The Young Turks - Elon Musk’s Rug Pull SCHEME Makes Him A TRILLIONAIRE

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

The United States claim an MOU to pause the war is imminent, but Israel could blow up the agreement. Elon Musk becomes the world’s first trillionaire after SpaceX’s IPO. Republican senator predicts a midterm “disaster” for the GOP. Senator Lindsey Graham compares Donald Trump to God. Marco Rubio announces new sanctions on Cuba. Israel’s Knesset passes new tax breaks for West Bank settlements. Senior Democrats reportedly furious with Rep. Ro Khanna for actually getting things done. Bill Pulte attempted to fast-track Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation. Spencer Pratt finally concedes while Republicans cry voter fraud. Curtis Sliwa teams up with Zohran Mamdani against James Dolan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Here on The Young Turks. I am Gianna Rola. She is Yasmin Oliac Khan. We are different people. We are not the same person. Yes. You can't deny it now. Yaz is right there. How is it going, yes?

I'm doing very well. Happy to be here on this Friday as a co-host. This will be fun for me. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, normally we're segregated so that I'm on the first hour. hour and you're on the second hour and never our paths shall cross. But Jenk is in France, I believe, right now. And as a result of that, we can finally talk politics for a little bit, which will be super nice. I feel like I'm invading the first hour a little bit. So this is fun.

Yeah, it does feel like a little bit of an imposition. So if you could just like back off just a little bit, like even from the camera symbolically, I think that would help. But anyway, excited to have you here and excited that you're going to be filling in on the damage report on Tuesday. I have to be out for the day. Yeah. But I'm always very happy to know that the show is going to be in your hand. So thank you ahead of time for that. Thank you for trusting me with your show. And thank you also for the reminder because I did forget that I'm feeling on Tuesday. I will message you Tuesday morning. Anyway, everybody out there, thank you for being here. Please send in your comments, thoughts, questions and all that. And yes, and I will respond during our social breaks. But with all

that said, we do have a lot to talk about because we're on the cusp of a deal with Iran. We've heard for the many dozen time. And we've got a new richest man in the world, or not, he was already the richest man in the world, but now he's richer than anyone would ever have imagined you could be, which is probably good for everybody concerned. And we've got out of sassy Texas senators. So we got a lot to look forward to in this hour. Yeah, is you ready to do this thing? Absolutely. Happy to talk about some of my favorite people in the world today. Okay, well, let's start on optimistic. No, we'll undercut it. Don't worry, let's jump into this.

The United States, Iran and Pakistan are all claiming that at long last, a peace deal to end the Iran war is finally in sight. But there is one big problem, and it's the same big problem that's plagued all of these times we've been on the cusp of a deal. It gives Israel the ability, and they already have the motive to blow up the entire thing anytime they want, basically. So here is what we know, or at least what we hope we can know, because everybody's accusing everybody of lying in this. So negotiations as we started the day, we're not looking so great. Here's what Donald Trump wrote on true social. The terms that Iran leaked out to the fake news have nothing to do with the terms that were agreed to in writing. What they said, included their weak and pathetic statement on having a deal.

There's no relation to the truth. Very dishonorable people to deal with. Same. With them, there is no such thing as dealing in good faith. Amazing. Also, their totally rebuffed capital D drone attack last night against Indian ships, Leaving the Hormuz straight is totally unacceptable. They better get their act together and fast.

And a couple of things, it is odd that they're being so dishonorable and attacking the Indian ships and risking, ruining this deal when they've been so desperate to surrender. I mean, they want this deal, we keep being told, and yet they don't act like they really want it necessarily. And also, as I keep saying, we've been through this so many times. This is one of my favorite parts of the process where we're going to have a deal and then Iran's lying about the deal. Or the New York Times is lying about what Iran is saying about the deal. There's always that accusation from Donald Trump that they're lying, which is I think it's his way of getting out in front of the fact that the deal almost certainly is not going to look as pristine as he would have his followers believe. This way, if they start to hear really inconvenient things about the nature of the deal, they'll just, assume that everybody's lying about at this point. So anyway, that was the bad news. Things got a

little bit more optimistic as the day went on with Iran's foreign minister posting. The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has never been closer, which is good. Pending its finalization, the media should refrain from entering speculation about its content, which I don't agree to that. I am going to speculate. God damn it. Anyway, in line with our responsible and transparent approach, all details will be shared with the public in due course. And here is what the Prime Minister of Pakistan said. Amid all of ongoing intense mediation efforts by Pakistan, we are fully aware of incessant misinformation campaign being waged by those who want to sabotage the peace deal. Setting aside the noise,

we can confirm that a final agreed upon text of the peace deal has been reached. And Pakistan is now working closely with both sides to finalize the next steps. Peace has never been this close as it is now. Except for, you know, like three and a half months ago when we weren't in a war, Donald Trump just decided to start another one. But leaving that aside, it's never been closer than it is right now. So all of that is good and maybe a little bit surprising considering that Donald Trump was talking about bombing them just a few days ago. And also bombing them just a few days ago, including committing war crimes by directly targeting civilian water infrastructure.

So I guess we're supposed to just comp him that one since we might have peace now. But civilians are going to die because of what he did. That bothers me, even if it bothers nobody else. So anyway, according to a new report from Politico, Trump would have done more damage if not for the diplomatic efforts of other kinds. So he was running and ready to go. Soon after he posted on true social on Thursday morning that he would hit Iran very hard tonight. Leaders from Gulf and South Asian countries called the president in a last ditch effort to change his mind, which included the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

And so that brings us to today with a deal allegedly within reach. And in a bit we're going to get to what we think is actually in that deal. But first, yes, are you buying it? Who do you trust? What do you think? At this point, I don't think I really trust anybody. And I certainly do not trust our president, Donald Trump. I don't really understand why anybody listens to anything he has to say anymore.

We know that he has a known record of lying. If somebody lies to you, you're not supposed to trust them in the future. Like, why haven't we learned that by now? He has consistently lied to us, not just once or twice, but consistently to the point that it is now become understood and accepted that when anybody from our own government tells us something. We are supposed to be skeptical of it. We know that they're only giving us this much of the truth, if any at all. We know that they're speaking, as politicians speak very often, which is very much evading the thing that they don't want to say while saying just a few strategic things. It's all very manipulative. That is what this is,

right? They're disrespecting the American people by speaking to us this way, by not giving us any information and they're using all of our money to do this. They're destroying our country. They're destroying our government. They're destroying the actual land that we live on. And they're taking all of our money and giving it to all kinds of things that we don't want it to go to. So that's what's happening. And they're like, don't worry about it. Don't worry about your money. We've got it all figured out. They clearly have a bigger plan. They have something that they're working towards. And they have never come out and officially said what that thing is, to the American people.

And what's so frustrating about this, but also a little bit reassuring is that we live through this already, John. This is 9-11 all over again. We've said that before. There are so many echoes of that time from 2001 to like, let's say 2004 that we're living through all over again now. What is reassuring about it is that now we do have social media. And for all of the bad things I could say about social media, this is definitely one of the

good things about it is that we do have better communication. with each other. We have more access to information. What we do with that information and that access is up to us. But it is, we are a little bit smarter now than we were before. Unfortunately, even though we are smarter now than we were before, even though we can see through a lot of the lies that our government is handing out to us, the government has already at this point consolidated so much power that it feels as though there is little anyone can actually do to stop any of these things from happening. We don't want to support it. Iran. We don't want to support, I'm sorry, we don't want to support the war in Iran. We don't want to

support Israel. We don't want to build that giant like, like pack and play on the White House lawn. Like, we don't want to do any of that with our money. Just give us our money back. And like, we need it in our communities. That is what we need. This is the America first president. We're not seeing our own money anywhere. And we're going to talk more about money in the show. Yeah, I think they should probably hang some stuffed animals from those little arches, let Trump just lay and just kick up at it or whatever. It's good for, it's good for his mobility and hand-eye coordination. And for an eight-year-old, I think that's probably not about it. Any exercise he can get at this point is probably a good idea. Exactly. Well, anyway, yeah, look, I agree. The fact

that, you know, the American people have been so clear about what they think about this war from the very beginning. And the Senate of the House has done literally nothing. They don't care. They're not interested. They're not going to constrain him. It's very frustrating. And so let's talk now about what's in the deal, or here is at least what we think is in the deal, I guess, per drop site news. We can't necessarily trust Trump or Iran or anybody at this point. So here are some issues in it. First, the nuclear issue remains untouched, which seems like kind of a problem considering the supposed rationale for entering this war. So there's no agreement on the nuclear file included on the current memorandum. And Iran makes no new commitments. Nuclear

talks will take place during the 60 day period following the signing, which, look, considering how much Donald Trump says this is central to everything, just feels like 60 days of maybe ceasefire before we really make the decision whether there's a deal or not. Because if it doesn't have that, what kind of deal could it possibly be? So that's significant, but it's not the only significant thing. The Strait of Hormuz, there is no transfer of control and no U.S. role. Iran makes no commitment regarding the transfer of management of the Strait of Hormuz. The future administration of the Strait will be handled as a regional matter and resolve through dialogue and joint decision making between Tehran and Oman, which is basically the way that Iran and Oman have been talking about it for a couple of

months. And at various points, they've said they're going to have a toll system. So again, it seems like the long term new status quo in the Straty Formuz is significantly worse for the rest of the world's countries than it was before we went into this stupid war. But here is the real kicker. And this is really where a deal that is vague and probably bad becomes vague, bad, and like not to exist in a couple of weeks anyway, because it calls for a definitive end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon. The primary goal of the memorandum is to end the war across all regional fronts. The U.S. commits to forcing Israel to end the war in Lebanon, and the phrase extension of the ceasefire does not appear anywhere in the text. And so it expects us to force Israel

to do literally anything. And I don't know the last time I saw any U.S. politician force them to do literally anything, let alone something that is so core to their interests, like invading and conquering Lebanese territory. And Donald Trump certainly has shown basically no capacity or willpower psychological bent that would lead to him actually telling BB Netanyahu, no, you can't do that anymore. Oh, I know he dropped an F bomb on a phone call with him or whatever. They conveniently leaked to placate their base. But that is very different than like cutting off funding. You know, their military, cutting off arms supply, sanctions, or whatever. So if they decide that they don't like this deal and we know that they're not going to, they can just start bombing Lebanon again.

And I guess that ends the deal. So how can any deal rest when that is one of the legs of the tripod, so to speak? Anyway, the deal also contains a little bit vaguer provisions related to releasing frozen Iranian assets, which is one of my favorite parts of it. War reparations, there had been previous talks about setting up some sort of investment fund, which, which is basically a bunch of money that we're going to give to Iran, but we're going to pretend that it's like a joint benefit rather than we're handing over money. And lifting sanctions on Iran. So specifically two regional sources told Reuters earlier today that the UAE had agreed to release a total of $10 billion in frozen Iranian funds, more than 3 billion of which has already been delivered, even though the deal hasn't even been signed yet. Which is interesting because when Obama did something like that, that was and still is considered high treason, now it is, look, admittedly, a necessary part of any deal. They're going to have something like this,

but Trump is going to pretend that it doesn't exist. And Fox News is going to bury their head in the sand, and this is going to look like nothing to them, I guess. And so anyway, again, yes, I just think all of this feels like a big waste of time if Israel can just blow it up if they want to. And they've shown a willingness to at least 3,600 people have been killed and over 11,000 wounded in the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. That's not Gaza. That's a new thing. That's just Lebanon. They've killed thousands of people and displaced over a fifth of Lebanon's population, which it really feels like if we had a serious media in this country would be the biggest story in the country. But obviously it hasn't been. So with all of that laid out, what are your hopes or expectations

for this deal now that you know the bounds of it? My hopes and expectations. I honest, I have zero expectations and zero hopes for anything good to happen. That's what it's kind of sad, honestly, that this is the point that I've gotten to. They're obviously trying to get something that they want. And as I said earlier, they're not saying explicitly what it is that they want. What they want is control of the straight. And the U.S. is doing the dirty work, not just for Israel, but also for the rest of the world. Iran is very strategically placed geopolitically right there on the street.

It's able to control it in that sense. And is that fair? I don't know. Some people are saying that's not fair, even though that is how geopolitics works, right? But on the flip side of that, the way geopolitics works is that if somebody does have a geographical advantage, then sometimes that advantage does get challenged. What's happening, though, is like it doesn't make any sense the way that they're going about doing this.

And a lot of other countries are probably like wanting to see what the U.S. is going to get out of this. And so that's why we're not getting a lot of the backlash that other countries would be getting if they were the ones doing it. Also, there's the Israel of it also. A lot of people don't want to speak out against Israel. But a really great example of the world, just the way that it's dealing with us is the fact that we have FIFA here right now, right? If this was Russia, if FIFA was in Russia this year, there would be all kinds of boycotts, all kinds of condensations. nations. We're just not seeing that kind of response here in the United States, even though everything we were doing is something that the United States would condemn if another country was doing it. So it's all very hypocritical. But it's because people have so many different

interests in that region. And also, John, I didn't know that we could just tell Israel to stop bombing Lebanon. I didn't know that that was an option. And if it was an option, why haven't we just told them to stop this whole time. We could have just told them to stop and they would have to listen to us. You know? Yeah. And it's so frustrating. And then they spend all over our money destroying Iran and now we have to spend more

of our money rebuilding it. Just like I'm so over all this. Yeah. Yeah. And look, obviously we joke about whether we could do that because the relationship has been so grotesque for so long that we we feel utterly powerless. And it seems like our government is utterly powerless. But it is, I think, worth reminding people that we could.

just tell them to stop and they would stop, not because we just tell them, but because were they not to, we could force them to. We do actually have basically endless power to influence them. We are the goddamn most powerful country in the world. They are dependent on us in terms of funding for the military, support for their military, weapons, maintenance for their military. And if we wanted to, we could exercise power beyond even that. We have overwhelming control over like the UN and everything. We could start sanctions on Israel if we wanted to. We've done it on other countries. Now, I know people will gasp, oh God, you couldn't possibly do that to the country that murdered tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza and has murdered thousands of civilians in Lebanon,

even though the world obviously and many Americans would be calling us for us to do that. We're at Russia and they did, or if it was Iran or if it was many other countries, we could actually get them to stop devastating the civilians of various countries all around them. We're just choosing not to do that for some reason. Now anyway, I have a few other thoughts that I want to give. But first, here's one of the reasons why I am concerned about the kill switch, basically, that is baked into this Iran deal, vague though it might be for Israel. It's that obviously Benjamin and Yahoo wants to invade and conquer Lebanon.

He wants greater Israel and all that. But the issue is that evidently some Israeli citizens in northern Israel actually think that he should be more aggressive in the way that he's assaulting Lebanon. So he apparently is already facing plunging support in the electorally vital north where Hezbollah rocket fire has been heaviest. You could sort of understand why that would make sense logically, putting pressure on him to take a more hawkish stance as elections loom. I look, I'm going to say this in defense of Benjamin Netanyahu. He's invaded another country and killed thousands of people. What more do you want out of him? Like no matter how bloodthirsty you might be,

how is this not enough? But evidently it's not. The poll showed that only 23% of voters in the North said that they would back Lakud, his party in the next election, down from the 35% that it gained in the last election back in 2022, which potentially could be devastating for the next elections. Support for the wider right wing block that makes up his coalition has fallen yet further in the north, according to the poll. And the drop in support for Lakud is around three times greater in the north, home to around a fifth of the electorate than elsewhere in Israel.

And around 70% of the voters surveyed there, said they disapproved of the handling of the war in Lebanon, more than elsewhere. elsewhere in Israel. So this really does seem to be a particularly relevant issue here. And so Israelis overall disapprove how Netanyahu has handled Hezbollah. And you can sort of understand why. It's just regionally, it's a more significant thing. And so I think we can actually, we have a little bit of video on that. Why don't we jump to that now? Look at this. Israelis on the handling of Esbala, look at this. Not good, poor. 52%. The majority is 18% say good. 53% of Israeli Jews, in fact, say not good poor.

Those numbers are not good and poor for Benjamin and Yahoo. And we know that he is willing to do literally anything you can conceive of to stay out of jail and to stay in power. And so I don't like the fact that he would just pull his troops out, just agree to this deal because Trump wants it. I don't know. I don't know. Yes, what do you think? Nothing in his track record would suggest that he would just, you know, pull out of Lebanon, stop doing everything he's doing. He doesn't seem to have any kind of empathy. Empathy I heard is a bad thing these days anyway. They're like all these thousands of people that he has, that he has killed and otherwise injured doesn't matter to somebody like him, right? We know that, right? So we can't expect any kind

of decency at this point. And he's also like a very desperate man, right? He's very powerful, but he's also very, very desperate. And you can probably say the same thing about Donald Trump, right? They have a lot of skeletons in their closets, no pun intended, but they don't want them out there. Whatever it is that they're hiding, they don't want it out there. And so desperate men are very dangerous. And that is what we're seeing. And we're seeing it globally.

We're seeing it play out in a very, very deadly and destructive way. And everyone is just waiting for somebody to do something about them. And it's very difficult. And I think a lot of people from other countries, they, they're not very sympathetic to the American people specifically because they're like, why can't you guys rise up against your government? Why can't you guys do something about it? You're all complicit. You're all to blame for everything that's happening in the world. The geography of this country, I'm not trying to make excuses. There is definitely more than we could be doing. But the geography of this country, how would we rise up? This isn't Paris in the 1850s. You know, like this is a very different time. And it's very difficult to mobilize. all these people. But if you look at his approval ratings, the numbers are lower than even like de facto what presidents usually have. It's just like a general baseline of approval. His approval rating is even lower than that right now. And before, that really did use to matter. That used to count for something because our politicians, our congresspeople, our local leaders,

they would, they would respond to these things. Even the president used to look at those polls and then act accordingly. This government does not do that anymore because they have systematically consolidated all the power to the point that they've eroded all of our checks and balances. And so now, like, we functionally don't have any right now. We are operating under a very dictatorial presidency, unlike any that we've seen, maybe ever, at least since I've been alive in our recent history. And like, this is very unprecedented.

Nobody knows what to do. And the elected leaders that we put in place to represent the interests of the actual people, they have done nothing. The Republicans are not going to stop him. And the Democrats have done nothing to stop them. And a lot of Democrats are also very pro-Israel or they've been bought up by APEC. So we really, like, we don't have anybody in our government who can look out for us at this point. Yeah. Well, maybe we, just on our way out, I just want to play this, this last video that we have because I've been pointing this out on the damage report literally every day. I feel like I now know the shape of this cycle.

It almost always happens in the same way. There's certain hallmarks along the way. Usually ends on a Friday so that he can boost the market right before the weekend. And usually we bomb Iran during the weekend. But if you're starting to feel the same sense of deja vu that I do, here is a mashup that I believe CNN put together of all of the times that Trump has said that a deal is so very close. We have points of major points of agreement.

They want to make a deal. And we are very willing to make a deal. Well, I think we're going to end it. I can't tell you for sure. They want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea how badly they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal so badly. I do see a deal in Iraq.

We were very close to a deal. I think it's close to over here. I mean, I view it as very close to over. It's looking very good that we're going to make a deal with Iran, and it's going to be a good deal. This process should go very quickly. We're going to end that war very quickly. They want to make a deal so bad.

We think we're close to a deal and that's okay. We're in the final throws of what will be a very, very good deal. Today makes 39 times that he has said something like that. 39 times. It has been literally months, but I'm sure this time it's going to be good. Anyway, we should take our first break. Lots more to get to after this. Okay, everybody, let's read some of your comments. comments, Jack Callahan says, wait for Israel to blow the TEL up. Yeah, it was pretty clear. I believe that's gonna happen too. Hannah Hartman says, I love when John says capital D or

whatever letter whenever he does his Trump impression. It's weird and it deserves being pointed out. Asimov's prophet says Trump is gonna just keep doing the same bull crap time loop every goddamn week. Why not? It seems to be working for him. Collectic miscellany says, people may remember Casparola, which I miss, Casparian and Idaerola co-hosting. Not sure if anyone has said this before, but when John and Yaz co-host, we should call it jazz. We can even do the hands. I think. Anyway, I like jazz. We can have a jazzy Friday. Let's do jazzy Fridays. And it's been way too long since Casparall. We need to get that going again. E.M. Etib two says, from what I read, Iran now wants to keep enriching uranium and keep control the Strait of Ramos per the AFP.

Besides, I would call bull crap on anything Trump says. We'll see. Look, they're going to push for as much as they can. I do think that some sort of deal would probably be acceptable to them, but I think the absolute best case scenario at this point. I don't even think it's super likely is the same status quo we had before plus a version of the JCPOA. We give a bunch of money. Like, that's just what it's going to be. I don't even know we can get that anymore. Okay, let's see. No meth dragon says, will a trillion be enough for Elon? No, he's playing monopoly. He won't be happy until he has it all and everybody else is broken on the street. If money was capable of bringing Elon Musk happiness. It would have done so a long time ago. Those are my thoughts,

but we're going to talk more about it, actually, on the other side of this break. Welcome back, everyone. More news to come, but first, I don't know what you might be having planned for the summer right now, but here's a fun plan, not paying for your cell phone bill for three months. Sounds crazy, right? And maybe in fact it is, but that is the deal available right now from Noble Mobile. They will pay three months for new customers, basically the entirety of the summer for you, no tricks, no catch the whole summer, totally free. And then even after that period, there's all sorts of ways that you can make your bill even cheaper by using less data. You've heard that story before, but you can find out more information about it at t.yt.com

slash switch. Okay, with that, let's talk about one of the most baffling and annoying stories so far this year, actually. Elon Musk is apparently now a trillionaire. And SpaceX, which I will remind you lost about $5 billion last year on a revenue of $18 billion. I'm sorry, 18 and a half, I should be fair, is now worth well over $2 trillion. It's worth that much, Wall Street tells me, in a way that makes no sense. But that means that Musk is currently the richest man in the world. I mean, he already was, but he owns six billion shares of SpaceX. So now he's even more the richest man in the world.

So as of producing this story, it's probably changed. SpaceX trades at about $173 a share. The company hit the market at $135 a share. And even though SpaceX is going public and allowing essentially anyone to own a part of the company for the first time, that doesn't mean you matter to the company. Elon Musk has ensured that his voice is the only one that matters. And no matter what happens out there on Wall Street, no one or no collection of anyone is going to change the path of SpaceX. He controls more than 82% of the shareholder votes in the company, in part due to his large ownership of super voting shares, reminds me of the DNC in 2016, which grant him 10 votes for every share and other corporate agreements. And so SpaceX has now set the record for the largest IPO in history, beating Saudi Aramco from a while ago. And I know that on this channel, they've described a number of ways that the path to getting to this IPO is inherently and fundamentally in fundamental. corrupt. It is going to blow up. It was set up in a way that would ensure that it would blow up, but that along the way, Elon Musk and a bunch of other people would make some money. But there's a lot of

stuff that's super shady about this. First of all, the fact that he was able to maintain that overwhelming permanent control of the company, despite it now being a publicly traded company, that didn't have to be the case. And it didn't have to be artificially pumped up with a little bit of actual business and mostly hype with the fact that SpaceX, which is ostensibly a rocket company, also includes Starlink, but at least that's like tangentially related to space. So that's something. And that is by the way, by far the most profitable part of all of this. It also has XAI, an AI company for some reason. And I know the reason, actually. And of course, it also has Twitter, not because it makes sense for these things to be related, but just because

it seems bigger and also if some of the parts of this are even more wildly unprofitable than SpaceX, well, now it's kind of hidden. It's just, you have one big number. So maybe Twitter isn't worth a third what it was when Elon Musk bought it, but that's now been swamped by the gargantuan SpaceX. And you know, maybe XAI is burning money faster than if you literally threw it in a volcano, but it's kind of swamped again by SpaceX. And so this is the sort of thing that should have given a little bit of qualms, urged a bit of caution amongst investors, but there has never been a willingness to see through Elon Musk's hype. And his lifetime of lies and exaggerations and wildly optimistic timelines have seemingly not gotten through to anybody on Earth other than

me. And so this is where we're at. And that would be fine, by the way, if this was just SpaceX. But because they decided to manipulate the rules to allow it to effectively eat up 401K and index funds and that sort of thing, when it blows up, it won't just be Elon Musk cultists that end up holding the bag and have to pay for it. Everyone will. I will, you will, your grandpappy is going to have to end up paying for this because of the corrupt way that we got to this point. And so obviously I'm frustrated. Bernie Sanders is up frustrated. He says today Elon Musk, a trillionaire pays the same amount in the social security. someone making $184,500, reminding everyone that there is for literally no reason that makes sense other than corruption, a cap on contributions to the Social Security Fund. Rokana points out that Musk is worth more than South Africa's GDP. Bernie Sanders and I proposed a 5% tax on people like him. In one year, it could fund free public college and trade school, $10 a day child care. My God, I would love that.

Special needs education nationwide. Wealth inequality is the moral failing of our time. And Kyle Kalinsky over in secular talk points out all the things that it can pay towards medical bills and homelessness and all that. But that, yeah, that seems a bit radical. I mean, if you took 5% of Elon Musk's money, then why would he even bother anymore? He'd only have like $1.02 trillion dollars. He probably wouldn't even work. What do you think? It is incredible that this man is now allegedly a trillionaire, whatever that even means, right? Because that is something that honestly, like we can't comprehend. Like our brains cannot comprehend that. Elon Musk doesn't even know how much money that is because our brains are not made to comprehend that much money, that much of anything really. Okay. So this is so incomprehensible.

And we're over here like, please, can we have 5% of that? Like that is what we're still doing. It's it's so unbelievable that that we're at this point that we're still like like treading lightly, trying to be like, oh, but is it okay because capitalism still? I'm not trying to take anybody's money because he earned that money. He earned that money, okay? That is what people are still actually saying just some of the rhetoric that I've seen floating around on the internet.

They're still saying he earned that money. There is no way anyone could earn that money. If you or I tried to earn that much money, we would be working. for millions of years, John. Okay, like it's so, it's so unbelievable. But this is where we are as a country, right? We're so just beholden, almost like like we don't have a choice anymore. Like our brains have been overcome and just indoctrinated with this capitalistic ideology that someone becoming a trillionaire, our first instinct as a people is to be like, good for him, he earned it. He deserves it. He does so much. He is so benevolent. He does so much. And

Please, can we please have like 5% of that, just 5%, which honestly, I'm surprised that they're even asking you for that much. Usually it's like 1% that they try to get out of these people, but please can we just have a little bit so that people aren't homeless, so that people can get the medical care that they need so that people can have food on their table that isn't like covered in glyphosate or whatever, you know, so people can have clean air, clean drinking water. Can we please have just 5% of your money, you weirdo hoarder? You know, like, and it's never going to be enough for him, right? Like he's just going to keep going, going, because capitalism is a game, okay?

They made a game out of it. It was called Monopoly, right? So, like, these are games, and they think they're winning. They're the ones who are winning the game, right? They seem miserable. I sent, like, I saw the post of him becoming a trillionaire, and I sent it to somebody on Instagram, and I was like, a trillion dollars, and he still, like, doesn't have a chin. You know what I mean?

Like, like, it's just like priorities. Like, you can't have it all, okay? Yeah, look, he has a trillion dollars. and I don't, but I don't know. This morning I had a dance party with my daughter who talks to me. We have an actual relationship. And apparently a trillion dollars can't buy that. So, you know, he's got a nicer car than me, I suppose. But anyway, yeah, this is a massive ridiculous issue. As you said, we could, nobody can earn this money. I've seen thrown around that if you, if you went back to when Jesus was born and earned $7,000 an hour from then until literally,

I'm saying this sentence, you wouldn't have as much money as Jeff Bezos. And I've seen people check the math and that is true. And the funny thing about that is, we are closer in net worth to Jeff Bezos than Elon Musk is at this point. Jeff Bezos, I'm sorry, Jeffie, you're kind of a broke bitch in comparison to Elon Musk. That's how ridiculous all of this has become. And that has, of course, a political component because in addition to us manipulating the us, Trump's DOJ and the rest of the regime manipulating things to allow him to get onto these exchanges and fast track being allowed to, you know, like have the index funds and the 401ks invest in them rather than maybe waiting a year to see if the whole thing blows up first.

In addition to that, he already spent $290 million on the 2024 election cycle. So like, he could spend $5 billion, $10 billion. What would be the difference? That's a rounding error on what he has. And it would be legal to do it because we've legalized bribery as we've legalized more generalized corruption. And we're supposed to believe that all of that is cool and all of that is fine as he gets ready to potentially ruin all of our collective retirements. And, you know, we have a video of SpaceX sort of making clear that they understand the effectively the rug pull that's being played out here. So take a look. While most initial public offerings allocate five to 10% of the offering to retail investors,

SpaceX is targeting 30%. And Brett Johnson, the CFO of SpaceX told a room full of bankers on the record that retail is going to be a critical part of the IPO and bigger than any IPO in history because in his words, retail buyers have been incredibly supportive of us and of Elon for a long time and we want to make sure that we recognize that. Translated out of corporate speak, the CFO of SpaceX told a room of bankers that the largest initial public offering in history is going to dump 30% of its supply on retail buyers. and not because retail buyers help with price stability, not because they help with long-term shareholder alignment,

because they're loyal to Elon, and that's how this story unfolds. The buyers and sellers of SpaceX don't show up at the same time. The buyers are forced in early. The sellers are unlocked later. Shares move from insiders, sitting on a low-cost basis, to passive funds and retail,

whose retirement accounts absorb them at peak valuation. Portfolio Manager George Noble said it best. Your 401K is the exit liquidity. 100%. And it doesn't need to go up much for this to be massively valuable to those early adopters, the people that got in, you know, on the ground floor. SpaceX stock went up 19% today. And it did it because of the only thing that seems to drive Wall Street in the last few years. It's just high vibes, expectations. I just, I want to remind everyone, it doesn't make a hundred billion dollars a year, which considering the valuation, I don't even know if that would be impressive. It doesn't do

it. Elon Musk is promising something like a 400 fold increase in profits in the next four years. And I don't believe that that is going to happen. Now, maybe I'm a dummy or more likely, maybe he is that I feel like he's been presenting evidence of that to you for literally years. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the increased profit statements will be delivered to Wall Street by an optimist robot riding in a Tesla roadster. And then he'll get in a rocket and he'll fly to our Martian colony. And along the way he'll wave, you know, hello to all of the AI space data centers we have. Or maybe all of that was just hype, targeted at marks. And maybe when they're recognizing the retail investors, that's the same thing as saying, we know that Elon Musk has the most sheepishly devoted cultists

in world history and we are going to squeeze them for every cent we possibly can. Those are my thoughts. Yeah, as any other thoughts? Yeah, well, first of all, the word, around NASA is that nobody likes working with the SpaceX people specifically. I just want to throw that out there just to be a little bit messy. Okay. I don't know how you'd know. I don't have any, connections, but I'm just like the word around the street. Okay. But also the fact that he still has so many of these sims, like so many of these like loyal fans who are just willing to give him more and more money all the time is baffling to me. Like where have they been this whole time? We have been having this discourse for years ever since, you know, when Elon first came out,

he was like, oh, I'm going to do like environmentally friendly cars. And people are like, oh, that seems nice. And it was like very shortly afterwards. And we were like, oh, he's just another billionaire. Because of course, a billionaire is going to billionaire. And now I guess he's going to trillionaire. Okay. So like all of this is crazy.

And the fact that we still have people celebrating this and trying to ride these weird coattails is weird. And only a few handful of people are going to get rich off of this. And then they're going to tell you, oh, look at the stock price. Look at the stock market. We are not going to feel any of this. None of this is going to be good for the overall economy of the United States and for the people, for our actual communities, for our local communities where people are actually living and trying to exist here in these United States.

The wealth inequality is mind-boggling the fact that our government let this happen because they definitely could have stopped this from happening a long time ago. That is why everybody feels so helpless. This is not just one evil like cartoon villain here. Okay, our government is enabling him, not just our government, but probably a lot of other governments too, because as you pointed out, he's very involved in electoral processes. And that never gets investigated, you know, because why would anybody investigate it? So that's where we're at.

But you're absolutely right to point out. And I just want to make another point of it because it's so prudent, I think. All of this has always been hype. He has always had so many funding rounds, just funded on hype. He would say, I'm going to do this. And people would give him money. He never delivers or he delivers something weird and like not good. And then they say, oh, look, well, whatever.

I'll still give you more money for your next thing that you do. And, you know, even with Tesla, he didn't build Tesla. You can say that he's good at business for what he's done with. the company. I don't think he could say the same thing about X or formerly Twitter, but you know, whatever. I don't, I really don't know why anybody still buys anything from him. Yeah, it's incredibly frustrating and consequential. Okay, I think we should probably take our second break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about some recent primary results. We're going to have one winner for you and two losers coming up after this. Okay, everybody,

let's see what's going on out there. Rose sent a membership over in YouTube. Super nice of you. you, thank you. Adam says, Elon has done more for the planet than anyone. He will use his wealth for good, I'm sure. Yes, one of these days, he's going to start doing that. He's just, he's been meaning to. He's just been really busy and he's only been a billionaire for years and years and years. At some point, he'll do something good. Anyway, Kevin Shea says, we love Yaz. We love you too, John. Thank you for including me on that. I appreciate that. Okay, Bach says the longest five weeks of my life. Wait, what's the five weeks? I don't know. Maybe waiting for an Iran, do you? Is that what they're talking about?

Maybe, but I got news for you. We've been waiting longer than five weeks. I'm not sure. Dana Albrecht says Iran has had to bring in psychological advisors to figure out exactly how to deal with someone as mentally unfit as Trump. Yeah, the Democratic Party should probably do that. Okay, in the super chats, Kobe Bryant says Elon is using USA money, pay zero cent taxes. Yeah, I mean, when YAS was talking about like us earning. the money that he earned our money. I worked for that money and then it went to the U.S.

government and then they handed it to Elon Musk for some reason. Anyway, YTP Renewed says, where were you? I called you 39 times, a reference to the Trump thing. And Moka Funk says Greg Gutfeld's pronoun is garden gnome, which is funny. I don't think we were talking about Greg Gutfeld, but I like the needless slam of him because he does suck. I'll remind everyone he fantasized about Miss Rachel being sexually assaulted or possibly killed by migrants on his show in the last day. So yeah, Garden Homes, probably too nice. Back to what remains of the first hour of the show, everyone heads up that Elliot and Brett will be taking over for the second hour, which should be a lot of fun. So stick around for that as well.

Let's jump into this. Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn is giving a big old warning to his fellow Republicans in the Senate that Donald Trump is probably going to make the next two years of living hell for them and probably for everyone else too. See, despite the fact that Cornyn has voted with Donald Trump 99.3% of the time, that was evidently not loyal enough. And so Trump stabbed him in the back and endorsed Ken Paxton, which was just a great political strategy, definitely maximize the chance of them winning that Senate race. But so as a result of it, Cornyn did lose the race against Ken Paxton. And here is what Senator Cornyn now said in interview with The New York Times. I think it's gonna be a pretty bumpy ride for the next seven months until the election. Now he said he's not seeking retribution or revenge,

although I'd hazard a guess that he wouldn't exactly be teary-eyed were Ken Paxton to lose to James Tolerico. He said he doesn't plan to campaign or raise money for Ken Paxton, and I don't think he should. I don't know why you would considering the race they ran against each other. And Corny made clear that Republicans are in for a rude awakening. He said, it's going to make things harder, certainly more expensive in Texas, and make it harder around the country. I don't say that with with any sort of desire for vengeance, I just think that's the way it's going to be. Trump's going to have the most miserable two years of his life in the last two years of his term, hopefully also the last two years of his life. I think because I think November is going to be

a disaster. And yeah, so as I said, more than 99% voting record with Trump didn't vote to remove Trump from office after January 6th when he should have. So don't think of John Cornyn as some sort of like moral arbiter or anything. But anyway, he said if he would do that to me, he would do that to anybody. There's never going to be good enough for him other than 100%, you know, slavish adherence to whatever he wants. But obviously, that's not what the Senate's role is supposed to be, especially in terms of checks and balances. And so, yeah, I think, I think he's right. I think it's probably going to end up being tougher for the Republicans to hold onto the Senate as a result of this. If they don't hold onto the Senate, that's going to make things a lot tougher for Donald

Trump over the next two years. And so him choosing loyalty over the best. better bet leading to, you know, furthering his downfall, yes, that just seems perfect to me. What do you think? Okay. All of this is insane. Okay, as a Texan, this is insane. It's crazy. This is crazy.

Okay, you mentioned John Cornyn as, you're like, he's not the moral arbiter of anything. Unfortunately, that is kind of how people view him around here, right? The people who vote for him, they do kind of see him that way. Because consider who our other Texas senator is. The other guy is Ted Cruz. So compared to Ted Cruz, John Cornyn feels like a nice old man. He's like a John McCain type of Republican. He's been around for a long time.

He's not like so overtly maga. He has a little bit of class about him. So the Republicans really in voting for Ken Paxton in the primary, they did themselves a disservice because it is a lot easier to run a dirty campaign against Ken Paxton because there is so much against Ken Paxton. There is less against John Cornyn for sure. And John Cornyn is not just like, when you see him, you don't get a stomach ache with Ken Paxton.

That is kind of the response that you have to him. So like all of this is crazy. I say all that also not to give too much hope to the Texans because there's a lot we could have said and did say about Donald Trump and how bad he was as a president and how bad he was going to be in a second term and they still reelected him. You know, so sometimes things don't work out the way they really should. I will say though that Ken Paxton, he is so bad that he is the most legally embattled state attorney general in the entire country.

He set a dumpster on fire outside of his office. Oh, I'm sorry, a dumpster was set on fire outside of his office. I don't know if he said it, but it was all in the middle of a big investigation, which was interesting timing. But then also his own party tried to expel him, okay? His own party, the Texas GOP, of all GOPs across the country, across the country, the Texas GOP wanted him out. That is how bad he is. So what Cornyn is doing now, he's out. He actually won, he got more votes than Paxton in the primary, but he lost

the runoff. So you can make your assumptions about why that happened there. But also him now deciding that 99.3% loyalty to Trump was not good enough. So now he's going to start taking different positions. That is not how you're supposed to govern anyway, okay? You're supposed to govern based on what is right for you, not based on loyalty to a president, not based on what you think, what kind of like personal issues you have with him or he has with you. It's all crazy that this is our politics and that this is a thing that a sitting senator is saying about the way he is governing, about the way that he is using that seat of power. And everyone's like, yeah, that makes sense. If Trump's not with you anymore, then you shouldn't be with him anymore.

It's so childish, but the like people's lives are being affected by this and this is how they're governing. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of childishness to go around. The strategy against Taylor Rico seems to be just calling him gay and vegan or something. Yes, yes, yes. There's no basis at all. The man is eating barbecue on camera all over the campaign trail.

With his girlfriend, he's not trans. And by the way, those attacks aren't working. So keep it up. Okay. dig your own grave in that particular way if you want. I'm going to read just one more quote from John Cornyn who says in response to what Trump did. If that's the way friends treat you, you wonder about his enemies. And that's a good point.

That's a little bit deep. You do wonder about that. You also wonder about the fact that John Cornyn apparently discovered in the year of our Lord 26 that Donald Trump was screw over his friends and throw people under the bus and he only cares about loyalty. Yeah. You just discovered that this year, John Cornyn, he's done that in other election cycles, 100 times. Look what he did to Marjorie Green. Like God, John Cornyn. John Cornyn is no hero. Okay. Anyway, with that said, to make fun of some other jackass Republican senators. Okay.

Lindsay Graham just won his primary. Yay. He decided to make his victory speech as weird as possible. Take a look. I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy. God, Trump comes later. Mr. President, you're not far behind God, but we're going to start with him. Just keep on kissing, keep on sucking. He'll still love you, I guess, if you do that. That's pathetic. Lindsay Graham is a full-grown man.

He's beyond a full-grown man. He's like 105 years old. And that is how you comport yourself on the night of your victory. Is setting up that joke so that you can say that Donald Trump is not far off of God. But that said, this sort of sucking up has become incredibly common. I mean, watch this video, which is literally from this same week. You know, I know we got this weaponization fund, but I think maybe we need to establish a fund for those that have Trump derange's syndrome and get counseling. Maybe we ought to provide some counseling for all the nut jobs out there that think Donald Trump is the worst thing of.

Donald Trump is the best thing to happen in this country in 100 years. He was born, he was born a very special baby. I bet you the doctor said, I can tell this is a very special baby. I think that Representative Troy Nels might actually be eligible for that Trump Drainment Syndrome Fundy wants to set up there because your brain is garbage, buddy, if that's what you're saying. He is, again, a full grown man fantasizing about a doctor being impressed by baby Donald Trump and stating that he's the best thing to happen to our country in 100 years. I'm not to remind you, we beat the Nazis in the past 100 years. We beat Soviet Russia. We've expanded the franchise.

So, you know, like black people can actually really participate in the vote and all that. I'm pretty sure in the last hundred or so years, women finally got the right to. The best thing was Donald Trump. But this is the state of the Republican Party. And importantly, this is the truth of conservative masculinity, that you talk about being alpha or whatever, and then you suck up to the guy above you as hard as you possibly can. You prostrate yourself. You count out to him.

It doesn't matter how embarrassing it is. You do it in public. You rush to a camera to do that. You pull your cuck chair interview of the closest camera and then you sit your sorry ass down in it and talk about how Donald Trump can do whatever he wants to your wife. That is the state of conservative masculinity. But at least for Lindsey Graham, I guess it is working. He did win. He beat an America first conservative, whatever that's worth at this point.

And he really does credit it basically entirely to Donald Trump's endorsement. He said, Mr. President, when you endorsed me, early on it changed everything. You're the gold standard in the Republican world, the most consequential endorsement. I think in the history of politics, and when you spoke the people of South Carolina, listened. And President Trump, I'm coming back to the Senate in 27. I'm gonna win in November, and I'm gonna help you change this world and change this country, probably by, I would guess, blowing up parts of it. The world and maybe the country, I don't know. But like, Do you think it's a good thing, Lindsay Graham, that in your 65 years in the senator,

whatever it is, it all comes down to Donald Trump's endorsement. Nothing in your record, the relationship you've built up with your constituents, the things that you've said, the stance is difficult, perhaps, that you've taken, the legislation that you've passed, nothing. It all comes down to Donald Trump. The most inherently morally flawed person in American history, a corrupt sexually assaulting felon is the only thing that matters for a many times incumbent winning a primary or not. That seems sad.

Or maybe that's best described as evidence of what Lindsay Graham had in mind when he said, if we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it. If this is the state of the Republican Party, I think Lindsay Graham was actually right. Yes, final thoughts? Whenever I see things like this, I'm like, who is still voting for Lindsey Graham? Who? Like, who out there is like, this is still the best guy for South Carolina. I feel bad for people of South Carolina. I just found out actually that a friend of mine from Connecticut just moved down there and I was like, whoa, even as a Texan, I don't know what goes on in South Carolina. And I feel like that's saying something. But I did look and it was only like a quarter of a million people voted for Lindsey Graham to win that primary. Granted, there's not even six million people in South Carolina just from really quickly from what I look. looked at. So it is a very small state and it does seem like like a good chunk of them did turn out to vote. We did have also Annie Andrews. Yeah, she won her primary by a pretty good percentage.

So hopefully, you know, things could change for South Carolinians going forward. But that aside, how embarrassing for Lindsay. He doesn't have like the capacity to be embarrassed anymore. I've decided he flip-flops so many times on Donald Trump from the time when he said that we were all going to be screwed if we elected him to president. And then he was immediately on board. Goes back and forth all the time. This goes back to what we were talking about earlier in the show, though. Why does anyone listen to anything that any of these people have to say? They're completely unreliable. They have no morals, no values, because they change anytime it suits them. So we know that. Like we as a people know that that is what they do. So why does anything they say

have any kind of consequence, it really needs to not be that way anymore. And hopefully, like very hopefully, maybe too hopefully, if we do get some new people in there, maybe that can change. Maybe we can get people in there who will actually tell us what is going on. I will shout out Zoran Mamdani because he is very communicative with the people of New York. Everyone is jealous. And it's like, I feel like he's telling the truth. Otherwise, he just wouldn't have said anything, considering the things that he's talking about at least. So we need to start normalizing, trusting our local leaders. We need to start normalizing, just holding them accountable when they do actually just lie

to us and change their minds and flip-flop. When Democrats do it, they get called out all the time by Republicans, but Republicans do it so much more than Democrats do. And I'm like, I'm trying to check my own bias there, but really it's, it is egregious what we hear coming from the Republican Party and from our Congress people and from the president himself. Every day he says one thing, he says a different thing the next day. Nobody knows what's going on. And that seems very much by design.

They don't want us to know what's going on. They just have to keep making public appearances so we know that they're not dead yet. Like that's it, you know. And some of them can't even manage that. It disappeared for months. Yeah, like that guy in where is in New Jersey and he got reelected and he hasn't even made a public appearance in months. So who is still voting for these people?

Why are the people who take the time to show up at the polls? Why can't they just figure out who they want to vote for before they get? Do a little bit of research. You're already voting, which most people don't do. So like why would you go there uninformed? I don't get it. Yeah, well, it is frustrating. There's a lot of frustration to go around.

But don't worry, I'm sure the second hour will bring some relief from the frustration. By the way, I was dead wrong. It's not Elliot and Brett. I asked Grock who was hosting and it just made it up. They hallucinate. It's almost enough to make you think that these. They're not multi-trillion dollar companies because their technology sucks. I'm totally joking.

It's Jordan and Jules, though, which is a great pairing. They're going to be awesome in the second hour. Yes, thank you for joining me. It was a delight. Yeah, happy to be here. Happy for our jazzy Friday. Is that... Chazzy Friday.

Are we making that a thing? I don't... I think it should be merch soon. It's just our hands on a shirt. Anyway, thank you all for being here joining us to the first hour. If you, for some reason, don't know. I host the damage report every week. So definitely join us over there. You'll see a lot of Yaz as well. And the second hour is coming up after this.

What contributions to the progressive cause are you most proud of? Um, I mean, I don't I don't have super high aspirations for a singular role that I can play in the movement or anything. I just I try to present myself as what I think that I am, which is a progressive man who is driven by a I think well interrogated and well organized system of values that I try to try to stay consistent on and I demonstrate that that's the sort of life that a person can lead and be successful and be happy and all of that and that should not need to be done but there are so many people on the right that are trying to push men in the opposite direction that I want to be able to do that along the way if I can get people to care about some topics that not that they

wouldn't necessarily care about or that for some men might they might think that's not a topic that they should be focused on that's definitely something that I that I relish doing and along the way I mean, we've been able to introduce people to a lot of candidates. That's been a big part of what we've done. You know, not all of them necessarily got in office. Probably most of them did not. And a lot of them, you might not even remember their names. But it was great to be able to provide people the platform where they had the chance of, you know, making a difference.

Obviously, AOC and all that. But there's been a lot of great people along the way. This spring, Denham gets a softer, lighter update, introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. In the bonus episode for the members, we do some inside baseball. We're going to look at John's desk. Nice little spaceship here. Nerd. But it is kind of look cool. Who has Legos? Oh, no.

He's taking apart a keyboard. Who has a mouse pad that's this big? He's got a dog with a nose that you can hang something like. You know what this desk screams to me? Nerd. And that's how we like him. We love Johnny Pye. He's got his own personality like everybody does at TYT.

Come meet us all in the bonus episodes. TYT.com slash team. David Soror. Need a turn. Is Adam Green Drop by. Charlene. It's been great to have you. It's great to be with you, Chang.

thing you're informing people. A lot of the shows that I live on, you know, my CNN and my MSNBC and even Fox and any of the other shows, MPR, they are so quick to decide that they know what this building means today. The one thing that I hate that politicians do, you know, they talk about the people they should be talking to. Do they have any idea that they're their establishment and that they're hated or do they not realize that at all? People are so deeply in their little universe. I think it's very easy to not really question what you're doing. Voters have a right to ask questions of any nominee, whether they're independent, Republican, or Democrat. The system is monopoly that suppresses competition.

How is it the year 2024? And we're still like maybe they'll talk about pain medical. I know, it's the same. How is that like, at one level, it's like, good, what we're talking about it now. You're like, it's 2024. And that's always been the critique, that your critique of us is, Well, you guys give good speeches. You put out good tweets, but you're not wielding actual power. Now we're starting to. My favorite news platform by far.

It's not even close. It's not a country and a principle. And that's what you and I both work to achieve. And I'm so glad that at least half the battle has now been one. If you want to go really hear what's going on, honestly, you should tune into the Young Turks. Thanks for doing. Such a great job. Please keep it up. Hang tough. Yeah. That makes me so happy. Oh, I like making you know about that. This is a happy Anna Kasparian.

You're welcome, YouTube. Join the Dragon Squad by becoming a YouTube channel member. Click the join button below or sign up on t.com slash join to get access to fun emojis, a member only chat, exclusive shop TYT designs, ad free watching, and so many other amazing perks. Plus you get bragging rights for being part of the coolest community on the internet and help us drive real positive change in the world. The Dragon Squad awaits, so join today. only returning guest, Jules Sousdaltstv. Jules. Oh, man. How are you?

I'm doing great. You really got so close to nailing the last name that time. You're getting better every time I come on. I love it. Great. It's not out of intent or even a willingness. So I will revert back to my old ways. Jules, we've got a lot to cover. We've got some fun stories. We've got some important stories. let's get started with this. As Trump levels crippling new sanctions against Cuba, Marco Rubio contends this is all for the benefit of the Cuban people. On Thursday, the U.S. slapped additional sanctions on Cuba, this time against the country's state-run oil company Union Cuba Petrolio. Marco Rubio justified the sanctions by invoking the Cold War era claim that key assets,

associated with Union Cuba Petroleum, quote, were unlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago, referring to the nationalization of energy in the country as a result of the 1959 revolution, which the U.S. has long contended was illegal. He summarized the sanctions as the Trump administration will continue to target Cuba's ability to leverage energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and repressive security apparatus. We'll put a pin in that for our discussion later. Regime change in Cuba has long been a goal of Rubios and by extension the Trump administration. Emboldened by the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, Trump has flirted with the idea of more aggressive action against Cuba.

Critics also point to the buildup of U.S. military assets in the Caribbean Sea as a signal that the Trump administration is preparing, to take aggressive action against Cuba. In May, for instance, an aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz arrived in the Caribbean. Last month, high-ranking U.S. military official General Francis Donovan visited the U.S. naval base Guantanamo Bay, which sits in close proximity to Cuba, also something that multiple presidents have claimed they were going to shut down during the administration, but yet somehow it is still open. Just last week, Pete Hedger, Seth made a similar visit to Guantanamo and made the following statement. It would be unwise of the government of Cuba to try to procure or get access to the types of weapons that could reach

this base or the American homeland. They would be inviting the kind of confrontation not only do they not want, but they could not stand. No country on earth can match the capabilities of the United States of America. The Trump administration has long maintained that Cuba poses a threat to the U.S., but shocker has yet to provide any compelling evidence. Still, Trump has kept tension high, not only through increasing the visibility of our military and the region, but with targeted economic warfare. Oil exports remain a pillar of the Cuban economy, and since January, Trump has led a campaign to restrict fuel on the island, first by cutting off energy exports from its regional ally Venezuela, then by threatening tariffs against.

to any country that ships oil to Cuba. While addressing his strategy of regime change for Cuba, Trump maintained that all of this was ultimately in Cuba's best interest, saying as we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we're also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba. Cuba in its last moments of life as it was. It'll have a great new life, but it's in its last moments of life the way it is. Marco Rubio echoed these sentiments in a statement that read,

President Trump wants a new future for the Cuban people with greater economic and political freedom and opportunity. But by all available metrics, the U.S.'s actions are making the people of Cuba's lives worse. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, addressed the crisis in Cuba, saying the fuel restrictions imposed since early 2026. and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions taken together are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable. Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines. This is unacceptable. It's unclear how far Trump is willing to go with Cuba, although encouraged by his regime change efforts being marginally successful in Venezuela,

he might exercise some hesitancy given his disastrous handling of regime change efforts in Iran. Who knows what will happen next? But it is convenient that Trump's renewed interest in Cuba with the specific targeting of their oil company comes on the wings of experts in the oil and gas sector's warning about skyrocketing gas prices due to the illegal war in Iran. It seems Trump is desperately attempting to correct economic course and minimize his ells, considering all of the above occurring in a midterm election. Now, Jules, there's a lot here. What do you make of Rubio and Trump's and Hegseth's comments and what could be actions going forward? I mean, I think this is terrifying for the Cuban people because when you look at the way Trump operates, he's kind of one to double down or back off. And because Cuba is so weak,

he is able to bully them so effectively. And they're weak because we've spent so many decades oppressing them directly. And in this case, it's almost like they're saying the quiet part out loud where they're literally saying we're cutting off supplies. We're trying to make an effort to harm the Cuban people so that they rise up against their government that is literally only working to keep them safe while they're being attacked and bullied by the United state's government. It's not something new. It's something that the Cuban people have been dealing with for a long time. We had a little bit of progress under Obama in this way. But like, Trump is turned back the clock to the worst period that Cubans have faced. And now, you know, they're,

they're talking about these, these shortages in hospitals. There's literally kids dying. I was, I was reading a story about how nurses and doctors have to run and start generators when they know that there's going to be a blackout to save pre like, you know, little kids that were just born. It's kind of horrifying. And also like the American public doesn't really get a direct view of this. They're not told explicitly that like actually the actions of the Trump government are having such an insane impact on the day to day lives of the Cuban people. And so when they say these, this kind of like patriotic rhetoric around we're going to, you know, we're going to save them. We're going to bring them to democracy. We're going to,

them, they're attacking them. We are bullying them as a country as we always have, and we're doing it in a way that is causing real material, horrific impact on their day-to-day lives. And I don't see this going well for them. I see Trump continuing to double down because it's not like Iran, where suddenly, you know, the straight of promuz is closed and the global markets collapse, and everyone, you know, everything's more expensive, gas is more expensive, and it hits them directly in the midterms. In this case, I think this, terrifyingly, he might see this as a way through, as a way to, like, double and triple down on this, like, wartime rhetoric and really, really caused serious harm for the Cuban people. And, like, I'm terrified of that. I think it's horrifying.

Yeah, I mean, there's a few things here for me. This yet again is another example of how hollow the anti-war right rhetoric ultimately was. I called it out when it first started to percolate. never struck me as sincere and despite multiple opportunities when Republicans who claimed to believe these things were in a position to actually advocate for them, they never did. It's only when they're out of power are they truly anti-war, when they don't have anything holding them to that purported ideology or don't actually have to put any skin in the game. So yet again, here we are, and this is again an illustration that this is another neocon administration. Plain and simple.

This is a long-term project for people like Marco Rubio and other Warhawks in Washington. And yeah, they claim, oh, it's about freedom, whatever. It's about ultimately crushing an ideology, which is what they've done in South and Latin America, Central America for the last several decades. It's just a continuation of that ongoing repressive effort. And this idea that cutting them off from a trading partner will somehow better their lives or that it's in their best interest. Like you're saying, Jules, comes with a real human cost. There are people who can't get essential medical care.

They cannot get necessary procedures. All of a sudden, medical instruments and hospitals are without power. That is no way a civilized nation should operate here in the United States. the civilized country. But they're doing it. They're deliberately inflicting pain with what? The angle people take up arms. How is that?

Didn't happen in Iran. They want these other countries and their populations to basically serve as a flack jacket for their imperialist operations. That's it. And you can throw your hands up and say, well, you know, this government was never great, whatever, they're repressive. How does this help? How does this help the people who are there now who desperately need food or medical care, supplies, energy?

How does this better their conditions? If you are so worried about the well-being of the Cuban people, how does this help? So this whole Republican Party, and there's some Democrats as well who probably ultimately want this. But for the most, this, you know, the pro-war Uniparty in Washington is totally fine inflicting suffering on people in Cuba. Cuba if it helps them achieve a long-term goal. Before we move on, Jules, anything else? Yeah, I mean, the other thing I would say is that this also doesn't further our interests. You know, this is something that is condemned on the international stage.

The UN votes against these embargoes every year. This isn't an isolated moment that Trump is seizing on. This is something the U.S. has been doing to Cuba for decades. So I think when he moves the needle even further in the direction of a very globally unpopular action by the U.S. the rest of the world sees what we're doing to Cuba. All of this, you know, fake rhetoric around helping them or helping them towards, you know, like you're saying, what is it another revolution that brings them back into like the capitalist

fold of like the American wing? That's all nonsense. We're harming people through government policy that Congress is absolutely affirming, but everyone else on the world stage sees as a, the largest superpower in the world, bullying this tiny island with no resources because of the United States as a way to further this like again, misguided, very politically bent, very harmful action and direction. I think it's embarrassing for us. I think that there is a freedom that the Cuban people deserve and I think it's freedom from the United States oppression.

Yeah, well, I guess one more thing. It's just, it's laughable to me that we are, you know, the only real developed country without universal health care. And we are enforcing an embargo to an even greater extent, like you mentioned, they have struggled because of economic pressure from the United States for decades. But now it's at a point like you're saying, hospitals are losing power because of this energy shortage. And we're the only developed country without universal health care. And then telling them, don't you want to be free like us? Don't you want to spiral into medical debt and bankruptcy just like us?

Don't you want to have your essential medical care denied by a third party, a health insurance company? That's what it means to be free. And like the rest of the developed world looks at us and thinks it's a joke, but we just like, there's no self-reflection from most people in both political parties in Washington thinking like, no, this actually sucks. Who would want this? Who enjoys calling their health insurance company? Who enjoys begging for coverage and dealing with prior authorizations?

This is a problem only in the United States. And oh, yeah, we're going to be the enforcer. We're going to be the bringers of freedom to Cuba. All right. Now, any last words? No, I think you said it. The United States is a decaying empire with terrible policies. Everyone is laughing at us and we're committing terrible atrocities on the Cuban people.

I think we're on the same page. Yeah, well, let's transition to another atrocity, starting with this. There's a reason the world's most iconic buildings are by a park. 51 Park. New York? Marzilea, Israel. 51 park. Sikaze.

Six of mcdellin'clock. Tsood to Park Herzliya. Sick. Jules, I know you already have your deposit down, but that was Marty Supreme Star, Gwynaside Paltrow, putting her Oscar-winning talents to good use, on behalf of Israel. The ad promotes the development of two 51-story luxury apartment towers built by Aviv Melisron and Israeli real estate group. The towers sit beside Brasilia Park, which stands at 173 acres, having been built on the site of former agriculture fields in the coastal town of Brazil. Israel. The town and park are named after the father of Zionism. Theodore Herzl

Haltrow's ad sparked immediate backlash as Israel has been incredibly accused of carrying out a genocide in Gaza. We reported earlier this week that there had been a concerted effort from Hollywood and ad world moguls to improve tourism to Israel, hoping to improve Israel's public image, which is at an all-time low. And I wonder why. But this ad suggests Israel might be taking things a step further, as the move might speak to a broader agenda of trying to bolster American immigration to the region. Herzog on March 30th, 2026, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, approved new legislation granting a significant income tax exemption to new immigrants and veteran returning residents on income derived from personal services performed in Israel.

The new law. The new law also provides a tax exemption to foreign companies with respect to income generated in Israel as a result of the activities of eligible new immigrants employed. by them. In terms of who is eligible, the new law applies to new immigrants holding an OLA visa, which became Israeli tax resident for the first time between November 5th, 2025 and December 31st, 2026, as well as veteran returning residents, individuals who resided outside Israel for at least 10 consecutive years, who became Israeli tax residents during the same period and issued a veteran returning resident certificate by the Ministry of Alia. and integration, collectively, the eligible individuals.

But American immigration is not the only thing Israel is trying to court by leveraging attractive tax incentives. Just this week, the Knesset passed legislation that grants massive tax benefits to settlements in the West Bank, spearheaded by finance minister Bezal Smotrich. The legislation establishes tax benefits for communities located in a designated eastern conflict line area in the West Bank. The area is situated east of a designated security barrier, and communities must be located more than two kilometers from the barrier to be eligible for the benefits. Settlements considered eligible include those in which transportation of students from the community is permitted only in bulletproof vehicles, according to Defense Ministry publications.

Communities are also eligible if they are ranked six or lower on Israel's profiality index or its socioeconomic indexed. It also required that the establishment of the settlement be approved in accordance with the law to be eligible for the benefits. Reigniting Israel's controversial settlement movement has been a cornerstone of Smotrich's political agenda as well as his base. In a separate decision, 2162 new housing units were approved to be developed in the West Bank settlements by the Higher Planning Council. which is helmed by Smotrich. Moderate leaders in Israel have long distanced themselves from the settlement movement,

given its propensity toward violence and the questions of its international legality. But the movement has found new life, given the country's continued hard right pivot, this tax legislation being the most recent example. The law will take effect retroactively from January 26 and remain in force through December 31, 2027. The Israel Tax Authority has estimated that this law will cost NIS $130 million annually. The measure faced opposition within the Knesset, as implementing it would delay funding protection efforts in Israeli's northern counties, which face constant bombardment. But for Smotrich, these tax benefits hold a bigger meaning. The law is part of a broader government effort accelerated under Smotrich's tenure as finance minister to encourage population growth in West Bank Settlement.

through various financial incentives and government support. The finance minister has been candid about these ambitions on Thursday calling the law another step toward the goal of one million residents in Judea and Samaria, biblical term for the West Bank, and saying this would help prevent the establishment of a Palestinian terror state in the heart of the country. There's a lot to watch out for here, including how successful Israel will be in wooing outsiders over to its cause as it continues to commit war crimes with impunity. Jules, what do you make of this new development and all of these changes to its code to win people over?

I think that one of the hardest things about being on the right side of history is that you have to live through the wrong side of history. It's built into the phrase, right? And understanding fully what is happening in Gaza, which is a genocide, which I think we've all pretty well, come to understand. Seeing this normalization, and it's an effort towards normalization, like I don't know how much Guineath Paltrow was paid to hawk, you know, luxury Israeli high rises, but it's all this effort to culturally shift the conversation back into a place where like, oh, don't worry about it.

Actually, whatever you're hearing, it's not true. Look, it's Gwyneth Paltrow. Famously, soft, kind, goopy, Gwyneth Paltrow. And it's kind of like extra horrifying that this is the path that they're taking. This plus the tax incentive to build illegal settlements to continue this, this rampant illegality in support of and during a genocide is, I mean, truly horrific in a way that, like, you know, we think about, well, what must have life been like during other genocides? How was it justified?

What was the propaganda around it? We see this all in kind of a rear view way where we're like, well, that's crazy. I would have never, you know, I can't imagine what that would have been like. That would have never worked on me. And then you see people fall for this hook, line and sinker where they'll say, yeah, you know, it's not that bad. Yeah, maybe, you know, maybe like Israel's overstepping a little bit. It's like, no, this is illegal and has only gotten more illegal to the extent of a mass murder

campaign that is backed legislatively, financially, and culturally by some people. again, like Wenna Paltrow. And maybe beyond that, the hardest thing I think to make peace with here is that, you know, I don't know how many people if and when this is addressed on some historical timeline. If we are able to stop the genocide, if there is some kind of, you know, like new Nuremberg for the people who did this, will people like Gwyneth Paltrow who are, you know, do. this lip service for a genocidal regime face any consequence at all? Will she be canceled even on any level? Like this is what I'm saying is it's really tough to watch the normalization that we're seeing like,

honestly not just in Israel. You see this with Trump. You see this in far right organizations around the rest of the world. It's hard to be what feels like in the middle of it and see what the future looks like because right now looks really incredibly horrifically bad. Yeah, I wonder. I would hope. I would hope there's repercussions for trying to whitewash this to, like, do business with this government or, you know, interests representing that government or in that country in general. I mean, you would hope. But I'm pretty pessimistic. I think people have largely detached what is happening in government.

Gaza. And to be clear, like, it's, they don't even, it's not even an issue of believing. I can see and recognize that it's a genocide and the oppression, the ongoing oppression in the West Bank. It's just, it is grotesque and it's appalling. It's a, it is a stain on humanity. And someone thinks, you know, it will be sick if I got a bunch of money from this government. That is, that's demented. We look back on the Dulles's, the Dulles brothers. how they were behind the scenes working with the Nazis. And for the most, I mean, I don't know, man, there's an airport named after him. So maybe not, maybe not. He ran the CIA, probably killed Kennedy, and now he's got an airport. Like, maybe there's no consequence for profiting from doing business with linking with a genocidal regime. There's plenty of people who are taking the money to fly over there to do propaganda trips, and their careers seem to be doing great.

So, yeah, I think I'm not even just pessimistic. I think it's a flat out no. Because I think people can, people just separate it for whatever reason. I think it's an extension of separating the art from the artist, which sometimes, yeah, it's more of a convenience if you've got a problematic fave. But I don't know if people are ever going to forever link folks who are profiting from, benefiting from doing business with this government and what is happening, what the government is doing. It's tragic. They've outlawed in many states or cracked down on the BDS movement.

They've any criticism is derided as anti-Semitic. If you can't even boycott companies, if you can't encourage divestment, what can you do? And the whole point is to beat people who are morally, sensibly, justifiably outraged by this. The whole point is to beat them into submission. So it's important to continue speaking up. And yeah, if you want to do it on your own, I mean, collectively is better, but sure,

just don't support her jade eggs to go in your hoo-ha or whatever. Don't go see her movie. It's just whatever tools at your disposal, sure, within reason, use them. but like I don't think societal like I don't think there'll be collective societal consequences for people like her. I mean, I think part of what's really tough here too is that when you see this kind of normalization, it also shifts the conversation away from like, is this a genocide we should stop? And it almost makes the facts on the ground irrelevant because, oh, look, there's a financial opportunity. Oh, look, there's this, there's, you know, this tax abatement for illegal settlements.

And I think for a lot of people, I mean, really, like way more people than you would ever hope, they kind of go, oh, well, okay, there's this situation on the ground. But like you said, can I make money on it? And we have a fairly morally bankrupt society that doesn't really have a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people do are, you know, very great allies and work very hard to stop this flood of, frankly, like, you know, horrific. immorality, but there are a ton of people. And you can see, you see them on social all the time, you see them in real life all the time. The arguments, you know, that that defend their position are kind of about themselves. You know, okay, this may be happening, but, you know, can I, can I make money on it? Can I make my family's life better at the expense of somebody else's family? And all of this feels, you know, part and parcel with the same attitude where, you know, what, things may be bad, but at least they're not as bad for me, and that's the most I can do. And so seeing stuff like this is, it's kind of horrific on a whole other level. This is,

this is also why I keep talking about normalization is how did we normalize genocide? How did we do that like this? By doing flashy advertisements, by legislating financially, right? They're past the point of legislating legally. It's not legal, but they have found a way to make it lucrative. And that's worse. We see that in the United States, that finding ways to monetize terrible behavior. You see this with social media. Finding ways to monetize terrible behavior leads to terrible behavior with no real recourse. The courts aren't doing anything. The, you know, the Congress is locked up. And we see this everywhere. So it's like I said, it's kind of a horrifying time to live through with so much evidence that this is how we're addressing the current moment.

Yeah. I mean, I guess we don't have a full extent of maybe who else was offered this you know, sponsorship or marketing job. There could have been other people that turned it down. She was the one that said yes, maybe. But also, I mean, as we'll get into later in the hour with some other, I would argue, problematic sponsorship opportunities that are accessible to people well below her tier of celebrity. I mean, you and I both know multiple people who have rejected advertisements within the

advertisement offers in the past month or two from companies we find, maybe at least I find morally repugnant, we'll get into more of that. But it's like, it's crazy to me that people who do not have that same level of wealth, who do not have that same level of celebrity stature or, and would be like their lives would be significantly more impacted by the money that could come in in a marketing agreement or saying no. And these people who already have tremendous amounts of wealth, influence, celebrity stature, can't find the will or the morals within them to reject those offers. And that's just, I don't know, man, being a celebrity like that must just break your brain.

How much money does somebody realistically need? And we'll get into more later. But good Lord. Yeah, this is how terrible outcomes occur. and it's happening on multiple different fronts, and I would, I think we would both agree this is the most heinous, but it is just a very, very bleak time for this kind of stuff. Any last words before we go to break, Jules? I mean, you kind of nailed it. My lasting question is genuinely, how much would you have to be paid to do this? Like, I wouldn't do it.

I mean, like, like you said, like, you know, we know people who have turned down really lucrative stuff on moral reasons. And that is, I think clearly the right move. And so seeing somebody who's doing exactly the opposite is, I mean, maybe not mystifying, but truly, how much more money does Guineph Paltrow need? Like, yeah. It's a disease. It is a disease. Well, more on that front later. But right now we've got to take a break. So stick around. We've got more after. All right, let's check out some of your comments starting over on t yt.com. We got Bart Kyle. How'd this guy get in there?

I almost give Gwyneth Paltrow a pass on the story. The bigger crime that she commits as being a leader of the evil empire of Goop Kitchen. The food is bland, lifeless, and awful. She gives healthy eating a bad rap by turning it into a food genocide. All right. Not mincing words there. Let's head on down to YouTube. Nomad Bloom says Cuban American here with close family who still lives in Cuba.

The oil blockade is causing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis while doing nothing to topple the government. This is barbaric. It is just cruelty for cruelty's sake. This idea that people are going to take up arms and overthrow their government obviously never panned out in Iran and it will not pan out here. if anything, all you do is emboldened the current government. And maybe their plan long term is just to go in there and topple the government by force. That just leads to even larger problems. So we will see.

These breaks are so short. We'll catch you on the other side. Welcome back. I'm Jordan Neal joined by Jules Stalstev. and we've got another banger story for you starting with this. How seriously should people take Ro Kana as a 2028 presidential candidate? Henry Olson clearly does. I think that if Bernie doesn't run and you and I are wrong, which very rarely happens, Mark,

but if you and I are wrong and Bernie doesn't run and Ro Kana steps into that lane, I do think it will be Ro Kana's lane. And so I think that has to be taken seriously. Times and people are already speculating about 2020. People can speculate over whether Bernie Sanders will run again or whether AOC will throw her hat in the ring this time around. But one thing is for certain and has been clear four years, Roe Kana is going to run for president. But what does that mean for the progressive lane and the broader Democratic tent? We have more.

And it seems like Kana may already have stiff opposition in his party. Wilson is pretty good on the Democrats. And he says that the person who everybody needs to watch for is Roe Kana. The Ro Kana is it can raise money. He's got he's got political skills. He goes, he runs through in his column today and says Ro Kana is the man. Now I will tell you, Ro Kana is a friend of two way. He's been on on this program. He's been on two way tonight. I will tell you over Israel, over Epstein and over Platner, Ro Kana has inspired deep. I'm not talking about casual hire, deep ire on the part of many people I know. Now are they gatekeepers for the nomination? Traditionally many of them are. Political operatives, elected officials, and donors.

But maybe Rokana doesn't need the traditional folks. Jules, we've got more. There's another proxy fight between progressives and Democrats happening. We'll get into in a bit. But I want to bring you in here. This just general sentiments on Rokana running in the opposition he may or may not face from the Democratic elite. I mean, I like Rokana a lot.

A Rokana presidency would be, I think, pretty fantastic, which I also think is one of the big reasons that it's not, in my opinion, not that likely to happen. Because there is this horrific gatekeeping by centrist Dems and establishment Dems to prevent progressive challengers from making any headway, even ones that are able to get headlines and force people to take a position on issues that voters care about, which I think is why Rokana is doing so well. You know, I read somebody describe him as he's always touching the third rail. But the third rail, you know, when it comes to Gaza, when it comes to these like serious issues, Epstein, that even though these are kind of clear easy ways for Democrats to pick up points, pick up voters, speak to their literal constituents, they don't do it because they're afraid.

There is, you know, this fairly clear relationship between money and politics and the positions that politicians have. that has been made very, like, obvious when you do have progressive politicians like Rokana pointing those positions out. I think that the hardest thing that establishment dams are running against is popular opinion. Traditionally, they are, at least in the last few years, they have not been on the same side as their voters. So when someone like Rokana, at the very least, pushes the conversation in that direction, it's kind of obvious that they're getting really mad at him. They're telling him to stop. They're going to stand in his way, the closer he gets to a presidential run. Again, I think he's a great guy, and we're not lately in the habit of

electing great progressive leaders. So I hope that changes. I hope that Rokana's advocacy and his work gets us closer to that point. But then you also look at the enormous amount of influence and power and money behind establishment Dems who are working overtime, in many cases, much harder, progressive candidates than Republican candidates. You see this time and time again. So, you know, like I said, I love Rokana. I love the way he talks. I love what he talks about. I love the positions that he takes. And that's, you know, any candidate who really, really aligns with me feels like a red flag for the rest of the Democratic establishment. So I'd love to see him. My hopes are not high. I don't have a lot of optimism around the direction of the Democratic Party right now. Yeah, I think that's valid. You know, Rokana

stands out as a unique player in the Democratic Party for a variety of reasons. And one, I think underappreciated or undervalued is that he can go into spaces, like right-wing spaces or independent, like cultural spaces, like podcasts, you know, shows, that kind of stuff, and come off as authentic. How many times do we talk about, like, oh, should Kamala Harris have done Joe Rogan? Like that in all honesty, probably not. It's probably a good thing that she didn't because it would have been bad. She would have come in with her like focus group tested talking points and just tried to rigidly stick to the script. She couldn't be natural.

But we've watched. Roe will do any show big, small, left, right, that has, you know, resulted in some criticism over the years for going on Tucker Carlson. But also recently, as people have changed their opinion on the importance of doing that, people recognize, yeah, this. guy is doing more than any other Republican, you could, or any other Democrat, you could chalk that up to his very transparent presidential aspirations for even why he's doing that, but you can't say he's coming off as inauthentic. And I think he's smartly identified a few policy or societal problems or areas to make his issues, which work. The Epstein files, bipartisan issue at this point. the war in Iran, bipartisan issue. Money in politics, bipartisan issue. So he can speak to everybody.

But I hear you, and I'm with you, he will meet stiff opposition. If you're talking about money and politics, the elite in the Democratic Party is going to try to stop you because they want to continue getting rich. If you're talking about the war in Iran, to some extent you will meet some opposition. And like he has fought for war powers or solutions. under both party administrations for years. He was great on Yemen under the Biden administration. The Biden administration would not do anything to stop that, to hold the Saudis to account or withdraw their support for the Saudi Air Force, which was enforcing that blockade. It ultimately led to famine. At the time, it was the worst human rights crisis in the world

under the Biden administration. And Rokana was one of the few Democrats who were willing to speak. up and he was the leading Democrat on that fight. So he's got the track record. I don't know how he will fare in a primary. His polling, it does feel a little bit too early because they haven't really stood up campaigns, but he's not polling near the top. So we will see. I'd be curious if AOC does run what that looks like, if it's both of them trying to jockey for the progressive lane, I don't think Bernie will run. I think he's just too well. He was asked about it this week, and he gave some kind of offhand remark.

He's like, I suspect that's not going to happen. I don't think he wants to. I think he's tried it twice. He's been through the ringer. I don't think he wants to do it again. You had your opportunity, America. Could have had a real one, but we squandered it. Now let's go to a different side of this proxy fight over in Michigan.

In addition to Grand Platner, which they mentioned, another proxy fight between the establishment Democrats and progressives is taking place in Michigan's Senate primary. A fractured field has led to traditional alliances, assuming their battle stations as progressives largely lined up behind Dr. Abdul al-Sayed while establishment figures rally behind Haley Stevens. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has mostly stayed out of this race, at least in public, but he is asking party donors who support Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate candidate running against two more progressive Democrats, according to four people briefed on the communications over the last few weeks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.

They said Schumer viewed Stevens, a four-term congresswoman, as the strongest general election candidate in what is expected to be a hard-fought contest in a state that President Trump won in 2024. Schumer, who has faced growing frustration from the Democratic base and some liberal senators, often helps his preferred candidates behind the scenes without making an endorsement, rallying support from donors in the party infrastructure. But despite Schumer in the establishment's efforts, El Sayed has been rising in the polls. In the past month, multiple independent polls now show El Sayed with a slight edge over Stevens. And perhaps this could be why. The influential United automobile workers union endorsed him on Friday.

Last week, Stevens delivered a shaky debate performance in which she dodged questions about her support from donors to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group, and struggled to explain the mechanics of how the filibuster works in the Senate. Support for Israel is now becoming a wedge issue in the Democratic Party, and Stevens has positioned herself outside of the majority on that topic. Our friends over at Track A-PAC took a look at her campaign finance records and found that pro-Israel PACs have spent nearly $8 million to try to get her elected. Jules, Michigan is a unique place for APAC and pro-Israel PACs to be spending so much money. This could backfire.

Many people in the Democratic Party have chalked up Harris losing Michigan to the Biden and administration's support for Israel's genocide in Gaza. It wasn't so much that people's flip for Trump, maybe some did. I, of course, will acknowledge that would be misguided, but I think many of them stayed home. I think what you might risk here is people staying home or leaving that race blank on their ballot. If Stevens is the candidate, what do you make of how this race is taking shape and Schumer's attempt to influence the primary outcome. Yeah, I think you're you're kind of nailing it there. One of the best things that establishment Dems are able to do is prevent people from voting

by being too boring and not speaking to their interests. I love Al Sayad. I think that Schumer's endorsements lately, and I would say historically, have run counter to what voters have actually wanted. I'm a big Schumer hater. If there is one Schumer hater left, it's me. If this guy consistently votes and supports candidates who are not good candidates, who have trouble winning when there is a real decision to be made by voters like there is here.

Al Say that is a great progressive candidate who is like well liked and is not in desperate need of this. APAC money to support his candidacy. He has the people. So of course, Schumer would, you know, behind the scenes, endorse his opponent, which happens to align with APAC who he directly and openly supports. It's just really frustrating to see the dramatic impact of foreign influence and foreign funds on critical U.S. issues that for Americans are critical U.S. issues. And to see election swayed, again, in the direction of a foreign lobby. I don't like the framing that, you know, Republicans make where like, America first or Israel first, it's jingoistic, it's xenophobic. But the more obvious argument here is, you know, it's not really about America first. It's,

why is this foreign government that we know very well is committing horrific atrocities so directly involved and influential in the outcomes of our elections? And I think we know why. It's all, it's all one and the same. So I think like people like Schumer try to like frame it with this nuance that's kind of like really aggravating that like, oh, you know, well, Israel is an ally and you know, well, we have great relations with them and, you know, their interests align with our interests. And like, that's not true. It's patently not true. And when there's so much money at stake and so much money involved in saying that it's true, I think to a lot of voters, like you're saying, it seems like an obvious risk to Democrats.

that, you know, Democrats who do see the truth, who do see the reality that APEC is is horrifically influential in our elections for a very clear reason, they'll say, yeah, I'm not voting for the APEC candidate. I'm not going to show up to vote. This is a problem that Democrats are always contending with. When Dems show up to vote, they win elections. That is like, like a truth in general elections, in midterms, you know, local elections. This is the one thing Dems have going for them is there are more Dem voters than there are Republican voters, but Republican voters will show up to vote every time. So the worst thing that you can do is put forth a Dem voter that Dems don't want to vote for. And establishment Dems are incredibly good at doing that.

So, you know, I look at this and I go, you know, it just feels like watching these establishment Dems snatch, God, I always get this wrong, snatch victory from the hands of defeat or whatever the back. Anyway, I think they're going to blow it by doing this. I always get it wrong. Yeah, but I know what you mean. Well, we will wait and see this. That primary feels like it has been going on for years. And we still have another month and a half before they vote on August 4th. So we will wait and see. There's a whole lot more campaigning to do. But we got to take a break and we got more for you after this. jump into some of your comments starting over on. I want to start. Let's start over on YouTube. People need to,

Dana Albrecht 360 says people need to start pushing to abolish the Democratic superdelegates right now in order for a progressive, like Roe Cona, to have a chance. That whole system, the whole everything, even beyond the primary system, college and all of this sucks. It's anti-democratic. It just, it blows my mind that in 26, we are dealing with a clearly broken, fundamentally broken system. So I'm with you. Truth Sensei says it's systemic. Both parties have no obligation to care about you. Set clear

demands and vote accordingly. Stop blazing the Democratic Party. And truth, Sense, for the most part, I agree. I think where I might break is sometimes casting a strategic vote in a closely contested race. In the L.A. mayoral primary, I did not vote for my preferred candidate because the polling showed that she did not have any remotely close path to victory. So I voted for somebody to help box out Spencer Pratt. And that was successful. So yes and no.

We're out of time. Welcome back to The Young Turks. I'm Jordan Yule, joined by Jules Sousselstve. We've got one more story as we wind down the hour. Jay Clayton has been tapped to replace Tulsi Gabbard as head of DNI as the agency struggles under ongoing drama with Capitol Hill. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is set to expire today. The provision is a consequential one because Section 702 feeds more than half of the president's daily briefing and has been credited with helping thwart terror plots and other national security threats.

Put an asterisk on that because they like to inflate the significance or effectiveness of mass clandestine surveillance operations. but alas, it allows the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence to compel electronic service providers to provide communications involving foreign intelligence targets overseas. Section 702 has remained in place since 2008. If it lapses, it will generate a lot of uncertainty for U.S. intelligence agencies. Aspects of 702 can be buoyed via executive order, but would likely face severe legal challenges if not supported by the official certification of Congress. Congress. There's been a frantic scrambling to save Section 702, but earlier, the House rejected a proposal on a 218 vote that would have extended Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act through July 2nd. This development all but ensures that Section 702 will

officially expire today. Central to this conflict is bipartisan disapproval of Bill Pulte, the child of long-term Trump associate, who was tapped by the president to helm D&I after Gabbard reported she would step down at the end of this month to assist her husband with his cancer treatments. Pulte secured his position as acting director of D&I by promising Trump wide-scale firings within the agency and was set to start at the agency as soon as Gabbard exited at the end of the month. His ascension to the top of D&I sparked widespread backlash from both Republicans and Democrats. Last week, three Republicans voted along with Democrats to Barr Pulte from serving as the temporary head of DNI, or sorry, that agency, citing concern that he had no prior intelligence experience nor even clearance to effectively assume the job. With one commenting, the best I can tell you is he's not qualified. The move to Bar Pulte failed and Pulte attempted to expedite the start of his position by coordinating a coup against the out. outgoing director Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard had been slated to leave the agency on June 30th, but received a call last Tuesday from Pulte saying that that day would be her last day. After the conversation with Pulte, Gabbard got a hold of Trump who didn't request her immediate resignation. What day works best for you? The president asked, according to one of the sources. Gabbert said June 19th, and Trump then posted a statement on truth social announcing her new exit date. Despite the pressure of the condemnation against Pulte, Trump doubled down on his appointment as acting head of DNI. But that has changed given the Democrats have called his bluff regarding the sunsetting of Section 702.

After they voted against the extension, Trump announced that he would appoint former chairman of the SEC, Jay Clayton, to be the new head of DNI, saying, few people anywhere in the legal community are respected at the level of J. I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible. He respected U.S. attorney from New York. Clayton is a relatively uncontroversial pick meant to stymie the frustration of Congress for Trump's attempted elevation of Pulte. But this is somebody who was getting his appointment because he is a Trump lackey and has recently also joined with other MAGA Republicans and Trump acolytes.

by questioning the results of the 2020 election. There's more, but for time, Jules, I want to bring you in here. We're at a really pivotal moment. It's not getting a lot of attention. These clandestine mass surveillance programs, while they are designed to capture foreign intelligence, often ensnare American citizens. And overall, these programs are a violation of our civil liberties.

What do you think? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, angles around this, but I think the one that shines out the most is that, you know, for as much talk as Republicans have done about there being like this deep state surveillance state that's, you know, pulling all the levers. What we're really looking at is like one incompetent person being replaced by a marginally more competent person in the middle of this blow up over, you know, the surveillance state that we never wanted in the first place. And like, frankly, I don't know how much surveillance I would like Trump to have access to. How much like intelligence,

is good for us for him to have. So this whole blowup just makes me feel like we have the dumbest possible like corrupt deep state imaginable that is leaking like a sieve where the intelligence is used for corruption and insider trading. It's such a mess. It's such a barrel of snakes that I don't know which one to be the most frustrated or mad at. The whole thing is a mess.

The whole thing sucks. I have no sympathy for anyone involved. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, these programs are just bad, bad in general. I mean, they're all extensions of the post-9-11 freak out the war on terror era, and they have continually been expanded, weaponized, abused, again, in violation of our civil liberties. I also want to double tap the line about how they've been used to thwart terrorist attacks, these programs. They made the same case for the NSA's spying. Oh, yeah, we've used them to stop all of these domestic attacks.

They've, I mean, maybe in recent years they've tried to muster up some evidence. But at the time when these programs had leaked through Snowden, the publishers of Barton Gilman, Laura Poitris, and Glenn Greenwald. And even in the years following, no evidence existed that showed that anything had been thwarted through those mass domestic surveillance programs. And all they do is scaremonger to justify their necessity and they're going to do the same thing with this lapse over the World Cup. When in reality you zoom out and you see people from all over the world uniting coming together, having fun under the shared banner of just enjoying and appreciating the World Cup. And our moronic government is going to try to fearmonger, scaremonger, through xenophobia, to justify the re-implementation and extension of this program. And it is a terrible, terrible plan.

That's all the time we have for this hour. Stick around for the bonus episode where we've got a whole lot more. BetMGM, an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League, has everything you need for 2026 Stanley Cup playoff action. Hockey fans in Canada can place live bets every game during the quest for the Cup. Create same game parles, take player props, and place futures on the 2026 Stanley Cup champion. Check out BetMGM original bets. Hockey markets you can't find anywhere else.

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