The Young Turks - Remembering Elijah Cummings

Episode Date: October 18, 2019

Today we pay tribute to the life of Rep. Elijah Cummings. Cenk Uygur, David Dayen, and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, welcome to the Young Turks. on a mega, mega day. This thing's almost over. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. No, no, look, we're gonna ask you guys in a poll, but this thing's, we're on the last legs here. Okay, so Jake Ugar, Anna Kisbury, David Dan joins us. Hey, David, great to have you here.

Mark Thompson will join us in the second hour, but I want to tell you real quick, David's not only the executive editor of American Prospect, but him and our own Ryan Grimm worked on a piece that I love. Joe Biden's mysterious claim he whipped votes for the CFPB. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I love it because that's the question that I had right after the debate. I'm like, wait, did he? Right? So I love that you guys thought of the same question and then actually answered it.

And the answer is? Not really. I mean, we talked to about a dozen people who were closely involved in the process. Nobody remembers him talking to anyone, being involved in meetings, having staff involved in meetings. The closest we got was Harry Reid, who we actually talked to, who said, oh yeah, he helped with stuff from time to time. I don't know who he talked to, but I think he helped. That was about the closest we got the confirmation that he did anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally made up. Okay, that's my commentary conclusion. All right, look, guys, emolumous clause on steroids today. So I've never seen corruption at this level, and I talk about corruption every day. They admit a second crime, Mick Mulvaney says there was quid pro quo, unbelievable, unbelievable. There's a huge blowup between Pelosi and Trump. Every part of this show is unbelievable. But first, we start with a really sad passing of arguably a political legend in this country.

So Anna. Yes, all right. Baltimore congressman and civil rights leader Elijah Cummings passed away at the young age of 68. There wasn't too much detail given in terms of why he passed. But according to multiple reports, the cause was complications concerning longstanding health challenges. He also fairly recently had heart surgery, and there are some reports indicating that the complications from that heart surgery led to his early passing.

Now, he was an incredible lawmaker, he was a fighter, and just to remind you of what type of person he was, I want to go to his very first floor speech when he was elected into the house. This was the day that he was sworn in in 1996. And there's a poem that Perrin Mitchell said many, many years ago that I say sometimes 20 times a day, and it's a very simple poem, but it's one that I live by. It says, I only have a minute, 60 seconds in it. Forced upon me, I did not choose it, but I know that I must use it, give a count if I abuse it, suffer if I lose it, only a tiny little minute. but eternity is in it. And so I join you as we move forward to uplift not only the nation, but the world.

May God bless you all, and may God bless America. Yeah, it was a powerful speech as he entered Congress. Some of the same players are still there, by the way, just standing a lawyer. I was greeting him. And he was eloquent in defense of his own causes, but also sometimes in defense of his Republican colleagues too. So open-minded guy and Anna's got more details on his life. And then of course I want to touch on the latter years with Trump in a second.

So let's go to the early years of his life. When he was 11 years old, he was attacked by a white mob as he was attempting to integrate a pool. And he had scars to prove it. He had a scar above his eyebrow and he actually pointed to that scar and referred to it when Donald Trump fairly recently decided to attack him. And I don't want this to turn into a story about Trump. This is about a man who was a great member of Congress who did wonderful things and really

did fight for justice. Now let me give you more details on his career. In 1996, he won the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cummings eventually served as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. and as ranking Democrat and the chairman of what became of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. I also want to note that he had a history, yes, of defending, possibly fighting for the other side when it made sense. But he was also pretty strong when it came to fighting that side when it also made sense. And this is a great video montage kind of demonstrating that.

Let's take a look. When we're dancing with the angels, the question will be asked. In 2019, what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact? Did we stand on the sidelines and say nothing? People say, oh, you're just messing with the president because you don't like, it's not about not liking the president. It's about loving democracy. It's about loving our country.

It's about making a difference for generation. yet unborn. That's what this is all about. And I'm begging, I'm begging the American people to pay attention to what is going on. Because if you want to have a democracy intact for your children and your children's children and generations yet unborn, we have got to guard this moment. This is our watch. The United States of America, we will not intentionally separate children from their parents. We are better than that. We are so much better. There are efforts to stop people from voting. That's not right. This is not Russia. What country is that? I've often said

that our children are the living messages we send to a future we will never see. But now our children are sending us to a future, they will never see. There's something wrong with that picture. Last clip of him was at Freddie Gray's funeral, and it was a powerful moving speech. And he was willing to put himself in vulnerable positions to fight for the right causes. And one other example of that was the fact that he was one of the few lawmakers who was willing to speak out against the war in Iraq. So according to the Washington Post, Cummings was among the minority of House members and senators who voted in 2002 against authorizing a military invasion of Iraq.

Cummings said there was not sufficient evidence of weapons of mass destruction to, quote, send our young people off to war and thereby place their lives in harm's way, an opinion supported, as we all know, by subsequent investigations. Okay. So I want to go back to when he was 11 years old. A woman comes and tells them, hey, you know, they're in a tiny little pool in Baltimore with the other African American kids and says, you know, there's a bigger pool in other side of the town, and you guys can use it legally. You have every right to use it. Now, they're little kids, they decide they're going to do it anyway, and people are irate, and they say, you know, white people have rights too.

We should have the right to be free of the germs of black people. And he jumps in the pool anyway. And eventually the cops in that case came and actually tried to protect the young African-American boys from the angry white mob. But the mob started throwing things out of him anyway, bottles and rocks. And one of them hit Cummings in the head, and that's where he got his scar. But he came back the next day and they came back until they segregated the pool. Later he found out that that woman who had told him about it was a great civil rights

attorney for the NAACP, and that's partly what motivated Cummings to become an attorney. So it's a powerful story, and I think him and John Lewis have done amazing things outside of Congress, and we all owe them a debt of gratitude for the work that they have done in that respect as well. So look, you know me, I'm not overly fond of democratic leadership, but there were people inside of leadership who are pushing the right direction. So sometimes he would look for cordial interaction in Congress. So he brought Rashida Talib and Mark Meadows, who's a very deep right winger together in the

middle of a committee hearing, and he got them to, you know, cool off. And then the next day they hugged, and that was great as well. But he was pushing, as you could see in those clips, pushing and pushing to get to justice and the right situation with Donald Trump. The thing that strikes me is that, so he was, eventually became chair of the House Oversight Committee, and that committee has kind of two functions. So one is oversight of the executive branch. And we saw a lot of clips there which were about oversight of the executive branch.

The other part of it is oversight of kind of everything else, like corporate America, all kinds of investigations like that. He was a leader on drug prices. He subpoenaed all the top pharmaceutical companies. They had very powerful hearings in the Oversight Committee on that. He recently led a hearing that led to a defense contractor giving back $16 million in overcharges when they gouged the federal government. He was a leader on foreclosure issues and issues of housing discrimination.

So his fights were not just fights within the branches of government. His fights were really with when corporations were screwing people in in America and he always had his head on straight with those and he was always, you know, worked with Bernie Sanders, with Elizabeth Warren, like countless times. I can't tell you how many, you know, things I would get from him about some bill or another that he was working on with them. So it is a great loss. And then he was also the leader of the Congressional Black Caucus for a while.

And now I want to just get fully back into Trump for one quick second. So Trump attacked him after he was doing oversight, which is his job as the head of that committee. And Trump said that Baltimore was a rat-infested, disgusting place. And in reality, John Lewis's district is half in the suburbs. Of course, Trump didn't bother to check his district. Yes, some of it is in Baltimore. No, Baltimore is not disgusting rat-infested place. And obviously, Trump is saying that based on race.

And so, but he partly called him out on that. But he actually was very mild-mannered on that. But he actually rose to the defense of the four Justice Democratic women when Trump said that they should go back to where they came from. That is when he actually called Donald Trump a racist. And he said, look, when I was a kid growing up, I heard that all the time, go back to where you came from. And there's no ambiguity about what that means.

And so of course, that enraged Trump even more. But I love what he said in one of those clips when he was talking about how we have to hold the government accountable and fight for democracy. That's what this is about. He's 100% right. It isn't about Republicans and Democrats, I know that everybody views it that way, but it's really about a guy who doesn't understand or respect the former government that we have. He doesn't really believe in democracy.

And Cummings saw that, and he's not a guy who's naturally aggressive. He was a guy who was naturally measured. But when the time came, he said, as you saw there, this is our watch. And I think that that is as good a phrase as you could have for this moment. And now he hands off that watch to the other Democrats. And I hope to God that they could live up to the charge that he left them. And I do want to just quickly juxtapose the kind of person Donald Trump is with someone who actually helped Elijah Cummings in his life.

when he was younger, and this was, it just was really touching for me and I really wanted to share it. It's the last graphic in the story. So this was reported by the Washington Post. The proprietor of a Baltimore drug store where Cummings worked paid his application fee to Howard University, and during Mr. Cummings' time as a Howard student regularly sent him $10 with a note that read, hang in there. I just love that.

Absolutely. Sometimes you do something that you don't know how important it is. But, you know, you throw a rock in a pond, and it creates ripples. And so that pharmacy owner, I don't know who he is, I don't know where he came from. But he helped a young man who wound up helping the country. So thank you to him today as well. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to give you an update on what's happening with Syria,

including the press conference featuring Vice President Mike Pence and Mike Palmer. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic. or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

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And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on the Young Turks. A lot of people noting what happened on damage report today. I'm gonna go to the comments section here for our members.

Nicky's making dinner, writes in, John had me in tears over the damage report today. He did such a wonderful job paying homage to Cummings. And Tad wrote in, I'm a fairly new member and I try to watch the damage report every day because I love it. report every day because I love John's sense of humor. But watching him talk about Congressman Cummings today with such seriousness and passion hit me hard. Thanks for making a grown man cry, John, TYT rules. So it's amazing and thank you guys for watching that.

Why, and saying that, why Fleming says, did Bernie play any part in CFPB? It sounds like the kind of thing he would support. No, don't do that. So Bernie was supportive of it, but that was Elizabeth Warren. No question. I mean, in fact, it's a minor miracle that she got it established when the Republicans hated it and the Obama administration didn't want it, and at the time she wasn't a senator. I still don't know how she did it.

So now, look, in a normal situation, they agree with each other 98% of the time, you know, Bernie's supportive, give him credit, but she's running against them. Don't take credit from her to give to Bernie on that one, okay? The relevant point is that Bernie wasn't on the relevant committee, he's not on the banking committee, he obviously voted for Dodd-Frank and supported everything in it, but, you know, he played the same role that any other of the hundred senators out there who played on it. Yeah, look, Biden's trying to take credit for it in a preposterous way, and David wrote about that at American Prospect, but, you know, and Bernie didn't try to take credit.

I know where you're coming from, you got a good, he totally agrees with it, right? But Warren gets credit on that, indisputably. Jack Barnett 77 says, currently on vacation in Paris. It's midnight here, but couldn't miss the live show. Also, rest in peace, Elijah Cummings, you will be genuinely missed. I like this new thing that people are doing, rest in power. So I know this morning, I like that a lot. And Eddie O'Donnell says power panels on so many days this week.

How do we get so lucky? So I guess they're happy to have you on, David. I think that's more about you. So, and then last one, the math magician says, I love when Cummings stood up to that scumbagd, Daryl Issa, after he cut off Cummings might get one of the Benghazi hearings. In fact, when Darryl coming, when, so sorry about that, when Elijah Cummings went to quiet down the crowd and some protests that are broken out that were starting to get violent in Baltimore after Gray's death, he had a bullhorn with him. And that bullhorn said the gentleman will not yield. And that was in reference to Issa shutting off his mic.

So, look, there's so many great things about Elijah. I wrote on Twitter today that the day Trump goes down, I'd like to say Elijah sends his regards. So we'll see. All right, just a quick note about one of our partners. As you know, we have partnered up with NordVPN. They offer a wonderful VPN service to protect your online activity. And it's your lucky day. You get a giant discount just because you watch this show.

All you need to do is go to NordvPn.com slash TYT. And you get 70% off for three years and your first month free. All right, let's move on to Syria. Lots going on there. Thanks to the strong leadership of President Donald Trump and the strong relationship between President Erdogan and Turkey and the United States of America. That today the United States and Turkey have agreed to a ceasefire in Syria. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, have met with officials in Turkey,

and they have alleged that Turkey has agreed to a ceasefire. Now, the ceasefire would take place for about 120 hours, which would allow for the Kurdish individuals in that area to leave with the help of the United States to create a safe zone. So Kurdish fighters now have 120 hours to leave, a safe zone reaching about 20 miles south of. Turkey's border with Syria, but who cares about the details I'm giving you? Let's hear from Pence. Let's hear the details that he wants to give us. One week ago, Turkish forces crossed into Syria. Earlier this week, President Trump took decisive action to call on Turkish forces to stand down,

to end the violence, to agree to negotiations. And today, I'm proud to report thanks to the strong leadership of President Donald Trump. Today, the United States and Turkey have agreed to a ceasefire in Syria. The Turkish side will pause Operation Peace Spring in order to allow for the withdrawal of YPG forces from the safe zone for 120 hours. All military operations under Operation Peace Spring will be paused, and Operation Peace Spring will be halted entirely on completion of the withdrawal. Let me say this also includes an agreement by Turkey to engage in no military action against

the community of Kobani. So based on what was said during this press conference, there are many questions that remain unanswered. For instance, who will guard the ISIS prisoners? As we all know, those Kurdish fighters were guarding the ISIS fighters who were imprisoned near the Turkish border. And so what's going to happen if they're going to now leave that area? Also, what does this mean for the U.S. troops?

They're around 1,000 U.S. troops that were in northern Syria. Trump said that he wanted them out. How many of them had already left? Are they going to remain there? Are they gonna go back there? What's gonna happen to the troops? Also, what's gonna happen when it comes to the more than 200 civilians who have already been killed as a result of Donald Trump's abrupt decision to pull U.S. troops out of that area?

So again, many questions remain unanswered, and there is speculation that Erdogan isn't actually gonna follow through with that ceasefire. Let's see how that plays out, but this is what we have so far. And plus, a very important fact, the Turkish foreign minister, Mayev Lu Chobu Sholo said it is not a ceasefire. Yeah, I just- That would seem to be fairly important because we're declaring, don't worry, we've got a ceasefire. And the Turks come on and go, nope, no, we don't.

You see, the people who would cease the fire is the Turks. And if they're saying they're not going to do a ceasefire, then what kind of a ceasefire is it? Pretty much isn't one. Yeah, it appears that it's not. I mean, everybody's reporting it as a ceasefire just because Penn said it. I don't know if you guys know this. The Trump administration does not have a good history with truth. So.

It gets, sorry to interrupt you, Jank, but this is a perfect moment to show you what Trump is saying. Because now Trump is taking credit for world peace. He believes he needs a Nobel Peace Prize. Let's take a look. Everybody's tried to make this deal for 15 years. They could never do it. It was only when it started. People started seeing how nasty it was going to be.

It was going to be very nasty. Not only sanctions and tariffs, the war itself would have been very nasty. Everybody agreed to things that three days ago they would have never agreed to. That includes the Kurds. The Kurds are now much more inclined to do what has to be done. This is a situation where everybody is happy. And I'm happy because there's no fighting. We can bring certainly most of our people back home for the first time in many years.

I think it had to be an unconventional solution. Because the conventional solution is to sit down, negotiate, and they've done that for 15 years, actually, more than that, I understand. And that was never going to work. But all of a sudden, when they saw and how nasty it was and how rough it would get, it would get a hundred times worse than what was happening. But when they saw the level of nastiness, they said, let's make a deal. Everybody together, let's make a deal. So, look, there's a lot to dive into there. But I just want to note that the US troops that were sent there weren't sent there in the beginning

of the Civil War with Syria. They were sent there by the Trump administration in 2018 specifically to prevent the escalation of violence between the Kurds and the Turks that we're seeing today, right? 2018 when Trump was president. So he just said the Kurds are now inclined to do what needs to be done. Okay, so who actually sent the Kurds there? It wasn't Donald Trump, he obviously has no idea what's going on. in Syria?

We've got reporting at different times that he said the PKK, the Kurdish terrorist group inside Turkey is communist, that part is true, and that ISIS is communist. That part is what, okay? And so, look, when you look at that, he says they had fighting here for 15 years and nobody could solve it but me. What 15 year timeframe are you talking about? If you're talking about Kurds and Turks, it's way longer than 15 years, if you're talking about the Syrian Civil War, the Civil War is shorter than 15 years.

I don't know, nobody knows what he's talking about, because he doesn't know what he's talking about. And so when he talks about how the Kurds, this is the most important part. He's like, oh, good, we got a peace seal, now the Kurds are withdrawn and they're participating. But it's, you have to remember, it's Kurdish territory in northern Syria. So they're withdrawing from their own territory, that's because they're about to get And so, and they partly already, that invasion began, they already lost a lot of people. And so he's saying everybody's happy.

No, the Kurds are not remotely happy. No, they are seating ground to the Turkish military. The Turks are having because they just won a war without having a fire another shot, right? They acquired territory. This is what this deal is, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, David's exactly right.

So Erdogan got everything he wanted. He said, okay, look, I want this northern part of Syria, and he told Trump, get your troops out of there. And Trump was like, oh, okay. And in return, he said, I'll guard the ISIS captives. Now, is Turkey guarding the ISIS captives? Of course not, because they're still in Kurdish territory in the part that remains, and the Kurds have them.

The Kurds are not going to hand it over to Turks who they probably hate more than ISIS. So they're not going to do that deal. We got nothing out of the deal. Meanwhile, Turkey walks in, you know, does basically an encourage invasion, whatever you want to call it, bunch of civilians die, and then they're rewarded with that territory because the Kurds go, well, I, if I don't have America backing me up, I'm going to get steamrolled. Turkey has a gigantic army.

This is not ISIS we're talking about, they're going to roll in tanks and jets, and we're going to get pulverized. And my understanding is that as a result of this deal, Trump reversed the sanctions that he was going to put on Turkey today. And there was a report that the U.S. bombed their own base in the area to keep it out of Turkish hands. So that's another thing that we've done to just sort of put a capper on this, this waste of both, you know, equipment and treasure and also senseless loss of life.

So I want to clarify a little bit on the sanctions because, Trump had implemented incredibly weak sanctions that Erdogan laughed at. Those sanctions, the Trump administration says, will remain in place to ensure that the ceasefire lasts the full 120 hours. But Trump also said the much stronger sanctions, I will not implement if they follow through and don't escalate the violence more in the future. Yeah, by the way, what happens after the 120 hours? Could Turkey just keep on rolling and like, well, we got a whole bunch of land?

Maybe we get more land. Well, there is no ceasefire, right? So, you know, it's the same thing after the 120 as it is before. But yeah, I mean, what's to stop them? They've, you know, Trump put down a fake red line and they went over it. And then he said, okay, now the 120 hours from now is the real red line. So why would they go over it again? I mean, you know, Trump has shown on the world stage that he can be rolled over and over.

over and over again by country after country and Turkey figured it out and why wouldn't they continue. And to that point, look at how badly Erdogan played Trump. So first he promises him a thing he can't deliver, taking the ISIS captives. So it's an empty promise, Trump doesn't know how empty it is. I would know. David, Anna, everybody would know. Edwin, our stage manager actually knows better than us anyway on most issues.

But like anyone who's spent any time about that region, if you're a dentist and you don't know anything about northern Syria, I don't blame you, you don't know, that's totally fine, right? But anyone who cares about this issue knows that the Kurds are not going to hand over ISIS fighters to Turkey. It doesn't make any sense. Trump thought we were holding the ISIS fighters. We're not holding the ISIS fighters, the Kurds are. And so he's like, well, Europe doesn't want to take them, so Turkey's going to take them.

It doesn't work that way. He doesn't know anything. It is, look guys, it's dangerous for a president not to know anything, but to finish the thought on Erdogan. So he gives him an empty promise in the beginning, Trump like an idiot, takes out our military from there. Erdogan rolls in the tanks and the jets, et cetera, takes territory. Now another empty promise, a ceasefire that isn't a real ceasefire.

Any, he could pick it up in a couple of days anyway if he wants. And apparently when he, Trump sent the, he did the sanctions, as Anna pointed out, and Erdogan laughed. It's like, I don't give a damn about your sanctions. Then when Trump sent the crazy letter to him, the one where he says, if you don't do the right thing, you'll be known as the devil. And I'll call you later. Yeah, I'll call you later. Oh, and Mr. Satan, I'll call you later, okay?

Anyway, it's reported that Erdogan crumbled it up and threw it in the garbage. And then Trump, like, begs him for more of a deal. It's so, it's so devastating. But you know, you made such a great point in regard to this story, and I think that it applies to a broader issue with the Trump administration, the issue of him not knowing anything and having absolutely no intellectual curiosity in regard to foreign policy, but really any policy. So in that long ranting video that we showed you, look, the reason why I bring up how little he knows is because a decision was made in 2018 to send U.S. troops to northern Syria, to protect

our Kurdish allies there who were guarding the ISIS fighters, right? who had been fighting ISIS on our behalf. Who made that decision? When you have an incompetent president like Donald Trump, who refuses intelligence briefings, who doesn't care about these issues, and who's only there to enrich himself and his family financially, well, okay, who in his administration is making these decisions? Is it the Secretary of State? Is it Mike Pompeo?

Is it some military general? What's going on? I think that's a huge issue. Well, so I think that what's happening is, first, the bureaucracy, so the State Department in hopefully in conversation with the Pentagon made the decision to do a safety zone. And that was a rare situation where we were actually being effective. That doesn't happen often militarily with us in the Middle East. But we had somewhat of a safe zone and the Kurds and the Turks were working together

to some degree in that safe zone in northern Syria. And then what happens is Trump comes in like a Trump NATO and goes, okay, he didn't bother asking the State Department, he didn't bother asking the Pentagon, what's your plan, what's our current situation? He's on the phone with Erdogan, and yeah, the president gets to make that decision. It'd be nice if he knew something or if he asked anyone else in our government, hey, by the way, what are we currently doing? What's our current policy?

He doesn't even bother to ask that, and then when he says, we're withdrawing, well, we saw all the news reports where the Pentagon said, we're doing what? They had no idea. And then they were forced to, because he's the commander in chief, immediately withdraw, immediately. And our special forces that were on the ground literally called into Fox News going, this is insane. What are we doing? I've never been more embarrassed in my life, we're gonna let these guys die and they fought

with us. I think the larger point, right, is that these are delicate situations here in the Middle East. No, I mean, in a perfect world, I would draw from the Middle East pretty unilaterally. I don't think we're being effective there in any real way. But we have these very fragile alliances, fragile things that we've set up, some of them working, some of them not. And when you throw like a sentient comment section into this mix, who doesn't have really

a knowledge or understanding of what the implications of the actions are, you're gonna And you know, you can't send someone who has really no working knowledge into the most difficult and wrenching situations on foreign policy. No, I'm gonna give you an analysis here to end this, that like think of the brattiest kid you know or the most unstable adult, you know, and I got two people in my head, okay. And imagine that every, like, whatever important decision is being made either for your family or for the government or in any important situation, all of a sudden, instead of, hey, I'm consulting with my wife and my uncle and et cetera, we throw in the bratty kid and he gets to make the decision.

What do you mean? We're going to sell the house. What does that? I already made it. I want a new house, but we can't afford a new house. What do you do? No, it's too late. I already sold it.

What did you sell it for? You sold it? Oh, but why did you sell it for that price? Right. Like it's, we cannot have the president of the United States be this deeply unstable and uninformed, we have a mentally challenged child as our president, and it's affecting the whole world, and it's obviously getting people killed. Yeah.

Well, there's a different angle to this story that I want to talk about. It's news that broke yesterday, but we can't help but discuss it. So, congressional leadership met with Donald Trump in a closed door meeting to discuss his decisions to abruptly pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria. Those troops were there to protect Kurdish allies from Turkish military aggression. Pulling the troops out led to an all-out war between the Kurds and the Turks in northern Syria. Now during the meeting though, Donald Trump took it upon himself to do what he does best. He insulted Democratic leadership, including Nancy Pelosi, and referred to her as a third-rate

politician, and then also called defense secretary James Mattis, or former defense secretary, I should say James Mattis, the world's most overrated general. So at that point, things got pretty heated and said that, and Nancy Pelosi decided, no, we're going to leave. He was quite nasty, so Pelosi stood up to go. She started to sit back down, but Representative Steny Hoyer got her to go. Pelosi and Hoyer walked out of that meeting or out of the meeting. And so after that, they had a press conference, and here's what they said. He was insulting, particularly to the speaker.

She kept her cool completely. But he called her a third-rate politician. He said that there are communists involved, and you guys might like that. I mean, this was not a dialogue. It was sort of a diatribe, a nasty diatribe, not focused on the facts. When did this meeting go south? Well, from my perspective, the meeting started off with the president walking in and slamming down his files on the table, suggesting that this was a meeting he agreed to.

It was belligerent from the get-go. Thank you. Go ahead, Stanley. I witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown, sad to say. I have served with six presidents. I have been in many, many, many meetings like this. Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government of the United States.

So at one point following this Trump meltdown, Nancy Pelosi said, quote, we have to pray for his health because this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president. And Donald Trump, of course, is going to respond to that. And on Twitter said, Nancy Pelosi needs help fast. There is either something wrong with her upstairs, in quotes, or she's just plain doesn't like our great country. She had a total meltdown in the White House today. It was very sad to watch, pray for her, she is a very sick person.

That is so uninventive. It's classic Donald Trump, like a little child, like, oh yeah, no, I didn't have a meltdown. You had a meltdown. Like there's no cleverness in the comeback. I don't have a mental problem. You have a mental problem. Don't pray for me. I'm going to pray for you.

You just repeated everything she just said. It's so sad. What I want to know is, as we were talking about, what was in those files? They hanged files down on the death? Yeah, no, Menendez lost some credibility there when he said Trump slammed down the files. Trump having files, really? I mean, you see his death. It literally has nothing on it in the pictures in the Oval Office.

Yeah. Yeah, so look, this, I actually think this story, when you get into the substance of it, is a little bit more complicated. Most Trump's stories are very simple, he's an idiot, he does something stupid, okay? And so in this case, yes, we have that, but we have also more nuance. So first of all, I don't know if Pelosi meant to walk out from the moment she walked in. I think she meant to agitate him, and I think that what they walked out over was relatively minor.

And so I'm keeping it real, and this is my real political analysis, okay? So when Pelosi said all roads lead to Putin, as she did at some point in the meeting, that was clearly meant to agitate him and get under his skin. Now, I don't mind that at all, okay, so that's politics, I'm keeping it real with you, okay? On the other hand, I think it's good politics. If I was her, I would have stayed in the meeting and I would have kept burrowing, right? I get further and further under his skin until he absolutely, I mean, that's not Trump losing it.

That's normal Trump, if you ask me. Trump losing it is another level altogether. So what did they walk out over her? He called her a third-rate politician. So what? Like- Yeah, I would have preferred that she stay in the room and continue agitating him until his meltdown leads to him walking out. I think that that would be more effective and it would, you know, I think that that, he's done

that before. I don't remember exactly what they were negotiating about, but remember, she got under his skin and he ended up walking out. And that was a good look. It was a good look for democratic leadership. So yeah, walking out is it my favorite method of dealing with it? But it does get frustrating, I'm sure, dealing with a child like Donald Trump who has absolutely no knowledge of the topic they're even discussing or negotiating.

It's incredible that it's come to the point where you have to ask yourself first, what What were they there to do? Like, what, what, you know, deal is, is to be made in this? And it's just, you know, the relationship between Congress and the president's broken down so much that I don't even know what they were doing there in the first place. Well, the reporting on that, I totally agree. I wish we knew more. But the reporting, of course, is going to focus on the soap opera drama part of it.

But there are members of Congress who are frustrated because the executive branch is in incredibly opaque when it comes to this issue. And Congress needs to be informed about what's happening. So that was meant to be part of the discussion. And of course, the White House has no interest in sharing that information with them. So I want to give a lot more details there. First of all, Trump apparently sat down and said, I don't even know why we're here. And he said, I don't know who asked for this meeting, I didn't ask for it.

Well, first of all, before the meeting, you might want to ask somebody. You might want to ask your chief of staff, hey, what's the next meeting? Why are we having it, right? He just always like declares, hey guys, I want you to know I didn't do my homework. Okay, all right, fair enough. So as to what the meeting could be about, the Republicans cry foul and they go, oh my God, we can't get the important business of government done. What important business of government?

You guys aren't pushing for anything. The last I heard, every once in a lot, Trump says, should we do another tax cut? Really? Like, what are we talking about? Were you guys about to compromise on a bill? Are you guys gonna do the infrastructure? No, they were gonna do anything. So the only possible thing that they could have been doing in that room is talking about

the Curtis situation, because the House just voted overwhelmingly to rebuke Donald Trump, including 129 Republicans. So apparently Trump partly lost it when Nancy Pelosi mentioned the vote. But if you're not there to talk about the vote, what are you there to talk about? And in fact, the only possible thing they could have discussed was apparently at some point in the same day, the congressional leaders were supposed to get a briefing on what's actually happening in Syria, because Mike Pence came out today and said, there's a ceasefire. The Turkish government came out and said, no, there isn't.

So they're about to get a briefing. Now this was again yesterday, so still though, they want to know what's happening on the ground, right? And the White House canceled that briefing. They don't want the congressional leaders to know what's happening on the ground. So then there was really no point in the meeting other than yelling at each other. And so I guess mission accomplished. It was a success then.

Yeah, that's right. And so, but in a sense it was for Pelosi. So look, I always think she's too weak. Now today's not a, today she was pretty good, like I just told you, I think agitating him about Putin was decent strategy. So God bless on that front. By the way, but after the, and during the press conference when they ask her, hey, you keep saying you're praying for his health, what do you mean?

You mean mental health? She said, oh, no, no, no, I don't mean that. I just mean generally. No, don't say that. You obviously meant mental health. Say it, right? They're just so soft, but what she got out of it was a picture. Yeah, so let's talk about that, I've been wanting to talk about that.

So Donald Trump decided to post photos of this closed door meeting on Twitter thinking that it would, you know, bolster his case, make him look good, but it actually did end up backfiring. So I'll give you an example. Here's one of them and the picture has the caption, do you think they like me, right? And you see Democratic leadership looking not so happy. Then he also posts a picture saying nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown and it features her standing up. I mean, honestly, as a woman, that's a pretty incredible photo because look at her, it makes

her look so strong. It makes her look strong. She's standing up to a group of men who are incredibly powerful. So guess what she did? She took that photo and she used it as the background on her Twitter page. No, no, that's really well played. Okay, bless her heart on that. But right now, what are Nancy Pelosi's two calling cards that people talk about?

When she did this clap to Donald Trump in the speech to the Congress, which by the way, I don't think she even meant derisively. I think she just collapsed that way. And now she's a picture where she's standing and they're all sitting. They're good if she meant it derisively, then I like it, okay? But they're not substance. So the vote, by the way, she should get way more credit for. She did a vote.

Now look, the Republicans turned on Trump, okay? But nonetheless, she pulled that off and she put it language that was kind of soft. But in this case, I agree, because the soft language didn't matter at all. The memo was Congress rebukes Trump, that's the headline that everybody saw, and the language caused 129 Republicans to say yes and vote with her. So I wanna give her credit for the things she does right, but instead what we have is style over substance, so now everybody's talking about the picture. And so I wanna come back to substance for one second.

That mental health stuff, it's not just, hey, I like to get under Trump's skin and I like to make fun of them, no. It's real, it's as real as a heart attack. The guy has very significant mental health issues. So when she backs away from it and says, no, I didn't mean his mental health, you've actually done a disservice here because we should be having a national conversation about his mental health. His top advisor, Kelly Ann Conway, her husband, wrote a 19-page op-ed showing the man is clearly

mentally unfit for office. You think he doesn't talk to his wife, the senior advisor to the president? In other words, they're sending an SOS, somebody help. The president has lost his mind, somebody help. Pelosi has an opportunity to say, God damn right, I meant his mental health, look at him, right? And she turns that opportunity down. It took her nine months to get an impeachment inquiry, so, you know, I mean, if that's what it is.

This is happening at a snail's pace, obviously. Yeah. God, they are so timid. And unfortunately, the person that she now has as acting head of oversight now that Representative Cummings has passed away, is also a reluctant conservative Democrat, and she loves to put people who don't want to go after Trump as the heads of committees. So Cummings, she couldn't do anything about because he had seniority and he had earned it. Well, now she put another lackey to slow down the Trump investigations.

She is, some of her actions in, in, like she gets credit for all this style, but her substantive actions against Trump is bewildering. Yep, we gotta take a break. When we come back, we have a giant breaking news story that I can't wait to show. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes.

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Share with you. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. All right, back on a young Turks. Actually, a lot of great comments on Twitter right now. Hashtag TYT live to talk to us. So I want to read those. That boy's hell on Turlitz says, if Trump thinks this is over, you should visit Cyprus. So Turkey took about half of Cyprus in the 1970s and never gave it back. So now, look, I think that situation is a little bit more complicated. And my Turkish side comes out on that story, but it's true that, no, that's Turkish area, gone, right?

So if you give Turks some territory, good luck getting it back. Okay, Tim Joyce says, this isn't a ceasefire, Pence just surrendered. Tens of thousands of courage will be displaced from their homes at best. Why would anyone be fool enough to ally with the U.S.? That part is fairly indisputable? In Your Dream says, Trump creates a mess and acts like the best thing since sliced spread when he puts a Band-Aid on it. Excellent point.

And Kara Curley says, he talks like a kindergartner telling you about their first day of school. Another good way of referring to him. Just a lot less cute. Yeah. He's like, there's this thing called the PKK. You should have known about that earlier. Okay, nobody knew about it. Nobody would have known that Syria was so complicated.

Nobody, right. Turns out it's just like health care. All right. All right. Well, we have a breaking news story, and it calls for our special segment as the White House turns. Made some very big mistakes. I asked for his resignation. I'm disappointed in the Attorney General.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry will step down from the White House, and it was just announced. This is unsurprising because there had already been rumors reported that Rick Perry was planning on stepping down by the end of this year. However, in response to those rumors, he had recently said this. I'm here. I'm serving. They've been writing the story that I was leaving the Department of Energy for at least nine months now, Ziggy. One of these days, they'll probably get it right. But it's not today. It's not tomorrow, it's not next month. Not next month, it's just going to happen this month. I guess technically it was correct.

Technically he was right on all three counts. He was, he didn't lie. Sometime in between tomorrow and next month. So, of course, he was alluding to he's going to stay through the end of the year. He said that on October 7th, here we are, you know, a little past the week later, where he's like, yeah, no, I'm gone. I was just kidding. I'm not staying at all.

I gotta go, because otherwise I'm going to jail. Yeah, that's exactly right. I think this is the right thing to do. I would do the same if I were involved in this terrible administration. Everyone's dropping like flies. People are now turning on Trump when it comes to this impeachment investigation, including the ambassador to the EU. He testified against Giuliani and Trump today, and we'll give you the details on that

story a little later. But when it comes to Perry, remember, Donald Trump had blamed Rick Perry. for the phone call he had with the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky. Bloomberg reports Trump earlier this month blamed Perry for the July 25th call with Zelensky that led to the whistleblower complaint that spurred the probe telling Republican lawmakers it was his energy secretary's idea. Now, when Perry was initially asked, hey, did you urge Trump to talk to Zelensky? He was like, yeah, yeah, of course I did, right?

Because he's thinking, yeah, the president should have a conversation with the newly elected leader of Ukraine. He had no idea that there was all this shady stuff going on behind the scenes. And then all of a sudden it kind of blows up and he realizes, oh no, they're pinning this on me. The Trump administration is pitting this call on me. And then he spoke out and said, no, there was no discussion about the Bidens. I didn't urge him to talk about these issues.

By the way, Perry has met at least three times with Zelensky. including in May when he led a delegation to Ukraine's presidential inauguration in place of Vice President Mike Pence. The trip was referenced in the whistleblower complaint that sparked the House's swift moving impeachment inquiry. House Democrats this month issued a subpoena for Perry demanding more details about the trip. And if you listen to him, you certainly see criminal mastermind all over him, right? So he definitely did everything that the Trump administration said.

Yeah, he's the only one that was. would give Trump a run for his money and lack of intelligence in that cabinet. True. And so, but he is, he's in a sense a simpler guy. He's like, look, you know, when I was governor of Texas, I took money from the oil companies. They did what they wanted. And then I got reelected because I had all the money, that's it, right? And then I went to the energy department because I thought that's where all the oil business

was, because that's how I've gotten rich and powerful my whole life. Turns out they don't do oil. I didn't know that until the hearings. She really said that. Yeah. It's unbelievable. Yeah. And they're like, and wasn't the energy department, one of the departments you wanted to eliminate

when you were running for president? He's like, oops. Oops. That's him. Okay. So anyway, that is all relevant to this story because the Trump administration asked him to set up a meeting with Zelensky and then eventually they asked Sunland, the diplomat that Anna was referring to.

And I don't know if someone knew or not, but it appears that Perry really didn't know. And so he sets up the meeting and he doesn't know what the hell is going on. And then they go in there and they do their corrupt thing about, hey, let's go get Biden and make sure my political rival is defeated, et cetera. Perry's still like, huh, what, huh? And then at the end, they go, it was Perry. And he's like, what just happened? He's like, there isn't even any oil, I don't know what I'm doing here, okay?

So, he's right to get the hell out of dodge. Because if he stays any further, he has to back up Trump. But if you back up Trump, one, you're lying too, you can get yourself in trouble. But if you leave, then you have more options. So obviously he must have had an advisor. Otherwise, this schmuck would stay and be like, I don't know, I guess it was my fault. There is. Okay, right.

I'm telling you, there's gotta be some best of dancing of the stars show he's going back to. Yeah, well, you know, look, maybe next season just It'll just be ex-Trumpers, you know, ex-Trumpers edition of Dancers. That's right. Spicer versus Perry. Spicer Perry. Yeah, yeah. Dancing death battle.

All right, anyway, bottom line is Perry's gone because they're definitely guilty in Ukraine and he didn't want to be left holding that hot potato. Exactly. All right, well, we have other news including Mick Mulvaney and his statements during a press conference that could get him into a lot of trouble. So, members of Trump's administration initially said that his phone call with Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, had no quid pro quo involved, that Donald Trump just wanted Zelensky to look into Hunter Biden because he was concerned about corruption,

but no quid pro quo. But here's the problem when members of Trump's administration don't actually coordinate or speak to one another, they have different messages, and they make fools out of themselves during press conferences. So during a recent press conference, acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, admitted that there was quid pro quo. Don't believe me? Take a look.

Did he also mention to me in the past that the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that. But that's it. And that's why we held up the money. Now, there was a report. So the demand for an investigation into the Democrats was part of the reason that he, it was wanted to withhold funding to Ukraine.

The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. And that is absolutely appropriate. But to be clear, what you just described is a quid pro quo. It is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happened as well. We do that all the time with foreign policy. We were holding it money at the same time for, what was it, the Northern Triangle countries. Oh, my God. No, he just admitted it.

Okay, so guys, I've been telling you from day one, there's two different crimes here. One is asking a foreign government for assistance in your election is already a crime and there doesn't have to be quote pro quo. Okay, but he just admitted a second crime, which is basically extortion, holding up money that you're supposed to get that Congress appropriated towards you, that is for the good purposes according to at least the judgment of Congress for the benefit of the American people, right? We're doing a deal with Ukraine and we're gonna get some things back, but not for Trump,

but for the American people, right? And Mulvaney just said there, no, it was a quid pro quo and it was to investigate the Democrats and what happened in 2016 and the Democratic servant. By the way, that insane conspiracy theory that the Ukrainians tapped into the DNC hacked into it and that they have a secret server in Ukraine. Only a moron would believe that theory to begin with, so obviously Trump does, and he did all this corruption surrounding that stupid theory that has no chance of being true. It is a complete conspiracy theory, and it's in regard to CrowdStrike, which Trump has

been saying is a Ukrainian company, a Ukrainian-based company. It's not even a Ukrainian-based company, it's a U.S.-based company. It's insane. But guys, this is, what you just saw from Mulvaney is. monumentally important. He just admitted quid pro quo. You just saw it with your own eyes. Which is why the Trump lawyers, the legal team, has been trying to walk this back all day.

And then what we have is that now Mulvaney came out and said, oh, what I just said on tape in front of everybody. I didn't mean that. That's not true. So let me give you more details on that. So again, following that press conference and the backlash, Mulvaney issued a statement. statement Thursday afternoon accusing the media of misconstruing his earlier remarks to the press at the White House.

He also said, let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election. The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did anything related to the server. But you just said it, we just showed it on tape. You said we, when asked about quid pro quo, you said, yes, we do it all the time. When you were asked specifically, was it about the Democratic server? You said yes, absolutely.

And did you hold up the money? You said, yes, absolutely, we held up the money. There's no question about it. David's right, after that happened, first of all, I was like, what, right? Everybody was like, he just admitted the crime. No wonder he's Trump's chief of staff, only an idiot would admit crime like that. And then immediately after I saw news stories about the legal team panicking.

And of course they're panicking. Why did you admit to murder on national television? You know, a few weeks ago when the inquiry started, they asked Trump, you know, are you going to have a war room, are you going to figure out, you know, like your story? You're going to actually set this up. And he said, no, we're not going to do that. And this is what happens when you don't have a war room. When you, you know, when everyone's sort of flying solo.

He doesn't trust anyone. This is what you end up with. Yeah. No, and there's a second part of that, that's absolutely right. So I use the extreme example of murder, but so did Donald Trump. He said I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. And so that's why it's not surprising when he says, yeah, I asked him to look into Biden. That's a crime, and he says it on national TV.

There's no pressure on him to actually- 100%. And so then Mulvaney comes out and admits the second crime and goes, yeah, we held up the money. We held up the money that they're supposed to get from the American government for the to the benefit of Donald Trump's political career. Oh my God, you, so it's almost, you almost can't believe it. And that's why people are always like, what is this secret strategy here? They ain't no secret strategy, they're a bunch of knuckleheads. And it's, it's, but you make a very critical point.

This is about the lack of accountability for misconduct, because that eases the pressure of you to have to act, have to act in a responsible and non-criminal manner. I mean, we saw this on Wall Street. We see this everywhere throughout our country with the lack of accountability of elites. It tosses, you don't need to be honest anymore to stay clean, to stay out of jail. So why would you? So let me break down all the people who are culpable here with varying degrees of culpability. So one is Donald Trump, obviously, he's the most culpable.

He's the one who does all these things, but not just that he then hires a bunch of incompetent people, because he's hiring not based on performances by hiring based on loyalty, like a mob boss. Because the most important thing is that he not go to jail, not that they perform well. And so he hires these guys who are yes men, lackeys who are not that bright. So they do stupid things like admit crimes on national television. The second culpable body is the Democrats, because they have been so slow to hold them accountable, so painfully slow, just get to it for God's sake, and make your own case. And he was probably thinking, how did I get this lucky?

Schmucks, like I did the hush money payments, I broke campaign finance laws, my co-conspirator is in prison right now, Michael Cohen, and the Democrats haven't said a word about it, right? So the Democrats are culpable for having him be above the law in that sense. The media is somewhat culpable, I know they're trying to call it out his lies, but and Trump's base is even more culpable, because when Mulvaney says, don't believe you're lying eyes, instead I'm telling you now that I meant the opposite of what you just saw, the media dutifully reports it and says, okay, he said this, and then he said that, right? Trump's base goes, I don't care about facts.

So, okay, now the new fact is he didn't say it, even though I just saw him say it. And then the, but the most culpable by far is the Republican Party. Right. And it's not just Trump anymore, guys, and it's not just his lackeys like Mulvaney. The only reason he can do this is because the entire Republican Party is saying, we will not hold him accountable under any circumstance. He can break any law, he can say any lie, he can make it as brazen as he wants, in essence they're saying he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and we're still not going to hold

him accountable. In that situation, that's why he brazenly admits crimes left and right, he's like, what difference does it make? Yep, absolutely. All right, that does it for hour one. David, you're awesome, please check out the American Prospect, amazing publication, and thanks for joining us. Yeah, prospect.

out. Thank you, David. Thank you. If you think we're done with Mulvaney, no. He actually, when we come back, might have done something even more on constitutional than that same press conference, believe it or not, when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members,

only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.