The Young Turks - Smear Campaign Fail - June 5, 2026

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

A growing smear campaign targeting Graham Platner is drawing fresh scrutiny as Democrats grapple with a competitive Senate race and new questions emerge about the motives behind the attacks. Meanwhile, a U.S. senator is demanding the release of an American citizen seized by the IDF in the West Bank, while +972 Magazine publishes another investigation into alleged Israeli influence operations aimed at shaping U.S. public opinion. "Thanks to today's sponsors: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tyt Get 40% OFF the Ground News Vantage Plan when you sign up at ground.news/tyt Stay informed without the media spin at ground.news/tyt Visit www.sleep.me/tyt to get up to $255 off your Chilipad 2.0 with code TYT Use less data, get paid by switching to Noble Mobile: https://go.tyt.com/getnoble " Hosts: Sharon Reed, Cenk Uygur, Mark Thompson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/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. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only.

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Drop it. Old school style. Decided to go with it today for fun. Joining me is Sharon Reed and Mark Thompson, two of our favorites. Sharon's on indisputable all the time. She's on Rebel headquarters. Mark Thompson, of course, does the Mark Thompson. show on YouTube, which you got to check out.

I'm just glad Jank is free today, my friends. I have solidarity with him. Yeah, I haven't been banned in L.A. yet. So, okay, so guys, huge show for you. I had, we got the explosive Graham Platner story, which kind of exploded on itself. And on the New York Times, we'll get to that in a sec. And then AI data centers beginning to influence our politicians and our national security folks. And now, so if you criticize data centers, the government might be tracking you.

There's a couple stories about Israel, of course. What is about this propaganda campaign they're doing in the military, very open about it, frank about it. Another one is about an open and frank influence to effort. to influence AI companies and, you know, chat, GBT, et cetera, kind of remarkable admissions in public on tape. So we'll get to all that in a second. But let's get started. Let's start the first story. This party's got a look in the mirror. Do you want to sign off on the on the Donald Trump standard of behavior? You've got some other people who have very bad

behavior in the other party. Is that now our standard in this party or is it not? And I think people can have a tough choice in May. Yeah, no, I don't think so. I don't think it's tough at all. I think that that's actually what Van Jones said there as part of a propaganda campaign against Graham Platner and New York Times had a spectacular flop of a smear that they did against them last night. We're gonna show it to you.

We're like, we're gonna get Grant Platner. By the way, we're also objective. And they failed miserably. So Sharon's gonna tell us all about them, we'll come back and talk. Yeah, they really tried to do a number on Platner. Jank, the popular progressive challenger running against Republican Susan Collins, who one of Maine Senate seats made headlines last week when a former staffer, Genev McDonald, leaked private communications between herself and Platner's wife, Amy.

Amy revealed to McDonald that her and Platner had undergone counseling after she discovered flirtatious texts between him and other women. She was concerned how that might affect Plattenor's campaign. The wife was, which she is an enthusiastic supporter of. Amy expressed feelings of betrayal regarding McDonald's decision to leak the text messages and said in a video over the weekend this, no marriage is perfect and I don't want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage and I want to be married to Graham, New York Times with the quote there. McDonald had resigned from Plattenor's campaign after damaging statements he made over a decade ago online resurfaced.

However, this week, the New York Times decided to chronicle more allegations against Platner reporting that in extensive conversations over the past two months, three other women who have been romantically involved with Platner, offered a far more complicated assessment describing volatile and toxic relationships that were unsettling and at times emotionally wrenching. Okay, Sharon froze there. You know, I'll take it from here and then we'll bring Sharon back in. So central to the complaints about Platner were that Lindsay Fiffield, if I'm saying that right now, probably am not, asserted that the most troubling allegation when she claimed, quote, Platner regularly grabbed her by the shoulders, sometimes hard enough to leave marks and on one occasion yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car. Now is that true? We'll come back to that in a second. She also said during

one argument, she recalled her, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom, and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn't get out, telling her to remain there until she was calm. Eventually, Fifth Field, five field, I don't know, Fee FIFO Fumfield, said she fell asleep and left the next morning. So did he actually do that? Well, Grant Platon 1 on Chris Hayes program and said absolutely not. He said, look, all the things about me not being great in relationships, which by the way, there wasn't that many of in this article. I'll come back to that too, are correct.

He's like, but being physical, absolutely not true. And so there's a good reason why I think you should believe Graham Platner. Again, we'll come back to that in a second. But Fifeield told the times that she didn't expect corroboration from people. friends and she was embarrassed by the events that she, so she were afraid from telling them. By the way, she's now criticizing the New York Times and saying that she felt like she was set up, that the story was received so poorly that she feels like the New York Times had promised that they had other women that this had happened to, and there really weren't.

Not really, there weren't, period, right? So that's super curious, but the materials reviewed by the Times did verify that as they, claim that Fifeield characterized a relationship as abusive. Also worth noting, quote, Fyfield, whose affinity with independent women and conservative groups insisted, insisted that her political beliefs had nothing new with her choice to come forward. She worked briefly on Nikki Haley's 2024 presidential campaign. And before that, for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank,

Ms. Fyfield says she had not been paid by any campaign or political entity since Ms. Haley's campaign. So now, Grant Plantner's campaign said, let's be very clear, this is a lifelong GOP operative who's dedicated her career to electing Republicans. Now, before we get to who she actually is and what kind of an operative she is and who she actually worked for, last couple of comments here, out of two dozen people interviewed for the article, there were an equal number of women who spoke glowingly of Plattner. Caroline Lemp, who dated Mr. Planton for several months of 2013, described him as a gentle

giant. She said he never made her feel unsafe or showed any signs that he was struggling with the physical or mental effects of his military service. And he was a great boyfriend, said Lemp, 36, who now lives in St. Louis. He was super kind and very nice and fun. So now as we discussed this, let's clarify a couple of super important stuff. Number one, New York Times went and interviewed, as far as we can tell, and I think they said it in the article, they tried to find every single person that Graham Platner dated. They also tried to find every person that Susan Collins dated. No, they didn't. But Janet Mills, who was in the race as his primary report, they went and tried to find every boy, no, they didn't. But they did for a lot of people with a lot of power.

No, they didn't. No, they targeted Graham Platner. They tried to find something wrong with them. They couldn't find a single other girlfriend who had any issues with them. They found many girlfriends who had glowing reviews of him. A lot of them are still friends. They found one person who alleged physical abuse, okay? And a concern about the tattoo, the so-called Nazi tattoo. Well, it turns out Fyfield is not only a GOP operative, she was the founder of a group called Ladies for Kavanaugh.

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Free shipping, free returns, and a 30-night trial so you can test it out, dream big, and wake up better. lines will still be there in the morning, you might as well wake up ready for them. And that they were outrageous. Now that apparatchik now turns around and makes a claim against a very popular Senate candidate who's currently beating Susan Collins by nine points. And then her friend, Bethany Mendel, oops, makes a mistake online and lets people know that she was also, Fyfield was also the original anonymous source that leaked a Jewish insider

that he had the tattoo. So now, if we're not done yet, one last piece of this, she was among the people who wrote the notes for Susan Collins on what to say about Kavanaugh to make sure no one believed the women in that case. So she directly worked with Susan Collins to defeat a kind of operation that she now appears to be a part of. Now, I don't know, they did actually date. I don't know what's true or untrue, although given this background, it is nearly impossible

to believe her. And no corroboration, no backup, one GOP operative who was connected to Susan Collins. Come on, come. What is this garbage, this trash? That's my opinion, but let me bring the others back in. So, Mark, let's start with you. First, your take on the New York Times story. Well, it's clearly a hit job.

I couldn't agree more with everything you've said. It's incredible to me. I read it in the times as it was coming out and it just had it couldn't pass the smell test. I mean, it just was weird how all of a sudden the dating police are going from woman to woman or woman to woman who even have said they've been involved with Platner. At some point you have to kind of take their word for their degree of involvement with them and then just believing whatever is served up. It's such an opportunity to do a hit job on someone. And I think you frame it so perfectly when you suggest, hey, while the scrutiny of people, Plattern, as it turns out, all the falsehoods, or it seems to multiple frauds concerning Plattner, when you don't really investigate any others this way. The whole thing is garbage, and we've got to get out of this. Again, the marriage police, I don't know if he was sexting or not. I don't care. There are marriages where people are swingers.

There are marriages where people aren't having sex. There are marriages where people get off on this kind of thing. Again, I just feel as though this is the pure. test and this is the craziness that comes up around these campaigns and you're right. This is an out and out hit job. Yeah, so Sharon, it's kind of curious how many people are participating in this hit job. I mean, today again, two other Democrats came out and attacked Platinum on CNN. I've never seen so many people from the Democrats attacking their own in my lifetime.

And of course, there's also the context of now if it was an establishment Democrat, vote blue no matter who, and you're not allowed to attack them at all. So what in the world's going on here, you think? Well, what's going on is he's an enemy number one. He's the most dangerous man in politics right now, popular, progressive, an insurgent progressive. I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP and centrist Democrats were on a party line, dictating the coverage to the fame New York Times on this one, clearly a hit piece. And Mark's right does not pass the smell. test and for anyone to hold up, look, again, I agree with Mark, I don't care. I don't know what's going on in his marriage. Don't gross me out. Not my man could care less. But look, we have somebody at the top who has a filthy history, a filthy personal history. And we need to decide what the standard is.

Okay. If it's one way for filthy at the top and then this candidate who happens to be wildly popular and we can't even ascertain if all this stuff is true and his own wife is flagging, hey, listen, I just want to put this out there so we can be ready for it. I don't understand what we're doing here and why all these people are chiming in as if, you know, we've got this standard that Van Jones and his disgraceful butt is talking about when we don't. I just want to know where he stands on the issues. And apparently that's the problem because a lot of other people do as well. Yeah, I think that what Van Jones was saying and what a lot of these people, especially on the left, Democrats are saying, are completely disingenuous.

So, you know, Democrats have to prove themselves by taking out their own popular candidate. Why? Why do they have to do that? And to Mark and Sharon's point, sexting, what is this? Why would I care? So look, there's a reason why you could care. So if Donald Trump says, I grab women by the genitals without asking them, and then a woman comes out and proves that he did, and will you go, okay, well, it's not the, I'm worried about the assault part, right? But Donald Trump cheated on his wife. So what? JFK cheated on his wife like a billion times.

Like that's not our concern. That's his family's concern and that's a super important issue for them. It is not an issue for us. Breaking the law is an issue, doing assault as an issue. That's why the charge is about grabbing her shoulders and putting her in a room. And then the New York Times media seemed like he locked her in the room. And then in the next sentence says, then she got up in the morning and left. So was she locked in or did he just escort her to the room?

It doesn't matter because I don't believe any of it. And so now that leads to the other question. Today, U.S. Representative Madeline Dean, a Democrat from Pennsylvania came out and said it disqualified himself. And on this, on this trash, I mean, all of social media is talking about how this is more embarrassing for New York Times than it is from Graham Platner because this was an obvious hatchet job and a failed one, a total miserable. failure of a hatchet job. So then you should ask the New York Times, why? Why? Why are you

talking them? But then to me, the bigger question is Alken Klaus, a Democrat, Dean, a Democrat, Cory Booker, a Democrat, Van Jones certainly on the left, all coming out, and there's others too. Oh, Graham Platner, our candidate must be defeated. What? What, what? So what's going on here? And my sense of it is, I don't know that they're coordinating with the Republicans, as Sharon said, But guys, I mean, here, Sharon, I'll go back to you. It just feels like someone made a decision. I mean, because these Democrats almost never go on TV. If it was like Rokana, that brother's on TV all the time.

Okay, I get it. Bernie goes on TV. Like there are people who regular Lindsey Graham from the Republican side goes on TV all the time. But when people who never go on TV, all of a sudden rush onto TV to attack one of their own, it feels coordinated. Are you sensing the same thing I'm sensing? Absolutely. Roll call. Okay, we need more members to get out there and denounce this guy immediately because this whole

progressive thing is gone way too far. And Janet's sitting on the sidelines there. And we said that was our candidate. And how dare he? We've got to defeat this now before this thing, this infection grows. That's actually what I think is happening. Both sides, of course, Susan Collins, whatever, the Republicans are going to do what they do and perhaps anyone would do it.

But this, I think, is a stronger attack from within. His own party is doing this to try to tamp down this popular movement. Yes. I also don't know if it's a politically viable strategy. I just don't know. That's how desperate they are. They've hitched their wagons to something I just don't think could actually work. Yeah.

No, that's the other amazing part. And last thing is, I did a longer video about this yesterday. You could check it out on our YouTube channel. But, you know, Harry Anton did this segment on CNN that I thought was unconscionable. He did it a couple of days ago where he was going to ostensibly show how much Graham Plattner was hurting the Democratic Party, both in Maine and nationally, except the polling shows what Mark is talking about. The polling has actually gone up.

He's up between five to nine points now, and every time they criticize him, he goes up further, right? Because it's a cue to people, oh, he's a real person, and the people in power hate him. So now American people have wisened up and they're like, oh, thanks for letting me know, I'm voting for grand platinum, right? But what Enton did was he showed Google searches went up by 275% about Platner. So what? That's not good or bad.

What does that mean? That doesn't prove anything. And he said, oh, the betting markets have him going down from 70% to 59%. And he's like, and that's too close to call. That's within the margin of error. No, it's not. Okay, first of all, it's not a poll. And if anybody should know that it's Harry Enten, it's betting odds.

Second of all, Mark, you're a gambler. And so am I. Would you take 59%? I'd take you to run to the bank, wouldn't it? Of course. For sure, yes, I agree. That is not too close to call, okay? So it's weird.

It's weird that they're saying this. And so there's some level of coordination, and it looks like it's media, Republicans and Democrats. Last question then is, why? why are Democrats trying to defeat their own candidate? I mean, is this the old school Bernie versus Hillary type of stuff? And if a progressive wins, he embarrasses us by actually trying to do something. And the rest of us don't want to do anything.

And this guy's going to push us in the Senate like Rokana's pushing everybody in the house. Is it he's opposed to Israel? He's opposed to this. He's opposed to that. Sharon, what do you think? All of the above. And I'm going to be honest with you. I really do believe that it is exactly that.

They cannot allow this to catch on and keep going and get stronger. The other thing is, listen, the history is what it is. Progressives, outspoken, mavericks like this are traditionally very difficult to control. They can be brought to bear sometimes, but it takes a lot of capital. They have to expend a lot of capital, the Democrats and the centrist part of the party, to keep these people in line. And I think that's absolutely what this is about. He's not going to do what they need him to do if and when he gets there.

And so they have to make sure, give it their best damn try that he does not ever get there. And especially over things like he was involved in relationships that were emotionally wrenching. Has anyone not been involved in a relationship that was emotionally wrenching? I mean, and look, we can get into other Democrats, Bill Clinton, awkward, and everybody supported him. You know, the Democrats did certainly. Gavin Newsom slept with his best friend's wife. I mean, you want to talk about toxic. But again, I don't care.

That's their business. That's not my business. That doesn't involve the government. So, Mark, last thing is your theory on why they're doing this. Yeah, I mean, it seems pretty indisputable that he's someone that they can't corral. They feel threatened. And otherwise you just wouldn't see this repudiation in the way that they're all showing up en masse. I mean, there are a couple of examples, I guess, of, I mean, I think of AOC, who was really a free thinker, really outspoken, leaned in, made a lot of noise.

I mean, Jank, you know the situation where AOC's better than any of us. And eventually, though, take some positions along the way where you feel like, oh, she was corralled on that by the machine, you know. they on some level do evaluate to the degree to which they can corral these people. And clearly there's a fear that he's a free thinker. And that may be a problem. I think Mark's absolutely right. Both of you are. I mean, he, and that is why his numbers are going up in the polling.

People want someone who the establishment can't corral. So thanks for letting us know. Okay. So there you have it. All right, when we come back, Chris Van Hollen, a Democratic senator with a conscience. Is that possible? Turns out it is. And so although the story's infuriating, we'll be right back with that. Ladies for Kavanaugh. Like beer, still like beer. All right, back on TYT. Let me go to these comments on tyot.com, but I'm reading in blind.

These are all members. Boba Franks, the Swart Dragon says, here's to hoping that the evidence of election interference coming predominantly from one nation is becoming so overwhelmingly obvious that even people that aren't paying attention see how creepy. is. Of course, I'm sure you're referring to Russia. Killedjo or Paraguay. Killedjoy 100 says, if none of this stuff sunk Trump, why would we care about Platonor? He did way worse stuff referring to Trump. And by the way, so people who said, ah, I don't want Trump did, is no problem at all, are like, clandler, it's a disgrace. Like politics oftentimes is a bit of a joke. E-Me, Tibb two, God, I'm so bad reading these handles. Corporate power over our government is not going to quietly, the panic is obvious with the attempt to smear campaigns against any progressive that threatens to actually work for the voters.

Dragon with a flag in says, Susan Collins, I'm sure he's learned his lesson. Oh wait, that's forgiveness is reserved for a pig in the White House. Oh, you're right. Susan Collins did say that about Donald Trump. She doesn't seem to be saying it about Graham Platner. Kelly Kay says CNN has been obsessed with Graham the past couple of weeks. It's beginning to get creepy. They're like a creepy stalker ex-boyfriend who can't take a hint. So yes, CNN hates Graham Platner.

And as we told you, whenever the establishment is challenged, all of a sudden the differences between Fox News, CNN and MS Now will totally disappear and they have disappeared. By the way, MS Now has done several segments against Graham Platner. What happened to the left? hilarious, we'll be back. Ladies for Cavanaugh. You ever played quarters? All right, back on to IT, Jank Marker and Sharon with you guys.

So these wonderful people, Dono Utesfan 25, Make It Stop, Megatron, Shoebebees, 23, Baseman, 007, and Jay Claffey. You guys are awesome. Thanks for either becoming a member through t.com slash join or donating through that. Believe me, we'll take either. And during the breaks, commercial breaks, I read the comments of TYT members, and you get to see it if you join through tyt.com slash join. Okay, I want to save you guys some money.

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You can't pay more than $50. They give you money back for data. They're gonna give you money back for data even in the months. that are free. That's crazy. So you're getting double the money. So it's amazing. Definitely jump on it now. t-y-t dot com slash switch before the offer goes away. All right, let's go to the next story. This has to change. I am really sick and tired of the Israeli government, the Netanyahu government, taking American taxpayer dollars and then mistreating Americans. Well, that's Senator Van Hollen, Democrat, and he's actually fighting back against Israel.

I hope you're sitting. And he's trying to get an American back that they basically kidnapped. Will he have some success? Actually, he's done it once before, we'll tell you about that as well. But there are many times where the Israelis have greatly mistreated Americans, where we have gotten no accountability at all. Which one is this case? Well, let's find out.

Sharon, tell us more. Yeah, Jank, another U.S. citizen detained by IDF forces in the West Bank for no reason. The only U.S. politician brave enough to talk about is before mentioned Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen. So the entire situation started on Tuesday after five women, including three students studying at Rezai University in the West Bank, were arrested without explanation, one of whom 20-year-old American citizen named Sama Safai. Let's hear more from Senator Van Hollen, and then we will get into more of the finer details. Just yesterday, four students, all women who attend Berzite University in the West Bank, were seized by Israeli security forces. One of them, Sama, is an American citizen. Israeli security forces came to her home at 3 a.m. in the morning and just took her without explanation.

She told them she was an American citizen. They didn't care. I talked to her mother, also an American citizen, shortly after all of this happened. She was absolutely distraught. She told me that her daughter has a medical condition that needs treatment. The Israeli government, the Netanyahu government, needs to tell everybody why they seized these students.

And our ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and Secretary of State Rubio, who always tell us that their number one priority overseas is to protect American citizens, need to make sure that Sama is immediately released. So the senator there, Sama was one of five women, as we said, detained by Israeli forces this week. Three of them current students at Berzai University, one graduate of the institution, among those arrested. two members of the Palestinian women's national football team, Natalie Abu Diyah, age 20, and ran Hollowani, 20. The other two were Julian Abu Awad, graduate Lela Naya Khalil. The raids came in the early hours of the morning, Tuesday, and according to Samma's father, we were surprised, even shocked. We never expected the raid to be for her arrest. When we asked why she was being arrested, the officer, and the soldiers would only say, you'll find out in court.

IDF soldiers demanded the identity cards of Ahmed, his wife, their daughter, before informing Sama that they had an arrest warrant for her. The soldiers then ransacked Sama's room, confiscating her phone, laptop, personal belongings. They also seized photographs of her cousin, Iser Safi, who was killed by Israeli forces in 2024. Now, according to her family, Sama was then taken down. She was handcuffed. She was blindfolded. Placed inside a military vehicle. The reasoning for their arrest is unclear.

The charges remain unknown. The only thing the IDF has said according to the times of Israel is that the women were suspected of promoting terrorist activities and additional terrorism related activities. That's it. As Senator Van Hollen noted in his video, Sama does have a medical condition called familial Mediterranean fever. It is a chronic inflammatory disease that requires medication. The quote, we are extremely worried about her health. Without her medication, she suffers from high fevers, body aches, other debilitating symptoms. The disease causes an autoimmune attack. And if the medication is ignored, it will cause serious liver and kidney damage. Of course, no one in the Trump administration,

nor anyone in mainstream media is talking about Safi's detention. Only two senators have spoken about this, the first obviously being Senator Van Hollen. Earlier today, Senator Peter Welch posted this to Facebook. Sami Safi is a student at Berzite University of the West Bank, who is chronic health condition is the latest American citizen detained by IDF forces without explanation. Israeli authorities must ensure her. her safety and immediately provide her with access to her family, legal counsel, medication.

Senator Van Hollen, Senator Welch, were the ones leading the charge demanding accountability for Israel's detention and abuse of Muhammad Ibrahim, along with Representative Kathy Castor. Following their advocacy, Ibrahim was released in November of last year following a near 10-month detention. Samma's family has since learned she's being held at the Al-Mascubia interrogation center in Jerusalem and has her first court date set for next Tuesday. If not for these two senators and want to post there, the video jank, I don't know if we know where she was right now, if her family would.

Yeah. No, so the issue of this particular woman is obviously super important, especially because she's sick and she's an American citizen. But I think that the bigger issue is how the Israelis treat America overall. So we give them 3.8 billion, let alone the 21 billion under Biden, the 13 billion under Trump, with over 300 billion, et cetera. So when we ask, hey, why did you arrest our citizen? That should not be an optional question.

No, I need that answer right now. In the United States, several United States senators are asking right now, they say, you'll find out in court. If I was a president, I'd be like, no, I won't find out in court. Because here's what's going to happen. Every day that you don't give me the answer, I'm going to minus $100 million from your $3.8 billion. But hey, take your time. Or you know what? I'm a little annoyed with you because you never, ever do anything we want. So I'm making $100 million per hour. Take your time. But somehow the idea of threatening the Israel's funding, which is the massive leverage we have to get them to do what we want is unthinkable.

Why is it unthinkable? No, arresting our citizen and not explaining it, that's unthinkable. But if you think that's bad, look, they had arrested Mohammed Ibrahim. He was a 15-year-old kid at the time he was arrested. He also got sick in their gulags, got scabies. Sounds like a disease that pirates get, but Israel's brought it back. Okay, I'm kidding. That's a different disease.

But the kid did get it. He lost a tremendous amount of weight, super worried about his health. And again, no charges, no court date, no nothing in his case. And then when they pressed and pressed and pressed, finally the Israel leaders are like, he saw someone else, some other kids throwing a rock. So good enough, terrorists. No, not good enough, not terrorists. And the person who got, we worked on it with Operation Hope, our volunteers are amazing.

But we were a very small part of it. Senator Van Holland deserves a tremendous amount of credit. He got that American kid back. But we didn't get a lot of people back. 14 Americans have been killed by the Israelis in recent years, 13 of them since October 7th of 2023. Rachel Corey was of course killed by an Israeli bulldozer earlier in 2003. Here, let me show you the folks who've been, the Americans killed by the Israelis.

And that includes an American journalist Shereen Abu Akle. She's also Christian, not that that should matter. And here's the interesting part. Let's go to Graphic 8. To date, nobody has been charged or held accountable for any of the deaths of U.S. citizens at Israeli hands. That's from the Guardian. So wait, Israel, let's just talk about the 13 killed since 2023. Israel killed 13 Americans and didn't arrest a single person for it.

Did Huckabee or any of our governments said Biden? Did anyone ask that these people be arrested? Nobody was even investigated, let alone charged, let alone arrested. So that means that Israelis can literally murder American citizens and we won't even ask for justice. That's so insane. Last one, look, I give you a million, but Tom Alexanderich, another case never covered by mainstream media, the murder of these American citizens other than the murder of these American citizens, other than Shereyna Ablau Klai never covered by mainstream media.

They think, oh yeah, that's normal. It's normal for our allies that we fund to murder our citizens and not be held accountable. No, that's not normal. That's super weird. Then Tom Alexander Britch is a national cybersecurity official for Israel. He was at a cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, and he took that as an opportunity to do sexual tourism to rape American girls. He got caught, luckily before the rape happened, arrested with other eight Americans.

Those eight Americans are in prison, Alexander which on the first plane out to Israel. We've got to get him out of the country. We've got to protect them. He's a precious Israeli. So when they do crimes against us, there is zero accountability, whether it's in Israel or in America. So what the hell is this? What kind of an ally is this? All right, I'll start with you, Mark.

What do you think? Well, I mean, I think even as you said, I mean, the reputational harm to Israel as any number of institutions can reflect is substantial. I mean, it's not just limited to this. It's Israeli policy in Gaza. It's really policy West Bank. It's Israeli policy in cahoots now with the Americans in Iran. It just seems as though there are serious issues.

This is apart from this American that has now been taken into custody. And so I guess what I'm getting at is even if you take out everything Jenks talking about, which is the funding and, the leverage and this kind of thing, if you just concern yourself with the alliance, again, that supposedly exists between Israel and America, I just think that it's a harder and harder sell from the standpoint of sharing goals and protecting your allies. And so to this situation, I mean, clearly, this is an activist, and any activism of this sort is punished most severely in Israel. And as far as

getting the American back, it's just absolutely extraordinary to me. I mean, this is an exceptional situation from, as I say, an American ally and then you add in the fact that this is an American ally that we basically support.

And I'm dumbfounded by it. And I love that you made the example of the Biden administration as well, because I wasn't aware that I hate the the idea that the election doesn't matter, they're all the same party, you know, I think the election very much matters and who's in power and who's mobbed up, the government does matter.

But it's worth noting in relation to this story that even the Biden administration couldn't get a foothold on getting an American free. So it's, it really leaves me downcast. I mean, I think it's a deeply, deeply disturbing pattern. So Sharon, we have a lot of weird situations here. So look, if it was an enemy, everybody gets it, right? Like if Russia had murdered 13 Americans, we might be on the brink of World War III, right? If the Chinese had done it, we'd be to give him a 200% tariff. But even an ally, like if Turkey had randomly murdered 13 Americans in three years, people would lose.

If France did it. We thought, why are the French murdering Americans? Americans, that's so strange. And why has no one been arrested? That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. And look, we have to be honest, there's a second angle here, which is why does the American national media not care? That's really weird.

Yeah. Yeah, that's where I wanted to go to show you how brave Senator Van Hollen is, the only one perhaps who will speak to camera about this. If you were to go into Google and just search, I don't know, Samma and CNN or MS now or anything else, look at what comes up. Not a damn thing when it comes to mainstream media. You better be afraid. And that is precisely the point.

They are letting you know, run your mouth. We can disappear you and even your own country is not going to back it up. They didn't account for one brave senator here, Van Holland, right, and Welch. But the one who spoke to camera, be afraid. I mean, it is chilling. When I put the search and I looked all day, I had on the cables all day, just doing what I do. Nothing. Because you know what?

She does not matter. There is this threesome between Israel, the U.S. are politicians, and, of course, the mainstream media. And thank goodness, one guy decided, one elected official decided, I'm going to speak to camera on this. It's stunning. I'd say one other thing, Jenkins, that is that you know, U.S. senators are very powerful people. And this is an extremely powerful position. We're used to, you know, hearing from Rubio and hearing from the president. But a United States senator who can't get movement on this, that's another thing.

It just leaves me breathless. It's shocking. And I'd be very surprised if this situation continues on the one hand. And then I would be completely unsurprised if it continues on the other. Yeah. And let's just keep it real on one other aspect of it. One of the 13 that were killed was a white Christian, and in that case, the Israeli government relieved someone of command, I believe, and whether they got their position back later is a different

question. But there was a tiny bit of action there. No one was arrested for killing Jacob Flickinger. There was no consequences outside of that, but tiny bit of action there. The others are Muslim Americans. Basically, a second thing our government is saying is we're bigots and not all Americans are equal. So if you're Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or whatever, I don't know, I don't know if

they've got it ranked. We might care about you, but if you're a Muslim American, we don't really, you don't count. If you're killed, we're not gonna care. And if that was true of any other religion, I would hope that everybody would be incredibly outraged by that. But since Muslims in this country have absolutely no power, our media ignores them, ignores their deaths, even when they're Americans. And by their omission, they're basically saying collectively, CNN, New York Times, all of them, we don't care about Muslim Americans. We don't care about them at all. You can kill them. And we don't think it's newsworthy.

We don't think it's noteworthy that an ally has killed 12 of them in the last three years. That's super weird. At least Flickinger was covered because he was part of a bombing where they killed some people who were going there to deliver food to the starving Gaza. Last thing is we do a petition on Alexandrovich and you could, we'll put the link down below. It's the extrad item and bring him back here to face justice. So I don't know if we're ever going to get justice. But Sama is lucky in that Senator Van Hollen.

is one of the best legislators in our entire country. He's absolutely heroic and I, you know, if I was in trouble, I'd want Van Hollen on my side. Peter Welch and everybody else chipping in. It's wonderful to see that there are actually real, you know, politicians who represent us. That seems stunning that any of them exist, but they do. So we appreciate Van Hollen and Welch on that. And let's hope we get our American back.

But we probably won't because it's Israel. And so it appears they are above the law. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, we've got a lot more stories for you guys, including, oh boy, yes. Unfortunately, they're in the news a lot. The Israelis are targeting the AI companies so that they have a different version of reality.

Oh boy, when we return. All right, again, I'm reading these blind lists. Go to Super Chat 0003 says, Jake, the majority of Democrats that are in power right now are imposter's and sellouts and they are desperately trying to keep the real Democrats out of power, in my view. That's indisputably true. So they have a variety of different donors that they report to, but bottom line is they love the donor class, and if you challenge the donor class, whether you're Bernie Sanders or

Graham Platner or Rokana, they're gonna come for you. I think Mark is right. I think that they stopped challenging AOC altogether the minute she stopped challenging the people in power. And it was very telling. So anyways, good luck with her, you know, remake, remodel, rebrand, whatever she's doing. Grimmier-Wise says, watch how this war delays yet again. GTA 6, FF7 remake, par three gets delayed, and we still haven't heard anything about KH4. It's really funny. I have no idea what any of those letters and numbers mean. I assume it's video games. Rosa Rosco says like and share TYT family. Thank you.

Like and share the stream, absolutely like and share every video if you can. These are super easy ways to help us. Hit the, I want to say red bell, which is hilarious. I know it's not red bell. Okay, anyway, that bell down below in the video, Mark will know better than me. Mosquito balls, which is already funny. YouTube member says Trump will drag this war as long as Putin dragged down the Ukraine special operation. Nomad Bloom says, all right, I'll say it. Who gives a F he was texting with someone

else? Yeah, we all say it. Who cares? That's not our business. Mark Francis says, Democratic Party would rather lose in Maine than win with Platner. 100% true and proven so. All right, Mark, what is it? Ring the bell, right? That's what I'm supposed. Yeah, the notification bell, right? Under, yeah. Okay, this is the bell, but. All right, back on TYT, Jank Hugar, Sharon Reed, who's on Rebel HQ. Check her out on YouTube. And Mark. who's on the Mark Thompson show. I don't know how he got a sweet gig on the Mark Thompson show, but he did. Okay, that's up on some strings, but we're right here.

You got me started on this YouTube thing, so you take responsibility. Sorry, to you, let alone YouTube. Okay, all right, let's do the next story. AI is now becoming the dominant source of information, the main source of information. Over the past two years, the AI companies have been moving towards alignment. So instead of the algorithm sort of honestly representing what's in the data, we're finding that these chatbots and the text or image models are increasingly showing us

exactly what the companies want us to see. Okay? So it's becoming intentional, which means that instead of trying to control the whole world and trying to somehow manage what's happening in this big blog of Wikipedia and social media, we can go directly to the companies with clear technical and advocacy solutions. For the first time, there is a path to correcting the digital world. Wow, she just said it. So they're going to correct the digital world and give their version of reality because they can go directly to

the AI companies and manipulate what you are seeing to change reality. Now who is she and who is she talking about? Well, I know it's tough to figure out, but we're gonna tell you, Sharon, let us know. Well, she's a doctor, Jank, I'll tell you that. Her name is Maya Ackerman. She's speaking in front of the American Jewish committee. She's a professor and entrepreneur who focuses on AI. And earlier this year, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the anti-defirmation.

and League made similar comments, watch. We're in regular contact with the major AI companies, and I'm proud to share making a difference. For example, last year, we showed OpenAI how its new video generation AI tool, SORA, made it easy to create anti-Semitic videos. We worked it out with them, laid out the facts, and then nine months later, when version 2 came out,

SORA now refuses to generate videos around several of the specific concepts that we discussed and shared with Open AIs team. Jonathan Greenblatt there. Let's pivot from AI to the media this week. Danny Dainen, Israel's ambassador to the UN, called for a list of any podcast host who speak with anti-Semites. Listen. I want to share a story of the cameras will not record it. But I got a phone call during the wall from Tucker Carlson. He called me. He told me, Ambassador, can you please take me off the list?

And I was shocked. I told him, what are you talking about? He told me, I'm being attacked by the Jews. So maybe you have like a list. Can you take me off the list? So I waited for a minute. And I told him, Mr. Carlson, we don't have a list. you are being attacked because you're spreading lies,

blood libears against our soldiers. My son was in Gaza when he called me that day. I told him, you're spreading anti-Semitism. You're hosting anti-Semitism, so you're being attacked. But you know, when we finished the call, I thought to myself, Norm, maybe we should have a list. Maybe it's about time we put a list of those who promote anti-Semitism online of those who are hosting anti-Semites on podcasts and fight back.

So we'll end with this, pointing out that according to 972 magazine and Israeli outlet, the IDF is running influence operations inside the United States of America. The piece is titled, revealed Israel's curriculum for influencing public consciousness. And it reads Israel's defense establishment is training soldiers and other defense. officials to conduct psychological operations designed to influence public consciousness in Israel and abroad an internal defense ministry tender published last July obtained by the Israeli investigative outlet. The hottest place in hell reveals. Soldiers and officials are offered numerous classes. One course teaches participants how to plan information operations for the purpose of influencing public consciousness in the local. and international arena, including how to craft and disseminate messages tailored to a target population, assess their impact, apply the lessons to future operations. Some courses are taught in English for

foreign partners. Those partners are not named. For these participants, the defense ministry built a dedicated syllabus. It includes study of the American approach, meaning U.S. perspectives, cultural norms, conducting influence campaigns in the international arena. We have covered many other examples of Israeli government-funded siops on the show, Jank. None of this is surprising the fact that we're getting these just admissions, very loud, very proud. Does that surprise you? Yeah, so I'm surprised they're admitting it on air, but that is the height of arrogance.

But let's break it down. Okay, so first of all, there's two layers to this. Should they be doing this if it was actual anti-Semitism they were combating? And what is it that I think that they're actually combating? I'm gonna say even if it was real anti-Semitism, no, you shouldn't get to go to the AI companies or the other companies and say I'm banning things. Now why do I say that? Because I'm in favor of anti-Semitism?

No, I always think shoe on the other foot, right? So if I had, let's say that I stayed Muslim and I have all this power and my background is Muslim, right? And you said to me, you can get the AI companies to ban any criticism of Muslims. I'd be like, no. They say, okay, but only unfair, bigoted criticisms of Muslims. I would still say no. No, we need a, if we start banning things, there's a whole host of problems.

Number one, you ban it, it makes it a little bit cooler, okay? some ways. It makes it dangerous and a rebel thing to say, who cares? Say the stupid thing, and then we'll defeat it. And as a person who grew up Muslim, billions of terrible things are said about Muslims in this country. And you know what happens? Like, yeah, it's terrible, it's propaganda. And since there's so few of us, it's really hard to be able to fight back, etc. But it's not like American society collapse. It's not like every Muslim was killed. It's like we have to have some degree of freedom in this country, even to say terrible things. And it's a First Amendment issue. It's just a flat out First Amendment issue. You've got to be

able to say it no matter which religion is. Now, that's in a best case scenario where they're actually trying to fight anti-Semitism. But I don't think that's the case at all. Almost every single instance is defending Israel against legitimate and accurate criticism. But they say, oh no, no, it's all tropes. But wait a minute, 972 plus magazines and Israeli publication, they have found documents that are showing you that the IDF teaches people how to influence Americans and Westerners and, by the way, also Israelis, their own population. And they go, that's a trope.

You can't say that the Israelis are trying to influence America because that's saying that, you know, Jews control, blah, blah, blah. No, we're not saying that. We're saying a government, a foreign government is trying to influence us. Again, would any other government, if they could, the Brazilians, the Turks, the Chinese, would they try to influence America? Of course they would. You'd be crazy not to try to influence the largest power on.

So you could say it about everyone else, but because of the trope idea, You're banned from saying it only about Israel. That's absurd. That's absurd. So there they are, the Greenblatt is the number one person. I don't know, he's tied with Nick Fuentes for the person most driving the conflation between Israel and Jewish people overall. So we say to Fuentes and we say to Greenblatt, don't say all Jewish people, don't say it's

about Jews. Nobody called Jewish people and ask them if they should do this operation of the Mossad or that operation of the IDF. But every time Greenback's, I mean, no, no, you have to say it's about Jewish people. It's about Jewish people, stop, stop, you're making it a billion times worse. Now they're going around, going, we have direct kind of, you don't have direct contact with AI companies, but we do, and we have regular contact with them all the time, and we influence them.

And so, and guys, when you start talking about influence, there's a giant range, right? Influences on this side, control is on this side, and you can call it down. different things. You can call it influence. That sounds like, oh, well, a big pharma influences, Israel lobby influences. You know, I keep using my own ethnicity, Turkish lobby influences. They suck at it, but they, if they could, would they do what Israel's doing? I think almost any country would, okay? Now, but it's, the crime is not on them, it's on us. Why is our AI companies? Why are our politicians? Why are our media going along with this nonsense? But no, you're not allowed to criticize.

I mean, no one would know better than me. I literally got banned from a country for criticizing Israel. All right, I have a lot more to say. But Mark, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. I thought that was actually a very fair-handed breakdown, the one that you've just given. I have to give you that because I think that it's easy to kind of get lost in this in the fever over

Israel and over the Israeli lobby. And I think what Jank has just said, about, look, every country lobbies, all these different constituencies lobby. It's, I think what makes this lobby different is that it's so successful on one level. But there is a fact that Jenk, again, has laid out, I thought, very fairly, which is if you could, and I think there are constituencies to which you've referred, like the Muslim community, etc., that does reach out to AI controlling corporations and does reach out to the internet search corporations of the world to say, hey, this is being misrepresented, even in Wikipedia pages,

et cetera. So there are all kinds of perversions of truth, as everyone in the Muslim community certainly knows. I mean, after 9-11, it was a feeding the frenzy around the Muslim population. It was of America, I'm talking about, and then worldwide. So I guess that they are reaching out to these companies doesn't bother me on one level, in the sense that I think, everyone is reaching out. It's the way that, and I'm with you on the free speech, it's sort of the way that these companies are made to heal. I think that is disturbing. I don't know to what extent ultimately it'll be effective. I was mentioning earlier in the show, I think there's a lot of reputational damage to Israel. So I think protecting the Jewish community to the extent that

they want to do it is a laudable goal. The way they're getting to that goal is maybe perverse and again I thought your breakdown was fair the last thing I would say is if you question whether there are other lobbies that are effective in America you can look at academic institutions you know the Qataris and many of the Gulf nations fund a lot of universities to the tune of 15 billion dollars last year so it's not as though there are no other voices that are laying a lot of cash on major institutions both academic and media in America so again I understand it's a front and center issue. I think Jank breaks it down appropriately and even handedly here today. I was really happy to

hear you do it that way. Sharon, what's your take? Yeah, I agree. I think there's a fundamental difference, though, between lobbying, influence and indoctrination. And what they're doing is trying to indoctrinate. It's not that I mind the outreach to AI companies, which, you know, Mark's right. A lot of people reach out is that they're getting through at the highest levels and they're getting action, the exact action that they want. It's not enough to capture public. officials. It's not enough to, you know, make sure that we go and do an unjust war. Now it's, I need to shape public opinion. I need to reach out to every man and woman who was perhaps engaging with chat or clot or whatever it is. And that's scary. They're trying to take over and

indoctrinate an entire society where there won't be free thinking, at least not when it comes to the official position of the Israeli state. Yeah. The last thing, Jank, I would just say is that money really leads this. And that's one of the reasons, as you know, and have pointed out before here on TYT, that's why this lobby becomes so very powerful. And it's why, as I was mentioning, the Qatari money directed toward academic institutions, you have to look where big chunks of money are going because that really ultimately in America

carries the day. Yeah. So that goes probably to the effectiveness as well, because I agree with Sharon, right? So I agree with both of you because Mark's right. And Asian American groups are also going to reach out and be against Asian American discrimination, et cetera. They might not be connected directly to a country, but they're going to try to do that. Sharon's right, are they going to be effective sometimes?

But we've seen the Israelis be far more effective. And so, and yeah, I don't mind saying Israelis because over the last three years, I haven't seen Jonathan Greenblatt defend Jewish Americans. I've seen him defend Israelis. And I think, in fact, I think he endangers Jewish Americans the way he talks and conflates them with the actions of a government. But here's a fact to give you a sense that we're not just assuming effectiveness. In another video we showed you at a different time, these type of groups bragged that 94%

of the time that they complained to Facebook to take down something that was anti-Semitic, in other words, critical of Israel, Facebook took it down. 94% of the time, no, that's outrageous. Okay, so, and by the way, it depends on the context. So China often tells companies like Facebook, you're not allowed to do this, this, or this, in order to protect the Chinese government. And in China, they are very effective. In other places, sometimes in Myanmar, when there was an ethnic cleansing there, the government

is sometimes effective and it breaks your heart to see social media companies go along with them in those countries. But this is our country. So like the censorship here on behalf of another government is extra unacceptable. In fact, that's the main thing that's unacceptable. It's not academic, it's taking away our freedom. And finally, on the Israeli ambassador's comments, number one, I don't believe him that Tucker Carlson said why are the, by being attacked by the Jews.

Even if he's thought that Tucker Carlson is sophisticated enough that he would never say that to the Israeli ambassador. So that is almost certainly a lie. And I have seen Tucker talk about this both in person and on tape a million times, he's never said the Jews. So that doesn't ring true at all. But the more interesting part of that was, he said, maybe we should make a list and then punish those people. First of all, there is a list. There's organizations like Canary Mission, stop antisemitism.com, they make a list.

I'm on the list, so I know there's a list. And by the way, lo and behold, I get banned from the United Kingdom. It's a coincidence that I'm on that list. I don't think it's a coincidence at all. There definitely is a list. And the person who runs that organization went to the Israeli embassy again on tape and said, Yeah, anyone we think is a, you know, criticizing Israel in the wrong way is going to be punished by us.

We're going to haunt them. We're going to try to get them fired. We're going to go after their families. We're going to make sure that if there's a Google search, they're labeled an anti-Semite, and that their lives are ruined. Well, they're admitting it, they're admitting it. And what if we did a counter list? Now think about how scary this sounds.

Oh, yeah? Well, I think the Israeli ambassador is right. We're gonna make a list of people who are pro-Israel and we're gonna punish them. How does that sound? That doesn't sound very good, does it? Does it sound any better when the Israeli ambassador says Israel's gonna make a list of Americans that are gonna get punished for criticizing Israel? All right, look, I know we're short on time, but quick reaction to that, Mark.

Yeah, I mean, you're right, it's way out of bounds, way out of bounds. I mean, the lists of any sort are the beginning of an undoing. I love the free speech handle that you started with when we began this conversation. And I think sadly, and I say sadly, because I think there is a lot of anti-Semitism out there. And there are the Nick Fuentes of the world out there. And you can even read a lot into Tucker Carlson. But I just think back to after 9-11, the way there was this tremendous, this raucous attack on the Muslim community in America.

And I think that it's just a way to frame the conversation around Israel and around Judaism. And so I think the Jewish community does feel on some level put upon. So I get the legitimacy of that. But I think sadly, many of these lobby groups, A-PAC and the rest, represent less and less the Jewish community and sadly defending Israeli policy. Yeah, and by the way, to that point, I'll give you my favorite stat that I've now said, I feel like hundreds of times, 63% of Jewish Americans are against the current government of Israel. Are they anti-Semites? Should they be put on a list? This is getting

absurd. Sharon, last thought. Well, I think there's a difference between debate, convincing, and capitulation. And that's what we're seeing too often with APEC and others. Or like the Israeli ambassador said, I too don't believe that Tucker Carlson ever called him up and said it, at least not like that. But this is where we are. And it's against that 63% and against a higher percentage of Americans who do not believe this any longer. And the message is still breaking through regardless.

Yeah. All right, guys. So I did promise you a story about the AI centers starting to do the same thing, influence manipulation control. Of course, of course. Why wouldn't a corporation try to buy off our government? So unfortunately, we'll have to do that next week because we're out of time here. But we got Brett and Elliot coming in and they have some amazing stories, including a Lego scandal.

And wait until you see what the guys contributing to the ballroom got in return. All right. Everybody check out the Mark Thompson Show and Rebel H.U. Great to have you guys with us. And we'll be right back. And to sentiment of them. What contributions to the progressive cause are you most proud of? Um, I mean, I don't, I don't have super high aspirations for a singular role that I can play in the movement or anything. I just, I try to present myself as what I think that I am, which is a progressive man who is driven by a, I think, well interrogated and well organized system of values that I try to stay consistent on. And I demonstrate that that's the sort of life that a person can lead.

and be successful and be happy and all of that. And that should not need to be done, but there are so many people on the right that are trying to push men in the opposite direction that I want to be able to do that. Along the way, if I can get people to care about some topics that they wouldn't necessarily care about, or that for some men, they might think

that's not a topic that they should be focused on, that's definitely something that I relish doing. And along the way, I mean, we've been able to introduce people to a lot of candidates. That's been a big part of what we've done. You know, not all of them necessarily got in office. Probably most of them did not. And a lot of them, you might not even remember their names.

But it was great to be able to provide people the platform where they had the chance of, you know, making a difference. Obviously, AOC and all that. But there's been a lot of great people along the way. In the bonus episode for the members, we do some inside baseball. We're going to look at John's desk. Nice little spaceship here. Nerd. But it is kind of look.

Cool. Who has Legos? Oh, no. He's taking apart a keyboard. Who has a mouse pad that's this big? He's got a dog with a nose that you can hang something like. You know what this desk screams to me? Nerd. And that's how we like him. We love Johnny Pye. He's got his own personality like everybody does at TYT. Come meet us all in the bonus episodes. TYT.com slash team. David Soror. Neanderer. Is Adam Green Drop by? Charlemagne. This is great to have you. It's great to be with you, Chang. Your show is a great thing. You're informing people. A lot of the shows that I live. on you know my CNN and my MSNBC and even Fox and any of the other shows, NPR. They are so quick to decide that they know what this building means today. The one thing that I hate that politicians do, you know, they talk about the people they should be talking to.

Do they have any idea that they're their establishment and that they're hated or do they not realize that at all? People are so deeply in their little universe. I think it's very easy to not really question what you're doing. Voters have a right to ask questions of any nominee, whether they're independent, Republican, or Democrat. The system is monopoly that suppresses competition. How is it the year 2024? And we're still like maybe they'll talk about paid medical. How is that like at one level it's like, good, what we're talking about it now.

You're like, it's 2024. And that's always been the critique, that your critique of us is, well, you guys give good speeches. You put out good tweets, but you're not wielding actual power. Now we're starting to. My favorite news platform by far. It's not even close. It's about a country and a principle, and that's what you and I both work to achieve. And I'm so glad for at least half the battle has now been one. If you want to go really hear what's going on, honestly, you should tune into the Young Turks.

Thanks for doing such a great job. Please keep it up, hang tough. That makes me so happy. Oh, I like me to be that. I didn't know about that. This is a happy Anna Kasparian. You're welcome, YouTube. Join the Dragon Squad by becoming a YouTube channel member. Click the join button below or sign up on tyt.com slash join to get access to fun emojis, a member only chat, exclusive shop TYT designs, add free watching and so many other amazing perks.

Plus you get bragging rights for being part of the coolest community on the internet and help us drive real positive change in the world. The Dragon Squad awaits. So join today. Chank wealthy Muslim old school and here we are in the studio. All right, Brad Ehrlich, programming honcho here as well as host of happy half hour and just about everything else. Elliot Morgan, host at Rebel HQ and oftentimes here. So great to have you guys. We're gonna do some amazing stories for you. I was gonna promote something else.

I forgot it. Oh no, I'll tell you two things real quick. One, I'm super proud of Indisputable. It's five year anniversaries today. So everybody check out Indisputable 2.30 p.m. Eastern every day. It's live on YouTube, live on TYTYT. And Dr. Ritchie has done amazing work. He's got over a billion views.

So everybody, check out indisputable. I was on the show today. And you can buy our band in the UK t-shirts at shop t-y-t.com. Shop t-y-y-t.com. All right, first story. We're making a gift to the United States. They came along and they said we want to make it the House, the White House, overall, more secure. And I understand that.

Not for me, because I'll be gone. I'll be gone and you'll have somebody else in for hopefully hundreds of years. But that's what they're doing it for. The ballroom is paid for. It's a gift. Is it a gift or do they expect something in return? Well, wait till you find out how much those companies giving to the ballroom got in return from our government. Tell us that is Elliot.

All right, well, according to an analysis by public citizen, corporate donors. to Trump's White House ballroom have received $50 billion in government contracts since the East Wing was demolished. We currently know of 27 corporate donors to the ballroom. What we do not know is how much they actually donated. But it would seem that over half of those corporations got a pretty sweet deal on their investment. So good for them. 14 out of 27 corporate ballroom donors have received new or increased government contracts over the last six months, totaling over $50 billion. So most of that money went to Lockheed Martin, which landed over $43 billion in government contract money. But guess what? Don't worry, there's more corruption where that came from.

Most of the corporate donors, 16 out of 27, are facing federal enforcement actions and or have had federal enforcement actions suspended by the Trump administration. These include major antitrust actions or merger reviews involving Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Next Era Energy, Navidia, T-Mobile, and Union Pacific, Labor Rights cases involving Amazon Apple, Caterpillar, Google, Lockheed, and Meta, and SEC matters involving Coinbase and Ripple. Also, adding to that list are some other donors you may or may not have heard of. There is BlackRock, great, Comcast, a little startup.

and everyone's favorite company, Palantir, thank God. Now, here's how a White House spokesperson responded to public citizens' analysis. The same critics who were alleging fake conflicts of interest would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long overdue renovations. The donors for the White House Ballroom Project represent a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals, all of whom are contributing to make the people's house better for generations to come. Okay, thank goodness, because for a second there, it seemed a little bit corrupt.

But now that they told us that it's just insane for us to even think that I feel much better and also the fact that they got super defensive and condescending about it gives me a lot of comfort. Jenk, what do you think? Yeah, so first of all, let's note for the record that there's a classic Trump job, right? Destroy something and then try to figure out how to fix it later and then ask for credit. So that's Trump 101. Now guys, we often point out coincidences when it comes to powerful lobbies.

So here we go again. Now is it possible that Lockheed Martin would have gotten another contract in that six months anyway? Yeah, it's definitely possible. They're a giant defense contractor, I get it, right? So these guys put in collective $400 million, we think, and about half of them. So let's say about $200 million. They put in 200 million, those 14 companies, on average, and then they get back 50 billion.

Do the math on it. Is this complicated? And at the same time, federal enforcement actions are suspended. Probably a coincidence. And that's what drives me crazy about our media overall. Less so in this story, because this was so over the top, and doesn't really involve any other institutional players as much. It's just mainly a Trump thing. I like these guys who want a big ballroom.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, they got problems. We make their problems go away, right? And we'll give them more. But is it worth it to us to build that ballroom? Because it turns out it's not going to cost $400 million. They ask for another billion that we pay for. And now it looks like we're paying another $50 billion on top to the guys giving the money to the ballroom.

No, it's not a coincidence. It's massive corruption. Right. Yeah, we had a ballroom. That's the thing that's so crazy about it. I feel like my parents. It's like you don't you have a ballroom? I'm not gonna get you a new one.

Stop asking for one. So he just destroyed the old ballroom and made it so that there is now an opportunity to make him a new one. And both ways you look at it, it's nuts. Like they're just asking for donations. It's just gifts. It's like guys, gifts are bribes. That's what gifts are. Like there are many, the word gift is in many anti-bribery laws.

I could say emoluments, but I don't want to confuse you. I love Palantir, by the way, Palantir, thanks for watching. Everything. A huge fan. A huge fan. They watch everything. They're already watching it. Yeah, they're watching sleep.

But like, yeah, that's nuts. And I love that they were like, oh, but no, no, it's not the taxpayers. It's not that, look at that. We got censored on the over-the-shoulder V-roll. But it's like, it's not the-tallelter's like, oh, you want to make fun? Yeah, it's exactly. The lights just went out of it. They just flexed.

But yeah, like whether you look at it as $50 billion or all that money in donations, which obvious, they're not just doing it out of the goodness of their heart, or if the taxpayers are paying for it for reasons still unknown to me, like, oh, we need to make it more secure in the ballroom. It's obviously just like everything that is so, it's puzzling because it's like, that's kind of what his pitch was. And everybody's like, oh, Trump, he's, we love Trump. We love him.

Why do you love him? Describe him. Well, he's the guy that's gonna try to make millions of dollars however he can, whether it's corrupt or not. In this case, it's just so damn corrupt that even I was watching with Sean Ryan was saying, like, I'm out. A lot of people are like, they're out on this guy, and that's the only silver lining as far as I know. Yeah, I feel like my episode with Sean Ryan didn't get enough credit because he, this

hilarious thing to say, let's note for the record. Megan Kelly went on and they quoted Sean Ryan saying all these things against MAGA and Trump and stuff. When I was on, he called MAGA people that are still following Trump, the R word, right? Yeah. He's like, what are they, are you, do not have eyes? Do you not see all the things that are going wrong? How he's listening to all the, every donor there is and he's massively corrupt.

Yeah, yeah, this is not complicated, man. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. Yeah, I also think that even if you, like you were saying earlier, Jenk, even if you can't necessarily like pin down that this is a result of them making those donations, whether it's correlation or causation, it still speaks to how the American public is like hyper aware right now of just how much corruption is going on. And that's what's going on in their imagination. And so them trying to backpedal and pretend as though there's no reason to even think such a thing blows my mind.

It's just another example of them being like, yes, we believe you're all very stupid basically. Ew. Like with Trump, we have him on the phone being like, I'm losing by 11,000 votes. Can I have 11,001 votes? Like I watch the Sopranos and it's always like, can I have? I get the coffee delivered in pounds to, you know, the guy with the shirt. That is like, and they're like, oh, I guess we can't lock you up. But like Trump is actually saying, I want you to give me money for this stuff.

It's going to be donated to me. Meanwhile, like, the corruption is insane. On Rebel E's Q this week, I covered the story of all the corruption, the Sean Ryan stuff that he was talking about. But like the lengths of the corruption that they go for corruption, the Trump kids have a drone company. They got they're getting contracts to sell drones. Their dad's in charge of whether you still need drone interceptors because his dad's in charge of whether the war will continue. And to make matters worse, to incorporate that company so they could do business, they merged a drone company with the only other thing they really know. A golf course company.

It's kind of beautiful. It's beautiful. A golf course company can make drone interceptors because of how corrupt America is right now. Yeah, no, to be fair, they're practicing on the golf courses. They've murdered 13 people so far, mainly the back nine. A whole new whole little definition of bunker. Oh, okay, but those bunkers aren't going to help you from the drugs. All right, look, last couple of things on the corruption.

To Brett's point, Eric's, Eric Trump's company got one and a half billion dollar contract from the government. Imagine if Hunter Biden's company got one and a half billion dollar contract. Don Jr's is arguably worse. He invested three months later, they got a $620 million loan, okay? So where's our loans? I mean, imagine if I went to the White House, I'm like, yeah, I'd like a $620 million loan. Sure, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna make drones, right?

I'm gonna make them after you mean there's $620 million. because I don't have the money now. None of us have the money to make it. If anyone of us got $620 million, then we can make all the drones you want, right? So this is insane corruption. And by the way, the donors to the ballroom might also get plaques. I don't want a plaque of Lockheed Martin in the ballroom and Miriam Edelson. That's another potential donor and Pfizer.

This is an Exxon Mobil inside the White House. It's come on, man, it's totally nuts. Okay, we got to take a quick break here. When we come back, Pam Bondi throws someone in the Trump administration under the bus. Droms, as the kids used to say, 12 years ago. We'll be right back. Back on TYT, we'll have fun keeping our street going of reading these blind. Okay, no, I actually got some here.

User ZLX and a bunch of numbers says, amazing how Democrats got behind John Federman and defend his trash, Israel, position but Plattener is a problem. And of course, as some of you also noted, Federman was out there, of course, attacking Platner. Gee, I wonder why. Havier Nahar says moderate Dems are conservatives, they would rather elect a Republican than a leftist, they're afraid to change. That's absolutely true.

And so as we discussed the first hour, Graham Platner, yes, he's not taking A-PAC money, and that's a huge problem, and people are attacking for that. But remember, this also existed when Bernie Sanders was not taking corporate power. money and they all attacked them including the moderate Democrats. So this is a well known phenomenon where Democrats hate their own, especially if they're honest and clean. So the expat life 76 back to reading them blind. We had management of the company that were terminated because they invited the chain of command

to a dinner and footed the bill. One of those fired the on-site finance guy for covering it up. So the point there is like a microscopic version of the ballroom corruption gets you fired in the real world. But if you're the leader of the free world, the leader of the country, ah yeah, go ahead, billions of corruption, who cares? Rebel Dragon says they just want to get rid of all the algorithms that are showing the facts about the crimes of Israel. That's referring to the story from the first hour. I think that's indisputably true. Grilled hot dog says, careful, jank, you might get banned

from another country. Well, next week I am going to a different country. We'll see if we make it or not. I don't want to tell you what it is because I don't want to give them a heads up to ban me ahead of time. We'll be back. $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. I don't know because Brett and Elliot are on the show. And they're funny. All right, back on the Young Turks, Jank, Brett and Elliott. Here's our next story. Are, oh, that's you, right? Me? Listen, here's what I think. What evening is? I think we should just, first of all, cut. What is? Yeah. Let's run it back. You're doing the hooks and then he's, you're tossing to this. Because I thought it was only videos.

This is our second day doing it. I love the new thing. Yeah, yeah. I used to just stop when I was presenting. I'm like, I'm going to start over. And I would point there. It's live, deal with it. Yeah, what we're going to do?

We're going to do it live. So here, come back to me. Okay. Pam Bondi, beginning to throw other people in the Trump administration under the bus. I like it. Elliot, tell us all about it. I mean, that was an incredible cat paw there. In a closed door congressional interview with the House Oversight and Reform Committee regarding the Trump administration's total bungling of the Epstein files, Bondi appeared to distance herself from the controversial investigation. Who wouldn't want to? In her opening statement, Bondi defended the DOJ's handling of the investigation, but passed the buck to her then deputy, Todd Blanche, by saying that he led every aspect of the department's probe into Epstein. It was his fault.

Don't look at me. It was the other guy. As reported by the Guardian, Bondi claimed that he was in charge of the process and the entire release of the Epstein file. She told lawmakers on the 29th of May. In her opening statement, she also said that she did not conduct that document review myself and told the panel that she delegated oversight over this process to Blanche. Like any good supervisor, it's just best to blame whoever is beneath you and just kick it down the road a little bit. She further acknowledged that there had been redacted. action errors and some other missteps during the investigation, but she did maintain that the investigation was largely spearheaded by Blanche. So, you know, take that how you want. This prompted Representative Robert Garcia of California to say this. It is clear in justice, this part of the of the interview, that she continues to push all of the investigation and the blame on acting AG Todd Blanche. She said and I quote, acting AG Blanche was managing the entire investigation, end quote. And what you were going to hear in that interview, and what she's saying here in her words and remarks,

is that it was Todd Blanche, the current acting AG, that was leading the EPSY investigation. And quite frankly, all of the mistakes that we saw, the redactions, not protecting survivors, she continues to push that back onto the acting AG Todd Blanche, who by the way with Donald Trump's former personal lawyer. Well, Pam Bondi wasn't going to take that, and so she decided to shoot back on X with the following. Not true, I praised acting AG Blanche's management of this Herkulean task. I said his ethics are beyond reproach and that he is an incredible attorney general.

Just look at the Dow. She didn't really say that part, but anyway, still some speculate. that her closed door framing of Blanche as the one who oversaw the investigation could be, in essence, retaliatory. Blanche has been elevated to acting attorney general after Bondi was fired by Trump over her mismanagement of the Epstein case. It should be noted that she vehemently protested her ousting at that time. Her testimony with the committee comes at a time where Trump is publicly considering making Blanche's appointment permanent, which undoubtedly salts some lingering wounds for Bondi. Fortunately, she's so well adjusted, you could hardly tell,

However, the most compelling argument for this being an act of retribution is Bondi's statements about Galane Maxwell, otherwise known as the Trump administration's favorite little prisoner. Blanche, who had met with the Maxwell privately about the Epstein files, ended up coordinating her transfer to a nicer prison. Only the best for the Epstein accomplices. This development was something that Bondi apparently learned from after the fact by the press. Asked whether Maxwell should receive a pardon. Bondi replied, no. adding that Maxwell was a monster.

I believe she should die in prison, said Bondi. Publicly characterizing Maxwell as a monster might seem obvious and uncontroversial. I think if you have a working brain or eyes or ears, you could probably agree with that statement. But coming from a former Trump cabinet member means it carries a slightly different weight. Blanche will likely be placed in a potential career-ending position by Trump, who might have the DOJ proposition Maxwell to not further implicate Trump. in the Epstein probe in exchange for a pardon. Okay, good. I'm glad we got the corruption out of the way. Although not stating that as a reason exactly, Trump has long floated the idea of pardoning Maxwell,

and there's a good chance that Blanche will get caught up in the crosshairs. Having Bondi outspokenly reject the idea of a pardon mounts the pressure on her former colleague to either side with his boss or the bipartisan efforts of Congress to satisfy the public's outcry for accountability on this issue, an interesting development to say the least. Jank, what are your thoughts? Yeah, so they gotta break it down in a couple ways, but first let's have a little bit of fun. Brett pointed out summer lead to me in the background there. She's Jim from the office thing that whole time.

Yeah, she's just like, if we can go to be a roll full of that first video Garcia, it is insane, dude. Yeah, she just cannot be F'd. Yeah, to me, I was like resting please face. Yes. Right. Please. Like it wasn't scary, but it was like, okay. Okay, it was just a little bit of fun.

Another fun game is have Michael Shore identify every congressman in that video. But anyways, that's another one of our hosts. All right, let's get the serious stuff. So is she doing strike back? That one's pretty clear, yes, no question about it, right? But then there's a second question, which is, is it? Is it true? Is Todd Blanch, the main guy who's helping Trump with the Epstein stuff, including Galane

Maxwell, and that he was the one saying, do this, do that? Now, I think probably is the answer, but does that have it provide any, you know, mean that Bonnie does not have culpability? No. First of all, you were in charge, and whether it was your subordinate or your, or Trump telling you to do it. did it. You're the one who covered up to Epstein files, so you can't escape responsibility that way. And second of all, you're letting your subordinate give you orders, not exactly

strong, right? So, and third of all, Pam Bondi is one of the most corrupt people in the country. That's why he picked her in the first place. So back in the day, Donald, she was the Attorney General of Florida. The other attorney generals were investigating Trump University, which is a fake university and a Trump charity. I forget which one was the university or the charity. They were both fake and a bunch of attorney generals were investigating it together. Bondi said she was gonna investigate it too. Then Trump sent her a campaign check and she dropped the investigation. She was picked not despite her corruption but because of her corruption. So is she part of this Motley crew? Of course.

Yeah, no, I trust that to Pam Bondi is absolutely throwing this guy under the bus and trying to keep her hands clean. I've watched Big Brother, I know how this works. She doesn't want to have blood on her hands. She wants to deny it. Oh, no, no, no. Do you, like that information about Pam Bondi saying essentially like this guy was in charge, like that's a leak.

That's got to be a leak on purpose to get this guy to feel bad. And it's amazing. At the end of the day, we still don't have the Epstein files. And we want them. And it's possible that we have, we have a war raging in the Middle East, at least in part, to distract us from the fact that we don't have the Epstein files and very important people in the world and the White House, like absolutely, positively are very grateful for every moment they don't have to talk about this. And the result is actually that all of the news is wildly

horrible, because occasionally, like, I forgot about the Epstein files, so I guess it worked. Occasionally I'm reminded that not only were the Epstein files not released, but like, the Todd Blanche is now in many ways free to continue hiding them. Like we really took the person who was, it seems according to this report of Bondi, the person most responsible for me not seeing the gross stuff and letting him cook. And he's cooking at the highest level of the Department of Justice. I'm glad you mentioned that because when I was reading the, the story, I was like it's so, like they're framing it, regardless of whether it was Blanche or

Bondi, there's a framework where they keep being like, well, back then, that whole Epstein file thing that's totally done now, you don't have to worry about anymore. It's in the past, but yeah, it's not. Like, we haven't gotten all of the Epstein files and they kind of throw out these little like qualifiers like, oh, well, yeah, maybe there were some redactions and there were some mistakes or whatever. It's like, well, where is it then? Like, fix those things first. We're still in this. I think that there's a rhetorical kind of flourish that they're doing to make people forget that this is still an ongoing thing.

Yeah, so where's one thing that she said in there that I thought, oh, that interesting, right? The part about the Galane Maxwell, because it was kind of gratuitous. Like she'd never said that before, even when she was attorney general, and she's supposed to be the person like bringing them to justice, right? She leaves and she throws this, you know, rolls a hand grenade back into the room. Like, because that made me think she knows something we don't know, that Blanche and Trump were probably thinking of being more lenient slash maybe pardoning Maxwell on the way out. And she's like, good luck doing it now, right?

But trust me, they will. Like I don't know that they will for sure, I'm not like making a prediction about it. I'm just saying that her saying that isn't going to stop down. Like they don't care. And the reason why Todd Blanche might have gotten more direct orders from Donald Trump is because he was his personal lawyer. Like, I mean, he was, I remember when, was it Eisner who ran Disney? But his, what I do remember about the story is that he put all of his, the people he

knows personally on the board of Disney. And it became like a joke. I think he put his dentist on the board. Okay. Yeah, and that's going to be like Trump by the end. Well, you know, and he almost did it. I mean, Bill Pulte is some like weirdo lackey who's now the head of housing and the head of national intelligence, right? The dentist is not far behind.

So, and it doesn't really matter if it was Blancher or any of the other golden girls. At the end of the day, the fish, the fish rots from the head down, right? So Trump is the one ordering the corruption. Yeah. And whatever grenade that Bondi throws back is not going to work. Do you ever get, like I get tired of having to like figure out how I'm gonna call out the corruption, like in ways that it'll make sense. Cause it's like really so obvious. It's like being shot in the face with a paintball gun and you're having to just constantly like wipe it.

Yeah, okay, I think what you're doing is wrong. But like it really is bad. Yeah. Like it's so horrible. When we run the B roll of like the photos of Epstein, Gillane Maxwell, Trump and Mulmell, in Melania, like when Trump first was elected, I remember, I think I couldn't, I think I referred to it as like, he's just gonna be a fart smell and we're gonna get nose blind to it. And and that has happened, like, thinking back to the things that would have gotten

people out of office before and still take down other politicians than him right now. Like, all of this corruption, Epstein files, starting wars, the billions of dollars, the billions of in handouts to his family. I feel terrible. And the worst thing is like when you see people finally like give up and be like, oh, yeah, I now like the guys in the manosphere comedians being like, oh yeah, now I get it. I'm like, how am I supposed to accept you into the full? I get it.

I'm going to. But like next time can you just look at me and be like, yeah, you seem like you had a, you were on to something there. It's a really tough position for the responsible to be in. Yeah, now at the same time, Brett, so there's the Maga that has stayed with them, that's the impenetrable guys who are like, oh, no, no, when we said train the swamp, we meant give your son's billions of dollars in contracts and $50 billion to the guys that are helping you out with the ballroom and make sure that you protect the pedophiles who are with Epstein,

right? So they're still saying that, but those guys at this point, if you still haven't gone in the memo, you're pretty unreachable, right? But good news, there's very small, well, in terms of winning elections, they're too small a percentage of the country, about 25% roughly, right? But the other 25% of that voted for Trump, the Manosphere, et cetera, they're like, yeah, bro, we have eyes. Like, we're generally bros and we agreed with you on the social issues. Like, oh, yeah, oh, I'm so worried about drag hour or whatever the hell, right? But we didn't tell you to go rob the place. Right?

And so they're calling him out. That's why his popularity is in the tank. But Brett is absolutely right. We got used to things we should never get used to. If Obama was like, oh yeah, the worst groomer in American history, Galane Maxwell, I'm going to give her club fed room. She's going to get to run the place, use DoorDash, play tennis all day, bring in pets, stay up after everyone else, including the warden has to go to back.

I mean, like, what is this? I mean, a tan suit, he eats his burgers with a mustard, they criticize them over that. I mean, they would have eviscerated him for this. And we often forget, oh yeah, they're giving giant benefits to Epstein's main co-conspirator, and they haven't prosecuted a single other person related to Epstein. My favorite thing about the G-Lynne Maxwell thing was the words nice prison. Yeah. Is it really, like imagine going, what a nice prison.

Nice prison. Yeah, like when you walk into a hotel room and you're like, oh, mini bar. Well, look at it. Robe, this one's got slippers. Yeah, and you remember Epstein's first sentencing back in 2008 sentencing? Was they're like, yeah, you're going to prison for not a long time, very short time, but it's not really prison because you'll get to go home during the day. Amazing. Is that a thing?

Does he have to call time out first and then he gets to go, the guy time in? So wait, it's just sleeping there. So it's like a not great hotel. Oh, wow, we got them. Okay, one more story. Oh, that's me. One more. Here we go.

All right. So you remember Doge? Man, they were going to bring us so many goodies. They were going to get our money back and they were going to bring diseases back. They were devastating and destructive. Wait, were they supposed to do that? And but they good news though, they cut out all the waste fraud. You know what, nobody's getting money for genocides anymore.

The Pentagon is totally under control. They're being audited. No. Okay, well, now let's tell you what actually happened and how devastating some of those cuts were, let alone the fact that they were totally ineffective. So Elliot tell us about it. Yeah, so we have three stories here kind of in one and altogether. They raised one question, which is how is that whole, you know, doge thing,

working out for us nowadays. Spoiler alert, not very well. And here's, we're gonna dive into it. Okay, so there's a, it's gonna be depressing and we're gonna just barrel through it because what isn't these days? All right, so we can start with some good news. The flesh eating new world screw worm fly has been fully eradicated from North America thanks to a decades long program that has left us and our food supply far safer. Wait, what's that? And it's back. Uh-oh. After being gone for about half of a century using an international effort that took a lot of coordination and maybe a little bit of money. As of today, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued an updated disaster declaration due to the flesh eating flies return. Excellent stuff. The potential damage to the cattle industry,

which by the way supported Trump in the last election, could go as high as $2.1 billion. It could also harm the hunting and wildlife industry up to $9 billion, and that's just in Texas alone. But don't worry, or so says the USDA. The USDA said it was taking immediate action to eradicate the parasitic fly by establishing a 12-mile infested zone around the detection site and implementing quarantines, increasing traps for screw worms along the border, and establishing an incident command team with the Texas Animal Health Commission. Now, the only thing that they seem to be forgetting here, as the folks at the Daily Cause

pointed out is that none of this needed to happen at all. The return of this flesh-eating screw worm fly that by the way differs from a lot of its relatives because it actually goes after living flesh, which is gross, but it is true. So just throwing it out there, it is all the result of the Doge stuff. So Jeremiah Showfield, a 25-year social, oh, that was, yeah, that was that pretty much that was that. Yeah, so that's about as horrible as things are going to get. Oh wait, no, it does get worse. Jeremiah Schofield, a 25-year social security veteran, has blown the whistle on a doge-backed plan to declare 2.7 million living human beings legally dead. So that means no bank accounts and no wages and no

benefits, nothing. And why is that? Well, according to Showfield, the goal was to intimidate immigrants into self-deporting or have them go to a social security office so they can prove that that they're alive at which point they would be arrested. So really good moral high ground. How does the whistleblower know that this is the plan? Because one of the Doge officials literally said so on a phone call. But as Schofield sampled these 2.7 million people, every one of around the 25 of them that he sampled turned out to actually be alive. Some were US citizens. Others were here legally. Some were teenagers and one was a widow who almost had her survivor benefits.

it's get cut off. And I say almost because thankfully the plan never fully carried through. But Showfield hopes that the whistleblowing will show Americans how easily government data can be abused. So that's about all the bad news. Oh wait, no, it gets even worse. So per the intercept, as an Ebola outbreak continues to rage in Central Africa, the Trump administration keeps trying to blame the World Health Organization, revealing what experts say is a deep misunderstanding about global disease response. Experts say Trump administration policies like dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and withdrawing from WHO have undermined global health security and negatively impacted the response to the outbreak. Also, the Trump administration is barring

some U.S. officials from even communicating with their counterparts at the WHO. So just to recap, We have the return of a flesh-eating fly that we got rid of over 50 years ago. We have a government who has no problem declaring the 2.7 million people are ghosts. And a country on the other side of the world is in very high need of our assistance, assistance that we were giving them very recently, but now apparently simply can't find the money. And all of this was to reduce the deficit by nothing. So, Jake, what do you make about this? Yeah, before we get to the things they could have cut,

So let's remember the things they used to say. Like there's all these stupid projects like on the screw worm fly. Why do we care about the screw worm fly? Well, you left out the part where it's flesh eating. And you left out the part where it would cost us billions of dollars. Okay, it turns out yes, sometimes you need to research a screw worm fly even if it sounds funny. Okay, now it sounds less funny when you realize that you realize that you're not, you know, it's funny when you realize it's formal name which you're seeing on the screen there.

It's a flesh eating cock, Leoma, Hymina, Vorax. Okay, so when you put it that way, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want it. Let's do some research on that and make sure it doesn't come back, okay? So then on Social Security, you guys remember, they're like, oh, we got, we found millions of people who were getting payments that shouldn't be getting payments. We found it waste fraud. You remember that? That was a real story.

It turns out they hadn't, they were planning to lie about it so they could screw over immigrants. And by the way, later go, we gotta cut Social Security. I mean, tax cuts for the rich. No, no, no, we need that. We need that for Elon Musk, who's running this program, et cetera. But Social Security needs to cut because there's millions of people who are getting it who aren't alive. It turns out they were alive. And lastly, what do we need to help the UN for the World Health Organization?

Who are they? No way, we're not gonna give money that. Ebola's back. Oh, that's why we were giving to that organization. Oops, we told you, Brett. It's so bad. It's so bad. There's Ebola, dude.

Like, this is a disease, right? Like, I have a lot of different kinds of friends, different parts of the political spectrum. They're all living different lives all over the place. But like the Spencer Pratt, the Doge, it's like the, it is like, it is. the Dunning Kruger effect in action. They haven't considered, like, if your plan is to just declare a bunch of people dead, so they'll just show up and admit, got me, you might just be an idiot. Like, that's a dumb plan. Like, you could spend a little money to make it so flesh, I'd call them high, but like, a flesh-eating bacteria is exactly the kind of thing that a high person is

paranoid of. But like, these guys really just let's get rid of all the funding for it. And all these horrible things are back. And all of the ideas and pitches just, they are 100% what it feels like when a moron thinks he's had a great idea. Like, yes, it is a simple idea, but simple is a synonym for idiot. Like that person, like these are not how you solve the problems. And the worst part is the last thing they will ever do is ask someone who knows the answer. Yeah, the normalization of like anti-expertise and like anti, I mean academia more specifically, but just having people in charge who have studied this stuff for years and know what they're doing is a really good thing. Like people spend their lives studying these things.

Why not use their knowledge to benefit the rest of us rather than have this chainsaw dude running around on stage going, I know we can just go through. Also, this is like a 22 year old. These are the 22 year old like Doge employees who are just going through going, nope, nope, no thank you. And having no concept of how the government works, having no concept about how these programs work, the whole reason that we were able to get rid of this flesh eating screw worm fly is because we figured out over decades using or working with other nations that if we just release a bunch of sterile male flies, then the female flies will, because they only mate once, we'll meet with them or mate with them, no babies, and then they will eventually cause a population decline.

That program was cut as a result of Doge. So this is just another example of how all this stuff is coming back to Hauntus. But what's crazy, like that's a good idea that sounds crazy. Yeah, but like just like guys, just the truth is fascinating. The science is great. You just stick with that. I watched these videos of like, I hate to say, Sean Ryan, Joe Rogan. Like, yes, these are guys.

They're they're sophomores. They're wise fools. That is what the word means. You just think you're so smart. And you have all the trappings of wisdom because you're sitting there and you're like, I mean, I did all the work. I did all the reading. I did my research and I think science is wrong.

It's like, yes, you did deliver that with a gravelly voice while stoned or thinking you're so smart from, and like you don't understand that you're in a position. of privilege to do that because previous generations of scientists did the actual work. You were born on third base, thought you hit a triple. And like, we need to be in the rooms with those guys now more than ever to just like, be like, but look at this. They love when I see like you go in those rooms and Neil deGrasse Tyson go in those rooms and kind of talk them out off the cliff of like, but I did get an Instagram video.

Yeah. So last things here, first Ronnie Chang is a hilarious line about that. He's like now all of a sudden the D students are like, I got this on the science. Yeah, no, bro, leave it to the nerds. Okay. So now look, don't get me wrong. I'm a huge populace. And oftentimes the elites are plenty, educated, smart, et cetera.

And then manipulate the rules on their own behalf and not on our behalf. So we're perfectly aware of that and we're on the lookout for that. But the scientists working on the flesh-eating screw worm fly are not in that group. Like they're making like barely middle class guys. These aren't the guys up top with all the money. So you gotta know when to do it. And now as speaking of the people with all the money, just real quick examples, look, Biden gave Israel $21 billion to commit a genocide.

And then Trump gave them another $13 billion to continue the genocide on the wars, etc. And they're like, oh, research that could prevent Ebola that costs a couple of million dollars. We gotta cross that out. Oh, we wanna pay for a genocide? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Yeah, that's not waste fraud or abuse. Okay, put that aside, the oil subsidies.

This is how you know Doge was utter horse crap. You couldn't find $35 billion in oil subsidies? Where did we put the $35 billion? Where did we could have had, we could have eradicated tons of diseases from this planet for $35 billion a year. And those are going to the most profitable companies in the world. But right, there were huge donors to Donald Trump and his campaign. So they're gonna keep on getting that gift for free.

All of Doge didn't get us $35 billion. All they could have done was just cut those subsidies and we would have been a thousand times better off. We're not against cutting out waste, fraud, and abuse. We would love it. But it's got to be actual waste, fraud, and abuse and not science. All right, we've got to come right back. I hate flies. Hey, we're back.

So, let's go and read more blind comments. Progress for All on t.com said, I've said this before, but I've said this before, But imagine if Iran promised to give 10% of their sanction funds to Trump upon release, this war would be over in an hour. That doesn't quite take care of the black man, but I hear you, I hear you. And that, I mean, if Israel doesn't have anything else on Trump, that definitely gets the deal done. You know what you do? You go, forget 10%, that's a lot of money.

1% he's still going to be spectacularly rich. And we rename it to straight of Trump, okay? And that'll definitely do it. But I'm not sure anything can end this war at this point. All right, cabbage writes in, the ballroom should also convert to a UFC arena which would get more use. Well, that's true. It would. And I'm worried about giving them ideas.

All right, Boba Franks says, oh no, I read that already. Let's go to Rad Rocket on Twitch. I think it should be the other side turned to be horrified. What if we were all shameless about stuff we posted 10 years ago? Yeah, no look guys, that's the downside of TYT not having much money. That's the only downside though. No, there's a lot of downsides. Well my God, if we had the kind of money to do investigative reporting, oh, you'd like to

look into Graham Platner, no problem, I'd like to look into Susan Collins, I'd like to look into John Fetterman, I'd like to look into a lot of folks that never, ever, ever get looked into, right? And funny enough, when Fetterman was pretending to be a progressive, a little bit more looking into. Now that he's an establishment clown, no looking into. No look here, okay? All right, I'm already out of time. We'll be back. I hate flies. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Brett and Elliot with you guys. In fact, no vitriol here. Thank you for the super chat. Rodin. Okay, you three kids, bring me the most joy this week. Nothing like having Brett and Elliot bring

Jenk into the circle of making the worst horror film in history become the best comedy same day. All right, we really appreciate you guys. In fact, speaking of joy, look at this twisty, This freaky Friday over here, not only is the power panel back, but we're gonna do Operation Joy afterwards. What? And it's free and available to everyone, so check that out or stay right here. But at least, no, I have one more, sir. Here we go.

This man spent his life collecting what's now known as the world's largest Lego Star Wars collection ever. It's estimated to be worth around $200,000. And then the entire thing got stolen, and the police are actively working with a thing. to cover the entire thing up. But the craziest part is that the collector doesn't even know that his collections have been stolen. Yeah, the collector's son, Brian, well, he reached out to me

because he has no clue how to break this news to his dad. At this point, my father had a help episode. We can't bring any stress to him. The reason he's reaching out to me is because the police are covering this entire thing up. Wow, what a hell of a story. And this is affecting me personally because I've been Legified. So it feels a little personal to me.

But let's find out why in the world are the cops covering up this crime? Elliot tells us. Yeah, so there is a lot going on with this story right now. I will say I was up till like 1 a.m. last night. I was unfamiliar with it and I was watching every video about it. And it is insane. So I'm going to try to run through as quickly as possible, the abbreviated version, courtesy of 404 media. Bricks and mini figs is a chain of independent Lego stores that has a series of franchises around the country.

A thing that at least some bricks and mini fig stores do is consignment. That it will be very important later. In 2023, a man named Ed Mansell and his son, Brian asked a bricks and mini fig store in Salem, Kaiser, Oregon, to sell their collection of Lego bricks, which according to the store itself was worth over $200,000. It was a Star Wars Lego set. Brian did have a contract with the store saying specifically quote consigned merchandise shall remain property of Mansell until sold. The store began to sell this collection but then the owner of the franchise changed hands and was taken over by Bricks and mini figs corporate.

At this point Brian attempted to either get the unsold portion of his collection back or money for the collection. Brian apparently was told to pound sand. Now there is also even more drama between like the executives and the original owners but We don't have time to get into that right now. They have their own lawsuit going. Brian did not want to get his father involved in this debacle since he's dealing with some serious medical issues. So after a few months of dealing with this on his own, Brian enlisted the help of a YouTuber named Ben Schneider, otherwise known as reckless.

Ben. Schneider basically did a series of wacky, but also funny things to draw attention to the matter, which included putting a giant sign on the shuttered bricks and mini fig store in question that read permanently closed. We stole a family's life savings. They sued, we lost. By closing the store, we got out of having to pay the family what we owe them. And additionally, as part of all of this, Schneider went to Bricks and Mini Figs headquarters in Utah in March, as well as the home of one of its executives.

Schneider was arrested by American Fork, Utah police, in charge with stocking and targeted residential picketing. Local news reported he was also separately arrested in American Fork on charges of of disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. So with this reckless Ben was apparently trying to serve the executives with legal papers according to ABC4, but this is where things get a little crazy because the police who arrested Ben are also in cahoots with bricks and mini figs to stop that from happening. It just keeps going folks since his arrest Schneider has posted multiple videos of the the situation, including a video that contained police body worn camera footage of his interactions

with American Fork Police. He accused American Fork Police of misconduct in acting on behalf of the franchise executive and his videos have garnered substantial public attention leading to many citizens also questioning AFPD's actions in this situation. Now if you get a chance also you should definitely look up the statement that was made by the police department if you're looking for a good laugh these days. Now according to Schneider, he believes the police are protecting the new owners and the executives due to a shared connection with the Mormon church. There's a little rumor going around, but they're all essentially protecting each other. All of this has ultimately accumulated into a massive lawsuit filed by the corporate franchiser

against Reckless Ben and Brian for harassment and extortion with the company saying the two are trying to, quote, defraud and manipulate the company. And now Reckless Ben has apparently fled to Mexico, where he is in high, as one does following a no bail arrest warrant issued by the fork police department. So that's a very cliff notes version. Everybody's talking about it. If you haven't seen you got to check it out, it's absolutely insane. It's spanned years, it's been going on for a while, and it's all because of a Star Wars

Lego set ostensibly worth over $200,000. What do you guys make of any of this? Elliot, I just mainly have a question. What do you think? Why don't they just give him his money back? You know, the more you dive into this, the deeper it gets. I think the money, I think the company's not doing well, but there's also, I heard some kind of rumor about there being like some, potentially some narcotic use and that they were

using or like siphoning off the collection. I'm on the subreddit about it. So I'm too deep in. Yeah, if we have four hours, I will dive into all the nuances, but like, yeah, there might be some, and also there's a discrepancy about if you just purchase a consignment store and it changes owners, do you somehow get like everything that's in the consignment store and throughout the whole process, they were like, well, of course, you know, it's still going to be the property of the person who owned it and who signed the contract, which they said

now is null and void. And now you have a YouTuber hiding out in Mexico to protect himself. It's really incredible. Okay, here's what I do know. Number one, the thing about the Mormon's trope. Number two, when you have a contract with the assignment store or anything else and they sell the store, those contracts are not null and void. That's not a thing.

Otherwise, you'd sign a bunch of contracts set up a store and then go, ha ha, I sold to my friend for a dollar. Now I have all of it. That's not a, that's, that's, that's, that part is definitely wrong. Brett, what do you? Right, if you pay full price for all the stuff in the consignment store, it's the same as going into the consignment store and buying all the stuff there. That's a great way to put it. You need to make a video about this. This could be your, I listen, I don't want to go to Mexico.

I mean, on that note, I will say just in terms of like YouTube, it was kind of refreshing to see a guy making this kind of content because Reckless Ben, And for all his credit, I'm like, okay, the kids are going to be all right. So we have that going for us at least. And good luck to everyone who needs their Star Wars Legos back. Yeah, all right, we gotta go. So when we come back right here on YouTube, Operation George. You're laughing.