The Young Turks - Neocon Don

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Trump selects Rep. Mike Waltz as his National Security Adviser, with plans to nominate Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and appoint Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary. Semafor reporter Dave Weigel reveals what Democratic insiders are learning... or not learning... from the disastrous 2024 election." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. Welcome to the Young Turks. Jake Kuranic is sparing with you guys, live from the Polymerican studio here in L.A. So we're going to have a fun show for you guys. Donald Trump has appointed a bunch of people we really don't like. Fun for everybody.

Neocondon. Neocon. That should be his nickname because. Well, wall-to-wall neocon action. Yeah, but anti-war. Very anti-war. So we'll get to that first in a minute. But later in the program, even more fun, tonight for the members' bonus episode is Operation Joy.

It's back right after the election. You know when we needed the most? Right now. Okay. So we bring you joy. But on top of that, we start a populist revolution tonight. That's the only revolution I'm interested in. Okay, where you guys are sending pictures of your puppies, and it's a populist revolution.

I know, I deduced that's what you were. You deduced it, I says that you deduced it. Is Charlie going to join the populist revolution? Maybe. Okay, I guess. Okay, so that's the bonus episode, that's a good reason to be a member, have fun, hit the join button below, t.com slash team, does that get you 20% off of monthly members? I guess.

I guess. Okay, see, I told you, told you we're gonna have fun. Okay, so a lot more. And then in the next, after the next break, we're going to bring on Dave Weigel, who is a very good reporter and has a beat on what mainstream media reporters think. And I want to ask them, what are their conclusions from this election? Because I'm super curious to know. They live in a completely different world. And I'm curious, you know, what that world is thinking.

You're going to get to find out in about 20 minutes. So stay right here. Casper, let's do it. Well, let's talk about why I think that Donald Trump should be referred to as neocondon, beginning with some of the individuals he has chosen to serve in his administration. Appeasing terrorists, concession after concession after concession. The same team that's around Biden was around Obama that did Benghazi, that did the Bergdahl trade, that recklessly pulled us out of Iraq that led to the ISIS caliphate and attacks around the world,

including inspired attacks here in the homeland that led to the Iran deal, and they're exercising that same playbook. You cannot appease terrorists. They understand strength and they understand leverage and they understand military might. And we're showing none of that right now. The man you just heard from is quoting from the neoconservative playbook. And when you think of neoconservatives and how unpopular they are, it is curious that Donald Trump has chosen that guy, Republican Congressman Mike Walts.

as his national security advisor, disastrous choice. Now, Representative Walts is the definition of a war hawk, just listening to what he said in that video makes it pretty clear. And it is much to the chagrin of all of the America First Republican voters who thought that Trump would be the pro-peace president that they were longing for. Now, just to give you a little taste of who this guy is, taste is an uncomfortable word to use in this context. But nonetheless, he is a retired Army Green Beret who served in the Middle East and Africa.

So far so good. Nothing wrong with that. But he also served as former vice president Dick Cheney's counterterrorism advisor. Ding, ding, ding. Oh, what happened? Oh, the Chenees are terrible. I can't believe. Cabo Harris is hanging out with the Cheney's.

The right wing said that? We said that. Apparently only one of us meant it. Okay, so now all of a sudden Trump brings in the Cheney staffers. I'm going to tell you why he's bringing all these guys in. And there's going to be a giant clash between Israel First and America First in this next four years. And it's going to be super interesting. And I don't think anybody has any idea which way that collision comes out.

Look, I'm really rooting for the America First crowd. And I'm not kidding. I really mean that. Much to the chagrin of some portion of the audience, I don't care. But they are right when it comes to what they desire in regard to foreign policy. And you're right about that potential clash. So let me give you some more information on Congressman Walts, who is going to be the national security advisor, Donald Trump. He was also a defense policy director for defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.

He voted against ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. To be fair, Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution to pull the United States out of that war. I don't think that that would necessarily bother Donald Trump. And he also voted for keeping the Iraq war authorization on the books in 2021. In 2021, okay. He's best known for being a massive hawk when it comes to China. He's a member of the House's China Task Force and has argued that the United States is underprepared if there is a military conflict in the region.

Maybe we should do what it takes to avoid military conflict in the region, but something tells me that he's thirsty as hell for one. Yeah, well, I would, the person who tells you that is Mike Waltz. He says it all the time. So there's so much more on this and the other picks, but I really want to show that Afghanistan clip because that clip shows you exactly where his head is at. And if you're skeptical of us, y'all, you guys are left-wingers, et cetera, I know Trump's going to be anti-war.

This is the guy he picked for his national security advisor, watch this. Until you're prepared to commit your grandchildren, not your children, but your grandchildren to stand shoulder to shoulder with my grandchildren and fight Islamic extremism, then you will never be successful here. So are we 15 years in? Yes. Are we in for a lot more fighting? And do we need a long-term strategy to undermine the ideology of Islamic extremism, just like we did fascism. Just like we did communism, yes, we do. And, you know, Gordon, I think we're in for a long haul. And I think our nation's leadership needs to begin telling the American people, I'm sorry, we don't have a choice. We are 15 years in what is going to be a multi-generational war because we're talking about

defeating an idea. It's easy to bomb a tank, very difficult to defeat an idea. And that's exactly what we have to do. Now, look, go ahead. Yeah, so guys, a multi-generational war, that was 15 years into Afghanistan. He said, forget 15 years, I need your children serving in this war. I need your grandchildren serving in this war. There's no one who is more pro-war, bigger warhawk, bigger neocon than Mike Waltz,

the new national security advisor for Donald Trump, and you just saw it with your own eyes. Yep. So this guy is as bad as it gets, he can't wait to start a larger war. And think about how dumb he is too. Oh, this is an idea, you know, so that's why we should be fighting a war where your kids get killed and we spend trillions of dollars to try to bomb an idea? What a moron. Yeah, I mean, look, it is interesting because the person who got the ball rolling on the

U.S. withdrawal of Afghanistan was Donald Trump. So it is curious that Donald Trump is choosing this guy who has a thirst, a real passion to remain in Afghanistan as his national security advisor. That's insane. But he did have some sharp criticisms toward Joe Biden for pulling the troops out. He said Waltz called on President Joe Biden to reverse course, relaunch military operations in the region and crush the Taliban offensive by committee. Let me just stop. We were in Afghanistan for 20 years. And in those 20 years, did we crush the Taliban?

Did we do that? No, but we did crush our budget, which Mike Walson, his corrupt buddies were super happy about because all that money went straight to the military industrial complex as we accomplished absolutely nothing. Insane. So basically crush the Taliban offensive by committing American air power supported by special forces, the Florida congressman warned darkly of an al-Qaeda 3.0 and stated that no negotiation should take place with the Taliban until the situation is stabilized militarily.

This guy is a complete, utter joke when it comes to foreign policy. Waltz is the kind of guy who looks at the foreign policy failures of the United States and wants to double down on them. No, I mean, it looks like he wants to quadruple down because he's enlisting your grandchildren in a permanent war? What happened to anti-war? Come on, Mago, what happened to anti-war? Okay, so now, but I'm actually, I know Anna and I are crazy, but we think there's a small percent of chance that Maga is actually going to get mad at this and is going to challenge Trump. Okay, so let me explain how this, why this happened and what I think might happen next,

Okay, so this is team Miriam. Miriam Madelson gave $137 million of Donald Trump for this campaign. Remember, her late husband gave him $200 million in the last two campaigns. So now we're well over 300 million. So what does she get in return? She gets potentially Secretary of State Marco Rubio, huge war hawk Israel first, says Israel shouldn't do a ceasefire, we should have more war, and he said America should pay for all of it, okay?

Then you get Mike Walsh, who's also huge neocon, huge warhawk, of course, enormously pro-Israel and said Israel should not only continue the war, but escalate the war against Iran so that we can get dragged into it. Disaster. At least Stefanik, massively pro-war, neocan, totally team Israel thinks that, and Mike Walz agrees that if you protest Israel in America, if you're an American citizen protesting Israel, you should be arrested, okay? So this is team Miriam, and notice their first.

Why, because Trump already made this deal. He didn't have to think it through. He promised Miriam, okay, Miriam, thank you for the bribe. And so now I'll give you all the neocons you could possibly hope for. This deal was already cast in stone, that's why they're going first. Break your promises, Trump. You already took the money. Break your promises.

You're good at that. Do it. Okay. America First is going to love you. We're going to come on this show, a lefty show and give you credit. Break your promises to Miriam. Come on, be an American hero. We believe in you. Hey, do like Sheldon did. Screw Miriam. Ew. Ew. Okay. No, seriously, guys. Okay, kidding aside, this is super important. Because not only is this about this enormously important issue of continuing the forever wars and continue, well, honestly, Israel's forever wars.

Yeah. I don't know what we were doing in Iraq. Iraq didn't attack us. At least Taliban was in Afghanistan, right? But Iraq had nothing do with us, but Netanyahu demanded that we go into Iraq. That's the fact you can go look it up, okay? So we fought that war for apparently a mix of reasons, but certainly Netanyahu wanted it. He wants us to find Iran.

He wants us to pay for occupied territories, Lebanon, Syria, et cetera. You get it, right? So now, as Anna pointed out, there's one thing that Donald Trump is terrific about, which is screwing over creditors. Yeah. Okay? So he always says like, oh, they're suckers, he gave me money. And it's smart business not to pay him back.

That way I get to keep it, okay? So do likewise to Mary Madelson and the Israel first crowd, because America first, look, maybe I'm wrong, maybe we're totally wrong and naive, and it's totally possible. Maga, all the bro podcasters, et cetera, Mike O, no, Donald Trump said it, we are now his loyal servants. That's not what I'm seeing online. No, I'm not seeing it either. That's why we're more hopeful than anyone else.

That's why we see things ahead of other people do. But they could go in the direction of, yes, sir, of course, sir, America's second, sir, Israel will be first, we will start any war they want and pay for all of it. Here's all of my money, sir, I beg you, Donald Trump, start every war, right? They could go in that direction because let's be honest in the first term they did. Whatever Trump said, they were like, yes, sir, of course, sir. It doesn't matter that it violates our actual core principles, sir, right? But this time around, we're sensing something that almost no one else is sensing.

We've been here before, and what will happen next is everyone will tell us that we're wrong. And then they'll say, oh, you guys are terrible, et cetera, et cetera. And a year to two years later, everybody said, well, everybody knew that the maggot was going to turn on Trump and it demand America first and not come back around and say, Oh, yeah, didn't the young Turks say that several years ago? So look, I don't know it for a fact at all. I'm saying there's two different paths. But if you go to TV and you listen to mainstream media, they'll tell you there's no way in the world MAGA will do that. But what we're sensing is a whole bunch of right-wing populists online who are actually American first

and who actually have loyalty to that idea and to the idea of anti-war more than they have loyalty to Donald J. Trump. So look, I'm not naive, okay? So if I didn't have an example to latch on to, I would have no hope here. But I can't help but think about Trump's first term. Trump wanted to go to war with Iran. And the only thing that stopped him, to be quite honest with you, were his supporters. His supporters did not want a war with Iran. They made that abundantly clear.

And Donald Trump called off an airstrike that he had ordered on Iran. Do you remember that? And so that to me was incredibly impressive because it was a recent example of an American president who actually listened to his base. So that's why I think there is some possibility that they will have some influence on him. And based on what I've been seeing online, you know, the America First crowd within his base do not like his cabinet picks at all. Okay, Marco Rubio is another one. We'll get to him in just a moment. But I never thought I would say that I'm hoping that America first saves this country from engaging in pointless wars abroad.

But that's where we're at. That's where we're at because mainstream media and establishment Democrats and establishment republicans love war. Any war, they go, do we have to do it? Israel had a right to defend itself. That's why we spent trillions attacking a random country. Yeah. Okay. So now we know that, guys.

So now I want everybody in the audience. Okay, especially if you're a right winger, okay? Now go look at mainstream media and see if anybody's pointing out team Miriam and how the first three picks were all massively pro-Israel and pro-war, then go look at right-wing media and see if who's pointing out that his picks are all neocons, former Cheney staffers, etc., right? And by the way, now I think you will find some honest shows in right-wing media. And I haven't said that in 20 years, right? but you'll also find a lot of shows covering for Donald Trump in this agenda, and then you

decide who's right and who's wrong. Right. So just a few more details about Waltz, because last month he did suggest that Israel should have struck Iran's oil and nuclear facilities. In addition to that, even before the war in Gaza, Walt said in May of 2023 that the United States should make clear it wouldn't stop Israel from striking Iran's nuclear program and that the U.S. should show Iran through a variety of means that our military capabilities are such that we could indeed severely damage their program. Look, it's one thing to egg on Israel

in attacking Iran in this way, but understand that for neoconservatives like waltz, the idea is for the United States to get involved in that war. It's not just about like, oh, I'm just going to give Israel some advice and they should do X, Y, and Z with Iran, and we stay out of it. No, no, no, he very much wants the U.S. to be dragged into a war with Iran, which would be absolutely devastating. You think Iraq was a disaster? Iran's military capabilities are much more advanced than Iraq's were. And so we did not win that war in Iraq. The idea that we would go into Iran and it would work out all hunky dory for us is a joke. Okay, American troops, will die, and they will die on behalf of Israel, and they will die on behalf of the private

defense contractors who very likely have been bankrolling this politician. Not only that is of course the oil companies who Donald Trump is very, very fond of, and their profits would soar if there was a war in the Middle East. Iran is four times larger than Iraq, that it would lead to massive instability and enormous gas prices, and remember, their costs would barely change. all be billions in extra profits for the oil companies, for the defense contractors, and for the pro-Israel crowd. So look, guys, we're gonna find out, we're gonna find out.

And I mean, if it turns out, MAGA saves us from Donald Trump, that would be hilarious and amazing and interesting. Again, I don't know that it's gonna happen, and so let's see how it goes. But right now, Trump is showing you his cards and his cards are all pro war. When we come back from the break, Dave Weigel from Semaphore will be joining us to share his thoughts on the outcome of the election, but more importantly, what the reporters are saying on the inside. What are their thoughts?

What is their analysis? We'll be right back. on TYT, Janky, Granik is sparing with you guys. And we've got an interesting guess for you guys right out of the gate here. Dave Weigel is a politics reporter at 7-04. He's author of 7-4's Americana Newsletter. He used to be at the Washington Post, and we've talked to him from time to time. Dave, welcome back, brother.

It's good to be back, thank you. All right, so Dave, main questions that I have for you is, what are the reporters in Washington, who you're way more connected to? What are they thinking about the selection? Have they started to reach any conclusions and what are they? I was noticing a fallacy that comes up every four years where some takes are based on the count before California finishes. And you're in California, you know, it takes forever. Not a huge adjustment, though, but I think there was some analysis based on a huge mandate for Trump that will be tacked in once. it turns out to be a one and a half to 1.8 point margin.

But most of the reaction has been from the Democratic side, including what I've been talking people about, when you lose this fashion, and this many mistakes were made along the way this many people had buy-in on the administration, because I do think it's fair to say that the Bernie wing of the party got a little bit more than expected from appointments and priorities from Biden.

You can blame anything. And so I've just been trying to write whatever I think is writable. That's a good word in a day, in a couple days. And the fight happening between Seth Moulton, really just mostly Seth Moulton and Democrats on how they need to talk about gender differently. That's one thing, but it's one of about 100 ways that Democrats are saying, if we just changed this, we would have won the elections. I should say it's very different than 2016, where you had agreement that Hillary Clinton created problems for herself that no other candidate would have. And even 2020 where you said, all right, well, where Democrats said, it would have been better had we not had to defund the police movement. That was a little pet, but at least it was something they agreed on.

This time, it's all over the map, who they're blaming and what they're blaming for why they did poorly. So Dave, so I get they're going to blame the woke left and, you know, I didn't know they were blaming Bernie Sanders, but that's not at all surprising. That's like the most standard thing of all time. Yeah. Okay. et cetera, et cetera, and I'm sure Russia's in there somewhere. But is anybody, this is an earnest question, is anyone, whether it's in the reporting circles, in their questions, in their analysis, or democratic circles going, maybe we should have

gone more populist, and is there anyone in the Democratic Party we could reach out to who is populist that could show us the way, or is that conversation not happening at all? it is happening so there's different level of this one thing to set the table this is not to be controversial in this network is that what's more likely to appear on a cable news network that has a bottom line would be a discussion about economic populism or discussion about wokeness probably wokeness you can you can find a lot of you can put me on if you wanted to but you can find a lot a lot of guests who will say well this is because of the woke left this because of identity politics and fewer people who will say that the administration should have

extended COVID protections, I shouldn't say protections, benefits from COVID longer than it did. So the TV's, not everything is TV, luckily, but that's one thing that colors it, is the loudest voices who get clipped and repeated are mostly talking about the identity issues. On the populism, yeah, that's part of it. So Bernie was out there saying this. The reason I was framing that way is because it's complicated. This is not like a Clinton to presidency that gets into office in 1993, abandons middle class tax cut, does NAFTA, before re-election does welfare reform.

This was not that kind of presidency. It was if you separate Gaza, which is a big, if you separate, the Biden administration was making progressives pretty happy for a while, even though they knew inflation was a problem because the administration was not trying to do austerity. It was not, it was even when COVID benefits ran out, Republicans ran the House. It was not saying, okay, it's time for a grand bargain on the debt deal. It's time for a deficit commission. It wasn't doing that stuff. It was saying that we need to expand health care, but in a marginal way, that we need to fight inflation by using the tools

available us in the FTC and the executive branch. It wasn't a thrilling populist campaign by the end. But that's part of the discussion is, okay, we've learned that Democrats can make some gains by doing populist things. Can they expand on them? The side that's talking about identity politics, I think, their view of this discussion is, well, progressives got a lot of what they wanted. If they hadn't done a big stimulus package in 2021, then inflation might have been 5%. We would have been fine. And so those voices exist. It's just that those are the same people who were misleading everybody about Joe Biden being able to run again. And so nobody in the party infrastructure has a lot of credibility. Even Sanders. I was talking to Sanders in Wisconsin. So after the first, after the only

debate between Biden and Trump this year, Sanders is already going to Wisconsin. I caught up with him there from Atlanta. And my interview of him, he's not a liar. We all know this. But the question of what to do about Joe Biden looking very old and being unable to debate properly was tough. And he was saying this is the media wants to focus on, I can pull the thing, because I don't like to paraphrase too much. But the media wants to focus on these appearances and this trivia. And what we need to talk about is the economic record. And his frustration is that Harris didn't have that problem, didn't talk enough about the economic record. That's different. Then with the credibility he brings to this, then somebody saying Joe Biden is the fittest person who's ever run for president.

And then a month later saying, thank God we have Kamala. A lot of Democrats don't have credibility when they debate this right now. Dave, do you think the Democratic Party is aware that that everything that they engage in makes it appear as though they're more concerned about their own career accomplishments, their own accumulation of power, their own ability to climb up the political ladder as opposed to doing the right thing on behalf of their constituents and the American people, right? Because I mean, you just listed so many different things that were totally unacceptable in the lead up to this election.

Joe Biden deciding to run for reelection, even though it is abundantly clear that he is suffering from cognitive decline due to his age, him deciding to drop out super late in the election cycle and then screwing over the Democratic Party by immediately endorsing Kamala Harris, who everyone disliked until he decided that he was going to anoint her, and then everyone pretended like she was the greatest thing since sliced bread. She wasn't, and she had a difficult time doing the most basic thing a politician needs to do, which is speak to the public and speak to the public clearly about who she is and what she represents. Everyone's having this unbelievably annoying debate right now about whether it's the lack of economic populism or if it was Democrats leaning too heavily into the culture wars that did them in.

But I need everyone to understand. It's the combination of the two things. The Democratic Party, according to the electorate, made their lives worse. Didn't make their lives better economically. I know that Biden at all like to tout his accomplishments with the infrastructure bill. infrastructure takes some time to build, okay? So obviously he wasn't gonna enjoy the positive benefits of that bill until many years later. I mean, it's just common sense. And so you have inflation, you have the instability of people's personal finances as a result

of inflation, and then on top of that, you have Democrats leaning into the most annoying elements of the culture wars, essentially constantly scolding people for not using the right language or not having a maximalist take on all these different, you know, issues, whether it be gender issues, whether it be crime related issues, you know, it's just unbelievable to me that they're even having this debate when it's so clear that all the voters wanted was for their lives to improve. And under the leadership of the Democrats, they don't feel like that happened. Do you think anyone is aware of that in the Democratic Party? yeah and i've been having on and off the record conversations a lot of what members who won

i talked a couple in trump districts talk about is that they they were not the president they did not have to answer for all of inflation some of them won in 2022 so they got in when inflation was already dipping and they had a pretty good story to tell that hey things are on on the rebound republicans can't govern because they're in the house uh and we can fix these we can fix these things we get back in there. I also, the amount of money in this campaign matter, too, not as just a cure-all. They would have been fine without it, but you do have this ironic, painful situation for Democrats or for the first time they are raising, outraising personally, their campaigns, or more than ever before. And the campaign finance system is what it is, thanks to Supreme

Court. So how did Kamala Harris blow a billion dollars? Well, one reason is that billionaire to support and how Trump helped him with outside money to about the tune of about billion dollars and they they narrowed the gap but the conversation i'm having with democrats there is what moulton is talking about i have heard that from people who don't want to go out and talk about it like moulton did uh in a more subtle way the way they they worry about this is that the trump ad argument the one if you saw the they them ads he was running really any sporting event the the premise of the ad is that harris is so focused on people who need gender surgery in prison that she doesn't care about you.

And you, the voter, they're assuming you are not in prison. You don't need surgery. You just want lower prices. And that's it. And that dynamic they thought was hard for them to overcome because what's the paradox here? Again, this is not a austerity presidency. This is not a Jimmy Carter presidency that's looking for everything again to cut. It was a deficit spending economically stimulating presidency.

however it also had these priorities on immigration and on LGBTQ rights it also was funding Israel's war in Gaza and Ukraine's defense against Russia and one thing you'd hear from voters that the Trump campaign exploited was that they thought the money that they could use was being sent somewhere else and they worked on this for years right I think one of the Trump MVP's of the cycle is Greg Abbott in Texas just what would have happened had Greg Abbott not bust thousands of thousands of migrants to New York City and Chicago and to a lesser extent, LA, and created this news cycle, Boston, too, created these news cycles in those blue cities where people said, Eric Adams pretty explicitly, oh, this is killing

New York. I can't fund the things we need New York. I'm going to cancel the library on Sunday, close the library on Sunday, not cancel it, because we can't afford it anymore. That scarcity argument was very bad for Democrats. And I highlight this because they were attacked in a few fronts on this. People thought there were. scarcity that there wasn't even. They thought money being sent to Ukraine could have been sent to them. But this is a problem for Democrats everywhere. What is the good story they can tell? In a suburb, I think, they can tell a pretty good story. Democrats are running your suburb. We're very tolerant. We're not taking books out of your schools. We're keeping taxes fairly low. In a city,

the Democrats have this scarcity problem. We are the party of wanting to protect the environment, not building too many houses. There are Democrats fighting against that. But it's a very, if you're the Trump campaign trying to make an immediate case to voters, very easy to roll all this together. They're giving your money to other people. They're given your money to foreign countries. And they're housing is not affordable because they're not doing it about it. It didn't help the Paris out of the gate. I'm talking a lot. Go ahead. Yeah. No, no, Dave, but all of that is true. Okay, that wasn't some made up narrative by the Republicans. All of that is true. What Greg Abbott did was brilliant. And it's brilliant because the media was completely lying about

the fact that there was a migrant crisis and that the Biden administration did completely neglect its responsibilities at the border. The only reason why people were forced to come to terms with what the reality was is because Greg Abbott started busting migrants to big blue liberal cities. And these liberal cities had to deal with what the border towns had been dealing with and weren't getting the necessary help and aid from the federal government. And so I do not begrudge Abbott for doing that because had Abbott not done that, Every Democrat would still be under this ridiculous assumption that there actually is no border

crisis, that it's just the big, bad, racist Republicans making it up. And when it comes to everything else you mentioned, everything else that Republicans exploited to win big in this election, they're not lying about those things. Democrats have failed to build new housing, which we desperately need. All of these issues Democrats have failed at. And I get that people are gonna be upset at me for calling a spade a spade. But we got to call a spade a spade, especially as Democrats are like having this ridiculous debate about whether or not it was one ad that led to their demise.

No, it's all of their behavior for many years now that's led to their demise. So that's getting at a central question that we're asking, Dave, like, does anyone really get that? My guess is that what's going to happen in three years is they're going to trot out Buttigieg and Gavin Newsom and say, forget all the things from these couple of weeks. Forget the populace, forget everything, and they'll go back to saying that Bernie wing is the most evil thing and they can't win. And the only people that could win are establishment politicians that have lost and lost and lost and lost. And my guess is that all the reporters will say, oh, right, of course, Buttigieg and Newsom are the only people who can win. And let's all go back to doing the same exact thing that got us humiliated by Donald Trump two times and nearly three times. What's your sense of whether we're right or not about that?

Well, it depends who they are because I've been talking to Democratic chairs who are going to elect a new DNC chair when Jamie Harrison's gone. And everyone expects him to go. He's just, he hasn't announced when he's going to go. They're trying to roll out. When you lose power, you have sort of an anti-transition. And you have different news cycles you want to control. but everyone assumes they're going to replace him. The party knows how to raise money.

There's not the same discussion that the party needs a spokesman who's good for America. Because compared to 2016, who was the governor of Michigan? Who was the governor of Pennsylvania? You had Tom Wolfe, I take it back. But you didn't have this bench of Democrats who were fairly well-known pretty good spokespeople. When it comes to the next presidential campaign, I wouldn't say that would take care of itself. But the main choice of the party is, are you going to reorder the first few states? So you're going to have Iowa go first, New Hampshire, go first, you're going to go back to South Carolina.

That would affect things. I don't know how it would affect things exactly, though, because you won't have a, I don't expect Kamala Harris to run again. So you would not have somebody as a clear frontrunner. You have a bunch of governors and, in lesser extent, senators, I think there were people who will throw their names in. And I would think from just my reporting around the country in the last few, weeks especially there's not as much of a democrats need to move these these dials and switch this ideologically it is can you explain cut through the media fog can you cut through to audiences that don't watch msnbc read the new york times and convince them the democrats are doing the right

thing for them because they think they have some people who can they think rich whitmer can can do that in michigan she wins uh josh bureau can do that in pennsylvania he wins westmore can do it in maryland he wins. But what has been happening with Donald Trump dominating the news cycle for years? And what's been happening with these timid democratic strategists who in the Harris campaign were not taking risks? They were just saying, what do we have that polls at 70, 75 percent, that she can defend an interview and she can pivot back to? I think the demand by primary voters, whoever state they're going to be, is going to be, can we imagine you just defending yourself in front of the most hostile crowd as for in front of a podcaster for two hours, that sort of thing. Now, they might be like

in a 2004 situation where Trump governs horribly and they bounce back immediately and they don't need this conversation. But that was part of the discourse in 2008. It wasn't just that Barack Obama was there to vote for the Iraq War and he opposed it. It was who is somebody who can appeal to people who didn't vote for us last time. So I'm probably on this broadcast, the most optimistic person when it comes to what the next Democratic Party is going to be, is if they wanted today, if Barack Obama pulled them into a room and said, we're going to lock up the next nomination for somebody,

I don't think they could. I don't think there's no one who has a, nobody who is young enough to run, who has a winning electoral record in a national election anymore, or is not prevented from running like Barack Obama is. It is going to be a, let a bunch of voices flood into the gap and debate and go to swing states and argue. And you're going to see, the test will be,

There's going to be special elections for the House in the next six months, given who Trump is pulling in. There's going to be an election for Governor, Jersey, Governor of Virginia. There'll be midterm recruitment. And there's going to be just time for these candidates to display, one, display their abilities and also answer tougher questions because Kamala Harris didn't have to. What if Biden had said in June 2023, actually, I'm done, and there's a primary. I think Harris still would have been the nominee, but she wouldn't have gone a year. year plus without answering, hey, you used to support this position. It's really unpopular. How'd you make your mind up? If she'd bumbled 20 of those questions, maybe she's not the nominee.

And just they will have, I'm pretty convinced. They'll have an actual competition next time. It's not going to be somebody in the party foisting someone on the entire base. Yeah, no, it's funny because what I interpret from what you just said, Dave, is they're going to pick Buttigieg. Okay. Okay. And I'll tell you why. Someone who can face. hostile crowds. They're going to say, oh, he went on Fox News twice. And so did Gavin Newsom. Oh, it's between Gavin and Buttigieg, just like I thought. So the idea that Barack Obama pulls them into a room and they disagree about Whitmer, Shapiro, Buttigieg, and Newsom, yes, they will definitely disagree about that. Yes, you're right.

But will they allow a single populace in the room? And my guess is no, because they still don't get it. They're like, oh, which corporate robot does our talking points better? I think I like the Newsom model. I like the Buttigieg model. No, you're not supposed to go with a corporate robot. You're supposed to go with a real human being. The only hope there, for now, we're gonna hear right here on the Young Turks, we're gonna try to create more hope for more potential candidates to take on these, in my opinion,

corporate goons and fake robots. But for now, one interesting possibility that nobody's talking about is Tim Walz. Yeah, Tim Walls was not allowed out of a basement in this, in this election. Any time that he escaped the basement, he was fantastic. So let's see what happens. But my key, Dave, and we'll have you come back on, got to go for now, and check in with you every once in a while. But the key will be if they run a fair primary. And the chance of that happening is very, very low.

I would say, yeah. If you're concerned about that, DNC's meetings begin in a month and the time to pressure them to change the primary system is coming up. I'm not an advocate for something, but they're really, this is a time where the DNC does not know what to do next. There's going to actually, I don't think they can foist it on people like they did in the past. Well, I'll certainly try. That's my guess. All right, Dave Weigel from Semaphore. Everybody check out the Americana Newsletter. Thank you for joining us, brother. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

All right, we're going to take a quick break, reach some of your comments. You guys have a lot of strong opinions. And when we come back, a little Marco, apparently becoming big Marco. I wouldn't put it that way. Okay, let's see. That's what Trump thinks. That's not what he used to think, but that's all of a sudden what he thinks. So we'll come right back on it.

All right. Chiangana with you guys. Zero authority, zero. Thank you for becoming a member through tuit.com slash team. Good time to do it, 20% off monthly membership. Women A.F, thank you for gifting 10 memberships on YouTube and box. Thank you for gifting one. And fat satyr, which is kind of fun, gifted five. So you guys are amazing in American heroes. We appreciate you. Casper. Little Marco. Little Marco will now be part of Donald Trump's administration. Let's get to how. On the contrary, are you filming it? I want you guys to get this.

I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes. And I hope you guys post that because that's my position. And what about the civilians that are being killed every day? Hamas should stop hiding behind civilians, putting civilians in the way. Hamas knew that this was going to lead to this. Hamas stopped building their military installations underneath hospitals. So you don't care that 15,000 have died.

You don't care about the babies that are being killed every day. I think it's horrible. I think Hamas is 100% to blame. That's what I think. Make sure you post that, please. The small man you just heard from in that video is Senator Marco Rubio, a neoconservative, who has been tapped by Donald Trump to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. Disaster.

So that means this neocon warhawk senator from Florida could have one of the most important foreign policy positions in the Trump White House. Rubio, who sits in both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee is definitely a massive warhawk. Not only does he deny that Israel is carrying out the atrocities that they're carrying out right now in Gaza, he is also called for investigations, investigations into federal employees who are simply calling for a ceasefire in the region. Yeah, so not only are they neocon warhawks, but

They say, whether you're a progressive or MAGA or just a normal American, if you dare criticize Israel, we're taking away your freedom. Okay? So you're going to shut up and you're going to give all of our money to Israel and they're going to start any war they like. We're going to help them fight it and we're going to finance all of it. That's Marco Rubio's position. And if all, by the way, getting the Muslims and Palestinians and Arabs, etc., slaughtered, he conveniently goes, oh, it's not the people doing it. It's the people who are getting killed. That's at fault. So it's okay. We can start anywhere we like. We'll just blame the Muslims we're murdering for the war that we committed against them. Rubio isn't just thirsty for a tall glass of water during his public speeches.

He's also very thirsty for war with Iran. So let's take a look at some of his posts on X from last month. In one of them, he writes, Iran regime wants to destroy Israel so they can become the dominant power in the Middle East, appeasement will not change their behavior, only threatening the survival of the regime through maximum pressure and direct and disproportionate measures has a chance to influence and alter their criminal activities. In other words, the U.S. needs to get involved and the U.S. needs to engage in conflict in a hot war with Iran, which would be disastrous for the United States, certainly for our troops who would risk their lives for a war that they should not be fighting on behalf of Israel.

Marco Rubio also wrote that Iranian regime was fully aware of the consequences of a direct attack on Israel and decided to do so anyway. Those demanding Israel show restraint should remember that they have the ability to inflict regime threatening damage on Iran and have already shown restraint by not doing so. Great. So if Iran wants to, if Israel wants to do that, they should do that. Why should the U.S. be dragged into that war? That's the question that everyone should be asking neoconservative warhawks like Marco Rubio.

Seriously, okay? So let's take a look at the top donors for Marco Rubio according to Open Secrets. Oh wow, would you look at that? Top contributor from 2019 through 2024, pro-Israel America pack. In fact, Trump once criticized Rubio for courting pro-Israel donations from the Adelson's, even though now he's taken in quite a bit of money for Miriam Adelson. But nonetheless, this is the same family that Trump has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from. This is what he had to say about the Adelson's funding Marco Rubio, though.

This is a tweet from October of 2015. He said Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him, meaning Marco Rubio, into his perfect little puppet, I agree. And so far, so far, based on the neocons that Donald Trump has tapped for his administration, seems like Miriam Adelson has molded him into a perfect little puppet. What happened now, Donald? Okay, so Shelton Adelson gave him $100 million in 2016, another $100 million in 2020. These are in campaign contributions to his pro-Trump packs.

And now in this cycle, Miriam Adelson gave Trump $137 million. So what did over $330 million by the Edelson family? Well, read my book, Justice is coming to get a giant list of the goodies they got, including a presidential medal of freedom for Miriam, okay, let alone moving our embassy, giving them our foreign policy, etc. t.y.com slash justice to get that. But for now, now in his second term, all of his first appointments are Team Miriam. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, Mike Walson, National Security. advisor, at least Stefaniket, the UN, they are all on the record as saying Israel above all. Whatever Israel wants, Israel gets, and they're all neocons, and we showed you earlier,

Mike Walls saying that we should have forever wars, multi-generational wars against Islamic extremism. That's code word for Israel's enemies, okay? So, so these guys are all team Miriam, it's super obvious that Trump made a deal that he would put them in immediately to serve one of his top three donors. Got like, understand what these people represent. As our country is falling apart, as our people are struggling economically, unable to afford food, unable to afford shelter, you have clowns like Marco Rubio advocating for

U.S. soldiers to risk their lives in a war they should not be fighting on behalf of Israel. Okay, you have Marco Rubio advocating for a hot war with Iran, which would require the United States to spend hundreds of billions of dollars, if not war, if not more in fighting that war. How exactly does this make sense? How exactly is this America first? And so Trump does this all the time. One of our members pointed out, and they're totally right. I'll read it during the break about Trump always runs as a populist and I'm going to go get him and I'm going to drain the swamp. I'm going to be anti-war. And then when he gets in, what did he do the first time around? And I think Mago will actually acknowledge this,

wall-to-wall neocots, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, all the people you guys hate. And he surrounded himself with that. Why? Why do you think he did that? You think he doesn't understand? No, because he promises donors that he would put them above you. And now this time around you said it wouldn't happen. You said it wouldn't happen. He'd put you first. Did he? For the moment being, no, Donald Trump put his donors first again. And it went exactly opposite of his promises. By the way, you know what that sounds like? That sounds like a normal, standard, cheesy politician. It does. It really does. By the way, as for other countries, Rubio has also advocated or did advocate for the intervention into Libya. How did that work out? He criticized

Trump for calling to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan in 2019. And he also pushed Trump to implement harsh sanctions against Venezuela that same year. And by the way, those harsh sanctions led to people fleeing Venezuela and coming here to the United States. Record immigration, the number one group that came into the country was from Venezuela. Yeah, nailed it, nailed it. Now, let's have a little bit of fun. Rubio and Trump are on good terms now, obviously, but the two were not friends back during the Republican primary in 2016. They traded some pretty brutal jabs.

Here's a reminder. During that time, Trump once tweeted, quote, Marco Rubio is a total lightweight who I wouldn't hire or run one of my smaller companies. I think we have this. We can put it up on the screen. A highly overrated politician. And then Marco Rubio once on stage

went on a sort of rant about Donald Trump's fingers. Listen. Which is why I don't understand why his hand. are the size of someone who's 5.2. Have you seen his hands? They're like this. And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can't trust them. And then that led to the back and forth, literally on the debate stage between Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. Yeah, we're- Where Trump said, but believe me, I've got no problems down there. Believe me, if you have to assure us, I don't know.

Anyways, but look, here I'll give Donald Trump some credit. Fairest show in America. Really? One thing he's really good at is letting bygones be bygones. Is he? So look, it might be partly to help his donors. And if you get under his skin, he'll hunt you down to the end of the earth. But the minute you start kissing his ass, he's like, I'm good with it.

Lindsay Graham said the worst things, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz. They all said the worst things about him. The minute they turn around and start polishing his shoes, like bygones be bygones, you're now welcome back in. And there's some, I mean, look, that's not such a bad trade. Okay, fine. And J.D. Vance is another example. So, yeah, it's true. I'm hoping that he secretly decided to pick Marco Rubio so he can find a way to, like, publicly humiliate him one last time.

Oh, no, that's for like, that's just grottis. Will that happen eventually? Oh, of course that will. And eventually, I'm looking forward to this. But I don't know that it's going to be over this. It might be over something else entirely, but he eventually, he was very disappointed with my secretary of state. Happens almost every time with every person, depending on what happened.

Anyway, last thing, though, going back to Anna's point, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So so far, every pick of Donald Trump and foreign policy is saying, no, we should spend more money abroad. And they all say the same thing. No, not on Ukraine because they know how Trump is so touchy about Ukraine and Magas touchy about Ukraine. They're like, fine, fine, the one place we won't do war is Ukraine and Russia can just keep, you know, a big chunk of it and that'll solve the issue. But we want war everywhere else and especially in the Middle East.

And we want you to take hard earned money that you could barely, barely afford and send over to Israel that has universal health care that you don't have, paid family leave that you don't have so that you can start war. wars on their behalf. So not to defend themselves, but to take more land as the right now their cabinet ministers are celebrating, saying they're going to annex the West Bank and talk of taking northern Gaza. So we're paying for their land acquisition? Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. Look, Maga said they were totally against it. Let's find out if they meant it. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we're going to continue on with some of the other Trump picks, including who he has decided to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. Later on, I don't know, we're going to make fun of Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo, which I'm

going to enjoy. We need a little bit of comedic relief, no? So come right back. We'll see you there.