The Young Turks - On Thin Ice - June 26, 2026

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

Trump says Iran is desperate to make a deal with the U.S....right after striking a Cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. New economic data shows core inflation rose to 3.4% in May—the highest level since October 2023 and above the Federal Reserve’s target. AOC and Bernie team up to stop the construction of AI data centers, meanwhile, the U.S. targeted yet another alleged drug boat in the Eastern Pacific. "Thanks to today's sponsors: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tyt Get 40% OFF the Ground News Vantage Plan when you sign up at ground.news/tyt Stay informed without the media spin at ground.news/tyt Visit www.sleep.me/tyt to get up to $255 off your Chilipad 2.0 with code TYT Use less data, get paid by switching to Noble Mobile: https://go.tyt.com/getnoble " Hosts: John Iadarola, Trae Crowder SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/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. Time to rock and roll. To The Young Turks, I'm John Adler. Trey Crowder joins me. A comedian, host, I recently found out author as well. Thank you for being here.

Yeah, no, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure, buddy. I explicitly told you before we started to not call me an author. I wrote books, not an author. It feels it's a different thing. No, I'm glad to be here. I do hate to be missing the Great American State Fair. I hear that's going super well.

They got like, I think they got a Toby Keith cover band going on, made up of only middle-aged gunnery sergeants and stuff. It does sound well. Yeah, but the rest of the guy for public masturbation there, I think, and Uncle Sam a set of overalls. So, you know, off and off and running, baby. Thanks for popping. That sounds pretty fun, actually.

Anyways, that what led to all the algae, biological contamination? Yeah. I'll never know. Well, he wasn't in Antifa, so I don't think it could have been him, obviously, you know, who vandalized the reflecting pool. Oh, dear God, Antifa, public masturbation, you'd get 300 years in federal prison the way justice systems working. Anyway, very glad to have you here. The reason is because it's just everything that just happened with you. That's why I enjoyed doing this with you. So,

thank you for being here. Everybody out there, thank you as well. We've got some interesting news that we're going to be jumping into not only a little wrinkle to the whole peace deal we have with Iran not seeming quite so peaceful. We'll be talking about that. More bad economic news. not necessarily a good thing. But Democrats, a couple Democrats, progressive Democrats, actually doing something. And I find that very exciting. So we're going to be talking about that. And then also breaking news, Trey, were you on Veronica Mars? Yeah, you're learning all kinds of stuff about me. It's in the chat right now. Yeah. So yes, I had a bit part as a guy named Chattanooga Charlie on Veronica Mars.

Yes, I really had to unlock some range as a Thespian to play Chattanooga Charlie. But this will be too long, but John Mullaney had an old great bit about Law and Order SVU. And part of what he covered a bunch of stuff, but one of them was part of it was like he said, I just love the guy that like the bartender that won't stop cleaning glasses to discuss the horrific murder that has happened. you know. Well, that's, I pretty much play that guy or a version of that guy, Veronica Mars. I'm like a bar owner and I'm sweeping up peanuts while talking about a string of terrorist bombings that have a car. Oh, my God. Jeez, that show really escalated and it's later seasons. Yeah, but it just got on Netflix. And so people, you know, that people are seeing it a lot again. So I'm hearing about it a lot from people right now because it just got added to Netflix recently.

Very cool. Well, I know what I'm doing later today. I'm going to find that episode. and watch it. And that I actually think that's very cool because I back in the day, I thought that Kristen Bell and Veronica Mars was the coolest in the world. So now I'm even more jealous of you. So that's pretty awesome. Anyway, people in the chat, stop giving me interesting updates about Trey's life. Okay, I got to get into the news. Let's jump into it. Donald Trump claimed at a recent press conference that Iran desperately wants to make a deal. Take a look. Iran effectively within a week and a half we knocked out their entire military, their leadership, their aircraft, their Navy, 100, they had 159 ships within one and a half weeks.

They were all at the bottom of the sea. And then I have to listen to the fake news. Oh, they're much better today than they were. These people are crazy. They want to make a deal with us very badly. And we probably will, I think we will. But the straight is open. Yesterday they took out 19 million barrels of oil that's the most in the history of the

straight and the oil prices are dropping like a rock and you know as goes oil so goes everything else. Yeah, you look around America these days and things really are dropping like a rock. But anyway, I can't 100% disagree with the president there. The straight is open for traffic of a certain sort. Drones are flying freely through the straight these days and I know that because one of them ran into a cargo ship because Iran, who we have heard every day for four months is both defeated and desperate to make a deal. It does not appear to be that desperate to make a deal, at least not one that's not on their terms because they carried out a drone strike on a cargo ship. On Thursday, U.S. and Iranian officials confirmed to the New York Times that Iran hit a cargo ship

attempting to transit the vital waterway via the southern route off the coast of Oman. They had earlier warned ships that you have to hug sort of the northern section of the Strait of Formuz, although clearly because they can hit you with a drone, even if you're in the south, it doesn't seem to have much difference on their ability to control the waterway. And I just want to remind people again, they have been able to determine whether ships go through the Strait of Formos for months now. It never had anything to do with their Navy. They never needed a single ship to determine whether cargo vessels or oil carrying vessels get through there. Their missiles and drones are all they need.

And our, you know, ongoing bombardment for a quarter of a year has not apparently degraded that capacity to the extent that they cannot still exert their will in the Strait of Pneu. So just a fact check the president a little bit there. But Trump did eventually acknowledge that the attack happened posting on true social. Iran shot at least four one-way attack drones at ships traversing. He says transversing. The right truly never stops thinking about the trans community, but it was traversing the straight of Hormuz. One of the drones solidly hit the upper deck of a large and very expensive cargo carrying ship.

Damage was done, but the ship was able to proceed on its way. We knocked down three other drones. Obviously, this is a foolish violation of our ceasefire agreement, which, yeah, obviously it's a violation of the ceasefire agreement. You know, they believe that Israel is still bombing Lebanon. They find that to be a violation of the ceasefire agreement. They also had an issue with Donald Trump announcing to the world, you might have seen this on social media,

that Iran had told him that they will never, ever, ever, ever do tolls or fees for ships going through the Strait of Ramos. I suspected when he said that that was a lie, they're confirming that that was a lie, and they're saying that was one of the reasons that they did the attack. We have a lot of the other details. But, Trey, what do you make of the developments in the street? I mean, he said, you know, oh, people are like they're better off now than they were before and that's assonine. But I feel like it's like objectively the case that they seem to be in a stronger position. If my dumb American ass is, you know, any kind of indication.

Because what I mean is like I feel like it's illustrated to a lot of people, the amount of leverage that they obviously have there, you know, like how important the Strait of Hormuz is and how like you said, they don't even need a Navy to kind of. have exert control over it and how that could lead to, you know, I don't know, like the entire economic, economic global collapse, you know, or whatever, if it just goes on for too long. And I don't think a lot of people were aware of that, or if they were probably doubted that Iran really could, you know, that they had it like that, that they could like back that up. And now Trump is illustrated to the whole world that they do and they can. So, you know, they're leverage has been undeniably improved by his own, this senseless thing. I still to this day don't really understand what our objective was.

And, you know, I don't, what is the best case scenario for us in this? When the, if and when the negotiations come to an end, like, how are we, how are we going to be better off possibly in any way, whether they are or not, you know, it's like it was just also senseless and stupid and it's uh and like you said in israel they you know they seem to be very not on board with uh us not killing everyone over there or whatever so um that's going to complicate matters quite a bit i'm sure i know a lot of people in israel turned on trump because of this and you know i don't know what they expected i don't know what anybody expects when they get into bed with him, but yeah, it was, is and continues to be a cluster cuss, as they say, in the fantastic

Mr. Fox. It is, it is that indeed. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to get to Israel and Lebanon, but yeah, just the straight. Like it's starting something new is terrifying. When we launched our shop TYT store, I was drowning in what ifs. What if no one buys anything? What if the site looks amateurish?

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I'm so tired of being told that we've defeated their Navy. I wasn't particularly impressed the first time. I haven't been the thousand times since then. I'm not impressed when you tell me that they're desperate for a deal. I don't want, like, I don't need to tell you this, your wordsmith, but show, don't tell. Like, I don't tell me that they want a deal. Show me the deal that's done and awesome and linger. It actually has some sort of effect.

Until then, stop doing press conferences because it is repetitive and pointless. Anyway, Iran says safe passage to the straight can't be guaranteed under ambiguous arrangements. Anything that basically doesn't take into account that we're a coastal state, this is them continuing to say we're going to have control over it. So I don't buy the thing about the no tolls. You asked, you know, what's what's the best case scenario? I think realistically the best case scenario is something approaching where we were at on like February 1st. Right.

But I don't expect that we can get that. If I were to dream freely, I would say maybe we get back in the JCPOA, except we also give them an extra $150 billion. Right. That I think truly is the best case scenario. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's all this like billions and billions of dollars sent on this like needless war just to maybe hopefully God willing get back to the. previous status quo if we're lucky and still probably not. And it's like I just don't know how you can spend that as some big win, you know, or show of like American military might. It's been the opposite. You know what I mean? I think when most people started, I feel like a lot of people in most places were more concerned that we would just, just, you know, bomb them back to the Stone Age and just

decimate them entirely or, you know, than they were with us, you know, having our pants pulled down in front in front of the world the way that we have. Not that I'm particularly surprised given the leadership and everything, but it's just been an abject disaster. Yeah, who would have thought that Pete Hegseth being in charge of war? It wouldn't go swimming with anyway. Well, look, as Donald Trump has been very excited to announce oil prices are going down. He has of course also acknowledged that gas prices are not going down, which seems like the significant part of the two. I don't care what a barrel of oil costs. I mean, I drive an EV. I don't even care what a gasoline cost. But for everybody else's sake, I do. That said, there's a lot of concern that with the straight still having

cargo ships blow up every once in a while, like should we get so excited already? Especially because there are so many big lingering concerns about not only Iran, but also other parties to the deal, even if they're not explicitly part of the deal. And here I'm talking about Israel and Lebanon. Iran takes the situation in Lebanon super seriously, and they're basically saying that if the onslaught, the devastation, the murder of civilians continues, there's not going to be a deal between the U.S. and Iran. The issue is that it is not directly up to us what happens there. And because of bought, complacent, submissive politicians like Donald Trump, when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, we're not even indirectly choosing to be involved in what happens there. We get up a pressure. on them, force them to pull out of Lebanon. He's choosing not to do that. Now, you can come up with all sorts of potential explanations. Some of them might be more conspiratorial, some might be whatever, but he's not doing it. All we've gotten over the past few weeks is he told us he dropped an F bomb with BB. Okay, well, I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed. It hasn't saved any lives in Lebanon,

unfortunately. And Israel is saying now that is going to keep troops in what it's calling a buffer zone in southern Lebanon aimed at thwarting Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel, Iran wants Israel to fully withdraw and says Lebanon ceasefire is an integral part of its interim agreement with the U.S. So they're calling it a buffer zone. I call it Lebanon. That's Lebanon. That's their territory. That's not yours. You can't have. I know you like it. It's not yours. You don't get to have it. You don't get to just kill anything that moves or breeds in there because you want it. And as you had sort of alluded to earlier, they appear to have a lot of both reasons, desire and the ability. to continue to use the situation in Lebanon to mess with the deal with Iran if they want to, and they do appear to want to.

Not necessarily the people of Israel, but some, especially in northern Israel, Benjamin and Yahoo, he is facing the possibility of a difficult election. He needs to be seen to be like strong. And apparently the way that you act strong is killing women and children in Lebanon. And obviously he doesn't want to go back on trial anytime soon. So there's a lot of different factors that are complicating this other than you. just, you know, what J.D. Vance says to some Iranian negotiator. Thoughts? Yeah, who could have ever predicted that this would turn into a quagmire, you know, with Israel being involved in their

predilection for, you know, going into other countries and blowing shit up. It's like you said, you need a buffer zone to protect northern Israel. Like, can't you just like, that could be northern Israel, you know, like just like have your defenses there, keep them, just protect your, your own country and everything instead of having to set up shop in southern Lebanon. But yeah, I don't know what you, I mean, I mean, you know, I don't know how you as Trump or the American government keep them from doing this type of thing or get them in line appropriately in this scenario. And as long as they're not, I don't know how any kind of meaningful lasting agreement with Iran is.

going to, you know, is ever going to be really feasible. I mean, whatever, it will get figured out at some point, I'm sure it's not like it can go on literally forever. War in the Middle East, it's not like it can't go on forever, right? It's not like it already has, but you know what I'm saying. It's, but it's a real nightmare in the near term for sure. Yeah, for a war is definitely always an option. He could potentially do that. But yeah, as of right now, Israeli military is maintaining an indefinite. It appears the intent is a permanent presence in Lebanon, in Syria, in Gaza as well, basically almost every bordering

area. You can call it buffer zones, you can call it yellow lines, you can call it an empire if you want. I mean, I think historically that's pretty accurate. And I'm not going to claim to you that it is super director straightforward for us to get them to stop that. It's not like Trump can hit the red Diet Coke button on the resolute desk and baby pulls out. But I don't know, I feel like if there were other countries that we wanted to change their behavior, we haven't just sat like, what are you gonna do? Like we would do things. We could not give them lots and lots and mountains of money. We could not give them weapons and maintenance and training and the

the protection of our superior technology and better trained military. We could, I know this is going to freak people out, but like, you could say if you don't pull out of these other sovereign states, we will sanction you. We will work to organize other nations around the world and sanction you. We will put it forward on the, you know, the UN Security Council or whatever. Again, these are obviously not going to happen. But when we don't like what Iran is doing, we bomb the crap out of it. There's a whole range of options that you can take.

And the space like on that continuum that Donald Trump has considered is like over here it's utter fealty. And here it's utter fealty, but I swear to God I said the word crap to him once. Like that, no, there's all this. You should consider that range. Yeah. Especially because from Donald Trump's point of view, they're messing with your deal. It's not like I want you to do this to maintain Biden's peace treaty with Iran. This is supposed to be your historic legacy that you keep bragging about, but you don't seem willing to do the first goddamn thing to actually make it happen.

Final thoughts? Yeah, no, they just so deeply compromised American politics on like both sides. I don't remember who it was now. Like a couple weeks ago, there was some Democratic congresswoman who this like this clip of her as some campaign speech or something went sort of viral with her saying like she, you know, above all else, she swear she will do everything in her power. to fight for the people of Israel. You know, you think she's going to say her constituents in her district or whatever it is, but then it's Israel. And then she just goes on this whole long diatribe about the necessity of working with and protecting Israel and all that.

And it's just like very deep-seated, you know, A-Pact, a ton of money. A lot of people have just gotten politicians in this country are just too deeply intertwined with them. seems like you can't get anybody to just come out and say the things that you just said, you know, let's do this, something. You can't get like real support for that from like the mainstream politicians in this country or the old guard or whatever you want to call them. Yeah. I'm going to end on this.

You know what would be cool, like just to balance it out. We have all these politicians here in the U.S. that are constantly saying these incredibly bizarre things about their loyalty to the Israeli government. or whatever. Could like, could some legislators or whatever in Israel like be dedicated to us? Like could like, like, could you guys get a caucus that like works to get us like healthcare or something? Like, can we balance it out? Like, because we, we got all these people working for you. Can you like help us with the data centers or something or I don't know, tenants rights? Can we get a working group together? But anyway, something to think about.

We're going to take a short break, respond to some of your comments and be back with more news. These new two-minute social breaks are wild. That is not enough time. I'm gonna try to read fast. Pesimistic Progressive says, Jenks still celebrating the turkey win from last night. I don't know if he follows it or if where his loyalty would lie in the World Cup. I honestly don't know. Sexy Speed Racer says, damn, I missed the start of the Big Friday show.

Did we have the Friday ritual chant? Did we have a dropping of the It? Well, it's a powerful twosome today, but it's not a power panel. So we didn't actually end up doing that. Diego says, Trey caught a show in Phoenix not too long ago and still can't believe I didn't get six-pack abs from laughing so hard. That's awesome. Yeah, that is high praise. I appreciate that.

That's very cool. Thank you. Nerd Ferguson says, the way D.C. is going now, Chattanooga Charlie sounds like the newest Trump appointed is some high-level position. Yeah. Yes. Secretary of the Interior, Chattanooga, Charlie. I want to understand that name. That is, that name goes so hard for.

of one time? It was, I told you I owned the guy owned the bar, whatever. The bar was called Chattanooga Charlie's. And you could say it had been a name for, and he was the owner and proprietor. So he was called. Okay. That makes sense. As Thomas Providence says, I love Trey and Johnny Pie, but it's Friday.

Where is our power panel? Well, we haven't been doing power panels in quite a while, right? Like it's mostly been two person things for some time. Maybe at some point. I'll put in a request. Nobody wants to work anymore, John. Nobody wants to. I know.

Damn, come on here. Lazy chin alpha. Yeah. Okay, let's see. Ford Country says our Cheetos talking points coming from. That went by very quickly. Okay. But you know what's going to take a little bit of time?

Is the summer? We got a few months of summer. And for most of us who work, it doesn't really mean anything. I have one friend who's a professor that gets an actual summer break and I'll never stop being jealous of him. But I can also be jealous of you if you take advantage of the new offer at Noble Mobile to get three months free. They just cover it for you. No catch, no tricks, anything like that. You become a new customer to Noble Mobile and they take care of basically the whole summer of your bill. And obviously it comes with all the other perks that we've been talking about for a while.

If you'd like to find out all the details, you can go to t.t.com slash switch. Okay, with that said, let's turn our eye back to the United States. What's going on here economically? starting with this. PCE personal consumption expenditure, 4.1% the highest level inflation in three years. How close is that to what you would like to see? Well, you never want to see inflation at those high numbers, John. But of course, I'll tell you, the economy is still strong. The fundamentals of the economy are strong, especially now that we're going to see gas prices

come down. I think you're going to probably see a bit more of this. We don't want to see costs continue to sky, you know, to move. up higher than what they currently are. But I think it's just a sign of a strong economy. Okay, that's what's one sign, a strange sign of a strong economy. That's Republican Congressman Marlon Stutzman telling you, hey, whatever it is that you, you dumb, dumb peasant think of the economy,

you just don't get that the fundamentals is strong baby. This is what a strong economy looks like. I'm not an economist. So I guess I don't know what the fundamentals of the economy are. I would think that the price of things would be on the list, but I guess not. I am not a millionaire, so clearly I'm not a genius. But anyway, as was alluded to in that clip, the inflation numbers continue to be bad, not just objectively bad, but literally worse than they were when the nation kicked the Democratic Party out of

the White House in no small part thanks to the inflation numbers. So, you know, get a load of this. But the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported just yesterday that those PCE numbers, personal consumption expenditures did go up 4.1% year over year in May, largely, but not totally due to the effects of higher fuel prices on components like airfare. That is the highest reading since April of 2023, which is like still on the tail end of the pandemic at that point. That's where we're back to. Thank you, Donald Trump. Now, oil prices are going down. Gas prices thus far are not going down. One would presume eventually they would, but bear in mind that generally when prices go up, at least some portion of that gets locked in, thanks to the greed that is integral to the DNA of

capitalism. So just get that through your head, okay? And yes, ships have started to transit the Strait of Ramos, but remember, one of them was hit by a drone in the last 24 hours. So that situation remains dicey. And so even though once you strip energy and even food prices, out of inflation. So you're trying to go easy on the numbers. The core PC inflation was still 3.4% compared with a year ago. That is significantly almost double the Fed's inflation target and moving in the wrong direction. That is the highest since October 23. And that's ignoring energy and fuel and all of that stuff. So look, I'm not Marlon Stutzman, Trey. I'm not capable of spinning these numbers for you. What do you think?

I mean, like you, I'm also not an economist. I didn't go to money school or nothing, but I'm pretty money dumb, actually. But what I do know is the last time that we had numbers like this, it is all you ever heard about, right? In 2020, it's like it was nothing but this and that, you know, Joe Biden had banana pudding brain or whatever, like him doing pap all stuff and inflation and gas prices. It's all anybody ever talked about. And now we're back to the same, some of the same numbers we had when that was happening.

and I don't know where all the outrage is. And I scoffed when that guy said that earlier because I remember that was the argument that was being made then. It was like, look, the economy is strong. It's just that things just cost so much more. And I was saying at the time when it was the, you know, Democratic administration, you know, you can go back and check. I don't know how you would do that, but just trust me.

I was saying at the time, like, look, I don't blame people for, okay, even if they're making more money, but everything costs more so they have less money at the end of the day. I don't blame them for feeling like there's not, you know, there's not enough money. They don't have enough money. Like I get that. But I don't.

And there was pandemic factors in corporate price gouging. A lot of other stuff going on that people were not taking into account. But now we're in a similar position and I don't see, they seem to be totally unconcerned with it because it's a Republican president, you know, and I just don't understand. And if gas prices are high, they're high. I mean, I've seen, I say that, you know, too many people seem to be unconcerned with it. I have seen some people, you know, losing it at the gas pump viral videos of Trump voters being pissed off at gas pumps.

So it's like there are some of them. But it's nowhere near what, you know, the Biden administration was dealing with. And what is now, you know, a Biden era, you know, type of situation economically according to those numbers. So I just don't I don't get it really. Yeah, so sort of playing into what you were just saying about, you know, your income can technically be going up, but that doesn't mean you're better off. So we're, you know, Ferris Network in America or whatever. So here are some things that slightly increased month over months. So consumer spending, which that sounds good, but like if you have to spend more and you can't save it, that would go up.

But anyway, income growth, savings rates, private wages and salaries, slightly increased month over. month. But like if the inflation goes up by a couple points, are you better off? Right. And then if you are, then this video is pointless and you're doing okay and affordability is a hoax. But if you're not, then I don't think Marlin Stutzman is going to make a dent in that. I don't think that Donald Trump continuing to spit in people's face over gas price increases being peanuts or whatever is really going to get through to people. Like you know how much money is in your account. You know how much money goes out of your account when you go to fill up your tank. Like those are, that's, it's hard to avoid. It's why I think you mentioned you've seen some MAGA people freaking out.

Because they don't want to freak out. They want to believe that we're in a golden age, but money's money, okay? Maybe even some of them did go to money school. So anyway, but we talked about inflation. We talked about the Fed's targets and all that. So why don't we go to a short video that's going to attempt to explain why the Fed might have given up on its prior inflation targets. The Federal Reserve has been trying to get the rate of inflation down to 2.0%. That was their targets. That was their goal. And as you know, they've been doing a really good job of failing for the past five, six years to getting it down to 2.0%. So what they did is now they changed their goal, their targets from 2.0% to 2.9%. That is a big

difference. On the 2% inflation objective, that is the Federal Reserve's long held objective of 2%. You've heard me say before, I tend to focus on the left of the decimal point. Well, the two is the left of the decimal point. For now, zero is to the right. I see no reason until we have reestablished our commitment and ability to deliver on the 2% inflation objective to revisit that. So that'll be outside the scope of what we're taking on. All right, you see, I told you, mainstream media completely missed that parts. The new target is 2.9% because Warsh doesn't care what's to the right of the

decimal point, 2.0%, 2.9%. His mentality is, oh, it's the same thing. Now, like Trey, I didn't go to money school, but I feel like that guy, not the guy explaining at the head of the Fed or whatever, I feel like he was insulting my intelligence with that left of the decimal point, right of the decimal point thing. What do you mean? 2.9, you mean three. It's going to be three. I know what 99 cents means. I understand. psychologically what you're doing there. That's sure, that's only 0.9 higher. It's also 50% higher. I feel like that's a big difference. And I just think it's fascinating that Donald Trump gets into power off of a country that's gotten sick and tired of inflation. And suddenly the government

just gives up on even having a goal of inflation. They're not even going to try it's not even that's what it is. That's what they would aim for it to be. And he's done with that even, Tray. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of not the first time, right? I feel like this goes back to even like when like COVID, stopping COVID testing and it'd be like, oh, COVID is going away. You know what I mean? It's like if you don't test for it, there can't be cases of it. And I think that they've also stopped like measuring certain like pollution and things like that, you know, because it's like if you're not measuring it, then it can't be a problem. You know, if you move the goalpost, you know, if keep moving the goalposts around, you still have to, you know, get it through the goalpost. eventually, but if you just take the goalpost out of the stadium and throw them in the river or whatever, then, you know, then how's anybody going to know when you're really screwing up? But yeah, like you said, the whole, it's not $3. It's $2.99 thing. I feel like is the oldest trick in the, you know, the economic book. Like, I feel like you've learned, you become cognizant of that in like fourth or fifth grade or something, you know.

Yeah. And that's what they're, that's the trick. The way he talked about it to is funny. He never said it was, it know it's 2.9. He was like, let's not worry about that one whole half of this number. We're going to focus on the other part. And that part's not changing at all. I'll have you note. So you are welcome, America. I think that people are getting better at seeing these little tricks like shrinkflation and stuff like that. Like I think that's the sort of thing that like YouTube and TikTok and stuff really helps to explain in a concise way. I'm even noticing it more and more in my life. I finally tried out those new overstuffed pop top.

Tarts, 50% more filling. Yeah, dude, you're Pop Tart guy, man. I've come up a few times. Every time I'm on here, I feel like you're talking about Pop Tarts. And I love it. I'm not actually as much as people think. They kind of make me sick immediately these days. But I had one super fast.

Then we'll talk about oil. And it is super stuffed. And it's better, you know, low bar, Pop-Tart. But I ate one and then I realized, wait, that foil packet had one pop-tart in it. Yep. There are five foil packets in this box. Now, it is more stuffed than a regular one, but that's five Pop-Tarts when a box normally would have eight. That's a pretty big difference there. I feel like I'm being conned. Now, in the end, it just means like 50% less diarrhea, so I guess it's good.

But anyway, thank you Pop-Tarts for looking out for me. Yes, John Idorella's Pop-Tart-based economic theory of shrink fleshing. But yeah, I had a very brief, I had a pack, by the same type of crackers, a big cracker guy and I have for years. I got a box the other day. And I keep multiple boxes in my closet because, again, I don't play when it comes to crackers. I put the new box in there. New box in there on top of the old box and the box is the exact, the exact same length, right? When I opened up the new box and pulled it out, the sleeve of crackers didn't go all the way to the top of the box, which they kept the same size. Try to pull a fast one on you. I think you won't notice. I'm tired of this stuff. Why does everything suck a little more,

single day. All right, capitalism. That's why. Anyway, go ahead. Oil is true. An esification of everything continues. Okay, well, let's talk about oil, which right after Pop-Tarts is front of mind on Americans' minds. So oil prices are going down, or at least we're going down before, you know, the drone hit the ship. So on Wednesday, 78 vessels transited the straight of where moves. That's the, quote, single most transited day since the war began. That would also be 57% of the volume that just, went through every day for years and years and years before Donald Trump decided to do this stupid war. But you can see the oil prices go down. That's good. I love when a chart has a change that seems to make sense in relation to reality. So often it does not. So that's good. The issue is

that gas prices are going down. They're still up more than 30% since the start of the war. and that's a lot. And Trump is saying that they're price gouging and he's going to look into it. Now, I'm old enough to remember when they were price gouging a couple years ago. And Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders called that out and said they want to look into it. And Fox News called that communism. They have a feeling they'll be okay with it now. So that's a good development.

But here is the CFO of Chevron saying they're doing everything they can. We're all concerned about prices. So there's a lot of empathy. whether it's in the US or here in the UK or in Europe for consumers. I mean, we're all consumers. It's going to take time though. I mean, there is a lag between, you know, oil prices and reductions in all prices and when that shows up at the pump.

But, you know, we expect that prices will come down as things continue to normalize. Yeah, well, you know, that's an executive at Chevron. So you can take that to the bank. Good people, what in all. Any final thoughts, Troy? I just know as long as they can possibly get away with charging us as much as they can for gas, then they will. Like, I feel like that's like we were talking earlier. I mentioned corporate price gouging in the Biden era after COVID and all this stuff.

It's like they knew people were making more money. And so they were like, oh, that means we can just like charge them more and they'll pay it, you know. And they like got away with that. and like ostensibly in capitalism, in a free market or whatever, like competition and stuff is supposed to drive. And I'm not just talking about oil here, but it's supposed to like drive prices down, right? Inherently. But it's like in any given industry, there's four companies, if you're lucky, that owns everything, you know, and then this is what ends up happening. They realize they can all get away with it and get, you know, increase, just increase the hell out of that

shareholder value by sticking it to people as much as possible. And it ain't going to stop anytime soon until, you know, the pitchforks come out finally. Yeah, still waiting. Yeah, we'll see. Anyway, okay, we have time. We should move forward to the next one in this block. Yeah, I think that's probably a good idea. That was a, that segment got a little bit negative.

Let's get positive, okay? Let's talk about something actually being done. Despite growing nationwide bipartisan opposition to the construction and expansion of data centers, the government thus far has done effectively nothing, other than. I guess incentivize it in fact, making it even worse. But today, AOC and Bernie Sanders introduced House and Senate versions of the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, which would stop the construction or expansion of data centers until new protections are put in place. And by protections, I mean regulations that consider

a wide variety of different types of damage that these data centers can do. So it includes things like federal review and approval of AI products before public release, So, and that's by the way, something that Donald Trump is saying they want to do anyway, so that these models are not going out in a form that would do damage in a variety of ways through, you know, non-consensual deep fakes or the creation of chemical weapons or whatever. Proof that new facilities won't increase electricity costs for nearby communities, significant economic concern, mandatory union jobs and zero government subsidies for qualifying AI data centers, local community veto power over citing decisions, which in some, you know, cases exist in some areas, but you've probably also seen news of areas voting against it and the data center is being built anyway, which is enraging. And I would love to commend the American people for not responding to that in an insane way. I'm surprised. Anyway, there's also a ban on exporting US AI computing infrastructure to countries without similar sorts of safety and environmental

laws. So they were not just putting it somewhere else and that they do a bunch of damage or whatever, the models and everything. So they would also task the Secretary of Energy with looking into things like water usage, energy costs, greenhouse gas emissions, wastewater discharge, noise levels as well. I would assume also pollution. That's been a significant concern. I know that some of the XAI places in Tennessee just have like a bunch of jet engines burning fossil gas and poisoning the communities there. So it's good trade to see at least a couple of politicians, they're like, hey, rather than just let all of these be built and then it's locked in and it seems like there's nothing we can do, they look out there and they see that people are enraged all over the country, Democrats as well as Republicans,

and they're actually doing something about it. I think it's quite wise. What do you think? Yeah, it's always the same ones it feels like, you know, they always come from the progressive caucus. It's funny how that works. But I look, you know, you were talking about how to, like, politicians every left. So you mentioned outside of Memphis, well, I'll get to that in a minute. But when they, people vote against it and they do it anyway, you probably saw that clip, which I guess is like has been disputed, but not proven to be false or anything yet. But it's like, it's somewhat, you know, up for debate.

but there was a clip of Governor Gretchen Whitmer on a hot mic saying about this exact situation saying to like a big AI guy. We know how it goes. We're used to people saying hell no, but then we just do it anyway. And that is enraging is the word you used. And that's exactly correct because it feels like more and more people. It feels to me like almost no one wants or likes these things on. on either side of the aisle, and it just has not mattered. And the whole, it's like this stuff is growing so fast.

We've already wrapped like our whole damn economy up in it for some reason, without even really understanding. Most of them aren't profitable, the companies, I think, and how they ever will be specifically. People are just like, well, you know, it'll be AI, and it'll be smart enough to figure out how to be good. And it's like, okay. It just, it's also, it just seems like insanely speculative and risky

for reasons that are not, apparently worth it and it's called the environmental cost is so much. And outside of Memphis, Tennessee, yeah, they're powering a data center with like 57, like, gas-powered turbines that are each one is the size of a house. Right. And related to, you know, AOC and Bernie trying to pass this law, according to the Clean Energy Act or an actual law from like this 60s or 70s, you can't just do that, right? But they are, though. And what's going to happen? I don't know.

It's like that, you know, ask for forgiveness instead of permission thing, except they know at least with the people they're in charge right now, they won't have to ask for forgiveness or if they do, it'll be given, you know, carte blanche. So like, even with laws that we do have that should prevent at least some of the more egregious examples of this, they're just doing it anyway. So something's got to give.

Yeah, people don't want to, as you said, It doesn't appear to be profitable literally at all. It's all just a massive bubble. You know, the companies that have the data centers aren't profitable. The traffic that they have so far is corporations. The corporations are saying they need to scale it back because it's too expensive to use it. And even when they were using it, it wasn't profitable. So again, I didn't go to money school. So I can't figure it out. But I can look at a poll and apparently soak an AOC and Bernie. people don't like it. Seven and ten Americans oppose local construction of AI data centers. That is a lot considering that it's only been an issue for a couple of years.

53% say that they oppose building a nuclear energy plant in their area, which means that far more opposed to a data center than a nuclear power plant, which I think also makes a lot of sense. But it's in terms of like the thing people think of when they think of these areas, that's pretty amazing. In fact, the highest opposition to local nuclear power plant construction opposition ever got was 63%. Data centers are higher than that. The nuke's, nuke centers have ever been, which is pretty amazing. And I also want to remind everyone that Bernie Sanders earlier this month unveiled his plan to create a $7 trillion sovereign wealth fund through a one time 50% tax on the stock of the largest AI

companies, basically taking back that value from them that only exists because they stole everything we've ever said, done, created, or produced to create their products. That way we would have, you know, voting control over what these companies do. We would generate money through, you know, them operating. And again, they only operate because of what we have already done. Never forget that. Yeah. Even in a best case scenario where it is some kind of like tech utopia eventually, like where it does replace everything and handles it all or whatnot, there, what does. What is, they're going to have to they would have to then

pay everyone or keep everyone take care of everybody right or you know everyone will just burn everything down or the robots kill all the people and then it's fine I guess but what I'm saying is like that whole they have to there has to be

some value and incentive for the actual people who live here for this stuff to just continue on unfettered because eventually it will, you know, take everyone's job and ruin everyone's life. So it's like, I don't know how they expect to ever get people on board with it if they don't do something like that. But I guess they don't care. I don't know. They just seem to just not care.

Yeah. So. Yeah, there's so many. And politicians at both sides that have been bought by these, these tech companies, the AI companies, the data center companies. And I hate it. And they don't get how angry people are getting. But this is what actual populism is. Populism, it turns out, does not just have to be demonizing Haitians or whatever. It can be actually responding to the significant economic concerns of the people. And it's why I am really hoping we have an awesome, smart, progressive running in 2028, perhaps even one of those two. That would be great. Okay, we're going to take a short break. Lots of more to get to after this. Okay, everybody, thank you for being here. Let's jump into the comments. Dusty Gee says, but gas did go down. It's 539 now. Jesus Christ,

that's terrible. Lurking in the gray says, well, the rest of the world sees tragedy, Trump sees opportunity. I predict Trump Tower Venezuela incoming. Yeah, by the way, as they're going to get into in the second hour, we will be talking about the situation in Venezuela right now. It's obviously, you know, it's a very difficult disaster. They're going to need a lot of help. But thankfully, We're in charge of Venezuela now, so obviously we are going to take care of them since we control them. And that's, we were told, good for both of us. So I'm sure we're going to be dispatching the Army Corps of Engineers any day now. Or some sort of U.S. agency that aids other countries.

I'm sure we have one of those. Only. We just send them and it'll be fine. Oh, that'd be so great. We should make one of those. We should. Anyway, YTP renewed. Hey, YTP renewed.

says, woohoo, John had a roll an hour. I can listen to this on speaker without the neighbors having to overhear Jenks shouting. That's true. Matrix Elmo, I'd watch that movie, says, hello all, glad to be with you all while the world burns. Agreed. Okay, Velvick Gold Mine says gas prices are still really high in Northern California. Well, actually, I figured that mystery out. It's because Northern California, most people don't know this, is in America and they're high everywhere. So that's the unfortunate thing. But, uh, Yes, we here in SoCal are with you.

Oh, welcome back to what remains everybody of the show with me and with Trey. I wanted to give you a preview of who's going to be in the second hour. I believe Yaz is going to be, but it hasn't been updated in the dock. So hopefully we can get that second name for them. But anyway, we have time enough for one more topic. Why don't we jump into it? As you're seeing in the past week, U.S. Southern Command has carried out at least three lethal kinetic strikes on boats that they allege were, quote, engaging in narco-travel. trafficking operations, which they have said of every one of the many ships that they have blown up,

regardless of evidence to the contrary. And so this is a reminder to you that these strikes in the Caribbean continue as part of what they call Operation Southern Spear. If it wasn't clear enough to you that for people like Donald Trump at Pete Hegsseth, killing people in the Caribbean as a replacement for not having a functioning penis, they've called it Operation Southern Spear. Anyway, as of right now, on June 16th, one man was killed and there were two survivors of a strike. On June 18th, three men were killed. On June 21st, two men were killed and there were six survivors. But on that June 16th one, this one is pretty interesting. So they killed two people immediately. But then there were six survivors. And then we just left them in the ocean. U.S. Central Command said that they notified the U.S. Coast Guard.

And then the Coast Guard eventually suspended their search for survivors saying there were no sign of survivors or debris. But the thing about that that confuses me is we so precisely knew where the ship was that we hit it with a missile and we had satellite footage of it. So I don't understand why we weren't able to save them. I would also like to remind the military that I put out what I thought was a friendly, easy challenge to you on day one, which was arrest them. send one of the hundreds of ships we have and arrest them. You could do that. You don't have to just hit them with a missile. Now, if you were concerned that it would turn out that many of them were not, in fact, narco terrorists,

then you wouldn't want to just arrest them because that might look bad. You'd want to just blow them up. But if you also wanted to demonstrate how amazing our military was, how strong and vigorous we were, think about it. We could go down, we rappel down from a helicopter, guns pointed at them, and then we drag them in and try them. And I think that would be awesome. And it would also have the benefit of not being a war crime, because again, I have to remind

everyone, you can't just murder someone because you think they're dealing drugs. That's actually not a legal thing that you can do technically. We've just chosen to internationally murder citizens of other countries because Pete Higgs that says they have drugs or whatever. So I find all of this trade to continue to be, again, yet an understanding. other stain on our country. It's a terrible thing that we're doing. And I hate that people appear to have forgotten that it's going on. Yeah, no, yeah. It's like you said, we knew where they were so precisely that we could, you know, just drone them using satellites and whatnot. But we don't have like the, I guess the military, right the honor, everybody has hasn't gotten around to making the like life saving drones, AI drones. You know what I mean? Like the good, they've been so busy focusing on the the murder drones that they haven't. They had the table, the benevolent guardian angel drones.

I don't know when those are coming. But yeah, I mean, it's like you said, you already said I was going to bring it up. Like, you would think that even outside of just the way like criminal justice is supposed to work or whatever, that it's like, you know, you want to really make your case and drive at home that what you're doing here is well and good and just, you would want to bring some of these guys in and, you know, make them face justice. get information on them on the operations and stuff. You know, that's how six seasons of narcos has led me to believe that these things are supposed to work.

But conversely, like you said, imagine if you go and arrest them and they turn out to just be like fishermen or whatever it is. Well, now you're really going to have egg on your face. Look at all these additional innocent people you've murdered. So I guess I just don't want to roll the dice on that and just, you know, leave them out there to fend for themselves. But I mean, yeah, it's, you know, it's horrific and unjustifiable. And like you said, there's just, this is how they've done with so much stuff. There's such a deluge of insanity that you can't keep up, you know, it's hard to keep up with any one,

uh, any one given travesty, you know? And it's like, so this is a crazy thing for our military to be doing like publicly. I mean, this type of thing you feel like, probably, oh, the CIA or whoever has done stuff like this for years, but they used to add the decency to like just, lied everybody about it. Now they brag about it, you know, and yeah, it's insane. Yeah, by the way, I hate myself for participating in this. So I referenced narco terrorists. That's not a thing. That's just a word they came up with. You know why? Because if I were to tell you we killed drug dealers, you'd be like, wait, we just killed them. But no, we didn't. We killed narco terrorists. That has the word terrorist in it. And terrorists are bad people. And you

and you can kill terrorists, right? This is the Orwellian thing that they're doing. We've murdered 210 people ostensibly because of drugs. Can you do? Like, what if they were in cars? They're trying to cross a border checkpoint. We find out they have cocaine in the truck. Can we bomb the car? Can we do that? Pull them out, summarily execute them at the border or whatever. Yeah, right. Can we do that? There's all these reports of cocaine at Mar-a-Lago. If I were in the bathroom of Mar-a-Lago, when somebody offered me Coke, can I beat the person of death. Like, it's not a death sentence because you have drugs. We don't even know that they have drugs. I'm even extending that good grace to say that they probably have drugs.

It's madness. It's utter madness and it shouldn't be accepted. Yes, but John, but at least though, there's no more drugs in America. So, you know, you have to weigh that when you against all the murders, extrajudicial murders. Nobody can get high anymore. Thank you, sir. Thank you. super happy about it. Exactly. That's just utter madness. And as a result of all of this, Congress is looking into blocking Pete Hegseth's travel funds. Okay. I think he'll find a way to go places regardless. He's not even one of the ones in the administration that I think is abusing the travel funds as much. It's like Cash Patel's one taking private jets to concerts and stuff. Christine Oams filming like music videos in SoCal. That was not my issue.

with Pete Exith. Everything else was my mid-issue with Pete Exit. Anyway, so any other thoughts before we close things out, Trey? Oh, no, you know, just existence is a nightmare. Happy birthday America, I guess. No, I mean, on that note, it is really a bummer. Again, it gets lost in the shuffle of all the admittedly higher stakes things, but it is really is just such a bummer that this particular milestone is taking place with this particular administration in charge. Like, everything. It's just, you know, it really, it really does. Truly, truly suck. Yeah. It's celebrating the World Cup. The World Cup is hitting for. I'm loving that.

That's true. There's that. That was fun. People like the NBA finals. I'm excited for the next Spider-Man movie. I guess there's some lights in the darkness. Reasons to live. Yeah. You can find some if you look hard enough. Yeah. Anyway. I give you a good reason. Come see me do stand-up comedy at Trey Crowder. literally going to prompt you to provide that reason to live. Yes.

Where can we find it? Great minds. Yeah, just, I'm T-R-Crowder, T-R-A-E-Crouter on your preferred social media platform, and then the website is Treycrowder.com where I keep all my dates and tickets and stuff. So you heard that guy earlier, if you were listening then. He's got abs now because he laughed so hard. That's what he said. Scientifically proven.

You come to my show, you live abs when you leave. Yeah, you watch him. You laugh a little best exercise of your life. It's a win-win. Anyway, thank you, Trey. Always a pleasure to have you on. And everybody, we are going to take a short break, but stick around because Yaz is going to be taking control after this. All right, so you got a message for John I'd roll?

Tell him to be nice to me. What contributions to the progressive cause are you most proud of? I mean, I don't have super high aspirations for a singular role that I can play in the movement or anything. I just, I try to present myself as what I think that I am, which is a progressive man who is driven by a, I think, well interrogated and well organized system of values that I try to stay consistent on. And I demonstrate that that's the sort of life that a person can lead and be successful and be happy and all of that. And that should not need to be done, but there are so many people on the right that are trying to push men in the opposite direction that I want to be able to do that. Along the way, if I can get people to care about some topics that not that they wouldn't necessarily care about, or that for some men, they might think that's not a topic that they should be focused on,

that's definitely something that I relish doing. And along the way, I mean, we've been able to introduce people to a lot of candidates. That's been a big part of what we've done. You know, not all of them necessarily got in office. Probably most of them did not. And a lot of them, you might not even remember their names. But it was great to be, to be able to provide people the platform where they had the chance of, you know, making a difference. Obviously, AOC and all that. But there's been a lot of great people along the way.

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. In the bonus episode for the members, we do some inside baseball. We're going to look at John's desk. Nice little spaceship here. Nerd. But it is kind of look cool. Who has Legos?

Oh, no. He's taking apart a keyboard. Who has a mouse pad that's this big? He's got a dog with a nose that you can hang something like. You know what this desk screams to me? Nerd. And that's how we like him. We love Johnny Pye.

He's got his own. personality like everybody does at TYT.com. T-YT.com slash team. David Soror and Nina Turner. Is Adam Greendrop by? Charlamine. Congress, great to have you. It's great to be with you, your show is a great thing. You're informing people. A lot of the shows that I live on, you know, my CNN and my MSNBC

and even Fox and any of the other shows, NPR. They are so quick to decide that they know what this building means today. The one thing that I hate that politicians do, you know, they talk about the people they should be talking to. Do they have any idea that they're their establishment and that they're hated? Or do they not realize that at all? People are so deeply in their little universe.

I think it's very easy to not really question what you're doing. Voters have a right to ask questions of any nominee, whether they're independent, Republican, or Democrat. The system is monopoly that suppresses competition. How is it the year 2024? And we're still like, maybe they'll talk about pain medical? I know. It's the same. How is that?

At one level, it's like, good, what we're talking about. And you're like, it's 2024. And that's always been the critique, that your critique of us is, well, you guys give good speeches, you put out good tweets, but you're not wielding actual power. Now we're starting to. My favorite news platform by far, it's not even close. It's about a country and a principle, and that's what you and I both work to achieve. And I'm so glad that at least half the battle has now been one. If you want to go really hear what's going on, honestly, you should tune into the Young Turks.

Thanks for doing such a great job. Please keep it up, hanged up. Yeah. That makes me so happy. Oh, I like making you that. I didn't know about that. This is a happy Anna Kasparian. You're welcome, YouTube.

Join the Dragon Squad by becoming a YouTube channel member. Click the join button below or sign up on t.yt.com slash join to get access to fun emojis, a member only chat, exclusive shop TYT designs, add free watching, and so many other amazing perks. Plus, you get bragging rights for being part of the coolest community on the internet and help us drive real positive change in the world. The Dragon Squad awaits. So join today. I love cows. Welcome to the second hour of the Young Turks.

I'm your host, Yasmin O'Lea Khan. Jank is out today. And I've got Jackson white with me today. How are you doing, Jackson? Like I said in a pre-show, I'm pretty damn fantastic. You did. I've been traveling more than I usually do, which is a lot. I've been enjoying myself out and about in the warm weather.

You know what I mean? I've been learning healthy ways to balance all the chaos out here. in the world and, you know, trying to enjoy my friends and my family and stuff like that. I got a whole bunch of new tattoos, you know what I'm saying? I got tattoos all over the place. A lot has happened. Yeah. A lot has happened.

I love your new healthier lifestyle with the balance. Like, I think we could all learn something from that. You should do Jenks, what is it, his operation joy and spread some of your wisdom there one day. Oh, no, really. I definitely should. And you know, lastly, you know, a lot of the wisdom that you gain comes from being really stupid and making a lot of mistakes. So hopefully you gain compassion and empathy along the way. I mean, that's the hope, I would say.

I don't know if it always works out that way, but that is definitely the hope. But thank you so much for joining me tonight on the show. We do have a lot of stories to get to. Plus, we have a lot more in the bonus episode. So stick around for that. But let's get right into our first story. So earlier this week, twin earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.2 and 5.5, struck northern Venezuela, flattening homes and buildings in Venezuela's capital of Caracas, LaGuard, and surrounding areas.

And as of the time of this production, the official death toll from twin earthquakes that flattened parts of Caracas and surrounding areas rose to 920, lawmaker George. Rodriguez, the president of the National Assembly said on Friday. So at least 3,000 others are injured, but there's still thousands of people who are trapped under the rubble or they're missing. So it's really, really dangerous, scary stuff going on down there. And a website set up to take reports of people still unaccounted for had over 50,000 listed as of midday on Friday. And the UN's aid chief gave a very similar tally. And unfortunately, it's still very early that all this reporting is happening. So these numbers could very likely increase from this point.

So the US Geological Survey has predicted high potential for more than 10,000 debts, which would place the quates among the deadliest earthquakes in Latin America within the last century. That's very serious stuff. And Venezuela was already suffering from years of economic collapse. And this disaster is obviously only going to make things much worse. than they already were. So Venezuela was already in a very difficult situation before the quakes with frequent power outages and public services in shambles.

And that's from Al Jazeera reporting from Bogota in neighboring Colombia. And according to the United Nations, 8 million people in Venezuela were already in need of humanitarian aid before these earthquakes even hit. So now the question is, what is the United States doing, especially seeing as Trump said that the US would be running Venezuela following the abduction of Nicholas Maduro. So here's what he wrote in a trute social post. He said, the two major earthquakes that just hit the great people of Venezuela are both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths. The United States stands ready, willing, and able to help. I have instructed all

agencies of our government to get ready to move quickly. We will be there for our new and great friends, Early reports are not good. And understandably, as you might imagine, this has rubbed some people the wrong way. One U.S. government official told the intercept that Trump's offer doesn't go far enough since Venezuela is now a United States vassal state. Don't we run that country? The official asked speaking on background and referencing Trump's comments. That's an obligation that exceeds friendship.

And at the same time, Venezuelan American organizations and progress, of the progressive foreign policy groups are about to circulate a letter calling on the Trump administration to provide massive, unconditional humanitarian aid to Venezuela, as well as long-term economic damage from U.S. sanctions, according to details of the letter shared exclusively with the intercept by just foreign policy. Also, the organizations argue that the United States bears a unique obligation to Venezuela, and that U.S. aid must match the scale of the harm the the U.S. has played a role in creating. So it's also very important to note that prior to the earthquakes, Trump actually boasted about

the billions of dollars the United States has made from Venezuelan oil over the past six months, not the money that we have contributed to their economy, but the money that we have made off of them and their resources. So the letter being drafted by the Venezuelan American and progressive groups cites a recent economic analysis by Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez showing that U.S. policy has failed to produce the economic recovery Trump has claimed. And the letter notes that sanctions have left Venezuela operating at a diminished capacity, that the buildings that collapsed were not maintained, and the hospitals that must now treat nearly a thousand injured were not adequately supplied

as a direct result. So for example, in La Jollaira, more than 100 buildings were destroyed in the quakes. So should the United States be responsible for rebuilding? Any word from Trump on that? And that was coming from an anonymous US government official. So to be clear, aid is being sent to Venezuela. So that is a good thing. The United States has pledged what it called a whole of government response, which includes plans to deploy warships, transport planes. and helicopters, as well as to mobilize $150 million in aid. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he went into more detail about recovery efforts as well yesterday. Already deploying search and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles, there'll be some others will add. That's their most immediate need right now is search and rescue efforts.

They have much of collapsed buildings, and so they'll need a lot of help in terms of digging through that. The airport there is badly damaged, so we'll have to rely on the Department of War to deploy assets there. And then we're also helping them with some overhead imagery, especially in coastal areas where they don't have full visibility over what the damage has been and what the impact has been. Those are the acute, like, short-term needs over the next 48 to 72 hours, because in search and rescue, you're trying to get to people while you can still save their lives. They're buried under rubble. And other countries are responding as well. The Qataris have already offered assistance, as we spoke to them earlier today as well.

El Salvador has stepped up in multiple countries around the region, including Chile and others have reached out to us to communicate and get that happening. As we move forward with that response with the sort of the short term phase of response recovery, the second phase, of course, will be identifying their more longer term and acute needs. What are the things over the long term they're going to need help with? We'll have a better assessment of that after the next 48 hours. Okay, so we had a lot to say there. You might have noticed that he was speaking from Bahrain. He's not even here right now. But again, is any of what he's saying, is that really enough?

A lot of people really don't think so. The emergency relief alone will not be enough. Venezuela's recovery will require access to its own financial resources and the ability to import the equipment, construction materials, medicine, fuel, spare parts, and other goods needed to rebuild homes, hospitals, schools, roads, ports, and critical infrastructure. And that's from a letter drafted by Venezuela and American organizations. and progressive foreign policy groups. So Jackson, I want to get your thoughts on this.

There's a lot going on in Venezuela even before any of this happened. The United States said that we have taken them under our wing. We're in charge now. Trump said that he is running Venezuela. What do you think we can expect to see as far as the United States action in Venezuela to actually help the people there and the infrastructure? I mean, there's so much to say about this. I'm chuckling because, you know, Trump, Trump says a lot.

of things. In fact, the other day it came out that he said, nobody, nobody cares about housing, but he used some expletives in there. So I don't want to get us demonetized, but nobody cares about housing, he says. You know, he says a lot of things, including that, including that he doesn't even think about or consider Americans' financial problems. He said he wasn't going to get us in the new wars. You know, the list goes on and on in terms of what comes out of this man's mouth. Now, my thing is that this whole administration is just an endless contradiction. So any help that Venezuela gets from us obviously is good. And if we're supposed to be this, you know, house on a shining hill and we're supposed to be

the world police and we should be doing these types of things. But then why did you cut so much USAID? Why, you know, look at the response to Puerto Rico and Trump's first administration. So he put out one post where he says, we're going to help Venezuela, but the reality is is next week. He might say, oh, Venezuela's asking for too much. You know, we do too much for them, just like he does with anything else arbitrarily anytime he wants to. There's no telling what this dude's going to do. And I think that that's what's so dangerous for the rest of the world. So he might pull the help next week. He might give them more. He might invade Cuba

next week. Earlier today, we bombed Iran again. It's just complete incoherence everywhere you look. So my hope obviously is that we do help the Venezuelan people as much as possible. But I just every single day, there's just no telling what's going to happen. And I think that situations like this really present that when you need government to come in and really do something. Yeah, it's always very scary when something like this happens. And the thing is, you have to prepare for the unexpected, right? Everyone knows that natural disasters happen all the time. That's why we have certain organizations that have been put in place to respond at, you know,

you know, immediately whenever something like this happens. And those organizations are supposed to be funded by our government. But as we saw just last year, was it last year or the year before? It's hard to keep track now whenever Doge is doing all the stuff Doge was doing. Yeah, last year. They cut so much funding from our own federal government, but also, as you mentioned, from U.S. aid. So a lot of that money has been spent on like the great American state fair and on redoing the reflecting pool and giving it to Israel and doing all kinds of things with our money apart from

putting it in the places where it actually needs to be. So here we are now. We are basically responsible for Venezuela because we kidnapped their leader. They don't have anybody there right now. Trump said that he's basically the de facto president of it. We all saw the memes of Marco Rubio when he was supposed to be leading Venezuela or taking over as president of Venezuela. But right now, it is a very critical time for the people of Venezuela. We heard about those numbers and those numbers are likely going to get so much worse as they continue to dig through the rubble and see all what the damage actually was down there.

It's very, very scary, but we're going to have to keep an eye on the situation. and see what our government decides to do. But as you did also point out Jackson, our government can barely be relied upon to take care of us, its own American citizens. It can't be relied upon to take care of its previous commitments. You know, other people that it has already committed to, for example, Ukraine, it's always very a little precarious, let's say, right? Whether or not Trump is going to be in a good mood that day and he's going to keep the funding,

or if he's going to be in a bad mood and he's going to pull the funding for the from these people who desperately need it. Right now there's a lot of talk about the debts that have occurred because of US aid. Ro Khanna made a comment about it. And he was quoting another source that said, I believe it was 4.5 million children were going to die as a result of the Doche cuts specifically to US aid.

And Elon Musk decided he's probably gonna sue Ro Khanna just for saying that for quoting another source that did the actual investigation and that's what they came up with. So that's what we're dealing with right now. And as we're going through our own turmoil as a country, then it's very stressful because actual people are dying or they're missing and they need eight and they need it right now. You think about if you're hungry or thirsty, you can't wait for like the government to be in a good mood.

You need it when you need it. So let's see. Should we do F, Alyssa? All right. We're gonna move on to our next story. So let's get into that one. Former White House National Security Advisor to Donald Trump, John Bolton has officially pled guilty to mishandling classified information related to his work in the first Trump administration.

So Bolton has been a frequent critic of President Trump. And while he was one of many critics that Trump's DOJ pursued legal challenges against, Bolton actually confessed to his crimes this time. So Bolton pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information out of the 18, with which he was initially charged. He faces a prison sentence of up to 60 months and has agreed to pay $2.25 million, prosecutor said, and he is set to be sentenced on October 28th. So in addition to the prison sentence and fine, Bolton will also give up any

retirement benefits related to his work in the U.S. government. Bolton was originally indicted in October 2025, charged with eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and faced up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine per count and three years of special release. $250,000 per count. So that is a lot of money. And what did he do? specifically, well, you know, let's see. The Justice Department alleged that while he served as Trump's national security advisor between April 2018 and September 2019, Bolton included highly sensitive classified information

in documents that he described as diary entries. The documents contained information classified up to the top secret level. And prosecutors said that Bolton sent the documents to two family members via private email accounts and a messaging platform. In addition, they said a cyber actor associated with Iran hacked into Bolton's personal email account after he left the White House in 2019, and when he reported it, he didn't say that his account contained national defense information. And according to the New York Times, he was apparently compiling the notes for his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened. That's why he was doing all of this. So to be clear,

Unlike some other investigations involving classified information, including the charges filed in 2023 against Donald Trump, Bolton was not accused of retaining the secret documents themselves, but rather of keeping diaries and sending emails that mentioned details of his daily work in national security. And unlike the other cases against Trump critics, Bolton's case did have some merit, and that is why he ultimately took the plea deal. And this was sparing him a much longer trial and more jail time. And in a statement released today, Bolton's lawyer, Abe Lowell, stated that Bolton did what real leaders do. He took responsibility for a mistake he made thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information,

adding that Bolton kept a record to preserve history, but Donald Trump kept secrets to serve himself. I just wanted to throw that out there, I guess. And acting deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ's national security division, Hayden O'Brien said, also put out a statement saying that Bolton's plea ought to send a message to other public officials whom the public has entrusted with classified national defense information. If you willingly mishandle these state secrets, the Department of Justice led by the National Security Division will investigate and prosecute you to the full of extent of the law. Jackson, what is going on here? So we're going to see, I guess, Bolton get some kind of punishment, serve some justice towards him for what he has done with his mishandling of classified information. Why is this the first time we're seeing this come up? Like why? Jackson,

I know you got things to say. What do you think? Oh, I got a lot to say. Firstly, I mean, you know, justice is served when these people feel like it. At the end of the day, You know what I'm saying? Like people in powerful positions, they make choices. And at the end of the day, you know, we can try really hard to be rational and educated. And that does make a difference. But we're emotional creatures. So John Bolton's being, you know, taken down because Trump's in office. And so his DOJ is handling the business because he feels like it. I'm sitting here chuckling because, you know, John Bolton's caught up. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, he got all these documents next to his toilet. You know what I'm saying? Like, 34 felities and the dozens more that he didn't get charged with. And the ones he didn't get charged with were the more serious ones like him, like literally, you know, committing treason and trying to stay in office. And just all the crimes wheeling and dealing while he's in office, $750 million in stock trades in the first three months,

almost a billion dollars, all the billions they make it. I mean, I will talk until the end of the bonus episode if I go on and on about how big of a criminal he is. So John Bolton, yeah, it's nice to see him facing some justice, but let's be real. He's committed much larger war crimes for which he should be facing justice for, but, you know, he got some documents. So I guess, I guess that was the triggers. So, you know, again, justice is arbitrary and life is not fair. But also, it's just, I was laughing, too, because this whole, just this whole era that we're in and this whole Trump thing, it's just, it's just a joke. But also, you know, the clarification like, well, you know, John Bolton,

he stole the documents for a good cause, but Trump, he did it for a bad cause, like trying to rationalize it, you know, like you get caught cheating or something. You're like, well, it wasn't, it wasn't really that bad because, you know, it just, that's, that's the, that's the, the, the esk that we're dealing with. It's just, it's unbelievable. But, you know, I guess a little bit of justice served. Yeah, a little bit of justice is nice, especially when justice is so hard to come by these days, which is sad, you know, like, I don't like the feeling that we're just taking what we can get. Like, oh, we would love more justice, but like if you can give us a little bit, then thank you so much. You're so kind. You're so gracious. Like, we should be demanding

full justice. But at this point, like honestly, if we were going to prosecute everything that this administration has done, not even Donald Trump, like even let's assume that he has all the presidential immunity in the world, even if we just prosecute everyone around him in his orbit between his first and his second administration. And again, we're only one year into his second administration. But even if we did that, we would just like be spinning our wheels for years. Like we would be in litigation, like doing all this work with our legal system, with our justice system for years. Like this would go on for so long and it would cost them much money. And the thing is, like, I think it would be worth it still.

You know, I think it still would set a good precedent that like you can't just do things and be like, oh, it'll be too much work to prosecute. No one's going to bother. No one's going to want to deal with this later. We need to deal with it. And the thing is, in this country, we just keep procrastinating. We just keep kicking cans down, down, what is it, what is it kicking it down the street? Down the row, yeah. We'll say.

I always, I feel like I always try to do idioms and then they never come out right, but whatever. We get the gist. Thank you, thank you. I'm a communicator for a living. I feel you. What I'm doing. But yeah, like we just keep kicking the can down the street further and further down. And it's like the longer that we do that, the more we set the not really the precedent, but we

We set the image of ourselves, like these are our values. This is who we are. We are people who do not care about justice. We are people who do not care about what is right and what is wrong, what is lawful, what is lawful. Because when unlawful things happen, we just let it happen. So like, what does that even mean? Who are we if that's what we're doing?

All right. We're going to take our first break. We will be right back with much, much more. We're back. Everybody, welcome to the social break. Let's see what some of you guys are talking about. TYT.com. A lot of questions about the power panel.

It's been a minute since we had a power panel or an ice cream whisper. I don't know what that means. But yeah, I guess they had John and Treyer on the first hour. It's Yazan and Jackson here. Yeah, Yaz and Jackson. That has a good nice thing to it. It does. And what's this about ice cream now?

I don't know. I don't know what went on in the first. hour so I can't say I was busy prepping for my own hour but hopefully I just maybe maybe that makes sense to John I don't know boomer dragon cat says currently listening up the coast of Lake Michigan to get home had to listen and thank you for listening cat as always and I mean that sounds lovely Lake Michigan sounds lovely I've never been I should go I was just there yesterday oh because you've been traveling everywhere

I was coming I was in Chicago yesterday and I was It seems like it'd be lovely this time of year. Chicago is literally the best, one of the best places that you can possibly be in the summertime. In the winter, it's freezing cold. But in the summertime, oh my, it's incredible. I've only been to Chicago a handful of times. I wanted to go again this year, actually. It was going to go in September, but we'll see if that happens.

All right. We're going to wrap this up and we're going to get back to the show. We've got more stories. Welcome back to the second hour of the Young Turks. You have Yasmin and Jackson White with you. We got a lot more stories. So let's get right into this next one. There's a giant warning sign for the Democratic establishment here,

where the support of people like Schumer or even Akeem Jeffries, it's certainly not an asset in your campaign. It may be a detriment. It is very clear that the groups on the left, Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, our revolution are out organizing, out fundraising, outworking, out-working, outmaneuvering the traditional party institutions. Right.

That is happening. They have captured the energy. They are being more creative. They're being more strategic. They're being more aggressive. And if you were someone in the democratic establishment, you should be deeply concerned about what this says. So during the latest episode of POD Save America,

the former communications director for President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, gave a stark warning to Democrats following the clean sweep of Mamdani-backed candidates over New York. And instead of whining about the outcome of the New York race, instead the Democratic establishment should learn from this. Former President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, laid it out. He put this on X. He said, I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I would take away from what happened in New York yesterday. One, authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group a mile away. True. Two, Endorsements of the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings.

The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark. True. Three, conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what about Gosset, they won. The triangulators lost. Also true, he's on a roll here, you guys. And there's more. Number four, cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper. I do love wallpaper, but not in this sense. Number five, the The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reach past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something. And six, don't fear the base courted. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran towards them won. And finally, number seven,

if you want to lead a party, you have to be willing to fight inside of it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field. The lesson under the lessons. The country is tired of being managed. People want to be led. and he did make a slight correction to that last part about people wanting to be led. I don't think it came out the way he wanted it to. Someone said, I agree with everything but the last one. We don't want to be led. We want our needs to lead. We want our leaders to do things for us instead of for the billionaires and corporate donors.

And he says, yes, I agree with that. So with these lessons in mind, the next race people are starting to focus on is the Democratic primary over in Michigan. So let's take a look at that. You got some polling that you can take a look at. And as you can see right there, there is a progressive candidate. We have Abdul El-Sayed, and he's leading. And there is Representative Haley Stevens is behind him by 2.4 points. So compared to Stevens and Senator Mallory McMorrow, who has the endorsement of Chuck Schumer,

El-Said is seen as more of an outsider, even though he's currently in the lead there. This is in part due to his very progressive stances, like he wants Medicare for all, and he wants to stop weapons transfers to Israel following many of the points that Hunter Biden, of all people just laid out right there. And that is why he not only has the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, but also Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who endorsed him earlier this week. And in an interview with the AP, Van Hollen said he believed that El-Said was the strongest candidate who can win in. November and the candidate who is willing to take on the status quo. And when I say status quo, I mean not just the lawless Trump administration, but take on the Democratic establishment that has not fought hard enough for working people. Say that last part again, has not fought hard enough for working people. But let's turn our attention really quickly over to Mallory McMorrow,

who as you saw in the polling is currently in third place with just 9.3%. McMorrow is a state senator. and she has tried to carve out her own lane between Stevens and El Sayyed as an anti-establishment candidate with a reform-focused agenda. She has won endorsements from other senators, including Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, both of those are disappointing, while also drawing millions in outside support. But if you take a look at what she said about El Sayah's decision to campaign with Hassan Piker on CNN yesterday, it gets a little weird.

Let's watch. There has been a lot of support on the left for Abdul El-Said. He's been endorsed by Hassan Piker, who has millions of followers on social media, mainly people under the age of 30. I mentioned this because he is a very controversial figure. And in March, you compared him to white supremacist Nick Fuentes. There's a responsibility for whoever we nominate as our next US Senator to recognize we have to build and expand a big tent. My opponent made a decision to bring in Hassan shortly after there was an attack on a synagogue here in Michigan

where a man drove a pickup truck into a synagogue where 140 preschoolers were at school that day. And had it not been for the security measures, the ballards in place, it could have been the largest mass killing of kids in this country's history. And to bring somebody in to represent your campaign in my mind is a very different decision than going on somebody's stream and talking to their audience. What is she trying to say there? What is the point that she is trying to make? McMarro just tried to connect an attack on a synagogue to Al Sayyad and Hassan Piker. Like how did she get there? Because smear campaigns will totally work in favor of sharing policy ideas or what you will actually do for the Michiganders.

Like just tell them what you will do for them instead of whatever it is that you're doing. So also we want to shout out fellow TYT contributor, Jordan Yule, for highlighting this because he posted about this on Instagram, on his story, on his socials yesterday. And of course, mainstream media will not call out McMorrow for what she said, for what she was trying to do there, whatever it is that she was trying to do. So shout out to Jordan for that. I did see it over there. Jackson, of all people, I don't know if I should be surprised or as surprised as I am that all those seven points came from Hunter Biden because it feels like these are things that people of his generation of his ilk really just like don't have any access to.

But there he is saying all the things. So they know all the things. They're just choosing not to do the things because they don't want to actually serve the people. Is that what I'm getting out of this? Yeah, and I think that, you know, like when we look at the attitudes of like more centrist establishment Democrats, you're looking at a professional class and a group of people and their entire careers and lifestyles and well-beings revolve around certain individuals being in management positions or heads of different types of foundations, heads of different types of lobbying groups. And it makes their lives pretty easy. So, you know, you look at like the Bill Clinton era that's, you know, the Democrats have been struggling to accept that that's over. The Blue Dog Democrat era in the 90s when the economy was pretty good, particularly compared to what it is now. And they could kind of just like throw out general talking points and not really talk about making change because more or less things were humming along pretty well. Now that's not working because, you know, like people don't, people are drowning in debt. People don't really have much hope for climbing the social ladder.

we're seeing billionaires become wealthier, all of these types of things. So, you know, like you looked at that interview and she was talking about like Hassan and the anti-Semitism and all that. Like she's just a career. She's a professional politician. And, you know, she's not a statesman. She's not a stateswoman. Now we're in a time where people really have to rise to the challenge.

So I think one thing for like progressives, and just anybody on. on the left who's running for office, like you don't even have to sell everything to people. Like if your if your particular focus is, let's say like healthcare or, you know, education, all of these things that the country desperately needs attention for infrastructure, the Democratic Party can deliver to people in a way that we'll see positive results pretty easily. That's why you look at the list from Hunter Biden and be like, oh, is it really him saying this? And to us, it's like, oh, this is so basic. But I really think that what needs to be done right now is pretty basic.

We just need to get these people in office to get it done. Yeah. I think that's what's so shocking about all this is that it is so basic, right? People just want representatives who are actually going to represent them, who are actually going to represent their needs and not the needs of the corporations or the billionaires or other politicians, you know, whoever these people are, they are. are elected to represent the American people. And the American people are the ones who do elect them. And we tell them the things that we need. And they say, we will do this for you if you elect us.

I mean, say, fine, we'll elect you and go do those things. And then they're like, just kidding, we can't do any of that, you know? And now what we're seeing is Zoron Mamdani is over in New York doing all the stuff that he said he was going to do. He is fulfilling like a checklist, all of his campaign promises, just going through him one by one. He hasn't even been in office for a year yet. And he's already so accomplished to the point where at least the people of New York and really the country, because everyone is paying attention right now to what's going on in New York, everyone can see that these things are possible, right? Even when we had Democrats who would get into office by saying all the right things, once they get to office, they're like, you know what, it's really complicated. There's a lot of moving pieces here. There's a lot of things that people don't understand about actual power and how it gets to be

actually wielded in the favor of the people. And Mamdani is there like, no, we can still do things, though. Like there's still something that can be done. He balanced the budget. He has a rent freeze going into effect in October, a two-year rent freeze. Just like all these things that he is saying can be done. And then he's like, here, I'm showing you it can be done. So the American people are like, oh, my God, why haven't we been doing these things?

things all along. And you look at Momdani and he is someone who identifies as a Democratic socialist. He's someone who identifies as a very progressive person. He's younger than I am, you know, and he's out there doing it. He's very effective at it. And people are taking note and they're saying, I want my own Mamdani. I live in Texas. So I don't think I'm going to get one anytime soon. But it would be really, really nice. And I don't know, like everyone keeps telling me I need to move. And yeah, maybe I do need to move. But we'll see about that. Any final thoughts before we go to break, Jackson? Yeah.

You know, when you, you know, what you said about mom, Donnie balancing the budget. I mean, to me, he cleared the biggest hurdle of not raising property taxes. If he would have had to do that, I think that that could have made him a one-term mayor just because of what the ramifications politically. But he was able to do that without raising those property taxes. So you're 100% right about not only is it possible for us to implement. policies that can better our lives. But we have options. We can debate these things. We can think through them. It's not like we only have one pathway to getting to cheaper healthcare overall or cheaper education or less inflation or better infrastructure. We can come to the table

and we can figure out ways to make this happen. And you know, like what you said about Texas, you know, that's what I meant like a lot of progressivism or being on the the left. A lot of that is kind of like social and cultural based and it gives it a brand and an image. But in Texas, you know, a Democrat running who's just talking about making healthcare cheaper and just talking about making education cheaper and like keeping it there, you know, you can kind of get around branding issues and who doesn't want cheaper education, who doesn't want cheaper health care. So I think the Democratic Party, if it's willing to embrace people like mom Donnie, then we can have wins all over the country because not everybody has to be mom

Donnie. Yeah, that's such a good point, actually, especially here in Texas. If there is a progressive that wants to rise up and take on the Texas GOP establishment, now would be the time because they're up to a lot of crazy things right now. And I think a lot of people, even on both sides of the aisle, are kind of upset about what's going on down here. And better Aurora, I always talk about how close he actually did get to winning that Senate seat, taking it from Ted Cruz. He came dangerously close and the Republicans took notice. And he did so being branded as an outspoken progressive. But the thing is, his message is what people voted for. And he pulled a lot of people from across the aisle to vote for him. So we're going to take another break and we'll

be right back with more. Hey guys. Welcome back to the break. We got some comments here. Driver dragon says, where is this, tyt.com says, thanks to our government, our country is in a serious state of decline. Sadly, it is so bad we probably won't have the money to even try to fix it once the Trump robbery has made poppers of us all. You know what? That is a great sendoff into the weekend. Thank you. We all have that with us. But unfortunately, like, it's hard to argue with that sentiment.

A sexy speed racer 317 says, Chicago is a great place. The winters here, wild cold, are over-dramatized by the media. I don't know if that's true. Like I haven't even been in the heart of winter to Chicago. I was there in October once, I think, and it really was, it was like frigid cold. I'm from Connecticut. I know I live in Texas now. I'm originally from Connecticut, so I know what winters are, but maybe I'm soft from living in Texas for so long.

TH8 Gart, Thor got it. I don't know what that's supposed to be. Goddess says, to be fair, Jackson said city on a shining hill instead of shining city on a hill earlier. Idioms and other fun types of speech are hard. Oh, yeah. See, we both, we both messing up. It's all right. It's okay. I like it. I like it better. I think it's more interesting. One time I was trying to say too many cooks in the kitchen, I said too many toes in the bucket. Hey, hey. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. We have a couple more stories to get to. And then we have even more for you in the bonus episode. So be sure to stick around for that. You'll have me and

Jackson for a couple more stories over there. We're going to get into our next one though. This one's kind of a fun one because it's so ridiculous. We are, of course, talking about the drama with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. And it continues as now President Trump is declaring that vandals are putting chemicals in the pool illegally. That is what he's saying. And they even have a target. They've released footage now of one such vandal doing, I don't know, something at the edge of the reflecting pool. She's doing it in broad daylight. She's doing it in front of plenty of witnesses. But, you know, just look for yourselves. Here she is. And I don't know, she's got like a bag with her. She's putting her hand in there. She puts her bag down. And then she puts her hand back in the pool. What is she doing? What could she possibly be putting in the pool? She's vandalizing the pool. We don't know.

We don't know what's going on there. So this is now the worst algae bloom that that pool has seen in recent memory. And it was probably that girl's fault. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that the Trump administration has completely botched the repainting of the pool in the first place. So the girl is now the target of a government investigation. Whatever she's doing there is being called destruction of government property. She put her hand in the pool from what we can tell that's all she did. But now she's being hunted by our government.

But before we get to that, just a quick reminder that Trump's renovation of the reflecting pool cost taxpayers a whopping $16 million. Once it was finally painted and filled, the pool has now suffered from peeling, paint, and from algae, and even a dead duck. There was a duck in there and the duck was not alive. And anyway, it's gonna cost even more money now to drain and fix and refill the pool. But Trump is mad and he posted this to truth social a few days ago. You can take a look over here.

Oh no. I'm sorry. Okay, yeah, he said, of the many statues and fountains that we rebuilt, renovated, cleaned, and fixed. The only one that was vandalized was a reflecting pool, which is being taken care of ASAP. It has been given a 300 foot long gash. Chemicals have been illegally placed in the water. And the beautiful new grass field has been destroyed with a gigantic 8647 chemically carved into it,

probably inspired by Dirty Cop James Comey. Please remember that there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction or even the attempted destruction of such things, which will be fully enforced. Thank you for your attention to this matter. That's what he said. So there is actual footage of his own guys dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the pool. And the gash at the bottom was likely caused when he drove a motorcade through the pool before it was even filled.

And you can take a look here. However, there's been speculation or questions raised online asking if the presidential motorcade driving in the pool during the construction early May, along with other equipment, may have caused or contributed to the problem with the blue coating. Recently, Adam Kovac, a report of a scientific American, wrote, quote, the bottom of the pool may also have been affected by the presence of heavy equipment and trucks and a presidential motorcade that drove through at one point while the coating was being prepared and applied. So I don't know how a vandal would even put a 300-foot gash at the bottom of a filled pool without anyone noticing. He did say somewhere else that it was done under the cover of night or under the cover of darkness.

I don't know. That's what he's saying. Some people are like, There's not even a gash down there, but there is damage from the motorcade that people can see, apparently. And I did mention that the Trump administration is to blame for all of this. And I'm not saying that because I think like Marco Rubio was down there painting the pool himself. It was a contracted job. But now, a firm that has worked on the reflecting pool in the past is speaking out about why they actually passed on the job this time. So specifically, the company balked at two requirements. The Trump administration wanted it done by July 4th, and the pool bottom had to be blue,

according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the reflecting pool. So they said the project was unfeasible within the parameters set up by the Trump administration specifically. So instead, rhino linings, which typically provides material for truck bed linings, has provided the material for the pool because truck beds and pools, I guess, are the same thing in the context. That's what they said. The contractor, Atlantic industrial coatings, was also chosen, though seemingly after rhino linings was already chosen. Its owner, Eddie Wood, said that it was the government

that decided to use polyurea provided by rhino linings for the pool, even though polyurea has not been shown to work well for pools or for fountains. It has not been widely tested in the those in those instances. So the New York Times had Anthony Flett, the chief executive of U.S. coding specialists, a company specializing in waterproofing coding, review these documents. And he didn't entirely dismiss vandalism, but he did say that this project was done away. It was done way too quickly and there was practically no oversight to it. He said, I don't want to totally blame the vandalism. If they put more material down, maybe none of this would be an issue. There's people in the pool industry whose whole life is polyurea and they should have been called in.

They should have been there to watch over the project to make sure that these failures weren't prevalent. I think it was just too hastily done. And TMZ also sent an anonymous pool surfacing expert and another pool consultant named Randy's, I'm sorry, Rudy Stankowitz, Rudy Stankowitz to the pool. And they had similar findings. So both experts told us the problem looked self-inflicted. They pointed to installation issues, not sabotage as the likely cause. The anonymous expert told us the coding appears to have never properly bonded to the pool's surface, while Stankowitz believes crews may have missed a critical recoding window during the project,

two different paths to the same conclusion. So yeah, they're saying it's not sticking to the bottom of the pool. It's not supposed to stick to the bottom of the pool. But that's why there was supposed to be a primer down there. The primer stick to the pool, the polyurea sticks to the primer. That's how it's supposed to go. And it's so weird how we all just like know so much about how to paint the bottom of a pool now. Like we're all just like experts in this.

We all know about pool maintenance. And here in the South, a lot of people have pools. It really is a whole job just to maintain your pool. There's a lot of guys who say I'm going to maintain my own pool and not pay a pool guy. And sometimes they say, you know what, it's not worth the effort. It's a lot of work to do that, right? And that's just for a regular backyard pool. I can't imagine for something as giant as the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial,

something that's so big that you can drive an entire motorcade through it for no reason at all. Just for no reason at all, you can do that. And that is what Trump decided to do. This is such a ridiculous story. Everyone is keeping an eye on this. By the way, the Lincoln Memorial, it's just about a bad moment. mile away from where everyone is gathering right now for the great American state fair. So that's fun. And there's also now a big fence around it to keep the vandals out. If the vandals are algae, then

like a fence isn't going to do any good. But Jackson, what are your thoughts on this? Because even though it's so ridiculous, it is costing us money. It's just so enigmatic of who Donald Trump is at his core, a big stupid failure. You know, and also, I mean, we were already experiencing drops in tourism, but now, I mean, extra, extra why go to D.C. Like, who knows, you might get thrown in prison for, who knows, walking on grass or, you know, we bombed Iran. Oh, it's because of this guy who was walking next to the reflecting pool. I mean, and they got, they throwing people at like 30 to 100 year prison sentences for anti-fashioned. protesters, any corruption protesters and things like that.

Like this is getting pretty dicey. This is getting very serious. I mean, it's been serious, but the fact that people are getting investigated by the federal government for what putting their hand in the pool, like, that's pretty terrifying. Like, what are these people doing? Who knows? There are a bunch of lunatics who have way too much power. But, you know, that's the serious part of it.

But then just again, they can't get this right. And yeah, algae happens. But, you know, failure after failure, from the economy to the tariffs, to the war situation in Iran, all the other countries that he's bombed, it just everything that's just depreciating. And it's just completely reflected in the reflecting pool. You know what I mean? Like, it's just this man is beyond words. I don't understand how he's a real human being half the time, the things he does, the things he says. It's just, and we're stuck with this for several more years, and that's the worst part of it all.

It's not even the things that he says that are so ridiculous and so mind-blowing. I mean, they are ridiculous, but what's so mind-blowing to me is the people who go along with the crazy things that he says. If he says there are vandals who are putting chemicals in the pool, and he has no proof of this, of course, If he had proof, we would be having a very different conversation, but he has no proof. And the footage that they decided to release was just some girl with a bag just putting her hand in the pool. That doesn't prove literally anything. It proves absolutely nothing, but that is what they're going with.

And there are people in our government who are like, I guess we got to go hunt this woman down, track her down, and investigate her. What the hell are you going to investigate? Like what she had in her bag that day? Like who I have no idea. And unfortunately, like they want to see some something happen as a result of this. So I hope that girl's okay. But we do have one more quick story.

We're going to try and squeeze in before the bonus episode. So let's get into that one. Democrats glaze secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullen after he denigrates their colleague. Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut is was expressing concern about the 3,900 children that were separated from their families due to Trump's draconian immigration policy. So earlier this month, the Brookings Institute found that more than 145,000 children have had at least one parent detained because of their immigration status during President Trump's second term. More than 22,000 children have experienced the detention of both parents,

per the Brookings report. So as Representative Delaro attempted to get clarity, on DHS's child separation policy. Things got a little heated. Let's take a look. 3,900 children were separated from their family. 450,000 kids were lost through the Biden administration. You didn't say a word about it. Mr. Secretary, do not interrupt.

Don't you point your finger at me. I will point my finger at you. Don't you be a hypocrite then. 3900 kids. You should be as upset about the 450,000 kids that were lost. He didn't say a word about it. For four years, you never said a word. Mr. Secretary.

Could you put him in his place for? You should be put in your place. And how did Democrats respond to this attack on their colleague? They did so by praising Mark Wayne Mullen. So at an oversight hearing for the Department of Homeland Security, Representative Ed Case of Hawaii, along with Texas representatives, Henry Quaylar and Veronica Escobar, thanked Mullen for an improved culture of communication and engagement between the Department and Capitol Hill. That is not what it looked like to me.

That is not what I saw. But what more could you expect from somebody like Henry Quaylor? So Veronica Escobar of Texas actually told Mullen, I so appreciated your openness to hearing me out and hearing out the concerns that I brought to you. And again, that's from a Democrat in Quaylar, also of Texas, who holds the distinction of being the only anti-choice Democrat in Congress. He noted that Borders are Tom Homan and other senior officials were in his district recently and that he was glad to be getting notifications before officials visited now

instead of hearing that from my mayor and other folks. So in a very cordial exchange with Ed, with Ed Case, Mark Wayne Mullen praised Hawaii's governor Josh Green for his cooperation with Homeland Security. Case told Mullen, I'm texting him as we speak to say you're saying nice things about him. And Mullen joked back, don't say it, don't publish it. While our Democratic Democratic leaders were heaping praise on Mullen, a watchdog group initiated two reviews into the agency. One of the reviews examined the use of force after a recent DHS inspector general's report describing two violations of use of force at a detention center in Louisiana. A prohibited chokehold and a guard's use of a pen to stab a detainee who would not close the cell door.

And the other review focused on the increases of deaths in those ICE facilities. As of this week, there have been 20 deaths in ICE detention in 2026, according to ICE. There were 33 all of last year, according to the agency. And in 2024, the agency announced 11 deaths, according to its website. And this follows kind of a shift in ICE's policy that has many people concerned, as they should be, Instead of reporting any detainee death that occurs in a detention center or within 30 days of the detainees release, ICE will now report debts only as long as the detainee is in physical custody. That means it no longer documents detainees who become ill while they're in detention,

go to the hospital, are released from custody and die. At least 11 ICE detainees have died at hospitals this year, according to the ICE data. So when the Democratic representative Lauren Underwood attempted to raise the concern of detainee deaths, Mullen rejected the notion of a high death rate saying of Underwood's line of questioning, those are dangerous accusations she's making because in the state of Illinois, they're twice as high to die in a state penitentiary in Illinois than they are to die in ICE detention. And Mullen's responses were uniformly just appalling to hear, but not quite as unnerving as seeing the Democratic law.

just shower the praise on the steward of these really barbaric policies that we're seeing play out. Again, these are not Democrats that, like I personally am fond of. These are not Democrats that I think a lot of people, a lot of Democrats are fond of. I don't know who is voting for Quaylar in Texas. But Jackson, any quick thoughts on this? Yeah, I mean, obviously these are examples of Democrats who are, you know, need to leave the party, need to get voted out more than anybody else. And, you know, if they do have a career, then it's somewhere in, you know, a place like Texas where they can get away with stuff like

this because of how the district's laid out. But, I mean, you know, Mark Wayne's response, well, what about Biden? What about this? What about that? Like, I guess it's fine if, like, you know, political commentators or just everyday people have these debates like that. But if you're actually in a position in government, then what good is what aboutism? Your job is to keep people safe in their transition from this country to wherever you're taking them, if you're going to be taking them there in the first place. So, I mean, we can all play what about with anything. You know what I'm saying?

Like, so it's just, it's really just deflection and it's childish. And also an example of the immaturity of this administration and all the people who put it there. Yeah, so that's what we're dealing with. That is the, that is apparently our government functioning well, according to these specific Democrats. So hopefully we can get to a better place than, I don't know, like this, it doesn't feel good to me. We're going to wrap up this hour of the Young Turks right now. Please stick around, join us for the bonus episode. We have a couple more fun, more, more lighter stories.

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