The Young Turks - Listless Vessels

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Meadows told the DOJ that he couldn't recall Trump declassifying documents. In talks with prosecutors, Hunter Biden’s lawyers vowed to put the president on the stand. Trump campaign bills DeSantis�� "listless vessel”' remark as "deplorables" moment. Vivek Ramaswamy says he'd run the government like Elon Musk runs Twitter. She hung a Pride flag at her shop. She was killed over it, officials say. Joe Biden’s DOJ is claiming “there is no Constitutional right to a stable climate.” Buyers of Bored Ape NFTs sue after digital apes turn out to be bad investment. Pro-Trump pastor tried to destroy a Barbie house with a Bible-tipped baseball bat in EPIC ragefest. The restaurant of mistaken orders. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, welcome to the hurricane. I mean, non-Huriken in L.A. The Young Turks, Janky, Granite is sparing with you guys. Seriously, guys, we're doing a show remote today because we were theoretically going to have a hurricane and a tropical storm and then basically nothing in LA. But anyways, that's-

It rained yesterday, be fair, and there was an earthquake at the same time. No, technically, we literally had an earthquake, a flash flood, and a hurricane warning at the same time. And I told the kids, mark it down, that might never happen. Let's hope to God that it never happens again in your lifetime, although we've been saying that about a lot of storms. But luckily, this one is just as a matter of chance missed us. If I was a Republican, I'd be like, there it goes, there's no climate change. Since it didn't do it too, it didn't happen to me, doesn't exist. But anyways, we'll be back in the studio tomorrow.

We got a hell of a show for you guys tonight, including a relative performance of Trump, DeSantis. Now here comes Ramoswami. We'll talk about that a little bit as well. And then Hunter Biden, guilty or not, we're certainly going to debate it on tonight's show. So we're going to give you all the facts and see what you do with it. And we're not sure what prosecutors are going to do with it. So all that's coming up. Casper, take it away. Well, you know, we begin with a gentleman that we actually have not heard much from

recently, but all of a sudden, boom, he's in breaking news. So let's discuss. I took what I took and it gets declassified. And by the way, they become automatically declassified when I took them. Everything was declassified because I had the right to declassively. But Mark Meadows, the man who served by Donald Trump's side as his chief of staff, has told investigators he was aware of no such broad declassification order. We have not heard much from Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, for quite some time now.

And there have been all these rumors percolating about how he might be cooperating with the special counsel, Jack Smith in the two specific DOJ investigations and charges that Trump is now facing, one having to do with the classified documents case, the other having to do with his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Now we're hearing reports that Mark Meadows has in fact been speaking to Smith about the classified documents and whether Trump actually declassified them ahead of time, which was one of the. defenses that Trump has been floating around ever since these charges came up. And what Meadows is saying clearly contradicts what Trump is using as part of his defense,

at least publicly. So according to this new report, Meadows has told special counsel Jack Smith's investigators that he could not recall Trump ever ordering or even discussing declassifying broad sets of classified materials before leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any standing order from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office. In fact, Meadows even told investigators that he had heard the term standing order used during his time at the White House, but it was never used in the context of declassifying these classified documents. Meadows also told investigators that he did not witness Trump himself packing boxes and was unaware that Trump had taken any government records, including classified

documents. And Meadows recalled two investigators, only one instance in his time serving as Trump's chief of staff, where he claimed to see Trump declassifying documents involving a binder with materials from the FBI's crossfire hurricane investigation into Trump's 2016 campaigns ties with Russia, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. And that order in the final days of Trump's time in the White House was the subject of dispute. However, as the Justice Department has resisted publicly releasing, they resisted publicly releasing those documents at issue. But there are other classified documents that we know about, including one that Trump was apparently talking about and waving around as he was in a closed

door meeting with the ghost writer for Mark Meadows' book, along with the publicist for Mark We'll get to that in just a moment, but Jenk, I want you to jump in. Yeah, so the number one question here is, is Mark Meadows a witness for the prosecution in the federal cases that Jack Smith is bringing, both the documents case and maybe even more importantly the January 6th case, because in the documents case, Meadows would have helpful information like this, which is definitely helpful. We get to how helpful it is in one second, But in the January 6th case, he would have a ton of information as the chief of staff to the president on whether they attempted to do fake electors and in essence, coup against America. And so that is

why whether he's prosecuting with the, I'm sorry, cooperating with the prosecutors is enormously important. And unfortunately, even with this story, we're left a little unclear as to whether he is or he isn't. So we'll come back to that too. But in terms of this particular piece of evidence, it's damning, of course. But look, it doesn't, you don't need this. It's just helpful for the jury to understand, but everyone on planet Earth knows there is no such thing as declassifying documents by thinking about it or by taking it out of a room or laserizing them or dreaming about them. These are not things. There are actually laws in this this country. And there is no law that says the president can go, I declassify you.

So this is just Mark Meadows saying, of course, of course there's no such law. And of course, he never actually, even if there was a law like that, he never actually did any of that. And to me, the most important one was the one you said at the end there, Anna, because they declassified a document together. So there's no question that there was a regular process for declassifying a document. And Trump did not use that process for any of these documents. Now, after it was clear that the feds were reaching out to Donald Trump in order to get those documents back. Remember, Trump had ample opportunities to just return the classified documents. He didn't have to face a criminal trial as a result of what he did had he just complied and handed over the documents.

He refused to do so. But according to what Mark Meadows has told prosecutors in this case, He had even offered to sift through those documents along with Donald Trump in order to do right by the federal government and return those documents. Let's take a look at what he said specifically according to the reports. Meadows told investigators that he had no idea Trump had brought classified documents and other official records with him to Mar-a-Lago. and that when the documents were first requested by the National Archives, he offered to help Trump go through the boxes he had taken from the White House to find and return official records. Meadows, according to sources, said the president did not accept his offer. The president did not accept his offer.

So, Jank, just going back to your question about whether Meadows is cooperating with the investigators. Look, we don't know the extent to which he's cooperating with investigators. We do know that he is willing to tell investigators things that clearly contradict Trump's narrative. And that goes further than what we've experienced from other Trump lackeys, right? Other Trump lackeys will ignore subpoenas, like refuse to cooperate, period. Now, the context is a little different. Usually it's in the case of like a Trump impeachment.

But nonetheless, the fact that he is answering questions from Smith and, you know, And showing a willingness to contradict Trump's narrative, I think says something about how willing he is to basically cooperate. I don't know to the extent to which he's cooperated already, though. Yeah. And so I think all that is absolutely correct. But let me add important clarity to this too, which is that in the documents case, there's no need for Mark Beddows to get immunity. It doesn't appear that he did anything wrong. He had no idea that Trump was saying the archives. And when he found out that he took the documents, he offered to help. The fact that Trump turned down his offer is also pretty telling because that's his chief of staff. If anybody would know, would have enough security clearance to look through those documents and get the proper ones back to the archives.

It would be Mark Meadows. There aren't a lot of people that have enough security clearance to do that. And he didn't pick anyone else either. In other words, Trump notified not only by the government, but also by his own advisors saying, no, Mr. President, you have these documents, you definitely should not have. So let me come help you bring them back. And he's like, no, I don't want you to bring them back. Even though he knows, he knows it's illegal to keep them. So that's Trump. But in this case, it's easy for Mamos to cooperate. He doesn't need an immunity deal. He doesn't need anything. In the January 6th case, he's going to need an immunity deal because he was very, very likely involved in the plot. He certainly was in the room when they were making the plot.

So that's where we're gonna find out. Is he really a cooperating witness and has turned evidence against Trump in a way that gets him immunity or not? And so this is just an appetizer for that. But remember, the document's case is easier to prove. It's an absolute unbelievable slam dunk. I've never seen a slam dunk easier than this. So to that point, I want to get to one other element of this investigation, which really centers on a conversation that Trump had during a closed door meeting with the ghost

writer for Mark Meadows' book, The Chief's Chief, which was published in 2021. There was also a publicist in the room for Mark Meadows. Mark Meadows was not in the room at the time. And during this meeting with Donald Trump, Trump bragged about being in possession of classified documents. Let's watch. One of the key pieces of evidence in the case is an audio recording of Trump allegedly describing a classified document he appears to have in his possession. as he was being interviewed by a writer and publisher who were at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey for Mark Meadows's book about his time as chief of staff. Meadows was not present for the interview. This totally wins my case, you know, except it is like highly contrabandial secret.

This is secret information. Look at this. This was done by the military given to me. Since president, I could have discussed. No, I can't. ABC News has reviewed an early draft of Meadows's book that describes Trump talking about the document, allegedly a four-page war plan prepared by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Millie. On the couch in front of the president's desk, there's a four-page report typed up by Mark Millie himself. It shows the general's own plan to attack Iran. The draft reads, when President Trump found this plan in his old files this morning, he pointed out that making this declassified would probably win his case.

So that very last part that you heard was an excerpt from the book that was never published in the final draft. And so Smith reached out to Mark Meadows to ask him, yo, bro, why? Like what's going on? Why did you take that out of the book? And Mark Meadows allegedly said that, you know, well, you know, I didn't believe that Trump was actually. in possession of the document. The reference to that document being in Trump's possession was removed before the book was published. Meadows acknowledged two investigators that he had asked that the paragraph be changed and that it would be problematic had Trump had such a document in his possession.

Sources tell ABC News that Meadows told special counsel investigators that he did not discuss making those edits with Trump. But apparently after the book was published and after this classified document story really blew up, Meadows apparently started to change his mind and realized, oh, Trump, very likely, was in possession of that classified document pertaining to a war plan with Iran. Yes. And look, I'm super curious what happens when horse crap meets a courtroom. And we're gonna find out soon enough because all of Trump's excuses have been preposterous. And because of his inability to control his verbal diarrhea, she where it depends on his face. He has on tape admitted that he has classified documents and then he shouldn't have them. You guys heard it with your own ears, the jury will hear it with its own ears, and then his lawyer will come in with,

And he zapped them earlier and they were in class. This stuff's not going to work in a courtroom. Yeah, look, it's if there's one person who's Maga in the jury, it's over. He's going to skate. But if there's no, because they're just, look, we're going to talk about the cults later, but they're among the cults in America, right? But if there's no cult member on that jury, it's open and shut and really important stuff, guys. He didn't take home some memorabilia.

I'd say get off his ass if it was that. He, you know, the Kim Jong-un love letter, that's technically classified. I don't even, I don't even know if that's classified. But technically you shouldn't take that one either. It's a government document between two world leaders, but you want to take home Kim Jong-un's love letter and cuddle up with it at night. It's not the end of the world and nobody's going to prosecute you over that. You take home nuclear secrets and our defenses and our allies defenses.

And for a guy notorious for wanting to get as much money as humanly possible at every single endeavor that he does. No man, if there's any justice in the world, including now with Mark Meadows testimony, he's a goner. The rest is just political because he has no defense, none, zero, it's gonna be a blowout inside the courtroom. So, okay, I have a few things to say. Number one, Just to your point, Jank, I mean, remember that young man who was in the military had access to classified documents and just decided to share those classified documents or leak them in the context of a Discord channel. I bring that up because he's facing serious charges for doing so, right? For the mish handling of classified documents. So if an ordinary person who was in

the military is facing serious charges and serious consequences for what he did, I think it's I think it only makes sense, given the evidence that we see, given what Trump was bragging about in that audio recording, that he faced the consequences as well. So I'm glad that this trial, or this case, I should say, is going forward. A non-substantive point that I must make, I don't know why the publisher for Mark Meadows's book hates him, because that cover ain't it. Like, I don't know what that cover was, but it's bad. He looks like he's standing behind Trump and just smelled his fart. Like what is going on there? Well, to be fair to them, that is kind of symbolic of Mark Meadows tenure as his chief of staff, standing behind Donald Trump and smelling his farts.

And in the beginning, he pretended to enjoy them. And now facing some legal trouble of his own, all of a sudden not enjoying those farts as much. But either way, I say the book cover, nailed it. And final point I wanted to make, or it's more of a question, I'm curious what you think. So remember, when it comes to the federal case regarding Trump and his team attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Mark Meadows is not indicted in that case. However, he is indicted in the Georgia case, right? And I'm wondering, let's say Fannie Willis in Georgia decides, no, I'm not going to provide any type of immunity for Mark Meadows. He's a co-conspirator, he has been indicted. Would that dissuade him from cooperating in the federal case? Yeah, so that's why all this stuff is top secret, although then Trump might have those documents too.

No, I'd happen after Trump. But in all seriousness, they're keeping their cards really close to the vest here in terms of Mark Meadows' role in the federal case. But if he got immunity in the federal case, that means he's going to give the evidence to the prosecutors, in which case he would do that for a Fani Willis in Atlanta as well. And then at that point, you know, basically indicting him and trying him and putting in prison would be gratuitous. My guess is that Fannie Willis and Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor, would talk. And Meadows would probably get a similar plea deal, an agreement and immunity from Georgia as he would from the federal case in that fact pattern. Well, we'll see how it plays out. But I think this is the first. sign that Meadows might be cooperating with the investigators. And that's been a rumor

that's been kind of floating around for quite some time now. So I'm interested to see how this all plays out, how this all develops. Obviously Trump has been indicted not in just one case, but in four different cases. So of course we'll update you as we learn more. For now, we're going to take a quick break when we come back a different investigation having to do with Hunter Biden this time. And we finally have more details about the plea deal that fell apart for Hunter Biden. I want to get into those details and more when we come back. All right, welcome back, America. Shank and Anna with you guys, Anna's got more news.

I sure do. So we just talked about the classified documents investigation. Now let's move on to the Hunter Biden plea deal that never happened. A few weeks ago, a plea deal for Hunter Biden absolutely fell apart. This had to do with the case involving his tax evasion and illegal gun purchase. He apparently purchased a gun when he was using crack cocaine, which is a cocaine, which is against the law. Lying about it on federal documents is also clearly against the law. So new reporting by Politico, and I got to say it's an excellent report, really

helps to shed light about how those plea deals came to be, why they fell apart, and what kinds of conversations and deal making was happening behind the scenes between the prosecutors and the defense attorneys representing Hunter Biden. Now, first, let's talk a little bit about what Politico did here. They managed to get access to about 300 pages of email and documents that were exchanged between Hunter Biden's defense team and the federal prosecutors. And in those documents, we learned quite a bit, okay? So Biden's defense team apparently urged federal prosecutors in October of 2022 to

avoid charging Hunter Biden with the gun charge. They argued that charging Hunter Biden with the gun charge would be giving into political pressure by the right wing and that it would have all sorts of negative impacts on the DOJ, the public's perception of the DOJ. I'm not really sure I'm buying that argument, but nonetheless Biden's lawyer, Chris Clark, wasn't amused that the potential gun charges were leaked. And then he also felt that it was politically motivated and could violate the second amendment. Clark was also worried that this would mean that President Joe Biden could potentially testify if the charge went to trial. So according to Betsy Woodruff Swan over at Politico who did a good

job with this report, Clark wrote the federal statute barring drug users from possessing guns is constitutionally dubious at best. He cited the recent Supreme Court ruling on the second amendment. Amendment, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruin, which held that all gun restrictions had to be similar to those that existed at America's founding. And look, this is a little bit of a tangent, but it's obviously relevant to this case. None of those laws barred people from owning guns because of drug problems. So it was just a matter of time until the Supreme Court overturned the prohibition that Biden had allegedly violated, Clark argued, since the Bruin ruling numerous criminal defendants have made the same argument in court, some with success.

So really this piece starts off with the defense attorney, in this case Chris Clark, reaching out to the federal prosecutors to discourage them from tacking on this additional gun charge. And then in this 32 page letter that he wrote to prosecutors, Clark said the following, President Biden now unquestionably would be a fact. witness for the defense in any criminal trial. Now, considering the fact that this is, in my opinion, being blown up for political reasons by the right, I don't know, Jake. I feel like what Clark said there provides more of an incentive for the federal prosecutors, which by the way, one of the federal prosecutors was chosen by Donald Trump, right? It's almost like they're threatening the right wing with a good time. Like, no, please, don't, don't add this gun charge because if you do, there is some likelihood that President Joe Biden in this politicized investigation would have

to, you know, be a witness, a fact witness in the case. What are your thoughts, Jake? Yeah, so the fact that David Weiss, really the only prosecutor that matters here now, because he's the special counsel, was appointed by Donald Trump, is going to be very, very relevant in a little bit. But let me break it down first. So look, this case is definitely outrageous. The only question is we don't know which way we should be outraged. So it's either massively undercharging or massively overcharging. So why? The gun charge and the tax charge, for reasons that I could explain in a minute, are ridiculous. Totally poor crap. Disagree. Yeah, all right, we'll debate it. We'll talk her through, okay? So that leaves you two possible reasons, in my opinion, why they're doing that. Either they don't want to charge the lobbying stuff because it's real, like violations of lobbying, et cetera, that Hunter Biden did. That's the mother load, right? Did he actually affect policy of the United States of America? Did he affect his dad, et cetera?

Either they have a lot there and they're trying to distract you by just charging these nonsense gun and tax charges, give them complete immunity and let them walk, in which case it's massively undercharging and it's an outrage and Republicans are right, okay? Or they've got nothing on the lobbying. And so in order to save face, this Trump prosecutor is like, all right, let's charge him with nonsense so that it looks like we were tough on him. and in which case they're overcharging and almost definitely going to lose in court, in my opinion. Okay, so look, for me, what I did with this case is I considered how I would feel if the shoe were on the other foot, right? If this was a case involving Donald Trump, he failed to pay his taxes, he purchased a gun while addicted to crack cocaine, these are all like there are laws and these laws were allegedly broken, right? I would want Trump to be treated the same as anyone else in our criminal justice system, right? If you don't pay your taxes, if you're buying a gun illegally, you're going to face some

criminal charges and no one's going to look out for you and try to get you a break. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, go ahead. I can explain. So look, there's the gun charge is obviously different. So the gun charge is, would I have prosecuted Trump on the gun charge? No way, not even close. It would be massively counterproductive. It'd be a terrible idea and it would just flat out beyond just. So why do I say that? Literally no one has been charged with this crime in the state of Delaware as Hunter Biden has. So usually a gun charge like this does get charged when there's an underlying crime. So let's say that he robbed a bank and then he had a gun on him, which he legally could have had except for the fact that he was on

drugs and because of the drugs then it becomes an illegal gun possession and you add that on top of the bank robbery, the armed bank robbery and all the conspiracy and all that stuff. When there is no underlying crime, literally no one in the state of Delaware has ever been charged with this crime. So on that alone, it's just garbage, garbage. Second of all, Republicans, be careful what you wish for. I mean, look, I like gun charges. I would do press a lot more gun charges in rational fact patterns where there's an actual crime, right? You sure you want that?

Because if this sets a precedent, I guarantee you at least a quarter of the Republicans in this country have violated this law. In states where marijuana is illegal, you guys, you never, none of you ever smoke marijuana and had a gun at this same time, let alone the other drugs. No, utter horse crap. I can get into the taxes next if you want. No, okay. So look, that's how you feel about the gun charges. I'm willing to let that go. I think the tax charges are much more important. But what I really want to talk about is the plea agreement. Because the way the plea agreement was reported prior to this political piece, which is very well detailed, I couldn't really understand why it fell apart and why Republicans were, A, furious with Weiss, the special counsel for agreeing to the plea deal, and really

what the various iterations of the plea deal were, and why the judge had such a huge problem with it, right? So I'm going to go through the three iterations of the plea deal so you understand what happened. And the reason why the plea deal bothers me is because it would have provided immunity for Biden, should there have been some evidence, like let's say he agreed to the plea deal, the plea deal goes through. If after the fact, there is evidence to show that Hunter Biden had committed other crimes, including lobbying related crimes, if he was selling influence to foreign business partners, under the plea deal, he wouldn't get prosecuted for that. Okay, so let me go through the iterations real quick, because just really, really interesting how this all played out.

So on May 18th of 2022, another lawyer for Biden sent two Delaware prosecutors, including a woman by the name of Leslie Wolfe. It's a senior prosecutor in the Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office. The first draft of a proposed deal structured so it wouldn't need a judge sign off and would not require a guilty plea from Biden. So Biden, I'm sorry, it would require a guilty plea for. from Biden, right? So Biden would admit that he was late filing his taxes for 2017 and 2018, and that he owned a gun while he was using drugs. He would promise to pay any taxes he still owed and that he would never own a gun again.

This was the initial plea deal, right? If upheld his, if he upheld his end of the bargain through January of 2025, the Justice Department would promise to not prosecute him for anything they investigated this, the thus far. And the draft wording of that promise was pretty clear and broad. So I'm gonna read you the Justice Department draft. It read as follows. The Department of Justice agrees not to criminally prosecute Robert Hunter Biden and the affiliated businesses, and then it lists the businesses names, for any federal crimes arising from the conduct generally described in the attached statement of facts, or for any other federal

crimes relating to matters investigated by the United States. One of the things they're investigating him for is crimes committed having to do with lobbying, right, and selling influence to foreign business partners. Now, Weiss's team apparently was pleased with this initial plea agreement, which would require him to plead guilty to both charges. And they wanted, they'd want the deal to be structured as a pretrial diversion agreement, which meant it could come with a built in promise to drop all charges against Biden. again, if he abided by its terms for several years. But then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, you have the second iteration.

Because on May 19th, Wolf, this is the prosecutor, pointed to another deal that Biden's could be modeled on. An agreement the Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office had made with camera company Aegis electronic group in 2011 to resolve allegations that it violated sanctions on Iran. Now the company didn't plead guilty to anything in that case and the Justice Department eventually withdrew charges. As part of that agreement, which David Weiss had green lighted, ages had to cooperate with the fed's ongoing investigation. But Biden's deal, Wolf wrote, would it need similar cooperation requirements? That evening, one of Biden's lawyers sent another draft pretrial diversion agreement addressing both the gun and tax issues.

It was still quite similar to the first. It also incorporated wolf's must haves. And it guaranteed Biden the same broad protection from prosecution for anything. The Justice Department had investigated up to that point. It also guaranteed that the department would move to dismiss all charges if Biden upheld his end of the deal. So the only difference between the first iteration, the second iteration is in the second iteration, he doesn't have to plead guilty to anything. Then you get these IRS whistleblowers who came out and they say,

something's fishy with this investigation. They're slow walking it. Biden's getting special treatment. Prosecutors get freaked out over that. And so they decide, no, we need the third iteration of this plea deal. So they go back to deal making, right? And on the third try, they decide, and they agree that he will plead guilty to the tax charges, but not guilty on the gun charge. And that the gun charge, as long as Biden abides by his. end of the deal will eventually get dropped, right? As long as he abides by the rules and doesn't break any of the specific rules that are set forth in this plea deal. Now, in all three examples, what really stands out to me is the fact that had the plea deals gone through, Hunter Biden

would basically have blanket immunity when it comes to what I would argue is the most serious potential crime, which is the selling influence to foreign business partners. Right? Yeah, that's right, Anna. But that's why this case is an outrage either way, because if, if, and this is not addressed by anyone, and it's driving me crazy, and David Weiss has never said a goddamn word about it, and it's actually infuriating that the Republicans are not focusing on this. Because if it turns out that David Weiss has a ton of evidence that Hunter Biden did things

that were wrong in lobbying and getting those sweetheart deals, et cetera. That's the thing that Republicans were supposed to be mad about, not some stupid gun charges or irrelevant tax charges. And if it turns out they're using these minor charges to let him skate on the major charges, well, then that's not a little corrupt. That's massively corrupt, okay? So in which case, David Weiss should be in massive trouble, and this is a serious scandal. But David Weiss is appointed by Donald Trump, so I don't know why he would do that. it on a solo show, you weren't there. Republicans were freaking out about the plea agreement, and they soured on Weiss as a result of the plea agreement. Because they want to get, yeah, go

ahead. But Anna, they're freaking out because they think, oh, I mean, as far as I saw. And so if you saw, and I wasn't on the show that did in follow the news as closely, but they're freaking out because they're like, no, prosecute them harder on these charges. These charges are irrelevant. Are you going to prosecute them on the actual thing? Or are you not going to prosecute them on They had a problem with the sweetheart deal, which would offer Biden immunity when it comes to other potential crimes that he committed. No, of course they did. No, I know that. Of course they did. But has anyone shown one piece of evidence that Hunter Biden broke the law in that regard? Like, if they have the evidence, this is the time to show it, right? Because then I will join their side and say this is an outrage. And I can't believe they're covering this up. And they're. This is exactly how you would cover it up. You're prosecuting on minor stupid charges, no one cares about while giving him an immunity

deal on the more important charges. But if you don't have any evidence of the serious charges, and just because you want to satiate Trump and the Republicans, you're prosecuting this guy on charges that no one on else in America would get charged for, then that's an outrage in the opposite direction. There is no situation here where there isn't an outrage. Either Hunter Biden is getting totally railroaded on these nonsense charges. Or he did something much worse and David Weiss somehow flipped teams is Biden deep state and is trying to cover up for him. I'm not ruling that possibility out because we haven't seen any of the evidence.

And by the way, the guy makes like Hunter Biden in 2017, 2018. Now remember his dad's long out of office, no one has any idea that that, that, Biden is gonna win in 2020. In 2017 and 2018, Hunter made one and a half million dollars in both those years. Where the hell's this guy getting this money? So I'm totally open to the fact that he's a crook, but you have to show it. And so far, David Weiss has shown no such evidence and neither of the Republicans. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you on that. So we're actually on the same page. You know, I haven't seen any evidence of any other criminality or potential criminality from Weiss's investigation. The Republicans in Congress and their investigation

has been a complete and utter joke. I mean, we've seen just Devin Archer's testimony was supposed to be a bombshell, both implicating Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. And nothing of the sort happened during his interview. In fact, Representative James Comer didn't even attend the testimony that day or the interview that day. And so, you know, the House Oversight Committee has really, you know, fumbled on this. I haven't seen anything from the special prosecutor in regard to other potential criminality. So you're right, Jenk, we don't know for sure. But I have to say I do have a problem with this blanket immunity. I do think that goes too far, right? Because the investigation is ongoing and just clearing him of, you know, giving him immunity

and protecting him in case something does come out, I think is a little questionable. No, Anna, there's a reason for that. So either the reason is because they want to cover up his other crimes, or it's because the charges are so weak that you have to offer something in return to get Hunter Biden to accept the plea deal. Otherwise, if I was him, I'd go to court and I'd humiliate the prosecutors. These are charges that should definitely not be brought. Like the tax charges, as soon as they said you owe these taxes, he said, oh, I'm sorry, I was high those years, which everyone knows is true. And he immediately paid the back taxes and the penalties. It is very different than the Trump fact pattern where they have decades of cheating on taxes, writing one set of numbers for to get loans, another set of numbers for the IRS, two sets of books. And then when caught, they fight it tooth and nail, 200%, etc. So when you got real tax cheats like that and it has had a material effect, that's when you file charges on past tax evasion like this. But when an accountant or a dentist doesn't pay his taxes for one or two years, and then when

they say paid, he immediately pays it, including with penalties, that crime is charged 0% of the time. Okay, final thing I'll say, on the day that the plea deal fell apart, right? There was a misunderstanding of some sort between the prosecutors and the defense team because the prosecutors made it appear as though the plea deal did not offer the immunity that Hunter Biden was looking for. And as a result, Clark fired back and said, well, then we have no deal. The language in the agreement is much more muscular than what the prosecutor is saying now. So the judge asked just how much protection Biden would receive from possible future

charges. And Leo Weiss, the lead prosecutor representing the government that day in court, said the protection was narrow, limited to tax charges for the years 2017 and 2018. By the way, the documents do not indicate that. The documents made it clear that the immunity was much broader than that, not narrow and not limited to the tax charges. And to gun charges linked to the specific pistol he bought, Wise added that under the terms of the deal, the Justice Department could still hypothetically prosecute Biden for illegal lobbying. So at that point, Hunter Biden's lawyer, Clark freaked out and basically said, no, no, our agreement had the language that was much more muscular than that. And so if this is what the plea deal is, we do not have an

agreement. And so everything fell apart on the day that Hunter Biden was supposed to, you know, enter the not guilty plea. And so since it fell apart, he ended up, pleading not guilty to both charges, the tax charges and the gun charge. And it appears as things stand right now that this case is going to go to trial. Yeah, all right, last things here. That lack of clarity that you're talking about is egregious. The judge did a great job here. The one person that clearly did a great job. Remember, we're telling you that the judge who said, no, this deal should not go forward in the Hunter Biden case did a fantastic job. Okay, so now,

So now, the reason she did a great job is because what the hell does the immunity deal mean? If it means just the guns and the tax charges, then it's useless. And Hunter Biden would never take the deal. He would say, if I was him, I'd say, let's go to I'll see you in court. The whole point of this deal is that I get immunity on everything, right? That happened in the past. But if it includes immunity on everything that happened in the past and the prosecutors didn't agree to that and they're not even sure. No, that's super weird and totally unacceptable.

It has to be very, very clear. What is the immunity for? Otherwise, this deal is nonsense. And that's what the judge sniffed out. And I love that she did that. And finally, what's the charge? Like on the stuff that we're actually concerned about, him selling us out to foreign countries, et cetera,

so he can get paid. Is it, what does illegal lobbying mean? I've literally never heard. And I might have missed it from the Republicans. I mean, they've done 2,000 hearings on this, right? But what specific laws are they claiming Hunter Biden broke on illegal lobbying? Because the most common one that people break is they don't register as a foreign agent. But in this case, he was on the board of the Ukrainian gas company. He wasn't hiding anything.

So where's the beef? Show me what the charge is and what your evidence is. So until then, this is just to make Republicans happy. And I think it's actually a bad idea to give it to David Weiss. Trump picked David Weiss out of nine district attorneys to say he's definitely one of the ones that I trust in making America safe again. So he's a hardcore Trump guy. And so I don't know why in the world he would go and try to protect Hunter Biden. And if it's just the normal fact pattern, and he's trying to make sure that they get Hunter Biden to help Donald Trump, because he's on Trump's side, well, that's prosecutorial misconduct.

And that's terrible because I'm telling you, nobody else gets charged on this stuff. The things he actually charged are nonsense. All right, we got to take a break when we come back. We'll check in on Meatball Ron, see how his campaign is doing. All right back on TYT, we call it America. Jane Canana, we got more news for you. Let's check in with Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign, which is flailing like you wouldn't believe.

Governor DeSantis talked about Trump supporters. He used the words listless vessels. But he wasn't talking about Trump supporters. Hold on, I'm going to play it for everybody and then you can go ahead. Let's listen. A movement can't be about the personality of one individual. If all we are is listless vessels that's just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on truth social every morning, that's not going to be a durable

movement. Ron DeSantis, trying to desperately clarify a statement he made during an interview with the center right publication known as the Florida Standard. The Trump campaign has completely capitalized off this moment, and they're referring to the statements you just heard as DeSantis's basket of deplorable statement. They're trying to make it appear as though DeSantis was referring to Trump supporters when he used the phrase empty vessel. But I do want to give you the full statement before I give you the backlash he's getting from team MAGA, he said, quote, the movement has got to be about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people? And that's got to be based in principle.

Because if you're not rooted in principle, he says, if all we are is listless vessels that are just supposed to follow whatever happens to come down the pike on truth social every morning, that's not going to be a durable movement. Now the Trump camp again compared this to DeSantis's basket of deplorables statement, making reference to Hillary Clinton referring to Trump voters as a basket of deplorables. You have the spokesperson for the Make America Great Again pack kind of piggybacking off of that statement. To Hillary Clinton, Trump supporters are deplorables to Ron DeSantis, they are listless vessels. The truth is Trump supporters are patriots.

And the same line was being used by Jason Miller on X. He wrote via Twitter looks, or X I should say, looks like Ron DeSanctimonious just had his basket of deplorables moment, not good. Ron DeSantis rips Donald Trump supporters as listless vessels. But Jake, I think it's pretty damn obvious that DeSantis was referring to, you know, the Trump lackeys in Congress, those who really have no principles or values and just kind of go along with whatever Trump wants because they're so afraid of his base. But I don't really know if that is much of a distinction for Trump's base, right? Because Team MAGA probably doesn't take kindly to that statement either. I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, so first of all,

this is yet another exhausting foe outrage. So the mainstream media does this all the time. Oh, they said they didn't put the comma there, they put a semicolid, ah, we're outraged, right? And so now this a collabo between mainstream media and Trump, which is an ironic collabo, because they both want to attack DeSantis. So they were both pretending to be outraged by this super normal comment. Okay, so that's, and by the way, I hate DeSantis, but I'm not at all outraged by this comment, because I have a mind and I can tell the words that people use. And I don't have to, I don't have to pretend to be outraged by Ron DeSantis because I'm plenty outraged by him on things he's on things he actually did, right?

Now, like, what could Ron DeSantis say attacking Trump surrogates or Trump backing Republican politicians that wouldn't be mischaracterized as attacking the Trump voters? Nothing. No matter what he says, they're gonna pretend he said it about Trump voters. And by the way, I'll go way further than DeSantis did and say, is it also true about Trump voters? Yeah, at least half of them. I said the same thing about Hillary Clinton's comments. Half of them are deplorables, half of them are listless vessels who listen to the cult leader. The other half are perfectly redeemable, they've got lots of issues, but they generally agree with

us on economic issues and have been misdirected. And I know DeSantis can't say that, and no one in media, mainstream media can say that because all we cannot attack the beloved Republican voters, right? But I can do any damn thing I like. So yes, it's true and it's irrelevant in this case. I think Ron DeSantis is like this foible is the symptom of Ron DeSantis's own fears, right? Like his own cowardice because look, if you want to go after Trump, go after Trump. Like this is his way of kind of like indirectly in a roundabout way going after Trump because he's so afraid to just attack. Trump. So when he uses these like weird, the weird framing here is really what ended up getting

him in trouble. And it creates an opportunity in which his political opponent, in this case, the Trump camp can exploit his foibles for their own political purposes. And that's exactly what they're doing right now. Now, I didn't know this, but a former Trump administration official, Ken Cuccinelli, apparently big fan of Ron DeSantis and did not like the way CNN had reported this story. So I want to actually go to that video because he's calling him out. He's calling him out. There was a cut. You cut from the beginning of that quote to the listless vessels. You just did what the problem is. So everybody who just watch that, understand, go read the transcript. Okay, fine. So you summarize for us, what what was it that he was trying to say? Well, first of all,

his first point is an excellent point. This should be about America, not about individuals. Okay. And how do we get from there to listless vessels? Yes. Well, the rest of an entire paragraph, by the way. I mean, there's a pretty big gap in your cut. So he's talking about some of the folks in D.C. who've endorsed Trump. He's talking about the more general environment. And referring to all of us collectively, we can't just sit back and take all of this, be listless vessels. We have to move ahead with a different vision. So let me give you the part of the statement that Cuccinelli is referring to there. So during the interview on Friday, DeSantis described the split in support for him and Trump within the

party, criticizing huge Trump supporters like in Congress who have incredibly liberal left wing records. What? Without being specific about whom he was referring to, mostly because what he said was a lie. Like, which Republican in Congress right now is like a lefty? Like, what is he saying. So he just completely made that up. And then he name dropped Republican politicians who are, in fact, supporting him over Trump. He said, quote, then you have other people, you know, like Congressman Chip Roy, who has endorsed me, Congressman Thomas Massey. These guys have records of principle fighting the swamp that are second to none. And yet they will be attacked by some of these people and called rhinos. By the way, I don't think DeSantis really has a leg to stand on,

when it comes to the swamp or being against the swamp, because literally on the same day the story broke, the Washington Post had a lengthy piece about Ron DeSantis's desperate fundraising efforts. The Florida governor's fundraisers hoped that nine lobbyists would raise at least $1 million each for DeSantis's political action committee. The state and the Republican Governors Association, according to the document, which was drafted by Heather Barker, a top DeSantis, aide and his former fundraiser and shared with others and get a load of this to help them haul

in large sums of money. The document suggested that lobbyists be allowed to offer their clients certain perks, if you want to call this a perk, such as meals and rounds of golf with DeSantis, who loves the sport. Is there a politician Jake who doesn't love golfing? Like it's just amazing. DeSantis's fundraisers envisioned that some golf outings with the governor would net contributions of $75,000 or more, according to other emails among DeSantis's political advisors. But you know, Jake, DeSantis is totally against the swamp. Oh yeah, so a couple of things here. First of all, if you don't know who Ken Cuchinelli is, that's the Cooch.

He's the guy who tried to outlaw sodomy in Virginia. And that also includes oral sex. So he was gonna put people in prison for getting hummers, okay? So that's who that lunatic is. So the idea that the Ron DeSantis supporters in the Republican Party are liberal rhinos is hilarious. That part Cooch is right about, right? And DeSantis is right about like Chip Roy, Tom Massey, like lunatics, as giant right wingers as you'll ever find. So no, saying that DeSantis guys are rhinos is ridiculous, okay?

So that part, let's be fair to DeSantis. But DeSanda's brother, you gotta make up your mind, man. Are you gonna fight these guys or are you not? And so this, by the way, here, I'll show you how unbiased we are, fair show in America, Bernie Sanders chose not to fight Biden. He chose not to fight Hillary, that's why he lost. And so when you go to a primary, that's when you make the decision. Am I gonna fight or am I not gonna fight?

If you're not going to, just pack up and go home and stop embarrassing yourself, right? So, you know, if they come at me with, hey, did you call the people on the other side listless vessels? I would have to say, I don't give a goddamn who you are pretending I said it about. But the answer is yes, I did. Yes, I didn't. Here's why they are listless vessels. And here's why they should do better. Okay. So look, I could prove that point too. Biden versus Bernie in the 2020 primaries. Do I think some Democratic voters were brainwashed by mainstream media? Absolutely. Did that make them listless vessels in a sense? Yeah, it did. And so I know because like way earlier in my life, I was among them. I thought mainstream media was telling the

truth. Oh, politicians are having a real debate. Every week, I'd tune in for the debate about their ideas. Okay, sorry, I love your brothers, sisters. I've done your drug. But you don't know, you're in a cult. So I don't think there's any harm in saying it about voters, Whereas everyone else loses their mind when you talk about the voters, but show strength either way. And DeSantis so far has shown none of it. And finally, the great irony is the cult that I'm referring to, the mainstream media cult, it tells people, oh, Biden taking hundreds of millions of dollars from donors, that's not relevant at all. He doesn't care about those donors. Well, ironically, that's the same media telling you, oh yeah, the bribes that

that Ron DeSantis is taking, that's not a big deal either, right? So when he goes golfing with his donor buddies. That's what you got from the piece. That's what you got from the piece, Cenk. Look, what I know is, no, to be fair, okay, that piece points it out. You're absolutely right about that. Do they point it out in legislation? No, did they point it out as a regular course in covering these candidates? Absolutely not. Now, but the more important thing here is DeSantis is saying we're hardcore conservatives, and earlier, I told you that in a lot of ways they are, but he's also taking those bribes, which is what triggers the MAGA mind into thinking he's a rhino. So I hear you on that MAGA, but remember, Donald Trump also takes those bribes.

Look into it, look into Sheldon and Adelson and Donald Trump, and literally every major donor and Donald Trump. Saudi Arabia, Donald Trump. So all of these crooks in Washington take these bribes and both corporate media and right wing media lull you into a false sense of complacency that the guys on your side aren't taking them. The reality is the Santis is Trump is and Biden is. All right, we got to wrap up the story, go to break. But when we come back, we've got more news for you, including an update on Vivek Ramoswamy.

and what's really motivating his presidential run in the first place? Come right 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.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.