The Young Turks - Santos’ Final Bow

Episode Date: December 2, 2023

The House votes to expel George Santos from Congress. Israel-Gaza war live updates: Airstrikes resume in Gaza as pause in fighting ends. Trump responds to gag order reinstatement by attacking a judge���s wife. Montana's ban on TikTok is blocked and extends critics' losing streak. Jesse Watters gets passionate about the way men’s lips “purse” when they drink through a straw, and he says that Biden is weird for drinking a milkshake through a straw. HOSTS: John Iadarola (@johniadarola) Yasmin Khan (@yazzzzzk) and Jackson White 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. 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. Woo! Hey, guys, Friday! See my team, Street by Tee! Drop it like the number of sitting

of sitting house members. And by that, I mean, drop it very, very small amount. But anyway, I'm here. It's the Young Turks, everybody. I'm John Ida Rola, and it's not just me. I've got an awesome panel, as you can already see. Gelsman Leo Kahn is here. You know her from Rebel HQ, from T.I.T.

From modern context. Jackson White is here as well. Also, all over the network. Also, host of politics and paper, which I haven't been invited on it. So I don't know as much. You want to tell us one in about 20. Oh, yeah, we're going into 2024 strong. Yeah, politics and paper is my YouTube channel. We do daily streams. I got a variety of other programs in there for all the nerds too, because you know, there's a lot more to life than just politics. Sometimes you got to take a break. But the membership program is totally circulated around community. service and we're going into 2024, really working on getting progressive policies pushed through

city council because federal government, you know, it takes up a lot of the air in the room, but it's really slow and not much happens. So, you know, yeah, check it out. And by the way, the right has demonstrated over a number of years that sometimes it is easier to target the lower levels of government. So I like it as a strategy. Nice work. I'm very happy to have both of you here today. Thank you. I'm happy to have the audience as well, because we had a lot to talk about. As I alluded to in the drop in it, we've got some news. for Congress and for George Santos that we have to talk about, but also updates on what's going on in Gaza, fighting. Spoiler alert is what's going on. But Donald Trump has been

gagged. He's attacking people left and right. We're going to see if he gets in trouble. We're going to see if he gets fines. And Ron DeSantis, devoted Christian, or is he? New reporting calls that a bit into question. We're going to evaluate that live. on the show. So thank you all for being here. Hit that like button if you haven't already. And we're to jump at our first story. On this vote, the yeas are 311, the nays are 114 with two recorded as present. Two-thirds voting in the affirmative, the resolution is adopted and a motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. The clerk will notify the governor of the state of New York of the action

of the House. Under Clause 5D of Rule 20, the cheer announces to the House that in light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, the whole number of the house is now 434. Down goes George Santos. Good news, arguably for the country, although Speaker of the House Mike Johnson seems a tad depressed at that. Like I haven't seen him this sad since he saw just like LGBT people live in their life. Happy and first. and it just got to him. He's not happy about this. Well, look, there's a lot to not be happy about necessarily the fact that it took three tries to

expel George Santos from the house. That's a lot. It took years of lies. It took many alleged crimes, which are still now being investigated. But whatever, he's gone. Not from our lives, not from our hearts, perhaps, but from the house at the very least. And that makes him just the sixth member to be expelled from the U.S. house in U.S. history. The first member to be ousted in more than two decades, although I'm going to make the bold prediction that I don't think it's going to take two more decades to do it again.

Of the five members who've been expelled previously, three were expelled for fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War, unlikely to be joined by any more in the future, although perhaps some people who are big fans of the Confederacy, I suppose. The last actually to be expelled was James Trafficant back in 2002 after being convicted of several crimes, including bribe. So a financial crime and having to do with campaign finance, which George Santos has wrapped up in many crimes like that. So, you know, he was expelled before those can be finally adjudicated. But that will come at some point. We will know the truth of these various crimes. I want to give you the breakdown of the actual vote because it was not unanimous. A total of 311 members of the House did vote to expel George Santos, including 105 Republicans.

114 voted against the expulsion, with two members recording themselves as present. Two Democrats, by the way, also voted against expelling him. So many Republicans did to their credit vote to expel George Santos, but not the majority of the caucus, which seems like an important threshold, at least for perhaps political ads to come. We have a lot more on this, including what is actually going to happen to fill that seat. But, yeah, so I want to start with you. Did you expect this to happen? And what's your reaction to him being expelled?

Yeah, I actually did kind of expect it to happen, which is unusual for me. Because whenever these things happen, I always assume that whatever probably should happen will not happen. So I was pleasantly surprised. George Santos, though, whenever I see him on the screen, it feels like I'm watching an episode of Veep or something like that or parks. He doesn't feel like a real person to me. He's very much on all the time. He knows that he's a character. He knows that all of America is kind of talking about him too.

And he really seems to revel in that position, which I mean, good for him, I guess. And if you see, if you just pull out some of the quotes from the things that he's been saying in the media to the press in the last couple over the last couple of days, it really, it sounds like something like a Bond villain or like a Batman villain would say. Like if he's not already a villain, this is definitely his origin story. So very excited to see where George Santos goes from here. Jackson. Oh, I think that this is just the beginning of a very illustrious celebrity career for George Santos. Sure, he's going to go to prison for a couple of years at least. But, you know, he'll come out and he'll just do his thing on TikTok or whatever.

But me, every time I see George Santos, I think, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-ma. He's just always in another world somewhere. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just da-na-na-na-na-na-da-da. like every time he walks past. But honestly, we're all lucky, at least to our knowledge that George Santos isn't violent because he's really somewhere else. Like George Santos is more of an egregious liar than even Donald Trump. And like when you look at a lot of people who lie, whether they're politicians or in business, their lies are still practical. Like they make

sense. You know, George Santos just wakes up and he's 50 different people throughout the day. You got to keep in mind, it's only 24 hours in the day. So that's a whole lot of switching up. But I think the big thing is one, this man actually got into Congress, so I think there's something to look at there. But, you know, I think overall, he's just, he's fun. He's just so much fun, you know. He's playing the victim. And, you know, that's true. A certain type of fun. And there are different types, perhaps, for those he defrauded, not as fun. But I do, I agree with you that he has, you know, a celebrity career, a head of him. I think maybe some fun will come from that. So really fast to both of you, what do you think his costume will be on the mass singer?

Orning the dinosaur. I don't know, that's the first thing. I see like, like, what is it like those big dragons with the with the flaps on their heads? I don't know why. That's what I see for him. It feels very avant-garde. Like dragon tails? That's what came to my mind. Yeah, something like that. With a little, with the little bitty wings here. Yeah. Yeah, see about that. Maybe a Falcourt thing. But anyway, for now, he's gone along the way, by the way, we gave you the overall breakdown of who supported ousting him, who didn't.

All four top house GOP leaders. So that's Mike Johnson, the Speaker, Steve Scalise, House Majority Leader, Lee Stefanik, the GOP Conference Chair and House GOP whip Tom Emmer, all voted to keep him in Congress. And look, I'm not gonna say that there aren't a couple of reasons why you might do that. They're saying they think it's a bad precedent. And I know it's not only Republicans that think that. Some think that like Brett Ehrlich on the damage report this morning was saying that he thinks you could just wait for him to actually be convicted.

I think I find that semi-compelling. I'm not necessarily sure, but what I would assume is, since you have the majority of Republicans voting to keep him, that you have all of the leadership voting to keep him, this seems like the sort of thing that if you wanted as a Democrat perhaps to get a little bit of mileage out of this, especially when it comes to the special election, which Governor Hockel of New York is going to call, and it's expected that that will happen in about three months. I would probably try to get a little bit more mileage, not out of George Sanchez still being there because he's not, but the fact that so many Republicans tried to keep him

around and did defend him. This seems like the sort of thing that you would want to attack them on. What do you think about that? Yeah, starting with you. So I was actually on indisputable yesterday with Sharon Reed. And we were talking about this. Obviously, this was before the vote even happened. And the issue that I had was that there were members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats who were given reason, they were giving their reasons for why they wanted to vote to expel George Santos. And some of the reasons that they were giving and they were stating these reasons publicly, those were a little concerning for me. Like some of the reasons were that it would be politically advantageous for me to get rid of George Santos. And a

Another congressperson from, I think, Tennessee said that his constituents don't like gay people. So he's just doing the least he can do for his constituents by like getting rid of one more gay person in Congress. And I think if you're going to have something like an expulsion of a member of Congress, somebody who was voted into Congress, despite the fact that he lied all over his resume to get voted in, the fact is he did win his election. If you're going to start expelling Congress people, I kind of see Brett's point that like maybe we should have waited for these investigations to happen. Maybe we should have waited for some kind of conviction. I am a little concerned about where this could lead going forward. Well, I think, I mean, I think there's definitely a lot of merit to that in terms of precedence being said with the election being basically a few months from now, he could get voted out. But in my opinion, if you're going to kick anybody out of Congress, I guess it should be him just because, you mean, in terms of lines that were crossed, he crossed all them, not just his family history, where he came from and stuff like that, but literally like stealing money from constituents beyond the donation limit, thousands of dollars, including people, members in Congress. I can't recall the guy's name, but he sent out a letter to Republican.

representatives and he was like, he ended up stealing money for me and my mother and like hundreds of other people. So it's just like, if there's going to be anybody, I guess it should be him. But like for the Republicans who are defending him, it's just kind of like sometimes you've got to bend your principles a little bit. Because when you're so principled that there's no room for nuance, it's like, okay, you're fully, you know what. Because are you a robot or are you a thinking human being? But again, George Santos is just a special case, a reflection of the USA and you know, he's just a fun guy. He's just so much fun. You're referencing there, Representative Max Miller, who had him, himself and his mother had been apparently allegedly

robbed by the congressman as well as so many other people. And, you know, little bit of respect to George Santos for ripping off so many Republicans. You got to give him a little bit of respect for that. But it's the big reminder that like when he does this or when Donald Trump, you know, uses like tricky biziki ways to get people to sign up for like auto like recurring donations. He's not ripping off commies. He's not ripping off lefties and Tifa. He's robbing devoted maga people. Such a weird way to go and very rarely seems to hurt them in their standing amongst that group. It's a weird way that the world works. I want to jump ahead to do graphic five though and and move this along a little bit.

But George Santos, in anticipation, I guess, of his coming expulsion had been super defiant in the final days saying, I will not stand by quietly. The people of the third district, New York sent me here. If they want me out, they're going to have to go silence those people and take the hard vote, which I guess for some was hard because they voted to keep him. But it wasn't just sort of warning them. There was also kind of the implication of revenge, I guess, saying this will haunt them in the future where mere allegations are sufficient to have members removed from Congress when

duly elected by their people. This is bullying. It's all theater. It's theater for the cameras. It's theater for the microphones and theater for the American people. And George Santos is not interested in theater, except for the Broadway show that he lied about having produced, the Spider-Man one. He liked that theater, but he doesn't like this theater, I suppose. Mear allegations, he's not technically wrong, I guess. I mean, there does seem to be quite a bit of evidence. for the wire fraud and the theft and all of that stuff. He's facing two dozen federal charges, so MIR is pulling a lot of weight there, I guess. And look, if it was just a rumor of a crime that had led to him being, you know, expelled from Congress,

I think many more people would have a problem with that. And that's not hypothetical. In the two previous votes to expel him, many Democrats had not signed on. Representative Jamie Raskin, for instance, saying specifically because we're not going to do this just based off of hearsay. But it's not mere allegations. The Ethics Committee did an investigation. They looked into this and they believed that there's compelling evidence that he used every single means that he could identify to rob people. And then on top of that, it's the lies, which of course drives so much of the conversation around this.

If you don't recall some of them, here's a bit of a reminder. My name's George Santos. I'm from New York City. So let me tell you a quick story. I put myself through college and got an MBA from NYU. He was a star on the Baruch volleyball team. I didn't outright lie. We lost four employees that were at Pulse Nightclub. My mom was a 9-11 survivor.

My grandparents survived the Holocaust. I'm Jew-ish. I've lived an honest life. Santos helped him raise $3,000 for his dying dog through his pet charity. But Osthoff says he never got the money and his dog died six months later. Nothing in the life is free. Oh my God, George Santos stole money. George Santos bought designer clothes.

That's what I buy. He once claimed to be one of the first people in the United States to be diagnosed with COVID-19. Santos told supporters that he was a producer on the show. short-lived Broadway production, Spider-Man, turn off the dark. Did I embellish my resume? Yes, I did. The openly gay New York congressman used to perform in drag back in the day. Sue me for having a light. I honestly have forgotten about a few.

He's not just a liar. He's what they refer to as like one sick puppy. He also is responsible for sick puppies dying. He's one of the craziest, weirdest people that has ever been foisted on the American public. And I'm not saying that his lies are the most like raw, consequential lies. You could probably identify others. And if it was just the lies that would not be enough. But it's the lies and the embellishments and the crimes and the fraud and the theft and all of that.

And when I'm reminded of all of it, I just think that, yeah, I'm a little bit worried about precedent, especially considering how sick the American political system is. But that guy had to go. Any final words for George Santos, at least in his congressional incarnation, Jackson? I mean, you know, I just, there really aren't words for him. I think we definitely have not seen the last of him. He's definitely going to face some prison time. I mean, few people beat federal charges as it is.

But we haven't seen the last of him. This may just be the thing that he needed to do. Sometimes he got to do a little bit of suffering before you really, really see a bright day. So that's really all I got to say about this. I mean, like, how the hell did this guy get in office? Like, how did he win? I don't know, that's it. Yes.

Yeah, the Spider-Man musical thing is a little perplexing for me. That musical was a train wreck. I think the lead actor, I think it was Reeve Carney. He ended up in like, like he had physical abuse all over him just from doing that show and they had to shut it down. And then, like, he's like the quotes about like, oh, I will not go quiet. Like he's, that's the poem from Dylan Thomas, but also like President Bill Pullman and Independence Day quoted that to you. Like he's just like, he's such, that's his Batman villain origin. Like that's, it's so ridiculous.

Yeah. That's it. I don't have. The Jewish thing also bothers me because it's like, it's kind of like doesn't even make grammatical sense. The way he tried to explain it. That's how I feel about. Okay. Last thing, the only fans, when he said he only, he, I just discovered what only fans was three weeks ago.

Yeah. What's the significance of the three weeks? Like, if you're going to say that, you might as well just be like, what's the only fans? Yeah. Yeah, he's just. Anyway, geez, okay, I did not, I did not expect an Independence Day reference. I appreciate it. One of my favorite movies.

Also, most people don't know this produced by Georgia Santos. Anyway, we're going to take our first break. When we come back, we're going to mix it up and move into more serious, The fighting has begun once again in Gaza. We're going to give the details after this. Welcome, if you're just joining us now, it's John, Yasmin, Jackson, hit the like button if you haven't already. Let's get serious as we jump into this.

The ceasefire is over. In Gaza, war again rages, and with it, destruction, despair, and death. We were collecting water to wash her clothes as the bombing started, says Omar Haruz in southern Gaza. He can't find his family. Among the dozens of dead in just the first hours, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, many are women and children. Yes, tragically, the violence has begun again. The death and destruction has begun again. Seven days of a temporary truce that, man,

it really doesn't feel like it's been seven days that passed fast. I imagine for those desperately trying to survive in Gaza, that passed much faster. But the attacks by the IDF on Gaza have begun again. And we want to give you more information about what's been going on. Take a look at this. smoke billowing from building streets strewn with rubble the shelling centered on southern gaza Israel dropping these leaflets urging residents to flee even further south warning that certain areas

civilians had been told to go are now no longer safe overnight we pressed the IDF on that so you're saying that southern gaza could look like northern gaza i'm saying that if hamas is in southern gaza we have no choice but to go after hamas where they are located hospitals in gaza again filling with the wounded, brought in on ambulance and donkey cart. The UN saying around 1.8 million Palestinians have been displaced. And even with some aid coming in, the World Food Program morning, families are on the edge of starvation. So you see there, yes, the bombing has begun again,

including in areas that previously civilians in the northern portions of Gaza had been told to flee to, just a reminder that any time you hear the term, safe zones, the word temporary should be added. Hopefully by the media, but if not, then by the person receiving the message. Both sides, as is always the case, are blaming the other side for the truce being broken. Israeli government spokesperson accused Hamas of failing to provide a list of more hostages for release. Effectively, days of ceasefire had been bought by more hostages being released by Hamas. They added that the group had violated the pause by launching rockets and says Hamas will now take the mother of all thumpings,

taking it very seriously. Hamas in turn blames Israel for the breaking of the ceasefire saying in a telegram post they were responsible for persistently rejecting offers throughout the night for the release of detainees. Hamas had proposed an exchange of prisoners and hostages involving elderly people as well as the return of bodies of Israeli hostages as well. And I defy anyone to say for certain who is actually responsible for it. There's going to be both information and obvious misinformation on both sides, we can't know. It would have been amazing for the ceasefire to have lasted longer because every single day, again, was being bought by hostages and prisoners being transferred.

That at least as of now has been broken. And by the way, even prior to the ceasefire officially ending, there was still violence going on at a lower level, but still present. Israeli troops had killed an eight-year-old boy during a raid on a West Bank refugee camp. This is yesterday, and three Israelis were killed in a shooting carried out by Hamas militants in Jerusalem. So those weren't considered themselves to be things that broke the ceasefire. Violence was still on a low level continuing. But now it is officially done. The bombing has continued.

People's attempts to flee to somewhere that will at least for a small while be safe continues. And Yaz, I want to start with you. What do you make of this? Oh, this is heartbreaking, isn't it? Something that was said was that Hamas will take the thumping, the whatever they said. It's not going to be Hamas taking the thumping. The Palestinian people are going to take the thumping. And we all know that because that's what we've seen happen.

And it's like what you said, whenever there's like a designated safe zone, it's only temporary until it's only going to last as long as the conflict then reaches that space, right? conflicts like this don't just stay contained within one area, regardless of whatever, you know, the people in this case who are invading the land are going to try to tell you, right? We're up to almost two million people displaced right now also, right? So many Palestinians have died within the last month, right, because of this conflict. But the displaced people also, that doesn't get talked about enough. That's a major problem. We have like an incredible refugee crisis now that is being created.

And for what? These people are constantly being pushed off of their land. And now they have nowhere to go. Some other countries now are starting to open their borders. But even that makes those countries more vulnerable to attack as well. And I will say during the ceasefire, I saw like throughout this whole thing, I've been really careful to kind of like manage my own emotions about everything that's going on and just kind of keep my head about it so I can at least, you know, try to discern what's going on. But there are. was like a TikTok video and it was a Palestinian kid and he was just like so happy that there was a ceasefire and that, you know, the sky was out. And that was what finally broke me was just like this happy Palestinian child that, you know, there weren't palms going off for once. And it was just sad because like, you know that it wasn't going to last very long. So that, I don't know, it's it's all very sad. And on top of all of that, we have no idea what's going on. Like there's so much conflicting information. We're all just trying to parse it all together and make sense of it.

Jackson. And it seems that too, just, you know, generally within the confusion that's going on because it's not a simple issue. It's not a simple conflict in its decades in the making. That gives the current Israeli administration the opportunity to just keep on power grabbing. And pretty simply put, unless the United States really steps up and pushes for peace, why will anything change? No one's stopping them unless there's a complete change in government. that has a more humanitarian or peaceful will, then this isn't going to stop. So a lot of this really seems that it's going to hinge on the United States, the Biden administration, really stepping up and doing as much as possible because we are one of Israel's largest allies, and we can do more than we have been, clearly, clearly we can do more. And, you know, I think it's really not more complicated than that. Well, there was news today that Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, says they have been pushing for more to be done to avoid the deaths of civilians. And according to the Secretary of State after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has

agreed to this. Here's a little bit of a discussion about that. In my meetings today with the Prime Minister and senior Israeli officials, I made clear that before Israel resumes major military operations, it must put in place, humanitarian and civilian protection plans that minimize further casualties of innocent Palestinians. That means taking more effective steps to protect the lives of civilians, including by clearly and precisely designating areas and places in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire. It means avoiding further significant displacement of civilians inside of Gaza.

It means avoiding damage to life-critical infrastructure, Like hospitals, like power stations, like water facilities, and it means giving civilians who've been displaced to southern Gaza the choice to return to the north as soon as conditions permit. There must be no enduring internal displacement. All of this can be done in a manner that still enables Israel to achieve its objectives. And according to the Secretary of State, Israel has agreed, at least in principle, to those those things, all of which I think seem eminently reasonable, common sense.

Also importantly verifiable, all those things can be checked in the near future. And we will see will the pace of civilian deaths go down. Will we see a dip in what has been a historic rate of children, civilian children being killed? We'll be able to find out, we'll see if hospitals in the south are protected from strikes, if populations are allowed to move back to the north at some point. all of this is verifiable. The issue is that as of right now, I guess we just have to take anonymous Israeli officials and Anthony Blinken's word on it when the stakes almost could not be higher. Any quick final words from either of you?

Yeah, I'm just kind of just concerned about everybody and it does feel like a hopeless situation in a lot of ways. And I don't like saying that, but I just don't see how this is is going to get any better anytime soon, at least not like, like this had to be better yesterday, right? Like if it happened right now, tomorrow would still be too late because we've already lost so many people. And so much land has been destroyed as well. He said no more, I don't remember exactly the words he said, but he said he doesn't want more people displaced and no more internal displacement, I think. Yes. Which is kind of funny considering everything that's been going on between these two regions over the past few decades.

We'll see what happens. Blinken seems optimistic. It's also interesting to me, and you see this not just here, but in all kinds of conflicts around the world, whenever the country says, okay, we'll allow for humanitarian aid to protect the people that we're actively bombing. So that happens all the time, and it never makes any sense to me, but here we are. My final words on this is that this particular issue, in my opinion, is going to be the Biden administration's biggest hurdle that they have to deal with in the general election. Donald Trump is his own biggest hurdle. But this is an issue that is obviously, as we've seen, very tragic, very complicated. It's not just going to end anytime soon on its own. And this right here is really what the Biden administration needs to focus on. to just have more security winning in 2024. So I think that they're going to do something about it because of that.

It won't be perfect, but I don't suspect that they're just going to do nothing whatsoever. But hopefully they do more than the bare minimum, but we'll have to wait and see. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like they can afford to do nothing considering how it seems to be hurting them particularly with young voters, at least as of right now. And we've been saying we want them to do more. We want them to really use their diplomatic power as well as also pressure leverage, which we have and have not chosen to use as a country so far to push for peace and for strategies that result in fewer civilian deaths. You know, they were, they were at least partially involved, you know, the State Department with the ceasefire being put into place,

and now Blinken says he's gotten some assurances around protections for civilians. So if we see that over the next month, much more is done to stop civilians from needlessly dying, then that will be deserving of credit. But as of right now, it's just tweets and it's speeches, That's all it is. We have to see the actual results of it. appellate court reinstating the gag on him. Donald Trump has predictably lost his mind once again. And, you know, previously in his trials, he'd been attacking, like for instance, the judge Engron. Eventually, there were so many threats, including death threats from that, that the gag order was put into place. That gag order had to be extended because he started to

attack other people, lawyers involved in the trial who weren't under the first gag order. Well, now he's found yet another person that he can attack you who isn't currently being protected, and that is the wife of the judge. I'm not going to tell you all of the things he's been saying about her on social media, but here's a sampling. Judge Angeron's trump aiding wife, together with his very disturbed and angry law clerk, have taken over control of the New York State witch hunt trial aimed at me, my family, at the Republican Party.

No word on what she has done to take over the trial. just a statement because he is allowed to attack her without, you know, being hit with massive fines. He's also been sending truths like including these memes from Dawn Marie. So this is an account that they're saying is the wife of the judge. So he's saying she put up this like photoshopped image of Trump being bald and someone putting up a slogan about Trump. And that means that it's the most unfair trial in the history. of New York.

And I have always felt that it really will come down to the memes when determining if someone can have justice. He sends out another one of one of Don Marie's messages of Trump in jail. Obviously, that is an AI-generated image. It's not real, and you know that because in the image Trump is reading a book. Clearly, it didn't occur in real life. Now, where's this Dawn-Marie account coming from? Well, this all came apparently from Laura Lumer, who might well be press secretary under

Donald Trump the next time around. She just states that it's Don Marie Angeron and says that that's biased and so the trial shouldn't count for anything. Could it be? Sure. Could it also be any random person in the world? That would only be the easiest thing in the world. And I will fast forward, a spokesperson for the judge's wife says that that is not her

account. She doesn't have an account like that. So no evidence has been presented other than the fact that the easily changeable name on that Rando account is the same first name as the judge's wife. And it's being used in the predictable way to say that this trial, you know, it's not fair. Nobody has to respect the results of it. He's pushing for some sort of mistrial or something. We have more that we can get to. But yes, I want to start with you. What do you think about his new creative way of getting around that gag order. Yeah, I like the picture of bald Trump. He looked kind of like Elmer Fudd a little bit.

It's very strange that he's doing any of this, to be honest with you. So much has come out regarding his goings on both in his D.C. trial and also in his New York trial, like they just found that in New York where he's being indicted for bank fraud, for committing bank fraud with a Trump organization, he wasn't supposed to be moving money around, but he just moved $40 million from. Trump organization into a personal account, 29 million of which was used for a tax payment. And then on top of that, in D.C., his own legal team sort of admitted that there was, in fact, a Russian interference in the 2016 election, despite Trump this whole time claiming that it's been a

hoax. So he's already in a lot of hot water. He already has a lot of things that he has to be dealing with. And now, like, what is the point of this? You know, I've said it before on some show. this all seems to be like a situation where, you know, first of all, he has to convince the judge. Like, there's no jury in this trial, right? So attacking the judge makes no sense here. Attacking the judge's wife makes no sense here. The theory is that, you know, he knows that he's not going to win the trial. And so he's kind of trying to set it up right now ahead of time that it was all rigged against him, just like what he did in the 2020 election. He started talking about election rigging way before the actual election happened. And that was just to kind of put it in all of his supporters' minds that, you know, everyone's out against him.

He becomes more of a murder. So this seems like part of that. You know, Donald Trump is just incredible. There's no one like him. Because none of these situations. Now, with the civil trial, that's just his, you know, bread and butter. He's a fraud. That's how he does his thing.

But then everything else he's facing, the four indictments, the 91. felonies, which again, he knows he won't beat. He doesn't have to be facing them at all in the first place. He had a year and a half to give the documents back, right? And that's one of the, that's one of his bigger issues. And then obviously the Georgia election fraud. He didn't have to be in any of these situations, but he is. If he would have just given the documents back, he wouldn't be here. But as he has pointed out, you know, kind of his brand is I'm a victim. Nothing's fair. Poor me. And honestly, that's really not helping him. a year from now when it comes to election day. The closer it gets to election day and all his

campaign about it is about is, oh, I'm a victim. Look at me. Poor me. I'm in this situation that I put myself in. No one, he's going to have a bottom of the barrel general election staff. No one's going to want to work with him who's worth a damn. I mean, this is the reality that he's going to face. And every day I grow, if you would just shut up, you could just blindfolded, walk your way back into reelection. He can't stop because it's who he is inherently. Like this dude, you got all this evidence where they're like, you know, everyone told Donald Trump that if he did X, Y, and Z, it would be breaking the law. That's how you lose in court. And that's why he is losing in court. And then he waltzes out and he's like, F the judge, F the prosecutor. And then he goes

back into the courtroom and loses. Like, how did he even notice these tweets? Like, like, 4.30 in the morning and he's like tweeting like he's one of a kind. Like I said, he's incredible. That was a lot, but yeah, he's just amazing. Yeah, look, obviously there are a lot of differences between regular people and the rich, but this is a reminder that social media use ruins everyone's life, whether you have no money or billions spending too much time on Twitter will ruin your life. And also, I'm gonna, I'm gonna waste, I'm gonna try to make it no more than a minute, but I'm gonna waste a minute of your life. And it is that all, all I want, is for people to be honest about what they believe, about their values.

And there's almost nothing I hate more, even more than apathy than people pretending to have a value or a principle that they obviously don't have. And this is like one of the most transparent ones. So the idea is the trial doesn't count if you can find X. So if the judge is putting into power by someone of the opposing party, then it doesn't count. If the judge has ever said anything negative about you. If the judge has ever donated money to the other party, oh, we don't have that. Okay, so I guess if one of their relatives put up a meme, or we don't have that.

We have an account that's the same name as one of their relatives putting up a meme, then it doesn't count. And Laura Lumer believes that. She would have you believe. Trump would have you believe that he believes that. So you guys are planning with Trump back in power to investigate and lock up all of your political opponents. Is this a principle that you would like to apply to that? where if there's a family member that's in some way tangentially related to the special council that you put in place that has ever said anything negative about Obama or Biden or

Hunter or whatever, that it doesn't count. And you just have to reset the same thing. If they've ever donated money to a Republican, then clearly it doesn't count. Obviously, this is a massive hypocrisy and they don't mean it. But like, I just hate when people pretend to have a principle. And they're not describing the actual principle. It's just a, it's a get out of consequences free card, a shallow one, a one that can only work because the target audience for it cares even less than they do about the reality of the situation. That is unfortunate all the time we have for this block.

Okay, we have other important news to get to, including just some of the most amazing, this bombshell about Ron DeSantis and his religious values, his closely held religious values. We'll get into that after this. Welcome back one and all to what remains the first hour of the young Turks. Definitely stay tuned for the second hour as well. Jordan Yule is going to be taking over, joined by Jank Yugar and Ravanna, so it should be an awesome hour. But that said, we still have time for a few more stories. So with that, why don't we jump into it? Ronda Santis certainly likes to present himself as a devoted Christian.

It is core to his politics and it's the reason that he spends so much of his time trying to destroy vulnerable communities. It's not like a personal weakness or fear and hatred and suspicion and all of that. It's just his religion. But the thing is, there might be a bit of a problem with that story. The story of Ronda Santis as a devoted Christian, at least according to new reporting. I'm gonna give you the reporting and we'll see what we think if it calls into question his religious credentials. So back on January 8th, 2019, DeSantis stood on stage at Florida's historic capital next to his wife, Casey, who had in her hand a King James Bible.

He was set at that point to officially become Florida's 46 governor. Now, traditionally, many elected officials choose to be sworn into office on a religious text with some sort of personal meaning. But according to the reporting for DeSantis, this moment was preceded by scrambling by, by campaign and inauguration staffers caught off guard when DeSantis, who is Catholic, told him his family did not own a Bible, and he didn't care whether he used one with historical significance, according to five former aides. Which I will just say, I appreciate that NBC News required so many sources to verify this, but it is interesting that on a story that would seem on its face to have very little stakes, they have five sources saying,

yeah, no, he didn't care at all about that Bible. But anyway, They go out to say that they ended up buying a Bible for $21 and 74 cents on Amazon and having it shipped to the Republican Party of Florida headquarters less than a week before his inauguration, according to a receipt of the transaction shared with NBC News. So they not only have the five sources, they literally have the receipts. In response to this, the DeSantis campaign called the story a, quote, pathetic lie worthy only of a tabloid gossip rag. But they have the receipts, man. The only thing about this story that I do find a little bit weird, isn't that Ron DeSantis, a guy who pitches himself as a Christian doesn't have a Bible. But like, nobody did? There's no Bibles anywhere around.

You have to go on Amazon and have it shipped. None of the staffers had a Bible they could bring in. The Republican headquarters didn't have a Bible, apparently. And I guess, you know, America has lost many of its chain bookstores. So I guess it's hard to get one in person. But yeah, this doesn't look good for him. Jackson, I want to start with you. Do you think that this could potentially hurt him amongst like Catholic or evangelical voters? I don't think it matters at this point.

I think Rhonda said it's his political career is, it's not in a good position. I mean, you know, whether it be from, well, first let's start here, Ron had a lot of hype and he didn't live up to it. And once that happens, you can't really get back. You know, you can put that into any area of life. if you're like really anticipating a job, really anticipating date to somebody, really anti- whatever it is. And it doesn't really meet your expectations of the fantasy you had. That's Ron DeSantis.

So he can never really build himself back up to that level. Also, his policies, everybody hates them for the most part. Migrant policies. His war on the LGBTQ community. His war on teachers. It's war on books. All of that. You can sit here going on and on.

But then his personality, right? He just doesn't seem to have it. I'm still sitting here trying to. trying to figure out why he debated Gavin Newsom last night. Like that was fine for Gavin because we know he's going to run for president in 2028 or if Joe Biden like collapses in this go round. But for him, it's like, what are you doing? Like everything he does, it just shows that, you know, he's not good at this.

But at the end of the day, that's good news for us because I certainly don't want him to be good at this game. So, you know, whatever. I'm just laughing because I was just talking to someone this morning about like, Why did Ron DeSantis think it was a good idea to debate Gavin Newsom? Why would that have possibly been a good thing for him? Also, the Bible thing, I'm not even Christian, and I think I own like three Bibles in my house right now. So it is very strange to me. But, you know, I will say that somehow this feels almost like the most relatable thing that I've read or heard about Ron DeSantis.

You know, I think a lot of Americans today are nominally something, you know, they're whatever religion, their parents or their families. families are. And the way religion seems to be practiced quite a bit in this country, particularly for people who don't even really identify as being religious, is culturally. There are cultural elements to things, regardless of whether or not people are going to church all the time. We're still baptizing our babies. We're all celebrating Christmas, you know? So I think, you know, if I was in Ron DeSantis's position, if I was in a position where I was being sworn in on a book of some sort, I would either not care what the book was or have to really put some thought into what that book would be. But the problem here, obviously with DeSantis, is that he's

courting a demographic that is exceedingly religious. They are the most religious people in the country. But we already know, on one hand, that they kind of don't care whether or not their leaders are practicing Christians or Catholics or whatever, right? And it's like what Jackson said, you know, DeSantis is not winning any election anytime soon. But, if he was still trying to court these people, we already know, you know, Republicans love Trump and Trump almost seems to go out of his way to prove how bad of a Christian he is. Now, DeSantis doesn't have the, you know, the charismatic, cultish appeal of Trump, but really he would just have to say the right things, which he has been doing, and pushing the religious agenda,

which he has already been doing. And we've seen him do so in Florida with his book bans and all of the curriculum meddling and all of his anti-LGB rhetoric, right? And, you know, the fact that he rarely discusses his Catholicism in public is being, you know, reported as a bad thing. I think it's actually a good thing. I don't need to know about his religious practices. I think the less we know about religion from our state leaders, the better. The only problem is that whether or not they're talking about it, these religious agendas are still being pushed. So we have to be aware of that.

I agree. Apologies, I was a little bit distracted. I'd forgotten about that video of him holding up the Bible. Me too, he had never held a Bible or a book in his life. How do you demonstrate that I like this, whatever this is? God, it's such a weird world we live in. And yeah, for me, it's more, there's also a story, by the way, that he had supposedly had like special water from the Sea of Galilee that had been saved from a trip to Israel. they were going to baptize his son with it, but then they just put it in a regular water bottle and it ended up being stolen, being thrown away by cleaning staff, which is like, I guess it's more on the staff than on him, but like if it was the sacred water and you just put it in Desani bottle, like that seems weird too. I don't care about any of this. For me, though, it's more, is it better or worse if a person makes their identity, like trying to, in the case

of Rod DeSantis destroy the LGBTQ community because they actually have been raised to hate and despise and fear this group or that they just pick it up late in their political career because I guess that's the thing that people will love me for. Like to be willing to do that, to be willing to harm and hound and legislate against people, and it isn't even your values. Like you're just a sociopath. That seems worse almost. But as Yaz pointed out, like there's a big demand for it and the people who have the demand like really don't care if their leaders are actually religious. They say constantly that they care about it. But they clearly don't because Donald Trump has done a horrendous job of even pretending to care about

any of this and yet they love him. Anyway, we'll see if again, as Jackson said, DeSantis is probably done either way. The only question at this point is how much more humiliation is he going to withstand before he finally and inevitably drops out. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months.

Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash the iPorter to learn more. involving Jesse Waters. Now if you've seen me on the five or on prime time, you know I recommend that all men refrain from using straws. It's unbecoming the way a man's lips purse. The size of the straw is just too dainty. The way your fingers clasp on it.

No, come on. Straws are for women and little kids. The work of Jesse Waters never ends. The work of looking for everything to be considered. to be concerned about whether it's making him look not alpha. Like the anxiety over, do I look weak? Do I look like a little wussy? Is that making me, is this bug?

Does this make me look weak? Should I be holding? No, I should really be holding it like this, that really seems more manly. Should I be holding little papers or only like leather bound books? God, they're scared of everything. And if there's one thing that we can say is true of an alpha male, it's that they care so much about what everyone thinks. everyone thinks about everything they do. They just can't stop thinking about the way people are

perceiving them. But anyway, now he's on to straws. He's worried about that. And we're going to discuss it. But first, I want to do a little throwback to something Waters had said only a few months ago. Let's jump to this. Judge, and I say this with a unblemished record of heterosexuality. He looks good. And he looks hard. It certainly doesn't use a straw. Am I right? Anyway, yeah, so many of you are probably wondering, how do we get on this? What's with the straws? Well, as you sort of saw in the B-roll there, Biden used a straw. That's the whole explanation. That's the only reason this has now become the thing that's most important to Jesse Waters.

Take a look. On Monday, I covered Joe Biden's Thanksgiving trip to Nantucket. He polar plunged at a little Black Friday shopping with Hunter, and he called one of our correspondents stupid. And we're willing to look past that little outburst, but some things we just can't let slide. Joe Biden used a straw. I don't understand. Jackson, can you explain to me? Why are conservatives? Why do they have the most shallow, fragile masculinity that has ever existed? Straws are gay, but Trump's hot. You know what I'm saying?

That's basically we got to get that on. on his shirt. Straws are gay, but Trump's cute. Jesse Waters is like a professional dumb person. He just seems like somebody that's just never really worth having a conversation with because he just can't do it. And that's what he gets paid for. He's like the guy

who's kind of like, you know, relatively handsome. You know, he's not bad looking. He's pretty good looking and he's just dumb. So it's like, oh, I love watching Jesse Waters. He's that's just kind of all he is. But didn't he like poke holes? and his wife's tires or something. Like he thought she was hot or something.

He was like, oh, I can't let her get away. So he, like, slashed your tires or something. I don't know. He's just a weirdo. Yeah, and that was sold as a romantic gesture when he, when he slashed your tires. I'll let you go. This is like that movie.

This is like crazy stupid love when Ryan Gosling was telling Steve Karell, like you can't be drinking from a straw in a bar and expecting to pick up women. I think about that way more often than I should. Whenever pretty much I see a man drinking from a straw. But I try not to hate because, you know, I believe in men's rights to drink from straws. You know, they have utility. They're practical. You know, they're not great for the environment. They're not great for the oceans. But, you know, if you're going to drink from a straw, drink from a straw. That's it. Like, there's nothing else to this story. Because it's so

ridiculous, you know, we can analyze this to death, but like, that's it, you know? He's just drinking from a straw. And I think we should acknowledge how dumb it all is. And Obama wore a tan suit. Oh, yeah, and he, like, put Dijon on a burger? Who is that guy? The list of things that make you weak is getting long. But anyway, before I give you my final thoughts, I do want to say that, like, straws are insidious. They do make you weak. They make you beta.

But the thing is that there is some kind of appeal to them that makes it hard for even the strongest man with an unblemished history of heterosexuality to avoid. If we could go to the final graphic of this video, you'll see that it hits everyone inevitably. Oh my God, Jesse Waters used a straw. I previously thought he was so hard, but now I don't know what to think. Can I just say, if you are a conservative guy out there, particularly a young one, you are being preyed on every moment of every day by a lot of grifters who want to talk to you about masculinity, what it means to be a man, how to get a woman, how to be strong and all that. And they will constantly tell you that women are making you weak.

The modern world is making you weak. Leftists are making you weak. Is there anything weaker than going through your life looking at everything and being terrified of how it's going to make you look beta? Like if you follow the advice of people like Andrew Tate, Jesse Waters, all of these people, like how fragile and pathetic and anxious and concerned are you going to be? You're not going to be the Marlboro man, a cowboy. Like, you're not, you're not, that's not how they operated.

How can you not see this? Have a little bit of confidence. Be a man who doesn't use a straw or a man who does use a straw based on whether you like straws and not because you're concerned that a woman isn't going to marry you because you were using a piece of plastic. God, men do need help. They do need to be saved. But much of what they need to be saved from is weak-ass concern.

men like Jesse Waters. Anyway, any final thoughts from either of you before he closed this thing out? Any more straw thoughts? Yeah, is it not so transparent that guys he thinks so I like we've all known people men who are like narcissistic or like I knew a guy he used to tell people that he was an alpha and he was legitimately one of the most insecure people I've ever met. You know, is that not obvious? Like do people not, is that not known information? I feel like it should be if it's not, that's my PSA. If they're going around telling you they're an alpha, they're definitely not. Well, and too, I mean, it's just like constant self-denial pushing yourself down. Like if a woman discovers that I have emotions or that I'm actually a human being, then, oh, she should turn

and run. So I have to be someone I'm not. I have to forge myself. Like you press, it's really not that important. You know what I'm saying? And if you were able to get it the way that you think you want it, it's not going to satisfy you the way that you think it will. You know what I'm saying? And you might be burning an inching along the way. So, you know, life is real. I think useful advice from both of you. Thank you. We are going to have to close things out. Yes, Jackson. Thank you so much. Everyone check it out. I should give you an opportunity. Where can people see more of your work before you're next on TYT? Humi. So you can find all my videos on Rebel HQ on the Rebel HQ YouTube channel. You can listen to my podcast, Modern Context.

It's a lot of fun. That's what I'm telling people. I don't know if it's actually fun. And you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok, even though I really don't post very much. But it's at Yaz K, Y, A, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, Z, K. Yes, you can check me out on Rebel HQ as well. And at YouTube.com slash at Politics and PayPal. I'll stream every day.

I have a variety of programming, and the membership program is dedicated to community service and local politics. So check me out at politics and paper. It was a fantastic lineup. I really enjoyed this. It was. It was a lot of fun. We're going to have to do it again. Thank you for having me. Jordan Yule is going to be taking over on the other side, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. at apple.com slash t yt. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.