The Young Turks - Out of Battery

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Episode summary: Donald Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and then defamed her by branding her a liar, a United States jury has decided. Justice Department Files Criminal Charges against New York Rep. George Santos. Judge set to hear Abortion Pill case had ties with GOP Billionaire Donor. Tucker Carlson announces new Twitter show after leaving Fox News. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Woo! Well, the Young Turks, Jake, Euger, Anna Kaspian, on a giant newsday. I mean, the last couple of hours, p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p pm. Don't get.

Don't get a twisted, Uger. not the last couple of hours, especially the last 30 minutes. Yeah. A lot of news broke in the last 30 minutes right before showtime. I just want to thank the news cycle for, you know, giving me this wonderful situation to deal with 30 minutes before showtime. Godless. Okay, listen, guys, we got, not only do we have stories on Donald Trump's sexual abuse verdict, Tucker Carlson, we know where he's going now. If you haven't heard that, we got deep, and we have important details for you guys.

And Tucker begins the war against Fox. That just broke as well. Let all the story on George Santos, that just broke. They call them dumps. It's a massive news dump, and it happened right before we got started. But we're ready. We're cleansed and we're ready, okay? Oh, my God.

Okay, so we're quoting Trump. We're quoting Trump. Okay, here we go. Let's do it. Well, why don't we begin with a big verdict when it comes to Donald Trump? The verdict right now is on the question of whether or not Mr. Trump raped E. Jean Carroll, the jury has found him, has said no. But on the question of whether or not she was sexually abused by the former president

and whether or not he forcibly touched her, the jury has come back and said, yes, they have found him liable for sexually abusing and forcibly touching E. Jean Carroll back in 1996. That's Fox News, announcing the verdict in the civil trial against Donald Trump. And that civil trial, of course, had to do with sexual assault allegations against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll, along with defamation accusations after Trump not only denied sexually assaulting her in the 1990s, but then proceeded to say that he wouldn't have done it because she's not his type. Now, there's more on the defamation charge, which I think is interesting.

But before we get to that, I just want to quickly note that while this is a loss for Trump, clearly, he is now ordered to pay $5 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll. The MAGA team has already spun this as a big win because they have not found him guilty of rape, just sexual abuse. What a winner. Let's hear more. This jury has found that former President Trump did defame E. Jean Carroll. They have found him liable for defamation, and they say that he must pay two million dollars to E. Jean Carroll for the battery charge. No word yet on how much they have allotted in terms of the defamation charge. Remember, this defamation charge was about those, they have,

the burden of proof for defamation was that it had to be clear and convincing that the statement made about E. Jean Carroll were not only false, but that they were done maliciously and out of hatred or ill will, spite or recklessness. And they have found that. He is liable for defamation. So the burden of proof for defamation in this civil case was made clear in that description. But the burden of proof when it comes to the allegation of sexual assault, it is not as difficult as it would be if this were a criminal trial. This is not a criminal trial. The statute of limitations has run out because of the fact that this allegedly happened in the 1990s. So E. Jean Carroll came forward with a civil lawsuit and the burden of proof when it comes

to accusations of sexual assault for a civil lawsuit happened to be much lower. The burden of proof is a preponderance of evidence. So I wanted to make that clear. If this were a criminal trial, I don't know how that would play out because again, the burden of proof would have to be much stronger. Now, Carol told jurors that Trump had raped her in a Bergdorf-Gudman dressing room in New York City. We covered those accusations at the time. Carol took the witness stand. So did two women who testified she had told them right after the alleged incident that Trump had raped her. Two other women testified that Trump had kissed and groped them without their consent in incidents that occurred years apart. And I have to go to.

this first video from the deposition, because the deposition was a disaster for Donald Trump. At first, he was asked about the Access Hollywood tapes, the infamous Access Hollywood tapes, and here's how he handled it. In this video, I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the . You could do anything. That's what you said, correct? Well, historically, that's true with stars. It's true with stars that they can grab women by the .

Well, that's what, if you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true, not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately. And you consider yourself to be a star? I think you can say that, yeah. It also didn't help him when he confused E. Jean Carroll for his. his ex-wife Marla Maples. That happened during the deposition, too. Let's just quickly watch that.

I don't even know who the woman. Let's see, I don't know who. It's Marla. You're saying Marla's in this photo? That's Marla, yeah. That's my wife. Which woman are you pointing to? No.

Here. Carol. Oh, said. Oh, I said. Who is that? Who is this? Point. Your wife.

And the person, the woman on the right is your right. I don't know. This was the picture. I assume that's John Johnson. Is that? That's Carol? Because it's very blurry. I mean, so blurry, apparently, that he confused the woman that it was currently suing him with his ex-wife, Marlon Maples. Absolute insanity. Okay, and obviously that's relevant because he said, I've never, E. Jean Carroll, she's too unattractive for me to sexually assault. Well, if she, if you thought she looks like your ex-wife, that's unlikely to be true. Trump goes to court, he loses.

He never has any evidence, he's a pathological liar. And in court, it's not a matter of marketing in PR, which is his expertise. And you can't get your cult to come with you and vote inside the jury room. Now you have to present evidence. And the only evidence they had was Trump's deposition. He refused to testify. Afterwards, he declared that it was unconstitutional, how they silenced them. He could have gone and testified at any moment.

He chose not to. Again, like with his audience, those lies work perfectly. They're like, I can't believe they silenced them, even though he chose not to testify, okay? They don't care, they don't care, they love it, they believe the lie. And by the way, a lot of them don't even know that it's a lie, okay? So some know and think, awesome, we're the best liars, right? So of course he loses in court. Trump loses in court every time.

But did he, Jank? Did he? Because they didn't find him guilty of rape. of rape. They just found him guilty of sexual battery. Yeah. So Anna's right. I'm being sarcastic, by the way. Sexual battery is very bad with the fact that they're, yeah, of course, of course, but actually it's, but that's our point. It's not of course to the right wing. If you go on social media right now, they're bragging. They're like, that's right. He didn't get him on rape.

He only sexually abused her and lied about it all this time and tried to smear her and ruin her. Hadda boy. Really? So guys, this is why it's so, we're at such a critical juncture in our history. And it's so hard for us to understand one another. Because our side, we view to be the rational, logical side and we prove it in court every time when things are based on evidence, right? goes, that's a monster bragging about sexual abuse and go, maybe it's fortunate that stars can sexually assault people, right?

The other side looks at it and goes, A, I don't believe anything bad said about my cult leader slash profit. B, I don't care. I don't care that he's sexually abuser. I don't care that he lied about it. I don't care that he lost. I don't care that he's a pathological liar. All I care is he hates the same people I hate.

And by the way, I'm super mad at the system, the government. the elites, establishment, and this guy says he's against them. I'm signing up. I don't care what happens. So look, guys, one thing that is absolutely clear is that all this talk in mainstream media about, oh my God, the Republican voters, once they find out, boy, those Republicans in the suburbs are going to turn. They're not going to turn. They don't care.

Stop pretending that they care. Stop pretending like it's going to make a difference. So yes, he's a, he of course is a sexual assault and of course he lost. And now he's going to have to pay five million bucks. I don't even know if he has five million bucks. He's, of course, lying about how rich he is. So, but I haven't seen it move one single Republican voter, at least in social media. No, I mean, I don't think that Trump's character flaws.

And we've seen the entirety of the media establishment, corporate media, hyper focus on Trump's character flaws as a way of persuading Republican voters to abandon him. That has not worked. I think there's some value in pointing those things out when it comes to some of the independent voters who sometimes lean closer to the right, sometimes lean closer to the left. You never know how they're going to vote, right? They're swing voters. But with that said, I mean, I think the problem and what's missing from that equation is for Republicans, it's like, okay, so Trump does these terrible things, right? Some of them don't mind the terrible things. I want to be clear about that.

Some of them might not like the terrible things, but they're willing to overlook it because what do the Democrats give them as an alternative option, right? Joe Biden? And I'm not equating Joe Biden to Donald Trump, okay? Joe Biden, I think, is a decent human being. But Joe Biden, in terms of his leadership, in terms of what he has to offer to the American people, in terms of what he has shown his. leadership to be during his first term, there isn't much to offer, right? And I think that is

part of the problem that gets left out of the equation, certainly for corporate media outlets like MSNBC. That again, just hyper-focus on the character flaws for Trump and then provide cover for the very real policy and leadership flaws that you see with the Biden administration. So two things Anna mentioned there, I think, are enormously important and need to be emphasized. So number one is when you look at the character flaws of Donald Trump, a lot of us go, well, then I would eliminate him because I think that the person is so abhorrent that I'm not even going to have a conversation about it, right? But a lot of voters, right or wrong, say, yes, but how does it affect my life? That's exactly right. Okay. And so when you say, hey, Joe Biden's a good guy who, you know, has these certain personality characteristics, et cetera.

Like they'll say stupid things like, he's from Scranton, he's a real guy from Scranton. Dude, he was from Scranton literally 80 years ago. And no one cares. It doesn't affect our lives if he's from Scranton or not, right? And so for a lot of these Republican voters and some independent voters, unfortunately, a decent amount, they go, yeah, okay, I get it. Trump's a bad guy. But I don't care. How does it affect my life?

Now, I think their calculation on how it affects their life is totally wrong because Trump is not here to help them. That I agree with you. But unfortunately, neither is mine. So, and so you can argue about, hey, it's a difference in kind or a difference in degree, right? And we'll have that in the, I hope we don't have it in the general election, but we probably will, okay, that conversation. But guys, there is, at least the second point, there is a very easy, I know it doesn't sound easy because no one in media says it, right? Way to get those independents that swing those elections and that almost certainly will swing the 2024 election. You offer them an alternative that also hates the establishment, but is actually going to do things for them.

You win in a landslide, in a goddamn landslide, okay? Somebody who gets up and goes, you know what? The system is screwing you. They did strip you of your economic dignity, and they do make you work for corporate rule, and the politicians are corrupt, right? And now we're going to fight back, and we're going to get you higher wages, better health, etc. That guy wins in a landslide. But corporate media, which is mainstream media and right wing media, work together to make sure that populace from the left never arises. That's exactly right. They take all the oxygen out of the room. They'll tell you the Biden,

who's a miserable candidate, is your only choice. You must obey. We don't agree. We're going to find another choice. We're going to run him against Biden, we're going to run him against Trump, and we're going to win. Finally, I have to give you Trump's reaction to this. His first truth social post following the verdict was a simple one. I have in all caps, I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. Well, that was clear based on your deposition. The verdict is a disgrace, a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time. So he then, of course, posted other things and just kept going on and on and on. And look, the witch hunt angle, the witch hunt commentary isn't just spewed by Donald Trump. There is a chorus of

right wing media that incessantly repeats that same message over and over again. So that's something else to take into consideration. We are dealing with information bubbles, news bubbles, where both sides are living in completely different realities based on the news that they consume. And that is a huge problem. And I think that's something that we need to also tackle in addition to the dysfunction and corruption that we have in both our media and our politics. 100%. So look, last thing on this, do not try to convince Republicans that Donald Trump's a bad guy. Total waste of energy. They know they don't care. But the independence, can be swayed, but you're not going to sway them with Donald Trump committed sexual

assault, because they already know what a terrible guy he is. You have to sway them with actually doing something positive in their lives. Let's take a break. There's more on Tucker breaking as we speak. So let's regroup on that story. And when we come back, we'll tell you what Tucker's next big media venture will be. And we'll also tell you about how the Justice Department has gone after and filed criminal charges against George Santos, the freshman Republican lawmaker. And now that Tucker has landed, the ego has landed, his war against Fox has commenced.

And there's amazing details about that too. So stay right here. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys. Lots of our members are writing in, for example, Sterling Nash, saying, happy to see this victim receive some vindication. And I do want to emphasize that E. Jean Carroll with excellent vindication in this court case that found Trump guilty of the sexual assault against her and the defamation.

and I appreciate all the members bringing that up. You too can become a member by hitting the join button below the video on YouTube or going to t.yt.com slash join. We can't do the show without the members. You guys make us stronger, allow us to do honest reporting. Casper. Big story involving Tucker Carlson. Let's do it.

Starting soon, we'll be bringing a new version of the show we've been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter. We bring some other things to which we'll tell you about. But for now, we're just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others. See you soon. Amir, two weeks after Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News, he announced that he will be doing a version of his Fox News show on Twitter of all places.

But this story, which is currently developing as we speak, just keeps getting more interesting because it turns out that Tucker is also taking legal action against Fox News, accusing them of fraud and breach of contract. Now, we'll get into more details on that in just a moment. But before we do, why don't we dive into the video that he posted on Twitter, making this big announcement about what his next media venture will be. Let's watch. Hey, it's Tucker Carlson.

You often hear of people say the news is full of lies. But most of the time, that's not exactly right. Much of what you see on television or read the New York Times is in fact true in the literal sense. It could pass one of the media's own fact checks. Lawyers would be willing to sign off on it. In fact, they may have. But that doesn't make it true. It's not true.

At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie, a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind. Facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated. How does that work? Let's see. If I tell you that a man has been unjustly arrested for armed robbery that is not strictly speaking a lie, he may have been framed. At this point, there's been no trial so no one can really say. But if I don't mention the fact that the same man has been arrested for the same crime six times before, am I really informing you?

No, I'm not. I'm misleading you. And that's what the news media are doing in every story that matters every day of the week, every week of the year. So there you have it, the man who misled his audience and literally lied to them because he knew that they wanted to hear certain things is now saying that he is a warrior for truth and free speech. Fascinating stuff there, Jane. No, but the great irony here and what's frustrating to me is that all the things that he just said in that particular clip are absolutely true. They are. In fact, the first two-thirds of his video until he gets Twitter are true. He tells you what we tell you all the time. In fact, he's almost copying us, almost word for word, and what our criticism of mainstream media, and by the way, Fox News and the rest of corporate media is.

The problem is, he's the biggest liar on TV. We have the text absolutely positively proving it. So this guy's a master manipulator. He tells you something at its core that is true, and they use it to lie to you. It's amazing. He's a master propagandist, but there's more video and more discussion of what he's going to to do next. So while he talks about the importance of speaking freely, he implies pretty heavily in this video that he was unable to speak his mind or speak freely while he was at Fox.

What's it like to work in a system like that? After more than 30 years in the middle of it, we could tell you stories. The best you can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can. But there are always limits. And you know that if you bump up against those limits often enough, you will be fired for it. That's not a guess. It's guaranteed. Every person who works in English language media understands that. The rule of what you can't say defines everything. It's filthy, really, and it's utterly corrupting. So I have a lot to say about that, because fact of the matter is, regardless of where you work, whether it's pressure from your employer or pressure from your audience, the ability to

to speak freely in this country right now is in like it's incredibly difficult to do. Let's just keep it real, right? In his case, I mean, it seems like he's making an accusation against Fox News, but let's also remember, Jank, that he felt that he needed to lie to the audience about the election being stolen from Donald Trump because he knew that was exactly what they wanted to hear. He wanted a reporter who fact-checked one of Trump's tweets to get fired because the audience didn't like that. That was negatively impacting the value of Fox News's stock, right? So like whether it's the audience or the employer, free speech in the context of news in America

is real difficult to come by. So his critique, again, the second part of the video, 100% agree. It is corrupting. You do have limits. You will be fired. So I wasn't fired, but I was pushed out because of a very similar situation at MSNBC. Those things are all true. But then he, like if all you did, the great irony, guys, is if all you did was watch that video,

you would have the same problem that he explained in the first part that we showed you. You'd just hear about the guy who got arrested once, and you wouldn't hear the rest of the story. You wouldn't hear that he got arrested six times. You wouldn't hear the full context. So if you just see that video, you go, well, that does sound true about American media. But the full context is, this guy is patient zero. Absolutely. He did it.

He told those lies on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. He's the one guy that was on every cable station and told a different lie at each cable station he went to. Isn't that amazing? And at Fox News, it's definitive. We have the text saying, I hate Donald Trump. He's a monster. He's a destroyer. He's a demonic force.

He's a demonic force. And then he goes on there, goes Donald Trump, the one guy who's great and telling you the truth. What a preposterous, gigantic liar trying to take on the mantle of something that is true about the media. It is, but to be fair to him, it is a brilliant deception for him to do the very thing he's complaining about within that video. Amazing. Right, and to take the mantle of fierce truth teller who wants to speak his mind. Now let's get to the part of the video where he makes the big announcement about his partnership with Twitter. Amazingly, as of tonight, there aren't many platforms left that allow free speech.

The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, is Twitter, where we are now. Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops. Twitter is not a partisan site. Everybody's allowed here, and we think that's a good thing. And yet for the most part, the news that you see analyzed on Twitter comes from media organizations that are themselves thinly disguised propaganda outlets. You see it on cable news, you talk about it on Twitter. The result may feel like a debate, but actually the gatekeepers are still in charge. We think that's a bad system. We know exactly how it works, and we're sick of it.

Starting soon, we'll be bringing a new version of the show we've been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter. We bring some other things to, which we'll tell you about. But for now, we're just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others. See you soon. So he is planning to forego the rest of his Fox News contract, meaning what remains of the money that they're supposed to pay him

as a result of his contract, which is up in January of 2025. So it's definitely going to be more than $20 million. But he is also, again, pursuing legal action against Fox News and is accusing them of breaching the contract first, which makes the exclusivity clause invalid according to him. So I'm going to give you more details about that impending legal action in just a moment. But, Cenk, it's curious to me that he's going in this weird Twitter direction when Twitter's been malfunctioning quite a bit. Like what's going on?

No, I totally get it. The minute I saw it, I was like, of course, I should have thought of that earlier. Why? What did I tell you guys? Newsmax and Rumble and all those guys, I don't think they could really afford them. They might be able to give them 20 million or 40 million for a short term contract, but they just don't have that kind of money and they don't have that kind of audience and it's not sustainable. The platforms on the other hand, especially if they change their algorithms, all Elon Musk has to do is press a button. and goes, everybody gets Tucker Carlson's show served to them.

He will have millions upon millions of it. Anybody that does a show like that would get millions of viewers, okay? It just needs Elon to press a freaking button. And who's the one guy rich enough to be able to offer Tucker Carlson more than $20 million a year, which is what he's foregoing from Fox by breaking the contract? Well, of course, Elon Musk. Elon Musk already burned $44 billion on Twitter. He'd be almost irrational not to do this.

Okay, but I'm trying to understand what that would look like. What would a show? Super easy. They already had one, so I could tell you about it. Okay, go ahead. So what they do is that, you know how if you're on, whether mainly on a desktop, whatnot up, et cetera, but it's featured in different ways on your apps on the phone. But they put it next to trending.

There's a video. There used to be a morning show on Twitter. in a previous administration, and you see the video going on the side. And plus, they could serve that video to all of the users, right? Or a huge percentage of the users. When you send out a tweet, it only goes to a certain site. So let's take me as an example, I'm roughly half a million followers, right? But when I send a tweet, it doesn't go to all of that.

Yeah, it only goes to people who hate follow jank for some reason. Yeah, that's what it seems like. But every platform has an algorithm where they say, hey, It goes to 12% of your audience, 10%, 8%. Now, Facebook, it only goes to a small percentage and you could purchase the ability to send it to more of your own audience, your own followers. Okay, so, but all they have to do is change the algorithm and say, for this particular video, send it to everyone. Now all of a sudden, hundreds of millions of people are going to get it. And that is incredibly powerful.

None of the other platforms have chosen to do that. And look, I've talked about this in the past. I think YouTube, Facebook, et cetera, they keep their Ferraris in the garage, especially YouTube. I don't know why they don't unleash them, but they don't. Here, you think Elon Musk is going to have any kind of constraints? No, he's going to pay Tucker a lot of money, and then he's going to press that button, and he's going to send it to everyone. And so this is actually, if I'm, look, our job is to be honest with you guys.

I don't like Tucker, I don't like Elon, but this is probably a brilliant move. It's probably going to work spectacularly. So that's my real opinion. I'm a little more skeptical than you are. Let's see how this plays out. I mean, you would need to invest in the platform. And Elon Musk, aside from investing his own personal money, has done the opposite. Oh, you're right, Anna, that's a good point.

I mean, could Elon screw it up? I mean, he screwed up everything in Twitter, right? I mean, he fired pretty important key employees that helped with the functionality of the platform. Yeah, it's glitchy as all hell. So he's gonna have to reinvest on the platform if he wants this to work. And so don't get me wrong, a thousand things could go wrong. But if the news today was he's going with newsbacks, I had told you that's the end of his career. He's starting something on his own.

I'd say, good luck, brother. I told you yesterday, that's a very tough thing to do to run a business in the digital media space on your own. But if you go with a giant platform with one of the richest men in the world financing you, that makes a lot of sense and is likely to work. Now, in terms of his battle with Fox, look, he play that one smart too. Our job is to be honest. Can I give them the details on what he's doing here? Okay, great. So he is accusing Fox of fraud and also breaching the contract,

which would make the exclusivity clause invalid, according to the lawyer representing him. And that lawyer is a pretty high-powered lawyer named Brian Friedman. So he sends a letter to executives over at Fox News. And in that letter, the accusation is that Fox broke an agreement with Carlson, not get a load of this, not to leak his private communications to the media and not to use Carlson's private messages to take any adverse employment action against him. It is very obvious that someone at Fox News is leaking tape to the press, which is why we've been covering those leaked tapes.

We've been covering all sorts of content of Tucker Carlson. He's miced up and it's probably during breaks or before he goes live. The only people who would have access to that are individuals over at Fox. The letter also alleges that Fox broke promises not to settle with Dominion voting systems in a way which would indicate wrongdoing on the part of Carlson and not to take action or any actions in a settlement that would harm Carlson's reputation. and Carlson was told by a member of the Fox board that he was taken off the air as part of the Dominion settlement, according to two sources briefed on the conversation, and they spoke to Axios about this.

Carlson is also claiming finally that Brigante, who's one of the executives over at Fox, Fox's longtime communications and PR chief, attempted to undermine, embarrass and interfere with Carlson's future business prospects. which he maintains would constitute another breach of his employment contract. So that is what he's accusing them of. I don't know if this is going to get to a point where they're going to, if he's actually going to file a civil lawsuit against Fox, if he does, I mean, he's going to have to provide evidence and he has to make his case. We'll see how that plays out.

But these are some pretty serious accusations. And it's clear to me that he just wants out of that contract so he can start this new media venture with Twitter. So I read all the details of all the things that he's accusing Fox up. And I would summarize it this way. He's got a fighter's chance. So meaning like he's, look, he makes an argument that you guys broke the contract because the leaks that you're doing, maybe it's part of the Dominion settlement. They say it's definitely not part of the Dominion settlement.

If they, if Tucker's right about that, he's almost definitely going to get paid. But Dominion denies it, et cetera. But there's like four or five different things that he lists where I go, maybe. And remember, the question there is who broke the contract first? And so when it's a maybe, what happens next is you go to court and eventually both sides go, this is too expensive to fight and for one of us to lose. And usually they settle. So then what's going to happen?

Tucker's going to get the money from Elon Musk. And then he's probably going to settle with Fox News and get a big chunk of money. Maybe he doesn't get the whole 2530 that they owe him now, right? But for the rest of his contract, maybe he only gets 10, 15. Good enough. He's still going to get a world of money from Elon Musk anyway. So he's going to get the double dip from Fox News and Elon Musk. And then the third thing that's going to happen is now that they're in open warfare, he's going to get to hit him over and over and over again while he's setting up the competitor on Twitter.

And the last part was a clear shot across the bow too. They said if we go forward the lawsuit, we're going to want the PR person at Fox News, Riganti's text messages. And so did she talk to other people in the media and leak against me? If she did, that's a breach of contract. We'll see you in court. Knowing Burganti, she almost certainly did. And she's not going to want those text messages out there.

So now Tucker's got a super strong hand in my opinion against Fox News and he's using some of their tricks against them. And he's got a strong hand at Twitter. I wish it weren't the case because I think I can't stand the guy. I think not only does he mislead you on air. that definitively, but now that we've seen the text, I mean, there's so many telling things there about his racial views. Yeah, and they're actually even worse than what he says on air. We can't stand Tucker, but we also can't stand Fox.

So let him fight, I mean, whatever, we'll see how it plays out. But I mean, it's not like my heart goes out to either party in this situation. 100%, and I hope they tear each other to shreds, although they probably Tucker will win. Well, my point is, even though we don't like Tucker or Elon Musk or Fox, our job is to be honest with you. And I think that Tucker played this really well. It seems like that's the case. And, you know, he retreated for two weeks. Seems like he really thought about what he wanted to do and what his next move would be.

And it seems like he has a strategy that could work. So again, we'll see how it plays out. The story is still developing. It just broke. But as we learn more, of course, we'll share it with you. For now, though, why don't we move on to a break? But when we come back, we'll talk about how the Justice Department, has continued its federal probe into freshman Republican lawmaker George Santos,

and it appears that they are filing criminal charges against him. He could be appearing in court this week. We've got that story and more coming right up. All right, back on CYT, Jane Canana with you guys. And of course, all the members, if you want to help us do this show and get all of our content, hit the join button below the video on YouTube. Anna. Well, there's a shocking update involving George Santos.

Federal prosecutors have officially filed criminal charges against freshman Republican representative George Santos. Now, these are charges brought forward by the Department of Justice, and while we don't know what the exact charges are, we do know that he will appear in court this week. According to CNN's reporting on this, the exact nature of the charges couldn't immediately be learned, but the FBI and the Justice Department, public integrity prosecutors in New York and Washington, have been examining allegations of false statements in Santos' campaign finance filings and other claims. And so as I mentioned, he is very likely to appear in court this week. In fact, as early as tomorrow, Santos is expected to appear as soon as Wednesday at federal court in New York's Eastern District, where the charges have been filed under seal, which is why we don't know what the exact charges are at this moment, but we will learn pretty soon, I imagine. Now this comes after Santos has been under investigation in multiple jurisdictions and by the House Ethics Committee. In fact, the Federal Election Commission was also investigating George Santos, but the DOJ reached out to the government agency and let them know, hey, we got this.

We're getting involved now and we're going to take over this investigation now. And I do think that this is very likely going to have to do with some, you know, financial financial crimes, whether it's campaign finance or literally stealing money through charitable efforts that he started. So for instance, there are allegations that he broke campaign finance laws. There are allegations that he violated federal conflict of interest laws. There have also been some accusations regarding his charitable organization. He He had allegedly raised money for an Iraq war veteran's dog. And apparently that money never went to the veteran, that's what the accusation is.

So there's a lot going on here. There's also the accusation that he was the mastermind behind a credit card fraud scheme. There's a lot to get into, but we'll see how this all plays out. And I'm glad that the Department of Justice is doing its job and going after this guy who very clearly loves to lie to people, but also potentially scam people. Okay, so lying as a politician is not a crime. It's the most protected thing in the world. Yeah, it, by the way, legally, constitutionally and through the law, Anna's right, it is the most protective thing.

You're allowed, the politicians are allowed to lie in Congress, they're allowed to lie on air, there are allowed to lie in their ads, they're allowed to lie nonstop, and they do. If you were going to arrest politicians for lying, you'd have to arrest at least 500 out of the 535 people in Congress. And so now the mainstream media won't tell you that. They say those are beloved honorable politicians. There's only a couple of them who lie like George Santos and Donald Trump. No, that's not remotely true, both Republicans and Democrats lie, and they lie in a massive way.

Okay, that's not the issue here. So the issue is you still are not allowed to break laws. And so what are the laws that are potential here? Again, that we don't have the leak for, we know that the case is coming, but they do not have the information on what the charges are. But we can easily speculate as Anna began to do there. So first of all, when you run a scam charity, that's fraud. The only, and if you did that, and you're not part of the establishment or deletes or anything like that, you're definitely going to jail, okay? So Santos is in Congress now, but they've really kind of shunned him. So he doesn't

have a big power base. So he's left a little bit exposed. So they can pursue fraud charges. against him in a criminal fashion. Now remember, Donald Trump has already admitted to fraud and paid a giant civil settlement. He did that on a couple of fronts. He ran a fake charity and a fake university. And he had to admit that they were both fake and then he was basically just using it to steal people's money and he paid giant settlements for it. But he didn't go to jail.

Why? Because he was definitely part of the elites and the establishment. Even though he claims to be against the establishment, the fact that he's powerful, protected him from going to jail. Santos does not have that kind of protection. So if he's convicted of a criminal fraud, probably he will go to jail. Okay, so that's point number one. Point number two is campaign finance laws are real and necessary.

Because look, we nearly legalized bribery because you can give literally over $100 million in campaign contributions. And they could funnel a lot of that money to their own properties, to their own businesses, as Donald Trump did. But you still can't just break those laws and take. take bribes or take ill-gotten money and put it into your own campaign, depending on the definition of ill-gotten, et cetera, right? There are some laws, and you need those laws so that they don't do out and out-and-out bribery and go, forget the $100 million in campaign contributions. Here's $100 million in your pocket.

Exactly, right. Okay, so I would hope that Republicans who love the slogan drain the swamp would agree with us that that kind of corruption is unacceptable, right? So they must enforce those laws. Again, there's always a Donald Trump exception because Republicans who generally hate corruption, the Republican voters, which I give them credit for, when it comes to Donald Trump, they go, no, no, no, he's allowed to break campaign finance laws. It's no big deal that he did that with Stormy Daniels, et cetera. But Santos does not get the exception, so he could be in significant trouble. In fact, in the past, there have been lawmakers, people who have been elected into office who broke campaign finance laws were prosecuted and went to prison for it, right?

I mean, I'm trying to remember specific examples, but it has happened. It's not unprecedented, and these are politicians who were considered far more, I guess, credible, far more powerful than George Santos is at this very moment. Yeah, there's a guy named James Trafficant who broke a number of laws. I forget exactly if it was what, if it was campaign finance or fraud or combination thereof. He went to prison. He ran from prison. Duke Cunningham, a Republican from California did massive fraud. He has one of my favorite stories on his way to the press conference to cry that he found Jesus and regrets it. He took a laundry bag full of cash and threw it out of his car onto his wife's lawn.

And then apparently on the drive from the laundry bag to the press conference, he found Jesus. Okay, so there's been crooks in Congress for a long, long time. George Santos comes from a rich tradition, okay? And my point about having his feet in both camps, he's credible these days because, in the establishment's mind because he's a congressman but the rest of Congress rejects him and the rest of the establishment rejects him so he's not quite credible so they might be a compromise because this is all about power guys it isn't about the truth right the compromise might be okay no you can't run

again and you're you're you know and you're driven out of Congress but you know you did run a nice scam and you did get one foot inside the establishment so it's not like we're gonna put you in prison like a regular person so that might be the compromise here, but we're a long way away from there. So we'll see how this plays out. Kevin McCarthy was asked to comment about the criminal charges. And apparently he said that they will look into the charges before determining if he thinks Santo should be removed from Congress, quote, I'll look at the charges, the California Republicans said. So. Okay, one last thing. The giant hypocrisy of the media, John McCain is one of the most famous

people to be involved in campaign finance violations. He was part of a giant scam and he got caught, okay? And it was, it nearly ended his career. He was part of five congresspeople who were caught in that scam where he was going to take money. That's why he later pretended to be a champion of getting money out of politics. Okay, because he actually was the guy who was involved in a scam to get money for his votes. Did that, did he get the George Santos treatment from the media?

He did not. He did not. Even though he has probably the most famous case. Why didn't he get that treatment? Because he loves wars, he loves tax cuts for the rich, he loves giving everything away to the powerful, or he did. And that's why to this day, if you speak ill of John McCain anywhere, the mainstream, forget the right wing. Remember, he's a Republican, the mainstream media will turn around and just rip your head off. How dare you?

John McCain is holy. So I understand the hypocrisy here as they pile on George Santos, but leave all their corrupt buddies alone. Let's move on to yet another story involving corruption. This is an ongoing story having to do with the corruption of the United States Supreme Court. A federal judge who is set to hear the case against Mithapristone or the abortion pill did not get sworn in in a public building. In fact, he was sworn in in the library of billionaire mega donor Harlan Crow. And the fact that he has such cozy ties to Harlan Crow should be a concern considering

Harlan Crow is a Republican mega donor. This judge gets sworn in his library, his private library. And this is one of the judges in a three judge panel for the Fifth Circuit who will make a decision about whether Miffra Stone should be blocked for the rest of the country, meaning women who rely on that pill or who might need that pill in order to. who have a medical abortion would not be able to do so. So pro-publica journalist Justin Elliott, who has been reporting on the crows and the corruption that they're involved in with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, recently resurfaced an

image that I want to show you. So if you take a look at this tweet, he writes, a detail from our story today. Ted Cruz tweeted this photo of Clarence Thomas swearing in Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho. Turns out, this is in the billionaire Harlan Crow's private library and flight record show Crow's Jet Dispatch to DC and back to Dallas before and after the event. So let me just say that fireplace is massive. I'd like. No, look, guys, it looks like some sort of like movie where there's a rich villain. It's almost like a James Bond movie and he takes you to his den where there's. There's this massive fireplace where obviously someone will be ritually sacrificed later in the evening.

It looks like Downton Abbey. It looks like they went to the set of Downton Abbey to do the swearing-in ceremony. Now look, guys, we're going to get back to the substance, which is super important. But one more fun thing. It also gives me a little get-out vibe. Like, hey, Clarence, come to our retreat in this fancy place with a lot of rich people. everything's going to be okay. Okay, maybe Clarence Thomas reached out to this judge

Ho at some point when there was a flashlight taken. Get out. Okay, but neither one of them did. And they're doing exactly what Harlan Crow wants now. That's exactly right. So let's get back to the FDA Miffipristone case because that's where James Ho, this fairly new judge for the Fifth Circuit, comes in.

And again, he's part of a three judge panel that will hear that case and make a decision about that case. Before we learn more about Ho and what his political leanings happen to be, which I'm sure you can already take a guess, let's do a refresher on what the case is involving the FDA's approval of Mithapristone. A conservative federal judge in Texas ruled Friday that the FDA improperly approved the abortion pill Mitha Pristone 23 years ago, ignoring legitimate safety concerns about the drug. The order yesterday was all about writing a wrong. Mifapristone is one of two approved pills that are used together to carry out more than half of legal abortions in this

country. The FDA insists the drug is safe and that serious complications are rare. As administration officials warned that the legal battle in Texas could have far-reaching implications. When you turn upside down the entire FDA approval process, you're not talking about just Miffa-Pristone. You're talking about every kind of drug. So now the Department of Justice is challenging that Texas judge's decision on blocking access to Miffapristone, because in his words, the FDA did not do its due diligence in approving the drug and that the drug is allegedly unsafe. It's all nonsense. This is an activist judge who was appointed by Donald Trump.

But the problem is two of the judges in the Fifth Circuit, where that decision is, facing appeal happen to be Trump appointees who are also activist judges. And the third judge is also a bit of an issue. So we'll talk about the other two in just a moment, but let's talk about James Ho here, right? So James Ho doesn't have a great history if you want to maintain and protect reproductive rights in this country. His biases are pretty significant. So he was nominated by Donald Trump to serve in the fifth district. He has written some pretty aggressive conservative opinions on all things having to do with reproductive rights.

For instance, in a 2019 concurring opinion, Ho said that a trial judge's ruling which struck down a 15 week abortion ban and which was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit under the then standing row precedent displayed an alarming disrespect for the millions of Americans who believe that babies deserve legal protection during pregnancy as well as after birth. and that abortion is the immoral, tragic, and violent taking of innocent human life. So his views on abortion are very clear. At the risk of going off on too large a tangent, his thoughts on government corruption are also pretty terrible. For instance, Ho's first opinion was a dissent in a case involving limits on campaign contributions in Austin, Texas. candidates for municipal elections, meaning people like mayors and city council representatives who represent fewer than 100,000 people are barred from accepting donations more than $350.

Crow seems to have a problem with this. Okay, so a three judge panel on the appeals court upheld the ordinance, and a majority of judges on the court voted to keep it that way, but not Ho. Ho took a different approach, pending a 13-page dissent, arguing the full court. should hear the dispute, Ho said the contribution limit violated the First Amendment. So he's one of these guys who believes in unlimited campaign donations in all elections, including local elections in places like Dallas. I'm sorry, Austin, Texas.

So understand how important that is, because that's exactly what allows Harlan Crowe to buy all the politicians. So you said, but wait, these guys aren't politicians, they're judges. Exactly, you need the judges to say it's okay to bribe the politicians. So he gets the judges, he bribes the judges, so that he can bribe the politicians. It is, it is kind of brilliant. Now, to be fair, Harling Corp didn't come up with that system. Back in 1971, Lewis Powell did and Richard Nixon did. That's a long story that's in my book. Justice is coming. Now back to Ho, on abortion, and I do have to disagree with you. Now, those are his personal opinions. I'm sure that he's going to keep that out of his decisions.

because I hear in confirmation hearings all the time from judges and eventually justices, that they just call balls and strikes. Right, right, right. And they don't have their own political opinions, it affect their decisions at all. Now, as it turns out magically, miraculously, all of their opinions happen to be based on exactly their political opinions on the Supreme Court and lower than the Supreme Court and all of the court system, including the one that Judge Ho is in, in the lower courts. But it's just a coincidence, a total coincidence, so I'm sure that he'll be fair in this issue.

No, of course not. He's going to rule against the pill. Everybody knows him. Everybody knows that all, like, at least two out of the three are going to vote against it. I think this is such an interesting case, though, Jank, because this is a rare situation in which these conservative activist judges need to choose between their so-called conservative values and their absolute love for corporate power. Yeah.

Because the Texas federal judge's ruling in blocking the FDA's approval of Mitha pristone has an impact on all other prescription drugs, right? That threatens all other prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies, they don't like this. So we talked about this before, and that was going to get to my last point, which is that, look, this Fifth Circuit panel is like not just deeply right wing, but fundamentalist and has a history of being caring a lot about religious fundamentalism, right? But we talked about how the Supreme Court and other courts, no matter how conservative they are,

at the end of the day, will rule actually on our side. Why? Because they all of a sudden found a conscience? No, because their side is not necessarily the Republican side or the right wing side. It is the corporate side. So when the drug companies say you will not mess with our already wonderfully corrupt system that we have going on at the FDA where they approve whatever the hell we tell them to approve, okay? All those judges will go scurrying back to their corporate bosses, including Harlan Crow. And so I don't know Harlan Crow's religious views, but if he's like most right-wing businessmen, that is a four second fiddle to his business interests. That's exactly right. I mean, that would for that massive fireplace, not cheap, not cheap.

No, no. Okay. And finally, I do want to make sure you guys are fully aware and informed on who the other two judges are on that panel. Look, and this is why it's so frustrating that Diane Feinstein continues to be a problem for the Senate Judiciary Committee, because without her participation, it is difficult to confirm federal judges, which we obviously need to do while Democrats are in charge. in the Senate, and we have, you know, of course, Biden appointing federal judges. With that said, though, here's what the Fifth Circuit looks like. You have James Ho, and then you have this. The other two judges on the panel are Trump appointee, Corey Wilson, who voted for a six-week abortion ban as a Mississippi state lawmaker, and George W. Bush appointee,

or nominee, I should say, Jennifer Elrod, who said Obamacare was a fraud on the American people. So they're very conservative judges and conservative judges are, I think all judges happen to be activist judges. Let's keep it real. Yeah. Like, let's stop lying to ourselves. So this isn't a comment specifically for right wing judges. Judges are activist judges. They have biases just like anyone else. But in this case, this particular court, the Fifth Circuit, is deeply conservative and very likely will uphold the Texas judge's decision on the FDA. We'll see. to see what plays out.

So look, especially the last two wrinkles here, especially in cases where evidence is not that important. You're talking about judicial philosophy as opposed to like a whodunit, did this happen or did that happen? So even with Trump appointees, when they were given the 60-some-odd cases that Trump and his allies brought after the 2020 election, the judges were forced to say, yes, but where's your evidence. Like this is a courtroom. You have to present exhibits and evidence. And we're super happy to hear it. So where's the evidence of fraud? And Giuliani and the other lawyers said on

the record, we have no evidence, right? And so that's why Trump can lose those cases. But when it comes to a question of, can a judge overrule the FDA? Well, that's just the judicial question. And they can go any direction they like with that. Then they will choose whatever they want. This court happens to be so, this particular physical circuit panel happens to be such religious fundamentalist based on their history. It would be surprising if they didn't rule against the abortion pill. But like I told you, at the end of the day, the corporate goons are the ones in charge. And it's absolutely right. Roe v. Wade, if you're my real opinion, and what I've said all throughout these 21 years, we've been on the air in the young Turks,

even though I think Roe was an excellent piece of legislation. Unfortunately, it wasn't legislation. that it was activist judges that that said yes to row okay from the left having said that citizens united is activist judges from the right that legalized bribery and they did it in other cases as well that's the heart of my book and and that's the number one problem which is that activists in fact the right wing came up with the idea of activist judges to take over the court so that they could institute corporate rule and that's a literal memo and like i said i write about an injustice is coming. Yeah, I mean, that's the whole reason why the Federalist Society exists.

That's the whole point. We've got to take a break. When we come back, Tucker makes another appearance in our show. This time, with more emails and text messages that give you a sense of just how dysfunctional things were at Fox. That and more coming up. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work.

listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon