The Young Turks - For Pete's Sake

Episode Date: November 16, 2024

Trump’s Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth is reportedly facing a past sexual misconduct allegation. Jen Psaki criticized Democrats for undervaluing platforms like Joe Rogan’s while advocating for new laws to combat social media disinformation. Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, a business-friendly former regulator, as Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor. John Fetterman criticized Nancy Pelosi over Biden’s ousting, while House Republicans push legislation granting Trump unilateral power to dismantle nonprofits. " HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. Three-life teams. Be-like-team! Bigot King, Dream Like, Team, Dream Like, Team, Dream Like King, Drop it like it's our hopes and dreams after the election. Okay, that was just me being unbiased.

I'm fine. I still got the hopes and dreams. Okay, power panel of young Turks, Polymarket Studios, Jank Hugo, John Iderola, Francesca Fiorentini, the obituation rooms the podcast, the damage reports that, wait, wait, no other way, damage reports to the great show that's got the Dragon Squad, so we're gonna have a terrific show for you guys where we talk about all the madness of the Trump appointments. Of course, and by the way, the Democrats trying to help Trump in an insane way. That's in the second hour where Jordan Yule and Senator Nina Turner will join us.

So we've got all the populous friends in the house today. Okay, so John, let's do it, let's get started. I'm very excited, I didn't know Nina was on the second hour, that's cool. Okay, well, let's start off with news, and we will be talking a little bit about the potential cabinet to be. It's now been revealed that Fox host Pete Hegsith, Donald Trump's pick to be Secretary of Defense, that's not a joke, he actually did that, has previously faced accusations of sexual assault. And according to Vanity Affair, the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California,

in October of 2017 at a hotel that was hosting a gathering of Republican women. Now, the police of Monterey have confirmed that they did investigate him for sexual assault. In the end, he was not charged with a crime, and the city of Monterey police in its statement citing a police report did not release any information about the alleged victim who reported the incident on October 12th of that year. That was five days after the alleged assault. And so no actual crime was charged, but in the police's statement about the investigation, They wrote that the victim had, quote, contusions to right thigh.

And I want you to just remember that for later on in the story, that that's a thing the police said they found when they investigated it. Now, as of right now, it's not looking like we're going to have any more details, though. The city said it's not going to release the full police report. This is an age we're in of reports not being released. Get used to that. But the incoming chief of staff for the Trump administration, Susie Wiles, was apparently told about this, presented with the information about the allegation. And according to a source

inside of the transition, it apparently was serious enough that both Wiles and Trump's lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that hegsus said that the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he said, she said. And so we have statements from both the Trump legal team as well as Trump comms and all of that, I do just want to briefly mention that, like, that's supposed to make us feel entirely better about it, that he apparently had a consensual sexual experience and within five days bearing marks of some sort of potential injury, she was claiming that she had been sexually assaulted, but don't worry, she's just saying that?

I mean, I know that that's a thing that is a common response to allegations of sexual assault, but that doesn't make me feel much better. They're definitely giving off the vibe that that should sweep it under the rug. Again, we're in a difficult position because we're unlikely to get any more information. But it's also concerning, by the way, that although they say they vetted him, they didn't come across this. And remember, he's being vetted apparently to be Secretary of Defense, but a less than a decade old sexual assault allegation from an event of a bunch of Republicans didn't come up. That seems strange. Yeah, so I've got strong thoughts, but they lean in two

different directions. So depending on which part of the story we're talking about. So first off, of course, I'd like to know what actually happened. And so if we know, if we, if there was an actual sexual assault that happened, that is enormously relevant, okay? The police determined that there was not. Okay, so was it a cover up? Well, again, that would be enormously relevant, Right? Or did they actually do their due diligence? They looked into it and concluded, sorry, but we don't think that this is a case we can bring forward, that this person should not be arrested. Enormously relevant, right? So all of us making assumptions based on no evidence is really, to be fair, not no evidence, because it was brought forward. There's a contusion

on the thigh. So there's some evidence. And in fact, on Pete Heggsith, I almost want the rest of the conclusions to come out because that makes it look bad and then you go, oh, okay, well, but they brushed it under the carpet. Well, again, I would be very, very frustrated about that if I was innocent, okay? So I don't know what to make of that in particular. Did they properly vet him? I mean, there's these hilarious statements and we shouldn't bother reading them about, well, of course we did, our vetting is the new process of not vetting.

No, of course they didn't vet him. Trump never does his homework, right? There's no, and he's like, I like, Hexit, I saw I'm on Fox News, so they're very strong right out of central casting, got a couple of bronze stars, right? Exactly what I was thinking. Of course, of course, he didn't do anybody, of course that's how he picked him, right? So, but don't like, do, like, and then there's one other factor here, but before I get to that other factor and I let Francesca in here, I don't want you to get me wrong.

I'm gonna tell you in a little bit why I think Pete Hexif is a terrible pick and why I'm really concerned about him, okay? But the other same factor, guys, is that any time that the establishment doesn't like anyone on the right or the left, do a countdown, some allegation relating to sex incoming in three, two, one, almost every time. So I'm not saying that Hexeth didn't do it. There's a real charge here. There was a contusion on the thigh, et cetera.

What I'm saying is they cry wolf so many times that we don't know. know when the wolf is actually here. All right, Freddie. I mean, but if we're stacking allegations and even convictions, the right, the rights pile is massive, massive, okay? There are pedophiles hiding among them that were in the Trump campaign, that were in the, that were the co-chair of the RNC, people who, you know, like were peddling child pornography. To say nothing of Trump and Epstein ties that we're not supposed to talk about anymore because now he won the election. election. But I mean, look, yes, the fact to me that there is a police report says something, even if they didn't find, you know, supposed sexual misconduct or assaults. But it is

noticeable that there was a report at all. And you know, this is the city of Monterey. That's where the big little lie show took place. It's all just too on-brand Trumpy and Republican for For my taste, the thing that my mind immediately goes to knowing that there's an allegation or possible allegation against Pete Heggzeth, number one, he's going to get confirmed anyway. We saw what happened to Kavanaugh, despite, you know, all of the, despite the testimony, right, against him and him crying in public about it. But for me, I think about the military, right? Pete Heggzeth being the Secretary of Defense and the fact that sexual assault in the military

is rampant. It's rampant against women. It's rampant against men. And it leads to people being murdered, as in the case of Vanessa Guillen, which supposedly maybe Donald Trump said some pretty disparaging things about. But so, like, this is chilling. It is terrifying. And this is also a guy who said that he doesn't think women should be in combat roles.

Well, be more specific. I mean, let's be honest. He doesn't think women should be in the military more broadly. He also doesn't think that people of color should be in the military. And I'm sure, and Jank, you'll get to this, you know, never mind his thoughts about, you know, war and Muslims and like, you know, the clash of civilizations. So it's just, it's sickening from top to bottom. And yet will it change anything? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't. I mean, everybody, I guess, is hoping that the, the maximum amount of sexual assaults you can have to be Secretary of Defense, hopefully is still, you can't have any. Obviously, president is a couple of dozen, but we're hoping that the threshold is different

for cabinet positions. Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up Vanessa again, and I mean, what if you're one of like the hundreds of thousands of women serving the military? Like, how demoralizing must it be that this guy might be in charge? Like the assault, the fact that he doesn't value your actual service, your bravery, the fact that many have given their lives or been maimed, I mean, Tammy Duckworth was talking about that in the media. And he just, he doesn't, he doesn't value them.

And like a guy like this is he gonna, is he gonna push for a form that cuts down on the number of sexual assaults there? I find it a little bit hard to believe. Also by the way, he's not qualified, I kind of feel like you'd probably want the person heading up the entire military of the United States to know what they're doing and not just be chosen because you sat next to Brian Kilmead for a few years, that seems like a strange reason to choose you. But also as to the accusation, I mean, obviously we don't.

don't know and we can't know. Is it possible that it was made up? Sure, some are made up. Everybody has a different idea in their head of how common that is. People who probably are big fans of Pete Heggseth probably think it's in the 99% range. I personally think it's like 1%. That's what I personally think. And I will say it's 2017, he's been a Senate candidate at that point.

I believe he's already in Fox at that point. I mean, he's at an event for Republican women. ironic. Exactly, but so you're a woman at the event, you have an encounter with him, and according to him, you lie and say that he assaulted you. Like, I mean, it's 2017, it's a slightly different time than now, but you still have to assume that that probably is the end of you in Republican circles, right? If you make an accusation against a popular up-and-coming man on the right, like, to what benefit? Why exactly you're lying about that? I mean, he's not, it's not like they say, oh, they're trying to take down Trump, he's running for president, so they're lying about him.

He's a host on Fox. Why randomly make that up after meeting up with Republican women? Again, it's not impossible. But I'd like a story, like an explanation as to why that would happen. And when you have evidence of a potential injury, I don't know, again, his lawyer says there was no evidence. Well, again, except for that injury. Yeah. So, but the police did conclude that they weren't going to arrest him, but we don't know why. So look, guys, Frannie's right, it's not going to prevent him. Number one reason why that's not going to stop him from being Secretary of Defense is because,

oh, he might have done a sexual assault. I'm sure that Trump will be outraged, who has been literally found liable of sexual assault. So he's going to say, what do you mean? The American people gave me a mandate. Sexual assault doesn't matter at all, right? Even if it was true, it wouldn't matter. I was found liable. I was found guilty and it didn't matter. Why would it matter when a guy wasn't even arrested for it, right? And wasn't even tried for it. Okay, so the second reason

it won't matter, in my opinion is because of my Matt Gates sacrificial lamb theory. That they put up Matt Gates to get voted down. So then Trump can say, that's it. I want everyone else. And if any Republican opposes me, there'll be hell to pay. So then Hengzith and Tulsi and all the pro-Israel guys and the neocons, everybody gets whisked right. But the neocons would get confirmed in a second anyway. So that's my guess to how it's going to go down. But what are my concerns about Hegs? By the way, John, I'm only half with you on his experience.

Totally inexperienced, of course. And in order to operate any gigantic organizations like this, there's 3 million people in the Defense Department. Did you know that? What you actually need is an excellent manager. That's the experience you need, not like military experience, not Fox News experience. You need management experience, but we don't pick that way. So, and the experience that the corporate Democrats and Republicans pick is, oh, a general

who's in massively in favor of war and is going to work for a defense contractor afterwards. I'm not interested in that experience, so, so no, I don't, I don't care about that part of it, except for the fact that do we think he's had any management experience, right? So he's gonna walk in here and not have any idea what to do, then I don't like with me serving. So which gets me to the real problems. You don't want women serving in combat, brother, we already decided this, man. Well, now what are we going to go backwards? Now you're gonna attack all the women in the armed forces when you're the defense secretary?

That's mental, okay? So that's number, number two is, did you know that in the 2020, there was several people who were in the National Guard who were supposed to help with the protection of the president during the inauguration, but about a dozen of them were taken off of that duty because it was found that they were engaging in extreme right-wing talk online, which made the authorities concerned that they would not protect Biden. One of them was Pete Hexon. So this guy is totally extreme, and then that gets me to my, the one thing that I'm even

more concerned about, which is he has called the left domestic enemies. Now, do you think that that guy is going to have compunctions about how to use the military inside the United States. Remember, Trump has asked several times in his first term, can we use the military to shoot protesters in the leg, to clear out protesters, to this, that and other thing. And by the way, also we considered martial law when he lost the election. So he doesn't want anyone who actually believes in our code here in America, which is that the military does not get involved with domestic politics.

He's picking Hexswith for the exact opposite reason, because he wants him to, in get politics involved in the military and maybe use the military against the American people under the guise of people we don't agree with are domestic enemies. By the way, we're against cancel culture and we're for freedom. My ass you are, you pick this extremist radical for defense secretary exactly because you love cancel culture and you'd love to cancel women in the military because he said it in the combat roles and you'd love to cancel everyone on the left and if anyone disagrees, maybe Hegsith uses the military, you guess.

Yeah, I mean, he's a loyalist who's anti-woke, right? That is the only qualification you need. I'm just looking forward to the fact that when I get my skull cracked in by some, by someone in the military, they'll just be a white guy. And I'll be like, I won't have to like talk some woman down and be like, girl, why are you doing this? Because, you know, she will have been purged. Hey, way to find your silver lining, exactly.

I'm just saying like, you know, find hope where you can. I mean, it's the same thing being like, all the cops of there, the idea that there's black cops, it's woke, it's just like, no, have you not seen videos like, like, like, you know, dash cam footage, they also can do terrible things. And again, this is more broadly, I mean, we all have critiques of the military. We've been criticizing, you know, the amount of funding that we give to Israel all for an over a year now, right? But that being said, when you say, when you say, you don't think women should serve in combat roles and you have possibly a history of sexual assault, what you truly do is you put a target on people's backs. And that's exactly why what sexual assault does to women already in the military is basically you don't belong here. And I'm going to treat you this way. And of course, it's just on brand. This is, you know, people celebrated Trump's victory with what? Your body, my choice, completely on brand.

Well, I think we should take our first break. I'm going to throw one thought out to the audience. audience on an additional potential issue with him. And you mentioned some of the other people that Trump has put forward. Like I know Trump's a dove, I know that loves peace, non-interventionist. If you take a look at the constellation of people he's chosen, I don't know if this is a thing that you can bet on on polymarket. The odds on a war with Iran feel like they've gone up very significantly with these people. That's a great point, John, because block has.

like Hexif think that they get to prove how tough and strong they are by sending other people into war, right? And they do, oh yeah, Ron, we'll show you, you stupid Muslims, we'll show you, come on Israel, we're gonna fight your war for you. And here's the trillions of dollars, let's go war, okay, yeah, let's see, let's see guys, maybe I'm wrong, and Hexith would be like, no, no, I really don't want war. There's a clear mandate, there's no question maga's anti-war, sorry, we're not fighting Israel's war for them, we're not going to help them in their attacks against Iran,

and we're withdrawing and we're not going to send American dollars there America first. Okay, let's see what happens. My guess is he will say none of that. He will say none of that. And he will say, well, of course, so I'm tough and strong we're, because he's an idiot. He's not an idiot as in like he can't get good grades. He went to Princeton and Harvard. I understand that.

He's like he's naturally as a state of being is an idiot who thinks that like you prove how tough you are by, yeah, I'll start a fight. I'll throw a punch. Throwing a punch is not tough. Taking a punch is tough. And so he'll tell us, oh, yeah, I got military experience. I don't know if he's killed people in battle and how tough he is, et cetera. But starting wars was the exact opposite thing that Trump said he would do.

We're all crystal clear on that. And I would be shocked if Blockhead Pete Heggseth wasn't itching and dying to prove himself by starting a war, especially against Muslims. I don't believe that he's anti-war for one second, happy to be proven wrong. And if we are, we'll come out and tell you. His history of comments about Iran specifically are as hawkish as like anyone on Fox News. In any event, we're going to take a short break. Last point to get to after this.

All right, back on TYT, Jank, John, and Francesco with you guys. But also, One Truth Forever, Ryan Maple and Joanne Chapin. They all just hit that beautiful join button below the video. We appreciate you guys, and you allow us to do this honest, crazy program that we do, and you get all of our programming for free as well. Well, not for free for membership, keeping it real, as always. Ex-Aololomus and Box, thank you for gifting young Turks memberships, and women A. Awesome.

A handle is San Monica. Thank you for gifting five Young Turks memberships. And I'm just going to read one comment because it's too fun. Homer J. Simpson, who apparently is a member of the Young Turks on YouTube. So this house is full. We love it, okay? And so writes in from Springfield. These picks are comical.

Who's next? Crestly the clown for housing and urban development? Lex Luthor for Secretary of Transportation. Although to be fair, he might already be there. Okay, yeah, that was a shot at Pete Buttigieg. Okay, oh my God, go ahead. Oh, now I'm trying to figure out who he's going to pick for housing and urban development. What's the worst stupidest pick he could do?

Oh, Mark Robbins. Yeah, can you resuscitate Mark? Oh my God, Mark gets a do-over. Oh my God, okay, Jesus, people send in your picks. Let's talk media. We're talking about our content available to members. There's lots of content out there. Maybe the Democrats should start to participate in it.

Let's jump into this. where I feel like I need to do more studying and understanding is the disinformation space. How does it change? How is it, how are people held to account? Laws have to change. I don't even know the total answer to it, but that seems to me to be a core issue. The other issue, I think, that is a real one is I'm not, I don't think Joe Rogan deserves like 100% credit of Donald Trump being elected, but it was a misunderstanding of kind of also the how people are getting their information. That is of course Jen Saki appearing on Katie Kirk's next question podcast just yesterday.

And talking about two sort of linked issues right there. First she brings up what she considers to be the disinformation space seeming to refer to kind of like the new formulation of media of small shows and podcasts where notably there has been some disinformation and she seems quite against that. But also at the same time arguing that perhaps Harris, the Democrats should, yeah, you know, take a look, maybe get involved with some of the shows that might be adjacent to or perhaps in that disinformation space. So we're going to cover both of those topics and our thoughts on it. But first, let's talk about how she sees the changing media landscape.

I have some answers. I don't have, but I'll just be like humble about the place I don't have answers. And this is a place where I feel like I need to do more studying and understanding is the disinformation space. I do think that unquestionably to me, you know, one of the things that's changed, even since I got involved in politics, is just the rise of the percentage of people who get their information off of platforms that have no fact-checking mechanism and no accountability for having disinformation spread, right? And as you know well, and I mean, when I got started in Democratic politics, you know, most of it was like local TV ads. That was what it was about, obviously national TV, local print. Those local TV is held to a higher

standard of accountability than social media platforms in terms of having accurate information on their platforms. So there's obviously a couple of things there. There's a conversation to be had about the current state of how reliable many of these new, in many cases, quite influential outlets actually are. She talks about a lack of like mechanisms or accountability for fact checking. Obviously, most don't have any fact checking whatsoever. And the issue for me has always been that there's a lack of accountability from most audiences and most of the very few people really seem to care whether what they're being told is true or not.

And I don't know that that's exclusive to any sort of new media. I think there's probably always been a desire to be told things that make you feel warm and comfortable and cozy rather than being confronted with difficult truths. But she also had alluded to the possibility of laws being changed and that potentially gets you into more difficult constitutional territory. Although, as she points out, there has been more of a consideration of, you know, fair distribution of time for candidates and both, in fact checking as well for the old school forms of media. And there's really no parallel to that with the newer. Yeah, no, I, you have very calm attitude to it. I don't. I despise what she just

said. I think what she said was horrific in so many ways. So is there disinformation online? Of course. Is there bad information about, was there bad information about vaccines? Yes, so is there still now, yes. Is there conspiracy theories galore? Yes. So let us deal with it, okay? We fight and we tell people the truth, they lie, and then we sort things out, okay? That's how freedom of speech works.

The reason, but she's not concerned about disinformation. She's concerned about, oh, we had it. We had full control of the propaganda. We had mainstream media and we would just shove her agenda down your throat, and we would Pretend that we were the good guys and we would pretend that we were looking out for you. And we would have all of mainstream media do disinformation to tell you that politicians are such lovely people. And so are their press secretaries.

And a press secretary for a president would never lie. They would never. Your job was disinformation. And it's not because of her. It's every president tells you to go out there and tell them a load of crap about how great they are and this and that. Oh, we're looking into it. I mean, almost literally half of what any press secretary says is a lie.

She's worried about disinformation. Okay. So guys, what they're going to try to do, it's too late. I think since Trump won, this is a very small silver lining of Trump winning, is that maybe not even small. These guys that, the corporatists, whether there are Democrats or Republicans, want to shut down online media. They hate it.

And we shared it with you guys on TikTok's a perfect example. And Mitt Romney, like an idiot, it set it on tape with Anthony Blinken. You know, TikTok, we were trying to shut it down. Israel used to be, wait, Israel, TikTok. So Israel used to be so good with PR, but they're, you know, losing the PR battle on TikTok. So we got to shut it down. He just said it. He just said it, right?

So whether it's Israel or any other issue, they're like, online media, they won't do the goddamn propaganda. We got to change the laws because of disinformation. Okay, look, I got a thousand more things to say, including her idiocy about Joe Rogan in a second. But we're talking about disinformation. Okay, so mainstream media that she's on and that she loves tells you the politicians aren't crooks.

It's a conspiracy theory that they're crooks. The politicians are not affected by the donor money when they're voting on bills at all. They're having an intellectual debate, and we cover that debate as if it's goddamn theater. Oh, what does actor A say? What does actor B say? Oh, the billions of dollars he got from donors doesn't affect them at all. That's why we never talk about it. We never talk about it when the bills are up.

Disinformation, mainstream media, is the kings of disinformation. Real quick on Rogan, and then I want to let Franny get in, and then we'll keep discussing it. Look, she's right that of course Kamala Harris should have gone on Rogan, but Susie come lately is going to tell, or in her case, Jenny come lately is going to tell us that, oh, maybe they should have got, you're exactly the type of person that told Democratic candidates, don't go on there, don't platform them, only do mainstream media. CNN and New York Times are so important, so important. She's just figuring out that online media exists.

She's like, I hear that there are things on there that, you know, it turns out, it turns out then they might also have influence. Oh, is that right, Jen? Oh, they might have influence. And you just figured it out. This is another thing that is absolutely under my skin, as you could tell, which is the establishment media going, oh, we hear there's a trend of populism. Hey, establishment pundit one, what do you think?

Oh, establishment pundit, what do you, two, what do you think? Why don't you bring on a populist? Oh, no, no, no, they're very uncivil. No, we can't have any populist on, very, very, very uncivil, ban the populist. I don't know why populism came up. I don't know what happened. And you see how they're doing the disinformation, but we banned every populist from being on air. So take all that BS and stuff it from the disinformation came from which you came.

I mean, I think that's a fair assessment. I also just think that you're assuming she's smarter than she is. And I know you might disagree with this, but I get so depressed when you realize the Democratic Party and corporate media and people like Jen Saki served in the Biden administration, served under Obama, got a cushy job right at MSNBC, that she genuinely is searching. her brain and cannot see why people flock to alternative news or podcasts or yes, the Joe Rogan experience, like she cannot, you know, imagine. And it's because you have not heard mainstream news say one thing that would ever go against the establishment. And I want to be clear, Joe Rogan is also very much the establishment.

He has a massive Spotify deal. These are millions and millions of corporate dollars. Of course, there's tons of advertising. And people get really, really sensitive when I mention this. I understand that he had Bernie Sanders on. Yes, I know that he endorsed Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is also anti-establishment. However, in recent years, the people he platforms, I'm looking at right at right now, Peter

Thiel, Matt Walsh, Jordan Peterson, and then male comedian, male comedian, male comedian, male comedian, male comedian, male comedian, male comedian, one woman. And if it's a woman, it's Riley Gaines, whose entire thing is being anti-trans. So like, I just want to, like, it's important. I absolutely think that if Kamala Harris spent a bunch of money to build a set to do call her daddy, she should have taken a flight to go do Joe Rogan. But I also want to be very honest about what that platform is. And I think it is not, obviously, it's not like an out and out right wing show. But I do think that the other thing that gives me red flags about what Saki said is that it makes me feel like not only are they not serious about alternative media or the importance of a show like Joe Rogan, but also the amount of right wing media. Like the things that you and I, we, this channel, we battle all the time.

Like have you not seen the proliferation and you're worried about disinformation? Make people trust you by telling them the truth about things, yes, like corporations, running everything and also about Gaza. You lost the credibility in the Iraq war. We all know why. And we are the adult products of 20 years of lies. So now you're lying to us again for a year about Gaza and you wonder why people search elsewhere. Yeah, I mean, you what you were saying, you remind me that there was like for five minutes sort of piggybacking. on the conversation about which everyone agrees with just she should have gone in

Rogan and she should in the future whatever there was talk of like hey what if there was to be some sort of investment in an alternative and I don't hear anything about that anymore I heard it for like a second and then we moved on and and mostly I think people realized that was never going to happen because you know why is the why is the status the economic status quo going to invest in people who advocate for a fundamental change to the status quo they're just not going to do that what that would be insane, that would be a terrible investment. And the right has always had institutional support.

Every tiny little nothing kick and rumble show and daily wire and all these people are just elevated with endless advertisements on Facebook and on social media all over the place. And they're always gonna have that because they're anti-establishment in some areas, not those at the top of the economic keep. They are never gonna question that, they're never gonna advocate for higher taxes, they're never gonna advocate for anything that takes away those people's ability to choke our politics with massive sums of billions of dollars. And so that's why they get the support.

And I think you bring up a good point that Joe Rogan so far, at least in his commentary, I guess is still theoretically open to a person like Joe Rogan. So maybe he's immune to the effect of the money. But theoretically, Spotify, which is a massive company, you know, could they hold over his head that maybe we don't renew your $300 million account or whatever? That's a specific issue for him to deal with or whatever. But the larger issue is just that no support seems to be coming, there's no cavalry coming to create aversion on our side.

And I find that to be incredibly frustrating. Yeah, well, look, I have direct experience with that. So I'll tell you because I run this place. So I'll, I'll tell you about that in a second. I do disagree with you guys. I don't think Joe Rogan's establishment at all. It doesn't mean he's not right wing. Those are two different parts of the political spectrum.

I'm not saying he's establishment. I'm saying he is incredibly wealthy, has been for a long time. And theoretically, so what? And has billionaires on all, he interviews billionaires. now. Like, that's his main thing. I don't see how billionaires aren't the establishment. Yeah, so look, the one thing he doesn't get in those terms is Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not populist. One of them is a rich fan in the world, has tons of business interests that he's going to go and protect inside the government. And it's not a populist position to say, oh, look,

one of the largest donors in American politics is being handed this incredibly important job of deciding what the cut in the government, including his own regulators, the people regulating his companies. That is not a populist position. On that frame, he's right. That is a 100% pro establishment position. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. You're more familiar with what he's said, so I don't want to say he's not saying something, if he might be. He obviously has Elon Musk on. He's had him on recently. Does he, has he given any indication that he gets that? No. Look, I don't watch all of his shows, not at all. So it's not fair to say that, except for the fact that He has these guys on all the time and every once says, hey, you know, if you gave that same

hundred plus million dollars, but instead of giving it to Trump, you gave it to a Democrat, and your name wasn't Elon Musk and it was George Soros, would we be okay? If Biden, Kamala had won and said, hey, I'm going to give George Soros the ability to cut anything he wants in the U.S. government, including things that help his own financial interests. And if anyone is investigating him, George Soros is going to get to fire them. Would you be cool with that? And the answer is, of course not, God damn Democrats? No, no, no, no, no, no.

So, no, Elon Musk is doing exactly that. And when you point that out, that is so obviously true that it burrows all the way under their skin, right? Now, having said that, it is largely definitely a populist show. They're not going around being elitist and going, you can't say that, etc. Now, having said that he is way more right wing than he realizes, and that's why he, I think that's one of the reasons why he's mad at me. Like, it appears I'm one of the guys canceled on his show from the guy who doesn't like cancel culture, because I called him right wing, and I didn't like what he was saying

about gay teachers, et cetera, and all of a sudden we can't have that conversation, right? So he's way, way more right wing than he realized, but he's not establishment. He's populist right wing. And there's a lot I respect about the populist right wing. having lots of conversations with the populist right wing, and there's tons we agree with on the populist right wing, and tons we don't agree with. And that's the nature of the beast, okay? Now, but to me, Saki's 10,000 times more offensive.

She reeks of elitism, and it's because of people like her that we lost this election, we lost the 2016 election, and then she has the audacity in her infinite wrongness to come out and go, oh, I do the cloud, I found out there's online media, I mean, we should ban it and We should pass laws to make sure they should shut up and never be allowed to disagree with us. I mean, I'm concerned about disinformation, but perhaps we should have gone on that Rogan program I hear so much about. Get the hell out of here. Okay, so finally to John's question, so after these elections, after 2016, sometimes people

come and through roundabout ways they have conversations with us. Oh my God, it turns out we're getting our asses handed to us online. Oh, it turns out you guys are the biggest online network, let alone on the left, by far, by far, right? So let's have a conversation. And then I tell them, yeah, I'm not going to do your propaganda. So that's out of the question. If that's out of the question, we can keep talking, right? And they're like, okay, yeah, we'll catch you on the other side.

They're not going to do it. Why do they, what do they want? They want the same thing that the right wing billionaires that fund right wing media want, right? they want propaganda. So these guys are all of the Democrat, right now, every Democrat, everybody in mainstream media is talking about, oh, the left needs this. Oh, Jerry, they don't mean the left. They mean the Democratic Party machine.

The left already has plenty of shows online. I mean, even if you take us out. Wait, are you turning down money? Wait, are you turning down money? Because you should send them my number. Believe me. Believe me, they found some people to give the money to, okay? But you know what?

Those guys are not that popular. Why are they not that popular? Because they do Democratic propaganda. It works for a short time. Everybody gets a sugar high off of it. Oh, Team Kamala, your beehive, or whatever the hell they are, right? K-Hive. Wow.

Yeah, yeah, propaganda. And then it fizzles when it turns out, oh, yeah, they were totally lying to their audience over and over and over again, right? So they don't want left-wing media. They want Democratic propaganda media, and that's not how the online world work. It doesn't work online and that's why the Democrats are so frustrated and now in their pathetic desperation talking about changing the laws so they could ban the speech that they find so meddlesome and as preventing them from putting out their propaganda unchallenged.

I think we should take our second break at the hour more to come after this. All right, back on TYT, Jank John and Francesco with you guys. Also, Tuff nut, he just joined. Once again, through the beautiful join button below. Check it out. I think you go on a date with the join button. You're going to love it. So Dawn Whitehead and Box gifted memberships and Gabby Mathis gifted five.

All American heroes. Damn, okay. Okay. Let's talk about another person that could soon have quite a bit of power. Thanks to Donald Trump. Donald Trump has apparently chosen this individual, Jay Clayton, to be the next U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and that is an incredibly important position, both in a meta sense, but also specifically to Donald Trump.

In that wider sense, it's because that district is home to some of the nation's biggest financial institutions. And so, if you're going to be policing them, really important. really important. They have a lot of influence, they have a lot of money. It's why that position has historically been referred to as the sheriff of Wall Street. But has Donald Trump chosen Jay Clinton to be the sheriff of Wall Street or more like the Mater D of Wall Street, the Butler, the Jeeves of Wall Street? Well, we'll see, because we're gonna dive into his past, which generally has shown that rather than being a check on these institutions,

he's largely worked with them to help them achieve their goals. And so he worked for For about two decades as a Wall Street lawyer at Sullivan and Cromwell, so he's an insider to the corporations that he would be policing. He eventually joined Trump's first cabinet as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. And so back when he was working on Wall Street, he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, represented firms like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, and helped many corporations raise funds through IPO. So he has experience in the area, I mean that's more than can really be said for many of

the nominations that Donald Trump has has been doing. That doesn't necessarily- But this is about money, John. This is about money. It is about money. You can't mess this one up. This is about getting people making them more money. Exactly. No Janine's hero to this position. It's on anybody to die. No, do see, sit down, you don't get to be the attorney. But anyway, so when he was at the SEC, this is again under Donald Trump, he loosened and rolled back regulations. Okay, He pursued an aggressive approach to enforcement, though, notably targeting among others, Elon Musk, who has since emerged as a major Trump booster. But might soon be heated out of the Trump orbit because he's really cringy and try hard.

We'll see, we'll see, we'll find out. But anyway, we should discuss. Let's also throw out that because Donald Trump and maybe no president ever again is going to do financial disclosures, put their resources into a blind trust. Like, in theory, he's choosing the guy who would be making decisions as to whether he investigates Donald Trump's businesses, and certainly the businesses of many of his allies, friends, and, you know, acquaintances. And so seems fundamentally corrupt and no checks whatsoever, maybe there'll be an ethics

report someday that Mike Johnson won't release, but what do you think? Yeah, so this is exactly why I said Trump's a fake populist. So right after the election, Bernie came out and said the Democratic Party has gone in the wrong direction and abandoned the working class. And we celebrated Bernie's back, right? In fact, I didn't know this, but I found out today, shop t-y-t.com has Bernie's back t-shirts already. Okay, so but for Trump, Goldman Sachs is back. He had more people from Goldman Sachs in his first administration than any other administration in history. This is the guy who ran on drain the swamp.

And look at this, another former Goldman Sachs representative. He represented that firm is now going to have this incredibly important position. You're going to be shocked to find out, my guess, and if you're a right-wing populace out there and you didn't believe me that Donald Trump was a fake populace, you're about to find out, okay? So my guess is he's going to make sure that Goldman Sachs is not regulated and all of his corporate buddies are not regulated. All of Trump and all of his cronies are not regulated, and this was perfect because before he wanted to regulate Elon Musk, I will predict with absolute certainty here that all of a sudden he will drop the idea of regulating Elon Musk, and he'll go and target either just benign things that make nice headlines, but actually he's like a small business worth like 50 bucks, right, or whatever it might be. or like an outrageous character, but not really part of the establishment.

Schrelli comes to mind, like these, oh, we got that farmer bro guy. He's not connected to any of the companies, the giant corporations, corporate rule, so it's easy to get him. Oh, we got one guy, Obama did this. Oh, we got an executive at Goldman Sachs. The kid was like 27 years old or something. So another time, oh, we got a guy from Goldman Sachs. No, he stole from Goldman Sachs.

So these are all giant lies. It's not like the Democrats do a great job of regulating to begin with, but at least they had Lena Kahn, and at least they would go a quarter of the way there. This is just saying corporate robbery incoming in three, two, one, told you, fake populist. Yeah, I mean, this is me understanding. I love, you got to love Trump presidencies because you're always like, oh, lesson in civics. President appoints all of these prosecutors in 94 federal districts. I didn't know that.

Like, I'm just going to be 100% honest. I was like, I did not know that. So cool. We're learning together. And yes, that is exactly why he's doing it. This guy is going to also have the Diddy case. So we've seen all the photos of him and of Donald Trump and Diddy. And the Eric Adams case, which my guess is Adams.

Like, what if Adams also head of HUD? Like, what if that's a soft landing for Eric Adams to get out of his crimes? And, you know, be like, oh, hey, let's join the actual crime ring itself. But I think, like, we all know Eric Adams is going to become a Republican at some point. So, like, this is just like part of that. But, yeah, yay, capital. If I had my champagne glass, I'm sure, I put it around here somewhere. I personally don't think he'll be the head of HUD.

I think it's time for the trash revolution to go national. I think all of us need. He came out with these things. They're containers that you put the trash in. And I think that could work pretty much anywhere. I think it's a good idea. Not just New York. You think just New York, but I don't think just New York.

But anyway. Marlago is the instable of Florida, John. Yeah. Well, yeah. I do want to say one thing, though, on Frannie's prediction, no, I think that they let Eric Adams go immediately. They're like, oh, you took a bribe from a foreign government. Come work for us. That's kind of our thing.

Yes, yes. Right? But Did he, Trump doesn't care about Did he? He was just like a random celebrity he knew. He's a perfect guy, like he did it. He's terribly guilty. Everybody hates him, and he's not connected to corporate rule at all. So my, and he's black.

My guess is they'll throw the book at Diddy. And they should, don't get me wrong, right? But they'll make a big spectacle of, oh, we are so tough. Look at this. We went after Pete Diddy. And Eric Adams, all the crooks on Wall Street, et cetera, we'll sneak out the back door while we're all looking at Diddy. Yeah, well, we'll see.

I also, I don't think that Eric Adams is going to enter the Trump administration. I don't think he's qualified. I mean, sure, he's corrupt, but I haven't heard of him ever being accused of having sexually assaulted someone, so I don't think that's going to happen. Senator John Federman, back in the news, always fun. In this case, he has some harsh words for Representative Nancy Pelosi. Little bit of drums here, might get spicy. He was being interviewed by Politico, and at one point, the reporter asked him, after Joe Biden's

debate over the summer, you didn't think he should drop out. To which John Federman said, we can both agree that he had a rough debate, it's an understatement. Pelosi really tried to, what's the word I'm looking for, she embraced this, she's the godmother, she's the enforcer, and now she's blaming Biden. Well, you can't have it both ways. You got what you wanted, and now you're still blaming Biden. I think it's really ironic that you have a woman at age 84 and she is still hanging on. I think he means to power, not to life. It's bad, but it's not as dark as it might seem at first. I don't know for sure, I don't know the guy actually, but anyway, why not give a younger generation an opportunity to occupy that

seat? And what he seems to be referencing there is Nancy Pelosi has gone on this tour to the media and she's mostly just angering everyone. She's attacking Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders and John Federman mad at her. Anonymous Democrats in the House, as we'll show you, matted her. So she said the anticipation was that if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary, adding that Harris would have done well in that and been stronger going forward, but we don't know that, that didn't happen, basically saying he should have dropped out sooner or not endorsed Harris. Basically, there should have been a better situation to propel Harris theoretically to winning the election. Now, Pelosi did urge Biden to run for reelection back in

2022, but, you know, she was one of his critics after the debate eventually. It still took quite a while after the debate. But John Federman hanging in there with the defense of Biden even longer than she did. Yeah, so we thought we were sending Fetterman in to challenge the establishment because he played a populist while running for office. And remember, almost all these politicians are just actors. They're like low rent actors. And the donors go, oh, okay, who's in the acting pool today? Oh, Fetterman, he's got a sweatshirt on, nice touch. We'll pretend he's populist. Philip, he's going to pretend to challenge the establishment. So then he comes in there and he's like, no, I love the biggest defender of the establishment.

So look, we know his track record on Israel, which is, oh my God, we should send all of our American taxpayer dollars to Israel to slaughter more Palestinians. They haven't done enough. They have a boy, Israel, I love you, Israel. Oh, Mr. Populist, okay, right? What a fraud. Okay, but this is arguably in a sense worse, not worse morally, but worse in showing. It's not like, oh, he has one disagreement with the left and it's on Israel, but hey, like, to be fair, he's still really progressive on other things or, no, he's defending the king

of the establishment, Joe Biden. You think Joe Biden should have stayed in the race? For God's sake, what a pathetic embarrassment you are. So he's like, no, my daddy was Biden. My dad, it's Biden, it should have been Biden, he's fine, he's fine, we just take his brain and we stuff it back into his ear and then he'll be fine, okay? And so I can't believe another member, look at me, I'm such a brave populist, I have a sweatshirt on and I'm criticizing Nancy Pelosi for going after someone even more establishment

Joe Biden. So what was your brilliant idea? It was just thinking, and out what was, we know it. He thought Biden should have stayed in the race and Biden's own people told Pod Save America, of course, after the election, that their own internal numbers showed that Trump would have won 400 electoral votes, 400 if Biden had stated. And that's Biden's people saying it, but the only one who doesn't believe it is Federman. Betterman is like, no, Biden is young and dynamic and Israel has the most moral army.

Yeah, sorry, Pennsylvania. This is one of the things I feel most bad about. I didn't do tribal tribalism. There was a Turkish American running against him and I torpedoed that guy because I thought Fetterman was a populist progressive, right? It turns out, look, Dr. Oz might have literally been better because he would not have been as vicious on Gaza. And he would not have helped the establishment lie as thoroughly as John Fetterman.

So he's total trash and Eric Adams should take him out in his trash revolution. I agree. You know what sucks, Jenk? Like I just kind of, I don't want to push back too much. But you know what sucks about Fetterman and his whole like DeNaris arc and how much he just like just this 180? And the fact that we were all there for him after his stroke and we were rooting for him, you know. And and there he is. I mean, obviously like, I don't know, Biden didn't go through a stroke that we know of. But like, you know, becoming this rabid Zionist and throwing out under all of the, you know, Palestine justice activists under the bus. It's just like so, so upsetting. And I will say caveat to what I want to say is that I think part and parcel of the reason that Fetterman was able to do that is that Fetterman didn't come from like the grassroots in a way that made him accountable.

And I feel like you can track similar trajectories with someone like Kirsten Cinema, right? She, you know, and I'm not trying to like crap all over the greens, but like she was a green party candidate and sadly the Greens don't have as much of like a grassroots network of folks that can really hold someone like cinema accounts. Well, I think I made calls for cinema back in the day, right? But like this is why it's important that if and when we do build third parties and when we do build grassroots organizations that we can vet these folks, that they work their ways up through different halls of power and not just, I mean, I understand like Federman did to a certain degree, but like, The Senate is a massive leap. So that's just like broader thoughts. But what I really want to say is, at some point we're going to need his vote. And all of us who are dumping on him, rightly so, are going to have to rely on him. Maybe it's going to be on health care. Maybe it's going to be on the minimum wage.

Maybe it's going to be on something else. But sadly, we're going to need him. And that's sort of the disgusting politics that is the Senate. So I just want to brace everyone for that moment. Yeah, but Frannie, here's why I don't think it's relevant. I hear you, and I understand what you're saying, but he's exactly the type of guy who's going to vote against you no matter what. So if, you know, you can say, oh, you're giving him the excuse because you yelled at him too much. Well, if he didn't have that excuse, he'd come up with another excuse.

Did he even have an excuse for supporting a genocide maniacically? No, he didn't have an excuse for that. Did he have an excuse for going from what he pretended to be the most left-wing senator to the most. right wing Democrat. He doesn't have an excuse for that. He doesn't need an excuse. He's like, I have a sweatshirt on, so I'm populist. I'm good. So I could just betray you at every turn. I would never count on that guy for a single vote. It could be the most core democratic policy that he promised 2,000 times over to his voters, and he will betray you. Mark my words, write it down in stone. John Fetterman is not a guy you could ever trust. He will definitely betray

Democrats, he will betray the left, he will betray populism, he will do anything that his donors asked for. He's one of the most despicable, immoral actors in Washington. He was 22 or 2020? 22, I think. 22, okay, yeah, it's a little bit early, but maybe some talks should start to be going around. Oh, yeah, I know, but I mean, like, we got to break the wheel to go to your DeNaris, early DeNaris before the arc, right? Like, what are we gonna do?

We're gonna get another actor from Pennsylvania, right? And so then he's gonna act as if he's a populist. And then he's gonna go and go, where's the donors? I got my knee pads, where are they? Oh, my beloved donors, right? So we gotta break the wheel first, get money out of politics. You gotta defeat the Democrats in a presidential primary and then use the leader of the party to change the party entirely.

I try, we all tried together to change the party from the party the bottom up, Justice Democrats, etc. And they went on a weird swerve, right? So presidential primary, next time, defeat all the Jensakis and all their stupid elitism. And they'll all have morning Joe in the view come out and go, you can't vote for a populist Democrat. You have to vote for the ennoinceded one. You have to vote for the most corporate one.

That's the only way we can win. That's the only way we can win. We're all going to laugh our asses off at them. You fricking losers. You lost the Trump twice. Why would I ever listen to an idiot like Joe Scarborough or Whoopi Goldberg? They don't know anything about politics. All they know is I'm rich, I love rich Democrats, I love rich Democrats.

Oh Bernie, he doesn't like rich Democrats, he doesn't like donors. Oh no, you have to vote for someone else because Bernie can't win Hillary and Kamala can. How'd that work out for us? All right, I'm animated today. Yeah, even don't some bombs. He should be a little bit nicer to Joe Scarborough. He could end up being the Joe Rogan to the left. Hey, Joe Scarborough, if you don't get it, which you probably don't, we're laughing at you.

Okay, okay. This is a mean show today. I like it. You're the one who made the joke. Don't back away from it, John. I just say the thing that pops into my head and take no responsibility. See, we are going more towards the right way. It's a joke if they get offended.

Okay, everybody check out the bituation room. That's in our podcasting network by Francesca Furentini. Everybody check out Damage Report hosted by, I was almost going to say the brilliant John Iderola. On the other hand, we did see what happened in this hour. All right. Okay, love you guys. We'll be right back.