The Young Turks - Propaganda or Intel? - June 25, 2025

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month Shopify trial and start selling today at ⁠shopify.com/tyt Trump doubles down on claim that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “completely obliterated” despite a leaked intelligence report. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is revealed to have a financial stake in a company profiting off ICE deportations. A whistleblower at the DOJ says a top lawyer told subordinates to ignore court orders. Hosts: Ana Kasparian SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have a massive show ahead for you today. In the second hour, Jank Yugar, will be joining me to give us all an update on a small election that everyone seems to be talking about in New York City. It's actually a huge election history has been made, and we'll talk a little bit about that mayoral race, a lot of details to get into, including some of the most Islamophobic, disgusting reactions to that election that I've seen probably ever. It's one thing to attack someone because you disagree with their policies. It's something entirely different to accuse someone of pushing Sharia law simply because they're Muslim, but there's no evidence of it whatsoever. It's just incredible. Again, I mean, these types of weird allegations suck the life out of every conversation, every debate that you can have about policy.

And it's incredibly frustrating. But we'll talk about the, of course, mayoral race in New York City. That'll be in the second hour. Jank wants to talk about it with me. So we're going to have to wait for that story. But we've got a lot of other stories to get to, including a possible financial motive, a conflict of interest that has motivated Stephen Miller to. to get ICE to ramp up deportations without any concern about potentially arresting and deporting the wrong people. We're also going to give you some updates on Gaza. Actually, I want to start off with that as the first story and some conflicting intelligence in regard to the effectiveness of the U.S. bombing of nuclear sites in Iran. I think we should be very careful with that story, but I'll give you the details as we know them today. But as always, just want to encourage

you to like and share the stream if you're watching us live. You can also support the show by becoming a paying member, tyt.com slash join to become one. Members get the whole show for free. That includes the bonus episode. They get access to our archives, meaning they can watch the show whenever they want. And we also engage with our members by reading their member comments, answering their questions, and much more. So tyt.com slash join or just hit that join button if you're watching us on YouTube. All right, I wanted to start off today's show by just reacting to a clip that or a portion of Pierce Morgan's show today.

So Pierce Morgan, Pierce Morgan, as he always does, had a big panel on his show today. And one of the panelists was actually an Israeli. You may have heard of him. His name's Gideon Levy. And if you know anything about him, you're probably familiar with the fact that Gideon Levy has been willing to be critical about the government. of Israel or the Israeli defense forces and how they prosecute wars. And he's really a voice that I value, even though I don't always agree with him. When he was on Pierce Morgan show today,

I think that he may have been the first Israeli that I heard calling it like he sees it, telling the truth about what's actually transpiring in Gaza as it relates to those humanitarian aid hubs. and the dozens, sometimes hundreds of civilians who get shot and killed by the IDF as they are waiting in line, attempting to get access to flour or some humanitarian assistance so they and their families can maybe have a shot at staying alive. Now with that in mind, take a listen to what Gideon Levy had to say here. I must remind ourselves that when the UN's agencies distributed the aid, there were no killed people. It all started with this monster organization of putting two, three stations in the Gaza street for two million people, almost as an experiment in human being, in starving human beings. And then comes the question really about the figures. Oh, those propaganda people, they love to speak about figures.

aren't they 1,000 babies less than one year killed? No, they know it's only 700 babies killed. Hamas is exaggerating. And if it is 700 babies killed, can we live with it? None of them was killed in purpose, all of them by chance, all of them potential threat to the soldiers. How dare you to spread this propaganda knowing that you are lying? There is a daily massacre in Gaza now.

Killing in the sake of killing, nothing but this. The last two weeks are horrible because you see the soldiers, you hear the machine guns. You see the people lying on the sand and trying to save themselves. How can you dare to invent all kinds of statistics instead of saying, yes, this is our army. The army got a command now to kill as many Palestinians as possible. because that's our goal now. We don't have any other goal in Gaza now. So that was a powerful moment, Han Piers Morgan show today.

The other individual that you see in the center of the screen who's kind of shaking his head in denial of what Gideon Levy is saying is a former IDF spokesperson. He was just, you know, rotating the usual talking points that are meant to provide cover for Israel's genocide in Gaza. But Gideon Levy called it like he saw it, saw it, or. seize it. And we also know that there are two previous prime ministers of Israel who at first were supportive of what was going on in Gaza, but lately had no choice but to tell the truth about what's happening because everyone who's willing to be honest sees it. Everyone who's

paying attention sees it. And the main reason why I wanted to show that moment featuring Gideon Levy again in Israeli who lives in Israel is because oftentimes when you watch these types of debate shows, the Israeli is like Jonathan Conriquez, right, the other former IDF spokesperson that I pretty much lost it on when I went on Pierce Morgan show on Monday of this week. And it's people who seem to care very little, if anything at all, about the humanity of Palestinian civilians. Normal people who are just trying to survive in one of the most atrocious, terrible situations you could ever imagine. Okay, they are living through absolute hell.

And I think it's become very clear that the IDF's mission here is not about rooting out Hamas. It's about murdering people, killing people, and eventually, whoever remains, displacing them. One other thing that I just want to note about the IDF spokesperson who was on the show. If you have time later today and you want to watch the entire episode of Pierce Morgan's episode from today, You'll notice that the IDF spokesperson said that the civilian population of Gaza is 1.5 million. That's a little terrifying. It really is because is that the civilian population? How many people have actually been killed in Gaza so far? Because at the beginning of this war, there were over 2 million people living in Gaza.

In the beginning of this war, we heard that there was somewhat 30,000 Hamas militants, if that, So how did the IDF spokesperson reach the conclusion that there's only 1.5 million civilians living in Gaza? Is it because a higher number that we don't even know about have been slaughtered by the IDF? Are they just making up numbers in regard to how many Hamas militants are in Gaza? What kind of intel does the Israeli military have in regard to who's a Hamas militant? How do they decide whether they're going to shoot and kill someone? because they suspect that they're a Hamas militant. There's just a lot of weird contradictory information coming out from the IDF and the Israeli government.

You also have both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump saying that there's 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza right now. When again, the death toll is allegedly only 60,000. And in the beginning of this war, we kept hearing that the population of Gaza was over 2 million. So I don't know. I think that the death toll numbers that we're getting are undercounted significantly. Bodies that remain buried under the rubble have not been counted in the official death toll numbers. So I guess we're going to have to wait and see just how many innocent people and civilians have been slaughtered as a result of this genocide that the Israeli military has carried out in the Gaza Strip. But if you pay attention to the various ministers,

the various government officials within the government of Israel, they don't even hide it. That's the thing that drives me crazy. In the context of the United States, you get gaslit endlessly about how like, no, no, this isn't a genocide. No, they're not going to do ethnic cleansing. While you have government officials flat out saying we want ethnic cleansing, we want to push whatever remaining Palestinians there are out of the Gaza Strip. We're taking over that land.

By the way, we're also going to take over the West Bank, which was governed by a different governing body, not Hamas, but they wanted that land anyway. So they're going to use what happened on October 7th to just take over both territories entirely, push Palestinians out, especially in the West Bank. I mean, they've been, settlers have been forcing Palestinians out of their rightful legal homes for many years now with impunity, with the IDF watching to provide cover, to provide protection for the settlers who have been stealing land, stealing homes from innocent Palestinian civilians who have the right to those homes and the right to that land.

But going back to Gideon Levy, I know that you hear wall-to-wall propaganda from Israelis providing cover for the Israeli-led genocide in Gaza. But I don't want you to make the mistake of thinking that every Israeli believes in what the government is doing. They all love it. Yes, I've seen the polling that shows that the majority of Israelis are in favor of what's happening in Gaza. But I do question how much they really know. I do question whether or not they're watching the same videos that we're watching. And even so, there are also wonderful Israelis who have actually been protesting what's been going on in Gaza endlessly.

And they put themselves at quite a bit of risk because they become targets for the Israeli government as well. So I commend Gideon Levy for speaking the truth on Pears Morgan show. This isn't the first time he's done it. And I know that in our audience, you know, we do not at all try to appeal to people who have hate. hatred in their hearts based on someone's identity. But just in case, if anyone was ever under any impression that here at TYT, we support hatred toward Jewish people or toward Israeli civilians, nah, I'm not about that.

But when it comes to systems, when it comes to a government, when it comes to a military, we're talking about something entirely different, entirely different. And so as much as some of these bad faith actors try to smear critics of the Israeli government as so-called Jew haters, that is not true. You have to pay close attention to the words that come out of someone's mouth. If they're being specific about Israeli government policies or specific instances in which the IDF has behaved poorly, then they're obviously criticizing something specific and not the identity of the individuals involved.

That's it. So thank you to Gideon Levy. It's about time we heard, you know, someone who's Israeli, you know, go on Pierce Morgan and actually tell the truth about what's going on. I want to talk a little bit about really interesting leak that came out.

And I think we should proceed with caution whenever there's leaked intel in regard to Iran, in regard to conflicts in the Middle East, especially when a lot of this intel in the past has gotten us into a lot of trouble. Now with that in mind, let's get to the story. The conversion facility, what you can't do with a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility, we can't even find where it is, where it used to be on the map. You can't even find where it used to be because the whole thing is just blackened out. It's gone. It's wiped out.

It's wiped out. Then we dropped 12 of the strongest bombs on the planet right down the hole in two places. Everything underneath that mountain is in bad shape. When you talk to the people who built the bombs, understand what those bombs can do and deliver those bombs, they landed precisely where they were supposed to. So it's a flawless mission. Flores. You would think they'd do the opposite. You would think they'd want to say this was an unbelievable success.

And the thing that hurts me is it's really demeaning to the pilots and the people that put that whole thing together, the generals. That was a perfect operation. Moderate to severe, and we believe, far more. believe far more likely severe and obliterated. So this is a political motive here. The Trump administration found itself defending the effectiveness of their bombing campaign against nuclear sites in Iran today, following a leak from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, which claims that the operation set back the Iranian government by just a few months, that it just wasn't as effective as previously thought.

Now, I actually side with the administration officials here. I think that this preliminary report that was leaked by a Pentagon staffer should be looked upon with a great deal of skepticism. But with that in mind, let's hear more about what this leaked intel indicated. Based on a battle damage assessment that was carried out by U.S. Central Command, and essentially looking at the images and looking at what was actually damaged. The defense intelligence agency has assessed that the core components of Iran's nuclear program are largely intact and that Iran's nuclear program has essentially only been set back by months.

Now we presented this information to the White House for comment and White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt, she did acknowledge the existence of this assessment, but she said in a statement that the administration disagrees with it. She said, quote, this alleged assessment, is flat out wrong and was classified as top secret, but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous low-level loser in the intelligence community. Now, again, this preliminary report was leaked to CNN and also to the New York Times. And this report that was done by the Defense Intelligence Agency focused largely, according to the New York Times, on the state of the Fordo plant. And that's the country's, you know, deeply buried uranium

enrichment facility, which produced the near bomb grade level enriched uranium. If you guys can remember when we originally covered this story, Iran had managed to enrich uranium to 60%. You need to get it to 90% enrichment in order for it to be at the level necessary to build an atomic bomb or a nuclear weapon. But nonetheless, officials familiar with the intelligence report said that early findings, again, early findings. No one's been on the ground yet. So really, in order to know the extent of the damage to these nuclear facilities, we have to wait to see what happens after an international group goes to inspect the sites and determine just how bad the damage is. But nonetheless, officials familiar with the

intelligence report said that early findings showed that the strikes had set back Iran's nuclear program by months. Officials said the strikes sealed off entrances to the facility, but had not led to a collapse, leaving open the possibility that Iran could eventually dig it out. So let's just pause for a second. Really, 30,000 pound bombs didn't cause any damage to the facility? Like, what are we talking about here? I remember prior to the Trump administration making the decision to drop the bombs,

there was all this analysis done about whether or not the bombs would even be effective. And the bombs had recently been upgraded or updated in order to be effective for the Fordo facility because of how deeply buried that facility was. Now, let me give you some more of the intel as it pertains to this preliminary report. The reason Iran most likely could still race to a bomb relatively quickly, officials said, is that Iran likely retains much of the enriched uranium and likely has secret nuclear facilities in which to process. it further. Now, likely doesn't tell me anything. Obviously, there's a lack of certainty here. Are there other facilities? How is it that we know about some of the facilities and we don't know about the other alleged facilities that might exist? The other thing that's really interesting to me here is, look, there is definitely some indication that they did take the

enriched 60% enriched uranium out of these facilities in order to put it in a safe place where they knew, you know, these bombs would not damage them or be impacted by them. There's been some reporting on that that seems credible. However, I don't know for sure yet. No one knows for sure yet. And that's really important to harp on here. But let's also talk about where Iran was in their alleged quest to build a nuclear weapon prior to the bombings. So again, you need 90% enriched uranium in order to build the bombs. They had enriched uranium up to 60%. They do not have, or there is no indication, and there was no intelligence to indicate that Iran had restarted the nuclear program, the nuclear weapons program that they had suspended

all the way back in 2003. And that was the intel that was shared by Tulsi Gabbard, head of the DNI, Director of National Intelligence. So there was no indication that they had started building a weapon or that they had restarted their nuclear weapons program that was suspended back in 2003. The other thing is, it's one thing to build a nuclear weapon. You also need to have a mechanism in which you would deliver said nuclear weapon. They don't have that type of mechanism. There's no indication they've worked on that type of mechanism. They were nowhere close to building a nuclear bomb before these bombings took place. Now, if you think 30,000 pound bombs didn't do damage to these facilities, especially after you see satellite imagery showing

you the damage, you're falling for pro-war propaganda, if you ask me. That's my belief. I also think usually when a staffer at the Pentagon leaks preliminary intel, there's the motive behind it. You really have to ask yourself, what is the motive here? Because remember, as we know, This war in Iran, the war that Israel was trying to go the United States into really didn't have anything to do with nuclear weapons. The narrative switched to regime change war real quick. And as we also know, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has been warning about Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon in weeks, in weeks, until he was interviewed by Brett Baer last week and admitted that building a nuclear weapon was maybe a year to three years away. Okay. Look, I don't think it was about the nuclear weapon. That's why we kept hearing about a regime change war. And now it appears that a regime change war is not on the horizon. And oh, wow, suddenly there's preliminary intel being leaked from the Pentagon, you know, the same federal government entity that can't pass a single audit. Okay, the government entity that hasn't seen a war doesn't love. So just something to keep in mind. Now, Israel produced their own intelligence. and I'll do it with scare quotes, intelligence that, of course, mirrors this preliminary report that was leaked to CNN and the New York Times.

I think it should be ignored. They have a serious conflict of interest here. Obviously, they want to go to war with Iran specifically to change the regime there. They want the Ayatollah gone, either by assassination or other means. And they want to essentially install the son of the Shah. that was exiled from Iran during the revolution in the late 1970s. So luckily, though, and I honestly didn't think I was going to say this, but luckily Trump rejected Israel's intel as well, and you're about to hear him do that right now.

Thank you, sir. You should really say how great our soldiers and our warriors are. I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our warriors. I do have two questions for you, Mr. President. You just cited Israeli intelligence on these attacks. Earlier you said U.S. intelligence was inconclusive. Are you relying on Israeli intelligence for your assessment of the impact of the strikes? No, this is also Iran made the statement.

And it's also, if you read the document that was given that Pete can talk about if you'd like, the document said it could be very severe damage, but they didn't take that. They said it could be limited or it could be very severe. They really didn't know other than to say it could be limited or it could be very, very severe. And you didn't choose to put that because it was very early after. Since then, we've collected additional intelligence. We've also spoken to people who have seen the site and the site is obliterated. And we think everything nuclear is down there.

They didn't take it out. Okay. So everything Trump said there was actually true except for that very last. sentence. And I want to be honest and accurate with you guys. So again, there is some indication that the Iranians had moved the enriched uranium. We don't know for sure yet. I'm not saying that as if it is definitely true. But what he was saying earlier about the preliminary report and how the media seems to avoid harping on the entirety of the statement, meaning the damage could be limited or it could be extensive. They tend to leave the extensive part out of the

preliminary report, which I think is hilarious, and kind of tells you there seems to be this orchestrated effort to continue goading the Trump administration into a war with Iran, which I think would be a disastrous situation for the Middle East, of course, and it would be disastrous for our own country when we should be focused on other things. There were other Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who tried to pour cold water on this preliminary report. He says that you can't do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility, meaning a facility to convert uranium to enriched uranium. We can't even find where it is, where it used to be on the map. The whole thing is blackened out. It's gone. It's wiped out.

But there's also some dissent that isn't really being talked about at all. Within the defense and intelligence community on how effective these bunker buster bombs were. So more importantly, the intel that was leaked was preliminary. I know I keep repeating that, but I want to really harp on it. And we should be asking why someone would leak it before investigators are able to complete their assessment in the first place. Again, it's preliminary. They haven't finished their investigation.

So the person who leaked this, why did they leak it? What is their motivation? The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran's nuclear ambitions is ongoing and could change as more intelligence becomes available. Plus, international inspectors and nuclear experts agree that the extensive damage to the conversion facility created a key bottleneck in the weapons making process and agreed that rebuilding it would likely take years. So I hate being in a position where I have to give someone like Marco Rubio any credit at all. But what Marco Rubio said there in the quote that I read earlier is true. And the same report noted that the conversion facility was severely damaged. Again, that same report noted that the conversion facility was severely damaged.

They concluded it will be a long time before Iran comes anywhere near the capability it had before the attack. Now, for those who want to believe some preliminary leaked intel from some motivated staffer with an agenda over at the Pentagon, I guess have at it. Seems like you probably want to go to war with Iran, even if it's not in the best interest of anyone, including, by the way, Israel. Like this idea that it's going to go well for Israel is hilarious. It didn't go so well when it comes to Iraq, did it? But nonetheless, show Scarborough of all people, had a warning. And I think it's worth listening to. Take a look. We also have to be cautious about being played by people inside the intel community

who want to get their message out. I'm not saying that's happening here. But I remember in the last Trump term, the New York Times runs a story on the front page. Somebody from the intel community said Vladimir Putin was paying for hits against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. And everybody ran with it about six months later and said, well, actually they just had a low degree of confidence of that that happened. That's happened an awful lot. This story, I mean, save it bookmarked because it's maybe one of the only examples of me having to give credit to people I usually vehemently disagree with. You got Marco Rubio, you got Trump. And in this case, you also have Joe Scarborough. Joe Scarborough is correct.

And in fact, I myself had forgotten about that whole hoax that was reported in Trump's first term regarding Vladimir Putin, you know, paying assassins to take out U.S. troops. That ended up being debunked. So for the mainstream legacy journalists out there and reporters out there, please for the love of God, just try for once in your life to not be a stenographer for the Pentagon. Just because something was leaked to you doesn't mean that you should just regurgitate it without any skepticism at all. Now, again, we don't know what the reality is. It's a preliminary report. Investigations have not been concluded in any way, shape, or form. And everything to me points in the direction of this is being leaked and the Israeli intelligence mirrors the leak because war is wanted.

Okay, and I don't want war. The American people don't want war, as you saw from the polling that we shared with you recently, you know, you had Harry Enton showing that most Americans, vast majority of Americans do not want to go to war with Iran. They also don't want Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. But I'll end on this. If you don't want any country to obtain a nuclear weapon or to build a nuclear weapon, the worst way to prevent them from building said weapon is to publicly and incessantly, talk about how you want regime change in their country, going to war with that country, because all that's going to do is encourage said country, in this case, Iran, to race for a nuclear weapon, because what is a nuclear weapon, really? Now, do I think Iran is actually going to drop a nuke on Israel? No, I don't. Do I think Iran, if they had a nuke, would drop it on the United States? No, you want to know why? Because nukes are a deterrent. When you have a nuke, countries are less willing or likely to mess with you. And Israel wants to mess with Iran.

There's no question about it. Benjamin and Yahoo has wanted regime change in Iran forever for literally decades, going back to the 1990s. However, I would like to live in a world where there are no nuclear weapons. We don't live in that world. In this scenario, you have two countries that have nukes. Obviously, the U.S. does. And so does Israel.

Iran is not an irrational country. As much as I don't like the Ayatollahs, as much as I do not like that regime and would love for the people of Iran organically to have a revolution that ends with the type of leadership that they want and they deserve, I don't think that the current Iranian regime is irrational enough to drop a nuclear weapon on the US or Israel because that is mutually assured destruction. 90 million people would perish, gone. You think there wouldn't be any retaliation for that? And you think Iran doesn't know that. The only way to prevent Iran, in my opinion, from building a nuclear weapon is to engage diplomatically. Diplomacy is the only way. You had inspectors going into that country under the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal,

to inspect and ensure that they were not. not enriching enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon. They were following the terms of that deal perfectly. That's not based on inspectors just from the United States. You're talking about inspectors in a group of international inspectors. You have European countries, you have Russia, you have all these countries joining in on this JCPOA. Diplomacy is the only way war or threats of war is only going to persuade, you know, Iranians to maybe speed up. toward a nuclear weapon so they don't have to worry about other countries coming in and messing with them.

And I don't want that to happen. I don't want them to have nuclear weapons. But it is rich that the country that's currently carrying out a genocide in Gaza is the country that has nukes is not part of the nonproliferation agreement and has the audacity of bullying other countries and determining whether other countries should be allowed to have the same weapons they have. Something to think about. We've got to take a break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Just want to read a few super chats from the last segment that I did. So starting with Romulus 463, when I list three of the five things that destroyed

every empire in history, unchecked immigration, growing welfare state, declaring moral standards, I'm labeled as a right winger by the left. Well, I mean, Romulus, this is pretty right wing. It's pretty right way. I just keep it real. But you know, those are issues that should be debated. And to be quite frank, right now, in the context of the United States, I don't want to hear anything about how, oh, the welfare states the problem. And we need to further nickel and dime the American people when there is no debate about spending tens of billions of dollars on bombing another country. There was no debate. I mean, as you, as you all know,

that bombing happened of those Iranian nuclear facilities without any conversation. Congress didn't approve it. So there was no debate. But more importantly, we were all surprised by it because it was announced after it was already done. So when it comes to war, never a debate. Okay, when it comes to military spending, defense spending, never a debate. And we're talking about in the case of defense spending, close to a trillion dollars a year at this point. Obviously, you have to be able to balance a budget.

So if you have a situation like Venezuela, for instance, where you don't have a diversified economy, when all of your economy is based on exporting oil, well, when oil prices drop, you're not able to afford the social programs that you have in your country. That was a big miscalculation in Venezuela. But in the case of the United States, to say that we are overspending on our social safety net, I think is a little ridiculous. But I hear what you're saying. I don't want to get too sidetracked, even though I've spent too much time talking about your comment. Romulus also says declining moral standards, I blame auto-correct. So that was a correction from the previous comment.

And land of the free home of my rants says, huge congrats to Zoran Mamdani, making history as New York City's first Muslim mayor, a true victory for diversity, justice, and grassroots power. The city chose progress, Salam and solidarity, make America. America again. Love it. We're going to talk about that with Jenk in the second hour. So stay tuned for that. For now, I'm going to do one story real quick and then we're going to take a break. So let's get into it. Stephen and I have a very good understanding. He's a terrific person. We have a great understanding. Stephen Miller definitely not a terrific person. And now reporting indicates that based on his disclosures, financial disclosures,

he might have some pretty significant conflicts of interest as it pertains to his personal investments and what he's currently doing as part of the Trump administration. So as we all know, and thanks to the Wall Street Journal doing some excellent reporting on this, these ice rates have really ramped up beginning in early June. And part of the reason why is because Stephen Miller specifically told ICE, listen, you guys are not meeting the numbers that we want. So we want you to go for the long hanging fruit. We want you to go to Home Depot parking lots, find the day laborers.

They tend to be undocumented, round them up, arrest them. We're going to deport them. We want to increase our numbers. Well, now it turns out that it might not just be about Trump wanting to be. beat Obama's deportation numbers, you know, Obama, the deporter-in-chief as he was called. And to be fair, Trump is definitely very competitive and wants to beat Obama's numbers. I don't deny that at all. But for Stephen Miller, there's something personal and financial involved as well, and that has to do with his investment in Palantir, which is very, very

much involved in our deportation schemes here in the United States. So according to ethics, disclosure reports released by the White House, Miller owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, which of course is Peter Thiel's data and intelligence software company that has several lucrative contracts with immigration and customs enforcement to track data and conduct surveillance on undocumented immigrants and soon American citizens. We've covered that. We'll continue covering that as that story develops. But nonetheless, Unless, Miller isn't the only one in the Trump administration with investments or stock in the company. But he does have the largest stake. Miller's investment could pose a severe conflict

of interest, obviously, especially since Palantir has had close ties to ICE. By the way, dating as far back as the Obama administration. And I'm not doing this like both sides thing, But we also have to be real about the Democrats because the Democrats, they're different from the Trump administration in that they don't make a big show of the deportations that they engage in. But I went back and read stories from the Obama administration about how he had no problem separating families. If the children were born here in the U.S., they could stay here because obviously they're citizens, but he would deport the parents all the time. And it's amazing to me that the same Democrats who obviously are pointing to the cruelty that we're seeing on the streets right now with these ice raids, they totally gave Obama a pass. They didn't freak out about what Obama was doing. So we need to hold government officials, politicians, presidents accountable, regardless of their party. Otherwise, you're just a hypocritical person. Okay? Now, with that in mind, let me give you some more on what we've learned about.

Stephen Miller's financial disclosures. So Palantir, I should note, received a $41 million government contract back in 2014, this is during the Obama administration, and created custom software for ICE, referred to as investigative case management. Now deportations have escalated pretty quickly following Miller's directive to ICE officials in early June. But months earlier in April, This is super important. So just months earlier, ICE awarded Palantir another $30 million contract to create tracking software aimed at providing the agency with near real-time visibility into migrants engaging in self-deportation. According to documents obtained by Wired, one of the core functions of the program dubbed Immigration OS, very creative, would be to streamline and prioritize. selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens. And I'm reading that verbatim.

So Reuters reports that this is the largest single federal contract that Palantir has been able to secure from a federal government agency, in this case ICE. And Don Fox, who's the former acting head and former general counsel of the Office of Government Ethics, has outlined a possible scenario illustrating how Miller could cross an ethical line if Miller was in a meeting involving DHS officials talking about whether the data analytics capability of DHS needs to be improved or changed in some way, knowing full well that Pallantir would be the beneficiary. And if Pallantir is going to be the beneficiary, well, the value of your shares are going to increase. This is why having government officials, whether we're talking about members of Congress or

Or members of Trump's cabinet or any presidential cabinet, investing in individual stocks is such a problem because it does create a conflict of interest. Now look, Stephen Miller absolutely hates immigrants. He doesn't hide it. I think he would do what he's doing right now regardless of his investments in Palantir. So I don't want to give him some sort of weird pass by saying, oh, his heart's not into it. But he's thinking about his pocketbook. So he's going to push for this terrible, cruel immigration policy. policy simply because he wants to make money. No, I think in this case, yeah, of course he wants to make money, but he also gets to carry out the types of, in my opinion, cruel, disgusting policies that are currently being carried out right now with these ice rates. And again, I mean, obviously, there's widespread support for deportations when it comes

to Trump voters. But what we're really talking about here in terms of Trump losing favorability on immigration, is that fragile coalition he was able to build in the last election cycle, that included independence, that included lifelong Democrats who were just so sick and fed up with Democrats, they decided to switch parties and take a chance on Trump. Those people are not very supportive of these types of immigration policies. They were under the impression that Trump was going to focus on criminals, meaning people who had committed violent crimes, had been convicted of said crimes and we're going to be deported. They were supportive of that. But when we're talking

about street vendors, when we're talking about, you know, day laborers, when we're talking about unmarked cars that have ice agents in plain clothes, just snatching people up in broad daylight from the streets. Let's just pause and think about that for a second. Can you imagine ice agents, you don't know they're ice agents. Okay, plain clothes, no identification. Sometimes they're even wearing masks. Can you imagine them busting through your workplace and just detaining people and arresting people? How terrifying is that? And that is what's happening right now. And if Trump is under any impression that this isn't hurting him politically, he's got another thing coming. If Republicans think this isn't hurting them politically, they've got another thing

coming. Because people don't want to live in a terrorized world like that. Okay, even if they have a problem with Biden's immigration policies, doesn't mean that they wanted to swing all the way, to what Stephen Miller is now pushing ICE to do. Now, I should say that Miller's investments have definitely paid off quite a bit. So Palantir Technologies has been the top performing S&P 500 index stock over the past year. Shares of Palantir have risen over 92% year to date. Moreover, shares have gained 490% just in the past year. So you've got conflicts of interest, you've got a pretty scummy guy who's hated immigrants

forever and isn't afraid to be vocal about it. And you have people getting targeted in their workplace snatched up by plain closed ice agents who aren't identifying themselves. It's just a complete and utter disaster. And to know that there are people making a lot of money out of this really grosses me out. But that's the reality and you should know about it. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we've got a lot more news to get to, including a whistleblower who shares some insight about the directives coming from the Trump administration as it pertains to deporting people. Can't wait to show that story with you. Come right back. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. And during our social break,

One of our viewers in the super chat section was giving the main show team props for the, you know, research that we do and how thorough we try to be in sharing stories with you all. And I mentioned how important it is to me for us to correct our errors if we get something wrong. So what I'm about to share, I don't think was necessarily an error in like getting a fact wrong. It was more a perspective that some in the audience didn't share with me. And now I actually agree with the audience members who didn't agree with me at the time. So if you guys can remember during the presidential election, Congresswoman Nancy Mays was on CNN, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, she was on a panel and she said Kamala Harris's name incorrectly.

Now, the accusation was that she was doing it on purpose. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt because I heard so many people say Kamala instead of Kamala. And it's not because they're bad people or they're intentionally trying to mispronounce her name or they're racist. It's a different name. It's a unique name. Seeing how Nancy Mace has been behaving, especially in recent months, I've changed my mind.

I think she did it intentionally. I think she got a rise out of it and it was gross. So for everyone who disagreed with me, I've now changed my mind. I wanted to mention that. Okay. Let's get to our next story. There's more to get to when it comes to the Trump administration. administration and their immigration policies, including this.

Bro, these ice raids are nuts, man. Watching this protest on television. It's like, the raids are nuts? All of it. Yeah. I think both sides are taking it a little too hard. Well, I don't think if they, the Trump administration, if they're running and they said, we're going to go to Home Depot and we're going to arrest all the people at Home Depot.

We're going to go to construction sites and we're going to just like tackle people at constructions. I don't think anybody would signed up for that. They said, we're going to get rid of the criminals and the gang members first. Well, not only is the Trump administration doing the opposite of what they promised. They are not only focusing on criminals and gang members. They are, in fact, doing ice raids at Home Depot parking lots at the direction of Stephen Miller, who wants to increase the number of people getting deported. You also have a whistleblower who's now coming out and sharing that Trump's own just

Department is making, he was in Trump's Justice Department, but he's making the allegation that they were essentially told to ignore the courts. I'm not kidding. So let me give you all the details on this. So again, this is a whistleblower at Trump's own Justice Department making the stunning allegation. The whistleblower's name is Erez-Ruveni. Now, he is the Trump administration lawyer specifically who admitted that Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia was the deported mistakenly. Now, according to Rouveni, principal associate deputy attorney general Emil Bove said the Trump administration's deportations should be carried out regardless, regardless of any court orders preventing them. That's a pretty big revelation. And I'm not okay

with that. We have a system of checks and balances. Even if the executive branch doesn't like a ruling from our judicial branch, if you believe in our constitution, if you believe in our system of government, you must abide by that decision or appeal it and go through the process. But according to Rouveni, that is not what the direction was. So in March, Bov allegedly stated in a meeting that the Trump administration was about to carry out deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. Bov indicated these removals were a priority for the administration, and stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what. And indeed, we had shared a story with you indicating that after, you know, a federal judge had told the Trump administration that they are not to send a flight of immigrants to El Salvador, they did it anyway.

They're like, oh, too late. They're in midair. Sorry. So just totally ignoring. what our judicial branch is ordering the executive branch to do in that case. Now, and if a court order were to try and stop the deportations, both stated that the DOJ would need to consider telling the court's FU and ignore any such court order. Now, Rivenny also stated that he was instructed by the Trump administration to refer to Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia as a terrorist, but he refused to do so because he, He was not aware of any evidence indicating that Obrego Garcia was a terrorist. There was nothing to back up that claim, so he refused to do it.

Now, the Trump administration denies Ruvani's allegations. But interestingly enough, Bov was at a House hearing today, and you're about to watch Senator Adam Schiff ask some important questions. Let's see what Bov have to say. Senator, I have no recollection of saying anything of that kind. To the extent I use the- Wouldn't you recall, Mr. Beauvais, if you see- said or suggested during a meeting with Justice Department lawyers, maybe they should consider

telling the court to you, it seems to me, that would be something you'd remember unless that's the kind of thing you say frequently. Well, I've certainly said things encouraging litigators at the department to fight hard for valid positions that we have to take in defense of our clients. And if you frequently suggested that they say you and ignore court orders, is that also something you frequently do, such you might not remember doing it in this occasion? No, and as I explained, I have never directed. So did you or did you not make those comments during that meeting? Which comments, Senator?

You really need me to repeat it? Did you suggest, as Mr. Ruvani wrote, that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts you and ignore any such court order? I did not suggest that there would be any need to consider ignoring court orders. At the point of that meeting, there were no court orders to discuss. Well, did you suggest telling the courts you in any manner? I don't recall. To me, it seems like he did. When you say, I don't recall, it's a way of avoiding perjuring yourself, but also you're not telling the truth.

Like, you don't have to tell the truth. I don't recall. It's like the weasily tactic that a lot of bad actors engage in when they're asked these tough questions. And look, there are huge consequences. for everyone. When these deportations happen without due process, people get so mad about that. I get it, I know.

I know that if you're here in the country and they're setting you up for deportation, you're not necessarily going to get a trial case. I get that. But you should be able to get a court hearing an opportunity to defend yourself because guess what? If you don't have a process, of due process, people are going to mistakenly get deported.

And that's what happened to Abrago Garcia. And by the way, that has happened literally to U.S. citizens that were mistakenly deported. In fact, Time magazine published a piece today that is fascinating, something that we should all know about. So less than six months into President Trump's second term, courts have directed his administration to bring back at least four people that they've deported. In the latest example, a court of appeals ordered the federal government to facilitate the return of Jordine Salmarin, who was deported to El Salvador in May. Just 30 minutes after the same court issued a stay of removal according to court documents, seems to back up the claims that we're hearing from Ruveni, the whistleblower. The federal government said his deportation

occurred because of a confluence of administrative errors. You know, a good way to mitigate administrative errors is to have a system of due process and to actually value that system of due process. Give the individuals who are set for deportation an opportunity, a hearing before a judge to make their case. Because who's to say the federal government doesn't make a mistake and accuse you of being an undocumented immigrant when you might be a citizen or someone who's in the country totally legally. Shouldn't you at least get an opportunity to prove yourself to make your case? Shouldn't you get an opportunity to say, hey, look, the federal government's making a mistake here. Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity.

Who knows? But these are people's lives. These aren't these aren't games. We're not talking about stuffed animals here. We're talking about human beings, whether they're in the country under protected status, whether they're American citizens, these mistakes keep getting made and like the carelessness about it is enraging. Because if you as an American are okay with the erosion of rights for undocumented people, that means you're okay with the erosion of your rights because it affects you as well. There's more. I mean, the federal government, again, said that the deportation of the gentleman I was referring to earlier, confluence of administrative errors. In the order, judges cited the case of Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia. I mean, it goes on and

on. But at least four different people, the courts have said need to come back to the states because they were either mistakenly or illegally deported out of the country. Because when you don't care about human beings and all you care about is increasing your deportation numbers to engage in shadow boxing or this made up pretend competition with the deporter in chief President Barack Obama. I mean, the people who lose out in the end is everyone, literally everyone, whether you're an American citizen or you're here in the country under some other status, right? Either your undocumented, protected status, green card, whatever it is. You have to protect rights. Rights matter. Due process matters. Having the ability to defend yourself in court

matters for all of us. That is a right that makes this country great. And to see that being eroded right now in real time is infuriating to say the least. So I commend Rivenny for being the whistleblower that he is and came out, told the truth about what Beauvais is saying behind the scenes. And I would like to see Democrats try to do a little more than just engage in performative Senate hearings. I'm glad that they're having the hearing, but let's follow up the hearing with some action. I mean, we have not been able to rely on Congress for anything during, honestly, during any administration, but certainly during the second Trump administration. We've been relying on the courts, and luckily the courts have been doing their jobs. But hearing that people

keep getting mistakenly deported is, again, infuriating, and it should be infuriating for everyone. All right, we should take a break when we come back. We've got more, including Jank Yugar.