The Young Turks - Slammer For Santos - April 25, 2025

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

The Chaos Inside Hegseth’s Pentagon. Trump FUMES At Putin As Carnage Continues In Ukraine. Former Congressman George Santos Sentenced to Seven Years for Fraud. Pete Buttigieg clip goes mega-viral" Hosts: John Iadarola, Michael Shure, Jordan Uhl SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. Condoms for Hamas. Hot dog is my favorite meat. Well, hello. Big my dreams. Bexie!

Bexie! Bexee! Dream my team! Dream my team! Free my tea! Let's see my tea! Let's drop it. Let's drop it.

Welcome, one and all as we close things out on this big whole week with the power panel. I'm John Ida Rolla. Michael Shore is actually here in studio. It's good to be here in studio. It would be nice if Jordan showed up, you know. Yeah, I know. He could have like done the bare minimum. And show up. But unfortunately, we just got in remote, but still, I guess that's something. Jordan, how's it going? What a welcome. It's terrible. I just got, I just got insulted by my co-hosts. Well, how's it going?

You know, it was just, it was suggestive persuasion. Exactly. So next time we'd love to see you here, that's all. Exactly. So there's, if you're on the podcast, you may not know. There's a little weird thing going on with the shots right now where I feel like I'm lower than Michael. And Jordan is like significantly bigger. I am very funny way. But you, yeah, I feel like, I was just saying I wanted my seat raised.

No, you cannot go any higher. In fact, can you lower him? I'll slump. Go down a little bit. I feel like Jordan, because we insulted him playfully, decided to visually dominate the frame by moving forward. But anyway, glad to have both of you, gents here. Thank you for joining us.

Glad to have all of you out in the audience here, because we have a lot of interesting news to get to in both foreign and domestic news. consequences for fraud and illegal acts. Not with anyone in the top 20 politicians, I would have chosen to actually suffer consequences, but we got somebody. He'd be in my top 20, actually. Top 50 for me easily. But anyway, we got an appearance of a cat tail right there. And we'll be discussing some of the big rising stars in the Democratic Party to end this first hour. And so we're to jump to the news. Send us your comments, your tweets, and your super chats. All that We'll be responding to the social breaks.

And with all that, why don't we jump into this? I think to a degree as embarrassing President Trump, when he bombed Kiev in this brutal attack, the worst you're watching it now. Worst in a year. Worst in a year and killed these innocent people. That was actually a pretty amazing little bit of video that you have Brian Kilmead both caring about the fact that these civilians were once again killed in Ukraine in this absolutely vicious bombing of Kiev, which look, he's spoken out in defense of Ukrainians before.

That's maybe not the most surprising thing, but that Kilmeet also very clearly states that Putin is embarrassing Donald Trump and that this peace process is not going at all as smoothly as Donald Trump implied that it would. And so Putin kills a bunch of people again, vicious assault as Donald Trump pretends that he's closing in on a peace deal. And what does Donald Trump have in response? We're gonna flash back a couple days ago on True Social when he posted this, I am not with the Russian strikes on Kyiv, not necessary and very bad timing.

Vladimir, stop, 5,000 soldiers are weak or dying, let's get the peace deal done. And that's just so weird, the first name basis with Vladimir when he's literally never done that with Zelenskyy and like the very bad timing, when it when would be a good timing, Donald, for civilians to be murdered? When would, would it be better on the weekend? Would it be like you get to do your fake peace deal and then you can go back to killing the civilian? Like when would be great timing? Cause I kind of feel like it's always bad timing and that's always a weird way to address the murder of civilians. But he's a super weird guy, super unsurious guy.

And as we said, by the way, this should have been done about 99 days ago. He implied day one over and over and over again. I must have missed though. He was joking, it turns out because he said, well, I said that figuratively. And I said that as an exaggeration because to make a point, Obviously, people know that when I said that it was in jest, but it was also said that it will be ended. I was in jest.

Oh, now that I think about it, it is actually pretty funny that you would quickly solve this major crisis and then, oh, it was actually a joke, I'm not actually gonna solve it anytime soon. And when I do, it's gonna be just taking whatever Russia says and being like, hey, Ukraine, do this. That's also in jest, I imagine, not super funny, maybe dark humor, I don't know. But anyway, he apparently really did think that he would make. progress, maybe not one day progress, but a little bit faster than three months.

And he's apparently behind the scenes growing frustrated about how long this is taking. And so in a moment, we'll turn to the actual deal, the peace plan he's put forward. But let's talk just a little bit about where we are at. We haven't talked about this topic in a while, Michael. What do you make of this? Well, I make exactly what, I mean, it's sort of predictable other than him calling out Putin. You know, Donald Trump, when he talks about Crimea, and I know we'll get into that when we get into what the peace deal is, and he said, the most compelling thing that he said is he's blaming it on Obama. So somehow he can find an avenue to blame Obama for everything in the world that's bad, and that's Crimea.

And then, or that men, that's this Russian war as well. So that's the thing that strikes me most about all of this. The fact that Trump is trying to criticize Putin because this happened on Easter, sort of showing himself to be this proud religious God. How could you ever, you know, desecrate the most important holiday in the world to me is absurd, as is so much of what he says. But I think that it's really important to look at, at least it is to me, the way that he is flip-flopping on something because he doesn't know how to deal with Vladimir Putin.

I think Johnny, you said it rightly at the beginning when he said, you don't hear him call anybody else by their first names. He doesn't send a text like that or a truth social like that to Netanyahu and say, come on, Benjamin, stop this. There's something about Vladimir Putin that puts him in a place that nobody else does. And we can all have theories of what that is. It doesn't matter. It's just that that is the disposition here. And him stepping in as a peacemaker or whether it's Wickoff or whoever it is, it's not going to make a difference. because his, his allegiances are with one man.

Yeah, he's less peacemaker than just like kind of acting Russian diplomat. He's their ambassador to Ukraine, basically, delivering their terms. Exactly, exactly. Jordan, what do you think? I think there's a couple things here. As we've seen with tariffs and now we're seeing here, global leaders know they can just push Trump around. While he acts like a strong man here and uses his power and throws it around domestically,

other leaders know that this guy doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And they don't really need to respect him. We saw with China and tariffs specifically. And this is just another instance where Trump is looking like a buffoon on a global stage while reassuring his base here that we're respected again. And of course, we can see through that. But I also want to think about this push to end this war and juxtapose that with the last, of a push, especially from the right to end the war in Gaza. I mean, Mike, when you pointed it out, he's not going to do that with Netanyahu. I think the reason here is that people value Ukrainian and European lives more than lives

in Gaza. I think you're seeing a total disregard for the suffering in Gaza. Chuck Grassley is calling for Trump right now to apply even more sanctions on Putin and Russia. I mean, Russia is already heavily sanctioned, and he will. wants more. But he met with Netanyahu just a few months ago. He's totally fine with everything the Netanyahu is doing. I think we need to take a second and think about why when it comes to our foreign policy, why we care about some victims and some innocent civilians that are dying and not others. Yeah. I think it's an important point that we need to center in these

conversations. Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think it's indisputable that that sort of like dark cruel calculus has been underlying the last year and a half of that conflict, 100% And also American foreign policy forever, right? When it's convenient for us. I just started a year or two ago. Oh, did? Okay. I'm going back to the WrestleMania one day. So the, no, no, but I mean, there is a, I wouldn't even call it hypocritical. It's you, they pick their battles and their battles are are generally not the ones that have people in mind. They have, whether it's petroleum or or business interests or alliances. In this case, it's pretty clear there's anotherism.

So yeah, and you mentioned what he had said about Crimea, that like he sends these long true social posts way too long. And Donald stopped doing that, also everyone, don't do that, don't send stuff like that. But anyway, he'll do this like big block thing. Half of it is Obama's responsible for Crimea. Nope, what's the difference? Like I literally don't even understand why you're so focused on this. He also says, Obama, that, that was Obama, not, that was Obama's war, not Trump's. right? Or that was Obama's fault, not Trump's, right? It's not Obama's or Trump's.

I'll give you a pass here, Don. What happened in 2014 had nothing to do with either of you. It was Putin, your buddy, going in and taking over Crimea, because as he said, most people there speak Russian. Exactly. But I'm glad that he brought it up because the reason he brings it up is to maintain this myth, this baseless myth that he never would have done it if it was me. If I'd been in charge, he never would have invaded. They would have never, Hamas would have never. You know why? Because Donald Trump's being in charge means all of you guys have to keep a cool, be chill, don't do anything crazy.

Because if you do, Donald Trump is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. Except when Vladimir Putin in the middle of this peace process decides to kill a bunch of people on Easter, he didn't seem scared about what the consequences would be. And evidently, why would he be? You slaughter a bunch of people. bunch of people, you make a mockery of the peace process and what does Donald Trump do? No, Vlad, stop. He posts on social media, shouting into the digital void. That's what would have stopped him from invading Crimea. That's what would have stopped Hamas from attacking Israel. Oh, no, he's going to post on social media about me. Yeah, I can see

how that would maintain detente across the earth's surface. And it's a ridiculous lie. And nothing from him on J.D. Vance killing the Pope the day after him. Great point. an assassination on your watch. Nothing. But anyway, let's turn now to the actual deal. So here is the agreement that Trump wants Ukraine to sign. So Russia would keep almost all the land that it sees from Ukraine, about 20% of that entire country, or what's left of the country after Crimea, obviously. There's like one little area that they would supposedly get back. But the vast majority of the territory would be taken from them. Ukraine would be prevented from joining NATO. So no defensive alliance that would help forestall a future invasion. The US

would recognize Crimea as part of Russia, in addition to all the territory that would be stolen illegally through this peace plan. They could theoretically join the EU. Maybe it's a little bit vague on that, but again, no defensive alliances. There would be a security aid in funding, not from us. We're not involved in it. There's literally no reference to the US, so somebody, I guess, I guess the countries that are not even involved in this process, they're gonna have to foot the bill, I suppose. And so you give Russia basically everything they want, you say no NATO, you give a very strong signal to Russia that we're not involved in this anymore, you don't have to worry.

If you do decide to invade, that's we're not gonna do anything about it. And so this is basically just a guarantee that you'll have a little bit of peace, a month, six months, maybe two years. And then the invasion will continue. But Trump doesn't want you to see it that way. He doesn't want you to see it as him just carrying the water for Vladimir Putin, which is objectively doing. He actually says that Russia is making a very significant concession in this deal. Take a look.

What concessions, Mr. President, into your national security? What concessions has Russia offered up thus far to get to the point where you're closer to peace? Stopping the war, stopping taking the whole country, pretty big concession. steal the territory that they've conquered. They don't get to steal territory that they're trying to conquer but have failed. Right. So Ukraine, which is, it's nice of him, it's merciful. You don't have to hand over the whole country right now. You will eventually in a year or two, but for now the territory they haven't successfully taken, you don't have to give up. I mean, that's not even like bizarre a world. That's, that's a wormate your brain logic.

I don't even understand, but what do you think? I mean, it's where it's where this started, Right? I mean, there's no difference. It's like, okay, Russia can have Crimea. Well, that's the whole point of a lot of this fighting is for Russia to try and get Crimea. It's not a, it's not any kind of a deal. And they're also saying it's an ultimatum. If Zelensky walks away, there's going to be no money for Ukraine from the United States. So that's part of this conversation, which puts a great deal of pressure on Europe, a great deal of pressure on parts of Asia as well. I it's the most foolish peace negotiation I've ever heard because you're saying here's how you have peace you have peace if you give them Crimea which is why they invaded you in large part in the first place so okay yeah we know that we're fighting to protect it we're fighting to protect our sovereignty it's it's just the most absurd way of getting peace and I don't see how Zelensky the president said that he may see Zelensky when he's at Pope Francis's funeral on Saturday. He left for Rome already. He said that on the White House long. But May, I don't know.

I mean, what is he going to tell Zelensky? You better take this deal? I have no clue. Yeah. I mean, neither Trump nor Biden really had any leverage over Putin here. I'm routinely thinking about the progressives that tried to push the Biden administration to at least consider negotiations and diplomacy while Biden was in office, just make it part of the package. Of course, still continue to send aid to Ukraine. And they were screamed at, browbeaten into submission and rescinded this open letter. And, you know, the terms that we're seeing now in this deal, and I'm with you, Michael, it's like, how is this different than where we started?

I mean, the one thing that's different is many more people would still be alive. There would be less bloodshed between when they raised that suggestion and now. And to go back to the leverage point, I don't see how you're going to convince Putin to stop with any other deal. What incentive does he have? While there was a moment where it looked like Ukraine was holding strong and was pushing Russian forces back, it has not been the case in some time. And this is not a war that Ukraine can actually win, no matter how much much money we throw at it, more and more people are going to die. There will be more and more

destruction at the end of the day. You want to preserve as much of the country that is still standing as you can on the NATO thing. The US, Germany, and five other NATO countries already opposed Ukraine's membership in NATO. So while Biden envisioned a long-term plan where eventually Ukraine could be a member, it wasn't on the table now. So I keep thinking back, like it seems like a missed opportunity to at least try to include some sort of diplomatic approach that the Biden administration just squandered. And unfortunately, the right sees that opportunity in a very cynical fashion, framed it a lot around the money we sent to Ukraine, just a pure dollars and cents game, framed it as government

waste, and whipped up fervor on the right in opposition to this war that I would have hoped the Democrats could have done. And unfortunately, it was all about fighting back. And the long-term consequences, I think the Democrats are losing a firm footing in being the largely anti-war party. It's a very militaristic party. And that's not the Democratic Party. I think a lot of us want it to be. Yeah. And these are strange conflicts for Democrats to stand up. And because they, you know, Putin was pretty absolute that he wasn't going to talk to Biden about this. And he knows that he can talk to Trump about it. And that's a huge advantage that Putin had with the election of Donald Trump in November.

And as far as what happened in Gaza, yeah, it's a drop ball, but it's also, as we know, a very complicated, much more complicated conflict than were this to be happening between Paraguay and Bolivia right now. So it's, man, it's, it's, well, I agree, very difficult situation. You're in a tough spot when Vladimir Putin just decides, I literally do not care how many of my people die. I don't care how long this takes. I don't care how much money I have to put into it. I'm going to take this territory. That puts everybody in a very difficult position, considering their military, obviously. The idea that, again, it doesn't look like Ukraine is going to accept this, even effectively the barrel of a gun.

But the idea that if any of this goes through, Trump would claim to have been a peacemaker, like, yeah, it's easy to tell one side to surrender, I suppose. That doesn't seem that difficult, that's not the art of the deal. If he didn't come into Ukraine and be like, give up Ukraine to Russia, and then, oh, and we're also going to steal Gaza. Like, I guess that ends a conflict. When you ethnically cleanse the land, I guess there's less bloodshed afterward, I suppose. And then meanwhile, he's got this long list of countries that he wants to conquer and add to the American Empire. So I agree with you, the Democrats have a lot of progress to make on these topics. But the Republicans, I mean, if they are claiming and they are that they are somehow the

party that's against war, they sure have some lofty imperial ambitions while they're doing it. And not to mention a legacy of being the party against Russia, which is all out the window right now. Yeah, well, look, we're going to play one more clip in a sec. First, though, I do want to let you know about a poll that we have on the website right now. Should Ukraine have to surrender land to Russia? It's looking at this point, like people are not really buying that. I mean, And obviously it's, you know, surrender land is a broad thing, how much, where, that sort of thing. But it looks like people are pretty clear about what they think about that for now. Except there are, I always wonder about this with polls, right?

Where there's an I'm not sure. Like, why are you filling out the poll? Like, the most exciting thing about taking a poll is, I don't have a problem with I'm not sure. I think it's honest. It is, but I have a problem too. It's honest, but I have a problem with you. Stop sitting at a fence. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

The pole is not for the sitting. committed. Well, why don't we jump into some other polls as presented classically as they have been on TYT recently by Harrington? What do people think about Trump's approach to foreign policy? Take a look. Trump's net approval rating on foreign policy. You go back to January the start of Trump's term. He was above water, plus two points. Down he goes, down into the body of water. Underwater, minus 13 points at this particular point. That is a drop of 15 points on the net approval rating since January foreign policy, net approval at this point of presidency. The average president plus 17, Trump in his first term, he was at minus 12, not particularly good.

And this is a good important reference. This isn't, you know, this is in like a back-to-back terms. This is non-conseparative terms or first terms, which I think is obviously very important. Correct. Minus 12 points here. That was the, that was the all-time record for a presidency, the 45th presidency of Donald Trump. You go to 47, he has broken his own record. When it comes to Russia, The recent Fox News poll asked about his net approval rating on these different countries and we're on Russia, dealings with Russia minus 18 points, dealings with Ukraine minus 13 points. No doubt feelings towards Russia and Ukraine are impacting Trump's overall net approval rating on foreign policy.

That'll make sense, I think the graphs and all that very helpful. But for me to understand how it's changing over time, I really need you to drop it like it's hot. I think that if then I understand that things are going down, please jump if they go up. Right, nothing really has. But anyway, so he's underwater, he's worse than he was in the first term, that's all well and good. I think there's a case to be made that the fact that he's only negative 13 at this point, maybe should be seen as a win, what is he accomplished in foreign policy so far? He started trade wars with the entire world that he had to, in a humiliating fashion, backtrack

from. most countries, then on China, making us look financially, economically, way weaker around the globe than we already had. He has promised to steal the land and deport the entire population of Gaza, which would be one of the most heinous crimes against humanity of our lives. And he said that he would cure the situation in Ukraine on day one and things have only gotten worse since then. So the fact that it's only dropped as much as it has, I think it could be worse if people

were really paying attention, it might be. Well, do you know how hard it is to piss off Canada? You know, that too. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, he's certainly he's a we've closer ties with El Salvador in some ways, at least than we did previously. But Jordan, what do you make of the polls? I mean, he still has some support on other issues. I think it's misguided, but I've seen some polls that unfortunately a good amount of 30 to 39 year olds, have a he has a net support, uh, within that cohort, which is sad. And I think,

I think people are misguided. But on these specific issues, yeah, it's terrible. Because again, to go back to what I said earlier, he doesn't know what he's doing. This guy is, he's a moron. He's just like he so badly wants to be retired. He ran because of course he wanted to escape any sort of repercussions for his actions. But also he just likes the pomp and circumstance. He likes to feel important and then he delegates to work to everyone else.

He's not somebody who can actually negotiate these types of deals, these types of arrangements on a global stage. But the hubris we're seeing from his campaign is just really shocking. I mean, as you saw this week, they're already selling Trump 2028 hats. Not only is it ridiculous, it's also unconstitutional. So it shows that they don't really care. They're thinking long term. They're thinking perhaps violating the constitution and keeping him in power. Who knows? But it's all just very, very harrowing stuff. It's just disgusting.

Yeah. Well, there's a lot more to discuss to you coming up on the show. No, there's also some fun stuff too and maybe a little bit of stuff that'll give you some hope. We'll get to that on the other side of this break. Let's jump into this. Thanks to new reporting coming out of both Politico in the Wall Street Journal. We have a little bit more clarity on the sort of state of mind of Pete Hegsseth, a state of mind that over the last 10 years or so probably can rarely be described as clarity. But anyway, he's got a lot of chaos going on in the Pentagon and he's increasingly worried

about how that's going to be perceived by the White House, in particular by Donald Trump, who doesn't necessarily like when one of his lackeys continually causes problems, makes things look like they're not going smoothly and also seems to be infested by leakers. And so Pete Hexeth is trying to get a handle on the situation. He apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, very concerned that he could be fired. And in particular, he's worried that all of these leaks coming out could help lead to that situation. One leak in particular that we'll talk about being very high up on that list of concerns.

Apparently every new leak of sensitive Pentagon operations or planning induce new concerns and fears in Hegsith. I don't know if that's just the leaks from other people or when he like wakes up in the morning and realizes, oh God, I signaled again. I don't know if it's that sort of leak, but he has a lot to be concerned about. Apparently he, once the Elon Musk China briefing came out, the leak revealing that Elon Musk was going behind Donald Trump's back and getting this secretive information that could potentially benefit him personally and financially,

he yelled at Admiral Christopher Grady, I'll hook you up to an effing polygraph. That apparently did not actually happen, which as a leader, not a good call to be making threats if you're not going to go through on them. But he did go on to accuse a number of other people of the leak, including Lieutenant General Doug Sims, the joint staff director, whom Hegsith also apparently threatened with a polygraph. I don't know if that one actually happened, but it's not a good sign in your first hundred days in charge of an organization when you're going through the hallways yelling at people that you're going to give a lie detector test, at least I don't think. think. And so we've got the Elon Musk China briefing. That was a big leak. We had signal gate one. That was mostly Jeffrey Goldberg, of course, who revealed that one. There was the second signal gate scandal when we found out that he was sharing the same sort of classified

sensitive information with his wife and his brother and his personal lawyer. Now we also found out about a third signal issue alleging that Hegsteth had an unsecured internet connection on his personal computer that bypassed the Pentagon security protocols so that he could use signal, this dude loves signal more than I have ever loved an app in my life. And it might be his downfall, dude, just uninstall it, try WhatsApp, you know, try the messages app, they're perfectly good, you can leak all sorts of sensitive information. You can endanger the lives of our pilots on, you know, the I message or whatever. It doesn't have to be signal, but anyway, there's other issues too floating around that we're

going to discuss. So he brings his wife to these sensitive meetings with foreign military officials, I'm not going to criticize Pete Hegsith over that. I don't even think it's his option. I don't think she's going to let him be alone for more than a few minutes considering all the allegations that have been flowing around. We found out that they spent something like, or they had plans to spend $40,000 setting up a makeup booth for Pete Hegsith in the Pentagon and also that they'd been working on military plans for a takeover of the Panama Canal. And we come out of this with some staff still around, although they've been a bit shaken by the polygraph being waved

in front of their face, he doesn't have a chief of staff, he doesn't have a deputy chief of staff, he doesn't have a senior advisor. So this isn't great at this point. I mean, we've seen this sort of chaos in the Trump White House before, but I feel like it took longer than 100 days the first time around. Yeah, I think it did actually take longer than 100 days. The other thing about Pete Heggseth is first of all, the people you don't, if you're afraid of getting fired, you don't piss off the generals because the generals are the ones that can put the pressure on to get you out of there. They can go to people who go to the president.

It's not that difficult to make that happen. And so that's mistake number, you know, it's a high number for, but it's in this situation, it's a major mistake. So threatening these polygraph tests and threatening members of the uniform military with them is the wrong way for the civilian leadership to go when it comes to the Pentagon. The other thing about Heggseth is, and you think about this all time had he not been confirmed it would not have been the end of any senate career would not have

been the end of the president's mission right he would have put somebody else in there this is all on the hands of the republican senators who were too afraid to vote against a nominee of the president that it is a a sickness in our politics that you cannot do that we would have another secretary of defense who would have gone through a rigorous hearing who would have probably gotten every Republican to vote for them. Maybe some Democrats because the Republicans would have already voted against Hegset who's clearly not qualified. So it's time to have a little bit of spine when you're going up against these foolish nominees for a position. And Donald Trump would be on a plane to Russia, right? To Italy right now to go to the funeral, he wouldn't be thinking about

his Secretary of Defense. The Defense Department wouldn't be thinking about it. No Republican And Senator would think, oh, God, you know, I really, I'm still so upset about Heggseth not passing. It would have been in the wind, dust, gone. And that's the root of all this stuff. Yeah. Jordan. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking back to January 2024 when then Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin went to the hospital and didn't disclose it for a few days.

And Trump and Republicans were calling for his removal from office. And while it's like kind of weird, you would want people, especially the president and others in the cabinet to know he's in the hospital, I don't know if it's as serious as Republicans tried to make it out to be. And then you look at everything that Hegeseth is doing, multiple unsecure signal chats, his personal cell phone and full name being used on an offshore betting site that is totally vulnerable, allows foreign. adversaries to easily access his information, his phone, his data, all of the security risks that he is bringing on himself. To be clear, this isn't just like like the targeted attacks or targeted surveillance. He's just inviting it himself. And to look at how they responded to Lloyd Austin, largely because he was just black. That's why. They didn't like it from the beginning because he was black. And then you look at Heggseth, who was totally unqualified. And you could

criticize Lloyd Austin for US foreign policy under his leadership. Of course, that's totally fair. But the knock on him was never about his race. Like it should never have been about his race. And Pete Heggsat is somebody who doesn't deserve this position, only got it because he kissed Trump's ass on Fox News for years. And Trump saw him on the TV and liked him because he has a baby brain, and that's how he operates. And he's good looking. And he's an embarrassment. And he's good looking. And that matters to Donald Trump. Seriously, though. I mean, that is something, aesthetics matter more to this president than a lot of things. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, Seth is the living example. And listen, I think Lloyd Austin was

not above reproach. I think that that was a really bad thing he did when he didn't let anybody know that he went into the hospital. I don't know that it would have been grounds for removal, certainly grounds for criticism and investigation and a conversation, but and for the president to have reacted. But again, that this, you're allowed to criticize. These people, this guy has no business being at the Department of Defense. Yeah. And the Republican senators knew it. If you went, went to them off the record and you asked them about it, they would have said, yeah, this isn't a good pick, but we're going to vote for him anyway, you know. Yeah, 100%. They went along with it, and now it's causing all this trouble for them. And what do you get for the trouble?

What's the advantage of Pete? I don't understand. That's what I was saying. Especially when there were so many good alternative candidates hosting shows on Fox. You could have Doocy, you could have Kill Me, and instead you wasted on this guy. I'll never understand it. But anyway, Ducey was a nice guy when I was an NBC page. I'm digressing here for a second.

He had a show called House Party, which was a terrible show, but it required pages to seat the audience and I was one of the pages. And he was always very nice to the pages and very conversant. And so Pete Ducey, when I see him on the road, I almost, When I first met him, I told him that story. And he said, always when I sees me, we have nothing else to talk about. So he said, ah, I told my dad that story. I know you've told me 11 times you told that your dad, that story.

Interesting. In any event, one of the ways I'll end on this, Graphics 7, one of the ways that they're trying to sort of rebuild Hegsseth's reputation back up is they're focused on building an aura around Hegsith by pushing out videos of his memo signings and early morning workouts causing fears from current former defense officials. that some of the less photo worthy events could face delays because he's too busy having his photo taken. That'll definitely take eyes off the makeup booth story that you're doing all these workout fitness photos. But honestly, I want him to do as many of these as possible. Because if he's spending all of his time like doing curls, getting that pump, then he's not pursuing his lifelong quest to kill all the Muslims as he screamed once at a party. And he's not trying to start a hot war with Iran or whatever. Because we cannot be distracted too much by all the shallow

like dumb donkey stuff that he does. He's also on the substance, to the extent that he ever thinks about the substance, he's terrible in that stuff too. Right. So anyway, we'll see what ends up happening with him. We do have a poll. When he's on substance, you have to be careful that you're talking about substantive issues. Right, yeah. And so we have a poll. How long will Hegseth keep his job a week, a month, a year, or he won't get fired, which is possible. Few people make it all the way in a Trump administration, but I guess it could happen. People seem to think either he's sticking around or a month, okay? So that's not bad. I'm gonna say, I don't know. I don't know, I have no idea. I will say though, I mean,

I hadn't known about the gambling thing that Jordan mentioned, but with his gambling, with his substance abuse, with his allegations of sexual assault against him, the infidelity, his wild bizarre statements and his complete lack of knowledge about what constitutes secure communications. Has there ever been a more readily blackmailable member of the U.S. government than this guy? Well, I'm a little resentful that you're lumping in gambling with those other horrible things. I'm not saying it's objectively bad. I'm just saying it leads to people having bad things happen with the mob and such. With the gambling and the drugs and the sexual assault.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've ranked them by how bad they are. It got progressively less bad. Okay, all right. But anyway, no, he's just, he's got a lot of issues. He's also an idiot and he really wants to be popular. Welcome back, one and all to what remains of the first, or the first, yeah, power panel, first hour. We've got two awesome stories to talk about. And coming up after that, we have Jorby. He's going to be hanging around, Jordan Yule.

Michael Short, you're also going to be hanging around. I am. It's feeling less like a turnover to the second hour and more like I'm being kicked out is what it's feeling like. Are you gone for the second hour? Yes, Wazni Lombre will be replacing me. Oh, wow. Look at that. I'm going to go hang with baby. But anyway, first let's hang with the news, starting with this. George Santos was sentenced that long last earlier today and he got hit with a pretty hefty sentence, 87 months in prison, which most people would call that seven years. I don't know why we talk about it in terms of months when it's baby ages and sentences. It's a lot of months basically.

He pled guilty of course to charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. That 87 months long is not only objectively a lot of time, it's also the maximum possible. It's what prosecutors were seeking. His attorneys had requested a two-year sentence, which would have been substantially smaller. Now, if you had, like me, sort of lost the plot of this whole thing a while ago, he pled guilty last year to falsifying campaign records taken or done in order to obtain support from the National Republican Congressional Committee for a successful 22 House campaign. He initially pleaded guilty to the nearly two dozen federal criminal charges he was facing, including conspiracy, false statements, credit card fraud,

money laundering, and theft of public funds. And as part of his plea deal, he admitted to a significant amount of the conduct for which he was charged, a reversal of his previous steadfast denials of wrongdoing. He eventually admitted that he did do it. Now, despite the guilty plea, prosecutors made the case apparently successfully that he actually hadn't really taken a responsibility for what he had done. He wasn't really showing remorse. He did, obviously he did his press conference where he got all teary-eyed and stuff. They implied that that was not genuine. They called him instead a pathological liar who is not at all remorseful for what he did.

And one of the things that they used as a way to address that are sort of get it across was they pointed to the fact that he launched a weekly podcast called Pants on Fire with George Santos, which does seem to make light a little bit of the track record of lying or whatever. So that didn't help him. They basically said he's just trying to turn his notoriety into a grift, selling it in a variety of different ways. And there is going to be money involved in all this, but not going towards him instead coming from him. He is going to have to pay restitution of nearly $375,000 as well as forfeit more than $200,000 in ill-gotten gains. And so the only thing really remaining now is to find out whether he gets clemency or pardon.

He has said that he hasn't reached out to Donald Trump, but he added that he believes, quote, the president is aware of my situation. If he feels like I'm worthy of a commutation or of clemency or whatever the case is, he can make that decision. And I have no idea if Donald Trump will give him a pardon. I will say we covered this morning on the damage report. There was this former Las Vegas councilwoman, I believe she was. Michelle Fiore.

Michelle Fiore. Who scammed a bunch of people who donated money for a statue of two cops who were killed. killed in the line of duty, she stole the money and instead spent it on a bunch of stuff, including her daughter's wedding and plastic surgery. So, and Trump pardoned her, didn't even put out a statement. She's never admitted that she was wrong. She's still saying that she never did it. And so he seems to be going around the country just finding grifters and conmen and frauds and pardoning them. And so I wouldn't rule out the possibility. Well, she was a Vegas city commissioner. She was in the Nevada legislature and for sure was a big part because he rewards loyalty,

fealty, all those things. I'm sure she was a reason that, you know, part of the army of people to get Donald Trump to win Nevada's electoral votes. So he repays favors in that way. I don't think George Santos has done anything for him. The kind of pardon I would, I could see possibly for Santos is if Trump thought this was excessive. And then in two years, which is what Santos was asking for in two years, he, he would pardon him and have him released or committed. mute his sentence. But I don't, I don't know also if those are federal, if they're all federal crimes, because some of them may be state crimes for which you cannot get a pardon. So I don't actually know all of that. I do know that, you know, that, you know, Santos lied about being

having a family member who was in the Holocaust. He lied about working for Wall Street firms, lied about being on a volleyball team. He lied and lied and lied and never owned up to it. He spent the money on Botox in the last year where he was making money on cameo and what had already been ordered to repay people who he had wronged. He was buying Rolexes, getting Botox, buying clothing. This is not someone who is just oozing remorse. And I think that was the biggest part of what happened here. And he was expelled in a bipartisan way from Congress. So that doesn't happen in a modern Congress anymore. So, you know, he was crying. He was devastated, but he made his bed. And this is my one thing that I always say when I talk about George Santos, had the

weekly newspaper in that area not had to close down, that story would have been reported when he was a candidate. And other national outlets would have found it out and they would have had the resources to look into it. But when we lose local news, we see the assent of people like this. So it's really important to support local news. That's a great point. Jordan? Yeah. That's a great point, Michael. What do you think of the sentence, Jordan, too? Like, Do you feel like seven years make sense? Seven years three months. I mean, like what you were saying, he didn't show remorse.

And this is not somebody who from what we can observe feels bad about what he did. And you know, you in those moments, I like many of us struggle to find sympathy or feel sympathy for somebody who gets a harsh sentence. like this. I mean, these types of sentences are rare for crimes like this. You typically see longer sentences for for violent crimes. Seven years for identity theft and fraud seems a little excessive, but I think it goes back to him not showing remorse. I don't know. I'm kind of going both ways because I don't, I don't love how much the prison industrial complex is growing in this country. And I think there are other remedies that we could evaluate. But then again, he's just, he was so brazen with it. He wasn't paying anyone back. So

you kind of want to see the book thrown at him. It's a moral dilemma. But I think on the pardon question, the only thing he has to offer Trump is just support kissing up to him. He didn't really have any real power. He doesn't really have any access. He hasn't have anything, he doesn't have real wealth that Trump could benefit from if he were to pardon him so it's really just are we gonna is Trump eventually going to feel bad for him that's that's that's the determining factor yeah that's a hundred percent right i mean that's exactly what it is is there sympathy within that's true and i i don't think it's going to happen that's what i said but i don't think it's going to happen for a while and he's especially for

someone who showed nor he can't help he has no constituency right george santo has nothing that helps Donald trump as jordan said yeah i unless don't trump has like a completion a streak i mean apparently he has already pardoned the majority of of Republicans who've been convicted of crimes this century. He's just going to Duncan Hunter. Again, people who just defrauded Republicans, ripped Republicans on. Right, but John, there are people lobbying the president and his chief of staff saying you've got to, you got to, you got to do this for Duncan Hunter. He was a great soldier in our army in the Republican House, all the things that we can't stand about him out the window.

But, but there's nobody that's going to like make the case for George Santos, except as Jordan said, if Trump in a moment of, you know, when, when they're up talking about it in a moment of sympathy. You know, you know, Christmas of two years from now says, I'm going to pardon them. Okay. Well, I'm curious to see what the audience thinks about the sentence. We have a poll. Do you think this is a fair sentence? And right now, the majority opinion is fair or not enough, actually. Yeah, that's interesting. Not enough is interesting. Yeah, I. That must have been before Jordan made his persuasive case. Maybe that's true, we should probably update that.

Yeah, Jordan's October surprise. Yeah, the seven years is a long time. I do think it's a long time. Especially when like, like I know his lies were about as brazen as any politician has had. And he scammed people. But like Trump is the president. Trump has lied tens of thousands of times. He's told absurd lies and he has scammed more people than George Santos could ever fantasize about scam.

There's no question. There's no question. The mean coins, he has he has ruined countless followers. of his stolen every dollar they have and he's fine he literally is having some of the people who bought his meme coin he's bringing them on tours of the white house he's pimping out government property from the con thing that he did madness and he's totally free yeah free george santos that's what i'm kidding and then he can come on the show i'm totally kidding seven years is fine i really don't care uh i had forgotten he was still waiting to be sentenced i thought he already

went to prison, honestly. I don't really care about him. But anyway, with that said, why don't we turn to the Democrats? And we'll end on a little bit more of a positive note, perhaps, by jumping into this. I want everyday life to be better. That's what they want to. You get up in the more, yeah, but importantly, like all the controversies are over what that's like. I want you to have good public transit to get to where you're going. And then when you get to that job, I want you to be paid well. And if you're about to have a kid, I want you to know that you're going to have parental leave when you have that kid. And if you don't want to have a kid, I want you to have the right to choose whatever kid, which means access to birth control and abortion.

And those things that give you the freedom to decide on that. That's the life I want everybody to be able with. Yeah, I think. And I think we can deliver that. That's fine. That's your home away. So that is Pete Buttigieg, obviously, on the Andrew Schultz podcast, and his appearance has gone viral. What he said there, I think makes perfect sense. It is good messaging. And I don't understand why it went viral. It doesn't seem like much. Am I, am I the bad guy here? No problem with people who judge. I like Democrats going out and doing good messaging. And like he's got like a good vibe with them and everything. But like, I don't know what was the hard hitting thing that he said. I mean, he's not part of his issue as a candidate was always that

he wasn't really a viral type of personality at a time of virality. So yeah, that's, I don't know, maybe the beard is what's sending it. Maybe, maybe he looks tan, he's got the beard, he didn't do a tie or whatever. All of these are just, he just did it. He didn't consciously decide on any of this. But anyway, um, I have no problem with anything that he said there. And I think he's done a much better job for himself of the viral stuff over the past couple of years. Like he's gone on Fox News. And he did that a bunch of times.

And I thought he was quite good in those appearances. So I'm not trying to hate him. I just sometimes I don't understand why some things break through and others don't. But that said, we're going to get a little bit more of what he had to say on the podcast. And then I want to hear what Jordan has to say about this. And if you already have a kid, when you picked him up at school, I want that school to be good, not having his funding slashed while they set fire to the Department of Vegeter. education. And then when you get home, I want you to be in a neighborhood that is safe and where you can breathe the air because we didn't let them get rid of the Clean Air Act. And you don't have to think for one moment about whether the air you breathe or the water you drink is clean and clear, which actually takes a lot because it means the government has to constrain those actors that would make you unfree by polluting the air and polluting the water. And then when you go to bed, I want you to know that your family's going to be fine, even if it's family like mine, despite there being some Supreme Court justice who, who, who,

wants to obliterate your family because it doesn't match his interpretation of his religion. Like, that's the life I want everybody to be able with. Yeah. So everything he said there was very well received by those guys. And again, I don't have any problem with anything he said. It seemed like a very basic description of just like let's set up the system so that people aren't crushed under government, but also not crushed by corporations. I understand it's being pitched as hey, it's common sense.

But like, yeah, but is that I just I don't understand. So maybe Jordan, maybe you can explain why do you think this has broken through in this particular way and what do you make of it? Easily. It's where he's saying it. That's it. You guys brought up the fox. You brought the fox clips. Those went viral because of where he was saying it. If he goes and says that on MSNBC, no one's going to share it because, yeah, he's just preaching to the choir. But he goes into hostile territory on Fox. He makes his case persuasively people like it because they know not just them, but everyone else watching it. And the majority of Fox viewers are right wingers, they're hearing something different. It's counter programming.

This, this show was one of the more influential shows during the election. You had this long conversation after Trump wins, hey, whoa, the right is dominating. the new media space. Okay. So the answer is I think what he's doing differently is he's going into those spaces and making his case firmly. He's not doing what people like Gavin Newsom are doing and having the right on his shows. Like people don't care what Steve Bannon thinks and people don't want to see you cozying up to Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk. But what when they see what they see here is Pete going on standing his ground, not caving and finding, uh, room for agreement with right wing positions on shows like flagrant. He's going on and sticking

to his guns and people like that. That's why I think it's it's gaining traction because it's a they know it's a hostile space and the hosts were all in agreement with them. And for them, these aren't politics first guys. These are comedians and pop culture commentators. But they have routinely had right wing guests on who push right wing talking points and a right wing agenda, then they find, oh, hey, you know what? I don't agree or I don't disagree with what Democrats or liberals like Pete Buttigieg is saying. In one of his clips, Andrew Schultz was agreeing so much, he's like, look at us, we're turning into a bunch of libs. So it's important that people go on to these shows and into these spaces and make your case. And the best way of doing

it is to stay firm in your positions, not go on and be like, oh, I agree with you on this right-wing culture war issue or oh, I agree with you on that issue. Go on and stay firm. That's what people want to see. Okay, good. That's a very helpful explanation. I'm glad I don't know much about their politics. And so I suppose basically what you're saying, it's not a message where I'm the audience for it. The expectation would be that I need to hear that. And that's fine. Taylor your message to where you go. And again, like I said, I got no disagreement with anything he said there, just didn't really understand exactly what was breaking through the way that it did. Yeah, Jordan answered. I mean, because of where he went, even though I don't

know who those people are either. So it wouldn't have gone viral in my house, but they weren't talking about gambling or hockey or anything anyway. So it wouldn't have. But, but the, but yeah, and I think that it just in the Newsom conversation a little bit different just because he's the governor still. And I think if he goes into other people's, although it's not an excuse, he should still do it. But if he goes on to other people's shows, it becomes the dynamic changes. It'll be interesting, is what I guess I'm saying, to see when his guru. The gubernatorial term ends if he does do more of the stuff that you see Buttigieg doing here, going into hostile territory rather than have hostile people that we don't care about coming into his territory. So I wonder if it's just because he's a governor.

I don't know. I don't know the answer to it, but I'm musing aloud over what Jordan said. That is interesting. Here's what I'd like to do. Can we take like one minute? Can we just play the last video, D4 and get quick responses? Because this video has generated a lot of headlines too in a slightly different way. It's very different than the Pibbutzsche thing.

But let's play this and then see what the guys think. You know, Idaho, I am so touched being here. I'm a girl from the Bronx. To be welcomed here in this state, all of us together, seeing our common cause, this is what this country is all about. Don't let them trick us into thinking we are enemies. Don't let them trick us into thinking we can be separated into rural and urban. Black and right and Latino.

right and Latino, we are one. Miracles start with mustard seeds. And that is what each and every one of you represent today. Small miracles of faith in ourselves, in each other and in the refusal to give up. So the main reason I wanted to play that was there were the headlines going around. I think on like the hill where it's like AOC releases like presidential style video. I was like it's clickbait. It's just a video to promote them.

the fight the oligarchy tour and then I watched it I was like yeah no it does kind of feel like it does it also doesn't see any different than I mean kudos to what they're doing out there I think it's great at keeping people excited interested and engaged super important and these are two very very impressive people but it you know it's what she said in that video as good as it was there's no different than what Kamala Harris said in her videos in 2024 and and so yeah it's exciting and it's good. And again, I'm so happy that people are getting people excited and remaining interested. I think that's super important. I don't know if Nampa, Idaho, but of course, that's it's a 50 state country until Canada shows up. Jordan, what did you think and would you have

liked that same message better if it was delivered in a right wing podcast? What do you think? But you know, it's like all my media consumption, so I didn't hear it for the first time until tonight. That's why you wear the golf shirts, right? So you can fit in. Yeah, exactly. No, it's fine. I definitely see how it was like it had the appearance and tone of a potential 2028 ad, just planting the seed, a mustard seed, if you will.

But again, like, that really, I think it's important to talk about, like, it's about where you're saying these things and she's in Idaho. Yeah, yeah. And you have like, you have people like Alyssa Slotkin who are saying Democrats, to stop using the term oligarchy. No one knows what it means. You have an arena in Idaho filled to the brim with people under the banner of fight the oligarchy. Like what Michael is saying, like what they're doing is impressive right now, both Pete going out and being a clear messenger and also AOC and Sanders filling arenas in red and purple states under this banner. They are

forcing a conversation about political dynamics and wealth disparity and who controls. power in this country that is absolutely essential. And all Democrats would be wise to get behind them. Because what they're seeing is the beginning of a movement that they can ride into the midterms and ultimately 2028. Yeah. Yeah. Or for establishment Democrats, pay attention to this so that you can desperately try to stop it and doom Democratic chances in the midterms in 2028. Well, you, okay. That's a different conversation. But yeah, I know what you're saying, John. They have to take this message and get white working voters, male union members and voters back, which Sanders is very good at.

And I don't know that Representative Cascio-Cortez is, but we'll see. I hope that we will. Okay, well, gentlemen, thank you. Jordan, would have been nice if you could have come in. I'm kidding. But anyway, always good to see you. Thank you for joining us on the show. Book-ending Jordan with a little.

Are you going to get closer to the camera now? I'm kidding. I've got to be with him for another hour and a half. That's true. Be nice to. Be nice to be nice to. Well, anyway, and Michael always good to see you here as well. Great.

For those of you in the audience, you are lucky because you get a whole other hour of these guys and Wazni Lombray as well. What's that? It's Ben. Oh, Ben is going to be joining us. Okay, the document had not been, it still says Waz. Anyway, I apologize. I am once again spreading misinformation, this time not about vaccines. So I think we're okay.

Anyway, we'll see you after this break. I don't know.