The Young Turks - Petty Trump on McCain's Death; Mollie Tibbetts's Family Speaks Out

Episode Date: August 28, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from August 27, 2018. For more go to http://tyt.com/JOIN. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Young Turks, Anna Casparian, and John Ida Rolla with you. That's the Anna you are. Yeah, like Anna Casparian.

Not to be mistaken with the other Annas that work here, which are none. They are done. Anyway, John, how are you doing? I'm good. I just came from doing Larry King. I was on with the chief editor of Breitbart. That sounds like a great time, John. He's very reasonable on that show.

Okay. He doesn't say anything crazy, really. I disagree with him on everything, but he doesn't say anything crazy. Where can people see that interview? I think on Larry King's website, I'm assuming tomorrow. Okay, yeah, definitely tomorrow, because right now you've got to watch this show. Exactly. Don't go anywhere.

Yeah, exactly. All right, in the second hour, Brett Ehrlich will join in, and at some point, possibly Jank will come in because he said that he wants to sit in J.R. seat and comment on some of these stories. Jair's not in it. Yeah, we don't know. We don't know for sure if Jank is going to join. He is busy doing CEO duties, but that's okay, because I'm excited to do the show with

you, John. And I'm willing to do it with you. I'm kidding, it's going to be great. It's going to be great. Okay, all right, so let's get started. Unfortunately, we start off with some pretty bad news that broke over the weekend. A gunman opened fire at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, killing two, later killing himself.

Unfortunately, aside from those who were murdered, 11 were injured and 9 were injured by gunfire. To give you some more details into the story, police have identified the attacker. They've identified him as David Katz, a 24-year-old from Baltimore. Now, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams added that he did not know what motivated the shooting or whether Katz knew the victims that were targeted or whether the victims were even targeted specifically in the first place. So this story is still developing.

Authorities are really holding on to whatever details they're not releasing them to the public quite yet. But investigative journalists have done a pretty decent job so far in looking into the history of the shooter and trying to figure out, you know, who. who he is, why he possibly did this. The Associated Press obtained some documents indicating that he had been hospitalized in the past for mental health illnesses and that his parents disagreed deeply over how to take care of those mental health illnesses.

Now, we don't know specifically what those illnesses are, so I don't want to speculate on that. The attacker died from a gunshot wound to the head, and that's according to the medical examiner. Six shooting victims described as males in their mid-20s were. treated at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville, and also four were struck in their torsos while the other two were shot in the extremities. One victim is in serious condition, but luckily all of them are expected to survive. So John, I want you to jump in because this was a video game tournament for Madden, which is an NFL game.

This was the first part of the tournament, meaning this was the qualifier. And there are some witnesses saying that the shooter competed, lost, then he left, grabbed his gun and came back. That's what some of the witnesses are saying. So I want to be clear about that. Yeah, I don't know for sure. The police, I think in this case, are being responsible and not saying that they know for sure what the motive is.

And at this point, I would say I don't really care. I mean, whether he had lost and then came back or whatever, this is a, there's no logical connection between losing and shooting up the place anyway. So whether that's the thing that set him off or not, it's not actually the reason he did it. It's something else, something more fundamental. But it's awful in any event. I mean, e-sports is exploding. You have these huge gatherings, and people go there because they all share a hobby, basically,

and they want to be enthusiastic about it and pursue that. And like with every other mass shooting, no one should have to deal with this sort of thing. I've seen details on the two who were killed. We talked about them on the damage report this morning. and, you know, their friends and families, even though the police at this point, perhaps they have now, they hadn't actually identified for sure the two who had died. But family and friends of those two have spread their, you know, their pictures and information about their lives.

One had a family, you know, like a wife and a kid at that point. And so just, you know, obviously tragedy. So as you know, this is one of many shootings that have happened in the state of Florida recently. And the governor of Florida, Rick Scott, was asked. to comment on this shooting. And so during a press conference, he said the following. The first thing people are going to do is this political fight. But let's look at this. This young man and other young men, they're not valuing life. Something is causing that. As a society, we've got to

figure this out. Every parent has got to say to themselves, what can I do better? So essentially putting the onus on parents here. So look, we have a problem in the country. I feel like we, as a nation, as a political party, as progressives, like we've become a broken record. There's another mass shooting, more people die, we have the same conversation over and over and over again. We even have that part of the conversation over and over and over again, right? Because here's the fact of the matter. First off, Republicans, they're not going to do anything about gun control. They're just not.

We have a corrupt political system. They're getting funded by weapons manufacturers, they're getting their support from the NRA. They're not gonna do anything about gun control. We know that. We're gonna have the exact same conversation a few weeks from now, if not a month from now. We're gonna have that conversation again soon, okay? So you as the voter, what are we gonna do? Because we need to really reform politics in the country.

If you genuinely wanna do something about this, I've been clear about my views on guns and gun control. I don't believe in banning guns, I do believe in the Second Amendment, but I get painted. as an extremist or a radical when it comes to gun control because people have bought into this idea that it's a black or white issue. Either you have guns or you don't. But what we have right now is not a common sense system where you have an individual with mental health issues getting his hands on guns. Like it should not happen. In this case, it should be pretty simple because they have said for a long time the problem is people with mental health issues. So in this

this case, clearly, this is a reminder that we need to do something about that, right? But they don't do anything about mental health issues. That does, that does hurt. That's, that hurts it. So, Republicans are not only disingenuous when they point to, you know, mental health problems or video games as the real issue behind these mass shootings. They also don't really do anything about it after mentioning those things as scapegoats, right? Then are you going to fund mental health programs? No, they cut it. Of course they're not. Yeah, and just to go through a couple of those, we have the same, we should have a segment, we have the same conversation every time.

Dana Losh goes on the NRA and says it's safe spaces that do it. Another guy in the NRA said that it was headphones that caused it. Having headphones that block the noise of gunfire is dangerous and thus you probably shouldn't wear them. So maybe we'll get some sort of headphone control if we can't get gun control. The politicians, the Republicans might, since their primaries tomorrow, they might pretend for 24 hours that they actually care about this. It'll probably dissipate shortly after that. And we should probably also, you know, while I hate having to talk about politics in connection with either this set of killings or with Molly Tibbitts.

At the time, we said, well, it's a little bit weird that you're immediately politicizing this when you always say don't politicize the mass shootings. And maybe at that point they might have said, well, that's ancient history. Well, it's coming up and you're doing it again. I mean, Rick Scott, you just saw there was saying don't politicize this. And again, what happens? Does Donald Trump talking about it? Well, it's dependent on his race.

Turns out he's white. So, of course, the president doesn't talk about it. And that's why it shouldn't be politicized. But you can guarantee that if it was someone else of some other race that had shot up the same exact tournament, Rick Scott would not be saying we're in a rush to politicize it. If you've watched the show for a while, Anna said these same things, I have said these same things. We will tragically, unfortunately, have to say them again.

Right. The way that things work in this country right now indicate that this type of shooting will happen again in the future. And it'll happen again in the near future. So while it's our duty to report on this story and tell you. about it and give you our thoughts on it, just to understand that this is a conversation that we'll be having again in another week, if not in another week, maybe in another month. I mean, mass shootings really do happen every day in the country.

We just don't hear about all of them. Over 250 this year. Exactly. So we would be doing nothing other than reporting on mass shootings if we were to only focus on that one topic. And it's devastating. And it makes me feel so helpless. Yeah.

Yeah. And if it was the same exact things, but they were actually labeled as terror attacks, and they were happening this off. They happened at a concert, then they happened at a concert outside of a casino, and then they happened at a gaming thing. And then, you know, all of that, do we have any doubt that people would demand some sort of change then? I mean, what would people not be willing to give up or change or radically alter to do

it if they thought that this was a string of connected? terror attacks, but if it's unconnected by anything other than our obsession with guns and our apparent worship of violence in this country, we don't do anything. We don't care, because it seems disconnected. It's just a whole bunch of crazy white people. They are connected, obviously, since it doesn't happen elsewhere. It doesn't, not in this way, not with this much frequency. By the way, Republican candidates in the state of Florida have canceled their campaign events

in Jacksonville following the shooting. So you might think, oh, that's the honorable thing to do. They're doing this out of respect for the victims. No, they're doing this because they don't want to answer any questions about gun legislation, which could hurt them politically in a state like Florida, which by the way, happens to be the only state in the country as far as I know, that has actually increased its support for Trump. Go Florida.

So Republican candidates are canceling their campaign events in Jacksonville, just to give you some specifics, Republican candidates for governor, Adam Putnam. and Ron DeSantis announced their events in Jacksonville had been canceled. And what are they offering to the victims of these shootings? You guessed it, thoughts and prayers. So Adam Putnam said, our prayers continue to be with the victims and their families. Please cooperate with local law enforcement and do not hesitate to be helpful in your community in any way you can. Yeah, if you're running for governor and the only thing you can offer are thoughts and prayers, then you're not a leader.

You're just like everyone else. Also, Ron DeSantis said, due to today's tragic shooting in Jacksonville, the previously scheduled DeSantis' campaign stop for tomorrow in Jacksonville will be canceled. Well, it has been canceled. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and the entire Jacksonville community at this time. I mean, it's amazing. I would like to ask for, I believe, the least change possible, just to pretend like you care. I'm not saying you have to do anything more than thoughts and prayers, but at least call it something else. Say our prayers and our deepest thoughts are with you.

At least word it differently, it's almost like they're mocking us at this point, that they continue to use that cliched phrase that they know they're going to be attacked for, but they feel some sort of obligations. Like they have some sort of contract with the NRA that for the next two years, I have to say thoughts and prayers. I can't possibly say, you know, we're really thinking about you and we feel great compassion for your suffering. They literally can't word it in any other way. Well, you know what? Who knows? Maybe thoughts and prayers would help. I'm going to show you what the scene was like when the shooting took place.

We're not going to show you people getting shot. You're going to hear what it sounded like. And let's see if thoughts and prayers would help these victims out. It's a lot. It's going to be hard to get them on stream. It's a lot. It's not a tough out today. Excuse me.

Not an easy out. Oh, God, what's got my skill? Oh, what are you shooting with? Yeah, it turns out that the previous thoughts and others that our politicians had doled out in the past and past shootings didn't seem to help these victims out in this case. It's so pathetic. They're supposed to be leaders. They're supposed to be individuals who make difficult decisions to represent us and protect

us. That is literally the only role of government to protect its citizens, that's it. And they fail to do it time and time again. pathetic. I had not actually listened to that before. That is, that is rough. And I mean, the idea that if we have a problem and we're going to try to fix it, like, the only things that Republicans are willing to talk about are solutions that would begin one to two seconds into that videotape. We're not going to do anything to stop him from having the gun. He's in the room. He wants to kill you. What could we do? Maybe the people playing Madden have guns. Maybe

there's cops all over the place. Those are the only potential solutions when every rational person watching that knows that the solution on that problem was that he didn't have a gun in the first place. And we just have to ask ourselves, what are we willing to do to ensure that people like that, either with mental health problems or a predisposition towards violence or God only knows what, don't have guns if they don't need to have guns? Nothing. So far we're willing to do absolutely nothing.

Absolutely nothing. But Republicans have been willing to cede all of the ground between him going and buying gun to him pointing at someone in a video game tournament. And then they're willing to talk about, hey, maybe we could have someone else shooting at him. Because a lot of people could listen to that tape and think there weren't enough guns firing then. That's the solution across fire.

That's the solution to all of our problems with mass violence in America. Yeah. Well, we're gonna go to break. And maybe during that break, our supervising producer can brief us on the next mass shooting that we'll report on. But we'll be right back with more news. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna and John with you.

Before I read some TYT lives, I just wanted to just remind you guys about a show on our network called We the People, which is hosted by the wonderful and lovely Nina Turner. If you're interested in checking it out, do it the way I do it. I love listening to podcasts and audio. You listen to it on the go. I'm in my car. I'm driving. You go to TYT.com slash audio.

No, I love podcasts, though. I listen a lot of them. I'm, like, obsessed with podcasts. I podcast everything. What's your favorite podcast? My favorite? Oh, what's my favorite podcast? Well, obviously, no filter with Anna Casperry.

You listen to your own podcast. No, I don't. Actually, I do for quality control. But anyway, no, I really, I don't know if I'm supposed to be promoting this because it's not on our network, but I really like the daily. Yeah, with Michael Barbaro, who speaks very slowly, and does a lot of that. But it's a good way of kind of understanding the inner workings of big news stories. So I really enjoy that.

But I also listen to Nina Turner's podcast, We the People. I listen to your show, Damage Report. Oh, thank you. Which is fantastic. And now available as a podcast. It is, yes. So make sure you guys check it out. It's really good stuff.

Yeah, we had a, it'll probably be up not too long after today's show was great. We had a Brooke Thomas on and also a congressional candidate who's likely to become the first Muslim woman, congresswoman. Rashida Talib was on the show today. You've interviewed a lot of fascinating people. We've had great guests. Yeah, definitely. All right, I want to read some TYT lives for you now. Gabby Marita says, can we take the whole safe space narrative back from conservatives?

Like, is there something wrong with expecting the places I go to be safe? Yeah, it's funny because they want their own safe spaces, right? Which I've talked about on no filter. I won't get into it now, just the safe time. Tom Zawaki says, people in Florida are afraid of alligators, sharks. red tide and sinkholes. All of them combined don't account for a fraction of the homicides created through the lax gun laws and the refusal to accept Medicaid funds. So true. Oh, me that especially, yeah. To cover people properly. Such a great point. Just super fast. But, I mean, this happens all the time. But a woman was walking her dog in Florida last week. And an alligator was threatening her dog. And so she, like, tried to scare off the alligator. And the alligator dragged her in the word. She died. I know. I know. Don't please don't repeat that story. I saw it. And it was horrible. That is just terrible.

Okay. The dog lived. Yeah. I mean, that's who she was trying to protect. That's tough. Thanks for bringing that up today. This is Florida. It's a great day.

This is what Florida's like. Ferresto Mintero on TYT Super Chat. Thank you for helping the show. Asked a question. I actually am not familiar with this controversy. Any response to the Donna Brazil tweet controversy? Do you know about this? I don't think so.

Okay. Can we try to find it? Yeah, we'll look into it. during the break. I mean, if it's Donna Brazil, I could probably guess she, I don't know, said, maybe it was about the reforms this weekend? I'm not sure, I actually, I don't think I follow her on Twitter. I don't want to speculate.

Let's, we'll get briefed on that during the next break and maybe I'll come up with an opinion by then. But I honestly haven't come across that story. I'd prefer to predict. No, I don't know. Or speculate. Okay. Moving on to some other news.

The family members of an Iowa college student by the name of Molly Tibbitts, the woman who was tragically murdered, the family members are coming out and speaking out against how her death has been politicized by the right wing. Now she was allegedly murdered by a man named Christian Rivera, and there is still some uncertainty as to whether or not he's in the country legally or illegally, but what we do know is that he is a Mexican individual in the country. There is some possibility that he's here illegally. And so the Trump administration, along with other right-wing pundits, have exploited this tragedy

in order to make a statement about immigration into the United States. And Molly Tibbitts' family is not happy about that. Before we get to their statements, I want to give you a sense of what Trump has said in the past to politicize this tragedy. Take a look. The illegal alien coming in. very sadly from Mexico and you saw what happened to that

incredible beautiful young woman should have never happened illegally in our country we need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-NF-TR as a young Turks fan you already know that the government the media and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful

but now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it.

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained

all at the same time. We've had a huge impact, but the laws are so bad. So Trump has done this in the past where he has taken family members of victims who were killed by undocumented. immigrants and has paraded them around in an effort to spread anecdotal evidence, propaganda about how we need to squash any and all immigration from Mexico or Central American countries into the United States.

But Molly Tibbets' family is not having it. And I actually give them a lot of credit because their statements are strong and in this political climate, very courageous. Because anyone who speaks out against Trump and his cronies gets attacked immediately. But they seem to be brave enough to come forward and say, no, you're not going to exploit, you know, Molly's death for your political narrative. So one of Molly's family members, this is actually Molly's cousin, Sandy Tibbitts Murphy, says, especially for those of you who did not know her in life, you do not get to usurp Molly and her legacy for your racist, false narrative now that she is no longer with us. We hereby reclaim our Molly. She continues to say, Molly was killed and a man has been arrested and charged with her murder.

Yes, that man is an immigrant to this country with uncertainty as to his legal status. But it matters not. He is a man whose path in life crossed that of Molly's life with tragic results. Yeah. I mean, we've seen a lot of things get politicized in this country in a fairly unsubtle way. This is about as unsubtle as it gets. They're gleeful. They're gleeful over this situation.

Trump held it in better than some, but some of the pundits on the right, like they can't get over themselves how happy they are about this. And we know, has anyone presented any evidence that the violence was because he was an undocumented or not that have anything directly to do with what he did? Not that we've seen. We haven't seen anything about that. And really, if we were a rational country, the conversation that we would have right now, If you wanted to bring up the fact that he's undocumented, it would go like this.

So, news is apparently an undocumented immigrant killer. We don't actually know for sure, but let's say that it is. Oh, wow, that's scary. You think we should do something about it? Okay, well, do they commit crimes more than regular people? Because that would be maybe then we should do something about it. Oh, both undocumented and documented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. Oh, well, then it's probably not a gigantic problem.

This is a tragic thing that happened here, but it's not some sort of systemic problem across the country. And they don't care about that. And the fact that they don't care about those stats show that they don't actually care about the crime. They don't actually think this will be a solution to crime. They care about the image of it, the theme of it, what it stands in for socially, and especially coming so soon after bad news for Donald Trump. They're going to salivate over that.

What's devastating about it is that this type of propaganda is effective. It really is. Because I mean, you're right, if you look at the broader picture, if you put anecdotal evidence aside, which is worthless, by the way. And you look at actual trends, you will notice, first off, if you're concerned about saving lives, maybe look into how laxed gun laws lead to more mass shootings and more deaths, okay? Because that's a real trend in the country that these very people who are exploiting Molly Tibbets' death have absolutely no concern about whatsoever.

Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers. But when it comes to immigrants, you're right, whether they're undocumented or documented, after study shows, you look at enclaves, you look at communities that are where immigrants are prevalent, and crime rates actually go down. But that doesn't matter because we have some anecdotal, possibly some anecdotal evidence showing that an undocumented man killed a woman, right, an American citizen. So let me give you more from Sandy Tibbitts Murphy. She also says, Molly was murdered because a man denied her right to say no.

Our national discussion needs to be about the violence committed in our society, most mostly by men. So when we previously covered this story, I shared some numbers regarding murders that were committed, homicides that were committed by white men. And I was doing that to make a point, right? Oh, look at all these white men committing homicides, maybe we should deport them, maybe we should really reconsider what citizenship means in the country, maybe being born here isn't good enough. Obviously, I was saying that to make a statement, I wasn't being serious.

I don't genuinely think we should deport white men from the country. But you can politicize anything. You could exploit any number for your advantage, right? And in the country, if you really want to have a conversation about, you know, violence against women, maybe we do need to address, you know, the perpetrators of these crimes. You know, Republicans continuously vote no on the Violence Against Women Act, which is legislation that aims to provide women with the resources to defend them. themselves and take these domestic abusers to court.

Why do Republicans keep voting against that? I'm curious. Sends a strong message to Republican men that they probably like. And yeah, so her talking about basically toxic masculinity and men not being willing to accept a no and all that. You could even, you could look at that and say, well, that's politicizing it hypothetically if I were to launch some sort of campaign. But at the very least, it seems to have something to do with the actual killing and not just picking

one demographic characteristic of who the person was. And I would also like to say, one of the reasons I'm so angry about what they're doing with Molly Tibbets and her murder is that it's not just restraint to them being the ones who are politicizing it. We then have to step in and respond to it because of this racist campaign that they're involved in. But I don't want to. I don't want to talk about any of this in relation to her death.

I didn't know Molly. I didn't know what she believed. God knows how she would feel about someone like me talking in this way. But I feel like I have to step in because of how blatantly, raciously, her murder is being used. Yeah, it's pretty nice. But there's nothing about the situation that's good. And we're being forced into this position by really callous, politically motivated, self-interested people. Yeah.

Molly's father also spoke out and went the extra mile and thanked the Hispanic community. So I want to give you his specific statements. Again, this is Molly's father, Rob Tibbts. He says the Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans. As far as I'm concerned, they're Iowans with better food. This is what he said during her eulogy, by the way. He continued to say, we're at the end of a long ordeal, but we need to turn toward

life, Molly's life, because Molly's, nobody's victim, Molly's my hero. I can't imagine, I mean, obviously I can't imagine it happening at all. But then having to respond to this as the family, having this entire machine take her up and try to use her for their cause. It's just horrible to put that on top of the pain that they're already feeling. And really fast, to go back to something that you said, I mean, Donald Trump is speaking favorably about her now. But when he sees some of the negative stuff that the family has said, if more comes out, like, do you honestly think that he won't turn and start attacking her family? There's no one who is immune to that. I certainly would not put it past him.

And the thing, and then it will take like that fast, his supporters will turn on the family too. I know. I mean, so my question is, are we proud of what we are as a country right now? You could be applying that to literally any issue and I would say no. Yeah, it's embarrassing. It really is. I mean, we live in a country where people think. I think it makes more sense to defend a guy who consistently defames the parents of Sandy Hook

victims rather than defending those Sandy Hook victims. That's the country we live in. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. We've all gone mad. I'm gonna stop myself before I get myself into some trouble with other commentary.

So let's talk about John McCain, because that was a big story. Before the weekend, John McCain passed away at the age of 81. He was diagnosed with brain cancer, and before the weekend begun, his family had notified the press that they were going to discontinue his treatment. Soon after that, news broke that he had passed away. Now, there have been some interesting developments coming from the White House in response to McCain's death, and they are not good. So let's start off with Trump refusing to really address.

the fact that John McCain had died. Now, first, press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, chief of staff John Kelly and other White House aides advocated for an official statement that gave the Vietnam War P-O-W plotts for his military and Senate service and called him a hero. But Trump was not in favor of that. In fact, according to reports, Trump told AIDS that he wanted to post a brief tweet instead, and the statement praising him, John McCain, was not released. Okay, so what did Trump say through Twitter?

You know, that's where he's this articulate communicator. My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you. So this is speculation, but I would argue that it's accurate speculation. Trump didn't even write that. There were no misspellings. There was no grammatical error. There was punctuation.

someone else wrote that on his behalf. And even so, it didn't even really acknowledge John McCain, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, I didn't have as much of a problem with a tweet as most people did. Yeah, I don't really care. He certainly could have said more. I don't expect anything from Trump. Look, this whole story puts us in a weird position. Because on one hand, of course, we had issues with John McCain.

He was a Warhawk, all of that. You know, it's not like we agreed with everything he did. Now, progressives get ready to be angry with me. He wasn't all bad either, right? Now, Trump has no redeeming qualities. I don't care about Trump. There's nothing that I can turn to and say, nah, that was good. That was a good thing about Trump.

With John McCain, that was, it was different. You know, he was a mixed bag. Yes, he was a war half. Yes, he said some pretty terrible things about the Asian community in the past. I got no love for him when it comes to those things. Yeah. But when it comes to, you know, some of the. things he was outspoken about, whether it be about immigrants, whether it be about speaking

up against Donald Trump, those are the things that are admirable. He was the- McCain-Feingold and-McCain-Feingold. He was the only Republican senator, if I'm remembering correctly, no, he was the one who made the deciding vote in the Affordable Care Act repealed. To save part of it. To save part of it. So he wasn't all bad, okay? Yeah, he was mostly bad.

He was the vast majority bad. Yes. He was almost entirely bad. But with that said, you are a U.S. president, just have a little bit of class. I know that we can't really expect that from him. And he hated McCain. It was clear he hated McCain. He said that he preferred soldiers who didn't get captured, a reference to McCain being a prisoner of war for six years.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so during a press conference, here's how Trump handled questions about McCain's death. Thank you. Thank you. Nothing at all about Johnson. We're finished. We're finished. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. So, thank you. Any thoughts on Joe on the page? So one other thing that I want to say to his response to McCain's his response to his response to McCain's passing. Remember last week, Trump was tweeting nonstop about how much Trump was tweeting nonstop about how admirable Manafort is.

That's true. This is a man, okay, who was working for the Russian government and was hiding money from the U.S. government, so he would evade taxes, okay? And I do want to clarify that error. I think that there was someone on this network who said that Manafort's convictions had nothing to do with Russia. It absolutely did have something to do with Russia because he made his money through Russia, representing Russian interests in Ukraine in order to help Vladimir Putin achieve what he wanted

in Ukraine. And then he made $60 million doing it and hid $30 million from the U.S. government so he could evade taxes. So the root of that problem was Russia and the fact that Manafort was a foreign agent who failed to register as a foreign agent here in the United States. Just want to make sure that we correct any errors that might have aired on our network. But that said, though, what are your thoughts on all of this, John? I think, I mean, the obvious thing to say is it's pathetic, but it probably would go maybe

in the top 50 most pathetic things that Donald Trump has done. I mean, the simplest thing in the world would be, Mr. President, do you have any comments about John McCain? Yeah, I'd just like to thank him for his service, obviously, you know, great, great work in the military, fighting on behalf of his country, and a long, a distinguished career in the Senate that will be remembered for a very long time. Thank you. That's the easiest thing in the world. You could say that about somebody that just punched you in the face that it wouldn't be that hard. John McCain's dead. You've won,

sort of, I guess. You hated the man. Now he's dead and you're somehow still alive. It would be the easiest thing in the world to just act. Take your pick, and I apologize if I offend anyone. Either act like an adult or act like a man. Do one of those two things. Maybe an adult man, if you've got it inside of you to do that. The simplest thing in the world to just tweet, he, you know, for all of our disagreements, John McCain 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. I mean, did what he believed in and he'll be remembered as one of the giants of the Senate in the 20th century. That's simple. That's not saying he was right on the issues. That's not saying he wasn't a D-bag to you or anything like that.

That is the most simple thing in the world. But he doesn't have any of that in him. He is a vindictive, narcissistic, tiny little man child. That's right. That's what we're dealing with. And this is not from my point of view. I don't care about John McCain, really. I feel bad for his family, and that's what I expressed on Twitter.

I lost my father to cancer. I can only imagine what it's like for the family to do the same thing right now. But he's of your party, you agree with 96% of the votes that he's taken in his career. And you can't work up seven or eight words to rub together in his honor? No, he can't. He can't even handle allowing the release of a White House statement that he doesn't have to write himself. He won't allow it.

You know what? Maybe it was that the word hero was in there. And that's why he has to attack John McCain on that particular thing, which he's done terrible things afterward, pushed for policies that killed hundreds of thousands of people, did about as bad stuff as you can. But what he did in Vietnam was heroic. I haven't done anything like that in my life. Have you done anything like that in your life?

Of course I haven't. Edwin? And by the way, it was- Most of the people watching this happen. It wasn't just that he was a prisoner of war for years. It was that he was being tortured to give up top-secret information to our- our enemies at the time, and he refused to do it. In the meantime, Trump didn't go to Vietnam because he lied about bone spurs in his foot. And he had his personal Vietnam, which was the fight to not get an STD, which is his quote,

not mine. So that's why he lashes out, because he sees in John McCain something that he has never had, one single ounce of heroism or integrity or honor or any of that. Let's take a break. When we come back, I'll read your TYT lives and also some drama involving National Inquirer releasing Trump's dormant from his contract. There might be some juicy tidbits here, okay? Come right back.

We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media become a member at t yt.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Hey guys, welcome back to TYT. We're going to get right to the rest of the show. But to answer the super chat question from the previous break, do we have any thoughts on the Donna Brazile Twitter controversy? The answer is no. Moving forward, so there is a new report indicating that Trump's doorman has been released from an important contract. So I want to give you the details on that.

A Trump World Tower Dorman, who apparently had some detailed information about an affair that Trump had, which allegedly led to an illegitimate child, as it's being reported, has been released from a contract, a catch-and-kill contract with AMI. That is the parent company for National Enquirer. Now, AMI has been known to do this with other individuals who had salacious details about either Trump's past or Trump's present. This was all an effort by David Pecker, the head of this organization, to continue supporting Trump and to continue ensuring that he is not hurt politically through his past scandals.

So this contract was signed by Dino Sahu-Juddin, Sahu Dino Sajuddin, Sahu So, Dino Sahudin is the doorman. The contract appears to have been signed on November 15, 2015, and states that AMI has exclusive rights to the story, but does not mention the details of the story itself beyond saying source shall provide AMI with information regarding Trump's illegitimate child. Wow. So that's written in the contract. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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AMI will not owe source any compensation if AMI does not publish the exclusive. And the top of the agreement shows that the doorman could receive a sum of $30,000 payable upon publication as set forth below. So that was the original contract. It was later amended to indicate, I know, it was later amended to indicate that they would pay him regardless. So the third page of the agreement shows that about a month later, the party signed in amendment that states that Sahuddin would be paid $30,000 within five days of receiving the

amendment. It says the exclusivity period laid out in the agreement is extended in perpetuity and shall not expire. Okay. So it has been expired. Not expired necessarily, but they have, AMI has released him from this contract. And part of the reason why this is happening is because David Pecker appears to have turned on Trump. So this is all part of a massive investigation involving Trump and some of his wrongdoings. Sahuddin had actually spoken to CNN earlier this year in April. He told CNN he claims to have knowledge of a relationship Trump had with his former housekeeper that resulted in a child. I want to be absolutely clear, though, that has not been verified by any investigative journalist. So we- Not even the great investigative journalists

at National Enquirer? I don't know. I doubt it. But the whole point of these catch-and-kill contracts is to ensure that these individuals with knowledge of Trump's alleged wrongdoings share that information with AMI and no one else, or else they would face a penalty, and then AMI never publishes the story. It's all an effort to kind of cover up what Trump has done in the past. Yeah, so first of all, I'd like to say I would love to live in a country where we didn't have

stories like this. Remember under Obama, all the illegitimate child stories we had to cover? God, I really, I really wish that we had a normal president. And someday I hope, I hope for myself and I hope for you that someday we have that again. For now, though, National Inquirer. So here's the thing, anybody who's ever come across Donald Trump could claim to have knowledge of an illegitimate child that he has. If they're willing to pay $30,000, they must have thought there was at least something to it. Doesn't mean that it happened. But he had some kind of evidence, I suppose. And this is, I think, an effective demonstration to anyone out there who possesses sensitive information that you really have to gamble on when to release it. Because apparently

National Enquirer was protecting him from November of 2015 until right before the election in 2016. At that point, an affair was worth $130,000. Early on, a child was only worth 30. So if he had gambled and waited later on, he could have made more money. Now, this is relevant because the whole question of illegal campaign contributions comes up. So if AMI was willing to pay this dormant $30,000 in an effort to catch and kill this story, well, that could be considered an illegal campaign contribution, which is probably the reason why David Pecker has allegedly decided to turn on Trump and, you know, work with authorities. He's been cooperating with authorities.

Yeah, I guess I would say that at least if that's it and there aren't other things, then that actually sounds more like he's just protecting himself without really necessarily having anything. Like that, again, you could claim, you could get the immunity for that without knowing for sure whether it was true. I don't think that Mueller's team or the New York prosecutors would necessarily offer it in that case, but it's not impossible. If he's doing that, I mean, he could be committing campaign finance violations without

necessarily implicating Donald Trump. I believe that the combination of him, of David Pecker, and Cohen probably does implicate Trump, but it doesn't necessarily have to. That's exactly right. And so, I mean, we'll see how this plays out. It's a good thing that the investigation is taking place. There could be evidence showing that David Pecker acted on his own behalf, had nothing to do with Cohen, had nothing to do with Trump, we'll see.

But I also want to be clear that there are a lot of different issues at play when it comes to Trump. It's not just the Russia investigation. There's, of course, the Russia investigation in addition to an investigation into illegal campaign contributions. That involves Karen McDougal, Stormy Daniels, his Trump Tower Doorman. Then there is a third investigation, criminal investigation pertaining to the Trump charity in which Trump allegedly used charity money to enrich himself and pay off his own settlements. So there are all these investigations. taking place because Trump is, of course, corrupt. So what you'll hear from the right wing is that everyone is focusing on Russia and only Russia.

But no, there are separate investigations into separate criminal, potentially criminal wrongdoings. Isn't it crazy of the things that hypothetically you could go down for? I don't necessarily think that he will. But these sorts of campaign finance violations are this very identifiable thing that he might have done. But he gets away because he's president with doing far worse things. Like, there are over 500 kids that are still separated from their families. Any one of those should be enough to take someone down or send them to jail. He has wrecked entire families, not to mention, of course, and thousands of others who,

although they might be reunited, their relationship has fundamentally changed for the rest of their lives. We had a video on the damage report this morning of a kid meeting his mom again for the first time, and the kid just runs away. He either doesn't recognize or he's actually scared or angry at his mom, so much so that he doesn't actually run to her. But that's not what's going to take him down, taking us out of the Paris Climate Accords, risking the future of our species and our civilization.

That's totally fine. You're the president. You can do whatever you want. The drone strikes and supporting Saudi Arabia and it's a war on Yemen. All these things are totally fine. Yeah. Well, look, the problem is, John, that shows like ours, focus too much on all the wrongdoings of Donald Trump.

You know, we should focus on other things. Next week, we give him a pass. Yeah. Probably not. Well, apparently there's a lot of money in doing that, but we're not going to do that here. All right, moving on, speaking of all of these possible liabilities that Trump can deal with, congressional Republicans are passing around a document listing all the potential issues that could be investigated should Democrats take control of Congress after the midterm elections.

Now, Trump has a long list of bad behavior, and Republicans have managed to avoid certain investigations that Democrats have wanted to launch because Democrats don't have any power in Congress at the moment. So, thanks to their control of Congress, according to Axios, which obtained this list, Republicans have blocked most of the Democrats' investigative requests, but if the House flips, the GOP loses its power to stymie. So what does that mean? What are the potential areas of investigation that Democrats might want to take hold of should

they take hold of Congress in the future? Well, this list is very long, but I want you to stay with me. President Trump's tax returns. He has refused to release his taxes, we all know that, Trump family businesses and whether they comply with the Constitution's emoluments clause, including the Chinese trademark grant to the Trump organization. How crazy is that? Trump's dealings with Russia, including the president's preparation for his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Do we know what that's a reference to? So Trump, I believe, and I could be wrong, but I believe it has to do with, remember Trump invited Vladimir Putin to meet with him in the White House, and that's since been postponed. I think that's what they're referring to. Okay. Yeah, I didn't know what preparation in terms of, like, notes or something? I mean, there could be more scandal that we're unaware of. The payment to Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Danny.

Daniels, James Comey's firing, Trump's firing of U.S. attorneys, Trump's proposed transgender ban for the military. Remember that? Feels like that was years ago. Yeah. Yeah. There's more. So let's look.

Let's see what it is. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's business dealings. Oh. That's a very broad point, by the way. White House staff's personal email use. Oh, God. Okay, let's stop there for a second. Oh, God.

White House staff's personal email use. I know we've talked about it on the show before, but we've been bombarded with so many crazy Trump stories that, like, we just forgot. You just let it go. Can we just lock everybody up? Everybody, I'm including me and you. Well, that's what they're worried about. Everybody go to jail.

Start over. That's why Republicans in Congress are passing this document along to their colleagues because they want to prepare themselves for what's to come if there is, in fact, some sort of blue wave. Let me give you more. Cabinet Secretary travel, office expenses, and other misused perks. Discussion of classified information at Mar-a-Lago. Okay, so let's stop there for a second.

Just to remind you, yeah, Trump officials, Trump lawyers, just openly talking about sensitive or classified information in public spaces, Jared Kushner's ethics, law, compliance, dismissal of members of the EPA board of scientific counselors, the travel ban, family separation policy, hurricane response in Puerto Rico, election security and hacking attempts, White House security clearances. So the, I guess, the procedure for Republicans hasn't been to hold their own president accountable for this long laundry list of scandal, but rather do damage control. prevent investigations, and now they're concerned because if Democrats take control, they won't

be able to stymie investigations the way that they have been so far. It would be really interesting if they were able to get through Freedom of Information Act requests or something like that, internal communications about the Muslim travel ban, the family separation policy, and the response to the Hurricane Maria, that would be really interesting because in a White House filled with people like Stephen Miller and things like that, especially as that hurricane is bearing down on them in the immediate aftermath, God only knows what they were saying and what they weren't saying in terms of any sort of responsibility to actually help them rebuild. That could be really interesting.

Absolutely. And I'm also, I'm just curious what will happen if Democrats do take control. Because I think that it takes the right kind of Democrats to aggressively investigate Trump and also hold him accountable for his actions. So last week we, talked to you a little bit about how Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to push for impeachment. And that was insane, right? I mean, for me, that showed, this is after the Manafort convictions, after Michael Cohen pleaded guilty. I mean, I don't know. Look, partly I want to pressure them to focus more on providing a, you know, a positive idea of what they would do, were they to gain control. And if she'd started immediately talking about impeachment, she would have been attacked

for that. I don't know. Look, I don't want her to be in control of the Democrats in the House. If we take control, I can say that much. So at the end of the day, I guess I'm not really that concerned about her priorities. Yeah, look, I think that there's a legitimate conversation, discussion, debate about whether or not it makes sense to impeach Trump, right? But at the same time, for me, it wasn't about the issue of impeaching Trump. It was more about how Nancy Pelosi reacts to things where she does have some power and can accomplish something. So the way that, you know, the dreamers were put on the back burner during that debate about funding the government, that drove me crazy.

Yes. Now, that was more Chuck Schumer than Nancy Pelosi, but Nancy Pelosi is still in a position of power. Chuck Schumer certainly was in a position of power. They were in a position where they had this rare leverage, even though they're not, you know, the majority in Congress, and they just let that opportunity go. And it made me very upset. So my point is, we need Democrats, progressives that are going to fight for the right things.

It's not enough that Republicans are afraid of these investigations. The investigations have to actually happen if Democrats take control. Yeah, yeah, and we have to, in particular areas, constrain our expectations, even if they do gain control, and then another area is not so much. But in terms, like, they could pass whatever bills they want if they control the House. Yeah. If they don't control the senator, even if they do, not necessarily going to go anywhere. But they can hope to, maybe if they're in power, especially as we get into the primaries

for the next presidential election, they can perhaps drive some of the media coverage by focusing on particular issues, assuming the media pays attention at all. Look, I think the media is going to be really ready to just jump into the horse race. And who is this person going to announce? And is this person, you know, maybe they're going to run. And so I worry about the ability of even a Democratic majority with a bunch of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and as I said earlier today, Rashida Talib was on the show today.

People like that, they can drive a lot of good discussion about progressive policies. But if the media doesn't pay attention, it's going to be harder for people to actually realize it. That's true. They'll always be able to come on here, thankfully, Homo Progressives, and we'll talk about those things. But we'll see, I think CNN, they've got their big screens and they want to start circling states and all that stuff, I don't know how excited they're going to be to talk about the policies. Well, we can't rely on CNN, right? I do. We can't rely on cable news to get the word out. You

have to be scrappy, you have to be innovative, you have to find better ways to get the message out. And even though it was very clear that CNN was so dismissive of Bernie Sanders, he still managed to get his message out. Eventually, yes. So that's important. And we can learn something Oh, I can't wait to see, too, because I don't know if you remember, but after the election, especially after the inauguration, CNN was like, can we get Bernie on a town hall every single week? We'll see how they feel once he's running again, though. Yeah. Are they going to be doing those little mock debates with Ted Cruz and stuff like that?

Doubt it. Yeah. All right. John, thank you for joining me in the first hour. Thank you. I know you had a long day. That's okay. It was fun. Make sure you check out his Larry King interview.

And Brett will join in for hour two. Stick around. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jan Yugar, and I'll see you soon.