The Young Turks - Jamal Khashoggi UPDATE And Republicans Respond To Alleged Royal Saudi Plot

Episode Date: October 12, 2018

Jamal Khashoggi's potential murder will not sway Trump from Saudi Arabia's lucrative military deal. Lindsey Graham and other Republicans react to the possibility Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated on orders from the Prince of Saudi Arabia. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS  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. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now.

I get a free Tilly Dog. Chilly Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. All right, well, Casper's back. How are you doing, Casper? Hey, good. How are you guys?

Rock and roll, sister. I love that answer. How are you guys? Rock and roll. So, Brad Ehrlich's my new bud on the post games. We've done like 18 in a row. I think we're gonna do another one today. I don't know.

So, he's my, in my kid's school, there's big buddies and little buddies. And Joy gets super excited when her big buddies coming in from fifth grade. Oh, okay. So Brett's become my buddy. Anyways, okay, we get a hell of a show today. We got crazy Saudi Arabia story. We got a crazy Israel story. We have a crazy Ted Cruz story broken by.

Oh, not a big deal, TYT. Okay, so you're going to love that. Melania feels maligned. There's something there. There's hashtag malignoid. Look, Melania in my view has been off limits, you know, as first lady. She didn't want any of this. She got dragged into it.

And I hate watching people criticize her for ridiculous things. But today is the day. She's going to get it. She's going to get it. All right, we'll look at it. It's justified criticism. Yeah, look. Who did she think she was?

She married Donald Trump. Okay, anyways, later a little bit later. Okay, speaking of Trump, if you think we're not going to talk about Kanye, you're very wrong. Okay, so, but here's the drama involved in that. I've changed my mind on Kanye. What is? Okay. So I don't know anybody who's more critical of Kanye West than me.

I ranked him as one of the most unintelligent people in America. After an incredible, ridiculous performance in the Oval Office, I have actually totally changed my mind. I'm the only one going the opposite direction as everyone else. But I'll explain why, and I think it's really important. We got a lot of clips from Kanye, and it's, I think, super relevant to the state of the country that that Oval Office meeting happened, okay? So we'll get to that a little bit later in the program.

Obviously, if you remember, do you get the whole show? Do you get it commercial free? Uh-huh, t-y-t.com slash join. All right, let's go to the Saudis. Go. All right. A Saudi journalist and also a Saudi dissident, his name is Jamal Khashoggi has gone missing after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Now, as I mentioned, he had decided to leave Saudi Arabia after he criticized the Saudi royals. And apparently when he went to this consulate in Istanbul, he went specifically to get a document in order to marry his Turkish fiancé, and he's been missing since. Now, British investigators argue that he is dead. However, the Saudi government is arguing that no, that is not the case. The Turkish investigators have concluded that he's dead. The Saudi government maintains that he left the consulate on October 2nd and is not in their custody. Now, the Saudis have not provided any evidence of that, and so far, surveillance from the consulate does not show him leaving after he had gone there to get the documents he needed to marry

his fiancee. Now, Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, has been living in self-imposed exile in the United States since last year. He visited the Saudi consulate and Istanbul to collect a document. that would allow him to marry his Turkish fiancée, but was told that he would have to return. So he actually left, went to a conference in London, and then returned to the consulate at the time that was specified. Now, this is where things start to get very strange and incredibly devastating if you're to believe what the Turkish investigation has found. So a senior Turkish official said that within two hours of his arrival, Mr. Khashoggi was killed.

by a team of Saudi agents who dismembered his body with a bone saw. They brought for that very purpose. And there were chartered flights that contained Saudi officials, as many as 15 Saudi officials that came from Saudi Arabia to this Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Fifteen Saudi agents had arrived on two charter flights last Tuesday, the day that Mr. Khashoggi disappeared. And this is according to the Turkish official who did speak to the person. press on the condition of anonymity.

All 15 left just a few hours later, and Turkey has now identified the roles that most or all of them held in the Saudi government or security services. One was an autopsy expert, presumably there to help dismember the body. Now, I want to be clear about something. There are conflicts in the various accounts and stories coming forward. This is what we're hearing from the Turkish side of the story. we have no proof or evidence at the moment. But with that said, from what I gather in this story, what the investigators are telling

us seems to make the most sense. All right, well, look, so here's some important context. We shared some of it with you yesterday. But first of all, the Turkish government is having issues with the Saudi government. That should be noted as very important context. They're more on the side of Qatar and Qatar and has been beefing, if you will, with Saudi Arabia and UAE. So there's some diplomatic bad feelings there.

If there weren't, I don't know the Turkish government would be this vigilant in following up with this crime and showing you all the gory details if that is true. But secondly, the American government, with the notable exception of Donald Trump, which we'll get to in a second, has been fairly outraged by this. Now, the American government is allied with Saudi Arabia. And so if they're outraged by it, well, there's a pretty good chance that they think that the Saudis did it, okay? And that would be very, very relevant.

So for me, what kind of swayed me on the side of believing what the Turkish investigators have found is what we've seen through U.S. intelligence intercepts, right? So I want to give you the information on that real quick. Let's go to Graphics 7. So according to the Washington Post, U.S. intelligence intercepts obtained by the post showed the operation was ordered by the Saudi Arabian crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Now, the Crown Prince has had issues with this journalist because this journalist has been highly critical of him, which is why he was living in the United States due to his own self-imposed exile. And so if these intercepts say what the Washington Post claims they say, it appears that, you know, the Saudi officials under the direction of the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince did go after this journalist.

The question is, did they really murder him or did they simply abduct him? So, look, some things are indisputable. Khashoggi was part of the inner circle of the Saudi government, and they felt that he betrayed them. So it's like the case of the poisoning in the UK with the Russians. A Russian agent that flipped on Putin gets poisoned in the middle of the UK, gee, I wonder who did it. I mean, it wasn't the Norwegians, okay?

So in this guy, so they felt particularly betrayed by Khashoggi. They tried to lure them, these are undisputed facts. They try to lure him back into Saudi Arabia with fake promises of jobs and forgiveness, et cetera. And he didn't buy it and thought that that was a trap. He was right about that. We apparently had information that the Saudis were trying to capture him. We did not warn Khashoggi, who was a Washington Post columnist living in Virginia, but we didn't warn him.

So that was a terrible mistake, I think, by the U.S. government. And then we know he went at the consulate, and we know he did not come out. So, that's not a good fact pattern for the Saudis. So where is he? I mean, right now, the crown prince might be in the middle of writing a book. If I did it, this is how he did it, right? And I'm sure he's looking for the real killer. But if they didn't kill him, we'd like to see him.

And so far nobody's seen him since. Exactly. So now the latest update to the story has been the reaction. from the U.S. government, and so, of course, there has been a lot of attention paid to what Trump has had to say about this. Now, if you can recall earlier in his term, Trump had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia in order to sell weapons to the Saudis. In fact, to give you details, in May, Trump signed a multi-billion-dollar arms agreement with Saudi Arabia worth $110 billion immediately and $350 billion over 10 years, which would supply Saudi Arabia with tanks, missile, defense

systems and fighter jets. And so the big question was, well, it appears that the Saudi royals have done something horrible here. So doesn't it make sense to halt the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia? And here's what Trump had to say in response to that. I don't like stopping massive amounts of money that's being poured into our country. I know they're talking about different kinds of sanctions, but they're spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs like jobs and others for this country.

I don't like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion into the United States. Because you know what they're going to do? They're going to take that money and spend it in Russia or China or someplace else. So I think there are other ways. If it turns out to be as bad as it might be, there are certainly other ways of handling this situation, but I will tell you up front right now, and I'll say it in front of senators, they're spending $110 billion purchasing military equipment and other things. If we don't sell it to them, they'll say, well, thank you very much, we'll buy it from Russia

or thank you very much, we'll buy it from China. That doesn't help us. But as to whether or not we should stop $110 billion from being spent in this country, knowing they have four or five alternatives, two very good alternatives, that would not be acceptable to be. So I just want to make a quick side note, Jank, before you jump in. Remember that one of the biggest issues that Trump and Republicans specifically have with Iran is that, hey, you know what, the Iran nuclear deal isn't enough. Iran is, you know, sponsoring terrorism throughout the world. They're also taking place in proxy wars, including Syria, for instance, Yemen, another example. And I think that that's a legitimate criticism, but isn't the United States engaging in very similar

activity if we're supplying Saudi Arabia with weaponry like this, knowing that they're committing these types of crimes against humanity? I don't know. Well, they would say, oh my God, how could you dare you compare those two things? Hezbollah from time to time has killed civilians. And what has Saudi Arabia done again in Yemen? thousands upon thousands of civilians displaced millions of people. But Trump's logic is who cares, we're making money off of it.

Now, what he doesn't tell you is, I mean, he disguises it as almost all politicians do, to be fair, in terms of, oh, we're creating jobs in America. Yeah, you're also creating a lot of money that the defense contractors give you and almost all the Republicans. And by the way, a lot of the Democrats. So they're among the top campaign contributors and they spread that. political bribes all throughout the political class. So that's why the political, we're going to really, I mean, those guys write me checks.

They write me checks. We're really going to stop it over some other dude that they killed. They didn't kill me. They killed that guy. So now, to be fair, some of the politicians, including Republican politicians, nonetheless have been tough on Saudi Arabia, and I want to applaud him for that, but not Trump. Trump is all about the money, his own, and he just looks at it from that point of view. Look, one more thing, under his logic, well, we're making money, that means we could sell

weapons to anybody, including Iran. You say, well, I mean, Iran could get it from Russia, they could get it from China, they might as well get it from Muslims, let's make some money, right? But we don't do that. We go, never, no one should ever sell weapons to Iran or Hezbollah or anyone else. Exactly. Under that logic, we can give to North Korea. I mean, Trump might, right?

But no, there are some countries you should not sell weapons to if they show complete disregard for human life, civilians, and the rule of law. On the other hand, there is another leader who shows total disregard for rule of law. Exactly, and disregard for human life is really the more devastating point here. Because remember, Trump is the president of the United States, and in this particular case, he shows a clear disregard for human life. I mean, he seems to be completely uninformed about Koshua. Kshogi, who he is, where he lived, why he lived there.

I'll give you an example of that. Just take a look at the next video where he seems to be unaware of where Khashoggi was living. Video two. First I want to find out what happened and we're looking. Again, this took place in Turkey. And to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen. Is that right? He's a permanent resident, okay.

So again, he was living in the United States. He was a permanent resident and it was self-imposed exile because of fear of retaliation from the Saudis. Hey, look, you're about to go on national television. For God, see, just do like one minute of homework. You're about to say, hey, I don't care that they dismembered a Washington Post columnist living in Virginia who's a permanent resident. Can you find out where did he live?

The first question I would ask, I would assume that you would ask. is, hey, wait, is he a U.S. citizen? That's a fair question, right? If he's a U.S. citizen, we got more interest in it. I wish it weren't the case and we should care about all human beings. But that makes sense. He's the president of America. He didn't bother asking if he's a citizen.

He's like, is he a citizen? Dude, ask the questions before you go in front of the cameras, do one minute of homework. And so- We're talking about 100, like hundreds of billions of dollars on one hand, and a Washington Post reporter on the other. Like, why would he care? I mean, that's, that's the, if that's not what he believes or what he genuinely thinks, it's certainly coming across that way. And by- Yeah, can I just say, Anna, sorry to interrupt.

I mean, he calls the Washington Post and other outlets, media outlets, enemy of the people. Yes. So, like, we did a story on it yesterday, Heraldo Rivera said was outraged by it. Outreach by what? I mean, the guy says that the press is the enemy of the people. Heraldo, I don't know if you know this. You're part of the press, kind of, right? And so is it that much of a stretch to go from any of the enemy of the people to killing

them? They're the enemy of the people. That's exactly the category that the government targets. So now in this case, it's our press, but the Saudi government considered him an enemy of the people. So it appears they killed him. And does Trump look concerned? Well, if that wasn't enough evidence for you, we have one more video, you know, regarding

his thoughts on the Saudi specifically. Take a look. What's his stake with U.S.-S.-Saudi relations, sir? I would say they're excellent. I've told them they've got to pay for their military. You know, Saudi Arabia is a very rich country. Okay, so you know what the priorities are. You know, in another part of that insane Fox and Friends conversation, they asked him,

did you talk to the Saudis about Khashoggi? And he said, well, I can't talk about that, but yes. You just did. You just talked about it. Okay. I don't know. I feel hopeless with this guy. Yeah.

So look, of course he's not going to defend the press. Of course he's not going to do anything at all. And if he's going to do anything at all, I mean, look, if you're the Saudi government and You just dismember this guy, if, right? And you just saw Trump go, well, I care more about the money, the money, and they're a very rich country, right? And what did you just hear? You just heard green light.

You thought, well, they probably, we probably have the green light ahead of time. He hates the press. All he cares about his money, he's our big allied, and we're buttering him up on his personal fortune as well. And apparently US intelligence knew that they were going to take some action against Khashoggi. And the U.S. said nothing. Green light, green light, green light. Afterwards, still, when it comes to Trump, green light. Do whatever you like, kill whoever you like, as long as you keep paying us, and particularly me and my party. Well, there are some senators that do deserve some credit for speaking out against what's going on. Some of those senators are actually Republicans, so let's get to that angle of this story. Following news of a Saudi journalist disappearance, this is Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist

who self-exiled here to the United States and was a reporter at the Washington Post, a number of U.S. senators spoke out, many of which believe that maybe we need to rethink our relationship with the Saudis if they're engaging in this type of behavior. One of those senators is Republican Lindsey Graham. Let's take a look at what he has to say. I went into the embassy, he never came out, he gave his fiance, his phone. Most people would come out to get the phone back, talk to their fiance, so this doesn't add up. How hard is this? Where is the guy?

This man was murdered, and the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. That would cross every line of normality in their international community. If it did happen, they would be held to pay. Okay, so we're the fairest show in America. I can't stand Lindsey Graham. He's a huge war monger, let alone what he did in the Kavanaugh hearings, but that is right. But I'll give him further credit on this issue. He is a huge ally of Israel and Saudi Arabia, Lizzie Graham is historically.

And so he's not speaking out, like if it was Iran, easy layup. He's like, yes, let's go to war, right? But it's not, it's an ally of ours that he has helped conduct other wars. So he is actually being genuine there, and that's, and principled. So it's good to note, let's see how long it lasts. Right. But we give credit where credit is due. Exactly.

And I also want to mention that there were qualifiers in his statements. If the Saudis did it, there's a lot of ifs, right? But that's okay. That's fine, sure, it's okay. But remember, there's a lot of pressure on the U.S. government right now in response to this story. And so it's very easy to initially say one thing and then not follow it with actual, you know, with actions.

And so that's the one thing I'm kind of concerned with. Now, 22 senators so far have signed a letter to Donald Trump asking him to really look into this and rethink our relationship with Saudi Arabia. So that's a good first step. I'm just saying it's important for us to hold these senators feet to the fire and not just feel appeased as soon as they say one thing. No, no, I hear they're going to do an order and FBI investigation of it, but only for a week and then even less than a week, and they're going to talk to nine people and then wrap it up.

So, no, by the way, it's actually worse than that, kidding aside, they are asking the Saudis, the U.S. government is asking the Saudis to investigate themselves. Well, I'm sure that'll solve it. So, but here, Graham speaking at, look, I said, look, if Israel and Saudi Arabia continue to be strong allies, I would be surprised if these senators didn't drop it within a week. But I'd be super happy to be wrong, and then I'll come out and tell you guys. And I'm not even wrong, like, surprised by that, right? So I'm giving them credit for now, but of course we'll follow up.

Exactly. Now, Rob Corker, another Republican, spoke out as well. So I wanted to show you his reaction to all this. Take a look. There's a tape of him going on. The intel points directly at them and them thinking about this in advance. I mean, I think they did it. And unfortunately, I think that he's deceased.

So that's strong words from Corker, I think they did it. And he might have seen intelligence that we haven't seen, so that does not look good. Look, if you're wondering why I keep mentioning Israel, because obviously the U.S. government, both in Republican and Democratic times, say Israel is our strongest. ally. I think Israel's an ally. I think it's important. I don't think it's our strongest ally. Canada, UK, et cetera, but, and often causes trouble. But I'm giving you in the context of Washington, there is no more important ally. And Israel and Saudi Arabia have been working together for a long, long time. So if an Israel, when, I mean, look, look at what happened

when Netanyahu and during the Obama years. He was against the policy of the United States government, Netanyahu was, and the Congress and bipartisan standing ovation after standing ovation, if Netanyahu says back off and they don't back off, I'll give them all the credit in the world. So so far we don't know where Israel stands on this particular issue. That's why we're saying, hold a week, let's see if they keep talking like this. Exactly. And then I want to be clear that it's not just Republican senators that are speaking out.

We have Democratic lawmakers as well. Chris Murphy is one of them. So just one quick video from Senator Murphy, and we'll talk about that as well, take a look. If Saudi Arabia took a U.S. resident, lured him into a consulate, and killed him, it's time for the United States to rethink our military, political, and economic relationship with Saudi Arabia. So again, strong words, and it's credit where credit is due. One last guy, another guy I often criticized, Rand Paul, he was the first to jump out.

On this issue, I agree with him and say, look, Saturday Arabia's been doing this kind of nonsense for a long time and there's no reason to back the wholesale slaughter in Yemen, let alone what happened to Khashoggi. So he's been leading on that issue. So give him credit on that. And it's a rare time that he actually lives up to his libertarian principles. And look, the reality is Saudi Arabia has been working against our interests for a lot. long, long time. And a lot of times it's covered up. You know, 15 out of the 19 hijackers

were Saudis, bin Laden was Saudi, but we decided to attack Afghanistan and Iraq instead. So that made no sense. And everybody covered it up. That's why I'm surprised this story's getting so much attention. Because normally when Saudi Arabia does wrongdoing, which is almost all the time, the press doesn't care, the politicians don't care. There's something weird going on. That's why I keep mentioning Israel. I wonder if there's a rift in there in their alliance, and that's why all of a sudden, when Saudi Arabia does something wrong, everybody's piling on. I don't know that at all.

I'm just telling you, it's my analysis of the alliances in the area that are usually relevant. I mean, look, I'll give you one last example. The Saudis, excellent reporting in America that they funded the Sunni insurgency against us in Iraq. That kills thousands of our troops. Forget one Saudi citizen who's a Washington Post columnist. Still thousands of our troops and the politicians are like, nope, no, Saturday would be great.

I don't know what you're talking about, right? So there's something weird about this story. So this is just my guess. Like now we're just kind of sharing our theories and speculation, but I think that this has a lot to do with the current climate toward journalists in general, right? And also this was a Washington Post reporter living in the United States. I mean, I think that the press does have a lot more power. than a lot of us realize, right?

And so if they decide that this is a big story and they wanna draw attention to it, then they're gonna do it. And I feel like the press has done a decent job covering this story, whereas when it comes to other issues involving Saudi Arabia and its wrongdoings, the press might cover it in one or two stories and then they drop it. Yeah, you know, excellent point, Anna, and that just, that might be the simple explanation. And so the Washington Post is all over, they killed one of their columnists, right? And so number one, it affects them.

But number two, they think, well, wait, if we let that stand, exactly. Any one of us could walk into any consulate and get murdered. And then is the U.S. going to have our back or not? We got columnists, reporters, et cetera, all across the world. New York Times obviously feels the same way and a lot of the press too. So yes, this might be driven by the press more than the politicians like, are you going to literally let them kill us? And so that's probably why it's getting all the attention that it's getting.

But don't get me wrong, rightfully so. We cannot have our reporters walking into foreign embassies and getting dismembered. I know the world is unraveling and we've got a lot of dictators doing insane things. But for God's sake, we've got to draw the line somewhere. And if they were finally drawing the line on Saudi Arabia on this, fantastic. We got to take a quick break. We have some more international news when we come back, including the story of of an American graduate student who has been detained in Israel.

All right, back on the Young Turks. First of all, NordVPN, you guys know about them. You know you're going to save 66% for a two-year membership. If you go to NordVPN.com slash TYT, they protect the things that you look at on your computer. That is a thing you need protected. And you can connect up to six devices. I've connected three or four. I keep losing track.

They've got military grade encryption. So make sense. Protect your computer, NordvPN.com slash tyt or promo code TYT. Okay. Now, your comments, smooth rights in from the member section. These are all member section. Oh, we're going to check it on the thermometer. See how it's going.

t.com slash join. Okay, smooth rights in. It's not a stretch to believe Saturday Arabia would dismember someone. They stone people for no reason. Right. I forgot, yeah, it's like I literally forgot about that, and that's a great point. It's not like, like, whoa, whoa, dismembering someone with a bone saw. I mean, they also behead people, so that's dismembering.

So it's not, for them, for our context, it's insanity. For their context, it might be relatively normal punishment. Okay, Jamie, remember when Trump continuously went after Clinton for being pro-Saudi Arabia? Farm remembers. Okay, Jamie, I love that ending. That's an old commercial. Oh, okay. I was like, wait, what?

Okay. Stovetop, I'm staying, Pepperage Farm remembers, time to make the donuts. Okay, I see you, Jamie, okay, nice job. These random old taglines brought to you by the Young Turks. Okay, Doctor, Chaos, I thought of that this morning, maybe we'll talk about it in a post again, but I got up and I thought, like, I get up so early and I got to go to work right And I'm like, time to make the donuts. Anyway, Dr. KS.M.D.

I'm sure Trump cares about the weapons deal with the Saudis to some degree. However, I'm sure the main reason Trump isn't going to punish Saudi leadership is because of the eight businesses he registered there during his campaign. Yep. Excellent point. And he doesn't want to lose out on the money that goes straight into his pocket when the Saudis stay at his hotel and intentionally overpay for their stays. That is another great point.

They do do that. So the Saudis are very strong in how they pay for my hotels, right? And eclectic mistralania, last one says, so what would Saudi Arabia have to do for Trump to decide that we have to cancel those armed deals? I know, maybe someone should tell them that Saudi Arabia donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Soon Trump will be saying we've got to stop selling arms to the crooked Saudis and investigate what they did to that reporter.

By the way, the reason he's making that point is because the Saudis gave millions to the Clinton Foundation. And Saudis ain't nobody's fool in that regard. They're like, we'll bribe the Clintons and the Trump's. Why wouldn't we buy both of them? For them, it's pennies they found on a couch. Here, a couple million to the Clintons, couple million to Trump. Make it a hundred million.

What difference does it make for the billions that they get in return? All right, let's do the next story. All right. The Israeli government has detained a U.S. graduate student at its airport. This is a graduate student who has grandparents from Palestine and the Israeli government is justifying their decision to detain her and also take away her passport because they believe that she is part of the Israeli boycott movement. So let me give you the details on who this student is and how the Israeli government is

justifying this. Her name is Laura Al-Kasim and she is a 22 year old American citizen with Palestinian grandparents. She landed at the Ben-Gurian airport last week with a valid student visa and was registered to study human rights at Israel's Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was barred from entering the country and ordered deported. And this is all based on suspicions that she supported a Palestinian-led boycott movement. So this is crazy. She is going to remain in detention as she awaits an appeal.

So the appeal is supposed to take place at some point this week, possibly today. But the statement coming from the Israeli government indicates that they think this is completely justified, they think that she is a threat to their country. So let me give you the statement. This is from Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister. He says, we are doing whatever we believe that is right for the security of the state of Israel, and that is more important than whatever the New York Times or other newspapers around the world will say about our policy.

Again, I just want to reiterate that she is a 22 year old student who wishes to study human rights at a university in Israel. At Hebrew University? Yes. Okay, so lots to note here. First off, credit to so many people in Israel fighting for her and in Jewish Americans here as well. By the way, and this is shocking, not just left wing, that's totally.

unsurprising, but right-wing Israelis and Jewish Americans also fighting for her here in America. I'll get to that in a second. Hebrew professor at University of Florida that she took, Drawer, Abin David, said she had an open, positive attitude towards Judaism, Jews and the state of Israel, and he's stepping up to fight for Hebrew University itself with a vigorous defense of her. And then I was most surprised by Brett Stevens and Barry Weiss in New York Times with a vigorous defense of her as well. Now, the reason I was very surprised by that is, first of all, they themselves in that article described themselves as unhinged Zionists. Wow. Okay? So, well, a nice honesty there, and I appreciate that. And they prove it.

They later say that the boycott divestment program is a thinly veiled form of bigotry, nonsense, not remotely true, and that it is that boycotts of Jewish businesses have a particularly foul pedigree in Nazi Germany. I understand the historical reference they're making it in this context is a preposterous analogy. So these are the guys I'm giving credit to, by the way. Okay, so, and they said the group that she was part of was connected to Americans for Muslims from Palestine, they say that that group wants to end Israel's occupation and colonization of Arab lands, and hence it is code words for dismantling the Jewish state.

No, it's not, it's to end the occupation of the Palestinians. So, but even those guys, right-wing Jewish Americans that are as deeply Zionists, like, what are you guys doing? Don't put her in prison. That's not good. But that doesn't show strength, that shows weakness. And this is totally running amok now. And that's the problem with the right-wing government of Israel.

They are going, I mean, you know what happens when you get further and further right-wing, and that's where they are. They've pretty much lost their minds. So this woman is ethnically Palestinian, she's an American, okay? So is there bigotry by the right-wing government of Israel towards Palestinians? Of course, of course there's, it's not, anyone who debates that, it's just totally disingenuous. But it's not just Palestinians by dissent and birth that they, that they're holding up. They held up Catherine Frank, a professor at Columbia, and then deported her from Israel

because she was a leader for Jewish force for peace. How dare you be for peace? I don't care if you're Jewish or not. They expelled her from the country. Simone Zimmerman, an American Jewish activist who lives in Israel and founder of if not not now, another person who wants to end occupation. These are wonderful human beings. They quizzed on our, quizzed her on our political views, including her views of Netanyahu.

So now what that means if you go to Israel, even if you're Jewish, it doesn't, nothing matters anymore. If you're not in favor of Netanyahu, the extreme right winger in charge of Israel today, I guess you're not welcome. So no, thank you, Israel, not interested. I'm not going to Israel. I think that if you are a left winger, it doesn't matter what your background is, at this point, because of the actions of this particular government, you'd be nuts to go to Israel.

Apparently, they're going to put you in prison, they're going to deport you. Look, one last one, because it's amazing. There's a ton of them. Peter Beinart, they did it to. That's insanity. Again, another, he's a left-wing Zionist, but a very clear Zionist. Anyway, Meyer Koppel, he is the chairman of Brandeis University's board and a pro-Israel philanthropist. But they found a brochure after he'd been in Israel in his bags.

Apparently they're going to rifle through your bags. They're going to look at all your stuff to try to see if you don't despise Palestinians. And then they're going to say, all right, we're going to interrogate you because you don't hate people. All right. So you know what they did to him? Because he went and had something that called this week in Palestine. Because he is the chairman of Brandeis University's board. He's intellectually curious.

He's a pro-Israel philanthropist. Anyway, they're like, no, how dare you try to look into the Palestinians? And they interrogated them for hours at the airport. No, they've lost their minds, man. Whenever there's flare up in violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the argument that you hear from the pro Netanyahu group is, well, look, Israel, they might be using disproportionate force against the Palestinians, but remember, Israel's a true democracy. No, it's not, but it's not.

You can't argue that Israel currently with this right-wing government, is exercising true democracy if it goes after anyone who's intellectually curious, anyone who might have mild criticism for the behavior of the Israeli government, a democracy is supposed to welcome that type of criticism. It's supposed to allow for information so people can make educated, informed decisions. If Netanyahu and the Israeli government is actively going after people as innocent as a 22-year-old American student who wants to study human rights in Israel, then that's not a democracy. She's been held in detention for over a week now.

They said, no, no, no, we'll let her out. As soon as she says that she is totally disavowed any of her previous policy positions. By the way, her lawyer says, look, she was part of that group, and she was a president of the group, to be fair, but she never even held those particular positions. It was a group that held the positions. But if I was her, I would never back down from that. And look, and if you don't know, Brandeis University is a well-known Jewish university in America. You got Brandeis University in Hebrew University on the right side, okay, meaning the correct side, okay?

And the Israeli government's like, no, we don't trust them. Oh, come on, look, they've totally lost their minds. So you know what they say? And by the way, the BDS movement, they're like, no, not allowed, how dare you boycott us, because that might work. Wait, the terrorism is unacceptable, I agree 100% with that, it's immoral, it's counterproductive, And it kills innocent civilians. But wait a minute, if you don't, okay, so violence is not acceptable, that makes sense.

But nonviolence is also not acceptable. So what's acceptable? The acceptable position apparently is you have to go to Israel and say, yes, you should occupy the Palestinians forever. They're not really people, you should do whatever you want to crutch them. And Netanyahu is right about everything. No thank you, that is not a democracy. That's not remotely a democracy.

By the way, as long as you continue the occupation, not remotely a democracy. What kind of democracy says, oh, democracy for me, if you're the right religion, right? Oh, we let some of the Palestinians vote, they don't have quite the same rights in Israel. But how about the other Palestinians, the ones, millions that you're occupying? Where's their democracy? No, no, nope, nope, and if you disagree with us, we'll put you in prison, okay? So last thing, why this particular group, why are they so animated about this? One of the, again, Galad Ardon that Anna quoted earlier, he said that this group was one of the

most extreme and hate-filled anti-Israeli BDS groups in the U.S. Whoa, I said, okay, now I'm curious, like what did they do? Did they say outrageous things? They apparently were in favor of a boycott against Sabra hummus. What? Did you understand? Sabra, the hummus. Not Hamas.

Hummus. They wanted to boycott a dip. And so they're like, how dare you? I hatefields being against humus like that. No, no, no, no. This is them saying this could work. We're going to go nuclear on the boycott movement because economic actions work. They worked against South Africa.

They worked in Egypt during the Egyptian Revolution when everybody went on strike. That is, if you hit people in their pocketbook, no matter who they are and where they live, that is the most effective thing. That is why they're so deathly afraid of the BDS movement that they think boycotting humus is extreme and hate-filled. No, no. And by the way, last thing, guys, if you care at all about Israel and you shut down any efforts to go to the United Nations and to do things in a nonviolent fashion, what does that leave?

That only leaves violence as an option. It's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea that's going to lead to perpetual war. But that's exactly what the right wing feeds off, no matter which country they're in. They think, we think perpetual war is a problem. They think it's the solution. That's what allows them to keep power. It's gross.

And look, if I was her, it's easy for me to say she wants to study at Hebrew University, and she got in, et cetera, and she wants to live her life based on that. But if I was, I would never live in a country that doesn't believe in democracy. like this. Right. I mean, if they're willing to do this to people like her, I mean, I would be, I personally would be worried about my safety. If they have their sights set on people who want to engage in nonviolent protests, and

they want to retaliate against them like this. No, no. I mean, think about how authoritarian Israel has become. Because of this video alone, I probably now cannot go to Israel. What kind of country is that? Certainly would not want to ask. I wouldn't. Would you risk it?

I'm not risking it, going into those right wing lunatics hands and they throw you in prison for disagreeing with Netanyahu and interrogate you? No thank you. It's like if you came here and you're like, hey, I don't like Dick Cheney. Oh, you're going to prison, we're going to interrogate you, et cetera. I think that Trump is wrong on the tariffs. How dare you extremist, et cetera, and we're going to kick you out. Even Trump doesn't do that.

That's how crazy it is. And by the way, all the right wingers here, I gave credit to the good guys who spoke up and even people I genuinely disagree with. I'm curious, Ben Shapiro and others, Dave Rubin, all those guys who say, free speech, free speech! Oh, it's such a good point. So are you in favor of her free speech? I don't know, maybe they are, maybe they're gonna be principled on this. If Barry Weiss can do it, there's no reason why Shapiro and Dave Rubin shouldn't be on the side

of her. Are you in favor of allowing BDS movement overall? Or are you in favor of laws they're trying to pass here in America to end that movement and punish people economically and otherwise for speaking their minds? I assume that if you're actually in favor of free speech, that you would say, no, anyone should be allowed to say anything regarding BDS movement and boycotting Israel. I don't know about Israel, but this is America, and we live in a free country. Is that your opinion, Ben Shapiro?

I'm curious, because I hear you love to get paid. on college campuses and hence you love free speech, but does that apply to everyone else? Some, you know what, we should have people ask him. Let's find out. And hey, I don't know, maybe he'll be principled. Good luck. We gotta take a quick break. Let's do that and when we come back a pretty explosive story from TYT Investigates.

We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks if you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. Great job, that's right. How could she be doing boycott of Israel if she's going to study in Israel? Okay, so can I just respond to that for a second? I think that the fear is that someone like this 22-year-old American student would undo the propaganda from the right-wing government.

And that propaganda works, and it's been successful. I mean, they will spend a ton of money on, you know, the birthright situation where they'll bring American Jewish people to Israel and it's like a week long, it's a free trip, but it's a week long propaganda fest. Let's keep it real. And some wonderful people that have gone on that trip have rebelled and gone off the trip and gone into Palestinian territories to see how, and the Israeli government is furious about that.

So man, it's slipping away from us in terms of sanity, et cetera. Stephen Manky, this is his opinion. He says, I knew it was bad in Israel. I had no idea it was that bad. I hate to use the word, but that sounds like a fascist state to me. You know, I am always reminded of Sandra Day O'Connor's quote, we should avoid these beginnings so that we can avoid those ends. And they're not heading a good direction.

And I'm also reminded by a Jewish professor who back in the 1960s said, look, if we continue the occupation, I'm more worried about what it is going to do to our morals and our culture than I am about what it's going to do to Palestinians. And so, unfortunately, his warning was not heated. E.F. Hussow writes in on Twitter pointing out that the U.S. taxpayers give Israel $10.5 million a day. We give them $10.5 million a day. All right.

Raymond Kremlin on Twitter says, great to see news shows that actually give fair criticism of Israel on their behavior. Any other mainstream news station reports nothing but they're about their behavior and accuse anyone of doing so as anti-Semitic. Meanwhile, if a Palestinian attack happens, they report it like crazy. Thank you, Raymond. I appreciate it. But it is, like, to be fair, that our op-ed was in the New York Times.

So it depends on the outlet, okay? And the last one, Sasha Porth on YouTube's super chat says, Greetings from Spain, love your show, and just wanted to support. I'm more into Spanish and European politics, but I think that you're doing a great job. That spreads worldwide. I wish the USA the best on your upcoming elections. Thank you. Thank you, Sasha, from your mouth of God's ears.

Okay, and Anna, you know TYT Classics is back? Yes, it is back. Yes, so super psyched about that. We, you say it, we respond. The members wanted TYT Classics back. It was Anna's idea in the first place, long time ago. And so we're bringing it back, and you're going to get it on Fridays going forward. We take old TYT clips, and they are interesting, oftentimes embarrassing, sometimes illuminating,

and then we break him down, okay? So if you're a member, I think you'll love that. Of course, t.yt.com slash join to become a member. Let me take a look at the thermometer real quick. See where we are. We were trying to get to 33,000 yesterday. I'm sure that we did not get there. But we can keep it going.

Where are we here with the thermometer? There we go. 32,831. So a little while to go to get the 33, but I think we can do it. So tell your friends and family, t.com slash join. All right, Anna, what's next? All right. Wait, I'm next.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, I could do a little starting off point, you know, and then toss it over to you. No, that's okay, that's okay, that's okay, I forgot. I'm doing the next story. Okay, so coming here. All right. TYT investigates with another great story, Ken Kloepenstein, a wonderful piece here that's illuminating on how Washington works.

It is about a top advisor to Ted Cruz, so very relevant in these things. times. So the gentleman's name is Omri Serran, and he is currently one of the top national security advisors to Senator Ted Cruz. But in the past, he was working for Davis Block LLC, that is a lobbyist and consultant group. Now, okay, he's working for them. That's fine. but he was registered as a foreign agent. Okay, interesting. For who? Well, that's what Ken looked into for the Ivory Coast.

All right? Well, what was going on on on the Ivory Coast at the time? Well, their leader was Lauren Bogbo. And he had just lost an election in 2010, and he decided, no, I don't really want to go. So he launched a bloody civil war to stay in power. And he hired Davis Block to help him. delay so that he could stay in power and to do propaganda in America so that America would not put pressure on him to leave.

And so after that though, that's when the real horrors began. So according to prosecutors from December 16th through December 19th of 2010, Bogbo oversaw a campaign of murder, rape, and quote other inhumane acts. The court granted 727 people victim status for the proceedings, and so he is now standing trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity. Now, did Omri help in this particular case? He did register as their foreign agent, did work at this company. Well, Ken Klippenstein reached out to Lanny Davis, who is one of the founders of that company.

And Davis confirmed that Sarin did work on that case. He said it wasn't very much, but listen to the quotes themselves, they're very important here. He said, Omri may have sent out a few notices to reporters. That means yes, he absolutely did work on the case. And then what was it about? He said, that's what Omri sent a few notices about. We need a commission. Okay, so I want to explain to you the commission part.

So what the lobbying group was trying to do is set up a commission to delay things so that Bagbo could hold onto power longer and could continue to do what he was doing in terms of the violence to crush his opposition. Now, Lanny Davis says, no, no, no, no, no. He was just, we were just trying to find a safe exit for him, and that's why we were doing the commission. Now, that does not appear the case, but, you know, but Lenny Davis did talk to our guys and we're quoting him so you can make up your own mind, okay?

So why did they do this? Why did they represent a guy that they knew was in the middle of a bloody civil war and was not leaving power? The U.S. wanted him to leave power after he'd lost the elections. Well, Lenny J. Davis and Associates reportedly was paid $100,000 per month to represent Bogbo's regime? Well, $100,000 a month will get your representation. It doesn't matter who you are.

By the way, that same firm represented another dictator and got a million dollars for it. So to me, this is an interesting story about Lanny Davis, who, by the way, now also represented Michael Cohen, but he's also represented the other side, too. Ukrainian oligarchs connected to Vladimir Putin. Lanny Davis took money from anybody, apparently. And so will this Omri Saren working for Ted Cruz. And when we asked him about it, Davis said, quote, I did not defend a corrupt dictator, I represented him.

I'll leave it to you to see if you think that that is an important distinction. He went on to say, no, no, no, no. He now believes that Bogbo was a corrupt, disgusting, murdering dictator. Did he not think that Bogbo was a corrupt murdering dictator as he was committing rape and murder toward his opponents who were upset that he wasn't leaving office after he was elected out? But to be fair, at the time, he was getting paid $100,000 a month. Oh, that's right.

Sometimes that money can kind of confuse you. Might make you blind to certain things. And his lieutenant working on it, now helping Ted Cruz in Texas, Ted, I'm curious to know. Do you have more, you claim that you care a lot about morality? Do you have, I mean, this is a guy who, for money, represented a brutal dictator who's up on charges at the Hague for literally crimes against humanity. So are you proud of that? Are you going to continue to have this guy's your national security advisor? My God, what is he advising you to do?

Okay, by the way, here's Davis's another excuse. He said, well, I was working, I was really working secretly with the U.S. State Department to get the thug-Bagbo out of the country to honor the results of new elections. Right. So now, apparently, if you hire Lanny Davis, he'll take your money and secretly work against you. Interesting, okay. I don't know which of those things to believe, but I do know that neither one of them sounds very good for him or for his lieutenant here.

And then they're not alone, though. And the reason I think it's very relevant to Ted Cruz knows all this and hires him anyway, right? So very relevant as to why Ted Cruz thinks this is a great national security advisor. It's relevant to Lanny Davis. But to me, the most important part is how does Washington work? How do those guys make money? This is how they make money. It's not exclusively how they make money.

It's a big part of it. But the lobbyist community, K Street, et cetera, it's a huge part of it. And so some of it we see, some of it we don't see. And what do they do to cover up for anyone, multinational corporations, whether they pollute their, you know, Monsanto, Exxon, et cetera. They do some good in the world, they do some terrible things in the world, and when they need a defense, you just pay these guys. I mean, if they're willing to defend mass murderers, you think they won't defend a company that pollutes into a stream next to your kid? Oh, of course, they will, and that's Washington 101.

In fact, one more part of this story, Bogbo's American defenders included Senator Jim Inhoff from Oklahoma, who expressed concerns about the replacement of Bogbo, a Christian, who had attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington by the Muslim Al-Sanay Atou. So, you understand that? That is amazing. So, no, no, no. We got to support the Christian guy who's committing murders and rapes in his own country after he was elected out of office, right?

Because he'd be way better than the Muslim. This is insane. This is insane. These are U.S. lawmakers who are turning a blind eye to dictators, okay? who literally commit murders and rapes. It's okay, it's okay. He comes to the prayer breakfast, that's all that matters. And by the way, that national prayer breakfast, TYT Investigates, has done great stories on

that too. That's where Marina Boutina, the Russian agent, went and tried to recruit conservatives into her cause, you know, whether she was successful as an interesting question. You should read some of those articles. I don't know why Democrats are still going to that. That's insane. A lot of Democratic politicians go to that national prayer breakfast. Another thing that the TYT investigates exposed was that they then send representatives all

across the world to argue against gay rights in those countries. And some of those countries, we're not talking about whether you're going to bake a cake or not. Some of the countries have then said it's okay to execute gay people. And these are the guys claiming that they're moral. Well, it's okay, he's a Christian, so he's against gays and wants to crush them in his own country, that's great. And then this other guy, he does mass murder and rape and crimes against you.

But at least he's a Christian and Democrats are still going on the national prayer breakfast? Have you lost your mind? So we'll get to that too. And Lenny Davis's final defense of Omri amused me. He said he's an old friend and a colleague on pro-Israel causes. He's one of the finest people I know with outstanding integrity and conscience. Everything's okay as long as you're pro-Israel. Unbelievable.

Okay, so reporters in Texas. over to you. Is it relevant that a person running for Senate and current incumbent senator from Texas as one of his top advisors, someone who didn't mind taking money to represent a mass murderer? Fair question. All right. One more break. Before we get to our next hour of news, we will discuss how Chief Justice John Roberts

in the Supreme Court is requesting an ethics investment. into Brett Kavanaugh, and then also our very own Emma Vigland goes to another Trump rally. And we got Kanye. It's an action-packed hour, and I just realized maybe Ted Cruz is not going to mind so much. After all, he is the Zodiac killer. Just kidding about that part. Anyways, like I have to clarify, all right, don't miss the next hour.

Really great stuff in there, and I totally changed my mind on Kanye. We'll talk about that. Obviously, if you miss any part of the show, t-y-t.com slash join to become a member and get it anytime you want. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.