The Young Turks - Passing The Buck

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Biden-Hur transcript offers insight into special counsel's classified documents report. Republican Ken Buck announces he will retire from Congress next week. Progressive groups launch a new coalition to counter AIPAC. Trump floats cuts to Social Security and Medicare." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) 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 ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, welcome with the young Turks. Janky, Granik Sparren, with you guys. Lovely day ahead. As usual, we're going to check everybody, Democrats, Republicans, media, you name it. But I do have a twist for you guys in this store, in this show.

Do you? Yeah, there's one story where I'm going to defend the Trumps a little bit. What? Twist. I knew it. TYT's going right wing. Right wing, everyone. Stay around and find out.

Okay. I mean, I have no choice, so looking forward to it. Okay. All right. Well, let's get started with what Congress wasted its time doing today, which was a hearing for performative reasons. So let's do it. My team and I conducted a thorough independent investigation.

We identified evidence that the president willfully retained classified materials. We did not, however, identify evidence that rose to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Because the evidence fell short of that standard, I declined to recommend criminal charges against Mr. Biden. What I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation, nor did I disparage the president unfairly. Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to look into Joe Biden's handling of classified documents, testified before the House on Capitol Hill today to defend his decision to not recommend charging President Biden with a crime over how he handled those classified documents.

Now this was a politicized event. Both sides, in my opinion, were pretty unbearable to say the least because the six hour plus hearing was really all about getting that perfect sound bite to exploit for political advantages. There was no other real reason for this hearing. And I'm going to make that case as we go through the details of what happened today. So first off, you have two sides who are unhappy with her for two different reasons. On one hand, you have Democrats who are happy with the fact that he decided against recommending charges against Biden, but very, very unhappy that he essentially described Biden as an old feeble person that would actually garner sympathy from a jury. Republicans actually liked that part, but they hated the fact that he decided against recommending that Biden faced criminal charges. And that was basically the dynamic we're dealing with throughout the entirety of this hearing. We're going to show you some highlights and some clips. But before we do that, Jank, am I being unfair?

Was this actually an incredibly important hearing for the American people? For the American people. Okay. And you guys are paying attention to their theatrics. Okay, no, it was totally utterly useless. But we're going to show you how it was useless and how both sides demagogue. And it's, it's so frustrating. You know, you read the transcript and you know what conclusion you come to about he, him,

her, that, yeah, he pretty much nailed it, right? Biden does forget a lot of things and he's definitely not guilty. And I don't really care about the feelings of the two sides. Like Republicans and Democrats can catch all sorts of feelings about that. But he's definitely not guilty and he's definitely super old. So feelings. in your direction. Okay.

Right, I mean, her said in the video we showed you at the very beginning that there wasn't, the evidence fell short for him to recommend criminal charges, right? And it's definite, I mean, having read the transcript, the brother, yes, he rambles on, right? He'll start telling you about how he put together his house and hers constantly like, while that's very exciting, Mr. President, I'd like to get back to the question, because Mine's a giant narcissist and can't stop talking about, bragging about rando stuff, right? And his wife in a bathing suit, et cetera. No, please don't.

And then, look, some parts of the not remembering is not fair. Like, I don't remember who I had lunch with and where we were in 2019, let alone 2009. But he consistently couldn't remember when he was president. Vice president, yeah. Sorry. So like slip ups like that. It happens to every person. You have to do, you have to be fair in how you look at it.

But overall, were there many instances of him forgetting things he probably shouldn't be forgetting and sounding pretty old? Yes. And so- Yeah, which is interesting because if you didn't read the transcript for yourself and you just went based on the headlines you might have come across in the corporate press today, you would be under the assumption that Robert Herr totally misrepresented what the interview with Joe Biden was like. And in fact, Joe Biden was sharp, super aware of what was going on. and didn't forget much. That's not exactly right. So let's get to the element of the transcript that is being pitched as misrepresented by her and conservatives, when in reality, Biden did forget something pretty significant. So now, both her and Biden weren't totally accurate in their characterization of the interview that they had, particularly regarding what her said was Biden's inability to recall his son

Bo's date of him passing, right? When did your son pass? Now according to a transcript of the exchange, Biden said the following, what month did Bo die? Oh God, May 30th. Okay, so he remembered the day and the month, and that was the correct date. Then he briefly wondered aloud what year his son Bo died and a White House lawyer interjected by saying 2015. So let's go to that. Was it 2015 he had died? Biden asked when someone responded affirmatively. The president added, it was 2015.

So look, that wasn't in my opinion the worst part of the transcript for Biden. Me too. Biden not remembering when he served as vice president was a problem in the transcript. Yeah, like I'll give you an example. He's like April of 2009, 2009, was I still? Vice President that, brother, you had just started as vice president at that time. That was not at all complicated. I could see even forgetting the year that your son passed away could have been 2016.

I don't think that's that big a deal. But 2008 to 2016, we all remember it. I mean, it's not hard. And 2009 is right in the beginning of the term. He thinks was it over by then? So like, but part of the reason to do the stories we're going to get to here is to show you how much clowns are. legislators are to like obsess over things that are actually super obvious. Another thing that's worth noting is that in a press conference that followed

the release of the report that Biden basically raged, we all talked about this, right? Biden had raged about the comment made about his age in that report and even said that her, he raged at the fact that her had like the audacity to even ask about his son Beau's death, except Her didn't ask about his son Bo's death. Biden was the one who randomly volunteered the information in the context of this interview with her. Her didn't ask the president about his son's death. Biden brought it up himself during a discussion about how he stored documents at a rental home in Virginia after leaving the vice president's office in 2017.

So he even forgot the context in which his son Bo was brought up. And the the person who brought up his son, Bo, was Biden himself. Yeah, that one I don't think is forgetting. I think that they were trying to smear her by pretending that he was using the death of Biden's son as some sort of gotcha for Biden. But in reality, Biden either forgot, which doesn't help his case, or is lying actively to try to smear her because he brought up his son's death, not her. Exactly.

Now, with that said, let's go to the testimony. I think that context was important to know about before we watch some of the high. highlights, if you want to call it that, from this hearing. So Democrats repeatedly came back to the fact that Her did not recommend charges against Biden. Remember, that's where they got a win and they really want to emphasize that. But they also scolded her on multiple occasions during today's hearing for his characterization of Biden's memory. In his testimony, Hurst said his report's discussion of Biden's memory was necessary and accurate and fair because his state of mind was an important part of evaluating

whether he committed a crime, meaning did he intentionally, knowingly, illegally take classified documents with him to his home? And it appears, based on hers evaluation of all of this, that that is not the case. And in fact, once Biden realized he was in possession of classified documents, he immediately notified the proper individuals, and they then took the documents from him. Okay, it's very different from what we saw from Trump, who had multiple opportunities to hand over the classified documents, and on multiple occasions lied to the federal government about what he possessed and whether or not he possessed additional classified documents. And then that led to, of course, an FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago.

Democrats were not buying the argument that it was important for her to include Biden's memory as part of the report. Let's watch. I want to refer back to your opening statement in which you said that you did not disparage the president your report. but of course you did disparage the president. You also understand DOJ policy that you are to take care not to prejudice the interests of the subject of an investigation, right? That is generally one of the interests that DOJ policy requires that prosecutors respect.

And it was your obligation to follow that policy in this report, was it not? It was also my obligation to write a confidential report for the Attorney General explaining completely my decision. What you did write was deeply present. prejudicial to the interest the president. You say it wasn't political and yet you must have understood. You must have understood the impact of your words. You were not born yesterday, you understood exactly what you were doing, it was a choice.

You certainly didn't have to include that language. That was a political choice, it was the wrong choice. I want to go to one more Democrat. So that was Representative Adam Schiff, and now I want to go to Democrat Hank Johnson, who accused her of trying to get Trump reelected. You are a Republican, though, aren't you? I am a registered Republican. Yes, sir. And you're doing everything you can do to get President Trump reelected

so that you can get appointed as a federal judge or perhaps to another position in the Department of Justice. Isn't that correct? Congressman, I have no such aspirations. I can assure you, and I can tell you that partisan politics had no place whatsoever in my work. It had no place in the investigative steps that I took. It had no place in the decision that I made and it had no place in a single word of my report. If hers report was purely politically motivated, why wouldn't he just go for the whole enchilada and recommend criminal charges for Joe Biden? Could it be that her was attempting to be as honest as he could in this report, which I genuinely think that's what he was doing? And by the way,

like, I love how stupid Democrats think we are, right? Because if it wasn't for her, Her's report, none of us would be aware of Biden's mental decline. We would all think that he's as sharp as attack. God damn, why did her do this? Yeah. We're not stupid. We all have eyes. We can all hear.

We all see what's happening. Okay, just please. So now let me give a little bit more context of background here. So first of all, of course, I agree with Anna. If he was really wanted to get Biden, there's one way you could have done it. Charge him. That would have been devastating for Joe Biden. It would have totally made it seem like Donald Trump taking home documents and refusing to give them back was even with Joe Biden.

So that would have been the political way to go. And he didn't do that. And in fact, the Republicans were livid with him for not doing that. So this idea that they're concocting that this was a political hatchet job against Joe Biden is absurd, given that the report's entire thesis is he was innocent. He didn't do it. And part of the reason that he was innocent is because when you look at the documents that he took, they weren't like the amount of classified documents, both the quantity and the quality of it, was nowhere near where Trump took.

Trump took home some of the most sensitive secrets we have. Biden took home a letter he wrote to Obama about Afghanistan. He should have left it back at the White House, but he did. I mean, it was minor. But the second part of it was he can't remember what's in the boxes who brought the boxes. And you know, you see a lot of defendants going, I can't recollect, wink, right? This is not wink. The brother really can't recollect a lot of these things.

And so that is why he's not guilty. And they're yelling at him like, why did you say the president is not guilty? How dare you? You were trying to hurt him, weren't you? He's like, I don't know what else I could have done. I mean, I told you he's not guilty. I told you why he's not guilty and you're still yelling at me. All of this is just, look, I hated every second of this hearing.

I hated that the hearing took place because understand that it's just a facade. It's not meant to accomplish anything other than engage in political campaigning for their preferred presidential candidate. Both sides engaged in that today for six hours. It's so absurd, Jank. Yeah, one last thing about that, especially Adam Schiff, and although they all did it, But why are they doing it? So part of it is in Washington, this is a culture that doesn't exist in your neck of the woods. It might exist in different contexts.

But in Washington, the more ass you kiss, the higher you go. So Adam Schiff is known as a giant ass kisser within Democratic Party. That's why Nancy Pelosi and everyone else supported him in his Senate run in California. They're like, oh, he's a good team player. That means he does propaganda for us, he does whatever he's told to do. by corporate donors and by leadership, etc. That's partly why he's doing these theatrics. Now didn't you know dear sir?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, bring it down. Then the second reason though is I gotta be honest, there is a core group of establishment democratic voters and they want you to say beautiful, awesome, flowery things about democratic leadership. And if you don't, they get super mad at the politician. Well, they're doing well. These are typically well-to-do, hyper-educated.

elite Americans who are untouched by a lot of the crises that ordinary Americans are dealing with, whether it be the opioid crisis, fentanyl overdose deaths, the housing crisis, the migrant crisis, crisis, crisis is everywhere, they don't, they just love the drama, right? To them, political engagement is watching this pathetic theater and feeling as though these elected lawmakers are actually serving the American people. They're not serving the American people. And look, I know we're being very critical of Democrats specifically right now. And it's mostly because I'm, I'm personally sick of getting gaslit about Biden's mental health and where he really is in terms of his ability to, I don't know, even understand where he's at at any moment.

But nonetheless, like, stop with the gaslighting, stop with the theater, and actually, I don't know, try to pass legislation that improves the lives of ordinary people. Like the, anyway, but yes, the other side of that picture is the Republican Party. They do serve as obstructionist when it comes to the necessary passage of legislation. They just did that with the border bill. So we've got plenty of critique for them, and we're going to get to that in a moment. But, Jank, jump in. Yeah, there's a third reason why they do this theatrics, because it gives you the sense of foe fighting for you. Like, they don't actually fight for you when it comes to bills, paid family leave, higher wages, lower drug prices, etc.

So they use this as an opportunity to pretend that they're fighting for you. So they have the theatrics, the anger, the strong words, the rebukes that gives you a sense that they're fighting for Democratic voters without actually doing anything. So that's another reason. And the same for the Republicans. And that's why they love this kind of theater and makes the rest of us want to vomit. Totally. So with that said, let's go to our first Republican.

Here's Tom McClintock, who is very upset with hers decision against recommending criminal charges for Biden. The fact that the only person being prosecuted for this offense happens to be the president's political opponent makes this an unprecedented assault on our democracy. This is the worst we could expect from a banana republic. And I wonder how you square this. I just can't stand them lying to everyone with the straight face. Okay, it's not the same thing. We all know it's not the same thing.

If Donald Trump had just handed over the classified documents after it had become abundantly clear that he illegally took classified documents home with him, you think the FBI would have raided him? You think that the feds were to drop it. They just wanted the documents, Homeboy would not hand over the documents. This is Trump's mess, it's his own making, whereas Biden handed over the documents right away. There's a clear difference, but McClintock knows that, Jank. He knows that.

Look, at this point, almost every federal Republican politician, almost, it's giant liars. If you hear a Republican politician talking, that you're hearing a Republican politician lying, like 99% of the time. It is unprecedented, like, as terrible as the Republicans have been my whole life, they're now at some epic level here. So now he knows that Trump took home documents like how we could attack Iran, what? Where Iran's defenses, things that, first of all, is just the most sensitive information that the United States government has.

Second of all, information that Iran's top nemesis, not Israel, Saudi Arabia would love. And who is Donald Trump really close to? Who did his son-in-law just get $2 billion from? Who did Donald Trump himself get giant golf contracts from? Saudi Arabia. Go golly gee, do I have our top secrets on Iran lying around on my desk? I mean, so even if he didn't sell it to the Saudis, given that context, to take that material home is beyond outrageous, let alone Russia's nuclear capabilities on their submarines, which he's handing out at Mar-a-Lago for anyone who's become a member, et cetera. I know Trump is wildly out of control.

McClintock and all the Republicans know that, but their job is to lie to Republican voters because feelings, right? And they feel like, oh, yeah, we're the victims. Oh, we're such victims. We just wanted to sell our nuclear secrets. I mean, we don't get any of it. But Trump gets all of it and I'm going to give him back to why we're victims. Okay, and so the Republicans give him that load of crap. But in second of all you, why are you asking her this question?

He only, he only investigated Biden. He's like, why was Trump charged? He's like, I don't know, I didn't charge him. Like, this is so monumentally dumb. It's just a giant waste of time. And it does nothing for us. And I'm just sick of it. I'm just sick of all of it.

I'm sick of the hearings. I'm sick of the very obvious political campaigning that's being done under the false pretense of, oh, congressional hearings to get to the bottom of the truth. It's just BS and it's a waste of time and resources. But this is what they do because they want to give the illusion of governance. And I just think the American people, regardless of where you stand politically,

should be demanding a lot more than endless hearings. so they can use up taxpayer money to do their political campaigning. For now, though, why don't we take a break? When we come back, well, apparently I'm not the only one who's sick of this BS. Republican Ken Buck has decided to resign from his congressional seat. So we're going to give you the reasons why and more when we come back. It's an incredible story. Don't miss it. All right, back on TYT, Jankana, JMO 77 made a beautiful contribution on TYT.com

slash join and Carlietta became a member there. We appreciate you and SkyMonkey became a member on YouTube, nothing but love for Sky monkeys. All right, Anna's got more news. The Republican crowd in Congress is thinning out. You already had announced that you were going to not run for re-election. Why leave now and leave a vacancy in an already very narrow majority for your party? I think displaces dysfunctional.

True. In a surprise move, Republican Congressman Ken Buck announced that he will be leaving Congress sooner than expected, and he's officially stepping down from his congressional seat by the end of next week. Now Buck had previously announced that he would not seek reelection, but he was previously expected to finish his term. Turns out that's not the case. He issued a statement on the matter which read, it has been an honor to serve the people of Colorado's fourth district in Congress for the last nine years. I want to thank them for their support and encouragement throughout the years. Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week, I look forward to staying involved in our political process as well as spending more

time in Colorado with my family. Now Buck's resignation now requires Governor Jared Polis of Colorado to set up a special election for Buck's vacant seat. Now with that in mind, this news came as a surprise to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who stated that this early retirement it totally caught him off guard. I was surprised by Ken's announcement. I'm looking forward to talking with him about that. You didn't know about Trump, not supporting a TikTok. Now, Ken Buck has a different story entirely.

He disputed the statement saying that he did, in fact, inform Mike Johnson. I don't care either way, it doesn't matter. But what I do care about is what Buck had to say in that interview with Dana Bash on CNN today, because he had some choice words for the Republican Party and the dysfunction that he has been experiencing. Let's watch. I'm resigning my seat and creating a vacancy in my district. Why? Well, everywhere I go in Colorado, Dana, I hear that people are not happy with Trump and they're not happy with Biden.

And I think we need to change our electoral laws here. And I have a passion for that. And I'm going to leave and I'm going to find the right organization to join. And I'm going to start working on that issue. We have to have better candidates. not just president, but Senate, House, local offices. We've got to find better ways to elect candidates and bring America together. There is such tension among House Republicans that many of them aren't even going to a retreat that's going to happen at the end of this week.

Is that tension part of why you're leaving so abruptly? I think displace is dysfunctional. For example, I am the number third ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I haven't even asked my questions yet. 40, 50 people have gone before me. But that could be personal. That could be personal, but it could be personal, but a lot of this is personal, and that's the problem. Instead of having decorum, instead of operating in a professional manner, this place is just evolved

into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people. Now, Buck was one of the Republicans who voted against Kevin McCarthy, in fact, voted in favor of ousting McCarthy. He was part of the House Freedom Caucus, which is further to the right in the Republican Party. And he also voted against the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Department of Homeland Security. And so I'm sure that ruffled some feathers in the Republican Party. But I overall agree with Ken Buck in that overall, not just with Republicans, but overall,

Congress has become dysfunctional, useless, full of egotistical, narcissistic individuals who only care about their own political power but do nothing on behalf of the American people. The real question is, Jenk, do you believe that Buck is leaving to do something more productive for the American people? Yeah, that was my main question for sure. So I'm super curious about it. So let me break down how all this came about. So sometime within the last year, Ken Buck started bucking us party, if you will. Okay, so, and I was like, oh, that's curious, they almost never step out of line.

I mean, there's two different groups. There's like the crazed right wing, but that's more populous and sometimes genuinely populace, most of the time not. And then there's the corporate guys, which is 90% of the party. And they always pretty much do the same thing. But Buck started jumping back and forth. So, you know, when he was against impeaching Major, because now that's a little bit later on in this process, but I was like, oh, no, that's it.

He's gone, right? You can't, like, go against a Republican piece of feet. That's like the biggest no-no of all. You could vote against McCarthy, you could vote against a particular bill. Thomas Massey votes against almost every bill, et cetera. But when they're putting on a show and you come and throw eggs at the show, they don't like that, right? So he was going rogue, it was obvious. And many things he did implied that he was going rogue.

But what was interesting about that and why I'm bringing it up, guys, is because then he started acting like an actual legislator. like with independent judgment. And when we saw, when Anna and I saw him acting with independent judgment, and mind you, we disagree with him the great majority of the time, right? But we thought, oh, he must be leaving because there's no one that plans to stay there that isn't a phony that is going to tell you the truth or that's going to have an independent point of view. No, they're going to line up with whatever faction they're in and they're going to vote that way

98% of the time. That's what they all do. So when one of the, when one of the robots malfunctions, you know they're on their way out. And, and they're doing it because they're not running for re-election. Because if you do that when you're running for re-election, there's going to be consequences. Then the leadership in your party is not going to share some of that pack money with you. Some of the donors are going to pull out. You're going to find a primary opponent against you, especially if you dare cross Trump, of course, right? That's obvious. So now, that leaves the main question now that the buck stops here literally okay I was waiting

all day for that congratulations yes thank really happy for yeah I yeah I'm so pretty good cementing my dad joke you know bonafetes oh jinks okay so anyways seriously I'm so curious because I thought he was going to be a lobbyist the whole time and there's two reasons why he's leaving one is he's I think he's genuine, this place is a mess. Oh my God, I'm shocked. He's gonna be a lobbyist, Jake. Yeah, yeah, very, very likely.

But anyway, part one is he's genuinely like, we're not doing anything here. Like I came here to give tax cuts to the rich and cut your Social Security and they won't even let me do that. Well, I mean, he did vote for Trump's tax cuts for the rich in 2017. Yeah, but that was a long time ago, man. He has, he's so hungry, he's so thirsty, hasn't voted for taxes for the rich in such a long time. So my point is that the Republicans weren't going to do anything

anyway. But now they're doing nothing, nothing, nothing. It's just like children throwing food at each other. And so all the grownups want to leave. In fact, Anna was going to tell you, and it's like, over 40 members of the house are leaving. They're like, this is, this is bananas. What over, this is just. And remember, they all have to raise money for most of the day. For four to six hours a day, they go into a room by themselves with a phone calling rich people and begging them. Like, I'm begging you, please give me money. I'll do anything. I'll do anything. that's what their job is. It's a miserable existence. So the second part is he says, I want to go help good government groups find better candidates. What are good government groups?

I don't know. What does that mean? Maybe he joins an effort to, you know, get money out of politics. And there are a couple of conservatives that are in that. And then the local level, there are more, right? But more likely, he's just going to be a lobbyist. And he had a job offer waiting for him. And that's why he's leaving in the middle instead of at that. So we'll see how it all plays out, or we won't, I don't know. We'll see if there's any reporting on what becomes of Ken Buck. But overall, I do agree with him in regard to how dysfunctional Congress is, and that has translated to incredibly low approval ratings for Congress

because they're not carrying out any legislation that improves the lives of ordinary people. Yeah, and by the way, he was trying to get a job on TV before. So that gives you some indication that he'd like the money. All right. I guess props for the confidence. Yeah. I guess he'd like some more bucks. Okay. All right. It's good to have a routine. And it's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes, too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. I exams provided by independent optometrists. Let's move on to some more news, including, I can't believe this,

Jank. It looks like there's some strategizing happening among progressive groups. I didn't know that was possible. When Michigan Congresswoman Murcia Talib, the only Palestinian American in Congress was censured by the House in early November over what some lawmakers called her rhetoric around the Israeli Hamas war, 22 Democrats joined Republicans in that censure vote. 18 of those Democrats received campaign funds from APEC in 2022, totaling more than $1.1 million. By the way, for these six of them, APEC was their top contributor.

Well, APEC has been so powerful in political campaigning and has captured so many politicians on both the left and the right that now progressives have decided to enter a coalition. of progressive groups to fight back. Now, APAC is planning on spending $100 million to defeat progressives, who the group feels just have not been sufficiently loyal or supportive to Israel. And so now the progressives are fighting back with this coalition called reject APAC. Now what are they planning to do? The reject APAC coalition promises a seven-figure electoral defense campaign aimed at shoring up members of Congress who are targeted by the pro-Israel group.

It also wants members of Congress to sign a pledge to not accept any more money from the organization, explicitly seeking to frame APAC in a similarly controversial light as the National Rifle Association. Now in a statement announcing the launch of this new coalition, its members said, quote, we have watched as APAC, has done everything it can to silence growing dissent in Congress against Netanyahu's assault on Gaza, which has killed over 31,000 Palestinians, even as Democratic voters overwhelmingly support a ceasefire and oppose sending more blank checks to the Israeli military. Now is the time for the whole of the Democratic Party to reject APAC once and for all. Now, before we move on, I think it's important to just take a step

back and just understand, really fully grasp how influential APAC has been. In fact, they nearly defeated a progressive during the midterm elections. Let's take a look at that. As progressive lawmakers began calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Slate reported that insiders expect APEC's 2024 spending to hit $100 million. In fact, United Democracy Project, which is a pro-Israel super PAC affiliated with APEC, is already spending money on attack ads against Democratic representatives Jamal Bowman of New York and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania. Lee has already got a primary challenger, as do Corey Bush and Ilhan Omar. Pro-Israel donors have already signaled that they're eager to primary Rashida-Talib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Congresswoman Lee already overcame Apex financial influence against her once. She tweeted criticisms of Israel's treatment of Palestinians in 2021, but as a candidate, she affirmed Israel's right to exist. But that's not good enough. Apex spent nearly $3 million in the primary 11. to defeat Lee and they almost did. She beat Stephen Irwin, who is third on the list of money given to candidates by APEC in 2022 by less than a thousand votes. Now, other incumbents were not so lucky. We're going to get to that in just a moment. But, Jenk, how effective do you think this coalition of progressive groups will be in kind

of fighting back against APEC's influence? Number one, I don't know. So just to be honest with you guys, because this all depends on much money they raise, but if they raise good money, it's at least a pushback. But even without knowing how well they're going to do, this is an excellent development. Yes, I agree. Okay, so it's an excellent development for a number of reasons. Number one, look at all those progressive groups working together. I almost never see that.

And so like, I'm shocked that they put their egos aside, et cetera, to work together. So thank you guys for doing that. Yes. Look at Justice Democrats doing something positive in the world. Thank you for doing that. Great, okay, Sunrise movement, others as well, right? So now the second good news, look at Ali Veshi doing a report on money in politics and is, and talking about support of the right wing government of Israel on MSNBC, that is an unprecedented segment.

That was so credit to MSNBC for airing that, credit to Velshi for putting that segment together. It is factual and really important that people understand that context. It was well done to say the least, and it's available on YouTube for anyone who wants to watch the entirety of that segment. Yeah, and now the third positive development out of this, for the first time in my life, APEC and any lobbyist is being challenged. Because like, NRA, to be fair, once they stop giving to the Democrats, because they used to give it to both parties, once they stop giving to Democrats, then the NRA got challenged because then the Democrats didn't need to protect them anymore, right? So that's one set of lobbyists that were attacked in my lifetime. But everyone else, I mean, the bank lobbies, the drug lobby is so gigantic and is never called out by either side, et cetera, et cetera.

But of all things, APEC getting called out. I love it. Yeah, that is a giant development in American politics. It would have never been allowed before. There's no way MSNBC would have aired that. There's no way any group in Washington would have signed on for it. So young people are beginning to make a difference. And those Justice Democrat legislators, apparently it made enough difference at least on this issue that they got folks spending $100 million to try to get them out.

So credit where credit is due. So just a little more information on the coalition of progressive groups that's now being called reject A PAC. So there are more than 20 progressive groups involved in this, including the Justice Democrats, as Jenk mentioned, the working families party, the Sunrise Movement, Jewish voice for peace action and the Democratic Socialists of America. These groups are all working together. And I agree with you, Jank. One of the illnesses I've noticed among progressives in America is that they don't like working together.

And you do need to work together and strategize and organize in order to accomplish legislative goals. And in this case, political goals in mitigating some of the impact that APAC has over our elections. Now, I mentioned earlier that, you know, Summer Lee was fortunate enough to be able to win in the midterms, even with APAC spending all that money against her. However, others have not been so lucky. So I just want to give you an example of a Democrat who ended up getting voted out of office as a result of APAC's, you know, funding of his challenger. Let's watch. Michigan Democrat, Haley Stevens, unseated Democratic representative Andy Levin. Here's what Levin

had to say about that. I'm really Jewish. But A-PAC can't stand the idea that I am the clearest, strongest Jewish voice in Congress standing for a simple proposition that there's no way to have a secure democratic homeland for the Jewish people unless we achieve the political and human rights of the Palestinian people. APEC spent $4 million against Levin. He lost by 20 points. Oh, that is brutal.

Yeah, to give you a sense of how much this money makes a difference, the other group candidate that these set of lobbyists, including Democratic majority for Israel, they're kind of an umbrella. Apex is kind of an umbrella organization for a lot of these other lobbyists in groups that are aligned on the same issue. They spent around $4 million against Nina Turner. She had a 35 point lead. They reversed that and she barely lost.

So that's a 40 point reversal there. It's at least 2030 point reversal on Andy Levin's race because $4 million in a congressional district is a giant amount of money, right? And Andy Levin was a popular, likable, incumbent. There was no reason for him to lose at all. And so in fact, I think Andy Levin was their largest mistake. And A-PAC, for the first time again in my lifetime, went too far, even for Washington. Because you attack Nina Turner or rander progresses they hadn't heard of at that time.

Summer Lee hadn't won yet. Summerlee, Jamal Bowman, no one cares if you attack them in Washington, right? Nina Turner, they're going to kind of like you if you attack her because they can't stand that she actually wants to change things, right? But attacking Andy Levin, who was a perfectly fine incumbent Democrat, that rankled a lot of people in Democratic Party. And that made them go, oh, so now these guys might come after me. No, no, no, no, no. And that's why I've noticed a lot of people that I would never expect criticizing APEC,

like Chris Van Hollen, senator from Maryland. I'm like, what are you doing, brother? And a couple other senators that I would have never expected. because APAC is now basically saying we're right wingers, we're Republicans, and we're going to take you out one by one. We'll start with the progressives, but then we'll go as far as we need to, and they're funded by giant Republican billionaires. Yes, yes. Okay, so that's the last thing I want to mention, because I think it's important. I think the reason why we're noticing a few more Democrats being willing to speak out against APAC is because of how some of the

organizations that fall under the umbrella of APAC are funded. So we briefly mentioned earlier that the United Democracy Project is one of those A-PAC associated groups. And they're planning on spending a lot of money. For instance, they spent more than $26 million during the 2022 election cycle, according to Open Secrets, which tracks political spending. FEC filing show that the group ended January with almost $42 million cash on hand. Now, if you're wondering where they're getting that money from, I'm about to tell. So the foundation set up by Bernie Marcus, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and a vocal

supporter of former President Trump, has donated $2 million to the United Democracy Project, this cycle on top of $1 million in the 2022 cycle. And that's again, according to Open Secrets, Elliott Management, the investment firm headed by Republican billionaire donor, Paul Singer, has contributed $2 million across those two cycles. So you have Republicans funding an A-PAC associated group that is spending money to defeat Democrats in Congress, who aren't sufficiently loyal to a foreign government, Israel. Yeah, they're making the NRA mistake. They're going too partisan in one direction, which allows the other party to criticize them.

Usually buying off both parties is a much smarter strategy, but they just got too ambitious in wanting to dominate and they have Republican donors that are probably telling them, give me two birds with one stone, take out anyone who dares to criticize Israel, plus give me more Republicans in Congress. And that's why they named the second group Democratic majority for Israel. Now none of this addresses the fact that they're all doing this very openly and brazenly on behalf of a foreign government. If you did the same thing, except you did it on behalf of Iran or China or Russia, people would

lose their minds. And even if you chose an ally, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Qatar. Oh, Qatar would like to buy off all your politicians. And if you dare criticize Qatar, they'll spend $4 million. I'm sorry, their allies in America will spend $4 million to eliminate any politician that dares to disagree with that country led by Muslim fundamentalists. We'd all say that's crazy. But when Israel does it, everybody in Washington is like, bravo, of course, wonderful, wonderful, right?

And for the first time, they're saying not wonderful. And the last great part of this story is that as they're revealing what APEC is doing, they're also revealing how money in politics works. And so because you and I, if you are online, you watch this show, you know that money and politics controls everything, right? No matter what the industry, what the donors, et cetera. But people that watch cable news, they barely know that. They almost never, ever see a story about how money influences an election.

For example, they'll hear that Nina Turner lost and they'll be like, oh, good, people didn't like her ideas. It's absurd. It had nothing to do with ideas. It was smear ads that were run on every television station in Cleveland 24-7 until that's all that anybody thought they knew about Nina Turner. So now they're beginning to see the MSNBC audience, the New York Times' audience is like, huh, it looks like the money is buying. the elections completely. Yeah, that's how money in politics works. That's why we don't have a democracy. We have an open auction. All right, when we come back from the break, we'll talk about Trump's parent 180 on Social Security and Medicare. Interesting, that and more coming up. Don't miss it.

All right, back on TY IT, Jank, Anna, Cid, Chris Baxter, Claudia Freedy, and Eric Wideman. Those are all American heroes who hit the join button below at a time that we need it. We appreciate you guys. And speaking of heroes and legends, Benjamin Gilbert Lyft, gifted 100 memberships. Claudia's not afraidy. Claudia Frady is one of the. Boy, did that went right over my head. Okay, gave me a European soccer star haircut with that joke.

I may, but I'll match you. Maybe we should rename you to Benjamin Gilbert gift for all the gifts you've given. So Benjamin, you're awesome. We appreciate you. All right, let's do the news. Well, we've got some updates on Trump and his message of populism, because it's completely yes. I think that at least the perception is that there's not a whole lot of difference

between what you think we should do with entitlements or non-discretionary spending and what President Biden is proposing. It's almost the third rail of politics. Have you changed your outlook on how to handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? Mr. President, it seems like something has to be done or also. we're going to be stuck at 120% of debt to GDP forever. Yeah, something should be done like raising the Social Security tax gap, or cap, I should say. I mean, these guys, they're so thirsty for cuts to entitlement spending, which we pay into,

Social Security, Medicare. Are you going to do something about that, Trump? You sound like Biden, you sound like you want to protect those entitlement programs that hardworking Americans have paid into. It's almost like it's a third rail. It's a third rail because we paid into it, you piece of anyway. So Trump, who tends to boast about how he'd allegedly protect Social Security and Medicare, seems to be willing to cut Social Security and Medicare.

So let's hear more of this exchange, and you'll get exactly what I'm talking about. So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting, and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlement. tremendous bad management of entitlements. There's tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So I don't necessarily agree with the statement. I know that they're going to end up weakening Social Security because the country is weak. I mean, to take a look at outside of the stock market are what we're going through hell.

People are going through hell. And I believe the number is 50%. They say 32 and 33%. I believe we have a cumulative inflation of over 50%. That means people are, you know, they have to make more than 50% more over a fairly short period of time to stay up. They've gotten routed. The middle class in our country has been routed. And the middle class largely built our country.

And they have been treated very, very badly with policy. take the Adderall before the interview you've got to focus bro like what okay so obviously he's open to cutting social security but then he rambles off and talks about like inflation I don't know if you know this but inflation's at 50% change it's such a stupid comment to make by the way inflation is real and it sucks and it's definitely still around and you know you go to the grocery store and it's definitely more expensive to buy groceries today versus two years ago so It's real, I'm not denying that, 50% just. Why does he do that? Why does he say things that are so outlandish that it might, might even challenge MAGA guys to go 50%, so okay, look, I actually think that Trump wasn't super clear that he was gonna cut Social Security and Medicare. He talked about entitlements and he was trying to be evasive.

So first, why was he trying to be evasive? because he is in an unwinnable spot. All of his donors want him to cut Social Security in Medicare. He's on CNBC trying to appeal to donor class, right? So he has to talk about entitlements, bad, bad. I hate the average guy. I'll cut the living crap out of their payments, okay? But if he says that, he's gonna lose not only voters in general,

but actually a ton of MAGA loves Social Security and Medicare. Yes, yes. And so he does, like, so he wants to be populist, so he doesn't want to He doesn't want to spit out the words I'm gonna cut social security in Medicare, but he does want to say to those potential donors on CNBC. Yeah. Entitlements, entitlements, I'm really worried about them. And one small point here, but he said, there's a lot of waste there, you know, to say, well then brother, you were president for four years. Why didn't you clean all that up?

I'm open to hearing more about the alleged waste, and look, I think government is insanely wasteful. So I'm again, open to hearing what he means. The problem is there was a lack of specificity in his statements there. So I don't know what he's talking about. What I do know is if there's genuinely concern about social security being insolvent, a program again that the federal government never hesitates to take a huge portion of my income from to fund. Then maybe we need to, I don't know, like lift the cap on social security taxes. So it doesn't, people don't, people get basically a certain amount of your income gets taxed for social security, right?

You hit a certain amount and then after that amount, you stop getting taxed for social security. Now when I say you, I don't mean literally you, I mean the wealthiest people in the country, they hit that tax cap and then they're no longer getting tax for social security. You could lift that. So more income is being contributed to the program. But the reason why Social Security and Medicare are considered the third rail is because of how tremendously popular these programs are. And it is incredibly unpopular to tell the American people who have worked incredibly hard and have contributed to this program that, you know, maybe you're not going to retire at 65. Maybe we're going to raise your retirement age to, I don't know. I mean, we've heard Republicans who proposed raising it to 70. And for people who do the kind of job we do,

maybe that's doable because we're not doing hard labor. But really, you're going to ask construction workers to continue working in construction past 65. It's just, it's so dumb. And again, this is the reason why it's considered the third rail. We've paid into it. It's not something that's like given to us. It's not a handout. It's something people have worked for. Yeah, I just quickly on that. I hate that they frame it as entitlements, making it seem like you're, you feel entitled. But in this case, it's literal. It's your money, you paid it into the taxes, therefore you are entitled to it. This is not a false sense of entitlement. This is an actual entitlement of your own money. And by the way, the base is 168,000.

There's a couple of different categories, but that's the main one. So beyond 168,000 in income, you don't pay into Social Security anymore. And so if you lifted that cap and you let everybody pay into it for all of their income, Social Security would be solvent and perfectly fine and probably Medicare to Social Security almost forever and Medicare for a long, long time. So it's actually one of the easiest fixes that you could have in terms of government policy. But the CNBC crew despises that because almost all their viewers make over $168,000. So they don't want that at all.

So they're like, Trump, you better cut entitlements. You better never raise our taxes. You better lower our taxes. So but how can you lower taxes and still tackle the debt? You can't because you're going to make the debt way, way worse. The only way to do it is to rob you guys. And I mean, look, CNBC represents the best interests of Wall Street. Let's keep it real.

Period. And the investor class, 100%. And so what does Wall Street want more than anything? A complete privatized retirement model where instead of putting money into a social security system, which isn't attached to risk the same way, let's say a 401 is or an IRA is, that money, if you are an American who has been contributing to, well, everyone's been contributing to Social Security, but they would rather just have a complete privatized model where Wall Street gets to manage all of your retirement funds and earn a fee from it, right? Yeah, take commissions for it, oftentimes giant commissions. And by the way, take more risks so they make more money. But if they lose it all, it's not their money anyway, it's your money. That is perfect for Wall Street. Risk-free commissions to no end. So that is why they want to decimate these two programs. And Trump is a

a fake populist. So he'll sit there and kiss the ass of all of the donors who want to do that because he just wants their money. And then he'll tell you pretty little lies about how he's going to protect Social Security and Medicare. Well, brother, why didn't you do it? Why didn't you do it when you had four years in office? Why didn't you get rid of the waste and the abuse? Why were we sitting around doing nothing? Oh, yeah, that's true. You weren't doing nothing. You did pass one major piece of legislation to cut corporate taxes. Yeah. He's not a populist at all. He's a giant fraud. All right. We're not. We're not. quite done with Social Security because when we come back for the second hour of the show,

Ben Shapiro has some strong thoughts on when you should retire or when you shouldn't be able to retire. So we've got that and more coming up. Don't miss it.