The Young Turks - Exxon Exposé

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Exxon Mobil lobbyist accidentally gives away the game on how legislators are bought and paid for… by name! Allen Weisselberg has turned himself in, plans to fight charges. The Supreme Court invalidates California’s donor disclosure requirement. And the Supreme Court leaves Arizona’s voting restrictions in place. Liz Cheney has been named by Speaker Pelosi to serve on the House January 6th Committee.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.

And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterC. and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash the iPorter to learn more. Thank you. All right, welcome the Young Turks. Jane U. Granik, Span, with you guys.

So excellent day of news for you guys. By excellent, I don't mean good, of course. It's usually disastrous. Excellent is in that we're going to cover it with analysis that I think you're not going to get anywhere else. So the story about Exxon Mobil lobbyist is amazing. It should be the top story all over the country. Of course, it isn't.

And we're going to give it to you here. should affect everyone's coverage, it won't. And then later in the program, just a little bit later, the Supreme Court makes bribery even easier in a disastrous decision. And in a weird turn of events, slightly agree with Megan McCain and Kamala Harris. What? What is this, okay? Because you're a corporate sellout.

Exactly, right. Hey, using your mind to decide, hey, is it true or not true? Ah, shill, ah, okay. So that'll be fun. Anyways, okay, let's get started. Let's do it. A senior Exxon Mobil lobbyist who was under the impression he was being interviewed for a possible new job was actually being secretly recorded by Greenpeace UK, and he admitted quite a bit about

Exxon's practices in regard to lobbying members of Congress to ensure that nothing. gets done about climate change and fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil get all the goodies that they want. So this is more confirmation, more reinforcement for something that we've been talking about on this show for well over a decade, how money in politics works and how it works against you, the American taxpayer, American citizen, American voter. Let's begin with the first video where this senior lobbyist, his name is Keith McCoy, just talks about how they use things like shadow groups to get what they want. Did we aggressively fight against some of the science?

Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not. Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true, but there's nothing, there's nothing illegal about that. You know, we were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our in our shareholders. So, Janky says there was nothing illegal about what we were doing, which is actually true. And he also just bluntly states that they were looking out for their shareholders, because that's how this system works.

These companies look out for their shareholders, not for the environment or for the good of the people. That's the most obvious thing in the world. But the mainstream media pretends that, oh, corporations making profits. That sounds conspiratorial. They're interested in that? Is that why they're giving campaign donations? The whole country right now is saying it with me. Of course.

But there's an amazing look into how they think about it behind the scenes, which confirms everything we've ever told you on this show. So even in that first video, let's break down a bunch of things. First of all, he talks about how, well, of course we're, you know, basically using shadow groups to fight the real science, right? And they claim to publicly support action on climate change while undermining it behind the scenes. He thinks he's doing a job interview, so he's like, I'm really good at doing hatchet jobs for corporations like ExxonMobil, and I'll lie publicly and then tell you privately

how I maximize profits for our shareholders by tricking the American public and buying off politicians. Now we're gonna get to the politicians in a second. I want to give excellent, tremendous credit to unearthed. That's Greenpeace, UK's investigative platform that did this. So bless their hearts for getting it. And it's such a clever trick, because the minute they have money on the line, and you think, so I'm gonna get a job that pays more. He's like, I'll tell you all my dirty tricks, right? But now, they ask Exxon Mobil afterwards, Hey, what do you say about this? And ExxonMobil says, we have supported climate size for decades.

Yeah, no. No, no, that's exactly what he said you would say. Publicly, you'll say you supported it for decades while secretly undermining it. And then your talking point afterwards is a direct confirmation of what he says, okay? That's exactly right. So he does touch on how ExxonMobil will use these hollow PR strategies. publicly to make it appear as though this fossil fuel company is very much interested in doing what's right by the environment, they take climate change seriously, when in reality

they're advocating for things they know will not pass, probably because behind the scenes they're lobbying to ensure they don't pass. And so the carbon tax is an example of that. Here he is talking about that very issue. You know, nobody is going to propose a tax on all Americans. and the cynical side of me says, yeah, we kind of know that. But it gives us a talking point that we can say, well, what does that call mobile for? We're for a carbon tax.

What you said was just really interesting. So it's basically never going to happen, right? Is the calculation? Yeah. No, it's not going to. Carbon tax isn't going to happen. So this helps me understand a little bit why suddenly a lot of U.S. oil majors are talking about a carbon tax because it sounds pretty uh well i i i i i i i the cynical side of me they've got nothing

else so it's a um it's it's it's an easy talking point to say um look i'm for a carver tax so so that's the talking point that that is a in my mind, an effective advocacy tool. It's an effective advocacy tool because it's something that they don't have to worry about actually passing. So it's positive PR for Exxon. And I also want to just add one point about the context in which this conversation is taking place. As we've mentioned already, he thinks he's being interviewed for a job. And so this is the only time, possibly one of the only times, the only kind of context where in a job interview, you literally

admit to the individual that you're lying to the public about what you really believe, but secretly you're working with nefarious groups to undermine any type of policy that would actually benefit the environment. The reason why he's talking so openly about this is because this is what the industry wants from one of these senior lobbyists for a fossil fuel company, they want someone who plays all of these tricks to get the most profits necessary for the shareholders. Right, there's no question that that's what is in every interview. If you're a lobbyist, they're not hiring you to not bribe politicians effectively.

They're hiring you to bribe and cajole and trick people. You don't have to trick the politicians, just buy them. And he's gonna explain that in a minute. It's amazing, he's gonna name names, okay? But when it comes to the American public and the American media, the media is the suckers. They're the useful idiots. So they look at the carbon tax thing, he's saying,

oh, we just, it's smoking mirrors, right? So we pretend to be for something that we know is never gonna pass. How many times that we told you on the Young Turks? They pretend to be in favor of things that they know are never going to pass. And you tell the mainstream media, you tell the Washington Post and Senator,

they're like, that seems a little conspiratorial. I believe that the politicians are honest. Well, okay, if you suck at your job, you would believe that. This is, it's over, it's definitive. Here he is telling him. Here's another trick that he mentioned in the first video. He says, oh, yeah, yeah, we just hide behind the third-party groups like American Petroleum Institute. And they become the whipping boys.

And then we get so, it's not Axon Mobil. Oh, we got another new with it. Oh, this American Petroleum Institute. You can't connect it to any one company, right? So if you want to get angry at them, sure, get angry at them. who cares, as long as you're not getting angry at ExxonMobil, who's actually doing the bribing of the politicians. Exactly. So let's get to the heart of the matter, which is the bribing of the politicians. As we know, Biden just bragged about securing a bipartisan infrastructure

deal with the involvement of Republican senators. It is an awful watered down bill, which could potentially privatize about $100 billion worth of public infrastructure, meaning that Americans are going to get slapped with all sorts of tolls and fees just to use the infrastructure that we've been using so far. We did a great story on that. You should check it out. But with that said, what are the inner workings of Congress, right? What kind of role does Exxon Mobile play? And sure enough, this corporate lobbyist talks about that very issue and how they're basically defeating everything that we want included in that infrastructure bill. Let's watch. We're playing defense because the President Biden's talking about this big infrastructure package

and he's going to pay for it by increasing corporate taxes. You stick the highways and bridges, then a lot of the negative stuff starts to come out. Because it's a germaneus, right? That doesn't make any sense for a highway bill. Why would you put in something on emissions reductions on climate change to oil refineries in a highway bill. I mean, it's the exact talking point that we got from the Republican Party in response to Biden's infrastructure bill.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want to do anything about climate change, physical infrastructure. And lo and behold, the bipartisan deal strips out any of the climate action provisions that were present in Biden's initial infrastructure proposal. Yeah, and we told you ahead of time, this show that they were going to strip out the green energy provisions and they were going to only keep the provisions that allowed private corporations to profit off of the infrastructure bill. That's exactly what they did in the bipartisan compromise. And he brags at different times

in this interview about, oh yeah, we do education of members of Congress. In other words, we write what they're supposed to say and then they say it. They said they sometimes will even write floor speeches. So here, parrot, do as you're told, here's a cracker, right? And so these are, what did we tell you a thousand times on this show? They're not having actual debates. This is not about principle. When you tune into CNN and you read to New York Times and telling you, and they tell you what Joe Manchin and Lizzie Graham thinks, they're participating in a false kabuki theater.

It was never real. They're not having actual debates. They're taking money from ExxonMobil, and then they're doing, as they are told, sometimes quite literally. And so when they ExxonMobil tells you, there ain't gonna be no green energy, because green energy hurts us in another video, they got a couple of executives on this, right? They explain, well, if you do the green energy stuff, it might work. And then it'll be irreversible, then it'll be hard for us to get our unfair, he doesn't

say unfair, but get our advantage back, right? In other words, it's gonna work. Yeah. And it's gonna help the American people, don't do that. Exactly. Because we don't care about helping the American people. But guys, the core of this is, do they want to do this to maximize profit? Of course they do.

Of course, ExxonMobil is not a charity, right? And yet every idiot that covers politics in America is like, oh well, you know, they give money to politicians, but you know, we don't know why, what do you mean you don't know why? They do it, so they the laws are written on behalf of corporations and not us. They have a fiduciary responsibility, which is the excuse they use over and over again, not only in the secret videos, but afterwards. They said, what, we didn't break any loss, and we have to maximize profit for our shareholders.

We have a legal responsibility to do that. But that's true. That's absolutely true. Yeah. And so that's why we have to get rid of money in politics, because we legalize bribery. As long as you allow private citizens and corporations to pay unlimited money to politicians, they will pay unlimited money to get what? Financial return. Again, if you're an individual, it might be different. But if you're a corporation, you must maximize return. So you cannot give it these bribes, these legalized bribes to these folks, unless you think this is going to make me lots of money. And often at your expense, including subsidies where they directly take money out of our pockets and give it to ExxonMobil. And now let's get to naming names because there's a lot of bastards in here that you should know about.

Well, some of the bastards are individuals who have been fighting the infrastructure bill on the Democratic side. So let's hear what our good friend, senior ExxonMobil lobbyist, Keith McCoy, has to say. Who's the crucial guys for you? Well, Senator Capito, who is the, who chairs the Senate, who's the ranking member of our environment of public works. Joe Manchin. I talk to his office every week. He is the kingmaker on this because he's a Democrat from West Virginia, which is very conservative state. So he is, and he's not shy about sort of staking his claim early and completely changing the debate. So on the Democrat side, we look for the moderates on these issues. So it's the mansions. It's the cinemas. It's the testers. Other ones that aren't talking about is Senator Coons, who has a very close with Eastern Delaware,

who has a very close relationship with Senator Biden. So we've been working with his office. As a matter of fact, our CEO is talking to him next Tuesday. And you can see the influence of ExxonMobil throughout Joe Manchin's political career. In fact, during the Obama administration, he put out an insanely goofy ad where he was pretending to shoot Obama's cap and trade policy. Let's watch. That's me, shooting the cap and trade bill, because it was bad for West Virginia. I mean, not only does this corporate lobbying lead to bad policy decisions and bad votes by the

likes of Joe Manchin, it even persuades them to put out insanely embarrassing and cheesy ads like that one. Yeah, and so two people he mentioned first were Capito and Mansion. They're both from West Virginia and Capitals, a Republican mansion is a Democrat. But basically, they think they're the easiest to buy. Because they are. And he explains why, too, that they have the excuse of pretending to be from a conservative state. But they're not actually serving conservative voters. They're serving ExxonMobil, a giant multinational corporation. In fact, they're robbing the people of West Virginia to serve Exxon Mobil. And it's bipartisan. Capito does it. Manchin does it. And look, guys, look at the names he gave you. It's exactly the names we've been telling you.

easy. Cinema is relatively easy. And those are the first two democracies. Oh, those totally in the back pocket of corporations. It's absolutely confirmed. Will the rest of the mainstream media going forward to say, oh, these are the politicians bought by Exxon Mobil? No, they'll never say it. They'll pretend they have principles, right? But look at that name, Chris Coons. How many times have you heard his name on this show? You've heard me say over and over again, he's one of the most conservative moment, one of the most corporate Democrats in the entire country, and he's really important and influential because he's a senator from Delaware, one of Joe Biden's best friends. So Coons is a stalking horse, in essence, for what Joe Biden's actual

positions are. You buy Coons, and you partly buy Biden, okay? So I don't know any other show talking about Chris Coons. And it's so obvious, he's from Delaware. He was one of the top campaign advisors to Joe Biden. So when he goes out and votes against $15 minimum wage, that's Joe Biden saying, I never wanted it. I never wanted it. I wanted it. I wanted to serve my donors. Exactly. And he does it with Exxon Mobil 2. By the way, the whole list that he names in different parts of the video, Maggie Hassan and other corporate Democrat from New Hampshire. She's going to run in New Hampshire now, and she's kissing the ass of every corporation because she thinks that's the

way to beat a popular Republican in New Hampshire. What a dumb, dumb idea. If you actually just serve the people of New Hampshire, you'd have a better chance of winning. Go with this corporate strategy, it's a near guarantee. No, no, but Jank, Jank, I'm sure that the Democrats they lose in these elections are losing because of slogans like Medicare for all or, you know, defund the police. It's those things, right? Which is weird because progressive Democrats usually have an easy time getting reelected, whereas these corporate Democrats are the ones who, the ones that always, always capitulate to corporate interests.

you usually lose, especially in the midterm election. So let's wait and see what happens in 2022. Yes. And so by the way, he also named Republicans too, not just Capito, John Barrasso, John Cornyn, Steve Danes, and Marco Rubio. He also named Mark Kelly, who's a Democrat, okay? So, and what do we tell you about Marco Rubio? The most corporate Republican there is, that's why corporate media loves them. I, in my book, that is actually gonna come out at some point, I explain how corporate media,

All these different quotes, Marco Rubio is definitely going to win. Marco Rubio is one of the leading candidates in 2016. Oh, it'll be such a joke for Trump's not going to win. Marco Rubio, our beloved corporate Republicans, going to win. And then he got almost no votes because right-wing voters and left-wing voters don't want these corporate lackeys. The only reason why Democrats still vote for them is because they trust the New York Times of CNN and the lies that they are fed about how these are honest, principled politicians when they're in fact, they're just order takers. Now, I gotta give you two more quotes, because they're absolutely devastating. So he says at one point, the same guy you're looking at here,

you want to be able to go to the chief, the chief of staff, he says, and say we need a congressman so-and-so, sorry here, we need a congressman so-and-so to be able to either introduce the bill, we need him to make a floor statement, we need him to send a letter, you name it, We've asked for everything. So what did I tell you? They're just like, hey, hey, water boy, here, here, here, here, here, come here, come here. Here's a check. By the way, the Channel 4 that did this report, trace checks back to Mark Kelly and others.

Of course. ExxonMobil does it. They do it through American Petroleum Institute. Then there's a dark money. So when you see them speaking on the floor of the House or the Senate, sometimes it's literal words written by lobbyists. It's sickening. They're supposed to be the people's representatives. But last one is the killer quote.

This describes all of American politics. He said, I make sure I get them the right information that they need so they look good. So we get them the talking points. This is what you say, boy. Yes, sir, yes, sir. And you're going to look good here. We're going to pretend that you're doing something while you're secretly helping us. And then he continues.

And then they help me out. They're a captive audience. He said, they know they need you and I need them. There it is. That's all of American politics. They need you because they need us, the lobbyists say, because we have the money. And they can't win without money. So we just bribe them.

We just give them legalized bribes. America made it legal. Other countries, by the way, don't have it legal. You're not allowed to have private donations from corporations at other countries. Here in America, you could just funnel it through dark money groups, over a billion dollars in dark money groups in the last presidential election. So they're like, oh, so we just, we just tell them what to say, and then they need our money, and we need their votes.

The voters, the voters, the voters. So, look, the voters are not the suckers. The media are the suckers and the useful idiots, because they just go, oh, no, Manchin and Capito and Marco Rubio, they're wonderful human beings who are, man, what do they think about the carbon tax? They don't think a goddamn thing except, where's my check ExxonMobil? I'm going to go betray my own voters because in America, we were so corrupt that we legalized bribery.

We got to take a break, but when we come back, an update on the criminal charges against the Trump organization and their chief financial officer, Alan Weisselberg, will We'll be right back. All right, back on the Young Turks, Jenk, Anna, and Mr. Clyde the Burb Dragon and Ricky TVA, both just signed up. I don't know if you're part of the Time Variance Authority, but either way, Ricky, thank you for being part of the show. And we appreciate it. The word tender made an appearance on one of our members-only shows old school. Well, part of it, a huge part of it is members only.

So you should become a member to watch it. And you want to see what context the word tender comes up in because it was a lot. It was a lot. Yeah, yeah. It was a lot. Come on, how good was that old school? It was good.

It was good. Okay, so guys, if you're a member, make sure you're checking out old school. It's tons and tons of fun. And I want to give one more shout out to Sean Umpelby, who wrote in on a super chat. He's a producer level member and he asks us a bunch of questions on the AMA that we did earlier in the weekend. He said, glad to see you, Jank. I thank the Anna yesterday, but thank you for the Q&A. I can't wait for the next one, so much fun.

Love Yins, Pittsburgh for life. Okay, so thank you guys. I love the producer level members. That's why we do the Q&A, trying to give you guys more for helping more and pushing out the truth and change. All right, Anna. All right. Donald Trump's chief financial officer, the chief financial officer for the Trump organization specifically, has turned himself into the authorities as he was expecting criminal charges

against him, and he has in fact been charged by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. The charges include tax evasion and also grand larceny, and we now have some more details about what he and the Trump organization has been accused of, evading taxes for as many as 15 years, also essentially getting paid with these schemes that prevent the IRS from knowing about huge portions of his income. So his lawyer, Mary E. Mulligan, said that her client intends to plead not guilty, and by the way, he did in fact plead not guilty, and will fight these charges in court. Prosecutors previously tried to persuade Weisselberg to cooperate with the investigation, but his lawyers recently said that he would not be of assistance. So my read of this is,

they're coming down hard on Weisselberg in the hopes that he will turn on Donald Trump and cooperate with this investigation. As this investigation stands right now, it does not appear as though Donald Trump or members of his family will face any criminal charges. However, this is just the beginning. So who knows how this story will develop. Now, we covered this story just yesterday, and now we have some more details about the extent to which he allegedly evaded taxes, as I mentioned, as long as 15 years. So prosecutors have zeroed in on the benefits that Weisselberg and his family received from

Donald Trump, including tens of thousands of dollars in private school tuition for one of Weisselberg's grandchildren, a rent-free apartment. on the upper west side of Manhattan, and leased Mercedes Ben's vehicles. Weisselberg's wife also received her own leased Mercedes. So there's also some indication that he was paid with cash that he did not report. And so as a result of the way he reported his income, which wasn't honest, right, he even received tax refunds from the federal government to the tune of $133,000. Now, we don't know how this amount is broken up based on the cars or the apartments or the

tuition or the cash. But prosecutors are looking at about $1.7 million of unreported income to the IRS. Okay, so now $1.7 million is a lot of money. And so if you pay normal tax on that, you're in New York, you're gonna pay at least 50% because of federal state and city taxes and city taxes in New York are significant. So you're talking about, about, you know, obviously $850,000 or so. And that's a world of money that he's cheating off his taxes. If you cheated off your taxes for the rest of your life, you might not be able to cheat

to the tune of $850,000. Most people don't make that much money. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's significant in that sense, but there's disagreements as to whether how serious these charges are, right? And Ari Melbur is saying they're super serious. He's on MSNBC, and he's a lawyer, and I like Ari. But I have a different opinion. I think this is more like busting someone on drug possession, because you know they're actually dealing, right?

And you're going to try to flip them on the dealing, because you don't really care about the possession that much. So in this case, is this against law? Yes. Would you be busted for it? Yes. Is it good that they're bringing these charges, nonetheless, yes. But there's much bigger fish to fry. So for example, Michael Cohen talked about, hey, we cheat on everything. We tell the IRS one thing to lower our taxes. We tell the bank something else to get big loans. So if you have two sets of books, that's a massive crime, right?

So now Weisselberg has not flipped on that. So I am, I'm a little concerned here, to be honest, that if they had the evidence already, they charge them with that bigger crime. And so- 100%. And so I'm worried that they don't yet have the goods on the dealing. They don't. And they're charging me on the possession to try to get to that. And so it doesn't mean that they're wrong on the, on the, what I'm the analogy I'm using

on the possession charge. He looks like he definitely did it. They have excellent witnesses and they have good books on it. So, but, you know, sometimes people, folks win on that. And if they do, oh my God, Trump people are going to go nuts if he gets acquitted. In fact, Trump today's celebrating. He's like, oh, this is going to hurt Sleepy Joe, he said. I'm thrilled with it.

He's apparently telling his advisors. I mean, if I were a terrible person like Donald Trump, I would be celebrating today as well because as things stand right now, this investigation doesn't look so great for the prosecutors, but again, you never know how this can develop. To me, it's really abundantly clear that they're focusing on coming down hard on Weisselberg, because oftentimes, look, what he did is wrong. There's no question, if it's proven, what he did is wrong, and he should suffer the consequences. But he's being charged criminally for this, when in reality, if someone is caught engaging in

similar activity, prosecutors don't really go after this, right? There might be, or there could be a civil suit and fines associated to ensure that the money that wasn't paid, the taxes that were evaded are in fact later paid and there are fines associated with that as well. I think what they're trying to do is persuade him to flip on Donald Trump because they don't, it seems like they don't have the goods on Donald Trump right now. Right, now there is one other possibility, which is that they actually do have a lot of evidence, Or that this is the Manhattan DA, the New York State Attorney General might bring different

charges, the more serious charges. And guys, you know, we're saying that these charges are not super serious, right? But that doesn't mean they're not true, they are true, and in terms of what other people be charged with it, I think it's a mixed bag, to be honest. So in some context, yes, they would definitely be charged. If you're a rando doctor and you're cheating on your taxes, they're probably going to you rather than criminally charging you, but it depends. How much was it? How many years? Was it systematic? Did they want to make an example out of you so that it creates a turns for

other people? Okay, this is the question I have. And it's a genuine question. I'm not an expert on these tax issues, mostly because I work at TYT and there's no scenario in which this would ever happen. But if TYT was like, yo, you're a long time employee, you do really good work, we really value you, we're giving you a Mercedes. We're leasing a Mercedes on your behalf. Okay, yeah. How do I then pay taxes on that leased Mercedes, right? No, you do. You do, you have to. How, how does that work? Where do I go? How do I report that to the IRS? No, you just put it as a line item in your taxes saying this is a benefit that I got. I would never know to do that, by the way. I would, by the way, I would break that law and not

even know that I broke that law. That's not the case with these guys. These guys know what they're doing. I'm just saying. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. So look, I get it. So if you guys made that honest mistake, they're not going to come after your full board. Oh, you got a, you know, pens from your work. And technically, you should have reported the 37 cents and stuff. No, they're not going to get you for that. I know. Do I report the snacks that you guys provide? No, no, no, no. There's certain requirements, et cetera, right? We barely got snacks here. We have no snacks because of COVID. Well, now we don't even have the snacks. Anyways, But if you're the chief financial officer for 48 years for the Trump Organization, do you know

these laws? Of course! And if you've been doing it for decades, was it systematic and done on purpose? Yes. And they have witnesses saying, oh, we, you know, including family members saying, no, we knew we were breaking the law, we knew that it was under the table. And so, and by the way, here's another context in which they would go after someone like that. If they were in the mob, and they know they've got other stuff that they did, but they, hey, you, you cheated on your taxes.

That's literally what they did to Al Capone, right? Now, by the way, guys, the reason Donald Trump is happy, though, and guys, look at, we do an honest and fair program here. I despise Donald Trump, right? But I'm telling you here that these charges are not the most serious charges, because that's a fact, right? That's the news, and then you have to see what the interpretation analysis is. Okay, the reason Trump is elated is he knows how many illegal things he's done. And he's like, they only got that? They didn't get the other stuff?

Oh, thank God is what he's thinking right now. Because look, if they charge you with a random bogus crime, you're like, what the hell? What are you going to put me in jail for this? Right? If you were actually innocent and that was the only thing you had done or not done, right? But if you knew you committed murder and this and that and the other thing, I'm not saying Trump did that. I'm using an analogy, okay? And they charged you with jaywalking, you'd be like, yes!

Yeah. So that's what's happening with Donald Trump. And guys, we need, we're not even getting into the money laundering. That's a whole other conversation. And there's another problem here, is that the statute of limitations might have run out on some of their past crimes. Yeah, exactly. Now, if he is found guilty on the larceny charge, that has a potential prison sentence

of 15 years. So that might persuade Weisselberg somewhere down the line to cooperate with investigators, but as it stands right now, he has pleaded not guilty, and it doesn't seem likely that he'll cooperate with them. And he's been incredibly loyal to Donald Trump, not just throughout this investigation, but throughout his career. He's worked beside Donald Trump for decades, and they're very close. Donald Trump, the cheapest man in the world, apparently gives him cars to drive and tuition

to pay for his grandchildren. So that's actually the most shocking part of this entire story. Yeah, and so the relevance of that is that Donald Trump is known by everyone, and especially the people closest to him, as notoriously cheap. He never pays for a damn thing. And as you all know, the six bankruptcies, he brags in public openly about, I don't pay my bills. Only suckers pay their debt.

No, you just squelch on it. And you go, ha, ha, I'm bankrupt. And you just take people's money and wait for the next sucker. And he brags about it, and Michael's like, yeah, right? But he never did that to Weisselberg. Why? Because Weisselberg is a guy who has the books. Donald Trump, previous accountant said, oh, Trump can't, doesn't understand accounting at all.

And when we were talking about taxes, he'd be like, uh, what? Just make them low. And I'd have to talk to his wife at the time it was Ivana Trump, right? Because she was smart. And he's like, I didn't mean it that way. And then they asked him about his dad, Fred Trump. Oh, he's like, oh, Fred Trump knew exactly what he was doing. So Donald Trump needs Weisselberg because he can't even do basic math.

So since Weisselberg has all the records and all the numbers and all the money that is flowing through him, he's got to be nice to one guy. And that's Weisleberg. Yeah, and also the guy who knows how the crimes are committed. You've got to make sure that that guy is compensated well, is taken care of so he doesn't flip on you if. things get pretty shaky. So we got to take another break, but when we come back, we'll just speed things up, give you some new news about the Supreme Court and why strategic voting in presidential elections is actually very important despite what some nefarious figures online would have you believe. We'll be right back.

Let's do it. That's what we do. Let's talk about some more pro-corporate Supreme Court rulings. A new Supreme Court ruling indicates that California's law that essentially provides some regulation in regard to secretive charitable donations will be reversed. Now this paves the way for more dark money to flow into our elections. This is a disaster because it sets a precedent that can be applied. that can be applied more broadly to the electoral process.

Now, the case had pitted the interests of charities to maintain the privacy of their donors against the state's interest in policing charitable fraud. The challenge against the state law was brought by, oh wow, conservative non-profits, Americans for American for Prosperity Foundation, a Koch-affiliated group, and the Thomas Moore Law Center, who want to keep their donors' identities secret. and argued that the state had not shown a competing, or compelling, I should say, a compelling reason for the law. So what this is about, I'm sure you guys have noticed. Oftentimes, there are these charitable donations to these groups like the Center for American Prosperity

or whatever other right-wing group there is. I know that Turning Point USA is another example. And you want to know how they're funded, what nefarious situation is going on. It happens over and over again. We had just a little bit of protection against it in the state of California. And so the conservative justice is swoop in in this case and say, no, we're going to reverse it. California mandated that non-profit charities that solicit donations in the state identify substantial donors to the California Attorney General. The same information already goes to the IRS found on the IRS Form 990. The Schedule B attachment required the organizations to report the names and addresses of their largest contributors.

And so the lower courts had ruled differently from the Supreme Court, saying that a previous district court, for instance, held that there was ample evidence that donors would face public hostility and intimidation if their affiliation with the organization was publicly. known and expressed concern about inadvertent disclosure, but nonetheless, they still voted to uphold California's regulation on this because they were concerned that, you know, there might be self-dealing going on with these charities. Yeah, no, I'm sorry, just let me clarify. That was a district court that ruled the same way the Supreme Court did. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals then disagreed with that district court statement. That's right, you're right, yes.

Thank you for that. But okay, now let's break this down. Citizens United said that, oh, it's okay, they can give money, unlimited money basically to politicians and to political efforts, because you'll get to find out who the donors are because that's them speaking. And so then you'll be able to judge for yourself. This says no, we're basically overruling Citizens United and making it worse. Now you're not allowed to find out who the donors are.

So let's talk about the absurdities of that. The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which is the main lead group here, that's the Koch Brothers group, right? First of all, they're not charities. They keep calling them charities. They're fake charities. They give almost all their money to political causes which benefit Coke industries. What an amazing coincidence, what a charity.

It's a scam that it's even called a charity, right? And by the way, there's some left-wing groups on their sign in this case, which I'm going to rip into in a second, okay? But the person, the CEO for Americans for Prosperity writes in today's decision protects Americans from being forced to choose between staying safe or speaking up. No, wait a minute. They're very literally not speaking up. They're not saying a word. In fact, they're in an undisclosed bunker. That's the whole point of this case. They say, I don't want to say anything. I want to be secret. I just want to want to funnel money to politicians. That's what we used to call a bribe. And the Supreme Court says,

oh yes, of course, not speaking is speaking. Not speaking is speaking? They have a right to speak up. Okay, great, then step up and speak up. No, no, no, no, they don't want to speak up. They just want to give hundreds of millions of dollars behind the scene so they can get billions of dollars in tax cuts and deregulation. What did we tell you guys? I mean, we covered other Supreme Court rulings recently on the show. These corporate, conservative, conservative. Justices were not installed in the Supreme Court because conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity actually care about social issues.

They don't care about social issues at all. They would have Republican voters believe that they care about social issues. In reality, all they want to do is install justices that will protect corporate interests. And in this regard, they're doing just that by making it easier to funnel money. to politicians or funnel money to groups and to do it in a way that wouldn't even lead to any type of negative attention because they can do it anonymously essentially. They don't have to report it. The donor's names, the donor's organization does not have to be disclosed. That's what this ruling indicates. Yeah. And so I'm going to go back to that same CEO,

Emily Seidel for America's for Prosperity Foundation. She said the work of addressing injustice, Advocating for change is hard enough without people facing fear of harassment. Wait, are they speaking or are they not speaking? The underlying thesis for all of this, going all the way back to 1976, Buckley-Villeo, Blotty, Citizens United, McCutcheon, and this case is, hey, money's just speech. These poor guys, they just want to talk. Well, why don't they come out and talk? No, no, no, no, there would be harassment. We don't want to talk.

We just want to buy the politicians in secret. And this deeply, deeply corrupt Supreme Court said, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, why don't you go do that? We'll make Citizens United way worse. Okay, by the way, guys, I explain all of this in my book that's going to come out soon. Justice's Coming book.com. So the reason I tell you that is because it's a longer explanation. But basically in 1971, the Chamber of Commerce wrote a memo saying,

why don't we buy off the Supreme Court? And if we capture the Supreme Court, they'll just change all the laws for us and we won't have to bother with democracy. And this is exactly what resulted from this. The corporate machines set to take over our government, they had a plan, they executed the plan, and it totally worked. These six conservatives are not at all conservative. And is absolutely right.

They're just corporate robots. 100%. 100%. And now let me get to the so-called. Progressive groups. Look, I say so-called, I get it. They're great in other contexts, including the NAACP. Love them. We have them on the show all the time. But they're with these groups. Why? They don't want their donors disclose these either. Now they might have some legitimate reasons for that, but they also get money from corporations. They do, right?

And so I don't want people to know about that. Well, I don't care if you're on the left. No, you don't get to hide your donors, right? And the number one culprit, the ACLU. So ACLU is like, no, I don't care, money's awesome and it's speech and don't look at my donors and I'm doing this out of principle and and I don't see the bribery. I don't see that as a governmental interest. No, I think money is just talking to people. Like, you know, and Jamie Raskin, who's in Congress now had a great line once about this. So if you go and give money to a prostitute, are you just talking to her? Because you'd be arrested, right? It's a really good point. It's a really, really good point. Officer, what do you mean? I was talking to her. And in fact, you don't have a right to even see what we're doing. We're going to go commit illegal activities. You're not allowed to look, and you're not allowed to even find out what the hell I'm saying, because it's just money. It's amazing. Well, the NAACP and the ACLU is an agreement with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which, of course, does not hide the fact that they want this ruling to apply more broadly to the electoral process. elections, freedoms of speech and association deserve the same rigorous protection in the context

of elections as they do in other contexts, the influential U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued in its brief to the court. Because really, this country is dominated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It's not dominated by democracy, the democratic process, any specific political party. it's whatever corporate interests want, corporate interests will get. And while there's all sorts of nonsense infighting with people who claim they want to change the system, the fact of the matter is you have the corporate wing of this country that's incredibly powerful. Obviously, they've got the resources, but they're organized. They understand the importance of the elections that take place,

of ensuring that they strategically think about how to install these pro-corporate justices into the Supreme Court. That's why whenever someone tells you, oh, elections don't matter, don't pay attention at all, who cares about the Supreme Court? You should care about the Supreme Court because the rulings that they're passing down right now are going to impact us for generations. Okay, how do you reverse something like this? It's incredibly difficult, if not impossible. And so why would anyone advocate for something that actually makes it far more difficult to strategically accomplish what the left wants to accomplish? Why?

Why would they do that? It makes no sense. Look, that's why I'm so proud that Wolfpack is nonpartisan. And they're not playing around. They're super nonpartisan. They've got some of the most conservative legislators that I totally disagree with on every other issue at the state level that introduce our resolution. Some right wing voters, a lot of right wing voters also hate the corruption, right?

And so, and it allows them to do what almost no other group does. So the groups are usually either on the left or the right. So when it comes to the groups on the left that are terrible on this issue, like common cause. Now common cause is not about this as far as I know, but they all pretend to be against money in politics and then secretly help money in politics. ACLU is abhorrent on this issue. Well, Wolfpack calls them out. Every other group's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, they're allies, don't touch them because

we're on the left. Well, I don't care about the left or the right. Wolfpack doesn't care about that. We care about are you in favor of corruption or are you against it? The ACLU did brilliant work in the Trump years. And they upheld our rights. And yes, you can do nuance and say they're great on this and terrible on this. Right, they did great work and they collected tons and tons of money. Then they took some of that money and they used it to argue to keep money in politics. So ACLU is completely 100% in favor of Citizens United. You should, if you donate to ACLU, you should let him know. Don't take my money and then go spend it on a case that aids and abets corruption in this country. You don't have to hate them and they're not,

they're just wrong. It's okay to say, look, I love you, but you're wrong and I don't want my money spent on that. Okay. And then lastly on the Republicans, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump agreed on one thing. They agreed that the IRS should also not be allowed to see the secret donors. It's insane. So Trump wanted to drain the swamp. If you're on the right, look at what I just told you about the left, right? So we're honest about that. Do you ever see anybody on the right, honest about the right, including Donald Trump? No, they were busy kissing his ass 24-7. Did he drain the swamp? Hell no. He incident a law or a ruling, a rule, I should say, where he said, oh, no, no, I don't want you to see the secret donors that are funneling me money.

Oh, by the way, the corrupt Republicans' money, corrupt Democrats' money. I don't want to see, I don't want you to see Pelosi's donors. I don't want you to see McConnell's donors. So I want the IRS to not be able to see who these secret donors are either. You know why? Because Trump loves the swamp. Mitch McConnell is the top swamp monster in the world. They're fighting now.

But when it comes to corruption, that's the one thing they agree on. Yes, they love the corruption. They love the swamp. We all got to get united on the right and the left as actual voters and say we've had enough of Washington and all of this corruption. Wolf-Pack.com. Go join them now. Join the effort, whether you're right or left wing. There's one other Supreme Court ruling that we need to discuss and it has to do with voting rights.

In an ideologically split vote, six to three vote with conservative justices, of course, ruling in the wrong direction. The Supreme Court upheld two restrictive voting laws in Arizona, a state that of course went to Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate in this past general election. And so the Republican lawmakers in the state decided to basically pass laws that would throw out votes that were cast in the wrong precinct. And then the second law is against ballot harvesting, indicating that if someone lives in a rural part of the, state or if someone is elderly or disabled, they cannot give their ballot to a loved one to submit it for them. So obviously it makes this whole process a lot more restrictive for some voters. It disproportionately impacts African American and minority voters in the state of Arizona. And so that's the argument that was made in this case that worked its way up to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court voted again. striking down these Arizona laws.

We have more details for you on this. Let's go to the first video that gives you an example of the reasoning that Alito had in this decision. But more importantly, the type of ramifications this will have on elections moving forward. Justices come to this decision. Well, so Justice Alito writing for the conservative majority on the court basically said these laws may burden minorities in a disproportionate way. a disproportionate way. But the numbers are small. So even if twice as many voters of color are impacted by this out of precinct policy, we're still talking about an overall small number of voters in a context in a state in which, as Justice Alito described it, it's relatively easy

to vote. So, but remember, when margins are very small in a state like Arizona, even a few thousand voters being impacted by a policy might, you know, tip the balance of an election. So I think This is a ruling that definitely will make it easier for states to impose restrictions, harder for plaintiffs, voting rights groups to challenge these kinds of restrictions and could really impact the outcome in close elections going forward. So this can impact the outcome of elections, close elections moving forward. I think that that's the correct analysis on this. I just want to give a brief analysis of my own before I go to you, Jank.

I just have more of a question, right? I have a question for the purported leftists who believe that you should not vote for Democrats in elections, because Democrats, to be fair, are incredibly disappointing. They are, they're disappointing. But they are different from Republicans, especially when it comes to federal court appointments, nominations for the Supreme Court, for instance. And as we know, Donald Trump had successfully appointed and confirmed three Supreme Court justices, is during his term.

And now as a result of that, they're making all these rulings that are pro-corporate and also dismantle whatever we have left of our democratic process. So how exactly is a third party supposed to win? How is this making it easier to create a system in which a third party would have any chance of winning electorally? I just wanna know, I just wanna know, can they answer that question for me for a second? Because those are the same people who argue don't vote for Hillary Clinton, don't vote for Joe Biden, right? Who cares about the Supreme Court? I remember them saying, who cares about the

Supreme Court? You should care about the Supreme Court. You should also ask yourselves, why are people who claim to be leftists advocating for something that actually makes it increasingly difficult for the left to win? I don't know. I don't know, maybe you guys should be asking that question. Because this, this is going to have a negative impact on elections, not just in the state of Arizona, but in many of the other states that are upset that Biden won over Trump in what was typically a red state. I don't know why this is so hard to understand for some folks. You fight like hell in the primaries for progressives.

And I've told you primaries are more important in the general election, because that's where you might actually have good choices. And then if you lose in the primary, which sucks, and you don't like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, It doesn't mean they're the same as Donald Trump or any Republican who's going to put these justices on. I don't, why is that hard to understand? Oh, they're all the same. No, we tell you how they're the same.

On economic issues, they're incredibly similar. That is correct, but not on every issue. And the Supreme Court, unfortunately, is massively important. Guys, think about it, right? Today there was the other decision we told you about earlier in the show where the Supreme Court said, oh yeah, you can hide your secret donors that bribe policy. politicians regularly, and we're not even allowed to know who they are, right? Now, Trump appointed three justices. The Supreme Court is now six three, and these decisions

were six three. If Hillary Clinton had won, I can't stand that she beat Bernie Sanders in the primary. I think she's phony in a thousand ways. But was she have appointed conservative justices? No. She would have appointed, by the way, moderate judges, justices. Let's keep it real, Right? But would they, could it have been six three or five four in the other direction where they say, yeah, of course we're not going to let dark money donors and exist without finding out who they, who's bribing our politicians? And of course we're not going to let them take away voting rights. Yes, that is very, very, very, very likely what would have happened. Instead, our democracy just got shredded again because Trump got to put three people on the Supreme Court. Please use your mind and use your judgment so that you can understand what the right thing to do is. depending on the context. Okay, now, on the heart of this opinion, look, eight years ago, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act before a lot of states needed preclearance before they restricted voting because historically they had restricted voting against African Americans.

And they didn't just say, hey, in the beginning they did, but later they got more clever. They didn't say like, oh, we hate black people. We're not going to let them, we're going to make it harder for them to vote. No, they say, oh, it is so important that we have a poll tax so that the right people. people can participate and we're trying to get make elections better, not worse, wink, wink. And what did it do? Totally discriminated against African Americans. So that's why we passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which is one of the most important things. You remember I have a dream and Martin Luther King, now Republicans pretend to be in favor of him, he's the one that got

the voting rights act passed, right? And so Supreme Court guts it and says, oh, you don't need preclearance. And it mainly affected the southern states that had done this for literally hundreds of years, right? First, they didn't allow. obviously any voting, and then they restricted the voting. Now they don't need preclearance, and so now, but in that decision, they said, don't worry, section two of the Voting Rights Act is still in place. And so if you bring us cases where there's discrimination that you can prove against African Americans, either by intent or by effect, we'll tell you, okay, then they're not allowed

to do that. Well, this was section two. So they brought the case in front of John Roberts in the Supreme Court, and Robert said, Oh yeah, yeah, you did. It does have a discriminatory effect. I don't care. I don't care. That's small. Who cares? Yeah. Well, Arizona got decided what, what, by 11,000 votes or something? Yes, exactly. Yes, these elections are decided. The whole national election, based on the electoral college this time around was decided by 43,000 votes at three states. Yet the whole point is the small margins of victory in these incredibly important states.

Roberts probably was laughing, like, don't worry about it. We'll only win by a lot. little bit. Yeah, no, I mean, look, in this case, there was evidence that it disproportionately impacts minorities in the state, and the conservative justices totally ignored that. Well, acknowledged, yeah, it does appear that that's the case. But the laws itself are race neutral. In other words, but they're not race neutral. Clearly. You just said they had a discriminatory effect. They're like, he's like, well, but I don't want to read his mind. And he didn't do it while burning across and he wasn't in a white robe. So I don't know that he's racist. He wound up taking voting rights away from black people in Arizona, or the Republicans did in Arizona, and Latinos,

by the way. Okay, but he wasn't in a robe. So I guess he's not a racist. Wink. Take away their voting rights. But Supreme Court probably doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. Doesn't matter at all. Good luck with getting your third party elected. We got to take a break. We'll see you in a few minutes. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.