The Young Turks - Down Goes Paul Manafort; Down Goes Michael Cohen; Tick-Tock On Donald Trump

Episode Date: August 21, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from August 21, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian. Progressive Delaware candidate Kerri Harris vs. Tom Carper. Paul Manafort convicted on fraud charges. Michael Cohen pleads guilty. GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter and wife indicted for corruption. Erik Prince pitches plan to privatize Afghanistan War. 08/21/2018 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. We hope you enjoyed this free clip of The Young Turks that you're about to see. Now remember, it's not the whole show. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. And meanwhile, enjoy this lovely segment. Huge, huge news day for you guys today on the Young Turks.

So first on Manafort. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Hold on Michael Cohen. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Old. Okay, we're going to get to both of those stories. Those are awesome, amazing. Donald Trump is in a world of trouble.

The ref is this close to thing you're stepping in. Should I step in? Should I step in? Well, I think it's over. It's over. I don't know. Not yet. Hold.

Hold. Oh, hold on, guys. I got a lot of news for you guys. But I want you to whisper of a dream. The day I come on the program, the mother of all. Ladies and gentlemen. On Donald Trump. I want you to picture that day.

And when you know we got him and you know the young Turks start at 6 o'clock and you know I'm going to come on and play that, how good is that day going to be? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Okay, so huge, huge news. Furthermore, tonight on the TYT network, here comes Elizabeth Warren, 8.5 p.m. Eastern on rebel headquarters, Elizabeth Warren's our first guest. We're going to talk about her proposals a little bit later in this program on The Young Turks. You're going to love those proposals. I mean, now we're getting real on getting rid of corruption in the country and in politics.

So that's fantastic. So massive show ahead for you guys. If you miss any part of it, just go to t.yt.com slash join, become a member. It's a shou-shout price. It's a tiny little price. You get to progressive Netflix, all the progressives, you get all that programming, you get Elizabeth Warren, you'll get all the ladies and gentlemen, we got them, commercial free and any time you want. So, t.t.com slash join. I'm going over here for the first story. That's related to progressives, okay? So Kerry Harris is running for a Senate seat. Whoa, Senate's pretty significant. She's just Democrats, so she believes in all those progressive priorities that you know and love, Medicare for all, $15 minimum wage, college for all.

And peace, hey, how about that? Okay, but she takes no corporate pack money. Now, that's a very, very important part of this story because her opponent takes a lot of it. But we are told that this is impossible. I believe I've heard this story before in 23 previous times, it proved to be untrue as Justice Democrats won their primaries. But guys, this is a Senate seat.

Can a guy, a person not taking any corporate pack money that's a just Democrat, that progressive, really what a Senate seat? Okay, that's the question for Carrie Harris. And who's the incumbent now? That's Carrie Harris right there. She's wonderful. She was on rebel headquarters before. She's got all those great positions. Her opponent is incumbent Tom Carper, who has been in office in Delaware, that's the Senate seat we're talking about here, in Delaware for about 7,000 years in a row, okay? He's held many political positions there. So he actually has a huge track record. Let's look at his record and see if it's worthwhile, because this is the important part. I am told by people in Washington all the time, what do you guys make it a big deal out of

all you, you know, rascally progressives? These Democrats are fine, they're fine. What are you primarying Tom Carper for? He's a good, solid Democratic vote. All right, I'm going to tell you his record and then you tell me if you think this is just fine, or if Washington is perhaps full of crap. All right, so what did you do recently? He co-sponsored the hashtag bank Lobbyist Act supported by, oh right, President Trump, and opposed by nearly all the Democrats. Bank Lobbyist Act sound like it might be good, maybe you're trying to prevent the banks from lobbying and influencing politicians. No, no, no, no, no, no.

That was to deregulate the banks. Now there's a lot of banks in Delaware, there's a lot of corporations in Delaware, they set up their LLCs there, and guess what, Tom Carper takes a lot of money from banks? And all of a sudden he wants to deregulate them so they can run rough shot again. And he votes with Trump on it. Who wants this guy? Which progressive thinks? Oh, that's great, man.

Finally, someone's standing up for the big banks. Okay, I'm not anywhere near done. He voted yes on these Trump nominees, Alex Azar at Health and Human Services, a disaster. Kirsten Nielsen, a Department of Homeland Security, even bigger disaster. Rick Perry, do I have to tell you anything more? Oh, I could tell you more, but oops, I forgot. Robert Ross, a guy accused of stealing $120 million by his colleagues. So he voted yes on all those.

Senator Carper votes with Trump over 35% of the time. Now to give you a baseline, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, et cetera, vote with Trump about 10% of the time. So there's some votes that you can agree with Trump on. He's accidentally right, 10% of the time apparently. 35% is a giant number. Why is a Republican? I'm sorry, see, that's a nice Freudian slip. Why is a Democratic senator? And don't get him wrong. He's not repuling. He's a Democrat. Democratic senator from a very blue state like Delaware voted with Trump a huge percentage

of the time and on important issues like banking. But no, hold on. We're not anywhere near done. He's, he also hasn't co-sponsored Medicare for all. Of course. He voted against Amendment, and this is important, to allow importation of prescription drugs from Canada. So why would he do that? Why would he do that? So that the drugs from Canada are the same exact drugs. They just cost a lot less. I mean, unless he was taking money from drug companies and banks, but he wouldn't do that,

would he? Of course, he would. So let me show you the money. Over $147,000 from J.P. Morgan and Chase, $64,500. from Citigroup, those are two giant banks, $63,980 from Blue Cross Blue Shield. That's, hey, look at that an insurance company, any votes with insurance companies so that we pay higher prices on drugs, $62,650 from the particularly obnoxious bank of Wells Fargo. That's all from Open Secrets.

Do you think Tom Carper works for you? I got news for you. I know every punner on television says, he's an honorable gentleman. From Delaware, how could you possibly say that he might not work for the voters of Delaware? I'm saying it. I want to be absolutely clear. It is institutional systemic corruption. He takes legalized bribes from these companies and does exactly as he is told.

He does not represent you. Why would you vote for him? Delaware is a tiny state. You can make all the difference in the world. Get out there and get into the fight. I mean, you got, look, Carrie Harris.com slash phone bank, that allows you to call in from anywhere to volunteer for her and make all the difference. Do not let these corporatists represent you.

This is this guy, because he's certainly not going to actually represent you. So why don't you actually get someone who's uncorrupted to represent you like Carrie Harris in this case? This race is really, really winnable. I want every progressive in the country to get in this fight. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's team is there right now in Delaware, organizing those volunteers. Get in the fight. Okay.

Oh, Tom, you think I'm done? Tom, I'm not anywhere near done. So, he opposed Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage $10.10. Instead, pushed for a lower minimum wage of $9 an hour. No, wrong. We're going for $15 an hour. Are you still talking about nine, Tom Carper? Okay, he voted against the amendment to prohibit any cuts to Social Security,

Medicare, and Medicaid as a result of Trump's tax bill. Do you understand that? The amendment was, do not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Carper voted, no. He's like, no, no, no, we should be allowed to cut those programs. Do you think he represents you? You paid into Social Security and Medicare your whole life. But he's ready to take it from you.

There's tax cuts for the rich to give. He voted to approve Keystone Excell Pipeline and also voted to allow offshore drilling multiple times. Of course he did. Who doesn't he work for? Oh, right, the voters of Delaware. He voted to authorize the war in Iraq and recently has continued to vote to increase corporate military spending.

Also, one of a small group of Democrats to vote yes on the authorization of use of military force in 2017, which allows President Trump wide latitude to engage in conflicts around the globe, giving Trump the authority to start wars, voted for the Iraq war. Why? Why, if you're a Democrat or a progressive in Delaware, would you give this guy your vote? The minute he wins, you think he cares what you think? No, no, no, no, there's defense contractors that got to make some money. And finally, just to rub a little bit of salt in your wounds, get a load of this.

Well, it's the one thing you always hear from the corporatist establishment Democrats. But Jenk, but progressives, you don't understand. The Supreme Court, the Supreme Court, you have to allow every corporatist Democrat in because of the Supreme Court. Well, let's look into Carper's record on that because, dude, that Kavanaugh guy, not on Carper's Watch, right? We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations

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

wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. One of the few Democrats to vote yes on corporate conservative Justice John Roberts,

voted against the filibuster of Samuel Alito, and is the only remaining Democrat to vote yes on Kavanaugh to the circuit court. That was to a lower court. Kavanaugh is now up for the Supreme Court. If you weren't paying complete attention and he wasn't in the middle of a primary, are you sure he would actually vote with us on Kavanaugh? I'm not sure. He didn't vote with us on Kavanaugh before.

In fact, he was the only Democrat to vote yes on Kavanaugh, because Kavanaugh is an extreme, extreme right winger. Karpers sees that extreme right winger and goes, that's my kind of guy. Fine, look, I need you to do a couple of things, okay? If you're not sold, go Carrie Harris's website. Go find out our policy position, see if you agree. Okay, and then get in the fight. If you know, if you live in Delaware, you've got to go vote.

It's a super important primary, okay? Number two, you know someone in Delaware. I know it's a small state, but think about someone you know in Delaware. Call them and ask them to vote in the primary. Number three, for God's sake, volunteer, it makes all the difference, okay? Carrie Harris.com slash phone bank. Make all the difference. You can get this guy out of office and you can get Carrie Harris into office and have her actually

be a progressive champion in the Senate. We did it before. In fact, we've done it 23 times before with just Democrats. Let's do it again. Let's win a Senate seat. It is incredibly winnable if you get in the fight. We fight for progressives every day here on the Young Turks. All right.

That was the appetizer. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back. Manafort goes down. Cohen goes down. Now we're having fun. Okay, we'll be right. All right, back on a young church, Janky, Granik is sparing with you guys, a huge, huge newsday.

I'm gonna read your comments a little bit later, but let's just get to it. Let's do Manafort and Cohen. All right. Following four days of deliberations, the jury in the Paul Manafort case have decided to convict him on eight counts of bank and tax fraud. However, there were 10 additional counts that they could not decide on, which led to a mistrial. Now again, he has been convicted of eight counts of bank and tax fraud. And so as a result, we are now going to await the sentencing in relation to these convictions.

The federal jury in Virginia convicted Paul Manafort on these eight counts Tuesday, but the mistrial was declared on the 10 other charges he faced. There was some expectation that this would happen because before news broke of the convictions, the jury had asked the judge what they should do if the jury can't decide on all of the counts or all of the charges. So let's get to it, right? I mean, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Down goes Manafort.

Down goes Manafort. Down goes Manafort. Yeah. So, look, don't worry about the 10 that they couldn't, you know, convict him on. The eight are plenty. Those are very significant charges, potential to serve the rest of his life in prison. Now, he will appeal, but even so, he'll be spending all that time in prison. Remember, they revoked his bail at one point.

He's been in prison the whole time, and he got convicted. So he will stay in prison even through the appeals. Even if he were to win the appeals, he might spend years in prison, which then makes him think he's 69 years old, man. I mean, he's got nothing left to lose. So, tick, tick, tick. Now, so the only card he's got left to play is Trump. Now, does he have anything on Trump? We don't know.

Here's how we would find out if Trump in a panic pardons him. Now remember that this trial was not about Trump. Right. Manafort took money from the Russian-linked Ukrainian leaders. He took $60 million and he hid half of it and that's part of why he got convicted, tax fraud, right? He didn't report $30 million of it, hit it offshore, et cetera, right? Now, so that doesn't have necessarily anything to do with Trump.

So why would Trump pardon him? But he's been making noise about like, oh, poor Paul, man. Manafort, he's been treated so roughly and unfairly, right? Well, if he pardons him, that means he's got stuff on Trump, 100%, because there's no reason for Trump to get involved in that case unless he knows that Manafort's last card is evidence against Trump. Right, it is fascinating that as it stands now, it appears that Manafort has not turned on Trump, right?

And this case was a difficult procedure for him to go through. And the reason why I say that is because we learned a lot through this case. A lot of evidence, compelling evidence was provided by prosecutors. Just to give you an idea of how incredibly dumb and incompetent this man is. Like he broke all sorts of laws in order to accumulate $60 million, as Jank mentioned earlier. So over the course of 10 years, he was working as a foreign agent, you know, supporting Russian-backed leaders in Ukraine in order to help Russia annex. Crimea, that's part of the thing, part of the issue there, right?

So anyway, the $60 million is what I want to focus on. Over the course of 10 years, he hid half of that money to evade taxes, but he went broke. And what did he do after he went broke? He lied to banks in order to get loans. He was so desperate for cash, he lied. How do you blow $60 million in the course of just a short period of time? That's the problem with a lot of these folks, which is that their greed is infinite. So he spent $15,000 on an ostrich jacket.

And vest. Okay, to be fair, and the best. It had to match the vest. Well, of course, if you got an ostrich vest, what are you going to do with it if you don't have an ostrich jacket? So he wasted all that money, he broke all these laws. Now, was there something that the Ukrainians and the Russians were expecting in return? Now, the guy he supported is no longer the leader of Ukraine.

They've gone in the other direction. Now they're more pro-Western. But the former leader was totally pro Putin. So what did they expect in return? Well, Manafort, when he was campaign manager for Donald Trump, had control over the Republican party platform to a large degree at the convention. So what did he do? He changed the platform to soften their stance on Russia as it relates to Ukraine.

So he did not want to arm the Ukrainians against Russia. And gee, I wonder if the fact that they paid him $60 million had something new with the fact that he was trying to influence policy. So you could say, hey, maybe Donald Trump didn't know about that, that Donald Trump is a fool, which is a good case to make, and that he hired Manafort, even though he was clearly working for the Russians, or maybe not clearly enough for Donald Trump, and then he went around and did all these things. He was also at the Trump Tower meeting.

He was basically, in a sense, still working for his former employers, the Russians. And so he affected policy on that. So the best case scenario for Donald Trump is, well, golly, gee, Donald Trump is so stupid. He couldn't tell his campaign manager was working for a foreign government as he changed policy of the Republican Party to help that foreign government. Congratulations, Trump voters, if that's your best case scenario. I mean, Trump voters, his base at least doesn't seem to care about any of this. But one other thing that I wanted to mention was that Manafort was the only non-Trump family

member who attended that meeting with those, you know, Russian lawyers, and that was the meeting where Russians claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. Also, I want to kind of break down his charges a little more. So he was guilty of all five counts of tax fraud. He was also found guilty for failing to report on his foreign bank account, and then two counts of bank fraud. So the bank fraud was when he was trying to get approved for those loans, and he essentially lied to the banks to get those loans.

But what I found interesting was that his lawyer said that he wanted to thank the judge for a fair trial. That was his quote following these convictions. And the judge's behavior throughout the course of the trial was fascinating because he was very tough on the prosecutors. Like the prosecutors would bring up things that I would argue are important to the jurors to take into consideration. And the judge on various occasions would scold the prosecutor.

for bringing up these pieces of evidence. I don't know. I think maybe the judge wanted to make it abundantly clear that this was a fair trial. And so there wouldn't be an appeal or a retrial as a result. I have no idea, but I just found his behavior interesting. And the judge's right wing, appointed by Republican presidents, and that's okay, it doesn't matter. So he was so over the top fair, the defense even thanked him, and Manafort still got convicted

of the most serious charges. So look, at a bare minimum, the conclusion of this is maybe it's possible, I'm not prejudging here, that Manafort doesn't have any evidence on Donald Trump. And he just did this crime unrelated to Trump, and Trump was too stupid to figure it out. Okay, then at least we got rid of Manafort. God bless, guys, a clear criminal, convicted criminal. When you don't pay your taxes, you're stealing basically from all other taxpayers. I can't imagine why any conservative in their right mind would support a crook like this

unless you were actively and enthusiastically, you know, backing someone despite the fact that they're a criminal. And you just don't care about the law, you don't care about law enforcement, you don't care about right or wrong, and you just want to back someone because they're on your team. Now, conservatives, I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that, so I'm sure you're celebrating what happened today, which is a win for all Americans. 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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number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-S-S-E. VPN.com slash TYT. Check it out today. Well, there is another individual tied to the Trump campaign and to Donald Trump that pleaded guilty today. So let's get to that story. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has reached a plea deal, and this was an agreement over the payments that he made to various women, you know, this is money, hush money that he had

paid them, reached this plea agreement with prosecutors investigating. payments he made to women on behalf of Trump, a deal that does not include cooperation with federal authorities. This is an important part. The plea deal does not indicate that he must cooperate with federal authorities. Now with that said, as part of the deal, Cohen is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. And that's according to three sources who spoke to CNN.

The deal would also include jail time and a substantial monetary fine. Now, since this plea deal indicates that he does not have to cooperate with federal prosecutors, well, then what is this about? You know, why would they accept a plea deal? Well, one thing to take into consideration is the sentencing. So he's going to serve time behind bars. He's pleaded guilty, and right now they're trying to decide whether he spends three years behind bars or 50 months behind bars. Prosecutors want 50 months.

Cohen is arguing, Cohen and his lawyers are arguing for three years. This is awfully strange. So first though, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Down goes Cohen, down goes Cohen, down goes Cohen, down goes Cohen. Says who, says the judge, and Michael Cohen, actually. Yes, yes. So let me tell you what the plea deal does include, because this is late breaking news in the day.

So Yashir Ali tweeted the following, Cohen just described in court how he violated campaign finance laws by arranging payment for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, he said he violated federal law in coordination with and at the direction of a federal candidate for office, obviously meaning Trump. So super important that he's saying at the direction of a candidate. So if he did not take direction from Donald Trump and just did it on his own, he might be the only one who's guilty of campaign finance violations. But if Trump told him to do it, and that is apparently what he's saying, Trump is also guilty.

So handcuffs? Okay, hold, hold, hold. But there's more, there's more. Okay, we'll do more, and then I'm going to explain why the twists and turns in this story and what might be happening. So Bloomberg reporter Justin Sink tweeted more about what Cohen had confessed to, and this is the relevant part. Cohen says he acted for the purpose of influencing election. That's the second bullet point in his tweet. Also, Cohen violated campaign law at direction of unnamed candidate.

And we all know who that candidate is. Again, Donald Trump. Unnamed candidate. Says who? One of the famous Michael Cohen appearances on television where he said that. Okay. So, why is this weird? Because why is Michael Cohen agreeing to go to prison for a number of years?

Why doesn't he just cut a deal where he doesn't go to prison at all and turn in Trump? Okay, that's twist number one. Twist number two is, but he actually kind of did give evidence on Trump. He did, yeah. Not kind of, definitely, he said, I worked in the direction of a candidate, et cetera, right? So why not get a better deal? And then number three, the third woman is not mentioned. And maybe we're wrong about it.

You know, there's the two women that we know about that Trump had as mistresses and Cohen paid off. There's the third woman who, Elliot Broody, the campaign, the Republican fundraiser says he slept with and paid off. But that is not mentioned here. Now, one theory out there is that she also slept with Trump and not Broydie. That's a theory, but maybe that theory isn't true because Michael Cohen didn't name her. Or he's saying, now, look, here's what I got so far. But we haven't, that's the appetizer. We haven't gotten the main course.

The main course might be the third woman. The main course might be much more importantly, connections to Russians. So Michael Cohn could either have just this or he could have the rest of the iceberg. So the games that are being played in terms of what he's angling for, that's a little harder to discern from the outside. Right. Is he angling, is he saying to Trump, this is the stuff everybody already knows I have on you. Now you know the other stuff, and I'm telling you I'm gonna take three years in prison, right?

So get to it and pardon me, right? Or that's all he's got. Or the prosecutors are playing hardball and saying you're going to prison no matter what, you better give me everything. So that part is hard to figure out, but we know Michael Cohen did it because he just pled guilty, right? And we know that he did it at the direction of the president, broke campaign finance laws. So, tick, tick, tick, look, let me be absolutely clear about this. If the person that was on the other end of this was you, if Michael Cohen says, I broke campaign finance

laws because I was working in a coordination with Bob, right? You'd be arrested immediately. Right. Immediately. Right. It's the president, so it's a little. dice here, and he's got a lot more power, and he's got a lot more privilege. But, rationally speaking, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. So let's consider what's going to happen in the future. So first of all, the question of whether or not Cohen is going to turn on Trump or whether he has to, he's turned on Trump. Like, that's done.

Rick, remember, it was his camp. Cohen and his own personal lawyer who released audio of Trump indicating that Trump was acknowledging the payment to Stormy Daniels. So, okay, that didn't come from a leak, that came from Michael Cohen. Also, Cohen just threw Trump under the bus in this plea agreement. So he's already turned on Trump. There has been a review of all the documents that were obtained in the raids, in the multiple raids for Michael Cohen, right, in his office, in his apartment, yada, yada.

The reason why they did a review of those documents was to try to decipher whether or not any of those documents are protected under attorney-client privilege. And what that review found was that a small fraction of those documents are protected under attorney-client privilege, meaning those documents are fair game. And so we'll see what happens in the future, but it's not, based on my read of this, and again, this is my analysis, it is not looking good for Trump. So, again, let me lay out two scenarios to give you a fuller picture. One scenario is, this is all Cohen's got.

And he's like, okay, you know, 50 months, three years, whatever, I make all the medallion cases go away. If you're not familiar with that, that's the scams he was running with taxi cabs in New York. I make the campaign finance law violations go away, and I've got all these other issues. And look, I didn't have that much on Trump. So I'm just giving the prosecutors what I got, I'm taking a plea deal. Like anybody would, right, in that situation.

The other possibility is that he's saying, okay, look, this is the stuff that you got me dead to write on. And so I'm going to give you this stuff, but we're still negotiating for the bigger enchilada, right? And so maybe the three-year sentence goes away if he gives up the bigger enchilada. And prosecutors might be playing hardball with him. Like, we don't care, Michael, you're going to prison. Okay, so basically the bottom line is one shoe has fallen here. We're waiting for the other shoe, right? Exactly, yeah.

So if prosecutors come out and say that's it, that's all we got on Michael Cohen, then Trump is in massive trouble over the campaign finance law violations. Maybe he survives that, you know, because- I think it's definitely likely that he would survive that. I mean, like, he breaks so many laws and he's just gonna say, well, what do you do you I mean, of course I pay off the mistresses in the middle of the election. And his followers will be like, oh, yeah, yeah, of course you break the law, what's the big deal? But to that point, I mean, think about how Trump and his cronies continuously move the goalposts, right?

So, like, at first they were in denial, or at least denying publicly that they had paid anyone off. And then before you know it, they're like, oh, yeah, of course we paid everyone off. I mean, but that's, but we didn't break any finance loss. Yeah. It's incredible. Or it's a much bigger deal and Trump is definitely gone if it's campaign finance laws, the third mistress or Russia, et cetera, combined, right? But back to campaign finance laws for one last point. If any other president had done this, if Barack Obama had clearly violated campaign finance laws and someone just pleaded guilty saying, yeah, I worked with Barack Obama to violate the law and to pay off his mistresses.

who were adult film stars, et cetera. Now, that part's not relevant, but it is for Republicans, right? They would have been like, oh, that, yeah, the thug in the White House. He ruined the moral integrity of the office. He bringing in these, you know, these porn stars, and then breaking the laws to cover it up. Impeachment would have happened this afternoon. I mean, I don't know that they could have voted in time, but they certainly would have started the proceedings. immediately, immediately, and you know it.

Even if you're the magas of the magas, you know that they would have done it to Obama and you would have cheer led for it. You would have gotten out your pom-poms and you would have pretended to be outraged, et cetera. So even on the bare minimum, we, you know, whether you were unsure or not about impeachment before, and I think that was a fair question before, this appears to be a clear, clear violation of the law than any other president, we'd be having an impeachment. impeachment conversation. So we should be having that right now.

Not later, not if he broke seven other laws, but right now for this clear violation of the law, illegal criminality. By the way, with Cohen and Manafort, both going down today, I've got Trump, man, he's, man, he's all worked up and we got him on tape from the White House. And then I've got Mueller talking to Trump. Show me the bottle. And when Trump goes down, we're all going to say, If he goes down, yeah.

And by the way, just quick clarification. They moved the goalpost by denying that Trump had the affairs. That's what I meant to say, right? And then now it's like, yeah, of course he slept with those women. Like now it's not, like there's no question about it. They can't even deny it. They've accepted it. They admit to it.

And it's fascinating how his base just doesn't seem to care. All those evangelical leaders and almost all the evangelical voters that are right wing, thank you for proving our point. We always thought you were full of crap. And it turns out we were 100% right. You never cared about so-called morality. You never cared about your so-called principles, and you never cared about the Bible and what you claim it represents. Now you're celebrating a guy who paid off adult film stars and had sex with them during marriage while his wife had just delivered.

That is what you told us was the worst of the worst. And now you applaud him daily. So thank you for proving what we knew all along, that you're raging hypocrites. And we should never take you seriously. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, Eric Prince is pushing for the privatization of the military, and it would be disastrous. We want to give you the details on that and the potential of Donald Trump accepting that proposal. And one more thing about Trump.

Look, we got a great anti-corruption story about Elizabeth Warren, and she's going to be on the network tonight at 8.05 p.m. Eastern, don't miss that interview. She came on the young tour specifically talk about her drive against corruption because she knows you guys care about it so much. But there's another story in the news today that I think could spell doom for Trump because it undermines the people who are going to either vote for impeachment or not vote for impeachment. So I think Russia has miscalculated. We'll tell you about that a little bit later as well. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media

become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks. Look, I can just kind of read you two tweets because we have breaking news again. It's an amazing day.

Amazing day in America. I am, I am Christina, something like that, or Lama Lama Christina. Anyway, I love the news today. I love Jenks energy today. Hashtag too strong. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Okay, sorry for butchering your Twitter handle.

Anyway, Baity-TK writes in, if Trump's Day comes, TYT members will accept nothing short of Jenk literally dropping an elbow from the top rope. Do we have a top rope? No, but I was just thinking about that. No, no, we're not. That's a terrible idea. Craig, I need a ring. I need a top rope.

Okay, let's work on that. Okay, could you imagine? I'm like, I can imagine you heard. I can imagine you hurting yourself. You know, I did that once, actually, not hurt myself, but for Ricky on T-Y-T-Sports, I did, I dropped an elbow on like a fake Hulk Hogan. Anyways, check that out on T-Y-T-Sports. Nagra F writes in, Manafort goes down, Cohen goes down, is Trump tired of winning yet?

L-O-L-L-L-Z! Okay, now, hold. Ladies and gentlemen, here we go again. Breaking news, Republican Duncan Hunter has been indicted along with his wife. Here we go again. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Down goes Hunter. Down goes Hunter.

Not exactly yet, he's just indicted. So this is the third massive conviction or indictment today. That affects Republicans. So hunters indicted, Manafort got convicted today, and Michael Cohen pleaded guilty. So, and this is all happening all at the same time. They are breaking all records on corruption. So you're going to love some of these details and what he misused his campaign money for. For those details, Casper.

Yes, yes. So first, how much money from his campaign was allegedly misused? charges related to the misuse of $250,000. These are funds for his campaign. So what did he spend it on? So an Italian vacation, dental work, purchases at a surf shop, huge tabs at bars and restaurants in San Diego and Washington, D.C., and then my personal favorite, airfare for a pet rabbit to fly with the family.

Oh, come on, come on, it's over. Come on. Look, this is the 50th District of California. It's actually a very conservative district. His dad used to represent it, he represents it now. He's got passed down to him like he's royalty. I thought we didn't have royalty in this country. Part of the reason we were, I was opposed to the Clintons, et cetera, right?

So now, Duncan Hunter Jr. comes in, $250,000, okay, that's not a small amount. They say, oh man, golly gee, me and my wife, we just slipped up. We just used the wrong credit card here and there. No, $250,000 is not here and there, okay? And if you wanted to fly your pet rabbit at a great expense off your own money, but you slipped up and you did a credit card, prosecutors are not going to go after a sitting congressman and his wife if it was a simple error that they corrected a couple of days later. No, this was repeated.

You did it over and over and over again until he got caught. Yes. So, okay, so again, a quarter million dollars. And then the Justice Department launches an investigation. And so what I love is how he immediately throws his wife under the bus, right? His wife is campaign manager. So he says, no, no, no, this is a misunderstanding. It was my campaign manager and my wife, they keep using the wrong credit card, okay?

But if you knew that they were using the wrong credit card for these large amounts of money, then why wouldn't you immediately reimburse, right? And he didn't reimburse until the investigation began. At that point, his campaign did reimburse about $65,000. But again, that was when the Federal Election Commission first questioned the spending on video games in 2016. So this has been an ongoing investigation. Apparently, there's enough evidence to indict him.

And, you know, maybe Donald Trump was right. Maybe he is draining the swamp. Because ever since he got elected, more Republicans have been either convicted or indicted or have pled guilty to all sorts of criminal activity. Yeah, maybe his secret brilliant strategy, and they ask Q and on about this, was that, hey, I will just let all of these corrupt people come out of the closet, including everyone that works for me, right? Because they think, hey, it's open season, nobody's paying attention.

We elected a criminal like Donald Trump, I guess we could all break the law, right? And then we'll nab them all. No, no, no, no. The fish rots from the head down, okay? So, but it's not just about Trump, okay? The Republican Party has been taking donor money and a lot of the Democratic Party too, but the Republican Party is nearly 100% corrupt at the national level. They've made an art format of taking money from their donors and then doing their bidding.

So are we really surprised when they take it a little extra step and go, hey, it's nice that they're funding all my campaigns and giving me power and wealth and privilege, why don't I just take some of the money? I mean, I got a pet rabbit who's got to fly. I mean, we're going to an Italian vacation, and you expect me not to take my rabbit, right? So let me just put some of it in my pocket, besides which nobody ever does anything about it. We get all this money from all these donors, and the FEC's asleep at the wheel, and are they really going to notice if I just put it in my pocket?

So I'm a little surprised that they did notice. So credit to the authorities here and the law enforcement for following the law and enforcing it here. So he's in a world of trouble. By the way, he has a Justice Democrat running against him. So Amar Kappa Najjar is an excellent candidate. And they said he had no chance. They had a bunch of corporatist Democrats who take corporate PAC money like Duncan Hunter does running

against him. He's like, hold my beer, okay? So what he did was he outraised all of his Democrats that were taking corporate back money, even though he doesn't take it. And then he outraised Duncan Hunter, all on small dollar donations. So here comes a more company jar. By the way, if you want to find out more about him, compacampaign.com. So wouldn't it be awesome if a Justice Democrat who's totally uncorrupted takes the seat

of Duncan Hunter, one of the most conservative guys in the house, who's so, so corrupt that he got indicted by the federal government today, that would be perfect justice. Let's go make that happen. All right, let's move on to some more news of the day. Eric Prince, whose sister is Betsy DeVos, has been a longtime Trump supporter. He donated $250,000 to Trump's campaign efforts. And now he is urging Trump to allow him and his private corporation to essentially privatize the efforts in Afghanistan.

Now, this was something that Prince had brought up last year in 2017 prior to Trump agreeing to increase troops in Afghanistan. Trump decided not to go along with his proposal, but now Trump is actually considering Prince's proposal. Now, Prince is mounting a media campaign to convince Trump that his plan will reduce the cost and the burden of the U.S. military's role in Afghanistan by turning over training of the Afghan army to Prince's security company. So by the way, Prince's previous security company was Blackwater, which was found guilty

of wrongdoing in Iraq. And that was a huge scandal at the time. They did this whole rebranding effort and started referring to themselves as academy instead. Now Prince said he hasn't spoken directly to Trump about the plan but told NBC News he plans to launch an aggressive media air campaign in coming days to try to get the president to embrace So part of his media campaign has been to go on Fox News and essentially tear our military and our soldiers apart, something that Fox would be very upset about if anyone else did it, right?

We're supposed to support our troops, we're never supposed to go against the military. Here's a little piece of what Prince had to say. What we're encouraging the president to do is to go back to what worked after 9-11. Before the big conventional forces rolled in when you had a few special forces, a few CIA officers, backed by air power, and they decimated the Taliban in a matter of weeks. Here's the thing. A year ago, the National Security Advisor was a three-star army general who wanted a fourth star, and the idea of him doing anything unconventional was impossible. Now, perhaps there's more openness to it. It's the NSC's job to provide the president with options.

And the president should appoint a special envoy, someone that's like a bankruptcy trustee, because if you can't call almost $2 trillion in spending in 17 years of losses to the Taliban, a bankruptcy situation, I don't know what is. Do you have- If he appoints a special envoy, one person that the president can hold in charge, give them the title 50 authorities, like when they went in after 9-11, that was the agency with the military supporting the CIA that worked. How much does it cost? It costs about 15% of what we're spending now.

Okay, so I want to clarify what his argument is in favor of privatizing the efforts in Afghanistan. So as you could hear in that clip, Prince says, no, this is going to be. going to save so much money, man. Right now, we're spending about $50 billion a year in Afghanistan. If you allow my private company to take over the efforts there, it'll cost a fraction, only $10 billion a year. Okay, this reminds me of what private prisons say when they're arguing for federal or state-level contracts in order to take control away from public prisons to private prisons. It actually does not save money. And if anything, what it does is it incentivizes criminal. personalizing more people for nonviolent crimes.

Now in the case of Afghanistan, you have a private company making money off of being in Afghanistan. You think that that's gonna wrap the whole situation up. They'll be there forever. Yeah, they're gonna be there forever. And we already have an issue of taxpayer money going to private military contractors. That has led to perpetual war. That has led to us, you know, invading countries or at least getting involved in conflicts abroad. Like Yemen is another example, right?

Why are we getting involved in all these wars? It's because people get rich off of going to war. This money doesn't actually go to our veterans. It doesn't go to our troops getting a decent pay raise. Each year they get a 2% pay raise. Okay, these are the people on the front lines who are putting their lives at risk. But the money doesn't really go to them. Again, it goes to the weapons manufacturers, it goes to the private military contractors.

This is a terrible idea. Trump actually made the right decision in saying no to this proposal last year. But I am concerned that he might say yes now. By the way, he was pressured into saying no. He doesn't want to say no. I'll explain why in a second. But let's go through a number of super important things here. First of all, really, we're gonna create a private army.

Who thinks that's a good idea? I mean, only the people who are corrupt in Washington would think it's a good idea to have an army that is not the United States military. They don't fight for us. They fight for themselves. So let's now finance a multi-based. billion dollar private army with American taxpayer money? Are you insane? That makes no sense at all. And as Anna pointed out, he said 15% there, other times he's 10 billion, 7.5 to 10 billion

dollars, right? You think that a private corporation is going to go, now I'm making $10 billion a year in this war. But you know what, guys? No, we really, out of principle, we should end it. I don't want to keep making $10 billion a year. I don't want to do that. I want to do what's right for the American people. Why? You're a private corporation. You don't work for the American people. Your job is to maximize profit. Exactly. What would maximize profit? More war, not less war. Now, let's go to issue number two. Who do you think is more disrespectful of our troops? Colin Kaepernick, who says nothing about the troops, takes a knee during the National Anthem to protest on armed black men being shot by police. Or Eric Prince, who goes

on Fox News and says, our troops are so terrible, they can't get the job done and said, I'm going to do a mercenary army, you give me the money instead of the troops, because the troops are incompetent, the generals are incompetent, that only seems a thousand times more offensive than the so-called disrespect of Kaepernick and the other NFL players who actually don't say anything about the military. They're actually, their issues about police, not the military. So Fox News, I'm sure you throw them off the set, right? You were so mad.

Oh, you haven't seen anything yet. That was just a little tasty taste of the disparaging remarks in regard to our military. So what does Prince also have to say about military efforts in Afghanistan? Let's watch. Talked about a year and a half ago. The president sent in more troops. And what's the result been? Today marks the day that the president really took ownership of the war because today is the day that he announced more money and more

troops that the Pentagon asked for. And since then, we've had more loss, more Americans dead, tens of thousands more Afghans dead, and another $62 billion in spending, and it's not working. Not as effective. Even last week, there was four simultaneous attacks across the country. They wiped out 350 Afghan security forces, severed the North-South Highway. It is a continuous litany of death and failure. All we're saying is, and it's not a privatization, it's really a rationalization. Right now, you have 15,000 U.S. troops and 30,000 contractors. By going back to a small footprint that worked, you put mentors, okay, basically special forces veterans that go back as contractors and attach to each Afghan unit. You support them with air power that shows up reliably,

which is not the case now. You're saying our air power doesn't get called in reliably? Look, even in the last week, there was multiple Afghan units that were surrounded and annihilated waiting for air power for three and four days. Okay, so let's bring that down. He just said that the United States military was a litany of death and failure. Yep. How dare you? My understanding was that for the right wing, that is unspeakable. I mean, only the worst kind of left-wingers would say that.

Is Eric Pritz part of Antifa? Okay. I literally don't think Antifa members have said things that harsh about the United States military. All of a sudden, when he's got a profit motive, the United States military winds under a bus. Yep. And Fox and Friends applauds and celebrates them on their shiny scent. Like, yay, let's go destroy the American military and say they're the worst of the worst.

I believe that there's a word for that. I mean, you told us that if you don't support the troops, when in fact we actually do support the troops, we support their health care, we support their lives, et cetera. You said, well, not supporting the United States military in any military venture is an act of treason. Tick, tick, tick, tick, until they arrest Eric Prince, right? Okay, of course they're not going to do that because the right wingers have right wing privilege. They can say anything they want, including saying the most atrocious things about our troops and get away with it and be celebrated on Foxxas.

Yeah, they get rewarded for it. So now, the other parts of, I don't know if you caught these parts, because this is really important. In the earlier clip, he talked about, well, the best part of Afghanistan was when the CIA was in there and working with the military. Now, what part of that is private? That's not private at all. That's CIA works for the government, the military works for the government.

So that doesn't make your point at all, okay? There was no mercenaries in there at the time. Okay, then in the second clip, he said, oh, then we're gonna call an air power. Wait, do you have an air force? No, Eric Prince's private army doesn't have an air force. So the private army that is not accountable to the American people would have our air force at their disposal. Oh, hell no.

Are you insane? So this is what I'm talking about when I say he is lying when he says this is going to save taxpayers, but no, it's not going to save taxpayers money. It's the same thing that private prisons do. They are funded by taxpayers, okay? And in this case, what he's proposing is utilizing our military, right? Utilizing aspects of our defense department, and then taking in all the profits of it. And again, it incentivizes perpetual war.

It might start off with Afghanistan, but if this kind of proposal is approved by the president, it sets a precedent to do the same thing in other conflicts throughout the country. It's throughout the world, and it would be a disaster. All right, two more things. So you're thinking, why are they even entertaining this conversation? Why would Trump entertain it? I mean, I thought he said he was for the troops big time. You know why?

Because during Trump's campaign, he was like, oh, come over here, Trump. Let me make it rain on you. Okay, quarter million dollars toward Trump's campaign efforts. Quarter million, $250,000. At Betsy DeVos, his sister is the most incompetent, unknowledgeable person imaginable, and she's the head of the education department. So that quarter of a million dollars is the tip of the iceberg. The DeVos and Prince families have given tens of millions of dollars to Republican politicians

including Donald Trump. Do you think they gave it for their health? No. Do you think they gave it for charity? No one outside of Washington would believe such a preposterous statement. No, they gave it to get favors. Well, what are the favors they've gotten so far? Betsy DeVos, who knows nothing about education, totally unprepared, incompetent, and inexperience,

is not the education secretary. And she's privatizing education. She's turning over the entire department to people who are executives at for-profit colleges. And now here comes Eric Prince asking for the other half of the payment. Okay, we got the education department now, I'd like to privatize the military, and I'd like to, now I gave you tens of millions of dollars. In return, I'd like tens of billions of dollars. That's how corruption works.

Eric Prince, Betsy DeVos, the heart of corruption. And Donald Trump loves the idea. The military had to basically tackle him and all the rest of the Republicans had to tackle him so that he wouldn't do Eric Prince's bidding immediately. By the way, Eric Prince also went to Seychelles Island. to meet with the Russians right after Trump got elected. The DeVos family also sending some sort of communication to the Trump server secretly in the same server that was receiving information from a Russian bank.

So Eric Prince, deeply connected to the Russians, deeply connected to Trump, has been buying off Republican politicians for decades, now it turns around and goes, where's the money? What do you think I bribed you for? Now, turn over your military to me. I'm going to run it as a private army, get all those taxpayer suckers to pay my bills for my army. And of course, Fox News, as always, applauds and celebrates. We're going to take a quick break when we come back. The latest findings for Microsoft involving Russians trying to hack into our activities. And then later, we're going to, Later on, what Trump is planning on doing with security clearances in the future.

But that Russian story, they hacked into the wrong dudes, okay? Did they? Yeah, I think so. I think that's why it's going to hurt Trump. We'll explain when we come back. And as you guys know, may you miss any part of this show? For God's sake, t.com slash join, become a member. We had a lot of fun today.

We're going to continue to have a lot of fun. Elizabeth Warren's later, go. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work. listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon