The Young Turks - Hot & Heavy Hearing

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Speaker McCarthy expected to endorse impeachment inquiry into President Biden, but it is unclear if he has the votes. InfoWars host sentenced to two months in prison. Mehdi Hasan grills Jamie Raskin on why Dems didn't investigate Jared Kushner "when you were in charge." Republican Sen. John Kennedy recites raunchy sex scene during Senate hearing. 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. Is bedtime a nightmare? If you fear the chance of accidental leakage and skin irritation, you need to try tennis sensitive care overnight pads. Its skin comfort formula acts as a barrier to help protect your skin. Try them now and have a smooth night. Hot dog is my favorite meat.

Woo! It's dumb! All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jake Eugger, Anna Kus Paring with you guys, and we bring with us a tiny little bit of hope. It's in the story, it's in the show, it's going to happen, it's tiny, but it springs eternal. We're also going to bring you old men reading raunchy passages from raunchy books. Indeed, that as well. Hope and raunch.

Elmer Fudd is going to make an appearance today. He is, but you know what? There's always twists on the young Turks, because I, I'm going to defend them partly. No, I'm going to definitely. Okay, so, so we'll get into that. It's going to be fascinating. Defensive Elmer Fudd. All right, forward.

We begin with a sham impeachment inquiry. These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives. representatives. That's why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public. It's exactly what we want to know. The answers. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy once thought of as a young gun.

in the House of Representatives is seen here digging his own political grave as he takes orders from the likes of Matt Gates to call for an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, knowing full well that the two House committees that have been investigating Hunter Biden and trying to tie his foreign business deals to Joe Biden have failed to provide a shred of evidence, he knows all that, but he's moving forward with calling for an impeachment inquiry. Now, there is a distinction between an impeachment vote and an impeachment inquiry. We'll get into that distinction in just a moment. But yes, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has, in fact, endorsed an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and his family's foreign business dealings.

Again, even as these two House committees investigating him have failed to turn up any evidence of wrongdoing. Now, sources said McCarthy plans to tell his conference in a closed door meeting this week that the impeachment inquiry is the logical next step in order to obtain bank records and other documents from the president and his son. Hunter Biden McCarthy has made it clear there will be a vote for the impeachment inquiry. But as of now, he doesn't appear to have enough Republican members of Congress who will approve this. So the way this works is Kevin McCarthy can't just simply snap his fingers and be like, I declared impeachment inquiry. No, the members of Congress have to vote on that.

Now the question is, are there enough Republicans who are in favor of moving forward with this sham probe? And so far it appears that is not the case. McCarthy needs 218 House Republicans to vote to authorize the impeachment inquiry. And so far we know of a few that are against this. Two of them that come to mind include Congressman Ken Buck and Congressman Don Bacon, both Republicans, both think this is silly. Buck will be receiving a briefing, though, from the House Oversight Committee staff, which has failed to turn up any evidence incriminating Joe Biden, this week on the investigations in an effort to convince him to support this politically motivated sham impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy plans to say that House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan and House Oversight Committee Chair Jamie Comer have uncovered enough information that necessitates the House formalizing the impeachment inquiry in order to obtain the Biden's bank records and other documents. So the argument here is, look, we haven't really found any evidence, but calling for an impeachment inquiry, voting in favor of that will allow us to obtain more financial records that could potentially turn something up in our little fishing expedition. Yeah. First I'm gonna start goofy with his manner of speaking, which I'm amused by. So everybody's got their weirdo ways of speaking like Biden likes to lean in a whisper.

A whisper. No joke. No joke. Okay. McCarthy does this thing which he thinks is dramatic. He's like, and I'm here to tell you. He does do that. Right.

And also, okay, all right, dude, all right. I got it, Mickey Doyle. Anyways, and then, and we're looking for the answers. All right, all right. So now on to the substance. Oh, right, there is none. So look, the Republican politicians have lost a threat. And yes, it's partly because of their base or giant part of it is their

base. And so they don't want any stinking evidence. They don't want facts, they don't want logic, they don't want reason. They just want to impeach Biden. That's why Marjorie Taylor Green proposed impeachment on day one. And she's still bragging about it today. No, that means that you don't have any evidence when you say let's impeach him because I don't like him on day one. And by the way, did they get financial records? They already got a ton of financial records. And it showed what? Nothing. Big fact. nothing burger. Then you ask Republicans about that and they go, yeah, but did you know to Biden? Like he's no gig, yeah, we know guys, we know, we know. He's gas board, right?

He doesn't know Ukrainian gas. We're among the first shows to say that clearly, obviously. Don't be ridiculous. He sells sham art. Yes, we know that. We know that. The connection to Joe Biden is what you need. They're like, well, he called him a bunch of times. It's his son, you schmucks. him a bunch of times is not evidence. I know, Shank, but have you considered Biden bad? I hadn't, oh, that's impeachment. Wait, you know what, we need Anna? An impeachment inquiry.

Okay. No, but I gotta be honest, I love this. It's nice to be on the other side, because I remember during the Trump years, I remember the, you know, hyperbolic segments that Rachel Maddow would do that would make think that there's a bombshell ahead. And then the bombshells never came. And now we're experiencing the same thing on the other end of the political spectrum with these attempts to

incriminate Joe Biden. The Devin Archer testimony before the House Oversight Committee was supposed to be groundbreaking. It was supposed to be the bombshell tying Hunter Biden's foreign business deals to Joe Biden selling his influence. No evidence turned up. Devin Archer actually testified the opposite of that. Yeah, so look, there's two things I really want to say here that it's, first to distinguish between the Biden and Trump thing. So there was a lot of circumstantial evidence about Trump, and some Republicans say, you know what, I think there's circumstantial evidence about the connection between Joe and Hunter.

They call, and sometimes they call during Hunter's business meetings, Biden, Joe Biden doesn't know that, but maybe he knew, maybe it's tons of, they, it's very circumstantial. In Trump's case, his sons are going around, going, oh, we get all our money from the Russians, right? Don Jr. literally said that. Literally, literally, right? And so tons of evidence that appears circumstantial about Trump. Here's the giant difference. When Mueller came in and said, yeah, the Russians tried to interfere with the election, and here's the evidence on that, here's what they did on Twitter and Facebook, and it amounts of this much.

And I looked at it and I thought, it doesn't amount to that much, okay? But more importantly is, is Trump connected to the interference in the election? Right, was Trump concluding, or was he part of a conspiracy along with the Russians to meddle in our elections? That was not proven. Yeah, so I thought that there was a good chance that could be the case. MSNBC thought it was already proven a thousand times over, right? But when Mueller's report came out and they said, no, he was not connected. I said, okay, I instantly believe it.

That's it. I'm done with it. I'm done with it because the facts came in, the jury came in. The difference is, do you care about facts or don't you? If you say, whether you're MSNBC and go, I don't care, Trump is still Russia, interference, 2016, Hillary was robbed, or if you're Republicans and you say, I don't give a goddamn about facts. I don't need a single shred of evidence that the election was stolen.

I don't need a single shred of evidence that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are collected. Okay, that's the way you roll. But that's not how objective reality rolls. And so you're wrong. Right now there's zero evidence connecting them. And the fact that that doesn't bother you, doesn't speak well of you. But I will add one last thing for now, which is this helps Joe Biden. It does.

And if you're a Republican, you're thinking, oh, we're going to get them. No, you're not. I mean, look, the one thing that'll help you is it'll help you win the election. Because Joe Biden is such a terrible candidate. But the minute you do this BS impeachment of Joe Biden, you know what the Democrats are going to do. Same thing the Republicans did. They're going to rally around their candidate. And so right now they're busy going, that's it.

We're building the wagons, circling them. And Joe Biden is the greatest thing since sliced bread. So you couldn't have helped Joe Biden anymore than doing this. Now let's get to what I would argue is the most amusing and entertaining element of this story, which is House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a leadership role essentially bowing down to Republicans in the House like Marjorie Green and Matt Gates. So what is the whole point of having a leadership role or that enhanced position of power when really you're taking orders from the likes of Matt Gates? And that's what this is really about. Kevin McCarthy,

I would venture to say, really had no interest in calling for an impeachment inquiry because he knows there's no evidence, but there has been so much pressure from people like Representative Matt Gates that he folded. And the reason why he folded is because of how he became House Speaker to begin with. He agreed that he could be House Speaker as long as basically Republicans in the House would be able to do away with him if he doesn't go along with their little schemes, right? And so he wants to maintain that power and as a result of not wanting to lose that power, he's just listening to Matt Gates and what Matt Gates wants. So again, this is really about maintaining power for McCarthy, power that doesn't really make much sense because he really

has no control of these situations. He's just taking orders. Now hours after McCarthy made his announcement, Matt Gates still attacked him, still attacked him. Of course. And I want to give you a little taste of that. Let's watch. Now moments ago, Speaker McCarthy endorsed an impeachment inquiry. This is a baby step following weeks of pressure from House conservatives to do more. Mr. Speaker, dust off our written January agreement. You have a copy. Reflect on the spirit of that agreement and build on the start that we had moments ago, began to comply. No continuing resolutions, individual spending bills or bust, votes on balanced budgets and term limits, subpoenas for Hunter Biden and the members of the Biden family who've been grifting off of this

country and the impeachment for Joe Biden that he so richly deserves. Do these things or face a motion to vacate the chair. I mean, McCarthy, you still call yourself the young gun? You taking orders for Matt Gates? Okay. It is so embarrassing. It really is. And look, in that spiel, Matt Gates mentioned a few things that I do think makes sense, right? Like separate bills on policy issues, like I would like to see Democrats actually try to champion that as well instead of including legislation with a bunch of poison pills that we absolutely despise. But, you know, he's muddling the message. At the end of the day, Matt Gates is calling for the impeachment of Joe Biden knowing full well that there isn't a shred of evidence incriminating him,

despite how long of an investigation that's been taking place by two House committees? Yeah. It's so dumb. So Kevin McCarthy is not really protecting his power. He's protecting his status. There's a difference because he actually has no power. But the good news is he's never had any power before he took all of his orders from the donors. And so he's just a placeholder.

The minute he disagrees with the donors, he's shown the door and they get a new servant, right? Now though, he's having to take orders from his donors and MAGA. And so that puts him in a difficult position because he has two bosses instead of one. How does he maintain his status as the theoretical Speaker of the House while pleasing both of those masters who he serves like a servant, okay? So now Matt Gates is pulling a Republican on other Republicans. You know what happens to Democrats when they agree with Republicans? It's a giant mistake, we've told you that for 20 straight years.

The minute you agree with the Republican, they're gonna want more. It's never enough, never enough. Kevin McCarthy could give impeach Biden today, hold a vote, send it over the Senate, and then get on the ground and kiss Matt Gates' shoes. And Matt Gates would say, you didn't do enough. Okay, because it's Republican 101. It works, demand more, demand more. And what drives me crazy is that the parties are polar opposites in both going in the wrong direction.

Whereas the Democrats never demand anything. Correct. Never demand a goddamn thing, especially progressives. And then the Republicans would demand maximalist positions. And what does it do? It pulls the overturn window all the way to the right, which is the whole point of this sham to begin with. They all work for corporations who donate to their campaigns.

There's a person here or there. Matt Gates doesn't take corporate pack money. Rokana doesn't take corporate back money. But 98% of them, they're all playing theater. Now, and that leads to why Kevin McCarthy has gone down this disastrous path. So the Republicans tried this against Bill Clinton, and it backfired. Now that was a long time ago and it's a different country, different situation now. So I'm not saying that it's going to back the fire with this base, it's complicated, right?

But the reason that he is acting today is because the extreme Republicans in the House were saying give us impeachment and give us government shutdown. Now McCarthy's donors don't want a government shutdown. So in order to appeases donors and the MAGA base, he chose impeachment rather than shut down. And then as soon as he did that, the MAGA base said, no, we want both. Of course they want both. Yes. They wanted both at the very beginning. How stupid is he?

How stupid is he? How stupid is he? The dumbest people in the country are running the country. Okay? All right. So look, they're going to shut down the government. Okay, like that's the best prediction I think anyone could make in the realm of politics. today. But aside from Matt Gates and the pressure that he's putting on Kevin McCarthy

to do stupid things that will politically backfire, I want to just also note that there's fighting among Republicans in regard to who should take the most credit for pressuring McCarthy to commit political suicide. So let's go to Graphic 4 here. I'm going to start with Matt Gates's tweet, or X, which was rexed by Marjorie Green. He wrote, when Kevin McCarthy makes his announcement in moments, this was prior to McCarthy's announcement, of course. Remember that as I pushed him for weeks, Kilmead said I was speaking into the wind on impeachment. Turns out the wind may be listening. Marjorie Green didn't like that because she wants to take credit for a sham impeachment inquiry. No, I'm dumber than you.

Correction, my friend. I introduced articles of impeachment against Joe Biden for his corrupt business dealings in Ukraine and China. While he was vice president on the very first day in office, which is what you like to reference, Jank. She continues, you wouldn't co-sponsor those and I had to drag you kicking and screaming to get you to co-sponsor my articles on the border. Who's really been making the push? So you guys are both morons. And so great, have at it, continue being morons. And look, I'm not just saying that with no evidence. I have been sitting and waiting. I've been open minded to the idea that maybe there was some corruption. Maybe Joe Biden did sell his influence. I don't know. I mean, they're making the accusation. Let me hear them out. Let me wait

for the evidence. They have failed to prove any of it. I'm not some loyal fan or follower of Joe Biden's. I don't care. He's a politician. Politicians do dirty, shady things all the time. So again, open minded to the accusations, but we need to see the evidence. I haven't seen the evidence. They haven't seen the evidence. This is nothing more than a political stunt that I have a hard time believing is going to help them in any way. Yeah. So look, Democrats are looking for Trump's corruption, which there are plenty of and different examples, but in all the wrong places like Russia, right? And Republicans are looking for corruption from Hunter Biden to Joe Biden, Even though the laptop, their beloved laptop says, we can't promise anything from dad because he won't do it, right?

The evidence is completely the contrary, right? You know why they're misdirecting you and distracting you in this way? Because the actual corruption is the campaign contributions. In the halls of Congress, day in and day out. 98% of them take it, Republicans and Democrats. I know MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, NPR think that the Democrats are angels. Nancy Pelosi is an angel that floated from the sky, and she deserves to have the seat in the House and finds nice seat in the Senate.

But no, they all take cash, cold hard cash, which are obvious bribes. But no, we don't want to talk about the actual cancer of corruption in government. So we're just going to say, oh, yeah, maybe it was Hunter Biden's art or gas deals, et cetera. And on Marjorie Taylor Green, no one's ever heard of impeaching someone for something they did before they became president. So what are we going to? We're going to go back now, by the way. So if Trump wins, now we're going to go back to, well, on his second week in office last term, he did something wrong. So we're going to impeach him for that. And we're going to go back to what he did at the apprentice. And we're going to impeach him for that. This is unprecedented horse crap. Okay. So, okay. And this Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates in a couple. competition of dumb and dumber is just. It's entertaining. It's a little entertaining and it's a little pathetic.

But go ahead, try to win that contest. And I guarantee you if they heard that, they'd be like, oh yeah, I am going to win. I'm going to be dumber. She's only going to be dumb. Okay, congrats. Okay. And last thing on the politicians on the Republican side, look, Don Bacon's trying to save his bacon. He's in a purple district. And I understand why he doesn't want to do it. And there's a number of Republicans that way. By the way, you could pressure them to actually pass policies that would help the American people. But Ken Buck is a rare guy who's a Republican and Freedom Caucus super right wing.

And he's like, yeah, no, I'm not going to go for it. You guys are lying. There's no evidence. This isn't constitutional. And I'm not going to participate in this sham. So there's a super hard right winger that I will give credit to. Finally, I just want to share with you all how Senator John Federman feels about this whole debacle. He has some important things to say about the matter.

Let's watch. I asked me about this news that Speaker McCarthy has formally launched an impeachment or has said he's going to. Oh my God, really? Oh my gosh. You know, oh, it's devastating. Oh, don't do it. Please don't do it. Oh, no. Oh, no. My thoughts exactly. Like, come on. It's just so ridiculous. And by the way, that's the right attitude. Mock them. Don't take them seriously. They're a bunch. bunch of clowns. God, man, Fetterman, that stroke was the worst stroke of luck in history. He could easily be running for president and crushing right now if he hadn't had that stroke.

All right, when we come back from the break, we have yet another individual who is involved in the riots on January 6th, who's been sentenced. We'll tell you who he is. Spoiler alert, he's tied to Alex Jones. We'll give you the details when we come back. Don't miss it. All right, back on T.Y.T. Jank, Anna, Davy Hyde, and Jake Till, they're American heroes who hit the join button below the video. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients, designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol.

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On YouTube and then Vicki Gray and Canadian Moose Rider both gave five Yonkerships on YouTube and Madam Powergifted one. You guys are all amazing. Thank you guys. We do the show together and we love that you're here and we got more interesting news for you guys right now. Do Canadians ride mooses?

And is moose is the correct way of using the plural No, it's, it's Meese. It's Ed Meese. No, I have no idea. Canadians, you tell us, you're the moose experts. All right, moving on. Info Wars host, Owen Schroier, has been sentenced to two months in prison for his role in the capital riots on January 6th. Now, Schoyer pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining on restricted grounds in June of 2023.

That was a separate matter, which he took a deal on. And even though he didn't enter the Capitol building itself on the day of January 6th, he did trespass. And as a result of that and as a result of breaking a prior agreement having to do with a different prosecution, he is now going to serve two months behind bars. So what exactly did Schroyer do? So prosecutors charged Schroier because he had previously signed a deferred. signed a deferred prosecution agreement after interrupting a congressional hearing in 2019.

It was actually an impeachment hearing for President Trump at the time and had agreed as part of that case not to utter loud, threatening, or abusive language or to engage in any disorderly or disruptive conduct at any place upon the United States Capitol grounds. Well, he kind of broke that promise. And as a result, he violated the deferred prosecution agreement. Now, court documents state that in the weeks prior to the Capitol riots, Schroier spread election disinformation on the InfoWars show that he hosts, which is unsurprising to me, considering what InfoWars is really branded as. He later traveled to the Capitol where he said the following. In a video posted to the InfoWars website on January 5th, 2021, Schroier

an address in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. during which he stated, Americans are ready to fight. We're not exactly sure what that's going to look like, perhaps in a couple of weeks if we can't stop the certification of the fraudulent election. We are the new revolution, we are going to restore, and we are going to save the republic. Then on January 6th, Shroyer marched right over, marched with his supporters right on over to the Capitol and said things like this to the rioters. Democrats are posing as communists, but we know what they really are. They're just tyrants. They're tyrants, Schroyer said on the bullhorn. And so today on January 6th, we declared death to tyranny, death to tyrants. Again, very clear violation of that deferred

prosecution agreement. Had he not had a deferred prosecution agreement in place, which he then violated, it's very unlikely that he would serve time behind bars. So Schroier argued to the judge that he was actually just, you know, when he was yelling on that bullhorn and trying to incite the rioters, he wasn't actually trying to incite the rioters at all, Jank. He was just trying to defuse the situation. Death to tyrants is diffusing the situation. Shroyer argued to the judge that he was actually trying to get the mob's attention so he could help Alex Jones, who was also president at the Capitol, and guide the crowd away from the building. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Surprisingly, the judge didn't buy that argument and disagreed with it, saying his review of the video of Schroier's actions did not appear to show Schroier making an attempt to play a de-escalating role. Yeah, I think the call to kill the people inside the building doesn't really feel like de-escalation, because tyranny, of course, is referring to government and they're right in front of the government building where there's the government officials. So when he says the death to tyrants, it's not theoretical anymore. They're about to break into the building and they have nooses, they have gallows, and they're chanting hang Mike Pence. I don't know, Jank. I mean,

people disagree on definitions of things, so. Oh, yeah, could be. Or maybe he me death of tyrants meant let's bring them some roses. Okay, well, you know, we're in info wars. Nothing makes sense anyway, so facts, words, logic, nothing matters. All right, but there is something very important in this story. So, and it's not a Schoyer's Amish beard that he's walking around with for no reason. We will allow it. I don't know that I will allow it. Grow a mustache, become a human, become a grown up.

I think you're trying to, but anyway. Okay, anyways, all right. No, guys, here's the big deal. Uh, huh, uh, cooperation for on what? Cooperation to do what? Uh, so Alex Jones comes in mind. Are they trying to get him to turn on Alex Jones? And so look, by the way, sure does the same thing that the coward Alex Jones and the coward Donald Trump did.

Go into the building. Go get him. Oh, you can get killed out to Tyrant. We'll see you guys later. They go grab a sub. Go grab a sandwich or a steak or something. And they're like, yeah, we're not going to go with the schmucks. These are the same idiots that we sell penis pills to and brain pills do.

Yeah, you guys go commit the crimes and we're going to go hang out and have a fancy lunch with Trump or whatever. But in sight, inside, in sight, and then run away like little bitches. And so that's Shoyer and Alex Jones for you. The only question is whether they've turned on each other. Yeah, you know, I don't know. I don't know what the cooperation part of this story really means or what it entails. I know the prosecutors in regard to his involvement on January 6 had initially asked for 120 days for his sentence, but he eventually received 60 days, meaning two months behind bars.

We'll see how it develops, but play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And I think that's been the overarching message in this whole January 6th debacle, right? Be used as a puppet for Donald Trump to do his dirty dealings and see what the consequences are. And the consequences have been very dire for many of these people. The fact that he got two months behind bars is honestly a very lucky sentence considering what others have been sentenced to. So there's a million differences between the progressives and the planet lunatic. But one of them is we're constantly telling people, don't do anything physical, don't do anything violent. That's crazy.

Revolutions mean political revolutions. You do that through amendments and laws, you deliver for the American people. What do they say? Just the torrents! Oh, by the way, they're right there. Okay? And adult shootings are no big deal. They're all crisis actors anyway.

The real problems are the parents. And so they have had the lunatics go chase the parents around the country, nearly kill them, et cetera. And then he has to pay a giant thing. And now he's basically trying to figure out how to money launder all of his money so that he doesn't comply with court orders. They don't believe in law order at all. They don't believe in the rule of law.

And so look, but, you know, from time to time I make a plea to Republican voters because half of them are cuckoo, but half of them just are frustrated. And they have the same problems that we do. They've just been misdirected, right? I make no plea to Alex Jones audience. You guys go nuts. Too late, you already are. Do whatever you want, buy his stupid brain pills. You're hopeless.

So you guys, I give up on, enjoy your lunacy on whichever goddamn plane of the multiverse. Of course you're at. Okay, all right, let's move on to another investigation. I mean, that's what Congress is up to these days, just one investigation after another. This one, though, I think makes sense, so let's get right to it. Congressman, it's clear the president's son Hunter will be involved in any potential impeachment inquiry in some shape or form. Recently, you urged Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, the Republican, to investigate

Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner for his foreign business dealing, especially with the Saudis. Why didn't Democrats do more to investigate Kushner when you were in the majority? The Republicans have succeeded in turning Hunter into a boogeyman, even though Hunter never worked a day in the White House. Yet Jared, who did, is doing just fine. MSNBC host Medi Hassan grilled House Oversight Committee ranking member, Jamie Raskin, for basically slow-walking investigations into Jared Kushner's deals. with Saudi Arabia. Now, rather than answer the question directly,

Raskin kind of deflected by recounting the allegations themselves. Take a quick look at that. Well, remember, Jared's essential crime against the Constitution and the Republic came right after the Trump administration ended. It was, I think, the day after it ended that he created the corporation, which he proceeded to endow with $2 billion from the Homicidal Crown Prince, of Saudi Arabia and then other sovereign wealth funds from Gulf Monarchs. So all of this is an ongoing story right now in the Biden administration.

And of course, the Republicans are in control of the House just narrowly by four votes. But even Chairman Comer has conceded that Jared Kushner crossed an ethical line. And so all we're saying is, look, Jared Kushner was actually working in the White House. He was in the administration. Hunter Biden was never in the Biden administration. I get that. I'm just wondering why you didn't do this earlier. And many Hassan is correct in asking that question because it's been, what, two and a half years ever since this whole situation, suspicious issue came up. So for context, let's give you guys a refresher on this. So a few weeks ago, Congressman Jamie Raskin requested that the House

Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, subpoena Kushner for more information on his dealings with the Saudis. In fact, he's saying so while talking to Jake Tapper, while talking to Jake Tapper, James Comer even admitted that there were some ethical concerns in regard to Jared Kushner's dealings with the Saudis. So as soon as the Trump administration was over, he forms this private equity firm and takes this massive amount of money from the Saudis. I'm gonna give you more details on that in just a moment. But look, if you happen to be more conservative and you're like, I'm watching a progressive show, they're probably lying because we're talking about Republicans here. Don't take it for me. Take it from James Comer, a Republican lawmaker.

Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund when Donald Trump had put him in a position to be in the Middle East. What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? Again, sir, it all stinks to me. It all stinks. Yeah, look, and I've been vocal that I think that what Kushner did cross the line of ethics. But what Christie said, it happened after he left office. Still no excuse, Jake, but it happened after he left office. Yes, it happened after he left office, but also he forged all sorts of relationships in his role in the white. House, and what he specifically did is he formed that private equity firm called Affinity

Partners just after leaving the White House. The Saudi government provided huge investments to the firm along with other Gulf nations. Kushner reportedly took $2 billion from a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the same individual that Donald Trump tried to provide cover for after he ordered the assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi. During the Trump administration, Kushner had been tasked with managing Middle East policy and worked closely with Mohammed bin Salman. And also a report from the intercept during the Trump years found that MBS bragged about having Kushner in his pocket.

Kushner was also deeply involved in a 110 billion dollar weapons sale to Saudi Arabia back in 2017. I recall when right wingers like Alex Jones pretended to be concerned about Saudi Arabia and tried to blame Democrats for their close ties with Saudi Arabia. Really interesting that he had nothing to say about that when the Trump administration was very much enmeshed in Saudi business deals. No, it's over. Right wingers, your favorite country is now Saudi Arabia. So Donald Trump and Jared Kushner are both making millions upon millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia. They gave every favor in the world. They let him dismember a journalist that worked for the Washington Post.

The allegations from The Intercept are that Jared Kushner gave our sources inside Saudi Arabia to Muhammad bin Salman, and one of them was tortured to death. If a Democrat had done that, you're talking about Hunter Biden's art? If Hunter Biden had turned over sources that he got from his dad and they got tortured to death by Muslim fundamentalists, tell me that you wouldn't be seeing red. Tell me that you wouldn't be the most irate people on planet Earth. But when your beloved Donald Trump does the corruption and his beloved son-in-law, and they take $2 billion off the Saudis, all of a sudden, you're perfectly okay with it. Oh, the Saudis, they have the same exact moral code as ISIS.

Wait, all of a sudden, you guys love the Saudis. I mean, come on. Have you no shame at all? Let alone all the golf tournaments, all of a sudden, the Saudis get live. They buy the PGA, and they direct all the golf tournaments to Donald Trump's properties. And James Comer is so disingenuous. He's like, $100,000, $5 million for something, something, sudden, I'm so much. about $2 billion for Jared Kushner.

I mean, it was after office. It was, he got the payment after office for things he did while he was in office. Exactly, exactly. Some more suspicious stuff happening with this whole deal with the Saudis. So there's even a panel that screens investments for the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, they had concerns. over Kushner and his firm. They had concerns with the $2 billion from the sovereign wealth fund being funneled over to Kushner's brand new private equity firm.

So in 2022, the New York Times looked at the panel's objections seriously, and they looked at previously undisclosed documents from the panel's meeting, which took place on June 30th of 2021. Here's where they found some issues. Here are their concerns. The inexperience of the affinity fund management, the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for the bulk of the investment and risk, due diligence on the fledgling firm's operations that found them unsatisfactory in all aspects, a proposed asset management fee that seems excessive, public relations risks from Mr. Kushner's prior role as a senior advisor to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump. But the Saudi crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, overruled the panel. And the Saudi fund invested twice as much with Kushner compared to former treasurer

Steve Mnuchin, even though Mnuchin had a successful investment record as a Wall Street goon and all of that. Now Mnuchin was also a part of Trump's cabinet, as you all know, from 2017 to 2021. The debate within the Saudi fund over investing in Kushner's firm was in clear contrast to the easy approval of Mnuchin's proposal. Mnuchin's fund focused on cybersecurity, financial technology, and entertainment, aligning with Saudi priorities, while Kushner's firm lacked a clear focus. Yeah. So guys, the national security community was outraged by Jared Kushner at some point in the Trump administration. You might remember that story and they pulled his clearance. They said he is not to get the presidential daily briefings anymore.

Even though he was running our foreign policy in a lot of ways and especially in the Middle East. The Intercepts reporting seems to indicate that they pulled it because Kushner gave over the names of our guys inside Saudi Arabia. And those are the ones that MBS arrested, stole from, tortured, and one of them was killed. of them was killed. So if they prove that, and someone should try very hard, I'm not saying try to prove something that didn't happen. But if there's any chance that happened, Jared Kushner should spend the rest of his life in jail. So, and this is worse than Hunter Biden. And not just because of the magnitude of the money, billions of dollars, right? And not because of the

magnitude of the potential crime, which is, might have literally gotten people killed, right? But also, about how outrageous it is. So everybody knows that Hunter Biden is not an expert on Ukrainian gas and modern art at the same time. He's running every two-bit scam there is in the country, which makes it more similar to Donald Trump than it does to Joe Biden. But we already talked to endlessly about the no connection to Joe Biden as far. There's been no evidence of that, right? But guys, it's as absurd as Hunter's claims to expertise are. Jared's is worse because not only like you said well he's run investments before and he's done real estate investments, that's right. And he has potentially the worst record in American

history. He bought what is considered to be the worst real estate investment we have ever had in this country. 666 Fifth Avenue right before the 2008 crash nearly bankrupted his entire family who was loaded and that he is one of the dumbest investors in the world right now and they give that guy two billion dollars this stuff is proven this is not conjecture you can look up 665th avenue and how disastrous it was no sane investor in their right mind would give a nickel to Jared Kushner let alone two billion dollars in which he makes 25 million dollars a year from even if he loses all the money $25 million at a bare minimum per year.

It makes all of Hunter Biden scams look like child's play. Kushner looks at him, go, amateur, and in your case, you didn't even get dad to do what you said. I got Trump to do everything I wanted. Which is why the investigation is an important one, and which is why I agree with Medi Hassan's line of questioning here. Why did it take Jamie Raskin so long to call on the House oversight? committee chair, James Comer, to open an investigation into Jared Kushner. In fact, final video on that exchange, let's watch. You know, I think we've been doing everything we can to try to catch up with what we know.

And what we're trying to find out is exactly what did Saudi Arabia get out of this arrangement and what is the nature of all the money that's been pouring in. Now, we know that they covered up the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the drawing and quartering by the paid assassins who were sent by, you know, the crown prince. We know that they were aligned with Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, and they went there first. You know, that was the first foreign trip that Donald Trump took. So they got a lot out of it, and we were talking about all of that at the time. But look, we're going to do a complete report on foreign government emoluments that were

pocketed by Donald Trump, and we're still trying to torture out the end. information, which we've never gotten. Torture out, interesting phrase in this context. But, you know, I do think that this is one of the investigations that makes a lot of sense. So hopefully they move forward with that. We'll see where it goes. Okay, I want to give a word here to one of our members.

Jenks left tricep of Fury wrote, and as much as I respect Raskin, that's a legit question, and he needs to answer that. Agreed. So good catch, by the way, t.com slash join to become a member, be part of the show. Raskin never answered the question. And the question isn't, why didn't you do something six months ago or four months ago when the Republicans were already in charge? The real question is, why didn't you do anything when you were in charge for the first

two years of the Biden term? Now, look, but important context here, Jamie Raskin is not the bad guy. Jamie Raskin is now bringing up the Jared Kushner issue when no other Democrat will. Why they wouldn't bring that up is insanity. It's totally inexplicable. So thank you, Jamie Rasker for bringing it up. And Jamie Raskin is about at least twice as aggressive as the average Democrat. The problem is even the most aggressive guys like Jamie Raskin, who are now bringing it up as an issue,

are still 2,000 times less aggressive than the average Republican. Like the Republicans will take the Mo Hill and make 2,000 mountains out of it. And the Democrats will take a giant, they'll take Mount Everest and go, Mo Hill, come on guys, get in the goddamn game. Medea San, great line in questioning, but don't blame Jamie Raskin. He's at least trying as opposed to all the other Democrats. Well, we come back from the break. We will show you uncomfortable videos of senators reciting raunchy passages from books they don't like.

Back on T.I.T. J. Hugar, Anna Kasparian, Ghost Dragon, and Robin Mitchell. Well, this one's a dozy, so buckle up for this. The Senate decided to probe the issue of library book bans today. And unfortunately, you're about to hear some, well, videos of Senator John Kennedy of all people, basically reading passages from books that he feels and other Republicans in the Senate feel should be banned from school libraries. So without further ado, earmuff the kids and get ready for this. All boys aren't blue.

And I will quote from it. I put some lube on and got him on his knees. And I began to slide into him from behind. I pulled out of him and kissed him while he masturbated. he asked me to turn over while he slipped a condom on himself this was my ass and i was struggling to imagine someone inside me he got on top and slowly inserted himself into me it was the worst pain i think i have ever felt in my life eventually i felt a mix of pleasure with the pain close quote All boys aren't blue.

So that happens. That was from the book, All Boys Aren't Blue, and I will admit that it was a little raunchy. A little blue, ironically. Yeah, little. Some boys apparently are blue. No. Okay, we're gonna get to the essence of this and whether he's right or wrong.

And don't make assumptions. Don't make assumptions. You might be wrong. But my favorite line was, that was my ass. I know. Okay, it's like a permie, Dr. Seuss, or when I first started watching, I was like, is this a confession? No, it's, it was not a good idea for, in my opinion, like I probably would not have read the book allowed, right? Well, look, like all senators, he's 98 years old, but if he ever runs for re-election, that might get used in an ad.

And look, to be fair, he's trying to make a point, and I do think it's a legitimate point. We're going to get to that in just a moment, okay? But first, more. Called genderqueer. Okay. Let me read an excerpt from that. Quote, I got a new strap on harness today. I can't wait to put it on you.

It will fit my favorite dildo perfectly. You're going to look so hot. I can't wait to have your in my mouth. I'm going to give you the blow job of your life, then I want you inside of me, end quote. You know, if Senator Kennedy decided to have a little bit of a side hustle as a phone sex operator, maybe. Yeah, maybe. I'm thinking of having him read, justice is coming. No, no, don't do it.

Don't do it. Something's coming, but it ain't justice. Oh, then I got a strap on harness. Okay. I'm like you get to put it away Kennedy okay put it away listen and then the dilda went up and to the left up and to the left it's a serious matter despite us acting like school children right now this is a serious matter having to do with school children okay well kind of sort of yeah now look the whole point of this hearing was to discuss book bans in school libraries that has been a hot button issue I do think that both sides have kind of been talking over each other and what I don't take kindly to is how corporate media has covered this story, because they tend to hyper focus on pretty harmless books, like the book about penguins adopting a baby penguin that needed a family, right? There was nothing wrong with that book, but why focus on that when it's very clear

that there are very specific titles that conservatives have issues with, conservative parents have issues with? And I would venture to say even liberal parents would have issues with if they knew that these books were available in their school libraries. Now, look, it really depends on where they're available. Are they available in high school libraries? And if that's the case, I have news for you guys. Your kids have heard much, much worse, have seen much, much worse, if they have a phone especially, right? And they just heard it from the senator from Louisiana. True. That's now on the internet. And that is, are you kidding me? They're going to make so many shorts out of that. And it's going to be in a million TikTok videos that kids are now infinitely

more like me to have heard it because of John Kennedy, let alone more likely to read the book, right? So, but I actually don't think it's about the books. I'll get to my opinion on that in a second. I think what he's most right about is who gets to decide. And that was the main question he was asking the witnesses. And I was really annoyed at the witnesses for not having a good answer. Yeah, I agree with you on that. And I don't know how that process works, right? And look, I do think that, look, okay, so it's interesting because I doubt that any student even knew that either all boys aren't blue or genderqueer were available in their libraries. They know now. They know now, right? And so now there's like this race to ban them from school libraries.

Before all high school kids could go get them. And I want to be clear, there have been instances of high school libraries that have contained these titles, but despite what you hear from conservatives, I have yet to see an actual example or actual evidence of this being available to like elementary school students. Now, a little more detail on the hearing itself. So it's titled book bans examining how censorship limits liberty and literature. And remember, this is in the Senate. So I'm going to assume that this was a hearing that was called by Democrats, since they still controlled the Senate. Now, the hearing on the book bans was called as multiple Republican-led states have made it easier for books to be challenged in classrooms. And as school board meetings have

been flooded with arguments on what is appropriate for children to read. Illinois, for instance, recently passed a law banning the banning of books in public schools and libraries. The law directs public libraries in the state to adopt or write their own versions of a library bill of rights, such as the American Library Associations, which asserts that materials should not be prescribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. And because of this, some members of the Illinois state government have basically attended to, have basically tried to defend their efforts to keep these books in place. Now, after his pretty remarkable quotes, Senator Kennedy then addressed

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannolis, and this person was present at the hearing to answer some of the questions by senators. So let's have a look at how this conversation went down. Mr. Secretary, what are you asking us to do? Are you suggesting that only librarians should decide whether the two books that I just referenced should be available to kids? Is that what you're saying? No.

With all due respect, Senator, the words you spoke are disturbing, especially coming out of your mouth is very disturbing. But I would also tell you that we're not advocating for kids to report to Senator Booker's point. What are you advocating for? We are advocating for

parents, random parents, to have the ability under the guise of keeping kids safe to try and challenge the world view of every single manner on these issues. I want to know what you're recommending. It sounds to many like what some of you are saying the librarians should decide who gets to see that book. I'm saying when you're making, when individual parents are allowed to make a decision of what where that line is and to kill a mockingbird, which involves a rape scene, should

that book could be pulled from our libraries, I think it becomes a slippery slope. I think that there is some truth to the slippery slope argument, to be quite honest with you, but the idea that no, no, it's up to the parents. That's a ridiculous argument. I mean, I wasn't, it wasn't that long ago I was in school and I remember going to the library and checking out books. I didn't need my parents permission to check out whatever book I wanted to read. So look, I do think that for some parents, the material in these specific books is disturbing and they will like to have a little more control over what their kids see. I think that age matters quite a bit.

So if I have elementary school kids reading this kind of stuff, I can understand the worries about that. High school kids, as I've mentioned already, they've already seen things that are far worse. But I don't know what the right answer is, Jank, because I don't want the slippery slope. I do think it's important to avoid book bans as far as we can, right? But at the same time, I do think there's some material that is inappropriate. for young children? Yeah, good news. I have the answer. So first, I'm going to start with the tenor of the books, and then I'm going to get to what the right standard is. So look,

guys, are there some books that are too extreme that are going into for kids that are too young? I think that there are. So, but there's, from my understanding, from the evidence that the right wing has presented, it is very few. Okay, so that doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything about it. And so the left saying, okay, that's it. I don't want to. They don't exist or I don't care that they exist are not good answers, okay? On the other hand, is that the predominant problem? No, I think the predominant problem is that the right wing is pretending that it's some sort of epidemic when they found two books in the whole country, go crazy, seven books in the whole country

that could present a problem, and we're not even sure it's really going to young kids or to high school kids, right? And so instead, what they're doing is they're focusing on almost all books related to LGBTQ. folks because they're targeting them and then they started focusing on books that have African Americans for what reason that that doesn't that's not even related to anything we're discussing right and so it's super obvious that the Republicans have an agenda and the agenda is to drive hate but then don't give them their excuse so how do you resolve it then because Kennedy is actually believe it or not asking a legitimate question where the fair is shown in America we tell you what things really are not based on right wing, left wing, et cetera, okay?

So his question is, well, you're saying the librarians should decide. And the guy says, no, not just the librarians. Okay, then who? And he says, well, it can't be just rando parents. That's true. But he never, he asked all the witnesses and none of them gave him a clear answer. So here's my proposal for a clear answer. So the librarian decides, but if parents have a specific objection to a specific book,

Not, hey, I want to remove all the books that mention gay people. I want to remove all the books that talk about African American history, et cetera. You have a specific book like the one that he read? You bring it to the school board. That's how we decide things. Now, school boards have been a mess, but that's okay. Look, if you come in there and yell at them and go, oh, you guys, you're part of the gay agenda in the deep state.

That doesn't help at all. Okay, I mean, go ahead, do it. But you should be laughed out of the building. No, they run. Hold on. If you come in with a real book like this and say, hey guys, this is for our third graders, the rebuttable presumption should be that the librarian gets to make that decision. But you can, this is a legal standard, but you can rebut that

presumption. You can say, hey, here's the book. Third graders can access it. Can we please take it off? And then the school board can vote on that. Don't worry, it's not going to take up too much of their time because there's only three or four of these books in the whole country that are at issue. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I do see what you're saying. And in In regard to parents who want to get involved, they have been getting involved, and it goes much further than just showing up at school board meetings to yell at people. A lot of them have started running for the school boards and winning elections. Moms for Liberty, for instance, I believe they've won about 50% of the school board elections

that they have engaged in. And so, look, that's democracy. That's how democracy works. If you don't like the outcome of that as a more liberal parent, well, then you gotta get involved and you've got to have more of a say over what the school board decides in regard to your child's education. But I really like your idea. I think that that would be a good way to adjudicate this whole situation. The final thing I'll say about this entire debacle is I find it fascinating that most of the focus has been on preventing children from reading certain books

when in reality there's a huge problem in the country with a giant percentage of American students who don't even know how to read. a big problem. Our education is a mess right now. There are no hearings about that. There are no hearings about how few, every year the percentage of American students who have difficulty reading expands. Maybe take that issue seriously as well as we demagogue about book titles and things like that. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, I think moms for liberty are really harmful group. I don't agree with them on almost anything. But yeah, it's a democracy. They get to run for the school board, run against them, beat them.

And by the way, if it turns out they take their school board and then they start teaching wacky, crazy stuff to your kids, that sucks. And so it puts you in a super difficult spot, but we can't get rid of democracy. At the end of the day, that local community has to decide what do they stand for? And if they stand for bigotry against gay people, black people, etc. And it's just awful. And there's some outer limits to it. You cannot violate constitutional rights, okay? But having said that, we've got to get in there and fight the good fight. We can't just say, no, I'm not having a conversation about any books. No, they don't exist or no, they shouldn't be allowed to run for the school board. No, you've got to go in there and defeat them

with facts and persuade your community to do the right thing. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we're going to give you an update on what could be one of the largest worker strikes in the country having to do with the auto workers. Yes. And then after that, we'll also discuss a little bit of what the governor in New Mexico has done in regard to gun control. Some are saying that it's unconstitutional. You don't want to miss the details on that. That and more coming up. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad free. members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your

host jank huger and i'll see you soon