The Young Turks - Republican's Robotic Rebuttal
Episode Date: March 9, 2024Special counsel asks Judge Cannon to label Trump's immunity claim in classified documents as ""frivolous."" Billionaires are raging about Biden's State of the Union tax proposals and Republicans torch... their own SOTU rebuttal. ""Don't starve Gaza!"": Israeli activists attempt aid delivery. Republicans tap election denier, and Trump's daughter-in-law to run RNC." HOST: John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio), Maz Jobrani (@MazJobrani) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show.
Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars.
You're awesome. Thank you.
For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio.
Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax.
Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants.
Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery.
Woo!
Thank you, it's Friday.
3x5x
3x5x
3x5x
3x5x
315
319
315
315
315
315
315
319
319
Be happy!
Oh God, oh God, oh God, it's here, it's my big chance.
The intro animation has just ended and it's down to me, John Ida Rola, to give the official
TYT rebuttal.
Okay, get it together, get it together.
If you nail this, you could be the vice president.
Drop it?
Welcome one and all to the power panel on TYT.
I'm John Adirola, but much more importantly, Francesca, Fiorentini, Maas, Jobrani, both of you.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you, that was incredible, John.
I mean, it could have been a little breathier.
I know, I know.
But it was really good.
No, but I do have to be, look, it's either because I'm that much of a method actor or
that I really need to do more cardio, I'm kind of out of
of breath from that, actually. So I understand how she was feeling, is all I'm saying.
Maz, how have you been? I have been well, and I enjoy watching people try to perform like she was,
and it's always fun. You know, the people who are on stage and in front of audiences, I think
after a while, we think like, oh, everybody can do it. And then when you see somebody who's doing
like bad acting, you go, okay, not everybody can do it.
So it kind of makes you feel pretty good.
I mean, you know, it was a little bit of Schuyden Freud.
I mean, I felt bad for her, but it was just nice to see her and be like, you know,
the country is falling apart, you know, just like the way she was, it was fantastic.
Yeah, yeah.
What I enjoy is you take a whole bunch of different policies and positions, some of them serious,
some of them not.
And then you take a whole bunch of emotional states.
And then you just combine them totally at random.
No connection between the topic and the emotional state.
But anyway, why are we getting ahead of ourselves?
We're gonna clearly be talking about that coming up on the show once I get my breath,
but not just that.
Breaking news, Laura Trump finally got the job that she has been working towards her whole life
and has been accruing all of the experience one needs to serve as the head of the RNC.
We'll have that for you.
Legal updates on Donald Trump and more.
What is a passport bro?
Stay tuned and we might get to it.
But with all that said, those of you watching live,
Thank you for being here.
We got a great hour plan for you, a great second hour as well.
Please hit that like button.
And with no more ado, let's jump into this.
Y'all, you can't make this stuff up.
Look, we all recall when presidents faced national security threats with strength and resolve.
That seems like ancient history.
Right now, our commander in charge,
in chief is not in command. The free world deserves better than a dithering and diminished leader.
Dear God, it was like some ancient witch started to take over her soul as that went on.
Okay, that's Katie Britt, giving the official response to the state of the union. And as you could,
I'm thinking clearly tell from that video, she was chosen for a couple of reasons. One, she's a big,
up-and-comer in the party with vice presidential aspirations, and two, she can go from
folksy smile to boring a hole through your skull with her eyes in about two to three
seconds. But anyway, there's more, including way more different emotional states. Take a look.
I never could have imagined what my story would entail to think about what the American dream
can do. Mr. President, enough is enough.
Americans are dying and you only have yourself to blame.
It's been a minute since Joe Biden pumped gas, ran a carpool or even pushed a grocery
cart. We hear you and we stand with you. I know you're frustrated.
on there and honestly I'm gonna say that watching that I don't think I should do that.
I have the weird lib thing where I naturally try to empathize with the people that I see
and I have a sort of mirroring of their emotions and that is just too much of a roller
coaster ride. Why is she winking? Why is she talking like this all of a sudden? Why are you
standing with me so weirdly close to me? Look there's clearly a lot going on and I'm not a huge
fan although it was fun I guess for a while Republicans also not huge fans and
we're gonna get to some of their criticism of that rebuttal but first Francesca I
saw some of your like live reaction to it with your husband on Instagram what do
you make of it now with a little bit of time you know it doesn't age well upon
third viewing it is still just as what are you trying to do who is this for
why are you in a kitchen that doesn't feel like a
kitchen. Like again, I don't know if she is trying to break off from the Moms for Liberty
group and start a new group. I don't know if she's actually a sitting senator. I don't
know if she is like doing it an acting course. And this is her very first monologue and
she's trying to crush it. Like there are a million things, but like this like very fragile
state of I'm about to cry, I'm about to laugh, but mostly I'm psychotic. And this is my parking space.
Like, this is the most, to quote Dr. Ritchie, the caronicity on the brink of a breakdown that I've seen.
And I guess that's what you want out of a political party?
It looked like a commercial for an antidepressant medication.
100%.
Right?
Like, you know, are you feeling, you know, traumatized and desperate and alone and you don't know what to do?
Mr. President, I want you to help me.
I'm going to take my pills and feel better or whatever the pill is.
Don't they audition these people?
Like this is that this was your chance to put your bulls out, your pit bulls, your Marjorie Taylor Greens, your Lauren Bober's, your Jim Jordans, who are just as nutty.
This is your chance to put one of those screamers in front of the audience and just have them scream and be like, you know, at least you'd be like, you know, at least Republicans would be like, that's what I'm talking about versus this poor lady.
I mean, it's just, it was so bad.
It was sad.
And by the way, if you look at all the policies and all these things that they blame him for,
all you got to do, if they come at you with any of this stuff, all you got to do is go, look,
there was a border bill that you guys tanked.
So you're talking about all this stuff.
You tanked the border bill.
So don't be blaming Joe when you weren't able to pass something that was going to solve 90% of these problems that you're talking about.
or at least start to solve these problems.
So yeah, even on the, even on the actual policies,
it was totally empty.
Yeah, 100%.
And you said, you know, don't they audition people.
What I was wondering is like, I just imagine her like,
she's prepped at home, she sits down.
She's like, should we do a run through?
And like the stage manager is like, now you got it,
whatever.
Like no, you gotta do a run through like or have someone in your ears.
Like this is all super weird, all the stuff you're doing.
Could you please stop doing?
You're making Mark Zuckerberg.
look like a human, okay?
Like just imitate people you've seen on TV.
And look, I said that we're going to get to the Republican reactions, and we are.
But before we do that, I want to show you one more video.
This is not from her rebuttal.
This is like a social media clip to promote her rebuttal.
And I want you to take a look at the stark difference in this.
Hey, all Katie Britt here.
I am looking forward to delivering the Republican response to the State of the Union.
So tune in.
See you soon.
That's a human in that video.
That is a person who's just talking.
She's not wildly swinging from one extreme to another.
She's not like desperately trying to give some sort of weird version of gravitas or seriousness about the border.
She's just talking like a person.
And deep down inside, I'm sure there is a person.
But unfortunately, she has ambitions and she has aspirations.
And this is what the political system does to people.
It turns them into these bizarre robots.
So anyway, look, we've all been critical, but it's not just us. Charlie Kirk said,
I'm sure she's a sweet mom in person, but this speech is not what we need.
Joe Biden just declared war on the American right and Katie Britt is talking like she's
hosting a cooking show whispering about how Democrats don't get it.
There were a lot of anonymous responses reaching out to different news sites.
One Trump advisor said, what the hell am I watching right now?
creepy, a Republican pollster said.
One lawyer working in the Trump orbit said that the performance reminded them of public access television.
A senior house congressional aid on the Republican side remarked that it was cringe-inducing
and likely destined to be turned into a lame SNL skit.
I just want to know who is going to be playing her on that.
Or can they beat her?
Like, who can do it better than she can.
It might not.
One Republican staffer said it gives high school freshman speech.
She really thinks she's killing it, but it's comical like SNL quality.
First of all, people love to just crap all over SNL.
Some of this gets are good.
Anyway, radio host Jesse Kelly wrote that it's not what he'd prefer in the GOP response.
Quote, but there's no question Katie Britt has mastered the ultimate weapon of dimes everywhere.
The fake cry, that's a seasoned pro right there.
So that's not great either as a take, but there was one person who liked it,
or at least is pretending to like it on social media.
He said online, Katie Britt was a great contrast to a capital A angry and obviously very disturbed
president. She was compassionate and caring, especially concerning women and women's issues.
Her conversation on migrant crime was powerful and insightful. Great job Katie.
And it's pretty clear from that why she was chosen or what her mission was supposed to be.
Bearing in mind that Donald Trump wanted to be the one to give the rebuttal himself,
they said not to have that. They're putting her in a
instead, she's under consideration to be VP.
They clearly think that they can like win over women or something.
And some of them are not even as nuanced in talking about that mission as Donald Trump.
Tommy Tuberville said, like he was a little bit critical of it, but he said she wasn't really
there to be a senator, she was there to be a mom, like a housewife or whatever.
So that's what she's doing, she's a senator, she's been a lawyer for years and years.
She was a comms director for the previous senator.
She's not a housewife.
Housewives are real things.
You could have a housewife if you wanted them to deliver the rebuttal.
She is a professional working woman who's worked for many, many years.
So either he knows that, in which case he knows that the mission is for her to like,
cosplay being a housewife or something, or he doesn't know that and screw her many years
of both public service and private service, she's always just gonna be a housewife to him
into the other Republicans. I don't know exactly which it is. Francesca, what do you think?
Well, I mean, that's the irony of the entire thing, is that she herself. I mean, she's part of
where she's going to be delivering this rebuttal and she was in, I guess, her kitchen.
It kind of seems like a set, but she was there. I mean, that was a choice to say,
I just look like a regular old lady who's selling you or mom who's, yeah, selling you some antacids,
you know, and you know, for your problem of border migrants, you know, like coming across and like,
she said the word rape like five times in the first five minutes like it's just ridiculous so so
again like and this is my broader point about republican women in this party that even though she
is an accomplished senator i guess in her own right that part of her selling the republican party
is selling the second-class citizenship or the sort of housebound housewife identity of women
She's from Alabama at the same time that Alabama and lawmakers are taking away the right to
have a family via IVF because the right of a zygote is more important, right? She didn't talk
anything about that. Speaking of, you know, talking about the crime on the border, what about
the crimes being committed against women in this very country? So we'll see if this is enough
to get suburban women, a lot of whom are losing the threat on the Republicans because of
abortion rights, but it's just, again, it is, it's a pretty sick way to sell this case to women.
Yeah, I would say, you know, John, the clip you showed of her promoting the upcoming rebuttal,
based on that, if I were coaching her, I would say, listen, let's not, because it looks like
she was probably reading from a teleprompter, and that makes you even more nervous,
and she's got to hit everything. And she might even had in parentheses like cry,
smile. You know, there might have been, it might have been that, that etched out. And if I were
directing guys, say, listen, let's just do bullet points, hit the point, move on to the next
bullet point, hit the point, because it was just, they put her out there to really fail. And
to Francesca's point with women in the Republican Party, and they're trying to win over women
by saying, oh, look, a woman gave our rebuttal. The truth is, you know, I was looking at
Nikki Haley not being chosen to be the nominee on the Republican side.
Yes, number one, she was battling MAGA and Trump.
But number two, and I think just as important, if not maybe more important, is MAGA Republicans,
and maybe Republicans in general would never vote for a woman to be president.
So you might sit there and put as many women as you want to do the rebuttals,
but they see you as a second class citizen.
They're not going to accept you.
You're not a leader, you need to be in the kitchen, you're a housewife.
The same way they try to play with people of color, when Donald Trump photoshop's black people
around him, they would never vote for a black person to be their nominee.
It's not gonna happen, it ain't gonna happen.
And so you can do as much as you want to say, oh, we welcome everybody, but they don't,
and they won't. And if you're a sucker, you're enough of a sucker to vote for them,
then you lose.
Yeah, and look, look, the idea that if you want to
want to be an elected Republican as, you know, a lot of different people of different sorts
want to be. But unfortunately, there's not a lot of different Republican parties. There's one.
And it's misogynistic and racist and Islamophobic and homophobic and all of those things.
But some people who are part of those groups that most Republicans have no respect for are
conservative. So they're putting this really uncomfortable situation. And I have some empathy
for that situation. But Katie Britt is obviously a willing tool in continuing.
all of those hierarchies, not only in being a senator or giving the rebuttal, she wants to
be Trump's VP, never forget that.
And that's where I'm gonna set aside the jokes for just a second, because it's easy to make
fun of her and it feels good and I'm glad that we did it.
But she's also a senator and a truly horrible dishonest person.
And that's where the stuff that she said in that gets kind of serious, because she went
on at length about human traffickers raping women.
And she said all of that to attack Joe Biden.
She went on at length about gang rapes of women and how horrific it is.
So that Joe Biden would lose to the guy she wants to win Donald Trump, who a judge found
was a rapist, okay?
So she loves to use the idea of rape as a political weapon as she is supporting a rapist
for office.
And by the way, I wanna just mention something that I saw Shannon Watts mentioned on Twitter,
which is in that absolutely horrific.
example that you gave Katie Britt of a woman being gang raped by human traffickers,
an unthinkable tragedy. Let's say she gets pregnant during that. What should
happen to her, Katie Britt? I think we all know what you think should happen.
She should raise the baby of one of those rapists for literally decades. That's what
you think should happen. And small fact check Franceschi, you mentioned that she didn't
mention IVF. In her speech, she did briefly mention IVF, and she said that they
would support it. But when I heard that, I had just listened to Joe Biden's speech. And when
he mentioned them enshrining IVF rights, no Republican clapped, no Republicans stood up. And
it was just a few days ago that they shot down a chance to actually do that. The thing that
she's giving a speech about, they did not do in the Senate. And I don't remember her doing a whole
round of appearances in the media about how that was utterly unacceptable. And there's a reason for
that because she believes that life begins at fertilization. For political purposes, she is pretending
to support IVF, but it fundamentally goes against her actual ideology. And finally, as Maz
pointed out, most of that speech was demonizing about the border. And many, many Republicans have
been utterly hypocritical about the border, claiming it's an invasion and a crisis on the one hand,
while helping to kill it on the other hand. But she is arguably worse than most of them,
because she had a direct hand in writing the bill thinking, this is great, we're going to do this.
It's a crisis down there.
Oh, Donald Trump doesn't want this.
We'll screw the whole thing.
But I'm still going to talk about the border as if I think it's some sort of big deal.
Not a deal we need to do anything about for the next year or so.
So look, look, was she emotional and weird and strange and breathy and it's ASMR?
Yes, 100%.
But she is just as bad as all the rest of them on policy, arguably worse than some.
Final thoughts?
No, I will just say that I think on the border bill, I am not in favor of what I think is ultimately a right wing bill.
And as you pointed out, sponsored and supported by Republicans itself, because ultimately the way to actually protect people from being trafficked is to have border policies that put human beings first and not enforce and come down on them and treat them like criminals, which they are not, by and large, are not.
Otherwise, you will inevitably lead to coyote trafficking, human trafficking, and on and on and on,
which actually happens within this country as well.
So that's the last point I want to put on, but I think that's really important to remember.
Yeah, she was, she helped write this bill.
Yeah, and I'll piggyback on that by saying as much as we laugh and have fun with her performance,
these people make you laugh because they're so ridiculous, but they're also dangerous.
It's the same thing with a lot of Trump stuff.
You watch him and he's mumbling stuff up and jumbo and stuff up.
They're actually dangerous people who are supported by a far right wing agenda that wants
to take away women's rights, LGBTQ rights, people of colors rights, immigrant rights.
They're really, I mean, they do want a handmaid's tail.
And so beyond laughing at them, we really got to wake up and fight them in the elections.
We got to fight them in the courts and make sure that our rights are not taken away.
Well, look, I know we're getting on, but I just, I want to talk about one other topic really quick.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna lay this out a little bit, get your reactions.
We've been focusing most on Katie Britt because of course, Jank Uger did his response to the state of the union last night.
But there's one section we need to give you an update on, starting with this.
We have two ways to go.
Republicans can cut Social Security and get more tax breaks to the wealthy.
That's the proposal.
Oh, no.
You guys don't want another $2 trillion tax cut?
I kind of thought that's what your plan was.
Well, that's good to hear.
You're not going to cut another $2 trillion to the super wealth.
That's good to hear.
I love Mike Johnson in the background shaking his head. Oh, look at Joe going on.
Yeah, we like giving tax cuts to the over wealthy only because we did it under Reagan and
George W. Bush and also Donald Trump, but we're totally gonna do if it gets back in
office. They're so utterly fake. But the message was heard loud and clear. Joe Biden was
saying we should have the rich pay their fair share. And the rich, it turns out, we're
listening and they didn't like that section. And we're gonna give you their responses.
Jeff Green is a real estate billionaire who said, I don't agree with the idea of just singling out people because of how much they have or don't have.
Well, in this case, he's targeting the people who have a lot, literally billions of dollars.
You're a billionaire, you have a lot.
That's what he's singling out.
That guy has previously talked about how there's this jealousy towards the Uber wealthy.
So I guess we're expecting them to pay more than three or four percent a taxes in a year because we're jealous of them.
He says, the progressive income tax, I understand, though we argue that tax rates have grown out of control.
You have to leave incentives for people who are the ones who are going to create the jobs for all those people trying to climb the ladder.
Evidently, the incentive to become and stay a billionaires is not enough for this guy.
He's got higher aspirations than billions of dollars.
And he also says, you know, it's really difficult to even say how much money some of us have.
People speculate about my net worth.
I don't think I can tell you what my net worth is.
I have a bunch of assets that are artwork and real estate.
I mean, do I know every day what it's worth?
And I would argue that if you're going to tell us that we should not be thinking hard about possibly taxing you more,
your rebuttal should not be, I don't even know how rich I am, man.
I got all these paintings and I honestly forgot I had a castle.
You know, I just don't get out there more than once a decade.
I think you could probably bear the taxes.
Anyway, he offered alternative solutions.
So he's not just criticizing Joe Biden.
He has an alternate plan.
So don't tax.
He says you could raise the age of social security eligibility.
My kids who are 10, 12, 14, you could tell them, you know what?
When you retire, you're going to get money at 70, not 65.
Do you think they're going to care?
Maybe not.
Their dad's a billionaire, you psychopath.
I'm not worried about them.
I'm worried about regular people.
And his response to, hey, maybe you could pay more than 8% income taxes is, no, make the pores grind it out for another half decade.
That's a better solution to me, a billionaire.
Your concern is noted.
We have this grocery billionaire who says, I think it sounds like President Biden doesn't want a capitalist government.
He wants a government for socialism, and socialism doesn't work.
Ask the people in Russia.
Ask the people in Cuba.
I asked the people in Venezuela.
I mean, arguably, I heard from Tucker Carlson that the people in Russia love it, that they're killing it.
Did you know how good the bread is there?
Anyway, he goes on to say you're trying to take away the incentives for people to work hard.
He is literally a billionaire.
And then billionaire investor Leon Cooperman, who I know Anna Kasparian will definitely appreciate this, said that Biden's proposal is about to a version of tax and spend, where they don't tackle the real problem.
The real problem is excess spending.
Bearing in mind, of course, that government spending benefits people who don't already have billions of dollars.
Weird that the billionaire thinks that's the problem.
Maz, I want to go to you first.
What do you think about the billionaire tears?
Well, their reactions are proof that trickle down economics does not work.
Because the idea of trickle down economics was they make money and then everybody else makes money.
The problem is when these billionaires make money, they don't give them money to everybody else.
they go and buy a $500 million yacht, and they buy private islands.
That's what they do.
And that's why these guys are crying these alligator tears.
And it's just, it's ridiculous, really.
I mean, I heard Elizabeth Warren one time say that we're asking these people to pay the taxes
because they're making their fortunes using this system that we have created.
By the way, all these people who go, oh, you want to be a socialist, you may be a socialist.
I always remind them, we are in the ultimate capitalist society, and it's not ever going to change.
And if you want proof, I always go back to the pandemic and how the pandemic, when the lockdowns happened, the government didn't lock us down.
You know who locked us down? The NBA.
If you remember, it was one of the players, Rudy Gobert, he had COVID, and then they started this game.
And then all of a sudden they realized that there's going to be a spread.
And they go, we're closing down the game.
Once they saw that that game is being closed down, all of a sudden, government caught up and was like, oh, we got to shut this down.
So ultimately, we live in a capitalistic society.
Once again, even like when you talk about like Donald Trump and all the abuses he was doing on Twitter and it was getting crazier and crazier leading up to January 6th and we tried in a dictatorial system, you probably would have shut him off earlier.
No, it was actually Twitter and the private companies kicking him off.
We live in a capitalistic society.
You cannot ignore that or deny that and these people should pay more taxes because they get away with it.
Somebody was once talking about it because I didn't understand how it worked. Real quick, last point. Jeff Bezos, I was listening to the daily podcast. They were talking about Jeff Bezos was giving himself an $80,000 salary and he was paying taxes on that. And I'm going, that is ridiculous. And these guys just have these loopholes and they get through it. And they're making money in this system, in our system. So they should pay their fair share of taxes.
Well, and I think to your point, Ma, specifically on it's a capitalist society, I think a lot of people would argue that actually,
actually no, they're not playing fairly by capitalistic rules, right? They head up monopolies
like Bezos. They swallow up other companies. They are allowed to merge time and time again with
no stops. I mean, the Biden administration has actually successfully put a stop to a couple of
these mergers. But increasingly, they don't play by the rules of capitalism that the rest of us
have to play by, right? The rest of us who can barely afford our rent each month and who for whom the
extra money that maybe we got under COVID, for example, for food stamps, so to speak,
the $15 a month, which if you've been following this, allowed people to have like chicken
for the first time in months. That all went away thanks to Republicans. So look, I'm glad
that Biden is calling them out on this. Obviously, they are, you know, Republicans truly are
just siphons and funnels to get money to go up and up. And to Maz's point, they don't just
buy islands and cars, they buy Supreme Court justices, that's how it works now.
And so the real thing though is I wish that Biden would go harder on them about this.
The fact that they didn't vote, not a single one of them voted for the American Rescue Plan,
right? He doesn't, he doesn't tell that in part because he's allowed a lot of those things
like the child tax credit to lapse. But I wish he went even harder on just how much they are
gatekeepers of plutocrats and and billionaires like like they hope to be one day.
100% well he didn't mention a couple of times by the way he did mention it was kind of funny to
watch Joe because he's a little older but he was still sharp he did mention a couple of times
about oh you guys are taking credit for the you know the the infrastructure bill he goes
yeah he made fun of them for that so I mean you're right you do got to keep pushing and
pushing and pointing out that these guys vote against these things and then if it works to
to their benefit, they try to take credit for it, which is ridiculous.
Right, 100%.
We're gonna take a short break, but lots more to get to after this.
of the big domestic political news stories of the day, starting with this.
In a world where qualifications are often measured by titles and years of experience,
we are reminded of a powerful truth. God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.
Laura Trump is the embodiment of this truth.
I think Laura Trosted, Laura Trump just got roasted, but look, it's her big day, okay?
She has now been elected the co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
That means that Trump has more influence over the RNC, and she has now the biggest political position that she's ever had.
And she got it, not based off of qualifications, that's not me saying that.
That's the woman announcing the news who said that, but because she married Eric Trump, okay?
And I know a lot of people would like poo-poo that and say, well, what kind of qualification is that?
She paid her dues.
She has had to spend many, many hours in the same room as Eric Trump.
Does she not deserve this after all that work, all that service?
But anyway, it's not her only experience.
She's not only his wife, she's a mother of two.
A fitness fiend, says the Wall Street Journal.
A Tom Petty cover vocalist, a children's book author, and a former inside a day.
edition producer, so why should she not be in charge of the Republican National Committee
and in charge of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars?
In any event, I'm curious what the panel thinks about her qualifications, but also what
she clearly has been put on this, in this position to do.
And in case it's not clear going in, here she is before she got the position telling us what
she plans to do.
We need to make sure that every penny of every dollar donated to the RNC is going.
to Donald Trump's campaign.
What I can assure you is if I am there, I will make sure that every single penny donated to
the R&C goes to electing Donald Trump, and again, extending our lead in the House and taking
back the Senate.
Here's what I can tell you.
The R&C needs to be the leanest, most lethal political fighting machine we've ever seen
in American history.
That is the goal over the next nine and a half months.
If I am elected to this position, I can assure you, there will not be any more,
$70,000 or whatever exorbitant amount of money it was spent on flowers.
Every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC that is electing
Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.
So it is pretty clear what she wants to do and why they would put her on that position,
considering that she has no relevant experience whatsoever.
You don't need a whole lot of experience to say, we're taking all of this money and we're giving it to Trump.
my literal family member.
And at times like this, I'm thinking what I imagine many of you are thinking,
Joe Biden really did give too much to Hunter Biden.
That family is too embroiled in politics and everything as Trump takes over the entire
Republican Party apparatus.
So look, I'm not even mad about it though.
I'm joking about Laura Trump, but if they want to take all of that money that candidates
across the country on the Republican side desperately need to get elected,
and they want to just throw it into a massive hole of
of his legal obligations and fines, I think that's fine.
She taking that position and promising to give all the money to Trump,
something I think that she will make good on, certainly imperils their chances of holding
on to the House and their chances of taking over the Senate.
And as someone who doesn't want them in power, I really don't mind.
Francesca, what do you think?
You said everything, John.
This is what I don't want to do the show with you anymore because you just,
you just said all the good stuff, but you're exactly right.
The nepotism charges for Hunter Biden. Oh, look, now Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law is in charge of the RNC. Do you guys care about democracy? No, no, we don't. We just care about King Trump winning again and again again. All of the money that they're going to need to, yes, to maintain the House, to gain any kind of lead, to win the Senate, I guess. No, all of that's gone. It's completely gone. And if they don't win in November, like, what happens? Does Lara Trump stay on because of her incredible?
I mean, she can really do free fall.
And when she gets like a couple of beers in her and she just and free, no man,
you're gonna be in free falls, what you're gonna be in if he doesn't win in November.
And even if he does, like I don't know, it's just, it's just mind boggling to me.
But good, good luck.
The problem, and I think the interesting thing is, what about all the donors to Nikki Haley,
folks like the Koch brothers, the, you know, the buttoned up conservatives, you know,
they want their tax breaks, but they want to do it, you know, without all the overt racism.
Is it going to be more difficult for the RNC to fundraise now that Lara Trump is in charge?
Yeah, and just to piggyback on your free falling reference, how about I won't back down?
I think that a lot of these Republicans, they hear these types of songs, you know, I won't back down.
I'm so tough, I'm not going to back down.
And then they start using it or singing it or whatever until the estate of Tom Petty hears about it and says I'm a cease and desist.
And he's like, stop using my songs.
This poor guy who supports nothing you're doing.
Please back down.
We don't want you to not sing his songs.
And this is continuously happening, by the way.
Pretty soon, like if it gets out that she was this Tom Petty vocalist,
I'm sure the estate's gonna do something and she'll have to turn to one of these, you know,
far right wing, you know, she'll start singing kid rock music.
So that's one thing she's gonna end up doing number one.
Number two, the introduction was brilliant.
I mean, the lady said, I forget the exact words.
She goes, God does not choose the qualified, but qualified.
The chosen.
Oh, God.
Listen, I'm a comedian.
If I were about to go up on stage and the emcee was going to be like, this guy coming to the states, he's not funny, but sometimes comedy chooses people.
And we got no one else.
So he's here to take your money, bring him on.
I'd be like, really?
Like, I'd be offended.
So it was a worst intro.
And thirdly, by the way.
He chose him to make you laugh though.
God chose him to make you laugh.
Don't listen to his jokes.
These jokes don't have punchlines.
But if you just listen to God, it'll tickle you.
If you don't laugh, you're not a pious person effectively.
And at this point, by the way, I think the word grifter should be a synonym to the word Trump.
As a matter of fact, I think from now on, you know how Trump gives nicknames?
We should just name them all like Laura Grifter, Donald Grifter, Ivanka Grifter.
Just start using the last name Grifter for them and really get the point.
across that these people are the biggest grifters.
I've seen so many videos of Trump supporters at Trump rallies going.
You know what I love about him?
He doesn't need the money.
He's already got money.
He's rich.
And I go, then why is he sending you a letter asking you for money?
If you really didn't need the money, he'd be like, look, I'm a billionaire.
I got this.
Don't worry about it.
You keep your money.
Pay for your children to eat.
Don't worry about it.
Meanwhile, here's a check.
I'm going to write you a check.
He doesn't need the money.
Not only does he need it.
He needs the money so bad.
he's putting his daughter-in-law in charge of asking you for money while he's asking you
for money from another way. He's asking for money in several different, he is the ultimate spam
call. Donald Trump, if you get a phone call and it says potential spam, that's Donald Trump
and his family calling you. Don't answer. Yeah, and if you're a conservative, like, you know that
he could just spend a billion of his own dollars, fully fund his own presidential campaign,
freeing up all that money for good MAGA weirdos all over the country to win.
And at the end, he would still be a billionaire.
But he's not going to do that.
He's going to take all of your money.
He's going to soak it up from these other candidates, and they aren't going to have it.
And they're not going to get elected.
And for some reason, you think that he's a hero for that reason.
But before we move on, I do want to remind you, in terms of, like, again, we keep coming back to, like,
did you know Hunter Biden got a job because he's related to Joe Biden?
Yeah, that's nepotism, and I don't like it.
Did you know that Laura Trump got a job with Parscale for Trump's re-election campaign in 2020,
and she was paid $180,000 a year as a political consultant?
That's just stupid money.
That's just free money.
She doesn't have qualifications.
In 2021, she was rumored that when Richard Burr left office, she would run for Senate.
I remember that.
She was an in-scient edition producer.
That's good.
I love producers.
That's good.
Does that necessarily qualify?
Obviously she's going to run for Senate, but that's not suspicious.
Hunter Biden, you know, selling a painting or something, clearly nepotism, and I think
Congress should investigate.
They're ridiculous.
This goes back real quickly, John.
This goes back to our first segment where we're talking about Katie Britt and how it's funny,
how she was.
And in this case, Laura Trump being now one of the people in charge of the RNC, it's funny.
But after you're done laughing, you've got to step back and.
look at the actual crimes that are being happening. Look at the actual policies that they're
trying to pass and realize that you're being taken and wake up and fight. 100%. Okay, I think we're
getting a little bit on. I think we should take our second break. We come back. We're
giving you a little update on some of Donald Trump's legal travails and then see if we can do
the story about some attempted activism in Israel coming up after this.
Welcome back to all to it remains of the first hour of the Young Turks.
Lots more to come coming up at the second hour, but for now we have this.
Donald Trump is not having the best day in court, or courts perhaps, because of course every week there's multiple trials.
that are moving forward and we would to give you updates on a few of them.
So the first has to do with the classified documents case, you forgot about that one, didn't
you? Well, it's still proceeding and it may even go to trial, although it's not guaranteed
at this point. Eileen Cannon, the judge overseeing the case is currently deciding
whether that trial should begin in the summer or if it should wait until potentially
after the presidential election, in which case Donald Trump could win office and then just
snap his fingers and the case is gone. But the special
Council is trying to make sure that that doesn't happen. And one of the ways that he's doing that is by stressing that Donald Trump's claim that he had absolute immunity to steal hundreds of classified documents is on its face ridiculous and it's clearly being put forward as a means to delay the trial. He says it is so wholly without merit that it's difficult to understand it except as part of a strategic effort for delay, hoping that she will accept that and move forward expeditiously. Smith's office asked Judge Eileen Cannon to certify his new
immunity claim as frivolous, which would foreclose the former president's avenue for an immediate
appeal that would delay the trial. An immunity claim is one of the few issues that if appealed
could derail a trial. And look, it is ridiculous on its face. But a lot of judges, including
the Supreme Court recently, have been pretending that there might be merit to it. And we do have to
bear in mind in this case, then it's Eileen Cannon. She has shown a willingness to go above and
beyond any sort of ethical obligations or guidelines in trying to manipulate this case to benefit
Donald Trump. So we'll see how that goes. We know that the Supreme Court is going to be taking
up the immunity claim on a separate trial, the January 6th trial, on April 25th. So we still have
more than a month to wait for that. But Francesca, starting with you, what do you think about this update?
I mean, yes, I had forgotten about it. But again, this is one of the more egregious and
stupid of the crimes that Donald Trump has committed. And I realize that is, you know, it's a
high bar there. There's a lot of dumb ones. But this is the dumbest. This was like the, I want
this for show and tell to my friends slash spies trying to get in a word with me at Mara Lago
buying my loyalty as they sip down impossibly disgusting cocktails. So, and watch me cheat at
golf like you and the other thing is like you know that i think that they go on and on about nada
right like donald trump's like right hand guy was this guy named walt nada and nada's like
very much in deep do-do over this so why shouldn't trump be like it is the most throwing this guy
under the bus when he did just carried out the wishes of the former president um
but again we're gonna see how the supreme court handles the immunity case when it comes to
this president. And I think they, I don't know, John, I mean, Maz, what do you guys think?
Like, I think they will not allow him to have presidential immunity. But it will succeed,
as we saw, in punting the rest of these cases farther and farther down the line. So ultimately
after November, it's not going to matter. Yeah, these guys, listen, his defense team is using
the strategy that some of us use when we get the letter to go be on a jury. If you delay it long
enough. Maybe it'll go away. And so they've been doing that with everything. This immunity case
is just the fact that he wasn't even president when this happened. The classified documents happened
after he was president. And then he admits his own guilt by saying, well, I actually declassified it
before I took it with me. It's all just, it's just a complete mess. And there should be,
there shouldn't even be a question. It's so crazy. It's so obvious. It's like, and then the false
equivalency that his supporters do. They go, well, Biden had classified documents.
But Mike Pence had classified documents. Yeah, but when they were asked to return them,
they returned them. They did not obstruct justice. It's like somebody is going to, you know,
arrest some people with drugs. And one person goes, look, I got it. Here you go. This is how
it came about. And that person might end up getting more leniency versus the guy who runs
and starts shooting to try and then hides it in his bathroom. That guy's going to get,
that guy's going to get taken down. And then they keep going. And they go, oh, this is the
politicization of the Department of Justice.
No, your guy would not be getting pursued if he hadn't committed any crimes.
This is, it just doesn't, it's never happened.
There hasn't been any president ever in the history of the United States that's committed so many crimes.
And then he has the gall to turn around and go, why are you investigating me?
Because you're a criminal.
You're a crook.
You are worse than Nixon.
And so I'm happy that, that, uh, um,
Smith is the prosecutor is going after him and I hope they keep going.
And you're right, we've got the uphill battle.
This guy is the luckiest dude in the world.
He's got Eileen Cannon who is a hack over there who's trying to support him and save him.
He's very much the roadrunner and I feel like we're Wiley Coyote.
But you know, it's time, this time Wiley finally caught that roadrunner, maybe it'll happen.
I like it.
I like it.
I wasn't sure exactly where you were going with that metaphor.
but I liked it in the end.
Yeah, 100%.
The weirdest thing about all of this is not that he broke the law,
it's that he seemingly spent every moment breaking a variety of laws.
Like how did you commit so many crimes?
A week ago, when I was reminded of the Hush Money trial,
I thought I had forgotten that one.
Like I didn't even, there's so many floating out there.
How did you do all this?
And look, some of it, he's already lost.
Remember, of course, a jury found that he had sexually abused E.
E. Jean Carroll, which bothers literally zero.
Maga people. They don't care that he raped this woman and then spent decades lying about it.
Super weird, but he did owe quite a lot as a result of that and he has put forward the actual
bond for the 91.6 million dollars. It'll end up costing him more. That's how bonds work.
He's gonna have to pay interest and all that a fee to the bonding company. But it was backed by the
Chubb company, an insurance giant, who chose to name itself that. In any event, if he loses the appeal,
he's gonna have to make good on the money that they backed.
Theoretically though, if the appeal works the way that he thinks it might or that Alina
Haba thinks it might, then maybe he'll end up owing less or maybe nothing.
And that's the $91.6 million, the nearly a half billion dollars that he owes
in the New York civil fraud case, that's due in a little bit less than three weeks.
So it remains to be seeing if he'll be able to get that one backed.
But he did for the smaller one.
Super fast reaction, starting with you, Francesca.
I mean, Lara Trump is now a co-chair,
so he's gonna be able to pay that money back.
And, you know, good for Chubb,
whose name I'm now somehow Googling.
I think it should be more like Chud.
That's more like on the nose, you know, Maga Chud.
But yeah, he coughed it up.
That's all I have to say.
They eventually coughed it up and they will probably
have to cough up more.
Yeah, he's gonna be selling a lot of shoes, John.
He's got to sell a lot of shoes.
But these guys, again, I think let's, let's work on Trump grifter.
Trump grifter, Donald grifter.
Let's just, I just want people to use that because he's, he's the biggest grifter.
And I hope that every strategy that they have in court backfires.
I really do.
I've never had so much, like, animosity for a human being in my life.
You know, I was talking to somebody today about like, you know,
We all have like close people that we love and then, you know, you know people that you love that end up getting sick and you're like, my God, that person is sick and they're they're not in a good state. And like they might pass away. And I go, I would never wish any, because in meanwhile, you have a lot of bad people who keep living. And I go, I would never wish anybody dies. But I go, but I got a list. And I'm not going to, I don't want to go any further. I don't like the karma of it all. But he's just the worst human being in the world.
But the happiest day of the last five years of my life was when Donald Trump had COVID and got that yes.
Oh, what a great day.
And yes, I realized that my daughter was born in the last five years.
I stand by what I said.
She's still top five.
There you go.
Anyway, hopefully Karina will never see this video someday.
In any event, we are running low on time and I want to make sure that we get to this
last story.
So we're going to cover it at least in an abbreviated fashion.
Whenever we're ready, why don't we roll this footage?
We are 10 minutes from the borders with Gaza.
We have a truck full of food for the people starving in Gaza.
The police and the army won't let us get in.
So we are staying here, we will keep holding on until they will let us in.
Because there is no reason to let people starve to death in Gaza.
This does not benefit any of us.
Not the people living in Gaza and not the people living in Israel.
And we demand a ceasefire agreement that will bring back hostages and stop the killing of innocent people in Gaza.
A strong message and powerfully delivered thereby an activist named Rula Daoud.
There's a Palestinian woman, also a citizen of Israel, who, along with a number of other Israeli activists, put together a
convoy of dozens of vehicles, including a seven-ton truck that they packed with aid in
the form of food and medicine. And then they brought it near the border with Gaza. They wanted
to get it in because as she says, there's no reason for people to starve. But many, many
people are in the process of starving right now through no small part from the fact that
aid that has been made available just can't get in there. It's being stopped at the border,
it's being disrupted. So they tried to fix that situation. And of course, they were stopped.
Now, they knew in advance that they were extremely unlikely to be able to bring the aid in,
but they wanted to do this as sort of a symbolic act to bring to light the fact that there
are people, including activists in Israel, that do not want this suffering to continue.
They said they wanted to highlight a different voice and show there are people in our society
who feel what is happening in Gaza is unacceptable. And so you could see there, I mean,
look, she mentioned getting the hostages back. They don't want anyone on either side of this conflict
to die either through violence or through the absolute degradation of the infrastructure
in Gaza in terms of access to water, to food, to medical supplies that is going to result
in an incredible amount of suffering and potentially in the long term, even more deaths than
have been accrued through the actual direct violence of the assault on Gaza by the IDF.
Maybe we can get to a little bit more, but Francesca, I wanted to start with you.
What are your thoughts about this symbolic act, this attempt to help?
I mean, I think it is incredibly brave and I think important, especially in Israel, especially at a time, you know, in following such a heinous attack when they are, you know, they lose their jobs if they speak out in support of Palestinian human rights.
But I also think it speaks to the incredible ineptitude, not just of the Israeli government, but the United States government.
Today we saw more drops, air drops from U.S. planes with parachutes on, sort of this last ditch attempt to get any food to the people of Gaza.
Some of those parachutes failed to open, and those aid packages actually wound up killing two Palestinians, I believe, in northeast Gaza.
So this is the state that we are in, and it is terrible failure, a moral failure, a political failure.
You know, between the United States and Israel, the one actor that could just open up the borders to allow the trucks that are there with food rotting day by day.
Last thing I'll say is, look, when this entire war, although now genocide, began, I thought, you know, the estimates were like, look, we're looking at 10 to 30,000 dead.
And in my, I mean, I felt a gut punch. No way. We can't allow that to happen.
30,000 and counting, 25,000 of them women and children by the US's own admission, 25,000 women and children.
But then the other thing that was said was the death based on starvation coming out of this will be worse.
So imagine 30,000, like we're hearing deaths every single day from mostly children because they need the most nutrients and their lives are the most fragile who are dying.
You're going to you're going to be seeing more than 30,000 people starving to death unless we take immediate action.
And that starts by opening up these borders.
Yeah, it's heartbreaking.
And it's crazy because I think that the Palestinians have become so dehumanized in the eyes of some.
And of course, you can also say when I talk to my some of my Jewish friends, they go, well, they dehumanized us.
War dehumanizes.
And we need to get past that and realize that these two people need to coexist there.
And it's crazy because when you say, oh, I'm calling for it.
I support ceasefire.
A lot of people go, well, what about bringing back the hostages?
You go, well, that's part of the idea.
The only time the hostages came back was when there was a ceasefire.
So let's get that ceasefire.
Let's get those hostages back.
And let's come up with a political solution.
This is a failure, as Francesca was saying, not just of Israel and the United States,
but if the whole world, we've ignored this problem, we've let it continue on,
and we thought, oh, it'll just go away.
We'll just ignore it.
You can't.
There's other countries and other peoples that are living side by side and have learned
to coexist. I know there's a deep history. I know that there's both sides are saying,
you did this. The other side says you did that. We are where we are. There's millions of Palestinians,
there's millions of Israelis. We need to come up with a solution. And as Francesca said,
the first thing that needs to happen is the United States has the power to tell Israel, stop,
just stop, ceasefire. None of this like wishy-washy, like maybe we should, you know,
we're kind of calling for a ceasefire kind of maybe, can you please? No, stop it. We've given
you all the fact that like on the one hand we're giving them weapons on the other hand we're trying
to throw in really it's just silly it's like a relief you know humanitarian relief you know so
stop sending them weapons that's what it is yeah and and the fact is listen it's like you got to
see your your enemy as as a human being these are human beings and i understand that october
7th was a horrible and atrocious day but again unfortunately there's no weapon that can just
kill the masterminds of October 7th and the Hamas leadership and then not kill all these innocent
people. And so, yeah, these people that were doing this are brave. And I hope that we continue
to push. But ultimately, it falls on the Biden administration to step up and really start
saying and doing serious stuff. Well, the organization is standing together. They have a website
if you want to learn more about what they're trying to accomplish. The final thing that I'm going to say
about this is we talked about dehumanization. I noticed something during the State of the Union
yesterday. You might have noticed. The Republicans were not quick to clap or to stand up.
That's the way that it works. It's sort of a norm of these things. But there were a few instances
in which Mike Johnson, who was visible on camera the entire time, did actually stand up
and clap. And I noticed one. See, Joe Biden transitioned to talking about the situation
in Gaza, and he talked about the tragedy of October 7th and how it was unacceptable that
so many had died and then we have to get the hostages back. And Mike Johnson stood up and clapped.
And he should. The hostages should be returned. It's unacceptable what happened on October 7th.
And then Joe Biden talked about the more than 30,000 that have died since in Gaza and how
that needs to stop. He didn't stand. No. He didn't clap because he didn't care.
He didn't care if 30,000 die. He doesn't care if it's 10,000 children, 3,000,
one year olds that died, he doesn't care if twice as many die in the end, he doesn't care
of five times as many starve or died needlessly of diseases that could have been treated if
their medical institutions were still standing. He didn't care and he didn't think he needed to
even pretend to care when he was on camera. And I don't know what to say about that. It's
just socially acceptable to care about the lives of some people and not about the lives of
others. We should be better than that, but thus far we're not. Unfortunately,
That is all the time we have for the first hour.
There's a lot more to come in the second hour.
Francesca, as always, thank you so much.
It's great time of here.
Thank you before I go.
Come see me in Sacramento, March 17th Sunday at 7 p.m.
That's next Sunday, St. Patrick's Day.
I'll be with Matt Leib, myself, Francesca Fiorentini.com for tickets.
Thank you.
And Maas, as always, pleasure to have you here.
Thank you.
And I'm in Phoenix this weekend.
I'm coming to Dallas.
I'm coming to Detroit.
Go to Mazurbani.com.
Come see me live.
And let's laugh a little and we all need a little release.
Yes, yes.
Thank you. I will be in LA this weekend with my family.
Leave me alone. I'll see you on Monday.
Bye everyone.