The Young Turks - Politico Can’t Stop Attacking Bernie, Elliott Broidy Cashes In On Trump’s Swamp, Cohen’s Partner Flips

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from May 14, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join.  Hour 1: Cenk Uygur & Ana Kasparian. More attacks on Bernie Sanders from Politico. Elliott Broidy uses Trump’s campaign to secure millions in defense contracts.  Breaking News: NY Times reports a close business partner of Michael Cohen, Evgeny Freidman has agreed to a plea deal to cooperate with investigators. Friedman was disbarred earlier this month, and accused of tax evasion. Donald Trump’s phone is susceptible to hacks. 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. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you'll open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business.

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I hope you're sitting, gigantic coverage for you tonight. So we've got the regular show that is going to happen over the next two hours, six to 8 p.m. and then at 8 p.m., we go right into election coverage. By that time, the Texas polls will have closed. And so we've got Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, and Arkansas up tonight. We've got a great number of just Democrats up. I'm going to tell you about some of those folks a little bit later in the program, including Mighty Mary Wilson.

I have a story about her in the next segment. The way that the establishment has attacked her, it has begun, guys. I mean, look, I'm going to do one in this segment. I'm going to interview Kanyella Ng from Hawaii. He has also received an attack in the election coverage. So we've got all these different stories. We've got one about Bernie that I'm going to give you in a second. So the establishment is striking back.

They're launching one smear job after another, after another, after another, oftentimes having to do with their identity. The other thing that they charge is for some of these candidates is they take their biggest strength, which is that they are uncorrupted, they don't take corporate pack money, and attack it. It's a Muhammad bin Salman move, the Crown Prison of Saudi Arabia. We'll talk more about it as this night unfolds. So when you are the most corrupt, you charge others with corruption, okay?

It is the dirtiest of tricks. And the one they launched against Mary Wilson has nothing to do with that. It has to do with her identity. And they attacked her for being a lesbian. What happened? I thought we were progressives. The establishment likes to play identity politics more. But all of a sudden, when they got an uncorrupted candidate, all of a sudden, they're

talking about her identity. Man, it is dirty pool. And tonight we're going to find out if some of our people, the uncorrupted one, or if corporate Democrats prevail and it's it's not clear cut man we have won some and we have lost some so tonight we will probably win some and lose some but how that plays out is incredibly important to what happens in a national conversation will we have real progressives in Congress will we have uncorrupted people who are not beholden to the donors in Congress can they win their general elections, if they win their primaries tonight.

Really important questions. Georgia tonight, you've got the crazy people on the Republican side running for governor. Remember the guys with the buses and the trucks to deport what they call illegals? Well, those guys are up. Are they going to win? Are they going to lose? Are they going to move on? So we're going to find that out.

So it's a tense and interesting night tonight. So I hope you stay with us throughout. And tell your friends, your neighbors, and Randy Gonzalez that they should watch. We would say, t-y-t.com slash live or on our app, just type in t-y-t on the app store. But you watch it anywhere you're liking, you share the stream, okay, and tell people about it

because it is going to be a very exciting night tonight. For me, especially in Texas, we already had one round of the primaries. This is the runoff, the second round of the primaries in Texas. And there is a great number of candidates there that we are invested in. And if they take down the establishment, guys, it will be fantastic. lose it will be disheartening. There's no way of knowing. By the way, go vote, vote, watch this on the app. Keep going, watch on the show. But get in line and go vote. Those polls are still open. Primaries are the most important thing. You know I think that. All right. So let's get

started. Let me tell you about attack on Bernie Sanders. You're going to be shocked to find out that today, Politico has another attack piece on Bernie Sanders. I wonder if they think he's a threat. I can't quite tell. Here's what mainstream reporters don't write a lot about. Irrelevant people. People that, at least they view to be irrelevant. What do they write about? Well, they write about people that are threats to the establishment, and they try to take

them down. Why? Is it a conspiracy? Is it that the writers like this guy? And I'm sorry, I don't know how to pronounce his name. Edward, Isaac, either Dovere, or if you want to give it a French twist, Dovere. Okay. Anyway, this guy, it's, I don't know.

he's wealthy or not wealthy or be, I would imagine that. I don't know, he's a writer at Politico, right? I'm not saying he's in a smoke-filled room doing conspiracies. Now, how does it work? Here's how it works. Somebody in the establishment, a politician or a lobbyist or a consultant, comes up to these reporters, goes, p, p, p, p, p, oh, I got a great hint for you.

You should write about this. This is going to be great. Now, why do they do that? Because they want to attack their opponents. So in Washington, just about everyone is Bernie Sanders' opponent. So they have begun to unleash on him. Why? We're getting close to 2020.

And they're in a little bit of panic. Uh-oh. Here comes Bernie. Before they were like, Bernie's not going to win in 2020. Are you crazy? No way. Now he'll say, like, oh, no, he might win.

Call up Doveray. He'll write it. So two days in a row. Here he comes again. Yesterday was a giant hack job against our revolution in the group that Bernie Sanders formed and against Nina Turner, the president of that. So what is it today? He says, well, look, there's this obscure little thing that happens in Vermont where the

Democrats of Vermont, I don't know if you know this, are, I would say fair to say thrilled with Bernie Sanders as their senator. I say that because of the overwhelming percentage of the votes that he gets. So he first goes in the Democratic nomination process, he wins that, but then he runs as an independent. Now, you want to write a small story about how that's an intellectual curiosity? Okay, not a big deal. My kids would say in Chinese, that's a Shao Shao story, tiny little story.

Okay, but why are we doing a second story on Bernie Sanders today? If you dive into the story, you might find out why. Let's do that together. So he explains that Bernie does this, and there is a little bit of a tone throughout, like, huh, he says he's a Democrat, but after winning the Democratic nominee, he'll run as an independent. Okay, all right, but look, he's going to actually literally have people say that in a second. But he acknowledges halfway through the piece, the Vermont Democratic Party passed the resolution over the weekend supporting Sanders' move, proclaiming that he could still

be considered a member of the party for all purposes and entitled to all the rights and privileges that come with such membership at the state and federal level. So wait a minute, why are we still reporting on this? So if the Vermont Democrats and the Vermont Democratic Party are thrilled with this, what's your beef with it? Oh, well, let's go a little bit later in the article and find out. Well, it turns out there's a lot of quotes from Hillary Clinton supporters. No, really. So, he quotes Clinton political advisor, Adam Parkomenko. He says, about Bernie, Parkomanco says, and this guy wants to run for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

L.O.L. Oh, yeah, okay. I get it. Look, and for you at home, you probably don't understand it. It took me a while to understand it. Because I didn't grow up on any given team, okay? And I never cared about the team. I've never been a cheerleader.

I've never had pom-poms. So I don't know why they care so much. What I care about is what is Bernie Sanders' positions. I know what his positions on health care are, income inequality, money out of politics. You go down the list, right? But they don't care about that. They go, what letter does he put on his helmet? Because I got my pom-poms ready.

Oh, he doesn't say Democrat. He says independent. What difference does it make? His positions are identical. In fact, they're the most progressive. He might not call himself a Democrat throughout his career because the Democratic Party was not progressive enough. If it was, then I would imagine he would probably call himself that.

But for a voter, not only A, do most of them not care? But secondly, it's actually a positive thing. It does appeal to independence. Because he is not beholden to any one particular power structure or a set of elites or a party machine. So that's a net positive. That's why he always polled better than Hillary Clinton in the general election against all of the Republicans. But hacks like Dovere, we're like, oh no, our duclare. We the geniuses in Washington establishment have decided that Bernie couldn't possibly win, even though every single poll shows the opposite. We have decided

that Hillary Clinton is a wonderful candidate. I'm sure she would do a much better chance to Bernie Sanders. How'd that work out? Hey, did you ever write an attack article against yourself for being so stupid as to think that Hillary Clinton had a better chance than Bernie Sanders in winning in 2016. By the way, you asked them today, and they watched that, and they'll say, ha, ha, he thinks Bernie would have won. No, no, no, we had the better candidate. Who lost the Donald Trump?

You had the worst candidate in the world. Trump was pulling a 37% on election night. All right, so he quotes a Clinton hack, and that's not surprising. That's the whole point of this story. Then he quotes another Clinton hack. Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill just tweeted about Bernie Sanders running as an independent in Vermont because, of course, he's up for the Senate election again there, which he will crush and he will win super easily.

So that's not an interesting article. That would applaud Bernie Sanders. We can't have that. We can't have that. So he quotes a tweet, seriously. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-B-The Republic or UNFTR. 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.

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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. Oh, wow. I do declare.

What a stunningly good point. So finally, though, so Heath, the Clinton people are feeding him. And by the way, the Clinton people, why do you still exist? Why don't you go join Hillary in the woods? You guys are the miserable failures who lost the Donald Trump. So I've got a really, really tall glass of shut up juice for you guys. I mean, think about the audacity of Clinton's spokespeople. Clinton supporters coming around telling us how to win elections.

You lost the Trump. You lost the Trump. Go be a plumber. go be an accountant, go sell used cars somewhere. Do something useful with your life, but you're obviously not very good at politics. So he quotes them, and that's where he got fed the story in the first place. But that's not really the point of this story. So here's the line that gives away the actual point of this exercise.

Quote, the move also comes at a time when Sanders supporters are pushing for changes to the presidential nominating process. as part of the Democratic National Committee Unity Reform Commission. One priority is to open up the party's primaries to voters who aren't registered as Democrats. Ah, now we have it. See, the Unity Reform Commission was formed within Democratic Party. It took some of Sanders' delegates. It took some of Hillary's delegates,

and then Tom Perez got to pick some. And they got together and suggested the reforms are Democratic Party desperately needed reforms. I wish they went a little further, but overall, look, they worked hard on it, they negotiated, they got the best they could, and they're really solid reforms, including stripping away some of the superdelegates, which is great because it gives more power to the people, et cetera. We want those to be passed.

The establishment does not want those rules passed. They liked it when the elite and the powerful kept all the power to themselves. They like the superdelegates. They like all the things that rig the primary in an official way, on behalf of the establishment. So now, mentioning the United Reform Commission in the middle of a story about how Bernie Sanders running for a senator in Vermont,

why did you bring that up? Because that's the whole point of the story. Oh, don't do what the Unity Reform Commission says. Don't do those reforms. Because remember, the guy who picked him, not even a Democrat. He's an independent. Ignore everything he has to say.

Look, keep their adults in charge. Hey, adults, how you doing lately? Democratic so-called adults, Should I say it one more time? You lost the Trump. You lost the House, you lost the Senate, you lost the Supreme Court, you lost a thousand states' seats, and you lost 69 out of 99 state legislatures. How dare you even discuss politics?

You're the biggest losers in America. And you get your buddy here, Edward Isaac, to write whatever the hell you want. Oh, yeah, Bernie Sanders. I can't believe he doesn't have a D on his helmet. I can't believe it. Oh, my God. Did you ever talk about his issues, his policies? Did you ever consider, hey, why is he so popular?

the most popular Democrat in the country. Hold, I'm sure Politico is really busy. They're working around the clock on it. They're like, maybe we should investigate why everyone in Washington hates Bernie Sanders and everyone outside of Washington loves Bernie Sanders. Look at his polling. Look at how well he's doing. I'm waiting. Still waiting. Still waiting. Still no such article. because these establishment hacks in a lot of ways work for the Democratic and Republican establishment. By the way, you should have, if you're going to do their work for them, their dirty work for them, and then cover it up, should at least get paid for it. So just be honest about it and collect a paycheck while you're at it. Okay, I think my views on that are clear. We're moving forward.

Okay. Now we go to Republican corruption. Hmm, my old friend here. So, Elliot Broody is a guy who raised a lot of money for Republicans, both historically and very importantly in this 2016 election cycle, and including for a guy named Donald Trump. First of all, I want to give you a sense of how much money he raised for the party. And then I want to tell you why he might have done it. So money raised by the victory campaign during the 2016. election cycle, and he was an integral part of that campaign as a fundraiser for the Republicans,

$108.4 million. Now, those $108 million in legal bribes will get you a lot of money back. Now, how? That's the interesting part. I'm going to show you that in a second. So, now, let's be clear about what Trump got on this. The amount that Trump received through the victory campaign during the 2016 election cycle, 13 and a half million dollars. So his buddy Broidy, along with other people working on that,

in a leadership role there, funneled a great deal of donor money, which normal Americans call bribes, where you give it to a politician, they do whatever you ask them to do because you just got paid hundreds of millions of dollars, that people in power in Washington call just speech, and they just wanted to talk. They decided to talk to the Republicans at the rate of $108 million just through this one group, okay? And they get us to believe that fiction, or they want us to believe that fiction, that no, no, no, us buying influence to actually get money back and get a return on investment? No, our corporate friends would never care about a return on investment.

So, well, it turns out, Broidey also wanted a return on investment. He's like, I didn't raise that money for you for my health. So let's find out what kind of return he might have gotten. Daily Beast with a very good story here on this. They explained that Circonus formed in 2001, that's Broody's company, has been bidding on contracts with the Pentagon since 2011, but has had limited success. Prior to 2017, Circonus had been paid a total of just $7,501 for its work on various defense contracts.

Let's pause there for a second. So that's a 16-year span, at least, where they got $7,500. I think I could have probably done better, and I'm not a defense contractor. So, in other words, the government for 16 straight years under Republicans, Democrats, instead of him like, no thanks. We don't find you useful, not interested, okay? But let's complete that. Then, in August 2017, it finally received $3.9 million for a contract it had begun bidding

in 2013 with the U.S. Army intelligence. and security command. Now, we did not receive that contract until Trump came into office. And then all of a sudden, $7,000 turned into $3.9 million overnight. It's funny. I'm going to guess that they're going to say

that that's a coincidence. I mean, before we never got anything, then we raised all this money for Trump, and then all of a sudden we get a $4 million contract. Total coincidence! Does anyone believe that? Even if you've got seven MAGA hats in your closet, Do you believe that?

You don't believe that. But hold, because that's the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more money where that came from. So what's the real scam here? Well, the ISCOM contract, the one that we just referred to, was made possible thanks to a 2015 Government Accountability Office decision to quash or protest over the bidding process brought by one of Circonists's competitors. So, look, it also goes back to 2015, to be fair.

And what do they do? Oh, these guys are not competing fairly. In Washington, they're like, that's not the bug. That's the feature. Is there a fair competition here? Of course not. That's why in Iraq, we kept doing no-bid contracts, not just in the beginning of the war, but 10 years in the war, we're still doing no-bid contracts.

Why? I thought these guys believed in the free market. No. They believe in crony capitalism. They believe in the swamp. That's where they live. Okay, so, Circonists, now this is the big deal, has seen a boon in business this Trump took office.

In addition to the more than $4 million in U.S. defense contracts it inked in late 2017, Broddy's company has secured it reported $200 million in deals with the state-owned Romanian defense company, Romarm. That's in addition to the $600 million contract, Broody secured with the UAE, that's the United Arab Emirates, which came after two Oval Office meetings with Trump in late 2017, where Broidy lobbied the president. on several fronts favorable to the Emirates. And guess what?

You're gonna be shocked to find out that after Broidey funneled over $100 million to the Republicans and 13 and a half to Trump, that not only does he get U.S. defense contracts, but when he tells Trump, you know what, you should look out for the Romanians. He does, and the Romanians then look out for Broody. Well, funny how that works. So, and then if you like that one, wait to get all the corruption with the United Arab Emirates. Hold, but let's tell you more about the Romanian one. The Romanian contracts came after Brody gave, quote, unsolicited input to Representative Ed Royce,

a California Republican who serves as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee just before Royce visited Romania in August 2017. Documents obtained by McClatchy appear to show that Broody was in Romania at the same time. Another amazing coincidence. Broody also worked Royce on behalf of the Saudis and the Emirati. he's claiming he had shifted the lawmaker into being critical of Qatar, the AP reported on Monday. So at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data.

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. So this is the internal dynamics of the Middle East is the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates do not like Iran and Qatar. So they want the lawmakers to shift because they used to be in favor of Qatar, because we have a huge military installation in Qatar and a relationship with them that goes, that runs really deep. So they have to poison that well and get us to turn against Qatar. Now, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, what do I care? All I care is that I don't want our interests being sold

out the foreign interests, whether it's Qatar or UAE or Saudi Arabia. So, but did it work? Was he able to quote unquote shift Ed Royce, one of the lawmakers involved, so that he can get these deals? Well, as the Daily Beast reports, Royce who received the maximum legal campaign contribution from Brody, eventually back legislation critical of Qatar. So yes, mission accomplished. It did in fact work. So now Donald Trump and a lot of the Republicans, thanks to a lot of money flowing into them, have decided, yeah, sure, yeah, let's go with Romania.

Let's go with UAE in Saudi Arabia. And hey, look at that Broidy wind up getting the $200 million contract, the $600 million contract. So the money he funneled to the Republicans, well worth it. Wonderful return on investment. This is how corruption works. So I know for the MAGA guys, you have Trump derangement syndrome. So things that you would be normally outraged by, you look at it and go, oh, no, no, no, I love Arabs. No, yeah, the Muslims. We've got to just keep giving them money until we figure out what the hell is going on. Wait, did I say that out loud? Yeah, yeah, I love it when someone gives politicians money and then the politicians do them favors with a lot of times with our money

and then we change our foreign policy to suit the money instead of what the actual American voters want. Yeah, yeah, I love that. If Trump says it, I love it. If Trump's money man and chief swamp dweller says it, I love it, I love it. By the way, if you're wondering, wait, don't I know Brody from somewhere? Yeah, he was one of Michael Cohen's three clients, Donald Trump, Sean Hannity, and Broody. What did Broody do with Michael Cohen? He had, he had, he had, Michael Cohen do what he does. Payoffs. He did a $1.6 million to his mistress, and the mistress then got an abortion. But they say that those things are not connected. That's another coincidence. He didn't pay her $1.6 million for an abortion because the Republican Party's

pro-life. It was just a coincidence that she got one after receiving $1.6 million. Or in that time vicinity. She gets the 1.6 million. Maybe she had the abortion before, maybe after. No one knows. No one knows. All these amazing coincidences. But we have Trump derangement syndrome. So the MAGA guys go, oh yeah, yeah, abortions. Yeah, payoffs for abortions. That's great. That's great. I love it. Ah, yeah. Man, if Obama did that, I would have loved, wait, if Obama had done a secret deal to change our foreign policy to help Saudi Arabia because his financier was getting paid off by Saudi Arabia. I would have loved if, wait, no, I would have hated if Obama did it. that and Hillary did that.

But it's Trump. I got the red hat on. That doesn't allow me to think. Okay. Finally, it's actually even a little worse than that. Turns out this guy who has nothing to do with policy and should not be involved in this process at all is actually figuring out who Donald Trump should fire from his cabinet, including his secretary of state.

So Justin Glab reporting for DailyB says, during one of the two Oval Office visits, Broody advocated for getting rid of then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was seen as insufficiently hostile to Qatar. Oh my God, this corruption is record-breaking. Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia would like us to fire our Secretary of State because he's not sufficiently hostile to their enemies. You want to talk about interference. So what happened?

Well, Broidey apparently said to Trump, President Trump asked me about the job Rex was doing. I responded that he was performing poorly and should be relieved, but only at a good time politically. And guess what happened, guys? Rex Tillerson was relieved of duty because Saudi Arabia didn't like our Secretary of State.

They wanted a secretary to state that they could push around and control. And Donald Trump said, yes, sir. Turns out Donald Trump figured out what the hell is going on with Muslims. Turns out that if you make the money flow, they get to rule us. Now, me, I'm a progressive, so I don't care that they're Muslim or not Muslim. And I'm not in the mager crowd who hates Muslims. To me, I don't want any foreign government controlling our secretary of, of state or firing our secretary of state or controlling whether we do deals with Romania

or Qatar or anywhere else. But especially if you're a Trump guy and you love that he was going to ban Muslims. Turns out he didn't ban their money, that's flowing into all of his allies' pockets. And you thought you were against the swamp? If this ain't the swamp, what is? Now you see me worked up about these stories, wait till you see me about the story about the story of how the establishment is trying to take down mighty Mary Wilson in Texas.

You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments, go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. You become a member, you support the show, you support independent media, and you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day. Let's go do it now.

All right, back on the Young Turks. Jenkin, Anna, with you guys. I'm just going to read two tweets, but I will read your tweets throughout the night, including in our election coverage. Tonight, it's going to be myself, John Adirola, and Alonza Bowden. It's going to be a great night, I hope. Eclectic Michelania writes in, let's see, Mary Wilson is for Medicare for All, college for all, $15 minute wage. I think it's clearly why the Democratic establishment is not supporting her. For them, that is not the feature. That's the bug. Control left says, interesting to have Casper's story the same night as the Bernie hit piece.

Apparently, the not a really Democrat argument only applies if you challenge the establishment. Exactly right. So, guys, and by the way, cross the country, lots of people who were just Republicans a little while ago, same thing in California's 50th district. Amar Kampa Najjar is a just Democrat, uncorrupted, doing wonderful, outraised people, all small dollar donations. etc. They did two things. They found a guy who was just a Republican to run against them and Democratic Party supports a Republican and not the Democrat. What happened? I thought you care. Oh, Bernie's an independent. He doesn't have a D on his helmet. That guy had an R on his helmet in a minute ago, right? And by the way, they then, that's not enough. Amar is winning.

So they did a smear campaign against him saying, did you know his grandfather was a terrorist? He'd never met his grandfather. His grandfather passed away 20 years before he was born. Whoa. That's a smear job. That's pretty amazing. Wow. Yes, that's what the Democratic Party's doing.

And then they go, oh, why won't you unify? After I punch you in the face and kick you in the nuts, why won't you just bow your head in unify? And just let us pick Republicans to represent you. No, thank you. No thank you. Man, tonight, oh, God damn, they got a win. Okay, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, that's who's voting tonight. Election coverage at 8 p.m.

All right, Anna, what's next? All right, we have a breaking news story by the New York Times in regard to Michael Cohen and the investigation he's facing. A new report by the New York Times indicates that a close business partner of Michael Cohen's has agreed to a plea deal. And in that plea deal, he has agreed to cooperate with investigators, which could be bad news for Cohen, which in turn could be bad news for Trump in this whole Russia investigation. Now the business partner in question here is Evgeny Friedman.

And according to the report, under the agreement, the partner Friedman, a Russian immigrant who is known as the taxi king will avoid jail time and will assist government prosecutors in state or federal investigations. So Trump's lawyers are concerned about this for good reason. They have been resigned to the strong possibility that the investigation of Cohen's businesses could lead him to cooperate with federal prosecutors. And remember, this Friedman guy is going to cooperate in investigations into Michael Cohen. So it would put more pressure on Cohen to take a plea deal himself and agree to cooperate with

investigators. Now, that likelihood could become greater with a business partner of Mr. Cohen's cooperating with law enforcement. Now, just to give you an idea of who Friedman is, he was disbarred earlier this month and had been accused of failing to pay more than $5 million in taxes and faced four counts of criminal tax fraud and one of grand larceny, all be felonies, each case. carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 25 years in prison. Due to this plea deal, his potential sentence is much lower. Instead, he appeared in court on Tuesday and pleaded guilty

to a single count of evading only $50,000 worth of taxes. He faces five years of probation if he fulfills the terms of his agreement. Okay, now you've got a guy, according to the government, running scams for a long time, evaded millions of dollars in taxes. taxes, and he's willing to do those scams. Do you think that that guy goes, no, I have ethics. I will go to prison for decades rather than turn on my friend Michael Cohen. No. He goes, where's my deal?

I get to keep the $5 million. I didn't pay the U.S. government. I don't go to prison for all the laws that I broke. Deal. No-brainer. Now, he's not related to Trump. He's related to Cohen. But Cohen now, that's the next person up.

Now do you think Michael Cohen has enough quote unquote ethics to say, now I did all these deals, shady deals with Friedman, let alone everything else I did, and the payoffs and all the money laundering that the banks were concerned about enough that they put red flags on my account and the list goes on and on? But no, I'll take decades in prison rather than turn on Trump, who came to my son's bar mitzvah and humiliated me and said, oh, he begged me to come, so I came, right? And it has been, and gave me no position in the Trump White House and has been humiliating me my whole life.

No, I'll go to prison for him for decades. Yeah. So, okay, so unlikely. This is, in my opinion, the prosecutors are doing something very smart here because they want Cohen to talk. And in order for Cohen to talk, he needs to see that there's mounting evidence, which means he's going to spend even more time in prison if he gets convicted. And it's more likely he will cooperate with investigators and give them the information they need

in regard to Trump if he gets a better deal and he doesn't spend as much time in prison. But here's the thing that I'm starting to have more and more difficulty with personally. So all of this is being done in the hopes that eventually Trump gets in trouble for potential ties to Russia, potential collusion, all of that, right? But Mueller said that he cannot be indicted. Mueller cannot press charges against Trump. He is a sitting U.S. president. The only thing that Mueller could do is name Trump as an anonymous co-conspirator in the case. So Republicans who control Congress right now are not going to impeach Trump. They can't wait to kiss Trump's butt in anything that he does, right? And so I feel like this is all for nothing. No, that is

why, as usual, the Democratic Party, when they started on this venture, and when I say they started on, I don't mean Mueller, Mueller is Mueller, and they had an official investigation well before they had any idea that Donald Trump was going to win the presidency, right? The special counsel came later, but the FBI started the investigation when they got credible evidence that the campaign was working with a foreign government. So, but the Democrats, after the election, started the propaganda and the marketing campaign. Oh, collusion, that's why we lost, Hillary otherwise would have won, and blah, la, la, la, right? So when they started that, they never talked about money laundering that Trump did, right?

Or could have done. That's right. Might have done. That's right. All they talked about was, oh, the Russians sent tweets, and they hacked in and gave our emails to the press. They were much more concerned with finding excuses for why the Democrats lost, as opposed to looking at what I would argue is what should be the heart of the investigation.

which is the financial ties, potential financial ties. So then they, I guess, I guess in a sense they got lucky. Now, on this program, I have been very clear. I always thought it was the money laundering. If I thought it was because they sent a couple of tweets, what are you going to do? You're going to impeach the president because another government sent a couple of tweets in his favor. Now, that might be bad and it might be wrong and they might have stolen some things and they might have spent a lot of money. But to Anna's point, you're never going to win on that impeachment.

Get real, okay? On the other hand, if I am right, and almost every publicly available evidence points in this direction, and Trump did actual shady financial deals with Russian oligarchs and laundered money for them through his properties, well, then you present that evidence. And if the Republicans in Congress go, yeah, it looks like Trump did the Russians' favors because he owed them a lot of money. But no, I vote for fascism, right? I think they will.

Well, we're going to find out. We might find out. And now this guy's flipped. Cohen will almost certainly flip. And Cohen, it would be shocking if he didn't have a lot of the evidence against Donald Trump. And that's why Trump was in a panic over that. When earlier, they're like, oh, you know, this guy connected to your campaign. He's like, campaign, I didn't do anybody laundering the campaign.

He's like, have it, Ha'at it, Haas. I mean, it's a witch hunt and you're bother. me. When they arrested Michael Cohn, he's like, oh my God, what are you doing? That's a wait a minute, I'm going to do an investigation of you and the FBI and the and they're doing a conspiracy and a coup and et cetera. Because Michael Cohn has the business deals. Right. And they might have all of his records.

I don't know if he destroyed any of them. If they do, then we're going to find out, and Anna, to your point, this is the most important thing. We're going to find out if we've got a democracy here. And if our checks and balances and our constitutional form of government will hold, if it doesn't hold and the Republicans say, yeah, you got him. He did launder money for the Russians. And it appears that he's changing policy to benefit the Russians because of that. But I don't care.

I'm going to pretend that it was Hillary Clinton. I'm going to say you should start an investigation of my political opponents. And I'm going to say Trump didn't do anything wrong and everything is fake news. Well, then we have a constitutional crisis, but it's not even a crisis. You know, that's how it'll be painted in television. No, that he will continue, and he will be president, and the fascists will slowly start to exact revenge on their political opponents. So that is what, look, this is my speculation, that is what I believe will happen, and that terrifies me. But we'll see.

Maybe my pessimism is clouding my judgment. No, look, it's super lasting. Number one, it's not because I'm an optimist. I believe in the pragmatic reality of power, okay? And so what do I mean by that? As we get closer to the elections and the primaries are done, Republicans have less to worry about from their right-wing flank and the Trump supporters than they do about the general elections. So it all honestly, likely depends on the polling.

If you're looking for the Republicans to grow a conscience and go, yeah, our guy's guilty, so we're going to get rid of them. Yeah, a couple of them will do that on day one. Some of them will stick around for week one, but they'll slowly start to fold. Just like every other scandal or controversy that Trump's been involved. And eventually they'll all put on a red hat like Glenn Beck did the other day. They'll all phone bag, I accidentally said, which is perfect. Phone bank for Trump, like Ted Cruz did, and they'll all bow their heads.

And if you're, they don't have a conscience. They don't care about our democracy. That's not the core of the Republican Party. Okay, so if they're, if the polling shows them down 12 points, 15 points, and they're toast, then they will flip on Trump in a desperate attempt to win their reelection and think, what difference does it make? And plus, they don't like him. You know why they don't like him?

because he's an idiot and a total fool and a monster. And they know that. Everybody in Washington knows that you think the Republican party officials don't know that? They all know it. Remember that interview that Eric Erickson did when the guy, the Republican congressman was anonymous? He's like, oh, we can't wait to impeach that guy. Right?

Just, but I got to get past my primaries, right? And it's not because they're all, the Republican Party is also part of the coup. No, it's because Trump is a monster. And he is unbearable and he is an idiot and they've worked with him and they saw it with their own eyes. Well, luckily, we have another example of Trump doing things that aren't too intelligent. So let's go to that story. A recent report by Politico indicates that Donald Trump is using cell phones that are not secure and could potentially be hacked if they haven't been hacked already.

To give you the details on this, Trump apparently regularly uses at least two government issues iPhones, one, a burner device capable of only making calls, and another that's loaded with a Twitter app and a handful of news sites. Now, Trump's call-only phone, this is where the problem lies, has a camera and microphone features that can be exploited by hackers. So under the Obama administration, when Obama had a government-issued phone, that phone was only able to make calls. He wasn't able, it did not have a microphone or a camera on it, but Trump's phone is obviously

very different and it is vulnerable to hacking. Now, as for the phone Trump uses for Twitter, which is the phone that he probably uses the most, the president reportedly has rebuffed his staff's advice to swap the device every month, saying it would be, quote, too inconvenient. Well, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you. The other thing I have to say is lock him up, lock him up. Because this is literally one of the charges they had against Hillary Clinton when they were chanting, lock her up. Not just the private email server, which is very close to this.

But no, she literally had a phone where she would use both her, she would use the phone both for her private emails and for her State Department emails. And that was a phone that was more secure than these. He has two phones that are less secured. But they said, oh my God, she exposed all of our government information on an unsecured phone line. Lock her up. Lock her up. So I'm sure that the Trump voters being principled to people that they are now believe that Donald Trump should be arrested immediately for the same exact thing. Well, look, based on what we've known so far from investigations into Russia and other foreign governments, it appears that at least members,

of Trump's campaign loved having very close ties to foreign governments that had very specific financial interests, right? And that's one of the reasons why they were so eager to get Trump elected or support Trump over Hillary Clinton. So I don't know, maybe he's friends with all these foreign countries and he doesn't have to worry about anyone hacking him. So who knows, maybe he's less of a threat. So, I mean, look, by the way, if you're on unsecured phone and you're the president, you're

You're not an average schmo, okay? Paranoia is justified. The foreign governments like China, but you can keep listing them, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, it doesn't matter, even probably some of our allies like Israel, Germany, et cetera. They will all try to hack the president's phone, and they're pretty good at it. So they might have all of his phone calls. Now imagine if they started releasing those. What do you think Trump said in those private phone calls?

especially the people who raised money for him and then wanted deals. Ooh, good. I told you, the one reason that I was fairly sure that he's not going to get away with any of his crimes, etc., is because of how stupid he is. Well, he always gets himself in trouble with his own words on social media. And it's interesting to see him, you know, place himself in an incredibly vulnerable situation just so he can use these unsecured phones to put out those tweets that sometimes get him into trouble. But one of the, one part that really stood out to me in Politico's reporting

was that Trump has gone so far or far, has gone far as long. What is it wrong with me? Trump has gone for as long as five months without getting his Twitter phone checked by security experts. So that's, that's a big deal. Five months is an incredibly long time. But the White House has responded to this report and they're saying, no, no, no, everything's fine. A senior West Wing official told Politico that the only, that the call only phones are seamlessly swapped out on a regular basis through routine support operations because of the security controls of the Twitter phone and the Twitter account, it does not necessitate regular change out.

I don't, I'm not buying that at all. And remember, this story came forward because of staffers who went and spoke to police. Politico and told them what was going on with these phones. I mean, these leaks keep happening. They can't stop the leaks. But I think that leaks like this are so important because we need to know what the vulnerabilities are and maybe someone can talk some sense into him. Who cares if you're inconvenience?

You're the president of the United States. That's a giant inconvenience, right? Like, anyway. But he's got to have his Twitter account. Oh, but I'm mad at somebody. I got a tweet right away. But that's fine. Have your Twitter account.

Just make sure the phone is secure. But remember, he's a dotard. So he is, like the new phone, he'll have trouble figuring out. But I just got used to this phone. I just figured out how to do all caps. So, now, look, the NSA, we know can and does have a database of recording of our conversations. Now, they say that they're collecting just the people that we called and the phone numbers that we called, not necessarily the content of the conversations. But there's very good reason to be skeptical about that.

So if our NSA can do it, and we know for a fact that they can do it, the question is whether they are doing it, right? You think the NSA equivalent in China can't do it? And the president's, like, I sometimes cover up the, and I know now a lot of people do, right, like the camera on your laptop or whatever it is, right? And back in the day, people were like, oh, you're crazy. Now everybody's like, well, yeah, that makes sense. We know. We've done how many stories about how they can look through the camera.

Like a lot of the sexual predators, they figure out a way to access your computer, they look through the camera, then they take naked pictures of you, and then extort it, right? And this is an old trick. The president's phone has a camera and a microphone. One other thing I wanted to mention, look, people forget stories because especially in today's news cycle, there's too much going on. Of course, it's easy to forget. Remember, North Korea hacked into the email systems for Sony Pictures, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that.

And right now, we're in the middle of this conundrum with North Korea. By the way, we're going to get to that story later on on today's show. But it's terrifying to know that in the midst of these negotiations regarding denuclearizing North Korea, they could potentially have the ability to hack into Trump's phones because those phones are incredibly vulnerable. By the way, t-y-t.com slash join to get the whole show. And my final thought is, though, on the upside, we're going to have some hilarious video of Donald Trump one day.

Like, imagine on his phone like, hey, what is this? Man, I'm so angry. Somebody get me a cheeseburger. I can't wait to tweet against the New York Times. The failing New York Times. Oh, the pictures of him. Oh, with his bald spots. And his un-orange complexion in the morning or whenever he does that thing.

So it's disastrous for the country, but at least they'll be amusing videos. We'll see. All right, we'll be right back. Thanks for watching. We're listening to this free version of the Young Turks podcast. You know that the full show is at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. If you become a member, you get the full show ad-free. We love you for watching or listening either way.

There's going to be a new free podcast tomorrow. You can keep on doing that. But if you want to get to full show ad-free, t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. 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, Janke Huger, and I'll see you soon.