The Young Turks - No Fake Friends

Episode Date: November 11, 2023

In a new interview, Trump wants to sic DOJ on his opponents if he wins: "I say go down and indict them!" Republican state representative in Florida calls for the death of "all'' Palestinians during a call for ceasefire. Republican spending bill implodes over "embarrassing" birth control spat. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene unite in a push to free Julian Assange. Phillips apologizes to Sanders for dismissing claims of "rigged" Democratic primary system. HOSTS: John Iadarola (@johniadarola) Rayyvana (@RayyvanaTTV) and Mondale Robinson (@mondalerobinson) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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3x3.3.5.3. Drop it like we. I've been getting over the last three months. Hey, everybody, it's a power panel. We're back. I'm John Idarola still, mostly. And joining me on the panel, we've got two contributors to Rebel HQ, one mayor of Enfield. You figure out which is which. But we've got Mondale Robinson and Rayvana. How's it going? Good, good. How's it going, bro? Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. That was an excellent. drop it. I was sitting here while you were workshopping different things, and that was by far the best one. Fantastic. Love that. And the least depressing. And accurate. I mean, I think all comedy

should be based in truth, and I might fall asleep during the show today. But anyway, not for want of interesting news, though, because we do have that. We're going to be talking about some of what might be coming if and when Donald Trump becomes president again. Spoiler alert, revenge. We've got that for you. We've got just calls for genocide in Florida state legislature. Not super surprising, but kind of depressing. We're going to be running through that. And what is the issue that caused AOC and Marjorie Green to team up? That's going to be an interesting one. So we've got all that more coming up very soon with myself, Ravanna, and Mondale. You can send in your comments, tweet, super chats, all that. We'll respond during the social breaks. We're very excited for that.

And there is a big second hour coming up right after this with Ben Glebe, Jank Huger, and Mark Thompson as well. So a lot of fun and important stories in that second hour as well. But with that said, you guys ready to jump into some news? So ready. Okay, let's do it. I'm going to see if I can remember how to do this. We start at the beginning.

Yes, there you go. Donald Trump had an interview with Univision this week. And he wasn't exactly subtle in terms of what his plans are for his political opponents if he becomes president again. We can't show you the video. Unfortunately, they're litigious, but we've got some quotes for you. Trump said this, if they do this and they've already done it. But if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could happen in reverse.

Talking about the webization of the FBI and going after your political opponents, it could certainly happen in reverse. So that's certainly ominous. The idea that he wants to pitch the various indictments that have come his way, the 91 felony counts as being totally baseless, and that has opened a door through which perhaps he and his political allies will walk if he becomes president again. Notice that in that first quote, he didn't just say that he's going to do it or that they have done it to him, but that if they follow through on it. So this isn't just, look what they did. Now I'm going to do it.

It's, hey, maybe if you guys drop this stuff, then I won't lock up your families, which is not the sort of precedent you want set in a democracy, certainly. But it goes on to say, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them. Mostly what that would be, you know, they would be out of business. They'd be out of the election. So yeah, if he's president, he's going to dispatch the DOJ or the FBI, which is going to be staffed by his like real estate lawyers or whatever at that point. And they're just going to go after anyone who is a threat to him or who bothers him, mostly Democrats, but there's certainly a lot of Republicans. I'm sure he would like to ruin the day of. And it would be designed

to accomplish goals that have nothing to do with justice. Just revenge, ruining their chances of getting elected, all the stuff that he says is happening to him. He is saying he will do with no cause whatsoever. We've got more of this, but I want to jump into the conversation. Mondale, what do you think about this? I mean, I think we about to believe what he says is Donald Trump, for God's sakes. If he wins election, you better know that everybody that said his name and didn't say king or guy behind it will be in trouble. I mean, this is a person who showed that he has no more accomplice. I mean, Donald Trump is lock him up Donald Trump and talking about himself. He screams about this two-tier justice and not even realizing the benefit that he's had from the

justice system. No other defendant would be allowed to get away with somebody to speak he's been allowed to get away with as it pertains to people who work for the courts, the different courts at the different levels of government. So I think if Donald Trump said he's going to lock people up, we should know that, especially since you're not even going to need a law degree to be lawyers when Donald Trump's president. Well, then, and I guess I wasted, you know, $100,000 by going to law school. Of course, you know, everybody already knows that Donald Trump is the biggest hypocrite.

But as you mentioned, John, this has been Donald Trump's rallying cry thus far in his campaign, is the indictments against me are political persecution. He doesn't call it prosecution, which is actually what it is. He's being persecuted. He is the most oppressed man in the country because he's being prosecuted for things that he did do. But never mind that. And now he's just saying explicitly, despite the fact that I've whined and moaned and complained all across whatever cable news show will have me on,

all across whatever weird right wing Facebook live stream will have me on. I'll at my rallies, you know, on truth social that this is severely unfair, that prosecuting me is actually interfering with the election, that this is actually undermining democracy in this country. If I'm in power, I'm going to do that. I am explicitly saying that that is going to be my strategy to undermine my legitimate opponents in election. It is so brazen. And that's just a word that perfectly encapsulates who Donald Trump is. Yeah. And this, look, as a strategy, trying to take the fact that you are facing more indictments than almost anyone else in politics ever. And turning that into the like the strength of your candidacy shouldn't work. But,

but why shouldn't it? I guess for his base, like there's a lot of this to go around an American politics across the political spectrum. But certainly, if you're a Trump fan, you want a lot of people locked up, and I don't think you care over much about why. I mean, there's a huge amount of overlap with the Q people who believe that virtually everyone in elected office is a child-eating rapist, and they should all be locked up. And he is the figurehead of that movement. So he doesn't need to come with good evidence of what Joe Biden or Hunter Biden has done. He simply claims that they're corrupt and people will believe it without question. And the fact that so many of the crimes that he's committed, there's no debate to be had about whether they were done. He took the documents. They were there

right next to the toilet. We don't have to have a debate about whether it happened or whether it's legal. We know that it was not. We know that he did these things. We know that the White House was sacked on January 6th. We know these things. Whereas they can make a vague reference to Hunter Biden getting $5 million or something, never establish that had happened, where the money is supposed to be, when it happened, and 50 million people believe it whole cloth. So we live in insane times. But I want to get the opinion of both of you. If he gets in, I think he's definitely going to try this sort of thing. Who is most at risk of investigation? Who do you think he's going to be focusing his eye on if he does actually get to make good on these plans, Ravenna? Well, obviously,

we know that Donald Trump is a huge driving force between the impeachment investigation into Joe Biden. It is, he feels very aggrieved that he was twice impeached. And he wants Joe Biden to suffer that same sort of fate as he did regardless of if there's any base. There's not for investigating him for impeachment. So I mean, probably Joe Biden. I feel like he feels very scorned. He's a massive loser. He lost to, I mean, possibly one of the worst candidates that said for Miller Clinton that the Democrats have run in a long time. I mean, sleepy Joe Biden, let's face it, is accurate. We were all raising the alarm before 2020. And short of the pandemic happening, Joe Biden, I don't think, wins that election.

And he lost to him. And that is embarrassing. And he feels extremely scorned. He knows that it looks bad for him. So I think that primarily that's the person he's going to go after first. Regardless of the fact that Joe Biden isn't going to run again. If he loses this election, he's not going to be the Democratic candidate in 2028. I mean, I don't want to be morbid, but I don't even have high hopes that Joe Biden would still be alive at that point.

He's extremely elderly. Definitely not in a position where he could run a national campaign. Is he still in that position? He's in that position right now? I don't know. That's, you know, for you all to decide. But I would put my money on Joe Biden and then also Hunter Biden because, because of course. Monda, what do you think?

Yeah, I don't, you know, I think that's a good, she made, Ray makes great points. I would say one thing, though, Donald Trump has tied his entire life to how successful he is as a business person. So I think the legal system in New York will be in great jeopardy as well. He wants to prove he's worth all the money in the world minus the $5 that I have. And I think he'll go to bat and try to lock those people up. Here's the irony of all of this. He's talking about if somebody's beating him bad in another election. Somebody tell him the law and that he would not be able to run for president again if he wins.

Like it's, we have this thing called two terms and that's it, buddy. So he's, I mean, the stupidity in Donald Trump, we, we have to go to great limbs to have a conversation about the conversation he's having just to make it make sense. He can't even, if he wins presidents at this time, there would never be a chance where he's losing an election unless he plan on running for dog catcher. And he doesn't look much like a runner. Well, you know, if you were to ask, you know, you were to give your theory that you just gave to a member of like a Trump rally audience, they would say what he has said, which is he was robbed in 2020. So he gets a freebie if he wants. I'm sort of joking there. We're going to return to that in just one sec.

I do want to just mention that this interview that Trump did with Univision sort of followed. up reporting from earlier in the week where the Washington Post revealed that in private, Trump has been repeatedly talking, not just in interviews with advisors and friends about how he wants the Justice Department to investigate one-time officials and allies who've become critical of him. So this isn't just like Joe Biden, Hunter Biden. This is also like John Kelly, Bill Barr, Ty Cobb, one of his former lawyers, Mark Millie, former Joint Chief of Staff Chairman. So a lot of people that are not just Democrats that he will be going after. I would be a little bit worried if I was Ronda Santis at this point.

You know, if I was a former fixer for Donald Trump, I'd be a little bit worried. So there's a lot of reasons when you combine that with all of what the right wing think tanks are talking about in terms of setting up a more full proof like authoritarian executive state. There's a lot to be worried about. And so Mondale's totally right that technically, you know, he wouldn't ever have to worry about running for reelection again. But we're starting to hear whispers, like people are remembering, oh, yeah, he is like a unique threat. Would he try to run for a third time? Or would there be no need to run? I've been out of the news for three months. So I feel a little bit unmoored from the threat that he would pose. But I am curious from both of your points of view, how horrified from a democratic sort of institution's perspective should we be right now based on what he is telling people both in front of and behind the camera?

Mandela, I want to start with you. Yeah, I think, listen, Donald Trump running for a third term in his mind and to his followers, to me, sounds like Mississippi writing their secession letter. I think it's possible. They think it's possible. And they would definitely support him wholeheartedly. I mean, people are talking about they would rather die if Donald Trump lose the next election. So, I mean, there's no limits these people are not willing to go to. Ravanna? Yeah, so, you know, if you are not to the audience, someone who pays a lot of attention to what far right-wing media personalities and people who have connections to Donald Trump's strategy are saying, God bless you, never clue into that. Unfortunately, it's my job to pay attention to those things. So I'm very clued in. And it is explicitly their strategy that if Donald Trump is reelected to remove people from,

from what are supposed to be nonpartisan positions within what they refer to as the deep state, but in the administrative state and replace them with pro-Trump individuals who have no care for the rule of law, who do not care about the constraints of what their job title is supposed to have that are going to use those positions of power to essentially, you know, quickly passed through all of Trump's fascistic agenda, but to stage a coup of the administrative state that would, in effect, allow Donald Trump to remain president as long as possible, you know, if the American population essentially doesn't rise up and prevent that from happening. But I also think that we're faced with this unique threat, which is that Donald Trump isn't

currently the president. And it seems like the democratic strategy moving forward, you know, aside from, which I think is a very intelligent strategy to put abortion on the ballot in key swing states. But otherwise, it's just going to be Donald Trump is scary. We can't let it be president again. And I don't think it's going to be as effective as a strategy when he's not currently in that position of power. And people have had four years to kind of forget just how heinous, how fascistic of a, how authoritarian of a president he was when he was in power. And I think that's something that we should be wary of moving forward. Yeah.

Yeah, and the outside of the law, outside of the Constitution measures that he tried to take on a variety of different ways to remain in office. And the thing that we need to bear in mind is that Donald Trump is Donald Trump. He's the guy that he was, no better, no worse probably than he was in the first four years. He's going to do a lot of insane stuff. But as Ravanna was sort of being to talk about there, it matters who else is in government. because had a few key positions been in different hands in 2020, Trump might still be president right now. And not just in the federal government, but also, you know, we talked to the last

couple of cycles about how important it was these chiefs of county boards of elections and secretaries of state. There is a reason Republicans have been pursuing those positions so much trying to take over state Supreme Courts. It's because they don't have hope in their ability to win an election, you know, fairly and freely. They have no interest in democracy general. they want to have people in position to get done what they want to get done. And that's like the electoral side and nobody forget, you know, how many, you know, elections subverting pieces of legislation, the Republicans have filed and won in states since 2020. All of that is just waiting in the wings to do stuff and we don't know

exactly what's going to happen. But also in terms of the DOJ and the FBI to take it back to that, like Donald Trump and and his top allies, whoever it ends up being his chief of staff, they're going to be choosing very differently than they were before. There was at least like some attempt to have kind of professionals, kind of people with experience. They obviously cared about loyalty, but loyalty is the only thing that they're going to care about soon. And there are some former allies of Trump that are trying to remind us of that. John Kelly was saying that often Trump would suggest prosecuting his political enemies or having the FBI investigate them. and he would just sort of like file it in the now I'm not going to do that folder and Trump

would forget because Trump is a doink. But John Kelly is not going to be there next time. Chris Christie was saying that you had in his words good folks like Bill Barr, Bill Barr ain't good folks, but there were lines that Bill Barr would not pass. And that's true for other people, the DOJ, other people with the military. We already saw reports like a week ago that they're like getting like revved up excited to dispatch the military of the streets if there are civilian protests following a Trump win. So Ravana said, you know, he may stick in office if we don't rise up. Yeah, that is true. But if we do rise up, it might get pretty dark up in here too, because they are filling the government with people who don't have any problem with crushing

dissent, no matter how popular it is. So I don't know. I'm throwing a lot out there and it's probably bordering on the overly paranoid. But what do you guys make of it? I don't think it's overly We watched Donald Trump when he was president tell the military, they try to use a general as propaganda and also try to turn the military-owned protesters over the George Floyd situation. I mean, so here's what I'm nervous about, really, really nervous about. The people who support Trump and their access to guns in this country should not be minimized. We didn't see the gun part of January 6th, but it was part of the movement. Like they had guns ready to go across the Potomac. They were staged in Virginia.

We also talk about January 6 and we forget that there were bombs placed at the Republican headquarters and the Democratic headquarters. So this is not a game. This is not, I don't think this is paranoia at all. Here's what I'm, I think what happens is the only general around Trump the next time might be Flynn. And we know Flynn has no spine. or morals just like Donald Trump.

And I think you're right. The absent of grown folk, what Bill Bart referred to as, or Chris Christie said, as good people, we're going to be in trouble. People that are afraid to tell Trump know and people that he believes lawyer to him. After what he's going through with all these trials, it's going to be a very few people and very deranged people. My pillow guy is going to be running ag. I don't know.

I'm nervous. Oh, God. Oh, good. Well, maybe he can, you know, lead the FDA. He has some experience in the D department of the FDA. But I'll just say to the point that you were making, John, that there were, you know, I don't know, reasonable individuals relative to what Donald Trump would bring with him if he's allowed back at the White House. It immediately made me think of the story that we didn't get to cover. But a few weeks ago,

it came out that several members of the State Department members of Trump's staff were pleading with him not to abandon our allies, the Kurds, obligatory free Kurdistan. And his response to them was, why should I give a crap about them? They didn't help us at Normandy. And I just like need people to recognize that there were adults in that room trying to be voices of reason at that time in a new Trump administration, it's just going to be yes, man. Because Trump is in a sea in politics of petty bitches, the pettiest bitch. He stands alone. He operates out of spite and narcissism. And anybody, you know, moving forward, now he has,

you know, developed a bit of a paranoia about people turning on him, which will only be worsened, as we see more and more people flip on him, more co-defendants, co-conspirators flip on him in his trials. That he's all like literally. I mean, we're joking, but it is. It's going to be Mike Pillow leading an important administration. That's who's going to be surrounding him. That's who's going to be dictating policy in this country. And it's imperative that we prevent that from happening.

That was going to be exciting times. He's not wrong about the Kurds. Where were they? Ironically, had they helped us at Normandy, he would have called them fools and losers. Why are they dying abroad? God, I hadn't heard that line. It was pretty crazy. Amazing.

Yes. Okay. I think we need a break just to absorb that and try to contextualize it. We're going to take a social break. We're going to respond to some of your comments. More news on the other side of this. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging.

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Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Welcome back to the first hour of the power panel. Everyone, I am John I, Rola, joined by Mondale Robinson and Ray Vana. Thank you again to both of you. You can catch their work over at Rebel HQ.

And if you're just joining the live stream right now, maybe hit the like button. Let people know that the stream is live. You can buckle up for the rest of the first hour. And then Ben Glebe is going to be taking the reins for the second hour. Everyone stay tuned for that. And with that, let's jump back into the news. We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?

I also, one of my colleagues just said all of them. Wow. Utterly reprehensible, not necessarily surprising. In modern America, coming out of the Florida State Legislature, mildly surprising. Should be worse. That was Florida State Representative Angie Nixon. She had a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was passionately speaking about the devastation that we've seen there.

Here's an extra tragedy to throw on top of that, the 10,000 number that Representative Nixon reference there is now well over 11,000. And the Secretary of State of the United States thinks that that is probably an undercount. So tragedy on top of tragedy. But trying to do, to the extent that a Florida State Representative can, a little bit to help, calling for a ceasefire. And that was when Republican Representative Michelle Salzman butted in and said all of them. 10,000 is not enough. 4,000 children is not enough. Every single one of them needs. to die and said that in a person is giving a speech, the cameras are on, the mics are on. It would be reprehensible even if they thought if Representative Salzman thought that they would

get away with that. But to say knowing there was a good chance that it would get picked up, believing clearly that it would help you for it to get out there, well, that is truly reprehensible. Now, we have a little bit more from Representative Nixon reacting to what you saw in that first video. One of my colleagues said all of them. One of my colleagues also stated that this is going to dry up their fundraising if we vote on this resolution. I also want that like that's what we've become in this state. That's what we've become in this state where we don't care about innocent babies that don't even get the opportunity to blow out their first birthday candle.

Yes, we don't care, or at the very least, the vast, vast majority of the people in the room where the representative speaking did not care. And not caring can come in a variety of different forms. Most would not be willing to say where it could be picked up on camera, all of them should die, literally calling for genocide. But there's another way that you can not care. You can have a representative calling for an utterly non-binding call for a ceasefire. That will do nothing except send a signal that perhaps peace would be good, and it can get only two votes. That's another way that a state legislature can show how little they care after that passionate speech. Virtually everyone voted against that.

We'll have more about this, including more from Representative Nixon, but Ravanna, what do you make of that? Yeah, what she said was despicable, but all I could think of while I was hearing it is she's just saying the quiet part out loud. Is her position that different than the position of the Biden administration? I would argue it's not. Joe Biden, when asked, you know, if there was a chance for a ceasefire, he said, definitely not. No possibility. So for the Biden administration, 10,000 dead civilians is not enough.

You know, upwards of 4,000 dead children is not enough. They've shown that they do not care. And I can't see any indication of the number that will. be enough. So from the outside looking in, it feels like considering their continuing endorsement of what's happening in Gaza, they're continuing material support, but also another important aspect of this is the rhetorical support that they're offering in the media and press conferences and official statements from the White House from the State Department that this is okay, no matter how much lip service they paid to, well, it's sad that innocent civilians will die, but

that's what has to happen in this case, is what their position is. And her position is also not that different from members of the federal Congress, right? We had Brian Mast say that there's no such thing as an innocent Palestinian civilian. We had Max Miller say on TV, live on TV, that we are going to use the term we are going to turn Gaza into a parking lot. You know, Lindsay Graham has been calling for the destruction of Gaza. These are people explicitly calling for genocide. And I'm not seeing the White House policy push back against that in any meaningful way. I mean, we can give humanitarian support to Gaza small amounts.

But as long as we keep giving Israel the bombs that. creates the need for the humanitarian support. We're not doing anything meaningful. It's disgusting. And the one bright spot of this is that so many Americans, the vast majority of Americans, I mean, 80% of Democrats, but a majority of Americans want a ceasefire. And we need to continue to use our voices, continue to attend protests if you can, continue to go to Seasfire.com, I believe it is demand a ceasefire from your elected officials because at some point they're going to have to break and they're going to have to listen to the constituents that sent them there because our voices have been so loud throughout this. We just need to continue to raise the alarm and keep

the pressure on them. Yeah, I listen, the fact that only two people voted for this and one of them was Angie. Well, let me say this first, full disclosure. Angela and I are extremely close saying we've worked together on several campaigns. So I should have mentioned that before I start giving her praise. But she deserves it anyway. And this is not the first time she's been viral for standing up to her colleagues. The nasty part, I think Rihanna said it perfect. The nasty part is we, this whole country is comfortable with the idea that we should kill

all Palestinians. And whether we say it or not, our policies are supporting that. I mean, our president jumped on a plane and went to a war zone to hug Benjamin Netanyahu in the midst of it. And you want to add another tragedy to the numbers that you said, the 10 becomes 11,000, and majority of them are kids. Majority of them are kids. And I know innocent life is innocent life, but a child, a child, that many children have been murdered. And I think this idea that America sitting silent somehow cleans our hand, you know, we are absolutely dirty soiled by this incident that's happening right now.

This has nothing to do with the conflict between two governments. We're talking about civilian populations and not caring for them. When you bomb a refugees camp, when you bomb a hospital, when you bomb an ambulance, you can't tell me you're concerned with citizen life. Even if one Hamas person was in that refugees camp, what about all the other folk that are not? And I think America's tolerance for Palestinian pain may have reached the equality level with black people. And that's not a damn good place to be because America is extremely comfortable with the death of black bodies here.

Yeah, look, I'm glad, by the way, that you reminded us, Rivana of the polls, because sometimes, like, you have to try to remember that just because so many of the most powerful people in the world are utter bloodthirsty sociopaths, that doesn't mean that most regular people are. I mean, most regular people, unfortunately, thanks to American media and American education, are way to predisposed to a variety of different forms of hate. But you're right, people do want this. ceasefire. People around the world want this ceasefire. And most countries have voted in the UN in favor of

that. Unfortunately here, that's considered a really risky thing to push for. Unacceptable. You can come up with some other way of saying it that's a little bit lighter that skirts around the issue or something. But there are just way too many people in positions of power that are very comfortable with far more deaths. I cannot imagine having been a person with some influence and sitting through the utterly devastating initial attacks and then weeks and weeks of bombings and an ever-mounting death toll and thinking what we need now is more blood. But for some reason, there's something about accruing power and money that makes that seem utterly natural. By the way, just a slight it's ceasefire now.org, but people should definitely check it out and hopefully put some

pressure. There are those that are trying to do that. They are generally- Sorry, Seasifier today. com as well, both of them. Oh, there you go. Yes. I want to read just a couple of comments from Representative Nixon, who tweeted waking up and all the emotions that are hitting me from yesterday. Florida Republican legislators literally calling for the death of innocent people on the House floor, some of my Democratic colleagues in full agreement with them.

Well, look, we don't know if they want the debts, but they don't want the ceasefire because they voted against it, not just the Republicans, the vast majority of Democrats. Another of my Democratic colleagues stated they were more concerned about 80% of their fundraising drying up if they were forced to address the humanizing of Palestinian lives. Randy Fine called me evil and whipped the Republican caucus to stand up and turn their backs on me. I have never witnessed so much hate in real life in real time as I did on yesterday. Republicans and Democrats working together to ostracize someone simply asking for them to see the humanity in innocent human lives. And it's devastating that Representative Nixon

had to go through that. She's not alone in that. I mean, the fact that our government, our federal government, which can't get anything done these days, can come together to censure Representative Rashida Talib. Why wouldn't that be a part of this story, considering our government in 2023? Why wouldn't we have expected that to happen? But anyway, look, technically, as one more update, and I'll give you guys a chance to jump in, the Secretary of State earlier today did say far too many Palestinians have been killed, far too many have suffered these past weeks. We want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them. To that end, we'll be continuing to discuss with Israel the concrete steps to be taken to

advance these objectives. Here's the thing, though, words have meanings. So when you say, we want to do everything possible to prevent harm, what that should mean isn't, we want to do like a little bit of talking, and that's it. And literally nothing else. We want to pretend that we have No tools in our toolbox to exert influence, to use leverage. We've got nothing. We can dispatch Blinken to say something that sounds kind of nice. And he's only doing that because they see the polls, particularly amongst younger Americans that find Biden's position,

the Biden administration's position to be reprehensible. So, I mean, that is just like, yeah, the words are good, but they mean almost nothing coming out of Anthony Blinken right now. What do you guys think? Listen, I think you're spot on. Here's a tragedy of it. I think, you know, to say that we'll continue to talk with Israel is trash to me. Stop sending money to Israel, to they stop bombing people. There you go. I bet you, I bet you Netanyahu will listen immediately. New word for y'all. Immediately.

If we stop bombing people, and I say we because America has a hand in it, this is our resources spent to bomb innocent people without a strategy other than make Gaza up a parking lot. That is the Death of all in that space. You can't think that you have a strategy to clean out, to be precise and use precision on this day when we celebrate veterans who sacrifice so much. You hear veterans screaming, this is not what it is. This ain't the look. This is a bad look for America and our claim to be the defender of democracy all over this world. Absolutely.

And just to add on a little bit to that, you know, Israel is essentially a client state of the United States. It is able to operate because of the money that it receives in the United States, because of the military support that it receives from the United States, but also because, as I mentioned earlier, the rhetorical support that it receives from the United States. The defense it receives from the United States, you know, within the UN, the political power there, but also the way that they portray the actions that are happening to the media. Joe Biden could right now end this. He could call in Netanyahu and say, all right, this is enough. You're done. He's done it before. He did it in 2021 during the last major siege on Gaza. He can do this. So every time you read leaks, supposed leaks coming from the Biden administration saying that they are anxious because they feel like they can't control Netanyahu. Just know that it is a lie to cover Biden's ass.

If he wanted to stop this, he could stop this. And that's his State Department that is claiming they care about the lives of Palestinians. Again, it's just words as they see this continuing campaign of pressure being put on them by activists demanding a ceasefire to try to obfuscate the responsibility and the very real role that he and his administration is playing and carrying out this genocide. Yeah. And by the way, that that should be enough reason for people to support this, but also bear in mind that that sort of ceasefire would at least open up the possibility that some of the The new BEMO

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have been put across are trustworthy but at least it's a possibility and and that right now is is simply unattainable and the continued bombing also puts those hostages at risk so there's a lot of civilian lives on the line and and I just want to remind people because I'm I'm so glad that a lot of people in America, you know, have really stayed tuned in and caring about this topic. We are not a country. We are not a people that often thinks much about foreign policy. And I, and I'm glad especially that people care so much about civilian deaths. I think that that should be centered in our talks about foreign policy far more. But I want to remind people that like there is a long tradition of Americans not giving a damn about civilian deaths until way

too long. I mean, this is utterly devastating. But how many years of civilian deaths in Syria because of our bombing in Iraq? In Yemen, with the military aid and the weapons that we, like, perfectly comfortable for years going by. And mostly because the media doesn't talk about, I understand that a lot of its apathy and ignorance, like the one standout, I guess, is a little bit with Israel and Ukraine. And then that's about it. For the most part, Americans way too willing to let a lot of civilian casualties just go ignored. I hope coming out of this, like coming out of the Iraq war, people, you know, maybe we're a little bit more questioning of wars in general, that we just try to center saving as many civilian lives as possible in future conversations,

but that remains to be seen. Okay, let's jump into one more, no, yeah, okay, we're going to take our second break. But when we come back, lots of more interesting news to talk about. Don't worry about that. We'll be right back. Welcome, one and all. We just had our social break, and I came out of it thinking, and I honestly don't know, but I kind of do. Do you think the person that called for every single Palestinian man, woman, and child to die classifies themselves as pro-life? What do you think? I think they might.

Anyway, with that said, we've got more news to talk about about government dysfunction, but this time at the federal level, so let's jump into that. Did you know that the government could shut down again? Didn't they just deal with that? Well, they should be dealing with it because we've got about a week, and House Republicans still have not come up with a viable plan to pass a funding bill. And there's a number of different things that have been styming efforts to fund the government, Some of them, perhaps not surprising. Others certainly stand out to me. So let's see, we've got

a tug of war over how deeply to cut spending. Okay, they're always going to fight about stuff like that. And whether to wade into controversial debates like a person's right to use birth control without losing their job. That's a thing. This is not like the Wyoming State Legislature that's arguing about this. House Republicans are potentially going to shut down the government because they think you should be able to be fired if you take birth control. If you were wondering if Republicans have learned much from the last few elections in terms of their views on reproductive rights, no. Anyway, over the past two days, the House has attempted to vote on one of 12 different annual funding bills. We had the financial services bill, and that bill funds the judiciary branch, the Treasury Department, and the IRS.

So that didn't work. I'm sure big cuts will be coming to most of those. But that's considered among the least controversial of the ones that they are looking into. So as I alluded to, they had this one about whether you should be able to be fired for using birth control. So one of the ones is coming up, language would block a district of Columbia law that prevents employers from discriminating against workers who seek contraception of family planning services. Now, the good news is that there are Republicans who don't think that that should be overturned. So New York Republican Representative Mark Molanaro said he would oppose the bill if it can take. to block that DC protective policy and estimates that about eight GOP lawmakers side with them, saying, I think there's an understanding that we feel strongly about it. So it is good that there are at least some Republicans on that side.

But nine, there are hundreds of Republicans in the House. And only nine apparently think that you should not be able to be fired for taking the pill. I mean, I thought perhaps we dodged a really crazy Republican house when Jim Jordan didn't get in charge. But no, the crazies are still there. Monda, I want to start with you. What do you think about the current dysfunction in the house? I mean, listen, I don't understand how we don't think this is normal now. I mean, this is the nature of Republican. Find the least popular issue and die on it.

Like, just stay with it and keep losing elections. Don't matter because you can gerrymander entire states. into one Republican district. That's what I think that's their plan. It has to be their plan because there's no way in hell. You can keep going out the contraception and women's right to choose and keep losing in the manner you're losing. I mean, we see Democrats winning in spaces.

We shouldn't be winning. We just saw a conservative sheriff talking about contraceptive in Georgia lose in a district that Trump won by plus 30. So I don't know what their plan is other than to, you know, cheat gerrymandered districts in Mississippi. they ran out of ballots. They keep the ballots low. I think they're trying to anything except for convinced voters that they got any damn common sense. Yeah, absolutely. And it's so funny to see this happening. Like just days after it, they lost massively in elections on Tuesday because of

their stances on abortion. We covered a story a couple months ago about how now Republicans and senators in closed door meetings were talking about how they need to use the messaging that they support the same protections that were granted under Roe and somehow try to spin that as pro-life. But here they are. They, and I'll just end with this. It's amazing to see this Republican Party that for most of my life was very cohesive, you know, to our detriment as the American people, but very cohesive. They voted in lockstep. There was, you know, some ideological difference between, you know, members of the party. But when it came to voting, They had their ducks in a row. They were all on the same page. And now in just a few years,

we've seen this party descended to utter chaos. And they are just, I think Lindsey Graham described it while the speaker fiasco is happening, that they've shot themselves in the foot. And I mean, of course Donald Trump played no small part in allowing this to happen. And I'm here for it. I love it. Yeah, just like I've often thought, There's nothing that they love more than power, and that might be true, but it's possible that they hate people who can get pregnant more than they love power. Like, it might be that they're willing. Like, you know, if you follow all of the independent right-wing commentators, they were all

coming out of those elections this week saying, no, we need to double down. We need to do even more. It's a great strategy. I mean, they failed for like 60 years to convince people of their position. Why shouldn't they try for another 60? Anyway, we'll see if the government ends up getting funding. That will be probably the most important early test of the new speaker. Will there actually be a functioning government?

We at least had that under the previous one. We'll have to see. AOC and Marjorie Green do not often team up on anything for obvious reasons, but this week they actually have. They've joined with 14 other representatives and senators to pressure the Biden administration to drop their extradition attempts against the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange. If you're not familiar with this story, Assange was arrested back in 2019 in the U.K. on a U.S. warrant and has been fighting for years now in British court to try and avoid being extradited to the U.S. to face charges. currently being held in Belmarsh Prison in London, facing a number of charges, including under the Espionage Act, charges that were he to be convicted of all of them, would face 175 years in prison. Those charges are originally in connection with the publication of hundreds

of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, as well as diplomatic cables back in 2010 and 2011. It has been many, many years since that happened, but the attempts to bring him back to the United States continue to this day. But we do have that bipartisan group of representatives and senators trying to change that. And I want to give you just a little bit of excerpts of the letter that they sent to Joe Biden, saying as members of Congress, deeply committed to the principles of free speech and freedom of the press, we write to strongly encourage your administration to withdraw the US extradition request, currently pending against Australian publisher Julian Assange and halt. All prosecutorial proceedings against him as soon as possible.

I want to put up a list of the names. Many of them seem to naturally go together, members of the squad and everything. But you do have Marjorie Green and Senator Rand Paul. Paul Gosar as well. So I don't expect to ever see this list of people working together in the future. I don't really want to. But at least in this, it's good to try, to try to get Biden or Trump or any other president, because they all agree on this, to back off of this and just let the guy live out.

the rest of his life, which particularly thanks to the mental and physical strain from this whole ordeal, probably isn't going to be that much longer. But they're at least trying. What do you guys think? I'm so flabbergastic by the Julian Assange situation. All of it, you know, I feel like we have whistleblower rules for a reason. And I feel like the idea that we're chasing him for those reasons, I kind of downplayed something that's extremely important to me. And those are the other charges that were brought against him of people not given their consent. As a person who was raped as a child, I definitely feel extremely irritated by the fact that we don't talk about that as part of his legacy at all. And as it pertains to his extradition, Americans government is going to American government.

I mean, when you're embarrassed and when you throw egg on their face, whistleblower or not, they're going to come for you. I was going to sit this one now, John. Yeah, well, really fast. I'm glad that you added that context. So the reason I didn't mention that is that I don't believe that that has anything to do with why Biden or other former U.S. presidents are trying to bring him back. But yes, that is certainly not to discount any of the claims, either legal or behavioral against him.

The position I have in terms of trying to stop him from locking him up over the publishing the documents has nothing to do with me liking him as a human or anything like that. It's just a principle, but you're 100% right that there is a lot of other contexts that certainly could cause people to have an issue with him. Right. Ravano, what were you thinking? Yeah, absolutely. That is an important context, right?

But just to talk about the prosecution under the Espionage Act, which was never intended to stretch as far as to, you know, cover journalists as well, although I have a lot of issues with what it was created to cover. In the first place, that aside, I'll say, whenever I hear about bipartisan support for something in Congress, often it is the most heinous piece of pro-corporate legislation that you could possibly imagine. So when I saw this headline, it really made me happy to see what they were actually coming together to support. Because anyone who cares about protecting the First Amendment should want to end this extradition of Julian Assange. They are prosecuting him for

for doing journalism. That's, it's as simple as that. That's what this is about. And if you want to protect freedom of speech and freedom of the press in this country, then you need to support ending this extradition of Julian Assange, period. Yeah, I mean, John, do you mind if I jump in real quick? I mean, I think that's, and these are valid points. I mean, the United States government didn't give Julian Assange a top secret security clearance, right?

But his order and also his commitment was to journalism. And in that space, I understand the ridiculous behind this. I think you're right, politics make strange badfellas. And this is probably the only time I'm ever going to say this. I agree that Roger Taylor Green got this right. And I almost said something. I shouldn't say it on this TV. But yes, yes and yes.

But like I said, I think Julian Assange is a complicated individual. for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting. Occasionally, Marjorie Representative Green will seem to be on the right side of something. Like she has spoken out against solitary confinement, for instance. But then nothing actually, she doesn't do anything to actually stop it. And it's so clear how politically motivated it is sometimes. She'll say that, but it's clear that she only cares about it for people who are locked up over crimes committed on January 6th. Whereas this actually opens up a window where you could get something done. You could work with every one of the other people that signed that letter, at least all the members of the squad,

to do something about solid hard confinement, but don't. At least in this case, to the extent that they can do anything, and that extent is limited, she signed the letter. So that's good. I guess it is living, you know, by her principles. I don't have a lot of, I don't have a lot of hope that Joe Biden or, you know, whoever is president next, whether it's Joe Biden or Trump is going to change their position. But I guess they're doing what they can as representatives. Any of thoughts for a move on? I think the baby's made you soft. You see Obama-style hope, my friend. I don't know about that. I'm too tired to feel doomed, maybe. Maybe that's how I would put it. I don't know. No, don't worry. As we get revved up for this next election, I'm certainly feeling

quite a bit of anxiety over Joe Biden's performance and what's going to happen. Congressman Dean Phillips, who is in a primary challenge against Joe Biden, trying to be the Democratic nominee for the presidency in 2024, is now apologizing to Bernie Sanders for not taking his claims about the Democratic primary process seriously back in 2016, particularly about the rigging of the Democratic primary primary. elections. He tweeted, I have to make an apology to Bernie Sanders. I had long dismissed his complaints about the rigged Democratic Party primary system, but you know what? He was right. And I apologize, Bernie. Voter suppression in New Hampshire, candidate suppression, ballot access, and debate suppression. None. I think, meaning that there will not be debates, not that there's no suppression. If you're among the majority of Democrats who want change, please visit dean24.com and help us create the change. Why is his website with his

first name. That makes it seem as if it's Howard Dean that's running. Anyway, small thing. So he is arguing that because they're not having the debates, that's an attempt to protect Joe Biden, and he is right. And he and other challenges are also having a difficult time getting access to their state ballots. It's one of the topics I'm going to be speaking about with candidate Jank Uger on Monday on my show. So what does Bernie think about this? Very belated apology? Well, asked if he agrees, oh, sorry, this was from this was back from 2016, the election by Philip Rucker saying, asked if he agrees with O'Malley calling DNC process rigged, Bernie Sanders says, I do. So that's a reference to how

this got in the news in the first place. But Bernie said he's changed his views now that he's a candidate. I'm not getting involved in this. So yeah, from the point of view of Bernie, I mean, set aside for a second the fact that he's supporting Joe Biden for the presidency, Why is he going to accept an apology from a guy two elections after it has any chance of affecting Bernie Sanders' political fortune? Rayvano, what do you think? Bernie Sanders said no fake friends. He said no fake friends and he brushed him off. I will say the Howard Dean comment you made did bring me back to a simpler time in American politics where we could just take a moment to enjoy the Howard Dean scream.

And instead, now we are all, in fact, doing the Howard Dean scream. Maybe Howard Dean with his organized all 50 states and also screaming was trying to tell us what the future was going to be for us. Listen, I am I am a person whose political career in part a great deal. 33% of my life, my adult life was at Democracy for America, which was the dean for America's campaign. So I absolutely think the reason he's using his first name is that reason, because why wouldn't you? Right? Because why wouldn't you? Also, listen, I hate, I'm with Bernie Sanders on this.

I have no time for fake friends, especially Democrats who pretend and will slaughter you when you're criticizing something that's benefiting them and now speak out when it's, you know, adversary towards them. I'm not thrilled with this. I think it's tacky. Your song like, What Was Me? When the whole system has been rigged for a long time to exclude progressives, which could have done a lot of good for not just our. party, the country in general could have benefited so much from what could have happened if we had open primary. So I'm glad he's feeling what Bernie felt a while ago. Yeah, yeah, just way, way, way, way too late. It is very easy to change your position when something happens directly to

you. But like, I don't know, I think wisdom is being able to do it when you see it happening to other people, including people you don't necessarily agree with. Anyway, I agree with them on the debates. And I do think that there's some weird stuff going on with ballot access. Let me also just throw out one last comment. And I know this probably everyone's going to disagree with me. I've never liked the term rigged. Not that there isn't truth to it. I think as I'm saying right now, I do think that there are tons of things that are done that shouldn't be done that manipulate the outcome of elections. But for me, rigged always feels too simplistic. Because every election is going to have these influences and they're not always going to look the same. Whereas

rigged is just, I think it leads to apathy. It makes it seem as if it's impossible to win rather than that these things are being manipulated in a variety of ways that perhaps can be countered. So anyway, I know that I have the outside position on that, but I've always felt weird about that term. I think it's thrown about too loosely. Now obviously in 2016, there was a lot of shenanigans going on. I think in this election very much. But I think Like 2020, I think, had significantly less of that. It had, you know, contested debates, lots of them. There was certainly a window for someone like Bernie Sanders. It seemed for a while that he was going to win. He won the early races. So anyway, a lot more needs to be done to reform these primaries. Hopefully going forward, Dean Phillips will be an ally on that.

As of right now, though, and I'll give you guys a chance to win one more time, new poll shows Phillips receiving 6% support among Democrats and those leaning Democrat. And Williamson is at 8% and Joe Biden's at 77%. So it is still, you know, it is very weighted towards Joe Biden, perhaps more even than it was at an earlier phase in this thing. But anything else you guys want to say about the Democratic primary? I was just going to say that there was some Democrats who acted very bravely in 2016 when they stood on the right side of history and defended Bernie Sanders from the DNC corruption that resulted, you know, ultimately, I'm sorry,

resulted in Donald Trump being the president of the United States, you know, for a myriad of reasons. And they had a lot to lose. And a lot of Democrats did lose, you know, jobs, you know, favor with the party because they were brave. And here we have Dean Philip stealing valor from Howard Dean. And because he is on the, it feels like he's on the receiving end of the same type of corruption.

and has everything to gain for calling it out is now calling it out. And I mean, I joked earlier that Bernie said no fake friends. But that is exactly what it is. He only cares because it's personally affecting him. And I will just end by saying, God, what I wouldn't give to be back on that day that Bernie Sanders won the Las Vegas primary haven't felt that good ever since. That was a good feeling. Yeah, I think it's always good to step up and step back.

And because I step back, Ray said what I was going to say in a better way. Then I'll end this by saying, as we've all now acknowledged, because I have my daughter now, I'm soft. So it's possible that like Phillips 2024 was taken. I don't know. And maybe this apology to Bernie Sanders is the prelude to working hard to open up this process. I don't know. Dean Phillips is not a candidate that I have followed closely. Don't know the positions, but I'm interested to see. But anyway, for right now, no fake friends. Anyway, with that said, that's all the time I have for the first hour.

I want to thank both of you for joining me, Ravanna, Mondale. Where can people catch your work, starting with you, Ravanna? Yeah, you can catch my work at RumbleHQ. You can see my videos. I got a new one up today about Laura Ingram embarrassing herself and having to do a very embarrassing correction live on air. And you can always follow me on Twitter at Ravanna TTV for updates on what's going on. fundraiser. I'm going to be holding for my birthday to raise money for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. So for updates on that code on my Twitter. That's awesome. And Mondale?

Yeah, I'm Mundell Robinson everywhere and you could catch me on Robby, H-QA as well. Awesome. Okay, everybody can catch me on Monday on the damage report where I will be joined by Candidate Jank Yure. So it's very exciting. Hope to see many of you there. For now, though, we're going to take a short break. We come back. Ben Glebe is going to be taking over, joined by Jenk as well as Mark Thompson. It should be an awesome hour. You're not going to want to miss it. We'll see you soon. 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.