The Young Turks - Russiagate Returns

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

You’re vital to our work. Support as a member: https://go.tyt.com/signup. Biden considering executive action to close southern border, sources say. Morning Joe Crew connects an ex-FBI informant to Hunter's laptop. Nikki Haley on Alabama's IVF ruling: ""Embryos, to me, are babies.""" HOST: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) 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

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. We're going to be able to be able to be.

All right, welcome to the Young Turks, Jake, you're Anna Kasparian. Anna is, has COVID and has been doing the show all week anyway. I believe that's what they call hashtag American hero, also hashtag cray cray. Yeah, I'm on drugs, literally, it's called Paxlovid, and it works, it's disgusting, but it works. Yeah, as I told you earlier, offline, only saw about 2,000 commercials for it during the NFL playoffs. So I'm familiar with that joke. Okay, anyways, guys, serious stories about the elections, of course, and about policy. But also later in the program, Donald Trump has a secret genius strategy, apparently, for how to get black votes.

I think you'll find that interesting. How to rob the RNC of all of its money. That's also later in the program. and Mike Lindell gets smothered with a legal pillow. So all that's coming up too. All right, Casper, take it away. All right. Well, we've got some updates on what is likely to happen at the border should Biden go through with it.

But in what likely will spark the ire of his progressive base, the White House and the Biden administration is mulling the possibility of executive actions at the southern border. specifically for asylum seekers who enter the country illegally rather than through a legal port of entry. Now, if this sounds familiar to you, it's because it's a very similar policy to what was implemented under the Trump administration. Now, I want to be clear that they are thinking about doing this. It doesn't mean that they're definitely going to do it, especially considering some of the legal ramifications and the court challenges that will arise from it. But let me give you the details on what they're thinking. Now, first, the migrant crisis is something that the Biden administration is concerned about, especially because for the first time, it's really impacting big blue cities, places like Chicago and New York. The local communities

there have been frustrated by the influx of migrants and the fact that they don't have the necessary resources to house them, shelter them. In December alone, 300,000 migrants entered the country. The number did decline in January, as CNN notes. In January, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 1,124,220 reported encounters along the U.S.-Mexico border. Notably, there was a significant drop in Venezuelans, nearly 11,600 compared to 57,851 in December. Both the U.S. and Mexico have restarted deportation flights to Venezuela. So that's a So that's what the current situation is. And what Biden and the White House were hoping for was that Congress would in fact pass

that bipartisan border bill, which ended up getting killed in Congress because Donald Trump told Republicans not to pass it. And so now the Biden administration is thinking about taking the executive action. No final decision has been made on the action under consideration, which involves using an authority known as 212F between ports of entry to try to clamp down on unlawful border crossings. It's unclear how the proclamation under discussion would be executed and what, if anything, would be different from what was enacted during the Trump administration. Now, for a little bit of background on 212F and when it was implemented under Trump,

Back in 2018, Trump tried to use it, which gives the president broad authority to implement immigration restrictions to restrict border crossings. But ultimately, a federal appeals court ruled in East Bay Sanctuary Covenant versus Trump that the authority conflicts with asylum law and that 212F authority doesn't override it. And there are some immigration experts who have weighed in on the possibility of the Biden administration implementing a similar type of policy at the border. For instance, Stephen Yale lore says the following. President Biden has broad powers under the immigration statute, but they are not unlimited. Okay, so section 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows a president to suspend the entry of non-citizens who are detrimental. to the interests of the United States. But that doesn't mean he can just shut the border to everyone. So if the administration is, in fact, thinking about implementing that same policy that we saw from Donald Trump in 2018,

they most certainly will be met with resistance in the courts. And we already are hearing from some progressives in Congress who believe that Biden would be making a huge mistake if he moves forward with this. But there are other things that Biden has on his mind, including how to replenish, the dwindling resources necessary to control the border. We'll get to that in a moment. But, Shank, what are your thoughts on the possibility of Biden implementing this policy? Do you think it's a good idea?

Do you think that at this point, immigration is considered a detriment to the best interest of the country? Yeah, so we got to start at the beginning, actually, because I think the concept of open and closed border is a misnomer. So I think that when people say open borders, the right wing, that is actually perfectly legal to just walk into the country. There's no law enforcement at all. Anybody can come in and stay.

And that's not the case at all, right? Now, at the same time, tons of people come in without documents, and we can't catch them all. And when people ask for asylum, we go through a process. And in that process, since it takes a while, there's this thing called catch and release.

So you catch people, they apply for asylum, and then you release them until their hearings, and then after the hearing, they either get to stay or the great, overwhelming majority of them are deported. And now we've shared with you the stats before that well over 80% return for their hearings. So the idea that none of them ever return is also not true. Now, having said that, I think cash and release could be problematic. And I can see why a lot of the country is very frustrated by it. But if you're going to do something draconian that is not catch and release, well, it is by definition detaining them. And yes, detaining them means in a place where you could characterize as a cage,

a prison, some sort of facility that contains folks and they're not allowed to leave, right? So I don't like that. I'm sorry to interrupt. Yeah, well, that's the conversation we're having. So when you say close the border, I want people to understand, that's what it means. So well, and there's one of the biggest problem of other things as well, but let's talk about it. Let's understand the concept and then I'll tell you what I think should be done. The reason why, you know, asylum seekers end up, yes, catch and release, if that's the way you want to refer to it, is because we have this massive backlog of asylum seekers that need to be processed and have their argument or their case adjudicated before an immigration judge. The problem is there's been such a giant influx of migrants seeking asylum, and not all of those asylum claims are legitimate, I totally acknowledge that.

you still have laws, immigration laws that indicate that you must listen and make a decision about their asylum claim. And we don't have enough judges. We don't have enough resources at the border. The idea of detaining them, look, we've seen what the conditions at these detention centers happen to be. We've seen how the use of these facilities, most of them tend to be for-profit facilities, just terrible conditions. We've seen children literally die in detention. And so I want to find a solution if we can that's as humane as possible, but that's also fair to the American people and the cities that are most impacted by this, whether it be border cities or some of these big metropolitan areas in Illinois and in New York. So I don't know. I don't know what the answer is if we don't have a Congress that's willing to pass legislation that would reform the laws and also provide the necessary resources to actually adjudicate these asylum claims. Yeah, there are no answers without legislation in this case.

There's only, to be fair, there are answers, there's just bad ones. So let me explain what I think should be done, and then we can get into what should Biden do under this circumstance, which is, look, and I said the same exact thing under the Trump administration, and part of it, the right wing will find outrageous and never agree to, and part of it the left wing does not like at all either. So there has to be a pathway to citizenship and there has to be a really good way of going through the asylum process as quickly as possible. So does that mean you fund more judges at the borders? Absolutely. Does it mean you have more border security? Yes. Okay. But pathway to citizenship has to be real. There has to be a way for immigrants to come here. Not only for their sake, but for our sake, who are we kidding?

We employ millions of undocumented immigrants in this country. And any time there's a raid on one of the facilities, a factory, a farm, et cetera, a couple of weeks later, they totally regret it. They usually bring the people back. And it's part of the local economy. And the local economy is devastated. And the business are devastated, et cetera, if they're not around. So why are we kidding ourselves? Why don't you make it legal, have a controlled number of people that come in, as many as we need?

And that's a win-win for the, for us, for them, have a good asylum process. But the trade-off is once you set that in place, no, if you cross the border illegally, you don't get to apply for asylum, you don't get to stay. You're gone, immediately deported. You follow process because there is a process in that scenario. Otherwise, you're immediately deported. And by the way, if you've been deported once like that, sorry, you lose an ability to ever become an American citizen. So you could like, so the left will hate that part, but that's a fair tradeoff if you've provided an outlet for people to come here legally.

But without that outlet, if all you do is just deport everyone, well then we're breaking international law by not allowing for asylum. We're also being inhumane. And it's a preposterous system that's, and then you're going to stuff people in the cages with no process. No ability to become citizens, no nothing, right? And that doesn't make sense either. So you have to have both parts, otherwise it's going to fall apart. And you can't do the part about the pathway to citizenship without Congress voting on it, because it involves spending money.

He can't just do it through executive action. All he can do is what he's proposing now, which is some of the draconian parts with none of the positive parts. And look, the draconian parts have already been ruled or ruled down in the Trump administration. So I don't know how Biden would be able to carry this out without successful challenges through the court system. And he is also considering calling a national emergency to shore up some funding for the border. He had requested $14 billion for border funding in that supplemental funding bill. obviously that bill has had a very difficult time passing in Congress. Congress right now is basically useless. They have no interest in passing any legislation. At this point, I think every

member of Congress is just focusing on the election and making decisions about whether they even consider legislation based on the election, which is unfortunate because as you all know, we have all sorts of issues in the country that need to be dealt with and they're just not doing their jobs. Now, what has Biden already done in regard to immigration? Well, last year, the administration released a regulation largely barring migrants who traveled through other countries on their way to the United States. So the argument is that they should have claimed asylum in a different country instead of traveling through a bunch of other countries to get here to the United States. But I mean, he implemented that last year and clearly, either it's not being enforced or

It's not working. At the same time, the White House is calling out Republicans who have squashed the immigration reform bill that they've always wanted, always dreamed of. A White House spokesperson says that no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide. And that Republicans rejected, we continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border. I don't think they're going to do that. They're going to continue listening to Donald Trump and they have no intention of passing any type of immigration reform in the meantime. So between now and I guess the end of the election, possibly when the swearing in happens in January of next year, it seems Congress has no interest in any type of solution for the border. You know, there's an interesting political mystery that's only tangentially related to this.

But people who are supporting Donald Trump are getting hammered. in the polls, in elections. It happened in 2020, 2022. Carrie Lake is down disastrously in Arizona as we speak. Because people don't like this nonsense where the Republicans do nothing because of the orders of Donald Trump. And they've lost popularity because it was so obvious they killed their own border bill. On the other hand, it doesn't affect Donald Trump at all.

It's so weird. They're like, oh, yeah, if you support Donald Trump and you're one of these crazies that are totally, you know, unproductive, we're gonna punish you. But the guy who ordered you to do it, well, no, we still like him. He's still rock and roll. I just don't get it. That one I haven't solved. So final thing I'll mention, Jank, because it's, it's, I guess, somewhat relevant,

although I would argue that Biden has proven in recent history that he doesn't care at all. And these are individuals who don't really flex any real power in Congress. Pramila Jayapal jumped in on this and, you know, she's the head of the congressional progressive caucus. And she says that this would be a big mistake for the Biden administration, if they are in fact thinking of implementing executive orders. This would be an extremely disappointing mistake. Rule enforcement, only policies have been tried for 30 years and simply do not work. Democrats cannot continue to take pages out of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller's playbook. We need to lead with dignity and humanity. But honestly, I don't really think the

Biden administration is concerned about what Pramila Jayapal has to say or what congressional Democrats have to say. Biden is not performing well among, you know, key demographics in the Democratic voting base that includes young people. That does include progressives. A lot of it has to do with his poor decisions in regard to supporting everything that Israel wants to do in Gaza. But, you know, I don't know if doing nothing at the border is going to help him. I don't know if doing something at the border is necessarily going to hurt him more than he's already hurt himself on other issues. But I'm curious what you think about that. Yeah. So well, it's a mixed bag on Pramila Jayapal here. So first, to be fair, I'm sure that her position on immigration is to

the left of mine, right? And in the past, I've criticized her for not being progressive enough and not being a strong enough leader for progressives. So I'm glad that she's criticizing Joe Biden on this issue and on this issue, she's probably to the left of me. Okay, now having said that, I'm sorry, but her words don't matter because when push came to shove and she had to fight for progressive policies in the bills that were being debated and negotiated, she gave away all of her power and basically she went with, and I'm not making this up, it was called the trust Biden strategy. And she was totally screwed over on that strategy. Biden lied to her and then changed the order of the bills and then never passed the progressive

policies that were promised. And so Biden knows, oh, it doesn't matter at all. If I tell her you're to vote for this, she'll vote for anything. And she'll get the other progressives to also vote for it. They'll put out tweets complaining. But at the end of the day, they refuse to used to use their power so I could run rough shot over them. So I don't even know if that statement registered at the White House. And if they, if it did, they either had a good belly laugh over it or ignored it completely because of her actions. She will never ever actually vote against Joe Biden in any way, shape, or form on any bill.

That's why her statements, I'm sorry, and I feel bad saying this because it sounds harsh, but it's very literally useless. Yeah, you know what? You articulated this way better than I did. So thank you because that's exactly what I was thinking as I was reading her pushback on X, formerly known as Twitter, right? You've already proven yourself to be someone who concedes to Biden with just the tiniest amount of pressure. So I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't go along with what Biden wants in the end.

But who knows, we'll see. And I am curious to see how Biden is going to play this because I do think that if nothing, is done at the border, it will hurt him in the upcoming general election. And as we know, he's not performing well in the polls as we speak. So this is yet another mark on his record that could hurt him with some Democratic voters who have now have firsthand experience of what a migrant crisis is like. And so with that said, yeah, go ahead, Jake. Yeah. And one last thing, guys, I'm super curious to see what the lib reaction here is. And if you're not familiar with all these terms. Liberals these days means like moderate Democrats, establishment Democrats that love

Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. So my guess is the ones that were freaking out about the kids in the cages. If Biden does at least this particular Trump policy, that doesn't necessarily the kids in cages to be fair. But copies one of the Trump immigration policies that they said was so damaging, so terrible, the worst of the worst. My guess is every one of them will say that same exact policy is totally fine under Joe Biden. So at least credit to Jayapal for speaking out against it, which almost no other Democrat will. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, I can't even believe this. It's so depressing that it was painful to even produce the story. But Democrats are now double deep dipping in the Russia

conspiracies for the upcoming 2024 election. I'm not kidding. It's a thing. We'll be right back. On July 18th, get excited This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry! Smurfs.

Only dinner's July 18th. Back on the Young Turks, Jane Huguer, Anna Kasparian. Speaking of American Heroes, Lady F&T, gifted five Young Tourist memberships on YouTube. Cliff Casey gifted 20 and Rimuru Tempest, the Slime Dragon Fund. Gifted 25, all American heroes. Thank you guys. Every time you see this show, remember, you're a producer of that show. You made this show happen, so thank you.

Anna, what's next? Well, Democrats seem to be turning back to their old tricks, which failed to work, but they're trying it out again. You don't know what I'm talking about? Just listen to this. So then his pal in the United States, Donald Trump, and you wonder what does Putin have on Donald Trump that he always has to be beholden to him, his buddy in vileness. What does he have on Donald Trump that he have to constantly be catering to Putin? I don't know, Nancy, special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into possible collusion between Trump and Vladimir Putin cost the US taxpayers $30 million and turned up no evidence. So you tell me. But Democrats are unfortunately now double dipping in Russia conspiracy theories

ahead of the 2024 presidential election, because of course they are. Now in the clip that we just showed you, Jen Saki and Nancy Pelosi were specifically losing their minds over Trump's tweets following the death of Putin's main political opponent, Alexi Navalny. And it's very likely that Putin ordered the killing of Navalny. But in following news of that, of course, Trump went out. He posts on truth social and he loves to make everything about himself. We all know that. So here's what he said. The sudden death of Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our country. It is a slow, steady progression with crooked radical left politicians. We have no radical left politicians. Like every time they say we have radical

left politicians, it cracks me up. But anyway, radical left politicians, prosecutors and judges leading us down a path to destruction, open borders, rigged elections, and grossly unfair courtroom decisions are destroying America, we are a nation in decline, a failing nation, MAGA 2024. So that post was what Jen Saki showed Nancy Pelosi as Pelosi was making those allegations about Trump being in bed with Vladimir Putin. But look, Pelosi isn't the only one who's leaning into those conspiracies about Trump and Russia. MSNBC's Willie Geist and Ken Delanian directly connected news of former FBI informant Alexander Smyranov's arrest and his reported Russian intel contacts to Hunter Biden's laptop, even though there's, again, no evidence linking Russia to Hunter

Biden's laptop. So as a refresher, Smyrnav had told the FBI that Joe and Hunter Biden took $5 million each in foreign bribes. They claim that since the newly indicted Smyrnav, admitted that he had received his faulty information from Russia, that must mean that the discovery of Hunter Biden's laptop is linked to Russia. And this was, of course, a big story back in 2020. There was no evidence showing that there's a connection between Hunter Biden's laptop and Russia. But nonetheless, I want to give you a little taste of how that segment went down, and then I'll give you more. Those 51 former intelligence officials, they paid a steep price for signing that letter.

The House Republicans conducted an investigation. They brought some of them in to testify under oath. The Republicans said this was election interference. This was a bogus attempt to suppress a legitimate story. And as it turns out, they were right. Not in the sense. They said that the laptop was part of a Russian information operation or had all the hallmarks of a Russian information operation. They didn't say that the contents of the laptop were made up.

And obviously we know that they weren't. Many of them have been now corroborated. What they said was they were suspicious about why that story was emerging in the middle of an election campaign and whether Russian intelligence was flogging it or was somehow amplifying it. Jank, I don't. Did that sound insane to you? Yeah. That sounded insane to me. That sounded insane to me.

And when he's referring to the 51 people who signed the letter at the beginning of the clip, he's referring to the former intelligence officials who had signed a letter urging, you know, Twitter at the time to shadow ban content and, you know, anything that having to do with Hunter Biden's laptop. The New York Post got a lot of backlash for reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop. That's what they're referring to. Yeah. So let me take this one at the time. On Trump's Navalny tweet, look, you guys, Trump's crazy.

No, Navalny is actually incredibly courageous in standing up to Putin and then seems to perhaps been killed by Putin, but certainly imprisoned and tortured and abused in every way by Putin for being. Donald Trump actually broke tons of real laws and he has not been imprisoned. He's skirted every legal penalty his entire life. He's the exact opposite of Navalny. For all the laws that he actually broke, he's never suffered any consequence yet. So he's just a rich crybaby.

On the other hand, that what the Democrats are trying to do is say that, and I've seen this all over cable news, is that can you believe he said that about himself and Navalny? That means that that's it. Now we got him. That shows that he's totally deranged and loves Putin and okay, and the American people are going to turn on. No, the American people are not going to notice this statement at all. They're not going to notice. They're not going to care. It's a tiny, tiny drop in an ocean of Trump's stories and madness.

And it's a relatively small drop. Okay, now to Smyranoff. Smyrnoff was lying about Joe Biden being connected to Hunter Biden. The Republicans apparently knew it, according to Republican Congressman Ken Buck. He says Comer and Jordan did know that this guy's information was not. corroborated and they went with it anyway of course because Comber and Jordan are giant liars and they don't really wouldn't care if that guy who had was a serial killer they would have been like oh yeah he's totally right he's totally right and they wouldn't have cared if the FBI

told them don't use the evidence it's definitely wrong they would use it anyway right and Smirnoff is connected to the Russians having said that that segment that we just showed you was crazy why was it crazy because it was kind of a fox news like segment they never They never said that Hunter Biden's laptop was a Russian operation, but they heavily, heavily implied it, but there's actually no evidence of that. And they never stated clearly, oh, by the way, there's no evidence at all that the laptop was connected to the Russians. Instead, they made the average MSNBC viewer think, aha, we knew it.

The laptop has the Russians, too. It's all the dastardly Russians. they're they're obsessed with Russia and I have a theory as to why but but that was a that was a pretty dirty Fox News like trick on MSNBC's part I have to weigh in on all of that before we go to Paul Begala because I know why Jank I think we all know why it's the same reason why the Democratic establishment leaned so heavily on the Russia collusion angle following Hillary Clinton's failure to beat Donald Trump it's because they don't want to take responsibility for the fact that they are not popular with

their own base. Their base does not feel that they're looking out for them. That is the reason what part of the reason why Joe Biden has a low approval rating. So they want to make it appear as though, no, no, Joe Biden's actually an angel and he's doing a great job. And the only reason why he's losing favorability is because of all this Russian manipulation, all this disinformation, that kind of stuff. And it's frustrating because I guess I'm at the point of my life where I just expect adults to take some personal responsibility, just take a moment for self-reflection, and really question, hey, what is it that I'm doing? That my base, you know, the core demographics that are typically a given in elections are now kind of starting to spread over

to the Republican Party in some case. You see Trump increasing his support among, you know, black voters, Hispanic voters, young voters. What is going on here? Instead, they just, it's, it's a way of skirting personal responsibility and actually doing the necessary work to figure out what your voters actually want. I think that's what it is. I could be wrong, but that's the feeling that I get. Yeah. When you look at them blaming, the Democrats blaming Russia for everything, it's kind of weird to the rest of us. Like, okay, blame them for the things they actually did.

Smirnoff apparently worked with the Russians and the Russians did help a little bit for for Donald Trump in 2016, although it was not coordinated with Donald Trump. Okay, you could have those critiques and I've had those critiques, but it shouldn't swallow up your life. But every time they're on TV, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. That part the MAGA is kind of right about it. They're obsessed with it. So then I was trying to figure out why, why are you so obsessed?

So there's a couple of reasons. One is it's their excuse for all their losses, right? And that's what Anna partly said and a lot of folks online said. Anytime they lose, it was the dog ate my homework and it was Russia. Or, or maybe you're not very good at this, then you're all of your policies are geared towards supporting your donors and not your voters and you don't give a damn about your base and yelling rush afterwards doesn't help you. Okay, that's point one.

Point two is they love to say that anyone who critiques anyone in democratic leadership like Joe Biden is a traitor. So like for example today, Federman said that if you ever criticized Joe Biden, you might as will put on a MAGA hat. Okay, so, and of course if you're a traitor, you work for the Russians, so any critique of Pelosi or Biden, et cetera, means you're a Russian. Not just Republicans, but that one's a little bit broader, okay? But I think the main reason, Anna, is something that we have a lot of trouble relating to.

And I've said this about Biden many times, but it's true for all of these politicians who are in their 70s and 80s in Washington. There's frozen in Amber between the 1970s and 1990s. Those were their formative years. And in those years, all you had to say was Russia. And everybody would go, ah, they'd panic and they said, oh, that guys are trained. And then they would lose all the elections because you just said

connected them to Russia. It was right after McCarthyite stuff, and the Democrats were smeared with that. And so, and it worked back then. So they think, oh, perfect, we finally, after 40, 50 years get to smear. get to smear the Republicans with Russia, except it's 40 years later, and this situation has changed completely, and it doesn't work at all, and you guys look like jackasses

who are obsessed with something from 48 years ago when you should be actually trying to work for your voters. It's hard for us to understand because you think, really, they really can't get out of a mindset from 40, 50 years ago? And the answer to me, I think, is overwhelmingly yes. You know, it's, it is incredible that the big claim coming from the Democratic establishment against Donald Trump is that he's being manipulated and controlled by Vladimir Putin and Russia, that a foreign country with a foreign leader is controlling one of our leaders. And oh, my God, isn't that such a terrible thing? And if proven to be true, of course it's a terrible thing. But at the same time, let's not forget, and Federman is well versed in this. Isn't it also foreign control when politicians are so terrified of APAC spending tens of millions, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars against candidates who dare to critique how

Israel is carrying out its war in Gaza? I mean, it's just really interesting the kind of double standard that we're seeing here. And by the way, that's not just something that impacts Democrats. That impacts most politicians in American government across the political spectrum. But it is just interesting how that kind of foreign influence has, or influence that serves the best interest of a foreign country above our own, that gets kind of dismissed as no big deal. But when it comes to the possibility of Putin controlling one of our leaders, which again has not been proven, even despite that lengthy investigation that was done by Robert Mueller, that's a big deal, right? That's a huge injustice and we should be super scared about it. Again, if it is proven, it is a big deal.

And I think it is a problem. But we're experiencing foreign influence as we speak and no one's even worried about it at all. So that's a great point. I mean, it's a case of projection. They're like, we're controlled by Netanyahu. And so we assume that Trump is controlled by Putin. I mean, who they assume that you're working for a foreign leader of some sort for money, we picked Netanyahu, who'd you pick? Oh, I guess he must have picked Putin. But

Anna's also right that it's not just we picked Netanyahu. Mike Johnson gets a huge amount of money from AIPAC. They spend hundreds of millions not on any particular race, but overall combined. And so are they all affected by the enormous amount of money that APAC spends either on their behalf or against them? To say that they're not affected by that is just to lie on their behalf. And what's funny is that when they say, repeatedly about Russia, and but if you say it about Israel, they'll all say, it's offensive. They're very anti-Semitic. And that is, you cannot say that you're controlled by a foreign leader. And Trump is controlled by a foreign leader named Putin.

Yeah, totally, totally, exactly. So I want to get to Paul Begala because there's more on this. Now, apparently Paul Begala feels that Biden would be a strong. and tougher fighter as president as opposed to Donald Trump. And so what sparked this discussion was a statement that Biden made during a fundraiser, fittingly, in San Francisco. So Biden was actually talking about the potential of nuclear war in off the cuff remarks. And he was specifically referring to Vladimir Putin and Russia. He said we have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin and others.

And we always have to worry about nuclear conflict. Now, in response to that, a Putin spokesperson told Reuters that Biden's language is shameful and that the president was trying to act like a Hollywood cowboy. Look, what the Putin spokesperson has to say doesn't really interest me at all, but I will say that Hollywood cowboy is a funny phrase. But Paul Begala took that one statement from Biden and made a lot, a lot of it. So let's just watch the video and you'll see what I mean. And I wonder what you make of how Biden has been speaking about Putin compared with

what we've heard from Trump himself just saying yesterday that he's like the dissident who was killed in Russia. Yeah, I think this is great. This is Biden being strong and Trump being weak. And Trump voters love this notion that he's strong. And I think Biden should press this. Putin's got something on Trump. And what he's got is a particular part of his anatomy.

right in his pocket. Trump spends all his time bowing before Putin on his knees to Putin. He's weak, weak, weak. And here's Joe who's supposed to be a doddering old man. He's ready to take the fight to Putin. So, Jank, before I go to you, I think it's important to actually separate Donald Trump's rhetoric, which I agree has been far too kind and generous to Vladimir Putin. Separate that from action during his term as president. So I looked into this. This is something you can find yourself on the Brookings Institute website. They have a page dedicated to the actions that the Trump administration had taken against Russia while he was in power. And apparently the Trump administration took 52 different actions against Russia while Trump was in office.

I want to give you a few of those things. For instance, in December 19th, on December 19th of 2018, 18th, 18 Russian individuals were sanctioned. for their involvement in a wide range of malign activities, including attempting to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election efforts, to undermine international organizations through cyber-enabled means and the attack in the United Kingdom. Apparently they did some sort of cyber attack in the United Kingdom. September 20th of 2018, 33 Russian individuals and entities were sanctioned for their attempted interference into the election.

Like, if interference into the election was done on behalf of Donald Trump, it would be weird for Donald Trump to then come into power and then take all of these actions, 52 different actions against Russia as a whole and also against specific individuals within Russia. So that's the kind of stuff that you didn't hear about at all in corporate media. You certainly didn't hear about any of that over at MSNBC. So hearing Paul Begala say that, just, It's frustrating because it's devoid of any facts or any ground in reality. Yeah, well, I wouldn't say any. Look, it's hard to avoid seeing Trump grovel to Putin. And we all saw it with our own. He does. Yeah, we, he does rhetorically.

Yeah, I don't know why he does it rhetorically. I know why. It's super obvious. Same reason he does it with the Saudis. The same reason he did it for Israel when Childen Adelson gave him $100 million for his elections twice over. Money, that's it. Trump's not a complicated guy, super easy to figure out. He thinks that the Russians have gotten a money in the past, which they have. They used them, it appears that they used to money launder through Trump's properties. And there was a lot

to talk about that earlier, but I guess that's long gone and they're not going to ever be able to prove that. But he thinks maybe they'll do it again in the future. So, and Erdogan used this in Turkey. Oh, maybe we build you a big Trump tower in Istanbul. Anyone who promises him money he'll work for. He doesn't care. So he just looks at Putin as a piggy bank. Now, having said that, he did take all those actions against Russia. I had these debates many years ago. And I would always say, yeah, there's no question he did take those actions. And so, but overall, like, it's not the winning issue Democrats think it is. They already tried this. No one cared then. No one cares now.

The only people who care are Democrats in Washington who are deluded into thinking that we're all going to be scared if they just say the word Russia. And look at Bagal. Look, everything on television, it's just theater, you know, but Biden, he, you know, he's taking a fight to Putin. What does that even mean? Was he, is he going to rassal him? Like, you're taking the fight to him by shoveling hundreds of billions of

of dollars to the defense contractors to give old weapons to Ukraine and keep the rest of the money. But that's what you would have done because the defense contractors are financing you anyway. What else are we going to do? Oh, he called them an SOB and a private fundraiser. Ooh, this is dumb. To do something for the American people and get off of a completely failed political strategy that's not only not working, but annoying the living hell out of everyone in the country. When we come back, we'll talk about how fertility clinics and IVF options are now dwindling in the state of Alabama following their Supreme Court's ruling that believes that embryos are the same as living, breathing, viable human children. We've got that and more coming up. Don't miss it.

The Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia Book Club on Monday Jim on Tuesday Date night on Wednesday Out on the town on Thursday Quiet night in on Friday It's good to have a routine And it's good for your eyes too

because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. All right. Back, Jenk. And J.J.S.190. Just some girl without a mustache, fun handle. And then Chris and Eckerd upgraded. Kristen, American Hero, thank you for doing that. The upgrades are really important. You could do that through the join button below the video on YouTube as well.

And Clem Schrafel also upgraded to producer level. Clem, you're awesome. Thank you for doing that. You guys are producers of the show. You know, you're the ones who should get credit for us being able to do this honest reporting and challenging the establishment of both parties. Thank you so much, guys. And you could, of course, do that through t.yt.com slash join as well.

We do donations through there too, and it's a rough times and definitely do need it now. Thank you. All right, Anna. We've got a pretty terrible update on the reproductive right situation in Alabama following the Supreme Court's decision in that state to treat literal embryos as children. So here we go. I want to ask you about some news of day, specifically something that's come up in Alabama. The Supreme Court there said that embryos created through IVF are consistent. that are children and are offered those same protections.

Do you agree? I mean, I think, I mean, embryos to me are babies. So even those created through IVF. I mean, I had artificial insemination. That's how I had my son. So when you look at, you know, one thing is to have to save sperm or to save eggs. But when you talk about an embryo, you are talking about to me, that's a life. And so I do see where that's coming from when they talk about that.

Earlier this week, Alabama's Supreme Court ruled that embryos should be considered literal children under the law. And in their decision, they also used all sorts of religious language to justify their ruling. Now, in response to that, Nikki Haley, who has not dropped out of the Republican primary, despite her long-shot chances, says that she agrees with the concept that embryos are, in fact, babies. But at the same time, she's bobbing and weev in because she's trying to see what kind of messaging is going to be more favorable to her chances of winning the Republican primary. And so she gave some non-answers. I want to give you an example of that. Let's take a look at the next video. Do you have concerns about the ways that that could hurt people who are seeking IVF treatment? I think that we have to have those conversations. That's incredibly personal. It's incredibly sensitive.

And I think that's the conversation the doctor needs to have with the patient. Let's never underestimate the importance of the relationship between a doctor and patient when they're doing any of that. We, Michael and I had those conversations. And when you have those conversations and you have that artificial insemination, you talk about, I mean, you limit the number that you insert. Because there's viable embryos and not viable embryos. And if the state is saying that not viable ones can't be done away with. But those are the things we have to look at, right? So you have to be, this is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.

Wouldn't legislation like that have a chilling effect on what's possible for families? I mean, I haven't seen any legislation yet. Well, the kind that they're pushing in Alabama says that frozen embryos are protected as lives, unborn lives. I mean, I would want to look at it and see what they're talking about those that were viable versus those that are not. How they're treating that, how they're talking about that language. Those are all sensitive subjects where the details matter. It's interesting because she's, on one hand, conceding that this is a sensitive, intimate, personal topic and a decision that couples should make with their doctor. Remember, right now we're talking about embryos, and we're talking about in vitro fertilization.

That's what we're talking about. And she was specifically asked about Alabama's Supreme Court ruling, treating embryos as literal baby. So she starts off by saying, I consider embryos babies, okay? And then she does the bobbing and weaving where she's like, but you know, it's like a really personal thing. It's very intimate. Now, she got backlash for seemingly suggesting that she agreed with Alabama's decision. And later that same day, she went on CNN to try to clarify, clarify what she meant.

What she actually did was just provide more BS platitudes that don't really mean anything. So you can judge for yourselves. Let's take a look. Well, first of all, I didn't, I mean, this is, again, I didn't say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling. What the question that I was asked is, do I believe an embryo is a baby? I do think that if you look in the definition, an embryo is considered an unborn baby. And so, yes, I believe from my stance that that is, the difference is, and this is what I say about abortion as well, We need to treat these issues with the utmost respect.

This case was based on and should be based on the rights of those parents for their embryos and to make sure that they have the responsibility with the doctors on how those are handled. Nothing more than that. Utmost respect. So like should they pass a bill saying that this is a sensitive, intimate issue that should be treated with utmost respect? we're trying to have a conversation about policy, and specifically in this case, what's happening in the state of Alabama. But I'm going to tell you guys why I think she's bobbing and weaving, why she's having so much difficulty keeping her messaging straight here. Kellyanne Conway has

been warning the Republican Party about something. Let's go to this graphic and you'll see what I mean. So Kelly Ann Conway has warned Republicans away from bans or limits on in vitro fertilization, And in fact, advise them to forcefully support such treatments during a Capitol Hill briefing in December, Conway shared polling that found that an overwhelming number of voters, a whopping 86% support IVF, even those who consider themselves pro-life and evangelicals, 78 to 83% respectively. So look, this is not a popular political issue where the far right is on this issue is not popular. IVF clinics are now halting any operations because they're worried about being prosecuted following the state Supreme Court ruling. And so Nikki Haley is trying to have her cake in need it too. She's trying to appeal to that far right wing of the Republican electorate while also keeping

the more moderate, I don't even want to say moderate, like the majority of Republicans, I guess, happy by saying that she doesn't want to do away with someone's right or a couple's right to get that kind of treatment so they can have a baby. It's just really funny watching her inartfully tackle this issue. But I'm curious if you have the same, you know, perception of this jank. Yes. And I'll add some detail to it. First, on this idea that we have to be respectful on this issue of other people's opinions. No, I don't agree at all. And here's why I say that.

I'm respectful of anyone's position if they say, hey, in my opinion, my embryos are little babies, and I'm going to treat them as babies. Maybe I'll put a little cute little hat on them. We get some muffin. Muffin. Are you hungry? I know, right.

Mittens. I'm a mittens. Sanders like minns for the cute little petri dish babies or whatever. Okay, I'm making fun, but in all seriousness, if you want to treat this as as human beings, have added, hoss, it's a free country, right? So I'm respectful of your views in that way. But if you say you have to be respectful of my views by changing the law so that we totally don't listen to your views, no, I'm not going to be respectful of you taking away our

rights to respect your dumb ass views. Sorry. No, not even close. I don't have to respect you trying to enforce what I consider your lack of morality onto me. I want you to be evil. I demand you have to respect my demand for you to be evil. No, I don't have to respect that at all. And so it's a misnomer to begin with. She wants to say, if you will, split the baby when There's no baby splitting to be had. You saw the numbers, even 80% of evangelicals are like, no, yeah, we want our IVF. I mean, we never meant it about pro-life anyway. Who cares when it's a conception, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's just to have women under control. But we do want babies, so we want IVF. Principles, come on. So then you wonder, wait, why is she trying to appease 20% of evangelicals, like the most extreme end of the Republican base because they all vote, like 200% of them vote. And they control Republican primaries. It's this tiny, incredibly radical end of the political spectrum that has so much control because they all vote.

Whereas on the left, you can't get people to vote for progressives in primaries to take control of the party. Now sacrilege, heretic, don't you dare. We all bow our heads to the leader. No, you schmucks, look at how they took over the party even though they're tiny, tiny fraction of the country, because they all vote and then insist on their way. So she's trying to thread a needle that is not threadable here. So she wants to get rich Democrats to vote for her, okay? And even Charles Barkley, who is a rich Democrat or Republican, depending on the year, said to her, hey, listen, I desperately.

to vote for you. But you said that the country has never been racist. And I can't abide by it. It's too much. So, and then Nikki Haley goes, oh, I didn't mean that. I mean, there is racism, but we shouldn't focus on it. So why did she say it in the first place and why is she walking it back? Because she wants all the rich people, Democrat or Republican, to vote for her. And she doesn't want to wig them out by saying super extreme things. On the other hand, she doesn't want to turn away the most core base of the Republican Party who wants you to say there's never been any racism and petri dishes are human beings. So that's why she constantly is saying something, walking it back. Saying something, walking it back. You'll see it 10 more times in the next two

weeks. Watch. And while Nikki Haley as a woman is more concerned with the politics of this and how it's going to impact her political career, there are real consequences on the ground in Alabama. now the University of Alabama at Birmingham has announced that they are pausing in vitro fertilization services in fear of criminal prosecution. Obviously this follows the state's Supreme Court decision ruling that embryos are the same as children. Hannah Eccles, who is a spokesperson for the university, said the following. We are saddened that this will impact our patients attempt to have a baby through IVF, but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard

of care for IVF treatments. And two other fertility clinics since that announcement have also announced that they are pausing IVF treatments for patients in Alabama. Jasmine York, who is a 34-year-old woman living in Alabama, actually turned to IVF to get pregnant after she had multiple ectopic pregnancies, which left her with no fallopian tubes. And so her dream is to have kids. She like desperately, this is the thing that's so crazy about the people who are against reproductive rights. Like for people who desperately want to have children but need to turn to, you know, advanced technology and IVF to do it, no. For people who are, you know, in their first trimester and they really don't want to have the baby, right? They don't want to bring that pregnancy to term.

No, it's just so incredibly restrictive and it doesn't make any sense. But going back to Jasmine York, she told CBS, I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm a whole slew of things. It's completely just derailed a lot of hope. There's no other way we want to grow our family. It would mean the world to everyone around me. Like she really, really wants to have kids.

And now, since she lives in Alabama, one of the options in getting pregnant has been taken away from her. Yeah. So look, you can tell how absurd this law is if you just take out extreme Christian fundamentalist law and put an extreme Muslim fundamentalist law. So in this case, the extreme Christians say, no, anything in a petri, spittle, whatever, some guy, you know, pleasureed himself and put it in a petri dish, life, life, no, and you all have to follow my morals, my morals. They don't. But, Jank, be clear, they don't consider that. that life, right? They don't consider sperm human life. Specifically, the second sperm enters the egg. The second, it's an embryo. That's it. No, no, I know, because then if you consider sperm life,

then you'd have to regulate guys and you're never, ever, ever going to do that, okay? Can't be spilling that seed. No. And by the way, that's also in the Bible. How come they ignore that? That's called onerism and it is deeply immoral. How come we're not regulating it? Oh, because men are in charge. Obviously, especially among Christian fundamentalists. So now Muslim fundamentalists say you're not allowed to draw any human being, let alone the prophet Muhammad. So imagine if they said, not only do are we going to follow that law, but we want Alabama to pass a law saying that no one in this state is allowed to draw a person.

Everybody would say, what are you nuts? Why do we have to follow your religion? You don't draw Muhammad, you don't draw human beings, but we can. And why don't we have to live by your religion? Everyone in Alabama would say that 100 out of 100 people. But when a Christian says it, no, you have to follow my insane interpretation of my religion. It was like, yeah, okay, let's do that. Yeah, that makes sense.

No, it doesn't. It doesn't make sense under either circumstance. Finally, and unsurprisingly, Nikki Haley isn't the only Republican dodging questions about this case. Tim Scott suddenly thinks he can't weigh in on reproductive issues. And he cites a fascinating reason why. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos are children that raise questions over whether in vitro fertilization can move forward. Is that a stance that you agree with?

Well, I have a study of the issue. So I'm what, Nikki Haley continue to go back and forth on that issue. Oh, seems like it's a bit of a political hot potato now, isn't it? Because if I recall correctly, Republicans had no problem weighing in on the issue of reproductive rights. And doing so with such authority as if they are medical professionals who know everything about the procedure, everything about reproductive rights and know the difference between right and wrong. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll get into an interesting argument in regard to the identities of the perpetrators of the Kansas City Chiefs Parade shootings. Why is it that two of the individuals who were arrested did not have their identity relayed to the public through the press? We're going to get into that argument and more when we come back.