The Young Turks - House Of Danger

Episode Date: May 4, 2024

TYT's David Shuster heads to Columbia University to get the community's take on the campus unrest. Former Manhattan prosecutor corrects ""confused"" Trump on false claim about testifying: ""The gag order has nothing to do with that."" Schumer poised to join Johnson for the Netanyahu address to Congress." HOST: John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur), David Shuster (@DavidShuster) 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 ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Tuesday, July 1st, wherever you get your podcasts. Three-a-chee, three-light-true, primar-ee, primar-ee. Drop it. All right, live from the Polymarket Studio in L.A. It's the Young Turks, Jank Uger, John Irola, David Schuster. First power panel we're doing from the Polymarket studio. So great to have you guys here. John, of course, the host damage report, as a lot of you know.

doing an amazing job of turning his hair purple. We'll talk about that maybe a little bit later. David Schuster, of course, from Rebel Headquarters, and he does a lot of our fuel shoots for us, as you're about to find out in a second. And so, but make sure you're checking them out on RHQ. All right, good to see you guys. Wonderful to see you all and do the show together.

We do have some stories for you guys. That'll, you know, that'll give you a little, hopefully a little bit better context of the things that are happening. Also make your blood boil a little bit, like the Netanyahu congressional address, which we will get to a little bit later in the program. And then in the second hour, some fun stories, including Chinese folks deciding that they're going to dress badly on purpose as kind of an attack against the idea of working. It's a fascinating story. That's why I've always dressed so poorly, actually. John, I mean, you're a trend center.

It's on purpose. Yeah, China's all over the damage report. John can't buy a drink in Shenzhen. Would know how to. All right, anyways, let's get to the stories. David, take it away. Thank, let's start with Columbia University. A lot of all the protests across the country really started at Columbia University.

These are war protests against what Israel's been doing in Gaza. The Gaza war started by Hamas in October 7th. So we decided to go to talk to the students at Columbia University about what's been going on, both the protests and also the university crackdown, and just to sort of set this up, and I want to be perfectly clear. We interviewed about 25 members of the Columbia University community, faculty, students, staff, professors. We spoke with dozens of others off camera, and then there were, frankly, countless members of the community who did not want to talk to us at all. But to be clear, we did not actually manage to go on campus. Instead, we had to catch people at the one entrance that is open.

And that is at 116th in Amsterdam, for all of you we're familiar with, Morningside Heights. This is the one gate that police have essentially set up for people to go in and out. Here's some video here. Police are only allowing students and staff with IDs to go through. So journalists have to try and catch people going in and out. And when the activists want to speak to the media or when they want to relay what's that's being said on the bullhorns on the other side of that fence. They also have to come outside. And that frequently turns things into a big scrum, as you can see. In any case, from our

interviews and our reporting, there are a couple of clear things that have emerged about the protests and about the feelings on campus. And first of all, everybody we spoke with got the most animated, the most animated about the university crackdowns on free speech. By all accounts, the university's heavy-handed response turned what had been relatively quiet, peaceful, small, protests against the Gaza war into something far angrier and bigger. There were just a couple of students on the South Lawn, but, you know, once the police actually intervened, then students actually became mobilized. I think a lot of the more, I guess, like extreme violence stuff has been coming outside of campus and has been only a

minority. So when Fox News says like, oh, it's like a pro Hamas and catman, like I don't think that's That's true. I think you're blowing out of proportion. Faculty who disagree in many ways on the underlying issues of what's going on in Israel and Gaza, the politics of the protest itself, have just been really dismayed by the fact that there's been no consultation, no communication even from the administration about this, you know, massive escalation. So I am connected in the sense that I am half Palestinian, yes. And what do you make of what's been happening on campus? It's just very unfortunate, and it got some.

to a place that it shouldn't have got to like too fast, too much, it could have been completely avoided. A lot of people are talking about the student occupation of Hamilton Hall, the, which then there was windows that were smashed, and then the university said that police should come in and clear it, which they did in mass climbing through some of the windows. The students, every one of them that we spoke was said that all of this could have been avoided, had the university engaged in some dialogue and discussions, that there was no reason to have to escalate this in the way that the University did. But in any case, we found a lot of people who had different views of the war in Gaza, who were united in condemning the university administration for what they saw as a heavy-handed crackdown. The other theme that has been pretty clear, and that everybody we spoke with, students and faculty said that there have been incidents of religious hatred at these protests and on campus, but everybody said that these incidents have been isolated.

I think anti-Semitism is real. I do think it's on campus. I also think that mentioning Islamophobia doesn't negate that. To focus on one or two incidents of legitimate anti-Semitism and projecting it to the entire student movement would be a gross mischaracterization of what's going on here. Are you supportive of Hamas? I am not supportive of Hamas, no. Do you support Hamas?

I do not support Hamas, no at all. I know that there were figures on the left that support Hamas very blindly and very ignorantly. I did see like some Jewish students also getting hurt in the process. The concerns of people on all sides of this conflict are sincere. The concerns of the protesters are sincere. There's concerns of some Jewish students who said they were unsafe or sincere. But the way social movement works, if you crack down on it, it gets bigger.

And that's, that should have been anticipated. I find myself flip-flopping every day because I do want to protest the wrongdoings of Israel. do wonder why aren't why aren't people my age mobilized this way for you know the tons of other issues like like you know the the russia ukraine war or or abortion i was really hoping that like when when row was struck down that we would have like this big movement for taking back our bodily autonomy the concern about priorities came up a lot with a lot of different people but to be clear we did not find a single student faculty anybody that we spoke with who had anything but discussed for the massacre in October 7th and for the loss of innocent civilians in Gaza since then.

The divide seemed to be over essentially who was to blame. And to the credit of a lot of students, Jank and John, many of them said this was far too complex for some of them to talk about. Many students said that, look, we don't want to talk to you because we don't know enough about the issue in order to render an informed opinion. But everybody, everybody seemed to have an opinion about the university's crackdown, which by all accounts made things a lot worse and seem to intensify and essentially pour fuel on the fire. Jen? Yeah, so based on your reporting, David, based on folks I know are Columbia,

and I'm pretty sure I know what happened. And it's all confirmed by what you just said there. Look guys, there's, we have to break this down in a couple of different ways. Number one, whose perspective are we talking about? And then number two, what were the reactions and actions in the different stages? So number one, for students, were there Jewish students who were genuinely concerned about anti-semitz semi-campus? Yes, genuinely, okay? Were there Muslim students who were genuinely concerned about anti-Muslim comments?

Yes, definitely, okay? So those are all legitimate, genuine. So those are the students. Then you move to the faculty, and the faculty were basically livid that the administration did not check with them before. they sent the cops in because according to Columbia rules they must check with the faculty so it was a gross violation of what happened those rules were set up after 1968 because the faculty wanted a bigger say and hey are you cracking down on our students are you making this an unsafe place etc and the and the person

who leads Columbia did not check with them she checked with her donors that are the alumni and she decided that she was gonna crack down to try to save her own job that's my analysis and that's why she didn't bother checking with the The faculty, the faculty are definitely correct, no matter what the faculty would have said about the protests, right? And then the third factor is the factor that almost no one talks about. And I think is by far the most important, which is how the media and politicians reacted to what's happening.

Because let's say that there was, you can pick a number, two or three, seven, 12, 18, I don't mind whichever number it is. But from what it sounds like, it was at a bare minimum even in terms of idiots saying something against Jewish students and idiots saying things against Muslim students. So you could take those comments, let's say there was 10 of them, right? Ten's a big number, right? And you could say, look at these comments against the Muslim students. The Muslim students are under attack, they're under attack.

You have to arrest everyone on the pro-Israel side. Or you could say, the Jewish students are under attack, they're under attack. You have to arrest everyone on the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian side. And the media choked. Or you could say, hey man, stop it, a bunch of knuckleheads out there saying this or saying that. And by the way, that's the tactic I've taken my entire life. As a Muslim America, have I gotten racist, bigoted talk against me out in public in a hundred different ways? Yes, did I then go, that's it, I'm shutting that all protests, that disagree with me about anything because I'm under assault.

So you can tell my sense of it, my analysis of it is that the media and the politicians, to only focus on one side and take something that could be genuinely concerning to students, faculty, and the Columbia community overall, and decide, no, whether that was a mohill or whatever it was, we're gonna turn it into Mount Everest, and we're gonna do it for an agenda. So that's the part we could discuss. The agenda is shut down all protests of Israel. Enough with this crap, Israel's not gonna get protests in America. So we'll come back to that because that's opinion, okay? Now in terms of the different stages, again, here, when we get back to facts, rather than

analysis, again, there's no question on some of the facts. So number one, David's confirming here, the same thing exactly I heard, until the media came in and the president went to Congress and got yelled at, et cetera, and she ordered the cops in, campus was really calm. And in fact, when they started doing the arrest, people were. were shocked, they were like, what's, what, it's like, for us, what we see on TV is, oh, I saw a video here and I saw a video there, and it looks like mayhem and chaos and, oh, it's about time they crackdown. Not at all true. So they put bad video here, bad video there

outside of campus, maybe one and a couple inside, whatever it is. But there was no sense of mayhem at all, at all, perfectly common. In fact, if you went on an average day, you would be intensely bored at those protests. And all of a sudden, this giant crack down happens. The cops come in and now all of a sudden, we went from a normal set of people on college campus protesting an important issue to a giant national showdown. And then some people start coming in, et cetera. And then the third layer of it is when they went into Hamilton Hall. And that was an active decision. And that's one we could debate whether they should have gone in or shouldn't have gone in. And did that make it worse or did it not? And you could

say, hey, that one's on the protesters, going inside Hamilton Hall, that's a different level. Again, we could agree or disagree, but at least you understand that the protesters actually did take that action, and then we could discuss whether they were right or not. So before we go to John, putting aside my analysis about media and politicians driving this, David, do you think I got any of the facts wrong based on the people that you talk to? No, I think it's, I think that's essentially it. I mean, it was calm, it was peaceful. All of a sudden, students and faculty were outraged by the fact that police came in on, what,

April 18th and cleared out what had been a peaceful protest and things. All of a sudden, this protest that had been about the Gaza war morphed into an explanation. of protest about free speech. And Jack, you had people who admit that they were out there joining the protest, not because they don't know anything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And some of them don't want to know, but they felt like regardless of what I know or don't know, we have a right to protest anything on this campus. And the idea that the university would unilaterally make this decision without consulting experts,

their own experts. There are experts in the field, as you heard in that setup piece. There are people there who know that social movements intensified when you crack down on them. the university administration consult with the professors who are experts on social movements to say, hey, let's gain this out what's going to happen? No. And so people were so bewildered and so frustrated that the administration would make this decision such a heavy-handed way without communicating to staff, to faculty, or students. This protest essentially morphed from being a Gaza war protest to a free speech protest. Yeah, and there was one of the women that you

interviewed. I don't know if she was a student or staff or faculty, but she said sort of a similar thing, like how did they not see that this was going to happen if you crack down? And I think that's an interesting question. I don't think that we should assume that they didn't know, or that even in knowing that was able to be the thing that drives their action. And not every group, I think, has the same calculus. If you're talking about like the administration, the president, they've been brought before Congress, Congress who doesn't give a damn about any of this.

They want heads to roll because it makes them look better, they think. And so they put the fear of God into the president of Columbia. send her back, and she's terrified that she's going to lose her position, that she's going to have to resign like so many others are. So even if she's thinking that it might escalate the protest to crack down on them, what's the alternative? You do nothing, you're forced to resign, I guess. You have that sort of individual fear. And for Congress, like I'm talking about the Republicans specifically, Stefanik and Fox and Johnson and all that, they literally went there to, you know, stir things up.

They know that it's going to intensify things. They don't care because they think that chaos will make them look better. interested in the students, they're not interested in the, you know, concern over civilian lives or whatever. These are pieces on a chessboard that they're attempting to put in the position necessary for Donald Trump to win in November. And so I think there have been a lot of factors that influence these different protests. But when you have like Josh Hawley like talking about sending the National Guard in and you have senators flooding Fox News about crack down here, crack down there, are they all unaware of the fact that this is going to

make things worse or do they want to make things worse? No. No? Yeah, I think that's really interesting point. John, but my sense of it is, no, they're used to, the establishing gets whatever the hell it wants, okay? And if we're driving an agenda, we're driving the agenda, and they're not used to online media all these years, they still haven't gotten used to online media and how things are going to bubble up, et cetera. Because in the old days, what would have happened is exactly what's happened on cable news and mainstream media, but there would have been no other reporting, there would have been no young Turks, they would have been no David Schuster or Columbia, there would have been no

other viral videos showing pro-Israel protesters attacking the UCLA students, et cetera. And so they would have just told everybody, these are all dirty anti-Semites who are causing massive problems. And the Jewish kids were all in grave danger. And we had to shut down these Palestinian Muslim supporting pro-terrorists. And you've seen them do it a hundred times. We saw them do it in Iraq war. We see them doing it here. And you see it on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, comparing peace protesters that David just described. perfectly calm for the great majority of them, et cetera, as either pro-terrorists on Fox News or Nazis on CNN, right? So they are doing that. Yeah, and I would argue they want to be

able to do that. Here's the irony. You have Jewish students who told us that they were mad at Fox News and some of those on the right because they felt that the Jewish students were being used by the right, not because people on the right care about protecting Jews and protecting against anti-Semitism, but because they were using this in order to further a political goal. And the other part about this that I'll say is that one of the students spoke to us and said that there was an effort early on to have essentially a teach-in in the protest about anti-Semitism so that people could understand what is the language? Why are Jews sensitive to certain language? And one of the things that came out in one of these early teach-ins is that when protesters say,

we are protesting Netanyahu, we are protesting Netanyahu's military decisions, we are not protesting Israel, that's a distinction that Jews are like, yeah, most Jews don't like Netanyahu. Most Israelis don't like Netanyahu. And then you're moving it away from hatred of an entire country. Students were learning this sort of thing until the university came in and exacerbated things and turned this into such an inferno that all of these efforts to try to slowly help people understand with teachings and seminars and discussions, that went out the window. Yeah. So I want to build on what David's saying there, because there's the Netanyahu Israel distinction. Great distinction. Dick Cheney, for example, does not represent all Americans.

Yes, he was our vice president that controlled our policy, but that doesn't mean all Americans signed on to it. But there's a second distinction, too, which is between Israel and Jewish Americans or Jews at all, right? Just because something claims to be the Jewish state doesn't mean they represent everyone in that religion, right? Saudi Arabia claims to be a Muslim state. That doesn't mean they represent 1.6 billion Muslims, well, actually the great majority of whom are in Indonesia, India, and Pakistan. So, and you could love Jewish people, or just think that they're equal to everyone else as a rational thing to do, right? But say, I'm bothered by the government of Israel, whether they call themselves a Jewish state or not,

every government does things wrong. So in my opinion, it's totally, utterly absurd to say that if you criticize Israel, that means you don't like Jewish people. Well, does that mean any government just can say, oh, I declare myself a Buddhist government. That's it. You just can't criticize me at all. Otherwise, you're racist against Buddhists. So those are interesting, important distinctions. But they're lost in the number one factor in all of this, in my opinion, which is the media coverage. So if you took a couple of needles, two or, you know, again, pick a number, 12 against Muslims,

12 against Jews on Columbia campus, or 24 in this direction, 13 in that or whatever it is. And you took that needle and you made it a haystack. Well, the act of making it a haystack is the actual problem, right? So that's what a lot of people are talking past each other. Because when I talk about, for example, why is the media focusing on this? What's the actual agenda, et cetera? People think, oh, so you don't believe students who said this stuff? And I'm like, no, no, you guys are not getting it.

On the campus, it's completely different. They're having interesting conversations, or at least they were, having interesting conversations about, hey, what are the boundaries? What can people say? Does one person saying something or three people saying something represent the whole crowd? How do we make sure it doesn't represent? They're having really smart, interesting conversations at Columbia, UCLA, and all these campuses, 99% of which are perfectly peaceful.

But then, so when I talk about the agenda and narrative, who's driving it and why? That goes to John's question, right? First of all, there's nothing coordinated that's people who say that don't understand how the world works. Everybody just drives in their own self-interest and usually with no brakes in the car at all. So at least Stefanik, for example, her agenda is get famous, get publicity, get donations from being wildly unfair. It doesn't matter, okay? There isn't anything that any of those college presidents could have done that would have satiated at least Stefanik. So she's a bad faith actor and multiply that by about a minimum 300 people in Congress.

So Congress is driving in a super bad faith direction and everybody gets that. And then at Columbia, you have alumni like Robert Kraft as an example. And you can have alumni from a lot of different places, different backgrounds, different agendas, even within the same background. You think all Muslim alumni agree on all the issues at Columbia or even this issue? No way, right? There's a giant range of people. But a guy like Robert Kraft, he thinks, I don't want these protests. He said that publicly, that's why I'm using him as an example.

Now, is he genuine that he's really worried about Jewish students? Maybe, maybe he really might be, okay? And or could it be that he thinks protesting Israel? And by the way, it might be not just, hey, protesting Israel's out of balance. He might think protesting Israel is anti-Semitic. A lot of older folks do think that. And they think, I'm not allowing it. I'm not allowing anti-semitism, so I'm going to stop all my donations.

The minute he says he's stopping all his donations, everybody's going to freak out. That's just the real world of the administrators and what they care about. So this whole thing got enormously perverted by all of these. But I have one last thing for David here. Sure. Were there any pro-Israel protesters there or no? There were pro-Israel protesters. There's in fact, we spoke to a guy who, he was mad.

He said, you know, people should remember how this started October 7th. And I said, okay, but what about, isn't it possible to both condemn what happened on October 7th and be angry as most Jews and most Israelis are about the Netanyahu response and to feel that that has been excessive? And he very quickly pivoted and said, of course, I believe that there should be no civilians killed. No innocence should die. And so the commonality that we sort of found, even from pro-Israel protesters and, you know, people who were Jewish who had some concerns is they said, we hate, it's embarrassing to us. It's horrifying to us that isn't Palestinians are being killed. We just want to know is there going to be some equity and the same sort of standards held for Israel and held for other situations. And oh, by the way, it's not helped, of course, by people who are ignorant about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we're suddenly, you know, taking up sides across the spectrum. So, but yes, There were pro-Israel supporters. I asked them specifically, Jenk, about what had happened in Los Angeles, where supposedly a Jewish student got knocked unconscious. And then 200 pro-Israel supporters or pro-Netaniahu supporters, whatever you want to say, then rushed into the Palestinian compound and started ripping it apart and throwing punches. He hated that. He said, that was unacceptable. And he aligned himself with the Jewish, I believe, a Hillel president at UCLA, who quickly condemned that and said, that doesn't represent Jewish values. Most of the people, Jack, whether you're supporting the Israeli war and the right to start.

hit back Hamas or you're more horrified by what's happening in the humanitarian disaster. Everybody, the commonality seems to be innocent people being killed is wrong. It's disturbing, it's horrifying. And there should be a way that we can all talk about that and accept the complexities and nuances of the discussion. But media, as you know, mainstream media does not do nuances and complexities. Everything is down to bumper stickers, which is why people get misled. Yeah, and I just want to clarify it real quick. that Jewish girl being knocked unconscious, it never got verified. It was the video starts after she's already fallen down.

I looked and looked for mainstream media articles that, you know, clarified in either direction and they didn't. But that's exactly the point. Somebody puts out a video that is not confirmed, nobody knows what actually happened. And then people genuinely get worried, right? And then they show up to protect people, right? And then we've got a bigger mess. And what's driving all of this? It's the media coverage rather than the actual events because people get so mad based on what they think is happening.

But the bottom one, or they get so afraid as the University President Columbia did based on false media coverage. She's not out there on the yard looking to see what's actually going on. She's getting reports and she's getting tremendous pressure from alumni. So yes, I think you're spot on. The media and the social media role that we live in now where you can literally find any sort of clips or snippets to validate and confirm whatever sort of bias you. have and whatever predisposition you have, that is exacerbating things. And as a result, it's putting incredible pressure on university leaders right now who feel like, well, you know, the media is telling me this has happened.

I can believe the media or I can believe my students. What do I do? Well, in the case of Hamilton Hall, the escape hatch for the university president was to say, they're outside agitators who are storming Hamilton Hall. That's why we're going to crack down. Well, no, the students say, no, these were not outside agitators. These were students who are really angry, but the university president is looking for an out, even with her own community. Yeah, and clarification on that, NBC News reported there was only one outside agitator in Hamilton Hall that was among their arrests. And the bottom line is, no matter, you know, what you think of what the students did at any of these colleges, and I don't know how anybody would know what all of the students at all of these colleges did, the bottom line result is every protest against Israel on college campuses have now been shut down and the people who were doing the protesting have been arrested.

So I'll end on my opinion on that, which is it is outrageous. It is 100% against freedom of speech. And now, you know, if you go and protest against Israel, because of the media and political demagoguery, you're probably going to get called names, as you're going to see later in the program, they're saying that they're now scanning the faces of the people who went to protest. People like Kevin O'Leary are saying, you're never going to get hired in this town again. So is there massive suppression of protest against Israel?

Yes, definitely. Whether you think it's legitimate or not legitimate, you can decide that for yourself, but you just got the facts on what's actually happening on the ground. All right, we gotta take a break here, we'll be right back. Fire-resistant clothing is Canadian-made. It's battle-tested. In oil and gas, mining, welding, you name it. And now, we're closing our doors.

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All right, back on TYT, Jank, John David, with you guys. Also Cassidy Miller Halloran, Cassidy, thanks for joining, we appreciate it. They hit the join button below, and Anna's Tommy Gown, gift to the membership. You guys are awesome. John. Okay, let's start off with this. When do you think you have to testify? Well, I'm not allowed to testify.

I guess, right? That was Donald Trump yesterday saying incorrectly that he can't testify in his hushmoney trial in New York because he's under a gag order. He checked with his lawyer who told him the wrong information, perhaps a pattern there. And Donald Trump didn't just say it there in that little impromptu press conference. He said it over and over and over again. In interviews and rallies, he kept saying it. Now, it's not true, it's been debunked, as we will show you. Even Donald Donald Trump later went on to debunk that, but he was very convinced of it in the morning. So let's start off with CNN's David Dale, who often does fact checks of Donald Trump.

Here he is talking about what the gag order actually stops and what it does not stop in terms of Donald Trump's speech. This false claim, this lie is part of a pattern of former President Trump grossly exaggerating what the gag order actually says. He said at a campaign rally yesterday that because of the gag order, he shouldn't even be talking to you. his audience. The gag order does nothing to prevent him from speaking to political audiences, from delivering social media posts about politics and policy, from speaking to the media. It does not prevent him from attacking the judge, the district attorney prosecuting this case, President Biden, his political opponents. It is narrowly restricted. It is tailored to three specific kinds of speech. He cannot talk about jurors in this case. He cannot talk about a reasonably

foreseeable witnesses in this case with the specific intention of interfering with their participation in the case and he can't talk about court staff or their families junior prosecutors or their families and so on so this claim that the gag order means he can't testify it just conjured out of thin air it is totally inaccurate and eventually I guess he came to understand that because he said this enough to testify. The gag order stops me from talking about people and responding when they say things about me. We have people saying things about me and I'm not allowed to respond. It's basically like a Ghal thing. Like I don't know which brain is driving the body in any given

time, but he landed on the correct position, which was that it does not stop him from testifying. But he sure did seem to like the idea that it would stop him. And I think that a lot of people could kind of come up with a possible explanation as to why. Bear in mind that before the trial started, he stated, I'm testifying. And then last week he said, if it's necessary. And then this week, he said, that thing that doesn't stop me from testifying is going to stop me from testifying. It almost seems like he doesn't actually want to testify. And then it's a lot easier to be bold and say you will.

It's harder to actually do it. And if this seems like a pattern for Donald Trump, I think that it kind of is. is he previously said that he would testify before the January 6th committee's inquiry, the E. Jean Carroll rape trial, the New York City fraud trial, and in none of those cases did he actually testify. And in the same way, he loves to talk about how much he loves to debate and how great of a debater he is. And he went this entire Republican primary without doing that. And there's no guarantee that he's even going to debate Donald Joe Biden. And so this guy seems like he does not have much confidence in his ability to communicate.

That is my theory, that this is why he was pretending the gag order would block him. Now, this morning on the damage report, Brett Ehrlich had a different theory. He thought that Donald Trump honestly thought that it blocked him. And he thought that he thought that because his lawyers had told him that, hoping that he wouldn't testify. I think that both are interesting theories. But, Jank, what do you make of all this? Yeah.

So I think that he says both things. As a lot of politicians, they usually just do it more subtly than Donald Trump just. did and often does, because he wants his followers to be able to pick from either. So right now if you go on social media, as I have, you'll see tons and tons of MAGA people saying that, oh, yeah, he can't testify because of the gag order. Oh, you guys are being so unfair. Unfair. When he gets on the court, he on the witness stand, he can't say on the advice of counsel, blah, blah, blah. Okay, even Donald Trump has said that is not true, but he gave them an opportunity to say,

oh, he said it, so it must be true, right? But then for the people who know he's lying that are MAGA, they get to say, oh, no, no, no, he said later that he could testify. You guys are being unfair to him. You see that? So either way, he's covered. Yeah. But what you need to execute that is a cult that's going to cover for you when you say

two contradictory things at the same time. Because most rational people would go, yeah, you can't have it both ways. You can't say both of those things at the same time. But if you're talking to irrational people, they're like, yes, I want to hear this one. Another one goes, I want to hear that one. And they just pick and choose. And look, to be fair to Trump, your sophisticated way of doing that was Barack Obama. He would always tell you what you wanted to hear.

And he would say it in such clever, well-crafted language that you would think he's really on your side. Best example was that after the Egyptian Revolution, he gave a speech about how Hosni Mubarak was a valued ally of the United States for decades and we appreciate him. And the revolution against him inspires him because what a wonderful democratic impulse from the young. And if you weren't paying close attention since he didn't say those two things right next to one another, you would have thought, God bless Mubarak, who's helping this.

revolution against them. Okay, so that's what politicians do. Now, in terms of the actual case here, Trump has said a thousand times that he was going to testify, not just in this case, in almost every case. So Maggi guys, okay, pick and choose, but really? Like, every time he says he's got all the evidence in the world and he's going to go prove it himself because he's the biggest, toughest, baddest guy there is. And literally every single time he backs out.

He goes, I was going to testify. I was going to testify. But you see, what had happened was, the dog ate my homework, I crap my pants, I fell asleep. Next to you know, even though I'm such a hero and I have all the evidence, I don't want to share any of it. And oh, golly, gee, did I lose? Everything is rigged against me. Brother, nothing's rigged against you. Get on the goddamn stand.

Maga, isn't there any of you who like actually want a tough guy? Not a fake, pudding soft orange marshmallow guy who actually does, like for not in this case, but in the cases where the whole issue whether the election was stolen or not is the main event. Don't you want him to get up there and show the cracking and the mules? He can ride in on one of those 2,000 mules and prove his case. But he's not going to because he's guilty. Come on, guys. How could you not see that?

You'd have to be the blindest person of the world not to see that. And then finally, just a bit of context here. Donald Trump has been involved in 4,000 cases throughout his lifetime. And he brings the great majority of them. So now he's complaining like, can you believe they're using the legal system as law fair? It's again projection. That's what Donald Trump has been doing his whole life. He sues people to intimidate them and to either give him a settlement number

or to get them to back down from doing something. But when they don't, when they call his bluff, almost all the time right before he's about to be deposed, he pulls out of the case. Because he's always bluffing. He never has any evidence. He was using it as lawfare against his opponents. So now for the first time in his life,

this spoiled little brat is being held accountable. And he's crying every day. And unfortunately, Maga, who, which could have been an interesting populist movement, a lot of them are crying along with him, like, oh my God, we're the special victims. I mean, Donald Trump has only sued people thousands of times. I can't believe anybody's using the law against him. Come on, guys, he's never going to testify because he's an obvious, gargantuan liar. Everyone knows, if you don't acknowledge that, you look super silly.

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. I think of it. Yeah, look, I agree with most of what Jenks said, and that is, I think Donald Trump has actually not made up his mind yet about whether he's going to testify. I think he wants to sort of ride this out and see how the trial goes, and then maybe wake up on the day when he's got the opportunity to testify and decide, no, I don't want to do this or he wants to do it. But he's mudding the waters now. He's essentially creating a cover so that if he does decide, based on his lawyer's advice, that would be really stupid to testify, at least now he's planted the seed in his supporter's mind.

And he can then go back and say, see, I was not allowed to testify because of the gag order. Even though he's already contradicted that, even though that's total nonsense, but he has planted this in the MAGO world minds. And there are enough maniacs out there in that world who don't know anything about criminal procedure unless they've actually been charged with the crime themselves. And maybe there's a sufficient number of those. But for everybody else, they don't understand how trials work. They don't understand how criminal litigation works. But they believe everything Donald Trump says. So look for a couple weeks down the road if Donald Trump decides not.

not to testify a few days later to say they would not give me an opportunity to testify because of the gag order. And it's confusing enough to his supporters that several of them will believe it and mission accomplished for Donald Trump. Well, and I think related to that, what he'll get out of doing that is they love to say we didn't get a chance to make our case. They use that in every one of these. They never got the chance. They could have taken the chance, but they didn't. And they love that. I think there's zero chance that he will testify. And I I think that that's too bad. I think I would love to see him testify because, you know, you grew up watching movies

like a few good men where there's like this like great lawyer, has someone on the stand and breaks them down and they just confess, they just blurt out what they did. And it's not realistic, that never happens. But I think with Trump it could, I feel like he's the sort of person that you could get him to confess to horrible things on the stand. Oh, there's no question. Oh my God, if I got to cross-examine Trump or debate Trump, they'll- he would admit almost everything.

It's so easy to get him to do it. Guys, again, Matt, look, I know there's a popular swing of MAGA. Sometimes I talk to them in a blind hope that they'll listen, right? But guys, if his lawyers always tell him don't testify, there could be other reasons, but the number one reason why they tell him not to testify is because he's guilty. So when they say, hey, you said that this was for this business transaction was for this reason. But look at all the mountain of evidence that shows that it was actually for the hush money, right? What's he going to say?

Yeah. He's going to, like he has no answer with that because he actually did do it, right? So the only thing you could do is either accidentally admit it or come up with a preposterous lie. Yeah. In which case he not only loses credibility with the jury, but opens himself up to further perjury charges. Yeah. And let's also bear in mind. There's the evidence he could potentially reveal what he could potentially admit to. And there's also just the likelihood that he would make himself look terrible in front of the jury.

Like he would make himself look vindictive and hateful and spiteful. He would call Stormy Daniel's horse face on the stand. Like he could do a lot of damage without even admitting to anything. I just want to briefly talk about one other aspect of the story before we move on. The big witness today was Hope Hicks, a name that you're probably familiar with. She worked closely with Donald Trump as part of his administration. four years until eventually she fell out of his good graces. He's been angry with her since way back in 2022 when text messages emerged during a house

investigation into what happened after he lost the 2020 election. She apparently was critical of him after the January 6th insurrection and they haven't spoken since. Now, she was questioned and in part she was questioned about the Access Hollywood tape. And it's considered to be important for the case of the prosecution, because they say that basically, everything that he was attempting to do to restrain certain information from getting out before the election is sort of a part of this, that when the tape came out, it spooked his campaign. And as a result of that, they became much more aggressive in using people from the Trump organization, including Michael Cohen, to quash stories, including Stormy Daniel. So it's an important contextual part of setting up what happened in this case. And throughout the day, she said a lot, and some of it was kind of helps the prosecution.

A lot of people think that, but it was a bit of a mixed bag. And I want to present two of the big takeaways, and then we'll see who we think was benefited more by Hope Hicks' testimony. So she testified, as prosecutors expected, about the effect that that tape being released had on the campaign, noting that Trump was a micromanager who closely supervised everything around him. And she acknowledged that it seemed unbelievable that Cohen would pay hush money to store me Daniels entirely of his own accord. So that seems helpful to the prosecution. On the other hand, let's see, as Matthew Colangelo,

the prosecutor asked about Trump's reaction to the Wall Street Journal article, Hicks said this. He was concerned about how it would be viewed by his wife. This is something the defense touched upon in his opening statement when it sought to portray Trump as a family man. It provides an alternative motive for covering up damaging information, a believable one that is unrelated to his electoral chances, basically saying that they weren't killing these stories to help him win the

election. They were killing the stories so that Malani wouldn't find out about the things that he was accused of having done. And in addition, she suggested that Cohen could have been acting on his own, not on behalf of Trump. So the lawyer Emil Bov asked about Cohen's role saying he went rogue at times, fair to say, and Hicks agreed that that was the case. And she also said that she found it unbelievable that he would have gone rogue in this particular area. But maybe the defense being able to get her to admit that sometimes he went rogue about some things could stick in the minds of some of the jurors. And so a little bit good for the prosecution, a little bit good for the defense. What do you make of it?

Yeah. So did he pay the hush money unquestionable? Did he, did he doctor the records to pretend that he was paying for something else? unquestionable. And they've got a mountain of evidence in that regard. His best hope is what John is mentioning here, which is, well, yes, we did all of that, but it wasn't for the campaign. It was because I didn't want my wife to find out. Now, I tell you when Donald Trump says things that are totally implausible, that was not implausible. Like, I don't believe it at all, but I can see how some jurors could believe that, right? That's not out of this

world. So that's his best hope. And even then, it doesn't really go towards falsifying the records. Yeah. Which is the actual charge here. Because remember the campaign finance violations, the statute of limitations ran out on those. So they're doing this, at least the federal ones. They're doing this on falsifying the business records, which he did. But it's possible that some jurors might think, yeah, but he did it to protect his wife. And so I'm going to just look past the fact that he falsified the business records. That's his best hope. Do I think, would I vote that way based on what I know and I'm not on the jury on publicly available information? No, I think he's definitely guilty. He definitely did it for the campaign. David

Pecker explained that. Michael Cohen explained that. Whole Picks is still, you know, connected to the Trump world. So she's going to want to help him in some ways. And that's the best way that she could help him. David, what do you think? I'm a little more conspiratorial about all this. I wonder if Donald Trump actually did not care at all about Melania, but there's Hope Hicks who, by all accounts, is pretty sophisticated in terms of communications with the Trump organization for several years. And I wonder if Hope Hicks decided, okay, I'm going to give this story out there that I know might give some boost, some help to Donald Trump by portraying him as a guy who really loved Melania, who cared about it. And that's true or not, this is the one

thing I can say in the witness stand that might provide something of a Hail Mary of hope for Donald Trump and maybe the defense then picks up the ball or echoes that throughout the rest of the trial and is able to somehow introduce more evidence that Donald Trump really did care about Melania. Therefore, this wasn't about the election, this was about her, even though I don't believe that. And I'm not even so sure that Donald Trump necessarily said to Ho-Pix or anybody else, he cares about Melania. But I think that's the agreed upon defense strategy from some of the witnesses were torn because

they have to testify, but they don't want to be the nail in the coffin for Donald Trump. All right. We've got to take a quick break here. We'll be right back. I love ravioli. Oh, Tanta fami. Since when do you speak Italian? Since we partnered with SAP concur. Their integrated travel and expense platform and breakthrough solutions with AI gave me time back to dive into our financial future. We expand into Europe in 2027, so I'm getting ready. Well, you can predict the future? I can predict you'll like that message.

What message? Oh, hey, we all got bonuses. You can save for college now. I don't have kids. Hmm, you don't say. SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn more at Concur.com. All right, back on T.YT.Jank, John and David, with you guys.

And also Christopher Gothberg. He just hit the join button below. We appreciate you guys. You could also upgrade through that button as Johnny Mac just did. So Chris, thank you for making this show possible. All the members, you make this show possible. Industries almost fallen into the ocean completely. So we're hanging on, and that's because of you guys.

If you can, either become a member or t.com slash team to either contribute or become a member through the website. And for all of you who are wonderfully generous on Super Chat, I'm going to read those later in the program. So stay right here. John. Yes. Why don't we end the first hour with a nice, light, fun story. Yesterday, the Hill reported that Senator Chuck Schumer is actually going to co-sign Speaker Mike Johnson's invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress at some point in the near future, which does mark a big turnaround for Chuck Schumer, who previously, beyond just not wanting him necessarily to come and speak, had actually called for new elections to potentially replace Netanyahu as the the leader of Israel. And here is what he had to say at that point. The fourth major obstacle to peace is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has all too frequently bowed to the demands of extremists, like minister Smotrick

and Ben-Gavir, and the settlers in the West Bank, at this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel. So we don't necessarily know exactly what he thinks about what Netanyahu's domestic political future should be, but he now is willing to allow him to come and potentially influence our domestic politics. And look, if you dig into their statements, Chuck Schumer, Mike Johnson, obviously do not see eye to eye on every aspect of what's going on in the Middle East right now. But there is actually one thing in common that has been known to have an influence

over politicians in the past. According to Open Secrets, Chuck Schumer has received at least $1.7 million from donors classified as being pro-Israel, making him actually their highest recipient of that sort of money in the Senate. And the Political Action Committee APAC actually donated a total of $104,000 to Mike Johnson last year,

with the majority of those payments coming since the start of the Gaza War and after Johnson was elected House Speaker in late October. And obviously had far more influence at that at that point, that is four times the amount that was donated to his entire last congressional campaign when at that point they were still his top donor, they're just giving far more money now, now that he has much more influence over what actually happens in Congress. That said, we don't know what the timeline for this will be.

He might end up not coming at all, but it certainly seems far more likely at this point, Jake. Yeah, so I think this is gonna set up one of the most disgusting things. things I've ever seen in my life in Congress. I think Benjamin Netanyahu's an obvious war criminal and our Congress is going to treat him like he's a conquering hero. They're going to give him standing ovation after standing ovation. They're, it's our Congress is deeply humiliating to the country, in my opinion. So look, I'll give you a couple of data points on why I think that and then I'll come back to Schumer. Netanyahu last spoke in front of a joint session of Congress in 2015. Do you know how many standing ovations he got? 22, 22 standing ovations. So

they'll do that again. He's spoken 2011 too. I'll get to that in a second. But here's another fun fact. 10 minutes and 55 seconds of the 40 minutes and 30 seconds of Netanyahu's speech consisted of applause. In other words, 27% was Congress applauding and doing standing ovations. So this This is kind of the fawning, fanboying that $100 million of APC money buys you. So the, and here, let's take a look at what happened in 2015. I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the Prime Minister of Israel, his excellency, Benjamin Netanyahu. Now that's not the Knesset, that's the U.S. Congress. By the way, the Knesset is much harder on him than the U.S. Congress is.

The prime minister also spoke before Congress in 2011 when he receives 29 standing ovations. And in 1996, as you probably heard yesterday on the show, the House voted 320 to 91 with 70 Democrats and 21 Republicans voting against the bill on the anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which is so broad that it basically makes criticism of Israel illegal. And there are good guys who are against the critic of the new legislation, including Representative Jerry Nadler of New York, says the bill sweeps too broadly and would chill constitutionally protect a free speech, including legitimate criticism of Israel. We appreciate Congressman Nadler for saying that. Bernie Sanders and others are against it. But basically when you take all of this into account, even Schumer, who started out by pretending to be a tough guy against that,

Yahoo, is now saying, please, please come and tell us how wonderful your slaughter in Gaza is going. And we will all serve you. You need all protests shut down in America against Israel? Boom, they're all shut down. You want the people that were doing it that were in favor of peace arrested? Boom, they're all arrested. You could say, oh, no, it's not because of APAC or this and that other thing. And by the way, it's complicated.

It's not just because of AIPAC. There's a lot of different factors. But all the anti-Israel protests all shut down in the country. Do you want criticism of Israel to be made illegal? No problem. We're here to do that. They just gave Israel $17 billion. Biden had already funneled $2 to $3 billion around Congress.

So now here's $20 billion. And now on top of everything else, please come and we'll all show the whole world, how we, how we think you're Taylor Swift, you're the greatest thing on earth, and we'll give you standing ovation after standing ovation, and maybe they'll give enough standing ovation, maybe they'll give one for each Palestinian murdered in Gaza. So these people absolutely positively disgust me, it disgusts me that Netanyahu is going to come to our Congress, it disgust me that they're going to kiss his ass, which they would, and They would never be unified for an American president like that.

But a guy who's doing ethnic cleansing as we speak, and they will almost all, at least 300 of them. There's brave people like Bernie, the just Democrats, et cetera, that are not in that camp. But the overwhelming majority of Congress will treat him like he's the biggest rock star in the world as he's in the middle of committing a genocide, in my opinion. David, what do you think? A couple of things. I actually feel that this has to do with some domestic politics for Schumer. I don't think he's changed his mind about wanting Netanyahu out of Israel and not to be prime minister anymore. I think Schumer is terrified though of what the Democrats are feeling, especially given what's been happening in college campuses. And so I think for Schumer, he's not going to give high fives Netanyahu.

I think that now he was going to be invited anyway. I think this is Schumer's way of saying, okay, the one thing that I could possibly do to help Jews and Israelis, And he knows most of them do not like Netanyahu. Most of them cheered when Schumer said he should not be the prime minister of Israel. But if Schumer can make this war, make the killing, make all those strategic mistakes that Israel's made, and I put that around the neck of Netanyahu and separate Netanyahu from the people of Israel. Schumer will be doing Jews of favor, he'll be doing Israelis a favor, he'll be doing the world of favor because he'll be saying this isn't about Israel, this is about this crazy maniac prime minister

who's doing things we all hate. Make Netanyahu, Netanyahu take ownership for everything that is going on in this war. Make it about Netanyahu. And to the extent that having Netanyahu come to the Congress, as disgusting as it will be. And I agree. I wish Netanyahu was not coming to the U.S. Congress. I wish they would never give him this invitation. But the upside is that Schumer can essentially bifurcate Netanyahu from the rest of Israel. And I think most Jews and Israelis will be sophisticated enough to say, okay, yeah, let's hoist Netanyahu on his own a lot of people will be disgusted by the lap dogs, especially Republicans and how they'll react to Netanyahu. And I think that will actually help Democrats. But David, so two things

about it. So I agree with you on a couple of fronts. This is not about the Israeli prime minister coming and speaking. There's nothing if Yitzhak Rabin comes in, you know, back in the day, of course, before he was assassinated by a terrorist. He came in to speak and talk about the peace of courts they were working on. Beautiful. Great. No problem. Right. Other leaders come in and speak too, Zelensky speaks, et cetera, no problem, okay? Netanyahu, deeply problematic. Now, having said, and you're totally right, if they just isolate Netanyahu and they get rid of them, but and stop the war, and I would argue and stop the occupation, but that

one's more optional on whether I like it or not, then yes, that that is, that would be greatly advantageous to Israel, to Jewish Americans, to Jews across the world, et cetera. So everything you said is totally right. But the problem is that's exactly the direction of Schumer was going. That's why I gave him a lot of credit for that. But how do you interpret this as anything but reversing directions and going, my bad, we bow to you? I think he's terrified five months before November of many Jews being very concerned about what's happening in Israel and what's happening in college campuses. And Schumer's like, okay, I can't go full.

I can't just cede the Jewish vote to Republicans. I need to make sure that Democrats know that I may not like Netanyahu. And there are two ways that he can influence Netanyahu. He can either continue to try to firebom Netanyahu and criticize him and say he should not be prime minister. Or Schumer can engage with the Netanyahu and say, look, I am doing my best as the leader, the majority leader of the Senate to try to influence him from the inside. I'm trying to get him to pull back. He can't do that if he's not on the invitation. He can do it if he says, I invited him because I wanted to give him an earful.

And I guarantee Schumer's going to make that clear. He's going to say it. And just those words, I am here to tell Nettonihoho. what's going on wrong and to make sure that he knows he's responsible for what's going on in the Middle East. I believe you 100% that that's the logic that they would use. But I don't believe that that's what's going to happen. Like he could pretend that he gave him an ear full, etc. But the optics of it is going to be Congress giving him Netanyahu standing ovation after standing ovation after standing ovation. And it is going to look terrible. And I don't think that it's

about Jewish voters. I think they're way more concerned about Arab voters in Michigan. I think, I mean, look, the donor money is overwhelming. Overwhelming. So it's Schumer is the current number one record holder for APAC money in the Senate. But historically, the number one record holder is U.S. Senate history is Joe Biden. He took three times as much money from APEC, as Schumer did just while he was in the Senate, he's now at about 10 times of Schumer money overall. So all of those guys, they're about to get $100 million from APEC. So my sense is, and you know, obviously you hear from these guys, they have different varied opinions. My opinion is that him getting invited there and is not some sort of trick.

No, it's the kiss his ass and they will almost all do it and it's about 98% because of the money. All right. So you get the range of opinions. You guys decide on your own. Look, Jake, I agree with you in part there. I do think, look, the AIPAC money, the APAC influence is part of this. But again, I think there's something about, look, the train was leaving the station. Republicans are inviting Nathaniel to Washington, whether Schumer likes it or not. and he may be disgusted by it. And so I think this is, I think this is him essentially conceding. Netanyahu's coming.

I have no choice. I need to fulfill my role, a Senate majority leader, engage with a foreign leader, and then make it clear to my supporters and to Democrats, I'm not happy with what Netanyahu has done. And I'm going to make sure that he knows that. All right, sounds good. All right, everybody check out David on Rebel headquarters. Check out John on Damage Report, turn his hair purple.

It'll be fun for everybody. Much love, guys. Have a good weekend. And then when you all return, we got Jordan Yule for you guys. We got Wazni Lombray, and we're going to have a really interesting second hour. So come right back.