The Young Turks - Lie & Cry

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

Trump election trial: Special counsel Jack Smith seeks Jan. 2 start date. Joe Manchin is "seriously" considering leaving the Democratic Party. He says Washington Democrats’ brand has become "so bad." Donny Deutsch frets that Trump will cancel morning Joe if he wins again: "Freedom is over if Donald Trump gets elected." Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2020 campaign manager and two others agree to pay $50,000 for roles in East Palestine charity scam. Evangelicals are now rejecting "liberal" teachings of Jesus. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur), John Iadarola (@johniadarola) and Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Free Marteen, Three-a-Tee, three-a-tee, three-a-chee, three-a-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h... Drop it. All right, welcome the young Turks, power panel, Jake, Eugger, John I, Adola, Francesca Fiorentini. We've got ourselves in a bit of habituation here.

Indeed. Brandy's shows, of course, the Situation Room. We should check that out in our podcasting network, which of course you all know and love. With that's where you could also get the damage report. It's John's show and it's also in podcast form as well. All right, we've got a lot of updates for you guys, tons of special counsels flying around. People who want special counselors are very upset about them, obviously. Okay.

And Joe Manchin is continuing to cause trouble. cause trouble and is threatening nuclear trouble. So I don't mean literally nuclear, but almost. Calm down, Representative Gabbard. It's gonna be okay. One can hope, but yeah, yeah, anyway. All right, so lots of news, so John, take it away. Yeah, let's do that.

Anyone else feel like since you don't have a special counsel investigating you that you're not one of the cool kids? Yes. Yeah, John, I don't, I don't blame you. I think you're right. I don't feel as special. I know, I know. Someday, I'm going to find some documents.

I mean, has he not bragged about it being a special counsel yet? Not yet, not yet. Okay, I only have the best counsels, special counsels. I haven't gotten one council that isn't special yet. Okay, but in this case, maybe someone else too. Yeah, and maybe in this case he's not too happy about it. Okay, let's get serious and jump into the news, everyone. It looks like 2024 is going to be fun, and it's going to be fun fast,

because as of just the second day of the year, January 2nd, we might have a Trump trial. That is when the special counsel, Jack Smith, if that is his real name, is pushing for the trial of Donald Trump to begin. And not only will the trial be starting early if he gets his way, but it's not going to take that long. He's targeting it to last just four to six weeks, meaning that we could be wrapped up with this entire thing before Super Tuesday, long before the Republican National Convention, let alone the general election. So that's exciting. I'm excited. I imagine you're excited. This one guy is not super excited. He bleated, deranged Jack Smith has just asked for trial and

the Biden indictment to take place on January 2nd. The way the law works is if I say it's Biden's, he might go to jail just ahead of the important Iowa caucuses. Only an out of touch lunatic would ask for such a date one day into the new year and maximum election interference. with Iowa, such a trial which should never take place due to my First Amendment rights and massive Biden corruption. She'd only happen, if at all, after the election. The same with the other fake Biden indictments, election interference. So, it's not up to Jack Smith, of course, to solely determine when the trial begins.

This has apparently been sent to the judge, Judge Checkin, so she will be the one who decides, of course, Trump and his legal team, or what passes for a legal team, they'll have their opportunity to push for a date, which I'm estimating will be somewhere in the 2070s or so. And she will then have to decide based on those requests and of course the special circumstances that we're in. And while we're gonna be talking about the protective order hearing a little bit later on in the show, there were comments during that hearing from the judge where she indicated that the people deserve to have a quick resolution to this, considering how big of a circus it already is and is likely to become.

So we don't know exactly when she will decide the trial should begin. But there is some reason to believe that she might be amenable to the special counsel's requests. Yes. So we have this amazing situation that right around Super Tuesday, Donald Trump is either going to be headed towards the White House or headed towards the big house. and will he be arrested before the campaign is over? And is he going to complete the campaign from a prison cell? Well, that's not very likely. And the reason for that is because he's going to appeal, of course, if he loses.

And those appeals will last to the point where he becomes president. Even if he's been convicted and the case is being appealed and he becomes president, since it is a federal case, he can immediately pardon himself and never go to jail or prison. So that's just the reality of, you know, what physically happens to Donald Trump. Now, on to the more important issue of the timing. Let me dispense of one of his arguments because he loves to throw stuff up against the wall and see what lands. Because he doesn't know, like, I don't know, I'm going to make up with thousands crazy things. This one, let's figure out which one Maga believes.

And then we'll run with that one, right? So among those great excuses, my favorite was one day after the new year begins. Why is that relevant? I mean, people still hung over? His Christmas tree's still up, Jank. Gosh, wait till he takes the Christmas tree down in the stockings. Melani is very excited, by the way, about decorating Mar-a-Lago, and then we can start the trial. So good point, Franie.

That's why I was so upset with January 6th, because it was just five days after the beginning of the new year. No, that really wasn't the issue, Donald. Okay, on the other hand, look, I wish the timing wasn't like this. I think the timing sucks. So if you're, you know, a partisan and you're on the Democratic side or you just don't like Trump, maybe you think the timing is great politically because it happens right as they're, everybody's voting in the primaries and he's on trial and he's going to be have to attend this trial, presumably, maybe, or be on the campaign trail.

And this is terrible news theoretically. although the trial is actually helping him in the Republican primaries, at least for now, but it might not when they start seeing the evidence. So do I wish that Merrick Garland had acted non-glacially and appointed a special counsel like two years before he did? Yes, I don't know why he waited so long and I think it was a terrible, terrible decision to wait this long. This trial should have happened a long time ago.

That being said, at this point, what are you going to do? You're going to delay the trial for a year and a half? So that Trump could have win, they have his campaign and his election. And then like, but Jack Smith kind of hinted at this in, in what he put out today. And, and I think that's right. The people deserve to know before the election. Yep. And by the way, in either direction.

Imagine that they go, because remember, this incidental proving guilty. Now, a lot of the evidence is already public and overwhelming. But imagine they go in, and by the way, it's, I think, more overwhelming in the documents case, which is going to be past Super Tuesday. This is the case about the coup attempt on January 6th. So the document's case is more overwhelming. This one, it's not impossible for Trump to win. I mean, first of all, he could have a couple of MAGA guys on the jury.

Then, boom, he's going to win. They're just going to call it a hung jury, and they're going to, you know, if it's enough 37% of the Republican base, that's MAGA, in polling they say they will never disagree with Trump. So you just need one MAGA guy and he's, and you're not going to get a conviction, right? But let's say he wins fair and square. That's super relevant to the election, isn't it? Like that takes the albatross off his neck. So either way, people should know before the election. And that is a normal time to have a trial. And he's like, oh, how could we possibly get ready by January 2nd? It makes it like we're in December. We're in August. You have a lot of time. Frannie.

Don't you think the people should know if you are a criminal or not? Don't you want to prove your innocence before the election? Like if he were innocent, that's exactly what he would want to do. But he knows he's not and that's why he's deflecting with all of this. Also remember how he bragged like he constantly brags about every indictment he's got his polling goes up when it's really just thanks to DeSantis being such an utter failure. but it's like dude it'll help you it'll be good for your you know your ratings your clout and here's what i have to say about ratings i do think it sucks that this will not be televised it doesn't seem like the trial will be televised um we're just going to get those awful

courtroom sketches so i kind of feel for hollywood executives right now because you know the strike is probably going to last until the new year sadly but i think it is it's an existential situation here they're not moving an inch they want nothing more than a televised trial to distract everybody from the fact that they will not pay writers and actors. But no, we're just going to have again, like someone's going to, you're going to have to do one of those flip books for like the courtroom trial where you just sort of watch him, you know, move. Does remember flip anyone old here?

I do. I do. That's older technology. Not common these days. But yeah, it would be great if it was televised. He's indicated that he wants it to be. I don't think that he actually would want it to be. And the Dems say that they want it to be. I don't know about Jacks Smith specifically, but some Democrats in Congress do want it. But anyway, yeah, look, on the timing I will say, I think we've both of you have pointed out that, you know, we cannot get to the general election without people knowing. But also, like, I don't care as much, but Republican voters deserve to know. And if they're going to know, shouldn't they know before Super Tuesday?

I mean, when things are like largely locked up at that point, if you were DeSantis or any of the other gaggle of weirdos that they have running, you would be so happy to hear that at least there's a chance we would know by Super Tuesday. And the Republican Party should like think about if they waited and it turns out that he gets convicted and it turns out that we actually for some reason live in a country where that matters to the base and no one's gonna support him. Well then if it's like a month until the election, then that is really unfair to the Republican Party who should be able to choose a different candidate. So we cannot be past the RNC at that point, they need to have at least an opportunity to replace them with, I mean,

look, I'm going to say Jeb Bush. Honestly, I think that Jeb deserves another chance. He went away for a long time. But anyway, like joking aside, like it really does make the most sense. In the terrible situation we're in, this is the best possible outcome. Yeah. And so let's go back to the judge for second because she's actually presided over a bunch of the January 6 cases and her proclivity is to move fast. So that is good news if you want this trial both to happen and to be concluded as quickly as possible. Imagine by the way that it's concluded before Super Tuesday and Donald Trump is acquitted. My God, he and by the way, that's a real, like I explained earlier, that's a real possibility, in which case it's going to be

mana from heaven for Donald Trump. Yes. Yep. So keep it real on that. that front and he could get acquitted rightly or wrongly. And acquitted doesn't mean that you didn't do it. It means it's just they didn't have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. All you need is about 2% doubt to get acquitted. So but if that happens, Trump is going to throw a Mardi Gras a little bit late, right? And and they're going to have floats and the Republicans are going to go nuts, et cetera. So look, I would want if it was Biden that was in a similar situation. For example, is like they'll never move fast enough but if they were to say to me you can can resolve the Hunter Biden Joe Biden connection by Super Tuesday right and said that way we'll know for

sure if Joe Biden was connected to Hunter Biden's cheesy maneuverings or he's not connected I would say I would like to know before yep okay because number one if he's not connected I want him cleared if he is connected and you actually prove it in a court of law and a jury convicts him. I don't want him as a Democratic candidate. No way, not even close. I don't want him as president. I don't want him as anything.

But I'm not MAGA, so I haven't lost my mind. So I can actually make independent judgment calls on candidates as opposed to MAGA. It was like, Trump must be right about everything. We must protect Trump. Truth doesn't matter at all. God damn evidence. Now, you know, I'm Maga, I know your feelings are hurt. But hold on, I'm going to prove it.

I don't know why you're not excited about this. I've said this on a number of occasions, Magus should be thrilled. Everybody bring their mules. You get to prove that the last election was stolen while we're in the middle of this election. It's perfect for you. Because this case falls apart the second you show that the election was actually stolen by Joe Biden because he's being charged about lying about a stolen election. If the election was in fact stolen, then he's by definition not lying.

You win the case immediately. And I know you have the 2,000 mules, and I know you have a cracking, and I know you've got all sorts of dumps lying around. And you've got all of these things that you guys have promised. By the way, Maga, why aren't you livid at Trump in all of his wild, crazy defenses? He's never once suggested that his defense is going to be the election was stolen. I'm going to prove it in court, and I'm going to win this case. I mean, look, kidding aside, guys. If you're not in the MAGA cult, you know that what I'm saying is super obvious.

And you know that Trump doesn't have one piece of evidence because he already lost 60 cases on the so-called stolen election, right? But MAGA doesn't know. They genuinely, like, the overwhelming majority of MAGA genuinely believes that Trump won that election. So to those MAGA guys, I'm being earnest with you guys. Wouldn't you want the opportunity to prove it in court? Wouldn't this be perfect for you? And why aren't you mad at Trump that he's not making that case that you want him to make, that you wanted him to make for three years?

And isn't it weird that he's not making that case? After all the blah-bony blah, blah, blah, blah, when he's on air, he goes on me. Oh, yeah, he was stolen. He was stolen. I didn't lose. I'm not a smart little bitch. No, I didn't lose. Look perfect.

Jack Smith delivered this. present to you with a bow on top. You get to go in court and give your evidence. Everybody bring the goddamn mules, right? Right in on your 2,000 mules, right? And prove it. And MAGA, now you're beginning to understand. You don't have any evidence.

That's why you're not looking forward to this. Trump's not looking forward to this. Because you're going to go to court and he's going to get humiliated because the election was not stolen and he's an incredible liar. And unfortunately, and I actually do feel bad for you. I'm not playing and it's not going to make you any happier, but it sucks that you got conned by a legendary con man. Fran.

They don't care. I mean like I love the overture jank, but we all know they don't care because you might be in a cult if you don't care about evidence, you just care about your feelings and you feel like it was stolen. You feel like dead and undocumented, simultaneously dead on undocumented people voted. It's all that matters. It's a cult. And, and like you cannot reason with the cult, even if they were to somehow prove evidence.

You think Fox is going to like cover? I mean, they would, I guess they'd have to. But Fox won't cover it. They won't find out about it. And the cult rolls on. By the way, if you were to get 2,000 mules together, do you have any idea how big the dumps would be? It'd be massive, just like Trump said. All this week we've been waiting to find out, will Donald Trump, in fact, be muzzled when it comes to the January 6th case, or will he be free to speak freely about it and likely intimidate witnesses and encourage people to try.

two murder judges and things like that. Well, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Now, I'm gonna catch you up, we'll find out exactly what happened. Last Friday, he posted this on True Social, if you go after me, I'm coming after you. Which you could make the case that that's a threat. Anyway, Jack Smith wanted to make that case and he filed for a protective order that would have limited the way that Donald Trump can speak about this case while the case is pending. And district judge Tanya Chuckkin started to consider this, allowed Donald Trump's legal team to send in, you know, their concept of how this should work. And finally, we fast forward to today and we have the actual hearing. And so during the hearing, I'm going to jump to Graphics 6, she referenced the Supreme Court's 1966 ruling that found Sam Shepard, who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, did not have a fair trial because of a, quote, carnival atmosphere surrounding his case.

quote, the more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case, the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly. Now, there, I think the case is a little bit different in that Donald Trump is the carnival barker. He's the one who would make it a carnival atmosphere. But anyway, she did agree with some of what Trump wanted, some of what the Jacksmith team wanted, and so we do have a bit of a mixed bag. So she agreed with the proposed order from Trump's legal team who argued that only sensitive information should be kept under wraps. The Trump team's order would not cover the disclosure of non-sensitive material. Now, of course, you know, we're going to have to find out exactly what qualifies as sensitive or

not. But this means Donald Trump is not going to be stopped from just blanket talking about anything having to do with the case. It will be certain sorts of material that he's not allowed to discuss. But Chutkin did side with prosecutors on several details, including a request that all recordings, transcripts, and reports of witness testimony should be considered sensitive information, so we have that. She also accepted prosecutors' request that Trump's lawyers review any notes he takes about sensitive material to ensure that they don't include personally identifiable information that would allow him to effectively docks the witnesses during the trial. She also denied a request from Trump's team to broaden the number of people

who could have access to the discovery material. Also importantly, if Donald Trump is is reviewing the material and just try to imagine him like going through a bunch of documents. It's ridiculous, but hypothetically it could happen. He will not be allowed to have any electronic devices with him while he does that. He's not gonna have his phone to take pictures or to do audio notes or anything like that. And the notes again will be reviewed afterwards. So a little bit of what Trump wants, a lot of probably what Trump doesn't want. What do you think?

So I was surprised that Jack Smith even asked for the protective order and I'll tell you why. Because what you don't want to do is muzzle Donald Trump, if you're the prosecutor. If you're the prosecution, you want Donald Trump talking as much as humanly possible. Because that brother's got verbal diarrhea. And he's going to accidentally confess 2,000 times as he's already done, right? And so you want him to keep on talking because you could use all of that. That evidence can and will be used against you in a court of law, right? And so you all know that.

So why are they doing this? Well, I have a theory. My theory is that they are trying to protect one particular witness that is going to be stunning. And that's Mark Meadows. And so we all know that Mike Pence has already talked to the prosecutors. People keep talking about Mike Pence. But we know roughly what he's going to say. Trump already knows it.

The public knows it. I don't think that Pence is the concern at all. I get it. They could be worried about specific piece of evidence that's going to leak. But really, how much of a difference does that make? Because the trial is going to come up relatively soon anyway, right? But the one witness that people don't know whether Higgs is an actual witness in this case. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what.

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protective orders work? 0% chance. The minute that Donald Trump sees Mark Meadows in any document, he's going to go, Mark deranged Meadows is the worst person in the world. He's an idiot. And that's why I hired him, just like everybody else I hired. And he's a traitor. And he should be hung up.

Did I say that? No, I'm saying maybe, maybe could be. I kind of liked it. Okay, so it's not going to work. And that's why part of my thing why the judge is threatening, if you noticed, if you paid careful attention to our last couple of sentences there, you blab about this. She's not going to be able to put Trump in prison like she would be able to do with a regular defendant if the defendant is in contempt of court, right?

So she's saying, well, if you blab about the witnesses, then I guess we're going to have to have the trial quicker because then I got to protect the witnesses and I got to protect the evidence. So we got to get to court where before you taint the jury pool. And so that is a significant threat because Trump doesn't want the trial. to be earlier, he wants it to be as late as possible. Yeah, there's definitely a threat there. And you know Trump is also gonna, he's already turned that on Chutkin, but he's gonna be even worse.

And I'm reminded of the moment during the Alex Jones trial where they were like, is this a cartoon of the judge presiding over your defamation case, you stupid idiot? And he's like, no, maybe, you know. And so that's gonna happen here tenfold. That was the best part of that trial. that trial. But the other part of, and sadly, that was televised or, you know, excitingly that was televised and this will not be. I guess the last thing I was going to say is there's real danger here, right? This was, this is a week when it kind of just like

washed over us. But yeah, man in Utah threatening Biden and was shot by the FBI, doopie do. Like all of the people who may or may not be named are like at risk, including anyone else, right? So it is another argument to wrap this up quickly rather than prolong it and or prolong it so much so that everyone forgets. I don't know, but there's literal political violence to back up every single one of these ridiculous bleats that Trump is issuing. Agreed. Yep, all right, we got to take the break, guys. Believe it or not, more special counsels when we return, because Hunter Biden has met one as well. And so I'm sure the Republicans are celebrating because they called for.

Well, let's find out when we come back. said, it's Friday sharing the love, thank you. We appreciate it. And Lauren McCrae, who only gifted 50 Young Turks memberships. Are you allowed to do that? Yes, you are. And we encourage it. Lauren, you're amazing.

We appreciate you so much. And so do other people in the community because Zarath wrote in immediately. Whomever gifted a membership, me a membership is awesome. And you are right? They are awesome. And I like the fact that you're grammatically correct for no reason on YouTube. Okay. All right, Johnny Pye. Yes, no, not me. Merrick Garland, go. Good afternoon. I'm here today to announce the appointment of David Weiss as a special counsel,

consistent with the Department of Justice regulations governing such matters. In keeping with those regulations, I have today notified the designated members of each House of Congress of the appointment. In a July 2023 letter to Congress, Mr. Weifes said, that he had not to that point requested special counsel designation. On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Weiss advised me that in his judgment, his investigation had reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a special counsel, and he asked to be so appointed. Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter,

I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint him. as special counsel. So yes, now it's earlier today we have another special counsel for once not investigating Donald Trump. This is David Weiss who's going to now as special counsel continue overseeing this investigation into Hunter Biden, which obviously from the point of view of the right wing is good news. They've been asking for this, which is why they're all very, very happy today. So good news for them. Not everyone is so happy about this because while this could be seen as like sort of one arm of the Biden administration showing that, you know, we're, we're

going to take this under Biden things totally seriously, you know, fully investigated, all of that stuff. One hour before that announcement, spokesman for the White House, Ian Sams, dropped an extremely strongly worded memo, 1100 words attacking the probe. It was titled, one year since Comer vowed credibility. How's that going? Which has strong like senior thesis vibes. But anyway, so he attacks James Comer, who Sam says has told big lies and small ones, has, quote, stoop to new lows from allowing explicit images to be displayed at a congressional hearing. That was, of course, Marjorie Green, to lamenting that President Biden's deceased son, Bo Biden wasn't prosecuted while he was still alive, which is insane. He's also,

hidden evidence from the public and the committee minority ignores when witnesses have contradicted as false allegations and still insists that an individual who has been indicted for arms trafficking and working as a Chinese agent has the credibility to serve as a witness in his probe. So look, that's a good sort of summary of some of what has been so ridiculous about this investigation so far and Comer's own personal just humiliating behavior. There's a lot more. We can't go through all of it. But we do have a special counsel now, whether Ian Sams or anyone else likes it or not, we've got that. So what do you think? How is the political world going to react to this? Okay, so first of all, I'm sure the Republicans are thrilled. They've been asking for the

special counsel for so long. Wait, I'm getting word in that, no, as usual, they're crying and crying hysterically. They're sobbing on every outlet as we speak right now. You guys, I remember you're asking thousands of times for a special. In fact, half the Republicans didn't even get the memo. Chuck Grassy is like, all right, finally a special counsel. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. Chuck, this is all for politics. We don't have any evidence.

You know, what are you doing? We were just kidding about the special counsel. Now that we have one, it's a new opportunity to cry. Remember, Republican strategy. Only has two parts. One is cry, the other is lie. So we just cry and lie, cry and lie, cry and lie. Chuck, k-

Okay, so look, why are they mad? And remember, John just read you the statement from the White House. So the White House is mad. And James Comer investigating Hunter Biden is mad. Why are they both mad? Because the White House is like, this is a load of BS. You're about to charge it with like the two weakest charges in America. A gun charge, which is like, oh, you didn't fill out the right permit or had a typo or something in it,

which every Republican in country wouldn't be livid if they were charged with or if Trump was charged with that charge. I mean, what are you deep state, right? And then like some shout, shout, tiny, tiny tax charge. By the way, I'm happy with both those charges. More than the Republicans, like, hey, if you have a violation of some gun laws or some tax laws, have that at it, Ha, prosecute them, right? But if you did that to a Republican, if you did it to Trump, I mean, the tax evasion that Trump is done compared to Hunter Biden is about a thousandfold.

And when you charge Trump with that, like as they are in New York, partly evading taxes and wrong business dealings, they're like, Donald Trump can evade all the taxes in the war. Did Hunter Biden evade taxes for $5? Go get him, but now with this special counsel. All right, so finally, let me tell you why the Republicans are pretending to be upset now. So they're saying, oh, we were just about to call in Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and Weiss this prosecutor into our made up hearings. I mean, very important hearings, which we presented no evidence.

And I mean, a lot of insinuations slash where there's smoke, there's fire, except there's no fire. It's just our smoke. We were going to have them in. But now, because he's a special counsel, we can't have them testify. And this is all a smokescreen, if you will, by the Biden team to have his own son, prosecuted. Okay, if you say so, Bramie. I don't know what to make of this. I mean, in part, I go to like the NPR brain that sort of says special counsel, it must be as bad as Donald Trump trying to overturn the election

and keep classified documents. You know, in sort of the broad American mindset, it puts, yeah, two ridiculously small charges on equal footing with massive charges, right? Really important ones. So, so there's a little bit of that and I'm kind of, I don't know if I'm getting like James Comey flashback vibes from Merrick Garland as, you know, he feels like he's potentially doing this to appease Republicans who you've just laid out very, I think astutely, do not care, will not care, there's nothing that Merrick Garland could do to help them, right? I mean, in fact, if anything, this makes it even more partisan because it's a special counsel appointed by Merrick Garland, who was appointed by Joe Biden, you know, who works for Joe Biden or supposedly, right?

It's like, so I don't know how to make political heads or tales of it, but it just feels like, well, let's just keep it going, just like her emails. Yeah, 100%. I'll say one last quick thing about it. Merrick Garland, if there's a nuclear Holocaust, he should definitely be the way. to announce it because no one will panic he delivers things in such a dry boring way that he was like oh we're nuclear holocaust coming up we're all likely going to die everybody's like oh it's no big deal okay and they think this is like the super tough guy villain who's going who's like picking sides he wouldn't pick sides if his life depended on it he's like I don't know okay let's prosecute them both. I mean, evidence. I don't know. I don't want to make a decision.

And that's why he's waited so long on. And then like, okay, last thing, they say special counsel that we hate that he appointed one, even though we wanted one. So why do you hate it? Maybe potentially the timing, as we just explained. But he waited too long. But he also waited too long on prosecuting Donald Trump. And you guys love that, right? We were like, the left was like, prosecute him already. Prosecute them, right? And America was like, uh, I don't know, I don't know. So like, make up your mind. Did you want Merrick Garland to prosecute everyone right away or wait until this time? So, but nope, they always want to have their cake and eat it too. Merrick Garland should have gone quicker or not at all on, you know, Donald Trump.

but he should have waited till after the election or waited till after the election for Donald Trump. But Hunter Biden had to happen at the exact right window that they wanted because this would have been too early and this would have been too late and this is the area where they wouldn't have cried at all. I don't believe you. No matter when Merrick Garland did a special counsel of Hunter Biden, 98% of Republican politicians would have cried.

Yeah. As we leave this segment, just a hypothetical question to the conservators in the audience. So is this election interference? Still, they're doing a special counsel of a member of the family of the leading Democratic candidate. I mean, he's way ahead of any other Democrats. This seems like election interference to me. And he's the current president right as we head into, I mean, my God, the trial could happen right around Super Tuesday. Okay, so obviously election interferes because you just guys, you agreed to it a second ago when it was about Donald Trump, right?

In fact, you screamed your heads off about it a second ago. But when it's Hunter Biden, not only do you not think it's election interference, but you think that he should have gotten, what, two special counsels, eight special counsels? I don't, like, it's hard to keep up with what your tears are about, right? Like you have this incredible entitlement complex and victimhood complex. You're always the victims, and you're always entitled to be above the law and everybody else should be under your feet, okay? So but make up your mind on what you want to cry about.

I don't think it's too much to ask about. They're caring tears, Jenk, they're motivated by privilege and they make no sense. It's just care in tears, okay? She'll figure out what she's crying about once the cops arrive. But I think that is a brilliant point about, yeah, is this election interference? And I just have one note because the White House was mad. That was a very mad statement. You want to see them get mad when it comes to like income inequality and climate change.

But no, mad when they're defending, obviously, Hunter Biden. So I think it would be fun just to have them. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you open Select Small Business Banking products.

Yep, that's $2,700. to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. Instead of that statement, just like cut and paste Trump's bleats to just be like election interference, you know, the way they did with Marjorie Green's, you know, FDR or no, Lyndon B. Johnson speech. Yeah.

Do that. Derange David Weiss. Okay. Well, look, we are we are burning out. So we're gonna have to take our second break, but when we come back, Joe Manchin might be leaving the Democratic Party, which many of us have wished for, but not like this. We'll see after this. All right, back on TYT, Jank, John, and Franny, and Dragon with a Girl tattoo. One of our members who wrote in, crying and lying sounds like a country music song. I like that, and we might turn it into one.

All right. Yeah, try crying and lying in a small town. Am I right? Am I right? Anyway, let's talk about Joe Manches or something. They tried it a lot in a small town, actually. But anyways, all right, go ahead, John. Let's do it.

I just can't, I can't accept either party, to be honest with you. So why don't you become an independent? Why don't you say, you know what? You say, you've said many times that you're not like the Democrats today or the National Democratic Party. You're not like the National Republican Party. Why not just say, you know what, I'm going to be an independent? You thought about that? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Are you going to do it? Because, well, I'm thinking seriously, what's the best? For me, I have to have peace of mind, basically. That's Joe Manchin on a radio show in West Virginia talking about what we all know that he's thinking about. maybe just end this charade of being a Democrat and go independent. Here's more. The brand has become so bad. The D brand and our brand. In West Virginia, the D brand, because it's nationally branded. It's not the Democrats in West Virginia. It's the Democrats in Washington

or the Washington policies of the Democrats. You've heard me say a million times. I'm not a Washington Democrat. You're thinking serious. I don't want to put words in your mouth. I want to understand. So you're thinking seriously about becoming an independent. I would think very, very seriously about that. I've been thinking about that for quite some time. I haven't made any decisions whatsoever on any of my political direction. I want to make sure that my voice is truly an independent voice. Again, there have been a lot of cons, a lot of like scams that have been run on the American people. But the way that politicians like Joe Manchin with a massive assist from the media, including big outlets like the New York Times, have been able

to define independent the way they want it to be is so absurd. that he wants to be sure that his voice is independent. What the hell is that supposed to mean? We know what he wants you to think that it means, but it's not independent. It's closely tied to the interests of those with the most in society. That's all it is. That's all it'll ever be. It is the farthest thing from independent you can possibly imagine.

But look, I guess we should give him credit because he's finally willing to stop pretending that he has any sort of ideological attachment to any of the values that the Democratic Party pretends to have, and he is just going to be there to make sure that we extract every ounce of coal, every drop of oil, and cut every bit of taxes that America has. Yeah, so look, to John's point, they also ruin the word moderate, because it used to mean somebody who's in the middle of the country politically, but Joe Manchin's positions are incredibly radical, like he's against paid family leave, only 16% of the country's against paid family leave.

That is a radical, radical position, but it's radically corporate. So media doesn't call it radical, they call it moderate. How could it be moderate to be against 84% of the country? And I can go through two dozen pieces of policy where Joe Manchin has, and they're mainstream. They're the policies you guys have all heard, where Joe Manchin has an insanely radical pro-corporate position. It's not a right-wing position. It's definitely not a left-wing position. it's just the position that helps his donors, and it is radical almost every time.

But he's like, I don't know, the Republicans and Democrats are on two extremes, and I'm in the middle. And everybody in the media goes, oh, that's so true, let's all lie on his behalf. Hey, every writer in the New York Times lie for Joe Manchin. Everybody on CNN lie on behalf of Joe Manchin. Let's all call him a moderate when he's nowhere near a moderate, right? So who, he's how a Democratic brand is ruined? And that actually has some validity to it. Who ruined it?

Joe Manchin, why is it ruined? So part of the reason why it's ruined is because, and everybody will admit this, and Republicans say it too, because the Democrats are seen as two elitists. In fact, that's the main thing Republicans say, and the main reason that why the Democratic brand is in significant trouble. It used to be the party of the average guy, workers, laborers, et cetera. Now it's seen as the party of elites, right? Well, how did it get there? It got there through politicians like Joe Manchin, who took corporate donor money and sold out the average guy and said,

Oh, you want higher wages? No, I'm going to make sure that we kill higher minimum wage. So you have lower wages because my elitist donor prick friends told me to. And I'm a Democrat. And they ruined the brand that way. And now Manchin, after lighting the brand on fire, goes, well, look at that. I guess it's on fire. Oh, I'm getting out of this house.

Now finally, think about the difference in how Joe Manchin is dealt with by Democratic leadership, let alone mainstream media versus progressives. If progressives ever go one inch outside of what Biden and Pelosi wants, they take their head off. They're not, they're ruining unity in the party, these radical progressives arguing for things that 84% of Americans want. It's outrageous. Arguing for higher wages and health care, all the things that would help Americans. How dare they? They are not listening to leadership and they're destroying the Democratic Party.

Mansion goes, hey, Joe Biden, here's 85% of your agenda. I just lit it on fire. I just destroyed what is theoretically your core agenda. And on top of that, I might leave the party, and I'm talking crap about how awful the Democratic Party is. And by the way, I might even run against you for president. After you gave me the Mountain Valley pipeline, that's going to make me personally rich.

Bam! And he slaps him across the face. And he goes, hey, Joe, what are you going to do about it? Sit there and bleed all day? And you know what Democratic leadership says? Not a word. So the same guys who took off progressive heads for disagreeing about 5% of stuff, when Joe Manchin destroys their policy and destroys their party,

they don't say a word. Why? Think about why. I mean, if somebody did to me what Joe Manchin has done to Joe Biden, I would have a strong response. You might even say, hey, Jake, you're overdoing it, man. Jesus Christ, right? Well, you know what Joe Biden did after they passed that watered down inflation reduction act that was stripped clean by Joe Manchin?

Joe Biden, that loser handed the pen that he signed the act with to who? Joe Manchin. You know why, guys? Because the whole thing is theater. Almost everyone in politics is lying to you and almost everyone in media is lying to you. The reality is Joe Manchin and Joe Biden totally agree. They have the same exact donors, and a lot of those donors are also shared by establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell.

They all agree. They were always going to do the same thing, give the donors exactly what they want, and the rest is theater with nothing but magic tricks and illusions about being moderate or independent or Democrat or Republican. I mean, they do worse than say nothing, too. I mean, Joe Biden says things like, oh, Kirsten Cinema is a tough cookie. Oh yeah, that Joe Manchin, he's a great negotiator. I mean, he praises them. He praises them for being beholden to corporations and only doing anything if they personally can enrich themselves

and their families, never mind the water, air, and, you know, planet, right, as in the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is really important to put out. You know, here's the thing, Joe Manchin's not switching parties. He's not switching parties, are you kidding me? Because it's so perfect. He has the president buy the balls and Joe Biden's willingly headed them over. Why would you switch parties and just become yet another Republican or just an independent? No, you've got leverage. The entire place just rolls out the red carpet for you and your stupid yacht. And so whatever it's called sundown or something, you know, so there he is. And he can go back to West Virginia, even though he's wildly unpopular and basically say, I have the president by the balls. I'm a Democrat,

but not that Democrat, and look at what I've delivered for mostly me, but a little bit for you, but anyway, you know, and and peace out. So he's full of it. And this whole flirtation with leaving the Democratic Party, why would you do that when you can stay in it? You can berate them. And as Jen pointed out, nothing happens to you. Nothing happens. Yeah. The worst that ever happens is occasionally a young person will, you know, like protest near him. And then the media freaks out on behalf of the great moderate. manager, as well as two other individuals have been ordered to pay more than $50,000 to restitution and penalties for the roles in operating a fake, phony, made up charity that was announced after the tragedy in East Palestine. They set it up supposedly to raise money to benefit people, the community that was being devastated by the tragedy, by the toxins in the air, in the water, in the land that were making people sick, that were killing animals. There raised a bunch of money and they didn't do what they said they were going to do with it.

So we have this announcement of settlement by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. So in this, Isaiah Wartman and Luke Mahoney of WAMA Strategies must pay more than $22,000 in restitution to a local food bank, as well as $3,000 in investigative costs and fees to Yoss's office. So basically what happened is they set up the Ohio Clean Water Fund, collected nearly $149,000. $1,000 from donors in the aftermath of the February 3rd derailment. And what they did was they did a bunch of text message fundraising solicitations. They sent mass text messages of people and a bunch of people to their credit desperately wanted to help.

That was in the news for weeks. Lots of people wanted to make sure that the residents of East Palestine got what they needed. And unfortunately, some of them tried to help through this phony made-up charity. And so they said they were going to give the money to the second harvest food bank. They gave only about $10,000 and pocketed the rest. And I know, look, any charity is going to have operating costs and things like that. You can critique how much they put into their own operations, but they gave much less than 10% of what they raised. This was clearly a scheme to take advantage of the fact that lots of people were horrified by this tragedy and they wanted to personally enrich themselves.

So basically the sort of grifting that we see every day, including from people like Marjorie Green, just in a slightly different form. Yeah, look, I think the word grifting gets thrown around a lot, and I'm a little bit guilty of it myself. But this is an actual, verifiable, proven grift. Give money to help people in a disaster. Just kidding, I'm going to keep over 90% of it. So it just not only is it stealing,

it's stealing from the people who needed the most, and the people who were the nicest enough to give. And so look, I know that unfortunately there's a lot of griffs on a lot of sides these days, okay? But when it comes to Republicans, I'm sorry, but I think you're nuts to give to any Republican because they keep robbing you blind. And I mean, if you're good with it, it's up to you, man. It's a free country. But you remember Steve Bannon's fake wall?

His co-conspirators got convicted. Donald Trump pardoned Steve Bannon. They said, oh, we're going to build a wall. Ha, ha, ha. Watch these idiots will all give us their money. The people who trust us the most are the ones we're going to rob the most. So give us your money and we'll build a wall. We're going to build a wall and they went and we're on a yacht and spent all this money on themselves, et cetera.

And Bannon laughed his ass off at who, Democrats? No. Republican voters who were, you know, unfortunately, you know, trusted him. Look, this is what all of them do. You got George Santos. You know, I mean, this is Marjorie Taylor's campaign manager. It goes on and on. And of course, the granddaddy of them all Donald Trump. So let me quickly read you things that people have conveniently forgotten.

So remember Donald Trump had a fake university? I mean, just pause and think about that. He ran a fake scam university. It wasn't a university at all. Now, if you're mad out there, they're like, oh, yeah, right, there's no way, man. How would you feel if you know that Donald Trump actually admitted it? So let's tell you what happened. lawyers filed three separate lawsuits from 2010 to 2013 against Trump University for among

other claims deceptive practices. Donald Trump has agreed to pay a $25 million settlement to the people who attended Trump University in 0708, 2009, and 2010. He's like, he admitted he ran a scam and he conned these poor people who believed in him. He says the same thing every time. He's like, oh, these people gave me money. They were big banks and they said, let me set up casinos and stuff. So of course I robbed them. And when it was came time to pay them, I didn't pay my bills. I declared bankruptcy, that's smart business.

And Maga's like, yeah, wait, they robbed the people who trusted you, right? And then people trusted them on a university. He robbed them. By the way, when he started getting campaign donations from you guys, from MAGA, he then increased his rent by 500% in Trump Tower. I said, oh yeah, yeah, my campaign is renting all of this office space in Trump Tower. Conveniently, just now, it went up 500%. Why? Because he's like, bunch of suckers and losers.

Actually, believe me, can you believe that they believe me? And so he started robbing you. He didn't rob the left. No skid off my ass. You want to keep trusting him, go for it. But if you're going to give him to a charity of a Republican, be really careful, because I'm going to get one more thing for you. Remember Trump's charity.

He also had one of those. President Trump has paid $2 million to eight charities as part of a settlement in which the president admitted he misused funds. raised by Donald J. Trump Foundation to promote his presidential bid and pay off business debts. So that story has so much wrongdoing in it. He got a $10,000 picture of himself. And he's just such a terrible, terrible person. He ripped off veterans, pretending that he was going to give the money that he raised in a campy event to veterans.

And then when they sued him over his fake charities, he's like, all right, fine, I'll give some of the money to the veterans. But which charities did he rip off? I got that for you. Last one. The nonprofit groups that received payments were the Army emergency relief. Wow, he ripped them off. Oh, he loves veterans, does he? The Children's Aid Society, he's robbing little kids.

That's who this guy is. Sitting meals on wheels, robbing the poor, of course. Give an hour, Martha's Table, the United Negro College Fund. He was pretending that he was on black people's side while robbing them. the United Way of the National Capital Area and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum each received a total of $476,000. So these are the folks that he's, oh yeah, I'm so, I'm so charitable. I'm a big giving person.

Give me the money. Ha ha, ha, ha, so I robbed them. I robbed the people going to the Holocaust Museum. I robbed them. Black people, I robbed them. Poor people, I robbed them. Oh, the people who trusted me, Republicans, I robbed them. Remember, these are all settlements where he agreed.

Yes, he was a con man who ran a fake charity, a fake university. He is robbed Republicans blind. That is why his top advisor, Steve Bannon, was like, oh, great idea. I'll do a robbery. I'll do a fake wall. I'll rob them. Now Marjorie Taylor Green's campaign manager. Oh, we're all doing robberies.

And it turns out, all our guys are the biggest suckers. And think about it, guys. Look at all the right wing media hosts. What do they sell? penis pills, brain pills, you know, gold, bunkers, et cetera. They all think you're suckers and they're robbing you from now to eternity. Please wake up, Frannie. Yeah, and I think there's something particularly insidious about fundraising and robbing the people of East Palestine, robbing food banks.

Because that was an issue that the MAGA world, Trump included, Marjorie Taylor Green included, was like, ooh, this is our issue. It's a rural town, largely white, you know, let's go. We can sort of fudge the stuff about like corporate power and, you know, and all that. Like even though we totally won't vote for like any kind of infrastructure bills and we won't actually oversee, you know, regulating the railroads. And we'll absolutely vote to break the strike just like so many did when it came to the, you know, the railway workers. Like we'll just use this, right? And we'll do our little full populism, our right wing population.

populism. And lo and behold, no, they're scamming the people who've been on the receiving end of one of the worst corporate climate disasters, toxic chemical disasters in our history. And so there you have it. It's just it's so perfect. And you're totally right. George Santos, who? Like, I'm sorry. Like, you can't blame a Republican for trying, right? Like, because like they're all doing at this much, much higher level. And just to say, Marjorie Green was on and on. none about, oh, where are the environmentalists? Where are they speaking out about this? Like all over the place. We covered it on this progressive network over and over and over again. And we continue to do so. Like people were talking about it and had actually helped out. No, they were fake fundraising off of it and they won't have to answer for that at all.

But I'm glad these guys are actually gonna have to pay. Look, last thing I'll say is, why doesn't anybody ever go to prison over this stuff? I mean, you're going to rob people in this brazen way. Guy has an issue with a $20 bill and we choke him out and kill him in the street, right? But these guys steal $25 million at a time like Trump did with Trump University. Nobody ever goes to prison. That's why Trump is so shocked that right now he's being charged with crimes. He's like, I've been a lifelong criminal.

You don't remember when I ripped off the Holocaust Museum and the little kids and the veterans? And I didn't get charged for that. Why am I? I'm in the elites. Why am I all of a sudden being charged with crimes? I thought we could rob people all day long. And so I'm not surprised that these other Republicans try to rob the people of East Palestine. Just be careful, man.

It's your money. It's your money. Be careful with these thugs and criminals. And what happened? With these guys and with Trump, they just, and by the way, with almost every big business. You know, like all the businesses that rip people off. And then all of a sudden, like Rick Scott's former company,

the senator from Florida and other Republicans. biggest Medicare fraud in American history. And what happened? They pay a small fine or in their case, it was a giant fine. But it was only still a small portion of what they had robbed from Medicare. They always pay a little tax out of their ill-gotten goods. And then they're free to go. Rick Scott's not in jail.

Trump's not in jail. These guys aren't in jail. So look, again, Republicans, you want to get robbed? That's your business. As a friend, as fellow citizen, and I would urge you to have caution. But if you don't want it, sure, give your money away to incredibly rich people and have them laugh at you behind your back. Okay, we got to go. Yeah.

All right, everybody check out Bituation Room. That's Franie's podcast on the T-Y-T network. Everybody check out damage report, John's show, which Francesca is also on. Frannie, go ahead. And if you guys are in San Francisco or the Bay Area, October 17th, which is a Tuesday, I'll be doing stand-up with my husband, Matt Lieb, also a comedian. So get tickets, Live Nation, SF Punchline, wherever, just Google it. My Instagram, I'll see you there.

All right, sounds good, all right, 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 slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.