The Young Turks - Peter Gets Panned - April 21, 2025

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Former Pentagon official says the DOD is in disarray thanks to Pete Hegseth. NPR alleges Trump is preparing to replace Pete Hegseth. Joe Rogan’s Opposition to Trump on Due Process for Abrego Garcia Praised by Liberals. Trump Ramps Up Attacks on Powell, Demands ‘Loser’ Fed Chair Lower Rates ‘NOW.’ Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Young Turks, Jank you, Granite Kusperin, you're crazy, and Crazy dog, we're back. We're back. At least for a day. Okay, I'm going to New York and DC the next couple of days, but I'm gonna do the show from New York tomorrow and we have an amazing, fascinating, interesting announcement. That is coming later in the week. Get ready, get pumped, are we gonna change America? Of course, of course we are.

But we'll get to that a little bit later in the week. Okay, for today is Pete Hegesith in a little bit of trouble? It appears he is. Is Donald Trump going to make babies go boom? Oh my God. Well, that's what he says. So how, why? I mean, he's making babies go boom in Gaza right now as we speak. Whoa, true, true, yeah, I hear you and that's a different thing. It's a different thing. And I covered it over the weekend as to what's going on there. The stock market in more free fall because of more Trump's actions, but lots to get to.

So you know what? Why don't we do the show? Let's do the show. I actually want to start off with this massive Pete Heggs story. Of course, he's the head of the Defense Department. And it appears that there's quite a bit of infighting, quite a bit of chaos. And I want to give you all the details. So let's get to it. A few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out.

Ask the hoodies how much dysfunction there's done. Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with them. We have the highest recruitment numbers I think we've had in 28 years. No, he's doing a great job. It's just fake news. It just bring up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You know, he was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people. But is Defense Secretary Pete Heggsitt getting rid of a lot of bad people, or is he just getting rid of defense department officials who don't agree with attacking Iran on behalf of

Israel? That's the real question here. And we're going to get to those details in just a minute. But regardless, President Trump has decided to publicly defend Secretary of State, Pete Hegesith, even as absolute chaos is playing out within the Pentagon. But NPR, Jank, is reporting that there are some rumors within the White House that they're looking for replacement for Pete Hegsith. And we're going to get to the details on that in just a minute. But what do you think about those rumors? So the rumors are almost certainly right, because now a lot of right-wingers are confirming them,

and we'll get to that in a little bit. But to me, the most interesting thing is what you just said, Casper, why? Because there are two possibilities. One, Hegsweth is just a disaster, you know, and we've got all sorts of issues, personal issues with Hegsif that's leading to the disaster. Or there's this giant fight with in the pro-Israel and anti-Israel camps. There is no anti-Israel camp, but hey, let's not do everything Israel as camp, right? Right.

Within the administration and within the Defense Department, is that what the real issue is? I don't know, let's try to find out. So I did some deep research into this story because I was really curious about that very question and I've got some receipts. So let's get to it. Now, part of what has really blown up in regard to criticism toward defense secretary Pete Heggsett is the fact that a Trump loyalist and a former Pentagon official spokesperson for the Pentagon who advocated for Pete Hegseth to be confirmed as defense secretary has now

essentially put out this long piece in Politico to talk about the chaos that has been unfolding within the Defense Department. So this is John Yuliot who is the former chief Pentagon spokesperson. He was in fact offered a new role within the Pentagon. He claimed that it was a generous offer by by exit himself but he decided that he would not take that role. Nonetheless he writes that President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top official to account. Given that, it's hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth remaining in his role for much longer. So the fact that he wrote this opinion piece, again, is very relevant

considering the fact that he is not some Trump administration hater. He's very much supportive of the Trump administration. He was supportive of Hegsith, but notice that there was a lack of real leadership in the Pentagon as a result of Hegsith, you know, serving as Secretary of Defense. Go ahead, Chang. Yeah, one quick thing about this guy, so you know he's legit, only in this regard, not for anything else, is that he's the guy who was trying to root out DEI from the Pentagon. He's the guy that was wanted to take reference to Jackie Robinson off of Defense Department materials, et cetera. So my point there isn't that he's a good guy. My point is that he's die hard conservative. Yes. So this is not some sort

of lib attack on Hegseth at all. In fact, you can go to town hall where he published an opinion in peace advocating for the confirmation of Pete Heggzeth to serve as defense secretary. The title is Pete Hegseth is the best choice to reform the Pentagon. So I'm sure he's regretting that now to some extent. But let's get to some of the other details that we know of at this moment. So he writes in this political op-ed that yet even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit, the last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon. And it's becoming a real problem for the administration.

Now he calls out the defense department's firings that took place just last Friday. And among them were Pete Heggs's most loyal senior staffers, including senior advisor Dan Caldwell. And then you also had deputy chief of staff, Darren Selnick. And finally, Colin Carroll, who's the, or was the chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense. Now, in regard to those firings, Uliott writes that in the aftermath, Defense Department of officials working for Hegsus tried to smear the aides anonymously to reporters, claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part of an investigation ordered earlier this month. Yet none of this is true, he writes. So what does he mean by that? Well, apparently,

the Defense Department had said that it would conduct polygraph tests to determine who within the department was lying about leaking information to reporters. Now, at least one of the individuals who got fired has said that, look, none of us have had any polygraph tests. And the other thing that they've said is that one of them was told by former colleagues at the Defense Department that they were cleared of any wrongdoing and they don't have to worry about getting fired and then they ended up getting fired. So the cover story is that they got fired for leaking when that's not really the case. So why did they get fired? So then on Friday, political reported that Hegseth's chief of staff, Joe Casper was also stepping down from his role, which is odd considering Casper is the one

who called for the investigations into the department to determine who within the department is leaking information to reporters. And he was also the one who was advocating for a pause on intelligence gathering on behalf of Ukraine. So Joe Casper apparently didn't like those guys, said, one defense official, they all have different styles, they just didn't get along, it was a personality clash. So right now, as we speak, Pete Hegesith, the head of the Defense Department, is presiding over a department where his two closest advisors for over a decade are no longer

there, and he's without chiefs of staff for himself and for his deputy. So why did they get fired, Jank? And it turns out there's infighting over the topic of going to war with Iran, on behalf, of Israel. You have the so-called interventionists, the neo-conservatives who very much want to carry out what's in the best interests of Israel as opposed to the United States. And then you have the America First crowd who appears to be pushed out of the Defense Department. I'll give you some specific examples as to why. Go ahead.

Yeah, so here's what we know and what we don't know. So we know for sure that there's a giant blow up at the Pentagon, right? So those, it's super weird for him to fire diehard conservatives and his allies for the last decade, right? So that doesn't make any sense at all. So there's a mystery there for sure, okay, then number two is we know that the official cover story is not anywhere near true. And the guys that they were fired and then had the leaks against him, so they're like,

not only what all the things, all the things that Anna said, they're like, we were looking forward to the lie detector test and then they never gave us one. And then pretend that it was about this. So the official story is definitely garbage, right? So that leads us to trying to figure out, so why are they actually doing this? That's the big mystery. So now, and by the way, as you heard me talk about it on the show earlier, when Laura Lumer went in and, you know, said we're gonna oust, I found a list of the neocons and we're going

to oust them. I thought that is super strange. She's massively pro-Israel. She is. And she's against the neocons, that story doesn't. make any sense. No, it doesn't. And now I totally believe that that was a total lie, that she had done an investigation and she wanted to root out anyone, you know, within, you know, the executive branch that wasn't serving the America First Agenda, because the America

First Agenda runs up against, it is counter to U.S. foreign policy in Israel. And Laura Lumer loves U.S. foreign policy in regard to Israel. So I just find it hard to believe that she work to oust individuals who are neocons when her foreign policy preferences happen to align with neocons. Yeah, so there's something fishy about that story. So what did you find, Anna? Okay, so let's talk about this a little bit. So it's worth mentioning that the America First crowd that prioritizes the United States over Israel consists of the very people who are getting fired under these dubious claims of leaking, right? So Caldwell, for instance, supports a more realist and restraint-oriented national security policy, particularly in regard to Iran and

also in regard to Ukraine. But for our purposes here, we're going to focus on US foreign policy that suits the best interests of Israel as opposed to the United States. And it's also been reported that there is an open clash among Trump's inner circle over whether or not the United States should go to war with Iran or attack Iran on behalf of Israel. Also, this was reported by responsible statecraft. That's the publication that's aligned with the Quincy Institute. Daniel Davis said he lost an opportunity to work for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard after Jewish Insider Magazine and other neo-conservative voices called him out for his opposition to the war in Gaza and warnings about military conflict with Iran.

And there's some more reporting about this. For instance, we know, and we've been knowing about how the Israel lobby has been trying to oust Steve Whitkoff from Trump's administration. Steve Whitkoff, of course, was the individual who pressured Israel to sign a temporary ceasefire deal with Hamas that kind of fell apart in the end. But there was a temporary halt in the fighting, but Israel didn't like that. They didn't like that pressure, and ever since then, they've been trying to oust Steve Whitkoff from the Trump administration.

Also, here's a post from Sagar and Jetty, which I think is relevant here. New for me and Ryan Grimm, Mike Waltz put a former Israeli Ministry of Defense employee on the Israel and Iran portfolio in the National Security Council. NSC confirmed her employment and describes her as a patriotic American. No, she's literally an Israeli. I mean, she might be an Israeli American, but she was on the Ministry of Defense of another country. I don't care which country, like the Saudis, the Norwegians.

No, no, you served already in a defense department. Yeah. And it wasn't ours. I mean, that's insane. That's insane on so many levels. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurant.

Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. So a quick clarification because it is relevant to Pete Heggsett's role in all of this, right? The NSC is not within the Pentagon. NSC is a completely different federal government agency, although it is the federal government agency that is tasked with advising President Trump. President Trump on foreign policy and national security. Yeah, so thank you for the clarification on the defense. I mean, so she was in the defense ministry of Israel, right? Now in the national security.

Yes, I don't care. Look guys, I don't care if they're British, I don't care if they're Canadian, I don't care what other country they're involved in. You can't be on the defense ministry of another country and then come and serve in a super important national security role in our country. So calling into the dual loyalties, questioning the dual loyalties of Jewish Americans or Turkish Americans or any other Americans is unacceptable. But this is not just a normal citizen, this is someone who worked for their defense department.

Do you think she's going to be unbiased when it comes to Israel? I mean, come on, don't be ridiculous, that's insane, it's insane. We never allowed for any other country. So look, I don't know if Pete Heggseth was behind ousting his top advisors, right? People who he has close relations with or relationships with for over a decade. I don't know what's really going on or who's making the decisions to purge individuals within the Defense Department in particular. But to me, it's becoming more and more clear that the pro-Israel side is winning this war and

And basically succeeding in pushing out the individuals who are like, yeah, maybe we don't go to war with Iran on behalf of a foreign country. That's not going to be in the best interest of the American people or our military. And by the way, speaking of Mike Waltz, remember, Mike Waltz was the guy who included Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in that signal chat that got Hegseth into a lot of hot water. Interesting how he hasn't been fired, right? But he's also the guy who has put that former Israeli Ministry of Defense employee in the NSC. Yeah, so look, we, there's things we know and don't know, right? So Mike Wals is neocon totally in favor of Israel. There's no question about that.

And in the beginning of the administration, we told you that Mary Maddelson, one of his top donors, basically asked for a number of neocons to go in the administration, including Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, Mike Walson, National Security Council, Huckabee, and then Slotnik. Slotnik, they ran into some problems because they didn't want to lose that house seat, right? So, and then Pete Hegesith we had as historically has been very pro-Israel, more militaristic, et cetera, but was not as clear as the others, right? So now, to give you a sense, again, this is not about dual loyalties or anything like that. Steve Woodcoff is also Jewish-American, and so, but Israel's apparently trying to oust him

because he's not sufficiently loyal enough to Israel, which bless his heart. I mean, that's you're supposed to be representing us and he is. So don't ever take it out on our Jewish American brothers and sisters, right? Yeah, I wouldn't even say that he's not sufficiently loyal to Israel. He just wanted to broker a ceasefire deal and Israel didn't like that. Yeah, and by the way, I can, you're absolutely right. I can make an argument for that that is much better for Israel. 100%, yeah.

But he's not sufficiently loyal to the lunatics currently running the Israeli government. Exactly. Right, and so I'm gonna add one more piece, piece of data to this, which is that the other day, Mark Levin got appointed to a government post and I was like, Mark Levin. Mark Levin is the like most Israel first guy in all of American media. He makes Ben Shapiro look like he's, you know, part of the Gaza resistance. And so, and he was furious that we didn't attack. Iran furious whenever we don't do anything that Israel commands. Right. And he got appointed to a Homeland Security Advisory Council.

So there's movement here, guys. Yeah. And remember just last week, reporters a really piece of good news, which a huge piece of good news, which is that Trump refused Netanyahu's request to bomb Iran. For now. Right, for now. And now that things are not going in the direction that Netanyahu wants, all of a sudden, chairs are getting moved around in the Trump administration. And people that are more likely to say, oh yeah, we should definitely. attack Iran are being brought into the room, and then people who are saying, hey, maybe we should serve America first, are being moved out of the room.

So I want to just go back to this piece that was written by Uliott because he, you know, also mentions all of the other foibles that have gone on in the defense department under Hegseth leadership. Obviously, there's signal gate where they're communicating, okay, administration officials are communicating about an impending strike on the Houthis in Yemen. But now it turns out, according to a new New York Times piece, Hegesith also shared sensitive details about military operations in Yemen in another signal chat that included family members, namely his wife and I believe his brother as well. So and his lawyer, which what are you doing? What are you doing? So that news also led to this fury within the Trump administration of the

about the leaks that have been going on because that report doesn't happen unless someone leaked it to the New York Times. But nonetheless, the leaks I think are less of an issue. What's a bigger issue here is that you have all this influence from a foreign government, you know, leading to personnel decisions within our very own defense department.

And that's unacceptable. Yeah, and by the way, I mean, the reporting on this has been really miserable because they're talking about, Oh, there is a massive upheaval in the Defense Department. Yeah, but why? But like literally no article talks about why, which by the way, is it honestly another sign that it's Israel. Because the one thing you're not allowed to talk about in mainstream media is Israel.

So or money in politics. Those are two issues you're never allowed to discuss, right? So like you're telling me there's a massive upheaval in the Defense Department and not a single mainstream media reporter that covers the Pentagon and the White House has any idea why. No, that doesn't make any sense at all. And it gets worse, Hegseth brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two separate meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed. So this is separate from the signal chat. And also the Pentagon, as we know, set up a top secret briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff

on China, specifically for Elon Musk, who has business in China. The White House, though, did call that off after they caught wind of it. So how is Pete Higgseth handling all of this news? Well, he's handling it the way you would expect him to. Let's watch. Well, what a big surprise that a bunch of a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax. Won't get back their Pulitzer. They got Pulitzer's for a bunch of lies.

Pulitzer's for a bunch of lies. And on hoaxes, time and time and time again. And as they peddle those lies, no one ever calls them on it. See, this is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me, because we're changing the Defense Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war fighters,

and anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news, doesn't matter. So before I go to Jank for comment on the clip that we just watched, Now that I've seen this on a bigger screen, it does appear that Pete Heggs that sideburns are even. It's just that one of them is more gray than the other, so it looks shorter than the other. Important point to mention. It's a big debate on Twitter right now. Go ahead, Jake. That's funny, because I didn't know it was a big debate on Twitter.

And I thought, he's got to police those sideburns. They're very long sideburns. Apparently we're going back in the 1970s. Maybe that's the cause of all this. Okay, and it did look like he had a little bit of Easter egg on his face there. So here all week, whether you're like it or not. Okay, anyways, super defensive. But on the other hand, he's beleaguered.

So I give him a pass on being defensive. So look, we continue not to know why I'm not, we're not saying here. We know for sure that it's Israel that are moving these chairs and stuff. But we know that it's not the official reason. And there's that speculation. By the way, there's other speculation. There could be other reasons, right? So some of our members are speculating whether it's whiskey leaks, you know, and I don't know that that's fair.

And maybe that that's the reason the mainstream media isn't giving a reason because they heard that, but they don't have enough sources to confirm it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, can I just, okay, I don't think we should be poking fun at his substance abuse issues. Okay, I get that, oh, he's a baddie because he's on the other side of the political aisle. Let's be kind to people who struggle with substance abuse issues. No, I agree with that in general, of course, right? And we're good libs and we're not going to hold anything against good folks who are struggling with issues.

But you can't be the defense secretary while you're struggling with that. Well, I don't know if he's, he is at the moment. And we don't know, and we don't have the evidence that he is. And it seems like we're just poking fun at him for having substance abuse issues. No, no, since there is no good explanation of what's happening. And you know us, we can suss out what's really happening pretty good, right? Like we've had a long history of this and then hey, it turns out. that was the actual reason because they hide the real reason.

That's why we have to dive in and try to figure out what the real reason is, right? Yeah, the real reason is is real. Okay, I would bet my money on that. So that's your theory and it's a very good theory, right? And I'm just stating another theory, not because I have any information in that regard, but it's just because it's such a giant mystery as to why all of these things are happening at the same time. So I get why the members are speculating about that. So let me just reset to briefly talk about the possibility

the possibility of Hegsith being replaced. Because I think that there might be some truth behind that. There's more and more pressure for Trump to, you know, reconsider Hegsith in that leadership role. So let me just give you those details. So earlier today, NPR reported that the White House is looking for possible replacements for defense secretary Pete Heggseth. Now the defense department under his leadership has kind of been in shambles. There's been a lot of scandal, a lot of drama, a lot of infighting because of the

differing views on what the US foreign policy should be. Now, the reporting from NPR didn't really get into too many details. They basically reported that the White House had begun the process of looking for a new Secretary of Defense according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly. Now following that report, Caroline Levitt, White House Press Secretary, denied it. She called it fake news. But then Eric Erickson, who is a conservative radio show host, began to to confirm it on Twitter or X, responding to other people's comments and stuff like that.

He said that people in the White House are looking at possible Secretary of Defense replacements. Trump is not inclined to replace the Secretary of Defense. People in the White House believe more is coming on Heggsith that will turn Trump toward wanting a replacement. Now I wanna be clear, Eric Erickson is not a fan of Donald Trump's. I'm taking what he's saying at face value because like what do you know that we don't know? What are your sources? Do you have any receipts to show us?

And the fact that he doesn't like the Trump administration makes me take what he's saying with a grain of salt at the moment until I actually see some more evidence. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Trump administration ultimately replaces Hegsus. Yeah, so look, these are the type of stories where I'm like, well, we'll find out, right? So like, because the right wing will say, no way, man, it's all fake news, et cetera. And the left wing will know, say no, we know for sure. None of us know for sure. But right now it doesn't look good.

There's a lot of blowups to the defense department. It looks like a mess. He accidentally leaked our war plans several different times. So if they're looking for a replacement, it wouldn't be earth-shattering news, right? And it makes some degree of sense. But then if Trump decides to stick with him, then they'll pretend the whole thing was fake news in the first place. But that's, to me, that's not the important part. The important part is why are they trying to replace him?

Is it because he's got some personal issues or whatever else it might be, or for policy reasons? That's the most relevant part. Yeah, I agree. Further, Erickson says it's not the president, but those around him who expect more shoes to drop that turn the president against Hegsith, and they're trying to get ready for it. So buckle up. It seems like there might be some more revelations coming from the Defense Department, and we'll see, we'll see what it is. Yeah, and look, the fact that it's both NPR and Eric Erickson, who is a right winger, confirming from people inside the White House that they're looking at a lot of By the way, they're saying it's not Trump that's looking at the list.

They're gonna take it to Trump. It's other people making a list. By the way, that also, if I was in the White House and I was the chief of staff, I'd be looking at a list. Because I'd be thinking, well, we might have to make a decision. If we have to make a decision, I want to be able to give the president some options. And part of the reason I tell you guys all that is if you're independent or right winger, and you see stories like this and your initial reaction is always fake news, just calm down, okay? It could be real and they keep Hexiv anyway, right?

Not everything is fake news and not all discussions of turmoil at the White House is meant to destroy Trump. It could just be a thing that's happening, that's all. So we'll see what happens and we'll stay on the story as it develops. For now, we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, some real fighting between Jerome Powell, head of the Federal Reserve and Donald Trump, who wants to oust him as chair of Federal Reserve. We'll tell you why and more when we come back. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus,

IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. All right, back on the online news show, The Young Turks, Shank and Anna with you guys. More news. Got to give you an update on the whole deportation debacle with the Trump administration, so let's get right to it. But then there's also legitimate arguments on the other side.

Like the other side is making a very legitimate argument about the right to do process if you get processed and shipped out of the country and put in a prison in El Salvador. We have to make sure that these people are actually guilty. Otherwise, we become monsters. You can't, like, what is that when you fight monsters, be careful that you don't become one. Come one. Yeah. Yeah.

That's very important. It's very important. You know, you can't do that. The Trump administration is apparently eroding foundational American value so brazenly that Joe Rogan, one of the individuals who endorsed Trump and voted for him in the last presidential election, is now speaking out against him. Now Donald Trump, meanwhile, is pulling new, unbelievable tricks to basically defend his administration's decision to deport Kilmar, Abrago Garcia.

And he's also refusing to return him to the United States, despite the fact that the Supreme court has ordered him to do so. But before we get to that, here's more from Rogan. He had Tim Dylan on his podcast episode when he was making these points. And Dylan seemed to agree with him as well. But he's talking about the importance of due process here. Let's take a look. Here it is, Benjamin Franklin. It's a better 100 guilty person should escape than one innocent person should suffer. I'm on that side of things. Yeah. That's my, I mean, I think due process exists for a reason, and the reason is it is horrific for someone to be accused of something they didn't do, be imprisoned for crimes, they didn't commit, and then live

in a cell, live in a cage with a bunch of people who did commit. That is wisdom that has survived hundreds of years. It's incredibly accurate, and it is the foundation of freedom. So that was actually the episode that he had with Derek Poston, but he also made similar points while Tim Dylan was on his show. So he's been talking about this repeatedly, which I'm grateful for because I think the points he's making here are incredibly important. Due process is important.

It doesn't mean that you are a fan of Abrigo Garcia. It doesn't mean that you want to be an advocate for him. It means that you believe in the rule of law and due process when someone is accused of something. In this case, we have not gotten due process. And it's not just Rogan who's honestly more left leaning. He's like a more left leaning Trump voter. Also conservative, you know, legal commentators like this guy named Andy, Andy McCarthy, he was on Fox News and he also ripped the Trump administration on this.

Let's take a quick look at that. There's no question that he, there was an order. He was not supposed to be sent. As Senator Kennedy said, that was a screw up. I, in 20 years at the Justice Department, I had plenty of screw-ups. But the thing is, when the government screws up, it's supposed to fix it. And what these guys are basically saying is, yeah, we screwed up. So what? They've sent him to El Salvador. The government, if it was doing the right thing, the Trump administration should be trying to bring him back so he can have whatever proceedings he is entitled to to challenge his deportation.

I don't understand what Attorney General Bondi is doing here, frankly. So again, that was a conservative. You have Rogan, you have a conservative legal commentator on Fox News making kind of similar points here about the importance of due process and admitting when you've made a mistake, which by the way, the White House lawyers have admitted in legal filings, but you still have people like White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt denying that a mistake was made in deporting Abrago Garcia. Yeah, so look, on Abrago Garcia, there's two issues that are important. And there's tons of confusion about the other stuff that is not important.

So in 2019, the last order, court order on Abraigo Garcia is do not deport, period. Okay, so they deport him even though there's an outstanding court order saying do not deport this guy. Okay. So that means they have to bring him back, period, full stop. There's a court order. And then all the courts since I have confirmed, there's a court order you must return him, including the Supreme Court, nine to nothing, right? And even Alito saying, look, I didn't like. way that we ruled and my colleagues ruled and etc, etc. But of course he's got to bring him back

because you have to listen to the courts. And he's not gonna listen. That's the thing. The Trump administration refuses to listen. They're playing this ridiculous game where they're like, I mean, we can't, we can't force Buckele to do it. And then Buckele, okay, that's the president of El Salvador for those who don't know who I'm talking about. But then Buckele is like, I don't have the power to send him back to the United States. Okay, just stop. Do you think we're stupid? Like Trump and Buckele, they, they're not stupid. Like Trump and Buceli, they They're like, oh, I don't know how to bring him back. Oh, golly, gee, where is he?

Come on, come on, man. All right, so now the second thing that's super important about Abrego Garcia is it is not an immigration issue. It's a due process issue. Yes. Rogan's 100% right. It doesn't matter who Abrego Garcia is, and it doesn't, and all of that is for the courts to decide,

not for Yahoo's on X and Instagram to decide, right? Like, oh, I think he's this, I think he's, I don't care what you think, sorry, okay? I'm sorry, okay? And by the way, the court shouldn't care what I think either. They should do a real process because this isn't about his rights, this is about our rights. Exactly. Because as Rogan is pointing out here, if he doesn't have due process, we don't have due process.

Period, guys, you have to get that through your head. If the concept of due process does not exist anymore, it doesn't exist for anyone. That means you don't have to go to court to arrest anyone, deport anyone, etc. It just means that the government, okay, the big bad government, that that conservatives complain about all the time can literally unilaterally point to anyone, accuse them of anything, and punish them without due process. We don't wanna live in a country like that. It's that simple, we don't wanna live in a country like that.

Look, I know all about the reports in regard to Abrago Garcia, right? His wife had pursued a restraining order against him, yada, I get all that. I'm not like someone who's sitting here specifically to talk about what a stand up guy Abrigo Garcia is, it's not about him in particular. It's about the rule of law and the fact that there is a process in place to prevent innocent people from getting inaccurately accused of crimes they did not commit and then being punished for crimes they did not commit. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. So yeah. And look, here you can tell as usual, we've been the one show that's principled and honest about this because under the Obama administration, when

And they killed Anwar Olavlocki, you were American citizen, they claimed the due process was not necessarily judicial process. And we went nuts over it. Yeah, that's crazy. And I thought that, you know, the Attorney General there, Holders should have been fired instantly. And I said, I was embarrassed that he spoke at my graduation at Columbia and he's, you know, one of the alumni there, so there's a lot of reasons to be embarrassed by Columbia these days, right?

Because of course it's judicial process. What do you mean it's not judicial process? That's exactly what due process is. So Obama was 200% wrong there and Trump is 200% wrong here. now, when your guy, when your preferred candidate wins the election as it, and is in the White House, if they carry out acts that are counter to our constitutional rights, if they behave badly, they basically set a precedent that allows the second administration that might be run by a guy you don't like to carry out whatever they would like to carry out.

And in fact, so I'll build on that real quick too. Because back then, when we were going to live it over that, everybody said, no, no, no, don't criticize Obama. Don't, don't, don't criticize Obama. Because what if the Republicans win? What do you mean what if the Republicans win? He already said that he'd like to destroy due process. I don't need Republicans to do worse, that's already terrible, right?

And so look, there's a thousand other factors that go into who you vote for, right? And so I haven't voted for those Republicans because I thought they would do things like this. And I was really worried about it. Trump's saying he wanted to terminate the Constitution. And here we are constantly. trying to chip away at the Constitution for no reason. He had a giant win on immigration. He closed down the border.

People loved it. The polling went through the roof. And then he comes in and he's like, yeah, but I don't want to follow the Constitution. And now his polling is dropping 10 points. And so he turned a win into a loss. Why he wants to attack the Constitution. But if you're on Trump's side, you don't want to hear it. No, no, no, I love it.

Attacking the Constitution is great. When you were on Obama's side earlier, if you were a Democrat, and you didn't want to hear it, and mainstream media, by the way, when Trump does it, they go believe. Does it they go ballistic, right? And they should, good, I agree with that. When Obama did it almost no coverage at all.

100%. So speaking of the media going ballistic, I mean, they keep asking, you know, Trump to explain himself and explain how it is that it's totally okay to not listen to a Supreme Court ruling and continue, you know, deporting people without due process. Here's what Trump says, if we don't get these criminals out of our country, we are not going to have a country any longer. Okay, but who determines whether or not the individual you're accusing of being a criminal is actually, in fact, a criminal. That's where the courts come in. And by the way, again, just to reiterate, Abrigo Garcia was not in the country

illegally, okay? He had a legitimate asylum claim according to what the court said, and he had protected status to remain in the United States. So for those who are saying, well, even Even if he's not an MS-13 gang member or a gang member in general, who cares? He was in the country illegally, except he wasn't. And Trump continues to say, we cannot give everyone a trial. We cannot give everyone a trial because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years, we would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of illegals we are sending out of the country. Okay, but what happens if you're accusing someone who's actually an American citizen of being in the country illegally?

And you deport that individual. And not only that, in this case, they didn't just deport him. They sent him to a hellhole on El Salvador, one of the worst prisons in the world. And the reason they told the court's order that he should not be deported is because he had a legitimate fear of being harmed by gangs in El Salvador. That prison is filled with gangs from El Salvador. Like you couldn't have sent him to a worse place. And you're going to do that without due process? That's crazy.

So look, for me, the last couple of things here. So first off, due process is the cornerstone of Western civilization. So don't tell me we're not going to have a country anymore if we do due process. We literally won't have a country if we don't do due process. Then we'll just have a normal authoritarian or dictatorial government that we vote, that's been around forever and ever and ever. What makes America special and awesome is that we believe in Western civilization. We believe in those foundational rights that we have as citizens.

And due process might be the single most important one. That's why we were so upset at Obama earlier. Right? And so last things from the members now, dumpster dog writes in just as a fun part. New process is woke, right? And a lot of right wingers are saying that, like, oh, new process is nonsense. Guys, it is America. Okay, but I don't want to hear any of them complain if a Democratic president

points to any of the conservatives and accuses them of a crime, punishes them for alleged crime without giving them a day in court. In fact, well, because that's what this is. Let's round up all the January 6th guys, if a Democrat, Democrats wins. Let's just send them to El Salvador and say, oh, there's nothing we can do. We can't get them back. We can't get them back. Well, how you can't do that? Well, you don't have due process anymore, so we do anything we like. So that's not America. And Tricia Briggs, thank you for pointing that. Joe Rogan making a good point again. These are YouTube members hit the join button to become part of the show.

She says, are we in the upside down? Yeah, but look, guys, that's why everything, including these hosts, are not black and white. Other shows want to tell you, they're all black and white. If they voted for Trump, They're all Nazis and evil, et cetera. And by the way, Joe Rogan is not a leftist. He has some left wing positions, some right wing positions. He's independent, whether you like it or not. And there's a whole bunch of his opinions I don't like. But that's not how the world works.

Oh, I don't like some of his opinions, hence he's a Nazi. No, no. And so in this case, he did what I thought he would do, which is actually stand up for our rights. Right. And let's be honest, who on the left said he would? No one, right? And he did, and it makes a difference because he's part of the guys who helped Trump win. And if you say, well, that's why I hate him, I hear you.

But he's also part of the guys now checking Trump, which is a good thing. Okay, I hate when you say final thing, because there's more that I want to share with the audience. Okay, all right. So I want to talk just quickly about what Trump put out there in terms of evidence that Abrigo Garcia is part of MS-13. So let's go to graphic one here. It's a post by Donald Trump. He's a photoshopped image, by the way. And in it, he says this is the hand of a man that Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States because he is such a fine and innocent person.

They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he's got MS-13 tattooed on his knuckles. And two highly respected courts found that he was a member of MS-13, did they? Okay, beat up his wife, et cetera. I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things. I must be allowed to do my job, make America great again. But look, let's take a tighter shot, there we go, of the alleged MS-13 tattoos. The MS-13 was photoshopped onto the image. Those are not tattoos that he actually has.

The tattoos do include a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, I guess that's a sign of MS-13. And then there's a cross. A cross. I mean, I heard people saying that Pete Heggseth shouldn't get the Secretary of Defense job because he had cross tattoos. But maybe this guy should get it. Have you guys seen MS-13 tattoos or MS-13 gang members and the type of gang tattoos they have? They have like MS-13 scrawled across their forehead.

And they're not doing like little secret symbols. They're not like, hey, how are you doing? Cross. You should interpret it, right? No, a weed. Oh, wow, weed. That sounds super dangerous. By the way, let the courts adjudicate whether or not he's actually a member of MS-13.

What is the Trump administration so afraid of? Yeah, and it's embarrassing for the president to put up a Photoshop picture and get caught on it instantly. Don't do, what are you doing? But I already said last thing. All right, fair enough. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get to that Federal Reserve story. I was promising earlier.

And Sibirio Kovonik, thank you for gifting a membership. As I just read you, one of our members just activated the gift subscription for their mom, and she's watching along now. So that makes a big difference, and we appreciate you guys. Casper. We've got to talk about this ongoing feud between Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, because Powell is unwilling to go along with the demands that the president has, and Trump doesn't like that.

So let's take a look. He wrote, quote, Jerome Powell of the Fed, who was always too late and wrong, he said in all caps, yesterday issued a report, which was another and typical complete mess. He went on to say that Powell's termination could not come fast enough. You've reiterated that you intend to stay in office until the end of your term, and that certainly reassured many in financial markets. Our independence is a matter of law. Congress says in our statute were not removable except for cause.

Well, the stock market was in free fall again today after President Donald Trump called his own Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell a loser. Now Trump is very upset with Powell because of the fact that Powell is unwilling to lower interest rates. In fact, in a recent update that we received from Powell, he basically cited that Trump's tariffs policy is very likely going to lead to more inflation. And as a result of that, the Federal Reserve is unwilling to lower interest rates, which is something that Trump really, really wants Powell to do, Jank.

Yeah, he better be careful what he wishes for. So lowering the interest rates stimulates the economy. And Trump is, in his first term, pressured the head of the Federal Reserve for lower interest rates over and over again. And look, we were headed in that direction anyway, and they did, right? So you can't tell if they responded to pressure or if they were going that way. So did it help his economic numbers immensely? But when you're worried about inflation, lowering the interest rate is the exact wrong move,

because it could over-stimulate the economy and leading to higher prices. But now with the tariffs, we're already risking going back into inflation pretty significantly. If you lower the interest rates, that's a double whammy and could actually destroy the economy. Right, exactly. So Powell is doing what he's supposed to do. You know, we got issues with the Federal Reserve overall, but as the chair here, he's He's supposed to balance inflation and unemployment and come to a number that's best for the economy and do that objectively and not based on the political whims of the president. And he is absolutely doing his job.

The reason the market went down nearly a thousand points today is because one of the things that is true is that the market thinks Powell was doing a good job and he's a good steward of the economy because he's been now through a couple of presidents. and he's done a pretty good job of modulating the interest rates in a professional way. And they're worried it if he, Trump gets rid of him and puts him some dumb ass lackey, that it's going to absolutely destroy the markets. So that's why the market head is south again today. By the way, Trump was warned about this by some of his top advisors. And as usual, he didn't listen. Yeah, and also, I mean, when you think about the tariffs,

if Trump really does go forward with some of the more. astronomical tariffs against our trade partners. And by the way, that is on top of the 10% baseline tariff that he's slapping on to every country. It's going to lead to unemployment too. Like it's not just going to be inflation. And there are companies within the United States that rely on foreign made parts or foreign products in order to run their business here in the United States. And if they can't afford those products because of the high tariffs, or if their customers are unwilling to bear the financial burden of the inflation that comes along with those tariffs, they're going to go out of business,

and that's going to increase unemployment. And that's like a crazy combination of higher unemployment, yet you also have inflation that remains and could get worse. And that's one of the reasons why everybody's so worried about a recession, because Trump is flirting with stagflation. Right. That's when you do the nearly undoable of getting bad unemployment numbers and bad inflation numbers. Which, by the way, I mean, here, already did the undoable in the markets by getting the stock market and the bond market to drop at the same time, which was previously thought unimaginable because they balance each other out. When you take money out of one, you usually put it in the other. But people

took it out of both markets because they're so worried about the instability that Trump is bringing. And also, I mean, look, this game of chicken with China has not really looked so great for Trump so far. I think there was this assumption that President Xi and China was going to cave to Donald Trump's demands. That has not happened yet. It doesn't appear that he's going to bend at any point. He could, you never know what the future holds, but things aren't looking good in regard to these negotiations with China. Now with that in mind, today Trump posted this on truth social, and that's what led to the free fall in the stock market.

He wrote, preemptive cuts in interest rates are being called for by many, meaning many want the Fed to lower interest rates. With energy costs way down, which is true, except for the case of California, food prices, including Biden's egg disasters, substantially low. I know, I know, it's ridiculous. Look, we didn't like hammer Trump over the egg prices because it was avian flu and he doesn't have control over that to like the extent that people want to make it seem. And as usual, we were fair and honest about Biden's inflation. Exactly, exactly.

So like, was that all Biden? No, in fact, Biden handled it better than most of the rest of the world. partly because of Jerome Powell, by the way, and they worked in tandem. So we didn't hammer Trump over it because we're fair. But then you want to blame it on Biden? Biden had nothing to do with the egg prices. That makes you look like an ignoramus. He says there's virtually no inflation right now.

Really? Okay. There can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, he's referring to Jerome Powell there. A major loser lowers interest rates now. Come on. Powell has always been too late except when it came to the election period when he lowered. interest rates in order to help Sleepy Joe Biden, later Kamala get elected. How did that work out? So Trump's post, again, followed an earlier post in which he called for Powell's termination.

And I want to just briefly talk about that because due to congressional legislation that was passed earlier, the Federal Reserve is a separate independent body and the president cannot fire the chair. Now, I should note that in Trump's first term, he was the one who tapped Jerome to be head of the Federal Reserve, but since he can't manipulate him like a nice little puppet, Trump soured on him and wanted to fire him in his first term, didn't succeed in that, and now he's kind of bringing this issue back up. But look, there is a Supreme Court case that could eventually lead to Trump having the ability to fire Jerome Powell. So I want to get

to that case. And here's an explanation of it. Tell me about the case in front of the Supreme Court that might change that. It involves the National Labor Relations Board, which is another one of those so-called independent federal agencies where Congress has specifically restricted the president from firing or removing members. Trump did it anyway. So one of the members sued. Now Trump argues that he has the power to do this under the Constitution, that these are agencies that perform executive functions. He's the head of the executive branch. And so Congress can't restrict him from removing these members. And I will say, looking back to cases in the past 15 years, there has been some

sympathy by some of the justices for those arguments. Now, how does this case affect the Fed? Well, it's a similarly structured agency. So there is real concern that if the court agrees to take up this case, and certainly if Trump wins, then that also could suggest that he could get rid of Jerome Powell as head of the Fed. So a lot could really hinge on, you know, whether Supreme Court hears that case and how they rule on that case, it could, again, it negatively impact Jerome Powell's role as head of the Federal Reserve. But nonetheless, Trump doesn't like independent government agencies. He wants to have control over everything.

Yeah, this is a big problem. So here the Supreme Court could go in the wrong direction. And so we'll have to see how it plays out. But the reason to be a huge problem is because every president, and this one is definitely not just Trump or the Republicans, is going to want to pick a, Fed chair that's going to stimulate the economy. But the problem is when you stimulate it on your watch, sometimes it blows up on the next guy, right?

So it's a deeply irresponsible, but also nearly irresistible way of controlling the markets and the economy. So a president is going to voluntarily not use that power to stimulate the economy, even if it's overstimulating, especially in his last two years when he's not likely to feel the brunt of it and he could pretend and his party can pretend all along. Oh, when we were in charge, everything was great. So it's a really bad idea to go in this direction.

And lastly for me, Trump, I mean, calling the head of the federal chair, head of the Fed, a major loser, who does that? Like, I don't know when MAGA is going to get tired of him being a child. Maybe the answer is never, right? Or independence that voted for Trump, more importantly. Like, come on, guys, what is this? What is like? I don't mind both. Look, I don't like that he's attacking Jerome Powell for the reason he's attacking Jerome Powell.

And I've had my issues with monetary policy under Jerome Powell's leadership for sure. But nonetheless, I don't care if he calls him a loser. I get it. It seems childish compared to what, you know. So you know, I've said a million times, I don't mind him doing the intimidation and the bullying. That's part of politics and that's hardball. And I've given him credit for that. And you want to attack your political opponents, et cetera.

But when you call the head of the Federal Reserve, major loser, it's so. So stupid and childish. And by the way, that's what makes the market's partly jittery, right? Because they're like, oh, the president's a frickin' child. And so whether you like it or not, there's also tons of foreign investors in the stock market, right? And once they see that our president is a buffoon, they get worried and they start withdrawing money from America. So you can say, hey, I don't care about corporations, hey, you know me, I got a thousand problems with corporations, right? And the structure of the Federal Reserve has huge issues that we've talked about on other shows, right?

But when a president does this kind of like third grade stuff, it's unnerving. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, I agree. So we'll see how this plays out. But Jerome Powell remains defiant. He is resisting calls to step down. He will not resign. And we'll see how it plays out for him. I'm super curious to see who wins in this battle. For now, we've got to take a break when we come back for For the second hour of the show, we'll talk about more cash for clunkers. Hakeem Jeffries raises more campaign cash from unsavory individuals. And then we'll talk about this big debate within the Democratic Party in regard to whether or not it makes sense to primary Democratic incumbents who are not effective at their jobs.

We'll be back with that and more in just a few. Thank you.