The Young Turks - Michael Cohen, Fox & Friends Syria, and Diamond and Silk

Episode Date: April 16, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from April 13, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join.  Hour 1: Cenk, Ana, Bill Press, Maz Jobrani. Trump pardons former Cheney advisor Scooter Libby. Trump responds to allegations in Comey memoir. Trump allies fear Michael Cohen recordings seized in FBI raid. Fox & Friends host asks if Syria bombing could bring in more ratings than Comey book. Republican voters turning against Mueller probe. McCabe report details firing. Hour 2: Cenk, Ana, Brett, Simone Boyce. Update on teacher walkouts in AZ and OK. Emails show that Facebook emailed Trump supporters Diamond and Silk over censorship claims. 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. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks. And the realities is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show.

That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Thanks for watching. All right, back on a young Turks. Let me read a couple of quick tweets for you guys. Chunk Wiga makes an interesting point. Getting hookers to pee on a bed is precisely the kind of thing a germaphobe would see as a massive insult. It is interesting. Like, notice that pee is nowhere near Trump.

He's watching as they're peeing on the bed according to that report. And so he might see that as like, gotcha. Yeah. It's a fascinating point. Anyway, it's not important, though. A much more important point by Aaron Kennewell. I always enjoy Mazurana taking a break from robbing Mc Jagger to guest host on TYT Live. That's a reference to a show I did in 2006.

We need to go. It was called The Knights of Prosperity. It was with Sophia Vargara, Dona Logue, a bunch of us, and we were trying to rob Mick Jagger. Got canceled. for bringing that up. In fact, Aaron put hashtag Nights of Prosperity was underrated. It was. It was actually, it got a lot of

good publicity, but nobody watched it. But now I'm a superior donus. Monday night, CBS, 9 o'clock. Watch it. Yes. And by the way, if you want to see where Maas is going to be live on his tour, check out mazjabrani.com slash live. Yes, I'll be doing

I'm back on the road. I'll be in L.A., New York, Atlanta, a lot of places. So check it out. Come see me live and give me a hug for that show that was canceled. Oh, actually, you're going on tour with him so you can mentor me on the comedy off where I'm going to kick your butt. He used to want to go at it. Let's see what I was. Maybe you could be a ref.

I will. From the left, Bill Press's new book, everybody check that out, okay? And last plug is shopty.com where you can get that great shirt that Anna's wearing, among many others. Today is a very good day to wear your very stable genius shirt, given this instability of Donald Trump, which I wore at an airport coming back from Vegas this morning, got a lot of So shoptyt.com. Okay. All right.

An RNC official has resigned from his position following an explosive report that reveals the fact that he paid a Playboy model, $1.6 million in hush money to prevent any information about the affair he had with her and the fact that she got pregnant from that affair and then had an abortion. Now, Elliot Brody is his name. He's the former deputy finance chair of the R&C, and he's a, wow, he's a longtime Trump supporter. He's an interesting looking guy. Now, under the terms of this deal, the Republican donor, Elliot Brody, would pay the woman in installations over the course of two years and in return, she would agree to stay silent about their relationship. Now here is the fascinating part about all of this, the most important part

about all of this, because who cares about their affair. This deal, this settlement was arranged by President Trump's personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen. So we're seeing, again, a pattern of Cohen coming in and paying hush money to different women who could potentially destroy the careers of men who are either Donald Trump himself or connected to Trump. The lawyer for the woman, Keith M. Davidson, also represented two women who were paid during the presidential campaign for their silence about alleged affairs with Trump, Karen McDougall and Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels. So the allegations of that Ms. Brody had paid for an exclusive sexual relationship of one or two

years with this woman to begin with before the alleged pregnancy. Now, I say alleged pregnancy because it was actually never confirmed that she was pregnant. She refused to take any kind of test that whether it was his kid or not. She then said to him that I got an abortion, but after these, and at some point these papers are signed. The papers say something very interesting. They say, now, this is not about the child or what might happen with the child, which sounds like we're paying for the abortion. But we remember, this is not about the abortion, okay? I would never do that because I'm a very important person in the Republican Party.

Because so I at first when I read the headline, I thought, 1.6 million dollars if this guy's really loaded and you're going to pay, you know, child custody for, and then I realized, oh my God, you read the story, there is no child. It's just a $1.6 million as a payoff. That's a gigantic. The president only paid $130,000 to keep the porn star adultery hidden. Why is this guy paying $1.6 million? And so, look, he might be richer than the president. There might be a couple of different reasons. But she says she had an abortion. He paid her $1.6 million. Even if he didn't agree to the abortion as he claims.

First of all, he doesn't seem to be shedding any tears. Second of all, I thought you guys told me, the pro-life guys told me that it was murder. So why would he pay $1.6 million to a person who murdered their child? Now, that's not my way of thinking about it. You tell me that's your way of thinking about it. Is Broder going to work in the Republican Party again when he's apparently happy to pay for a woman who got an abortion at a minimum? Even if it wasn't for the abortion, he claims, yeah, I knew that she got an abortion, and I paid her anyway. Well, you know, if you're a rich elite, those rules don't apply to you.

So you can do whatever you want. But for everybody else, you should keep the baby, no matter what your situation is, you need to keep the baby because they've decided. for you. But if they're risen, they can pay it, then they'll do it. And also, by the way, Michael Cohen is involved in a lot of sexual-related issues. He's like a pimp. Yeah. Look, for me, that's the heart of the story. I mean, yes, there's the salacious angle and the fact that it's another Republican, you know, this is the party of so-called family values. The hypocrisy is obviously there. But Michael Cohen is in the middle of all of these hush money agreements. And, And a lot of members of Trump's administration are concerned right now because Cohen is known

for taping a lot of the conversations that he has. And so this FBI rate happens. There is a possibility that they've obtained all of these different tapes that could implicate a bunch of people who are close to Trump or maybe even Trump himself. And so Cohen is fighting to prevent the use of those tapes in any type of court proceeding. He's already filed for a, what is it called? A motion? He's filed for, what is it called?

Restraining order. A restraining order. There we go. Two quick quick. Number one, I think this shows Stormy Daniels got cheated. I mean, you know, she only got $130,000. Two, look, this may not be Donald Trump, but it's not so far from Donald Trump because this is Donald Trump's lawyer. And I think this and the fact that he had to resign adds credibility to Stormy Daniels and to Karen McDougal in what they're saying about their affair with Donald Trump and their hush money.

And also, back to Cohen again, that's some weird shit that he records his conversation. I don't know anybody who records their conversations. This dude is up to some weird stuff. He knows he's up to no good. You're not recording conversations with your whatever, mom or whatever. You're recording conversations where you're like, Something's going to be implicated. I'm going to need this down the line to protect me. So this dude is dirty. They're all dirty. And it's just, it blows my mind. I can't wait for the tape to come out.

But by the way, his supporters will still say, oh, you know. He found God. He found God. He's a, you know, he'll find his wife. He found God. Let's find out who this Playboy model is and judge her for having an abortion. But anyway, I do want to quickly read from an anonymous Trump advisor who spoke to the press in regard to these tapes. that Michael Cohen had.

We heard he had some proclivity to make tapes. Now we're wondering, who did he tape? Did he store those someplace where they were actually seized? Did they find his recording? So they're very much concerned about those recordings. I am not concerned. I am excited. And I'm curious to see what comes out from these tapes.

Me too. All right. Let's do the next story. All right. Those close to Rod Rosenstein are indicating that he is planning on getting fired and he is accepting it and is somewhat calm about it. Now, according to reporting with rumors swirling that President Trump could fire Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, key Democrats this week have begun putting together an emergency action plan. Step one, don't call for impeachment.

so that's something that I'm sure Jake is about to lose his mind on any minute but we need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Ing 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 on 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 unlearn what you have learned.

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're 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. A source who spoke to Rosenstein said he seemed fully aware that he may soon lose his job and was at peace with the possibility, confident that he had done his job with integrity. So this is actually interesting because he has been in touch with ethics officials in the Department of Justice in regard to his involvement in this investigation involving special counsel Mueller.

So he keeps asking, do I need to recuse myself? If I need to recuse myself, please let me know he doesn't want to do anything wrong. And according to these officials, he had no reason to recuse himself in this investigation. And the argument that the Trump administration is making, the argument that Trump himself is making, is that Rosenstein should have recused himself, that he is the person who wrote that memo, who fired Comey, and so why is the person who fired Comey now part of an investigation because of me firing Comey? Do you get what I'm saying?

Yeah, well, so, okay, hold on. There's a lot going on. Yeah, let's clarify a bunch of things here. So, again, Trump is saying I'm worried that Comey might be biased because he's the one who fired Comey in the first place. I mean, Rosenstein is biased because he fired Comey in the first place. But you told him to fire. And so did you, but you didn't say he was biased then.

You were very happy with that. Only when he appoints a special counsel, you go, oh, my God, I can't put this monster who fired Comey is now, what? You're the one who told him to do it, right? So that makes no sense at all. And, but it's Trump, it doesn't have to make sense. So now Mark Meadows goes on Fox News. He's head of the Freedom Caucus, the really right-wing group in Congress.

and he signals to the president and he says, quote, let's do it this week referring to firing Rosenstein and if this Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General can't do it, let's find the two who will. So he's like, let's fire Mueller and let's do it this week and if Rosenstein and Sessions won't do it, you should fire them.

So two things about that. Number one, so we're led to believe that Trump and the right wing are really mad that Comey did not recuse himself from the case. But they're also really mad that Sessions did. How does that make any sense? Like make up your mind.

Should people recuse themselves or not recuse themselves? You're saying that Rosenstein should have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's saying Rosenstein should have recuse himself. But Sessions shouldn't have. On the same exact fact pattern. Who cares? Who cares?

It doesn't have to make sense. I can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and my voters won't care. I'm just going to blurt out nonsense. The second part is John Kelly's the chief of staff. So he holds the keys to the Oval Office as to who gets in and who doesn't. But it doesn't matter because they're using Fox News as a public, like, you know, those old school telephone switchboards, right? Yeah. Connecting into the president, right? And Mark Meadows comes on and goes, we should fire Mueller now, shouldn't we? Okay, the way you would do it is you would first fire Rosenstein and then maybe sessions if he doesn't go along.

You see what I'm saying? They're just doing it in public. So they could get to the president because they know he watches Fox News. And remember, Trump didn't ever have a problem with Rosenstein until it hit headlines that Rosenstein is likely to testify in this investigation that Mueller has asked for him to testify and he is likely to testify because, of course, he was the one who was directed by Trump to fire Comey. So his, him testifying is important to this investigation. Trump doesn't like that.

And so that's part of, you know, what started all of these, you know, first it started with whispers regarding firing him and now it's it's just out there they want to get rid of him i just point out the timing okay it's been rumors there's been buzz about roses on getting fired for a long time here we have comie's book coming out the abc interviewer coming tomorrow and a donald trump is thinking about how he can steal comie's thunder up i'm willing to bet on that and you know he will fire rosenstein maybe is the show over maybe before the show is over or before the weekend is out and that's going to dominate the news, and that's what Donald Trump wants. And then the Republicans

in Congress will say, oh, this is a constitutional crisis of terrible, and do absolutely nothing. Yeah, I don't want him, obviously, to fire him, but I'm so sick of this cliffhanger that I'm like, just fire him already. Fire these, let's get on with it. He's waiting for the right time. Yeah, the joke was that

this guy is a reality star. He had a show on NBC. Now he's managed to have a show on every network, including this network, including every... This dude is the modern-day PT Barnum. He's got everyone talking about him. It's like, fire the guy already. And please just let's get rid of this guy because I'm

like, I'm getting a headache. I have children I want to talk to. I don't want to spend my time reading your stupid tweets. So just do it. And let us impeach you. You're right. They're not going to do anything. And I don't know what I'm going to leave. I'm moving.

I think what I, just real quick, what I would love is, look, I know that Mueller wants to do a thorough investigation. That's why it's taking so long. But I would love for the investigation to be over. And I really don't care about what the outcome is. I can speculate about the outcome. But it's, it's, I would like this to no longer be a big news story. I know. But it doesn't work that way. I know. Okay. So look, last thing on this, you know, Bill mentioned that the Republicans aren't going to do anything about impeachment. New story out

in National Journal. Turns out some portion of the Democrats are counseling that they should do nothing. So they're like, we're going to beat the Republicans to the punch in doing nothing if he fires Rosenstein, led by Mark Warner and the so-called moderate Democrats, they say, step one, don't call for impeachment, and that there should be a cooling off period where we don't say anything about it for one or two days. So in the middle of him creating a constitutional crisis, and when the iron is hot, as usual, the incredibly stupid Democrats are like, oh, let's not do something about it when everyone cares. When everyone cares. No, let's do a cooling off period and make sure we don't do. Why?

So let me read you from Graphic 36 here from National Journal. Leaders came to the conclusion that talking about impeachment would be unproductive because it would turn away Republicans. Wow. Wow. Wow. But isn't the whole, I mean, look, I don't know if it's the whole point. But Democrats have been pushing for an investigation into Russian meddling since the beginning because they want to make an excuse for why Hillary lost. I mean, and so now they're not going to do anything about it? I don't understand. So if there is proof of Russian meddling, if this investigation indicates that there was collusion

or obstruction of justice, they're not going to do anything about it? It just proves that Democrats can screw up a two-car funeral. I mean, you know what? Seriously, this is the moment. This is the opportunity. If all this happens, which I think it is going to happen. And for them to take this approach that now's the time to do nothing, no, now's the time to grow a pair and take action.

And that's what the American people want. And this insane idea that we may turn off some of the Trump base or turn off some Republicans, they're never going to freaking vote for you anyhow. They're already pretty turned off. They're the passive aggressive in the relationship. They just, you know, like, they caught the other person doing the wrong thing, and the other person goes, you want to talk about this? And no, no, I think I'm just going to go over here in the corner and drink my tea.

Insane. Yeah. All right. Let's finally move on to Andrew McCabe. All right. A new report has been released in regard to the firing of Andrew McCabe. And Donald Trump is very happy about this report. It's coming from the Justice Department's Inspector General, and according to this report,

it accused Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director, of repeatedly misleading investigators. Now, remember, when McCabe was fired by Jeff Sessions, Jeff Sessions stated that there was a lack of candor when it came to McCabe, and that was the reason for firing him, when investigators asked whether he had instructed aides to provide information in October of 2016 to a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. Mr. McCabe said he did not authorize the disclosure and did not know who did. But McCabe did approve the FBI's contact with the reporter. That's according to this report. Also, McCabe's disclosure of the existence of the ongoing investigation in the manner described in the report violated media policy of the FBI and Justice Department

and constituted misconduct. Again, this is according to the report that was released by the Inspector General. Donald Trump responded to this in a typical Donald Trump fashion. Let's go to his tweet. DOJ just issued the McCabe report, which is a total disaster. He lied, lied, lied. McCabe was totally controlled by Comey. McCabe is Comey.

No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and loaves. live, life's. Of course, misspelled. All right. Again, just a moment in time, imagine if Obama had just sent that one tweet. Just that one tweet, dozens of congressional investigations.

He's lost his mind. We're thinking of using the 25th Amendment, everything under the sun. That tweet, I know we've not gotten used to Donald Trump being insane, but we shouldn't be. The emperor has no mind. That tweet is totally insane. Okay.

And now the fun part, totally wrong. Why? What is his opinion? What do you mean wrong? The Inspector General report, which Trump, of course, did not read, actually blames McCabe. It does. That part is true. Okay, it blames McCabe for lying to Comey and undermining him.

They were against one another. The whole point of the report is, I can't believe McCabe lied to Comey. Trump tweets out, you see McCabe and Comey working together the whole time. That's the exact opposite of what the report is. says the new bemo v i porter master card is your ticket to more more perks more points more flights more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card and then some get your ticket to more with the new bemo v i porter master card and get up to twenty four hundred dollars in value in your first 13 months terms and conditions apply visit bemo dot com slash v i porter to

learn more. The whole problem with McCabe was that he dared to lie to Comey. And Trump's like, you see that? Comey, May, and McCabe, no difference. They're the same guy. Just read it for a second. I know you're not going to read it because you're not, you can't read, apparently. Have a staffer come in and say, hey, Mr. President, before you send your next insane tweet,

let me roughly tell you what's in the stupid report before you go out and act like a madman and embarrass and humiliate yourself in the country as usual. at t yt we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data but that doesn't mean we have to let them it's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech and one of the best ways is with express vpn express VPN hides your IP address making your active AD more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers express VPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine.

So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE SVPN.com slash TYT. Y-Y-T. Check it out today. It's pretty, it's very discursive. The fact that it doesn't read, it's actually kind of funny, I've been using Trump's not reading as a way to encourage my seven-year-old to read. My seven-year-old daughter doesn't like Trump. That's depressing.

And when she doesn't read, I go, do you want to be like Donald Trump? And then she goes, okay, I'll read. So it's working. So thank you, Mr. Trump. That's pretty sad, isn't it? It is sad. But you've got to understand, too. The whole push here. against McCabe is an attempt for them to undermine Robert Mueller and the whole investigation.

And whatever happens to this report, I think we can take some comfort, and that's not going to happen. I mean, Mueller is a serious guy. He's on the right track, unless they fire Mueller, and then all hell breaks loose. But so, but it does have relevance. And, and I want to make one more point about it that's, that almost no one else is making, because it provides context. So first of all, The part that people do acknowledge is it's relevant because McCabe might actually be part of the trial at one point because he corroborated Comey's notes that Comey took at the time. Now, Comey and McCabe don't like each other, but McCabe's testimony is going to be, according to what he said already in public. Yeah, Comey was right about that.

He did talk to Trump, and apparently Trump did, at least Comey's notes indicated Trump said that on that day. Now, a report comes out saying, well, McCabe has had trouble with candor. the past, but that was in regards to how he was trying to undermine Comey. So if you're a jury, if it comes to that, you might say, well, in some ways that maybe makes became more credible because he doesn't like Comey. And he's still saying Comey was right about this. But Trump's lawyers would certainly get to say, this guy's a liar. We told you it was a liar. You should discount all of his testimony. And hence, you should discount Comey's notes of Trump saying inappropriate and possibly illegal things that led to obstruction of justice.

That's the whole point behind this. So I understand that. Now, the part that people are not talking about is that actually, Bill, you go and then I want to come back to that. Well, no, the other thing, I just want to keep, it sounds like a constant theme, but I keep on to come back to the timing, too. We've been, why did this break today? We've heard about, this McCabe report has been predicted for the last two weeks in

Washington. It hits today the same day, suddenly we're hearing about James Comey. They're trying to undermine Comey, Mueller, McCabe, anything to do with it. I think the basic point is Donald Trump sees the Department of Justice, not as this independent department to enforce the laws of the land, but as a bunch of lawyers who are there to protect him. He sees them as his personal government-funded attorneys. That's what he sees them as.

And that is not what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to be independent and they were supposed to uphold the laws. And, you know, it's just, I always, my mind always goes back to the Republican National Convention and how speech after speech talked about Trump being the law and order president. And they were talking about that in the context of police shootings where all these unarmed people were getting shot and killed and how they supported those cops and how all those people who got shot and killed deserved it. In that context, he's the law and order president.

When it comes to everything else, how is he? I mean, he's not a law and order president at all. And he only wants to protect himself, wants to protect those who are loyal to him. And he's setting this standard and honestly, kind of like a warning to anyone who's around him. If you're not loyal to me, if you don't do my bidding, you will be gone. And I don't know why anyone would want to work in an environment like that. So the thing that people are not talking about is, so yeah, he leaked, McCabe did, and then he lied about it, which is what every leaker does. It wasn't me, wasn't me, right?

So you actually could get almost any government official on this same exact thing. So it's called selective prosecution. So Trump pressured and pressured the inspector general to go do a report on McCabe, and then they got him for lying about this. And I'm sure he did lie. I believe the inspector general that became lied about this. But you could do it to every single Trump staffer if you wanted to. How about Trump? And to Trump.

He leaks. He leaks. And lies. And there was that great report at one point where they said that they found the primary culprit in the leaks. And they were trying to figure out, was it Ryan's previous? Was it Steve Bannon, et cetera? They realized, no, he's in the building.

It's Trump. Because at night, he would go to his private residence and call all his buddies and be like, I can you believe this happened and then that happened. And his friends would leak it to the press. So if you had an inspector general report about Trump, they would say, he lacks candor and is leaking. And they're lying about leaking, right? So it's easy to smear McCabe and say, I can't believe he did a leak and I can't believe he lied about it. But remember, it's selective prosecution.

They could do it to almost anyone in Washington, and they do do it in this case to target McCabe because of the investigation, not because they're genuinely concerned. He leaked in a tweet a while ago. He leaks in his own tweets sometimes where he, I forget what it was, but he admitted to something. That was the one that he said the lawyer had done. Remember he blamed his lawyer for sending the tweet, the one time they said he was the tweet? Oh, that's right, that's right. I forget what the thing was specifically, but he leaked some information. It was something classified, I think, at the time.

Or it was something he was admitting to something. And then someone was like, dude, you just admitted to doing whatever it was, I don't know, collusion or whatever. Yeah. And he was like, oh, that was my lawyer did that. So there's one other thing that I want to mention. And it's kind of tied to all of this. The Russia investigation, Comey's memoir, all this negative press that Trump is getting at this very moment. It seems like everything's kind of coming together in the worst possible way for Trump, best possible way for

people who don't like Trump. And so Fox wants to do Trump a favor, right? They want to give Trump some advice on how he can distract the American people from all this negative attention that he's been getting. And what you're about to watch right now is incredibly scary and destructive when you consider the fact that Trump watches Fox religiously. And he usually acts or reacts to whatever it is, whatever advice they give him on these various shows on Fox. So let's take a look at this video from Fox and Friends. Do you think this will be the number one story? Oh, I have no doubt that Comey and now that $30,000 payoff to a doorman about a purported love child.

If the president in France and the UK decide to strike Syria, don't you think that story would be a bigger story than Comey's book that's released on Tuesday? Heraldo didn't actually address her question. He kind of pivoted towards something a little different. But what I thought was interesting was that she made that suggestion. I mean, that is incredibly scary because Trump does listen to Fox, does watch it, and oftentimes does take whatever advice its hosts have. I mean, the idea of engaging or escalating war in Syria, just so you can distract people from what's going on, is terrifying. And I do not, I think it's feasible. I think it's something Trump would consider doing.

I think even Geraldo, if you look in that clip, he was in his eyes, before he answered, he was, I think he computed that Donald Trump is watching this. If I agree with her right now, that I'm kind of throwing myself under the bus. So you're absolutely right. That signal is being sent. Here's a scary, you know, the Constitutional Convention at one time, they debated perhaps having a triumvirate as president. I think we've got it now. And it's Steve Ducey and Ainsley Earhart and Brian Kilmead. God save the Republic.

Yes. So I totally agree with Maz. Heraldo clearly was like, oh my God, why did she say that? We're not supposed to say that out loud, right? So that's why he did the pivot. Watch this weekend. Right. And so, as I was saying earlier in the show, these allies of the president, the right-wing allies, are using Fox News as a switchboard to get to them.

So here is Fox News saying, now, wouldn't it be a good idea if the president were to fire Rosenstein on Tuesday, or in this case, bomb Syria, on Tuesday, right? So the firing the Rosenstein and the Mueller was Mark Meadows on an earlier clip. In this case, it's Aisley Earhart saying, why don't you start a war? Mr. President. No, I'm terrified. I'm so scared that he is going to make the decision to, you know, to escalate war in Syria, that, you know, we're going to send more troops there. I do not want to engage in war in Syria.

And I just, if Fox News continues this talking point, I have no doubt that he's going to listen. Because that's what he does. It's been a week. This is Donald, not Donald Trump's normal pace, right, to wait, to wait a week, to take his time. right? No, he waited. He's waiting until that's the right timing to announce this attack on Syria. And I think he, either she heard it from him or he's going to hear it from her. Yeah, so Sunday, Comey's big interview is with ABC comes out. Tuesdays when the book comes out. So sometime right around that, the two things to look out for is Rosenstein getting fired,

both because he wants to screw up to investigation and obstruct justice again, but also wants to use it as timing to detract from the Comey issue. And now, even worse, starting a war, and they're brazenly basically asking him to do it on national television, starting a war, getting people killed, let alone all the other incredibly damaging things that happen in a war, playing with people's lives to distract people from the political mess that Donald Trump is in. And the fact that Fox says that with no conscious at all, like, hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to start a war, like people then wouldn't pay any attention to the Comey stuff, wouldn't it?

It's, I mean, just when you thought Fox News and this whole right-wing mess couldn't get any lower, they somehow find a way to get lower and go beyond the bottom of the barrel. There's a sociopathic mentality and a lack of sympathy and empathy for victims in the world. So to even suggest that idea of, hey, what about, because it's not a debate that they're having going, oh, there's these serious issues. Syria is a serious issue. What if a war were to happen in Syria? What, you know, do we, you know, how do we cover this? You know, it's not a constructive debate.

It really was, like, all she had, the only thing missing from that clip was her going, winking and go, you know what I'm saying? Or how about saying, wag the dog? Wag the dog. Great movie. All right, we got it on, everybody, check out on Maasjurani.com slash live. And the book is from the left, A Life in the Crossfire from Bill Press. We got a whole new power panel coming up for you guys. But Bill and Moss, thank you so much for joining us.

We're great to be here. A lot of fun, thanks, guys. And everybody check out the Bill Press show as well. All right, we'll be right back. Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free.

These are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-T-network.com slash join, and you'll get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. All right, back on a young Turks. Lots of praise for our promos during the live stream. So thank you guys. One of them was Valo Grant, who wrote in that clip with Jimmy Dore interviewing Hillary has been clipped together very well.

And, oh my God, Brett Ehrlich's leading the show in Hour 2. Yay. Nice. Okay, with a bit of an emoji there at the end. And Jay writes in, all these states could just legalize weed. It's a pretty simple way to raise wages for teachers. Well, that's a good idea. You'll get more taxes that way.

Calm the kids down? I wouldn't give it to the kids, but I hear you. Oh, I hear you, Brett. Okay. And the members of the day are Todd Jagger and Lauren Siddles. The Jaggernaut also running for office in Texas now was a huge part of Wolfpack for a long time. So thank you to all the members who participate in all the different ways. For the members, not only do we have the Friday postgame as we normally do,

but I'm also going to do something live after the show, which we almost never do on Fridays. I'm going to interview Jeremy Hyman's and Henry Thames. They wrote the book New Power, How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World and How to Make It Work for You. But that's a super interesting book about the old world and how it's top down, whereas now new power is bottom up. And so it has a lot of interesting political implications too. So if you're a member, you could watch it live at 815 Eastern. So to become a member, t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. All right, Brett, what's this?

All right. We promised it. We're delivering it. It's diamond and silk. Who are diamond and silk? Well, they are two women who here they are. They have a popular Facebook page. their Trump supporters, and they were actually on, like, the FEC declaration as being paid by the Trump campaign in 2016 as for field consulting services.

A while back, a little while ago, they told people that they had been notified by Facebook that they were posting content that was, quote, unsafe to the community. Facebook apologized to them and said it was an error that they delivered this message in the first place. Diamond and Silk said that they have not communicated with Facebook since then. And they're very upset. And they're doing all these interviews on Fox shows, talking about how they've been censored by Facebook. Facebook is like, no, no, no. We've reached out to you.

To prove that, this is my favorite way they reach out. They found a Laura Ingram tweet, even, where she said, joining us next, Diamond and Silk, to discuss Mark Zuckerberg's testimony before Congress today. Facebook responds to this tweet even, saying, like, thank you for bringing this up. On Monday, we emailed Diamond and Silk twice. On Tuesday, we called and we commented on their Facebook codes.

We shared this comment. And then they post the screen cap of their comment being like, no, no, no. We are reaching out to these people. Then they post the receipts of the Facebook message to them. It's pretty amazing. But they kept saying how they were discriminated against by Facebook and how they were censored. And their traffic went down and all of that. And it was mentioned.

It was brought up in the Mark Zuckerberg testimony before Congress. Senator Ted Cruz, according to Think Progress, claimed that Facebook had blocked Trump supporters. Diamond and Silk's page with 1.2 million Facebook followers. Said that Zuckerberg told Zuckerberg that Diamond and Silk's experience was proof that Facebook had engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship. And he kept ramming home against conservative groups. Other people did this. Joe Barton of Texas brought it up, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. See, this tweet shows that Billy Long, a congressman from Missouri, brought a photo of them,

and there's Zuckerberg in the front, and he kept talking to them about that. Well, they said that they've been discriminated against and censored, and think progress kind of did some digging into their traffic and found out that, no, they have not been whatsoever. They say that Diamond and Silk's Facebook page had actually received more interactions, in March 2018, then when they were supposedly being censored, then in March 2017, Diamond and Silk received more interactions in January 2018 when they began complaining about censorship than in any month the previous year. There were some declines in some areas, but they paralleled the declines in pretty much everyone who was saying anything political whatsoever on Facebook.

So there you have it. I'm really glad that he brought in the photo of Diamond and Silk, just not to get it confused with all the other Diamond and Silk's out there. That's awesome. So let's break this down. There's only one part of this story, the original story that was true, which is Facebook did send them a message saying that their content was unsafe. That doesn't mean that they took it down as they originally claimed. And I'd like to apologize to you guys because despite the fact that I'd deal a lengthy rant about that on that day, and I'm totally vindicated by the numbers here on the overwhelming substance of it.

it. But I did make a mistake in the beginning. Because they had said it so fervently as if it was fact, we said on the air briefly that their page was taken down. Right. Their page wasn't taken down. That was a lie. Never make the mistake of believing a Republican. Never make that mistake. Okay, so Ted Cruz came in there. It seemed like, you just heard Brett read the quote, seems so authoritative. And this is, and this proves a pattern of bias against conservatives, et cetera, as if they had like done all this research and homework and

etc. Their page was never taken down. None of their posts were ever taken down. So censorship is totally nonsense. The only part that's true is that it was demonetized for a while which as Anna and I explained that happens all the time. And so in this case Facebook came

back and said it was a mistake and then says them at notice. They then lie that Facebook didn't send them the notice even though it's public It's obvious. It's everywhere. And they're like, no, this whole thing started on a lie.

Why would we start telling the truth now? And so the whole idea that they then complained, oh, our traffic went down in January. Facebook changed their policy in January that they're going to emphasize friends and family and not publishers. Everybody's traffic went down in January. Everyone's. Except for theirs, actually, because they were complaining about it so much that it actually drove more traffic toward their content.

That's right. and that's ironic, et cetera. We'll get to those numbers in a second. And what did I say on that first day of the Zuckerberg hearings when they hijacked it with this diamond and silk nonsense? I said, you're eventually going to find out that not only is it not true that Facebook or any of these social media guys discriminating against conservatives, just like the IRS story where they're like, oh, my God, the IRS is going out of conservative groups.

You'll find out at the end, just like in that IRS story, that they actually brought down liberal pages even more. And you look at the numbers, that's exactly what happened. And by the way, it's not because Facebook hates liberals, right? Those are all, it's a complicated matrix. It's literally a complicated algorithm of things that go into what affects your Facebook page. But liberals and others treat it rationally. And they go, oh, they made an algorithm change.

You have to adjust and this happened and that happened. And conservatives go in and they go, hey, all you lying two-faced politicians that represent us, go lie on our behalf. And Ted Cruz and Joe Barton and all of them come out and go, oh, my God, we're victims, we're victims. And what is Facebook? Do I go, no, no, no, no, no. Conservatives, conservatives, how can we help you? How can we help you, conservatives? So, hey, wake up, Democrats, wake up progressives.

And mainstream media, most of all, never believe a Republican. Almost always lying, stop calling it even. It's not even. Look at the actual facts. Do your goddamn job. And look at the facts before you go spreading their nonsense propaganda. Great job by BuzzFeed and ThinkProprud, Chris, that actually did that in this case. I just wanted to make a point about how, you know, those on the right love to point their

fingers at people who are living in poverty, people who might need some government assistance, and they love referring to them as people who play the victim, right? They're living in perpetual victimhood. And then as soon as anything happens that they don't understand, you know, like algorithms or how Facebook works, they immediately misinterpret things as I'm being targeted, I'm a victim, right? And so I can't decide whether or not this is an intentional thing that they're doing because it actually does give them headlines. It does give them the type of attention that they're seeking. It does drive more traffic to what they're doing. Like the whole Ben Shapiro and Coulter speaking at Berkeley thing, they don't care about free speech.

They've never cared about free speech. Ben Shapiro is not a free speech guy because there have been multiple instances of stories where people's actual free speech is being violated. And I haven't heard a word from him, right? But when it comes to that Berkeley thing, what did it do? It elevated his profile a little bit, gave him a little bit more attention. And Coulter noticed it, got a little jelly, did the same thing. And I'm seeing this happening with other members of the right.

This whole diamond and silk thing, you know, people on YouTube, conservatives specifically arguing that they're being, you know, censored. You're not being censored, bro. And by the way, no one, no one is entitled to monetization. No one is entitled to anything when it comes to these companies and the decisions that they make. No one. There is no constitutional protection that prevents you from being censored on any of these platforms. And by the way, there hasn't been any censorship at all, at all. And they act like there's like a group of these left-leaning Facebook employees that are like,

oh, diamond and silk, we don't like them. No, no, no, it's an algorithm. People don't know how anything works anymore. It drives me crazy. It does feel like I was, like, in a relationship and someone told me to, like, shave my beard. And, like, if I had a long beard, and then the algorithm's like, shave your beard. And they're like, no, no, no, I liked your beard before. And you're like, well, I can't grow back today.

That's what it feels like the back and forth of that. But, yeah, as I said, like across the board, there were viewership cuts that happened on Facebook's platform. Yeah, so let me give you some examples of that. Like I said, in January, they make the big algorithm change. They tell you to shave your beard, okay, in Brett's analogy. And so Diamond and Socialics video views decline from 4.1 to 1.8 million. Now, that's out of context.

Then they go, oh my God, we're the snowflakes. We got triggered. We need a safe space. We need a safe space book. So, but wait a minute. You look at Rachel Maddo's video views. By the way, you can do this for any organization, okay? Because in January, they start de-emphasizing all publishers.

Okay. Rachel Maddo goes down much more dramatically from 6 million video views to 1.2 million. So totally cut. Now, think progress even included us. And so they said, all right, let's look at well-known progressives. Rachel Maddo goes down. And then when you look at online interactions, so Diamond and Silk are the numbers that we gave you before, young Turks goes from 2.3 million to 760,000.

Why? We're being censored. We're being censored. It's right-wing bias. Oh, my God. Facebook, right-wing bias. Oh, my God. Free speech is dead.

Constitutional violations. Let me just throw out a bunch of jargon that's going to make people feel alarmed. It's absurd. It's in the national record. That's the thing. It's like in the wake of the Mark Zuckerberg deposition or testimony, a lot of folks said, well, at the very least X, Y, Z thing mentioned by senator, congressperson, whatever, at least it made it into the national record. But these falsehoods are now in the national record. Are there going to be consequences for people acting on this?

No, there's not going to be anything. Well, I mean, okay, just to look at the other side. guys, I do think that there is bias, you know, in widespread in media against conservative viewpoints and against a wide range of viewpoints. But of course, I don't think that, like you said, pointing to falsehoods is the way to talk about that. But at the end of the day, I mean, all of this, you have to ask yourselves, are we comfortable with Facebook playing such a huge role in our democracy. I think that's a question that I'm constantly asking myself with this. And it's not even necessarily related to this, but just the fact that we are having

this conversation, that it is such a big part of our democracy right now. It is crazy how quick they can act on it. But this is, this is the product of dismantling education in the country where people are completely media illiterate and don't know what is and isn't a credible news source. This is also the doing of mainstream media, which has done a terrible job in covering stories that people care about. So then you have this whole generation of people who are rejecting establishment media and turning to alternative forms of media. And when you couple that with the media illiteracy, it becomes a huge problem. So yeah, I have a huge problem with that. Look, last things here. Simone, I hear you that a lot of the journalists are

vote Democrat. I don't know how liberal they are, but they vote probably for the Democratic Right. And when we're talking about social media and who works at those companies, they are based in... No, but they don't put that into the algorithm. They're not journalists. They're coders. So they don't, you can't write into a code be more liberal. Or if you did, you'd be massively fired, right? And so it's just, in the case of Facebook, not remotely true. In the case of journalism, yes, a lot of the journalists are Democrats, where their bosses are massive conservatives. And they have an establishment bias. And if anything, they go out of their way to coddle conservatives. and call everything even when it isn't goddamn even. But in a sense, even though they're not journalists, Facebook has become a media company that disseminates media. And when people right now are figuring out, okay, should I get rid of Facebook or should I keep it?

Because all of this is very scary. They're talking about the fact that this is where I get my news from. This, for a lot of people, Facebook is their one news source. And that is scary. They entered, you know, they got that job at Facebook, didn't think that they were, obviously they didn't call themselves journalists. But, I mean, it is becoming a media company. So let me give the last data point here.

So if there is any bias in the algorithm, based on the actual numbers, it is definitely against the left and not against the right. Mike.com where you write articles left leaning, their traffic went from, get a load of this, from $8.9 million to $475,000. That is insane. It's devastating. It's devastating. So if your conspiracy theory is right that Facebook writes in political bias into that,

algorithm. Then they hate liberals. So look at the actual facts and stop coddling them. They're goddamn liars. That's what Ted Cruz is. That's what Joe Barton is. That's what Diamond and Silk are. Almost all the Republican politicians led by Fox News is a nest of vipers and liars. Stop giving them the legitimacy they have never earned, Young Turks. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of the Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do, because that's free. We want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall. No ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way. Thanks for listening to the full episode

of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.