The Young Turks - Gone Hogg Wild - April 17, 2025

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Shooting at FSU leaves two dead and more injured. New Documents Detail Government’s Case That Mistakenly Deported Man Was a Gang Member. DNC Vice Chair David Hogg Plans to Spend Millions Against Democratic Incumbents. Trump Waved Off Planned Israeli Strike on Iranian Nuclear Sites. Hosts: Yasmin Khan & Cenk Uygur 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. Oh my God. Begha! All right, welcome to the young Turks, Jake Uyghur, Yasmin, Aaliyah Khan, host at Rebel HQ, and the Modern Context podcast. So we have a hell of a show for you guys today. So number one, we actually have stunningly good news in the show.

What? What? Okay, so that's coming up in a little bit. Huge fights within the Democratic Party. Where do we stand between James Carville, Bernie Sanders, AOC, David Hogg. That's super interesting story. A lot of interesting nuance in there and we don't, I mean, well, we'll save it for later in the program because it's super interesting. Bill Boer, a modern American hero. We'll talk about him a little bit more. And I know what you're all thinking. Why is Jank in the house Barathean? There it is. Take a snapshot of that. Okay, so yeah, I'm in the mountains. You'll never find me. I'm in a bunker. Anyways, all right, Yasmin, we got a lot to get to. Let's get started. We do have a lot to get to And we actually have a breaking story for everyone this evening.

So let's roll the tape on this one. I guess it's an active shooter. Fully briefed as to where we are right now. It's a shame. It's a horrible thing. Horrible that things like this take place. And we'll have more to say about it later. Today, a shooting at Florida State University has left at least two killed and six injured.

And he just heard from President Donald Trump who was asked to react to the news while it was still developing. And as you just heard him say, things like this take place. Jank, do you think that that is going to be any monicum of comfort for the families and friends of the victims? No, of course not. And so look, I agree with Trump in an ironic kind of way. Now, to be fair, he said it's horrible. It's horrible to things like this take place, right? So okay, sure, that we all agree to that. But he did seem a little bit like, well, I'm gonna do things like this take place. And you know, it's a little bit of a roar shock test depending on how you see that clip. But to me, the part that is the ironic agreement is,

guys, I don't think there are politicians are gonna do anything about this. And you've heard me say this, you know, now dozens of times, it might even be hundreds at this point, after all the mass shootings that we cover and we've covered a lot of them. We're the mass shooting capital of the world and our politicians don't care. I mean, another way of phrasing it is, we're the mass murder capital of the world. And by a lot, it's not even close. And our politicians never, ever, ever do anything about it. So yeah, yeah, things are like this are going to keep taking place and our politicians are never going to represent us. And now they're on a loop. So, you know, years and years ago, I tell you, listen, I hate to be the bearer bad news.

but shootings like this are going to happen near you soon. Because everybody kept getting surprised like, oh, I can't believe there was a mass shooting near me. At this point, you should be surprised if there hasn't been a mass shooting near you. There's one every single day in America. This one just happens to be a little bit more spectacular. It's on a college campus, a lot of people killed and wounded, etc. Spectacular, obviously in a terrible way in the wrong direction.

And but now it's gotten so bad, yes, that it's looping. This is the second shooting on FSU's campus. An earlier one was in 2014, so now every place is going to get two mass shootings. So you can look forward to that because our politicians will never ever do anything. No, I think you're absolutely right. And it's also a little interesting that we're covering this story when it relates very closely to a story we're going to cover later on in the show. So as far as the shooting goes, here's what we know so far. The suspected shooter's name is Phoenix Ikner.

The suspect is the son of a sheriff's deputy and had access to one of her weapons. The suspect was shot by responders and is currently hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. According to local law enforcement, the two victims who were killed were not FSU students. Chris Coots 51 was a professor of urban planning at the school and was said he was baffled by what had happened. This is the second one since I've been here, he said. as he walked to his car after having sheltered in place. He was referring to a 2014 shooting in which a gunman wounded three people in the university library. Of course, that is what Jenk was just referring to.

An FSU student on the scene called out Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, saying, I'm going to call on Governor Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump. This stuff keeps going on. We're praying every day. Praying is good. Spirituality is good, but prayers don't do much. It's good for the soul, but is this still happening? I think it is. So we need to make some gun reforms, and that is from an FSU student.

And again, as I said, we are going to talk a little bit about this in another story that we're covering later on in the show. So it is just interesting that this is such a late addition to the show, but we had to cover it. We had to come up and mention it. But yeah, I agree with Jenk. How many times can we have this exact same conversation? Every time there's a school shooting, we have to go through the same rigamarole.

We have to wait for our politicians and leaders. to just acknowledge that this was a bad thing as if we need to hear that from them still. And the thing is originally, like the thought would be, oh, let them acknowledge that this is horrible because if they understand that it's horrible, then they'll do something about it. But now we know they're not going to do anything about it. So something needs to, a lot of things need to change all at once before this actually does get addressed because as Jen pointed out, they know that this is a problem and they don't care.

They're not going to do anything about it. They've shown us that for the last 20 years. Yeah. So the last couple of things here, look, there are, I'm far left on this issue, which means that I'm right in the center of the globe, like the rest of the world thinks we're all nuts for how much we allow guns in this country. So I would let you have a gun, but you'd have to have in a locker, not in your home. I know a lot of people would be like, oh, you're crazy. And by the way, I know that'll never pass in America, right?

At least in my lifetime, I would be shocked if that passed in America. But that's the position on four, because that's the position that works. That's the position that's gotten Japan to about zero gun homicides. But apparently the American people are willing to accept tens of thousands of gun homicides and suicides, by the way. And so look, and that leads to the last thing. There are a couple of things that the American people do agree on, right? So universal background checks, over 90% of gun owners are in favor of that. because they don't plan to commit a crime with their gun. So they're like, I don't mind if you

have my the serial number, et cetera. That's just very logical for us to be able to track criminals. The second is red flag laws. So if someone is problematic, either they're a clear criminal or they have significant mental health issues, should we take their guns away? Of course, of course. And a giant percentage of Americans agree with that. There's some folks who are in the gun absolutists who are like, yeah, no, if you're mentally insane, I think you should have an oozy. Okay, but most Americans don't agree with that. So you know my political philosophy. Take the wins where you could find them. We should fight super hard for universal background checks and for red flag laws and then work through the decades to get,

you know, if we can convince the American people to get to my position on this, I think we'll save tens of thousands of lives, but that's not the place to start right now, because right now that position is is not popular enough to win, right? So, but for God's sake, let's at least do something to mitigate the nonstop disaster of mass shootings in America. Yeah, so this is still a developing story. We'll hopefully have more information on it later, but again, I'm not looking, I'm not holding my breath for any information regarding any kind of legislation that would come out of this. So with that, let's get into our next story, which was originally our first story for the night. So let's see the tape.

He gets deported. He's here illegally with the United States Senator and a bunch of knuckleheads in the house that now say their main priority is bringing back someone. Maybe he's not a terrorist, but he's a potential terrorist. He's a terrorist watch list person. There's a lot more to this guy than meets the eye. I stand with the White House. I think he's, I think he's MS-13 and I think that they got the goods on it. But do they have the goods on him? That's the question. Well, last night, after weeks of refusing to reveal whatever evidence they had against Kilmar Abrago Garcia, the Department of Justice released some more documents to justify his wrongful deportation. So before we show you their alleged receipts, Jank, should we expect you to just totally change your mind on the concept of due process if they do have compelling evidence? Yeah, no, there's two different issues here. One is, is this guy a criminal and an MS-13 gang member as Trump administration claims or not? We're dead, I think there's pretty definitive

evidence on that. So we'll get to that in a second. But most importantly, what Yaz is saying, which is, are we going to have due process or aren't we? That's by far the most important issue here, because that's what affects all Americans and our system of government. So let's tackle both right now. Absolutely. So the Justice Department shared records detailing how police officers in Maryland determined that Abrago Garcia was a member of MS-13 during an arrest in 2019, allegations he and his lawyer deny.

He had no criminal history at the time, which the Justice Department also admits in their documents. So here it is, in a document titled Gang Field Interview Sheet, the Prince George's County Police Department detailed how in March 2019. it approached Abrago Garcia along with three other people for loitering at a Home Depot parking lot in Hyattesville. Abrago Garcia said in a court filing that he was there looking for day labor work. Police said he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears, and mouth of the presidents on the bills. And the officers said such insignia indicating see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil, was indicative of Hispanic gang.

culture. The officers said they were, they consulted with a reliable confidential source who advised that Abrago Garcia is the rank of Kitch, oh man, Chiquayo with the moniker of Chile in the gang. Yeah, didn't the Ratliff kids just depict that see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil on the boat going to the white lotus? Like I didn't know that they were supposed to be Hispanic gang members, but you learn something new every day. Of course that's ridiculous. It's super common industry. It's been all over since forever.

But police assess that two other people who were with Abrago Garcia in the Home Depot parking lot were also gang members. So here's more. A court agreed to deny Abrago Garcia bond after his arrest. He wrote that the allegation that he is a gang member appears to be trustworthy and is supported by other evidence in the record in the Prince George's County police documents. So Garcia was handed over to immigration authorities, but later in 2000, As we have discussed on this show many times, an immigration judge barred him from being sent back to El Salvador after he proved he had a well-founded fear of future persecution from local gangs. Then last month, immigration agents stopped Abrago Garcia in an IKEA parking lot and deported him to El Salvador days later. So far, not much new information has been revealed, but they shared some other history as well.

Here's this. Another document released Wednesday from the Department of Homeland Security in 2019 said police identified two men, one of whom was Abrago Garcia as having been previously detained in a murder investigation. Abrago Garcia denied being connected to a murder investigation, the document said, and he was never charged. So aside from the new documents, DHS also posted on social media that Abrago Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Surah, had saw, thought a temporary protective order against him in 2021. The petition for a protective order described a disagreement and physical altercation that included hitting and scratching, but the case was ultimately dismissed.

Today, Vasquezra responded to that incident being publicized, saying after surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order in case things escalated. Things did not escalate and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process. No one is perfect and no marriage is perfect. That is not a justification for ISIS action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation. But despite the fact that his wife has been aggressively fighting for his return from El Salvador, Sean Hannity and Attorney General Pam Bondi had the audacity to say this on Fox News,

last night. I'm having a hard time understanding why his wife is advocating for him to come back. Well, America is safer because he is gone. Maryland is safer because he is gone. And that woman that he is married to and that child he had with her, they are safer tonight because he is out of our country and sitting in El Salvador where he belongs. Jank, the thing is, none of this matters. This conversation does not matter.

None of this was ever supposed to be litigated this way in the media. And it doesn't matter what the Republicans come up with to justify their actions. Nothing justifies deporting a person without due process. Whether he was illegal, whether he was a gang member, like all of that was supposed to be decided in the courts before any kind of action was taken against him, let alone any kind of deportation. to El Salvador, nothing any of them says matters, like no evidence they released to the media matters. They should have taken all that evidence to the court, but they didn't do that. So right now, I feel like they're just trying to pacify the American people with this or trying to politicize this moment because they don't really have a choice, I guess.

They want to maintain whatever support Trump still has left. And they know that their base loves to see deportations. So they're doubling down on this one, making a whole story out of it, focusing on the deportation itself. demonizing a man who hasn't done anything wrong. And they're constantly reminding their supporters that we all live under this constant threat of gang violence and terrorism to the point that the fear of that looming threat of gang violence and terrorism overtakes their conviction that due process is the law of this land and that needs to be protected. This is also stupid. You know, the principle does not change with the circumstance and the people who keep justifying these actions, specifically the Pam Bondies and the Sean Hannity, they know that.

Yeah. So I think they, of course, they do have a choice. I think that they're keep going in the wrong direction here, the Trump administration. on purpose. They think that this helps them politically. We'll get to that in a second. But so first of all, look, if you're on the right and you've heard that, well, you know, a judge thought that maybe he might be MS-13 and there was an informant who said he was MS-13 and and he wore a Chicago Bulls hat. And and by the way, a court did, as we explained in 2019, early in 2019, held him without bond because they weren't sure, right? So that That gives you plenty of stuff to say, aha, that's it.

We have, oh, and the potential domestic violence. Now, he was never convicted of anything, et cetera. But you think, okay, bad guy, I'm good enough. Okay, now, so let me explain why I don't think that is good enough. Number one, not convicted of a single thing. If you're not convicted of anything, well, then they could just make up charges about you and say, hey, you know what, you did, they dig into your life. You did this wrong, you did that wrong at some point.

So it doesn't matter, we're not having a real trial for you. We're just getting rid of you, okay? So number two, this is really important guys. So Yaz read to you guys what happened later in 2019 where another judge looked at it more definitively. And after looking at all the evidence, he said, no, no, no, not only is he not in a gang. There's credible threats against his life by gangs in El Salvador because he's not in a gang.

And they explained that if he was granted. that he was granted a withholding of removal from the country and it allowed him to stay in the United States separately and receive a work permit, okay? So that's the judge saying, you cannot send him out of the country, and that is the last ruling, okay? So when Trump administration sends them out, they're defying a court order already. Someone already looked at it and said, do not send them back. He is not a gang member. And the gangs actually might hurt him or kill him. So now if you say, no, I know better because I saw it on Fox News and I trust the Trump people and, you know, and I think they're angels. And I don't care because he's undocumented, et cetera. But you're not just

saying that you don't care about this guy. You're saying I don't care about our constitutional system of government. I don't care that a judge ordered him to stay in the country. Then the Supreme Court ruled unanimously, which was shocking that the Trump administration has to facilitate his return. And then a lower court said he's definitively not an MS-13 and he must be returned. He hasn't been convicted of anything. And the Trump administration admitted in court that it was an administrative error that sent him to El Salvador, not because any judge ordered it or that they had even accurately

that he should be sent to El Salvador. So if you want to rest your laurels on, I don't care about anything. And by the way, at some point he was undocumented. And yeah, the judge said we should keep him here, but I don't care about the judge. I don't agree with any of that. Okay, but what you're doing is you're burning down the judicial system that we have. And we can't do that. That is by for the most important part of this story.

Because if we start saying that the executive, allowing the executive branch to say, I don't care what the courts ruled, I'm gonna do whatever I want, that's not a democracy. That's not a constitutional form of government. That's an authoritarian government. And if he has a right to send this guy after the courts tell him not to, and to bring him back, then he could send you or anyone else. Well, wait, wait, I'm a US citizen, he can't do that. Is that right?

Because Trump has been saying for the last week that he wants to do it for American citizens. the homegrown and then he wants to send you to El Salvador. Now I'm not saying you in particular, but you said, and if you say, oh, well, he's talking about killers and rapists and all these things, but he's talking about doing it without due process. So how do you know if they're bad guys? Nah, this is not our former government. This is not America. So, so this is less about immigration. And even in that case, on the immigration issue, it's unbelievable that they sent the wrong guy, they know they sent the wrong guy.

They admitted it was an administrative error and they won't fix it. And the reason for that is we explained as politics, they think this is that they can mislead people enough to get folks to believe that Democrats are just protecting gang members. And if they feel like that if they lie enough, like J.D. Vance says, oh, he is MS-13. And they say all these terrible things about him, they could trick people into thinking that he is in that gang and the Democrats are protecting criminals, right? That's the political play here. But in the meanwhile, A, they're wrong about that completely and B, much more importantly,

we're just, if we allow this to stand, then they could really do anything they want to anybody, including U.S. citizens, because then we don't have due process anymore. They don't have to present you to a court. They could just make unilateral decisions and there'll be nothing you could do about it. Yeah, I mean, you said that the judicial aspect was the most important aspect of this story. I would argue it's the only aspect of this story that matters. Everything else is superfluous and it's just them trying to save their own, you know what. But you are right.

It is they're completely, they're making it political. Let's see how that's going, even though the Trump administration is facing more and more heat over this mistaken deportation and their refusal to honor due process, the reality is that most Americans are on board with Trump's broader immigration agenda. And that is why he's doing everything he can to steer the conversation in that direction. Here are the numbers from CNN's Harry Enton. This is a big reason why. So take a look here. This is on immigration. What track are we on?

The right track or the wrong track? Look in December. Look at the percentage who said we were on the wrong track. 62% of Americans when Joe Biden was in office compared to just 14% who said that we were on the right track. Flash forward to April. Well, hello. 45% say we're on the right track compared to 42% who say we're on the wrong track. So in a big switcheroo from where we were back in January,

the plurality of Americans say that the country is on the right track when it comes to immigration policy, deport all undocumented immigrants. Voters favoring the government trying to deport all 11 million of them. Back in 2016, just 38% of voters wanted the government to try to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. Compare it to where we are in 2025, 56% the majority. So Enten also calculates that Trump's approval rating on immigration is plus one, but some other polls don't look quite as good for the president. In a new Quintipiac poll, for instance,

Trump's net approval on immigration issues is minus 5% on deportation specifically. It's minus 10%. Jank, we've all been hearing from Republicans for the last several years. is that they're not anti-immigration, they're anti-illegal immigration. That's a very important caveat for them. But we know that that's really not true. If they were anti-illegal immigration, I feel like they would approach the issue differently. They might actually look into the process of getting into this country legally

and try to understand what it actually takes, how difficult it is, how long it can take. They might actually talk about reforming the immigration process because it is incredibly convoluted and risky and time consuming, but they're not having any of those conversations. So they just hide behind this facade of legal versus illegal immigration, because at least in my opinion, they are actually xenophobic. They probably themselves wouldn't identify as being xenophobic. They probably don't think of themselves that way, but I feel like they are. And I feel like that's what this all comes down to. Immigrants do not have a place in like the white picketed, fenced, Pleasantville fever dream that these people actually want to live in.

Yeah, so look, I think that there is two different things going on in the immigration issue. And it's, that's why these polls seem confusing. Some have it as, hey, you know, majority of Americans saying deport or everybody who's undocumented. The other saying that Trump's popularity on this is actually waning and going down significantly. And I think there's a good explanation for both. It's because when he came in, he did shut down the border and the border crossings really got massively reduced. And so, and that greatly frustrates me because apparently it could have been done, but Biden chose not to do it. But then that puts us in an unpopular position. And it leads to abuses like Trump is doing right now, right? On the other hand,

if you're, again, if you're on the right wing, you should be more frustrated at Trump than we are. Well, number one, you claim to love the Constitution all these years, I hope you meant it. Number two is that his policies on shutting down the border are very, very popular. But now his overall immigration policies, as you see in the Quinnipiac poll, are being to be unpopular. Why? Because he's abusing the Constitution. So how does that help? That doesn't help your cause. Trump could have been super popular on immigration, and he could have, look, I don't believe in the mass deportations at all. But if you're on the right or apparently, in the middle and you now believe in mass deportations, well, Trump is doing a lot of harm

to that cause because he's doing it in such a wild, irresponsible, unconstitutional, authoritarian way where he's rounding at people that were ordered to stay in the country that shouldn't be sent back, that aren't criminals. So he's making that position unpopular. So that's why you're seeing that, you know, that diversity in those polls and them going in separate directions. So as usual, if Trump just could keep his worst authoritarian impulses under control, he actually could have had a win here, but he's turning that win into a loss. Yeah, I feel like just the wildness of this administration, generally speaking, is very scary to so many Americans. And we're hearing it come up in all these Republican town halls across the country in very red districts.

They are bringing up the fact that Trump is denying these orders from the support. Supreme Court. And again, just to remind everyone, that was a unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court. I can't even remember the last time we saw something like that, especially not with this particular court. I don't think it ever has happened. But people are worried. And on top of everything, we also have the tariffs, things just feel wildly unstable right now. People don't know what to expect. People don't know what's happening. And the rules that we have all grown up with, the rules that we have known in this country for centuries, those don't seem to matter anymore and it's making people very uncomfortable. That's what I think is happening. Yep. Okay, so that was a good dose of bad news. Now we're going to take a break and when we come back, yes, there is stunningly good news in today's show on a real important issue. So we'll talk about that as we continue. All right back on TYT, Jank and Yaz with you guys and also James M, welcome brother. He hit the join button below. We appreciate it. Makes a huge difference to us.

So we got more news for you guys. Yes, you got it. Yeah, Jank and I are both very excited about this story. So DNC Vice Chair, chair, David Hogg, has announced his plan to spend millions of dollars to primary Democratic incumbents. And some people are predictably very upset about it. And they're exactly the people who you would expect to be upset. And we'll talk about the response to Hogg a little bit later. But Jank, how do you feel about this? Are you excited? Does it feel a little reckless, dangerous even, but like in a fun way? No, no. I wish you was reckless in a fun way. And we all had great time with it. No, no, it's perfectly normal. We're going to show you other Democrats like

James Carver will flipping out over it and going nuclear about it. No, it's great. I love it. It's healthy for the Democratic Party and we'll defend the move as we go along. First you get, let's get the whole story. All right, so here's the plan. Hogg is the president of a grassroots organization called Leaders We Deserve. And through that group, he plans to spend $20 million in primaries against Democratic incumbents in the hopes of just getting better Democrats in their seats. But David Hogg was well aware when he announced his plan that people were not going to like it. He's been fighting the Democratic establishment for years. He knows what he's dealing with. Not only did he know the corporate Dems would not like it, he also predicted that there

would be a smear campaign against him and attempts to destroy his reputation and we're already starting to see these things take shape. So here's what Hogg had to say of his point. He said, people say they want change in the Democratic Party, but really they want change so long as it doesn't potentially endanger their position of power. That's not actually wanting change, that's selfishness. And from the New York Times, they said at a private meeting last month, a neutrality policy was circulated asking the party's top officers to refrain from any activity that would call into question their impartiality and even-handedness, according to two people. with knowledge of the pledge, which sought to cover officers both in their DNC capacity and in their personal capacity, everyone signed it except Mr. Hogg. Hogg also got ahead of any accusations of ageism that are sure to be headed his way by

addressing them head on before they can even start saying, what we are not saying here is, oh, you're too old, you need to go. Mr. Hogg said of older officials, What we're saying is we need to make room for a new generation to step up and help make sure that we have the people that are most acutely impacted by a lot of the issues that we are legislating on that are actually going to live to see the consequences of this. Hogg, of course, has received plenty of support since his announcement, including, included amongst those supporters, is Randy Weingarten, a member of the DNC and president of the American Federation of Teachers. And here's what she had to say. She said, yes, it will ruffle some feathers. And yes, some people will be upset. The key is that they're trying to create the connection between the long-term values of the party and

people who don't see it. And you have to do things differently to make that connection. So we'll get to the critics just now, one in particular. But David Hogg is a member of Gen Z. He's quite young to be involved in politics, let alone in such a high and influential position. But I think it's important to remember, especially in light of that breaking story that we just covered, it's important to remember that David Hogg became politically active in the first place because he survived the Stoneman Douglas school shooting. He saw politicians do absolutely nothing to stop

school violence. He saw them explain away all the reasons why they couldn't do anything. They said thoughts and prayers. They said this is horrible. They said these things sometimes take place. And he saw them politicize the news cycles where these stories were being reported and how many about how all of his schoolmates and his friends had died in the shooting. He was rightfully, absolutely sick of these do nothing politicians. And he wasn't willing to let the Democrats off easily for not doing more. And these actions by David Hogg are exactly in line with what someone who has experienced, the negative impacts of weak politicians firsthand would at least try to do. He wants to get rid of the people who let him and so many other young people down. And those politicians shouldn't be allowed to continue to govern when they've demonstrated

how ineffective they're okay with being. What are your thoughts, Jank? Yeah, so look, there's two different issues here too. Number one is, you know, are we in the same part of the political spectrum as David Hogg? And so a lot of the centrists like Carville and others are furious because they're not. They hate that he's a progressive. And so when the establishment was putting all of their weight on protecting incumbents and taking sides in Democratic primaries and always siding with the corporate Democrats and against progressors, Carville didn't mind at all. He didn't mind at all. Okay. So please, Crimee River, we'll get to him in a second. So David Hogg, for example, or some of the candidates might be further left than me on some. cultural issues, right? To which I say, so what? So let them go in the primaries and have

even playing field and let's see who wins. And if the voters are more to the left on those issues than I am or Carville is, then great, they're more to the left. Why is that a bad thing? As long as you win, that's the thing that's important, right? And so now the second part of it is much more important, which is, are we going to actually have change in the Democratic Party, or are we not? So I agree with David Hogg on the economic issues, as far as I can tell from his positions, and more Bernie Sanders-style economic populism. I think that is a much better winning strategy. It'll help us in the general elections. I totally disagree with the corporate Democrats on that. I agree with David Hogg on that. So let us run all of those different candidates.

Let us run someone who's very far left on cultural issues. Let's run someone who's populist left. Let's run your standard establishment Democrats. And let's see who wins without the cheating of the DNC at all times. So in this case, remember, David Hogg is doing this through a different pact that he has, not in his official capacity at the DNC. He's allowed to have a pack. They're allowed to raise money.

And they're allowed, why are only, why are people only allowed to raise money for corporate Democrats. Why can't you raise grassroots money for progressive Democrats or populist Democrats? Of course you can. The only people who don't want that are the people who know that if we go with just corporate, if we allow competition against corporate and establishment Democrats, that those Democrats will lose. And they don't want them to lose because they want them to serve the donor class. And most of all, when David Hux says, hey, we need change. And this is what change looks like. People pretend to be in favor of change.

But then when you actually give them change, they go, how dare you? He's a thousand percent right about that. Yeah, and thanks for emphasizing the point that this is his own grassroots raise money. So it's just funny because the corporate Dems, as we call them, they're mad about the money that's about to be spent. But yeah, like they've taken all kinds of money from all kinds of places. And now they're courting billionaire money. So anyway, I did promise some criticism, and I don't think you'll be surprised to hear who one of Hogg's most vocal and irate critics is with all of this. And yes, it is James Carville. Just a reminder, Carville is 80 years old and has served as a political consultant for several Democratic leaders, most notably President Bill Clinton back in the 90s. In other words, he has been around the block a few times. He knows the thing or two about winning elections, but he's never been fond of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. So here, here he is on News Nation with host Chris Cuomo and Cuomo compares progressives to MAGA.

But you know why they're doing it. They looked at MAGA and they did what we see all the time when you don't have better minds and better ideas. This is why you were so transcendent in politics is that, and I always find it so cheap when people say, oh, Jim Carville, oh yeah, it's the economy stupid. No, no, no, that wasn't your genius. Your genius was I'm not going to be what beats me. What you see with Bernie and AOC right now is MAGA, MAGA Playbook, Make the Mass is angry. Dave Hogg, that's MAGA Playbook. Go after your own and have a purity test. But James, tell us how you really feel about David Hogg. Here it is.

Why don't somebody sue David Hogg? He's an officer of the Democratic National Committee. He is the vice chairman of Democratic National Committee, and he's running against other Democrats. I would like to know, and you went to law school, does he have a fiduciary duty toward Democrats? If you work for News Nation, you can't promote CNN. That's what you work for somebody else. You have a fiduciary duty to your employer,

which anybody can understand. He's being paid to run against other Democrats. I think it's an outrage. I don't know if I have standing, but I might give the DMC $10 and sue him. He's a contemptible little twerk if you ask me. All right, if anything in this story feels agist, that feels ages to me. Anyway, here is how Carville feels about progressives in general.

I don't think these people get it. I don't think they ever will get it. And I've said this before and I'll say it now. I think we ought to think about just having a schism. I think these people should get their own party. Don't call it anything Democratic, call it the Socialist. urban justice community unity party of whatever. And then after the election, maybe we can have negotiations

or you can vote for a Democrat to be the speaker if we win. But I actually think that it might be at a point where there are certain elements in a Democrat coalition that we just can't live in the same room with these people. So I don't want to diminish this or minimize this conversation by saying, you know, it's like zoomer versus boomer within the Democratic Party because it's more than that. But the younger generations, they are ready to lead. They're willing to lead. They're energetic. They want to to resolve a lot of the issues that they're actually living through. Right. And David Hogg is such a great example of that. But these older people, they are refusing to relinquish the rain. So Carville says that progressives just don't get it and will never get it. But one could argue that it's also the other way around. One could argue that years of corporate Democrats in control of the party has not been the win for most Americans that the Democrats want you to believe it has been.

And I don't, you know, I really don't want to make all of this about age because it isn't about age. This isn't about ageism. It's not a matter of whether or not people are older or whether or not older people can still lead. They can if they want to. But these particular older people that we're constantly dealing with, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, James Carville, even Joe Biden. They refuse or they're unable to adapt with the time. So they're stuck in a time that no longer exists. They're operating based on a reality that a significant portion of the population has never even known. They have wisdom and experience. Let's give them credit where it's due. But they're not able to apply that in ways that serve anyone but themselves or they don't want to. So what is it all for?

Yeah, so I want to point out a major hypocrisy by James Carville there. So first a quick note on him saying, oh my God, I can't believe it. He's running against other Democrats. But wait, James, you're leaving out the fact that it's a primary. They're both Democrats. Both the candidates would be Democrats, maybe even three that are all Democrats. So when he says Democrat, he means corporate Democrat. He means I love, love corporate Democrats who take donor. money and they should be the only Democrats, only corrupt Democrats should be Democrats. And if you're not corrupt and you're not a real Democrat, because otherwise what he's saying doesn't make any sense at all. It's, well, so you're not allowed to run against Democrats? If you're a Democrat, we should never have any primaries. So many of the current Democratic Congress people won in a Democratic primary against another Democrat. So should we kick them all out because they were all traders and they dared to run against the Democrat? That doesn't make any sense at all. Now the hypocrisy. So,

There's a portion of James Carville that I actually agree with, and we've talked about that in the past, where, look, I'm forced to explain this every time because I don't want people to misunderstand, right? I'm not talking about where you are on policy, right? So, you know, I'm far left on, as I explained earlier in the show, on gun control, for example. And you can be far left, near left, center left. Will you be anywhere you like, okay? So, but do I think being radical left, which is more of an attitude, right? of doing purity tests. No dissent is allowed. You must believe with 100% orthodoxy. You must have the most maximalist positions. Otherwise, we're going to attack your center.

Do I believe that that is a good strategy? No, I agree with James Carvel on that. But then look at the hypocrisy and the irony of what James Carville is saying. He's saying, if you're not a corporate Democrat, I'm going to do a purity test, and you shouldn't be allowed in the party. You shouldn't be allowed in the DNC. and I'm going to sue you for disagreeing with me. Well, brother, if that ain't a purity test, I don't know what is. So no, that makes James Carville a radical moderate, meaning like he can call himself a moderate,

but his mindset and his attitude is radical. He wants complete purity, only establishment Democrats, only people who agree with James Carville. And that's crazy. And that is, by the way, terrible for the party because it kills off competition. It kills off the ability to find our best candidates. It prevents them from getting stronger in the heat of a battle over primary.

Instead, what it does is it rolls out these old geriatric. And it's again, not about age, it's about attitude and their absolute assistance on defending the status quo and the current corrupt system. They roll them out and go, that's it, no, they're backed by Exxon Mobil and Pfizer and all of these kinds. companies, an APAC, et cetera, and you must bow your head to them. Now that's the exact kind of radicalism that I can't stand, no matter where, what part of the political spectrum it comes from. Have real primaries, real competition, find the strongest Democrats, no matter where they are in the political spectrum, and let them run, let them run.

David Hogg's 100% right, and in this case, Carville's 100% wrong. James Carville did say in another interview, you know, to addressing Bernie Sanders and AOC, and they're fight the oligarchy tour right now. He was like, you know what? Whenever they actually defeat a Republican in an election, let me know. You know, it's just like very snarky, very disrespectful to these people who are pulling in tens of thousands of people to these rallies when they're not even running for any kind of race right now in very, very red states and red districts across the country. So if you're a Democrat, why isn't that something that you're celebrating, right? These are still blue people in Congress that we're presumably going to get if all of this goes the way that people like Bernie Sanders and AOC and David Hogg would like it to go.

And if James Carville, he's a Democratic strategist, that's what he should want, right? But he just doesn't like the Democrats that are coming in, which means he really doesn't understand the younger generations at all. So, yeah. And if if he wants to go in, look, I've said it already, if he, if you're going to be an absolutist and you're going to demand that only your side is allowed to compete, I've got no interest in you. And you make the party much, much weaker. All right, let's take a quick break here. When we come back, that David Hogg's story was good news in that, hey, they're going to spend a good amount of money. trying to do primaries, but I would argue on policy, we have even better news when we return. I love this community, and thanks for being part of it. All right, yes, what's next? All right, let's roll the tape on this next story. Today, the dictator of Iran, the Atollah Khomeini, posted this.

The title is, why must the Zionist regime, that's Israel, be eliminated from the region? And the most brazen thing about this is that he issues this while he's negotiating, supposedly negotiating peace with the United States. Well, Israel will not be eliminated. What must be eliminated is Iran's access of terror and its nuclear weapons program, not only for the sake of Israel, but for the sake of our entire region and for the sake of peace in our world. So on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted that video to X. And according to a report from the New York Times, he really isn't kidding about eliminating Iran's. nuclear program. Apparently, Israel wanted to strike Iranian nuclear sites as soon as next

month. But President Donald Trump, with the backing of Vice President J.D. Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, they decided to proceed negotiations with Iran instead of military force. And there's a lot more to this story, but Jank, what are your thoughts so far? Okay, buckle up everybody. This This is the New York Times reporting, okay? This isn't me reporting, it's the New York Times. So if what they're reporting is true and Trump prevented the attack, wow, that's, that is an amazing twist that a lot of folks did not see coming and it would be very positive.

And is it over? Of course, it's not over yet. Netanyahu is always going to push and push. But also later in the story, you're going to see not only the details of how we prevented Israel from doing this, not only the details of how much they wanted us to fight the war almost exclusively. I find that super interesting, but also some of the folks within the administration who said, no, don't do this. Also super interesting. Yeah, this story has layers to it. All right, so Israel developed plans to strike Iran in May,

and their goal was to delay the production of Iranian nuclear weapons by a year or more. So here's more on that from the New York Times report that we mentioned earlier. It says almost all of the plans would have required the U.S. help not just to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, but also to ensure that an Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself. And Israeli officials thought that American officials would be on board with those proposals. The Trump administration debated the issue for months, and as we've reported previously on. this show, the Trump administration has been positioning military assets around the Middle East as a show of force to Iran. But a key voice of resistance emerged against that strategy, and that was actually Tulsi Gabbard. So in a meeting this month, Gabbard presented a new

intelligence assessment that said the buildup of American weaponry could potentially spark a wider conflict with Iran that the United States did not want. Vance, Hegseth, and Wiles all had concerns as well. Even national security advisor, Mike Waltz, who is hawkish on Iran, doubted that Israel could successfully strike Iran without significant American assistance. Eventually, a decision was made. Trump told Netanyahu earlier this month that the U.S. would not support a strike on Iran, at least while negotiations are ongoing. So in a statement delivered in Hebrew after the meeting, Netanyahu said that an agreement with Iran would work only if it allowed the signers to go in, blow up the facilities,

dismantle all the equipment under American supervision with American execution. It's very presumptuous. So Steve Whitkoff, Trump's special envoy, directly negotiated with Iran's foreign minister last week in Oman, and it's set to do so again this week in Rome. But the Trump administration has sent mixed messages to Iran. On Monday, Whitkoff stated on Fox News that Iran, Iran cannot enrich uranium any more than 3.7 percent, and I'll tell you later while why I'm laughing at that. But on Tuesday, Whitkoff walked back that position and wrote on X that Iran must eliminate its nuclear enrichment program entirely. Iran's foreign minister stated that the shifting goalposts were, quote, not helpful, but Iran would continue to participate

in negotiations. If the negotiations fall through, then the situation might actually get very, very dire very quickly. And here is why. In one discussion, Vance with support from others argued that Trump had a unique opportunity to make a deal. If the tasks failed, Trump could then support and Israeli attack, Van said, according to administration officials. So, Jake, before I get your thoughts on this, I want to go back to these shifting goalposts that Iran finds so irritating. And I just want to point out that Whitkoff initially said that Iran would not be allowed to enrich the uranium above 3.7% before changing his mind and saying they can't invert the uranium at all. I just want to remind our audience of something we once had called the Iran nuclear deal, a deal that was forged

by the Obama administration, and it was a deal that Trump disparaged and then promptly pulled out of during his first term as president. So there were four four terms of that original Iran nuclear deal. Iran would have to give up 97% of its uranium. They would have to reduce its number of centrifuges from 20,000 to 5,000 plus an additional 1,000 for R&D. They would be suspect to inspection from an international agency and the uranium they were allowed to hold on to. They were not allowed to enrich it above 3.67%. So this man just brought back the Iran nuclear nuclear deal that Trump had originally pulled out of. The reason why 3.67 or 3.7 is significant, by the way, is because it allows for

the uranium to be used as a source of nuclear energy. But in order for uranium to be used in nuclear weaponry, it would have to be enriched all the way up to 90%. So I just wanted to point that out for everyone, do with that what you will. But Jank, I feel like Trump doesn't actually want to deploy troops anywhere, even though he may threaten to, maybe as a negotiation tactic with other countries, because he really has built up his reputation as being an anti-war president. Yeah, so lots to go over here. So number one, I got to give Trump a lot of credit here. I mean, I'm going to take the New York Times reporting at face value here. It seems to be really well sourced. And by the way, they wouldn't have leaked this unless they had made a pretty

definitive decision. Otherwise, they're giving away how they were going to do the attack if they had done it, right? So this seems like a pretty solid story. And so the jury was very much out on whether Trump was actually anti-war, or he was just pretending to be anti-war to get elected, but then would do whatever Miriam Edelson and the donors wanted him to do. And so far he has done that in basically, you know, arresting and trying to deport any critic of Israel that isn't a U.S. citizen and now looking into some U.S. citizens as well. So he's been as hard. right wing Israeli supporter of Netanyahu as you could find on those issues. That is why this is stunning and terrific. So if he blocked an attack on Iran, that is truly anti-war. And we should

all give him a lot of credit for that and encourage him to keep going in that direction. Here's somebody I was wrong about. I thought Tulsi Gabbard would love the opportunity to start a war against a Muslim country, to be honest. And I thought that all of of her anti-war talk, you know, wasn't necessarily true. And then she was also in a lot of ways on Israel's side. But apparently she was the main voice against attacking Iran. Well, then credit where credit is due. So if she blocked that, that makes a huge difference. Because this isn't theoretical anymore. She's now an enormously important person inside the Trump administration. And if she really delivered on being anti-war instead of what we were worried about, then

terrific. Then I'm very happy about that. J.D. Vance on the right side. Oh my God, Hegsith is on the right side. That's a bit stunning. There wasn't a lot of information about Hegsith. And I'd be surprised if he was fully on that side. Maybe he was just playing some politics. But J.D. Vance apparently did make a couple of strong arguments against attacking. So credit there. Now, who are the bad guys? You know, he has mentioned Mike Walls. Mike Walls is a Neocon. He's the national security advisor. He's the dumb ass who did that signal gate and included the reporter on that chat. And he's, yeah, at some points, even he had lost the room and started to backpedal.

But overall, he wanted to attack. He was on the side of doing what Israel commands. And apparently the guy in charge of Central Command general for us, General Kerala is someone that Nanyahu really likes and he wanted to do the bombing before Kerala retired because apparently Kerala's a war monger, neocon, and wanted to do the bombing. So those waltz and Kerala are the bad guys here. Gabbard and Trump actually deliver on anti-war. All of that is amazing and yes, a little stunning. Let's hope that the New York Times is right about this. If they manage to prevent the war, that's a huge win. huge win and give credit on another factor. I mean, there have not been very many presidents

in my lifetime that have ever defied Israel on anything they have ever asked for. Barack Obama defied them on the Iran nuclear deal, which he deserves a lot of credit for. And now Trump seems to be defying them on striking Iran. And he has last thing for now is I agree with you on that Iran nuclear deal. That was a Obama's deal was fantastic. They could not enrich uranium past 3.5%, whichever, whatever stockpiles they had were shipped out of the country to Russia. We had their nuclear program completely contained, because I don't want Iran to have a nuclear program, and I don't want war.

And Obama had somehow pulled off this miraculous, wonderful peace deal where we got exactly what we wanted. Since Trump took us out of that deal, which was a terrible mistake back in 2018, now Iran is enriching uranium at 60%. And they're much closer to having a nuclear program after all these years because they had no incentive to do a deal with us. So they went in the other direction. So it's time for Trump to make up for that mistake, do an actual peace deal, and be a strong leader for America and not follow Israel's orders. Yeah, and this whole thing, this whole story, there's so much geopolitics that goes into this. There's so many different angles to consider whatever we're talking about anything in the Middle East really,

because everybody has allies everywhere. And we do have to consider that Iran usually is backed by Russia on a lot of things, very presumptuous of Israel, although you really can't blame them for being so presumptuous to basically just decide to deploy American troops to Iran on their behalf because they wanted to. But it's like what you said, how many American presidents actually defy Israel or don't give them exactly what they ask for or what they want. So why wouldn't they just ask for American troops to be deployed to attack a foreign country? So I'll take a win where I can get one. Nobody wants there to be a war ever. I am very happy with this outcome. Do I trust the motives? No, I don't, you know, but at the end of the day, that's not really what matters. I'm just glad that conflict

was averted, whatever it was averted. And that's where I believe that. Yeah, one last quick thing on this, because it gives you insight into how Netanyahu thinks and the current Israeli government thinks. So throughout the article, they explained, well, in the beginning, Israel wanted to do a commander raid and then a bombing run. But then they thought they might have trouble doing the bombing run on their own, which by the way, I saw this really interesting interview with Jeffrey Sachs earlier when Israel had tried to strike Iran the last time. And he made the point that Iran was surprised by Iran's air defenses. Israel was surprised by Iran's air defenses and they couldn't go as deep into the country as that they had hoped.

And so if they were going to attack their nuclear program, they needed American planes to do it. And it turns out he was exactly right because this New York Times article explains the Israelis realized they couldn't do the bombing rate on their own. So I'll give you one of these quotes, but there's multiple quotes like this throughout the piece. To be successful, Israeli officials wanted American planes to conduct airstrikes, protect. the commando teams on the ground. And then later they were like, well, I don't know if we're going to have commando teams. So why doesn't America do all of their strikes? And oh, by the way, after Iran retaliates, that America should defend Israel and then hit him again and again and again. So yeah, we would be a quote unquote central part of the attack as it turns out we

would be the attack. That was basically Netanyahu saying, hey, America, I'm ordering you to attack Iran. And so if Trump said, no, you're not, I'm not attacking Iran. I don't care what you ordered me to do. You have to give them a world of credit for that. Yeah, I think that's fair. Also, just for the viewers, I know we have to wrap up this hour, but you were giving me some credit for my name. You really like my name. So I looked up what your name means. And just for everyone to know, your name means war or battle. So there you go. You got that right, sister. Pretty fitting. My name is a flower. also fitting what a team what a team we are indeed indeed all right guys we got to take a break

Yasmin you're awesome everybody check out Yaz on Rebel HQ and when we come back we've got more internal democratic fights and and I'm going to do more James Carvel batching you'll enjoy it come right back I don't know. I'm going to be. Buhn't know.