The Young Turks - NYT Conspiracy Theory, Bolton vs ICC and Les Moonves Update

Episode Date: September 11, 2018

Candace Owens NYT conspiracy theory; Bolton to label ICC "illegitimate"; CBS chief Les Moonves resigns over sexual assault claims. http://tyt.com/JOIN  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, well, it's a Monday, Jake Uger, Anna Kasperi, we've got a ton of show for you guys. So it's, you've got the chaos in the Trump White House. Everybody knows about that. But you also, but you don't know the details. Some of the details in the Woodward book are amazing.

We're going to get that in a minute. But also, we've got some stories that I think are really important culturally. Les MoonVos story, Serena Williams story, lots of strong opinions. And it's fascinating how people in the Serena Williams case come out of from such a different perspectives. Right, absolutely. But I've got really good news for you guys. I'm going to adjudicate it all.

Okay? And I will solve it. I already have rulings on a number of fronts. I only think there's one open question left. What's that? Okay, am I not merciful that I have left an open question? Okay, well, we'll talk about it when we get to the story. Oh, okay.

Are you feeling sassy because of your new haircut? Ah, ha ha ha ha. Did you dye your hair again? No. Oh, okay. What? No, no, I don't know. I thought we were doing strikebacks.

I don't know. No, you got a new haircut. It looks great. Geez. I'm kidding. Thank you. Not in all seriousness, but Anna and I were talking about how my hair looked better short in some of those teasers and clips that we have for you guys if you watch the show live.

And so I was like, you know, I went to get a haircut. We'll talk more about it than post game. Okay, and I was like, let's make it a little shorter. So that's what happened. Anyways, speaking of things that happened after the show today, Rebel Headquarters, Cynthia Nixon is going to be on, hosted. by the legendary Anna Casparian. Okay, so at Great Rebel Headquarters tonight, don't miss it.

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Jane Jr. over here. No, but that's the thing. I'm not one of these people who's like, oh, everything I do is great. No, no, but it was, and by the way, that show is not done by me on my own. Like, that show, you know, Brett Ehrlich is helping me, Dan Evans is helping me, they're my producers, and it was so good this week. So check it out. Did you just let an Oscar or something? Why are you, you want to thank your agent?

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Okay, super last thing, guys. We've got to do the stories, but have you noticed John plugging the damage report podcast? And he's getting his ratings way up? He's jealous. Oh, God, I don't know. He is. Stop, Jank. Jank likes to exploit my competitive nature, and it's working.

Don't do it. I don't know. Maybe you should rate no filters podcast as well. Give it a good five-star ratings. Five-star. If you don't like it, don't rate it at all. Just move along. Okay, that's where John and Anna disagrees.

He says, ah, screw it, just rate mine even if you don't like it. Oh, yeah, you can rate his if you don't like it. There you go. Okay, we're having fun. All right, guys, we've got a lot of show ahead. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

What's next? Oh, by the way, I forgot, sorry, sorry, sorry. I forgot to tell you guys. I told you, hey, this is how you get all of our shows, except I didn't tell you how. I know most of you know it. But in case you don't, t.com slash join is how you become a member, and that's how you can get all of our shows, including Rebel headquarters tonight with Anna and Cynthia Nixon. Okay, what's next?

All right. Bob Woodward's book is going to be available for public purchase this week. And over the weekend, he did his round of interviews with major news shows. There were a number of comments that he made about or elaborations he made about portions of his book that have already made news that I think are important to kind of discuss on the show today. So let's go to the first video where Woodward talks specifically about Trump officials taking documents off his desk so Trump doesn't carry out.

disastrous policies. People who work for him are worried that he will sign things or give orders that threaten the national security or the financial security of the country or the world. Aides, including then chief economic advisor Gary Cohn and White House staff secretary, Rob Porter, literally stole documents like this one off the president's desk in the Oval Office. So he wouldn't sign them because they realized that this would endanger the country. How do they get away with that? He doesn't remember if it's not on his desk, if it's not immediately available for action.

It goes away. So the statement that he made about Trump forgetting was the relevant statement that I think a lot of people had questions about how could the president, you know, demand sort of certain things and then not actually carry it out simply because someone took a paper off his desk or documents off his desk. And as Woodward says there, he just forgets. Yeah, I mean, he's saying it politely. It's exactly what we told you on day one of this story.

He's too stupid to realize and too incompetent to realize that they didn't execute his orders. So saying he doesn't remember, what does that mean? Does he have dementia? I guess that would be worse in a sense. But if he doesn't have dementia, when you tell people that work for you to do something and they don't do it and you don't notice, it's because you're incompetent. Now, look, and let me be fair, because running a large organization is not easy. So if it was a small thing, well, if you're president of the United States, you can get lost in the weeds. If it was something that's lower in the chain of command and you didn't hear about it, understandable.

So I'm not trying to be unfair here. And it's a giant organization in the White House and the executive branch. But one of the orders he asked for was to kill Bashar al-Assad, the head of the Syrian government. That's not a thing you easily forget. It's not a thing down the chain of command. No, and the defense secretary told you, yes, sir, we'll carry it out right away. And Assad remains completely unkilled. And so that's saying that you forgot that is saying either, yes.

you have clearly have dementia, or you're just such an idiot that anybody can tell you, oh, yes, yes, sir, of course, sir. And then you don't notice and you forget because you have no mind at all. That's the thing. The debate is whether he lost his mind or never had a mind to lose in the first place. Right. So, you know, you hear all these debates throughout the press regarding how, why Trump reacted the way he did, which was no reaction at all, when members of his own administration didn't carry

out tasks that he told them to carry out. And so one of the debates was, or one of the people in these debates argued, well, you know, people know that Trump is a hyperbolic kind of guy. He says things he doesn't mean, which is the reason why, you know, he hasn't been angry that these things haven't been carried out. But I genuinely believe from the get-go that he just forgets because he's incompetent. And Woodward, based on the hundreds of interviews that he did, has, you know, reinforced that.

He has no, as the op-ed writer from inside his administration said, he has no guiding principles. So it's easy, like, he's like, well, I wanted you to kill Assad today, but tomorrow I changed my mind. So what difference does it make? Just, and as almost every person involved says, you just wait for him to change his mind. So just ignore his orders until either he forgets or changes all of his principles the very next day. So this is the other part of it, too. There's all those possibilities. but then as a guy who's never had to deal with any consequences in his life for destroying things

and leaving a wake of devastation behind him, if they kill a side or if they don't kill aside, it doesn't matter because he doesn't know the consequences of doing either one. So if it happens, he's like, great, I told him to do that, cool. And if it doesn't happen, like, oh, great, I told him to do it, but okay, I'm on to the next thing. He doesn't think things through enough for it to think, oh, it didn't get done. I wouldn't stop dead because into next sentence. That next sentence doesn't exist. He's never had to deal with his consequence in his life.

If you bankrupt a company, you know, you're going to never forget that. And you're never going to go around telling everybody, I'm the best businessman in the world. Yeah. I've never done anything wrong. But normal people will think that. But if you've bankrupt several and you keep moving on and they keep giving you another chance, why would you? That's such a good point.

Yeah, see, out of all those excellent points JR just made, to me, the most important one is the next sentence point, right? We kill Assad and then, so I would think. through, okay, how is Russia going to react? Because Russia is allies with Assad. What is Iran going to do in response? Another ally of Assad's. Are they, is Hezbollah going to take action because Iran gives them orders to? Will that affect Israel? These are all the rational calculations you should make if you're a president of the United States. But for him, he doesn't understand the consequences of his actions. So he never thinks through the second, let alone the third to the fourth sentence. So when none of those actions flow, if I had made an order like that,

I'd go, but what happened? Did Hezbollah attack? Is our relationship with Russia okay? But since he has no mind at all and doesn't understand consequences, he said it and he just doesn't even notice it didn't happen. Come on, guys. It's the most obvious thing in the world. I don't care how much of a Trump fan you are. You know that ordering Assad's killing and then not having it carried out and you don't notice is a sign of an incredibly stupid person. He's just the affluenza candidate, you know, or president. He just, you know, doesn't understand the consequences of his action, so he behaves a certain way.

All right, so that was, you know, just a small snippet of the interview with CBS. Woodward also talked about how the Pentagon first realized that Twitter could lead to World War III. Take a look. He drafts a tweet saying we were going to pull out dependence from South Korea, family members of the 28,000 people there. That tweet was never sent because of a back channel message from North Korea that it would regard a pull out of dependence as a sign the U.S. was preparing to attack.

At that moment, there was a sense of profound alarm in the Pentagon leadership that, my God, one tweet, and we have reliable information that the North Koreans are going to read this as an attack is imminent. So a couple of things there, Anna. One is, I'm surprised, is the biggest surprise to me out of all this, is that anyone checks his tweets before they're sent. So I didn't know that happened. Now, maybe for special foreign policy tweets, they actually bothered to check them.

Okay, but this is an excellent example onto the more serious point of the man who has no understanding of consequences. Well, I'm going to say that I'm going to pull those guys out. Wait, wait, wait, wait, there might be consequences of that. How will the North Koreans react? What? What's consequences? I have influenza.

They never had any cause. So he went bankrupt six times. They were bailed out by mainly two people. One was his daddy over and over again. By the way, this is all facts. You could read into it. They had to pay fines for his dad getting him money in ways that were not legal. And they had to admit it and pay fines for that, including just going and buying chips at

his casino and then never using them. So all this illegal way of funneling Trump money because he's an idiot. And his daddy bailed him out all those times. Of course, the second daddy is Vladimir Putin. After he couldn't get a loan from anyone else, he wound up getting loans from Russian banks controlled by the oligarchs. So here's a guy who doesn't understand that, hey, I might accidentally start a war because that would require you to have a second thought in your head.

And so one more thing about that, at a different point in the interview, Woodward said, let's hope to God we don't have a crisis. Now, when I read that by itself, I didn't quite understand what I mean like crisis in the White House, we already have a crisis. No, when I read it in context and saw it in context, I understood what meant, if we have something like the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the president has to be sanctioned, cogent, and make him world-changing decisions on the spot, oh, God help us all. God help the whole world.

Nobody knows what he's going to do. Even Trump doesn't know what he's going to do because he's erratic. He has no guiding principles, and he has no mind to speak of, and doesn't understand the consequences of his actions. So, yet we're playing with fire every minute that he's the president. If there is a world-changing crisis, by the way, he might accidentally do the right thing, but brace for impact. Exactly.

Because he has no idea what he's going to do. That's the issue, that it's a wild card, that you don't know what you're going to get with Trump. And every once in a while, even for us, he'll say something that sounds promising, and then he'll immediately backtrack and do something disastrous. And it's because he doesn't have any guiding principles, you're right, Jank. And when I think about him, I often think about George Bush, not because I think that they're very similar, but I remember when he came to George Bush, one of the biggest criticisms was that he had this unearned confidence.

But now when you have Trump in office and you see his behavior, that's unearned confidence. The guy has absolutely no intellectual curiosity, doesn't have a real understanding of policy, both domestic or foreign, which is why he's, you know, treating the trade deals like a child. doesn't know or care about the consequences of the trades, the trade policies that he's putting out there. But more importantly, he's unwilling to listen to other people around him and get advice from them. He wants to carry out actions unilaterally. Whereas Bush, for as horrible as he was, I mean, he was overly manipulated by outsiders or insiders within his administration. With Trump, he just wants to go at it because he thinks he's the best, he thinks he's the brightest,

he thinks he's always right. We had a poll early on in his administration, who was down or George Bush or Donald Trump, because don't get romantic about George Bush, a very low IQ individual. But Bush clearly wins on being smarter because at least he has enough self-awareness and intellect to understand how stupid he is. That's why he would ask it to a fault, ask people around him. Hey, Dick Cheney, what should I do? Invade Iraq? Okay, fine, right?

Donald Trump doesn't even have the capacity to understand how maniacally stupid he is. Right. So to give you an example. I actually have an example for you. Can I go to this example first because it's somewhat newsworthy? So Trump is freaking out over the Woodward book. It's obvious based on the number of tweets he's put out in regard to it. And so here's the tweet that stood out to me.

He said, the Woodward book is a joke, just another assault against me in a barrage of assaults using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources. Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them like the book are fiction. Dems can't stand losing, I'll write the real book. No, you won't. No, you won't. He's not going to write a book. He's not capable of writing.

Maybe someone can ghost write a book for him. But it gives you a sense of how much unearned confidence he has. He can't even craft a single tweet without making a mistake in it. But he's going to write a book. So he's got a number of books out. They were all ghost written. Of course he doesn't have the intellectual capacity to write a book, not even close. In fact, almost all of his ghost writers have not.

now come out and said, God help us all. Whatever you do, you got to get him out. I spent time with him. Total idiot. Couldn't write a sentence, let alone a book, but forget that. A lot of, they go right for a lot of people. They're like, no, no, no. If you're in the room with him, you understand he's in danger to everyone.

Because he's a guy with no conscience, no intellect, and doesn't realize either. So the analogy I was going to use, or a metaphor I was going to use is, Ann Richards once said about George W. Bush that he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. Donald Trump was born on third base and thought he kicked a field goal. Okay, that's the difference. They're two different sports. Yeah, you got it.

You got it. She doesn't know much about sports, but at least she knows that. All right, so I want to get to the final part of this interview that stood out to me personally. So, Gary Cohn, Gary Cohn and Trump had a bit of a tumultuous relationship, and a lot of it had to do with Trump's reaction to the Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Take a look. When Economic Advisor Cohn was upset over the president's reluctance to condemn white supremacist for the violence in Charlottesville, he went into the Oval Office to resign.

Trump said, you can't resign, I need you to do tax reform. And he said, if you leave, this is treason. And Trump talked him out of resigning. Afterwards, Chief of Staff John Kelly, who had been in the room, pulled him aside. Cohen wrote this down. Quote from General Kelly, if that was me, I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his six different times, end quote. Yeah, I can't stand that quote from John Kelly. So our job here is to keep it real and tell you the truth, no matter how it cuts.

So I should be applauding that, saying, oh, okay, you see that this is an example of Donald Trump being an idiot, et cetera. But John Kelly, what do you mean you would have done the resignation letter and shoved it up his ass? You are still as chief of staff. You could resign too. I mean, Gary Cohn is Jewish, and so he is particularly mad, according to this story, because they were chanting, the Jews will not replace us, blood and sorrow, these are Nazi chants. In Charlottesville and Donald Trump said there's good people on that side, on the Nazi side. But John Kelly, you don't have to be Jewish to be outraged by that.

I'm not Jewish, and I'm livid over it. So you had a chance to resign six times over, you didn't, and on that issue and a hundred other issues, and you never took that chance. So please spare me your crocodile tears. Yeah, you're right. I mean, John Kelly, on multiple occasions, has expressed how much he dislikes working in the Trump administration, but he has never actually taken the step of resigning, of, you know, saying, no, you know what, I can't stand for what's going on here.

So it's, look, I think it's far more courageous to stand up to Trump and actually speak against his policies and what he's been doing, his behavior. But Kelly hasn't done it. All you hear are leaks. All you see are anonymous op-eds. There's a lot of cowardice that's coming out of the White House right now. And by the way, these leaks are partly because of that cowardice. So John Kelly could resign, he could say things publicly, he's choosing not to, instead

he's doing leaks. Gary Cohn eventually did resign, but only after he got the tax cut for the rich. So Charlottesville didn't do it for him. Oh, you wanna say that there are good Nazis chanting the Jews will not replace us. But wait, let's do the tax cut for the rich first. So, you know, and Gary Cohn is the guy who took papers off his death so he wouldn't do a disastrous trade deal. All of this is not positioning for, hey, no, no, no, I was a good guy inside the Trump administration.

Oh, I prevented more chaos. Oh, hey, but hey, I did this, I did that. No, no, no. You're the greedy guy who stayed there to get credit for the tax cuts that you got for your friends. So spare me your tears, Gary Cohn. You were complicit in all of this. Resigning after what you got what you wanted, which is that. tax cut for yourself and for your friends is not some sort of point of pride or profile and

courage. All right, well, Trump had to deal with a one-to-punch last week. First, there was News of the Woodward book, and then there was the anonymous op-ed, and there's more fallout following that publication. So let's get to that. Trump administration officials are lining up to deny, aggressively deny, that any of them had written the New York Times op-ed anonymously. That was, of course, the notorious op-ed that made Trump look like the incompetent fool

that he is. Now, Mike Pence over the weekend, claimed that he was willing to take a lie detector test to prove that he wasn't the person who wrote it. But one of the things that stood out to me was a conversation that took place on Fox. So Fox News has this panel, and Candace Owens is on the panel. They're discussing the New York Times op-ed. And what I love about the exchange that you're about to see is how Dana Perino

handled it. Take a look. There's the political appointee who wrote the op-ed-ed-ed-and-on. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement

or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. That's somebody who President Bush, after President Trump chose.

But do you think that's true, though? How do we know it's not because of the New York Times publishing that? Oh, no, no. Well, do you mean that the New York Times wrote it itself? How do we know? It's all I'm saying is, how do we know? I genuinely can't believe. No, really, it could be somebody at the deputy undersecretary of the such.

But we don't know. There is no transparency. There's no transparency whatsoever. It's anonymous. We're taking us at face value. presenting this as a positive populist measure. That was amazing. So Candace Owens is saying there's no transparency, so how do we know that the New York Times

didn't just write it themselves? Yeah. No, but so I blame Dana Perino and all the current Republicans for staying in the room that is filled with people who recently escaped from a insane asylum. So you see Dana Perino's reaction on there. Candice Owen says, how do we know the New York Times didn't just write it itself? That's a preposterous thing to say. So they would risk hundreds of years of their reputation on this one op-ed.

And how many people would risk their careers? They would all get fired. Anyway, it's beyond preposterous. And Dana Perino knows it. She goes, right? Like, she winces. But does she ever get up and walk out of the room? Of course not.

No. But here's the thing. This is the thing that drives me crazy. Back in 2016, Candice Owens had a blog. It no longer exists. But BuzzFeed did a great expose on this blog that she had where she made fun of Tea Party members said that she can't wait for them to die, right? Peacefully in their sleep, I hope. She said something like that.

She made fun of Trump incessantly, including making fun of his penis size. Now, the blog did, and she ran it, okay? So some of those pieces were written by different people, but she ran it. No, no, she ran it, okay? But the whole thing about Tea Party members, she wrote that, okay? She wrote that. So look, the reason why I'm bringing that up is because she's a paid show, right? She is paid specifically to go against the best interests of her own community and say all

of these lovely things about Trump. How did she go from despising Trump in 2016, despising the Tea Party? And then all of a sudden, oh, you know what, actually Trump is the greatest? Everyone loves Trump. Trump is so great for the black community. You think we're idiots? I mean, some portion of the country consists of idiots because they believe her, they believe that she's had this like weird out of nowhere moment where she's decided, oh, now I'm a

conservative. She's getting paid, turning point USA, she's getting paid by them to say the things that she says. The thing that frustrates me the most is that she'll get these segments, right? They'll invite her on to various shows to spew her nonsense that she doesn't actually believe. Look, if she genuinely believed the things that she was saying, that's one thing. But she's paid to say the things that she's saying. And so, and everyone seems to know it, but no one seems to care. Yeah, we'll have her on Fox. We'll have her on whatever show. Yeah. So look, guys, is she, did she consciously make a decision at some point in 2016? I'm going to sell out. I don't care. I just want to get paid. Yes, she did.

Okay, so that's Anna's theory. But you could have a hybrid of that possibility, where she does a video and goes, hey, maybe conservatives are right. And conservatives come in and start rewarding her. So they reward her in views, they reward her in revenue. And then somebody comes and says, hey, you know what, if you go around the country saying that, you can get paid a lot of money. She goes, yeah, yeah, I meant that. I did. Now, when she's on the left, she gets paid for nothing because nobody on the left pays for propaganda. I know that the right wing does projection and they think sorrows, funds everything, et cetera. No, trust me, no one on the left gets paid for a goddamn thing. You got to earn every single dollar. Absolutely. Look, no liberal organization or progressive

organization is going to pay a black woman to say progressive or liberal things, okay? But by the way, they wouldn't pay a white male evangelical to come out and go, the evangelicals are wrong in white males. That's preposterous. There's no one on the left ever does anything like that. But if you are a black woman who's going to say other blacks are wrong, other women are wrong, you're going to get a huge payday. And that's what happened to Candace Owens. So whether it started out slightly earnestly, but by the time she got those paychecks, she's like, oh yeah, that guy who I thought was a monster? He's awesome. He's the greatest and the great. Where's the paychecks keep coming, right? Okay, he's fantastic. The liberals that I was just a minute

ago, are the worst, they're the worst. And it's, okay, I, anybody can see how this is playing out. But to me, I know you're mad at Candace Owens. No, I'm not mad at Candace Owens. Candice Owens is part of a corrupt media, you know, ecosystem. And she's profiting from it, right? And by the way, I want to be clear about something. Are there black conservatives who are genuinely principled conservatives, of course, of course there are, right? Candice Owens does not fall under that category. I know. You know, you research her, you figure out what her past is, just listen to her try to back

up her conservative talking points. She can't do it. She doesn't even have the intellectual curiosity to look into it and figure out how to answer follow-up questions about her so-called conservative ideas. And what's amazing is that the conservatives don't care at all. They don't care. So they're like, oh, you don't know anything. Who cares?

Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, George W. Which, Candace owns. They're all maniacally stupid. And conservatives think, who cares? As long as they're parroting what we want them to parrot. Look, I'll give you an example of what Anna is talking about. Larry Elder. Now, Larry Elder is an African American conservative.

He's had guiding principles his whole life. I don't agree with those principles. I've had huge debates with him on air. But he actually believes those things. Now, he gets paid as a talk show host, but that's his job. There's nothing wrong with that. He had those principles all along. He didn't sell out to become a conservative.

He's, that's what he's been doing. And I could vehemently disagree with Larry, but nobody, I don't know anyone that thinks he's stupid. I don't know anyone who thinks he's doing it in a disingenuous way, et cetera. So you want to respect Larry Elder, even though I disagree? No problem, no problem. This, you know, Candace Hose comes along, goes, who's paying, who's paying, conservatives? Yeah, I'm in.

I don't know what I'm in for, but who cares? Did I do the research? Republicans don't believe in research. So, but to me, I'm more angry at the Dana Perinas of the world who just sit there and go, oh yeah, yeah, maybe the New York Times didn't make it up. And I'm sitting next to an insane person, but that's okay. Look, I know I'm a former Republican from a long, long time ago. And it was a long transition that people asked me about all the time.

Hey, I care about balancing budgets. Oh, it turns out Republicans never balanced budgets. You know, I care about not attacking a country that didn't attack us. That was George W. Bush's policy. W. pushes his son's policy was the exact opposite. These are interesting conversations. And I remember Ben Mankowitz telling me when we worked together in Miami now 20 years ago, he said, you're in the wrong room. Those guys, you have principled opposition to affirmative action because you think it hurts minorities. Everyone else in the room thinks, ah, the black people are getting too much.

And by the way, I remember being in rooms where people would literally say that. And I came the conclusion, I'm in the wrong room. So Dana Perino sits in that room, she knows she's in the wrong room, and she's just symbolic of all the other people, both in the media and in politics. You think they don't know Trump is mental? Of course they know. Of course they know. Dana Perino knows Trump is maniacally stupid and self-centered and a pathological liar, and all of them know it. But they're like, checks are still clearing, right? Still clearing? Yep, I'm staying in the room. And look, I mean, don't hate the player, hate the game, right? And, and, you know, it sounds cheesy to bring that up, but it's true. It's hard out there in the media world. And I know

firsthand, we know firsthand that you pay the consequences for not selling out and for being principled. But at the same time, I just want the audience to know. I want media consumers to know where they're getting their information from and whether or not the people who are talking to them genuinely believe the things that they're saying. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

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

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. 100%. All right. Let's take a break. Yeah, let's do it.

All right, we got a lot more yelling to do later on the program. Moomis is still left. I mean, his pay, his severance. What he's going to get paid to leave the company? It's unreal. All right, we'll tell you when we come back. All right, back on a Young Turks, only time for member comments here because there's a lot. Emily says, okay, Jank, your haircut is cute.

Aw. Thank you, Emily, and it's a small one. Thank you, though. Jake's back to choose and tweet. I know, right? Shush, Jay. Shush. Okay, Eclectic Michelania writes in, one of my favorite Jankism is when he excitedly says,

well, blah, blah, blah, at the beginning of the show. You see, I said it. I think on those days it means he's excited to do the show as the members are to watch it. Thank you guys. And we're reading the member comments, prioritizing them now. And that's on t-y-t.com slash live if you're watching the show live. Mermaidum says J.R. is spot on. Even if he did remember, he wouldn't know to be surprised that there was no negative outcome.

See that, J-R? Right after you throw me out of the bus. I read a positive one about you. Okay, but that's okay. This is all hiding the fact. You chose that one, too. Afterwards, right after you gave me the, yeah. All right.

Michelle says, why are so many, sorry, why are so few Americans not in a frothering rage or the political corruption? I think a lot are, actually. And there's like well over 60% disapproval of Donald Trump. Country is pretty much in a rage. It's just television has to call it 50-50. It ain't 50-50. It's about 2 to 1 against Trump.

Kitterman says he forgot to sign a document at a signing ceremony. Pence had to go chasing after him. Speaking of bad memories, Gabby Marita wrote about how he has one of the best memories. It's hilarious, right? Now look, forgetting to sign the document, ah, it's not that big a deal. I can see myself doing that. Forgetting that, hey, I forgot to follow up on assassinating a world leader, that's kind of a big deal.

Absolutely, yeah. Okay, so guys, we started membership drive last week, you know that, and we've been updating you, we were trying to get the 30,000 last week, and we did. of Friday, we've got the 30,000-02, okay, or 02. Anyway, so we're going to tell you what it is in a second, but we're also reading your comments about it. And there was one criticism of me that I want to read you guys, which I think is important and interesting. And I will crush the criticizer. No, I'm kidding. I'll probably agree with them. Anyway, but first, Anna has a couple of positive ones. All right. So Kimberly wrote in, and she said the following. Friday,

I joined as an activist and also called my senators about Kavanaugh. I feel like I'm finally doing something to make a difference for our people. Thank you for being so truthful in these trying times. I'm so glad I have TYT to keep me sane. Thank you so much, Kimberly. You're awesome. I just want to say it real quick. Look, that's what I love.

That's my ideal, where we're doing the show, we're home of progressives, you're helping support that you're getting all the shows in return. Plus we're doing something to change the world together. So I love that you called your senators. So thank you for doing that. You're living up to the title activist. All right, Jose. Is that how you say the name?

I believe so. Jose said, I've been following 2IT for a few years now and finally decided to pull the trigger on membership when Anna and Jank did the shimmy. So more shimmies, please. Are you ready? No, no. Hold, hold, hold. Let's see the number.

Let's see in a second, okay? Okay, but thank you guys. We appreciate it. Although after I read this, I don't know what I say shimmy mood. But, all right, now here comes the criticism. And I don't know why I don't have the name here. But I saw a similar comment on Twitter, and there were a number of them. So I wanted to address it.

Hearing Jenks say that it was ironic for Alex Jones to imply that Marco Rubio is gay because he watches transgender porn made my heart hurt. No, it is not ironic. For him to say that it is ironic suggests that he regards trans women as men. I recognize that it was a subtle comment, but to hear it from a progressive is so disappointing that trans women aren't, quote, real woman is a harm. and hurtful misconception. Okay, that's a great point. See, look, that's when I talk about doing the show together. So you're right about that, and it slipped past me, and then people here also told me

the same thing, and I wanted to correct the record, and thank you for pointing that out. But we grow together, too. Remember, I'm pretty old. I'm 48, and so in the times that I grew up, and I grew up a Republican, I'm not making it is an excuse. I'm acknowledging it and I appreciate you pointing it out because it helps me get better, right? That would have been a very common thing to think. And that's probably why it slipped out at the time that it did. But it's a great point. And we have to all work together to make sure that people have a good understanding of transgender folks in this country

and not make comments like that. So I really appreciate the useful criticism here. And so look, then we get a million trolls saying a million nonsensical things. But when there was valid critique of us where we're actually happy to receive it so we can get better. Absolutely, yeah. All right. So now, let's take a look at the new number. And let's see, the weekends are slower. Okay, okay.

So before we get to the number, we were at 30,000 and two. Yes. Okay. All right. Now let's see what we got. Wait, oh, thanks God. You got a trick every time, man. Why are you going to tease me like that?

Wait a minute. How could there be no signups over the weekend? All right, 439. I think that's good enough for a... That's good! Oops, wrong one. Okay, TYT.com slash join. Join the fun. Get to all of our shows and help our membership drive. All right, what's next? Oh, there it is. TYT.com slash join. Okay, what's next?

All right. White House National Security Advisor John Bolton is scoffing at the notion of the international criminal court going after the United States for its actions in Afghanistan, specifically its treatment of detainees in Afghanistan. Now, this international criminal court is one that the United States has refused to join, and John Bolton shares his disdain for the court in the following video. Take a look. In November of 2017, the ICC prosecutor requests.

authorization to investigate alleged war crimes committed by U.S. service members and intelligence professionals during the war in Afghanistan. An investigation neither Afghanistan nor any other state party to the Rome statute requested. Literally any day now, the ICC may announce the start of a formal investigation against these American patriots who voluntarily signed on to go into harm's way to protect our nation, our homes, and our families. in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. The ICC prosecutor has requested to investigate these Americans for alleged detainee abuse, and perhaps more.

I want to make a quick statement about the beginning of what he said in that video. He said something along the lines of America didn't request this investigation. To be fair, he also mentioned Afghanistan. Yeah, America probably wouldn't want to request an investigation into potential war crimes that they've committed. Anyway, go ahead, Jay. Okay, John Bolton labels international criminal court illegitimate. Also, bank robber labels cops illegitimate. Yeah, they're going to be investigating the actions of the U.S. government, so you're not

happy about that. We get it. It doesn't make the international criminal court wrong. In fact, it makes it more right. Now, why do I say that? Because it's investigating America? No, because it is holding the powerful accountable. If you set up a sham court and it was there to serve the powerful, they would investigate

you know, Botswana and Nicaragua and countries that don't have enormous GDPs. And it would be used as a gimmick to bully the less powerful. In actual criminal court actually does its job. It investigates everyone who might be committing human rights violations, war crimes, etc. And John Bolton is doing a little misdirection there. Does he care that they're going to investigate us on Afghanistan, yes. Is that his primary concern? No.

His primary concern is that they investigate Israel. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

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Check it out today. And so he couldn't help himself. He talked about it later in the speech. And the reality is that is the number one reason why America has been consistently against the international criminal court before any investigation of us came around. Because how dare you investigate the obvious lawbreaking of the state of Israel that is unacceptable to only two countries? Israel and the United States of America.

So you're right in that he is certainly more concerned about investigations into the behavior of the Israeli government. But look, I think that he's also concerned about having an international law enforcement going after countries who commit war crimes. Because remember, the United States profits off of getting involved in conflicts abroad. That is our bread and butter. And so having law enforcement on an international scale go after us, if and when we do something wrong, well, that could potentially hurt profits.

I think that's part of it as well. But to your point, he does talk about Israel in the speech. We do have a clip on that. But before we get to that, just take a listen to how incredibly salty he is in the next part of the speech. The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court. We will not cooperate with the ICC, we will provide no assistance to the ICC, and we certainly will not join the ICC.

We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us. He loves to talk like a tough guy. Oh man, I'd love to see him in a situation where any of that was tested. But you'll ever catch any of these guys. They're all chicken hawks. They all ran from every single war. They want your kids to die in that war instead.

But I did notice some salt got stuck in his mustache. Well, I mean, it's easy for his mustache. So that mustache is a little too long. You got to trim it, brother. Yeah. Okay. So I appreciate some of the people in the room that did not applaud when he attacked the International Criminal Court.

But half the room's like, oh, letting war criminals off the hook, yay! ICC is not, doesn't just investigate America and Israel. ICC investigates all the countries across the board and has gone after people who've committed war crimes and helped to bring justice to those people. And so, I mean, when you look at all the things that the United Nations overall has investigated, whether it's Rwanda, Serbia, and all the different issues that came up where we tried at least for a little bit of justice, here's this room going, no, end it. Let there be war crimes

in Rwanda and Serbia and Israel and wherever. Yes, war crimes. I hope you're proud. He used the persuasion to people who may not look, who have no time to look into what the ICC does or has done or will do, or even this particular one. He evoked 9-11. He evoked brave Americans

who go to war there. You're going to bring charges against people who went to fight a war for our country after what happened to us in 9-11. They continue to persuade people based off of the deaths of some more innocent people. It's the same, it's the same card they go with every time, no matter the situation. No, I remember what happened. You can't deny. You can't say, hey, I'm forward. I would like to see what they're doing because you're going, oh, how could you?

You're going to side against Americans. Right. I know. I know. It's the same tactic that they use over and over again. But I remember very clearly what happened to our military to our soldiers following 9-11. The American people were tricked into sending our soldiers to a preemptive war in Iraq, where the Bush administration purposely made it seem as though Iraq was behind 9-11 when it wasn't. I remember that. Do you guys remember that? You do, right?

John Bolton probably remembers that, because he was one of the goddamn liars that did that lie in the first place. He was part of the neocons who said, yeah, you know what Rumsfeld said? The problem with Afghanistan is it's not a target-rich environment. In other words, we could drop more bombs on Iraq. And John Bolton agreed we should go to Iraq instead, that did not attack us, that did not attack us. Now he's talking about how we're in Afghanistan today, today, decades later, because those troops are protecting our families and our homes.

Really, the guy from the Swat Valley was going to come into our homes? What in God's green earth are you talking about? The people who attacked us are long gone. I don't know if you remember this, John Bolton. The guy who killed Osama bin Laden was, oh right, Barack Obama, who you said was soft and weak. And did Bush kill him? Did Cheney kill him? Did Trump kill him?

No, none of the above. Did you? No, you sat on your? asset attacked the wrong country. And I want to point out one other thing. Notice that in that statement, he said by any means necessary. When Malcolm X says it, dangerous, radical, and did we need to do something about that out of control black man? This guy, John Bolton, has actually pushed for successfully wars that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, let alone the others who were killed, including U.S. troops. Yeah. But when he says by any

means necessary, oh, what a wonderful tough guy. Way to be. So one final part of this is what he had to say about Israel. As you know, the International Criminal Court, ICC, wants to look into the behavior of the Israeli government as well, the actions against Palestinians. And so Bolton announced that the State Department will close the Palestinian Liberation Organization Office in Washington, D.C. So. Yeah, so let me explain the context of that. Before that, I remembered There's a story of me when I was a host on cable news and when I ran into John Bold. I want to tell you guys that story. We don't have time right now.

Let's do it on the post scheme for the members. TYT.com slash join, become my member, and I'll make sure to tell you that story. And it was actually kind of a pivotal moment for me. Anyway, back to the Palestinians in Israel. You think this speech is because they're about to investigate Afghanistan? I already told you, look, the conservatives in this country already hated the International Criminal Corps, especially the neocons because of their historic actions against Israel. Because Israel does commit those crimes, the settlements, the aggressive actions, et cetera.

By the way, it's not like the international criminal court says, okay, no, but the Palestinians, we're not going to look into them, we're going to be biased. No, they look into both. Israel is a state actor, and so they care more about state actors who are committing these crimes because they have more control over the state actors, which are in the United nations. So it's not like Hamas comes to the United Nations and goes, oh, I'm going to bomb someone. Do what you, is it okay or not okay, right? So, so they look at things that are under their purview, which includes Israel. But why now? It's because of what Anna just pointed

out. We're closing the PLO's office and because the ICC is about to look into more war crimes of Israel that the Palestinian Liberation Office asked the ICC to look into. So this is America going, how dare you? No, you will accept our war crimes. You will be biased. Otherwise, you're dead to us. So that's who John Bolton is. That's who Donald Trump is. That's who George W. Bush is. And all of these neocons, they don't speak for America. They don't speak for Israel. They speak for their right-wing brethren who love to start wars, commit war crimes, and then cover it up. Well, you just watched there. That speech was the cover-up. So let's take a break.

When we come back, the story of Les Moonvez, the head of CBS, and later on in the show, we will discuss the Serena Williams' U.S. Open kerfuffle. Yes, and I will adjudicate. I have some clear answers, but there is still one thing left to debate. As the whole country is debating all of it, wrong, only one thing. But we'll talk about that when we get to that story a little bit later in the program. Get the whole program, of course, by being a member. We'll be right back.

We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks, a couple of good tweets here, T-Joyce 1971 says, you know, it's funny how Americans yell about law and order until someone wants to investigate them, hashtag thugs of Washington, 100%, right? Dr. Pepper O'Dome writes in, Bolton's just another instance of the criminals in this administration

wanting to stop those trying to police them. Just as Donald, it's called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal Trump. 100% right on that one too. Now member comments. Michael writes in, I still remember when TYT helped me to articulate my frustrations with Barack Obama when he was pushing to extend the Bush tax cuts. I've now finally become a member, activists. Thank you, Michael.

Thanks, TYT says. No, right back at you, brother. And it's amusing when the right wing says, oh, you guys are biased like you'd ever criticize Obama. Having never watched the show for a single minute, right? Yeah, I think we did that fairly convincingly. Anyway, for just about eight years, though. Damn the Man, right?

It's in, OMG, I love Jank accidentally hitting the Shire LeBuff one. That's a top ten on the soundboard. It is pretty good. We aim to serve even when we don't. Todd writes in, these are all member comments. Trump won't be able to spell ICC. That's funny. That's funny.

Nice job, Dodd. J.D. Moser says, I've been a TYT fan since the government shut down in 2013, brought me one of your videos on YouTube. I became a member not long after that. If there's one good thing about Ted Cruz, he brought you and me together. Yeah. Indeed. In fact, we have a story I hope we can get to about Ted Cruz.

So let me stop the member comments there. But all of you, thank you guys, your wonderful comments. We really appreciate. All right, let's go to the next story. All right. The head of CBS, Les Moonvese is exiting the company following Ronan Farrow's second piece on allegations that Moonvez had sexually assaulted multiple women who had previously worked with him. Now, CBS said Sunday night that MoonVess and CBS will donate $20 million to organizations

that support the Me Too movement. other groups fighting for workplace equity for women. And can I just say, when I saw that headline, I was like, okay, here's my prediction. He is going to get a lot more than $20 million in his severance. 100%. It's not like he's going to reach into his pocket and be like, oh, look, I found $20 million. I'm just out of the goodness of my heart. I'm going to give it to the Me Too movie.

Yeah. So this donation will come out of his severance. Of course. $100 million severance package. $100 million for leaving the company. For leaving the company following allegations that he sexually assaulted multiple women. So imagine where you work, right? This is the difference between the powerful and the rest of us.

Where you're accused of sexually assaulting women at work and threatening to fire them. These are the accusations, okay? And in some of the instances, it is literal sexual assault that he is alleged to have done. And your boss comes to and goes, I can't believe you would sexual assault, your co-workers is outrageous, you're obviously fired. So here's $100 million. It's, I mean, look, I, and now let me explain. It's not like we don't get it.

I understand he is a CEO, CBS did really well under his tenure, what do they call him something like Wall Street had a crush on him, whatever, right, beloved by Wall Street. Oh, what a great guy. Yeah, I know, so he must be great. He's also the person who famously said that Trump is bad for the country, but great for ratings. No, that's right. Yeah, no, they called them, quote, the Wall Street hero. Oh.

Okay, anyway, but look, you make the stock price rise, you give shareholders value, they give you money in return. So that's the normal set of actions. And a lot of the CEOs get these huge bonuses and huge golden parachutes, even when their company loses money, and that drives me nuts. That's not how capitalism is supposed to work. In the less movement as this case, he did make a profit for CBS. So I'm giving you into full context. So if he left under normal circumstances that $100 million might grind your gears, but

he did make CBS a lot of money. Don't care. But under these circumstances, are you serious? And of course, the answer is whenever it comes to money, of course they're serious. He's going to try to keep every dollar of it that he can. The $20 million he's giving is so that he can keep the other $80 million. Yeah, so let me be- PR trick.

Let me be clear about something. CBS has decided to launch an investigation to see if any of these allegations against Les Munez are true. And they say that the severance will depend on the outcome of the investigation. So look, to be fair, and I want to make sure we're 100% accurate in reporting this story to you guys, it has not been confirmed that he's going to get $100,000. 100 million. I'm sorry, 100 million.

It looks like they're headed in that direction. Yeah, I mean, that is their intent. Look, it's, now let's give you more context and as to why he might not get that money. So he was, and why all this story might have come out in the first place. And now, look, you could, some people might be upset at me for saying that. My job is to give you context. So he was in a huge fight with Sherry Redstone. Sherry Redstone's father, Sumner Redstone, had bought CBS about 20 years ago.

They have controlling shares, and when they wanted to merge back in with CBS, they had separated out the companies a little bit. They still had controlling interests, but the companies, I'm sorry, although these days that's an apt Freudian slip because these companies are even more powerful than countries. Anyway, the companies are acting as separate groups. Sherry Redstone wanted to bring them back in, Les MoonVos fought her, and the CBS board went with MoonVest. So when now a lot of the directors have been let go, they got a new board.

They are going to look into Moonbess's allegations. It looks like he did do them, so they'll probably find a lot of things he did do. So they might come back, and they're not, at this point, they're not friends of this. They might come back and go, well, sad day for you, Les. You're not getting 100. And so that's why Les Moonbess is trying super hard to seem conciliatory so that he can get some piece of that $100 million. That's part of why he and CBS together are going, yeah, me too, right, me too, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 20 million, sure, of course we'll do that. And so what's the context of this story coming out? I don't know for a fact, so it might have been just a coincidence that while they're having this massive board fight, these stories come out about Les Moon vests. Now, I want to be clear, I don't care that if that's the reason they came out, because they appear to be true, they're allegations for now, okay, they've got a lot of detail, you can read it for yourself in Ronan Faro's pieces, right? So, well, if you did it less, you know, then, and it's not like an all right attack where

it's half lies, and you can't tell what's true and what's not true. And so, sad day for you. But that a lot of times when they're wrestling over control of a company, I think Harvey Weinstein might have been a similar situation. Yep. All of a sudden, one side goes, oh, yeah, I'm going to go nuclear. So I actually do care if that's the way this story came out. Now, we may never know at this point, you know, it is speculation.

But if the board members decide in the middle of this conflict, okay, well, why don't we leak this story and put it out there, that's deeply problematic. That means the board members were covering up this, you know, this bad behavior, this criminal behavior, and then just used it to their advantage when it was good for them. So look, it's not, it's on people to figure out who at CBS knew. and who at the company knew and who didn't. It's not our job, okay? But if they knew, and they were just using it to use, not releasing it, even though they

knew the problems existed, but waiting to use it when it came to their financial advantage, well, that is using the movement in a way that is disgusting. I was going to say sick. Yeah. So that's an issue. And a lot of people are weaponizing the movement. They are. And so when you find out things like what MoonVest has done, it's important that he

not be in that position of power anymore, but understand that some people are using it for their advantage. So I do want to toss to a video of Ronan Farrow. He was on CNN talking about his latest piece on this, and he gives us a little more detail, so let's take a look. These are more numerous claims. These are six women, all of them on the record. Also describing more serious allegations, you know, this includes multiple allegations of either

physically forced or coerced oral sex. It includes the case that resulted in a criminal investigation. And the reason, Brian, that these women are coming out now is that they have been extraordinarily frustrated by what they perceive to be inaction on the part of CBS and its board. And that really is integral to what prompted this follow-up story. Les Moonbez, of course, a legendary broadcasting executive, one of the best-known CEOs in America. But in recent days, there have been talks that may lead to his exit. The board of directors did hire two law firms as a result of your first story, and there has been reporting

that MoonVes may leave the company in the coming days. Do you know anything more about that? So there are a number of cases recently that we've seen where media companies have moved very quickly to remove and even fire for cause, individual subject to allegations of considerably less seriousness than these. And so these women have watched this process that you just described of, yes, outside law firms being brought in to investigate, but also MoonVest being allowed to stay and continue to run the company. And now in the last week, as we reached out to CBS for comment, stories emerging that there were exit negotiations. But as of a couple of days ago, they were still talking about potentially letting him leave with a very generous exit package,

you know, up to the neighborhood of $100 million. Yeah, so obviously they did wind up taking that action, as we just told you guys. So when the first, when the story first came out, I thought, look, this looks like a pattern. And if he did it two times or six times because six women had come out the first time around, you probably did it 10 times, 20 times, 60 times. So tick, tick, tick, and then now we have the second shoe dropping. And now it's another six women. But remember, for every woman that comes forward, there are many who don't.

I talked to a woman in media recently who said, look, if I come forward, that's what I'm known for for the rest of my life. And do I really want that? Is that what I want to be defined by? So understand there are a lot more that might be out there. And Ronan Farrow's latest piece in The New Yorker talks about a pattern. And it was the same pattern over and over and over again. So how many times did it actually happen?

God knows. And how many people knew about it and didn't do anything? That's another really, really solid question. Yeah. What Ronan said about the women coming forward because they felt frustrated that CBS as a company and its board wasn't taking any action, that stood out to me quite a bit, right? Yeah, so, well, at the end of the day, I'm sure that they'll try to, certainly move us, we'll try to get some of that $100 million when no one's looking.

But sad day for them. They're guys like Ronan Farrow on the beat, and my guess is a lot of people will be looking. Let's take a break when we come back, the Serena Williams drama in the U.S. Open, and then later on, we will talk about Ted Cruz, his desperation, and his panic. It's awesome. 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.co slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.