The Young Turks - Pants on Fire

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Trump 2020 lawyer admits misrepresenting stolen election claims. Tucker Carlson mocked after video resurfaces of him dissing Bill O'Reilly. 45 NGOs urge Biden to disavow American ambassador's comments on Israel and Iran. Credit card debt is surging but fewer Americans can pay it off. Ben Shapiro: "There are situations, by the way, in Latin America where [a military coup] is an appropriate response". Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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! It's up! All right, well, I'm the Young Turks, Jake O'Brien and experiment with you guys. Loads of news ahead, luckily you've got us, okay, so we're going to tell you what it is and we're going to give you the correct analysis of it. Whether people like it or not.

All right, Casper. Well, a lot of mask off moments for Trump supporters, prominent figures who orbited Donald Trump after the 2020 election, including Gina Ellis. So why don't we start with her? What we're continuing to do is to fight by every legal and constitutionally appropriate method to make sure that we preserve and protect election integrity. And we know that at least six states violated their rules in the administration of the 2020 election.

We can't allow corruption to prevail because if cheating and cheaters prosper, then we'll never have free and fair elections again in this country. That's former Trump advisor, Jenna Ellis, back in 2020, as she was spreading all sorts of lies about the 2020 presidential election. Of course, she perpetuated this notion that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, that there was widespread voter fraud. She decided to repeat and regurgitate all sorts of lies. and I'm not the one who's simply saying that she's a liar.

In fact, she's the one who has admitted that she's a liar. In fact, she had to go before a judge because of her violation of Colorado rule of professional conduct 8.4. The rule in Colorado states that lawyers cannot engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. And when she was before that judge, she acknowledged that she's, lied not once, not twice, but 10 separate times in regard to the 2020 election. Let me give you some of those details. Apparently, respondent agrees she made the following

10 misrepresentations. On November 13th, 2020, respondent claimed that Hillary Clinton still had not conceded the 2016 election. That was a lie, and she admitted as such. On November 20th of 2020, respondent appeared on Mornings with Maria on Fox business and stated, quote, We have affidavits from witnesses. We have voter intimidation. We have the ballots that were manipulated. We have all kinds of statistics that show that this was a coordinated effort in all of these states to transfer votes from votes either from Trump to Biden to manipulate the ballots

to count them in secret. That was a lie. She admitted as such before a judge. Let me give you more. On December 5th of 2020, respondent appeared on Justice with Janine Piro. on Fox News and stated, quote, we have over 500,000 votes in Arizona that were cast illegally. That was a lie. You guys are getting the point, right? So forward facing, she'll lie all day, every day. But once she realizes that it could hurt her ability to practice law because she's

breaking rules pertaining to lawyers, well, then all of a sudden she'll admit that she's been lie. Yeah. So now I want to clarify, she says, no, I didn't admit that I was lying. She, you're going to love this. Admitted instead that her actions violated, quote, her duty of candor to the public. Candor means honesty. So if you violated your duty of being honest to the public, how is that not lying? These guys are hilarious, hilarious, okay? By the way, the judge noted there was two aggravating factors here, one that she had a selfish motive and the two, she engaged in a pattern of misconduct. In other words, she would not stop lying and it was to get paid. When you're a lawyer, I know it seems funny to us because lawyers often aggressively represent

their own side, whether it appears to be true or not, but you have a duty not to lie. And so here's a person who said, at least on those ten occasions, that she purposely did was not honest with the audience, right? And so what I'm curious about is the Maga guys, right? Do they look at this and go, man, do they think I like that she lied to me before and I don't like it that she's being honest now? Or do they think, no, she's lying now about lying? Why would she implicate herself? I don't get it. And or do they think like, yeah, I mean, she's admitted that she's lies. Sidney Powell was admitted in court that she's lied and Sydney Powell has said no reasonable person would have believed me. Yet you guys

still believe them. So I just genuinely don't get it. I know for some it's an easy explanation. They're in a in a media bubble and so they've never heard any of this stuff and they might never hear it in their whole lives that Trump's lawyers have admitted to lying, right? In court they and a lot of them have never even heard that Trump lost every single case. Over 60 cases. A lot of them have never heard that he didn't present one piece of evidence that the election was stolen. But for the ones that did hear it, God, it reminds me of fundamentalist religious folks that no matter what you say, they always have some nonsensical, circular argument. Well, I mean, obviously it's because

the deep state and Tifa and their sightseers. And so that's why her lying up to us is actually true. Okay, whatever gets you through the night. For some folks, power is something they place above all else. So is there a portion of the Republican constituency that knows what the truth is, but they like the lies, they want to further the lies, because they want power. This is the way they see their ability, their possibility of remaining in power. I mean, I just think in this current political system with an incredibly pathetic, embarrassing, and weak Democratic Party, how about you guys actually use democracy to your advantage instead of enabling this whiny cry baby, right?

Anna, that's such a great point. I just don't get it. But let me finish my point. But yeah, for some people, power is everything. And they are willing to throw democracy away in order to maintain power or in order to maintain the person they prefer in the White House. But, I mean, it's, there are better things in life than having your favorite guy in the White House. I guarantee it.

And I would argue that maintaining our democracy and democratic process is far more important than one particular figure that you love so much. Well, there's two things about that. Number one, is he your favorite guy? You think he's your favorite guy because of the lies he's told. But in reality, has he actually served you in any way? I mean, look, and I'm super fair to the right way, he says. Okay, but listen guys, seriously, I get it. You like that he bashes the libs and he owns the libs.

You like that he wanted to build a wall. There's a bunch of things that he says that you like, right? And I know that he hates this establishment. And here, here, brother, I get that, right? But what did he deliver? You think you like him. But all he delivered was a $2 trillion tax cut to the rich. No, here's what he delivered.

And it's clearer and clearer to me. Because in the absence of a political system that actually represents the best interests of the American people, the only thing that voters can look forward to is the blood sport, right? Which is why for some portion of Republican voters, triggering the libs, owning the libs is everything. Because that's the only satisfaction they can really get out of this broken, dysfunctional corrupt system. Yeah, and so look, two things. one is that ironically, the right wing would actually get a bunch of the things that they want if the left wing wins.

We would get you higher wages, which you definitely, definitely want. We would get your family health care that you want. Paid family leave. Oh, do Republicans really want that? Yeah. Yeah, but they don't believe it. Three quarters of Republicans say we would love paid family leave when we have a baby because we care about family values and et cetera, right?

But the right wing and Donald Trump will never deliver that to you. So you're valuing. Neither will the Democrats, Jay. No, no, that's definitely true. But hold on, his fake lies, you value more than actually delivering the things that you want. That's amazing to me. But I want to go back to Anna's great point. Look, right way, I don't want to help you out because I think all you're going to do is help the rich, okay?

But if you wanted to win in this country, it's actually so simple for you guys. For the left, it's near impossible because of all the institutional forces against us, mainly corporate media. But for you guys, all you have to do is stop being nuts and you're going to win in a landslide. The Democrats are the weakest party in American history. They never delivered. They don't need, they're a bunch of corporate goons, right? All the right wing would have to, and policies I don't even agree with, I don't agree with the right wing's policies at all. But if they just stop weirdly lying and saying we, you know, that votes don't count and screw democracy and let's destroy the America and the government and do a national.

If you stop being nuts, you would actually easily win. So I don't know if I'm supposed to be happy that you're nuts, but I'm worried. I'm worried for the country. I'm worried for you guys. I'm worried about this enabling fascism. Please regain your sanity. And ironically, it'll help you win. So what ended up happening with this situation with Ellis before a judge?

Was she disbarred? Was there any real consequence? No, there wasn't. So there's no justice in the world. So she lied, she admitted to lying, and the judge stopped short of suspending or disbarring her. This is the former senior, this is Jenna Ellis's statement. This was politically motivated from the start, from Democrats and never Trumpers. They ultimately failed to destroy me and failed in their attempt to, who, we didn't even know who you were, bitch.

Like, none of us knew who Jenna Ellis was. Oh, yeah, it reminds me of all of those athletes that are like lauded and, like, Everyone sees these athletes as heroes, and then they win the Super Bowl or they win some, you know, playoff championship, whatever it is. No one thought we could do it. No one thought we could do it. No, everyone thought you can do it. Okay, everyone thought you can do it. Jenna Ellis is like, like we're sitting around thinking about Jenna Ellis, like, ooh, how can we destroy her? No one cares about you. No one even knew who you were until you started spouting off all these ridiculous election lies. I just can't with these people. It's exhausting. Yeah. All right, guys. But hey, listen.

I don't know if you're pro-gen-A-Lis now or anti-Gena-A-A-Lis. I don't know if you believe words, if you don't believe words. But there she is in open court saying, yeah, I repeatedly lacked honesty in my communication. I lied to the people who trusted me. That is what she admitted to. And I'm just going to end with Graphic 9 here. Because even though I don't really like Ann Coulter, I do appreciate this tweet. item for the resume.

Jenna Ellis denies lying about election fraud, which she notes requires intentionally making false statement. So not a criminal, just a bimbo. Yeah, and look, Anne Coulter asked the same question I'm asking, which is Trump voters, do you like being lied to? What a weird thing that you like it? And what an insane world that I have to agree with Ann Coulter on that one thing. She's actually in a lot of ways more hateful than Trump.

She's like the epicenter of hateful, but she hasn't lost her sanity. Isn't that an interesting distinction? No, she's crazy. No, no, no, she's crazy. We need to go too far here, okay? No, no, but she's crazy in our opinions, Anna, but she's not detached from reality and thinks that the ghost of Hugo Chavez, you know, rigged elections and 99% of the world's doctors are morons and don't know anything and rigged vaccines and thermometers and all this stuff.

So she's just a normal hateful person. Hey, Republicans, why don't you just return to that? Again, you'd still win. Yeah, remember the quaint times in America when Ann Coulter was considered the worst of the worst? Yeah, now we're like lauding her for being an awful person that just hasn't lost her mind. That's the bar for Republicans these days. All right, speaking of Republicans who have, well, publicly seems like they've lost their minds, but privately, very different.

So let's get to Tucker Carlson. Another quote from your book, Bill O'Reilly's success is built on the perception that he really is who he claims to be. If he ever gets caught out of character, it's over. That's right. That was Tucker Swanson McNair Carlson back in 2003, talking to C-SPAN about Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. And while he seems to be critical of O'Reilly in what you're about to hear, later it's very clear that he took O'Reilly's career as an instructive path for his own. Let's watch. I say before that, that Bill O'Reilly's really talented.

He's more talented than I am. He's got a lot more viewers than I do. He's a better communicator than I am. But I think there's kind of a deep phoniness at the center of his schick. And again, as I say, the schick is sort of built on this perception that he is the character he plays. He is every man, this kind of, he's not right wing, he's a populist. This kind of Irish Catholic populist fighting for you against the powers that be. And that's great as a schick, but I'm just saying the moment that it's revealed not to be true, it's over.

The moment he gets caught, you know, slapping a flight attendant on the Concord for not bringing his champagne fast enough or barking at, you know, one of his subordinates. to take the brown M&Ms out of my bowl and get me a bottle of Evian or something like that. The second that makes page six, it's over, right? Because the whole thing is predicated on the fact that he is who he says he is. And just nobody is that person, especially not someone who makes a million dollars, you know, or many millions a year. Fascinating that he had such strong thoughts about the faux populism of Bill O'Reilly. Considering Tucker Carlson's engaging in a lot of that himself these days, I know you have a lot to say about this shank.

Yeah, no, I mean, I've never seen anyone tell on a future self as much as he did there. So look, Tucker Carlson, we've said this many times on the show, is an interesting cat because he has done something that is very premeditated. He's not like a lot of the other right wing hosts. As crazy as Glenn Beck is, I think he believes the things that he is saying. I think he's genuinely nuts. Alex Jones is massively nuts and genuinely so, et cetera. Now, there's tons of things that Beck and Jones and others lie about, but they generally are actually conservative and believe all those things, right?

Tucker Carlson is very premeditated. He is copying Donald Trump and his actions almost exactly, like he's following a manual. We've told you about that dozens of times, right? And we've shown you examples of it. Here's what Trump does. Here's what Tucker is done afterwards. This shows you the original manual. Before he copied Donald Trump, he copied Bill O'Reilly.

So at some point within these last 20 years, that was exactly 20 years ago, he realized, wait, Bill O'Reilly's a better communicator than me, makes tens of millions of dollars per year. Why don't I just do what he's doing? Right. So I'll develop a deep phoniness. The one thing he was wrong about in that clip, the only thing was if you get caught, it's over. Yeah, I know. Right. I mean, back then, maybe. The standards, Americans had higher standards back then. Americans today love to be lied to as long as the ones who are lying to them are members of their preferred political tribe. That's it. Yeah, I think that, so look, all the other things, he says, you know, be a fake populist. That'll work.

That's exactly what he did, right? He's the heir to the Swanson fortune. He said in that clip, I mean, if you make like a million dollars a year, first of all, no, he said no one is populace like that. And especially if you make that kind of money, you're not a populist. He makes way more. And that's him saying, of course I'm not a populist. It's a shtick, it's a shtick.

But I think that the last cherry on top is what Anna was referring to it. Look, Tucker at some point realized, and you could almost see it and we almost trace it for you guys like a CSI scene. About a couple of years ago, maybe about three years ago or something, he decided, oh, you're not going to get caught. Oh, I could say anything on air. They'll believe it. They'll never question me. As long as I'm feeding them the fake populism, the red meat that they want. Oh, the immigrants are the problem.

They're trying to replace you. Your culture is sacred and these people aren't going to make it dirty, et cetera, et cetera. Once he gave him that pill, then he realized, oh, I'm above the law. It doesn't matter that I'm fake. It doesn't matter that I'm a giant liar. None of it matters. They believe everything I say. Look at what Trump did.

They believed everything he said. Even if he doesn't mean what he's saying, even if he's lying. You also have to keep in mind that he is providing publicity, PR for a certain type of ideology in the country, and just having that represented makes people happy. Oh, for sure. So let's just keep it real. So when we talk about like, oh, but don't you hate being lied to? No, they don't care because they want to further what his message is.

He is furthering their message, right? And if you're a lib, don't get too happy because listen, guys, I've called the news anchors on cable and television news actors for now like a couple of decades, right? And so you think Anderson Cooper is not a news actor? He's the heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. So he comes on and tells his version of the story. And his version of the story is corporations are great. The status quo is perfect.

Nothing should be changed. Don't worry about the rich. Don't worry about the powerful, et cetera. So all of these guys are actors. Almost all their personas are characters that are shtick. So that's why like, yeah, Tucker is the worst of him because he does what Anderson Cooper won't do. Anderson Cooper gives you a very misleading story framed completely in a twisted way with omissions and acts of commission as well. But mainly, he doesn't take facts and reverse them. Tucker goes the extra mile because he knows right wingers don't mind that at all.

Like for for the left, if you see an outward lie that really bothers you and you don't like it if Joy Reid or Anderson Cooper does that. But if you never know that they left out the most relevant facts, I mean, the example I always use is Jake Tapper says a study by a university showed that Medicare for All costs $32 trillion. Now if you saw that, he's not lying. There was such a study. It was at a university. But he left out that it's Koch brothers funded. And even they found out that it saves you $34 trillion. So those are giant lies by omission, purposely meant to deceive you into being against a policy that you love. So those guys trick you against what you want. To be fair to Tucker Carlson, he tricks you in a way the right wingers do want.

They want them to play that character and he plays it brilliantly. All right, so do you want to get to some of this other stuff? Because dude's worth around $30 million, okay? His yearly salaries between $8 and $10 million. He's also, of course, the heir to the Swanson Fortune. So, like, how much money do you need? I don't really understand it. But okay, fine.

And during his appearances on Bubba the Love Sponge, but back in 2008 and 2009, he blatantly admitted that he is, in fact, an elitist and very proud of it. Let's watch. but one thing you learn when you grow up in a castle and look out across the moat every day at the hungry peasants out in the village is you don't want to stoke envy among the proletariat how do you pay your bills well i'm like extraordinarily loaded just from like money i you know inherited from my number of trust funds from the swanson yeah totally from the swanson deal you're just living you're a trust fund baby are you not oh completely i've never needed to work Yeah, I mean, it's all just the whole cable news thing was just a total pose. It was like a phase I was going through.

You're about the most unordinary person I know. You're an elitist. You're an ass. No, I don't know. But see, I'm out of the closet elitist. I don't run around pretending to be a man of the people. I'm absolutely not a man of the people at all. He certainly pretends to be the man of the people these days.

You know, that's his whole shtick on Fox News now. Going back to what he accused Bill O'Reilly of doing. And he has even admitted on the record that he lies on his show. He lies to his audience and he said as much during a conversation with Dave Rubin. Well, it's, I guess I would ask myself like, I mean, I lie if I'm really cornered or something. I lie. I really try not to. I try never to lie on TV. I just don't, you know, I don't like lying. I certainly do it, you know, out of weakness or whatever. Just notice the Roosevelt dead framed article behind him because he's a piece of crap, absolute garbage person.

Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, he's like out of a movie. He's like the girl with a dragon tattoo. He's the rich guy who's got people tied up and just likes fascism, likes dominating other people and oppressing them. And so he admitted to you there. He's a giant elitist, an heir to a fortune. He's the least populous guy in the world and then he turned around and pretend to be a populist because he's having fun and he wants to seize power and impress everyone else. He's one of the sickest people I've ever seen in my lifetime.

But hey, if you look up to that and you know, you think a guy who brags about lying to me and playing a character, the guy who said in those in the documents that we have definitively now that he didn't believe Trump, he thought Trump was a demonic monster. He has no regard for his audience. And by the way, he did the same exact thing as O'Reilly that he mentioned in that tape, which is barking at subordinates, he said. And in his case, was to get someone a reporter at Fox News fired for telling the truth. So if that's what you like, there's literally nothing I can do for you. Please get help.

When we come back, we'll talk about the US ambassador to Israel, pushing for war with Iran, pretty disastrous. pretty disastrous. And later we'll get to more news, including the record amount of debt that Americans have accumulated in a very short period of time. That and more coming right up. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys. And so is Amity Daydream that just became a member. Thank you, we appreciate it. Hit the join button below the video on YouTube and you become one of us and help us bring out honest reporting to America.

All right, Casper. The American ambassador to Israel has unfortunately been encouraging possible war with Iran. Now, Iran, of course, is an adversary to Israel. And now dozens of NGOs, non-governmental organizations. are calling on President Joe Biden to not only condemn the statements, but clarify what United States foreign policy is in response to Iran. Now, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, told both the conference of presidents of major Jewish American organizations that, quote, Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with Iran and weave, meaning the United

States, got their back. And later repeated the state. or sentiment at the Institute for National Security Studies. Now, the progressive NGOs, 45 of which wrote this letter to Joe Biden, again want to have the president clarify that we are not in any way encouraging Israel to engage in a war with Iran. I want to read you a few excerpts, including this. It's critical that you clarify that these comments do not reflect U.S. policy toward Iran for the sake of regional stability, future diplomacy, and respect for Congress's constitutional responsibility for war powers.

We are concerned the Israeli government will perceive these remarks as tacit approval for military action, even when such action most likely will damage U.S. national security interests, further embroil our military in regional conflict, and prevent future diplomacy. And there are some red flags, other red flags, in regard to the influence of the Israeli government on U.S. officials as it pertains to a possible war with Iran. I'll give you those red flags in just a moment before I do. Jank, it seems like you have a little bit of insight in this story. Yeah. So this guy is actually one of the original corporate Democrats that took over the Democratic Party and directed it away from the party of FDR to the court.

corporate party that it is today. So he worked with Tony Coahoe to do that. And in my book, Justice is Coming, I make a note to say, hey, is that funny that Biden put him back into power by making him ambassador to Israel? But I thought it was a relatively benign appointment. It's not like he's in charge of economic policy, et cetera. Nope, nope. The minute you have a conservative, corporate Democrat, they're going to do damage. And that, by the way, also applies. So why are you putting this hawk in charge of our ambassadorship to a critical country? I mean, if there's one ambassador in the world that could start a war.

I mean, certainly he's among the top five. Our ambassador to Iran might be able to start a war, etc. Do we still have an ambassador to you? That's a good question. I'm not sure about that either. Yeah, I want to look into that. Yeah, but so this guy totally, look, and you have to ask the question too. This is very important, especially for the reporters.

Is he going rogue and just trying to start a war today? because he's a right winger? Or does he have Biden's backing? Is Biden saying, oh, go agitate to start a war? Because Biden's conservative. You know, that's a fantastic question. Because think about the kind of confidence one would have, the kind of cahones someone would need to have,

in order to speak on behalf of the entirety of the United States government and declare to the Israeli government that they can invade. Iran, they can engage in a war with Iran, and this is the part that matters, that the United States has their back. Yeah, that not only is it, hey, if you are attacked, we'll defend you, that's normal for an ally. Right, yeah. But no, you can start a war and we'll pick up the pieces.

That's exactly right, yeah. We'll pay the price, by the way, not just in money, but we'll send over American boys and girls to die there on your behalf. So that is a hell of a thing to say. If Biden did not authorize it, he should be fired today. Because you've got to get him out of there to send a message. I did not authorize that pro-war statement, right? But Biden does do this all the time.

So remember, his shtick is, oh, I bring all the Democrats together, and I listen to progressives so much. I mean, I have a history as a very conservative Democrat, but I reach out to my friend Bernie Sanders, et cetera. But it's a lie. And so it depends. I think that it's unfair to say that it's a lie when it comes to all matters. on certain policies, especially a few domestic issues, I do see the influence of Bernie Sanders.

When it comes to foreign policy, certainly not. He is not listening to Bernie Sanders. In fact, he nixed a resolution that Sanders was trying to pass in regard to pulling U.S. support away from Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Yeah, I don't want to get into a debate about domestic policy and how maybe he has he given, you know, has he been 5% progressive or 15% progressive at a max, right? Wow, big freaking deal. But okay, I think his policies are massively conservative. But look, here, the example I was going to give you is the one I always use $15 minimum wage. He sends the two Delaware senators to vote against it. As a sign, I was never actually in favor of $15 minimum wage.

Don't make any mistakes here. I'm still a conservative corporate douche, okay? And of course, every political report in the country is like, I don't know what it means that the Delaware senators voted for it. I don't know, right? So he might be doing the same trick here. And this is, look, as important as $15 minimum wages, starting another war in the Middle East with a country four times the size of Iraq is an even bigger issue. It would be a disaster.

And remember Biden's always been pro-war. He voted for the Iraq war. He's just, he's a conservative war monger. But if you listen to MSNBC or CNN, read New York Times, you'll never know that. So here's this guy, do disavow it or don't you? But let's also, look, we got to be fair. Okay, so yes, he does have a terrible history when it comes to foreign policy. However, we also have to give him credit for pulling out of Afghanistan.

We also got to give him credit for, there was something else he did recently that I'm blanking on right now. Okay, he did pull out of Afghanistan. Oh, he has significantly rolled back drone strikes in the Middle East, or drone strikes in general, right? Okay, so Anna, thank you for doing that. Those are important contexts so that you guys know the whole story. The flip side to that is, why didn't you sign that Iran deal? So why didn't you go right back into it? Remember, it was Obama-Biden administration that did the deal in the first place.

It worked fantastically that we got all of the uranium out of Iran. There was no chance they were going to do nuclear weapons. Trump takes us out of it, creates this very dangerous situation. Biden goes back in, all he has to do is same exact deal. And we're done, right? Iran will take it. We know that he could just do it. And it's been over two years.

He doesn't want to go back in the deal. That's right. And guys, come on, are we kidding? Look, the reason we don't say that Biden and almost every politician in America, quote unquote, serves Israel, is because you're worried about the old anti-Semitic tropes, right? And you don't want to get into that, and it has nothing to do with religion or background or not, or anything. But it does have to do with campaign contributions that corporations and individuals give.

And Israel is not alone Saudi Arabia does the same thing, ExxonMobil does the same thing. But is Joe Biden allowed to disagree with the, you know, the government of Israel? Even if it's the most fundamentalist government, right-wing government, a government that wants a bloody war for us to fight, well, if he's allowed to disagree with them, he hasn't shown it yet. So let's get back to some of the red flags that I'm seeing. By the way, the United States does not have an ambassador to Iran, so I wanted to clarify that. So here's one red flag that caught my attention.

So according to Heretz, the letter comes days, meaning the letter from the NGOs, comes days after Israel's Minister for Strategic Affairs and an Israeli national security advisor led a delegation in Washington to strengthen coordination on Iran, with the White House noting it reviewed with significant concern advances in Iran's nuclear program, which by the would not be an issue had the Trump administration avoided tearing up and throwing away that Iran nuclear deal and had the Biden administration reentered that nuclear deal. So you can't whine and cry about the development of nuclear weapons in Iran when the United States government aided and abetted that effort. Okay, so let's just keep it real about that. And then finally,

this is what I'm really concerned about. The U.S. and Israel held its most significant joint military exercise to date earlier this year. And Israel, Israel ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, recently told the Heretz UCLA conference that the two countries are, quote, much closer, end quote, to each other on the issue than in previous years. And even more close than Trump was. And Trump killed one of the top general for the Iranians, got us out of the deal.

And he was like inches away from starting the war that Netanyahu wants. And apparently Biden is closer to Netanyahu than Trump was. Yeah, according to officials from Israel. Yeah, exactly. Okay, and I want to see one last thing, guys, don't forget Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia also wants us to attack Iran. And they don't want to do it, they would lose to Iran, and they wouldn't, they don't want to, you know, use any Saudi, you know, people to do it, right?

For them, they're like, oh, us. We don't want to get our hands dirty. We don't want to die. We want Americans to die for our wars. And is Biden allowed to question or disagree with the Saudi government? It doesn't look like it. Remember, he came in Huffet and Puffet. Oh my God, they killed the journalist.

And what are you doing? We need their oil. Let's just keep it real. We need their oil. He wanted to make Mohammed bin Salman a pariah when he was campaigning in the 2020 election. But once we needed them to produce more oil, once we needed the OPEC cartel to play with us. But that's it.

And the last thing is Biden is weak, because Saudis didn't even do what he wanted. And when inflation was at its worse and the midterms are coming up, the Saudis spat in his face. And now what's he doing, kissing their ass and saying, oh, I might start a war for you guys with Iran. That would be the worst thing imaginable. So if I'm wrong about any of it,

the great news is Joe Biden's president of the United States. It's not like he can't change the policy. It's not like he can't change his ambassador. It's not like he can't clarify it. But my guess is he won't because he serves his donors 100% even if they're foreign countries. When we come back from the break, we'll talk about the record debt that Americans are dealing with. And the numbers associated with credit card debt should have you concerned. That and more coming up.

All right, back on TYT, Jay Canana with you guys. More news. Look, there's a story that broke that we're gonna do, and I want my producers to hear this. Grab the Buttigieg quote about how he's urging railroad companies to ramp up their safety protocols. That's an important part of the story. Okay, let's move on. I was gonna text them, but we ran out of time. So let's talk about debt. You guys ready? Let's do it.

We've seen this explosion in debt overall. Credit card balances especially have hit a new record at the end of last year, nearly $1 trillion. That's not only the highest ever, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was also the biggest yearly increase on record up $130 billion. That's right. Household debt in America is at record highs, and it follows an era that saw a jump in savings thanks to people staying at home during the pandemic and not spending any money. Of course, there was some stimulus money as a result of the pandemic as well. But now the tables have completely flipped and Americans are finding themselves with an increasingly heavy burden of household debt. And it's particularly bad

for millennials. For instance, millennials have seen their debt rise by nearly 30 percent. since before the pandemic to about $3.8 trillion. Now, overall, consumer debt, which includes mortgages, car loans, student debt, all debt, is at around $17 trillion as we speak. But the biggest concern is credit card debt, and we're seeing an explosion there, which is definitely concerning when you think about the high interest rates associated with them. them. Now, credit card debt in the U.S. has been rising at one of the fastest rates in history. We collectively owe more, nearly one trillion dollars on our cards, an all-time high. In January

alone, credit card debt jumped more than 11 percent, and the interest rates rising, getting ahead and with the interest rates rising, getting ahead of the debt gets harder and harder. In fact, if you're wondering just how much the average interest rate is for a credit card, It's around 20% and the average household now owes nearly $6,500 in credit card debt. Now, there are impacts that we're already seeing, some statistics that are already concerning. For instance, the percentage of credit card delinquencies, meaning people who haven't been able to make a payment in 90 days or more, that has shot up. And Americans paid down their debt.

Remember, they pay down their debt during the pandemic, and now that trend has completely reversed. For instance, in the first quarter of 2021, credit card balances totaled $770 billion, compared with $890 billion just a year earlier in 2020. Now, there are many causes for this. Of course, inflation is a huge reason. People are falling behind on their car payments. There's also increasing child care costs. But I think it's also worth discussing the late fees associated with these credit cards because the Biden administration, along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, wanted to do something about that.

But moneyed interests have been fighting aggressively to stop it. So let me just give you a few details about that. And then, Jank, I know you have a corruption angle to get to. So in February, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule that would limit most credit. credit card late fees to $8, down from the $41 companies are currently permitted to charge. Such late fees are a major profit center for credit card companies and cost card holders $12 billion in 2020, according to the Consumer Watchdog Agency. The CFPB proposal would eliminate the automatic annual increase and require credit card companies to prove that any fees in excess of $8 are necessary to cover

their collection costs. It would also prohibit any fees exceeding 25% of the minimum payment due. Jane. Yeah. So I realize reading the first story about how much debt we've accumulated collectively and how it was actually pretty good in 2021 that we had record savings. And so you know why we had it. You know, we alluded to it there. We got stimulus checks. Because of COVID, a lot of people didn't go out because they were at home. So not vacationing, not buying as many things, et cetera. And there were some raises as well. So that wound up stockpiling a little bit of cash.

And as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh, of course. That's when lobbyists and corporate figures thought, that's a nice little piggy bank. Let's go take it. Okay. So how did they take it? Well, one of the ways that they did was they raised prices way beyond what their costs were. So was inflation real before the price couching? Yes, okay, there was definitely a little bit of increase in cost of supplies, etc.

But corporations took advantage of them. We showed you dozens of quotes on air, right, from investor calls saying, turns out people could pay a lot more. They have extra money. So we charged them way more. So they did. So they would raise prices sometimes 500%. Right? And so they decided, we're just going to take that back. And so they did. Now it's in our credit card debt. The companies already got paid. Now the credit card companies are getting paid. And what do they do? In order for them to continue this robbery, they buy off a bunch of politicians. So you're going to be shocked to find out the 17 people in Congress are adamantly fighting against any proposal that would limit the late fees that the credit card companies.

can charge you. And you're going to be further shocked to find out that 15 of them were paid by credit card companies. Campaign contributions meant for the general welfare, I'm sure, right? That's what reporters would have you believe. They're just practicing some speech. Yeah, you know, yeah, there's just blah, blah, blah. And then you're going to be further shocked to find out that the people that they bought off, most especially, were the Republicans that were in charge of the committees. Okay. So McHenry is one of them. You want to? No, no, go ahead. I don't have their names. Yeah, I have it.

Go ahead. So it's Patrick McHenry, and he's the chairman of the House Financial Service Committee and Andy Barr. They're two out of the top five recipients of credit card cash. I'm sure that has nothing to just coincidentally, they're protecting them. Guys, the difference in between the $41 and the $8 in fees is $9 billion every single year. So if they limited it to $8 and protected you, you would say,

collectively $9 billion, but remember the companies would then not make an extra $9 billion in profit. Exactly. So the amount of small amount of money that they pay McHenry and the other crooks is nothing compared to the $9 billion that are online for just this one regulation, okay? And do any of you, even if you're a right way or do you want to pay $41 for no reason? It's not at all, speaking of 500%. It is 500% of their costs. So how is it like, It's not a little margin. It's a math. You cannot have that kind of profit margin unless you bought off the government.

Normally you would have competition that would reduce it. But it's an oligarchy? Okay, so, but do they, kachenk, is it really fair that they buy off committee chairs? Is that a little hyperbole? I can see the New York Times reporter saying, well, let's find out. Mo Brooks was a very conservative Republican that was in the House. Lauren Windsor went to a campaign event of us and covered this on the first show, the undercurrent.

Let's see what do you have to say. Special interest groups run Washington. And I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean literally. Now, here is how it happens. In the House of Representatives, I'll use that as an example, because that's where I work. If you want to be chairman of a major committee, you have to purchase it.

And the purchase price for a major committee, say like Ways and Means, Minimum bid is a million dollars. So I wonder where you're going to get that million dollars because it seems like it'd be hard for someone in Alabama to give that to you. To be fair to Mo Brooks is the one time he was perfectly honest and explained, no, we don't get it from Joe and Jane citizen. Where do we get it from, Mo? Let's find out. You have to get it from the special interest groups. And with the special interest groups, there is a quick pro quo.

If you don't do what they tell you to do, they won't give me the money that finances your chairmanship. So we act as puppets. That's what we do. We, you know, that's, I mean, what's the point of the chairmanship if all you do is act as a puppet for money's interests? Like, what's the point? Like, they just want power. That's it. I want power so much, even though, is it really power when you're someone else's bitch? No, Anna, we, we often misstate that. They have no power at all. They're just servants. How much. How does a butler have, right? No, they're seeking status. I am congressmen. And by the way, once you become a congressman, they call you Congressman Brooks,

Congressman McHenry for the rest of your life. Oh, how special. But they're obsessed with that. They think that's like the most important thing. And to be fair to them, that's how the so-called fourth estate treats them. They're supposed to hold them accountable. And they make it seem like, oh, the congresspeople and senator. They're so important.

They're the only people we trust. If you're an outsider or trying to hold them accountable, you don't have a lot of credibility. A senator has lots of credibility. They are a beloved, honored elite, right? No, they're crooks. You just saw it with your own eyes. They get bribed and they do exactly as they are told.

And now that's going to cost you, nine, collectively, $9 billion. So, look, Republicans, you love drain the swamp. swamp. If this ain't the swamp, what is it? So do you actually love corruption? Because I give the right wing credit for one thing all the time, which is that you hate corruption. Well, here it is. You're a Republican congressman. What's the first thing they did? Oh, take away the IRS agents for people making above $400,000. We don't want the millionaires audit it. Protect the millionaires. What's the second thing they're doing? Make sure you could charge the average

man more for late fees, okay? Even if it's over by, they, they actually, they actually, they accidentally didn't pay 50 cents charge of $41. Why? Because they're crooks. If you were honest journalists, you would explain that every time. By the way, the story about how the money that they took as usual from the lever. Great job by Sarota's organization. All right, we're going to do a little more kind of internationalism or foreign policy related news involving Ben Shapiro. So let's do it. I think the notion that you're going to somehow save the country on behalf of of property rights by engaging in a military coup over there.

I don't see that there are situations by way in Latin America where that is an appropriate response. If you live in a Latin American country, Shapiro apparently wants you to know that it's okay for the military to overthrow your democratically elected leader in some cases. In some cases. Now, he says, while countries such as Chile and Guatemala are still suffering from the very real consequences of the United States orchestrating a coup in their countries, he does say that he sees some instances where Akutatah makes sense. sense. So I don't want to put words in his mouth. Let's take a look at what he had to say. I want it to take to justify an uprising to overthrow the government. Well, the line with government have to cross for you to support something like that. Well, the answer is that you could not actually achieve any of your rights by any other means. So in Brazil, it's not like Bolsonaro's party went away. They still have a giant hold in the Brazilian legislature. Bolsonaro's a political figure hasn't even gone away. The Bolsonaro's movement is

not over. Lula himself has governed more centrist than he campaigned. I think Lula is a terrible politician. I think he's very, very corrupt, but I think the notion that you're going to somehow save the country on behalf of property rights by engaging in a military coup over there. I don't see that. There are situations, by the way, in Latin America where that is an appropriate response. I mean, there was an attempt by the would be dictator of Honduras at one point to basically dissolve the Supreme Court, take control of the military and declare himself dictator. When that sort of stuff happens, obviously a military coup is appropriate. Because you're talking about the actual end of democracy.

But I'm a little nervous about anybody declaring a premature end to democracy before that actually happened. Okay, so glad to see that he doesn't think there should be another military coup in Brazil. Of course, the country has a history with military coups. But with that said, he does specify one coup that he was in favor of, and that was the coup d'etat in Honduras, which, by the way, severely destabilized the country. It's part of the reason why there's a crisis with migrants trying to come into the United States for safety. But let me give you the details on what happened.

So the Kudita happened back in 2009. The military overthrew Manuel Zelaya, and he was forced, he was detained and then flown out of the country to Costa Rica. Now, Ben Shapiro didn't give you all the details, so let's give you all the details now. He was only slightly left leaning. He was actually in the center left of the pink. tide, but even that was enough to provoke anger from the Honduran oligarchy. And usually when coups like this happened, it has to do with business interests wanting to overthrow, you know,

leftist leaders or anyone who might threaten their profit model or their business overall. Now, Zalaya's administration released a survey that asked Hondurans if they would like to vote on whether or not Honduras should update its national constitution. Now, Honduran right wingers claim that this was concrete proof of Zelaya planning to abolish the article that limited the president to a single term. Now on June 28th of 2009, that was when the military coup occurred. But later, the right wing administration abolished that article. Interesting that that wasn't mentioned in the segment. But the very, the very issue that some point to as the reason why the coup was okay, right? Oh, but Zelaya was going to do, it was a power grab by Zelaya. They had to do

this. Well, then the right wingers come in after the coup, and they do exactly what they had accused Zelaya of attempting to do. Look, guys, I've never seen the right wing be honest in Latin America, okay? So now I don't follow it microscopically, so I'm sure there's some honest right wingers somewhere in there. I'm talking about the big picture. When they come in, they do a coup against a left wing person actually representing the interests of the people. It's always a lie. There's a real business interest behind it. It's always the money. It's usually American and local business interest against someone who says something like, you know what, maybe we should charge the price that the market will bear for bananas.

So that the people, since that's our natural resource, whether it's oil, fruit, etc., we should get paid appropriately. market prices, capitalism, right? And they go, oh, you goddamn socialist, how dare you? And then they usually toppled a guy, et cetera. Now, Shapiro says, sometimes that's okay. Okay, I'll come back to that in a second because he said two words in there that was very, very relevant, okay? But now let's talk about recent examples of this type of thing happening, of where

according to the Shapiro standard, a coup is acceptable. When a government comes in and starts messing with the Supreme Court, wait, that's what Netanyahu's doing in Israel. So should there be a coup in Israel? I mean, it's not my rule. That's actually a really great point, Jank. That's literally what Netanyahu is doing. And by the way, just to be clear, not in favor of coups under any circumstance. No, it's not my rule.

I don't want the coups, okay? Yeah. So, but I guess those, all those, you know, hundreds of thousands of left wing protesters in Israel, who I love, right? I guess they should just, according to Shapiro, pick up arms and just do a coup against Netanyahu. In fact, a story today, members of the Israeli defense forces have threatened to stop serving, should Netanyahu get his way and weaken the country's Supreme Court? I'm sure that Ben would say they should go further. No, keep serving.

Just turn the weapons against your own government, right? It's not my standard. The second part of the standard is, well, if they're about to destroy democracy, Like, for example, if you lose a presidential election, but don't want to leave and get your supporters to ransack the capital of your own country. So, you know, there's some right winger say, oh, well, Antifa was the one that was trying to do a coup. Even if that were, that maniacical statement were true, apparently Ben Shapiro would say, great, that's when you do a coup, okay, when a guy is trying to destroy democracy, just like Trump was. So this is what the right wing does. This is, that's what they do in every country, including Honduras. Okay. So now the two critical words. Did you notice when is it? The question was about when do you do a coup on behalf of property rights?

Yep. Not on behalf of people. No, but that's- On behalf of property rights. But Jank, that just, it reinforces what you were saying earlier about right-wingers loving coups because the number one priority is property rights. Which is, by the way, if you don't get it, property rights equals the money. Exactly. Okay. Business interests. Business interests. Yeah.

So he's having a conversation about when should rich people do a coup of their own government so that the government doesn't serve the people, it goes back to serving them. And he's having a discussion and debate with himself about, oh, when do we do it? When do we do it here? No, no, rich people shouldn't organize a coup against their own country. At that point, they should do it at this point. And look, Shapiro is in a lot of ways, just a classic conservative. He has a lot of the opinions they have had for years and years and years.

And the Republican Party has been in favor of coups to help business interests for decades on end. And if you help your own citizens, like Mossadega in Iran, and say, hey, maybe we should get a fair market price for our oil. Well, those property rights come to get you. Yeah, I did think it was fascinating that he specified some Latin American countries. It's okay. The cooing is okay. Okay, it's the coup in Iran, which of course was orchestrated by the United States, didn't work out so well, did it? Think about that. Yeah. Well, in this short term, both British and American oil companies made way more money. So it worked out brilliantly for them and for the people, you know, who are among the elites that Shapiro supports. I don't know,

maybe I'm wrong, but what I was referring to is the adversarial relationship Israel has with Iran. Would that be the case if things were a little different, right? No, for sure, because we overthrew their democratically elected government and put in a dictator, the Shah, it wound up creating tremendous resentment, which led to the Iranian revolution and the mullahs that haunt us all now, right? Yep, yep. Thanks a lot for your property rights coup that you did in Iran. It wound up hurting not just the people of Iran, but the people of America and Israel and the whole world, thanks to your idiotic greed. Money over people. That's the trend that we've been seeing for many, many decades now.

All right, we got to take a break when we come back. Some more international news for you, including some of the largest strikes in French history. Incredible story. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.