The Young Turks - Locals Vent Frustrations At Withdrawing US Troops

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

Kurds are cursing Trump for abandoning them. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jake Hugh Granite and Casparian with you guys. I told Anna right before we started, I'd be high energy.

Hey guys, I'm low energy, so I just warned him ahead of time, like, it's your lucky day. Oh, okay, is it? I don't know about that. All right, so, Jake, you're Jeb Bush with you guys. That gosh, low energy. Okay, please clap. All right, anyways, look, tons of stories for you guys. Every one of them is amazing.

Later in the program, Mitt Romney has a Twitter. He referred to himself as a lurker. That's all you need to know. He referred to himself as a lurker. Now, technically that is the correct term. But then later, Mike, how could we refer to him as a pervert? I'm not kidding, I'm not kidding. He used the account to attack other Republicans.

The whole thing is delish. Oh, I like it. I told you, I told you. So lots of news about the campaign and Trump, Trump's obvious, you know, you got the Doral backflip and you've got Syria, we're gonna get to that in just a second, a very important story there, but also on the campaign trail, Buttigieg. So some good news for him, he's really rising in Iowa, and I guess also further good news for him, Facebook's helping him, so, or at least Zuckerberg and his family is.

But that's a complicated story, though. It's not as simple as that. So lots of fascinating stuff, so let's just get to it. All right, I have a few announcements as well. First off, we are gonna do a super chat postgame show. So please check it out. As always, our postgame show airs right after the conversation in the third hour of the program. Go to YouTube.com slash TYT to join in on the conversation.

So can I just add to that real quick? So normally the last half hour, as a lot of you know, is just for the members. This is open to everybody, so, and you could leave any comment or question on YouTube super chat and we'll do our best to get through the ones that make sense, but you can critique that's okay, try to keep a little bit civil, it doesn't matter if you're outrageous, we won't read it anyway. So, but this one, normally we direct you to our website, but this one is YouTube.com slash

t-y-t. By the way, before that super chat, Courtney Love on the program. What? Really? Yeah, a different one, but still. Okay. But also from the state of Washington. All right.

And then one other quick announcement. I will be at Politicon this coming weekend, Saturday specifically. So please check it out. I will be debating slash having a conversation with Tommy Lerrin. It will be moderated by a political firebrand known as Clay Aiken. So really looking forward to that. But like, look, please go. If you're able to go, please go.

Please clap. And when you go, please clap. I would love to see non-conservatives at that event. It's taking place in Tennessee, so clearly I'm a little concerned about that. But nonetheless. Yeah, now Nashville's a little bit more progressive, obviously, than the rest of Tennessee. But okay, look, last thing I'm saying, I'm not going, but it is important to have good presence in the rule. Let's keep it real on that, okay?

So if you live anywhere near that, or if you don't, it's a good opportunity to see Anna and an exciting debate. Yes, all righty, so let's get to the news. The Turks said they got everything they wanted. Yeah, I was there. That's Mike Pompeo. He had a very difficult interview on ABCs this week with George Stephanopoulos, and for good reason. The Trump administration has made all sorts of terrible decisions. You have Mick Mulvaney confessing to quid pro quo.

You have Donald Trump abruptly pulling out of Syria. And the Syria story continues to develop. We continue to learn more about what's going on and where the US troops are being sent. But before we get to that, I do want to talk a little bit about how the Kurds have responded to this. Now, as you know, we had Kurdish allies in northern Syria, Donald Trump, after a phone conversation with the president of Turkey, decided to abruptly pull US troops out of that area. And he claimed that he was doing so because he just wanted to end these forever wars.

He wanted to bring the troops home. Now it's clear that those troops are actually not going to go home. They're going to be directed to Iraq. But before we get to that, let's take a look at this video showing how Kurdish residents in the area have reacted to Donald Trump's decision. Now keep in mind that the US troops who were there were essentially serving as a buffer between the Turks and the Kurds. And there was some concern that if you pull the troops out, then Turkey is actually gonna

move in with a military operation. And that is exactly what they've done. So let's go to this video, it's B roll, so I want to keep our mics up. It shows how some of these residents in the area, Kurdish residents have reacted. They're throwing rotten tomatoes at US troops, as they're driving by, as you can see. There were also protests where they had signs, criticizing how Trump has decided to abandon them and they're fearful for their lives. Yeah, Trump said it's working out perfectly.

Yeah, he did. I'm sure that the, what the courage they were, our former allies is in like a week ago that lost 11,000 people fighting ISIS, both for themselves but also on our behalf. I'm sure they were trying to give fruit and vegetables to our troops on their way out to make sure they weren't hungry. I'm sure that's how Trump would state it. And Mulvaney would say, yeah, they hate us. I'm sorry, I have a retraction of that statement.

They love us, and they were throwing the rocks and the tomatoes as presents. Well, let's go to Donald Trump's crazy and unhinged press conference from today. He was asked about his decision in Syria, and here is how he is illustrating what's going on in northern Syria right now. You know, we had 28 troops as it turned out. People said 50, it was 28. And you had an army on both sides of those trips. Those troops would have been wiped out. I don't think it's necessary other than that we secured the oil.

It's in a little different section, but we just secure the oil. And the other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section of Syria near Jordan and close to Israel. And that's a totally different section. That's a totally different mindset. So we have a small group there and we've secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion. And again, the Kurds are going to be watching.

We're working with the Kurds, we have a good relationship with the Kurds. But we never agreed to protect the Kurds. We support with them for three and a half to four years. So he thinks that the Kurds are not upset. You saw from that video, they clearly are upset because they've been abandoned. But more importantly, when he's referring to the oil, he's specifically. He's specifically talking about what defense secretary Mark Esper shared with the public today. So there will be a so-called residual force, American force in Syria to protect the oil field.

And the reasoning that they're giving is, well, we don't want the escaped ISIS fighters to get a hold of that oil because that's one of the ways that they finance their terrorist activities. We're also concerned about the leader of that country having access to those oil fields because of the fact that Bashar al-Assad is aligned with Iran. So the Trump administration is concerned about that as well. Okay, so I want to thank the Trump administration for making our priorities super clear. So a lot of politicians do what Trump does, but they do it in a more subtle way. they are systemic corruption and Trump takes it over top with personal corruption most of the time.

But Trump just says it. He's like, oh, we're there for the oil. So he's like, everything's great. We're not protecting the oil fields and not any of the humans, right? So normally politicians do political speak. Oh, we're so concerned about the Kurds and the minorities in Syria, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, the Christian minorities, our hearts go out to them. Evangelicals give me more votes.

but we've only secured the oil fields. And so Trump, since he doesn't know any better, it just says it. Like, I want the oil. So I put men around the oil, and then the rest I don't really care about it. I mean, do we really have a relationship with the Kurds? So they fought for us for three and a half, four years, and 11,000 of them died on our behalf. Who cares? The oil, though, the oil.

We secure the oil. And it's not just about ISIS. The chance of a couple hundred ISIS guys recapturing all those oil fields is, for the moment, being remote. But Lindsey Graham also just flat-out said it. He said it is that we're keeping the soldiers there, quote, to modernize the oil fields and make sure they get the revenue, not the Iranians, not Assad. So this is all about, I don't want Iran getting money. I want the money.

I don't want Iran getting it. And now, let me say something that I've seen nowhere else that is super important. When we put these, well, first let me actually tell you the stuff that you are hearing in other places, but that is really important. And then I'll get to the thing that no one else is talking about. So we're not leaving Syria. So that was clear from what Trump said. It's like, it's just a small number of people.

And we're moving to a different part of Syria. Different part of Syria is still Syria. So those thousand guys didn't leave Syria. We didn't end the endless wars. Anytime you hear a Republican or Trump supporter or any other person saying that Trump is ending these wars, that's just not true. In fact, he just deployed, recently deployed, 1,800 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia. So I was going to get to that next. So why, where did he put the 1,800 soldiers in Saudi Arabia?

By the oil fields. Now, wait, now this is really strange. Now, protecting the oil is not strange. We all get it. Every administration was doing that anyway. They were all obsessed with oil, oil, oil, oil, oil, oil, right? Dick Cheney couldn't get oil out of his mind. Trump does the same thing, but more brazen and is more.

straightforward about why he's doing it. Now, in Saudi Arabia, they're like, oh, it is to protect against the Iranian strikes of the Saudi oil fields. So now let me tell you what no one else is saying. We're using our soldiers as human shields. Because Iran could not possibly invade Saudi Arabia on the ground, get to where our troops are and engage in a battle. No, we're telling Iran, don't bomb the oil fields because you'll kill the human shields that

are called American troops. So if you do, then I will bomb you back and we'll start a war, which is what, of course, in reality, the neocons and the Pentagon want, okay, that Trump doesn't necessarily, I don't give it damn what Trump wants or is in his silly little head. But the bottom line is, both in guarding the oil fields in Syria and guarding the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, we're using our troops as humus shields. That's a fact, there's no question about it. Iran could not possibly get to those oil fields unless they bomb from the air.

So the point is, any, those, the only reason for our soldiers to be there is to die. So I want to go back to the US troops who will remain in Syria, because aside from protecting the oil fields, Mark Esper had, and that's the defense secretary, had talked about trying to keep some of the troops in the area. So let me give you the report. This was, you know, over the weekend, the Hill reported that U.S. troops leaving Syria will be relocated to western Iraq, where they will continue to conduct operations to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic state. And again, that's according to what Mark Esper said. One is to help defend Iraq, and two, is to perform a counter-IS mission as we sort through the next steps. And he also says that the

troop withdrawal will take weeks, not days. Things could change between now and whenever we can complete the withdrawal, but that's the game plan for now. Now, I bring this up because, again, it's further proof to show that Donald Trump has no interest in bringing troops home. He has no interest in ending the forever wars. In anyone who believes that nonsense has been completely conned by him. In reality, he's like any other president, but worse, right? In that he doesn't. He doesn't He does things for his own self-interest, right? He does things that will benefit himself and to some extent benefit financial interests here in the United States.

So the military industrial complex that surrounds him will have the final say. There's a reason why Mark Esper is coming out and kind of warning people like, hey, things could change, meaning we're gonna have more of a presence in Syria than you thought. I think the other thing that it means is, now look, this is our plan A. But Donald Trump's an idiot and can change his mind at any time. So God knows how he's going to scramble any of this. But I want you to understand what our current plan is. We have relocated some of the troops from northern Syria to other parts of Syria.

So they have not left Syria. Some of the other troops we have have left Syria. Oh, good news. So they're back in Seattle and San Antonio and Poughkeepsie, right? No. They got moved to Iraq. How does that help? So did you know we have 5,000 troops remaining?

Iraq? So I thought we were done with Iraq. No, our troops in Iraq and Syria. And as we told you before, Donald Trump has also put in 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia. Which, by the way, was the beginning of al-Qaeda in the first place, because we had put troops into Saudi Arabia. So here we go again, starting another cycle of decades of violence. And our troops are there, as I told you earlier, to basically service human shields to make sure that Iran does not bomb those oil fields. or anyone else does not bomb those oil fields. And by the way, that is Trump's current plan is to use them as human shields. But the neocon current plan is hoping that our troops do get bombed and killed so that we could

have further war with Iran and Yemen. So that is probably the plan of not just a lot of the neocons, but a lot of the oil companies, the defense contractors, et cetera. So that's what they look forward to. But have we ended the endless wars? Have we gotten out of the Middle East? Only a fool would say that, or someone who is corrupt and wants you to support Donald Trump, no matter which party they're in for reasons that are, well, either explicable or inexplicable,

depending on their financial incentives. But we have not left the Middle East. Donald Trump is not a progressive. He has kept those troops there. He's just reapportioned them to oil fields and to craven corrupt interests. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we have an update on impeachment, including what Donald Trump has to say about Democrats versus Republicans during his press conference. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR.

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All right, back on the Young Turks. Lots of great comments from you guys. Let's start with the members as usual. TYT.com slash join to become a member. Greg says Jenk, Anna, and all the Young Turks will rock. This is the only place I can get in the news that I trust. Thank you. Thank you, That's very sweet of you. Thank you. Terry Teeter, a Teeter-Totter German teacher, writes in with a prediction of what Super Chat is going to say later in the program, Jank, why won't you debate Sam Cedar? Okay, the funny thing is I did debate Sam Cedar a long time ago on a fascinating issue.

And if I looked back at it today, I would probably say that he won. Do you remember what the issue was? Yeah. What was it? Wilkins, he said he was not progressive enough and was, and hence had, was really problematic in how conservative he was as a president. I took the counter position to which I now pull a Rick Perry and go, oops. You'd have to watch the debate for the specifics.

I don't remember the specifics at all, but I know that overall, Sam seems they have a good point. Real quick, so we gave you the hashtag cold feet Crowder story in one of our post-case. became a member, that was an awesome story, t-y-t.com slash join. But anyway, like you have, you have conservatives running away from Sam Cedar, like avoiding him at all costs, and Politicon started using the hashtag cold feet Crowder. Oh, wow, I thought they'd be mad at Cedar for outing their Crowder and their representative. But all right, that's good, God bless on that front. By the way, if you want to find that interview, good luck, I don't know where it is, but your

Your best chance is YouTube.com slash TYT Conversation, because that's where all of our interviews are now. So YouTube.com slash TYT conversation. Okay. Jenck Tapper says, now our troops are going to protect oil refineries in Iraq. Sounds like Turkey isn't the only party who got here who got exactly what they wanted. Good point. A guy writes in, the courage of throwing rocks of love at our troops. Yep.

And then on Twitter, Sage Slyther and says, don't worry, Anna. me and my progressive friends are driving to Nashville to support you at Politicon, okay? That's awesome. Reeves on Superchat also backs that up and says, I'll be there for you on Saturday, Anna. I would not be surprised if there were quite a few TYT fans there. Nashville is mostly blue. Nice. Okay, and then last one is from Twitter again.

Cody Blaine says, if I ever hear the word, secure the oil again, especially from a politician, it'll be too soon. Hashtag green new deal. That's right, if we had the Green New Deal, we wouldn't need to go and sacrifice our troops and be all over the Middle East and waste all that money and lives protecting the goddamn oil, which is destroying the planet anyway. All right, let's move on to the news. They want to impeach and they want to do it as quick as possible.

That's Donald Trump during a press conference he gave today where he talked about impeachment and went after Democrats pretty aggressively, but he did also have some interesting things to say about Democrats versus Republicans. Let's take a look. This thing is all about a letter that was perfect. You never hear the letter anymore. It was all about whistleblowers. You never hear. What happened to the whistleblower? They got it because they've been discredited. What happened to the informant? And where's the IG? Why did the IG read the letter, read the transcript? You could have gotten it, I guess, I assume. I would have declassified it for him if I had to do that.

Why didn't he read this and then see that the whistleblower's account was totally different than the letter? Then he would have said, oh, there's no problem here. The whistleblower gave a false account. Now you have to say, well, do we have to protect somebody that gave a false account? You know, these whistleblowers, they have them like they're angels. Speaking of false account, he keeps saying this was all over a letter, a perfect letter. What is he talking about?

This is over a phone conversation that he had with the Ukrainian president, which was then put into a transcript form, although it wasn't really a transcript, it was a summary of what the note takers remembered. And then, yeah, it did match what the whistleblower had claimed. It matched it perfectly, besides which, if you're just focusing on that summary of the phone call, that alone is incredibly problematic. alone shows exactly what the Democrats would need in order to move forward with this impeachment investigation.

So look, normally I would make the case that Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about because he's an imbecile and that is generally correct. But in this case, Anna makes a good point, this seems to be more in the dementia camp than anything else. The letter that people were criticizing him for was the one he wrote to Erdogan, the leader of Turkey. It had nothing to do with Ukraine, he never wrote a letter to you. Ukraine.

He had a phone call with Ukraine, but he's like, the letter was perfect. This is all over a letter. What are you talking about? So look, there's something deeply wrong with the president. Yes, granted on every count, but I'm talking about his mental state. And it's, again, it's super obvious. The emperor has no clothes, but people aren't allowed to say it. So we should be having a huge national conversation about the 25th Amendment.

Every cabinet member should be being questioned by reporters, should be all over the Sunday talk shows, are you going to do the 25th Amendment, or are you not? The president has no, does not have a functioning mental capacity. Anyway, now onto the substance of it, again, of course, everything after that is also a lie. You know, I could break it down one by one for you, Anna basically already did most of it. But let me just, if you haven't seen any of the previous videos on this, real quick, the two different crimes are asking a foreign government to help you with your political campaign, even with that quid pro quo is a campaign finance violation. It is felony. It is clearly a crime.

The quid pro quo, which his chief of staff admitted last week, is a separate crime. Both of those are there. None of that is perfect, unless you're talking about a perfect crime. Okay. But most importantly, out of that entire video, the thing he said was, well, if the inspector, by the way, the whistleblower didn't go away. He still exists. Okay, none of it was true. Anyway, he said, if the inspector general wanted it, I could just declassified for him. Great, do that.

Yes, deal. We want to see, because what they released was not a transcript. It was a summary of the call. It was a recollection of the call, and it has big dot, dot, dot, dots all over it, okay? So give us the actual transcript of the call, if it's so perfect, why wouldn't you? And you say you have no problem these classifying it, so easy, hashtag release the transcript. I want to be impressed with how perfect that phone conversation was. That's right.

You know what? We are looking forward to giving Donald Trump credit. I bet you he nailed it. I mean, I bet you he talked about all these different Ukrainian officials that were part of the corruption that he cared so much about, that the only two people he mentioned in regards to corruption were not Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, that I'm sure that he listed all these different members of the parliament, the bureaucrats in Ukraine. I want to see how perfect the call was. Okay, of course he's not gonna declassified it because even though he has already admitted to a crime in the portion that they have released, their actual transcript is probably far, far worse.

So let's move on to the criticism he has for Republicans, specifically Mitt Romney. Take a look. I think the Democrats are lousy politicians with lousy policy. They want open borders, they don't care about crime. They want sanctuary cities. They don't care about drugs. They don't care about almost anything. They don't care about USMCA, how about that?

I think they're lousy politicians. But two things they have, they're vicious, and they stick together. They don't have Mitt Romney in their midst. They don't have people like that. They stick together. You never see them break off. So speaking of dementia, forgetting mental health, whatever you want to call it.

Like, he apparently has forgotten what the state of the Democratic Party is, which is incredible. It really is. But yeah, he's furious about Mitt Romney because Mitt Romney has been pretty critical of Donald Trump. Specifically on the issue of Syria, Romney hasn't commented too much on the impeachment investigation, but he has been seething when it comes to Syria. They always stick together. That's why there's 25 of them in a presidential race all hitting each other nonstop.

That's why there's the AOC wing and the Pelosi wing, and they constantly disagree. One side wants Medicare for all in Green New Deal, the other side is vehemently opposed to it. That's why they always agree. No, Donald Trump's version of the world is the enemies, the others, right? And they're all one big blob. Who cares? Who cares what their positions are? Because he sees the world all centered around him.

You're either pro-Trump or anti-Trump. So yeah, they might not agree on Green New Deal or any other policy matters. They might not agree on who should be the leader of the Democratic Party. And all these substantive issues, who cares? Are they pro-Trump or anti-Trump? Oh, they're anti-Trump, they're all united. On the other hand, Republicans, oh my God, even though I break law after law after law, and I spit on all of you and I throw every other Republican under the bus, that's okay,

I'm allowed to do that. That's not dissension. You must bow your head. So we have the Mitt Romney's of the world, who are, forget their policies, anti-Trump, that's it, it's over, he's anti-Trump. And that's the only thing that matters, because who cares about America? Who cares about the Republican Party and all of your silly little careers? The only thing that matters is Donald Trump's mind is Donald Trump.

Exactly. Now I want to move on to one other part of this impeachment update that I thought was telling. So over the weekend, George Stepanopoulos had an interview with Mike Pompeo, Secretary of And Pompeo had a difficult time to Seponopoulos' credit, he did ask some tough questions. And this particular exchange really stood out to me. Take a look. The evidence in testimony being collected by Congress is also establishing that the president's meeting with President Zelensky was being conditioned on him pursuing those political investigations. Were you aware of that? Did you approve?

George, I haven't had a chance to see the evidence that you assert is being accumulated. I wish that I could. I frankly wish that State Department lawyers were being permitted. in the room to hear testimony from State Department officials. This is deeply unfair to the officers that serve under me. It's wrong. I can't comment on what they're saying because I have not been permitted to either have a lawyer present or to see the recorded transcripts or the translations of what was said in those.

So I can't comment on what people may or may not be saying in that room. Frankly, you can't either. You weren't there either, George. So he's effectively throwing people under the bus. No, I don't know about it. If they did this stuff, it's very wrong, but I mean, I'm not, I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about it. Yeah.

And some of those folks are talking about the things that Pompeo did wrong. And he's like, I really want to support them. That's why I'd like to be in the room with them as they're saying those things about me. Oh, okay, yeah, it sounds like you want to support them. No. No, he wants to be able to take notes and intimidate them. And so that's not how this process works. So the impeachment moves forward, the investigation moves forward.

Donald Trump is losing more and more support among Republicans, Republican lawmakers, not specifically in regard to this impeachment investigation, but when you couple the debacle with Trump Doral and how he wanted to host the G7 there, Republicans were finally critical toward Trump in regard to that, and they've been openly and transparently critical toward Trump when it comes to Syria. So the walls are starting to, you know, cave in on him, and he's starting to panic. And it's fun to watch, it really is, because he's gotten away. I mean, just going back to when he said, oh, Democrats stick together, but Republicans

don't, right? He's really upset at the criticism. And he did it like that, yeah. He's really upset that they're now openly criticizing him. But in reality, he just fails to realize that he's been the luckiest president in American history. Like he's gotten away with so much. And they have tucked tail and they have supported him publicly, even though maybe behind

the scenes they're not so supportive. He's gotten away with everything. And it's incredible that it's taken this long for the walls to cave in on him. Yeah, and even so, he's rallying Republicans as we speak. And we have these nonsensical conversations. Mick Mulvaney comes out and says, I didn't say what I said on TV. And people are like, oh, well, maybe he didn't say it, let's debate it. Donald Trump says Adam Schiff should be deposed because he did a one portion of his reading

of the non-transcript of the Ukrainian call was parody and he's like, well, that's it, that's it. I found something that I could say was not completely accurate by one Democrat. And that is worse than the 12,000 lies that I have told. So we have this uneven playing field where we have to have conversations with lunatics and people that are not talking in logical, reasonable ways. And so he's still hanging in there. Look, I think that if we take over the Democratic Party, meaning progressives, it might upend everything that you see on television.

I mean, you're used to your whole life, Republicans coming out there, and no matter how wrong they are, no matter how preposterous their positions are, they just steamroll people. Yeah, they get caught, and then Pompeo sweats on ABC, Mulvaney sweats all over TV. But at the end of the day, you're still having a 50-50 debate over insanity, right? And the Democrats just, you know, mealy mouth. What if you had a Democratic party that was super strong? I know it seems unimaginable. But now with Bernie and Warren and AOC and Talib and Omar, et cetera, now you're beginning to imagining it.

Now imagine that was that Democratic leadership, not like a lone voice in the wilderness or a couple of candidates, you know, Although those couple candidates are about to win, but and the leader of the Democrats came out and just was guns blazing. That's why it's, look, the presidential election is obviously very important. But movements like Justice Democrats, that's also incredibly important. Because we have a system of checks and balances, a president can't get anything done. I mean, in foreign policy, unilaterally, they can do a lot. But when it comes to domestic policy, when it comes to getting actual Medicare for all passed,

you need lawmakers to work with you. And we know what a great deal of Democrats are like. We know what the blue dog Democrats did during the Affordable Care Act debates. And we know what they're gonna do in pushing back against the Medicare for all proposals. We need to elect more progressive members of Congress in order to get this done. Yeah, look, I'll just say a couple of quick things here. I interviewed Bill McKibbon earlier today, he's the founder of 350.org, one of the top environmentalists in the world.

And so we'll have that up for you later on t.com. And we were talking about John Higginlooper. He's running for Senate in Colorado in the primary, and he's definitely going to vote against Green New Deal. He's definitely going to vote against Medicare for all. He's going to vote with the Republicans on almost all of the major legislative issues. But the rest of the media, they just end democratic leadership. I was like, bravo, John Hickenlooper, how wonderful.

It just doesn't make any sense. It's all because the money, the money, the money, the money. They all take the corporate money, they do what they want. So just imagine a world, and you can make this happen. You can vote for Andrew Romanov instead of Hickenlooper in Colorado and change the entire planet if you do. I'm not kidding, right? That his Hickenlooper's vote is that important, that race is that important.

And a lot of these guys are so vulnerable, a new poll out today for Jimenez. For Jamal Bowman, he's a just Democrat running against the incumbent Elliot Engel. You know, there's all of these incumbents, you guys shouldn't run against them. Oh, you have no chance, trust me. New poll out, 60% of the people in that district are not sure who they're gonna vote for. What happened to all the people love the incumbents? No, they don't. They don't like the incumbents at all, okay?

And Jamal's already doing great. By the way, JustDemocrats.com slash Jamal to support him. But go to JustDemocrats.com and check out all the strong progressives. And none of them take corporate pack money. And all across the country, number one issue is I don't want anybody representing me that takes all that corporate money, because they're not gonna represent me. Exactly right. That's what all the polling shows, well, that's why we started Just Democrats, go support those

guys, take over the Democratic Party so we don't have these weaklings running against Donald Trump. They should have already ended him by now. It's ridiculous that he's still in office. And God knows if they'll be able to finish the job. Well, I want to give you guys some time to go to that URL. So we'll go to break. But when we come back, my absolute favorite segment on this show as the White House turns.

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If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this. free cycle. All right, back on TYT, let's give you some comments. Bruderbrooder's hardcore circus, right, Sid. Jesus. I love, check out old school.

Become a member, man. You get lots of fun, weird programming. TYT.com slash join. Anyway, he wrote in, I love the smell of the Trump administration unraveling in the morning. Here, brother. It's pretty brutal. Thomas says Trump is right. Establishment Democrats don't care about laws.

That's why he's still in the White House. Good point. Katie Nicole asks, Anna, will TYT ever design some TYT earrings? Oh, that's fascinating. Fascinating, yeah. Maybe. Okay. Now, these last two are great points on Twitter.

Ryan says Republicans are going to use Trump to get what they want. And once they're done with him, they're going to turn around and throw all the blame on him and his mental state in an attempt to distance them from him. That is almost certainly going to happen. There's one piece of that puzzle, though, that you have to mention. It really depends on Republican voters and where they stand. The second Republican voters turn on Trump, if that ever happens, that's when you'll see Republican lawmakers come out against him. That's why his decision in regards to the Kurds is so harmful to him, more than almost

anything else, all the law breaking, all the stupid stuff, because it costs him some of the military guys. And that starts to eat into his base. So that's why it's interesting to keep track of it. All right. Last one is I AM SOC saying Democrats are vicious and they stick together. Probably the dumbest thing Trump has ever said. Or certainly the most inaccurate, that's for sure. Democrats are vicious, hilarious. Okay. All right. Well, there are rumors that Mick Mulvaney will be forced to resign soon, and this means that we have another episode of as the White House turns. Made some very big mistakes.

I asked for his resignation. I'm disappointed in the Attorney General. So, as we all know, Mick Mulvaney during a press conference, admitted that the Trump administration engaged in a quid pro quo during Trump's call. with the Ukrainian president. Now this was an effort to dig up dirt on Donald Trump's political rival, Joe Biden. And the press conference was a complete nutter disaster for Mulvaney. CNN is now reporting that Mulvaney was actually planning on leaving the White House before

the impeachment investigation began. So let me give you the details on that. Top aides, including Trump's son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, were in the process of reaching out to at least two potential replacements for the top West Wing job shortly. before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in late September that she would move ahead with an impeachment inquiry. So what happened? Why did they decide to back off of replacing Mulvaney?

Well, it turns out that Mulvaney knows too much, so there was a risk in forcing him to resign. And then there was also an issue of optics. How would it look if Donald Trump replaces his chief of staff yet again in the middle of an impeachment investigation? So those were the determining factors, that's the reason why Mulvaney stays in place. However, Trump has been upset. There's been some tension over how Mulvaney handled that press conference. And he feels that Mulvaney undermined the messaging coming from Trump when it comes to the

issue of a quid pro quo. So one quick point here. So Anna read you the quote about how Kushner and some of the people in the White House were trying to get rid of Mulvaney. By the way, I've literally never read a story where they talked about Kushner as someone at the White House, and it wasn't Kushner trying to get rid of them. This Kushner and Ivanka want anyone but themselves working at the White House. And so far they've been successful in getting, it feels like dozens of people fired.

So like, no, me, me, me, power, precious. Okay, so congratulations on that. But it's not just them wanting to push him out. Mulvaney also wanted to leave CNN quote here. One person familiar with Mulvaney's thinking said the search came as Mulvaney himself was looking for an exit after 10 months in the roll. So as they're trying to push him out, he was thinking, yeah, thank you very much. I'd like to get the hell out of here.

This is a goddamn mess. So both things were happening at once, but because of impeachment, neither side could leave. And I don't want to just gloss over what ANF said. Several sources reporting, he just knows too much. If we throw him under the bus, it's gonna come back to bite us. Well, we know that he knows too much because he revealed some of it just last week by confessing to a quid pro quo. But when it comes to the issue of resigning, he was actually asked about it over the weekend by Chris Wallace. Let's take a listen and see what his answer was.

After the briefing and all the blowback and the criticism, did you ever offer or think to offer the president your resignation? Oh, absolutely not. Was that ever discussed? Absolutely positively not. Okay. Listen, I'm very happy working there. Did I have the perfect press conference? No, but again, the facts are on our side.

I don't believe anything he has to say, including some of the videos we're about to show you. Yeah, so, no, I'm very happy working there. Oh, you look really happy. So Trump's, of course, mad at him. And that's because he's like, he didn't like the press coverage, some of those interviews like the one you just saw there. And he finds them to be very unperfect, okay? So, but that's because, and but we told you this reporting before, now confirmed again.

Trump basically okay to all those talking points that Mulvaney said, but when it blew up on him, then now he's mad at Mulvaney, even though he made Mulvaney say them. I told you, I told you that's what was happening. And so one source in the White House told CNN, quote, we all get turned into a pretzel defending Trump. That's the sad reality. Yeah, but here's the thing. It doesn't have to be a sad reality for you. But these people are so obsessed with power that they will remain in the White House and twist themselves into pretzels to defend him.

Now, before we get to the next video, I just want to preface this by reading an excerpt from CNN's report because it'll give you a sense of what Donald Trump was thinking as he was watching the same clip that we're about to watch together. Trump has voraciously consumed news coverage about Mulvaney and has become more agitated, the source added. Specifically, the president is concerned that Mulvaney is not transitioning enough to the role he's in now, helping to lead the impeachment inquiry defense from the West Wing. Now with that said, keep in mind that what we're about to watch was something that Donald Trump was also watching and he hated it, which makes me love it. Take a look.

One of the people who was testifying in Congress this week in the House impeachment investigation also said that he was so concerned about Hunter Biden getting that job in Ukraine in 2015 that he went to the vice president's staff. Biden was then vice president and said this looks really bad and that he was turned away. Your reaction? Good. I'm surprised I haven't heard about it since. My guess is if it had handed during the Trump administration, the news media would have reported on it the very next day. I'm asking you about it, sir. I know you are, and I appreciate that. I'm hearing it for the first time. I look forward to finding out more about it. But look, I can't stand Mulvaney. He's one of the most corrupt guys in Washington,

and he was way before he took the job with Donald Trump, the three different jobs he's taken with Donald Trump. So I would never, ever shed a tear for Mulvaney. But as I said with Sarah Huckabee Sanders and all these guys, it's an impossible job. impossible. Donald Trump breaks laws, lies nonstop, tells you to lie nonstop and to say things that are preposterous and stupid even for his own defense. You go do as he tell, if you don't do it as he tells you, he yells at you, he fires you, he then smears you for the rest of your

life, right? If you do what he says, it's so stupid, you get in trouble for it, and then he blames you for it. Impossible. Well, here's a note, maybe you shouldn't work for that monster. Exactly. And Trump also has this tendency of creating situations where members of the administration are trying to defend one another on cable news shows over the weekend. But more often than not, they fail miserably. So I want to go to this Pompeo video. So this is Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and he's being questioned by George Stepanopoulos. And just take a look at how defensive he gets and how he's cornered into silence because he doesn't know how else to answer these questions. President Trump ordered Mick Mulvaney to suspend the aid and you saw Mr. Mulvaney

right there say that one of the reasons was indeed this idea that the Ukrainians had to pursue these political investigations. I'll leave to the chief of staff to explain what it is he said and what he intended I can speak clearly to what America's strategic objectives were in providing this defensive weaponry to the people of Ukraine. So do you agree then with Senator McKessie that would have been inappropriate to withhold the military aid unless this political investigation was pursued? George, I'm telling you what I was involved with. I'm telling you what I saw transpiring in how President Trump was working to make the

evaluation about whether it was appropriate to provide this assistance. But that's what I'm asking is, would it be appropriate to condition that? George, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and secondary things based on what someone else has said. George, you would have never done it when you were the spokesman. I'm not going to do it here today. Except it's not a hypothetical. We saw the chief of staff, the active staff right there.

George, you just said, if it, George, you just said, if this happened, that is by definition, a hypothetical. The chief of staff said it did. George, I love it. I love it. Look, the obsession with power has led them to where they are. You're absolutely right. So I have absolutely no sympathy for them whatsoever. They deserve these uncomfortable interviews. And they can't defend Donald Trump or Mick Mulvaney because there's nothing.

nothing to defend. It's clear as day. You can't say during a press conference, yeah, we do quid pro quo all the time. And then turn around and say, I didn't say there was any quid pro quo. Like we're not idiots, right? The fact that they think they can continuously like insult our intelligence, it's on tape. We all saw it. Yeah.

So two quick things on this. One is on Pompeo. He says, look, I mean, look, hypothetical, I don't know anything about this, Ben. I mean, you've got to ask Mulvaney for what he said about when Pompeo was on the call. So he knows everything about it. Mulvaney wasn't even on the call. Pompeo knows more than Mulvaney. So when Trump asked the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden, Pompeo heard every word of it.

I can't answer hypotheticals. I don't know anything about it. What do you mean? You don't know anything about it. You were on the call. So, I mean, they're liars through and through. Every one of them worse than others. Why aren't there Democrats on the Sunday talk show saying, no, Trump will be impeached?

There's no question about it. His chief of staff clearly admitted quid pro quo that is now the second crime related to the Ukraine call and at least the fourth crime overall. So he will be impeached. He should be impeached. Mulvaney is the first and only time he's ever told the truth. Thank you, Mick Mulvaney. And just go on a war path. Look, I know the Republicans do enough damage to themselves when they're on the shows,

but it would be nice if we had an opposing party in this country. Yeah, to at least show strength and to really reiterate what the crimes are and why this impeachment investigation is so important. But yeah, they're incredibly timid. All right, well, let's move on to an update on the story that we gave you last week. Last week, Donald Trump announced that the G7 summit next year will take place at one of his properties. the Doral Resort. However, he has changed course following criticism from members of his own party. So he's trying to sell this off as, oh, I had to change course because these Democrats, they

wouldn't let it go. He doesn't care what the Democrats think. He's never cared what the Democrats think. But when there's a growing list of Republicans who are concerned and they find this to be problematic, that's when Trump is willing to change course. So he has lashed out both in the form of tweets and in a problem. press conference. I want to go to the clips first. Here's Donald Trump talking about the emoluments clause of our Constitution. I was willing to do this for free. And it would have

been the greatest G7 ever. And I would have said to my family, because they run my business now, I don't run my business. I actually put all the stuff in trusts. They run my, and I didn't have to do that, under no obligation to do it. I don't know if you know, George Washington. He ran his business simultaneously while he was president. Many other presidents, there weren't too many really rich presidents, but there were a few. They ran their business. George Washington was actually considered a very, very rich man at the time. But they ran their businesses.

George Washington, they say, had two desks. He had a presidential desk and a business desk. I don't think you people with this phony emoluments clause. So he called the emoluments clause phony. It's literally in the Constitution. One thing I just want to know. George Washington signed. One thing I want to note is he was not planning on hosting the event for free.

In fact, it was clear because he said it, they would host it at the Trump Doral at cost, which means whatever price Donald Trump wants to slap on it. Yeah, and he would have gotten paid, even if he said, I'm not taking profits off of it, which no sane person would believe. He would get paid management fees on top anyway. He not only owns it, but he charges a management fee. So it's complicated how the ownership is divvied up, et cetera. And then he says, I have a trust.

I don't run it. My kids run it. And that's why I would have told them to not make a profit on that. Wait, I thought you said your kids run it. Then you just said you would tell them what to do. Oops. Okay. And if you're wondering what George Washington's business was, it was a hemp farm.

And so if, dude, you could have to do. make pants out of it. Turns out you could, and George Washington partly was. But he was not dealing with other countries. He was selling stuff inside this country. So they would not have affected the emoluments clothes at all. The emoluments clause is about how you can't get paid by other countries. The G7 countries are other countries. They're not Americans. That's the whole point. No one would have known that. Yeah. No one would have known that the G7 summit would include other countries. And no one knew about George Washington businesses until I found out about it, okay?

And it would have been the best G7 ever. He said, come on. He did say that. Come on. By the way, can I just say one thing about, like, if Obama was like, oh, I'm putting together a G7, it's gonna be the best G7 ever, everybody would be like, what? Did Obama lose his mind overnight? But we're used to this guy being a fool and we all laugh.

The president's an idiot. Well, speaking of him being a fool, like, I find it interesting that Donald Trump knows anything about George Washington or anything about history, because he's not a man of history. He doesn't care. He's not interested. But for some reason, when it comes to wealth or presidents who were wealthy or had businesses, all of a sudden he's paying attention. I mean, he's so driven by money.

He's so fascinated by money. That's all he cares about. Yeah, no, look, he causes the phony of my, Ms. Clause, because of course he's never read the Constitution. He doesn't know what it is. And then I'm sure that when he was picking the Rale, all of his yesmen are so afraid of saying no to anything he says. They're like, oh, picking your own property and violating the Constitution. Brilliant idea, Mr. Trump, brilliant idea. Now he's like, okay, who would like to defend it?

And boom, everybody's got Mulvaney's the last one in the room. He's like, oh, no, oh, God damn it. Okay. Okay, so then they put together a meeting of Republicans in Camp David over the weekend. Yes. Trump calls in, the majority of the Republicans say, no, don't do it at the Darrell. It's obviously unconstitutional and we have no way of defending it. And I think that that's the first time that Donald Trump ever really, I mean, could it

be the only time that he's ever heard of the Imliaments Clause, given that people have sued him over it But it's still possible because Fox News never talks about the Emoluments Clause. So he might not have ever heard of it. But if he did, he certainly didn't understand what it was. And so on that call might be the first time that anyone ever explained to him why what he's doing is unconstitutional. So he might be like, oh, God damn it, this phony clause. I'm going to make, I swear to you, he doesn't understand why as president. He's supposed to be serving others.

He's supposed to be the representative of the people and fighting and representing you guys. He thinks, no, it's all about me. He just cannot wrap his mind around something not being on his own behalf. So he's thinking, well, I'm supposed to not get rich off of being president. This doesn't make any sense. So even in his decision to no longer host the G7 summit at his property, he's It's still self-serving. And the reason why is because when he jumped on that call and spoke to those Republicans

who were urging him, please don't do this as a bad idea, he was concerned about whether they're gonna support him in this impeachment inquiry. He needs them in the impeachment inquiry. So like at the end of the day, Trump is thinking about himself. If he wasn't facing this investigation, I guarantee you he would have moved forward. Of course, okay, look, guys, the last thing. For people who say that Donald Trump has a strategy, oh, he's trying to distract from Ukraine, he's trying to distract or he's going to do this and that.

If it was a strategy to do something as painfully stupid as doing violating their monuments clause, why did it reverse it two days later? Well, how is that part of the strategy? No, because there is no strategy. He's an imbecile. He didn't know that he was doing something unconstitutional or probably both didn't care. He doesn't care about violating the constitutional law, never scared. And so he thought, what, I'm not supposed to make money off of being president?

And so when all the Republicans are like, no, you idiot, that's going to put us in an untenable position, and then we won't be able to support you in your impeachment. And then he goes, ah, okay, fine, I won't do something unconstitutional. God damn it. When do I get to make money around here? It's amazing. Well, I do want to show you one last clip because I know you're going to love this one. Here's Donald Trump talking about the financial sustainability of the Doral Resort.

I have a great business, I have the best properties. But between what I live and in all fairness, some properties, Doral's an example. Doral was setting records when I bought it, because I owned it for a period of time. Setting records, it was going to, there was nothing like, it was making a fortune. And then what happened? I announced I'm gonna run for office, right? And all of a sudden, and I say, we're going to build a wall, we've got to have borders, we've got to have this, we've got to have that.

All of a sudden, people, some people didn't like it. They thought the rhetoric was too tough. And it went from doing great to doing fine. It does very nicely now. It's actually coming back, I understand, very strongly. But Dural was setting records. And I knew this would happen. I'm very good at real estate, very, very good.

Much better than you even understand. When you see my financials, which I'll give at the right time, you'll say, man, He was much better than we even thought. This guy knows right here, Mnuchin, because he was in the private sector. He knows very much what I have. He would tell you. Someday maybe he'll tell you. Please release your financials.

I really want to be impressed. Come on, Trump. Don't you want to impress me? That's right. Show me your financials. I'm sure they're very big. So he sounds like a third grader I used to know. No, no, you wouldn't, a helicopter comes out of our house, you wouldn't believe it.

That's, by the way, a true story. And my dad is the head of the CIA, and my uncle's the head of the bomb. Okay, he looks just like that third grader as he does this with his eyes and making up things that are so obviously false. Wasn't, I mean, the Trump Doral was in a financial mess. Like it had bed bug issue, there were all sorts of problems with it. The occupancy was low, Trump had to commit fraud, allegedly, and inflate the revenue and the occupancy of that resort in order to obtain loans. And I'm really great at real estate, that guy right there would know, the one I made

Treasury Secretary, because he was in the private sector. He didn't go bankrupt six times by accident. He's terrible at real estate. So right now, there's only two things keeping Donald Trump will float financially. One is he is pretty good, look, we're fair at constantly bragging, as you see there, I have the best properties. And so what that did was it created before his presidency value in the name Trump. So he would get paid licensing fees.

So he'd be like, oh, can I run the building? They'd be like, no, no, you cannot run the building. But we'll pay you money for your name. And we'll put Trump Tower or sweets or whatever all across the world and in the country, but you can't own it because you have no credit, because you've been bankrupt six times, and you're not allowed to run it because you suck at running things. But we'll take your name because he's good at marketing. So I'm being fair to him in that sense.

And then, so that's what he did with this. And the only other thing that he makes money off of, kind of, is the golf properties. And wait, how to get money for the golf properties with all those bankruptcies? because the Russians gave them the money. And that's, I'm not saying that, Donald Trump Jr. said that. Eric Trump said that. And so his kids said the Russians gave us all our money for the golf properties because they really like golf.

Oh, yeah. All right. Well, we got to take a break. Let's do that. When we come back, we have the Facebook story we promised you. Looks like Marcus Zuckerberg might like Pete Buttigieg. We'll give you the details on that and more. 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, Jan Yugar, and I'll see you soon.