The Young Turks - Shocking Trump Admin Resignation And Speculation Surrounding Departure

Episode Date: October 10, 2018

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has announced her unexpected resignation from her position in the Trump White House with Trump by her side. Speculation begins to mount as to why the sudden announcement of her departure happened BEFORE the midterms. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS 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. All right, welcome with the Young Turks. Jake U. John Iarola with you guys. In the second hour, Brett Erlich and Margaret Cho will be joining us, named one of the top 50 stand-up comedians in the world by Rolling Stone.

So looking forward to having her on, and we're going to discuss some issues that I'm sure that she has strong opinions on. Including Wales. Yeah, I hope we get to Wales. Wales is fun. Okay, I also have strong opinions. I don't know if you guys know that. And first of all, on Nikki Haley, which we're going to do in a minute, I have a theory.

And something that is certain that is not being talked about in the point. press, okay? So we'll get to that in a sec, okay? And then later in the program, Fox News creates a conspiracy theory. Donald Trump immediately latches onto it as does almost the entire Republican Party. And so we're off to the races, yet another conspiracy. And I don't know, within the context of that story, we might even discuss how I now agree with Hillary Clinton on a position.

Whoa, okay, so. I don't know what that is. Yeah, so life is fascinating. On Wall Street or? No, no, not on Wall Street. But wait a minute, kind of, I mean, there's a quote that I liked about that. So this new Hillary that's like way more aggressive progressive is a fascinating one. I mean, if we can get her to host a show here.

Anyway, aggressive progressives co-hosted by Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Dorr. Now, that would be a show you would watch. And every atom of the universe begins floating apart from each other. So anyways, lots of fun and exciting stuff. And as always, of course, if you miss any portion of the show, luckily, there's membership where you can get all of it any time you want, basically like a video podcast, download and stream it, do anything you like with it, and get our 17 other shows that are part of the TYT network at TYT.com.

join, become a member, and build a home of progressives. So before we launch on Nicky Haley, I didn't want to say you mentioned that you're going to have a theory for Nikki Haley. But you also, you had a big prediction that you are running out of time on. I don't know if you remember, midterms, something big was supposed to happen. Oh yeah, yeah, no, no. There's 27 days left, and I said that Trump would be out of the White House before the midterms. Okay, that is looking perilous at this point.

I was having a talk with Brett Erlich, and I said to him, if Robert Mueller hadn't been seen in two weeks, would we even know? He's so secretive. Do you have any idea where he is? Yeah, no. Apparently in the Bahamas, because up and at him, dude, you were supposed to come out the results before the election so that I could be right. Anyways, maybe we'll talk more about that in a post game, another privilege of membership.

And later today, super last thing. And then we've got to get to the stories. Fascinating interview that the members can watch live and about 24 hours before everyone else, Kevin DeLeon is going to come into the studio. What? 9.30 p.m. Eastern, fascinating. You said his name. Okay.

Obviously, Alison Hartson ran against Deleone and Feinstein in the California primaries. Feinstein and Deleone advanced. And so now Deleone joins us to the Young Turks. It should be interesting, so don't miss that. Street fight. It was super duper last thing. On Rebel Headquarters, we had, we're gonna have tonight a guy running for mayor of Chicago that I think is super exciting.

Like I'm really jazzed about this guy and I think he could be a leader for the future based on what he's already done. So don't miss that either. Okay. I don't know who you're talking about. Okay. That's awesome. Okay.

Well, why don't we jump into it? to the UN, Nikki Haley has resigned this morning, surprising seemingly everyone, except the apparently two to three people that she had clued into this. And if you believe him, Donald Trump, who says he's known about it for about six months. Believe him if you choose to. But here is the president talking about Nikki Haley moving on. Nikki Haley, Ambassador to the United Nations has been very special to me. She's done an incredible job.

She is a fantastic person, very importantly, but she also is somebody that gets it. She has been at the United Nations from the beginning with us, from the beginning, and worked with us on the campaign. It's been really a long time, very intense, and she told me probably six months ago, she said, you know, maybe at the end of the year, at the end of a two-year period, but at the end of the year, I want to take a little time off. I want to take a little brain. And that was really the thing I think she did best at the United Nations.

She got to know the players. She got to know China, Russia, India. She knows everybody on a very first-name basis, and they like her. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He thinks the world of Nikki. And so we're all happy for you in one way, but we hate to lose. Hopefully you'll be coming back at some point. But you want to just in maybe a different capacity.

You can have you pick. I like the last part. I was like, maybe you'll come back in some capacity. Yeah. So I have so much to say. And then we got more clips for you guys. So first of all, I felt like her eyes were dying inside. Like, Pompeo and her get along great.

No, they don't. She's like, dying inside. Okay. We're going to get to her in a second and why she left. Of course, then it's impossible not to be entertained by the buffoon that is our president. She got to know all the players well, China and Russia and India. Well, if you're our ambassador to the United Nations, you don't know those three, it's a really low bar. I thought he was going to be like, oh, the thing that she negotiated was Botswana and Chile

and Tonga, and she put that coalition together in a way I didn't expect, okay, that's an interesting case to make. Turns out she knows China and Russia and India. Of course, of course she does. I mean, you can't brag about that. It's a crazy thing to brag about. Okay, I'm gonna get to relevant stuff and just a second, but first, I have to make one other silly point.

I'm forced into it. I love how yellow those chairs are in the Oval Office, not in the Oval Office, but in the White House, okay? I've always noticed them, I noticed them under previous presidents, but now, look at how Unbelievable yellow there. I had not noticed that. Okay, but what I like is he talked about how she's a good on a team or something along those lines.

And apparently she's decided to take her talents to Los Angeles and we'll be joining the Lakers with that outfit. Oh my God. Okay. No, no, no. By the way, it's not a comment about her outfit. It's just a coincidence that the outfit and the chair happen to make the Laker colors. I see where you're going with this.

Okay. Okay. And the chair and Donald Trump's hair match to some degree. Okay, so now on to serious stuff. This is the color theory of politics? Yeah, no, I'm just a color commentator on politics. That's all, literally in this case. Okay, so is everything hunky dory and she's had always planned to leave?

Look, this is where our serious analysis, I hope, gives you important context. So, been covering politics for over 20 years. Every single time someone is leaving, they say, oh, no, I'm not. I had been planning to leave all along. And the boss says, oh, yeah, no, I knew about that. Oh, we're playing this all the way long time. Oh, yeah, of course. And I'm going on to do something really important.

So, Nikki Haley, what are you going to do? Nothing. Okay. So. Little wrinkle. Okay. So I agree. But we also, in comparison to previous people who've moved on from their positions

in his administration. Some of them have found out about it while reading Twitter on the toilet. They're very shocked to find out that they've been fired. He clearly doesn't want her to go. They're not fighting, we've heard no reports that they're feuding from the mole in the White House. So I think that that makes it at least slightly more viable that this has been planned. I'm not saying I believe it because I think he's a liar and there's no way he'd admit

that he didn't know. No, 100% not planned. And let me explain why. So this is the most important part. No one leaves an administration with less than a month before an election. unless it's acrimodious. It doesn't mean that it has to be acrimonious between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. It could be as we're gonna discuss in a second Pompeo and Bolton, et cetera.

But that is a terrible time to leave as a matter of politics and optics. It seems like it's in disarray, someone is leaving, wants to leave the administration. Now what do people normally do? They leave after the elections. That happens all the time. After the midterm elections, the Democratic and Republican presidents, people who had been planning to go or even might have had a little bit of acaroni behind the scenes, but they keep it together before the election and they leave after.

Leaving 27 days before an election? Yeah. Oh no, hell no, that was not planned. Something went terribly wrong. So my best guess as to what went wrong is, we're going to discuss a couple of different theories here as to why she might be leaving, but that she laid down a threat and said, if this This doesn't happen, I'm gonna leave now, which will look bad before the elections. That threat was, that bluff was basically called, and so she was like, all right, then

I'm gonna go before, not after the elections. Then why doesn't he seem filled with spite and rage? Because it's not about him, it's about the other players within the White House. He kind of likes them fighting. Remember, he's the reality show of former politics. If she had insulted him, no, then it's a totally different thing. She gets fired out on a tweet out of nowhere. And he says, oh, God, she had problems, strong problems, right?

Et cetera. No, it's not about him, you know, China. Yeah, I had to tell her what Russia is, but that one I know really well. Okay, so you're right, they seem fine. But her and other people clearly do not seem fine inside the Trump administration. So we are going to break down some of the theories about why she left, the political sort of calculus here. Before we move on of that though, I do want to ask you a question.

to the substance of her time spent as the UN ambassador. So when I found out that Nikki Haley was moving on, I largely felt who the hell cares? Like, I don't think God knows how much autonomy she actually has. She's undercut constantly by Donald Trump when she pushes for anything that doesn't fit in with his worldview. I think that he's surrounded by other voices on foreign policy. They're absolutely detestable, even more so than her. And on certain issues, like with Iran, she's pretty horrible anyway. So my question to you is, did it matter that she was in that position? And will she be replaced by someone who's worse? So, substantively, what was the Nikki Haley effect? Okay, that's a great separate conversation. And to that,

I would say, she had zero effect. There's conservatives who are against Trump today saying, oh no, Nikki Haley is leaving. What a shame. Yeah, if you're not a neocon, it's totally irrelevant. So she's a neoconservative or certainly allies of neoconservatives. They're gonna miss her because she would stick up for Israel's right wing government under any and all circumstances, would make preposterous claims to defend them, et cetera. So she's a deep right winger. If there's a difference between her and Bolton, it is only a matter of degree and maybe a personality and an internal power struggle, but they're all headed in the same direction.

So I'm not, I don't shed a tear at all, because there are some people in the White House and in the administration who are a stabilizing effect on Donald Trump, such as it is, and you think, well, maybe that's not such a bad thing. It could be worse than maybe John Kelly, who's chief of staff, right? I mean, it's a low, low bar, right? But it could be worse than John Kelly. Nikki Haley, what difference does it make? They all hate the UN.

She hates it, Trump hates it, Bolton hates it. They all want to make sure that the Palestinians are crushed and the Human Rights Commission is crushed and any program that helps anyone else in the world is crushed. So it makes no difference at all. Do you think, so the one case that people generally will make where she seemed to have a pretty different approach than Donald Trump at the very least was in Syria, where she was more willing to be critical of the Russian support for the Syrian dictatorship? Did that seem to matter at all?

Yeah, I actually think on that issue, she's slightly worse. Now, why do I say that? Now, I think he's corrupt and working with the Russians, and obviously there's big points of disagreement on that, but I think he's knee deep, neck deep with the Russians. So I appreciate that she's a check on that, but policy-wise, he wants to go and interfere in Syria less, she wants to interfere in Syria more, she's more of a neo-conservative, wants more war, more bombings, she's worse than Trump on that. So like all the people who are crying like Ben Spiro and other conservatives today, but

oh, Nikki Haley's leaving. Well, they all want more war. So I think Trump's guilty on working with the Russians, but that's a separate issue than policy. In terms of policy, no, no, no. If it was up to the Nicky Haley's of the world, we'd already be in the middle of a disastrous war in civil war in Syria, and to some degree we already are, but it would be far, far worse. Okay, so yeah, I was curious how you'd come down on that because, like I tweeted this morning, just like, I don't care. I understand that any time someone leaves this big thing, like so many people have left and everything.

But he wields so much, you know, like unilateral power, like he's, you know, a proto authoritarian. What the hell is it matter if she's there? Yeah, what was she going to do, stop him from something? She's going to take a principled stand. They pulled out of major portions of the UN while she was in there. Like, was it really different than if John Bolton had been there? Well, look, this is why the mainstream media, I think, at a bare minimum, leans right and right-wing establishment.

And that is why today the right-wing establishment and the media is shocked and chagrined. Because if you got Trump out of there, and it was like Pence was president as an example, and the Nikki Haley's of the world were running things, the media would be like, hurrah! Nikki! Oh, she's a stabilizing influence, no, it just means she's establishment. And the establishment loves war, hates, not the rest of the world, is too strong, right? But the neocons, that is the wing of the establishment, don't care about the rest of the world, and they will do anything and everything to protect certain countries, but definitely

not others. So that's why they're all crying. And in that sense, the establishment is a little worse than Donald Trump. So in other senses, Donald Trump is way worse, okay? I defy you to think of one. Okay, but in foreign policy issues like this, Nikki Haley, I would argue is worse, and that would be sacrilege on television. Right now, everyone on TV's crying.

Yeah, well, I've always felt that she's the Susan Collins of the UN. So moderate, so moderating. Okay, I'm going to jump ahead of Graphic 11 as we move into the explanations. So Nikki Haley has left, and there's a lot of questions and theories about why it is that she's moved on. We've been debating that here. Before we get into some of the quotes of people predicting and who might replace her, one interesting thing is her popularity, despite the fact that she has served very close

with Donald Trump for a long time, lasting longer in his cabinet or in his inner or middle circles, at least, than some people. Back in April of 2018, a poll from Quinnipiac found that she still had a 75 to 9 approval rating among Republicans and a 5523 rating among Democrats even. That is a very popular Republican, despite the fact that she has been serving with Donald Trump. So there are a few theories. One of the big ones is some sort of internal, either power struggle or philosophical set of agreements between herself and one or more other people working in foreign policy in the Trump administration. Generally, the names that come up are John Bolton or, you know, in some cases, previously

with Tillerson, but then Pompeo later on. And so one of the quotes we have for that is coming from John Hudson, who said that Haley had an increasingly diminished role as Pompeo filled the Tillerson vacuum. Bolton asserted himself on UN issues, and the U.S. began withdrawing from key UN institutions and programs, shipping away at her clout. Haley's influence at UN was blunted by Trump policy decisions that many other nations opposed, including recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, cutting aid to Palestinians and announcing a U.N., or sorry, U.S. withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Notably, Haley supported those moves. Yeah, okay, so half of that makes sense, the internal fighting. The other half is the kind of thing that reporters write in Washington that actually, that actually has no effect whatsoever, and it's maddening to me that they, in some ways, I, it's almost naive, to be honest. Okay, so she had, didn't have enough clout in the United Nations because we were ostracizing ourselves from the rest of the world, and so that bothered her. No, it didn't.

As he said at the very end of that tweet, she supported every one of those moves that ostracized us. She is an enthusiastic supporter of killing the Human Rights Commission, not participating in protecting Israel's right-wing government under any and all circumstances. I mean, you name it an atrocious right-wing position. She loves it, supports it full-heartedly. Like, you think that she's bothered that what? That the Palestinians don't like her as much?

Or France does not give her enough clout in the United Nations? She doesn't care about that at all. Not one percent. It's a preposterous thing to even discuss in light of a resignation. Like, did Nikki Haley resign because she was worried about what Indonesia thinks of her? Really? Okay, no. That's not the answer.

That's not it? Okay, well, let's move on other ones. So one of the big theories coming out of her resignation is that Nikki Haley might be looking to other political offices, and either she wants time to build up a donor base, make connections and all that, or she feels that it's good to get out of the Trump administration before things totally explode all around him. But they definitely believe that this is about some future run. And the most immediate one that many people have theorized is that she will challenge Donald

Trump in a primary in 2020, which considering how collegial their parting was seems a little bit unlikely, but she wanted to get in front of some of those theories, and you'll see that in this video. For all of you that are going to ask about 2020, no, I'm not running for 2020. I can promise you what I'll be doing is campaigning for this one. So I look forward to supporting the president in the next election. So look, I think that if your theory was by 2020, there will be an open Republican spot to run for. Okay, maybe.

I doubt that she's planning for that. But the idea that she's going to run against Donald Trump, I think people are way too quick to assume that that sort of primary challenge is going to happen or go anywhere. That's another establishment mistake. And so they think that everybody thinks like they do, which is they think Donald Trump is abhorrent, to be fair to the establishment and the mainstream press. They do think that, right? And so they assume that there are reasonable Republicans and that those reasonable Republicans

could appeal to the reasonable Republican voters and overcome Trump in a primary. What planet are you living on? What percentage of the voters is that? Yeah, no, no, the Republican voters are overwhelmingly in favorably. of Donald Trump, they're not anywhere near reasonable. There are no moderate Republican politicians left at the national level. Nikki Haley certainly is not among them. So she has great PR team, so that's why she's got the awesome poll numbers.

And plus, it's the horrible shape that the Democratic Party is in that they let people like Nikki Haley be popular when she's a warmonger, an isolationist, et cetera. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called

powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the

propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. But they barely laid a glove on her. And so she's got a 75% approval rating when, in fact, her positions do not remotely match the positions of the American people. But she- Well, Republican approval rating, to be fair. Yes, those are Republican approval ratings, yes, that's very important.

But even so. And so, but she's not gonna run against Donald Trump as he sits today, right? So, he's very popular within the Republican Party, who had better even approval numbers than Nikki Haley, et cetera. So now, could she be calculating and maybe know some things we don't know about how Trump's going to go under, in which case there would be an open 2020 field, well, that's a different conversation. Okay.

Okay, well, let's turn to another direction, though. What if it's the corruption? What if she's worried about some investigation coming her way? So news has been going around, and in fact, a big article about that. this actually came out, I believe it was yesterday, actually, or the day before, but right before the resignation announcement. And that has to do with a number of free flights that she was given that people are pushing for an investigation of. In a statement, the organization crew says that the $24,000 worth of flights should be investigated by the State Department's Inspector General.

Reached for comment about this. Haley says that the expenditure, she says it's only worth $3,200, should be exempt from ethics regulations because of her. personal relationship with the businessmen who paid for the gifts, which seems to me, like I'm not an ethics professor or anything, that seems like the worst reason they should be exempted because you have a personal relationship. That's the thing that creates ethical dilemmas. In any event, there's a list of businessmen and women you can see there. She's like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, I've been in bed with these CEOs for a long, long time. So you pointing out my corruption now is kind of old news and irrelevant. So is Nikki Haley

resigning because an ethics watchdog found $24,000 worth of questionable plane tickets. No. That is, for a Republican, that's not a scandal. I mean, in the Trump administration, they just promoted someone accused of rape, okay, attempted rape. And he got the job anyway. They promoted him, firing someone over $24,000 worth of plane. tickets.

No, no, that is, at best, the beginning of a conversation. No one in the Trump administration resigns over that, not even close. That doesn't get you half a Pruitt soundproof phone booth. Exactly. I mean, look at what it took for Pruitt to resign. It was the plane tickets, the phone booth, the apartment. I mean, there was literally dozens and dozens of charges against them before finally they submitted.

They like Nikki Haley. Haley's popular among Republicans over that allegation, look, if you're a reasonably uncorrupt administration, that would be a serious allegation. And Obama would have probably fired her before the afternoon was over, before Glenn Beck got on air. That's an old reference. But under Trump, that's the feature, not the bug. So no way that was the reason.

Okay, well, then in that case, before we move on to who might replace her, you implied that you had a theory. Yeah, so look, there, in my opinion, there's only a couple possibilities here. So one is the internal fights with Pompeo, who's Secretary of State and John Bolton, who's a national security advisor. So my top theory is that she laid down some sort of gauntlet saying, hey, I'm going to either have this level of responsibility or you're going to listen to me on this issue, or I'm going to quit immediately and not wait till after the election, which is when people in her position

normally resign so that it doesn't affect the election, so it's not embarrassing, so it's not a big controversy. Now, again, to be fair, those are normal times when if Obama's UN ambassador resigned 27 days before the election, it would have been the biggest scandal of his eight years. Under Trump, there's so many firings and resignations and scandals that, you know, this will roll off people's back. But still, for politicians, it's an unusual move. And it's a brazen move.

So my best guess is she said, I'm getting this or I walk right now. And the Trump people were like, yeah, whatever, walk, right? Any idea what that was or would be? No, it's got, my best guess is it's an internal power struggle. Because as you mentioned earlier, John, Trump seems unfaced. If it was about him, he would not be acting that friendly. Okay, so it's got to be her versus Pompeo or her versus Bolton. Her versus Bolton is more likely because Bolton is a steamroller and he's a maniac.

So, you know, and he was the UN ambassador earlier. And so I'm sure I'd be surprised if they didn't have conflicts over that. And it's not really, it couldn't be too much of a policy issue because she supports neo-conservative positions. Bolton is definitely a neocon. He's one of the leaders of the neocons. So it's probably just a personal power struggle. The only other possibility is, there's, well, no, to be fair, one and a half, okay?

The half is what we mentioned earlier, which is she sees an opening politically somewhere, and she thinks, and she might know something more than we know about how bad, what kind of trouble Trump is in, okay? So, for example, she talks to the Russians all the time in the UN, right, as Trump said earlier. In China. Yeah. She knows all the players like Russia, okay?

I don't know if she knows something we don't know where she's like, after the election, Winter and Mueller are coming. So I got to go. I got to get out of here, right? So now that's the Chaffet's move, the Paul Ryan move. So it's, that's, I'm going to move that up from half to a real possibility. And the third one is just, you know, angling, angling for a position that we're not aware of, or there's a controversy that is way bigger that we're unaware of.

Like an opening on the view or? Well, so there might be a political position. But again, that would be weird timing because you'd have plenty of time because she's certainly not going to run in 2018. She'd run in 2020, presumably. So you should have plenty of time to plan that. So that's a less likely option. But if she smells trouble, she might be just pulling the shoot.

So those are the realistic possibilities. And so this is, lastly on it is that it drives me crazy that it's like, you know, it's like, Two schools of thought, neither which are right, in my opinion, normally in situations like this. There is the establishment which just gives you, and they might think different things, but they don't write different things. So I'm not saying that the reporters in Washington are completely naive, so they might be talking about, hey, is there a bigger scandal we're not seeing?

But they don't write it down. So what they share with the public is, well, you know, she might be having troubles with Indonesia and, you know, and et cetera, right? And to be fair to them, they mention the Pompeo Bolton possibilities, et cetera. And so they just give you kind of vanilla. And they don't talk about what the real motivations might be. For politicians, again, they're not emphasizing the weight of someone leaving right before an election.

That is incredibly bizarre and would not be done for quote unquote normal reasons. I remember when John Danforth left as the UN ambassador for George W. Bush. They clearly had huge policy discrepresenters to the point where Danforth, I don't think like Bush. I thought he was fairly clear about that. But he said his wife twisted her ankle. And everybody reported, oh, well, his wife twisted her ankle. That's why he's got to leave. I'm exaggerating, but only by a little bit. She broke her ankle. But that's not why you leave you an ambassador. That's not why. Broken. I mean. And so, okay, so they report that as if it's real and it drives me crazy. So on the other hand, you have right-wing conspiracy theorists. And

And they're like, oh, it's obviously because QAnon has said this and that. And can we just find a middle ground where we're not credulous about everything the government says? And we don't have insane conspiracy theories about government officials, but say, hey, here's a politician who lies all the time because that's what almost all the politicians do. And they're not, they don't come out and tell you the real reason why they were saying, when's the last time that happened? Come on, for God's sake, if you're a reporter.

When was the last time somebody was like, oh, yeah, me and Pompeo hate each other. He stabbed me in the back. I laid down the gauntlet, he wouldn't do it, so that's why I'm leaving. Never, of course they're not going to tell you the real reason, right? So please, like, and they're on the ground, dig a little deeper, find the real reasons, and don't believe or disbelieve what the government says on its face. Look into it. Yeah.

Well, we should probably take our first break when we come back. We've got an ad attacking Ted Cruz. That is awesome. You're going to love this ad. Yes, we'll be back. All right, back on the Young Turks. A couple of quick comments for you guys. Then we've got a lot of stories.

Peter Hamby writes in on YouTube super chat. Nikki Haley was in a toxic environment with Trump running wild. There's a smart move to bail with how Trump has destroyed what democracy he found. Yeah, I hear you. be a smart, like I said earlier, she might be pulling the shoot, and that might be a smart move. But I don't think that she really minded too much any of his antics. You know, one outlier theory is that she was the person who wrote the New York Times op-ed. And so it is vaguely possible because it was a person with foreign policy experience, et cetera.

But if that's the case, Donald Trump doesn't know it, because otherwise he'd be furious. and she then knows even more that we don't know about impending disaster and hence pulling the shoot before the elections. And it seems inconsistent with at least the tone of that letter. Yeah. That you would just leave two months after it anyway. Yeah. And, you know, look, bipolar Colbert writes on TYT on Twitter, hashtag TYT live to talk to us then.

And he says, nobody to UN likes Nikki A. unless you count dictators, but that would also be true of Donald Trump. So not much different there. Jessica Guzvota writes in on YouTube super chat. Everyone, your voter registration can expire. I did not know this along with many others. We all found out when it was too late in 2016. No one ever tells people that.

So check yours. I appreciate that, yes. I've also heard, I think it was Tennessee, people said that they did some sort of big purge. So you might want to check to make sure that you're still registered. And a lot of states today was the last day to register. I think one, it might be Missouri is tomorrow. So, you know, if you haven't already registered, it is time to go do that. You got to do it, only 27 days left.

If you want to easy way to do it, you can go to t.t.com slash register. That takes you at a government website. You check off your state and then you find out how to register. Okay, so please do that. All right, what's next, John? Okay, well, the stakes in one of the elections, actually. Director Richard Linkletter has stepped into the Beto Oroar Ted Cruz Senate race with an absolutely awesome campaign ad, that in my view, Better O'Hourke should have filmed himself

a couple of months ago and released. But let's take a look. Somebody left something on my door the other day. He said, Ted Cruz, Toughest Texas. I mean, come on. If somebody called my wife a dog and said my daddy was in on the Kennedy assassination, I wouldn't be kissing their ass. You stick a finger in their chest and give them a few choice words.

Or you drag their ass out by the woodshed and kick their ass, Ted. Come on. Ted. Political ad paid for by FTC PAC, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. That's all good. Tad. Never gets old. Okay.

That's a character, actor, let's see, Sonny Carl Davis. Yeah. So about time somebody did this. And look, that's, the thing about time, Ted Cruz is that he's a wimp, and we've said it about a million times. And the thing that a lot of Democrats don't understand, and apparently Link Letter does, and so I greatly appreciate that ad, is that voters care about only a couple of things. You think they're tracking trade policies?

You know, some voters who watch this show are, right, because you guys care, you're smart, et cetera, and you might have a progressive point of view. But most voters look for strength and likability. Okay, and so that's why Ted Cruz is saying he's quote unquote tough as Texas, but the reality is he's a total wimp. Donald Trump, I mean, I don't know if you ever saw this old video, we used to show it all the time back in the day, we probably shouldn't, but Dr. David D. Schultzson in wrestling, when John Stossel went to go talk to him about whether wrestling was fake, he did something

he shouldn't have done, and he slapped Stossel upside the head. And then when Stasel got up, he backhanded him, right? And he said, that's an open-handed slap, boy. What are you going to do about it? And that's what Donald Trump did to Ted Cruz. He said, your wife is ugly, and I'm going to plant the story in the National Inquirer about how your dad killed Kennedy, and then I'm going to talk about it on the campaign trail. I just slapped your wife and backhanded your dad.

What are you going to do about it? Well, why don't we show what he did? So, first of all, just in case you didn't see it, we're not going to show all of it, but one tweet, Lion Ted Cruz, just used a picture of Melania from a GQ shooting his ad. Be careful, Lion Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife. To this day, I don't think anyone knows what he's talking about there. But he also put out a, he tweeted out a photo that he, of Heidi Cruz that he thought was ugly. Our current president tweeting out photos of people's wives that he think are ugly. And then about his father said, his father was Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being, you know, shot.

I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right? Prior it is being shot and nobody ever brings it up. They don't even talk about that. That was reported and nobody talks about it. Well, presumably when it was reported, they talked about it. But, I mean, what was he doing? What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death, before the shooting?

It's horrible. Yeah, so people think that like we're exaggerating over this. No, he called his dad a potential assassin. And let's see. So in response to his dad being attacked, his wife being called ugly, something, something and spilling the beans, he has to summon all of his masculine testosterone, and then he produced this. I don't get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that'll do it every

time. Donald, you're a snibling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone. So will you support him as the nominee? I'm gonna beat him. Nice, I love that pause, that pause is always great. I mean, I'm gonna do a political calculation, obviously. If I think it's to my benefit that I'm instead of throwing Trump on the bus, I'm gonna go, Heidi, here you go, Heidi, ho, throw her onto the bus.

Okay. See you, Dad. Right. Which is of course what he did when he famously, pathetically phone banked for Donald Trump. Oh, Ted. That sad little face he has on, that's my favorite thing in the world. To be fair, that's his face. Yeah, I know.

That's what a piece looks like. So he's a wimp. I mean, there's another word for it, and you know what it is in Texas, okay? So, and now he's trying to pretend that he's toughest Texas. Please, please, please. So look, to finish the thought about Republicans in general and elections in general, Hillary Clinton's strategy in attacking Donald Trump, and what the Democrats often do with Republicans is unfortunately ineffectual.

I wish it would work, but it doesn't work. So what do they do? They say, oh, they're bad guys. They don't like black people, Latinos, Muslims, et cetera, right? Yeah, their voters already know that. And they don't, unfortunately, history is shown they don't mind that, okay? What they mind is weakness, especially in Texas. So what Hillary Clinton should have done to Donald Trump is what we try to do, which

is call him a loser, which is what he is. Bankrupt six times, pathetic figure had to borrow money from his dad over and over again would be nothing without his daddy, a spoiled little rich brat, right? That undercuts his strength, that's a thousand times more effective. Now in this case, Ted Cruz, oh, he's a bad guy. Dude, everybody on the planet knows he's a bad guy. All of his voters know he's a bad guy. Heidi knows it.

His dad knows it, okay? That's not the issue. The issue is, is he strong or is he not strong? And the reality is, he's a beta. He's tough as pudding. That's what he is. And so I want to, really fast, I want to do a tale of two debates. So a tale of two debates in terms of strength.

So they were supposed to have three debates. I covered the first with Brooke a couple of weeks ago. There was supposed to be another one. It might have even been tonight, a town hall. Beto is going to do it. But there's not going to be any Ted Cruz because Ted Cruz backed out. Okay, that's weakness. And I hope Beto will point that out.

I don't think he will because of the other debate in this tale of two debates. And that was the first one. And Beto seems really good on a number of issues. He's good in general, but he had many opportunities to attack Ted Cruz and he refused to. When they brought up these things about the wife and his dad, he was super nice to him. At the end, when they asked him, can you say one nice thing about the other candidate? He went first and said something super nice that undercut his other attacks against Ted Cruz. And then Ted Cruz turned around and talked about him being a radical socialist.

that, sure, some people like in Venezuela, but I don't think in Texas. And so he came off to me as a person not willing to not even be dirty, but just be honest about the weakness of this man and how bought he is. We saw that during the last primary. And so my concern is that while Director Richard Linkletter will make ads like this, Beto, he seems to be more focused on just showing that he's like a cool guy who you agree with on the issues, which, again, like you said before, I wish that was all it took for you to win a Senate seat in something like Texas. but I don't know that it will.

If I had the opportunity to say something nice about Ted Cruz in the debate, and I have challenged Ted Cruz to a debate, and let me quote Ted Cruz, sniveling coward comes to mind. He did not show up to my debate either. So here's what I would say about him. I'd say, no, no, no, you've got to be fair to Ted. Ted has been great to Donald Trump after Donald Trump insulted his wife and said his father was a murderer. And I think the fact that he could get past that speaks really well of him. And that he still has maintained his relationship with his wife and his dad, despite the fact that he

seemed to betray them in order to get political favors from Donald Trump. You know, I guess that's a person who can just get past being slapped around by a better man or a bigger man, a stronger man. But hey, at least he knows his role. That would be my answer for what I like about Ted Cruz. Yeah, or, you know, I appreciate a guy who will defend those who support him. Like, yeah, okay, he didn't defend his wife, he didn't defend his father. But corporate interests that have paid for his career thus far, he will defend them at every turn. A great answer. Say, hey, look, there's one thing you know about Ted Cruz.

If you give him a lot of money, he will do favors for you. If you're in his family, 50-50, apparently less than 50-50, right? But the Robert Mercer and Rebecca Mercer that gave him $13 million in his primary, those guys he's actually loyal to. Yeah. And now remember, Beto does not take corporate pack money. So that's why that line of attack would have been great. This is an outside pack and they obviously didn't check with them because Beto is unfortunately

way too nice and he would never would have approved this at. Yeah, Beto needs to metaphorically break a skateboard over the back of Ted Groo. That's what he needs to do. Yeah. And I'm afraid he's not going to. Man, it's going to be a tight race. Election night, November 6th. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash T-Y-T. Check it out today. T-Y-T-T-com slash live. Conservatives are either going to be jubilant or a despondent. Yes. And so are we. So only one way to find out.

We'll see you there. Remember, remember the 6th of November. Okay. All right, we got a lot more including one of my favorite stories today, the new conspiracy by Donald Trump on Democratic protesters. And I'm actually pretty riled up about that one, so we'll do that when we return. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent

media, become a member at t.t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks, only time for two quick comments. They're both from members. Ruth, the dogface girl, oh, nope, sorry, Colin I meant, Ruth, fine, I'll read yours too. She says, I have to say it again, Ted is no beta, beta is second in command, Ted is an Omega boy. Okay, that's funny, Colin says, I'm glad I read it, Colin says, Cruz also try to look tough

by wrapping bacon around the barrel of an AR-15 and shooting until the bacon was crispy. Yeah, I mean, he's got all the trappings of a fake, tough guy. I'd say he would melt in a second, but he already did. Trump proved it. All right, and actually, you know what? When we look back at Trump's career, okay, in a couple of months after the election and Mueller finally releases his findings, the one good thing he'll have done is destroy Ted Cruz.

Okay, so, yeah. What's there another? Okay. Kim writes in, Alexander Acosta Cortez will run into that too, meaning being too nice. She's a nice person isn't used to mean people. I saw her get befuddled in an interview. Progressive Dems need to practice talking to belligerent people and how to aggressively respond back.

Now, I don't know that she was actually befuddled, I think that that's a lot of the framing they put on it, but I do know that that's an issue, it really is. And I'll tell you why you never see anybody like that on TV because they don't, TV doesn't like it. They're used to belligerent right wing people, no problem. They're used to establishment Democrats, no problem. They love that, right? Establishment Republicans, no problem. Strong progressives, problem.

They just think, you're not being civil. You're not being civil. So they'll have Anna on for a little while. She'll kick some conservatives' ass in the same exact way the conservatives do to liberals. And they're like, no, not civil, not civil. That lady like. Yeah, and then she won't be asked back on for half a year, nine months, right? Me, I mean, look, I give stealthy credit.

He's had me on a couple of times. But outside of that, I mean, whoa, hey, hey, take it easy. This guy fights back. That's totally unacceptable, right? They won't let you on TLC, let alone CNN. So, I mean, look, some of you love Jimmy, some of you have issues with Jimmy. And obviously, we all have a range of opinions here, right? But are there people like Jimmy Doer on the right wing that are on TV?

A million of them, a million of them, right? Saying strong things, and then on top of that, outrageous things, right? You think anybody's gonna let Jimmy anywhere near a cable station? Okay, cable news station? No way. So then you get a sense of a double standard, okay? There's, I mean, they won't let me on, let alone Jimmy Dorr. I mean, Kyle Kalinsky would make mincemeet out of all these people, John would, and

Anna would. We'd all kick their ass. John, when's the last time you were ass on cable news? I was on HLN once. While back, I don't know. Two years ago? It was a terrible experience. No, no, no, no.

They don't want any piece of us. So they want to put on progressives who will bow. And I don't think Acosios Cortez is one of those. And that's why they attack her so over the top and consistently and non-set, complete, you know, overwhelming propaganda against her. But soon, if we win some of these elections, there'll be too many strong progressives to deny. All right, but we gotta keep going.

Okay, let's do that then. Donald Trump continues to spread conspiracy theories about left-wing protesters. You might think that if you've participated in some of these protests, for instance, recently against Kavanaugh, that you were an impassioned citizen speaking, you know, what you believe. No, turns out you were paid, or maybe not paid actually, because he tweeted this morning that the paid DC protesters are now ready to really protest because they haven't gotten their In other words, they weren't paid. Screamers in Congress and outside were far too obvious, less professional than anticipated by

those paying or not paying the bills. He doesn't have much respect for his audience when he says they haven't gotten their checks, in other words they weren't paid. Yeah, we know what not getting their checks means. But his theory there is that they not only all of these protesters were paid to be there. They don't actually believe any of it. It's a professional thing, but they're also being, I guess, shipped out of their money, which is a bit of projection on his part, considering when he had paid up.

demonstrators at his first big rally when he descended down that escalator, he didn't pay the company that paid for them for months until they finally made a big stink out of it. This, by the way, continues his attacks right around the time of the Kavanaugh nomination hearings saying the very rude elevator screamers, which if you don't remember, that's women who have been raped, who dared to actually say so to senators. Their very rude elevator screamers are paid to do it. So you read these, especially the one this morning, and you think, what is he talking about that they didn't get paid?

And it turns out it's actually a pretty simple explanation. If you bring up this tweet, it's showing what happened on Fox & Friends this morning. It's 747. Someone made a sarcastic comment saying that people have sent me lots of messages that they're waiting for their check. And less than an hour later, he just tweeted that that was the case. So he hears one offhand jokey comment on Fox News. and now the most powerful person on the face of the earth is spreading the idea that every

protester on the left is fake, and also they're not getting paid for their work. Well, look, you mentioned projection, and it's exactly right. You gave one example, let me give a couple more. So we know for a fact, the first Donald, now the Trump rallies today are real people, no question about it, okay? But the very first press conference he did where he announced his candidacy, we know for a fact, was paid actors. And just like he accuses them, he, it did not pay them because he's Donald Trump.

He stiffs everybody. He never pays anybody, right? Because he's a liar and a cheat and a fraud. So he assumes, well, the Democrats are probably doing likewise. That's point one. Point two. Remember, during the protests against Obamacare, what did the Republicans do? The Koch brothers funded buses to go pick up protesters and deliver them to rallies.

Now, the Tea Party guys were originally upset about the Wall Street bailout. But if you noticed, they never protested Wall Street. Never. Why? Because the buses picked them up and did not bring them to Wall Street. They brought them to protest against Obama, which the Koch brothers and other Republican funders did not like because it taxed them a little bit more. So, and they had brought in donuts.

We talked about this at length back in the day, food, drinks, ready-made signs, and they poured in a ton of money to create. the aura of grassroots. So Republicans think, well, I mean, we don't have any real supporters, so we assume the Democrats have no real supporters, we have to manufacture ours and we have to pay ours, so we assume the Democrats have to do likewise. The third one is the Miami rally, so the Miami mob. So this is graphic 45 guys, so this is back in 2000.

This was the scene at a recount in Miami date in the Bush v. Gore election, right? Now, this looked like they were angry people in Miami saying, do not recount, we don't actually care about elections or democracy. We're so mad, I don't want integrity in our elections. Who protests did not count a vote? Yes, well, it turns out, it was a great piece of reporting that showed that almost everyone in the picture was a Republican staff or consultant or lobbyist. It turns out no actual human beings that aren't paid to do so, go and protest, please

stopped counting the vote, right? And of course, that strategy worked. They did stop counting, it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court with their infinite political bias, said, yeah, I don't care about states rights, we're going to make Bush the president, of course, Gore did win Florida in the recount, but it was irrelevant by that. Yeah, but everything turned out okay, though. Yeah, so, yeah, right.

So this is what the Republicans do as a matter of course. They pay their protesters, they have fake protesters, and they provide a tremendous amount of funding for the protesters. So when the Democrats are actually upset or liberals or progressives or women are actually upset, there's sexual assault survivors and it's visceral and they go and protest, the Republicans like, that must be fake. George Soros, no way, it can't be real people. They're lying about their rape.

Yeah. And even the person who came up with this conspiracy theory in the first place, in the first place, Osir and Omani admitted that when she said on Fox, news that, quote, people have sent me lots of messages that they're waiting for their check. She was kidding. She was being sarcastic. But Trump is too stupid to realize that. He's like, oh, I knew it.

Just like I stiffed my paid supporters. I bet Soros did the same. I'm going to tweet about it. I'm going to tweet about it. You knucklehead. She was joking. The whole thing's a sham. Every Trump supporter now believes it.

And we'll never be corrected on that. Yes, and look, what drives me crazy is they put out this crap and now it is being repeated whether to, you know, show it or like say here's the other side by reporters doing a good job, right? But we're the Democrats. Like the Democrats don't show equal force where they come out and go, no, no, those are real angry people and they should be angry at you and they should be angry at Kavanaugh. And no, you guys are the ones that pay protesters. Where's Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi or anyone today doing a press conference about showing pictures of Donald Trump's original press conference and showing how each one of those guys is an actor, right?

And they're showing their acting resume and going, this is the fraud who's our president, who has paid actors to show up to pretend to be supporters of his. Then you know what the country would be talking about? We'd be talking about that. And then Trump would have to respond because it's a personal. attack, and then we'd be having a different conversation. But the Democrats never, ever play offense. And oftentimes they don't even bother playing defense.

So this is what the conversation is about today. And I guarantee you for all Republicans, and unfortunately a good size chunk of independence, they will think that Soros actually paid those people to show up. Yeah, that will be the default position. And the one good thing out of that, I think, is that they will be convinced that there There's not actual anger or opposition to what they're doing. It's just paid for it. It won't actually materialize, which means that if it's not real at the protests, it's not

a threat on election day, but you have an opportunity to actually prove them wrong by voting and by flipping control of at least one, if not two chambers of Congress. Look, I'm gonna say something here that is slightly self-serving, but there's a good reason for saying it. Look, think about what the world looks like without the TYT network. Who the hell's fighting fact? Who's gonna fight back for you? What, Schumer?

Pelosi? They're gonna fight back. Who, the Steny Hoyer? He's gonna fight back for you guys? Who the hell's gonna fight back against Donald Trump and actually do these videos and show you what the reality is, what the facts are? Okay, there'll be a couple of muted articles written and blessed our hearts and we really appreciate it, okay?

But this is why we call it Homer Progressives, because unlike the other Mealymouth people, We are willing to actually aggressively make the progressive case. And the great news for us is we have the facts on our side. That's what drives me crazy about the other Democrats. They have all the facts and they won't fight, but we will. So help us build this bastion of independent media, which is home of progressives. Become a member today, t.yt.com slash join so that we can make this bigger and bigger and they can never get rid of us.

And if you do it based on subscribers like you guys, that is a strength that they cannot move. Otherwise they can attack you financially this way or that way. Ads, demonization. They can do a thousand different things. But if we have 100,000 subscribers, paid subscribers to the young Turks, they can never, ever move us and will always be there to fight for you guys. TYt.com slash join, don't let him get away with this crap. All right, we gotta take a break here.

Margaret Cho is going to join us when we come back and amazing stories in the second hour. And I want to get to that as quickly as we can. So we'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.