The Young Turks - Michael Cohen Makes Shocking Trump Claim In Court And Republican Senators Move Against Saudi Arabia

Episode Date: December 1, 2018

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. Republican Senators unite with Democrats to end Saudi support in the war with Yemen. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCE...SS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Young Turks. Thanks out here. We're here.
Starting point is 00:00:17 The show's just starting? Yeah, but they've been here before, probably. Come back. Okay, if you're new, welcome. If not, welcome back. Everybody. Does Johnny Gilbert say it to be in it? Welcome back to Jeopardy.
Starting point is 00:00:27 Here's your host, Alex Trebek. If you've seen the show one time, welcome back to Jeopardy. I'm an optimist. I imagine we have a heavy, strong, recurring audience. I'm just saying you goofed the second word of the show. That was the biggest problem with the intro to this show, was the back. Anyway, welcome, everyone. I'm here, and Jared Jackson, you're here.
Starting point is 00:00:48 You're awesome, JR. Legendary producer of the Young Turks. And that's it. And then there's going to be great people in the second hour as well. So we've got a lot that we're going to be talking about. this is going to be a packed show. I've got so many stories. It occurs to me now. We're not going to get to a lot of these. But anyway, we're going to be starting off with Michael Cohen dropping a bombshell earlier today. We've got a major vote in the Senate advancing a measure that might
Starting point is 00:01:09 cause us to cut off our support for Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen. Donald Trump, who will he meet at the G20? Who won't he meet? We'll break that down. And basically everybody's getting rated up in here. In America, in Europe, everybody's getting rated. And then great stuff at the second hour as well. Anything else from the peanut gallery? No, I think you were like C plus with the rest of the thing. You know? For C plus? Better than average. I don't have a teleprime. I thought that was pretty good. Okay, anyway. I don't know. I wouldn't listen. Okay, I can't wait to fill in all next week. That's going to be great. Anyway, okay, why don't we just jump into the news, okay? Let's talk about some stuff. Michael Cohen has entered into a new plea agreement with the
Starting point is 00:01:50 special counsel's office. He did that by admitting that he had apparently lied to Congress about the nature of a Trump real estate deal in Moscow. At a surprise federal court hearing earlier today in Manhattan, he admitted that he had minimized Mr. Trump's role in efforts to build a Trump tower in Moscow and gave the false impression of Congress that the negotiations had ended in January 2016 just before the Iowa caucuses. In fact, he admitted today the negotiations continued for at least another five months until June, which was just after Mr. Trump had clinched the Republican nomination. Mr. Cohen also admitted that he agreed in early May to travel to Russia for meetings
Starting point is 00:02:28 on the project and that he spoke to Mr. Trump about making the trip, I don't know that's the typo there, about making the trip despite telling congressional investigators that he had not done so, although to be fair, the trip's never actually happened. So a lot of what he relayed on the record to Congress about this deal was actually not true, as we will get too soon. The same sort of messaging was also coming out of Donald Trump and other people from the Trump organization. Mr. Cohen concluded his statement in court by saying that he had made the false statements
Starting point is 00:02:56 to Congress out of loyalty to the president and so that he would not contradict Mr. Trump's political messaging. Well, that was a good choice. He did show loyalty to the president, so I'm sure the president will return it to him later today. Anyway, so look, pretty big bombshell. I mean, Michael Cohen has been in the news, you know, guilty on a bunch of different charges that he's already pled to, but none of them had to do with anything foreign in nature.
Starting point is 00:03:18 All of it had to do with paying off the alleged mistresses of Donald Trump, which is its own gigantic issue that has just been totally normalized and we pretend it's not a big issue. But now it is something to do with Moscow, actually. Yeah, so, I mean, that's the thing. It's still not, it still has nothing to do with colluding, right? Although it does, but it has Russia in the title. Yeah, I mean, the closest it comes to that is some of the communications from Felix Sater, the business associate of Michael Cohen, is Russian-born real estate businessman, talked specifically about trying to enlist help of Putin and his government to get.
Starting point is 00:03:52 I think he says our buddy boy president, but he's not in the Russian government, and there's no, I haven't seen any hard evidence that he actually did speak with Putin or that Putin was amenable to it. Yeah, and it's not totally insignificant because the idea, part of the idea of collusion, if there was any collusion, would be that Trump's interest in it wasn't just getting the presidency, but that part of what they would have over him was the, forget the salacious stuff, but the need to get business deals done in Russia. Yeah, yeah, and it seems petty.
Starting point is 00:04:28 I mean, that's why I said on the damage report this morning, like, what businessman worth billions of dollars would regularly lie for two years about this just to have one more hotel? He's got tons of hotels. But Donald Trump is a ridiculous person. He's an irrational person. And then, you know, guys who chase wealth, chase wealth, that's what they do. But, you know, to some extent, then the real compromise.
Starting point is 00:04:51 And that's the first time I've ever used it in a sentence. I don't like it, but. No, I don't like it either, but that's why I've hesitated to use it. But the, you know, again, always to me, financial ties were a much bigger deal. Like we know you have significant financial investments, you need to get, you can get wealthy off this, will help you. This is, again, this is a big picture conversation that never happened, but, but, you know, will help you and then you help us when you're in office and then everybody, this works
Starting point is 00:05:25 out, everybody, everybody gets happy. That to me makes far more sense always than we have evidence of you doing something incredibly embarrassing and so we'll help you but then you obviously need to help us. From the very beginning we've been- We'll cover it up for you. Yeah, from the very beginning, I felt at least, and it's been mentioned of course that has something to do with financial dealings. From the beginning, not getting his tax returns and having the most blatant, we know how blatant and dishonest those excuses were, hey, you know, I'm being audited because I'm the only man in
Starting point is 00:05:54 history that's ever been audited. I'm only guy with any kind of money in history that has been audited. So you guys don't know how it is. I'll explain to you later, many quotes from Trump. I'll explain to you later because you couldn't possibly understand what auditing means, because no one else knows what that means except for me and my attorneys. So I can't turn over any of my financial records, which would tell us maybe what kind of dealings he's had in the past or at the time he was running with Russia or trying to have
Starting point is 00:06:18 with Russia, or something that he could, that give, that would give Russia a reason or anyone that's, any business, Russian business dealings over there, any kind of connection to him. None of that was revealed. So from the beginning, just the sound of it looks like it was something financial. And it could have been, it could have come across many spectrums. But a way to dispel that from the beginning is to show it like everyone else has. Well, we might actually have that in the near future, a new Democratic majority coming into Congress.
Starting point is 00:06:45 They will technically have the power to get that. We will see if the president will actually allow that, since he doesn't seem too interested in abiding by most of the norms of the presidency. Just give me one thing, because what I like, you have Trump's reaction? Oh, yeah, we're going to play several videos of his. I just, you have the, he was convicted with a fairly long-term sentence with things unrelated to the Trump. Yeah, yeah, well, why don't we go into that, actually? So what does Donald Trump think about the recent revelations from Michael Cohen? Let's listen.
Starting point is 00:07:11 As he was convicted, I guess, you'll have to put it into legal terms. But he was convicted with a fairly long-term sentence on things totally unrelated to the Trump organization. He was given a fairly long jail sentence, and he's a weak person. And by being weak, unlike other people that you watch, he's a weak person. And what he's trying to do is get a reduced sentence. So he's lying about a project that everybody knew about. I mean, we were very open with it. So he's lying very simply to get a reduced sentence.
Starting point is 00:07:45 Okay. So, no of that actually makes any sense. So he says he's lying about something that everybody knew about. So when he was like a year ago talking to Congress and said that there were no conversations or anything, why didn't that stand out? If everybody knew that it was going on and he is going before Congress saying it's not going on, that would have been a big conversation at that point. No, not everybody knew about it, it was being denied.
Starting point is 00:08:09 Not only by Michael Cohen, but also as we'll get to in a minute with Donald Trump. Before we jump in though, there's a little bit more that sort of flows from that. So here's more of the president. He put out a statement talking about a project, which was essentially, I guess, more or less of an option that we were looking at in Moscow. Everybody knew about it, who was written about in newspapers. We were thinking about building a building. I guess we had in a form, it was an option, I don't know what you'd call it.
Starting point is 00:08:38 We decided, I decided ultimately not to do it. There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it. If I did do it, there would have been nothing wrong. That was my business. But when I run for president, that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to do business. I was doing a lot of different things when I was running. After I won, obviously I don't do business. Even if he was right, it doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:09:00 Because I was allowed to do whatever I wanted during the campaign. I was running my business, a lot of different things during the campaign. It was doing a lot of different things. I mean, I don't understand people who don't, Jack and I talked about this last night on old school. I understand people who don't think he's dumb. I mean, first of all, the first clip starts with, you know, he was convicted or he has to put it in a...
Starting point is 00:09:25 Legal terms. Legal terms, but he was convicted, right? He wasn't convicted. He pled guilty, and then what he's trying to do, he was convicted with a fairly long-term sentence with things unrelated to the Trump organization. Well, he wasn't convicted. He pled guilty, and he wasn't sentenced,
Starting point is 00:09:40 and they were related to the Trump organization. organization, but other than that, knocked it out of the park. Yeah. I mean, there were really only three components to that sentence, and he went over for three. Specifically, it was charged, I mean, I don't know if, I guess they're sort of related to the Trump Organization, but they're definitely related to him, is paying off his alleged mistresses. That's what he was doing.
Starting point is 00:09:58 In August included information about his reimbursement by the Trump Organization for payments he made or helped orchestrate to conceal allegations to women. Likely violating campaign finance laws, which are just some of the laws that you're allowed to violate and we're not supposed to care about it. Absolutely everything that was previous. Again, we've talked about it before, how hard it is to keep track of the number of lies that he committed during the time. Because, again, we have to go back to even that aspect, the salacious stuff, about whether or not he's been compromised, whether or not certain mistresses were paid off and everything. Those things have not been downgraded so much like, okay, which one should we even worry about being concerned about at this point?
Starting point is 00:10:32 But the number of things that come out, and all the else do is say, it didn't happen. I could have done whatever I want it. It gives you a window into people that probably speak to. him on a private basis and go, so Mr. President, you probably can't do that. Remember the connection to his businesses that he said he was going to release once he was president and how it was obvious that he wasn't going to do that? So during the campaign- He said, I can do whatever I want when I'm running.
Starting point is 00:10:55 What problem could it be? So if an advisor comes to him and says, hey, so candidate Trump, you with this business dealing, you're having with Russia, if nothing else, it could be seen as you having some kind of working relationship with a foreign government, which you've had. issues with in the past and they might it might be a bit of a quid pro quo situation happening maybe and you don't don't you don't want that cloud over your head when you're making America great again for everyone else except for yourself it might conflict with what you're saying yeah so before we move into why this new
Starting point is 00:11:27 information is is really significant I do just want to double down at one point where he kept saying there that everybody knew about this why are you guys acting like this is a big deal everybody knew about it to be fair we've known about it for some months because BuzzFeed News actually had a report this that summarized most of this, something like six months ago. He's implying that they were very open during the campaign about these deals. Well, Jay ever went back and collected a few times where he spoke about this during the campaign. Let's see if what he said then matches up with his portrayal of it today.
Starting point is 00:11:54 I have nothing to do with Russia. I have no investments in Russia, none whatsoever. I don't have property in Russia. A lot of people thought I owned office buildings in Moscow. I don't have property in Russia. I mean, I have nothing to do with Russia. I don't have any jobs in Russia. I'm all over the world, but we're not involved in Russia.
Starting point is 00:12:13 I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don't have any deals in Russia. Okay, so there you have some before, some after the campaign. Is that consistent with a guy who has no pending deals? Is not trying to build a massive hotel there? It's not at all. And there's one more.
Starting point is 00:12:32 This is the best, I think. I mean, this stood out as kind of ridiculous even at the time. But now in hindsight, it's even more ridiculous, Paul Manafort. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's obviously what our position is. It's really, it's so underrated. It's one of the great soundbites of all time.
Starting point is 00:12:56 It's so unbelievably revealing. Because it's like, oh, Russian oligarchs, no, many of them. Yeah, yeah, he's got lots of, lots of relationships with Russian oligards. It was really, I love, that's my, I forgot how great that is. I mean, and I'm not outraged by this. By the way, real quick, I think it's worth mentioning, and forgive me if you mention this, John, but I don't, that when, then when Michael Cohen talked to Jeff Peggs of CBS News, he said that he called it a significant deal with proceeds that it would lasted in perpetuity
Starting point is 00:13:27 would have included office, residential, and hotel space in Moscow. So, again, lasted in purpose. It was a significant business. deal. I'm not outraged by this. Again, if he were a normal functioning president and this tipped this, I mean, obviously if Barack Obama had done this, I'm pretty certain that the Republicans would move to impeach him.
Starting point is 00:13:47 And I don't think that's being hyperbolic, right? But I would have said then, I got it. You shouldn't have a business deal to try and build a hotel while you're president, but I'm not so sure that it's the biggest scandal we've ever had if you were also a competent president. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, it's technically a bombshell. But at the same time, like, I'm not one of the president's defenders. I've already seen, I've been following this news.
Starting point is 00:14:12 We've already had everything we need to know. That's right, that's right. For months and months and months, we've known exactly what was going on. This is just additional stuff. But the interesting thing about this is that we have these new revelations out of Michael Cohen, the same week as the new revelations out of Paul Manafort. Why both this week? Why now?
Starting point is 00:14:29 Why not before? Michael Cohen has been working with Mueller for month after month. after month. Well, I don't know for sure that these are connected, but it is interesting that earlier, I guess, less than a month ago, Donald Trump submitted his written answers to the questions that the special counsel's office had given him. So they got those answers. Trump is now on the record in a legally binding sense, and now they're revealing all of this stuff that they likely knew even before those questions were answered. Yeah. That is what is more potentially damning for the president. They're also, and clearly, as most experts thought
Starting point is 00:15:00 he would. Most of the people who follow the Justice Department procedures and have followed independent counsel investigations, they were obviously way, they went dark before the midterms, and then the midterms are over, and now they were, they were working, they just weren't announcing or showing up in court and having plea deals. What's most interesting, of course, is again, this is a separate plea agreement. Michael Cohen had already planned and agreed to cooperate here. He is entering another plea for telling a lie to Congress, and will cooperate further, which I always find interesting phrasing, because it suggests that you were holding something back.
Starting point is 00:15:35 Yeah, exactly. I was lying a little before. I gave you a 73-27 truth lying spread. I'm gonna have to up to 81 to 19 now because you caught me in another line. Yeah. Yeah, and let's be fair, I am Michael Cohen. Right, I am Michael Cohen. Were you really surprised that I'm lying?
Starting point is 00:15:50 Well, Trump's right is that he might be a weak person. That is possible. And also that he talked about how he has a track record. He said it's in the first plea deal, Michael Cohen has a track record for lying. Who was he working for when he had that track record for lying and why was he doing it? What polls? What polls? No, it makes sense.
Starting point is 00:16:04 So then, like, at what point is he lying or not telling truth? Because when he was lying and you guys said he was telling the truth when he was on your side, and now he's saying he's a liar, you have to, like, there has to be a continuation of your thought process. Which one is it? Is he a liar? Or is he dishonest? Is he a weak person? Why did you keep him around, which I think they also spoke to him about today?
Starting point is 00:16:24 It doesn't matter. Just change the story for each question and people will just move right along. Before we move on, can you just please play me, clip four again? Can we have Paul Matt Ford? Okay, let's have Full Man, for just one more time. It's so good. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said.
Starting point is 00:16:42 That's obviously what our position is. I mean, it is the best ever. It sounds like an idiot, but it's really a guy quick enough to know, no, that's going to be illegal. No, that's going to be illegal for me. That's going to condemn him. Okay, what can I say? That's what we said. Right.
Starting point is 00:17:00 I didn't sleep with her. That's what she said. I didn't even sleep with her. I'm not even attracted to her. You just said you were attracted to her. What I'm saying, honey, is that I'm, what I'm saying, she, she, that's my position. Nailed it. Right, yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:15 Okay, we are going to take our first break. We come back. The future of the conflict, Saudi Arabia versus Yemen, our involvement in the Senate, moving a little bit closer to cutting that off at long last. We'll break that down after this. Welcome back, everyone, because you were here before and you're back again. Welcome to the Young Turks. That's how broadcasting works. I'm John Adirola.
Starting point is 00:17:39 That's Jerry Jackson. That's all you need to know. So I have something very exciting to tell you about. Have you heard of our Amplify campaign? I think this fits perfectly with we just got past giving Tuesday and now you have an opportunity to give something awesome. That is TYT memberships. You can gift those memberships to...
Starting point is 00:17:58 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
Starting point is 00:18:36 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.
Starting point is 00:19:14 So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Journalism students, which is probably the most important category, but as well, members of the media, celebrities who are politically active, and politicians themselves. So these people, whether it's the journalism students or say Bernie Sanders and his team or, you know, Wolf Blitzer or something like that, you can give it and then they will have access to our information. They will hopefully integrate that into their coverage going forward.
Starting point is 00:19:49 We have some new names up on Tyt.com slash Amplify that you can do this for. You can buy membership packages for Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jim Carrey, and Senator Chuck Schumer, who especially after the border thing this week, he could use TYT membership. What did he say about the border? That he wants to give $1.6 billion to Trump for border security. That's his initial starting bid. These packages give membership to their teams, in some cases family members,
Starting point is 00:20:17 so that they can access TYT content. And the awesome thing is, well, we have some of those new packages. Some of you have already been doing this, and so I want to thank you for gifting this membership in that way. I want to thank Jerry Shelton from Pasadena for gifting some of these memberships to journalism students. By the way, he gifted three. That's at $150 for three year-long packages, giving him a t-shirt as well, if you do over $150.
Starting point is 00:20:40 So that's pretty awesome. Rick Kangalosi from Spokane, thank you. Caroline Parker, and then two anonymous TYT members, including one who bought 10 of these membership packages, which is just awesome, especially coming from an anonymous member. So thank you very much. You're welcome. You didn't do it. That was me.
Starting point is 00:20:57 No, you definitely would have put your name down there. There's no way you would not have. Sam Katzinius from South Australia, thank you. Rianan Christi from Sydney as well. Apparently we're big in Sydney. I don't know why. Jeff Oron from Savannah, thank you. One more anonymous TYT member and Shailen Powell from Pittsburgh.
Starting point is 00:21:17 Thank you so much for participating in the Amplify Program and gifting membership to some people who could really use it. I think that every time a host says Amplify, host sitting, like, to their right, should shout out the same words to amplify it. We'll work on that. By the way, so I apologize. By the way. I apologize for taking any minutes away from the news coverage, but Jake's not here.
Starting point is 00:21:40 So I have to update you on the TYT, like the host membership drive, which means I have the paper. I've literally never had this paper before. So I actually have the information. And I am disheartened by what I see. So first of all, this is a thing where you can go to t.t.com slash the first name of the person that you want to become a member while supporting that person. You still get the same membership, exactly the same, but it logs it as you're doing this to support this individual person.
Starting point is 00:22:08 So you're seeing there, there's a ton of them. I mean, the list is now very long. Some of the ones that hadn't been there the last time I checked, I think JR is there now, investigates, you see Francis is there now, Brooke as well, my co-hosts on Mondays on the damage report. Who's Investigates? Investigates does great work, actually. So Ken Clippenstein of Investigates is going to be on my show tomorrow to talk about some
Starting point is 00:22:26 of his research on the company providing the tear gas to the border. Who gets that glory though? Probably mostly Ken, maybe Jonathan Larson as well. But you can go there. The best one, definitely, t.wit.com slash John, especially because I see that I am still in third, but Jank is now up by a significant portion for me, so I'm going to need your help. Jank's not going to be back for a little bit. Wouldn't it be amazing for him to come back as a failure?
Starting point is 00:22:48 Go to t-y-t.com slash John, it'll really grind his gears. Yeah, you're gonna get that bronze medal ceremony. I'm gonna get the bronze medal, I think. But it's still possible, and also definitely don't go to t.ot.com slash jank, because not only is he far in advance of me, but he's catching up on Anna, and that is unacceptable. Are you on there? J-R, you and I are in a pitched battle for eight. For eight?
Starting point is 00:23:12 Yeah. Okay, maybe throw that one as well. That's the only thing you need to know. Maybe that. Is there a second person out there for t-y-t.com slash brett? Oh, Brett. And the thing is, it wasn't even his wife. Is that right?
Starting point is 00:23:24 No, I'm kidding. I don't know. But anyway, t-o-t-t.com slash john. And with that, why don't we jump back to the news? No, no, just J-O-N. It's J-O-N. I think J-O-N works, actually. I think that people were trying that before.
Starting point is 00:23:36 Okay. The Senate has moved one step closer to drastically revising our country's alliance, part of the coalition of Saudi Arabia in their war on Yemen. Let's talk about a bill that accomplished that. It was a 6337 sort of procedural vote today. This bill, which is co-sponsored interestingly by Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy on the Democrat and Democrat-aligned independent side, and Mike Lee on the Republican side would force the U.S. to cease its support for the Saudi-led coalition and its fight against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Starting point is 00:24:06 Within one month, the White House has threatened to veto the bill. They also dispatched Mike Pompeo and others from the administration in advance of that vote to try to get people not to vote in support of it. But you see, 6337, that passes for absolutely massive bipartisanship in 2018 for my point of view. If you have not been following this conflict, it has been absolutely devastating for the many people, tens of thousands have already died, millions are facing starvation and the risk of diseases like cholera, which have had multiple large-scale outbreaks, and it's expected
Starting point is 00:24:37 that it will get even worse in the future, and we are very much a part of that as a country. We helped the Saudi-led coalition by providing them with intelligence, selling them arms and ammunition, and until very recently, fueling planes. So we are in that way morally culpable for the many deaths, including a number of civilians as well. Yeah, I mean, just Google Yemen starvation and look at the photos and tell me whether we ought to be involved there. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:05 I mean, the bus attack we talked about before, with the school bus full of children on a field trip, and the moments before it finally all went down. how they were being children. It's those types of scenes we don't see enough of, and we just go, oh, yeah, things happen. It's a war-torn country. There's nothing to do with us. It was going to happen anyway. That's what happens over there.
Starting point is 00:25:22 But those kids were smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves like child would. We don't have that humanity purpose to it. So I don't know if you can get to it, John, but you will, of course. But this was after the briefing happened with the senators who were unconvinced by General Mattis and also Mike Pompeo's approach to how they're gonna push this whole thing on everyone. The main thing is that they excluded CIA director Gina Haspel and anyone associated with the CIA who have the most updated information about the murder of Khashoggi there and what happened.
Starting point is 00:25:52 So when you're trying to convince someone, hey, you know, we need to continue with our support for this country who continues to do these horrific things partially in our name. Let's not have anyone there who has any of the updated intelligence to tell us why we need to do what the president continues to step forward and say, hey, but hundreds of millions of dollars, for war weapons of war, let's just do it. You need to, like, somehow this even pissed off, I'm sorry, angered a lot of Republicans. It does, and some voted for this measure. And now again, we're not done yet, this is just pushing it forward, it will be voted on.
Starting point is 00:26:24 We don't know for sure if that will pass, but this is positive. Because a similar measure like this actually failed earlier this year. 85,000 children might have already died according to save the children in the United Nations. 85,000 may have already died of starvation. And experts say Yemen has become the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. this from the New York Times in the last week. Worst humanitarian crisis in the world, 14 million people, 14 million people could soon be on the brink of starvation.
Starting point is 00:26:51 And, you know, there's no good way to die prematurely in a war, but that's the worst way. Yeah, probably. I want to turn to some of the reasons that those who voted against this measure might have done that. We have some evidence in that area. But first, I want to give credit to Mike Lee, something I thought I would never actually say, but more importantly to two of the other sponsors of this bill, including Bernie Sanders, who, After the vote said, let's keep the pressure on and make it crystal clear to the world
Starting point is 00:27:15 that the United States of America is not going to be, continue to be part of this horrible Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which is causing so much death and misery. And Chris Murphy as well from my home state, I've been at this for three years and I am blown away by this. By a big bipartisan margin, the Senate just voted for the first time to move forward with the debate on ending American involvement in the Yemen War. So thank you to them for doing that. Interestingly, some who have voted against it.
Starting point is 00:27:40 And some also on the House side, who are not supporting a similar measure, Ro Khanna, who appeared on my show The Damage Report yesterday to talk about this, pointed out on Twitter, which you don't see politicians do very often, he showed how much the people who'd voted against it have been given by defense contractors, the donations that they've gotten. The same thing's actually going on on the Senate side. Roy Blunt, John Boozman, Richard Burr, Mike Krapo, and Tim Scott, all senators, all received financial contributions from firms representing Saudi interests between 2016 and 2017. Blunt received, I believe, the most, $19,200 just in 2017.
Starting point is 00:28:17 And look, this is a small portion of the total Saudi lobbying effort. That last year reached $24 million to influence U.S. policy and public opinion. And that's the legal, that's the legal way. That's the legal set of donations. No, I'm just saying that, like, we talk a lot about Russian collusion. That's just the way it gets done. Yeah, you're allowed to do that. You're allowed to do as much of that as you want.
Starting point is 00:28:39 And apparently it's working because a number of these politicians and also a lot of people around the country seem to believe for some reason that this is a conflict that we should continue to be a part of. Not like, hey, we could get involved with this, I wonder how it would go. We know about the cholera, the starvation, the death of the civilians, drone strikes, and all that stuff. And this is a case where there is no best case argument for why Donald Trump or other Republicans are continuing to support this.
Starting point is 00:29:05 There are only a couple of different worst case scenarios. Either it is a nakedly real politic, we've got to constrain Iran sort of thing. And if tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians have to die so that we can in some vague way constrain Iran, then that's just, you know, that's the way the cookie scramble, I guess. Or it's just a nakedly thing where we want to sell them a bunch of arms, they're going to give us money, we don't care if they kill the manis, we don't care if they butcher and saw a part journalists, they can do that as long as they buy our planes, or maybe worst case scenario because of how nakedly personal it is, if Donald Trump doesn't even care that much about the weapon
Starting point is 00:29:41 sales, but this is a more personal Trump organization, financial conflict of interest going on. All of those absolutely horrendous. There is no moral argument to be made for why we should continue to be a part of what is possibly the worst military action in not just currently ongoing, but in the recent past. A couple things. Well, one, just the idea that like, let's find that. the people, the worst off people in the world. And you could probably make an argument that Yemen is close.
Starting point is 00:30:10 And let's make their lives just a little worse. That'll be fun. Then I love the idea that, what did he win? Because Jared Kushner, like, won the Heisman trophy in Saudi Arabia. Like, they gave him the... In Mexico. Was it Mexico? Well, if you're talking about just the past couple of days...
Starting point is 00:30:28 Yeah, that was in Mexico, not Saudi Arabia. It's also ridiculous, but for different... Right, for ridiculous, right, for total, that's right. But you mentioned... He had a rhythmic gymnastics award in Saudi Arabia, actually. You gave me, you said, you know, arm sales, but that 24 million was Saudi political interests, not arm sales, but of course, arm sales is part of it, the military industrial complex wants these wars to continue.
Starting point is 00:30:51 I would just say to those guys, you know, that maybe this is the wrong one, but don't worry, there will be other opportunities. It's going to be okay. You're going to sell those. It's not like America has not, historically, had a big problem. of our bombs rotten on the vine, you know, unused. We just can't figure out a place to use them. They'll figure it out, okay.
Starting point is 00:31:08 Also, this is another opportunity, and this is maybe an offshoot of it, because the way the president has come forward to say, hey, you know, we need these arms sales, what about the gas prices? He's been pushing that hard. Hey, thanks to Trump, gas prices are only $4 a gallon. So once we're, if you go down on that road, this, this provides an opportunity for many people who have a progressive type of agenda to say, hey, you know, how about we stop worrying about this whole gas powered or maybe give some initiatives to doing renewable and newer
Starting point is 00:31:35 energy so we can change the way we have dependency on potential guys who might do horrible things in our name because we're so dependent on them. What happened to the freedoms of our country? I mean, this whole America first, make America great again, these constant America first policies and priorities that you talk about, but as soon as something goes wrong, you have this dependency on someone else, you go, hey, what can we do? Our hands are tied. We're only the United States of America, the supposed best country in the world and the history
Starting point is 00:31:59 of the world, but we're dependent on other folks. We don't have the innovation, the wherewithal, or the money to put in towards new energy so we don't have, who knows what can happen in the future, who knows where our allies lie, and what are the wars we start and other folks start that we have to get ourselves involved in. How about we have some independence? But we need someone to have that approach to say, here's an opportunity, you guys, let's change our course.
Starting point is 00:32:23 Let's remember real quickly, of course, that the Yemeni conflict did begin under the Obama administration. I did an interview with the, there was the movie. by Greg Barker the last year, which is really, nobody saw it, or not enough people saw it, in our world. It was about Obama's foreign policy team the last year, Samantha Power, John, Kerry, Ben Rhodes. The director had amazing access, Obama in it a little bit, too, a little bit of Susan Rice. But it was mainly those three, Kerry Rhodes and Power, and then I did a panel with Rhodes
Starting point is 00:32:50 and Power and the director. And I said on the way out the door, because there was a lot of talk about, they all thought Hillary was going to win, right? And I said, you know, what's your biggest regret of the last year, really, of foreign policy in the Obama administration? And she said, for whatever it's worth, and she bears some responsibility for Yemen, but she said, Yemen, we just, we couldn't have screwed that up more and couldn't have left it in a worse position. Yeah, yeah, somehow every three or four months, it gets worse somehow, as terrible as the situation already is. Okay, let's move on to other news. Donald Trump has just announced the number of his upcoming meetings with foreign leaders at the G20 summit will either be canceled or,
Starting point is 00:33:29 massively scaled back, including a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump announced this in the way that he does through tweets, saying, based on the fact that the ships and sailors have not been returned to Ukraine from Russia, I have decided it would be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting in Argentina with President Vladimir Putin. I look forward to a meaningful summit again as soon as his situation is resolved. And assuming that that is actually the reason that he is not going to meet with Vladimir Putin, this seems oddly reasonable.
Starting point is 00:34:00 I was going to put it through the translator. I know, I was just thinking I said, yes, exactly. So can we get that up again? That's the graphic 18 there. So based on the fact that Michael Cohen has pled guilty to another charge and has cooperated again with the Mueller investigation, I've decided to be best for all parties concerned to cancel my previously scheduled meeting. That's how I read it, but you know, there's a lot of different translations.
Starting point is 00:34:25 So that, yes, so that's what I was alluding. to there. And that is definitely what people think. I don't know. I don't know that I'm necessarily convinced. I mean, I don't find either his actual explanation or the alternative one to be convincing. So I guess the case would be that it will look bad or that he'll get asked difficult questions, but he always looks bad and he never has a good answer for the question.
Starting point is 00:34:48 So what would he care? I mean, because he's not totally immune to criticism, right? In fact, well, he's not immune at all. He hates it, right? It eats him up. He storms around the White House. We can read these stories of, I don't think there's any question. I mean, that today he decided that he would cancel the meeting with Putin.
Starting point is 00:35:04 It's not important. I mean, that's the thing. Whether they meet or not, they can talk on the phone, right? They can meet secretly, probably. Or teams of diplomats can meet. Right, right. So, I mean, I don't really, him meeting with Putin, I don't, it's fine with me if he meets with Putin. That's not the, the issue is, again, it's not the little things.
Starting point is 00:35:22 You can't give a fascist, a wannabe fascist. Certainly an authoritarian, you cannot give them little political victories. So when people say, well, why would you want to meet with Putin? I guess you want nuclear holocaust, you know, yes, that's right, you nailed it. You do talk about that a lot. I do. What you say is the upside of the end times. So for him meeting with Putin, I think they think is an effort to win politically, right?
Starting point is 00:35:48 We don't know what they talk about, they don't need to meet to, as I said, carry something out. So when he meets with Putin, it is a generally a political win. the guy who's keeping us safe, look at me meeting with Putin, talking, Obama was icy. I have a good relationship with him. But here, after this, it stops being good politically, then all of a sudden it looks terrible. Well, I wanna add a wrinkle to this really fast. So again, as you just said, in this case, I don't really care if he meets with him.
Starting point is 00:36:14 For all I know, he talks to him for an hour every night. I have no idea. He could talk to him, not at all or ton, I don't know. But in addition to changing up the current scheduled meeting that he had with Vladimir Putin, he also, this is according to the Associated Press. downgraded his talks with Erdogan from a formal meeting to an informal pull-aside meeting, which seems like a weird thing to plan. A pull-aside should be a spontaneous thing.
Starting point is 00:36:36 And also to the South Korean president. Now, with Erdogan- I agree to accidentally bump into you at the cocktail party. You grab my elbow, whisper a couple things in my ear, you have 40 seconds. We'll do it around 740? Yeah. Make it look authentic. Sounds like a couple role plan. Oh, John.
Starting point is 00:36:52 That's right. diplomacy. Right. Now with Erdogan, if I had to speculate, I would say I know one reason why he probably doesn't want to talk with Erdogan, but Jamal Khashoggi killing. Right, yeah. That seems like that would be tense. I don't know so much with South Korea right now.
Starting point is 00:37:06 I don't know, but we don't know, because Trump won't listen to the tape and neither will John Bolton. Yeah, it's disgusting. It's disgusting. Because these things happen. So you talked about what Ben, you talked about going through the translator system of that tweet. I was thinking of going through the translator system to see how much someone potentially wrote that for him to try and sound as much like him as possible. with an intelligent twist on.
Starting point is 00:37:25 I was like, okay, so they threw in ships and stuff like that, and then through an exclamation mark at the end, because we know sometimes they have to be like, okay, let me tweet as Trump if he had the education number five-year-old. So as he went to that point, I was like, okay, I think someone wrote it for me, because as you may get to, we were just, he was just getting on the plane to head down and told it went, yeah, I'm gonna go get briefed about this, but I'm going to probably still have my meeting with Putin, and they're like, yeah, because he has a track record. The previous public one with him was when he went directly against his own intelligence
Starting point is 00:37:56 and said, yeah, Putin said he had nothing to do with our elections, despite what you guys said, I believe him. He said it sternly, three times. So I mean, what can I do? My hands are tied. Similar to with Muhammad bin Salman when it comes to the killing of Jamaica. Every time someone says something, that's just the way he works. And so it just begins to look bad.
Starting point is 00:38:14 So now again, after the conflict with the Ukrainian ships and everything, he doesn't want to now have this public meeting, or at least they don't want him to have this public meeting with him where it's possible he's going to make a fool of himself again. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Okay, with that said, we do have to take your second break. When we come back, though, as I alluded to earlier, everybody's getting raided. We're going to break down why that might be after this. 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
Starting point is 00:38:42 media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free section. Welcome back, everyone, once again. So I was telling you after the last break about our new Amplify program. Our new Amplify program. It's Amplified. It's Amplified. It is.
Starting point is 00:39:02 And you guys have been really supportive of it, which is awesome. One additional way that you can do that. One additional way that you can help. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing 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 ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts
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Starting point is 00:40:16 Okay. That's good, actually, I like that. The design with the most votes at the end of this week will win. You can vote now at t-y-t.com slash, it says poll. So that says Amplify. But there you go. Oh, and there are the designs. This is the first I'm seeing it.
Starting point is 00:40:32 I like the lower left one. Yeah, that guy, that character, that drawn character is like a 50s character. He's on like, you can get that guy on a mug that says, hey, honey, get me a cup of coffee or something. Yeah, it's every college kid had one in their dorm when I was in a car. A t-shirt, everything. So I don't know for sure who designed these. I'm imagining a combination of our team and you guys out there who are awesome designers as well.
Starting point is 00:40:57 The top right is great, too. I really like that. Yeah, the top right is good. Although it's pretty busy for a t-shirt. That's the... It's a little bit. The one in the top left with Jenkinson is great, but... I like to be involved in things, but I think my face shouldn't be there.
Starting point is 00:41:12 That seems a little bit weird. It's like I'm like lurking. Right. It's like their little baby Johnny. Or I'm getting between them. And it looks like Sophia Loren in that picture. Perhaps. Okay with that, why don't I read some comments as well?
Starting point is 00:41:26 In relation to the last story we were talking about, many people tweeted in. J.M. Frazier said if you give a fascist a cookie, he will want a glass of milk. I think in reference to one of your comments. Wow, I guess I'm a fascist. Maybe. In reference to you and your fascism. Jess, hashtag IMP. Who doesn't want a glass of milk when they have a cookie?
Starting point is 00:41:43 You give me anything they're going to want the add-on. And then they're going to want to dunk the cookie in the milk. because then they're going to sit back and go like, oh, that's good. What's the one's sports center on? That's a very specific fantasy. But sometimes, you know, you want to keep the aftertaste. Jess, hashtag IMTYT says Trump canceled his meeting with Putin so that he wouldn't be forced to confront Putin about the sailors and boats that Russia kidnapped.
Starting point is 00:42:06 Also, so he wouldn't have to answer questions about this in front of Putin. I mean, I mean, that's possible. They could have had a meeting and not at a press conference. That's possible. And I don't know, he seemed fine, not confronting him on things in the past. Then the questions will come. Yeah, the questions will come. They'll be like, what are you guys talk about?
Starting point is 00:42:22 Yeah. Ivan said serious question, which has frowned on more, which if either is illegal, lying to Congress or lying to the public? That's an easy one. You can lie the public all you want. That's right. That's right. And generally to Congress, it depends on how you're sworn in.
Starting point is 00:42:37 And on the super chat, Lars Nilsen says the Yemen government, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are going to have peace talks in Sweden in December, hopefully a first step in the right direction. Thank you, Lars. I actually had not remembered that, so we will be keeping track of that. That certainly sounds like a good direction to be going in. And with that said, why don't we jump back in the news? Federal agents conducted a raid early this morning on the Office of Chicago Alderman Ed Burke.
Starting point is 00:43:03 We don't know exactly why just yet, but we do have some details about how it played out. Agents arrived at the office early Thursday morning, told employees to leave and papered over the glass windows at the office's entrance to conceal the investigation going on inside. A woman who left the office and did not identify herself said FBI agents were inside. Chicago alderman Edward Burke's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Apparently, his ward office on the southwest side also had the same brown paper taped over its front door with three signs that read office closed. If the brown paper over the glass didn't clue people into that. An officer sitting in a squad car parked behind Burke's ward office said a search warrant was being executed inside but offered no further details. Look, I am new to Ed Burke.
Starting point is 00:43:47 I'm not familiar with him, I'm not a native of the Chicago area, but he's apparently a long-time chairman of the city council's finance committee where he controls much of the legislative purse strings at City Hall. He has held that office since 1969. That's nearly 50 years for those of you scoring at home. That is incredible. And an alderman who has an office nearby, I think next door, said, I listen to the news and read the papers and I thought they didn't do anything that close to an election because
Starting point is 00:44:14 is that this alderman Ed Burke will be up for reelection within three months. So it's shocking to me as to how you or why someone like this would happen some 90 days before an election. So why is this going on? Well, there's two general theories. In 2012, the federal grand jury demanded that Burke's Finance Committee turnover records related to a duty disability program that in 2011 alone paid out $115 million to disabled city workers, according to documents the Chicago Tribune obtained at the time.
Starting point is 00:44:41 So potentially there could be some issues in terms of corruption. It's not unheard of that someone in government for decade after decade starts to do some stuff that's shady. But there is a complicating factor, and that is some of the other work that this alderman had been involved in. In addition to his aldermanic duty, something I've never said before, Burke's law firm is among the most prominent property tax appeals firms in the city, and Burke's work has included conducting property tax appeals for President Donald Trump's Chicago Tower. He did tax-related work for the Trump organization for 12 years before they severed their business relationship earlier this year.
Starting point is 00:45:17 And apparently in June, they said that there were irreconcilable differences between his organization and the Trump organization, so they cut off their connections. Burke, according to the Chicago Tribune, Burke serves a Trump lawyer for better than a decade, helping to lower the property bill on Trump's downtown skyscraper by more than $14 million. Which, again, to a billionaire would be nothing. To an actual billionaire It would be nothing So I guess I haven't seen enough raids in my career to know
Starting point is 00:45:46 If an alderman had been Let's this is just speculation I don't know what I'm talking about Let's say he'd been laundering money or embezzling or something like that Would the FBI have been called in and if so would they be papering over the windows? I honestly don't know at this point We can do nothing but speculate until we know more and will we find out? I mean you know it's part of some kind of financial investigation To see what he's been doing as you said there's multiple things This guy's been wrong for 50 years there, nearly 50 years.
Starting point is 00:46:11 So once you're at that point, they could go through all these things. But, you know, it's, I wouldn't say fun to speculate, but there's a lot of coincidences here, right? So it's happening, all these are happening around the same time when they're saying this investigation with financial ties, potentially with what Trump is doing. You need to find out everything because he's definitely not submitting any of it, any of his financial records publicly, as I was talking about earlier. So things like this tend to happen. Maybe it'll be nothing. But it is curious that, you know, when you get your taxes lowered, even just that story
Starting point is 00:46:41 itself, the way you go through certain attorneys to make sure you don't pay enough taxes or certain taxes on your things, which he had Trump admitted to as well. It's fine. If you were like me, you'd do the same thing too. Yeah. Yeah, at this point, we honestly don't know. I mean, the fact that he had been involved in that, that seems suspicious, and it certainly makes it noteworthy this business relationship with the sitting president.
Starting point is 00:47:00 But there are many corrupt politicians around the country, and there's also the possibility that he didn't do anything wrong for. Trump, and he didn't do anything wrong for himself. And if that is the case, then the timing, just a couple months before an election, is certainly unfortunate for any politician. Yeah, I mean, we don't know enough. So we don't know how the office is laid out. I mean, they may paper over the office because of the way I'm, excuse me, they have a call.
Starting point is 00:47:24 They may, they- Subtle. It's the theme for the Rockford Files. Oh, I have heard of that. Okay, why don't we talk about other raids? Deutsche Bank's headquarters was rated today as part of an investigation into international money laundering, 170 officers searched the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and five other sites in the area early today as part of a money laundering investigation involving
Starting point is 00:47:49 hundreds of millions of euros, according to prosecutors in Frankfurt. Two employees and other unidentified people in positions of authority are suspected of failing to report possible money laundering for transactions worth 311 million euros or more than $350 million, if you don't know the transfer change rate off the top of your head. It's a lot of money. And the German bank confirmed in a statement that the police were investigating several of its offices in Germany and said the investigation related to the Panama Papers, a trova files that put a spotlight on global money laundering.
Starting point is 00:48:23 So again, more raids going on. This one absolutely huge. Now, we do have to acknowledge that in the same way as in our other raid story that the alderman and had been involved in property tax appeals for Donald Trump, Deutsche Bank is noteworthy as one of the last international banks that was willing to extend lines of credit to the Trump organization when most other banks apparently would not. But that does not mean that in any way, they were apparently involved in tons of international money laundering.
Starting point is 00:48:50 So there are again, all sorts of rich people, politicians and businessmen around the world conducting various illegal acts that Deutsche Bank could have been involved in. He's a criminal. Is it the president of Deutsche Bank? I don't know. The other president is a criminal. And I don't know whether they'll get him. And I don't know whether Americans will care enough.
Starting point is 00:49:11 But he's criminal. You know, there are ranges of criminal. I would say he's a pretty awful one. He's a thug and he's a wannabe dictator. I'm mercifully. He's too dumb to dictate. But, you know, so yeah, it would be great if that Deutsche Bank raid were related. to uncovering Trump malfeasance that pushed the envelope enough.
Starting point is 00:49:36 You know, there are little things. I mean, like, there's one story today that encourages you, if you're looking to be encouraged a little bit. Yesterday, Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina voted to advance Judge Farr's nomination to the full Senate. It ended up being a 50-50 vote, so Mike Pence broke the tie, so there will be a vote on Pence, but Tim Scott reserved the right to not to vote no when it came to confirmation. And today, Tim Scott said, I'm gonna vote against him.
Starting point is 00:50:09 So he says some new information came to light. I mean, again, you wanna be like this guy's dedication, Judge Farr's dedication to preventing black people from voting is crystal clear. But okay, today, push you over the top, got no beef, God bless Tim Scott. So he lost. These are victories. That guy would have been on the bench forever, right? And then under different times, if the strong man gets stronger, then that guy goes to the Supreme
Starting point is 00:50:40 Court, you know. And now he won't, and he has no business being in American jurisprudence, and he won't be. And that is a little victory, no, it's a big victory in a sea of losses on the bench, but a victory. Yeah, that's true. I'm not comfortable with this good news. What is this? Happy Half Hour up in here, which is on YouTube TV tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:51:00 So that's a way of saying that, like, the political will of Republicans, sometimes you get little pieces of evidence that maybe they can change, right? The guy deciding, no, I'm going to kill your judge. I'm going to vote against your judge. That is true. So, you know, and Donald Trump is not going to get let out of the White House in handcuffs, right? That's not going to happen.
Starting point is 00:51:22 But there are circumstances under which political circumstances under which he's forced to leave. And again, just to be clear, there has been no claims made in this that has had anything to do with him or indeed any Americans, although it's likely that Americans have gotten involved in it. And by the way, if you have forgotten the Panama Papers, if you were not following news at the point that that came out, absolutely amazing story. You should definitely do some research into it. The sheer number of international politicians, businessmen, and celebrities, by the way, engaging in money laundering. in a number of different countries was fascinating. Yeah, that's right. And terrible.
Starting point is 00:51:56 Everything can be connected. Money to influence, to decisions, to your relationships with certain folks. That's the only reason why this would be relevant, you make that point. You're not saying it, but connections can be made. Okay, let's get a little bit more good news, maybe, or prospective good news at the very least. Did you know that bump stocks are still legal? It's been more than a year since that absolutely horrendous Las Vegas mass shooting.
Starting point is 00:52:19 And you can still technically own the sort of development. devices that allow semi-automatic firearms to mimic the functions of fully automatic firearms even after that long period of time. But apparently not for long, the Trump administration is apparently on the cusp of finally revealing their new rule that will ban these sorts of devices. Under the new rule, bump stock owners would be required to destroy or surrender the devices to authorities. Members of the public will be given 90 days to turn in or otherwise discard their bump stocks,
Starting point is 00:52:49 which is actually pretty amazing. I would have imagined that they would ban the sale or production of them, not that they would ban the people who currently own them. This will actually amount to either you give it back or you will be breaking the law, which is not usually the sort of thing we see in American gun control laws. Yeah, that's a bold statement. I mean, it's a bold policy. So I somehow have trouble believing that it'll happen.
Starting point is 00:53:13 That it'll happen. But that's bold. I mean, that is not the government coming to take your guns, but it is the government coming to take your bump stocks. But I mean, I love the whole phrasing there. I mean, that, you know, because automatic weapons are, those are illegal, right? Again, we have, we have gun control. We have it.
Starting point is 00:53:29 It's just deciding which guns we're going to control. And so. And now we're going to control them. Right. And so you can't have automatic weapons, but you can have something that mimics automatic. Well, then that's an automatic weapon. If it mimics it, and it mimics it effectively, well, then it's it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:46 Or a semi-automatic weapon that, you know, maybe you just, doesn't kill as many people as an automatic weapon does in one squeeze, but it kills me about half of that much. And then you have a chance to do it again. So things like this, this will give a chance to test, I think. You know when people say they're going to come for your guns, the government can't do this to Second Amendment, yeah, don't trade on me, fill in the next. When they say all this and they go, well, how are you supposed to do it, only criminals
Starting point is 00:54:12 will be holding on? Will the criminals continue to haul into their bump stocks? And then when they come in, when the government, and Donald Trump comes and knocks on your door and says, give me your bump stocks. Are we afraid yet? This is the test, potentially, again, if you guys said if it passes, this is the test legislation to give people a chance to see, hey, if they're coming to confiscate all of our bump stocks, how would it work for them to come and confiscate all these legal gun owners, guns, and leave
Starting point is 00:54:43 all the bad guys to only have them? So, are we worried now that only the bad guys will have the bump stocks? Because they're coming to say, if you have them in your possession, it's now illegal. There's just small substance that people put into sometimes joints and sometimes they put into bongs. And they smoke them. And I know there's been this police presence that comes and knocks on your door and says, where's the drugs? But we're worried about that, that process of stealing illegal things from people. Why are we worried about this process of taking illegal things from people that we've now deemed illegal?
Starting point is 00:55:14 Because we think we have right to that, but not a right to those other things. So if this works, maybe it'll give some kind of a process credentials to us saying, hey, maybe we should get rid of these semi-automatic rifles, these AR-15s. I don't know. It's the worst thing to say because it's your right to have them. But if we want to maybe minimize how many people have to deal with their children and family members being murdered mercilessly and senselessly, maybe we can look into it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:41 And this seems like one of the, this should be one of the easiest things. It is clearly a device designed to allow someone to effectively circumvent the law. And in America, a functioning democracy, it only takes virtually a year or longer to actually get it. When we know that there are only two types of people that want bump stocks, there's people who want to, like, shoot it at a range and ha, ha, ha, ha, it's shooting really fast. I want to make a YouTube video on it. Those people don't need them. And there's people who want to kill a lot of people in a short period of time, and those people shouldn't have them. That's basically it.
Starting point is 00:56:11 So just real quick, I think before we leave, the intelligents are in New York Magazine just points out, this was written by Adam Raymond, this is all nonsense. The bump stock ban is, and has always been a smokescreen, making these devices illegal, will do nothing to reduce gun violence in the U.S. That's why they've become an easy target for the Trump administration. Banning bump stocks won't make people safer, but it's a simple way to pretend to. Bumstocks are a novelty. Few people knew what they were before the Vegas shooting, and those who did large,
Starting point is 00:56:40 largely considered them unreliable and impractical. There are also other devices that have the same effect on semi-automatic weapons. Making bump stocks, the boogeyman made perfect sense for gun rights activists. Focusing on them takes attention off the weapons themselves. Banning them would take away only one method of bump firing a semi-automatic weapon. I hate it. That is not true, because in the Justice Department guidelines that have already been leaked, it does not just ban bump stocks.
Starting point is 00:57:02 It also does the slide-fire devices and devices with certain similar characteristics all fall within the prohibition of machine guns. So, yes, it is not a gigantic. thing, and yes, a lot of people didn't know about them before the Mandalay Bay shooting, but you have to assume that there are some people who want to commit a mass shooting that did find out about it in the Mandalay Bay shooting and would love to have something like that. I would like to make it at least marginally more difficult for them to have it. It's not the same as all the gun control that we need, but we need all the gun control
Starting point is 00:57:28 that we can get at this point. I got it. I just, I'm incredibly dubious because these people are dishonest and the NRA wouldn't give an inch on anything that was meaningful. So my hunch is it'll turn out not to be Meaningful. I think it's minor. I think it's something. Yeah, I was thinking from that, Ben's explanation of being like, yeah, it could be minor. And then it gives them this veil of we've done so much and don't talk about it anymore again.
Starting point is 00:57:51 Like you said, the little, yeah, the little bit of gun grocery we can get. But then they'll take that as that's all that we need. It's a little like, I suppose it turned out that we couldn't fix the problem with romaine lettuce. And it turned out if he ate romaine lettuce, you killed people. But the romaine lettuce lobby was like the NRA and they were the most powerful legume. Is that a legume? I don't know. I think there's more like, um, no, right, okay.
Starting point is 00:58:12 Legumes are like the beans. Once again, I knew as sure as I started, I was entering into something I know nothing about it. And it's lettuce. Right. So it turned out that they were the most powerful lobby in the green vegetable business. Right? They might be.
Starting point is 00:58:28 And so then the Romaine lobby was like, you know what? We're gonna ban aftermarket Caesar dressing. You know, we're taking care of it. We gotta solve this problem. That Caesar dressing really spices it up. We're going to eliminate it. That was the problem. And you'd be like, no, man, the problem's the problem's the problem's the problem.
Starting point is 00:58:45 That's what's killing people, not the Caesar dressing. My hunch is this is banning the Caesar dressing. I'm going to stay away from both. I think I've played a great amount. I think it was definitely worth the time that we gave to it. And with that, I would love to tell you that we're going to break, and Ben's going to be gone, but he's going to be back, actually. J.R., thank you for joining us in this hour.
Starting point is 00:59:04 We are going to break. Ben will be back. We have a second hour coming up. I believe Iida is going to be here. I got a whole thing on Boston lettuce coming up. It somehow has to do with renewable energy. Okay, with that, we're going to take a break. We'll be back on the other side.
Starting point is 00:59:19 Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.

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