoir, along with two other staffers. And Trump knew he was being recorded.

Nonetheless, he decided to talk about a classified document that presumably was in his possession as he was talking to the individuals in the room. Before we hear more from that recorded audio, which was later leaked and CNN obtained it, It's important to understand the context of what they are discussing. So the conversation centered on Donald Trump's foreign policy toward Iran when he was in office. The recording referenced in the federal indictment against Trump features Trump describing a multi-page document that he alleges is about possibly attacking Iran. He was apparently frustrated that the press was reporting that General Mark Millie was the one

He was trying to keep Trump under control in order to prevent a hot war with Iran. Trump argues that it was the other way around. And he presents what he refers to as classified, a classified document to the individuals in the room as he's making this argument. Without further ado, here's the leaked audio. Well, with Millie, let me see that, I'll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn't it amazing? I have a big pile of papers. This thing just came up. Look. This was him.

They presented me this, this is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. Wow. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me. This was him. All sorts of stuff. It's pages long. Wait a minute, let's see here. I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know, except it is like highly confidential. This is secret information.

Highly secret confidential. Important to keep that phrase in mind. And here is, I think, the most damning part of that leaked audio. And then we'll go to you, Jank. Let's watch. Look at this. You attack. Hillary would print that out all the time.

She sent it to Anthony Wiener. The pervert. By the way, is that incredible? Yeah. I was just saying because we were talking about it. And he said, he wanted to attack Iran and what? He said it. You did.

This was done by the military given to me. I think we can probably, right? I don't know, we'll have to see. Yeah, I'll try to figure out of, yeah. See, this president, I could have de-liseless about it. No, I can't, you know, but this is- place. Isn't that interesting?

Yeah. It's so cool. Look, we heard I have, and you probably almost didn't believe me, but now you believe me. No, I believe it. It's incredible, right? No, it brings some, bring some coax in, please. Bring some coax in, please. That's my personal favorite part of that recording.

And again, Trump, New York. he was being recorded, but he still felt that it was a great opportunity to talk about his possession of classified documents, which Jenkey referred to as highly confidential, and then talked about how he could have declassified those documents as president, but can no longer do so now that he is no longer in office. I have two points that I loved in that. One was the staff were going, now we have a problem. He's like, it's highly classified and secret and I can't declassified here you want to look and she's like now we have a problem okay so my second favorite quote was Trump has been saying to Brett bear and others it's just newspapers and

magazines are not classified I mean I said it was classified but it's not classified well first of all there are no newspaper articles or magazines that are classified because they're public by definition but if you weren't convinced yet the audio tape he's like this is him This is him, Millie. This is him. Look at all these pages and pages of documents. This is him. Yeah, Millie did not write our invasion plans of Iran in the New York Times or on Newsweek. Yeah, that's such a great point. Yeah, that's such a great point. And so what Jake is referencing is, you know, some of the lies that Trump told prior to CNN airing the audio you just heard. And part of that conversation took place during an interview with Brett Baer. So that happened a few weeks. prior to CNN publishing that audio that you just heard.

So why don't we take a quick look at that snippet from that interview, just so you have the full context of where that lie comes from. That wasn't a document, Brett, there was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn't have a document per se, there was nothing to declassive. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and article. So there you have it. That was a lie. The idea that Mark Millie had an outline of this

invasion in Iran, in a news article is ridiculous. There's literally only one place where we would have our secret plans to invade Iran in top secret classified documents. We don't make those public. In fact, if they're public, show me. Show me where they are. Because he says It's not, now his new thing is, it's not classified. It was just newspapers and magazines. Okay, then great, show me where it is. Okay. Okay, there is no such thing.

Of course he's been. But like, guys, at this point, the right wing is basically given up. They're just like, they're using the third grade thing of like, yeah, I might have done that mommy, but Susie also did it. The what about his own? Exactly, right? And every parent knows this. And that's why he's a petulant child.

Well, to that point, that recording gave me a, a little hint into his motivations in keeping the classified documents. I don't think this is necessarily the full reason why Trump would want to take those classified documents home with him and refuse to hand them over once the feds demand that he hands them over. He wants to maintain or possess some level of evidence to clear his name because he believes that everyone's constantly lying about him, right? So in this case, look, honestly, I'm skeptical that Mark Millie wasn't the one pushing him

to go to war with Iran, right? I would honestly, I think it's totally believable that Millie would be pushing for Iran. So maybe Trump wanted to maintain those documents in an effort to provide evidence against some of the mainstream media narratives against him. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. So let me clarify a couple things. First of all, on damage report this morning, I said the same exact thing as Anna, where I said,

look, this is this, this is a, in one aspect of the case, not the legal aspect, but the sense of how damaging it is politically, the slightest little exoneration potentially. Why? Like Trump is screaming, I'm exonerated, it was a perfect call. No, you're toast legally. You're definitely guilty. You had classified documents. You knew they were classified. you kept them anyway, et cetera. But I always assume that since Trump is obsessed with money, that he took the documents to sell them. And then we've talked about that.

But now when you look at that tape or you hear that tape, you think, well, no, maybe it could be a couple other reasons. Like never underestimate how unintelligent Donald Trump is. It's possible that he wanted to keep them to prove his case, as Anna just pointed out. Or as I said earlier today, just because he wanted to show off because he's a child. And so, and you see in the tape, he's like, oh, you want to see the highly classified top secret documents? And so it doesn't exonerate him as a human being or legally. But I now think maybe he didn't want to sell him, right?

Maybe he was just an idiot. But, but let's also keep in mind he might have wanted to sell them. And remember, Jared Kushner's son-in-law got $2 billion right after the election from Saudi Arabia. and Donald Trump got millions upon millions through the live golf tournament from the Saudis right after the election. So they've already been paid. We don't know if it was for the documents or just because the Saudis didn't like the fact that they, the Saudis did like the fact that Trump let them chop up a Washington Post report.

So I have a little bit of a, I don't know, maybe a spicy take. I don't know how people are going to react to it. But I came across a story today about Jen Saki, who's now a host over at MSNBC. Of course. And she floated a theory. She speculated that Trump took the documents because he might have wanted. wanted to show the documents to dictators, which he has so much, you know, admiration for, right? I just think that it's a little irresponsible to just pull random speculative theories out of your,

you know, you know, you're out of your, you know what? It's, can we just wait and find out? Like, there's an investigation happening as we speak. And I think you start losing, well, with someone like Jen Saki over at MSNBC, I mean, she's literally a political operative. She worked for Biden's administration. But it just starts making people look kind of unhinged and conspiratorial. We don't know.

We don't know why. But let me make a distinction here. So first of all, there is no distinction between MSNBC and the Biden administration. That's their one organism. Okay, now on to the distinction in the speculation. There is some evidence that he took them home to brag. That's the tape. He's bragging on the tape.

So there's some evidence of that. Is it definitive? Not at all. There's some evidence that he wanted to approve his case, and that's why he kept some of the documents, the one Anna just said, because he says it on the tape. So again, not at all definitive, but maybe, could be that at least there's one piece of evidence. And there's some evidence that he kept him to get paid because he already has gotten paid a spectacular amount of money from the Saudis. So that doesn't mean that it's definitive at all, not even close, right? But it's one piece of evidence.

Is there any evidence that he has given them to dictators for free or for giggles? are afraid? No, there's not one piece of evidence to that. That's just speculation out of thin blue air, right? So I think that there's a, there is a real distinction there between those things. But I think it's also human, Anna, for people to speculate when a guy takes home top secret documents for no goddamn reason, and exposing himself to massive liability and criminal, you know, consequences, et cetera, I think it's legitimate to ask, why the hell did he do that? No, I understand. I think part of what I feel burned by was the narratives that were drummed up in corporate media in regard to Trump's relationship with Putin and

Russian interference in the election. You know, they would take something and they would take two different elements of that story. There'd always be like the missing piece, right? Connected the dots that really prove that, you know, Trump was working with Putin to interfere in the 2016 election. But nonetheless, a lot of that was drummed up and a lot of weird connections were made to kind of give the appearance that it was like an open and shut case, that Trump definitely was working hand in hand with Putin. There was definitely election interference taking place, that there was collusion with Trump and Putin. And honestly, the evidence didn't bear that out. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, but look, again. And it was overplayed.

There was a lot of speculation in the press, and I just think it's irresponsible. Just stick to the facts. There's an investigation taking place. If you're going to speculate, be clear that you're speculating. Yeah, see, that's my line. And don't plant seeds in people's heads, which then germinate into insane conspiracy theories that are not born out of any evidence. Yeah, I hear you. So, but I think we've got to be able to make distinction.

So first of all, to be clear, the Russians did interfere in the 2016 election. It's just that Trump did not participate with them. Exactly. There was not a coordination. Right. So I want to be clear about the facts that we definitely know, right? And then in terms of, since the Russians appeared to be helping him, and it turns out they were, that leads to understandable speculation as to why.

And so, but then when you go into that speculation, you have to base it on something. But most importantly, you have to clearly identify it. You can't just say, oh yeah, Trump did it. Or, oh, yeah, the Trump is getting paid by the Saudis, we know for sure. No, you don't know that for sure, right? So just, I think you could have a normal human conversation about it, especially on talk shows, as long as you're being clear about what's facts and what's speculation. The one thing that's also clear to me in the story is how Trump has lied over and over again

about his possession of these classified documents, and he's changed his story on multiple occasions. So just to give you an example of other lies that he's told, specifically in regard to these classified documents pertaining to foreign policy toward Iran. In a recent interview, Trump claimed that he was unaware of the Iran document being among the materials in the boxes, recovered at Mar-a-Lago by the FBI and Justice Department. He also continued to claim that everything he took with him was declassified. I mean, lies, absolute lies. So from that audio, it is abundantly clear that he is in possession of those classified documents pertaining to Iran.

He is talking about them. He is talking about his inability to declassify them now that he is no longer in office. It's just on record. It's so clear. And so those who are trying to provide cover for him are now twisting themselves into insane, ridiculous pretzels and they're going to have to continue doing so because this isn't the only recorded audio that prosecutors have. So I want to talk about that a little bit as well.

So prosecutors 49 page indictment outlined two instances. Two instances in which Trump disclosed sensitive papers in unsecured environments post-presidency to individuals who lack the necessary security clearances required to view any classified information. Let's go to Graphics 6 here. The second instance, so the second instance is one that we haven't heard yet, described in the indictment was in August or September 2021 meeting where Trump showed an unnamed representative of his political action committee a classified map of country. be and express to the individual that he shouldn't be sharing the map.

Devastating. What are you doing? Okay. So guys, look, at this point, I don't think it's a question anymore as to whether he's guilty or not. And I say that not as a matter of law and evidence, that we had crossed that bridge a while back. Now that evidence, we don't just know that it exists.

We've heard it, right? In a sense, we've become a part of the jury, at least in the court of public opinion. But you can also tell because, man, right wingers, including right wing media, including Fox News, they are struggling mightily to try to justify this. And they just can't. And a lot of them are going, okay, yeah, he kind of did it. And so then they, but somebody else did it, but this, but that. And now he's only, the only question that's remaining is, how is he going to get out of it?

Not whether he did it or not. And there's three ways he can get out of it. Jury nullification, one of the jurors on the case is MAGA and goes, I don't care. I just don't care. Yeah, that's a good point. That could happen. I'm on a jury. I'm supposed to disagree.

Yeah, one juror is MAGA. And he goes, no, I'm not convicting him. I don't care if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue and you have tape of it. I'm not convicting him. Okay. So that's totally possible. Judge nullification doesn't normally happen, but there's kind of a MAGA judge here. So she could be like, I toss out all that evidence.

I'm exaggerating, but she could toss out critical evidence. At the end, she could even say the jury's decision is unjustifiable by the law, you're free to go. And so that could happen. That would be a crazy scenario. It has happened before. It's not, it's not like unprecedented, okay? And then the last thing is politician nullification, where either he wins, another Republican

wins, or maybe even Biden wins, and they pardon him. So you think Biden won't part? I mean, we've gone through this many times. So that is- Can we nullify Biden? I know, well, there is a way to do that. It's called the primary. So there are three possible outs he has left, but none of them are legal.

He billion percent did it. And at this point, this is as close as I've ever seen for the right wing going, uncle. Yeah, he did it, okay? So, and last thing, guys, that Iran document, that's top secret that Trump told you about, He never returned it. We still don't know where it is. It was not at Marlago. It was in New Jersey.

So this dude's still hiding documents. I flushed it down my golden toilet. That's what I do. Speaking of golden and toilet, by the way, to the earlier conversation, I think we have a ton of credibility because we call out people on our site all the time. It's the steel dossier that people that

on MSNBC and center were going nuts over. over, I told you I didn't believe that for a second, right? And we said that from day one to now. So why, by the way, they're like, oh, Trump is into goldish showers and stuff? Like, no, he's not. He's a germaphobe. Right. It just doesn't make logical sense. You have to stick with the facts.

All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the few conservatives who are attempting to provide cover for Donald Trump and one of those individuals include Sean Hannity. Get ready to watch a pretzel get twisted. All right back on the Young Turks, Jake Ugar, Anna Kusparian, Blake Kivenny, LaShawn Lewis, the Gilded History of the U.S., and Chaotic Insight Dragon. Because those folks just became members, and hence are doing this show. with us. And, and Bruce Salazar also gifted a membership, which we really appreciate. Thank you

guys. Hit the join button below you join. All right, Anna. Well, there's a lot more to get into in regard to Trump and the classified documents case against him. So let's talk about it. This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like highly controversial secret. This is a secret in fact. Since this president, I could have beat less now I can't. After CNN decided to publish the leaked audio where Trump incriminated himself in the classified documents case, Trump raged about it. In fact, he raged about it on truth social and even talked about it when he was asked to comment on the leaked audio. And he claims, no, totally fine. I'm a legitimate person who has been exonerated by this leak. Let's hear what he had to say.

You're not concerned then with your own voice on those on those recordings. My voice was fine. What did I say wrong of those recordings? I didn't even see the recording. All I know is I did nothing wrong. We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers stacked up. In fact, you could hear the rustle of the paper and nobody said I did anything wrong other than the fake news, which of course is Fox too. Are there any other recordings that we should be concerned of? I don't know of any recordings that you should be concerned with because I don't do things wrong. I do things right. I'm a legitimate person.

You heard it here first, folks. He is a legitimate person. I should also note, though, that the investigation, the 49-page indictment indicates that there are two different recordings. The one that CNN published is from July of 2021. The second one, which we haven't heard yet, it has not been published yet, is allegedly from August or September of 2021. So there's that. But in a post on Truth Social, he also alleged to have been exonerated by the leak of this audio. He says the deranged special prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ and FBI, illegally leaked and spun a tape and transcript of me, which is actually in exoneration,

rather than what they would have you believe. And he calls it a witch hunt, of course. Typical Trump fashion, jank, thoughts. Yeah, so first of all, I'm a legitimate person goes right up there with I'm a very stable genius. Totally, totally. If you have to say it, are you sure you are? Okay, but here was my favorite part of that little tape. I haven't seen the tape, I don't know what's in it.

But you hear the rustling of the papers. Wait. Okay, so did you hear it or didn't you hear it? Okay, he's not like, guys, he's just not mentally competent to put on a defense. And he's not mentally competent enough to shut his mouth. The number one witness against Donald Trump is Donald Trump. Now, Trump, of course, is going to try to defend himself. And while there are far less conservative voices who are going out of their way to provide cover for Trump's bad behavior and potential.

criminality. Sean Hannity is not one of those people who's decided to remain quiet. In fact, he twisted himself into a pretzel in an effort to defend Donald Trump, or at least provide plausible deniability for Trump. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's what I mean. While he did say, you know, this is stuff that he got from the military that would be highly confidential and secret and says at another point, as president I could have declassified it, Now I couldn't, but now, you know, it would still be a secret. That does not confirm for me whether or not specifically this document was declassified or not. Was that actually a real, the real document or was it a story that he was telling?

And my understanding is that that particular document was never found by the special counsel or by, you know, the raid at Mar-a-Lago. But I might be mistaken on that. I don't think I am. So even while Trump says in the audio recording that he has highly confidential classified documents, which he can no longer declassified because he's no longer in office, Sean Hannity is pretending like he didn't hear what we all heard in that audio. And Brian Kilmead seems to agree with him as well. Let's listen.

Kind of surprised and was kind of effective when he told Brett Bear, hey, Brett, these were newspaper articles. There were no top secret documents. So he has a pushback on that. And I just want to provide the reference for you, the portion of the Brett Baer interview where Trump lies about how he was not in possession of any classified documents as that audio was being recorded. Let's watch.

That wasn't a document, Brett, there was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not. But that was not a document. I didn't have a document per se. nothing to de-classway. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and article. I don't know, maybe Trump is telling the truth. Maybe we need to listen to that leaked audio one more time to decide for ourselves whether Trump is telling the truth or lying.

Look at this. You attack and- Hillary would print that out all the time, you know. She sent it to Anthony Wiener, the pervert. By the way, is that incredible? Yeah. I was just saying, because we're talking about it. And he said, he wanted to attack Iran and what, he said, he's in the case. This was done by the military given to me. I think we can probably, right?

No, we'll have to see. Yeah, we'll try to figure out of, yeah. See, this president, I couldn't have de-liscible, and now I can't, you know, but this is- place. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. It's so cool. I mean, look, we heard I have, and you probably almost didn't believe me, but now you believe me.

No, I believe it's incredible, right? No. Bring some, bring some goats in, please. So I just want to reiterate what he says there, Jank. He even says, this is his exact statement, that the document was done by the military and given to me. So is the military writing newspaper articles and then giving them to you? Like, that makes absolutely no sense, you know, just going back to what he claimed. on Brett Bear's show.

So guys, I said this on the damage report this morning too, and you should check that out. Damage report's a great show on our network. This is the one where he's in actual trouble. So MSNBC is the boy who cried wolf. They've said it 2,000 times and it's never come true. So no one believes it anymore. But now he's in actual, actual trouble.

That is, they've got him debt to rights legally. And you could tell it from the death, desperation of the right wing pundits. So that Hannity clip. Now, by the way, I'll fair show in America, it's not technically impossible what Hannity is saying. Right. But understand the implication of what Hannity is saying. Hannity's saying he's taking a bunch of papers that are not actually classified documents. And he's telling the people that he's talking to, the biographer, et cetera, I got these documents that Millie made of our invasion plans of Iran. Okay, here they are, here they are. But they're not actually those documents.

In other words, Hannity is saying, well, you know, Trump's a well-known liar. So you could have just been lying about what was in the documents that he was waving around. Interesting. Then today, a newsmanx anchor doubles down and goes, you know, you know how Trump is. And what do you say here? I'll give you the exact quote. He said, just because Trump said it, quote, doesn't make it true. I like how Trump being a liar is what.

what's cited as a possible cover, right? Or defense for Trump, it's amazing. They all know he's a liar. And in this case, that's a really good thing. Yeah, no, no, this is their last stand. This is Custer's last stand, right? They're like, okay, we're out of all excuses. What can we do?

Because Trump said it with his own mouth, the freaking idiot. What are we gonna do? Oh, I know, everybody knows Trump's a liar. We'll use the Trump's a liar defense. But he's not lying now when he's in legal trouble. He was lying earlier to brag or whatever. So, but it ain't gonna work guys that that kind of stuff does not work in a court of law. So world of trouble, he's definitely guilty if he was a normal person for sure going away for maybe decades, right?

So under this situation, as I said earlier in today's show, either a juror or a judge or a politician has to let him off the hook. Otherwise, he might literally go to prison. I wouldn't hold my breath in regard to Trump ever going to prison. I'm just, I think it's important to keep our expectations tethered to reality. Oh, 100%. And I'm not saying that because I think people who tend to be powerful, who tend to be well-connected, shouldn't face the similar consequences that anyone else would face. I actually think that the two-tier justice system we're dealing with here is pretty gross.

But the reality is people who were former politicians, former presidents, usually get away with their crimes. Yeah, so look, the establishment, whether the Democrats, Republicans, media, donors, et cetera, they want Trump out of politics. Let's keep it real. Both things can be true at the same time. They want him out of politics, and he's a liar and a criminal, right? So, and they're using the fact that he's a liar and a criminal to get him out of politics. But do they want him to actually go to jail? No. They don't want anybody powerful to actually go to jail because, like I said, a bad precedent.

because they're powerful, right? So those are the conflicting interests. That's why we're all skeptical that Donald Trump's ever going to spend a day in jail. But if the jury convicts him, what are they going to do? Just be like, no, the law doesn't apply? No, if a jury convicts you, you've got to go to jail. Community service, restorative justice. It's possible, it's possible the judge could do anything.

There's appeals, there's a lot of things. And that's why we're all skeptical that he's going to go to prison. But this is as guilty as I have ever seen anyone because even the right wing is this close to admitting he definitely did it. I thought was fascinating and I want to reset for it because Steve Ducey pushed a theory that might have some truth to it considering how buffoonish Trump tends to be when it comes to these situations. So now that CNN has published leaked audio featuring Donald Trump incriminating himself and making it clear that he has classified documents, that he could have declassified

his president but could no longer declassify since he's no longer in office. Some are wondering how that leaked audio went out in the first place. Where did it come from? Who leaked it? And Steve Ducey over at Fox News has a fascinating theory to say the least. Let's watch. Trump posted on true social. The deranged special prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ and FBI illegally leaked and spun a tape and transcript of me, which is actually an exoneration. So you know what? If Trump thinks it's an exoneration of him, perhaps somebody on his side actually did leaking to CNN and Maggie Haberman. Trump's lawyers actually knew about this tape since March when one of Trump's aides, a woman

by the name of Margo Martin, was asked about it during an appearance before the grand jury, and then the government subpoenaed her copy of the tapes. So the tapes are floating around on the Trump side. We don't know exactly where it came from. So this might sound outlandish and crazy, except Trump did specify that he feels that leaked audio exonerates him. And honestly, this reminds me of when Trump was being impeached the first time after withholding congressionally appropriated military funding to Ukraine in an effort to engage in a quid pro quo and get Zelensky, Vladimir Zelensky, to announce, some sham investigation into Trump's political opponent, Joe Biden.

He claimed, you know, there was no quid pro quo. He released the transcript of the phone call he had with Vladimir Zelensky. He's like, it was the perfect call. So is it farfetched that Trump would leak this himself or someone on his team would leak this themselves in an effort to exonerate him? I don't think it's that far fetched. And remember, after CNN broke this story, he was asked about it by a Fox News reporter. And here's how he reacted to us all hearing what he did and incriminating himself

in that audio. You're not concerned then with your own voice on those on those recordings. My voice was fine. What did I say wrong of those recordings? I didn't even see the recording. All I know is I did nothing wrong. We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers stacked up. In fact, you could hear the rustle of the paper. And nobody said I did anything wrong other than the fake news, which of course is Fox too. Are there any other recordings that we should be concerned of? I don't know of any recordings that you should be concerned with because I don't do things wrong. I do things right.

I'm a legitimate person. He's a legitimate person, Jake. Do you think there's a possibility he leaked this himself? Oh, totally. So I think that's a really good theory by Steve Ducey. Look at that, agreeing with a Fox News host. So there's excellent evidence that the source for Maggie Haberman, generally speaking throughout Trump's administration was Donald J. Trump.

Oh my God, that is not something that speaks well of Maggie Haberman. Well, I mean, look, honestly, you take any mainstream media reporter and the president is leaking information to them, they're gonna take it. 100% of them will take it and will not tell you that it's Trump and will then put it in a slightly favorable light to Trump, okay? But that's the deal. But Maggie Haberman's reporting was not favorable toward Trump. No, no, no, it's actually if you read some of the analysis of it, yeah, the stuff

is damaging because Trump is leaking damaging things about himself, right? That's true, yeah. But she puts it in a light that's slightly favorable, okay? And by the way, if you don't know that, it's not throwing Maggie Haberman under a bus. Almost every reporter in mainstream media does that. So be careful what you read, they give special favors. to the people who gave them the quotes and the information and the leaks, and they frame it positive to them, okay? That's a very well-known part of media coverage, which is, by the way, gross, and they never clarify that.

All right, anyways, so on back to this, Maggie Haberm is one of the people who had this leak, thereby, you know, leading you to think maybe it was Trump. And so now, why does he do it? Why does he leak against himself? That's so weird, right? Number one, he believes that there is no such thing as bad press. That as long as you're dominating the media cycle, you're winning. Even at this late date, with all the atrocities and the criminal actions and the insanity, he's leading by 30 points in the Republican primary. So are you sure he's wrong about that? I'm not so sure he's wrong about that.

Okay, and so DeSantis isn't in the news, Chris Christie, nobody else is in the news but Trump, because he's leaking his own stuff. Number two, this is actually a well-known strategy, not just for Trump, but in all of politics, you leak something ahead of time to get ahead of the story, right? And you frame it in the way that you want. If someone else leaks it, they frame it in a way against you. If you leak it, you frame it in the most positive way that you can, and your compliant reporter goes along with that, okay? And then there's other possible reasons.

He's nuts, and that's why he's giving stuff that's against. him, but he thinks it's great. Like one of the things that he is, like he thinks exonerates him is, well, we're joking around and it's a friendly conversation. How could I be giving classified information in a friendly conversation? Come on, man. But I know, but guys, a lot of people believe the things he says, no matter how absurd. And they'll hear that tape and they'll hear people laughing and snickering and shuffling of the papers. And they'll say, oh, just like he said, There was a shuffling of the papers and everybody's being friendly. Oh, come on, that can't be so bad.

So that's what he's doing right now. And the last part of it is he doesn't, he's never won in court ever. Trump University, Trump charities, the taxes, he always pays the fine. Election. Yeah, the election, 60 court cases didn't present one piece of evidence. He can't win in court because he's a pathological liar. So he always tries to win in the court of public opinion. And if you leak first and then you attack and you go, perfect call, perfect call, exoneration, rustling of papers, friendly, and you repeat it 2,000 times maniacally.

I'm a legitimate person. I'm a legitimate person. I'm a legitimate person. It works. For at least 30% of this country, that tactic is stunningly effective. So I think Ducey's on is something. Well, while Trump remains a target rich environment for anyone who wants to run against him in the Republican presidential primary. Ron DeSantis loves to pull his punches. We have one of the most outrageous examples of that when we come back from the break. Back on the Young Turks, Jane Canana with you guys. You know you all could become members by hitting the join button below.

You power our honest reporting, which we appreciate. You'd also do it at t.yt.com slash join. Athletes LLC, American heroes, gifted 20 young Turks members. Jeez. And Bruce Salasar gifted five. You guys are amazing. And thank you for standing up for the rest of the community and providing for them as well.

We really appreciate it. All right, what's next, Anna? Well, Ron DeSantis, pulling punches, yet again. yet again. Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power? I wasn't anywhere near Washington that day. I have nothing to do with what happened that day. Obviously, I didn't enjoy seeing, you know, what would happen.

Imagine being so terrified of Donald Trump that you pretend as though you need to be in the nation's capital on January 6th to acknowledge that there was. a massive pro-Trump riot with an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Obviously, Ron DeSantis knows what we all know, that there was not a peaceful transfer of power. And how do we know that? Even though we weren't there ourselves in Washington, D.C. at the time. I don't know, maybe because there's a lot of documentation of it, including this.

Multiple capital injuries. Multiple capital injuries. Oh my god. So now that we got that out of the way. So now that we got that out of the way, let's watch DeSantis's statement. in full context. Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power, a key principle that of American democracy that we must uphold?

Are you in high school? Yeah. Where do you go to school? You go around here? Vermont. I live in New Hampshire. Oh, okay. So you're from Vermont.

Well, thank you for the question. So here's what I know. If this election is about Biden's failures and our vision for the future, we are going to win. If it's about relitigating things that happened two, three years ago, we're going to lose. And so I can tell you this. I can point you to Tallahassee, Florida on, I believe, January 5th, 2023, we had a transition of power from my first administration to my second because I won re-election in a historic fashion. And at the end of the day, you know, we need to win and we need to get this done. So I wasn't anywhere near Washington that day. I have nothing to do with what happened

that day. Obviously, I didn't enjoy seeing what would happen. But we've got to go forward on this stuff. We cannot be looking backwards and be mired in the past. Ladies and gentlemen, get that soft churned butter ready because DeSantis is toast. I mean, this guy is so pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. I'll tell you the core of it. Look, it's easy to focus on I was in Washington. because you don't have eyes and you can't tell what happened on that tape, et cetera. But that's not the main thing. The main thing is he gives political answers that are rehearsed. Like he talks to his consultants behind the scenes about how do we frame this?

How do I say it in a way that doesn't upset MAGA, but that still makes our case. All right, we're going to make our case by saying although like insurrections are kind of, They're a little awkward, little, you know, uncomfortable, but like, hey, I'm not blaming you guys. That was wonderful, great job, et cetera. Some people say. Some people say, but we want to focus on winning. We want to focus on the future. These are buzzwords that your consultants go through with you, right?

But what happens at the end of that process is you look like a plastic robot. 100%. And look, in the context of robot politicians being obsessed with. framing things and like these, like, honestly, snake-like ways. Yeah, that was clunky as hell. Yeah, but they're all clunky. That's why, I mean, you watch Tim Scott, Mike Pence, they're, Nikki Haley, they're all a disaster. They're all Ken and Barbie dolls.

And by the way, that's why the Republican voters picked Trump in the first place all the way back in 2016. Because they were tired of the phonies. Right. And they're both parties are filled to the room with phonies. The Democrats might have even more phonies. And whether you like some of their policies or not, all those politicians on the Democratic side are like, I am giving you the talking points, my corporate donors and consultants gave me, right? And people are vomiting it. They hate it, right? So that's why I keep saying, I think the only other guy who has a chance at the Republican side is Chris Christie, because he doesn't sound like a robot. He sounds like a real person. And he's willing to piss off MAGA. So that's a huge detriment in the beginning. But by the end, my theory is he'll earn their respect. by not being a phony. You know, I'm interested to see how that plays out because Chris Christie right now

seems to be dead last in the polling, right? And he's continuing to attack Trump very aggressively. He does not pull back any punches. And so if things continue the way they're going and Christy remains dead last, it will reinforce the notion that these Republican candidates challenging Trump should avoid attacking Trump and upsetting the MAGA base. But we'll see how it all plays out. I'm really curious to see if you're correct.

Yeah, look, I honestly have a pretty good track record on this. When Bill de Blasio was in fourth place when he was first running for mayor of New York, I said I think he's going to win because it's about, and I thought Trump was going to win in 2016, I thought Bernie was going to make a historic run. Why? Because it isn't about where you are in the polling today. It's about the fundamentals. Are you doing things right or are you doing things wrong?

And so when everybody was saying Marco Rubio or Jeff Bush was going to win in 2016, I sense that the Republicans were even more populous than the Democrats were, the voters themselves, right? So when Marco Rubio comes in like this, they're like, no interest, no interest. That's why everyone on TV loved them because they love phonies, because they're phonies, and that's why all the voters hated them. And so bottom line is when they see Rhonda Santos doing this, it's not going to work, man. And remember, Trump might actually get knocked out by the indictments. I mean, these trials are going to be no joke, right?

And if he gets knocked out, then Christy's going to make a huge run on DeSantis. I have a feeling DeSantis is just trying to keep his powder dry and avoid upsetting the MAGA base with the hope that Trump does end up getting convicted in the classified documents base. No, no, there's not a hope and it's not a possibility. that's definitely a strategy, okay? But how long are you going to keep your power dry? Listen, we've done that drug, DeSantis. Okay, we've been on that drug and I will tell you it is not a good drug to be on.

You will be disappointed if you have full faith in our justice system when it comes to prosecuting potential criminals like Donald Trump. Well, that's point number one. And point number two is the Democratic Party's slogan might as well be, keep our powder dry. And how has that worked out for us? We look to buffoons like Trump, because all you do is you always keep your or try, well then nobody ever finds out your own position and you never make a strong case for

yourself and the other side wins. And let me just remind you all that while DeSantis seems to shiver anytime anyone asks him about Donald Trump because he wants to avoid attacking him, Trump does not pullback punches himself. I just want to give you one of my favorite examples, which was Trump attacking DeSantis over his eating habits. Let's watch. Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don't belong. And we're not just talking about pudding. DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements. Like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security,

even raising our retirement age. Tell Ron DeSantis to keep his pudding fingers off our money. Oh, and get this man a spoon. Make America Great Again, Inc. is responsible for the content of this advertising. That is a perfect political ad. Look, as much as I dislike Donald Trump, that ad attacking Ron DeSantis was perfect because it evokes disgust with that guy putting his, oh, it makes me nauseous just watch it, please stop doing it.

And then on top of that, there's the substantive point and economic populist point in regard to DeSantis wanting to gut Social Security. Yeah. So it was well done. I'm just going to keep it real with you all. That was a great ad. And by the way, so discusses the number one thing that triggers conservative mind, even more so than fear.

So whoever's doing that ad for Trump hit it exactly right. Number two, it shows strength. I'm going to punch you in the mouth and see how you like it. And Democratic voters, a lot of them don't like that. They're like, no, NPR says don't punch your opponents, make sweet love to them, right? But Republicans love punching their opponents in the face. So they're going to like that. And then the last part of it is, look, guys, every, like, if you're listening to someone

in mainstream media, they have a 90% chance of being wrong. Because people in mainstream media, look at that and go, that is not a professional ad. That, you know, that test, tis, that's uncivil, it's weird. Why do they have that imagery? It doesn't talk about any of the substantive issues that the New York Times is talking about, et cetera. No, they have no connection to actual human beings because people in corporate media haven't hung out with a regular person in decades. So they just cannot sense where the population is. So in terms of just sheer politics,

Trump is way, way, way better than DeSantis. Trump's problem is that he's a lifelong criminal, a complete con man, and a pathological liar. So those are Like the fact that he has overcome those to already be president once and is leading by 20 to 30 points currently in the Republican primary shows you how good a politician he is. Yeah, it's pretty devastating. We got to take a break. But when we come back for the second hour of the show, we actually have some good news coming out of the Supreme Court of the United States. We'll tell you what it is. Stick around.

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.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.