The Young Turks - Heavy Breathing

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

Merck sues over Medicare Drug-Price Negotiation Law. "We’re tired of losing!" Chris Christie blames Trump for six years of GOP losses on Fox & Friends. Mike Pence says "no one’s above the law," but indicting Trump for crimes would "send a terrible message." Mar-a-Lago pool flood raises suspicions among prosecutors in Trump's classified documents case. Opinion: Americans may have to start working younger and retire older, and it might be a good thing. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur), Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Well, the Young Turks, Jake, you or Anna Kasparan with you guys, of course it's going to be a fun show. Everybody knows that. Did they finally kind of maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe get Trump? People are saying. People are saying it.

Okay, the zone is flooded and so is the pool and so is the document room. The likes of which you have never seen before. You never seen it before. And are they, is there an actual effective candidate against Trump on the Republican side? Is that a thing? Not really, no. We're going to find out, though. We're going to find out is a little bit more of a mixed question than normal.

Not really. Normally, I'd be like, no, don't wait. But now, I like that you're trying to build the suspense. No, no, no. I genuinely believe it as you're going to see later in the show. And I'd like to add, oh, okay. Important words. Yeah.

All right, here we go. All right, well, why don't we begin with Big Pharma Agreed? Because this was something I gave you a little preview on a few weeks ago, and now it's come to fruition. Pharmaceutical companies suing over having to negotiate with Medicare, over a little handful of pharmaceutical drugs. The pharmaceutical company known as Merck has filed a lawsuit against the federal government following the passage of the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that would allow for

Medicare to negotiate drug prices on a select few drugs beginning in 2026. Now, this doesn't mean that Medicare will be able to negotiate the price of all drugs. it doesn't mean that they would be able to negotiate the price of a handful of drugs tomorrow. Just means that up to 10 drugs will be negotiated on by Medicare beginning in 2026. Merck is, Merck ain't having it. They ain't having it. So they're trying to sue the federal government to put a stop to it. And so they're arguing that their constitutional rights are being violated.

Let's try to understand their argument here. They say the program would coerce Merck to provide. its products at government set prices, violating a clause of the Fifth Amendment that prohibits the government from taking private property for public use without just compensation. They also claim that the program would violate Merck's free speech rights. By coercing the company to sign an agreement it did not agree with upon the conclusion of the negotiation, just to give you a little sense of how well Merck is doing financially. Merck, which generated $14.5 billion in profit last year, not just revenue, $14.5 billion with a B in profit last year,

claimed in a statement on Tuesday that the law would stifle the ability of it and its peers to make risky investments in new cures. What say you? Are you concerned about this? Okay, I am actually concerned about it. And not from Merck's perspective, the opposite perspective. Guys, this is as big a blow against capitalism as you could possibly imagine. So, you know, not in the left wing direction, but in like an authoritarian direction, an insane, complete, and utter corporate rule direction. I don't know that anybody on the left or the right would be in favor of this. This is a, this is a frontal attack on capitalism.

Okay, so let me explain why. Merck is saying, now normally you negotiate price on anything, right? You go, whether it's a car, it's you buying something, the government buying something. Capitalism 101 is we negotiate prices and then we come to an agreement or we don't, right, and we move on. So here they're saying no, under the current law, which is already insane and already in a giant affront to free markets, you're not allowed, the government's not allowed to negotiate drug prices. Never seen anywhere before, as to my knowledge, anywhere, anywhere. It's insanity where a company says, I will.

charge you X and you have no choice in the matter, you must pay me. Right. That's insane. Or that's the current state of affairs brought to you by George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. They all agreed to it. They're all intensely corrupt if you ask me. Okay. So now Merck says, oh, you want to negotiate drug prices? That's against my rights. My right is to charge you whatever I want and you shut your mouth and you're not allowed to complain about it. Freedom. That's not how free markets work. And he's like, they're like, we're being coerced. Okay, no, you're not.

I know. If the government gives you a price that's too low, then you just reject it. You do, hey, I don't, if something costs you 10 bucks, you don't have to sell it for nine bucks. You could just wait and see if you could sell it for 11 bucks or 20 bucks or don't sell it at all. Nothing is being coarse at all. This isn't one of the most outrageous lies I've ever seen go to court. Right. So you already described and summarized.

and summarized what most legal experts are arguing. Legal experts are saying there's really no case here. None. And essentially pointing to these constitutional protections as the defense against this provision is weak to say the least. The argument here is, look, when it comes to negotiation, there are two parties engaged in that negotiation. Merck does not have to necessarily agree on the price that the Medicare program is pushing

forth through these negotiations. It's a back and forth. But look, the fact of the matter is they don't want Medicare or anyone, any healthcare insurer, any health coverage plan to have the ability to negotiate the drug prices and get those prices down. They wanna be the ones who set the prices, anything goes, and no one has any leverage in this incredibly broken system. That's part of the reason why here in the United States, even though the National Institutes

of Health spend a ton of money on research and research. development. That's our taxpayer money. They funnel it to the pharmaceutical companies in order to encourage them through the research and development that we're funding to develop new drugs. And they're turning around and they're saying, we're taking all the risk and you don't want us to make a profit. You're setting prices. Everything they're saying here is a lie. And it would be true that they're taking all the risk if us, the taxpayers weren't at least partially funding their research and development. Now with that said, I don't know, no, I just want to say about the risk point.

I want to come back to the freedom of speech point in a second two, but on risk, okay, then don't take it, okay, you're making 14 and a half billion dollars in profits, and you're telling me there isn't enough money for you to take a risk to develop new drugs. One hundred percent lie, okay, because guys, it's the old Warren Buffett line. Warren Buffett, when talking about higher taxes, he actually was in favor of higher taxes. And the right wing argument was, well, if you make taxes higher, no one will invest. Warren Buffett's like, what real investor says, oh, I'm going to have to pay a little bit more in taxes from the money, extra money I make. So I'm not going to do it.

I'm going to go home. That's not a thing. Investors invest because that's how they make money, okay? And drug companies make drugs that they sell at a tremendous profit. What, they're going to turn down that profit? Scared money, don't make money. No, oh, no, I don't want to take any risk. I don't want to take any risk, so I'm not going to make any profit, said no capitalist ever, okay?

Okay, so totally absurd. All right, now you're already animated, but get a load of how CNBC covered this because during one of their, you know, well-known shows, squawk box, one of the hosts really felt the need to squawk quite a bit about this. Let's watch. I can understand both sides on this. And that question, it's a political issue, it's an emotional issue. We want these companies to spend, spend, spend to develop. these therapies and they're the best in the world. And coming out of COVID, we're all thankful for the money pharma has invested in their businesses. When the government says not only in addition to these laws and pricing and how they're going to negotiate, that you have to agree that these rules are fair. And this is where they're contesting this on a First Amendment right. Like you're asking the drug companies to say, this is great. We think this is totally fair. We have no right

to profitability. That's where this seems kind of absurd. And where I think they have a lot of room to push back. Framing this as the federal government claiming that pharmaceutical companies have no right to profitability, that the federal government wants to stand in the way of profitability is laughable to say the least. And remember what the first iteration of that provision was before Congress chopped it down to the, look, it's better than nothing. But if you look at the first iteration, the end result was pathetic to say the least. The first iteration allowed for, the whole point was to allow for Medicare to negotiate all drugs, as they should be allowed to do.

But they whittled it down to 10 drugs that can be negotiated, and that will go into effect in 2026. No, it's a joke, man. It's like 0.1% of the drugs. Biden and the corporate media are a bunch of clown liars, pretending that they actually did something big here, when they're actually protecting 99.9% of drugs and drug makers. But even that's not enough for Merck. And even that's not enough for CNBC. Understand these guys are not at all capitalists.

They're corporatists. And corporatists hate free markets. They want the corporations, big business to run everything and have a monopoly. And to set up absurdities like this where they capture the government to do crony capitalism. And then the government turns around and says, you have to pay, the American taxpayer has to pay whatever they charge. It's unheard of in capitalism. It's total mental ideology. Meanwhile, CNBC, they're making drug companies go into the free market.

Did you see their graphic? Tanamount to extortion. But wait a minute, saying you can charge anything you want and the taxpayer has to pay for it. That's extortion. That's like literally the definition of extortion. Absolutely. Look, CNBC is pure, unfurged. filtered corporate propaganda.

It's like the meth, it's like Walter White's meth of corporate propaganda. So they, and they mainline it. They're like, you see, the government is saying that Merck has to agree that this is fair. No, the government didn't say that. The government just said, we're going to negotiate prices. And wherever we come out, well, I guess be the fair market price. Like, that's an violation of our freedom of speech. Then every market transaction is a violation of.

of your freedom of speech. Okay. I mean, beyond mental, I'm telling you, this is hilarious because this would, if the Supreme Court says yes to this, it would ironically totally destroy capitalism. So I wanted to just quickly provide some receipts in regard to what types of government subsidies and government grants Merck specifically has received. So most of this funding and most of these subsidies were obtained beginning in 2012. So there's the Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker.

And you can go to that website to see just what kind of subsidies and grants these various companies get. This is for Merck, right? So apparently they get the bulk of their subsidies from state and local governments. And look at that amount since 2012, they've received 77 different awards from state and local governments. To the tune of $142.9 million. Why? They made $14.5 billion in profit.

So why do we have to give them our money? But guys, the reason why I share that with you is because every time they whine about how they take all the risks, understand that they are lying. The government, whether it's the federal government, or whether it's state or local governments, will funnel taxpayer money or provide subsidies for these pharmaceutical companies, for a pharmaceutical companies. a variety of reasons, but certainly when it comes to research and development, the federal government gets real active. I mean, look at how much the federal government spent on basically providing research and development money for pharmaceutical companies for the COVID vaccine, right? Because honestly, if you really leave it to the free market, Jenk, let's also keep this real. They're not willing to take the risk on their own. No, no, they are. They are.

The investors, without the government helping them? No, they're just bought. They have the government. So they're like, why don't we just get make them give us $140 million since we already bought all these guys? Because Anna, so if you're talking about drugs on the edges where you're not positive that it's going to work and it's, it's setting you're not sure you could turn a profit on it. They're not going to develop those anyway, okay? So for but the core of their business is to make very, very, very, very profitable drugs that we can't do without. They are going to do that no matter what, otherwise they're out of business, okay? To say like, oh my God, I was gonna make 14 and a half billion dollars in profit. Because you hurt my feelings, I'm not going to, because he didn't give me a government subsidy, I'm not going to.

It's not a thing, no capitalist that's worth their salt that would ever say that, that's absurd. So look, and guys, for like the tiny sliver of experimental drugs that maybe that they would decide not to risk, their capital on and just instead take it home and hoard it, et cetera. For those tiny amount, you think it's worth it that we all overpay by trillions of dollars? No, it's a sham. It's a total under our life. Understand there's three parts of America, okay? Three branches politically.

There's the left wing, there's the right wing, and there's a corporate wing. Now the corporate wing is tiny. It's like 1% of Americans. American voters. American voters. But unfortunately, they control almost all of the power. That is about 90% of the Democratic and Republican parties combined. That's the unip party that everybody talks about.

That is a corporate wing, okay? They're all lying to you. The Republicans are lying to you that their right wing. The Democrats are lying to you that they're left wing. They only serve their corporate donors. And we've proved it a hundred times in every instance when it comes to legislation. Okay. But the key, the key is corporate media.

They're the ones that do the marketing for all the other corporate machines. And they go, oh my God, if they cannot charge anything they want to you. make you pay the gigantic price of drugs and subsidize it with your taxpayer money. And it's extortion on poor Merck. Poor poor Merck. What are you doing to their First Amendment rights? So if you're a right winger, you should despise what Merck is doing. And what all those greasy, awful politicians on the Republican and Democratic side do for 99.9% of drugs.

Okay. So all of this is disgusting. And finally, that corporate media. marketing was just chef's kiss perfect on that clip that you found Anna because the guy says we have to be thankful to pharma right because it without I mean they did it out of the goodness of their heart the 14 and a half billion dollars every single year in profit and I said at least the last year that level of profit that was just a coincidence that was just a side they don't care about that at all they were doing it to help us but what have you done to Merck

CNBC is the biggest pile of trash I have ever seen in any form of media. We got to take a break. When we come back, we'll get into some election-related developments, starting with Chris Christie. He is not holding back when it comes to going after Donald Trump. But is there something else afoot? We'll give you that story and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna, the name's Bogdo. That's a new handle that just joined.

Hit the join button below the video on YouTube. You could do likewise. All of our members are the Young Turks. I love that you put on this show. Casper. Well, Chris Christie is at it again. But it sounds like you're trying to save the Republican Party. Well, look, I believe the Republican Party has been losing now for nearly seven years.

After Donald Trump's win in 2016, which I was a large part of, you know, we haven't been able to win anything since then. Chris Christie, who has announced that he is running in the Republican primary for the presidential election in 2024 is essentially saying, look, we can't go with Trump because with Trump comes loss. And I'm tired of being a loser. Now, the main message that he is trying to get across. And I think that, you know, Ron DeSantis very, very timidly tried to dip his toe in that area and then immediately got scared and scurried off. But Chris Christie is repeatedly saying, we're going to keep losing if we keep sticking to Trump. Here's more from what he had to say. After Donald Trump's win in 2016, which I was a large part of, you know, we haven't been able to win anything since then. Lost the House in 2018, lost the Senate and the White House in 2020, those Georgia Senate seats in early 21. And we horribly underperformed in 2022. Lost governorships, lost the Senate seat, and barely won the House.

representatives, what everyone thought we'd be at 240 or 250 seats. Right way. So we're tired of losing. And look, if the person at the top gets all the credit when things go well, they also must be accountable for what happens when things go badly. And the fact is that Donald Trump, the candidates he picked in these individual states and endorsed all lost. And it lost big races. Now, in the context of that interview, Christie also kind of tried to dismantle any argument that there's a two-tier justice system that is going after Trump over classified documents, but refusing to go after Biden over his possession of classified documents.

We're going to get to that clip in just a moment, but before we do, Jank, you have a theory as to why Chris Christie, who's really not registering with voters at all. I know it's early, but they don't really seem interested in him. You have a theory into why he's doing this, why he's like specifically branding himself as the attack dog against Trump. Yeah, so look, guys, I'm not saying Chris Searcy can't win. In fact, I instantly put him in the top three because of this fighting attitude, which I'll get back to in a second.

But it's, but what I'm seeing right now is interesting. You can see it for yourself. So Chris Christie is polling at somewhere between zero and two percent. So de minimis, almost nothing, right? But yet, he's all over all of media. So now I call both right wing media, mainstream media combined corporate media, right? Because they play good cop, bad cop with us, right? So all of a sudden, he's on CNN and Fox News and ABC and right wing media, right?

So all of corporate media has decided, we don't really care where he's polling and we don't really care if he has any chance to win at all. We like the message this guy is putting out there. Why? Because they've decided they don't want Trump. And honestly, they're making it super clear. And like, so CNN does a town hall where all they do is they allow Trump to speak for a little over an hour. And everyone in media loses their mind. They're like, he shouldn't be allowed to speak. Okay. And almost like the CNN staff's talking about quitting because they allowed someone that is not, you know, that is now verboten by the establishment to speak on the airwaves. Meanwhile, Chris Christie is apparently allowed everywhere.

And did you notice the softball Steve Deucy gave to him? Are you trying to save America? No, save the Republican Party. Oh, save the Republican Party, that's right. Yeah. And so what that means to me is Rupert Murdoch has sent a giant memo with big bold letters saying, go get Trump, okay? We're done with that son of a bitch.

Bring on Chris Christie and anyone else will take his head off. So you put him in the top three. you think there is some possibility that he could win the Republican primary. I put the probability at approximately 5%. And I'm going to explain why. I thought you were going to go zero. No, I mean, I might. Don't do it.

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Tempted to go zero percent, but I'm going to keep my powder dry. Okay, good, good, I like that. All right, but it's probably zero percent. With that said, I want to go to one other moment from that interview on Fox and Friends, and then I'm going to show you, well, how Trump likes to throw his jabs. Let's watch. I also see a huge double standard. You got classified documents all over Joe Biden's house, offices, lawyers' offices, garage. Do you believe that this should be what Donald Trump has done from what you know is criminal? Well, look, I don't know, Brian, exactly what they're going to find and what's going to come in any entitlement that may come.

But I will say this. The problem with all this is that it's self-inflicted. In the end, I don't know that the government even knew that Joe Biden had those documents or not, but they did know Donald Trump did. And in fact, asked for them voluntarily for over a year and a quarter and got them back in dribs and drabs and at least if you believe the accounts that you're reading right now and I take them with a grain to salt because I did this work for seven years and I know you can't believe anything until an indictment comes out. If in fact you're keeping those things knowingly, even after the government is, you're

asked for you to bring them back. The excuses about, oh, they were classified, declassified automatically when I left the office. Well, that's just wrong. So he's both very gently pouring cold water on the claim that Trump and Biden did the exact same thing, right? They committed the same crimes when it came to classified documents because it wasn't the same thing. Biden had no problem providing the documents after discovering them, you know, in a place they weren't supposed to be in, whereas Trump was fighting it from the very beginning, he wanted to continue possessing both top secret and classified documents that he had no business taking home with him from the White House. So I thought that he did, I actually

thought he did a good job there in not, you know, seeming too defensive on behalf of Biden while taking jabs at Trump. No, no, the reason why I put Chris Christie as having a real chance is because he's the one guy in the race that at this point appears to be fearless. And it's an absolute prerequisite. Otherwise, you've got no chance against Trump. Trump's going to brutalize you, right? You've got to fight back. You've got to be able to punch back.

DeSantis is so nervous. He is. Right? Like punch, Trump punches him. And then DeSantis like pokes at him a little bit. And then he's like, ah, how did I do? And he's like, he's just a hot, sweaty mess. Yeah, yep. And the rest of them are standard plastic kenn dolls from the corporate politics factory. Look at Jank being generous by calling them Kendall's. Okay. You're going too far, Scheng. No, I mean, look at Mike Pence. I don't know. I know. Unfortunately, I have. And I wouldn't say Kendall. $10 extraordinary, but all of them, Tim Scott, all of them, Nikki Haley.

So they're all like, hello, we are corporate Republicans, we love war, we love tax cuts for the rich, Donald Trump, oh no, I don't know what to do. Nikki Haley with a giant white eyes, I don't know if I should criticize them. Oh, get it, just please leave. Okay, so you're right about all of that, okay? But here's the thing. I don't know if Chris Christie's attacks on Trump will land, especially when you juxtapose how Christie throws him. his jabs with how Trump throws his jabs. So with that said, earlier this month on June 2nd, Trump went on Fox News and had a town

hall with Sean Hannity. And here's how that went. I hear Chris Christie's coming in. He's at, he was at 6% in New Jersey, which is, I love New Jersey, but 6% approval rating in New Jersey, what's the purpose? And he's polling at zero. And others are, I call him Ada Hutchinson, I don't call him Asa, I call him Ada Hutchinson. I give her a little name for some reason, for certain reasons.

Okay, I included the Ada Hutchinson part specifically to make my point about how gross Trump is when he decides he wants to attack his opponents. So Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, he's deeply, deeply conservative. I mean, former governor of Arkansas, the one thing he did was veto a bill that would have banned gender affirming care in the state, which is why Trump is attacking him by calling him Ada Hutchinson. He's disgusting. But my point is, while Chris Christie is out there, I think calling Trump a loser and really

honing in on how much the party has lost as a result of the Trump brand in general elections is a smart move. But Trump is going to get real dirty. And, you know, recently John and I talked about, like, the insane, you know, mocking of Christy's weight that Trump and all the Republican goons have been engaging in. They're going to do a lot more of that. I don't know if Christie's counterpunches are going to resonate with the voters. I don't know. No, yeah.

Look, he's counterpunching 10 times harder than any other Republican. That's true. Christie, right? Yeah, Christy. So Trump does over the top stuff, but at some point it might backfire, right? But only against a counter puncher. If no one punches back, then he's going to obliterate them, right? So in the case of Chris Christie, what did he do?

He's like, oh, no, I welcome Christine to the race when he first announced. He's like he's going to eat DeSantis's lunch like he ate Rubio's lunch. There was a lot of wink emoji in there. Not too many winks. Right. And then if it wasn't clear enough, he put a picture of Chris Christie in front of a buffet. Okay, on true social. So, okay, so that's the kind of dirty player he is.

And generally, people love that kind of entertainment, especially on the right wing, right? And so I get that. But again, Christy, not just punching back, but punching back smartly because talking about how Donald Trump's a loser is definitely the correct strategy. Because the only way to beat Donald Trump is not to tell Republicans he's too mean. He's too offensive. That is that is a 0% chance of working. No, what Christie's saying to them is, look, he's a schmuck, he's a loser. And all we've ever done is lose under him, which is actually totally true.

They've lost big lee under Trump. And if you keep pounding away at that ferociously and you have the entire corporate media on your side, okay, well, then you've got a fighter's chance. And guys, now remember the court, don't mistake me for saying I like Chris Christie. Chris Christie is a classic corporate Republican goon. I got no interest in him. And corporate media is deeply biased. So I never saw the 6% poll, but I did see a poll in New Jersey where Chris Christie left office at a 14% of the state. approval rating.

Do you think Bridgegate had something to do with that? Of course, because he's deeply corrupt, okay? So now, there's a lot of, he did tons of things wrong in New Jersey Center. But look at the juxtaposition, Marianne Williamson is ranging between 5% to 11% against Joe Biden, no media, almost no corporate media appearances. Chris Christie's polling at 0% and his last poll when he was governor was at 14%. Credibility, he has no credibility. But I mean, this is what manufacturing consent looks like.

Marianne Williamson doesn't get booked on every single possible television news show because she will not serve the purposes of what, honestly, corporate America wants. Corporate America wants stability, and they want someone that they're familiar with, someone who is going to do their bidding, and Joe Biden is just that, right? In fact, Joe Biden, it's become very clear. I mean, his campaign has decided to hire Tom Perez as one of its top advisors. It's very clear to me that Biden is now making the pivot back to his roots, right? There was some decent attempts at progressive policy, but he's now completely pivoting over to what we've been familiar with when it comes to Biden.

Let's just put it that way, you know, the bankruptcy bill, Biden that we're familiar with. So any final words on this? Yeah, just look, Biden, when he got rid of Ron Clayton hired a corporate goon as his chief of staff, decided very actively, and everyone acknowledges, to go back to being a right winger. And he thinks the brilliant strategy is I'm going to outright wing the Republicans, which is, look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but that's a moronic strategy. It's never worked. It's never going to work.

And that's why he's doing miserable to polling. But the corporate media loves Biden and they love Chris Christie because they're going to get the same results either way. Yeah. They're going to get, the donors are going to win on everything. And that's why even though Marianne Williamson is polling infinitely better than Chris Christie, you won't see her on TV and you'll see that guy a hundred times over. candidate, and that's Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence. The Justice Department recently informed Donald Trump's legal team that he is a target

of a federal investigation into possibly mishandling classified documents. What's your reaction to the news about your former boss? Look, I don't know the facts of the president's case. I don't know the facts of the former president's case. But what we've got to have in this country is equal treatment under the law. Equal treatment under the law, it seems like Mike Pence believes that, you know, we shouldn't treat Trump as if he's above the law. We shouldn't treat anyone who is elite or powerful as if they're above the law, right?

Except, no, no, that is not what he's saying. He's trying to make a point that there's somehow a double standard in our justice system when it comes to prosecuting Trump after he took classified and top secret documents home with him and prosecuting Biden when he inadvertently did so and immediately turned over the classified documents as soon as they were discovered. So let's hear more of what he had to say. When I informed the Department of Justice that we had classified materials potentially in our home, they were at my home. The FBI was on my front doorstep the next day. What we found out was that when Joe Biden apparently alerted the Department of Justice, 80 days later, they showed up at his office. That's not equal treatment under the law.

And we've got to end. I understand you're talking about equal treatment. So in other words, this is yet another opportunity for Mike Pence to, you know, remember that he's running against Trump. And so he doesn't have to provide cover for Trump the way he did when he was serving as vice president in Trump's administration. Instead, he gets scared. He runs away from trying to, you know, answer the question. And you can tell he's nervous. You could tell he's freaking out about this conversation because he doesn't want to take any jabs at Trump. Just by the way

he breathes heavily. If you don't know what I mean, take a look at the next clip. But the question is allegation, that an investigation into obstruction, which you clearly did not do. If that is something that investigators see as possible, even enough potentially to indict the former president, do you think that that should go forward? Well, I would hope not. I would hope not. That's what I do sometimes when you go on a rant that I disagree with. I'm like on the side. Anyway, we're going to get to his elaboration on why he would hope not in just a moment.

But, Jank, what are your thoughts? You know, I know he's a Christian, but maybe he's doing some sort of breathing exercises there, some sort of meditation or something. Like, oh, they were talking about Trump again. I remember when that guy tried to execute me. Okay, but I can't insult him too much because the bass loves. Stop making that face. I mean, I thought the first one was funnier, though, when he was like,

oh, yeah, he struggles, he struggles, you can tell, he's nervous, he can't find the words, he's like hyperventilating a little bit. Dude, you ain't gonna win. You ain't gonna win, go home, go home to mother, go home to mother, please, I'm begging you. Did you try to get you killed and you're still like, well, I think he's, well, you know, It could be above the law, it should be above the law. I mean, we should have equal protection law, except for Trump. Trump, when he tries to murder people like me, he should be above the, look.

Okay, okay. All right, since we're just making fun of him, why don't we go to the next video where he explains why he does not want Trump to be indicted, even though there's a lot of evidence indicating that he willingly, knowingly took classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago. Let's watch. I think it would be terribly divisive to the country. I mean, at a time when the American people are hurting, I mean to tell you, families are struggling right now with record inflation. We have a crisis at our border of the likes of which we've never seen.

We have a flood of fentanyl coming into every city large and small in this country that's killing young people every day. We have threats abroad, a crime wave in our cities. I think now more than ever, we ought to be fine in ways we could actually come together. And, sir, we're going to get to all over. This kind of action by the Department of Justice I think would only fuel further division in the country. And let me also say, I think it would also send a terrible message to the wider world. I mean, we're the emblem of democracy. We're the symbol of justice in the world. Right. So it would somehow send a bad message to the world if the United States for once didn't have a two-tier justice system.

and ensure that everyone who breaks the law gets treated equally, right? The former president of the United States, it appears, broke the law in a very serious way, taking home with him top secret documents that can only be reviewed in secure government facilities. He took that home with him and then lied about how he declassified those documents, which was a joke. But no, I mean, it sends a good message to the world if we just do not do anything about that and allow the president to get away with the crimes. But it's so much worse than that because it was him. They were trying to kill him.

It's not even theoretical, right? Like if they were chanting Hank Hank Junk Ugar, right, I wouldn't. And the guy said to his chief of, Trump said to his chief of staff, you know, that he didn't mind it. He didn't mind it. If somebody said that about people trying to kill me, I wouldn't be a. I was gonna use a very harsh word, but let's say, I wouldn't be Ken doll, Mike Pence, going, oh, blah, blah, I'd be providing cover for Trump. Yeah, I'd be kicking the living crap out of them.

I'd be talking about how you got to put this son of a bitch in prison. You try to get me killed. This is the weakest man in America. Please go home to mother. I was watching the NBA championship the other day, the same day that this town hall is happening. So I flipped to the town hall because I'm a political guy. To see how he's doing and I was like I was on there for about 13 seconds and I nearly fell asleep in that 13 seconds. I was like, oh my God, okay.

Well, yeah, I mean, you were getting some good instruction on breathing exercises and sometimes it can help you sleep. Yeah, he's so dull, he's so fake. I think maybe there's like a leak in the machine like in the back or something and that's why he's like, I have to refill the engines from whichever factory they built him in. So this is deeply, deeply embarrassing. And the foes squint, too, like, well, Dana, Dana. Like that foe squint, I can't stand it. Everything about this guy is 0% chance of winning, go home.

Now, with that said, obviously we see quite a bit of cowardice in the context of a town hall. However, interestingly enough, a pro Pence pack known as committed to America put out a pretty harsh ad that really did attack Trump aggressively. So let's take a look at that. A president begging him to ignore the Constitution. A mob shouting for him to die. And an anxious nation watching for one man to do what's right. A weak man appeases a mob. A man of courage and character stands up to them. That day, one man failed the test of leadership, while another stood tall. And since then, this so-called leader has continued to abandon our conservative principles. Now with a woke mob trying to take away our freedom, we need a president

who won't flinch. True, we need a president who won't flinch. I mean, if this was the strategy that the Pence campaign wanted to go with, you got to do the follow through, right? You can't just put out the ads, and that was a good ad. Yeah. But you can't just put out the ads and then freak out once you're doing debates in town halls. And you're getting questions about Trump. You have to follow through. But it doesn't seem like he's willing to do it.

Doesn't seem like he's capable of doing it. Keep up the first video that we showed again. But let me say this first. Look, it's a good ad and then it calls Trump weak. It's aggressive. It's not a great political strategy in the Republican side if I have to say it. And I do, our job is to be honest with you guys, to attack the rioters. Because the Republicans love the rioters.

So when he says he stood up to the mob, he's gonna lose like 65% of Republican voters instantly. They love that mob. So it's a very poor strategy. I didn't think about that, you're right. So in that sense. But I like the strength of the ad shows. But I guarantee you the minute that you ask Mike Pence about it, oh, a super PAC, your super PAC basically, called Trump Week. What do you think about that?

He's going to go, and he's going to backpedal. He's going to back pedal, back pedal, back pedal, right? So then what's the point? You're just hiding behind your pack. So look at the first video again. Look at how much he hems and haws and how weak he is. So ironic, watch. The Justice Department recently informed Donald Trump's legal team that he is a target of a federal

investigation into possibly mishandling classified documents. What's your reaction to the news about your former boss? Look, I don't know the facts of the president's case. I don't know the facts of the former president's case. And but what we've got to have in this country is equal treatment under the law. There's almost even a little bit of a whimper there.

There was a whimper. There was a little whimper. It's not good. My super bag since Donald Trump's week. What do I think of Donald Trump? Ain't going to cut it, brother. And definitely not in a Republican primary. Well, we've got Fash Flood Watch when we return.

All right on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. And I don't make these handles, I just read them. Okay, Bergeny'll read anything in the prompter. Chicken stroka, the chain smoker. Gifted a Young Turks membership, so we appreciate it. Athletes LLC, give it 20 Young Turks memberships, still rating champ. Thank you guys. Casper.

Well, we haven't really been giving you all updates on the classified documents investigation into Trump, but we do have some pretty big updates right now, so let's get into it. Former President Donald Trump has now officially been informed that he is currently the main target of a criminal investigation into alleged mishandling of classified documents, and there are some signs indicating that he could be indicted in this case very soon. Now, Trump's lawyers have been sent a target letter on the matter, and that target letter makes it abundantly clear that Trump is, in fact, the heart of this criminal investigation. I don't really understand why this is such big news. Obviously, he's the heart of a criminal investigation having to do with classified

documents, he's the one who took them home. Oh my God. It turns out Trump's the target? Yeah. I don't understand cable news, man. They're like breaking news. The guy who took home the documents is the guy who might have taken them. Yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of how it works. I know, Jank, but prosecutors sent a letter, a target letter to his lawyers. But to be fair to them, I will say this one thing on their behalf. Like, we cater to the powerful so much in this country. the idea that anyone who had power could be indicted is shocking to the rest of the powerful. They're like, they didn't think it was possible. I did think it was going to be the milk boy. I really did.

But now we're all shocked to find that it's actually Trump himself. Now, the Guardian's Hugo Lowell broke the story and spoke to Ari Melbourne, MSNBC, about it. So you're about to hear some more details about this. Let's take a look. Trump's lawyers were called last week by letter from the Justice Department. that the special counsel's office considered Trump a target in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. Part of the reason why we were so confident in the designation being applied to Trump is because, from what we understand, several of Trump's top lawyers and senior advisors

had a long conversation this afternoon about how to manage the fallout of this letter. And they were trying to minimize how many reporters were going to do a story on it. And Trump himself was really not keen for this to be reported out. And I think when we learned that, we were pretty confident that Trump has been designated a target. Guys, this isn't a story. Okay, that's not the story. We do have a story here. We have other elements and other updates to this investigation, which we'll get to.

But like, it is amazing how cable news can take something that is not a story and turn it into one. I actually thought it was Professor Plum in the library with the lead pipe, but it turns out it might be Trump after all. But there are relevant portions. There are relevant portions. Okay, so a breaking news story today has to do with a former White House official, a career, you know, a career person within politics, right? Not necessarily an elected person. I say this because the individual has not come out by sharing their identity,

but they have been interviewed by investigators, both by the prosecution in this case and also by the individuals who want to investigate Biden and his possession of classified documents. But with that said, we're learning interesting information because this is the person who was tasked with briefing both the Obama administration and the Trump administration on how the declassification process works. And the reason why this individual's testimony is so important is because the main defense from Donald Trump and his team of lawyers is that he had the ability to just think about declassifying those documents. And that's how it works. More on that in the next video. Let's take a look. This official who served in both, correct me if I'm wrong about anything

of Trump and the Biden administrations, a careerist, familiar with the classification process, has spoken to federal prosecutors about what Donald Trump knew, what Donald Trump was told while he was in the White House about the process. He understood the rules, number one. Plus spoke Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, John Eisenberg, the former National Security Council lawyer, big players, smart people, close people to Donald Trump inside the White House, they all knew the process and they talked to Trump about it as well. So what Trump says publicly contradicts what you have learned here. Yeah, exactly. So that's mounting evidence that is not going to bode well for Trump.

And as a result, there's a lot of speculation that very soon he will be indicted in this case. According to the independent prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an independent, I'm sorry, an indictment against Trump for violating a portion of the U.S. criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits gathering, transmitting, or losing any information respecting the national defense. The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has, been made to short circuit Trump's ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassified documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach

Florida property long after his term expired on January 20th of 2021, Schenck. Okay, so look, every part of this conversation is absurd. We now have to debate things that are just preposterous, just because the right wing wants to debate them. Like, oh, we think that He could declassified the documents just by looking at him or touching them or thinking about them. These are all things that Trump has actually said. And MAGA then goes, of course. You just laser-eyed the documents. You can even sometimes you can just, you smell the documents and they're declassified.

That's my favorite method. Right. But there's nothing too absurd for MAGA to believe it. Nothing too absurd. Like Donald Trump could say, well, look, the documents are obviously classified. You normally go through a very detailed process, and that's the law, but there is an exception. If you take him and you rub them under your underarm, declassified. And Magill will be like, that's definitely right.

Oh, you guys are so biased against Trump. You know that if you do this is always declassified. You know that. You know Biden did that once. Okay, like it's absurd. Of course he took him home. They said to him bring them back. We know you have them.

He actively hid them. They have guys on tape moving the boxes. Yeah. And then the lawyer then goes into the place where they. They move the boxes and only finds a certain amount. Then they, the government says, no, no, no, we know you have top secret documents. Give them back. He's like, no, I don't, no, I don't.

Then they go into Mar-a-Lago and they find all the top-secret documents. Yep. It's an open and shut case, there's no question about it. There's only two reasons why we're debating it. One is the right way and we'll believe anything and we'll debate anything. And two is that the people in power are kind of skittish about it because they've never prosecuted anyone in power and they're worried that it might come back on them at some point. So they're like, oh, we really got to get this guy.

But on the other hand, what if we were held accountable? That's the only reason why we're having these nonsense conversations. What if this guy should have been arrested a long time ago. Yeah, like what if, you know, potential insider trading among members of Congress were actually investigated by an independent third party? Oh, there's no way that any Republican or Democrats gonna agree to that because they're all corrupt. Okay, now look guys, there are two parts of this that are interesting in terms of there's two layers, right? The first layer is, did he break the law by taking the top secret documents and not returning them and obstructing justice?

That's an open and shut case. Now, my question is, did he actually try to do something more nefarious with the documents? Like maybe share them with Saudi Arabia who's been funneling him and his family millions, if not billions of dollars right after he left office with the private equity deal? and went to live golf deal, et cetera. But so far, I haven't seen anything leak from the prosecutors that leads in that direction. So I'm actually a little disappointed. I haven't seen any hint of evidence in that direction. And you need evidence.

You can't assume that one. There's no way. Of course. That one's not at all obvious, okay? And then finally, the other giant thing is Mark Meadows. Mark Meadows now apparently testifying against Trump does his former chief of staff. And there's some reports unconfirmed that he is going to plead guilty, and that would be shocking. If he did that, that means he's given them, he's in a lot of trouble, and he's giving them tons of material on Trump,

who's then in a lot of trouble. But we don't know that fully yet. So one other thing that I wanted to mention, which would explain what we slug this story, fash flood, is a flooding incident that is strange. And I just want to note that. There's nothing proven by this, right? But it is strange. So it turns out that an employee at Donald Trump's Marlago residents drained the resort swimming pool last October and ended up flooding a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept. Now those are the video logs that investigators want to review in this case. And you're about to learn more about this convenient flooding and how it might actually backfire in the next clip.

In late October, the Justice Department sent another request to the Trump organization asking them to preserve surveillance footage. That is that same month that we are told that this pool at Mar-Lago was drained. So there are a lot of questions, of course, about how this is factoring into Jack Smith's investigation, whether or not they believe this was intentional or if it was simply a mistake. But another notable detail that our team is uncovered here, Wolf, that maintenance worker in this case has had his phone seized. He has also spoken to investigator. So clearly this is something that they are certainly pursuing and certainly asking witnesses about. So look, it's good that they're looking into

that. I mean, it could just be a very strange coincidence. It could be a strategy to essentially you know, tamper with evidence. I don't know, no one knows, but according to the report you just heard from, the prosecutors are looking into that. Yeah, so my thought on that is when I first saw cable news reporting that there was inappropriate flooding at Trump's Smar Lager, I was it, come on guys, you're taking it too far, right? But it turns that it's not flooding, it's they drained it on purpose, and it turns out it just got directed to the one room with the surveillance video.

Yeah, how does that happen? Right after the authorities asked for the surveillance video, which then makes it 10,000 times more fishy. But having said that, that's exactly the type of thing that is not obvious, right? Meaning that we don't have enough evidence publicly now to say that that's definitely true. That's what you go to court for. And if you've got the evidence showing that, then I think it's pretty damning. It's among many things that are damning, but they've got to show that one in court. All right, we have to wrap the first hour, but stick around. There's more fun to come. In the second hour, we'll talk about a longtime friend of the show, a libertarian

named Peter Morici and his latest op-ed saying, you know what, you might have to start working younger and you might have to keep working until you're older, much older, and it's a good thing. We've got that story and more coming up. Don't miss it. by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.