The Young Turks - Michael Cohen Fallout, GOP Gives Up The Game On Stealing Your Social Security

Episode Date: August 22, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from August 22, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian. Republicans admit they’ll cut Medicare and social security to pay for tax cuts. Senate committee to approve Trump pick for CFPB. Michael Cohen wont accept a Trump pardon if offered. Trump’s interview with Fox & Friends. 08/22/2018 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Neeson. Buy your tickets now.

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and a refreshing antibacterial mouthwash, all designed to work together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. Hey everybody, how you doing? That's my line. I know, right?

Yeah, you can't steal it. Oh, well, that line is so different and ingenious. I wouldn't want to steal it. It's not the words. It's the way you present the words. I see, okay, yes. Well, that's your special magic. Okay, apparently it's Jake Ugar and Anna Kasparian, and we got the young Turks for you guys today.

Look, yesterday was one bombshell after another after another, and we have aftershocks. today, and they're important, very, very important, especially when it comes to Michael Cohen. But I just feel a little shell-shocked from all the news from yesterday, which was all positive, meaning that it was terrible for Donald Trump. Okay, so I'm going to get right to it, Casper, or I'm going to ask you to get right to it. All right, so very obviously we are going to talk about Michael Cohen, the response to Michael Cohen, Trump freaking out about it, what Trump's base thinks about it. But before we get to all of that, all the nitty-gritty, I do want to talk about what's flying

under the radar for a lot of news organizations, but something that's very much front and center here at TYT, what Republicans want to do to entitlement spending. So while the rest of the country is distracted, just understand this is what's really going on. This is what the GOP wants to do. All right. Following the massive corporate tax cuts for the wealthy, the Republican Party has realized that, hey, you know, we need to do something to increase revenue or at least cut spending to make up

for these giant tax cuts. It is going to add $1.9 trillion to our federal deficit over the next 10 years. That is what the Trump tax cuts will do. And so now all of a sudden you see representatives like Steve Stryvers speaking very openly to CNBC about what the big plan is moving forward. Take a look. No misgivings about a tax cut that was not paid for that's allowing debt deficit to rise like it is now. I do think we need to deal with some of our spending. I think we've got to try to figure out how to spend less. Entitlement, Social Security, Medicare.

We have 10 million people on Social Security disability now, more than actually 11 million, more than any time in history. And some of those people can't work at all. But many of those people can't work in the job they used to be in. Right. And if we gave them some training, let them keep making a portion of their Social Security disability, but put them back to work, it would be a net win. Social Security and Medicare, the only way we're going to be able to fix Social Security and Medicare is for the two parties to come together the way that, you know, Ronald Reagan did with Tip O'Neill

and figure out how to fix them together. Okay, we told you they'd come for your Social Security and Medicare. And they are. But they're doing it over such a friendly setting of a pizza shop that it's got to be okay. They're regular people who are looking to rob you of all the money that you paid into Social Security and Medicare. But they had to find the $1.9 trillion for the rich. So now that all that money is gone and it's already in their donor's pockets, all of a sudden,

well, I mean, look, that's Social Security in Medicare. Because you got rich off of Social Security, right? Or your parents did or your grandparents did. Nobody gets rich off of it. You pay into it, you get it back, and it actually works and everybody really likes it. So they're out to destroy it. This is, this is robbery, right? This is what the Republican Party is doing.

This is what the Democratic Party, as it stands right now, will allow to happen because they're not fighters, okay? They're incredibly weak when it comes to situations like this. And just, can I just say- I want to emphasize, we paid into those programs. You look at your paycheck, you take a look at what was taken out by the federal government, There's SSI, Social Security, and there's Medicare. That money gets taken out of your check because you pay for it. So this is robbery.

They want to cut spending on those programs just so they can keep allowing the wealthy to hoard their wealth. It's pathetic and disgusting. They're not representing the American people. Yeah. So the reason I was trying to jump in is because I often call them weak. And we've had this discussion on there before, but it's not exactly right. They're playing a role the Democrats are, the Democratic establishment guys, not the progressives,

right? And their role is to get rolled. They're supposed to go, oh, god, golly gee, you know what, bipartisanship is good though. And everybody has a different part in this play. And so the part of the mainstream media is to applaud the bipartisanship. So later when they say, well, I mean, what can we do? There's all these giant deficits. How about when you created the deficit, right?

the mainstream media will come in and applaud them and go, oh, right, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan from a million years ago. Remember when Fred Flintstone worked with Barney Rubble, those were the good old days. And no, right now when they work together, they almost always, not almost, always work for the benefit of their donors and not for us, they get paid by the same people, so they will come to rob you. And look, if the establishment of Democrats stand up and fight against it, great, I'd be super happy and I'll give them all the credit in the world. But let's keep it real.

What did Barack Obama promise to do? He preemptively offered to the Republicans to cut Social Security. He would have done it if the Republicans weren't so stupidly greedy. The Koch brothers are like, no, we want more and more and more. And they got the massively right-wing people in the house to tell Boehner, no, not good enough, tell them to cut Social Security more. And then at the end of the day, they couldn't do what they wanted to do all along, which is the grand bargain.

Obama always talked about how he wanted the grand bargain as part of his legacy. The grand bargain was the cut Social Security. This is not in dispute. He offered it publicly. So, but now, I mean, look, so the Democrats are the Patsys. They're the guys who are supposed to roll over in this play. But the guy's directing the play, yes, are the donors that give to both parties. But they give more to the Republicans than the Republicans are the ones who drive it.

So first of all, vote for uncorrupted people. But secondly, never make the mistake of thinking the Republicans are on your side. Never, ever make that mistake unless you're incredibly wealthy. Then they will rob the average American on your behalf. So let's talk about the priorities on, you know, a Republican's agenda, okay? Priorities include increasing the budget for defense spending. So Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman can continue making more money off of perpetual war abroad. Okay, Trump just signed the NDAA for $717 billion.

dollars, he increased spending on that, okay? Defense spending increased. At the same time, you will hear Republicans argue, no, no, no, the tax cuts are fantastic. It's great for the middle and working class because they're going to create jobs and they're going to pay higher wages. But why don't we get into specific numbers right now and see what's happened under these Trump tax cuts so far? First off, first quarter of 2018, first quarter where these tax cuts actually went into effect, the big bank saved how much money in taxes? I believe it was three point $4 billion. That's how much they saved in taxes.

So did they increase wages for employees at banks? Did they create jobs? No, they didn't. In fact, wages have not kept up with inflation. So if you take inflation into account, our wages have not gone up at all. In fact, they've gone down slightly. What did they do with the money? Let's take a look at corporate stock buybacks.

So stock repurchases hit $190 billion in the first quarter of 2018 for the SMP 500. These are the best companies, the biggest companies in the country, right? The last time that record was set was just before the Great Recession, when companies bought up almost $172 billion in their own stocks or stock buybacks. That's what they're doing with their money. They're artificially inflating the cost or the value of those shares, and then they immediately cash out. So for all of the people who are watching this, who come at me with a ridiculous argument

about how this benefits everyone's retirement accounts in their 401 case. No, no, no. These corporate executives cash out as soon as they can because they want to reap the benefits. So they're screwing with your future with these massive tax cuts that they've received. Stock buybacks were $190 billion, I said. But that was in one quarter. So you have the times out by four to give you a sense of how much it's going to be around $800 billion for the year.

Did you guys get $800 billion? You remember when you opened up your paycheck and you were like, whoa. Look at this, money, a couple of billion dollars, didn't expect that. No, Paul Ryan bragged about how you might have gotten $1.50 in your paycheck, $1.50 versus $800 billion. Okay, now I want you to understand, it's not just one guy, Stivers over there. Let me go to Graphics 1 and 2 here, Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania. We've got entitlemental spending that is not sustainable, hmm.

But $1.9 trillion for the rich was sustainable, apparently, according to Senator Toomey. These big spending programs that are growing faster than the economy, you can't tax your way out of that problem, you've got to make some curbs. Please. What do you mean you can't, wait, wait, wait, wait, you tax cut our way into the problem. So you're like, hey man, I can't add taxes on top to get out of the problem, but you created the problem, you created a $2 trillion problem. Okay, so anyone in the media, including John Harwood, there that doesn't point that out,

the Republicans perpetuate this lie. Every single time they must ask them, what about the $1.9 trillion hold that you guys put in the national debt through these tax cuts, whether you think they're for the rich or not? And by the way, they're for the rich. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom.

In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, The UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,

you must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're up, uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. And we gave you the overall number. You know how much the average person in the top 1% gotten tax cuts? $61,000 a year, every year. Okay, did you get $61,000 a year from these tax cuts?

No, you didn't, because you're not among the rich. And one more, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, of course, Republican. If we're going to do something about spending in debt, we have to get faster growth in the economy, which I hope tax reform will achieve. Has it? No, all we did was the stock buybacks inflated the stock market artificially. Did it go to your wages? Not at all, they have declined.

But we have also got to take on making our entitlement programs more sustainable. I think there's support generally here for entitlement reform. So of course, all the Republicans love so-called entitlement reform where they reform the money out of your pocket and into their donors' pockets. And unfortunately, a lot of the Democrats also agree. And that is why the system is rigged. And by the way, if you think that it's going to help your pensions in your 401 cases, As Anna was pointing out, tick, tick, tick until that bubble bursts.

I'm telling you right now, the stock market is going to crash. It is going to crash. And another thing I wanted to just quickly mention about these stock buybacks, they were illegal, they were banned up until the Reagan administration. So the Reagan administration decides, oh, we'll allow these corporate buybacks to occur. And so this has been an ongoing issue. This isn't a partisan issue. This isn't me pointing to Republicans and saying it's the Republicans' fault, although they've

definitely had a huge role in making this happen. I mean, this happened under the Obama administration as well, right? And Clinton administration. Absolutely. So from 2004 to 2014, there was a study done by the Roosevelt Institute and they found out, keep in mind, this is while restaurant workers are on the streets demanding a living wage. And the restaurant industry is saying, no, we just, we can't afford it, we just can't afford it. At that time, okay, according to this study by the Roosevelt Institute, the restaurant industry

spent 140% of its profits on buybacks. This is just between 2015 to 2017. And why do I say 140%? Because it also takes into account that some of these companies will literally take out debt to buy shares of their own stock, to artificially inflate those shares. Okay, and Bill Clinton is the one who deregulated the banks in the first place. He did it with Phil Graham, who was a Republican. get another bipartisan compromise that the mainstream media applauded while it absolutely

devastated our economy, caused the crash in 2008, and it will cause the crash today. So one more time, let me be absolutely clear, this stock market will crash. You cannot keep doing stock buybacks and artificially inflate the price of your companies when there is actually no reason why those companies have actually done better in the real world, they don't have more profit, they don't have more revenue. It is an artificial inflation. That is called a bubble. Bubbles always burst.

This market will crash, it's an absolute guarantee. But nonetheless, we go on as if everything is fine. And once they do, once the market crashes, they'll come back and say, oh my, but I got to get paid my bonus. What kind of a person will let me get my bonus? I have to get more multi-million dollar payouts while you lose all of your fours. Well, that's one terrible thing that's coming up, but we have more news on what's going to happen to the CFPB, so let's get to that.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been controlled by Mick Mulvaney as of late, and Mulvaney has done anything and everything possible to essentially tear the CFPB apart. This is the one bureau that's supposed to look out for you as the consumer. he has dismantled it. Now, in the future, this organization is going to need a new leader because Mulvaney was just supposed to be an interim head of the CFPB. So news has broke, recent news indicates that the Senate Banking Committee is likely to vote in favor of a woman named Kathy Craninger

to be the new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Does she have any experience as the head of any government agency? No. Does she have any experience in the financial sector in any way? No. What experience does she have? Well, she has worked as an aide to Republican politicians. Oh, okay, good.

You know Republican politicians, they just can't wait to protect consumers. Yeah. I mean, a favor for the banks, they would never do that. They're always looking out for you guys saying, How can we regulate the banks to make sure there's enough cops on Wall Street to protect the average American? So she's probably studied in the art of how to screw over consumers to help Wall Street because that's all the Republicans ever do in Congress.

So very little is known about her because she doesn't really have much experience. But what we do know is who she considers her mentor. And her mentor is Mick Mulvaney. She says that she's hoping to do as great of a job as Mulvaney has done with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And literally, the only thing that he's done is dismantle it. So I'll give you specific examples. Among his top donors are payday lenders. And so during the Obama administration, there was some regulation to rein in the behavior of these payday lenders who prey on people in incredibly vulnerable situations.

And these payday lenders would also tack on extremely high interest rates, sometimes as high as 300%. There were cases where there were interest rates tacked on at 750%. Okay? So they would prey on people in terrible situations who were vulnerable, and then they would be caught in this inescapable cycle of debt. And so there was a lawsuit filed by the federal government against some of these payday lenders. Well, Mick Mulvaney all of a sudden gets into the CFPB. He's in charge. And you know what he did? Drop the lawsuits.

So these payday lenders can continue doing what they were doing. They can now get away with it because there's no regulatory body that's enforcing, you know, the regulations that were put in place in the first place. And now we're going to have Kathy Craninger come in if she gets approved by the Senate. And she's just going to continue doing what Mick Mulvaney has done, you know, during his time at the CFPB. So, I know there's some good conservatives in the country. I was recently at a Wolfpack event and met John Putner there. He helped to take down Eric Cantor in a Republican primary.

Dave Bratt ran against them. And they ran a campaign against the big bankers ripping off American people. That's a great campaign, I appreciate that. They're absolutely right about that. Now, are there Republican politicians in office now who say it against them? crusade against the bankers in a similar way to protect the average America? No. The answer is absolutely not.

No. They're good conservatives and Republicans across the country at the state level, the local level, voters, sure, okay. But in terms of national Republican politicians, almost to a man, maybe Walter Jones deeply, deeply conservative, don't agree with him on anything, but he's actually honest. But 99.9% of them, they're corrupt. They work for their donors. They are the swamp, and they rip you off on a regular basis to help these donors.

The payday lenders, I mean, who is in charge of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, protecting consumers, and says, yeah, I bet the payday lenders charging them 750% interest have their best interest in mind. Well, they do have best interest in mind, that's true, but not yours. So Mick Mulvaney's corruption is brazen. To be fair, the payday lenders, they bribed the right guy. They found a guy that they thought this guy will do anything we tell them. And in Republican circles at the national level, if you raise your hand and say, I will

do anything a corporate donor tells me, anything, you will get promoted and promoted and promoted. So Mulvaney got promoted twice within the Trump administration. And so now, Kraninger comes in and goes, I'll also be corrupt, I'll be just as corrupt as Mulvaney, please, please give me an awesome job, give me a lot of power. And later, by the way, I'll work for those same financial companies, and they'll pay me a ton of money for letting me rob you of your hard-earned dollars. Consumer Financial Predation Bureau has returned billions of dollars to the American people, it was fraud. The bankers have armies of lawyers. They're not paying billions of dollars if they

didn't do it. They did do it. The Protection Bureau protected you. Return that money to the average American. Now, Kraninger says, no, no, no, I'm not gonna represent you. Just like Mulvaney, I will represent the giant bankers and the payday lenders, and we will rob you blind. And almost, not almost, every Republican will vote for her. I guarantee you, I'm telling you ahead of time. Absolutely. I guarantee it. They will all vote for her and they'll be proud of it. So the next time you vote for a Republican, why don't you just give them your wallet while

you're at it? So you just touched on something that I want to elaborate on, because there is a little bit of hope when it comes to this story, believe it or not. So right now, the Senate Banking Committee is likely to approve her nomination. But they're not the ultimate deciders. The ultimate deciders includes the entire Senate. So the Senate will have to vote on confirming her. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-Y-T. Check it out today. They're unlikely to get to that vote until after the midterm election. So with that said, it is incredibly important to elect progressives. I'm not saying elect Democrats. I'm saying elect progressives. People that you know will vote against this nominee. See, perfect example.

I feel like sometimes we're the only people. who actually are nonpartisan, and it's ironic because they say, oh, you guys are biased, you have a perspective. No, we have a perspective that is, yes, progressive, but also looking at for the average person. So who also attacks Democrats and Republicans? Almost no one else, right? So in this case, Tom Carper, a senator from Delaware, what did he do? He voted to deregulate the banks.

He's a Democrat. Why do you do that? Because he takes a giant amount of money from the banks. So is Tom Carper corrupt? God damn right, he's corrupt. So go vote in a primary for Kerry Harris, who's a Justice Democrat, who refuses to take corporate back money. Why do I keep emphasizing that?

Because if they take the corporate money, they work for the corporations. They don't work for you. When they don't take it, at least you know that they have a shot at representing you. So go vote for Carrie Harris in Delaware, throw that corrupt Tom Carper out of office. Otherwise, you'll vote for the bankers for the rest of your life. Go vote in primaries. And by the way, if you're a Republican, go vote in your primaries. I don't know if you could find an honest Republican at the national level in primaries or otherwise.

So if you can, bless your heart. If you can't, run for office. Believe in conservative principles. Conservative principles are not robbing the American people on behalf of Wall Street. When did that become a conservative principle? No, almost all of your representatives are corrupt. Understand that and vote them out of office and do it immediately. Because if you don't do it right now, as Annaport and

out after the elections, they'll continue to, they'll put her in place, she's promised to rob you, and she will rob you, and they'll applaud while doing it. So throw all those bums out. All right, we got to take a break when we come back, all the updates on the Cohen scandal. You don't want to miss it. My favorite part is watching Trump squirm. Young Turks, Jen and Anna, lots of comments for you guys. Let's go through them. on Twitter first, Dr. KS.M.D. says, to make up for the GOP tax cuts, we should cut spending on welfare. Oh, interesting. It says no more corporate subsidies, no more tax exempt status for your churches, no more interest loans for banks. You want to do that? Watch the banks howl

if you say, hey, you don't get no interest loans anymore. They're like, how dare you? We get no interest loans. You get huge interest loans. That's the way this scam works. Well, Paul Ryan argued that the federal government is spending a lot of money on able-bodied people who refuse to work, which is, by the way, a lie. But with that said, if you really think about it, he's right, we do spend a lot of money on able-bodied people who refuse to work. It's called Congress. Yes. And so maybe we should really reconsider cuts in their salaries. That's a good idea.

All right, Batman Swagons writes in on YouTube Super Chat. 1.8 trillion in 10 years term. Let us put that into perspective. That is almost half a billion dollars a day. And I took out my calculator to confirm during the break. He's right. They gave half a billion dollars a day for 10 straight years to the rich. And then they say, oh, sorry, I had to cut your social security in Medicare. I ran out of money. It's disgusting. Richard Atkinson says, Jenk, if corporate Dems are actors in the same play, pretending to be better, but really on the same team as Republicans, then why do you tell us to vote for them? They are the pretend lesser evil.

So, Richard, for a number of reasons. So, number one, the Republicans are almost uniformly despicable and corrupt. The Democrats are whatever percentage, 60%, 80%, et cetera, corrupt. But they're not completely corrupt. Bernie Sanders isn't, Elizabeth Warren isn't. And then there are shades, and there's a spectrum. So is Sherrod Brown as bad as any Republican? No, hell no.

Shared Brown is great on some issues. He frustrates me on other issues. But that's not anywhere near John Thune, who basically just put up a four-sale sign on his neck. Okay, and I can go on and on. So are some of them like Feinstein and Carper just as bad? Yes. Yes, they are. And you know how much crap we get from the establishment for saying that?

I mean, I remember during Politicon last year when I said the Nancy Pelosi, hadn't accomplished anything, I mean, they literally, they almost jumped me. I mean, I, Shrum got out of his seat. He's like, how could you? How could you, the beloved Nancy Pelosi? Do you know how much money she raises? Oh, get the fuck out of here. Oh, we have a Nancy Pelosi story, by the way, later in the rundown.

Okay. That will enrage you. So, A, it depends. It depends on the person. And then, B, yes, on social issues, Democrats are better. When it doesn't affect money, so that doesn't affect their corrupt. they don't hate gay people, they don't hate black people. That makes a giant difference, it makes a giant difference.

So on the corporate side and the money side, almost no difference for about 80% of them, okay? On the social issues, giant difference. So we gotta be able to tell the difference and we gotta be able to do nuance. We shouldn't be black and white like conservatives, okay? All right, I'm gonna just lighten it way up now because Raphael Herrera Diaz says, why is Anna so hot and intelligent? Thank you. Okay. And then Kellan Whitaker says, I mean it, I have to say it, my heart aches for Anna.

It's fascinating. What? Yeah, I don't know what that means exactly. All right, Kellyn, write in a kid and tell us what that means. Yeah, elaborate. I'm curious about that. Okay, all right, and thank you for using YouTube Super Chat. And thank you to all of you who are members you make this show possible.

Where else are you getting rage about the robbery that they're doing to American taxpayers? Oh, I'm sure on cable news, they won't stop talking about it, right? Yeah. Anyway, t-y-t.com slash join to become a member. All right, what's next, Santa? All right. Yesterday, Michael Cohen accepted a plea deal, and that plea deal indicated that he would have to, of course, plead guilty to a number of things.

He told the court that he had coordinated payments at the candidate's direction, meaning Trump, to stifle stories about two women. The women were not identified by name. but the facts laid out in court papers make clear that they are the former playboy model, Karen McDougal, and adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. Both women said they had affairs with Trump and were paid to keep silent. So that is what he confessed to. He has pleaded guilty to that.

And so the discussion, the national discussion then turned to whether or not there's any possibility Donald Trump would pardon him. And Lanny Davis, who is the attorney for Michael Cohen, answered that question during a recent interview. Let's see what he had to say. There's one person who could make Michael Cohen's legal problems go away in an instant. It's Donald Trump. Is he hoping for a pardon from President Trump? Not only is he not hoping for he would not accept a pardon.

He considers a pardon from somebody who has acted so corruptly as president to be something he would never accept. Okay, that's huge. That is huge. Yeah. Yesterday there was some question as to what Michael Cohen was doing because he was pleading guilty without really getting a deal from the prosecutors. So everybody's like, what the hell is you doing here? So let's break that down a little further.

So here they're saying, clearly we are not looking for a pardon because that was one possibility they're like maybe he just wants to get rid of this whole case, fine, I'll plead guilty, right? I don't want to sit here and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years with this thing hanging over my head. I'll plead guilty. Trump will pardon me the next day and I'm done with it. Well, that's gone. He's not doing that.

Okay. Now, there's a good reason why he's not doing that. As we've told you all throughout, they could also bring state charges. And now New York is considering some state charges against them as well. The president cannot pardon someone on state charges. So he was likely going away anyway. So now, I was on C-SPAN this morning on Washington Journal. and a bunch of Republican callers calling in.

They all had the same exact talking point. They got it from somewhere. It's drilled into their head, so they repeat it like robots. They're like, oh, pay, pay hush money is not illegal. Well, that's fine. You could pay that. Right. No, that's not the issue here.

The issue is Michael Cohen gave $150,000 to Stormy Daniels during the campaign because it affected the campaign. Trump is on tape talking about it in September of 2016 during the campaign. Michael Cohen cannot give more than $2,700 to Trump's campaign. When you give $150,000 to make this problem go away for the campaign, that is an in-kind contribution. It is illegal. It's not that it's hush money.

It's that you're doing it during the campaign. Now they say, well, I do you know that's illegal? That's what Trump is saying now, right? Well, he pleaded guilty in court. That's one way you know it's a crime. The other way that you know is that the judge accepted it and said, yes. In fact, you are guilty of this crime. And then he said, well, you know, you know what?

Why would a guy admit and willing to take three to six years in prison if he didn't do it? Also, the argument that basically consists of, I didn't know that that was a crime, is not accepted for any average person in any situation. If you make an illegal U-turn, you can't then tell the cop who stopped you, I'm sorry, I didn't know I could make a U-turn there. That doesn't all of a sudden, you know, make you safe from a citation. You're the president of the United States. You should have a firm understanding. By the way, president of the United States who's surrounded by lawyers at all times, you should have an understanding of what is and isn't legal as you're running for president.

He's a clown. It's a moot issue. Ignorance is not a defense in law. And second of all, everyone who runs for office, let alone the presidency, knows you can't just take $150,000. Look, there's a million other ways to get bribe legally. You can get campaign contributions, you can get independent expenditures, they can do it through a super pact, but you can't just give someone $150,000 during their campaign.

Of course they knew that, and of course it's a crime. And Cohen is saying in open court, yes, I conspired with a certain political candidate, which is obviously Trump. So he's alleged to be part of a conspiracy to commit a federal crime. If any other president had done it, we'd be talking about impeachment immediately. Right. But we've lowered the bar for Trump. We're so used to his brazen law breaking nonstop in front of everyone that when he breaks

a law and there's somebody in court who says, yes, I will go to prison for years upon years because I committed this crime and my conspirator was Donald Trump. Well, we'll go, I know, but he's committed so many crimes and he whines all day. He cries all day about it, so maybe we'll call it 50-50. Well, there are new developments regarding another mess that Trump is involved in. So remember, he's facing all sorts of investigations. It's not all about Russia. It's not all about Manafort or Cohen.

There's another issue involving the Trump Foundation, because there is some evidence that indicates that Trump was using his own charity to benefit himself financially. So because of the statement that Lanny Davis gave in the video that we showed you, now investigators who are looking into the Trump Foundation are going to subpoena Michael Cohen to see if there's any information he can provide. According to reports from the Associated Press, investigators in New York have issued a subpoena to Michael Cohen as part of their probe into the Trump Foundation. The subpoena was issued after Cohen's attorney said his client has information of interest

to both state and federal prosecutors, Cohen could potentially be a significant source of information for state investigators looking into whether Trump or his charity broke state law or lied about their tax liability. So just to give you a little taste of what Trump used his charity's money for, he used it to settle issues, legal issues that he was in, settlements out of court. He also used it to buy a $10,000, six-foot portrait of himself. Yeah, so that's a little piece of what he's spent that money on. It's incredible.

Well, so this is exactly what I'm talking about, because we already know it's in the public record that he spent money from his charity to pay off legal bills, his own personal legal bills. Obviously illegal, obviously. You cannot take money from a charity and use it for yourself. Fraud, in broad daylight. Well, you just got used to it. So is somebody going to pursue him on criminal charges on robbing from his own charity to

pay his own bills? Is anybody going to do that? So apparently now New York is stepping up and going, yeah, okay, we'll do it, right? They should have done that, by the way, before he ran for president. They should have been prosecuting this lifelong criminal all along. But you know what? The rich and powerful in this country get away with stuff all the time, all the time, until they bother other rich and powerful people in the country.

So now, when you turn back to the Cohen case in terms of the Stormy Daniels case, I wanted to say one more thing about it. Donald Trump went around saying, well, look, I found out about it later, he said in an interview, right? No, what do you mean later? What does that mean? You mean after the campaign was over? So this is a flimsy excuse.

But you're on tape talking about it in September. He's, again, another thing where he's just a brazen liar. He lies so often that we just take it for granted. Well, oh, okay, the president lies eight times a day. So what can we do? They said we should impeach Bill Clinton for one lie, he told. For one lie. This guy lies a thousand times, literally per year.

I mean, that's way understatement. Yeah, he contradicts himself. He lies so often that he'll contradict his own lies and then go back to the original lie and then contradicted again. So Fox and Friends invited him on their show today. And Trump talked about this issue with Ainsley Earhart. And let's hear what he has to say. What's the spin?

Did you know about the payments? Later on I knew, later on. But you have to understand, Angeley, what he did, and they weren't taken out of campaign finance, that's a big thing. That's a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They didn't come out of the campaign. They came from me, and I tweeted about it.

You know, I put, I don't know if you know, but I tweeted about the payments. But they didn't come out of campaign. In fact, my first question when I heard about it was, did they come out of the campaign? Because that could be a little dicey. And they didn't come out of the campaign, and that's big. But they weren't, that's not a, it's not even a campaign violation. If you look at President Obama, he had a massive campaign. violation, but he had a different attorney general.

Okay. None of that makes any sense. Throwing Jeff Sessions under the bus again. But let me clarify what he said about Obama, because for anyone who might be curious about that, so apparently Obama's camp was very slow in reporting, you know, their campaign donations in the 2012 election. They eventually did, but he did get hit with a fine to the tune of about $375,000. So he paid that fine, but it wasn't like he was doing something super shady.

They just took too long to report the full amount that they received in campaign donations. And by the way, good. I'm glad they were caught. I'm glad they paid the fine. And so when Trump says two nonsensical things there, so it wasn't really a violation, like Obama had a campaign finance violation. You just said it wasn't a violation. What does that mean?

You contradict to yourself within like five seconds. Okay, so, and in fact, what Obama did was a violation. That's why he paid that big fine. And so, was there a hypocrisy? No, they caught him on a much lesser charge, and then he had to pay the cost. There was campaigned it, right? In this case, he says, oh, no, no, I paid for it, it wasn't, it wasn't the campaign. No, we know it wasn't the campaign.

Michael Cohen paid the bribe, or paid the hush money, I should say, to be clear. Okay, he paid the hush money. Michael Cohen then is giving an in-kind contribution to your campaign. That's the crime. Not that you took it out of the campaign money. And so when you pay it back later, that's just the call to cover up. That's what that's called, okay? So I didn't know about it till later, okay, you're on tape, you're on tape on September.

Why bother lying about that? Why go on TV and commit yet another? you know why? Because he's never, ever been held accountable. He grew up incredibly wealthy because of his dad. He went bankrupt six times. His dad bailed him out every single time, except the end when the Russians bailed him out. And so he never paid the consequences for his ridiculous actions. And then he ran against Hillary Clinton. And in the time of rage against the establishment, he ran a populist campaign, and he became president. And he keeps lying like he's done his entire life, keeps breaking laws like he's done his entire life.

And he's thinking there's not going to be any consequences. Well, I hope to God that we live in a country of rule of law and justice, and that one day Donald Trump is wrong, that there are consequences, even if you're born rich and powerful and have gotten away with it your whole life. I'm trying to follow the flow chart again of his thought process for this interview. 45 seconds. Rudy Giuliani is worried about him getting caught in a perjury trap. He started from the beginning, for that little thing with Azei Earhart, which is going to fully

air tomorrow. He said, so I didn't know about it at first. I found out about it later. It didn't come from the campaign because I asked. The first thing I asked was, did it come from the campaign? Because, you know, that's dicey. You didn't know it. You knew nothing about that rule, first of all.

But how did you not know it first? Then you did know. Then you paid for it, but then asked if it came from the campaign. When you just paid for it, you said you paid for it. So there's no way that you would have thought it came from the campaign. And if I recall correctly... Which you did know at first, which you later knew. Yeah, it's...

And also, if I can recall correctly, that tape where they're talking about the payment to Stormy Daniels, Trump was urging Michael Cohen to pay in cash, right? Oh, right, right, they were talking about cash. And Cohen was like, no, we can't do that, because that would make it even more obvious. I mean, they're talking about the way to pay her off in this hush money. And he keeps saying, like, oh, my... Michael Cohen's a liar and he sends Giuliani out there saying he is a lifelong liar. Then why did you hire him?

He worked for you and pretty much only you for a long, long time. So in other words, you hired him to be a liar and now you're mad because actually for the first time in his life he's telling the truth. Okay. Okay, so let's get to Trump's reaction to all the news that broke yesterday and that includes the news of Paul Manafort getting convicted on eight of the 18 charges. Following the news regarding Paul Manafort getting charged, eight out of 18 of the charges in his trial, and also news of Michael Cohen taking a plea deal where he confesses that he paid

two women, Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, hush money at the direction of Donald Trump. Donald Trump had a meltdown, which is to be expected. Now, he went on a, you know, rally or did a rally in West Virginia, but today he decided to, like, break everything down from his perspective, and here's what he had to say. First, he gave Paul Manafort a lot of credit. I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. Justice took a 12-year-old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him, and unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to break. Make up stories in order to get a deal. Such respect for a brave man.

Okay, so let's review what he just got, Manafort just got convicted for, okay? A jury of his peers listened to the trial on eight huge charges, they, and likely to go to prison for the rest of his life. Among the things that he was convicted of was not reporting $30 million to, in taxes, hit it offshore, and he did that fraud that he, while he was working for the pro-Russian Ukrainian government, so that unlike you, he wouldn't have to pay taxes. That's right. Okay?

That he could just hide it offshore because he's rich enough to hide it offshore and to violate the laws of this country. And then he committed other fraud to take more money that he didn't deserve from in the form of loans, etc. Trump's like, what a brave man. What a brave man. What a brave man for hiding his money. What a brave man for breaking the law.

The only thing that matters to Trump, for obvious reasons, is whether or not these associates or former associates are going to turn on him. Manafort so far has not turned on him. And so that's what he considers brave. Like, oh, he's willing to take the fall for me. Because Manafort could have negotiated some sort of plea deal. He didn't. And so that's what Trump is applauding him for. By the way, just to be absolutely clear, Manafort worked as a foreign agent, did not tell the U.S. government about it, made six.

$60 million over the course of 10 years doing that, hid $30 million from the U.S. government so he wouldn't pay taxes, then went broke. He went broke after making $60 million. Just let that sink in for a second. And then since he was so broke and desperate for cash, lied to banks to obtain loans. That's what Manafort did. He is a disgusting human being. So I'm gonna say one more thing here.

He said he refused to break. You know what he sounded like? He sounded like a mob bus. He was a good man. He refused to break. Why are you so afraid of him breaking? I mean, like, I know. You MAGA guys, you're so unbelievably stupid that you think, oh, no, no, no, they would break

and make up stories. Like, oh, I bet the mob guys also would break and make up, make up stories. No, they break and they tell the truth, okay? And he's just saying it right in front of you. He's like, oh, it's a good man. He wasn't a rat. You know what I'm saying? He wasn't a rat.

He didn't give us up. Okay, gee, I wonder what you did with him. Before I wasn't sure that he did something with Manafort. I knew Manafort was crooked. Now he's convicted, we know that. Who, which president goes out after a guy is convicted of all these crimes and goes, what a great guy, what a wonderful criminal! That's Donald Trump.

You want to celebrate criminals along with Donald Trump? Don't ever say you're for rule of law. Don't ever say you're for law and order, because you're not, you're an unbelievable hypocrite. And if you think really breaking meant that he was going to make up stories, you're also an idiot. Breaking means he's going to tell the truth about Trump. So now I do know. It turns out Manafort does have stuff on Trump.

Otherwise, Trump wouldn't be worried about him breaking. So there, the Manafort saga isn't over. He's facing another federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C. So just something to keep in mind for the future. But more importantly, there is talk about whether or not Manafort might take some sort of deal in the sentencing process for the crimes that he has been convicted of. Because if he does have dirt on Trump, there is some possibility that he could trade that information for a lesser sentence.

I think that that's unlikely to happen. This is just my speculation, my prediction. Because Trump has made it, in my opinion, clear that he is ready and willing to pardon people. And it seems as though Manafort is banking on Trump pardoning him. We'll see. That's just my prediction for the future. All right.

Now, what else did he have to say? Michael Cohen pled guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. Wrong, they are a crime. That's why he pled guilty. That's kind of the definition of guilty. The judge accepted it. The prosecutors charged it. He agreed.

Everyone in the system agreed it was a crime. That's why he's facing three to six years in prison. You don't go to prison if you didn't commit a crime. I know, he's talking about it as if it's someone who cheated on their diet. Like, hey, did you eat that extra piece of cake that you weren't supposed to eat? Guilty! Like that's not what's happening here. Hey, it's not a crime.

But like people say that colloquially, hey, it's not a crime, right? Except when it's an actual crime that you just got convicted of. Yeah. There's more, he keeps going after Michael Cohen, it's awesome. President Obama had, okay, we already went over this. Boring, let's move on. The next tweet is, if anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen.

His long time, fix it attorney, fix it lawyer, all of a sudden, he's like, ah, no, don't hire that guy. Yeah, I mean, all, Giuliani is talking about how, you know, Cohen has a long, long history of lying in deceit. Then why did Trump hire him? Exactly. And why did he keep him for all those years if he has a long, long history of DC? Because that's the one part Julianne is telling the truth about.

Yes, Cohen does have a long history of lying for Donald Trump. That's why Donald Trump hired him. Yeah. I'm jumping around a little bit, but let's go back to Manafort. This was my last favorite tweet from Trump in this meltdown that he had. He said a large number of counts, 10, could not even be decided in the Manafort, Paul Manafort case. witch hunt. No, but he was convicted of eight of them. And it was a mistrial when it came to the other charges because not all of the jurors agreed, right? So that doesn't anyway. Like, no, no, no. But

that's what's hilarious about this. It's like you get convicted of, you know, rape and murder and bank robbery, but the jury deadlocked on whether you're a co-conspirator on jaywalking and, And, you know, and a mugging. Not guilty. You know what I'm saying, right? No, he's going to prison for the rest of his life. That's pretty guilty. So one last thing.

He goes to West Virginia and in the midst of this, he mentions Hillary Clinton and the crowd starts chanting, lock her up. No, no, no, but we're getting to that next. Okay, all right. Okay, go forth. No, no, no, let's take a break because we have. Excellent reporting from our very own Eric Beiler. He went to that rally in West Virginia, spoke to some Trump supporters, and then we'll tell

you what the rally was like, how they, you know, dealt with this new information about Manafort and Cohen. Come right back. Go. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second.

All right back on the Young Turks. Jank and Anna with you. Well, lots of tweets about Anna, and we do have clarifications, so we start with fun. Dr. Duby Hauser, which is already a fun name. You're fun. Okay, well, he thinks you're fun too. Or she, I don't know. Anna Kasparian is so inspiring and she got me obsessed with gorgeous water jet cut tile.

Yes, yes. So glad to be a TYT member for the post game. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor indeed. Okay. Doctors in the house. Okay.

Thank you. If you want to get those super fun post games, become a member. T.y.com slash join. All right. Now, speaking of Anna Love, Kellen Whitaker clarifies on YouTube swooper chat. To be clear, I've fallen in love with Anna and it's killing me. I have to get it off my chest. Okay, well, there, you did it.

It's now off your chest. Okay. Jacob Robinson says, how do you think history will remember? T.Y.T. and Jank and other people like Bernie in 10 years, 50 years, 100. My guess is when it comes to me, not at all. Okay, but thank you for even posing such a question. Okay. J.D. Hirola writes in, why would you take money even from your own charity if you're a billionaire? Yes. He said, I'm starting to believe Wesley Snipes might be richer than Trump. Is that I don't, why is he? He did tax fraud. Oh, yeah, that's right.

Everybody was richer than Trump. That's why I had to go borrow that money from the Russians. Just pay your taxes, guys. Anyway, last two ones, these are both good. Stephen Luke, this is all YouTube super chat. Thank you guys for helping the show. The Warren interview on Rebel Headquarters yesterday made me much less anxious about 2020. She would be great on the Democratic ticket in any capacity.

Great. If you haven't checked that out, look, YouTube.com slash Rebel HQ, or just get our app. And all that content is on our app or become a member as we tell you, and that's the easiest way. All right, photog, Mike, says Giuliani, quote, Donald, don't worry, prison is not really prison. Truth isn't really true. Don't worry, prison isn't really prison. See how that works out for you. And crime is not a crime.

I mean, what is it, what is it a crime now to commit a crime? Like, I'm not optimistic enough to believe that he'll ever end up in prison. But can you imagine if he ended up in prison? Oh, my God, if they walked him out in handcuffs. I don't know what I would do. I would be beside myself. Let us whisper of a dream. I would do somersaults on camera.

Right. It's not going to happen. And I'm not a pessimistic guy, and I think that I'm a realistic person. What I mean by that is if it came to that, that would be a holy mess. We shouldn't even want that. Because a third of this country will lose their minds, and they'll grab their guns, and it'll be an unbelievable mess. And the people in charge know that.

And my guess is that they'll offer Trump a deal. And he'll take the deal. And in that deal, he'll get to skate. He won't go to prison. He'll get to keep all the money he stole. His kids will keep all the money they stole. And so there'll be no justice in that sense. But at least he'll be out.

That's my guess as to what's going to happen. Okay. I think you're right to. All right. Let's move on. Donald Trump held a rally in West Virginia. This was on the same day that Paul Manafort was convicted of eight charges, including tax fraud. And also, Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to paying off women that Trump had affairs with.

Now with that said, Trump decided to have this rally. He didn't mention any of these convictions or the fact that Cohen, uh, Cohen's, uh, he said, uh, Trump decided to have this rally. He didn't mention any of these convictions or the fact that Cohen's pleaded guilty. But he did mention- He didn't bring that up. No, didn't bring it up at all. Fascinating. But his supporters didn't really seem to care about any of that. In fact, they did talk about locking people up, but according to various journalists who

were there, Ezra Klein, for instance, says, lock her up chance about Hillary Clinton at a Trump rally on the day Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer. Get jail time is really GOP politics right now in a nutshell. So that's what happened. They chan to lock her up. I'm going to give you another tweet. This is a really good one. Christina Wilkie said, surreal on a day when two Trump's top aides were handed 16 felony

convictions between them and both will, in fact, be locked up. So that's his campaign. It's not like a random dude at the campaign. Well, I didn't know him. He was getting coffee. his campaign manager and his personal lawyer, okay? Yeah. 16 felony convictions.

They're chanting locker up about emails, about emails. About emails. About emails, yeah. They were also chanting Drain the Swamp. Drain the Swamp. Well, I got good news for you. We just did because two of them are going to jail. And they work for Donald Trump.

It is amazing how willfully blind Trump supporters are. Now, they might be willfully blind. willfully blind or they might have bought into the propaganda that the right wing spews on a daily basis. And to give you an example of that, our very own J.R. Jackson put together a mashup of the reaction of the right wing to what happened yesterday. To Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. Take a look. The election laws are a morass of misdemeanors, felonies, crimes, non-crimes, with exception. Michael Cohen pled two charges that are actually not crimes.

You can't impeach on the basis of minor derelictions or even crimes. You need a high crime. That Donald Trump directed it. It's not a crime. It's not a crime. Violation of election laws are regarded as kind of jaywalking. Is that illegal? How is that a crime?

If he directed somebody to do it, intending to pay it back, that's probably not. a crime. Minor campaign finance violations. Far worse crimes, by the way, committed by others, they didn't get charged. Every administration violates the election laws. You know, every campaign has violated some technical election law. Or an attempt to try to do anything to connect Cohen's wrongdoing to potential wrongdoing with trial. Well, itself, it's not a crime. Every candidate violates the election laws when they run for president. It's not a crime. Okay, let's move on. Okay, I can't get enough of that. Okay, the guy pleaded guilty to a crime and he's going to serve up to three to six years

in prison, the judge said, thank you for your guilty plea of that crime. Can we do a split screen while Jank explains this so I can play the role of Tucker Carlson? Is that possible? Can we do that? Let's try that. Yeah. Okay. Okay, it is a crime when you plead guilty to a crime, okay, and when you say I had a co-conspirator

in that crime, and his name was Donald Trump, authorities are going to want to investigate your co-conspirator in that crime. If you go back and watch Tiger Carlson's face, why does he do that? Why would anyone trust someone who looks like that? Like, he's so confused. Yeah, the whole time, he's like, what? But to me fair to Tucker Carlson, it is fairly confusing when they say the crime he admitted is not a crime.

I would also probably make this face. That was unbelievable. My favorite part of that is how Ellen Dershowitz says humiliated himself on national television over and over. This guy's been kissing Donald Trump's ass to get to be one of his lawyers so he could be relevant again. And Trump still hasn't hired him, but he still goes out there every day on Fox. And he's like, oh, no, no, no, all the things Trump did. I mean, it could be a crime. I don't know if it's a high crime. And you're supposed to be a fancy law professor. Most constitutional experts

understand that high crimes and misdemeanors refers to the high in that sentence versus people in high positions. That's how it was used at the time. And even if it wasn't, I don't care what interpretation you want to put on it. It's high. crimes and misdemeanors and campaign finance law violations are at a bare minimum misdemeanors. The guys go to prison, quote, is, for three to six years, okay? That's not a minor misdemeanor. So that was wonderfully humiliating for these Orwellian guys to come out there and go, what are you going to do, believe you're lying eyes?

We got alternative facts for you, man, to the truth isn't truth, and crimes aren't crime. So that was humiliating for at least our perspective was that it was humiliating. But that type of misinformation, that type of lying to protect Trump, it works with his base. And that was abundantly clear at this rally in West Virginia. Now, with that said, luckily Eric Beiler was there. He did talk to some Trump supporters. The topic wasn't specifically on Michael Cohen or Paul Manafort. But it did give you a little bit of a sense of what these Trump supporters are thinking,

their mindset, and just how much they lack trust toward the people that maybe they should listen to or at least consider their perspectives. With that said, though, let's hear what they had to say about censorship and their favorite newscaster. One of my favorite newscasters has just recently been banned from YouTube and Facebook platforms. Why do you think Alex Jones was banned? A lot of people don't like his message. I enjoy his message. I'm not one of those people that believes everything he says. However, he puts an interesting spin on turning the frogs gay, for example. It really makes you look at

the white papers. I don't know a single thing that he says, except for the Newtown Massacre, not having happened. But what is the frogs being gay? Chemicals in the water, basically, you've got male frogs, you know, no longer inclined to breed with females. So it's not just like rhetoric or talk. I mean, there's sign, this stuff is done in labs. There are scientific facts. There's things that people do that aren't covered or that they just mock at or laugh at. So I want to be clear here, okay, Eric Bile is part of rebel headquarters.

And part of the Young Turks goes down there. and interviews them. Emma Biglin does it from time to dime. And I think that unfortunately, Trump has a great way of brainwashing a lot of his supporters so that they believe in such things as truth isn't truth and crime isn't crime, et cetera, right? But as I watch that whole interview, and we'll have the link down below for you guys if you're watching later on YouTube or Facebook or just go to YouTube.com slash Rebel HQ. I kind of like that couple.

I know that's a funny thing to say. And I felt bad that they were being misled. I actually thought that they were somewhat open-minded. And so in mass, Trump fans appear to be caricatures almost, especially how they act on social media. But that's why I like actually going in and meeting them. And so in meeting them, I actually felt, I don't even think sympathy is the right word. I think that they are in their own mind, in trying to keep an open mind, okay?

But that's the problem with a guy like Alex Jones, because he got them to believe that the gay frogs were based on studies and facts. And by the way, I don't care about the gay frog conspiracy theories, because that doesn't put anyone's life in danger, right? It's fun. It's relatively benign. He spreads the conspiracy theory, his fans enjoy the conspiracy theory, they're entertained by it, we're entertained by it, we make fun of him.

And then we move on with our lives. I know, but you know what, I'm sorry, let me give a caveat, right? So it's fun if it's just about gay frogs and chemicals in the water, and you should, by the way, you should be careful about things that are in the water. There are actually chemicals in the water, just not chemicals that are turning frogs gay. That's right, and the real problems are in Flint, Michigan, where you actually have lead in the water, etc., right? But if he then uses that to say, like, oh, that's why human beings are turning gay, and so it's not, and then somehow just weaves that into basically discrimination against gay Americans,

then it's not fun and it's disastrous. But I honestly, I don't know what else he does with his stupid gay frog theory, okay? But my sense of this, and you can say that I'm being too generous here, is that these are not bad guys. They just, they watched the wrong show, they got led into believing that those were facts when they're not facts. And that's part of the problem with that guy like Jones. Yeah. Yeah, playing the role of overly generous host today is Jank Yugar. Sometimes we switch

that role. Sometimes I'll play that role. That's out our mood. Yeah, it really does. So I'm just gonna be quiet and move on to the next video. In the next video, they talk about how offensive it is to be referred to as a certain type of person by non-Trump supporters. Did you get shouted at it as you entered the building? Oh yeah, absolutely. And I waved and videotaped. protesters actually right out here. Info, yeah. Sorry.

Your heroes are here. We shouted some facts and they didn't have much else to say. They just screamed. They just screamed that you're racist and your white supremacists and all this. They just scream at you. When you try to talk to them, they don't want anything to do with you. It would have been nice to have some intellectual debate, but there was none of that. So we smile and we wave and we go.

So he went on to talk about how, you know, it's all a lot of, the property you hear from different places. Facts don't care about your feelings. Gee, I wonder where he got that one from, right? And, but when he said, it's not racist, they're just facts. I was like, oh boy, I wonder what he thinks those facts are, right? And that's what's so problematic about the propaganda spread by the right wing, which is people get confused into thinking, well, I heard it online. It must be true. For God's sake, double check. And double check what we say, go to the original sources, go to the data, please, whatever you do, do your homework, actually bother to look into it when someone says that frog is gay or that it's a fact that

there's racial differences, and I don't know for a fact that he was referring to that. I'm afraid as you watched the whole video that he might have been, but that's why people shout at you, and maybe shouting at you is not the right way to do it, but when you, when right wingers, let's put it this way, that our leaders go around saying, hey, black people are X, Y, or Z. I don't even want to get into all the terrible things they say. And they say, well, it's a fact, it's a fact, right? That's really dangerous, because it's not facts. And it is perverted propaganda, which then gets people to go, well, I mean, look, I feel bad about it, but I guess it's a fact that blacks are more violent.

It's not true. So the reason why I'm not being as generous as you is actually not because of my mood. It's because it's at this point, like, if you voted for Trump in the last election and you have seen what he's done and you have changed your mind, like I commend you for being open-minded enough to consider the damage that he's done. But if at this point you are willing to attend a rally for him in West Virginia, that means you are a real supporter. And you have seen what he's done and you are in favor of it. You support it. I mean, you have to support it if you're going to show up to a rally.

It's one thing to vote for a guy. It's another thing to actually show up to a rally. Like, he separated toddlers from their mothers at the border, people who are seeking asylum. Yeah. And so, it's hard for me to look at you and say, oh, no, I think you're a good person. You just bought into propaganda. Regardless of how much propaganda you've bought into, I think any decent human being would look at that zero tolerance policy and find so unconscionable that they would not want to support a candidate who would push for something

like that. That's the reason why I'm not as generous as you in looking at them as good people. But with that said, other portions of this interview did make them seem like they're open-minded. So for instance, they were asked about this whole Robert Mueller case. And they were asked, hey, do you think it's okay for Trump to fire Mueller? And they specifically said, no, we don't think that's okay. We don't believe that the president should be above the law. And I give them credit for that.

So let's watch that clip too. Do you think that the president should use all powers within his reach to try to prevent himself and his associates from being investigated for wrongdoing? No, no. Nobody's above the law. I don't believe that at all. No, not at all. And I've said it many of times, if he goes down or if he did something, he should be punished.

If he did something wrong or he gets caught, then that's for him to go down. But let's not forget Bill Clinton lied to the American people about an affair he was having while in office, and he didn't even get taken out of office. Yeah, that's because he didn't violate campaign finance laws. It's a different thing. But, look, Eric is seeing this in the Trump rallies. That's why we're actually bothering to go down instead of just talking about people in terms of stereotypes.

Sometimes they make it awfully easy to do that, right? But in Eric's experience, and I watched all the videos, and you should watch them all too on Rebel headquarters, about half the people he talks to goes, no, no, no, no, he shouldn't fire Mueller. We should find out what happened. And if he did something wrong, that's really bad. Do they really mean it? It seems like they mean it.

So Trump might be in for a rude surprise if it turns out he fires Mueller and then maybe even half of his base that bothers to go to his rallies, goes, you shouldn't have done that. That means you're guilty. So we'll see. We'll see. But in our experience, talking to Trump supporters, that does seem like the one issue where they're like, no, no, he shouldn't do that. we'll see all right let's take a break when we come back the nancy pelosi story that i've been

promising you and yes we will cover the molly tibbitt story as well 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 podcast at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank yugar and i'll see you soon