The Young Turks - Hamas Hostage Deal

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/TYT and use code TYT and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Hamas agrees to release the hostages but does not explicitly accept all of Trump’s peace plan. Trump has notified Congress that the U.S. is officially at war with drug cartels. Howard Lutnick goes against the Trump administration’s talking points on Epstein. Hosts: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur & Sharon Reed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/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. Free-R-Tee! Big-a-D-K-K-K-R-K-K-K-R-K-K-R-K-K. Drop it! All right, welcome the young Turks power panel. Jane Cougar, Sharon Reid, John Iderola, Sharon's on Rebel headquarters,

John's on damage report, we're all on the Young Turks together. We're gonna have an amazing show for you guys because we got breaking news and good breaking news, Really good breaking news. So John's gonna tell you about potential peace deal. I'm gonna tell you about Trump's reaction to it. And then we're gonna tell you how it's not gonna happen, but it's still a good thing. Okay, so lots of fascinating things are about to happen. News just broke about an hour ago, so let's do this thing.

Hey, it's always, like sometimes I don't know when you're gonna come out and you're way more enraged than I think you're gonna be. Today you're very optimistic and it's gonna be an interesting show because I am emotional, emotionally nowhere near you. Yeah, no, no. Nowhere, miles away. No, John, I have emotions. And I am ready to display them. Is that blue icy?

Right behind me? Is that blue ice? Yeah, there is. Yeah, no, just every development just makes me angrier, including the good news. So anyway, that's the position I'm going to be coming from. But why don't we jump into it and we can hash out all this live on the show. Okay.

Today, in a bit of breaking international news, Hamas has stated that they are agreeing to release all remaining Israeli hostages, including the bodies of any deceased hostages, as laid out in President Trump's plan. He refers to as a peace plan. Now, notably, at least as of right now, Hamas has not explicitly agreed to other parts of the plan of which there are many, and we're going to be recounting those as we talk about this. Here are some excerpts of the statement that Hamas put out. This is from Jeremy Scahill of Dropsite News, saying the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas announced its approval to release all prisoners of the occupation, both living and the bodies of the deceased. According to the exchange formula included in the

President Trump's proposal, and with the provision of appropriate field conditions for carrying out the exchange process, which Trump has referred to in a recent social media post, which we will get to. In this regard, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter into negotiations through the mediators to discuss the details. The movement also reiterates its approval to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body composed of independence technocrats based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing. So in terms of the hostages, they've said that they are going to go ahead with that as soon as conditions are made possible for that to happen, the cessation of hostilities and all

of that. They did not say that they would give up their arms, as called for in the plan. They didn't say that they would be ready to do that. But let me give you one more bit of their statement before we jump into our conversation. As for the other issues included in President Trump's proposal, these are subject to a comprehensive national position. It must be based on relevant international laws and resolutions. These matters shall be discussed within a unified Palestinian national framework in which Hamas will participate. and contribute with full responsibility. It would be good for law to have anything to do with anything that's happened over there since that hasn't been the case for a couple of years.

Now a lot of people are going to greet them talking about them being involved in this. That obviously complicates things. One finds it hard to imagine that Israel would be okay with Hamas being a participant in this government going forward. But we have a lot more of this, including Trump's comments. What do we jump into your initial response? Yeah, my initial response is this is awesome. is awesome. So let me break down why. And then I'm going to tell you Trump just came out with a statement warning Israel not to do something. What was that? Hold on, we'll tell you. So first of all, very likely we're going to get the hostages back. That's great news, it and of itself, right? So everybody's wanted that from day one for the last two years. So if you were in that camp, which I hoped that all of you were in, terrific news. Number two, Hamas is largely agreeing there in that second statement that John read to you that no, we're okay, we're not going to be part of the governing

body. It's going to be approved by other Arab countries, Palestinians, et cetera, but we're not going to be running Gaza anymore. I'm thrilled about that. I would hope that almost everybody's thrilled about that. So those are two super good parts of this. Now, the third part is, well, then the genocide should end. We should have a peace deal, right? Now, that's the thing that you should be even more excited about. And if you say, wait a minute, I'm more excited about the 20 hostages. I'm more excited that another 66,000 people won't die. But I'm thrilled about both, okay? Now, if I believe that last part. Now, I don't believe that last part. I think Israel will either try to scuttle the deal ahead of time. I'll tell you why in a second,

why I already see hints of that happening today as soon as this was announced. And if they can't scuttle it before they'll wait to get their hostages back and then immediately violate it and go back to bombing Gaza and trying to take it. That's my guess. It's a very educated guess. We'll talk about that in a second as well. So why be excited about that? Well, I mean, look, of course I want to stop bombing and I get out of Gaza and that that would be the greatest thing of all. But I'm excited that Israel will no longer have an excuse for genocide. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to stop the genocide. And it doesn't mean they're not going to invent new excuses. They get a bag full of excuses. And 98% of them have something to do with you being

an anti-Semite, right? No, no, no, I had to murder more Palestinians. I had, I didn't have a choice. Because the whole world's anti-Semites. Every American's an anti-Semite. Every Palestinian is an anti-Semite. They had to be killed. And I had to take Gaza. So I don't think that's over at all, at all. And so, but now Trump, though, is trying to make this real. So again, you can say I don't trust Trump or I don't believe Trump, but Trump's not going to say this and want to get embarrassed. So let me tell you this.

And then we'll start to talk through, okay, yeah, but what's really going to happen, right? So Trump just wrote on true social, based on the statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting peace. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza so that we can get the hostages out safely and quickly. Right now, it's far too dangerous to do that. We're already in discussions on details to be worked out. This is not about Gaza alone. This is about long sought peace in the Middle East. So here he is now, this is the second time that Trump has said Israel must stop bombing immediately. He said it in regards to the Iran war after they got to a point where

he thought it's enough, it's over. He told Israel to bring their jets back. And they did. And now he's very clearly telling Israel, we, you said yes to this deal. Now they're saying yes to this deal. Yeah, we have to work out details, but we have enough of a yes that you must stop bombing. So the first test is going to be, does Israel listen or go, yeah, American president, we control him. He's a stupid schmuck anyway. Just keep bombing, okay? My guess, no, I don't know, I'm 50-50 on that one because it takes all of the greatest forces on earth to get Israel to stop bombing innocent Palestinians or Iranians or Muslims of any sort for half a day, right?

So if the whole world now, including America's United and you must stop bombing, then we have a 50-50 chance that they pause bombing for some time, right? So, but I'll start off the discussion of what I think is going to happen next by saying, look, guys, I think they're going to get to some sort of deal with the Hamas, the Arabs, and America. Israel is going to throw 200 monkey wrenches between now and whatever that deal is done in two days, two weeks, whenever it is. I don't think they'll be able to stop it. That's my best guess, but they, you know, don't underestimate them. But the minute Israel gets his hostages back, they're going to go back to bombing.

gonna have a new excuse, oh, there was a fire in the rice dog, or there was something else and there was okay, and then my feelings were hurt, et cetera, right? But at that point, Israel will be enormously isolated. I mean, even way more isolated than they are today. And so if Trump then goes back to going, I am a loyal follower of Israel, I don't care about the peace deal that I constructed and I want the Nobel Peace Prize for, I don't care about it, burn down, well then Trump's on a disaster course. Trump won't be able to recover from that. I know that a lot of people will find that to be an outrageous statement. No, if he goes back to supporting Israel's war and funding them infinitely and bowing his head to them, his own base is already

wobbly on this issue. I think he'll be in much more trouble than people realize. Or he's going to say to Israel, I mean, he's been threatening. Lately, there's a couple of reports saying, no, you defy me on this and you're on your own. No more money, no more nothing. I know that seems unimaginable. But now for the first time in my life, that's a maybe. And so that's kind of an amazing moment. This episode is brought to you by prize picks.

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It's the optimism that hasn't quite reached me here in Atlanta, because everything makes sense, except that I think there's one other reason that this won't happen. And that's the other lawmakers who are supported by APEC, who love APEC, who probably would this one time go against Trump, their dear leader. The other thing is he's easily distracted, you know, when he wants to late night truth social. And Netanyahu thinks peace is a distraction to his criminal activity. I just, I want to believe it. I'm happy if the hostages come home, but I know this just isn't going to end well.

In fact, it's not going to end. I just don't believe this is going to end. Haven't we been here before? You know the history better than I do, but haven't we been here before? What incentive? I don't think Netanyan who really wants the hostages back. He may have milked it long enough. I actually don't.

I really don't think he wants the hostages back. He's milked it as long as he can. And then as you said, he'll make up more reasons to bomb, bomb, bomb. And then bomb some more. More food aid workers will die. More children who are Palestinian will die. I mean, I could go on and on. But I just, maybe I'm so jaded.

I don't want to believe it. But right now, no. Yeah, I don't. I don't know that I disagree with anything that you said about how you think it'll play out, but I just, I don't know, maybe this is kind of like how Sharon feels. Like seeing over the last hour all this develop, I'm just feel like, what game are we playing? Like, I'm glad that the hostages are going home. They're innocence. They should have never been taken. That's good. But at the same time, like, I hate that like,

There has been literally years, years of not only like military action on behalf of the hostages, although I agree with Sherin, I don't think Benjamin, I don't think he cares at all about those hostages. I think he is a 100% complete sociopath that does not care about a single person other than himself. And many of the families of the hostages appear to believe the same thing about Benjamin and Yahoo, to be clear. And like, I saw, I saw a story, I think it was like Monday, maybe it was Tuesday. On that day alone, 27 Palestinians were killed trying to get food at aid distribution sites. And those 27 got a reference in a news story, and then that was it. It's as many people as the hostages remaining. I watched a video play on Instagram,

and it was a list of all the names of the kids younger than one year old that had been killed in this conflict. And it was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids on that list, and that's the acknowledgement they get. There's no front page New York Times story. Like, I saw a report. It was an analysis, satellite imagery of Gaza City. So they move in, bombing, killing, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And then a day after bulldozers come in, and mile by mile, they are raising every structure to the ground. They are not doing that to then give it back to the Palestinians afterward. Oh, you guys can have democracy.

It's going to be great. Oh, I don't know what you'll be living in in that time because we've destroyed every single building. I don't know what the excuse will be. I don't know what the monkey wrench will be. The goal is the complete and utter ethnic cleansing of that land. As many people killed as possible and those who remain will be put in shipping containers and sent off somewhere else on earth.

The land is being stolen. They are being banished from their land. the mountain of evil that we're facing. And then briefly, this story like is supposed to block the mountain for me. I'm like, no, no, this is evil. Unlike anything our world has seen. And it's just every day. It's just, it's worse.

Every day you see a story that is worse than anything you could have possibly imagined. And so yeah, I'm glad that the hostages are being set back. I don't believe for a second that he's going to pull his forces out. I don't know if Trump is diluted about that or if this is just a distraction. is supposed to buy a couple more weeks of bombing or something. I don't know, maybe he is deluded. Maybe he thinks that he's powerful enough to stop it from happening. But I have no faith whatsoever that that's going to happen.

And so aside from being happy for the hostages and not only those hostages, but supposedly some of the political prisoners, the people being tortured in Israel will also be returned to the Palestinian people, although what life remains for them in Gaza, God only knows. Other than that, yeah, I've got nothing but pessimism. And I apologize as that it's not constructive for a talk show, but I have been paying too much goddamn attention over the last couple of years to feel good at this point. Yeah, no, it's okay, guys. Look, we're in the middle of a genocide. So if you haven't mustered up optimism that it could get fixed, no one blames you.

So, okay, now let's break it down a little bit further. So first off, you know, I'm going to tell you other parts of the deal that are enormously relevant to what's going to happen next. But I wanted to talk about what John and Sharon mentioned, which is does Netanyahu care about the hostas? Come on, I mean, you'd have to be the biggest sucker in the world to think that he does. But it doesn't matter if you believe that before or not, because the reaction of all of Israel's supporters online is super telling. So we talked to a couple of people who are genuine and honest supporters of Israel. And by the way, there are a ton of people like that. And they genuinely cannot get themselves to believe that Israel would do something this bad,

this evil about the genocide. They keep wanting to find reasons why, well, they had to, or it's bad, but with the hostages and all that stuff. So those are good folks who, in my mind, are blinded by bias on this issue. So they're thrilled today. They're like, yes, the hostages are back. Or soon, we hope, we hope, right? soon will be back. They're thrilled that Hamas is not going to rule Gaza.

That's a normal reaction if you're Israeli or you're a genuine supporter of Israel. But the online bots and trolls are furious. I said, oh, terrific news, for example, on X, we got a deal and Hamas is going to give the hostages back. And every Israeli bot and trolls, like, no way, you're so Hamas supporter. I'm like, I'm thrilled that Hamas is not going to rule Gaza. So why are you still like, why are you furious? And they're all furious. They're like, no way, no way.

This piece deal is not going to happen. You're not going to return the hostages. This is terrible. I'm like, that is super weird reaction. And telling. If you're an Israeli supporter, because real Israeli supporters are not having that reaction at all, right? So the bots trolls that are obvious, like if you don't know that Israel's do massive bot troll campaigns in social media, hey, welcome to planet Earth. Okay.

By the way, mainstream media, like, oh, this sounds conspiratorial. Meanwhile, Netanyahu's like, we're buying TikTok, we're going to get pressure mosque on X, and I got my influencers, and I'm paying him $7,000, and I got Trump's game, former campaign manager is my husband our chief, and he's now a registered agent of Israel, and we're going to control everything. He's saying it on tape, right? Yeah. And so mainstream media's like, what, what, no, anti-Semite.

Okay, anyways, maybe Netanyahu's the anti-Semite. Well, by the way, no one is. has made Israel look worse. You shouldn't put it on Jews, but he does often. Oh, Jewish state, oh, blame Jews for me and uses them as human shields. No one's driven up anti-semitism. More than Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the worst people of my lifetime. If not, anyway, I don't want to get into a competition who's the most evil person. He's certainly in the running, that's for sure. Okay, so what's in the peace deal? Well, in among the things, other than the things we discussed, there's also Israel cannot annex

Gaza. And the Palestinians cannot be kicked out of Gaza. They can leave but come back. And Israel must allow them to come back. Okay. So now, is Israel really gonna do that? That's why I'm saying, that's why John and Sharpe, don't get me wrong. I don't disagree with their pessimism on whether Israel is going to follow through on this deal. That's a near 0% chance. And by the way, if you're a good person who loves Israel and just can't get themselves to believe that they're, this country that they love and feel strongly about has done terrible things and you thought it was always to get the hostages back and for self-defense and you were sure about it and you were sure that we were wrong and bad guys and whatever,

let's see what happens next. Because no, no, no, today, like if you're an honest person and you've been thinking that Israel's doing the right thing all along, and you're not a bot or a troller, an evil person, you just really, really believe it. If Israel gets the hostages back and then violates the deal and keeps bombing the Palestinians, if you have 1% honesty left in your body, you will then realize, oh, it was never about self-defense. And no Netanyahu never wanted the hostages back. He wanted an excuse to create greater Israel and to take that land. And that is the point of killing so many people in Palestine, starving them so that they're

going to want to leave. Otherwise, they and their children are going to die. That was the whole point of leveling the entire place and destroying almost every building in Gaza. And so I don't know if they can muster up the site, the objectivity and the fairness after Israel violates this deal to go, you guys were right. I can't believe it. But this country that I love has gone on a super dark path, et cetera. I don't know if that is possible. By the way, for me, for me, it's super easy. If Israel doesn't violate any of the peace deal and they go, hey, you know

what? Great, I love it. We got our hostages back. Terrific. We're getting out of Gaza. No more bombings, no more annexation, no more occupation. Like, yeah, we're not going to immediately do a Tuesday solution, but hey, we're on a pathway, it'll take forever, but at least we're not annexing Gaza, and the war is over and the genocide is over. Oh, I'll give them credit. I'll say, well, I was wrong. I thought there was no chance, but I was wrong. I'm willing to say that because to me, that's easy. I do news. I care about what's real, what's true, what the facts are. I'll be curious to see if they acknowledge that, okay? So now finally, guys, this collision course is super important, because if I'm right, and Trump actually kind of does mean it,

and he does want to get credit, and he does want to win a Nobel Peace Prize, and he really wants Israel to stop bombing, which I think that there's at least a 50% chance he means it, based on inside reporting as well, he's going to be on a collision course with Netanyahu's hubris, because I don't think he, I think he's a runaway freight train. I mean, bombing Doha, Qatar's capital, was you have, like if you don't know foreign policy and diplomacy, that's not your job, right? But that is full-blown mental. That was so beyond anything else they've done.

If you're thinking why, I mean, the killing of the civilians is way worse. Yeah, but not in international relations. In international relations bombing an ally of the United States where the U.S. has a base and trying to murder the peace negotiators that they were hosting. That makes every country in the world despise you because think you will not follow any loss, any loss. That means no one is safe from Israel and Israel will murder anyone anytime they want. That bombing Qatar was crossed a Rubicon in a way that an average person might not see

if they don't know about foreign relations and how countries deal with one another. So that to me says, and that's, by the way, another reason why there's now been huge pressure for Israel to take a deal like this and stop bombing. But to me, it also shows, no, Netanyahu is unstable. He's never going to stop. He is an actual literal genocidal maniac. And so he will go back to bombing. And then what's Trump going to do? Is he going to assert American independence for the first time in our lives from Israel?

Or is he going to go back to bowing his head? And that will tell you everything, not just about Israel and Gaza, but also about what's going to happen in America and in American politics. to me, like, isn't that everything, though? Okay, Hamas, thank goodness, is not going to be part of any kind of government there. But as long as Netanyahu is, I mean, I read a Jerusalem post poll. Of course, the majority of the Israeli people don't trust him because he's not trustworthy. And unless there can be something where he kind of exits and he's never going to exit,

doesn't that kind of tell us how this is going to go? And if Trump, 50% chance that he'll, you know, maybe for a moment, moment, perhaps get tough and mean. But again, he just gets distracted. He won't go the distance. There's too much at stake. I want to believe. But for now, I'll just say, good, maybe there'll be a few less nights of bombing, a few hostages will be returned, less children will die for a little while. But I just can't, I still can't go further. Yeah, I get that. Yeah, I think that. I think that Trump wants Jared Cushin to build casinos. I think that's the goal.

Maybe he thinks that piece is a way to get to that. But what I do not think any one of these people we're talking about, care about the Palestinian people have any, any self-determination. I just, I just don't. And the, this story is just so frustrated, like the bounds of the conversation. What we're allowed to expect or to ask for just seems so ridiculous. And it always has been with how bias the media is in this topic. I talked about how certain people's lives are discussed a thousand times more, and that just

does not make sense to me. I care about the lives of the hostages. I do not care about the lives of the hostages more than an equal number of Palestinian kids. I just don't, and I know that I'm supposed to. I know that you're supposed to value their lives a thousand times more than any of these goddamn uncivilized Palestinians, but I'm just not going to do that. Yeah, and the fact that we're, we are stuck in this pathetic position of like, Maybe they ethnically cleanse every inch, or maybe they back out and the Palestinian people

temporarily get to live in an absolute Mad Maxian wasteland before Tony Blair and international developers set up a resort there. Why is that? We were just talking about all the endless war crimes, Israel is committed. Why do they not have to rebuild Gaza for the Gazans? Why is that not a thing? Like coming out of World War I, reparations were paid. Obviously, there were some negative historical ramifications that later on. Why is nobody expecting that Israel is going to have to in any way pay for the intentional murder of tens of thousands civilians, bombing every country in the region, an obvious war crime? Why is there no consequences for that? Why do they not have to invest a couple trillion dollars into rebuilding the homes that they needlessly destroyed,

intentionally in pursuit of ethnic cleansing? But nobody's even discussing. I understand that just who's going to actually push for that. Obviously the United States isn't going to, But would that not be something like justice? But no, kill as many people as you want, commit as many war crimes as you want. And the only consequence, and I know that we're looking desperately for any consequence, is like a drop in public perception. And that's it? That's it, there's just no law. There's no consequences internationally. And so again, I don't want it down, it's some good news or whatever, but just it's a depressing day for me.

Yeah, so I don't want people get a wrong impression. Last thing is, look, it's not that I think, oh, Trump has now developed an affinity for Palestinians or to treat people equally and value the sanctity of life. No, he's bombing random Venezueling fishermen right now trying to start a war with Venezuela. No. So why do I think Trump has a 50% chance of actually following through on this and insisting that Israel followed through? And if not, maybe even losing our support for three reasons all related to him. John, you're not wrong. Yeah, he wants to build casinos there. The way to build casinos is not through Israel because no one will accept that. He already tried, they already went and like, okay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, you guys good with

us killing all the Palestinians, moving him out, building Trump casinos? And they're like, no, we're not good with that at all. You'll have massive problems if that happens. He's like, what if I build them with you? They're like, oh, okay, maybe, right? And he's like, okay, good, sounds good, all right? So then we'll get the Qataris in, the Saudis in, and then I'll build my casinos. Number two, he badly, badly wants a Nobel Peace Prize.

And if you can get peace in the Middle East, you get two states, you will win the Nobel Peace Prize. Okay, an actual two state solution that actually gets implemented. Now, that's very down the road and unlikely. But still, he's looking for that Nobel Peace Prize for himself. And the third reason is because his base is turning on him. The younger right wing are now beginning to loathe Israel. And every time Trump bows to them, they get angrier and angrier. So for his own self-interest, and that's why the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Tucker Carlson's flipping makes a big difference because it gives Trump another incentive to defy Israel.

And if you're an American politician, you need overwhelming incentive to defy a command of Israel. Because obviously, Israel in this country controls almost all of our politicians and almost all of our media. And if you don't believe that, you're a giant sucker or you're purposely lying on behalf of Israel. Oh, no, no, no, no, that's a trope. Oh, when they give millions of, hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars to 90% of Congress, that's not to influence them in favor of Israel at all. No, that's just general. Because the Israelis love America so much, they just wanted to give to our politicians.

You'd have to be the dumbest person in America or a national media reporter to believe that. So Trump needed all of that to even have a chance at defying Israel. And so here we are. We don't know that he's going to do it. But today is the beginning of potentially a great day. If they follow through, we get the hostages back and they get out of Gaza. That's in terms of Hamas. That's already a huge win, guys.

And then we'll continue the fight for justice and peace. All right. We're going to take a break here and we'll be right back. All right on TYTJK, John sharing with you guys. And look at all these wonderful new members that hit the join button below on YouTube. Hi. So we have high on our side. That's awesome.

How to, now we know how to everything, because once you join the young Turks, look, you're one of us and you appreciate honesty, open-mindedness, open-heartedness, so I love it. Thank you, man, for being part of the TYIT community. All right, Qualcor, Cois to Serve, Midder and Ellis, and in Liberty and Gunswe Trust, and he wrote in on a super chat as well and said, I'm a libertarian, and I greatly respect your channel for being on the side of good during the genocide. You're a light in the darkness. Palestinians deserve liberty like all humans.

Can't keep giving superchats but sub to the continue to support your message. I appreciate your brother in so many different ways. Most of all, though, for being open-minded. All right, John. Okay, let's talk about to this. Under our leadership, the military is now the knife's edge in combating this sinister enemy. We have to put the traffickers and cartels on notice, and we've done that.

And we've put them, a lot of them, we've called them a terrorist organization, which is actually a big thing to do, nobody's done it, but I've done it with a lot of them. It gives you a tremendous advantage. If you try to poison our people, we will blow you out of existence, because that's the only language they really understand. Yesterday it was announced that Donald Trump wanted to do some sort of like challenge mode run on his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize by notifying Congress that the US is now officially at war with the drug cartels that right there in that video he referred to as terrorist organizations. So now we have the war within against liberals. Got to root that out. And externally, any boat that looks at us wrong in the Caribbean also needs to be blown up too. So Jank, he's pushing for peace in Gaza. At the same time, we're in another. war this time with drug cartels, I guess. What do you think? Yeah, I think that Trump is

going to regret this more than you would imagine. And I think that after he leaves office, people are going to look back at this and go, wow, of all the things he did, this might be one of the worst and the most illegal. And so I want to talk about why that is. So back to you, let's get more details and talk through why. I think that's a great point because they have not really articulated any legal, you know, underpinning for what they've been doing. This attempts to set up something like one because it is basically formally declaring war on a non-state kind of non-actor. So they sent a confidential notice to Congress saying that Trump had decided the U.S. is engaged in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels. His team has labeled terrorist organizations despite the lack of, you know, like terrorist acts or anything like that.

And that suspected smugglers for such groups are unlawful combatants. Trump has determined that cartels engaged in smuggling drugs are non-state armed groups whose actions constitute an armed attack against the United States. Again, it's an armed attack despite the lack of arms. And it cites a term from international law, a non-international armed conflict that refers to a war with a non-state actor. And the notice says, based upon the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly four nations, The president determined that the U.S. is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations. So what's the point of all of this? What does this actually get for Donald Trump?

He implied in that video that it gives a certain advantages to apply these labels inaccurately. Trump's move to formally deem his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict means that he is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers. In an armed conflict as defined by international law, a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters, even when they pose no threat, detain them indefinitely without trials, and prosecute them in military courts. Those last two parts probably aren't that relevant because they're very intentionally not taking any prisoners and just blowing up all of the boats. By the way, there was a fourth that they just did. Earlier this morning, Secretary of Defense, Pete Higgs had announced that they had blown up a boat with four people on it off the coast of Venezuela. And Trump

Trump said it was carrying enough drugs to kill 25 to 50,000 people. I mean, then seize the boat, demonstrate it, show us all of the dangerous drugs. They have refused to do that in any of these cases and maybe it did have drugs on board and maybe they were cartel members or maybe they were tuna fishermen. We'll never know because they kill all of them rather than capturing them. It was four people on the boat. He may not have enough faith in our Navy to take that boat. I think our Navy could have gotten that done actually. I have faith in our Marines, I think that they could have actually taken that boat.

But anyway, open question as to whether any of this is legal. More interesting philosophical question is whether the question of legality versus illegality means literally anything anymore. I don't see why it would. But what's interesting is that he's implying that because the drugs that might or might not be on the boats come into the country and Americans die as a result of it, that's the same thing. That's the same thing as a cartel member wielding a gun and shooting people. So if you release a dangerous product into America and Americans die, you can be summarily

executed by the United States military. And if that is the case, gas up the B-52s, because there's a lot of Sacklers out there. They've got a death toll, tens, many tens of thousands long, but I guess that one doesn't count because they've donated political money. In any event, Jenk, it's exciting times. Yes, so first quick clarification on Trump's absurd comment and then and then we'll talk about why this is so problematic. So he said in that little boat with the four people that you guys saw was enough drugs to kill 25 to 50,000 Americans. The number of Americans who

die every year from drug overdose is 87,000. That's a tragically high number. But so Trump is saying that tiny little boat had enough drugs to kill half to the people who die from drug overdose in the country per year. Well then look, next year the stats are going to show half as many people died. That's it. Yeah, next year it's going to be down to 40,000 or 30,000. So like, look, even if you like Trump, why do you tolerate his madness? Like these obvious over the top ridiculous lies, right?

So okay, now that's a small part of this story. Now the biggest part, guys look, we can't just just. pull in Israel and go there's no laws anymore. So, oh, you're an international waters. I don't care. I'm going to kill you anyway. We're not at war. I don't care. I'm going to pretend that we're at war with Venezuela. Where are we aware of war with Venezuela? What did that happen? And wait a minute, if it's based on drugs, why aren't we a war with Colombia that sends in way more drugs? Trenda Aragua was a terrible gang. You saw us calling out Trenda And then some people on the left telling us, oh, no, they don't really exist in apartment buildings, whatever.

We had that fight. We think they're terrible gang, okay? But they actually are not big narcotic traffickers. So, Jane, clarification, I apologize. I should have mentioned this. In this order, he did not mention any specific cartels. It's just cartels. We're at war with something.

We have no idea. They're not even saying. We're at war with. They didn't say trend to Aragua. Yeah. We're at war with words, including the word cartel, okay, you're on notice. No, but reason why that's important guys is because when you're at war, you have to say, okay, here, this, we have declared war, we're at war with this country or this terrorist

organization, here's what's allowed and not allowed. When you say, I don't care what's allowed and not allowed, what you do is, number one, you're endangering Americans, because then the other side gets to go, well, you kill people without any justification, without any war, you kill people in international waters, you killed people without any regard for international laws. So obviously I can do likewise, right? So maybe China does it to Taiwan and goes you have no reason to, you know, complain. Maybe other countries start doing it to us, right?

Now, okay, we have a big military, we can fight back, et cetera. But what winds up happening is you're creating chaos. So now Israel's not following any international laws. They're bombing all the foreign capitals. Now America's not following any laws. We're murdering people without any evidence at all that they did anything wrong. Because guys, think about it, if this is as dangerous as Trump's, oh my God, they're going to bring it out. Somehow they're going to fit in like just a tanker, several tankers full of drugs on that tiny little boat, right?

And they're going to come in, et cetera. Then great, then you must have amazing evidence on that. Like give us a shred of evidence that there's even drug dealers on that boat, let alone anything else. No evidence. Well, why won't they give you the evidence? Because they don't have it. They're bombing random boats in international waters, murdering everyone on board. 11 people dead in one of those bombings. Four people dead in another bombing. That's not okay for the U.S. to go, we don't, we're not following international law anymore. Now we reserve the right to murder anyone we like with no evidence at all.

That is a super dangerous precedent. It's going to come back to Biden. us and the whole world. And yes, it's deeply illegal to murder people that you're not, you have no right to kill. And so look, we have been principled throughout when Obama killed Unwar Ollo Blaki without getting any kind of judicial approval on that. That was an extra judicial killing without due process. And we called them out super strongly on that. That was totally unacceptable. So we're not playing partisan games here. So Trump doing this, you might think, I don't care about Venezuela and fishermen or drug guys or whoever the hell they are. And we'll never know who they were. But that's not the point. The point is this is deeply

immoral and illegal and it's a problem for the whole world. Sharon? Yeah, it is. And it makes me think that that little misstatement he had not long ago saying 300 million people were killed by drugs or whatever the nonsense is when it was at the time, what, 75,000, you said 87,000, perhaps, but it wasn't 300 million. Maybe that wasn't a misstatement. Maybe it's a beautiful distraction. And if the people who follow him will believe it, then he can continue to blow up fishermen off the coast in Venezuela or wherever else. And we won't know unless our shrimp prices go up. This is insane. On the one hand, he is seeking the Nobel Peace Prize. On the other hand, he's blowing up things. For what reason? Maybe to keep Epstein disclosures at bay. Who knows?

But he's all over the place in extrajudicial ways. And it sucks. And it's gross. And it's going to be done to us. Yeah. The only other final point I want to make is this also, this is a massive dodge. Let's say that you care about that really high number of Americans that die from drugs every year, which depending on which year, it's 50,000, 60. It's. 80,000, it's a lot of people. That's not from a random drugs from a speedboat. The vast majority of those are legally prescribed drugs that are pushed on them. But the people who are doing the pushing are not in some speedboat off the coast of Venezuela. They're gonna be dancing in Trump's ballroom in a couple of years. These are very powerful, very rich, very well-connected

people. And Trump is telling you effectively, don't think about that. Don't think about the fact that they can give financial incentives to doctors to inspire them to push drugs on people more and we're to make people so desperate that some of them are going to take drugs as a result of that. Don't think about any of that. It's a scary brown people in a boat. That's it. Don't challenge the elites, challenge a random person on a boat in the Caribbean. That's another thing that I think is getting lost in this. It's very convenient to his donors. Yeah, one last super quick point for me because it's really important to you know this. Why are they even doing it? Because they parked like half or four naval forces in the Caribbean next to Venezuela.

And so they're way trying to goad Venezuela into any kind of response. And if they so much as crush a bug on its way to an American ship, they'd be like, that's it. They started it. And they're going to attack Venezuela. Yeah. This is from the anti-war president? Nah, this isn't even close to anti-war. We're obviously trying to start this war and it's discussing.

And if you're wondering why Venezuela has a lot of oil and our oil companies would like that get their hands on it. Yeah. Well, why don't we take our second break and we'll get to march this. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Sharon, John, and no LBP. Thank you for hitting that beautiful join button underneath the video on YouTube. Everyone, you could also join at t.com slash join. And there you actually get a couple of months off from an annual subscription. So check that out at tyt.com slash join. John. Okay, let's mix things up, starting with this.

The guy's gross. not, oh, the deep nuance of Howard Lutnik. This guy is gross. Right. So how come Bill Gates and all these other people could hang around him and not see what you saw? Or did they see it and ignore it? No, they participated. Right. That's what his MO was, you know, get a massage, get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. Blackmail people. That's how he had money. So that right there is Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik stating very confidently that Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed prominent Americans with videos of their sex crimes, which is no worthy because of course the official line from the loyalist led FBI and DOJ in the Trump administration is that there is no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals. And as a result of that, just shut up about it. There's nothing. There's no clients. There's nobody else. It was just him. There was nobody else. It was just him. There was nobody else. else, we don't need to look into it. But he's very confident that, no, there were other people

involved in this and they haven't been named. So obviously they haven't been brought to justice. So one would think, shouldn't we try to find out about those people? And if there were all these tapes, well, where did the evidence go? He continued on talking about that. So what happened to those videos? Why is there now such a dearth of information when you know, Donald Trump's people are running the FBI and the DOJ? way back when they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18 months which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he's a serial sex offender.

How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? It must have been a trade. So my assumption, I have no knowledge. But my assumption is there was a trade. for the videos because there were people on those videos. That is interesting. It is a good point, a serial sexual offender getting just 18 months. I mean, normally in America you'd get many years or maybe you'd become president,

but one of those two things, not just 18 months. And so again, it's interesting that Howard Lutnik, I don't know if it's just in pursuit of clout, like he wants to look tough on this issue when people like Cash Patel and Dan Bongino have bowed their heads to the cover-up. But even in that clip, he's saying there was a cover up. There's these powerful people and we just want to hush all that up. So we only give me 18 months and he doesn't reveal it and then suddenly he turns up dead. It's all very suspicious. And yet according to Pam Bondi, according to Donald Trump, there is nothing to see here. And this is coming out of a very prominent

member of the Trump administration in good standing. Yeah, I have a conspiracy theory that I'm gonna push here that I don't necessarily agree with, but I'm just going to throw it out there as a piece of speculation and get your guys' thoughts on it in a second, okay? So I always want to be clear on what's facts and then what's, you know, analysis, and then the last layer is speculation on things you don't fully know, right? But it's worth discussing. So first of all, though, before I get there, he said something interesting there.

He said, I assume that they, you know, gave him that cushy deal in exchange for the tapes. Well, that would mean that we have the tapes. And Howard Lutnik is in the Trump administration. So why doesn't he go walk down to the White House and go, guys, where's the tapes? Like we should probably look at those and then maybe prosecute the people at him. Because he seems like if you take him at face value, he seems like he's genuinely kind of outraged and creeped out by it and thinks so. There was probably blackmail. And so now it's a possibility that Epstein and Galane Maxwell were just doing blackmail for themselves.

And that's how they got some of their money and lived a good lifestyle, et cetera, right? Is it also possible that it's a blackmail operation called a honeypot scheme? Well, I mean, who runs honeypot schemes? Oh, intelligence agencies do. In fact, I interviewed a former undercover CIA agent many years ago, and she said the number one go-to move is honeypot schemes. And honeypot, if you're not familiar, is what you might think, which is set people up to have some sort of illicit wrong sex so that you could have that on tape and threaten them with. with it, right? It's a win-win.

Yeah, well, it is for them, I suppose. So anyway, so if it was blackmail, then there's an excellent chance that it was an intelligence agency. So there's only really two options, CIA and Mossad. So that part is, you know, we don't know yet, but a lot of evidence points in that direction, including what Lutnik just said. So the speculation part is this. When Trump was defying Israel, all of a sudden, there was a ton of news reports out there about,

oh, Trump could be in the tapes. Trump could be a client. Oh, look, there's Trump's letter to Epstein. That just showed up right in the middle of Trump defying Israel. Huh. Because if you don't remember Trump, cut them out of a couple of deals, the deal to release an American hostage that he did with Hamas. He did not consult Israel.

He told Israel to turn their jets around. while they were bombing Iran, and he made a deal with the Houthis and cut Israel out of it. And all of a sudden, Trump, Epstein, Trump, Epstein came out. So now, you know, a lot of his advisors, they don't go to damn about him. It's didn't it for themselves, right? And he's a convenient guy that they're using. So here comes, you know, Trump saying, Israel has to do a 20-part peace plan where they leave Gaza and do not annex it. And we've got an interview all of a sudden back to, hey, there are tapes.

I wonder who's on him. So am I sure about that? Not at all, guys, not at all. Lutnik might be super close to Trump and he's just speculating like a normal person. I would speculate in a very similar direction. So we don't know enough yet. But I tell you partly ahead of time, because if Trump really is saying to Israel today as he's put out on true social, you are not to bomb Gaza anymore.

And then it's not just Lutnik and you see two, three, four other stories of Trump and Epstein. again, then you'll know, oh, I see how this game is played. But we don't know that that's going to happen. Now it'll be interesting to watch. Sharon, what do you think? And this is just a theory, right? Because I don't know, you kind of convinced me already. We don't know yet. We don't know yet. Something's not adding up here. I think you might be on to something. I was going to start by saying, I don't know if it's going to be so close to him after this. But yeah, gosh, I don't even know. It's disgusting all of it. And if he had that, it was so gross listening to him, illustrative way of just describing it all. There's so many other people who know

about this. Well, I'll say a select club. I don't know. Sorry, I just don't know. Yeah. Yeah, he seemed he was being a little bit creepy, but he was also creeped out. It was strange. I wonder if he feels the same way when he has to hang out with Trump and Hegsith. Like, is it generally sex predators make him feel uncomfortable. I'm not sure. But anyway, yeah, I the only other thing I wanted to add was while I think it's important, especially for anyone watching this that might be a Republican or Maga or whatever, like there's gonna be a lot of attempts to distract you from the fact that Donald Trump is desperately trying to cover all this up. And I think it's clear to all of you that that is the case. He's not the only one doing it, okay? We mentioned

Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, loyal soldiers in the cover, but also Mike Johnson, because they still have not sworn Adelaide Grahalva in because again, they do not want her to sign on to Massey and Rokana's discharge petition. And so they're gonna hold out as long as they possibly can just to stop those documents from ever coming out. Yeah, any of the thoughts? Yeah, look, last thing's obvious. They have the tapes, of course it was blackmail. You don't tape people and then not use it as blackmail. What did they just use it for fun? Okay, did some, oh look, there's a gross, old 60 year old guy, let's watch that again. No, it's for blackmail.

Of course, of course, of course. So don't let anybody say like, oh, yeah, yeah, I bet they don't have anything. Whether it's the Democrats, when they're in charge or the Republicans when they're in charge. So this is how they've destroyed trust in all institutions with super obvious lies like this. Yeah. All right, wow, we are out of time already. Jesus I'm Lord mercy, you know, you get one piece deal announced, the next to you know, it swallows up the show.

Okay, all right guys, everybody's checking out, Sharon on Rebel headquarters. You're also checking you around on Indisputable, that's on the TYT now. Or you just, you know what, you go to TYT.com, and you're gonna get it all. It starts with damage report, then it goes indisputable, then it comes to the Young Turks. Good news, there's a 24 hour channel, did you know that? We rolled the whole 24 hour channel. You get in a lot of places you might be watching us on Samsung, Roku, so many other YouTube TV, et cetera, but you could also get it on t.com if you don't have any of those

platforms. But if you're watching on those platforms, they're perfect place to watch, super convenient, and we love them. All right, so we got a second hour coming up, and this is really important, TYT exclusive, and it's a new strategy that Israel seems to have to target average Americans who dissent from Israel, not even criticize Israel. If you say you're pro-Palestinian, they have it appears they have a new strategy to get you fired not media not politicians the average American it's an amazing story and we have the exclusive on that I will do that when we return