The Young Turks - James Mattis' SHOCKING White House Retirement And Trump Defends Syria Exit On Twitter

Episode Date: December 21, 2018

Trump's Defense Secretary announced his retirement. Trump defends his sudden exit from Syria. 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. All right, welcome to the Young Turks and Jake Yon on an amazing date.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay. So I'm excited today. I think you could tell, I think it's going to be an electrifying day. So I'm excited by the news stories, I'm excited about life, I'm excited about you guys, I'll explain. So Trump breaks a bunch of things. He also does some things that are correct that he's not getting any credit for.

And I know that seems a stunning sentence to start the young Turks with. But we talked about it yesterday, six different things that I agreed with him on, which is even more stunning, and we got more of that here. And I think, man, the defense industry owns the media, owns it, lock, stock, and barrel. Definitely. Yeah, so we're gonna talk about that as well. Before we do any of that, I gotta tell you guys, one of the reasons I'm excited is we were planning the specials for you guys next week, and I got all jazzed up, a three-hour

old school. Okay. Me, Mankowitz, I believe Jimmy Doer is going to be in the house for three hours, okay? And I think Michael's sure. So I don't know why I'm telling you when it's not fully said, but it's, I, like, and we talked about the topics, including get a load of this. I have figured out the mystery to life. Oh, come on.

Come on. All right, so let's get started with the news. Okay, this is part of the show where I start questioning my decision making. Okay, so that's next Wednesday. We had a wonderful old school last night with me, Ben and Jesus. And so check that out if you're a member, check out a hostmate so you know all this stuff. TYT.com slash join. We still have the crazy giveaway.

So we're giving away a week of Young Turks membership. If you go to t.t.com slash holiday shop is running this program that I can't get them to stop running 20% off of everything in this shop. shop t yt.com, you got to use the promo code holidays. We're doing Amplify. I'm throwing it all out you at you. It's true. You can do a gift, twit.com slash gift.

I'm not playing around. Anyway, Amplify. We got one other thing I want to tell you guys about it. So sure, you do that and you amplify our message to the media. And but also, tyt.com slash studio allows you to see what you can name in the studio. Now, those are big packages. They go to the media. and they get our message out, they help build home progressives, you go on the donor wall,

you get the T-shirt, plus you get the name things in here. So we really haven't done that much in this campaign. So that would be great if you guys wanted to participate on that. I know it's big-ticket items, but it is fun. And your names are all across this office building in the studio because of previous campaigns. TYT.com slash studio, check that out. Let me read some names for you guys from Amplify, and then Anna's going to get it going. Jenna McKinnis from Medford, Oregon.

Remember old Medford, Tim, from like way back in the day on young Turks. I used to call in all the time on a serious elevator. Anyway, Jenna, $150, you're going to get an Amplified T-shirt, love it. Mike Rousseau from New York. That's such a New York name. Mike Rousseau. One of my good friends is named Rousseau. Anyways, Beck Carmen from San Diego, $150, you're getting a T-shirt.

Denica Mundle from Richmond, Virginia, $150. You're getting a T-shirt. Everybody, let's go do a t.com slash amplify, Anna, go. All right, we have some breaking news. Through Twitter, Donald Trump made it clear that his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, will be retiring at the end of the year. That means that he has resigned. In fact, there have been reports following this breaking news story indicating that he did,

in fact, resign. And it could be because Trump has just announced that he is pulling troops out of of Syria, something that Mattis disagreed with Trump on. And now, of course, anonymous sources within the White House are talking to the press about the various moments of tension that Mattis has dealt with when it comes to Trump in his decision making. So as with anyone else in Trump's administration, no one really has that much influence. The person who has the most influence is Donald Trump.

He listens to himself and himself only, and it was clear, especially recently with Mattis. So for instance, Mattis urged him to avoid pulling troops out of Syria. But of course, Trump remained defiant on that and he continues to remain defiant. Also, Mattis says that the counterterrorism mission in Syria is not over yet. Trump's not buying it. He still wants to pull the troops out. Also, a story that didn't get much attention because it's kind of boring, but Mattis was actually overruled by Trump when it came to replacing the joint chiefs of staff.

So, for instance, Jim Mattis wanted General David Goldfine, but instead Trump's like, Neh, I'm gonna go with Mark Millie. Okay. Whatever. Okay, so Mattis didn't like that. There's more, let me just give you the rest. Mattis also did not want to deploy troops at the US-Mexico border. He saw that as nothing more than a political stunt, which it was, but Trump did it anyway.

And finally, Mattis has been very skeptical about negotiations involving North Korea and denuclearization. Yes, I was for General Vanilli myself, but that's another story. All right, and you're right, Trump, there's only one person who influenced him, it's him, he's under the influence. I'm here all week. Okay, all right, let's get serious. I'm gonna yell something into the TV now, are you ready? This is not normal.

People do not run away from an administration at this pace and this regularity. It's crazy. We've gotten used to a million things that are crazy under Donald Trump. But this is an administration that is literally disintegrating. And I don't agree with Mattis. I think Mattis is wrong on this. And I want to make sure that you understand both the policy and the politics of the situation. So let's just do policy for a second.

So no, actually let's discuss what this is. Everybody's calling a retirement that is not what happened. One of two things happen. is he either resigned or he was fired. That you don't just, for anyone who was leaving, some of them amazingly said it before the election, which puts you into a situation that is chaotic and not what you want before an election. That was stunning. Some people said that they were leaving right after the election like Jeff Sessions.

That makes more sense. Normal administrations after a midterm election will have some exits. They will not have exits like this. And Mattis clearly was not planning to do it earlier. This isn't like- He was not. Yeah, oh, well, we were planning to retire for a long time and I had the watch picked down and all that stuff. No, something different now happened, a blow-up happened.

It's clear, please report it accurately. Well, you ask and you shall receive because now the media, this is just broke, is reporting a statement by Mattis, which is unusual. In fact, Huffington Post reports that in an unusual resignation letter, Mattis wrote that he and Trump had differing views on Russian and Chinese authoritarianism. This is a quote by Mattis, because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects. I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.

Okay, so that leads to two things. One, I was, that just broke, Anna just got that handed to her by producers. One other small part, sorry, Jank. Defense Secretary Mattis has denied telling staffers that Trump has the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader. So that's another part of this. Yeah, well, it doesn't matter. I'm positive he said that or something akin to that. Of course he does.

And he's absolutely right, which gets to the heart of this issue in a sec. So look, fired or resigned. You know, it's not that important. And this is now a little bit of speculation. It's definitely not retired, right? But my guess is resign. My guess was resigned before that statement. After the statement, I'm nearly positive it's resigned.

So he's basically saying, nah, right? So why is he resigning? For a number of reasons. Anna read you their policy differences, I was going to say so-called, but it's not so-called. Those are real policy differences between Madison and Trump. Mattis is right on most of them, but definitely not all of them including Syria. But that's not why you resign in an abrupt, crazy way. like this, and that's not why you put out a statement saying, I don't agree with the president.

And especially on China and Russia, wow, what a statement that is. If Obama's Secretary of Defense stepped down and said, I don't agree with the president on Russia and China, and I have a lot of differences with him, and I got to go. People would be like, what is this? And the Attorney General's gone, and now the Defense Secretary gone, chief of staff gone. It's disintegrating. Step back for a second, look at the big picture. Now, on the issue of Syria, it's really important.

There's two different angles to this. They're both gigantic, and I come out on different sides on it, okay? So on the issue of whether we should pull out of Syria, I agree with Trump, we should pull out of Syria, now see these Democrats all over the television defending, staying in disastrous Middle East wars and hyperventilating about taking out 2,000 troops from Syria. When we have 5,000 in Iraq, we have a whole heap, I think 15,000 in Afghanistan. They can still do bombing rates. So this, all this drama over 2,000.

No, no, no, they are owned by the defense industry. It's gross. I have something to add to that. I think that the defense industry and the corrupt influences certainly play a role. I think that the way Democrats are reacting to pulling out of Syria right now also unfortunately shows that they play political games. And so when Trump decided to use the mother of all bombs, you know, last year, they criticized him for doing so.

And I agreed with them for criticizing him for doing so. But all right, so he actually fights back against Assad, he gets the criticism from Democrats. But then he decides to pull the troops out, he gets the criticism from Democrats. Don't be like Republicans, don't play this ridiculous political game. Do the right thing. In this instance, pulling the troops out of Syria, I believe is the right thing. Especially given the reasons that you just mentioned right now, that we still have the ability, if let's say, ISIS gains ground, we do have the ability to take action from Iraq, which is where

we're currently at. Yeah, so it's, and it's not just the Democrats, it's also MSNBC and CNNBC and CNN And, and Fox News, Fox News is turned on Donald Trump. Because, I mean, you want to talk about a deep state. MSNBC, at some point, I don't think they claim it anymore, claim to be progressive, right? They have John Brennan on there, he's out there now talking about how this is the betrayal, we need to stay in Syria forever, right? That's an Obama and Bush guy who, yeah, is part of the war machine, MSNBC Trumpets

Is there a single person on MSNBC? And I asked this on Twitter, I didn't get a response. It's a real question. Is there one person who is allowed to say withdrawal from Syria is a good idea? That used to be the progressive position. It's still, in my opinion, the progressive position. Syria is complicated, but largely progressives do not want to stay in disastrous Middle Eastern Wars.

I don't think they're allowed to say it on MSNBC. You know, if we put enough pressure on, TYT, Army, et cetera, reaches out, maybe like three days from now, one of them might be like, maybe we should leave. But anyway, back to John Brennan about how great the war is, right? So, all right, so that's that. Now what is Mattis right about in this particular situation? Because obviously the impetus here was the blow up over Syria. I mean, they disagreed about at least half a dozen things that analysts did earlier.

Why now as opposed to earlier? Well, that's where Mattis might be right. And his statement there confirms what I was worried about. Look, we told you this yesterday, Trump gets out of Syria super abruptly. I agree with leaving. I don't agree with leaving in like a second flat without checking with your own defense department, the Pentagon. The Pentagon.

And I don't say, I'm not saying you should listen to them, but you gotta, hey, how are we going to leave? I'm the president, we're gonna leave, but you can tell me now how we're going to leave. Check with Congress, check with our allies, what's gonna happen to the Kurds. You should do enormous due diligence on what's gonna happen to the Kurds. before you make decisions. He made a very rash decision, but was it based on policy? No way.

And so that gets to what I'm concerned about. But Anna, did you want to say something? I do want to say something. So just to add to the point regarding how Trump didn't actually talk to the Defense Department, didn't notify the Pentagon, that's relevant because right now, as it stands, we're uncertain as to whether or not Trump has actually officially ordered the withdrawal of troops. Because all we know is that he put out a tweet. And so there's this huge question mark as to whether or not he's taken, you know, the formal

measures necessary to carry out this order. Now, it is very curious that if not the same day in the same exact time period, Trump orders a sudden withdrawal from Syria and his Treasury Department says, we're lifting the sanctions on the largest aluminum company, second largest in the world, the largest out of Russia, and that is run by Oleg Deripashka, who is one of the oligarchs that have sanctions on him and they have sanctions on that company and the sanctions have devastated that company. And all of a sudden, Donald Trump goes lifting the sanctions and getting out of Syria. And then he lied, of course, he can't help himself and said, oh, Russia and Iran are upset

about this. And then Putin, just to rub it in a little bit, and I knew you said, Nyat, we are very satisfied with this decision. Okay. So, look, is it possible that Trump is still in communication with the Russians? Yes. I think it is. So I don't, I can't know for sure, of course, but looking at the things that are public,

it at least makes you question that. Is he stupid enough to communicate with the Russians while under investigation? Yes, he's definitely that dumb. And Matt is saying I'm worried about his relationship with Russia and China. I don't know why he threw China in there, it might be the ZTE deal, it might be a thousand other deals, right, that he's got with China that we don't know about. But Mattis is waving a giant red flag on that issue. It could be because, you know, he's part of the whole military industrial complex, but the

Russian and China statement is too specific. Right, and just to piggyback off of the ZTE statement, look, we just essentially convinced the Canadians to detain a Chinese executive over allegations. that her telecommunications company or the telecommunication company that she works for had violated sanctions against Iran. Well, ZTE did the same thing and Trump was allegedly did the same thing and Trump was willing to work out a deal with them. And so it's kind of interesting to see or juxtapose the way he's treating these two different

companies. Yeah, I'll just give you a tiny bit more context. ZTE also has a deal with the Indonesians. The Indonesians have a deal with Trump on naming rights. where they're funneling a giant amount of money to the Trump organization. So I hope prosecutors look at that at some point. If they look at it, they go, it's a legitimate deal where the president is getting millions of dollars every year from Indonesia, which just got a half a billion dollar loan approved

by China and another half a billion dollar investment. That is awfully convenient, okay? So that's part of it. And Deripashka, I want to be clear, says he's lowering the amount that he owns of the aluminum company, but he still owns an enormous chunk of it, and he's the guy that paying Manafort $10 million a year on behalf of what appears to be the Russian government. So these ties are crazy for a president of the United States of America. So I just want to like wrap this up by mentioning that there are those who identify as members

of the left who have an issue with the way that Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. It's not necessarily about his foreign policy and the objective here. It's about the possible influences behind the scenes and what's convincing him to do it. Those criticisms, I think, are legitimate. But if you just look at pulling troops out of Syria in a vacuum and you don't think about what's influencing him, I think that it's the right decision. But we should look into why he made that decision. Yeah, please, if you're on the left, don't be a knucklehead like the right wingers and

look at the world in a black and white way. So it is entirely possible to hold both of those positions. I am enormously skeptical about why Donald Trump is pulling out of Syria. And I think that I, based on what I just told you, I would rank on the most skeptical end of that spectrum. I believe there's a chance he's still communicating with the Russians and literally taking orders from them. So no one's more skeptical about why he did it than I am.

But at the same time, you could still say, hey, it is a correct decision. Like some folks are criticizing Trump on, because he might sign the criminal justice reform bill, and they're saying, oh, that would be a win for Trump. Who cares? It's a good bill. We want criminal justice reform. Exactly. You have to be able to separate out the politics from the policy.

And yes, you can do that. So don't do what the right wing did, where they had Obama derangement syndrome. And if Obama gave them something, they'd be like, oh, I hate it just because Obama gave it to me. No, take your progressive wins, but still question and demand a count. on Trump. Yes, you can do both. Well, now that we've addressed the left, let's talk about the criticism that Trump

is getting on the right on the issue of Syria. Donald Trump remains defiant in his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, but he has been met with quite a bit of criticism from the right, from conservatives who have actually been staunch supporters of his. Now, before we get to the critics, I want to show you a video that Trump really, really released on Twitter showing his rationale for pulling troops out of Syria. Now we've won. It's time to come back.

They're getting ready. You're going to see them soon. These are great American heroes. These are great heroes of the world because they fought for us. But they've killed ISIS who hurts the world. And we're proud to have done it. And I'll tell you, they're up there looking down on us. And there is nobody happier or more proud of their families to put them.

in a position where they've done such good for so many people. So our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back, and they're coming back now. We won, and that's the way we want it, and that's the way they want it. Can I just say, I'm sorry. That is just gross, man. It really is. Yeah. So I agree with him that we should leave Syria, but he can't help himself.

He's got to find a way to screw it up. I thought when he was out there that, hey, they're going to have a prepared statement because you're not on television, nobody's questioning you. You could say anything you want. Just take a minute to write something down because this is a super important policy decision and that you're springing on everybody out of nowhere, kind of out of nowhere. That's not entirely fair. I'll get to the details in a second, but it was certainly abruptly.

And he didn't write it down, no, in the middle, he started saying they're happy. and they're proud and of something. He can't help himself. He kind of starts going off track and he starts rambling and saying things that don't really make much sense. But- Do a second take, brother. Do a second take if you're not live, right? He just rambles in a way that's totally incoherent.

And then he says, oh yeah, they are in favor of this decision. How the hell would you know if they're in favor of the decision? I'm not, look, I can't stand it when the right wing uses our soldiers and certainly ones that have passed away in war as a gimmick, I can't stand it. But I also don't want to say that somehow dead soldiers are on our side. We have no idea whose side they're on, you don't speak for them. And to say that they're on Trump's side, I mean, come on, man, just have some little bit of decency, and I know it's too hard for you.

Now, following his decision and his defines to pull troops out of Syria, a number of congressional Republicans have been speaking out. And one of those Republicans is Representative Adam Kinzinger, who's from Illinois, and he made his rounds. He made his media rounds, but we're gonna give you one of the videos where he makes his case for why we should not pull troops out of Syria. Take a look. That video is very disturbing, I've gotta be honest with you.

I wear on my wrist a buddy of mine that I flew with in Iraq back in 08 that was actually killed in 2018 in operation in Harrison. resolve for the president to point to the sky and say they want this, inferring those that have fallen, the president can't speak for fallen American soldiers. I'm not sure the fallen American soldiers want us to declare victory against a foe we haven't fully defeated yet. That's disappointing. I will say that Trump's video was very Bush-esque in the mission accomplished message

that he's trying to get across. So look, we're not experts on the ground in Syria. So I am skeptical of numbers that are given to us by the Pentagon or by the Defense Department or by, you know, the State Department. They give us different numbers. So the Trump administration argues that there are about 2,000 ISIS fighters left in Syria, that we have them cornered and that we're, they're pretty much defeated. Then you hear from, you know, the Defense Department, and they argue there's 30,000

ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq, yes. Now, they want to inflate the numbers, so I don't really trust them because look, it's a money making scheme, we all know that. But with that said, I mean, it does feel a little strange to keep hearing this mission accomplished messaging from Trump. Yeah, so on Kinsinger, I'm also gonna give you context that you're not gonna get anywhere else. He's a Republican from Illinois.

The Republicans just lost 40 house seats. He's been all over television over and over again, going, I don't agree with Trump, I don't agree with Trump. That's him basically saying, please don't vote me out next time. Please don't vote me out next time. The rats are beginning to leave the ship. They are. Okay.

And I'm gonna give you another example of him leaving the ship. This is where he puts Trump on blast in regard to a recent weapons deal. Take a look. Turkey doesn't like the Kurds. The president, from what we understand, had a conversation with Mr. Erdogan of Turkey. And then the president immediately said we're getting out of Syria. What does that mean for the Kurds? I think it means some really bad things.

If I'm the Kurds right now, or if I'm any future group that's looking to work with the United States or ally with the United States, I'm going to point to this and say, see, once again, you didn't keep your word. I fully believe in the power of the president, whether it was Obama or President Trump, to lead foreign policy. But I also believe in the right and responsibility of members of Congress to call out really dumb moves. Yeah, notice how Congress never calls out dumb moves against war, right? And they only call out dumb moves in favor of war. So they keep constantly supporting war, more war, either the executive branch does it or Congress does it or they both do it. Anyway, on the other hand, I want to be clear, again, you can do two things at once.

And so I think that the Kurdish position could be precarious. I think we should be extraordinarily careful about that. If we made promises to the Kurds, and now we are not delivering on them, first of all, That would be Trump 101, but that is not what America should do. So that doesn't mean that we should stay in Syria forever because we made promises to some fighters that we work with. There is a way that you could actually, if you were a thoughtful person, thread that needle. You could find a way to support those folks without keeping permanent ground troops in Syria.

So now the neocons and the defense industry want to stay forever. That's their black and white issue. Trump wants to leave immediately without putting any thought into it. The correct answer is yes, we should definitely leave, but we should be very careful in how we leave, including making sure that we support the Kurds who supported us. Now we have another Republican lawmaker who has been harshly criticizing Trump over this move, Senator Lindsey Graham, again, another staunch Trump supporter, but also a warhawk. So here's what he had to say.

To those who say, we have defeated ISIS in Syria, that is an inaccurate statement. They have been hurt. They have been degraded. And I give the President all the credit in the world for changing our policies regarding the fight against ISIS, but I will not buy into the narrative that they have been defeated in Syria, Iraq, and I just got back from Afghanistan. Haven't slept in two days, really appreciate the chance to go visit our troops and talk to our generals. But they sure as hell, ISIS, K, is not defeated in Afghanistan.

So to say they're defeated is an overstatement and is fake news. But we're not having a conversation about Afghanistan. We're having a conversation about Syria. And he keeps saying that ISIS has not been defeated. Okay, show us the evidence. Right, like there's, these conversations happen all the time, but no one ever shows you evidence. Yeah, no, no, I can't stand the neo-conservatives like Lindsey Graham. Out of all the terrible players in this, there are no winners here, right?

Lindsay Graham might be the worst in this, on this issue. He's a war hawk, never made a, it met a war, he didn't want to make love to. And Afghanistan, we've been there 17 years, remember why we went in? Afghanistan doesn't, they did a poll, over 90% of Afghans had not even heard of 9-11. They have no idea why America's there. No idea. They're like, we fight them because they're here. We fought the Russians because they were here.

We fought the Persians when they were here. People keep invading and we keep fighting them. It's been 17 years. First it was the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and now it's ISIS, and later it'll be Biasis, and then it'll be Balcada. And they'll just keep inventing stuff so that Lindsey Graham can keep getting campaign contributions, from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and Boeing and all those companies, and they keep making billions and trillions of dollars off of our, by the way, not only our treasury, but our soldiers

that keep dying there for no reason. Exactly. And the criticism goes on and on. Marco Rubio had some harsh words for Trump. Senator Marco Rubio, Florida, called it a terrible decision, and outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Bob Corker called it in many ways, even. worse than the withdrawal from Iraq by Trump's predecessor? Yeah, so a lot of these folks, including Lindsey Graham, said that we have to hold the White

House accountable. So wait, half a dozen violations of the law, all the people that were national security advisor and campaign manager, et cetera, going to prison, have pled guilty, the list goes on on and on, fake charity, fake university, I mean, the Maulamus Clause, I got literally half a dozen clear felonies that the president, there's excellent evidence that the president has committed, let alone the campaign Biden's violations, which is 100% certain, right? Should not be held accountable for those. Well, I mean, Lindsey Graham said, I mean, lying about sex, I mean, that's not something

that's impeachable, even though he was one of the House prosecutors that tried to impeach Clinton for lying about sex, right? But you touch his war machine, he's like, we have to hold him accountable, we have to hold them accountable, okay? I know, Jenk, but what do Republicans get for holding Trump accountable when he's breaking laws? They don't get anything out of that. In fact, that hurts the Republican Party because they lose power.

It all goes back to profits and power. That is the motivating factor, the vast majority of our politics. And that's the real issue here. So I'm very curious what Lindsey Graham would really think if we didn't have a corrupt political system, if we didn't have money in politics, if weapons and military contractors weren't his top donors, how would he feel about withdrawing our soldiers from Syria? I guess we'll never know. Probably he wouldn't have been a senator.

The people of South Carolina would have picked someone to represent them instead of Lockheed Martin. But instead in the corrupt system that we have, they all get him funnel millions of dollars to Lindsey Graham so he can go and do exactly what he's doing now. How dare you? We will never withdraw from anywhere as long as defense contractors have one extra dollar to make. All right, we got to take a break. I thought we were going to do Brian Kilmead. Can we do kill me?

No, we're running out of time. We got other stuff to get to, sorry. So we're going to take a break though, and when we come back, we're actually going to hear from Vladimir Putin on this issue because Trump did lie about something and I think that it's important, so come right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful.

But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational,

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and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on a young church. Jank and Anna with you guys, someone just gave the Amplify program $150. You'll get a t-shirt is anonymous though. We appreciate it. Anyway, you slice it, t.t.com slash amplify, let's take part in that program. Get our message out to the media because on a day like today, apparently they need a day. They're literally is, I asked this question in social media too.

No one gave me an answer. It was a literal question, it was a serious question. Is there a single person on television who's saying we should withdraw from Syria? And so far it appears that there's not one person. That is unbelievable, a blockade of progressives. I told you. Give you a little tasty taste of what MSNBC thinks about all this, or at least one show on MSNBC thinks about all this in just a bit.

That's why we were trying to amplify to get our message out there. Also join up. In fact, 99 Rico said I became a member today to join the front. lines with a young church to fight back, to fight for our democracy. Thank you, brother. We appreciate it. Here we're proudly homo progressives. TYt.com slash join is obviously a way to get membership.

Also, t.y.t.com slash jank. But I am considering stopping saying that, because every time I do, it is counterproductive. So yesterday Anna had built her lead to 80-something, and today here comes Yugar. No, up to 92. What? Every day I say it, every day she builds the lead. So I damned if I do, damned if I don't. Can't wait for a year in review.

Okay, hold, hold, hold. The only way I can catch her is if we, if the, enough of you sign up through t.t.com slash jank and become activist members, okay, that's the $10 version. That's why, I got no love in here, man. That's why. You wind more than Claire McCaskill. Oh, we're going to get through that. Okay, so at least if I've got more amplify, more activist-level member sign-ups, I'll call it a draw.

Last comment here, J.M. Frazier says, I think it's also telling that Fox News is willing to run video of Republicans disagreeing with Trump, more rats fleeing the ship. That is absolutely right. Two things. One, in the post game, we're going to show you Brian Kilmead's clip that we didn't have time for there. That was amazing. And I'm actually going to give you, believe it or not, and I know it's shocking, an actual good Trump quote that I agree with, also on the issue of war.

And guys, next week we're going to have all these wonderful specials for you guys, including old school, there's old school show on Wednesday, but on Friday we got the old school games that we used to play all the time back in the day and like what would Jesus do, who's down with J.R. Jackson, you're gonna love those games. So 6 to 11 p.m., Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week. We're all doing it for you guys and for membership. So t.t.com slash join. All right, lots of news. Anna, what's next? All right. Donald Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria was a controversial one for Republicans and also some Democrats. But it's interesting to see how in his justifications for pulling these troops out, he felt

the need to lie about something. And through doing so, he actually drew more attention to a possible influence behind the scenes in his decision making that could actually be very problematic. So through a tweet, he said the following, Russia, Iran, Syria, and many others are not happy about the US leaving despite what the fake news says, because now they will have to fight ISIS and others who they hate without us. I am building by far the most powerful military in the world, ISIS hits us, they are doomed. Okay, so he claims, no, no, Russia's begging for us to remain in Syria.

Now anyone who's been following the proxy wars going on in Syria knows that that's not true, but you know what, forget what the media has to say about it. We should hear from Vladimir Putin. What does he think about Trump's decision? Well, he just recently had his annual press conference, and he was asked about it. Here's what he said. As for defeating ISIS, I do generally agree with the President of the United States. We've achieved some major advances when it comes to defeating the terrorists, and we have struck major blows on terrorists in Syria.

Whether do we need the presence of the American. and military, I guess we do not need that presence. The presence of your troops is illegitimate. So if you've made this decision, it is the right decision? No. So there's more, though. Okay, so that was Putin, you know, those are his own words. But following Trump's decision, there were also other statements made by officials in Russia.

So, for instance, the spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry said, quote, A milestone story which might evolve from this decision is a real prospect for a political solution. So Trump says they don't agree with it. The Russians come out and say, it's a milestone decision. It's fantastic. And Putin, as always, rubs it in a little bit because that's what bullies do. And he said, if you notice there, he said, your troops were illegitimate anyway.

So look, it's really hard to know, near impossible to know if Trump is still in communication. with them and what they have over Trump that makes him do almost anything Putin asks. But this is Putin taking a victory lap. So if you noticed, Anna said that's his annual press conference. He only does it once a year. Trump decided to withdraw from Syria and lifts some sanctions from giant Russian companies a couple of days before Putin's annual press conference so he could do a victory lap.

It could be a coincidence. It really could. Or maybe not. And look, I also want to make sure that everyone's aware that it's not just about Russia. There's another country involved and that country is Turkey. And so Trump had a call with Erdogan only a few days prior to his decision to pull troops out of Syria. And that's relevant because the United States has just agreed to sell some weapons to Turkey.

So there are two countries involved here. They're both involved in the ongoing conflict in Syria, but more importantly, they could have some corrupt factors or corrupt influences on our president. So while the decision, again, to pull the troops out, we believe is the right decision. What influenced him could be a problem. And look, world politics is complicated. Donald Trump would tell you, nobody knew it was this complicated, as he said about healthcare. So, for example, what we told you during the Jamal Khashoggi situation was Turkey is now

feuding with Saudi Arabia. So they were way more likely to throw Saudi Arabia under our bus than they did by releasing the fact that they butcher Jamal Khashoggi. And it looked like there were some exchanges going back and forth on what each side was going to get, what was Saudi Arabia going to get, what was the U.S. going to get, what was Turkey going to get? And at the time we told you, it's unclear what Turkey would get if they were to just drop the issue.

So we don't know that they've dropped the issue. So it'll be interesting to see, right? But if it turns out, hey, you drop all that talk about Saudi Arabia chopping the journalist up and maybe we withdraw and leave the Kurds to deal with you guys without our backing. Is that possible? Of course it's possible. Do we know for sure it's the case? Of course we don't know.

But these are the things that you have to consider when trying to figure out why Trump made the decision that he did. Here is what is not possible, that he woke up one day. And out of the thin blue air was like, this is a time to leave Syria. I'm positive, today's the day. To be fair to Trump, and sorry John Iderall, because he's promised never to be fair to Trump. But to be fair to Trump, look, he has been talking about it for a while.

He said, look, I talked about it in the campaign, it's true, he did. And he talked about it in March of this year. And in April this year, he told the generals, hey, we got to find a way to get out. But this is too abrupt. So if he had said, again, guys, we're getting out, you got to figure out how, and then we're going to do an announcement, you'd say, hey, maybe it was a policy issue. This is not strictly about policy. There is some other game that is being played here, either Russia and or Turkey pulling

the strings. One final thing that I want to mention, you know, Trump felt the need to also bring up Iran in his tweet, saying that Iran is happy, is not happy that U.S. troops are being pulled from Syria, which makes no sense, because part of the reason why we were in Syria in the first place was we were part of this proxy war. We were worried about the influence that Iran would have in a country like Syria. In fact, that's supposedly the main reason why we're helping the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen because, oh, well, that's also a proxy war.

Iran is involved, and we want to make sure we stop the influence of Iran in Yemen. So Trump isn't even really consistent in his own foreign policy. policy goals. Like, this decision doesn't really make sense for Trump. Like, it's, it goes against everything that he claims he wants to do, which is why I think, you know, being skeptical about his reasoning, I think makes sense. Yeah, and look, Trump, to be, again, to be fair, he's all over the board. So sometimes he'll say, oh, we're, it's a mess in the Middle East, we're not winning

in the Middle East, we got to leave, right? Said that a lot during the campaign. And then he'll turn around and go, we have the best generals and the best wars, and we're beating ISIS so badly, it's so great, and we gotta beat Iran, that's why we have to stay in Syria. And then the next day he'll turn around and go, we gotta leave right now. But I'm gonna reemphasize, even if it's for the benefit of Russia or Turkey, it doesn't mean that it's the wrong decision for the country. Remove the politics, which is a separate issue from the policy.

So if Russia, for example, wants us to have Medicare for all, I don't care that Russia wants it. I still want Medicare for all, and I'll go, okay, great, if Putin somehow pulled the strings with Trump and got him to say yes to Medicare for all, I would think that that was a massive victory for us. So yes, you should care about Trump's motivations, because what else is he going to do on behalf of another country? But you should also support a policy decision that makes sense if you think it is the correct

to one. By the way, warmongers like John Brennan out there going, he is surrendering America's role on the world stage. No, withdrawing 2,000 troops from Syria is not surrendering our role on the world stage. It's only surrendering a little extra profit for defense contractors that hire people like John Brennan and General Jack Keene, who by the way is all over television and everybody's quoting him like, oh, that's a former general. He works at a think tank, which is a neo-conservative think tank.

I don't know who they're funded by, but I would be shocked if some of that money wasn't from defense contractors. So the corruption on television is unreal. Brennan is not on Fox News, he's not on CNN, he's on MSNBC, okay? So we're going too long, but we, I do have a clip from MSNBC that I want to show you. So MSNBC's been covering this, wall-to-wall coverage on Trump's decision to pull troops out of Syria, and there was an exchange on Morning Joe that I found fascinating and I wanted to share with you all, so let's take a quick look at that.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at his year-end press conference was asked about President Trump's decision to pull out of Syria. He said, quote, as for defeating ISIS, I agree with the president of the United States that they've been defeated, and he calls the withdrawal of the United States the, quote, correct decision. That's from Vladimir Putin talking about Donald Trump. So our intel community disagrees with Putin when it comes to interference in the elections. And our entire foreign policy apparatus in the United States of America,

across the West disagrees with Trump on this. But once again, he's on Vladimir Putin's side. Vladimir Putin. He stood there at the press conference smiling. He got exactly what he wanted. And President Erdogan of Turkey got exactly what he wanted as well. The Kurds now exposed to the Turks. My father would be so disgusted.

It's great commentary, well, good analysis. My father, for the record, doesn't like Putin either. No, her father, by the way, was, of course, a top foreign policy advisor to previous presidents. Still a curious statement. Look, Morning Joe, to their credit, in a sense, and also to their discredit, is the epicenter of mainstream media. conventional wisdom thought. And yes, they've been very tough on Trump and in a way that is sometimes cathartic and good to see on television, okay?

I always give the devil their due, okay? That is because the establishment does not like Donald Trump. And so they're mourning Joe's a, George Scarborough is a Republican, has been conservative, even considered running for office again, maybe even for president. He was a former Republican congressman. He does not agree with any progressive positions, Medicare for all, et cetera. he despises all those positions. But the establishment was not pro-Trump, so they've been anti-Trump.

But once you touch the issue of war, no, no, no, no, no. MSNBC will stay on message, pro-war all the way. We need to take a break. When we come back, we are going to talk about what Trump's tax cuts have amounted to for the middle class and working class a year after they were enacted. And what Republicans are now planning to do to increase revenue following major losses by this tax? At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data.

But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell. to advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN.

And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT. fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. 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-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on a Young Turks. God, I love Christmas music. Denise writes in the member section, oh, I don't think our potus needs anyone to corrupt him. Okay, that's a good point too, but it doesn't hurt.

It does, he doesn't need the money from somewhere. Gabby Marita writes, and you know things are going swimmingly when the guy who goes by the nickname Mad Dog abruptly declares, yep, I'm out, this place is nuts. Okay, great point as usual, Gabby. Dude, we still don't know who wrote that New York Times op-ed. Who wrote it? I think about that at least twice a week. I'm like, oh, was it Mad Dog Mattis? Was it, I don't know, name, was it John Kelly?

Okay, and I'm sorry that I didn't mention this earlier, and thank you for reminding me, Gabby. So Mattis is leaving because he's like, I can't deal with this guy anymore, he's totally nuts and I disagree with him and I gotta go. But the other thing we should know, and he, well, it's related to the Russia-China comment. He might also be leaving because he's like, oh, this guy did it, I gotta get out of here. Like, he's taking orders from Russia right now, I gotta go before I'm involved in this. This mess.

Yeah. I mean, John Kelly and Mattis and Sessions, they're like, nice knowing you, buddy, good luck, okay? Sessions is like, remember, I don't believe in criminal justice reform, right? Can we also just quickly mention how lucky he is? I mean, it's a luxury that most people don't have to just up and leave. Like he has the financial stability to just be like, I'm over this, I'm gonna move. Oh, of course.

Are you kidding me? get an enormous contract from the military contractors. Oh, it's gonna get millions, way more than he made at the government. Okay, last one, IM SOX, says all of the best generals have left the administration. Right? I mean, I never thought they were the best generals, but Trump said they were, right? General John Kelly, by the way, General McMaster, we forget about him, he left a long time ago, was the National Security Advisor. Security Advisor, now General Mattis, are the best generals.

Well, apparently you don't, not anymore. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Could you imagine Mattis walks in? He's like, bye-bye. Did we get him membership through t-y-t.com slash amplify? He might need one now. He's got a lot of off-time.

Free time on Mattis's hand. Anyways, go check out the people that are on there. Joe Rogues on there, 500 bucks. Get him Young Turks membership and his whole staff. The podcast guys have less staff, okay? And morning Joe, get him, get those guys, Young Turks membership. That would be amazing. All right, let me check the thermometer real quick.

Okay, CYT.com slash join. We're doing a membership drive yesterday. We're trying to get the 40,000. We did it up. It's 40,200 right now. New goal for the end of the year is 42,000, I believe. I believe. Okay, no more singing on the show if we make it to 42,000.

Casper, go. All right. It has been a year since Donald Trump's tax bill was written into law, and we now have an idea of how successful or unsuccessful those tax cuts for the wealthy have been. Now if you can recall, right before passing the legislation, Donald Trump made all sorts of arguments about who these tax cuts would benefit. In fact, let me refresh your memory. I don't think we're gonna have to do much selling.

I think the corporations that are giving billions and billions of dollars away to their workers, and many more are coming, I think that's really what's selling this may be better than anybody could, including myself. But I think come February, when they open their checks and they see, wow, what happened? I have a lot more money in here. I think that's really going to be something very special. So Republicans attempted to sell this as a tax cut for the middle class and working class. But of course, people did not buy that argument.

In fact, even before this legislation was passed into law, it had a very low approval rating. And afterwards, when most Americans realized that they weren't getting a massive tax cut, the approval rating for the bill or the law actually went down further. But with that said, we actually have analytics now. We have real numbers to see how much Americans saved in their taxes or how much they received in wage increases or bonuses a year later. So let's give you the numbers. Oh, this should be stunning.

Oh, yeah, we're really rolling in the dough. Now, in the past 12 months, cash bonuses only gave workers an extra 12 cents. No, 2 cents. I'm sorry, my bad. In the past 12 months, cash bonuses only gave workers an extra 2 cents in average hourly compensation when adjusted for inflation. So inflation is an important part of this issue, because I think, you know, this issue. I think people will see, oh, look, wages have gone up 2%, but then inflation has gone

up 1.9%. I'm giving you theoretical, right? But I mean, if that's what's going on with inflation, you're actually not seeing much in take-home pay, right? The cost of living has gone up. Now let's give you some more. Not enough money from the tax cuts has trickled down to employees. Huh, really?

Trickle down, economics doesn't work. Well, color me surprised. Yeah, but it's so, it's so insulting. For anyone to think that selling us this idea of the rich trickling on us is okay. No, but that's why I get frustrated with the mainstream media. I mean, how did you, it's been 40 years. No one wanted to point out that trickle down economics is them trickling on us. I mean, even if you take out the reference to trickling, right?

Like the idea is offensive in and of itself. We will give everything to the rich and some of it will seep down to you. Not very much, just the trickle, okay? That's all this gonna, and they took that as a legitimate political theory and economic theory. Like, oh, of course, if you give everything that are rich, eventually the middle class will get a tiny amount. That's a wonderful economic theory. I bet that's really popular.

No, they helped them with that facade and that ruse. But now it's catching up with them. Nobody's buying this, that's why the tax cuts didn't work during the elections and the Republicans got routed. At the end of the day, people know if they're getting paid or not, two cents. Two cents, but we got more data for you guys. Right, so it's hard to pin down how much these big corporations or companies trickle down on their employees because they don't have to report any of that, which I think is also

a flaw in this type of law, right? Because the whole idea was, oh, it's going to be tax reform. We're going to close loopholes, which they did not do, right? Corporate tax loopholes are very much still in place. The only types of deductions Trump's tax cuts got rid of were deductions that benefited the middle class. So for instance, if you live in a blue state, like let's say California and you pay state taxes, you can no longer deduct those state taxes from your federal taxes.

And that was very much a punitive measure by Trump and congressional Republicans. That was abundantly clear. But from what we do know, from what little reporting that we do have, about 4.4% percent 4% of US workers got a wage increase or bonus as a result of the tax bill. So the two cents is on the bonuses, the 4.4% is both bonuses and wage increases. That's it. I mean, you know what, to be fair, trickle down is actually an accurate term. I mean, they kept almost all of it, and 4.4% trickled down on you.

And so now we're gonna show you how much they kept in a minute. Yes. Now, what did they do with their tax savings? Well, US corporations have announced spending $1 trillion on stock buyback so far this year. That's a 64% increase from 2017. So they passed this tax law, okay, these major corporations save all this money in taxes. And the whole idea was, hey, they're gonna use those taxes for wage increases, they're gonna hire more people, that is not what they did.

They used that money for stock buybacks. So stock buybacks artificially inflate the price of your stocks, and we told you that the market would eventually burst that bubble, and it's in the middle of bursting it right now as we speak, just like we told you would happen. But what it does do is, in the short term, it gives huge bonuses to the executives who made the decision to buy back their stock and inflate the value of their own stock options. So a trillion dollars for them, two cents for you guys. And they didn't even try to hide what their intentions were before the legislation passed.

In fact, all of these corporations had calls with their investors, and through those calls, they told the investors exactly what they planned on doing with their tax savings. And it was, corporate tax, I'm sorry, stock buybacks, corporate stock buybacks, okay? And so they didn't hide it, but it didn't matter. Everyone knew it was going on, they were brazen about it, they were transparent, but congressional Republicans pushed for it and passed this law anyway. Now only a handful of companies, 34 out of the Fortune 500 companies, said that they are using the tax savings to invest in U.S. operations.

Now remember, not just Trump, but the entire Republican Party claimed, oh, no, no, we're not doing this for the rich, we're not doing it for corporations. No, it appears that we're giving them trillions of dollars, but no, that's to create jobs here in America, which will trickle all over your head, right? And it turns out 466th of them were like, no, no, we're not creating any jobs. About 96% of them said, increased wages, no, we're not gonna do that. Here's what we're gonna do instead, keep almost all of it, all of it. That's what it was for, that's what Paul Ryan, he sent out some tweets about nostalgia about

his career as he's retiring now. Oh, I got those tweets. Yeah, and he's like, oh my God, we've been, we were the, The underdogs working on this tax plan when no one believed it could happen. Are you kidding me? Oh, you only had every major corporation in the world funneling you millions of dollars to make it happen in legalized bribery. You had every rich person in the country on your side, and you were the underdog.

Oh, if only this dream, I dare to dream. Let's whisper of a dream of giving trillions of dollars to the rich. I wonder if it'll ever happen. Of course it happened. No, I gotta give you those tweets because he was so pathetically self-congratulatory in all of them. He made it seem as though he was a real warrior, he did something so difficult. So let me just give them to you. So he said 20 years before it became law, tax reform was just an idea.

This is how it all began. And so he started sharing like a series of ridiculous self-aggrandizing videos, okay? Did he share a video of him receiving a giant check from multinational corporations? Because that's how it began. So he said, becoming speaker was bittersweet because I was leaving the job I always wanted, being in charge of tax policy as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. So as speaker, I did everything I could to pave the way for real comprehensive tax reform. Let me just reiterate that it was not tax reform.

They did not get rid of the loopholes that these corporations take it. advantage of, which lowers their effective tax rate to something much less than what they claim they pay. And all he really did was give a huge handout to these major corporations. It did not, it's gonna cost the US government $2 trillion over the next 10 years. That's $2 trillion that we're gonna have to pay for. So there's two reasons why he sent out all those tweets. One is so that the mainstream media can keep calling him a genius and the policy wonk of the

Republicans, the guy who cares so much about doing the right thing. I mean, they have been his biggest cheerleaders and it's been gross, his entire career. And yes, that includes papers that also do good work like New York Times and Washington Post. They just constantly did his marketing for them and they continue to do that. The second reason he's putting out the tweets is that's a giant ad for him going to all the corporations. Remember the $2 trillion I just gave you guys, I'm looking for a job.

Okay, the least you can do is give me two million of that. Not two cents. And I'll tell you now, the job he gets over under on it is $2 million. I'll tell you right now. I would be really surprised if he got anything less than $2 million a year. And for a job, he barely has to show up at. Just like Eric Cantor, another Republican leader, he got defeated. When worked at Wall Street, doesn't even have to show up for that job and knows nothing

about finance and collects millions of dollars. Why? Because it's called a bribe. Paul Ryan is looking forward to that bribe. That's what those tweets are about. And one final flashback tweet from Paul Ryan. This was after the new tax law had been implemented for some time. And he wanted to brag about how successful it was.

So let's go to Graphic 24. He said the following. So he knows that the middle class isn't saving much. Let me just preface it by mentioning that. He says, a secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week. She said that will more than cover her Costco membership for the year. How insulting is that?

I think he later deleted that tweet. $1.9 trillion hole in the budget, almost all of it, 96% of it, going to the rich and to the corporations. They did not share it with you. They never had a plan to share it with you. It was always a lie. And look, I think the internet's gonna change the world. So unfortunately, the mainstream media never called Paul Ryan what he was, never called a Republican

party what they are. They work for the rich, they get bribed by the rich and by corporations on a regular basis. Yes, the system has legalized those bribes and call them campaign contributions and independent expenditures. But they are bribes and they are corruption. And Paul Ryan is one of the most corrupt politicians of my lifetime. Sorry, mainstream media, we're actually telling it like it is. We're doing your job for you, and those are the realities.

So they gave about, and a trillion dollars of stock buybacks, and the average American worker got two cents in bonuses, two cents. That is Republican values defined. The rest of the media won't tell you because they're afraid of the Republican Party and offending their very delicate sensibilities. All right, I got an idea for you guys, just give them a trigger warning before you tell the truth. But at least do your job and tell the truth. Now, we know that these tax cuts for the wealthy will cost

the U.S. government $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years. But Republicans do have a plan to recoup that money, and it's to squeeze the poor. And we're going to give you the details on that and more when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more. by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.