The Young Turks - Fox And Friends Can't Even Help Trump Now

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

Trump put his foot in his mouth. Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, and Ashlee Marie Preston, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Drop it. All right, well, the Young Jersey, power, power, power panel. Jane Cougar, John Idaho, Ashley, welcome. Thank you for having me. No problem, thanks for being on. Ashley, I've heard amazing things about you. things about you. No pressure, no pressure, okay.

You just have to be amazing for the rest of the show, okay? Not a big deal, all right? So we do have a lot for you guys. Our TYT Army strikes again, and you guys are gonna love it, too good. Too strong, too good. This time it's Pete Buttigieg. So that's a little bit later in the program. Trump's a clown, that's later in the program.

But the most important story is who is trying to start a war with Iran? because the official story out of America ain't true. And of course, as usual, cable news reporting it as if it is true for 24 hours, 7 days a week, it's nonstop rotating. Iran has attacked the ship in the streets of Hormuz. They have not. Now, do I know definitively? No.

But as you will see later in the show, it's as close to definitive as it gets that we're totally and utterly making it up. So that is a disastrous story. If it comes down to trusting you or John Bolton, John Bolton has the experience, so. He does have experience in starting wars, that is for sure. All right, anyway, that's later in the program. We got a ton of stuff for you guys later in the program. So let's get started right now, John, go. Okay, let's do it.

Today Donald Trump backtracked sort of, you say backtrack, because that's what he's trying to do, but he backtracked to some extent on his comments made earlier this week that he would gladly accept help from foreign actors in the next election. That was kind of a bad move constitutionally, and so today he said. said this. I have to look at it because if you don't look at it, you're not going to know of it's bad. How are you going to know of it's bad? But of course, you'd give it to the FBI or report it to the Attorney General or somebody like that. But of course you'd do that. You wouldn't, you couldn't have that happen with our country. And everybody understands that.

And I thought it was made clear. In fact, I actually said at the beginning, I think I said I'd do both. But how are you going to, if you don't hear what it is, you know what it is. I mean, how can you report something? How do you know it's bad if you don't listen to it? So Mr. President, I don't know, they'd say, oh, he would accept it. Well, if I don't listen, you're not going to know. Now, if I thought anything was incorrect or badly stated, I'd report it to the attorney general, the FBI.

Okay, so there's a lot of issues with that, but let's just jump right out by saying that what he is talking about is like, eh, you do what you want, maybe you do, maybe you don't, is clearly illegal. That's coming from people who know, including the head of the FEC that put out a statement saying, let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office, it is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel concept.

Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginning of our nation. Our founding fathers sounded the alarm about foreign interference, intrigue, and influence. They knew that when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to advance their own interests, not Americas. Anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance ranks, risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any political campaign that receives an offer of a prohibited donation from a foreign source

should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I apologize, that was a very small font that I was reading on my paper. But yeah, it's illegal. Okay, the part I want to emphasize is it is illegal for any person to solicit accept or receive anything of value from a foreign national connection with the U.S. election. So the very act of receiving and accepting the information, what Trump calls, oh, I'm just going to look at it, I'm just going to look at it to see what kind of operasers they have that I could later use against my opponent.

That is in itself illegal. It's not like, well, I looked at it and see if it was going to be something illegal, and then I decided whether I was going to take an illegal action or not. No, just simply any government, Russia, Israel, Canada, China coming and saying, would you like to receive information about your opponent? If you say yes and look at that information, you have committed a very serious crime. And so look, your best case scenario for Donald Trump, if you're an advocate of his, is that the president is so stupid that he can't possibly understand the law even if it was explained

to him. And it has not been explained to him over and over and over again. And every time he's like, well, you know, well, who wouldn't look at it? I mean, he's against my opponent. It's good to me. It's good for me. It's bad for America. It totally undermines the country.

And it's a felony under U.S. law, and you should go to prison for it. But it's good for me. So why wouldn't I do it? So your best case scenario is he's just a child and can't understand the most simple concepts. By the way, try that in your trial. See how that goes. Well, you know, Your Honor, I'm an idiot. And so, I mean, the cops told me the law seven different times, and I, you know, robbed

the bank anyway. And I didn't understand that I couldn't bring a gun to the robbery and the money they were giving me wasn't free. When I put the gun to the guy's head, I thought it was gonna be fine, I didn't get it. Try that, see how it works out for you. But for Trump, it's worked out his whole life. There's such a slapstick quality about this presidency. It's like a really drawn-out episode of a Benny Hill comedy special.

He, Trump made it very clear that if given the opportunity, he would most certainly collude with a foreign government. And he then tried to resort to this, these mental gymnastics to confuse the American people as to what he said. And then he even tried to virtue signal by saying, you know, anybody who would come to me with that kind of information, they would know. that I love America first. We haven't seen that, especially when he sided with Vladimir Putin and a Saudi prince over

the American intelligence community. Yeah, everybody would know how much he values the country. They would never give me a stolen information from my opponent because they know how much I love this country, except for the fact that they set up a whole meeting where your son, son-in-law and campaign manager went to the meeting saying, wow, we'd love to. We receive that information. You know how unscrupulous we are. In fact, his son wrote in the email, oh, if you have information from the Russians about Hillary

Clinton, quote, I love it. That doesn't appear to make the case that you would not receive that information. Nor did it make the case when he specifically requested that one country find the emails give them to him. And look, we're sort of having fun like speculating how stupid is he when he comes to the law? Does he actually know, does he still not realize that it's illegal after, you know, multiple years of investigation, but we don't need to go through all of these contortions. We know that he knows that it's wrong, which is why after Don Jr. had that meeting,

when they were preparing their statement of what it was about, he helped write the letter and said and lied about what it was about. If he thought it was totally fine and totally cool and totally legal, they would not have pretended that it was about Russian adoptions. That's a great point. And we now know for a fact that Trump is the one that helped to write that letter. They denied it and they said, oh, no, it was the president, though. He said it was Donald Trump Jr., then let it look like, fine, it was the president.

Okay, so if you thought there was nothing wrong with what was going on in the meeting, you wouldn't have to lie about it, it's a great point by John. And in his first point, you know, he said on national television, clips are everywhere, where he said, you know, I hope the Russians find those emails and give her to me during the campaign. And then he goes around now and says, well, I mean, everybody knows I wouldn't receive information like that, because I'm too patriotic. But food.

Nancy Pelosi, are you ever, ever, ever, ever, ever going to do your job, ever? And yeah, so he's, I mean, like, you could see in that video he was throwing up a ton of like, well, you know, you can't know if it's bad until you look at it and, well, could it really be illegal just, just to look at all this stuff? Like I talk to people all the time, there's so much just purposeful, disingenuous, misinformation there saying, oh, I have to report every time I talk to someone abroad, no, no, And nobody's saying that and you know that we're not saying that. And everybody involved in this conversation knows that.

It is when they say we have broken the law to get something of value that we want to offer to you to help you in a specific election. That is not the sort of thing that happens in random cocktail receptions abroad at meetings of the UN. That's a very specific thing that is targeted at candidates like you. You've already shown an interest in that. You are continuing to show an interest in that, which is why we should have a special level of scrutiny on Donald Trump and anyone involved in his campaign?

You know, in another part of the story, and I'm going to quote political here, they said he questioned whether he would need to report every negative thing uttered behind closed doors to U.S. authorities. Wait, that isn't the scenario in this particular case. In this case, we're talking about somebody comes to him and gives him APO research about his opponent. So why did he unsolicited bringing up like now? If they're telling me things behind closed doors while I'm president and it's really bad,

I'd probably report it, but you know, I'm not sure that I would have to. Why, what are foreign leaders telling you behind closed doors? He constantly admits things he shouldn't admit. And if you're trying to figure out, well, is he a criminal or stupid? The answer is both. So my best guess is that he's referring to the meetings he's had with Vladimir Putin where he banned any other American official from being in the meetings and then eventually banned American translators and only relied on Putin's translators and then says out of nowhere

nothing is bad is happening when I'm meeting with foreign leaders secretly behind closed doors they're not offering me anything and nothing bad is being said I mean I would maybe turn it in but I mean I can't turn in everything bad that a foreign leader tells me behind closed You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? No, we don't know what you're saying. Why did you bring that up? Yeah.

So, he's so bad at this. You know, who else is bad at their job? Nancy Pelosi. If you can't impeach this guy, just retire already. Be done with it. Look, we have an impeachment petition, but so does everybody. Okay, t.y.t.com slash impeach. But everybody wants impeachment because the guy's a lifelong criminal and keeps admitting it

on national television. I would never work with law enforcement. Who would go to the FBI? stupid enough to do that. Well, if you're the victim of a crime, you'd go to the FBI, if you're worried about crime, you'd go to the FBI. If you were the criminal committing the crime, well, then you're right, then you wouldn't go to the FBI.

Nancy Pelosi, it's not complicated. She said he is involved in a criminal cover-up. That is why I'm not going to do anything. Okay. And the reason that I was at the very beginning saying this is sort of backpedaling is many people, Trump defenders are going to point to this to say, oh, you guys are freaking out, and in the end, he said that he would actually, he'd tell the FBI, right? He did say that.

Okay, well, he had that interview on Fox and Friends early this morning, and just about an hour ago, he tweeted, thank you Senator Marsha Blackburn for fighting obstructionist Democrats led by crying Chuck Schumer. Democrats continue to look for a do-over on the Mueller report, and we'll stop at nothing to distract the American people from the great accomplishments of this administration. Marsha Blackburn, of course, is a senator who just yesterday stopped an effort in the Senate to legally require people. who talk to the FBI if they're approached by a foreign power.

Now, that effort by Senate Democrats was not necessary. We're already talking about criminal acts, but Marsha Blackburn specifically protected people like Donald Trump from what he's now saying he's gonna do anyway. But he sure seems happy she stepped in. I think it's no surprise here. We're talking about a president that made it very clear in 2016 that he's beyond reproach. This is the president that felt that he had the right to bypass a woman's autonomy. to do whatever he wants.

And so he's making that very clear in the Oval Office that he fully intends to bypass the Constitution, and he fully intends to do whatever Donald Trump feels is favorable for his presidency. I think when we discuss Nancy Pelosi and what is the sandbag weighing her down from making the decision to impeach him, is that no one is going to support someone who steps out against him. Every time he is held to the fire about his decisions which are unconstitutional, there is no real drive to follow through with the consequence.

And so I think that she's trying to stall the clock and she's trying to hope that maybe something happens beforehand. But he is such a reckless president that what I would be afraid of is that before he leaves office, he does something just to throw things off balance. Yeah, well, he's off balance to begin with, and yes, for example, a war with Iran. I mean, anything could happen. I hear you on that, but we can't base our actions on what Trump might do as a maniacal response.

And I know the sandbag weighing- Which is why impeachment is important, because if you wait it out, it's not going to change the outcome. Imagine he wins reelection. Then he's going to say, well, you didn't impeach me before, what, now you're going to go back four years? No way, and we just had an election, the American people said me. and not you. Which is the possibility, by the way, that he could win.

Of course it's possible, in which case he would now be definitively above the law and have a whole four years to do anything he wanted, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi, and I know the sandbag weighing her down, it's her donations. She raises a lot of money by saying Trump's the boogeyman, Trump's the boogeyman, give us money, give us money, otherwise Trump's going to win again. Give me money, give me money. And that's what Pelosi brags about and is famous for. She's raised over half a billion dollars to the Democratic Party from corporate donors and

incredibly wealthy donors. So she says, well, that's how I got in a power. And Trump is helping me maintain that power because I can go around and scare the living hell out of those donors. And they give me more money. I'm more powerful. The country might rot and the constitution is in jeopardy. And the president's a lawbreaker, but so what?

I accrued more power. That's Nancy Pelosi's calculation. So she doesn't lack the intelligence of Donald Trump. But there is definitely something missing. It also stands to question Democrats who have conservative values. We have Republicans who came out and said, I would never vote for Donald Trump. And I think that he is a complete embarrassment to the party. You also have Democrats who are closeted Republicans, essentially, because they are using

the same talking points, but the only difference is that they're hiding behind a progressive title. Yeah, last thing on this, I went back and read that quote randomly this morning that you referred to, the Access Hollywood tape where he says I would grab women by the generals and not ask their permission. We forget how stupid the beginning of that quote was. And it's actually a perfect symbol for this story too. You might wonder why, because is he stupid or does he do things wrong?

The answer is again both, and he showed it in that same. access Hollywood tape. He says, I sexually assault them without permission. Well, that's the illegal part, doing the wrong thing. And he says it in such an unbelievably stupid way. If you remember the beginning of the quote is, I moved on her like a bitch. What does that mean? That sounds like something the 40-year-old virgin would say. Because he doesn't know what sex is. He doesn't understand what, how, like you're trying to prove how masculine you are and you just told the guy, I moved on her like a bitch. What? And so every time Trump talks, you're like, what?

Did he just admit he's a criminal, but do it in such a bizarre way and such a brazen way, that you're like, did he just rob the bank on national TV? Yes, Nancy Pelosi, he did. And if you don't do something about it, you should be removed from leadership. That's the conversation we need to have now, because we know who Trump is. The question is, are we going to have Democrats who fight back against them, or are we going to have a leader who refuses to lead? I think we already know the answer to that.

Yes. This is why the only way, the only part I disagree on what you had previously said was that I'm not afraid that if he wins re-election, he will be above the law. I believe that he is de facto above the law right now. And then this stands the question, what does the road map to dictatorship look like? We're right in it. And I think these are things that when we say these people, they refer to it as far left radical speak, but the reality is that if you would have told us five years ago that we

would have a treasonist leader who has colluded with the foreign government, who has time after time broken the law that has covered up, has, I don't think anybody would have seen it coming. And so what I'm afraid of is that all of these drastic measures and bizarre actions are dumbing down the American people. We're so mentally exhausted that he could do anything at this point and people would just go, yeah, it's wearing us down. Yeah, that's a great point.

Do you want to take your first break? No, let's do the next door, let's help on. Okay, let's turn into that. Yesterday the DNC announced who among the many, about two dozen candidates would be qualified for the first two nights of the first debate. We have 20, and as of today, we actually find out which will be competing on each individual night, which starts to get a little bit interesting when you see who will have a chance to confront who on the stage at any given time.

The first night, June 26th, we'll have Booker, Castro de Blasio, who qualified somehow, Delaney, Gabbard, Inslee, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, Orion, and Elizabeth Warren. And that's an interesting mix there. You have Elizabeth Warren, who in a lot of recent polls has been polling in third. In some of the state level polls, actually, in the past week, she's been polling in second after Joe Biden against candidates of, you know, descending, standing in the polls. Some people might see this as a negative for Elizabeth Warren. She won't be able to directly contrast herself with Bernie Sanders or with Joe Biden.

But it does also mean that on the first night of the first debate, she's going to be right now the candidate with the most support. Yeah, I actually think that it's a huge positive for her and God bless. But in case anybody wants to start a conspiracy, the DNC is in favor of progressives or against progressives or maybe they put Bernie in with all the other guys. They're calling the second night, the group of death. And don't take that the wrong way. It's just a reference to soccer and in the World Cup when you've got a bunch of great teams

in one bracket, Germany, Brazil and Portugal, they're all the same bracket, that's crazy, that's the group of death. So that's the second night. She kind of has the first night to herself based on the polling. You don't know how people are going to do, Cory Booker might be amazing. You don't know how any of those folks are going to stand out on that night in particular. You just know the polling for now. But if you are conspiratorial minded, they explain that a mixture of senior advisors, campaign

managers, and press representatives were in the room for their drawing. So it's unlikely the campaign managers for Gillibrand and Harris and Sanders and Warren will look at it and go, oh, you're gonna rig it in favor of Elizabeth Warren, no problem, deal, right? They're not gonna do that. Yeah. It's also interesting to speculate in that. We're gonna go to the second night in a minute, but you know, you have Elizabeth Warren. going to be in that first night, but you also have in that same night.

I mean, some names that I'm not particularly interested in, but Beto O'Rourke, who had been doing much better in the polls not too long ago. That is his chance to possibly draw attention to himself again. You have Tulsi Gabbard, who a lot of people on the national stage might not have seen much from yet for the first time, right next to Elizabeth Warren. I would say similarly for Julian Castro. And Bill de Blasio will get to try to explain why he's in this. You know, people say that about de Blasio.

At least the Balazio is one of five to six progressives, why are 18 establishment people in the race? Michael Bennett. I saw an NPR reporter ask him three times back to back to back, why he's in the race. And he just couldn't explain it. What makes you different than any of the other people not in the race? And so I am interested to see how Tulsi will do because I think she could stand out by being so aggressively anti-war that that creates a bigger lane for her.

than some of the others. I said when de Blasio was getting in, his problem is not so much that he's like everyone else. No, he's in the smaller group of progressives. But within the group of progressives, he doesn't have much of a lane there either. And I mean he made that his approval rating is so bad recently. Yeah, no, I get it, I get it. But all their approval ratings are terrible. I mean, half the field is polling at 0%.

So just keep it real in that regard. So, and I think that Julian Castro's of the world have 0% chance of standing. out because they're cautious politicians, not because I disagree with them. Just because they, by their nature, when even asked interesting questions, they refuse to give interesting answers. And so that's not a good way to stand out in a field of 24 people. So my guess is that Tim Ryan will be aggressive. You might agree or not agree with him.

Tulsi'll probably be aggressive. And timing wise, with them ramping up to potentially start war with Iran, that will certainly not hurt her in terms of pressing the core issue. It really gives her, great point, John, gives her an opportunity to stand out. I think for sure that it's a matter of who's going to go against Elizabeth Warren quite personally because Elizabeth Warren is what Sanders was in 2016. She's definitely seen as someone that's far left with some of her ideals around plans and policies that are going to disrupt the way that the establishment has been working.

It will be interesting to see all of the circus choreography that. that goes on with candidates who like to tap dance around issues. Elizabeth Warren is a strong candidate because she faces the issues head on, which is really interesting because you have people up there who, you know, have been prosecutors before, and yet they won't address anything head on. I think that it's going to be one or two things. America's going to have to decide whether they're going to continue to do things the traditional establishment way, the Biden way at this point, because he represents very much of that,

or are they going to take a chance and do something different to get something that we've never got before? And then after we've gone through all that, we're going to have the second night, and that's where you have a bigger cluster of those who are doing pretty well in the polls, including Joe Biden will be there that night. Michael Bennett, so you'll want to tune in, Jank, see what he has to say. Buttigieg, Gillibrand, Harris, Hickenlooper, Bernie Sanders, Swalwell, Williamson, and Yang. And so a bunch of heavy hitters in the polls there, you know, like first and second tier candidates and third and fourth and fifth tier candidates. But that's, as you pointed out, being referred to as what is the group of death? Yes. Yeah.

Now, we don't actually have any eliminations here. No, someone dies at the end. It's hunger games. No, that only one can live. Maybe two depends on the berries. But in this particular case, it's still a democratic debate. They're probably going to be super nice to each other, especially this first debate. Maybe Bernie O-Tek Biden will see, but I think it's going to be a pretty polite affair.

Yeah, well, look, I, based on previous experience of what they've said before, my guess is that Bennett will just cede his time and not even say anything. He'll just say, oh, no, I'm just here to have fun. Here, who wants to take my two minutes, right? Swalwell will talk about guns, because that's how he's trying to separate himself. But no, I disagree with you a little bit, John, because Hickenlooper has gone for a pulling at 0% to pulling at 0% and he's trying to get out of that hole. And the way he's trying to get out of that hole is by attacking Bernie Sanders and calling

him Stalin, okay? And so he's now done that on a number of occasions and pretty much humiliated himself doing so. He ran this ad about like, we don't need any socialist to tell us that I don't run a government. In Colorado, we increase Medicaid by 5%. Ha ha, take that guy who thinks that the government can help everything. Medicaid is the government, okay, so just so you know. So I think Hicken Looper will come out swinging and I'm super curious to see what the reaction

is going to be and how others are going to react. And I'm interested to see if the prosecutor, Kamala Harris, is going to prosecute her case or if she's going to be reserved because it's early and our consultants will tell her it's early. Well, I think the idea too is that you see people trying to get to the conservative base. You see people trying to play it safe because they're under the impression. that if we can just maybe hang back on some of these issues a little bit, not be so aggressive with it, maybe they'll come over to the other side.

And at this point, people who are going to vote for Trump are going to vote for Trump. They've already drank the Kool-Aid. There's nothing you can do to stop it. And Buttigieg will use 12 SAT words in every answer and make you think that he's on your side, but you won't be quite sure. There's a lot of candidates too. I feel like I remember the names of my Uber drivers more than I do some of the candidates that are running.

Man, you know you're so many. Yes. Okay. The only other thing I wanted to say is it is interesting that on that same night you have two of the more outsider candidates in terms of where they're coming from with Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson. And it'll be interesting to see, you know, with so many people on the stage, they're going to get three minutes each to talk, but they both have some pretty unique ideas.

I know we've both enjoyed conversations with Andrew Yang. That's going to be exciting to see that, the whole country basically being exposed to that. Yeah, here's my fun prediction. I believe Andrew Yang will pull into the top six. Now if you say in a normal race, whoop-de-do top six, but in a field of 24 when he was not a politician and started out with absolutely nothing, we're actually the first national show to ever interview him and give him an opportunity to actually state his ideas. We've now talked to him on several occasions, and by the way, this is not about access.

And so I wanted to make that point about Beto O'Rourke, who's in the first night. Really interesting article came out yesterday where Beto O'Rourke's people are pushing back saying, you know what, we're getting a lot of bad coverage, you want to know why? Because when we first started our campaign, we did not talk to the national press. And the national press is vindictive like that. And so, like, there's almost no difference between Buttigieg and Beto O'Rourke. But Buttigieg, glowing coverage, because he's open to at least the national media, the mainstream media, and they're like, yeah, bravo!

Beto, you're not as open, all of a sudden we don't like you. We liked you before, but now not as much. Whereas Andrew Yang has different, interesting ideas. And we're talking about lanes in a field of 24. You've got to create a lane for yourself. And you check out the thousand proposals that Andrew Yang has, and you go, oh, he's got a lane, right? And he just needed an outlet to be able to express those.

And now he's gonna have a national outlet to do that. I don't know that he's gonna pull up to the top, but I think most people would be shocked if he got into the top six, and I think he will. I'm at the odds for ever be in his favor. All right, great. Let's take a quick break here, guys. And then when we come back, oh, Jesus, another police misconduct story. Why do they do this?

Why do they do this? It's painful. But we got to show it to you and show you if we're going to get any justice at all. We'll be right. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-The Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom.

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You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on the Young Turks, Mario writes in, after months of watching the reruns from Italy, this is my first time being able to watch the live show, perks of volunteering

in LA. Hey, Mario, how you doing? Great to have you live. Theater gotta says, yay, Ashley Marie, it really is a happy Friday. Already have fans, that's kind of awesome, okay? And then on Twitter, I'm the Derpy Dragon, says, it's not illegal if you win, ask all the war criminals making billions. Yeah.

Kind of sad but true. Timothy Halbertson. No longer a happy Friday. Yeah, I know. Timothy Halbertson says, hey John, is that the quote, new engagement haircut? No, this is the I need to get a haircut. Don't zoom in on my head right now. No, I need a haircut.

I'm gonna get one later today actually. Okay. By the way, happy engagement. Thank you. Da-da-da-da-da-da-bus. Kind of the luckiest guy. Oh, look at this guy. Look at this guy.

It's so sweet. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna be blushing for the rest of the show. All right. So, sorry all the ladies out there, unavailable now. Okay, Johnny Pike. You had your chance, people. Yeah, you kind of did.

Believe me, he would have dated anybody earlier. Yeah, don't freak out though. It's true, though, somebody said in the control room. Okay. All right, all right, last one here. And it's gonna lead into our story. He wrote in from the member section, hijack, first comment ever, just curious if anyone has reached out to Arizona Representative Greg Stanton about signing the Progressive Pledge.

He did amazing things for Phoenix and his beloved year, Arizona is often overlooked, but we have a growing liberal progressive base, Stanton's pledge would hold a lot of weight with Arizona voters. Fantastic! Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do, a video that I'm gonna show you in a second shows you how to do it. Lee, you go ask him. So like I said in Des Moines in the speech, when someone asks who's gonna fix it, raise

your hand and say, me, I'm gonna fix it. So you go ask him, now, like I said, people are already doing it. So the progressive pledges, the five pillars, Medicare for All, Green New Deal, college for all, higher wages, and an amendment to get money out of politics, t.yt.com slash pledge. So we unveiled it in Iowa, I did the speech in Des Moines, but then we went to Cedar Rapids and asked a lot of the presidential candidates. And a guy named Ivan happened to be there with us. And lo and behold, he's in Bloomington, Indiana, and he runs into Pete Buttichich.

So he asked him, watch. Mr. Mayor, are you familiar with the TYT Progressive Pledge? Okay, would you be willing to go to TYT slash pledge and take a look at it and see if it aligns with your values? I'm happy to check out. Thank you. He didn't look happy to be checking it out. But hey, Ivan, perfect, perfect, always be polite.

Because this is not about a gotcha, this is not about. hey, we're with a candidate or against a candidate yet, what we're trying to do is who agrees with us? And by the way, if you don't agree with the things in the pledge and you don't think you need all five of those things, then don't sign it, right? That's true for you, that's true for the politicians, that's true for the presidential candidates. So, but we need clarity, right?

Everybody says they're a progressive. So what the point of the pledge is, so are you? Do you agree with these things, or do you have a different definition of progressive? And some people do and they explain that to us. So great question and wonderfully done, Ivan, and what he did was he put it on his own Twitter account and then he sent it, emailed it to us at army at t-ytnetwork.com. And then Alison Hartson, who leads to the TYT army, saw it, send it to me. And I was like, I'm like, Alison, how are they already doing it?

Because Alice is supposed to organize all the volunteers and teach them how to do it. They're like, yeah, hold my beer. Okay, boom, they're jumping right in and they're doing it perfectly. Every time polite, good crisp question, and now Buttigieg definitely knows now, so we're looking forward to an answer. Can I just say, look, I don't know how long he'd been taking questions for, how hot it was, maybe the guy was tired, I don't know, but the way he responded, the dismissive, like, if you asked me what that was, and I didn't know, I might say what is it, but he was just

like, no, I don't know what it is, and he turned. And there were only a few pieces of information in there for him to have that response to. As to take a pledge, the name, TYT, or the word progressive. And whichever the three it was, it led to him going, no, no, no, no. That's not good. That was really abstract, actually, because I, so I met with Pete Buttigieg because I wanted to confront his thoughts on the incarcerated voter.

And I felt that as a gay man who's married, there were people who went to jail and were profiled so that you could have the rights that you and your husband enjoy today. And he was actually really receptive. He was open to what I was saying about socioeconomic disparity and some of the privilege that he had. He even went on stage an hour later and talked about it. So definitely whatever was in the water there, there was something that hit the gut really hard.

Yeah, let's keep it really, guys. So Jonathan Larson, who is not part of the editorial team here and has been doing stories for TYT and Vescius, which says objective reporting. So a whole bunch of reporters went there. He actually got there a day or two before BuzzFeed and some of the mainstream media reporters. And he did amazing investigative work and found out a lot of documents and people that had not spoken to others before that uncovered some of the racial issues that are in South Bend. Go to TYAT.com and read those stories. Apparently, Buttigieg has.

But he's happy to go on Fox News, but he won't come on here, a progressive outlet. And you saw his reaction there. And so the questions that people that Larson is reporting on that people in South Bend are asking are super legitimate questions about why was an African American police chief demoted? Why did the white police chief who came in this place not back up a black cop in a dangerous situation? There was an African American kid who was found hanging and that story was immediately. Immediately, that case was called a suicide, his body cremated, and the case closed within

about 24 hours or so. Read the story for yourself. So those are all these questions, and Buttigieg has answered none of them. So we're not, people sometimes say like, oh, you're biased. We didn't know anything about Buttigieg. How could we even have a bias? Nobody knew anything about him. For all we knew, he could have been the most progressive guy on the planet.

Larson is at a totally different part of the company. So I don't know if that's why he had that reaction, you know, that might be a fair guess. But it doesn't matter. If he believes in those progressive topics, if he does, those policy positions, then he should sign it not to do us any favor, to do himself a favor. Because there's a lot of voters who say, this is what I believe in, and if you want my vote, you know, then this is my platform. Speaking of which, last thing, right now, where do we stay?

18,549 signatures, and 8,329 people have volunteered to do exactly what Ivan did there in that situation. And you guys are going through the process analysis, reaching out to you guys, et cetera, and you're doing an amazing job. But if we can get that up to 100,000, 200,000 people saying, my vote depends on somebody who's going to do these five pillars. And if you're not going to do them, that's okay, bless your heart. But we get to pick one person to be our president, and I'm going to pick a person who signed this pledge.

So, but wonderful job of being polite and doing it the right way. Thank you guys. Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna have a hard transition because we've got another instance of horrific police brutality, totally unnecessary treatment. We're gonna show you just a little bit of it right now, but this is your warning that it is, it's pretty dark stuff. Put your hands up. Hands up. I can't put my hands on my ass.

I'm scared my head. I'm crazy. There you see, get your hands up. Cop has his gun pulled on a family in the car there. We have something that's so common. A family goes to a dollar store. And then the four-year-old girl apparently took a Barbie or something. Family didn't know.

They drive off. The next thing they know, they're being threatened with death by cops who are totally out of control. And so we're gonna show you the full video in just a second, but understand as we get into that, the context, Dravon Ames and his fiancee, Lisa Harper say Phoenix police pointed guns at their heads while their one and four-year-old daughters watched. The whole thing started again, as I said, after a trip to the family dollar store at a Barbie in a backpack. And so with that, here is the first part of the video. Get your fucking hands off. I'm gonna get your fucking out. Get out.

Police? Yeah. Okay. It doesn't open. I promise. I promise it doesn't open. You're gonna. Get your.

Get your. I can't open. I can't open. I'm not here. Get out the car. You are going to get out. Get out the fucking car right now. Yes.

Get out now. Get out the fucking car. All right. You're in there. I'm recording. Yeah, I'm cordon it. Put your hands up. I don't get a .

Hands up. Hands up. I can't put my hands on my my . I'm crazy, man. I'm crazy. I'm crazy. So, of course, there, we've cleaned up the language with some bleeping,

but I think you get the general idea. get the general idea, this had been two cops yelling at a person who apparently could not get out of the car because they had a child on their lap, the door wouldn't open, something like that, that they were going to put a cap in her head. They were gonna murder someone because they have a report that a Barbie was stolen. One of the quotes is, you're going to effing get shot. Now, of all the different police brutality and inappropriate actions that we have covered, this is among the most insane.

And we've shown you unarmed people getting shot for almost no reason at all. So why does this rank up near the top? Do any of you have kids? You know what four year olds do? They grab stuff because they don't know because they're four. They're like, oh, that's a cool car, that's a cool Barbie. I like Barbies, I like cars. And so they grab it and sometimes they don't know they're not supposed to take it.

And so you got a call, because sometimes cops are you. show up and they hear shots fired, right? They don't hear it, but that's what the report was, like a story we did yesterday. And that story, the shots weren't fired, and they went ballistic anyway. But in this case, the report is a four-year-old took a Barbie, and you come in with guns raised, talking about how you're gonna shoot people there, her parents in the head. I just, I can't comprehend that unless they're all on steroids or some sort of drugs, or the training in Phoenix is, if you see anything, do you see a J. Walker immediately threaten

to murder them? What on God's Green Earth would justify trying to, threatening to kill the parents of a four-year-old who took a Barbie, even if it was what? Malicious? What, the four-year-old did it maliciously? That's why you threatened to murder her parents? Look, if you can't understand there's something deeply wrong with policing in this country, you're trying super hard not to see it.

Because I guess you think, well, they wouldn't do that to me. I don't know why you think that. They're probably a good reason why you think that they wouldn't do it to you. And you really, really don't mind and sometimes enjoy that they do it to other people. I'm just going to call a thing a thing. It's definitely racism. And when I saw that video, it reawaking this PTSD from watching Philando Castile get gunned down in front of his family. And it really kills me all the more when I hear a progressive say, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening.

What is happening to this country? This was going on long before Trump went into office. This, you know, the body cams, the abs that allow us to witness and observe these atrocities may be new, but the racism most certainly is not new. And America has a long-standing history of anti-blackness and racism. In fact, when we look at the origins of law enforcement, they were originally slave catchers. They were, their job was, they were essentially an assets protection company because slaves were the assets. And so throughout the years, as we continue to develop government and as we continued

to establish even local governing, no one has ever addressed the elephant in the room that law enforcement was never on the side of black people. So when I watch a video and I see several black people, including children, almost murdered over a 99 cent Barbie doll, they basically put a price and value to the lives of black people. And so what I would ask people more importantly, what are you willing to do to get involved? Because I guarantee you that if they come for us in the morning, they'll come for you in the evening. Yeah. And how many more times do we have to see black brains?

splattered all across our social media feed before our elected officials speak up. We're talking about so many issues on the presidential stage this election. I wanna know what they plan to do about police corruption and police brutality because this is not just an isolated incident. This is an instance of systemic violence and it's going to continue to thrive until we intervene. Yeah, we, as you sort of alluded to, we show videos like this all the time. I mean, a tiny, tiny fraction of the videos we could, and that's only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the instances that aren't taped.

But I just get so depressed seeing them sometimes because no matter how horrible they are, a significant chunk of the country, 20 or 30 or 40 or 50%, don't think that there's any problem with the cops. Don't think that there's any racism. They ask the question, what did they do? They must have done something. So basically, it goes back to this idea that whenever we see violence taking place against African Americans, we ask ourselves, what are they done?

Because there's always this sense of suspicion that follows us, simply for existing. You see some of the memes about backyard Becky or barbecue Becky and these white women who will call law enforcement on children who are just selling lemonade on a hot day. This is, it really speaks to the history of America and how we see communities of color. And it's, as you said, it's a hundred percent race. If I had gone into that dollar store and kidnapped the manager, they wouldn't have yelled at me that way. You can pull out the cop's gun out of his holster and they wouldn't have reacted that way.

They got Dylan Roof Burger King after he said. Slaughtered people, but that cop was yelling at them. I've never been as angry as that cop was in my entire life. I've been in actual fights, I've been jumped, I've seen family members die. I've never been as mad as that cop was about that Barbie. And I tweeted out that video and someone responded, they weren't threatening to shoot the people because of the Barbie, they were threatening to shoot because they wouldn't get out.

They couldn't open the door. Exactly, and I saw that, I just thought, like you can't have a police state, you can't have a dictatorship without a significant chunk of the country thinking the way that person responded to be on Twitter. And it's so sad to know that there is nothing that's going to break through their minds on this. It's copy into dissonance. Do you really think that the four-year-old concocted a scheme where she would take the 99-cent Barbie and then when the cops came, her parents would ambush the cops, pretending that the

door doesn't open and then pull out AR-15s and kill the cops? Does anyone in their right mind believe that that is a plausible scenario? Their lives were in not 1% of 1% danger. And if you think it was, there's something wrong with you, that you live in this weird, racist, fearful state where you're like, oh my God, black people, I'm so scared. Like there's something wrong with you. And that's usually their argument when they murder us that they're afraid. They didn't look afraid to me.

And there's this expectation that we're supposed to meet an ambush with calmness, patience. We're supposed to have a lowered voice. There was even when the gentleman was up against the car, the cop kicked his legs as to provoke him. And so I think this goes back to this idea that if you aren't going to respond to any of the violence you're seeing, all of this trauma porn that we're broadcasting 24-7, we're going to continue to press buttons and see what we can get away with until the black community responds. Yes, so lastly in this, I just want to back up with Ashley said. So just last night I had Tom Hartman on the third hour of the Young Turks. It's called a conversation. Go to t-y-t.com and you can see the interview under the conversation.

And he wrote a whole book about the Second Amendment. In the north, the militia was basically police enforcement and could be called up for wars. In the south, they were just the slave patrols. That's what the militia was. And then they became the cops. The slave patrol became the cops. And so that is the origins of that, at least in that region of the country. And if you're wondering why, like for example, LAP,

Even in liberal, so-called liberal cities like Los Angeles, why do they have some of the worst police? They actually brought in cops from Alabama to be the police force in L.A., and then if you read any of the history of that, they became basically the largest gang in L.A. and used their badges and guns to rob people, steal, and run their criminal activities. So now that doesn't mean every cop did it, but can we all agree, at least on the tape that we just watched, that those guys should be fired? Imagine if your four-year-old daughter had accidentally put something in her, or even intentionally she's four, put something in her backpack, and they treated you that way, your family that way, and they almost killed you? Wouldn't you want them fired for having the worst decision making that we could ever, you

know, imagine? And they have a gun and a badge, and if they shoot and kill someone, they will almost certainly get away with it. Jesus, if your doctor had that kind of bad decision making, you'd sue them. So the cops are supposed to represent us, they're supposed to work for us. Those guys should definitely be fired and their manager very likely who trained them and told them to do that should also be fired. And sensitivity training is not the solution, we're past that.

That's the go to every single time we ask for accountability with the way that law enforcement responds to those situations and they always come out with, we suspended them, we're doing sensitivity training. It's not sensitivity training that we need. It's the dismantling of a systemically violent nation that we've continued to live in and allow them to run beyond a reproach. All right. We've got to take a quick break here. We'll be right. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech.

And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN, Highs, your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get 3.5.com. You can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash

T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the young Turks, the liberal mom writes in, Bernie Madoff stole $65 million from hundreds of people and was commonly arrested. A four-year-old took a Barbie doll and her parents almost get shot. This is class warfare, almost literally, right? So great point.

That's from our member section, t.yt.com slash trial to become a member. And then Tim Joyce writes in on Twitter, why do Americans tolerate their cops acting like thugs? If a cop acted like that in Canada, they would be fired and charged. This is why I and many other Canadians will no longer travel in the U.S. I mean, it seems amazing to think like, oh, you're not going to come to the U.S. because it's not safe. Yeah, that's totally true. And by the way, on all fronts, by the criminals and the cops, right?

So the cops are out of control. But like people ask me, somebody asked me the other day, is it safe to go to Turkey? Given the number of mass shootings that happen in America, it's way safer to be in Turkey than it is to be in America. No joke. That's a statistical fact. So that's why now people are worried, like should we go to the U.S.? Are we gonna get murdered, either by the criminals or the cops?

That's the crazy state that our country's in. Anyway, we're gonna talk about some of those types of issues as well when we do our Juneteenth special. And that is obviously on June 19th. Well, I don't know that it's obvious to everybody, but we're gonna tell you what Juneteenth is. And obviously, celebration and or recognition that the African-American community knows a lot about. And we want to make sure that others do as well, highlighting Trailblazers, leaders, dispelling myths, and talking about reparations and modern-day slavery, et cetera. So make sure that you check that out on June 19th.

All right, John, what's next? Okay, we're totally unnecessary story, but Donald Trump's president, and so we're left to where we are. Let's turn to this now. The official explanation for why the now long-anticipated Harriet Tubman $20 bill has been delayed by about a decade is already starting to fall apart. Not long ago, less than a month ago, I think Steve Mnuchin had testified to Congress saying that security features, complicated stuff, can't get it done, it's gonna have to take until after Donald Trump is out of office.

That's what they say, but now sources inside a treasury are revealing the New York Times that's not the case. In fact, work on the new $20 bill began before Mr. Trump took office and the basic design already on paper most likely could have satisfied the goal of unveiling a note-bearing Tubman's likeness on next year's centennial of the 19th Amendment. which granted women the right to vote. That preliminary design was completed in late 2016. In fact, we have an image of it.

It's ready to go, but he was pretending that it's going to take years just to get the image. Well, somebody talked and that was not the case. A current employee of the Bureau who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, i.e. they'd fire him. Personally viewed a metal engraving plate in a digital image of a Tubman $20 bill while it was being reviewed by engravers, And Secret Service officials as recently as May of last year, this person said that the design appeared to be far along in the process. And according to that person, within the bureau, there was a sense of excitement and pride

about the new $20 note. That's within the bureau. Within the White House, there was fear, fear of having Harriet Tubman on the bill, and perhaps more importantly, no longer having Andrew Jackson on the bill. And sources are now saying that Steve Mnuchin actually chose to delay the implementation of the Tubman bill to avoid the possibility that Mr. Trump would cancel the plan outright and create even more controversy. So, Andrew Jackson, by the way, of course, was a slave owner and committed genocide

against Native Americans, and hence is Donald Trump's favorite president, literally. And so, and in fact, when he did a ceremony celebrating Native Americans, he did it in front of a giant painting of Andrew Jackson. You can't get any more, I don't want to do. I want to use the word insensitive because it's too light, he's, he rubs his racism into your face and then basically says, what are you going to do about it? Now they're gonna, everybody says that it's pretty much ready to go. They ask the security expert, they said, well, you know, the security features are what's

holding it up, Mnuchin says. And Larry Rolliffs, former director of Bureau of Engraving and Printing said that the security features of a new note are embedded in the imagery, they normally would be created simile. simultaneously. So if you see the image, that means the security features are already ready. And the fact that they're delaying it for six years when Trump gets out of office shows you that there's no question as to why it's being delayed. And so get a load of how racist Donald Trump is, that the idea of seeing a black woman

on our currency drives him nuts. And so he thinks, under no circumstances, am I gonna have this person on the bill? But is there any real reason not to, he, and by the way, it's not like he's Donald Trump, he can't help himself, it's not like he's covering it up, he sucks at cover-ups. He usually just blurts it out on national TV. And on this one he did so as well, earlier he has said that removing Jackson in favor of Tubman was quote, pure political correctness. So what does that tell you?

That tells you, oh, Harry Tubman freed slaves and she did it heroically under incredible danger. That doesn't mean anything to me, that's irrelevant. The fact that you value that, Trump thinks is political correctness. No rational person would value freeing slaves over a guy who had slaves and it was famous for murdering Native Americans. So obviously it must be political correctness. That's who Donald Trump is. Harriet Tubman has exuded more courage and bravery than Donald Trump has his entire life.

This is the man that lied about 9-11 and talked about being among the first responders. And I think it's a twofold thing. It's the fact that it's going to be someone who is black and it's someone that's a woman. And so given the conversation around women's rights and African American rights and all of that taking place simultaneously, it's just, it's just, I know black America is kind of happy, believe it or not. I know some people always check in with us and they're like, are you okay? Like we heard this thing. Like, isn't that terrible?

Oh my God, I can't believe it. We believe it. We know it. We've been saying it for years, but we've been gaslighted and told that everything that we're saying is just a cop out or it's an excuse or, you know, we're all created equal. And now Donald Trump stepped onto the scene and he affirmed every. That's everything that black people have been saying since we could remember. Yeah.

Yeah. And by the way, replace all the presidents on the money. People who worship politicians too much in this country as it is, replace them. We got tons of scientists and authors and poets and athletes and all of that. We put them on the money, it'll be perfectly fine. Maybe AOC. That's the only politician that should be on any money. No more presidents.

They already get enough recognition. They've got libraries. What do they need bills for? I just want to mention one other thing that turned up in my research in a past instance where we talked about this story, that I love so much about the irony of this Donald Trump and Steve Bannon fighting so hard to keep Andrew Jackson on the money. Andrew Jackson was opposed to the issuance of paper money by state and national banks in the first place.

He only trusted gold and silver his currency and shut down the second bank of the United States in part because of its ability to manipulate paper money. How's that for irony? I think that broke the irony record. Look, I don't mind the presidents on the bills and it gives me a sense of history, etc. But Harriet Tubman should actually be a Republican idol if they meant anything that they ever said. What does she fight for? Freedom. What do Republicans always say? We care about freedom. It's all about freedom, right? And what does she do? She pulled herself up by the bootstraps.

Through unbelievable odds, through rugged individualism, she brought people to freedom. She should be the logo of the Republican Party if they meant anything they said. But because she's black woman, Trump goes, well, no one, not only do I not celebrate her, not only am I gonna block the whole country from celebrating her, but he thinks no one in the right mind would ever celebrate her. And if you do, it's just political correctness. I mean, who would value an African American woman that risked her life to do something historic and courageous like that, of course it has no value.

Somebody smart would value an African American woman, especially when you're looking at this election, we're one of the biggest voting blocks. And so I think that it's quite the opposite. I don't think that he feels African American women aren't important, I think it's the fact that he fears them. Yeah, and look, Harry Tubman is an absolute legend for what she did. Because it isn't about, as to John's point, these celebrated politicians with entire political parties and power structure and infrastructure behind them.

So there's some accomplishment there, but it is a whole team, it takes a village to create a president. Harriet Tubman, I mean, of course she didn't act alone, and of course it took a whole team to do that as well, but took enormous initiative. I mean, she is in a sense the prototypical American, if you looked at it objectively. That's why we love Harriet Tubman, and we think it's about time that everybody in the country was represented on our currency. But they find that to be an affront.

And what is it based on? The only possible thing it could be based on is her race and her gender. That's who Donald Trump is. He's a racist and sexist to his core. And I think this story proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. There's no other reason to be opposed to her. All right, we got to go to the second hour. We're going to tell you about the war that we might be starting with Iran and the lies

that we are telling to do that. that. Ashley, thank you so much for being on. Thank you so much for having me. Okay. Your hype was correct. All right, everybody check out damage report. It's killing it. People love the damage report. Check it out on t-y-t.com. Check it out. If you're a member, you can see the video version of it and live. So t-y-t.com slash trial to do that. Also, of course, on Facebook and YouTube as well. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. We'll be right back.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.