The Young Turks - Donald's Going Away Party

Episode Date: January 16, 2021

NRA's Fake Bankruptcy; My Pillow Guy & Martial Law; At his request, Trump aides are putting together a farewell crowd for the day he leaves office. 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. TRI-T, T-M-R-T, T-Y-T, T-Y-T, T-Y-T, T-I-T, T-Y-T. Hello, and welcome to the Friday edition of the Young Turks. I'm John Aurola, bringing a power panel to you, and it is the most online power panel that I can remember, because we're not only joined by the host of Deep Dive, the Twitch-exclusive T-YT show, Jordan Uel. Jordan, very glad to have you here.

Thanks, Jeremy. We also have investigative reporter for The Intercept, Kenneth Clippenstein himself. Ken, how's it going? I'm hanging in there. Good to be with you guys. Glad to have you both here. I've had both of you on my show The Damage Report, I don't know, 85 times, but never together. I don't know what's going to happen. I really don't. Unstable concoction, we'll find out. Well, we're going to see. But thank you for joining us. We not only have an awesome rundown prepared for for this first hour. We're going to be talking about some of the breaking news, including things like

the NRA apparently going poof. We've got the my pillow guy. We've got just a lot, basically. The current state of mind of Donald Trump that's not directly attached to people who sell pillows online. We've got a little bit of an update of where some of that money in the CARES package ended up going, so a lot. And also some truly vile attacks against Representative Alexander Acosta Cortez. That's just the first hour. In the second hour, though, you can expect Anna Kasparian is going to be there with a whole other hour of awesome news, joined by Malika Jabali and Lance of the Surf. So two great hours of news coming up. If you haven't already, please like the video regardless of what platform you're on. And with that, why don't we

launch into some news? Big news of the day, not a lot of people I think were really expecting this, the NRA putting out a statement that they are declaring bankruptcy, but not necessarily going away, or at least the way they say it. They said Friday that they had filed for bankruptcy in U.S. court as part of a larger restructuring plan aimed at removing its footprint in New York, bound for Texas. They say that they would restructure as a Texas nonprofit to exit what it said was a, quote, corrupt political and regulatory environment in New York, which I think is quoting Trump. But anyway, they don't like it. That's currently where it's registered. And they say, we are dumping New York and we are pursuing plans to reincorporate the NRA in Texas. That's

what Wayne LaPierre said. Hey, he's still alive. So anyway, we've got some a little bit of speculation about why this is happening. We can certainly talk about what's going to end up happening with the NRA, but they really slid in some big dues on a Friday afternoon there. Yeah, it seems like this is the kind of bankruptcy that is what the airports seem to go through every 10 years or so and maybe not the type of bankruptcy that ordinary people undergo that has some kind of lasting effect, unfortunately. I can't imagine them disappearing. Yeah.

Jordan, what do you think? They're not going anywhere. I mean, it's not, they're just, I think the initial reaction to the headline, people were ecstatic, but it's ultimately to circumvent prosecution or investigation from Leticia James. And sure, Texas is a much more hospitable environment. Like Greg Abbott is never going to come after the NRA. Future Republican officials at the state level in Texas are never going to come after

the NRA. So it certainly seems just purely designed to just avoid Lettisha. James. Yeah, and if people don't remember, this isn't even that many months ago. We've just had this whole, you know, like attempted coup thing in the meantime. But yeah, the AG for New York was looking into the possibility that they had, you know, to basically take your pick of whatever corrupt use of their funds, you know, using it for their own personal expenses, giving contracts to blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. The surprising thing is that they had lasted as long as they did. I would imagine they would want it that wanted that protection earlier. I guess they slid

by on the fact that up until very recently, there weren't that many Democrats who were really willing to hold them accountable either, let alone the Republicans. I'm not a legal expert. And I assume maybe it's different because these are financial crimes. But if there, is it this easy to just shut down all the investigations? You just, you say that you're gone and then you're over there, but it's the same people, the same board, the same name, the same employees, is that actually going to work? They don't behave as though they're under an abundance of caution here. I mean, didn't they just appoint Ollie North director?

I mean, it feels like a million years ago, but that was, this is not the conduct you see an agency or organization engaging if they have any sort of fear of retribution or accountability, I think. Yeah, I mean, this is, this is behavior you'd see from a, organization or entity that is flaunting its status. They know they're pretty much outside the purview of any regulatory agency, certainly in this federal administration, but certainly in Texas. So if they were to go there, reincorporate, do whatever, they're going to be safe there. But it highlights a system that we have just like come to begrudgingly accept

where the most powerful influential entities in the country just have no punishment. No repercussions for bad behavior, for protecting industries that have led to untold violence in society. When you have so much blood on your hands and you are this brazen in your disregard for any accountability, I think it says a lot about the underlying effects, the underlying society that it rests upon. Yeah. Yeah. And the interesting thing was over the past couple of years, there were, every once in a while, stories would pop up that seemed to indicate that they were having monetary problems, which always seemed so surprising considering how many millions of Americans are members. They were obviously much more so, I believe, in 2016 and the 2020, big political donors and all of that. I think that's

one of the things that in the end caused a problem. I mean, they're registered as a charity, but they're clearly making tons of money. They have their own media thing. They're funding political campaigns. And there were questions about where some of their funding was actually coming from. So if the move does end up stopping these investigations, I mean, obviously the biggest issue with that is the loss of accountability, the loss of justice. But even just the loss of answers, really finding out what has actually been going on there in the past few years, it seems like maybe we're not going to get at any of that information, which Which also, like I forget which of it was of you that said it, but I know a lot of people

greeted this initial breaking news as they're shutting down, but that's actually it, even though in the initial, the press release that they put out, they're saying that they're in their best financial position for a really long time, which is sure, it could be lying, they're liars, but it doesn't necessarily look like that's imminently going to be happening. No, unfortunately, this is, you know, they just ultimately represent the gun manufacturer or lobby. They are, it is a, it is going to be a lobbyist organization and a lobbyist group disguised as a non-profit. They have a thin veneer of, of advocacy on behalf of gun rights, but ultimately it is to defend a for-profit industry, an industry that is led to just, again,

untold deaths and blood on their hands. So this is, it's, they're not going anywhere, sadly as much as I wish they would. Yeah. Well, with that, why don't we jump to the other big breaking news of the day, so notice the director of my job ahead just a little bit. Donald Trump has lost a lot of friends over the years and especially recently. And we're going to talk more about some of his frustration with his former loyal comrades a little bit later on. He does still have one guy that he likes to hang out with from time to time. And so literally in one of his last days as president, he had a meeting with the CEO of My Pillow. They sell pillows. It's Michael Lindell. And you can see here a photo of him leaving from his

meeting with the president. And the interesting thing about that photo, first of all is the president's meeting with the CEO of my pillow. But the second thing is that you can see his notes there. And you know that that building is being watched by only about a billion cameras. And some of them have telephoto lenses on them. So yeah, someone got a close up shot of his notes. And I don't know, especially if you're on mobile, I apologize, you're probably not going to be able to read that. And it is cut off. You can only see about half of it. But even in just that half, there are references to national security, the Insurrection Act, Fort Mead, Sydney Powell, foreign interference, China and Iran, domestic actors. Let's see, we've got the word evidence there, election issues, cyber crimes, and martial law. And so, like, I'm not necessarily the best at, you know, fill in it. the blanks, but I think I have an idea of what the other half of that is. And it's not good that the guy who wants to reassure everyone, no, you don't have to convict me in the Senate. I'm all about that peaceful transfer of power. Like a week plus after the insurrection

is meeting with a guy who seems to be pushing him to potentially declare martial law. We don't know, again, we don't know for sure, we don't know how he was greeted, even if that's what he was coming to say. But Jordan Ken, what do you think about this last my picture? pillow Hail Mary of the Trump presidency? Well, I'm glad for one that the president has critical faculties to push back against what people are saying, and not just kind of by osmosis, just absorb ideas and his thought processes that they're hearing bounced off of them by whoever happens to be in the room at a time. I just want to say, doesn't the My Pillow push of 2021 sound like some kind of

gag joke that we would say on Twitter or something like a year ago? And now here we are. Yeah, this isn't the first time that we've had some hyper-partisan actor come into the White House or leave the White House with their notes on full display. We were just talking before the show, but like stories that seemed significant at the time but are now fleeting. Like Chris Kobach went into the White House when he was trying to become a cabinet official or appointee with a list of notes about caravans and voter ID laws and all these different types of voter suppression measures. So here we are again, but this time the consequences are much more significant because it's ultimately anti-democratic and poses a risk to our republic. But also, it's coming from a TV guy who is like one of basically the ballast of Fox News's primetime lineup because so many companies have fled that advertising space. So he is like subsidizing what has ultimately radicalized so many boomers

across the country. It's hard to overstate just how influential Mike Lindell is from a television audience to the president himself. This is like the Forrest Gump of politics right now. Now, but that, no, go on, Ken. And a crackhead before all that, which I want to say, I wanted to like him when I heard about his background, you know what I mean? He's a letdown to see that this is who we get. It's just another, you know, kind of seemingly corrupt businessman with a kind of comeback kid's story. But here we are. One does have to wonder, he gained all of this power.

and influence because he's one of the businesses that will still advertise on Fox News. Many won't because of, you know, leftist pushing these advertisers away. Did we create this monster by advocating for advertisers to flee Fox News? We gave him power by eliminating all of his opponents. So this is my fault. I didn't want to say specifically, but it's mainly you. Yeah, you know, I want to say, we were just talking about the NRA, and I mean, I don't know, it looks like Jordan operates with some impunity on social media, kind of fear he looks up, and now we've got this guy. I don't say anyone asking any questions. I'm sorry. Come on. So now here's the thing. We've got the my pillow guy and reason to believe

that he's talking to the president with only a few days left of his presidency about declaring martial law. So look, just on its own, that's worrisome, you know, when you put it, just a few days after a violent mob that briefly took over the Capitol, that's worse. But from what I've been reading, some of the specifics in here track with a lot of what the relatively even crazier Q&N people are talking about, like invoking the Insurrection Act and stuff like that. That's a thing that they've been focusing on in the last week. And so this guy isn't necessarily just involved hypothetically in funding the radicalization of conservatives via Fox News. He seems, based on the evidence, we don't know for sure,

to be absorbing some of that more online, you know, even crazier than 4chan type radicalization as well. Yeah, and that's especially troubling. I mean, we've seen a spike in that in general over the past several months because people have been cooped up at home, spending more time on their phones or online. And because we have these opaque proprietary algorithms that feed people information and are basically incentivized to feed people more and more radical information, it's led to this mass just brainwashing of millions of Americans that ultimately culminated in a substantial chunk

of America looking at what happened last Wednesday, a scenario where thousands of people stormed the Capitol, shattered windows, beat someone to death with a flagpole with an American flag on it, and wanted to essentially overturn the results of an election where a significant chunk of Americans saw that and thought, that's fine. Let's reelect the guy who inspired this. They don't care. Because they think there's this nefarious cabal behind all these types of things. I can't overstate just how disgusting these social media platforms are and these algorithms are. And then their effects, the corrosive terminal effects on society. It's really disheartening. Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird that we, when the social media platform finally says,

okay, I'm done with this thing. Whether the thing is, you know, anti-vax rhetoric or Q&N or Trump on Twitter, like it often feels like we have this conversation about them being blocked on it. But the entire period before that, it wasn't like a neutral, like just neutral territory. As you said, these algorithms are actively pushing people to these things, even in the midst of campaigns where they say they're not. I mean, I had a reporter on to talk about Instagram apparently cracking down on anti-vax information during the COVID-vax rollout. But it was still incredibly easy that if you searched for one anti-vax thing, you just got more and more pushed at you. So like this QAnon stuff, like a lot of platforms are taking it more seriously, but we have years now where they have been trying to get people to watch more and more radical content in those areas.

And I kind of feel like it's reached this point where it's involved in Trump's final days. In any event, unless you had anything else, that's the big breaking news of the day. But we do have a lot of the other news that we want to get to. So we're going to take a short break, but stick around because after this, much more to come. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated.

to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational,

aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training, or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained

all at the same time. Thank you. So, I'm going to be able to be. You know, I'm going to be able to be. Welcome, everyone. Let's see what's going on out there in the audience. Wanted to, first of all, welcome some of the new YouTube members. Brianna Caldwell, Damien Baca, Robert Brown, and Deshawn Sneed. Thank you so much for being members on YouTube. We also have some member comments, including Progressive Defender, who says,

can Kenny Clipson Jordan be in the same room? I feel like the internet is going to explode. Well, that's what happened to signal. You guys see whatever the signal? We were texting each other, and the whole thing just boom, you know. I think it was two weeks ago you both posted GIFs on Slack and it took down the entire network. Yep, I had it called CEL up, phone in a favor, but we got the job done. Okay, let's see. Someone who likes Bernie Sanders says, so there's a parallel universe where the president and the My Pillow guy didn't discuss declaring martial law because he forgot to put it in his notes. Oh, be sure to bring up starting martial law. You're not going to want to forget that.

Anyway, let's see. Okay, moving on to Super Chat, Ray Riley says this power panel really deserve to drop it. Yeah, I do miss that. At some point, it's going to come back. We'll see. India G says spent my day fact checking a piece about U.S. presidential pardons. So of course I am relaxing by watching you guys recap the news. I actually thought today would be the big pardon day that they'd sneak it in on a Friday.

But we still have two more full days. You guys think it's about, you think he's going to do it? Well, that's the most relatable thing about Trump is the way in which he puts everything off into the last minute. I can't help but identify with them in that way. Yeah, it'll come like Monday or Tuesday. Yeah, yeah. Imagine like he tries to do it like kind of late Wednesday. He doesn't realize he doesn't have the power.

But I was like, come on, just let me sit a little more. Yeah, right. Anyway. Can I get an extension? Totally. Okay, Tremovatici wants us to talk about news that gets you. Well, that's a deep dive thing. I can't finish that.

I can't finish that. So anyway, we're going to be back in just one sec. We got some more news for you. So, I'm going to be able to be. So, I'm going to be able to be. Welcome back everyone to the Young Turks with Ken Clippinsine and Jordan Yule. Glad to be on with you guys. We got some more news though.

Why don't we check in a little bit with Trump in these last days, the part of Trump that isn't meeting with Pillow CEOs anyway. Donald Trump's got just a couple of days left to be president, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have big plans. He wants to go out in his favorite style, people clapping for him. He's a simple man with simple pleasures. President Donald Trump's aides are putting together plans for him to enjoy the adoration of his supporters one last time before he leaves office on the day of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration. Trump reportedly expects a big spectacle with a crowd of his fans when he finally exits the White House for good. The president wants

to send off to be held military style, according to CNN. I always assumed his exit from the the White House would be done military style. But anyway, so he, I look, I get it. He wants to have a crowd of his fans to send him off. My question is, can he have a crowd of his fans like fans send him off? Because here's a map of D.C. right now. And what you're seeing in this map are the new green and red zones that have had to be set up by the tens of thousands of National Guard soldiers that are there. It is least. Literally, in D.C., there's a Baghdad-style green zone with National Guard checking people's reasons for entry. And the green zone, by the way, you can only go into for like local

business or whatever. The red zone is a no-go zone. So guys, I don't even know if he can have that exit that he wants because of the chaos that he wrought last week. John, I don't understand what you're complaining about. Are you suggesting that there's anything wrong with Iraq and things didn't turn out well? Because I heard they have a democracy there now. And as for whether or not his supporters will be able to send him off, you would have to look at the National Guard and see how many of them support him. Maybe they do, and it'll be fine then. I mean, it depends on which of his supporters he's talking about, whether it's law enforcement or the actual just

ordinary, ordinary civilians. It's almost too on the nose. Like he's leaving the way he came in. Presumably he would astro turf some sort of ceremony. Like he would pay people to perform as he did

when he started his campaign. He paid people to show up for his first rally as he descended the golden escalator and it's just like he's going in the way he came out, right? Or vice versa, right? He's going out the way he came in. And I think if you were to do it, it in D.C., that's the likely outcome because this is a city that 90-some percent voted for Biden, and in 2016, 92 percent voted for Hillary. There aren't a ton of native Trump supporters that live

here, other than maybe like the transient hill staffer. And I would imagine they've probably identified it's not the most prudent thing to glom onto him on his way out after everything that they endured last week. So he would have to ask for a turf some ceremony. That said, more than anything, I want them to give him a blank canvas, do whatever you want, sir, rip off the shirt, show the Superman logo, let's bring that idea back. Everything is on the table. I want to see Trump in his element on the way out, because it could only be, it just, it's comedy gold. This is a guy who is so in denial that that's what he inspired last week. He can't, he can't comprehend that he lost and that his life has severely diminished because of how vile he was for

year. So let go. Go do what you want. Please. You are the creative director, Trump. It's like it's like a pet dog who's, you know, final week before you're putting him down. You just go crazy. Have whatever you want. Treats every day. But I don't know if I saw this, but yeah, I don't think I saw this, but Lindsay Graham had, he was, he was counting a schedule he had for Trump in the last few days. I wonder part of this is a sort of, you know, if we keep them busy with this sort of stuff, then maybe hopefully he won't do something worse. Because was talking about, I had a whole itinerary for the president. We're going to keep him busy, McConnell. You don't have to worry about him going off the rails like he did last week. So this

might just be them trying to keep them occupied in the final moments, you know. Maybe in event planning. That's possible. And the image we've sketched and the one that seems more likely is that this would happen at the White House. But apparently they're considering Palm Beach International Airport in Florida to like greet him in Florida once he gets there. Trump is apparently on happy with the idea of having to ask Biden for permission to use Air Force One for his departure. Just love that. He never calls him to concede, but he calls him to ask if he can use the plane. It's a weird break from his traditional branding. Like he needs, he's pivoting back into private life where he's going to presumably try to use his name and most recent time in the White House

as leverage for new business developments. Why wouldn't you want to fly in on the Trump branded plain. Like it just doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Yeah, the thing that doesn't make much sense to me, and not because it's not somewhat consistent with the way he's approached being president, but whether he thinks that he won or not, and it seems like he really does believe it, it seems like, or at least he's saying it so much to try to believe it.

He does seem to have accepted that he's leaving unless his plot with the pillow guy works. But assuming the plot with the pillow guy doesn't work, he's going to go. So he's got less than a week to be president. And I don't know if you guys saw it, but his last two itineraries, whatever Graham says, fine. But the official one that's put out that he apparently dictated was Donald Trump will work from very early until very late. And he will have many calls and he will do many meetings. That's literally what his schedule was. So he's watching TV. But really. And look, I know many people watching this are probably like,

They like to laugh about how he doesn't do anything. And that is 100% true. That's been most of my life for four years. But he's president still. He's not going to be president in a week. And he apparently has nothing that he wants to do with it. No last like dips into the national classified archives to find out secret stuff about aliens or nothing. Like he he wants to be president so bad that he came that close to like a violent. an overthrow of our government, but he doesn't want to be president. He just wants to not not be president, it seems like. Well, like I was saying before, this is something that makes me want to like him because this is, it's like the office space thing. What would you do if you can do anything? It's just nothing. I'd want to do absolutely nothing for an entire week. And that's what he is. That's right. That's sad. I'm like fine with it. And I I, as we laugh, and I doubt he's watching this. But like everyone around him, I hope is just kind of encouraging this behavior.

You're really busy, sir. Because of the same time, Pompeo is running around with like the head of Mossad. Right. It's like very clearly planning an attack of Iran. Like keep him to distract him. Keep him watching TV. Please, we do not need a war with Iran. Yeah.

Yeah. Can you imagine if they launched it in the last few days? We got lucky early this year. That's like one of the few silver linings of the pandemic is that, it lowered the tensions between the US and Iran because people forget that like this last year wasn't just the pandemic. It was the impeachment. And it was also became that close to war. Everybody seems to have moved on. Anyway, let's talk about other people moving on. It's not just Donald Trump that's leaving the White House. His family is to, and what is going to

become of them? Because it turns out, it is just now dawning on people like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump that having been affiliated with the guy who tried to overthrow the government might not necessarily be great for their future coastal plans. Sources apparently tell Sina and White House correspondent Kate Bennett that both Ivanka and husband Jared Kushner are worried about what they're going to do next because last week's riots have provided horrific images that will follow them wherever they go. That is Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump had a bit of a panic as they look into their future, she says. I talk to a lot of sources today who say they're questioning everything now from where

they're going to live after the White House to what their careers will be. And talk about waiting until the last minute to question everything. You thought that it was a good plan to work in the White House for almost half a decade. And like they're worried now about those images, but they were there for the whole thing. They weren't, they didn't come in at the end. They've been there since the beginning. And so I'm actually of two minds about how much it will actually hurt Ivanka Trump politically. Socially, they're probably toast, at least in New York, I would assume. Yeah. It had it not been though for Wednesday's events for the violent imagery we saw and this is like angry frothing mob trying to break their way into the Capitol, they probably

would have been fine. And it's only because the power of like video and then in those images that they're now not there. As you say, they were fine as Trump deliberately and his administration deliberately deliberately separated kids from their parents as they sought to take health care care away from millions of people that would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of people dying from lack of insurance. This is a purely disgusting, vicious, vindictive, and violent administration outside of national television cameras. But only because we now have those images, are people going to separate themselves from that family? They had no problem in the run-up to that. And I think it's it's just a disconnect for a lot of people and especially wealthy

people who would be completely insulated from any consequences to those decisions. Yeah. Now, my question for you though is I know that, you know, I don't know when she says that she has political aspirations, I don't know exactly what that's supposed to mean. I don't know if she thought like Don Jr. clearly does that they're going to run for president or something. And she seems like a pretty bad fit for the Republican Party. And she doesn't seem like a natural, she doesn't have the Trump thing, whatever that is. Like I know there's some people who are like, oh, he's got charisma or whatever. I don't think that she has that. But in theory, if she would run for, you know, Marco Rubio's seat or something like that, in a red

state, is the affiliation with Trump really going to hurt that much? I get that nationally it's a bad brand. But in a Republican state, I don't know that it's necessarily going to hurt especially after a cooling off period where people are looking at the Trump administration more holistically and rather than focused, you know, naturally on the violence that just happened. What do you think? Well, I think that's one of the most delicious aspects of the Trump family is how they resemble, it's almost like Jerry Falwell's son, where they just have none of the quality

skills that Trump, I mean, they, you know, seem as, you know, morally repugnant as Trump, But they don't actually have any of the skills that he does. And so they're sort of tethered to him because once he goes down, like you said, they don't have the, you know, people say it's charisma. I think it's clear as it's a sort of negative charisma. They don't have any kind. And so we're going to see them sort of flay on it. Can you imagine what Trump Jr. also is going to have to do? I mean, these guys, they probably haven't worked a real job in their entire life.

So that's sort of amusing to me to see how they're going to have to chart this. Because I mean, Trump is quite old too. They'll have to figure it out sooner or later. But I do think it'll be hard for them in the kind of blue state. that they come from. Yeah, I think perhaps politically, I think in terms of jobs, I am confident that they will not have to ever have a job. I think that we can debate about how rich they actually are.

I think they're rich enough to not work, basically. Yeah, I mean, Avonk is probably going to be the most stable. And maybe Eric, to an extent the one who's really going to struggle is Don Jr., because he's clearly the dumbest of the bunch. And he's really, like, gone all in on this like, oh, did I trigger the libs type? like worldview, where Eric and Ivanka always have a much more serious tone. And, you know, Eric's wife, Lana, is considering running for Senate and I think South Carolina. And Ivanka and Jared, you know, Jared's got a portfolio of business properties and other

endeavors and comes from a business and real estate family. They'll be fine. The one who's really going to flounder is Don Jr. So it's going to be a series of, I'm sure, like, like attempts to recreate barstool sports, but even somehow more racist, and just a bunch of like lowbrow books called, oh, did I trigger you? And like a hundred ways to trigger the lips. Like that's his oops I triggered again. He's like, it's a good one. He's like the Spencer's gifts of politicians. Just this shock junk garbage. It's like, dude, you're like 45 grow up. Man. Seriously, totally expensive. Okay, sort of related to this, we were gonna go through some different polling about how much

the brain has been hurt, but I'm gonna jump to that last one, just because it's hidden in here is just a little bit of maybe good information, I don't know. In terms of how much it's really hurt them for the Republicans, at least for Trump himself. Let's go to this 20, nothing says fun like looking ahead to the 2024 Republican primary, but I swear there's something here. So let's bring this up and obviously right now, Trump is still number- 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.

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Pence, you know, the guy he was willing to have murdered is in number two. So that's going to be a fun debate. Trump Jr. is in third, but it's 6%. But do you know what I think is most interesting on there? I don't know if you can even read these, but the most fun number on that entire thing. And it's not Hogan at zero. Josh Hawley is at 1%. Yeah.

He just stood with Trump, like he was the guy. Cruz and him were the guys. The two guys in the Senate that did the most like, hey, you know, end democracy, all that. The fun stuff, they're at 7% combined. They better hope that Trump gets banned. The polling that came out today was astonishing. You're kind of seeing the number shakeout. There's been some variation, I think, as people decide what they believe.

And it looks like a majority of Republicans approve of what happened. I mean, it wasn't an overwhelming majority. I think it was something maybe like 55 or 60%. But clearly, you know, maybe this hurt him, but it's not going to, I don't think it's going to be this sort of, you know, just complete end for Trumpism. There's clearly still a constituency for that kind of stuff. Well, the thing that's so weird about that is why would so many Republicans be so supportive of Antifa sacking the capital?

I don't get why. what do they have to do with it? What dog is in the fight for them? The whole thing is such nonsense. It's like a quantum state where for some of that they're both anti-fah in disguise a sack in the capital, but then for the ones you like him, he's not anita. And they kind of go back and forth. So it's a very complicated scientific property there. Well, it's a perfect example of that. Obviously the people who don't want to reconcile with the fact that people who agree with them politically beat cops to death say that those people were actually Antifa. The guy who got arrested for beating the cop at the flagpole says, no, no,

no, I didn't think I was fighting a cop. I thought I was beating Antifa. And that seems like the most Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man thing. Right, right. Like, who isn't Antifa in this entire city right now? Anyway, okay. Sorry, Jordan, continue. Oh, I was going to go back to the polling, but if you want to move on. No, no, no, no, no. If you have thoughts about the polling, let's do it. Sure. I mean, I think the Trump number also reflects, like, recency bias and a general sentiment that people just aren't over the results of the election. So I think that's something to consider when we look at that. It just seems like it could be an outlier and certainly polling will change, a public opinion will change in four years. Another factor is how Republicans are going to see impeachment. And certainly they're not going to look at it as a process to exercise.

judgment and act on their conscience. That's never going to be that with Republicans. It's going to be how do we control power and how do we share? Who do we delegate to and that kind of stuff? It's in everybody in the Senate's best interest to convict Trump because it consolidates power behind McConnell. I think you and I talked about that on a damage report on Tuesday. McConnell could become the singularly most powerful Republican in the country if they vote to convict Trump. It opens up the door for Holly. It opens up the door for Cruz. If they do not convict him, all of their 2024 hopes get dashed, or at least significantly and negatively impacted. So if you're looking at it from a pure, like cynical political play,

they're going to vote to convict him. They will turn around and be like, oh, we did this out of the we're so conflicted. This is our acting on our conscience. Today McConnell told the press, this is a vote about on your conscience. That's how they're framing it because then, you know, just hapless, hapless liberals will see that and be like, oh, okay, well, I guess, thank you, Mitch McConnell. I'm proud, I'm so proud to be an American. Thank you for standing up for what's right. No, it's all about power and consolidating power in their hands and gets him out of the picture. I think, I think you're right, but the crazy thing is the people who stand the most personally to gain from Trump being blocked from running want it to happen the most, but

least want themselves to be the ones who make it happen. Like there have to be 17 or 16 Republican, I'm great at math, Republican votes. And in theory, four or five of those could be in the Senate right now wanting to run next time. And it would benefit them. But is it going to benefit them if Trump supporters remember them to the end of their days as the person who blocked their god emperor from running for office again? between a I think people are just going to forget. People are going to forget about

about not Trump but just in general they'll fixate on something new because he also won't have he won't have Twitter. He won't be able to inject himself into the conversation as easily as he could for the last four years.

Yeah, that's true. Okay, we are going to go to break. Brett, you don't even need to, man. Same page, buddy. But anyway, we're going to go to a break. When we come back, More news, I think. I think that's what we'll do. I'll see you in a few. I'm going to be able to be.

. Thank you. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be. Okay, everybody, let's see what's going on out there in the audience. Jesse says, this is in the member's comments. When Trump committed to an orderly transition of power on January 20th, I am guessing he did it because one of his lawyers told him to put out the statement or he would go to prison. That's what the reporting seems to indicate that he had to be ordered to do it. And even afterward, he had to to be reassured that it was a good idea. That seems likely.

It was like a hostage video, I thought. Yeah. You know, he looked like he was coerced. He's just kind of, if you look at the video, it like cuts out and turns to a different angle at one point. And so that's true. I'm speculating, but the, yeah, the reporting desk to suggest that. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, people, Ken is a guy who has starred in at least one hostage video, so he knows what he's talking about here. Anyway, um, Okay, in the super chat, let's see. The user's name was removed. Okay, what do you guys think will make Joe Biden a very successful? Oh, there's a big super chat. What do you guys think will make Joe Biden a very successful president? If he keeps all his campaign promises, would you be impressed? Well, regardless of the policy impact, I would be impressed if he kept all of his promises for any politician, that would be impressive. If he was to, If he was to pass the Green New Deal, I would be quite impressed with him if he actually allowed that to happen, didn't block it. What do you guys think?

Yeah, sure, because he already said that even if Medicare for All passed in Congress, he had veto it. So it's like, this is kind of just the despicable guy we're dealing with. Sure, Green New Deal. I don't know. I just don't think anything is great is going to happen because it's just old guard, same as, you know, the last guard. Well, we're in a position, you know, Bernie. We're about to cut out, Ken, but I'm going to let you. answer that in just a sec. We'll be back in just a few.

Welcome back everyone to the Young Turks, everyone. Really fast, Ken Clippenstein. The world wants to know what would make Joe Biden a successful president. Well, we're in an interesting situation where Senator Bernie Sanders is going to be head of the powerful budget committee in the Senate, and that allows him to do essentially what we saw happen in the last couple weeks that may have had a decisive effect in the Senate elections in Georgia, which is proffer up these sort of ideas and say, hey, maybe we can do a $2,000 checks, maybe we can do stimulus that then puts the president in a very tight

spot, which he has to decide, oh gosh, now I'm going to look bad if I don't do this. Maybe there's some sort of moderated way I can try to pursue that. So I do think it's a different sort of scenario. And I think there are going to be more players involved. It'll be less, I think this dynamic where Trump kind of takes over the air of the room and determines media coverage to an overwhelming extent, that's going to be less true in this administration, not just because of other figures, but Biden himself doesn't seem that up to it. I mean, how much have we seen him? You know what I mean? Like, he just is not a ton. Right. Not a ton. Really fast, Jordan, what's up?

Yeah, just really, just to piggyback off of what Ken said, I think on the budget aspect, we should like seriously consider shifting to a more like modern monetary theory worldview. We're like, it's okay to to spend more money on robust populist reforms, right? It's okay. Like the money is just numbers in the account that we are an issue of currency. So I think that would be a step in the right direction. But also just to remind people that like we can't compare it just to Trump to gauge Biden's effectiveness. So I would encourage, as we're already seeing justifications being made for apparent compromises on campaign promises just by juxtaposition.

with the immediate, most recent events in Trump's tenure, don't do that. Demand more. Like we have to, we have to ask for more and demand more. Otherwise, we're going to get the same neoliberal Obama-era policies that led us to Trump. And the next one's just going to be worse. So demand better. I agree. I agree. Now with that, let's jump into the last couple of stories of the first hour. And here we go. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently sort of came clean with her fans about the experience of being there in the Capitol when the violence was happening, coming so close to this mob of people who probably to a man or a woman would have loved to have seen her die.

And for a lot of people, that sparked quite a bit of empathy for the Congresswoman. But not for everybody, not for Tucker Carlson. Here's what he had to say. As if you needed more evidence that it's all about what's good for Sandy Cortez and her friends and not about what's good for you because nobody cares about that. Watch her new position, her revised position on defunding the police. This is from the other day. Many of us nearly and narrowly escaped death.

There were members of Capitol Police who were quite heroic. You know, we have many officers and, you know, there were also black and brown officers that were confronting white supremacists and putting themselves not just to protect members, but they put themselves in harm's way. Narrowly escape death. One of the most harrowing thing you've done in life is past freshman sociology at Boston University every day is a brand new drama.

Sandy's heart is still beating fast. But she likes the cops now, despite the fact they're white supremacists. What a difference a day makes. Okay, so I made clear what I thought about this in the damage report this morning. I'll have more to say, but I wanted to let both of you get in.

That is a multi-millionaire cable host with a massive audience who did a whole segment about how she shouldn't have felt afraid and it's laughable that she did. This is somebody who, when protesters showed up to his house and knocked on his door, delved into hysterics in response, Tucker Carlson, and lied to his audience saying that they broke his door. And when reporters just fact checked and checked police reports, no, there was no instance of property damage. There was no offense as described by Tucker. It was pure sensationalist and pure hysterics from, like you say, a pampered multimillionaire. It's unconscionable to act like they are unjustified and being upset or traumatized by what happened. They were in a building with spotty information, learning of horrific new developments like panic buttons being removed, having their fellow members tweet out locations of significant members of Congress or important members of Congress. And what I can imagine they were thinking is these people want to kill us.

This is, as you have said before the program, John, these are people who people like Tucker and other Fox hosts have wanted, have inspired their audience to want to kill. People, there have been instances of attempted violence by Fox viewers because of people they just saw repeatedly on Fox. If you remember the Maga Bomber, who was mailing bombs to prominent Democrats, he was going off of Fox, you know, targets, including Robert De Niro. There was no real connection to Democratic power and Robert De Niro. It was just that he had insults to Trump and Fox made a spectacle of it. His own lawyers argued in court that that guy's day revolved around Fox programming. consuming Fox programming. So Tucker knows how they fed into this. And they knows the actual consequences and he's downplaying. And it's very cruel. Yeah. Ken, thoughts? Yeah, well, I cover

national security. And so I talked to a lot of folks in the law enforcement intelligence community. I can tell you that's what they thought as well. They thought that there was, you know, a mortal danger to, you know, officials in Congress. And so I would say, you know, are you saying that they're crazy to, you know, overstate this? I mean, I'm not psychic. I can't kind of project what would have happened if they got there. But that's the point of view of officials and experts. And that's why they move them to secure location. So I don't know, it's just ridiculous. But I also want to point out, I think it's funny that Tucker is, what was the barb? He said, she's a, she said sociology in Boston University.

This was the guy he wore a bow tie until like a few years ago. Have we all forgotten that? That was what he was, you know? Like you said, he's like this. defeat intellectual millionaire guy that he spends every one of these episodes of the show decrying. You know, it's ridiculous how much he's trying to distance himself from that. Yeah, and I love that, like, you know, if they need to, they'll say, oh, look at her, she was just a bartender. She just did jobs like that. Now it's, I need her to just to be a student. Tucker Carlson is insanely wealthy. Did you know, he doesn't have creases in his palms because he's never had to pick up anything.

Like him mocking anyone for their life experience is just, well, it would be comical if it wasn't so disgusting. That's literally, that wasn't Alex Jones. You know, this is, this is the big guy at Fox News who did a segment about how a congresswoman, we should mock her because she's afraid that she nearly died. But just part of his, you know, attempt to bamboozle his audience about what happened there. He also said it was not an act of racism. It was not an insurrection. It wasn't an armed invasion by a brigade of dangerous white supremacist. It wasn't. Those are lies. And he, by the way, might, you know, like he's obviously a little bit concerned about, you know, calls going around about how much culpability people have for spreading election misinformation.

Fox spread hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. Come up with any conspiracy theory you want. They'll have a dominion machine here. They'll have a shadowy figure. you're talking through a voice modulator over there. And Tucker Carlson was engaged that too. He was a little bit distracted by all the vaccine related misinformation. He was spreading, but he did spread some around the election. He said no reasonable person thinks that it was a fair election. But anyway, in case you're just coming into this, the US, the representatives for the US say that Capitol riders meant to capture and assassinate officials. We found out earlier today from the Washington Post that about one minute after Mike Pence was hustled out of the chamber, a group

charged up the stairs to a second floor landing in the Senate, chasing a capital police officer, drew them away from the Senate. They're within a minute of getting Mike Pence. So this wasn't just a thing where they were going for the Democrats. They were gladly going for Mike Pence too, and it was very close. The whole thing is just so disgusting. And it's even more disgusting to know that not only will there be no consequences, just as there were no consequences after a year of Tucker Carlson telling people to not worry about the pandemic as hundreds of thousands of people died. But his role at Fox News has actually been expanded. They now cover his content in the morning shows. He's being put in charge of more of their news side, making ever more money

as he is spreading just hatred and conspiracy theories and filth. And maintaining all the while this facade that he's some sort of, that he's a different sort of Republican, that he's a populace, that we should consider working with him honestly. The whole thing is just disgusting. It's disingenuous. I mean, Tucker's, he's shrewd. He's not, he's not moron completely. He's racist and he's bigoted, but like he can see where the winds are blowing. And he picks up on the populist trends and tries to speak to it.

So I think that hoodwinks some more, I don't know, gullible lefty thinkers, especially when it comes to like antitrust. But he's by no means sincere. his populism ultimately puts people of color, women, marginalized groups, immigrants, et cetera, on the front lines. Those are the first people to go in Tucker's populist utopia. And I also want to point that line you put up on the screen in the graphic, every aspect of that was false. It was every single thing is provably false.

They were armed, like as you said, they wanted to kill, they wanted to kill people, it was an insurrection, and there were white supremacists and white nationalists embedded in the group. You saw a guy with a camp, Auschwitz hoodie in the crowd. They were fringe white nationalist elements in this crowd. To act like this was just some purely concerned citizen activist brigade who just got a little too rambunctious is purely insincere, but it is Tucker's M.O. That's how he operates. Yeah. They beat a cop to death.

He's not going to engage with it. He's a complete fraud. He's a complete and utter fraud. Anyway, sorry, Ken, last thoughts on this? I was just going to add, beat a copy with a blue lives matter flag in view of the camera. I mean, I can't think of anything that embodies more the just bundle of contradictions at work in this kind of a movement than that harrowing image. I agree. Okay, let's move on to our last story before we close things out.

In the wake of the CARES Act, there were a lot of concerns that with so much money going out the door and with the Trump administration being the ones who are going to be divvying it out, there's probably going to be some corruption, there's probably going to be some organizations that are getting the money that don't deserve it. And ever since then, what do you know, there's been a lot of good reporting about the sorts of companies that were actually getting that money. Well, now you can add another group to that, and that is debt collectors and payday lenders, some of whom have faced tons of complaints, I've had to pay large fines for the way they've mistreated and broken the law in terms of

their relationships with their customers. They were able to cash in quite a bit. There were more than 1,800 loans that went to debt collectors and high interest lenders through the Paycheck Protection Program. In all, the aid of these businesses amounted to more than $580 million. More than 170 of those recipients have been the subject of a multitude of complaints, each racking up at least 100 with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 25 have been subject to legal enforcement or consumer alerts, many by the CFPB and the Federal Trade Commission. As just one example, one, the National Credit Adjusters, a Kansas firm that provides debt collection services, received $1.5 million. Back in July of 2018, the company

agreed to pay a $500,000 civil penalty to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, after the federal agency founded, it used a network of companies that engaged in frequent unlawful debt collection acts. The companies told consumers they owed more than they were legally required to pay and threatened them and their families with lawsuits and arrests. So they paid that fine, then they buy their time and they're able to collect a bunch of money. That in theory, they might not even have to pay back. And there's a lot of other examples like that. And the Washington Post has some great details. But what did you guys think?

I mean, what can you say? Just the scummiest, you know, I mean, this is like the worst crisis since the Great Depression. What do you do? You're just kicking people on the teeth. It's, I don't, I don't even know what to say. Yeah. This is, man, this is like peak America. This is, this is, in reality, the American dream. It's where companies that their entire business operation is just to be a parasite on society. to just suck the life out of whatever's left, this husk that we've just hollowed out to just shovel money to the billionaire class and the ruling class. Whatever's left, it's just these these leeches just glomming on to to people who are struggling. People are struggling to make ends meet. That's who really uses payday lenders. And they are subject to you extremely high and disproportionate APRs. They're subject to variable APRs and all these different parasitic and predatory lending practices and just further buries them in debt just because they need to pay rent or pay

groceries. These are the people who need help the most, the people who rely on payday lenders is just to get by and get no help from the government when it comes down to it. It's, oh, here's $1,200 bucks, make it last eight months. How is that supposed to work? What are they supposed to do? No debt forgiveness for people who are behind on their rent, no Jubilee for the debt that's been racked up during this entire period. Oh, but the people who are bearing you in private debt, yeah, yeah, we'll help them. It's just, that is, that is the American capitalist system in work. Yeah, and you know, we were lucky enough that in some places, thanks to pressure, you know, both, both eviction and foreclosure moratoriums happened, those laps in a lot of

areas. But unless there is forgiveness, all it is is putting off the date that many Americans will eventually lose the place they live. And it seems like I understand people work at some of these places, some of them are just regular good people. The idea that we have to make sure that the debt collectors are ready to go as soon as those moratoriums fall, I agree with you. It just feels like ultimate America. Like we have to make sure that the predators are waiting when the protections finally end. Anyway, that was a rough hour of news, but thank you to both of you for joining me. Ken, where can people read more of your investigative reporting?

I'm at the Intercept now, and if you need to reach out to me, I've got my signal and my Twitter account, so you can text me securely there. Awesome. And Jordan, I hear there's another episode of Deepdive coming up soon. Tuesday at 2.30 Eastern on Twitch, on TYT's Twitch exclusively. Do you know who the guest is for that one yet? I haven't decided yet. Okay, I'm sorry.

I figured out. I've got so many people just beating down. Well, I like to keep it, I like to keep it current. Get out my back, Ken. Oh, come on, get the my pillow guy. Okay, I'll reach out, just for you. He wants that publicity. Anyway, we're going to take a short break when we come back.

Anna Kasparian is going to be taking over for another awesome hour of the news, joined by Malika Jabali and Lance of the Serfs. So you're definitely not going to miss it. Same just a few. 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.