The Young Turks - Quid Pro No

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

Trump Could Be Risking His Entire Term On THIS Huge Issue. JD Vance Says U.S. Troops Fighting Russia In Ukraine Is ‘On The Table’ In Stunning Reversal. Trump And Eric Adams Made This US Attorney QUIT Her Job. Trump administration begins mass layoffs across multiple federal agencies. Hosts: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, Michael Shure SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞ https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER ☞ https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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3rd and Primaki Drop it like Elon's poll numbers. Power Power, Michael Shure, John Iroller with you guys, Young Turks, the online news show. So it is our anniversary today. Fun for everybody, 23rd anniversary. Michael, you were there. I was there tomorrow, 23 years ago. I wasn't there today. I was doing the second day. Yeah, and I was trying to think when it was 23, it seems like 24 because of where you were living and where I was living.

And I don't, what month today was February then? Yeah. I feel like you're wrong. I feel like it was too bad. Well, that's a major mistake. All right. So we're going to have an anniversary special. Quick fun, shout, shout one where we would normally do a bonus episode, John Brenton and I will do that.

But now we've got an amazing hour ahead for you guys. Tons of news, of course, as usual. So John, take it away. Yes, and we're going to start off with some, I was going to say good news. Not good news for the country, but theoretically, politically, it could work out. Anyway, you'll see what I'm saying. But we're going to start off with this. Inflation crushed the Joe Biden presidency. It ate it alive.

If Donald Trump is not careful, inflation will crush his presidency and eat it alive because that is where Americans want him to be focused. Clearly, Harry Enton is fired up over the topic of inflation, far more so than Donald Trump is anymore. He used to talk about it a lot. His tune has certainly changed recently, and as Harry Anton is pointing out there, that could potentially come with some political cost to it. And Enton has some numbers to back this up. Take a look. You know, we'll talk about the focus where Americans think Trump should be focused on.

And not much of a surprise in his first 100 days, they believe, look at that, the top answer, inflation at 34%. And then number three, it's the economy in general at 21%. Is Trump focused enough on inflation? Not enough. Sixty-six percent. That is two-thirds of the country. Just the third of the country say he's focused the right amount. Get this, 48 percent of Republicans say he's not focused enough on the problem of inflation. Economy is excellent or good. You go back to November of 2020, right? When Donald Trump lost reelection, it was 49 percent. By this past election, it was 32%. Look at where we were in a recent Marquette University Law School poll.

It was 27%. Which is pretty rough when you consider that the tariffs haven't really gone into effect yet. The long-term impact on the prices of a variety of different goods and services that'll be impacted by mass deportation, we're not seeing that yet. People are already incredibly pessimistic, and that's before the seemingly inevitable damage of Trump's economic policies actually kicks in. So that said, that's some of what Harry Anton has to say, well, what is Donald Trump saying about this topic recently? Take a look at that. As part of the reciprocal tariffs, would you also direct agencies to study the impact they would have on prices in the U.S.? No, there's nothing to study. There's nothing to study. It's going to go well.

I mean, look, that's obviously a really flippant answer to give on something incredibly important that could cost millions of people jobs, their financial livelihood. I also think that he's kind of right, like sure, we could get into the specifics by studying it, but to understand basically how this is going to go, we don't have to study it. We know what effect tariffs have, we know what effect they're likely to have in this case. But I also think that when as Harrington points out, it's so clear that people are worried, not just in general about inflation, but worried about what they see and what they don't see coming out of Trump on that topic. For him to brush that aside like that, like imagine if Joe Biden had done that.

Like a reporter had said, hey, you know, we're really concerned about what you're doing, what it could do to inflation. He's like, no, there's nothing to, whatever, don't care, don't care. He lost reelection. And so is it impossible that if Trump keeps this up, that the midterms can be really rough for the Republicans? Yeah. So of course, as usual, we're going to be fair and consistent.

So first of all, when Barack Obama handed Donald Trump a terrific economy back in 2017, we pointed that out. So then Trump pretended like he created that economy on day one, that didn't happen. So as you saw there already Americans were at 32% in terms of their hopefulness about the economy when Joe Biden hands it to Donald Trump. So he starts at a low level, so that's fair. He brings it further down to 27%. That's a disaster.

So to me, he went down 5%, it's a really bad shape. That's less of a problem. The bigger problem is, yes, but are you going to do anything about it, right? And John's absolutely right, and that's where the consistency comes in. So if you blame Joe Biden for not doing enough, then you should be consistent and blame Donald Trump for not doing enough slash nothing slash being counterproductive. So I'm a little bit more mixed on tariffs than John is potentially. And I think the reciprocal tariffs makes sense. Hey, you're going to charge us 15%.

We're going to charge you 15%. That makes sense to me. I know that it has inflationary pressure. Maybe Trump is right. And remember, this used to be a progressive position, right? So the jury's out for me, not on whether it creates inflation. I think John is right there, it probably will add to inflation a little bit. And so if I was doing tariffs right now, even reciprocal tariffs, the ones that are fair,

I'd be a little worried about inflation, right? And maybe in the long run it does create more jobs for techs, our industry, etc. But that's in the long run. Yes, okay, so let's put that aside for a second. That might be counterproductive, maybe it's worth it in the long run. Probably not, but maybe, okay, depending on how you do it. But yes, but what else are you doing to bring down inflation? down inflation. And John's absolutely right. If Biden was like, oh, eggs are up, price of eggs

are up, so what? It's your avian flu, so what, right? Oh, what are you going to do to bring down inflation? So what, nothing, so what, right? People would go nuts, including mainstream media, and they tear his head off, and they did. But Trump gets a free pass. No, no free pass here. Brother, are you going to do anything about inflation or not? That was your number one promise. And that was the number one thing that Americans cared about in this election. I don't remember in the election talking about the American people screaming out, you've got to cut USAID. In fact, they pretended that they weren't going to do that.

When people talking about Project 2025, oh, no, no, no, I got nothing to do with Project 22. I'm just worried about inflation and price of gas and eggs. And then he gets into office and all of a sudden, you know, let's do Project 2025 and who cares about inflation. So let's be consistent here, Mike. Yeah, but it also, in a way to look at this now is a very difficult thing to do because they're obfuscating so much. There's so much chaos coming out of Washington right now that the notion that these poll numbers and that people are going to glom on to these right this second and that's going to make a difference to me seems foolish. It's encouraging if you don't like Donald Trump to see these inflation numbers going the way they are to prove that what he's doing on tariffs and what he's not doing, on examining what other steps can be taken to reverse inflation, that that isn't being done

is for people who are opponents of his is a great thing. But what I mean is that there's so much chaos right now through the clearing, if these numbers make it through that clearing later on, it's going to be super important. And yes, you're talking about what we do here and have done here for 20 some odd years and we can debate how long it's been. But the fact that there aren't other places. So the Biden example to me is true. It's right. But the reason that if it were Biden doing, if Biden had George Soros in his office, the way that Trump had Elon in his office, obviously people would have gone bananas. It's because they have this infrastructure of media on lower levels that goes throughout this country that is supportive of anything he does blindly. And I met

those people on the road for this show, but I met them and you've met them at conventions and in other places. They don't care. They, as long as Donald Trump said it, because the places they're getting their information are saying it's fine, as opposed to, and they're also upset, they would be upset about George Soros, so they would mimic that all the way home. I think that's really what is it the crux of this, right? Yeah, but let me, let me disagree with you in a couple ways. So please, that'll be new. By the way, longest running show in internet history, and that is not in dispute. So that's that is not a dispute. Okay, as long as running the actual That's true.

We've been disagreeing longer than for decades. We've been disagreeing. Burr and Hamilton. So I hear you on look, don't we got poll numbers here like a couple weeks into his administration, that's not the relevant part. I hear you on that, right? But the relevant part of the poll isn't ha ha ha Trump's going down or ha Democrats are going to win, they win midterms two years or now, no, no, no, no, don't misunderstand this.

The relevant part is that the people who voted for Trump aren't just MAGA, there are tons of of independence and moderates voted for Trump. That's why he won. That's why he won every single state. That's why he won the popular vote. So when you look at a poll like this and they're instantly dissatisfied. Yeah. Okay, that's a warning sign, an important warning sign.

That's not disagreeing with me. I agree that. I just think we can't, there's nothing to grab onto yet until this all settles a little bit. And it will. This has just been a chaotic three, four, five weeks. And so it's not making the impact of, you know, people calling their senators and say, don't support this guy, don't support Cash Patel in the confirmation. You're don't, I mean, there's no, there's no real effect to that.

But they do matter and they will matter even more. I'm not discounting that. I'm just saying, you know, they're not making it into the clearing just yet. I'm gonna say something small, even though it's a gigantic. The part we probably do disagree on is their media is now not uniform at all. So they, on inflation, they're probably uniform. I haven't seen anybody break on inflation. And to your point, it's probably too early for them to break on inflation, right?

Not enough has happened, but a bunch of them are disagreeing with each other all over the place. I don't disagree with that, but they have an effective echo chamber. I don't think that can be denied. Yeah, it's still there. If you go below the surface, sure, there are fissures and there are breaks. But I think in general, and we've had this conversation before, I mean, the fact that that Rush Limbaugh called his people ditto heads, and they love that, as opposed to if you called Democrats do it, well, what did I do wrong?

You know, what, wait, why am I? So it's a much larger conversation because now I feel like it's kind of flip. But anyway, that's that opens up. Well, it may have, but I'm just, but it is that way. And it has been that way that's established that way. And I think that's a thing. And also the question, sorry, he asked that, that question that was asked of the president just now, you know, they would turn around.

They say, Dem study, we don't study stuff, elitist study, liberal study. Well, you don't want to study before life. Well, yeah, exactly. Well, he didn't. Yeah. I think I agree. I agree. I think that the media is going to help carry him through with like his core 27 to 31% or whatever, which probably makes up the vast majority of Harrington's numbers of people who think he is doing enough on inflation right now. But and that's where a lot of people get a lot of their information. But everybody

gets some of their information from places that Fox News can't control, like the grocery store. And when you go to buy a car, and when you're paying your rent, and when you're purchasing things online, it doesn't matter what Fox says about that. If the price is higher, the price is higher. And people are going to see that. That's an objective thing that every conservative person is going to see day after day after day. And they might be resistant to place blame. But the economic frustration, I think, will definitely be there. And really fast, you mentioned that we maybe disagree on tariffs, and maybe we do, to some extent, it might seem more so based on what I said in the earlier.

I make the case for tariffs on TDR constantly, and he could have. There's all sorts of things you could say about the medium or long-term effects of tariffs. That would be a little bit more politically difficult, but would have the virtue of being honest about the long-term plan and the suffering that we need to pass through to get there. But he's not doing that, he's not doing that despite I keep being told that he's super powerful and he has a stranglehold in our culture. He's not doing that work. And I think that's to his peril. Because if he was at least up front, then when people experience a little bit of pain, it can fit into a meta narrative of what MAGA is or whatever. But he's telling them now, there's not going to be any pain, but there is going to be pain.

And that I think is going to cause some whiplash, even among his voters. I think that this is both a weak way to approach his long-term policy on tariffs and dishonest, and also potentially catastrophic politically when we look at what happened to Biden. And really fast, I would also say Biden, I think rightly got a lot of blame for inflation being high and prices being high. And we can sort of say, well, Trump might have the same sort of thing, but also bear in mind what would be causing the inflation these two things. Trump is basically unilaterally choosing to start a worldwide trade war.

Joe Biden was trying, and maybe we disagree with some of his techniques to take us out of a recession, sort of necessarily. And people also forget that a lot of that spending that led to that inflation was approved under Donald Trump before Joe Biden even got in. So the attempt to save us leading to inflation seems like maybe it'll be judged in hindsight a little bit less harshly than a dude who just wanted to mix it up with France or whatever. Yeah, that's an excellent point. Yeah. So look, I think that the most underlying problem here is that he doesn't actually have a plan for reducing inflation. So the tariffs don't reduce inflation. It might be good in other ways, but that's not an anti-inflationary thing at all, right?

Nobody thinks it is. And then he's pressuring the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. That's to have a faster growing economy, but that also is inflationary, not anti-inflationary. They raise the rates to make sure that inflation didn't get out of control. So why does he not have a plan for inflation? Because he doesn't care. Yeah. He cares about making sure that they got the tax cuts for himself and the donors and all that.

They're doing all this cutting. Why? Because they care about balanced budgets. No, he added $8.4 trillion of the debt last time. They're doing all the cutting so when they get to the corporate tax cuts, they can say, oh, we already cut so much. That's why we can do these, afford these corporate taxes. So you're not going to save a dime for any, for,

any of this cost cutting and I need you to understand that and he's not ever so it always comes back to this two same two fundamental questions how much is he going to sink in the polling when Michael's right this is just the beginning but now instead of being four weeks in we're four months in or we're eight months in and inflation keep is still there or worse because he hasn't done anything about it at that point how much of his base how much of his into moderate voters, rebel against him, how low does his numbers go? And does he, he definitely cares, but what will he do to react? Will he go, okay, okay, okay, I'm changing directions, which Trump does a lot, right?

Or will he keep digging? And then if he keeps digging, that's the real problem. Not for the Democrats, and they'll have an easier time winning the midterms. But for the country, if he digs in and stops listening to the courts and starts going to whose worst instincts, that's when we're in trouble. Also, Harry Enton is a Bill's fan, so you have to, he's a big Bill's fan, you have to grade his optimism on a curve. Yeah, they've had a good final game, I actually watched that one.

Yeah, yeah, it's entirely possible, and to the point of whether he cares or not, like I know that he loves to joke like, I'm gonna run for the next 20 terms or whatever, I don't, I don't know that he necessarily lasts another four years in general, let alone politically. He's governing like a person that just doesn't really care what record and legacy he leaves for the next Republican that runs for office. He does he care if J.D. Vance is like the economy is in ruins around him. He wouldn't even endorse him the other day. Exactly.

It was funny, I enjoyed that as a bit of trolling. But my favorite joke was you like even suggesting that Donald Trump might care about another human being. I know, it's crazy. Maybe if it's Ivanka running. But anyway. Maybe he's a true believer. Maybe he thinks that if we just cut corporate taxes down a negative 60% and we remove every single regulation, then that actually will spur so much activity. Maybe he thinks that. He doesn't think anything. Yeah, he doesn't know about those economic theories, nor does he care about them. He's just like he asked somebody, how much is it going to lower my taxes? Good, we're doing it.

But so the final point that I want to make, though, and this is, it's like, it's like pessimistic. and optimistic at the exact same time is the last three elections, people were really frustrated and they threw the incumbent out and went in a wildly different direction. And then they went back in a wildly different direction. And then they went back in the other way in a wildly different direction. And if he's just going to cause more pain, more suffering, more chaos, we remember how sick of people that people got of that in the first term. His approval ratings tanked in the first six months when he was president. If he wasn't nearly as aggressive or offensive or chaotic as he is being right now. And so it looks like he's teeing up potentially for

a big lurch back to the other side again. And the thing for me, like, and I think for a lot of our audience, but I think it's like the big question in the next few years is, does that mean we now finally have the window for an actual progressive who will not just like, you know, turn the wheel into a different direction, but break the wheel a la De Nairus Targaryen? Or is that going once again result in a population that's like, it's just so chaotic, everything is so terrible. Just give me whatever stable, centrist, Democratic governor you've got. And it's going to look a hell of a lot better than Mr. Horse in the hospital. Yeah, look, I know what the Democratic leadership is going to want to do in Democratic consultants,

etc. They're going to want to go with the wheel, the wheel, America loves the wheel, when in reality America hates the wheel. So the only way to lose to Trump or next time around, J.D. Vance or in the midterms is to just keep going back and going, no, establishment Democrats are great. The status quo is wonderful. So, but I think they have enough sense to pretend to be populist. And that's the real problem, because people might believe them. Well, what they have to learn from Trump, too, is the cult of personality works in America today. So it's not just progressive or moderate or corporate. It's got to be the person. And the person has to captivate enough people, maybe not in the same way that this guy does, but in a different

way, enough people to actually bring voters out to vote. Yeah, so that's the problem. Look, they'll think that Buttigieg is captivating because he is to them. But he wasn't last time. Like, I mean, he's so, like, oh my God, he's so Harvard educated, he's captivating, but that's not captivating to America. No, no, no, that's not captivating to America. Right.

But it's not just Pete Buttigieg. There has to be somebody who kind of breaks a mold who has. But that's the thing, Michael. I mean, now we're going too far. happen. I mean, those are- In the Democratic Party, the minute you have someone who breaks a mold, and of course, John's joking around about Bernie, right? No, no, I don't know that's actually I don't mean the- Oh, really? Okay, but the Democratic part- I don't, I didn't mean it in that way. I didn't, I didn't mean, that that was the wrong phraseology.

Because the Democratic Party hates people who break the mold. No, no, no, but what I'm saying, I'm talking about the personality mold. I'm talking about, um, that people like Bill Clinton, who come along once in a political generation, Barack Obama to an extent, Ronald Reagan to an extent, We are in a time where charisma is going to matter, and it's not just that you went to Harvard and you're smart and you can argue on Fox News and you did a good job at transportation and this is the mayor of town in Indiana. And I haven't formulated this completely, but I do know that there has to be something that the Democrats are going to have to learn is that people want to be captivated by the person. People were captivated by Bernie Sanders. And that's not, there isn't any captivating personality right now on either side, really. It's why Tucker Carlson scares me.

But there is, but there's time to make somebody captivating, too. That's just my take, too. I mean, there's not, there's no size. Yeah, I'll just say, I can't, we got to go. But last, super last thing. Look, this is the terrible example because it was so microscopic, no one really noticed. But like, but when I ran it for Congress in 2020, it's hard to argue I'm not capital. You could have a lot of opinions about me that are negative, right?

But certainly it's a, I'm a character, right? And the Democratic Party in unison despised it. They hate captivating. And they went with Chrissy Smith, who was the single most boring person in America. Nina Turner, captivating. They hate it, they hate it. Captivating has to come with other parts, and it is a longer conversation. But Barack Obama was captivating, and they set aside Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton for Barack Obama.

for Barack Obama, there is a level of captivation that is almost intangible. And it has nothing to do with the fact that you're captivating. You were also running in a district, I mean, we, again, too long conversation for now. But but I don't think it's the perfect analog to what I'm talking about. Yeah. I need to formulate what I mean a little. I think you get it, but I get it. You've got time.

Yeah. Yeah, I haven't. Well, the Democrats don't have a lot of time. They got to get somebody who's an actual populist who fights for people, that fight. And he can't be genteel like Obama, where he's a enormous. I'm talking on the campaign trail. You're right, two genteel. But, but, but, but, but he got too scared of being what he wanted to be.

But, but, but I do think that there has to be on the way there, that there has to be something more than that, more than that. Maybe ideally someone young, good on social media, telegenic, if only. Yeah, okay. But anyway, we got more news to come after this. Okay, back on TYTJ, Michael and John with you guys. All right, we were talking hockey in the break, so that's why it was of course uproarious. All right, John.

Yeah, I learned on this anniversary that I don't necessarily know the least about sports at this table. But anyway, I almost certainly do. Okay, with that say, let's talk about some other journalistic shots fired. Today, the Wall Street Journal published an interview that they conducted with technically Vice President J.D. Vance and it's attracted a lot of controversy. See, in this interview, they claim that J.D. Vance told them the United States could potentially put boots on the ground in Ukraine to help fight off Russia. Now, in response, Vance has said that he would never even suggest the possibility of such a thing and thus the journal has misrepresented his comments.

And thus they will probably be banned from the White House and maybe have their licenses revoked. But okay, so they're saying he said it. He's saying he would never even suggest it. Well, why don't we dive into the actual interview? Because we have the actual text of it. So first of all, here's the headline that sort of generated the controversy. Vance wields threat of sanctions, military action to push Putin into Ukraine deal. Which look, I'm super biased and I have Trump derangement syndrome, I feel like that gives Trump way too much credit. But he had a problem with it, J.D. Vance did. So here is the paragraph of that that Vance had an issue with. It says, and there's the Wall Street Journal, Vance said the option of sending

U.S. troops to Ukraine, if Moscow failed to negotiate in good faith, remained, quote, on the table, striking a far tougher tone than did Defense Secretary Pete Hegesith, who on Wednesday suggested the U.S. wouldn't commit forces. Okay, so there were multiple advisors to Vance, communications director that pushback and said that's inaccurate, he would never even suggest that again. So here's what it actually says. Question, it is there a sense as to what this is the stick for Putin? I mean, obviously any kind of deal would have to entail an implicit threat that you have to stick to this or else, or you have to even sign on the dotted line, are there any, Vance cuts in well, are there any instruments of pressure that you're thinking

of? And he said, I think certainly, look, there are instruments of pressure, absolutely. And again, if you look at President Trump's approach to this, he, the range of of options is extremely broad. And there are economic tools of leverage. There are, of course, military tools of leverage. There's a whole host of things that we could do. But fundamentally, I think the president wants to have a productive negotiation, both with Putin and with Zelensky. And I wanna thank the vice president for mentioning Zelensky. I know that that took some extra effort on his part in this. So anyway, they go back around and the question is, so just wanna make sure I understand you correctly, you're saying that even though the possibility of a NATO,

of a Ukraine-Nado ascension at the end of this process, or even the the presence of U.S. troops in Ukraine is not officially off the table. And Vance said, I think the president has been very clear that he doesn't like the idea of moving Ukraine into NATO. So he responded to one of the things in the question, he declined to respond to the other. They say, sure, he says, okay, he's been very clear question, there's no question about that. And he says, I also think the president is very clear that whenever he walks in a negotiation, everything is on the table, everything is on the table.

So again, he said it's inaccurate, I would never even suggest such a thing. He declined an opportunity to shoot it down and then reiterated, everything is on the table. So look, I think if the Wall Street Journal had said, he said we are gonna put boots and you can't put those words in his mouth, but he definitely didn't shoot it down. And in the extended interview, they go on to talk about Gaza and Trump's plan to conquer it and banish two million people from it or whatever. And there, Vance did specifically say, we're not gonna put Trump. troops on the ground there, which I don't believe, but it shows that he at least can make

that claim whether it's true or not, which he did for Gaza, but he did not do for Ukraine. So I personally think that, I don't know, I think he's protesting too much. Okay, I don't know if this is gonna surprise you guys, but I think that they should threaten boots on the ground. Now, do I want boots on the ground in Ukraine? Hell no, I'm 100% against it. That's nuts, right? But why threaten it? Because God, we need some sort of leverage. And Trump is crazy enough for not for Putin to think, yeah, he's really going to put boots on the ground, or he's going to get into a war with Russia. But it's Trump, maybe there's a five or 10% chance. That's not so bad. It creates a tiny bit of leverage, right? So Heggs have made a terrible

mistake by saying they're not getting into NATO and they have to concede the land, because then you've given away all of your leverage. So I don't mind Vance trying to claw back some leverage here. I would mind it greatly if they actually did it, right? But in the beginning, for negotiation purposes, I don't think it's that bad. But I do agree with you that he's full of crap denying it. It's clear. There it is, very clear quotes. Yeah, that all the options are there.

The other thing is, I mean, I wouldn't put it past Trump to somehow communicate to Putin that, look, we're not going to put troops on the ground, but I'm going to say we're going to put troops on the ground because it gives me public leverage and it makes people think that I'm being tougher because you know he's going to defer to Putin here. He already has, and they're already minimizing, as John alluded to, Zelensky's participation here. The other side of it is it just shows you how difficult it is to both be a secretary in Donald Trump's cabinet and especially his vice president. Because when there is no clear policy and there is no clear directive, and there is no

real plan for any of it, and you are asked, as the vice president was asked by the Wall Street Journal, to talk about what the policy could be, you don't know because it doesn't really exist. It's so fly by the seat of your pants. It becomes a very, you know, so you get one thing from Hagsethier, you get one thing from Vance, and Trump doesn't know what the hell he's doing. So I think there's that when you read this stuff, you understand why it is a frustrated. I don't pity these people, but it's a frustrating place to be when you, typically a vice president walks in lockstep with whatever the president is.

And they know because there's outlined policy. If the mistakes are made, there are mistakes that are made on timing or location or or chronology. But it has nothing to do with just being off the same page with each other. Well, I'll just say two quick things about that. One is that, but on the other hand, they're held to a lower standard because at this point, the expectations have shifted. So if Vance gets it wrong or says something that the president doesn't agree with, that's Tuesday.

No one cares anymore, right? Like in the old days. Yeah, no one cared when he, that's what I'm, I know what you're saying. Yeah, like when Biden said that he was in favor of legalizing gay marriage when he was the vice president. It was a huge deal because the vice president was getting out ahead of the president, right? Now, that's Tuesday, they can't, Vance said this, Trump said this, Van said this Trump said this, Hexon said the other thing, nobody knows what the hell is going on. So hence, they're not blaming Vance too much, and I get that.

I think that's pretty fair, because the main problem is Trump. And Trump's policy positions are kind of like physics. In physics, you realize that things are always in motion, they're not stationary, it's a wave, right? And it's never in one place at the same time when you get down at the molecular level, right, at topic level. And that's how Trump's policy positions are. They don't exist. When you look under the microscope, it's a wave, right? It's here, it's there, it's there, it's there, it's here, it's there.

It looks like it's stationary. It's not because he has no idea what he's doing. And he's going to make the decision at the last second based on whatever happened earlier and whoever was last in the room. Wow, I don't know what's happened. Now at the table, I'm the jock and you're making analogies to waves and particles and physics, nerd. But I do like it. It is true. And also now I know what you've felt like for so many years. I still kind of do. Also, I think that we should go a little bit easy on Hegsseth. Like we don't know for sure if he's echoing what he thinks he heard Trump say in a conversation,

or if it's Hegss's own position, or if it's the gin talking. We can't say for sure what any particular comment has as its origin. Governor Hokel said last night with Rachel Maddow that she would consider removing you. How would you feel about that? She has her role, I have my role. And throughout this entire ordeal, which I think no Americans should have to go through, the torment of 15 months that my family and I had to endure for something I didn't do. I didn't do anything wrong. Throughout the entire ordeal, I said one thing.

My attorney will handle the legal part. I'm going to handle running the city. Okay, that is Eric Adams. He has his role, and that's really what I'm worried about, what his new role might be if he continues as mayor. And Hockel has talked about the possibility. I know Representative Alexandria Ocaso-Cortez is calling for him to either step down or be removed. And this might come as a bit of a shock to you if you haven't been following some of the developments throughout this week when it comes to Eric Adams.

We want to run you through some of the new developments because this is really worrying stuff. So yesterday, the top federal prosecutor in New York, along with a number of other prosecutors, resigned. They left their jobs because they refused to follow a Justice Department order to drop the corruption charges, the result of this ongoing investigation into New York mayor, Eric Adams. And so they resigned after, I believe it's pronounced Emil Bove. I'm not 100% sure about that. The acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General, it's usually easier when it's one of Trump's

appointees that was a host on Fox than I know how it's pronounced. Anyway, issued a memo ordering federal prosecutors to drop the case against Adams, arguing in part that it hampered his ability to tackle, quote, illegal immigration and violent crime. And the memo was very clear that he was not calling for the Trump. charges to be dropped because the evidence wasn't strong. He was calling for the charges to be dropped because it was politically advantageous to Donald Trump and his agenda, which I'm not a lawyer, I've never worked in the DOJ,

I don't think is how things are supposed to work typically. And clearly these prosecutors don't think it should either. And so Daniel Sassoon, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned. She said that she'd attended a meeting back on January 31st with Boev, Adam's attorney, Alex Spiro and members of her office, and apparently Sassoon said in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Mr. Bov admonished a member of my team who took notes during

that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. This is not, you know, Elon Musk's son doodling notes during a meeting, this is the, this is the prosecutor. And they're saying, no, no, no, no, we don't want this getting out. That what is effectively a very clear quid pro quo is being negotiated there. Sassoon said she couldn't agree, quote, to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations. She said that her office had been preparing to file additional charges, indicating that they thought the evidence was compelling to not only pursue the charges they already had, but to get new ones as well, that's based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed

others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI. Sassoon informed Bov of a resignation. He then sent like an eight page rant attacking her for not cooperating. He called it insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in your approach. Your office's insubordination is little more than a preference to avoid a duty that you regard as unpleasant and politically inconvenient because see, she's doing things based on politics, not the guy who's saying the charges should be dismissed because Eric Adams will help with their immigration efforts. And by the way, he's implying and soon Trump will take to true

social to say that she's a big lib, a Harris supporter. She's a registered Republican. She's a member of the Federalist Society. She clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia of all people. But she thought that what they were advocating for was wrong. And so the situation that that that leaves us in is, right now the charges have been dismissed. He didn't get a pardon, the charges are just gone, but they could come back. And in fact, in the memo, it laid out sort of a timeline for them to potentially be brought back that extends past the New York mayoral race. And so if you're Eric Adams, you know that one of the most vengeful and vindictive people

ever in American politics now has hanging over your head charges that can be dropped at a moment's notice if he doesn't like an action you take or don't take a thing that you say or don't say. And so in that case, how can he continue as the mayor of New York knowing that he's been as effectively compromised as one can imagine with a threat of not only his career being ended, but potentially a prison sentence? Yeah. So this is as important a story as it gets because it gets to checks and balances and is a system going to hold. And I don't mean the corrupt system of money in politics and all the things that we hate. I mean the system as in the Constitution, democracy, and our former government.

So, and that's not at all hyperbole because you're seeing conservative lawyers here at working in the Department of Justice. And if, look, let me give you two pieces of context that's important. It doesn't get any more conservative than the federal society, they're the folks who helped pick the six incredibly conservative justice on the Supreme Court. And obviously, Anthony Scalia is arguably the most conservative justice, and she worked for him. And so, and there's another guy we're gonna get to with a dead. devastating quote absolutely devastating also deeply deeply right wing okay and let me just do a shout

out here to principled conservatives who are now helping to hold down the fort on the system and saying not on our watch no this is unconstitutional this is wrong this is un-American we're not going to do it and if you're conservative especially legally you should be incredibly proud of them like I was worried that they never meant any of it I was worried that they never meant any of it I was worried They wouldn't mind if we live under corporate rule, we live under authoritarian rule. That's what the right wing seemed to be going, especially legally. But here's a bunch of conservatives going, no, this is not, that's not how the Justice Department works.

It's not, you don't trade political favors as third world crap, okay? You prosecute based on evidence, and if you have evidence, you prosecute no matter what, if you don't have it, you don't prosecute. So thank you to Sassoon and the others, and again, I'm gonna give you, John's gonna I'll give you in a second, an amazing quote from the next guy. Southern district context, Southern district is arguably the most important district out of all of the different districts within Department of Justice in prosecutions. It's the most prestigious, and it's also known as the sovereign district.

Which means they're so important and powerful within the justice system that they often act on their own. And political influence there is even more frowned upon, right? not mess with the sovereignty of the Southern District of New York, okay? Now, so, and again, these are not 1% liberal, okay? These are good American conservatives saying this is not how our system works and it's not acceptable. So what does Trump do in response and then do conservative state principled or do they just go, ah, forget it, let's just do this, prosecute people or don't prosecute people based

on political favors? So that will determine whether the system sinks. or it survives. So great beginning so far and holding down the fort. Let's hope that they stay strong. Because remember, we're not in charge. Progressives are not in charge. Democrats are not in charge.

These guys are. So there's going to be a check in balance. It's got to be them. And so on day one, good start on that end. Terrible start from the Trump administration. Eric Adams should be prosecuted. Remember, he's a Democrat, right? And remember it was Turks who bribed him apparently, right?

And so who cares? Who cares what party? Who cares which country did it? Did he do it or didn't he? And if the prosecutors he think he did, then you prosecute him and then leave it to a jury, Michael. And I was that a former police officer who ran on law and order is Eric Adams. And, you know, this is going to be, it's the kind of case that is a political story now and a legal story. But it's going to be a political New York story for a while too, because it's going to, you know, I think a reparably harm. The mayor, and already there's talk of Mayor Adams running as a Republican, changing parties. He says he's a Democrat. He's not going to do that. Emil Bove, you should also note, is a former, he represented Donald Trump before he made it to the Justice Department just in the past few years. He's been a lawyer that Trump has liked and retained him and sent him to

the Justice Department. He represented him on the classified documents case, on the obstruction case on the falsification of business records case. So these people are all, it's the cronyism that's going on and the mayor is preying off of that cronyism. So this is going to turn into a political story for New York, and it's going to be an interesting one. I haven't followed politics as long as you guys. Presidents generally bring in all of their personal lawyers and fill the DOJ with them, right? That's how that's supposed to work. Yeah, always. No, oh, sorry, I'm thinking. I've been watching old movies and I recently watched Godfather and Godfather too recently. That's what I was thinking. That's where it happens.

That sort of thing. Only the best people, John. They only bring the best people. Exactly. And by the way, he goes on that interview. We're gonna break it a second, but he goes on that interview. He's sitting next to Eric Adams, Tom Holman, and he sort of does a veil of threat against him. Tom Holman, in an interview with Laura Ingram, issued a veiled threat against AOC, that she might be investigated because she's been advising people on their rights when it comes to ICE.

These judges that have issued injunctions against the Trump administration, lots of Republicans have been saying they need to be investigated, may be impeached, may be charged. Trump implied an interview that they might have. committed some sort of crime. And so, you know, the side that was talking about like the weaponization of the justice system for years sure seems quick to jump to using that particular weapon as soon as they can. Yeah, last two things, one, because I promise, if you're in the right wing, if, and you think, well, yeah, you guys did it first, it's not really how principles work, right?

So if the, the Republicans ignore the courts first, I would never tell you ignore the courts to strike back. Don't do that. That's crazy. If you believe in America, then you support and defend our principles in our system. Okay, now the quote that I promised you, because it's a doozy, Hagan Scott and assistant U.S. attorney to the Southern District, they, after Sassoon resigns, they go, okay, now you sign the order. And he goes, hell no. Okay, another very, very conservative lawyer. And he said, if no lawyer with an earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, and then I expect you will eventually find someone. who's enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me. That's a good quote. That is an American right there. Nice job. Thank you to my conservative brothers and sisters standing up for the Constitution. Good name too, Hagen, Scott.

That is a strong. Yeah, but and we know Trump, if he has any focus whatsoever right now, it's getting every Hagan-Scotten out of government as fast as possible. Of course. He does not want a single person to provide a roadblock, but thankfully there are still a few people. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, one more story after this. and Joseph Reist, who are American heroes, who hit the join button below on YouTube. Excuse me, and Kelly 805, thank you for becoming a member through t.t.com. By the way, if you go that way, annual subscription gives you two months off.

So go to t.t.com slash join if you'd like. John. Okay, let's do one more topic with the time we have remaining. Yesterday, the Trump administration ended its deferred resignation offer that had gone out to the two million federal government employees. And so that was done, and in its place came the mass firings, which have now begun. So initially, these were targeted at what are considered probationary employees. These are people who've been hired within the last one to two years, depending on which agency you're talking about, and therefore have fewer protections to stop the president from firing them, you know, for whatever reason he wants. And among the agencies experiencing layoffs were the Department of Education,

the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of Personnel Management, the EPA, the EPA, the General Services Administration, and the small business administration. And so to give you an idea of how you go about potentially firing countless thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, at OPM, workers joined a call, and they were greeted with a pre-recorded message from the acting director notifying them of the firing, according to someone familiar with the call, about 200 workers were on the call. So it wasn't even one of those things that goes viral where like a CEO tells 200 people on Zoom they're fired. He wasn't even there.

He just recorded a video, like an audio message to them, and then they were gone. But he did end it nicely. He expressed hope that those fired would quote, use this as an opportunity for your next step forward. That's nice as you're fired. Anyway, so that's all those agencies. It got a little bit more interesting and fun later on in the day, a little bit more recently. They apparently also fired between 1,200 and 2,000 employees at the Department of Energy, but appeared to partly backtrack amid safety concerns.

Now you might wonder, wait, why would it be particularly damaging to get rid of people in the Department of Energy? Well, Rick Scott's gonna wanna pay attention to this one, that's because, it's a throwback, nobody's gonna get that. One source revealed that approximately 325 employees have been dismissed from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the US nuclear weapons fleet, and works to secure radiological materials worldwide. However, another source said those layoffs had been partly rescinded, mainly for essential

nuclear security workers. So I feel much better. They fired hundreds of people that secure nukes, and then after that they realized, oh, that might not be a great idea, actually, and they reversed some of it. But still, we don't know how many are remaining of those 325, and definitely a couple thousand people were fired overall. And remember, they don't just secure nuclear power plants in general are important sites, targets potentially for terror attacks and those sorts of things. But again, everybody must go. It's like the caddy shack, right? When they tell Bill Murray to kill the

guy with the Scottish acts and kill all the gophers. And he said, well, if you kill all the golfers, then no one's going to be here on the course. He said, no, gofers, gofers, kill the go for it's just like, it's like, oh, the security, nuclear security, oh, wait, but then it's going to do the nuclear security. Yeah, so look, this isn't just wrong. It's painfully dumb. And so like, again, go on some right week shows, interact with social media, and a comment you hear all the time is, well, it's okay, because Elon Musk is so smart. To which I would ask, is he? Like, I get it. He's super rich. And I get it. Some of his companies, by the way, They're terrific, like SpaceX is amazing, Starlink is a wonder, you know, like I wonder how he did it because he doesn't seem rational at all.

And remember, he bought a lot of these companies and he doesn't necessarily run these companies. He's running the government now. He's not running these companies at all. So he's a mystery to me as to how he, you know, functions in this world and how he got to where he is. And he's mainly a marketing guy, kind of like Trump. But what is not smart is, let's just fire everybody, the Department of Energy, even though they work with nukes. And then see how it turns out? That is super stupid.

Like, because guys, let's say I'm a right winger and I want to do this right. I wouldn't come in with a hatchet for two reasons. Number one, you're gonna fire the wrong people and it's gonna be a disaster. And not just for the country, but also for you. Because then people are gonna think, wait, who's guarding the nukes? You morons, right? And remember, everyone who voted for Trump is not MAGA. He won a lot of independence.

And independents are not MAGA, they're up in the air, they voted for Obama, they voted for Biden, they voted for Trump. And they're like, you fired the guys who are in charge of the nukes, you idiots, right? So it doesn't help anyone. So I would say scalpel rather than a hatchet. I know MAGA would say scalpel's not enough. Okay, so let's go with an old school analogy for my people. A dagger rather than a scimitar, okay? So with a cemetery, you're chopping up to it.

Dagger's a little bit better than the thing. And you should remember, I'm telling you guys, if you're right wing, and I don't want this, I don't want any of this. But if you're right wing and you go, oh, who cares? Just chop, chop, chop, and then we'll see where the nukes are later. You're screwing up, that's not the way to accomplish your goal, right? So now, as to why they're doing this, don't lose track. They're talking about cuts, cuts, cuts, and I, again, I interact with Mago all the time.

They love the cuts. And they didn't cut all of USAID, totally disagree with them on that. We fight about it, blah, blah, right? But they love the cuts because they think they're saving money. Remember, you're not gonna save a dime. All of this is gonna go towards the corporate tax cuts. And it's not gonna be anywhere near enough. Yeah.

The corporate tax cuts are gonna be about $4 trillion. So hey, we saved a couple of million dollars by firing the guys who are looking over the nukes. What difference does it make? Four, not billion, trillion is gonna go to the corporate tax cuts. This is all in service of that. I'm so curious what's going to happen. I think with independence is going to be clear. They're going to be like, what?

All this was so the rich could get even richer, right? But with MAGA, I am curious if they're going to get to that conclusion or if they're going to be like, no, if the richer even richer, it'll trickle down. Wait, I thought we were opposed to that. Okay, so let's see, let's see how it goes. And like I said, the last thing is, once you're going to be, Once you lose the independence, you lose elections. Yeah.

So this is a super dumb way to go about it. Michael. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing left on set, right? Once you lose them, you lose everything. And if you had them to begin with, and this just wasn't an election where people were not enthused on the Democratic side and didn't come out and vote, because we know that happened.

If you had them at all, you're definitely losing them. And if you didn't have them, you're not going to get them back. So it works both ways. And don't forget. It's not like the Democrats never do cuts. I know like the popular mythology that never happens, et cetera. And I understand why that's a line of thinking exists. And I bet I could trim some fat from the federal government and from the federal government

workforce too. But I would go with a scalpel and did Democrats ever do that before? Yes, Al Gore did it. And Al Gore actually did cut from the budget a lot. And guess what they did at the end of it? They actually balanced the budget. Like people forget that that happened. It happened under Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and so there is a right way to do this.

And when he did that, by the way, almost no one complained because the right wing liked the cuts, the Democrats did the cuts, and the cuts were smart, it actually did target waste, fraud and abuse, and no one objected, that's the right way. Deliberate and thought out. And it took more than months, I mean, I feel like it took a couple of years even. I mean, I think it was it, it may be wrong, but I thought I read about a six month initial study, but you might be right in the long term. The study, but the enacting of it. You don't just go in and you do what just happened. Again, I like to say you don't, you don't use a scimitar. Yeah, that's, I mean, everybody in my D&D group uses that exact

analogy on a daily basis, nerd. But anyway, I mean, I do guys, look, even if you're super right wing, at a bare minimum, don't you have to check who you're firing? Yeah. That's just the smallest amount of common sense, the lowest bar, and they couldn't clear that bar, Hey, shouldn't we check? Maybe we're firing someone important. You use a magic missile, not a fireball, obviously. Roll them dice. My final quick point I want to make. So the pattern that we know exists when you have a Democratic administration

that a Republican, Democrat, Republican is the Republicans come in, they hand trillions of dollars to the wealthy, they wreck the economy, and then the Democrats have to try desperately to dig us out of that. And they do the best job they can, but inevitably it hurts, and so people get frustrated. And so economically, the Democrats always get screwed by the prior Republicans. administration. So that was economically. Now we have a new thing where you're not just going to inherit a bad economy, you're going to inherit no government. The whole agencies

will be shut down. Entire cabinet departments will be gone. The workforce, all the institutional knowledge, hundreds of thousands of employees will be gone. So how do you even dig out at that point? You come in and you have a skeleton crew remaining and you have, sure, millions of Americans that are like, I want a skeleton crew because they're all bad, they're all libs in there. But no, a lot of them are conservatives. A lot of them have worked there for literally decades under multiple different parties. And they've accrued knowledge and they know how to make things work. And so like I know that this isn't a violate, well, in some cases it's a violation of a law.

That's pretty clear. Mostly it's a norm that yeah, you get in, you get to pursue your policies, but you don't get to ignore the laws that already passed. And you don't get to erase the government so that if you lose next time, there's nothing remaining for the other party to inherit. Yeah, and that's especially true. they cut the aid, a lot of those organizations go under and you can't bring them back. 100%. And so by the way, that's also a lot of lost jobs on top of everything else. It really crushes the unemployment numbers, yeah. Yeah. All right, thank you, Michael. And John, of course, everybody checking out damage

report every single day. That's at 1 o'clock Eastern. You could watch it on t.com where you get our 24 hour channel anytime you want. You could watch it on YouTube. And in the next hour, John Stewart versus Jen Saki. I love that. I love, John Stewart, run for president, please. I'm begging you. So we'll talk more about that later. And then right wing on right wing crime where Milo and Tim Poole get into a fight over Dave Rubin. Fascinating. All right, stay right here.